Bursting Clematis

Here is my clematis vine...gone crazy!! It's four years old. I brought it from our last house, where it celebrated its first birthday. At that time it was just getting started good!! It is literally bursting with the most beautiful lavender blooms. They are about 6 inches across each.

I hope to get a better picture tomorrow when the sun is not so intense. I got some shots of the whole vine on our rustic wood fence, but the sun is so bright that it whited it out. I'll try for an earlier picture tomorrow.

One of my friends lives in Colorado. She said it snowed 8 inches there today. It is 82 degrees here at my house. Whew!!

~Joan

Busy Me--Busy as a Bee...or Several

Every time I ask myself, "Could I get any busier?" things have a strange way of becoming just that...busier. I need to remind myself to enjoy the moments before I completely whig out over the stress. Here's a sample of the things that have been going on (and are still ongoing) since my last post...

The snowball of activity started Monday when my 2nd daughter had a 2nd and then immediately a 3rd interview at Chick-fil-A. She was hired and started work Wednesday. After the interview we stopped at Walgreens where I received a call from her driving instructor (from class 3 months ago) asking if she and brother could start their behind-the-wheel driving time Tuesday. That meant 2 more trips a day out of the house. Plus her work trips now. Great timing.

Simultaneously we are doing the "musical chairs" with all the bedroom occupants changing. I am still in the throes of sewing formal vests for 4 guys...2 of my sons and 2 friends. Those have been so tedious and time-consuming...but they do look SWEET! I will be posting pictures from the banquet for sure, so come back after Wednesday night.

Imagine the belongings of 7 children strewn in piles, boxes, and bags all over the house. We've mostly gotten the 2 youngest boys installed in their room, but we didn't do any painting or closet renovations for them...yet. It's the catch 22...so and so can't more their stuff because one of the other so and so's stuff is still in their closet/room...rinse and repeat over and over.

In anticipation of my oldest moving back home, we are switching around all the children's bedrooms. My oldest son had a room to himself which will be converted to my oldest daughter's room. Said son will move in with next son. Two youngest boys will share another bedroom (there are only 4 children's bedrooms). The 3 younger girls (17, 14, and 11) will share what was formerly the 3 younger boys' room. Has anyone really read this far? Did I lose you yet? The girls wanted a facelift in their new room, so my wonderful husband is doing major changes in the closet innards, plus "stretching" the closet door opening to accommodate a mirrored door. He installed that last night. Susanna has been busily painting the room...it's about 3/4 finished. New blinds are waiting patiently on the floor, to be installed later. My DH steam cleaned the carpets on Friday night.

We actually went to someone's home for dinner Friday night. How fun was that?? The added time-consumer there was making several dishes to take amongst all the other activities.

My children had friends over that night. Son #3 had a birthday Saturday, so son #2 and friend planned an overnight campout/air soft war (that began after 11 PM on Friday) and had several friends over for that. I got to cook lunch for 15 the next day after they got back from the campout, dirty, sweaty, exhausted, and really excited from all the fun the previous night. Violin recital that night for 2 of the boys. One of my daughters wasn't feeling too well, so I stayed home and SEWED A VEST (my extra activity this whole week...you'd think I was making 100 of those).

Some time on Saturday my 2nd son was called to come in for an interview Tuesday at the same restaurant that my daughter works at...he is really excited about that...just another item on the social calendar for me (but I can hardly believe he has this opportunity--he is just 16).

Sunday at 5 AM I awaken to someone in my bathroom with the light on. Why would one of the children be in there? I had earplugs in, so I didn't hear them come in. It was still very dark out, so I guess the light woke me up. I removed the earplugs to hear an all-too-familiar wretching noise (sorry to the faint-hearted)...one of my children (yet unknown as to whom) was really ill. I was wondering why said sicko was in MY bathroom. Came to find out mere moments later that the same despised wretching sound was coming from the hall bathroom, next door down from our bedroom. It was the two recital boys. I assumed that they had eaten something at the practice that had been spoiled or whatever. I held to that theory until an hour later when one of the girls started the same routine...but she hadn't been at the practice. This was NOT looking good!! Only one more child bit the dust in that way. I found out that daughter #3's friend (who stayed overnight Friday and was here a good part of the day Saturday) had the same malady, and it had started a couple hours earlier than ours did. The other 3 guests at our house escaped the plague, thankfully.

Needless to say, all these activities occurring simultaneously are wreaking havoc with my peace of mind at times. But at the same time, they are not. I am thankful for a large, busy family and the best husband in the world. He works so hard and so long for our family, and has my undying gratitude.

I keep hoping that after the bedroom moves are finalized, that last vest is sewn, the awards banquet is behind us, driving practice is over, etc., etc., that life will slow down.

But wouldn't I be bored then??

~Joan

Ladies' Banquet

Here's a picture of two of my girls and me at our church's ladies' banquet this afternoon. It was an ark theme, with a beautiful lighted rainbow above the platform. I guess that makes me Joan of Ark.

Susanna made her dress, and it looked lovely. She is quite the seamstress. We were amongst friends and had a nice time. Two of my daughters are not home, and it did seem strange to only have 3 of us in the picture. They were sorely missed by me.

~Joan

Drugstore Drop-In

Walgreens has been having some tremendous register rewards items. Here is a total of what I purchased there for $43.08 (that's a lot more than I thought it would be, but the numbers don't lie). Oh--the above picture shows some of the $42.50 in register rewards in my coupon wallet. That means *in a sense* I only paid 58 cents for these items because they gave me back $42.50 to spend later...

Hershey bagged malted milk eggs x 3

Nestle Crunch eggs x 2

Edge shaving cream x 2

Chapstick lip butter x 4

Skintimate shave cream x 3

Visine x 4

Fiber choice 10 count x 1

Scunci elastic hair bands x 3

Vaseline lotion x 6

Breyers ice cream quarts x 2

Whoppers eggs x 3

Dove deoderant x 12

Beanie baby stuffed monkeys x 2

Reach toothbrush x 2

Colgate Total toothpaste x 1

Easter pencils x 2

Chex mix x 1

That's a lot of merchandise for just over 50 cents.

My husband and 3 of the kiddos are gone for a few days. I've been staying up way too late to ensure I go right to sleep (I don't sleep well with my hubby gone), and it has caught up to me tonight. Off to bed with me!

~Joan

Easter Finery

Here is a picture I took of my four girls after church tonight. Aren't they lovely? I love their smiles. All so pretty.

Hope your Easter Sunday was one of peace, worship, and rejoicing. God is so good.

~Joan

Wonderful Surprise!

God has given me a wonderful gift. It is not the above flower. It is the person who gave it to me. I have become friends with a woman who attends my church and lives just a few minutes away. She has been an encouragement to me in so many ways. I was in my car in the driveway having a difficult conversation on my phone when she pulled up behind me and brought this lovely flower over. What a blessing!!

Looking forward to Good Friday and all it means in my heart.

~Joan

Groceries Galore

Another big successful shopping day yesterday. The first picture is our sell box. That is a 22-gallon tote that was full and we had an additional box to sell. As Susanna unpacks our stuff, she separates it right away into sell and keep. We also had a full cooler of refrigerator/freezer items.

We used a new plan, and it worked swimmingly. For one thing, we left an hour earlier than usual. Several reasons, but it allowed us to finish up way earlier than usual. We printed 2 copies of each store's shopping list. Right before we went into the store, we divided up what Susanna and I would be looking for, then we met to divide and conquer (I mean check out!). Two of our stores were giving out catalinas (coupons good on your next trip) for free milk, and we scored 4 of those.

We love stocking up on items we use a lot (as opposed to buying things to resell). We got All laundry detergent, 2000 Flushes tablets, Softsoap Ensemble refills, men's shaving gel, Pringles (38 cents a can!), pasta galore, Skintimate shaving gel, Mentos gum, Emerald Isle trail mix, Hall's cough drops, and much more. Susanna unloaded all the bags onto our freezer, so I took a quick picture.

Speaking of pictures, I wish I could download pics from my phone. My DH and I drove up into the mountains of NC/TN to pick up my oldest daughter last night (yippee). I drove up, and DH drove back. We nearly didn't take coats!! We were tooling along in our car when this white stuff started swirling towards the windshield. I said, "Is that POLLEN?" Then it dawned on me that it was SNOW!! It was incredible. We had several times where the road was completely covered, and we had to slow down to 25 MPH. My hallucination of the snow became a reality when we saw a huge truck with a SNOW PLOW on the front. Wow!! We made it up there and back safely, arriving home very late, but glad to have Elisabeth home.

~Joan