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UPrinting Sticker/Label Giveaway!
I see you've been here before, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! I'm in a contest to win a Bag Makeover. I really need this since Chocolate melted in my bag and I haven't been able to replace it. Please vote for me!!! It only takes a second!
The great peeps over at UPrinting has done it again! I’m giving away 250 Stickers or Labels. Get your entries in by January 31st!
Details:
250 Stickers/Labels for One (1) lucky winner
Sizes: 2†x 3.5â€Â, 2†x 4â€Â, or 3†x 3â€Â
Paper: 70lb Label Matte
Specifications: Full color front, blank back; 4 Business Day printing
Shipping: FREE UPS Ground Shipping
Eligibility: Limited to US Residents only
Ways to enter:
Comment on this post for 1 entry
Subscribe to my RSS FEED! (its new, make sure you have the right one!) and receive 1 entry.
**For the record, UPrinting has given me the same thing that you get, 250 custom stickers or labels. Cool huh!
Another day in Public School
I’ve not been happy having my kids in public school since day one. This morning takes the cake.
On Friday, my son came home with a bite mark on his wrist. I asked what was wrong and he told me the story. The other little boy wanted something that he had, and bit him. I don’t mean a pre-schooler. I mean the 10year old football prodigy in his 4th grade class.
My son is a screamer. If you tickle him, hold him down, thump him he screams and squeals. You can hear him all over the place.
I sent pictures of my childs arm, and the account of the inccident to the school by email Friday afternoon.
I received a reply. Of course I was called by the wrong last name. That ticks me off. My ex and I were never married, and the vice principal knows that. My name was at the bottom of my original email also. But past that I was told that my son never screamed, asked for help, and no other kids were involved (aka. pulled the biting kid off of my son)
If I bit you, would you scream? If you bit me, I’m gonna scream and more, especially if you are laying on top of me. I wouldn’t ask you to stop, you stop and things would be ok until my mother saw the mark on my arm nearly 4 hours later.
Where was the PE coach, I have no idea. Since my son didn’t scream, he didn’t know anything was going on. Hmmm…. Come to find out our school has a new vice principal…the PE coach. I never knew it, and I’m sure the rest of the parents in the school don’t know it…not all of them, not the majority.
The biting child also happens to be the grandson of a very important person on the School Staff, who’s office is within feet of the principal and vice principals’ offices. Hmm…
I’ve done homeschool before. I’m not convinced that I can handle all three of my kids every day for school, but I’m getting more and more convinced every day that it is my best option for the future. Please pray that I find an answer.
I think I found a dress!
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At least its a dress that I like online. I don’t like it, I LOVE it. The thing is, who knows what it will look like in person. I can hopefully tell you next week that it looks great too. Tell me how you found your dress and how you knew it was the one.
This isn’t my dress, but isn’t it gorgeous!
Who does the laundry when you are sick?
Or what happens when you have multiple kids with a stomach virus? Or better yet just, What happens when you fall behind on laundry? Do you have a plan for that Mt. Washmore?
My home can have some daunting laundry mountains even on a regular week. My kids have uniforms, so to keep them nice and neat they are to change as soon as they walk in the door every day. I guess your kids do that too to keep their clothes looking nice and neat, if they don’t think about having them change into play clothes every afternoon after school.
On a normal week I do at least 2 loads of laundry a day, sometimes three. And no, I’m never caught up with laundry. It’s like it multiplies behind my back when I’m not looking. To help me a long, the kids do their laundry every week on their assigned day. My soon to be step kids will start learning to do laundry this weekend. I think that it is very vital to learn this as a kid, because as a teenager they are NOT gonna want to pay any attention to you! lol
Since Christmas I was sick for nearly 2 weeks. I can’t say that I’m completely well now, but at least I feel a little better. Everyone else has pretty much been sick also, and no one has felt like helping more than they “have to”. I don’t blame them, we’ve all felt horrble. It has been cold here. I mean its been colder for more days in a row than it has been here since 1953. My dearest has been cutting down new trees for firewood while he’s been sick. I prayed that he didn’t get pneumonia, and he didn’t! Thank God!
Anyways back to my topic…I hate laundry. It’s the last thing that I want to do when I’m feeling great, and I don’t’ even think about it when I’m feeling sick. So Mt. Washmore piles up in my laundry room. I do what I have to to get by. Its just that not everything gets done. At 2 loads a day, I’m probably behind 6-8 loads by the end of a sick week. Yep, that’s pretty daunting. It can be done in a day. Does this happen to you?
So on to my solution:
Lets say that I’m behind 8 loads today. On a normal day I do 2 loads of laundry, right? So that makes it 10 loads that I need to work on today.
So I figure it takes 2 hours (or so) to do a load of laundry. It takes about an hour to wash it, and about an hour to dry it. But hey, unless you have issues with your electricity, you can dry a load while you wash the next load, right?! Hey that means that it will take about 11 hours to finish the laundry in one day. You could break this down into two days if you need to also, but the key is to listen to your dryer, and be ready to reboot laundry constantly throughout the day.
Some tips before you get started:
- Make a run to the store to get laundry soap, bleach, stain remover, dryer sheets, and fabric softener. Maybe today is the day to try a new product. Maybe you need supplies to make your own detergent, or just some vinegar to add to your wash. You know what you need. Make a list.
- Make sure that you have plenty of water to drink nearby, a timer and plan your meals for the day. Pick something easy for dinner, You are going to be tired of doing anything if you really hate laundry as much as I do.
- Start gathering and sorting. Grab the laundry from other rooms of the house. If you have a nice big laundry room, line up hampers, baskets, boxes whatever you have to sort your laundry. (Normally I sort into darks, lights, whites, towels, handwash/delicate, bed linens).
- Have all of your clothes hangers available near your dryer, a folding table is great to have also. We have laundry shelves for folded things, each person having their own section for their undies and things.
- SOCKS! As you find socks that match, before putting them in the washer have a container of safety pins nearby to pin them together. This works like a charm. If you have a lot of socks that are not matched, put them all into a basket and at the end of the day match them all.
- Involve your family. Kids can learn to sort. Even young kids can help put all of the towels in one basket, or fold washcloths. Older kids can sort everything, and help bring all of the laundry to you, and even be in charge of this whole day. A little supervision goes a long way. Pay the kids (as my friend Misty did) ten cents for every pair of correctly matched socks, charge them 50 cents for the ones that are not matched correctly.
- Use your clothes line if you have one. If you want to use it for everything, you may have to break this into two ore more days to have room for everything. I suggest to start washing heavier blankets first, hang them out because they will take longer to dry, then go down the laundry list to the next lightest load. It may be jeans for you, or it may be towels. You know which one you need to do next, if not guess. Its a load of laundry getting done anyways, right?
My biggest tip is that when you are that far behind, and don’t have all day, or two days to get yourself out of this mess, round up all of your quarters. Take some cash to the bank and get a few rolls…yes I said a few. Load everything up and go to the local laundromat. I don’t know if this will be more expensive than doing it at home or not, but in 3 hours you can get everything done. (that is if you don’t have to wait on washers or dryers) Your sanity is worth it, go ahead and go. Especially if you have a clothes line at home that you normally use for everything and its been raining for 3 days and there’s no end in site. Think about it, pray about it. Do what’s right for you and your situation.
Now, I hope that you aren’t ever in this situation, but it happens to the best of us. Just remember that a load (or two, or three or…) a day keeps Mt. Washmore away! 
**ATTENTION SUBSCRIBERS**
If you were one of my subscribers, I’m happy to say that my feed is finally doing what it should! yay! I’ve worked on it off and on since Day 1 here at Polka Spot Farm. However I need a little help from you. Please re-subscribe to my feed, so that you don’t miss anything that’s coming up in the future. You may get some old posts, but I’m not sure if you will or will not.
If you are a fan of my Polka Spot Farm Page on Facebook or follow my feed on Networked Blogs, you will now get automatically updated as well. I’ve been manually adding my links to these two things, so this is a huge help for me.
You can subscribe in the right hand sidebar at the top in that little rss button, or by email just below, or go down a ways and subscribe with Networked Blogs or join my Fan Page. Also Google Friend Connect will allow you to import the feed also, but its a bit more complicated to actually read it. If you want, you can choose everything! I’ve included links in this post also. If you have any questions, let me know and I’ll try to help you out!
*PLEASE NOTE* Subscribing with the rss feed that shows up in the address bar is the wrong feed and will not update at this point. I’m trying to find a fix for that ASAP!!
Thanks so much!
Tuesday’s Tip
I’m sitting down to write my shopping list today and as always I grab my little black Moleskine Notebook
and open it up to a new page. I have my menu posted online and on the calendar in the kitchen. I grab my menu and then on two open pages I start my list.
I have 6 or 7 categories that are just general according to what I need that week. These are the categories that I use:
- Fresh
- Frozen
- Meat
- Dairy
- Boxed
- Canned
- Paper Goods/Other
- Bread
Each of the first 6 categories are listed at the top of the pages. Three are on each page. The other two if needed are at the bottom of the pages, to one side normally. I then take my menu and a running list of things we need in our home, then fill in the blanks for my shopping list.
Everything is nice and organized, and not by aisle because we shop at different stores on a regular basis. I normally put my debit card and any coupons that I may have in the the accordion styled folder in the back of the notebook. I don’t lug around my whole purse anymore because of it being stolen out of the shopping cart years ago.
Over the years I’ve come to love the Moleskine Notebook
for planning trips, journaling and taking notes during church among many other things. I have a few, but the small pocket one is always nearby. They make them in colors now and then, and I’m eying one in red! If you are looking for a multipurpose notebook that really works overtime, this is the one for you. Maybe you can even keep your grocery list inside!
You have your resolutions then there’s a turn in the road
Some of us have resolutions, some have goals, some just have dreams. This time of year a lot of us are trying something new, or even something old for yet another time. You get a few days into things and the new has worn off, you get a phone call about a sick kid or you are sick yourself. How can you keep up your exercising when you can’t stop blowing your nose? Your kid needs you, right? No one else is helping with the organization you just finished, so why bother…
Maybe its time to reevaluate.
Just remember that YOU matter. You didn’t make these promises to yourself so that something can get in your way. you bought new running shoes, organized the pantry, planned out the next month for activities for your goal so that you can see a difference. YOU wanted this for you, your family, someone else? Has that changed? I really doubt it.
So get your big girl panties on and stick with it! You can do this!
Farmville eat your heart out, and help troops too
This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Wheat Food Council. All opinions are 100% mine.
Why not take it to the next level and help out some needy people. The folks over at How Wheat Works and Wheat Foods Council are working together to teach youth about where our number one food source comes from and all that goes into getting it from the field to the dinner table.
Wheat Foods Council
In just 4 days you can learn about these steps and the Council will donate two pounds of flour, up to 90,000 pounds, to Operation Homefront, a non-profit that provides assistance to needy U.S. troops and their families. Now how can you say no?!
I’m all done with day one already and can’t wait to sign my kids up for the adventure. On Day 1 I learned about the different types of wheat and what they are used for and the growing of the corn. This is all done virtually! YAY! Farmville Eat your heart out! I now have a crop of Duram wheat growing so that I can make Pasta later this week and sell at the grocery store. Isn’t that super cool! My son is gonna love this!
Go gather up your kids and pick a type of wheat to grow. This is a great learning experience for the whole family, and to top it all off ITS FREE, and it helps troops!
Re-writing the tapes
We all have an inner monologue where we hear our own thoughts. Some of those thoughts are directed at others, some are general thoughts, but the ones that mean the most are the ones that we direct to ourselves.
When we tell ourselves that we are ugly, fat, unorganized, lazy, undeserving and the numerous other things that play on that tape through our head, we are hurting ourselves. I’ve been thinking about this for a while tonight. Over the years I’ve struggled with my self criticisms. I handled them in all of the wrong ways, and ended up fighting depression a lot longer than I ever should have because of a lot of those nasty things I’d say to myself. Even though I’ve come to terms with a few of those things, there are many things that I still struggle to get deleted from my personal repertoire.
I know that almost every thing on that list, I can change with God’s help. Some of those things make me uniquely me. I’ve committed myself to being a Princess, daughter of the King of Kings. That King designed me to be who I am today,and is shaping me into the woman that I will become tomorrow. Does he want me to call myself names? Why no! Of course he wouldn’t want that for his princess!
Why do we do this to ourselves?! I really can’t answer that in any words other than we are not truly loving ourselves how God wants us to love ourselves.
I challenge you to recognize those negative thoughts, write them down, erase them, then re-record your personal tape with loving thoughts. Will you join me? I have a list written down and will be burning it, then I will write a list of positives to read and re-read daily. Please join me on this activity, as I know that we can all benefit from this at one time or another.
Tuesday’s Tips
I thought that I would start doing this a while back and just never did. I’m a tip person. I’m always looking for tips, and giving tips to random people. I know they think I’m weird, but hey I’m just a good “Tipper!” To me a tip is a shortcut to make something work for you instead of you working for it.
Lately I’ve seen so many things out there that I’d love to do with my time. Problem is there are only so many hours in the day and to tell you the truth I put off doing so many things as it is, that I don’t need a longer to do list than I already have.
My kids start back to school today (Tuesday) from being out for about 2.5 weeks. For me and my kids I want them to be more organized and more responsible for themselves. One of the things I’ve wanted to implement for a long time is a Launch pad. Thing is, I never found a good way to make that work. So in a moment of excitement today I told the kids to clear off their dresser or chest of drawers, and put their school things on top, along with all of the attire for the next day. Tomorrow I’ll be adding little notes for them on things they need to do when they get home. Their own little launch pad and control central.
As adults sometimes we find something that works for us, but not our kids. I tend to think they will like something set up one way, yet it doesn’t work for them because they have no idea how to use it. When implementing something to their daily routine, its a good idea to help them for at least a few weeks until it becomes a habit. If they forget about their new additional responsibility, remember that they are kids and that most adults don’t conform well to change ( at least I don’t).
Do you have a launch pad in your home? Does the whole family use it or only you? Would it be easier on your kids or spouse to have their own launch pad? Ours may be changed a few times to get it to work, but we will continue on our path until it is well known.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
