Hold, Please

 I wrote this poem a few years ago. Finally got around to scrapping it. <3 

Kit is my new favorite- it's called Take Note and it was one of the prizes from Ginger Scrap's Summer Scrap A Thon. For real, I love it so much!!

New Month: New Challenges: New Kits!!

 Last month was SO MANY layouts!!!!

I highly doubt I'll get another 31 pages done, but I am excited about the options both at GS and Sweet Shoppe. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I really REALLY wish Sweet Shoppe had kits as their rewards. If you do 8 pages, you get 25% off a kit, 16 pages gets you 40% off.

At Gingerscraps, however, doing 10 pages gets you an awesome kit- THAT YOU GET TO USE for an automatic next month's challenge. 

Before I explain the challenges I'm most excited about, I want to introduce you to Book Nook, by Twin Mom Scraps. Remember you can join her FB Fan Group for freebies and chances to win her kits. 

As usual, it's on sale.  BUY IT HERE

There's actually a whole bundle if you want a great deal.

Buy the Bundle Here.

OH, did you want to see what I made with it?! Good, because I love this. I do realize the placement of "My Favorite" makes it look like Lorelai specifically is my favorite, but no. It's that Xander and Lorelai are such good buddies. Seeing them together- that's my favorite!!!

I was able to use that page in the Buffet Challenge at Gingerscraps this month. I"m very much looking forward to participating in the Daily Download challenge for the first time (though I did miss 3 days, so I don't have a whole alpha). Other challenges I can't wait for at GS include Year of Blessings, where I'll talk about work, All About Me, where I get to talk about FOOTBALL, Document Your Life where I get to feature my sailor, and the journaling prompt where I'll be sharing a poem I wrote.

Over at Sweet Shoppe, I am excited to particpate in the "currently" challenge, talking about what I'm watching or reading, I'm still trying to decide. I also love that I can do a page about my favorite things I did this summer, plus pages featuring a big ampersand and torn edges. 

It's going to be a great Scrappy month and I also convinced my parents to send me some photos, so be looking for some vintage images!!

Actually, I think I"m going to enter this page into the "happy or meloncholy" page since I feel like my dad and his brothers are your standard oldest, middle, youngest. My dad's being a little silly in the pic, his big brother standing straight up listening, and his little brother wondering why he has to stand there at all. My grandma looks beautiful here, but tired, as I'm sure being a single mom was.

The kit I used for that one was called Adventures in Memory Keeping by K Cronin.

August: Peridot

 This kit felt like a personal birthday gift to me. It's called August: Peridot and it happened to IN my birthday month, yeah. Meant to be.

And as usual with Twin Mom Scraps, when a kit is released it is on sale!!! So go GET IT HERE (or at My Memories if you prefer) and while you're following my links and looking for fantastic deals, you should also check out Twin Moms Scraps FAN PAGE. She has freebies!

Here is a preview of everything you get in this beauty of a kit:

So amazing!!

 You guys! I won Layout of the Week at Gingerscraps with this page:

I am so honored!! (as a reminder, the kit is Gingerscraps Airplane Mode). 

Home Sweet Home

 It's been so long since I've been on a Creative Team. I am just beyond thrilled to be on one now!!!! This kit, I felt, was incredibly appropriate given my scrap goals and our live changes in the last few years. I've been trying to document Lorelai mostly, but really, our whole family. 

Here is another page I did with this kit

This gorgeous kit is called Home Sweet Home. 

You can get it on Gingerscraps (where I spend most of my time) FOR 40% OFF!!!! or on My Memories. And, if you're on Facebook, you can join Twin Mom Scraps Fan group and get FREEBIES!! And she has contests to win her kits sometimes, too!

Want to see what other creative team memories have made with this awesome Kit? Checkadis!

by Tammy

by Dawn

by Kat

by Evelyn

by Robin's Nest

by my adorable friend Lauren

by one of my other friends, Teresa

Ok, now you go get the kit and show me what you make, too!!!

Sweet Shoppe Summer Scrap A Thon

 First, let me say that I am not on any creative teams for Sweet Shoppe, so I'm legit not under any requirement to post these. I literally get nothing from it but sharing my excitement.

So this summer, the site is hosting a bunch of challenges. They post one pretty much every other day. I'm still one or two behind, but y'all know how much I love a theme. This year's theme is games (because of the Olympic Games). So clever.

Scrabble:

This one was kind of complicated to describe, but here it is, lol. The kit I used was from Ponytail Designs. It's called Time for Me.

Scattegories: We picked a letter and did as many things as we could with that letter. I chose the letter S. Stars, Sidewalk Chalk, Sixteen Squares, etc). 

 For that one, I used a kit called A Little Dramatic by Kristin Cronin-Barrow. I actually find myself using this kit a LOT. 

Black Jack: We could only use 21 things and everything had to be B&W.

That's also using the kit mentioned above- A Little Dramatic

Wordle: We used a 5 letter title

So funny thing about this kit- I never would have purchased it because it's so not my style. But I think I've used it a least 3 times, so I'm very grateful I won it. It's called Today's Adventure by Amanda Yi.

Crazy 8s: We had to do 8 of everything. I think I ended up doing 8 things of 8. I don't remember.

 I used Sweet Tea & Sunshine from Ponytails Designs,

Game of Life: This one, I messed up on. I used a kit from GingerScraps, but this competition is for Sweet Shoppe, so this didn't count at all. So sad. It's ok, I was able to use it for a different contest at GingerScraps, but still.

The kit is Airplane Mode by GingerScraps

Chutes and Ladders: This one we had to use a ladder type stacks and also have a curvy element.

 This adorable kit is called Energy Saving Mode by Erica Zane

Ticket to Ride: We were supposed to put our favorite places to travel or our travel bucket list. So yeah, that was kind of a hard one for me.

This was a mini kit that was part of a prize for spending a certain amount at the shoppe. It's called Radiate Joy and it's by Traci Reed. I guess you can't get it now? Weird, because I contemplated getting the full kit eventually. Oh well, live and learn.

Tic Tac Toe: They provided the stitches in the Tic Tac Toe shape. I couldn't help but do a two page spread featuring our fun trip to the Gateway Children's Museum. Fun fact- on our way to the museum that day, it was literally raining mud. I had to pull over a few times to pour water on the windshield because it was so bad.

This is another fabulous kit from Ponytails called Shoot for the Stars

Yahtzee: We go to choose a dice and kind of replicate the "flow" of the face. I chose 2.

I'm sure you're shocked to hear that this is using that A Little Dramatic kit that I've already mentioned twice in this thread....

Candy Land: We had to put ice cream or candy on the page. This one I struggled with. For one, my kids don't eat a ton of candy ever since we did Feingold. So I had these fun pics of my siblings (most of em). As for the kit, it's super not my style. I had won it for free and it had ice cream in it. But yeah, this one isn't one of my favorites (except the people in it!)

The kit is called Adventureland and it's by Sweet Doll

Connect 4: We needed to take 4 photos that may not seem connected at all, but are. These photos were from the same zoo trip, but discombombulated. It's because they're the only cell phone pics I took that day. I'd love to do more zoo pages, but.... I can't find my hard drive that has ALL of my camera photos from 2021 at least one it....

Kit is from Crazy Monkey Designs and is called Zoo-pendous

Tetris: How fun was this?!?! We just needed to use Tetris shapes. So I did. This is the background paper I made first

and then I put this page on top of it.

I'm pretty much in love with it. Also, This kit!!! Can I just say- AMAZING. You'll probably see lots of pages from it. The kit is called All You Need and it's by Blagovesta Gosheva

Anyway, thanks for humoring me. :D

Back in the Scrap Game- kind of

When I first started this blog 150 years ago (give or take a few),  one of the main reasons was because I scrapbooked. I scrapped a lot! I was on creative teams and even dabbled at designing. Then, after Abraham was born, I just didn't have a lot of time and then my hard drive crashed and I lost pretty much every digital scrapbook kit that I had.                                                                                                                   It's literally been almost a full decade since I was in "the game" and Lorelai, who just turned 6, has noticed. I have started a digital scrapbook for her since then. I'm trying to do about a page for each month of her life, with the hopes that I'll get to go back to some of those months and do more for more of my kids (Seriously, Abe only has like 10 pages total and most of Paisley's are as a baby/toddler).                            Part of this, though, means jumping back into the community because without the challenges and sales on kits, I'd have no idea where to start. There are two websites I am currently active on: The Sweet Shoppe and GingerScraps. I've actually been on GingerScraps this whole time, but just recently joined Sweet Shoppe. The main pull there was that is where Ponytails Designs sells her goods and I LOVE her kits. I was on her creative team and that brought me so much joy!!!                                                                                At Gingerscraps, I completed TEN pages in the month of June (technically 11, one didn't count for the challenges because I didn't read the fine print on them), So that's pretty cool.  Here they are:                                                   

                 Template by J.Conlon & Sons, Kit was GingerScraps Fiesta Fun                                                                

                 

Kit is GingerScrap's Fiesta Fun   The brush was by Craft-tastrophic Design                                                      

                     

Jumpstart Designs- Be The Reason                                                                                                                                                        

                     

Kit is Family is Forever Collection by Tami Miller and Aimee Harrison Designs                                                                                                

                                

Over the Moon by GingerScraps                                                                                                                                                                

                     

Template is Pocketfuls 6 by Ponytails

Kit is Roses are Red, Violets are Blue by Memory Mosiacs                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                This one is probably my current favorite pages. Kit is Family Is Forever Collab by Tami Miller Designs and Aimee Harrison Designs.                                                                                                        

. 

(It's supposed to. be a 2 page spread) Tracey Monette (Clever Monkey Graphics) School Rules                                                                            

                         I used GingerScraps- Fiesta Fun, except for the staples, which are from Memory Mosiacs.

Template is the Freebie from Tinci Designs for June 2024                                                                                                                        

This kit is Roses Are Red by Memory Mixers. Except the string. That is from Lindsey Jane Designs in the kit Lots of Stars.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Then there is The Sweet Shoppe! I only did 2 pages for them last month and you have to complete 8, I think, to get any prizes, so I didn't even submit them. While I do prefer the format of GingerScraps, I am quite impressed by the designers at Sweet Shoppe. And they are doing a pretty cool summer challenge. Here are the pages I did in June for Sweet Shoppe:                            

                             Template is Ponytails Divided Loyalties #3

Kit is Ponytails Sweet Tea & Sunshine                                                                                            

                 Kit is Today's Adventure by Amanda Yi                                                                                        Which all leads me up to now. For the first challenge on the Summer Scrap Event, they played a scrabble game. I was frustrated at first because it seemed so complicated. I literally had to have Husband sit and read the instructions so he could best explain it to me. Here is my scrabble page:                                                                        

                                                     Long story short, each letter in each word represents something on my page. QUAD - q for QR code, U for unshadowed ribbon (who knew that forgetting to shadow would be a help for the challenge?), A for Arrow, and D for Doily.   STAMP is because I have S- "Sweet Someday" Font, T- tab, A- Adorable photo, M- Mat on photo, P- Pin. Here's the page that allowed that. Here's a shocker, both template and kit are by Ponytails Design. Template is Divided Loyalties (though I did modify a fair amount) and kit is Time 4 Me.        

                 Anyway, thanks for perusing!!! If you start digiscrapping, please let me know. I'm always looking for digiscrap friends. And if you hear of any designers with openings on their team, I might be interested..... 

                                                                     

I'm God's Favorite

Just over a year ago, I started working full time. After spending 19 years as a mom first, photographer, editor, babysitter, artist, crafter, serial entreprenuer, etc second- it was quite the change. Here I was in a room full of grownups- a handful of whom were older than me, but most younger and I realized something. I kind of have a favorite complex. My nieces will tell you that I've always had it, but this was the first time that I realized it myself. I just really like to be the favorite. I tell people all the time that I'm my parents favorite child (just ignore my siblings when they say, "nuh uh, I'm the favorite"- to which I reply, "I'm the baby, gotta love me.").  During training, there were two of us and I continually found myself pushing to be the trainee that was most beloved. Ironic, because at the same time, I found myself loving those I was working and training with.

    As I progressed at work, moving seat locations and learning more duties, it would be the same; in every row, every specific manager, and every cluster. I just really wanted to be the favorite for each spot. I wanted people to be happy that I was there. I wanted people to notice if I was gone. I wanted to make each spot better for having come, having called, or having have crossed my path. Also in turn, the opposite would happen. I again, grew to love each person I sat next to, behind, across from, in a row with, and who I learned from. Turns out I was better for having been at each spot. My confidence also grew. I knew that I had a power to shape the feelings and attitudes around me. I wanted to be in a place that made me smile more? Well, then I guess I better make those around me smile more. I wanted to see reminders of gratitude on the wall- I guess I better get sketching and get some sparkly push pins.

    This came to a head in the last few months when the biggest work change happened and I actually moved buildings/job titles/coworkers. I was for sure the one there with the least education now working with people who before I had known (and maybe shaken my fist at) behind a computer screen. But I put myself out there and I let them know that I was the favorite. I told them that I was the favorite because I had decided that I was the favorite and it didn't really matter if they thought I was the favorite, I was just going to go move along and hunker down with the assumption that I most certainly was. And ugh, can you believe it? Turns out I'm learning to love these guys, too. I've been out of the office for a couple of weeks with health issues and gosh darn it, I can't wait to go back and see 'em all.

    What does this rather long declaration have to do with my rather bold assumption that I'm God's favorite? Well, I started the Book of Mormon again today- always bittersweet and I'll be starting it again in a few weeks with the New Year, but it's ok. But today, I started laughing a little bit because Nephi, who at 16ish years old, starts this incredible book of scripture out with....

    "Hey, I'm Nephi. I have awesome parents who taught me well and BTW, I'm 'highly favored of the Lord in all my days.'" He then, of course, continues to talk about the things he's seen, a story his dad told, and then finishes up the first chapter with something akin to, "so now I'm gonna show you all the reason's I'm the Chosen by God." Of course, those were not his exact words. He actually said, " But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender ^cmercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of ^ddeliverance."

    I want you to notice a couple of things. The first is that God never said He loved Nephi more than His other children. Nephi decided it. "over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith." 

    Sometimes Nephi gets a bad rap. He's so confident. He talks about having power over his brothers and cites some times where their dad was pretty rough on the older two. But here's the thing. Laman and Lemuel- they were also of goodly parents. They, too, had been taught in the language of their Father. They, too, had seen miracles and been saved from destruction and sent to the promised land. God loved them just as much as He loved Nephi. So why didn't they feel like the favorite? Faith. They didn't choose to see those miracles as such. They didn't recognize the tender mercies of the Lord. Chances are, they didn't love the people with the desk next to them the same way someone who has decided they are the favorite did. They instead became the victims of their own attitudes, unbelief, and refusal to recognize the light that's there. Why does it matter that they weren't vying for top spot? 

    I have another story that might seem like it doesn't fit, but it does. A few years ago, I was studying my patriarchal blessing. That was a challenge because I don't have all super positive feelings about mine, but it was time. I was discussing some of the words with a friend and how very generic it felt. My friend said, "Sometimes I think they aren't worded beautifully because God wants to tell you himself how He feels about you. You should ask Him. I think you are one of his favorites." She might not have used the word favorite, but it is the feeling of the word that resonated. After much trepidation, I did finally ask Him. I asked, "Is what this friends said true? Am I one of your favorites? Do you really thing that I am something special?"

    I fully expected that all over warm feeling that leaves you without a doubt. But I received a question in return. He asked me, "Does it matter?" It felt like a gut punch. Was he saying I didn't even matter?! But no, no. Remember that being offended is a choice. After much thought the second part of the question came. "Does it change how much I will bless you? Does it change how many of my commandments you'd keep? Does it change your faith in my Son?" and then there was peace. While still not a warm, fuzzy answer, it was much food for thought. It's taken me until today to realize that choosing to be God's favorite is so much more choosing to serve Him and love Him and be his right hand man than feeling a pat on the head saying, "Yup. You're a favorite."

    Favorites are the favorite because they choose to love the people they are with and the situations they are in. They know that you might have to do a little extra sprinkling of glitter to help someone feel loved for them to notice if you're in the hospital for a week. And while it can on the surface seem petty and selfish, that morphs so fast into a true and genuine love. Like Nephi, I want to tell everyone of all the tender mercies God has granted me. I have so much evidence of His love for me! Entire galaxies, oceans, forests, gardens, memories, temples, populations..... are PROOF that God loves me just so much!! But here's the kicker....you can be His favorite, too.

For Posterity

 This has been on my mind for days. I hesitated posting becuase it's a bit.... personal. Please note that this is NOT a pity party, boohoo post, but more of a "Let's get it all out in writing to see if I'm actually crazy or not" and "hey wouldn't this be cool to know in 50 years" kind of post.

Today I'm talking about the monies.

Background: Husband and I got married in 2002. We were poor college students living in a little college town. We only stayed for one school year and then moved in with my parents in California to have Xander (and to use the summer to figure out what we were doing for the rest of our lives). Roger worked hard labor all summer long for $8/hr. 

As summer ended, we knew that the next step for us was to move back to Utah, get an apartment, and Roger decided to go to ITT Tech. We found an apartment in a pretty ghetto part of West Valley, but it was close to the school. Roger also worked as a flower deliveryman (to date one of his favorite jobs) making minimum wage- which at the time was $6.55. I was at home with Xander and also babysat a few kids to help ends meet. I don't think it occurred to me how poor we were until my visiting teacher came over one day while I was pregnant with Juliana and asked if we had food. I was like, "Yeah! We have food! I have a half of loaf of bread, some potatoes, and sour cream, we're good!" and then she insisted we get a food order.

We only lived in that apartment for a year. I can't remember why Roger switched from flower delivery to the deli at Harmon's. There he made $8 an hour, but didn't love it quite so much. In that year we were in the apartment, my parents bought a house in Utah. My family helped renovate it and get it ready for my parents to move in, which they did in 2005. After being there for a few months, they were called on a mission to Florida. Timing was good because they'd be leaving about the time our lease was up. We moved into the house and then my dad had a little procedure that pushed back the mission a little bit. I was grateful they were there when we had Juliana. 

Sometime in that year, Roger switched jobs again to Albertson's- this time cleaning the backs of trucks for $10 an hour. He was absolutely miserable there. He finished ITT and graduated. Around the time he graduated, he got a call from Ensign Engineering. He started there at $11 an hour and we have been there ever since (minus a 3 month attempt working at a firm out here).

Through the years, I did what I could help financially. We bought a house in 2007 in Tooele with a USDA Rural Housing Loan- our house payment was $500 a month or something similar. The catch with that is that we filled out paperwork each year and they would adjust the payment amount based on our income. years we had babies, the payment went down. years we got raises, the payment went up, but we were always in the same boat. Roger always made enough for the house payment and our regular bills, but anything else was up to me. I babysat, sold jewelry, edited photos, did display set ups, and then eventually photography. 

In 2008, when things were bad for everyone and gas was $4/gallon in Utah and we had one car and Roger was commuting to Salt Lake every day- we saw miracles. The Tooele office opened. Roger could walk or bike to work. I ad steady extra gigs. It was hard. There was not any extra. But we were ok.

I stopped babysitting about the time I had Abraham in 2014. At that point, we were in the exact same financial boat as we always had been because although Roger's income had doubled, so had our house payment and the amount of kids had more than doubled. We did have 2 cars at that point, which was really nice since I had kids in school and all my side gigs. I started doing photography as full time as I could, while still editing photos and other stuff. 

Here's an ADHD thing- any hobby that I wanted to try, I had to monetize. I still am that way. I'm getting better, but if I wanted to try painting, I had to make a business about it. If I wanted to try crochet, I had to try to sell some of my wares. It's how I could justify to myself that it was worth the time, effort, and especially any money. I even did MLM for a minute, selling Lia Sophia jewelry. I don't know if any of my little things like that ever actually helped financially- until the hymn paintings. 

Anyway. Somewhere around 2018ish, we were tired of being in the exact same financial boat as we had been with the house and we finally refinanced. It felt so good to have that little bit of freedom, knowing that any income growth would finally be income growth.

During Covid, we were very blessed that Roger could work still. 

In 2020, the housing market in Utah was INSANE. We decided to sell. We had a 1900 square foot house, fenced in yard (with no surviving grass). It needed all kinds of repairs. The AC was about to go out, the cupboards had no doors, the floors needed help.... It had just been very, very lived in. And we couldn't afford to fix it up. Plus, we had so outgrown it. There were 4 actual rooms and we had converted the basement into our master bedroom. It was just very crowded. We sold the house for $255,000. It had only been on the market for 4 days.

We lived in a 3rd floor apartment in Tooele for 6 months. We originally had dreams to build, but that was going nowhere. Then, we started having thoughts of Elsewhere. We considered Texas, Kentucky, and Indiana. Roger got a job offer in Texas and we felt very bad about it. We dropped TX from the list quickly. Roger was never really sold on the Indiana idea, but we were both intrigued by Kentucky. We had friends who lived in Richmond KY and they loved it. All the pictures were so green and land was not crazy expensive. We had been feeling strongly about having a garden. It's a little silly since none of us garden, but I felt like we needed to anyway. 

We found a piece of land in Alexandria KY that was perfect. 2 acres. $30,000. Ready to build. Roger flew out and looked at it, felt good about it, and so we bought it. I flew out a couple of months later to see it, fell in love, and then we made plans.

Originally, we were going to move during summer. Our lease would be up about then, kids would be out of school, we'd have time to do all the goodbye things. The Spirit said otherwise. I would wake up in the mornings almost in a panic "GET OUT OF HERE" were some of the thoughts. "GO NOW"- but not scary thoughts. And they didn't start out that way. They started as "What if?" "What if we went before our lease was up?" "What would it take to go sooner?" and "Why are we still here?" (for real, 3rd floor with 6 kids was a bad, bad idea). I told Roger I'd been feeling this way, and he admitted he had as well. It was surprisingly easy to get out of our lease early. We found a rental that looked good on paper. Everything aligned. So we packed up our entire lives into a 16' Penske Truck and drove 1700 miles. 

The rental wasn't quite ready when we got here, so we stayed in a hotel the first couple of nights (another reason Robyn should not be the one making reservations for anything- I swear up and down the hotel said "pet friendly" and then when we got there..... it was a no pets hotel. We had a tender mercy and were able to keep Winnie with us for 2 nights). We had someone in our new ward willing to watch the Kitties until we were in the rental. After the first 2 nights, we found a hotel in Lexington that was pet friendly and a good price, so we reserved 5 days there. It was cheap because it was nasty, old, and the day we left, the Terminex guy was there, so there you go.

We settled into the rental- which was fabulous, by the way. Things were good and we started working on plans for building the house. Then we met with the builder. It was going to be more than 3x our budget and work couldn't start for over a year. To say that I was upset was an understatement. A lot of prep work, spiritual and otherwise, had gone into these plans. And there was no way in the universe we'd ever be able to afford to make it happen.

Then we found this house. After a couple of miracles, we got it for $333,000. This place is big!! It fits ALL of us. It still technically only has 4 bedrooms, but they are big enough to fit all of us. Plus there is space all throughout the house for people to be. We are so happy here. It's also 2 acres, though they are downhill and mostly wooded. We were able to sell the property for the $30,000 we bought it for, but the timing didn't match up quite right and we ended up using the 401k to put the down payment on this house.

Here's the thing. Moving is expensive. However expensive we thought it was going to be, it was double. Plus some. So when we got the money for the property, we did not put it back in the 401k. Instead, we payed off the debts that moving had incurred and also furnished our house. Not extravagantly, but the basics, anyway.

Husband, trying to be responsible and get us out of debt as quickly as possible, set it up to repay the 401k in 5 years. Roughly half of his paycheck goes towards 401k. So I got a full time job to help keep us caught up on the house payment. We had a couple of water damage incidents in the house, however, that needed the insurance to help. You know, the insurance that is supposed to cover what you can't afford, even though it has a $1000 deductible? Yeah, that's the one. So we used it. Might as well, since we were paying for it anyway. Well...... between those 2 times we used the insurance and the taxes in this beautiful area, our house payment jumped 33%. 

I don't know if you've shopped for groceries lately, but it's not what it used to be. Here is the snippet of what groceries are right now- September 9, 2023

Loaf of bread: $1.32

Gallon of whole milk: $2.33

1 lb of ground beef: $4.96

1 red pepper: $1.48

12 pack of store brand toilet paper: $11.98

Ok, you get the idea. I have 6 kids at home right now (Xander is off in the Navy, but we have an amazing exchange student from Brazil). We don't qualify for free or reduced lunch, so if I have the kids eat breakfast at lunch at school, it would cost me $25 a day (Paisley eats free). We make home lunches. Shopping for lunch stuff looks like this:

Capri Suns (30 per week) - $8.50

Chips (12 units a week)- $6

Pretzels (1 big bag a week)- $2

Clementines (24 per week)-  $6

Sandwiches (bread, meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato) (twice per week)- [2 loaves of bread $2.64, 2 kinds of meat $9, presliced cheese $5, 1 head lettuce $1.50, 3 tomatoes appx $3] $21ish

Pierogies or pizza rolls or chimichangas (once per week) $5 average

Leftovers (once a week)- $0

Apples (once a week) $4.50

Chicken Salad Sandwiches/Lasagna/Mac and cheese, etc (once per week) Appx $10-$15 in supplies

Nuggies (once a week) $9

So I guess I'm saving $10 a day by making lunches. YAY. 

But here's the thing. We still owe over $900 in student fees from last year/this year combined. So that's cool. Plus $500 for Marching band last year. And Paisley just got accepted into a choir group that costs $100.

I'm just saying, life is SO expensive that even though husband and I both make really good money- we only see half of his paycheck and inflation is eating the rest. I know we're not alone in this boat. I hope this post helped someone.  Here's your hope, though. As long as we have paid our tithing- we have NEVER been without a home. NEVER been without food. We have seen SO many miracles that I couldn't ever get them all recorded. We are happy. We are alright. And if money is the big challenge in our lives and we're always in this boat- THAT IS OK!!! I have so much gratitude for all of our blessings- and we have SO many blessings. There's not enough blog space in the world to count them.

Also, inflation sucks. LOL.