Hey Peoples!

I'm going to try and do a little better here :)  I think you may all have given up on me! I had to switch Google accounts and in the process lost almost all the pictures accompanying my posts.  Not sure why, since it wasn't all of the pictures, but I'll be trying to find them on my hard drive and reposting them.

So what's new with you?  Here it's the same old, same old.  We finished up the living areas (mostly) in the basement and so now we've moved Ashlyn down there and also have our family room and school space down in the basement. 

I've started a new Better U Challenge (this is my 3rd!) to help get me back on track and part of my daily tasks is to organize for 15 minutes a day, spend 6 minutes in my "hot spot" (the places your clutter accumulates), and purge 5 things a day to Goodwill.  I love the Goodwill part!  I also chose to try and get down to my goal weight this challenge and I have about 7 pounds to go. 

Let me tell you about these challenges.  I started almost a year ago at 199 pounds.  Ridiculous, even for a 6 ft gal.  I was *not* going to hit 200, heck when I delivered my babies I was that heavy!  My "healthy" range is 140-188 and I wasn't even close.  Anyway, so for the first time in my life I was overweight.  Coupled with the depression I had after Megan my life sucked.  Then I saw a msg on Facebook from an acquaintance I knew from when I had served with the Young Women at church.  She was inviting everyone to join a challenge she was starting a few weeks.  These challenges are run by a group of sisters.  They have daily tasks that we all accomplish and mark a point on a shared online spreadsheet if we do it that day.  We pay some money (usually $25 or so) to play for 8 to 10 weeks.  Each week we vie for small prizes ($5 to Bath and Body Works or Jamba Juice or Sonic, or a $10 Amazon.com GC) and at the end the people with the top placings get money.  The competition is just what I needed and the tasks are so good and in line with what I know God wants for me - no freaky carb-cutting or eliminating entire food groups or anything.  Just getting fruits and veggies,  exercising, reading scriptures, getting rest and being accountable for what you're eating.  So now I'm happily floating in the middle of the healthy weight range, can see the muscles on my arms for the first time in my life and loving it!  Well, I wish my jeans fit, but that probably won't happen no matter what size I am.  The joy of being tall and having a butt.  Anyway, I'm excited to have a reason to declutter this round.  I've been able to clean out my craft/laundry room again and we're all working on the garage currently.  I'd like to park a car in there just for kicks!

We're also working on getting rid of our baby stuff.  Oh, my, that is hard!  It's so hard to admit you're done with babies.  I miss them desperately.  I'm just not sure I could do it anymore.  Since I had a worse time after each baby another might put me in the looney bin.  Ah well, four is good!

School is going well.  We're still schooling at home.  I'd love to be able to find a neighborhood school that could accomodate my kids but I have to say there isn't one close by.  I have some great curriculum and my kids love it.  We still do our Friday co-op where they're gone all day.  Ashlyn is doing Art, Writing, History, Science, and Drama.  Nathan is in P.E., Science, Art, Music and Writing.  We do Spelling, History, Math, Writing, Grammar, Science, Scripture Study and they also write in their journals and read independently each day.  I have to say I love the reading time they get!  They finish as early or earlier each day than their public school counterparts but will have read for an hour or so.  They are so lucky! 

Well, off to find some pictures.  Glad you're still with us!