online journal

Ok well my last post was over a month ago so who knows if I can do a better job of posting on here. But I was told after the events of yesterday that I should keep a journal to see how God works in this situation so I thought instead of hiding that I would share it with my few followers. If you don't know Kjell lost his job yesterday (well his contract is not renewed for next year so it's not like he is no longer working or getting paid we are getting paid through August) However it was a blow the superintendent did not know it was coming and neither did either of the principals. This is so hard to have to go through again because Kjell is a good teacher. Read any of the reviews his principal handed to the board. It comes down to small town politics and probably in this situation jr high girl's basketball coaching. Was he a horrible coach- with a 10-4 record winning the Meade tournament and taking 3rd at the league tournament that is very hard to say was a bad season. I was impressed the year went as well as it did it was to be a rebuilding year and although it wasn't to the caliber of KU's run.... it was a great season.

I do believe I have entered the stages of grief bouncing back and forth between them, yelling in anger, crying and wondering what will happen, and the rare occasion this morning where I felt like I had a guerrilla on my chest and I needed a paper bag to breath. To waking up hoping it was all a bad dream to being at peace and knowing that God is bigger than this school board or any other school board for that matter. And that God knew the day we went to Minneola that it was for a two year period. Sometimes I just wish God would give us a little bit clearer fore-site. The hardest part for me right now is we just bought a van, we own a house and we are going on a missions trip in June.... All good things but I am just scared to know what comes next.

But let me tell you one thing. Kjell is a man who can handle this. He is able to just let things roll off of him and he's not worried about anything. He just keeps saying God has a better place for us, a better school for us. So I will believe him and trust God for what is to come. It's not like we haven't been in this place before. We are looking at jobs in Kansas but are also exploring options of overseas teaching/missions. We were looking into the overseas stuff this past year but were not thinking we would be given the opportunity to explore it in depth this quickly. God is good all the time. All the time God is good. Now if someone could just bring me a small brown paper bag I think everything will be ok. :)

new van= spending freeze??

Ok so when we decided to give up spending for lent we knew we MAY be purchasing a van. We had just found out the tires we had just put on about two years ago were needing replaced and there was a big leak somewhere under our van in the garage every day so we knew it was time to either get something newer or end up putting a lot of money back in our van. WHICH we just did last year (almost 1000 dollars worth) We were tired of spending money on a vehicle that we just didn't feel was going to make that many more miles. So we started looking and in less than a week found a vehicle in our price range (under 20K ) in our milage range (under 60K) and in our brand (aka NOT an american made car, I know I know but to me foreign cars get about 150,000 more miles that was enough for me!) So needless to say last Friday we went to Hutch and traded in our old clunker for a 2007 Honda Odyssey. So far I have loved it! It runs without hiccuping in the middle of trying to accelerate (they told us our transmission was on the way out, wether that was true or just a ploy so our trade in value was almost nothing we will never know) But it's not our problem anymore.

Since the date of our purchase we HAVE NOT SPENT any money on our credit card. We typically use our CC for everything and pay off the balance each month. It is not for us to buy whatever we want but we have found a card that gives us between 1% and 5% back on all purchases so why wouldn't I want to make money by spending it! So how have we survived? Well we went to Pizza hut and used a gift card, we needed a few things from the grocery store and we used a debit card I had gotten from taking a few surveys. That card has been nice but it only has about 16 dollars left on it. We will see how long we can stretch that!

I have still been pondering how not spending money is getting my relationship better with God. I still wonder a bit about that but I guess it has helped me be resourceful and content with what I have. I get more excited when I find a recipe I can make with what I have in my house. (we have yet to settle with beans and rice rice and beans!) I've actually cooked more which is interesting. I do think us giving up spending is going to effect us more in the future. Because we are going to pay off our debts a bit faster by not spending unnessicarily. And then we will be able to give more of our money away once we have paid off our loans.

Just another thing if anyone ever needs any money help I love to help people I see it as a game (an important game) I'd love to help anyone. when you are in debt you are a slave to whoever you owe. I wish there were more free people in this world. I wish I could get ahold of our governments money. Man how hard is it to not spend what you don't have. If they can't be a good example how can they expect their citizens to make wise decisions? ok ok getting off of my soap box!

Problems already!!!??

I should have known! Of course as soon as I say we are going to give up spending money I mean the very hour after I ask Kjell if this is ok and we decided to go for it, I remember I have a party this weekend. I won another house party and I get to spend my Saturday morning with a lot of little kiddos and their parents learning the "potty dance" guess it is supposed to help with potty training. The packets the parents get are pretty sweet. Each kid get a little blow up guitar and a DVD to learn the dance. Plus coupons for a lot of Huggies pull up products. Anyways I forgot I hadn't gotten food, or napkins/plates for this yet. I so would have gone out and bought them before like the DAY before but I didn't. Then I remembered that some friends had given me their formula coupon checks to sell on ebay and I had earmarked 12 dollars in my paypal account to use for one of my parties. I had planned on minimal snacks (we are talking 18mo -2 1/2 year olds I don't want clean up to take five hours) so I think I can handle it. Then we wanted to charge our camera and after searching for literally five hours we still can not find it, and it's like a flat square only in sony camera's batteries. So we decided we would look for one on amazon (yes from surveys I have over 50 dollars in "gift cards" on my amazon account.) Who knew we could get a cheap one for under five dollars.

I am still trying to figure out how these two events have shown much of a growth or more communication with God (although I was praying hard we would find that dumb battery charger) but I know we still have a lot of days left. I have had fun cleaning out the freezer so far with meals. That too though I am wondering how long it will all last. We have enough but we could be pretty bare when we are done. That is fine some of our food probably needs to be eaten as it has been in our house for a LONG time.

Don't forget to comment on my facebook post with the blog or on here with what you gave up for lent- if nothing just put "nothing" as your comment to enter! I will draw three winners tomorrow afternoon!

Lent

Ok first off I am not Catholic- second I have never given anything up for lent, but I do really value the true meaning (from what I have gathered) of what lent means. Giving something up so that there is more time to spend with God. I think it's not supposed to be so much about losing something and thinking about it all the time but giving up something that is pretty important and see how God works through you not doing it for forty days. With that said Kjell and I are giving up something for lent. I had the idea today and I have been praying about it and since I was woken up by fear and worry at 5:15 I have had a lot of time to pray and think about this. We just changed the loan on our house to get it paid off in six years rather than seven (which means we have to pay more per month but we will be knocking a year off of the loan) we need a new van and since Kjell and I are both going to Sweden we need over 4,000 dollars and he sent his support letter out before we knew I was going! So yeah so yeah I'm worrying about the 70K I do not have.

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't like to spend money. I'm not the fun one at the party you are hosting who spends a whopping amount of money. I dread the thought of girl scouts coming to my house. I only shop when there are sales and I still wear most of the clothes my mom bought me in highschool. Most (basically all) of my kids' clothes are handmedowns, or gifts from either my mom who is the queen of store sales or Kjell's mom who is the queen of the garage sales.

With that said I am planning on a 40 spending freeze. We have done spending freezes in our family before. We usually do it January because we just came through Christmas and we don't have any family birthdays until mine in April. But our freeze goes something like this. "oh we can get General Mills cereal for 1.50 a box that is SUCH a good deal." 20 bucks later we just ended our spending freeze but stocked up on some items we always use in our house. Nope this time it is all hard core. The credit cards will cover GAS only. Which there will be need since Kjell drives over 40 miles every day. I will probably end up throwing most of the sale ads away so I am not even tempted. I will give us 25 bucks cash each week because there will be some groceries we will need that won't last that long (yogurt) Some people may wonder how we can do this. I do want to say that we do qualify for WIC so we will be having those groceries to get us through the month (milk, eggs, cheese, cereal beans) without this we would probably need more for groceries. However that being said minus the milk we could probably make it without because of all my stockpiles from good deals. Plus we have about 30 gift cards that would like to be used so if we need to we can use them.

So that is it. We will still be paying all of our normal bills plus tithing it's not like there will be no money leaving our account. We will still be doing the usual things, but there will be NO extra spending. How do I tie this money break in with getting closer to God. 1) I will have to trust Him more and I won't be as focused on stuff. 2) I want to be a good steward of HIS money- and I hate having debt. If we know someone in need I want to be able to help them however I can but we can't since we have a loan. I know most people would disagree with me but I HATE having a house loan even if it's a "good loan" anytime I owe someone else money I can not see that as a good thing even though my mortgage company is the best.

So in honor of this I am going to do a giveaway. I have three coupons for a free bottle of Purex all you have to do is leave a comment on my wall saying what you are giving up for lent. If the answer is nothing reply with the word "nothing" Sound good? hope you guys remember what the meaning of this season is. Can you imagine being back in Jesus's time and getting to spend these next 40 days with him. WOW. Easter is the most important holiday we have because if Jesus never rose from the dead- it was just a good story.

Infant's Advil

I got a new product to try out just in time for Karis getting teeth! It is infant's advil. I have used this product in the past because Kiah used to always get such high fevers and Tylenol never would bring her fevers down but Advil would. Here is a link to check out the product. And if you are interested in buying it just let me know I have ten dollar off coupons to give away. I just want to give them to people who will actually use them. Check out the website here.

Purex UltraPacks

Are you looking for a non messy- so easy your child could do it laundry detergent? Ok so this is my third review on Purex products in the last several weeks. Yes December really was like Christmas with all of the products Purex sent to my house (thanks to them!) I had heard of these a bit on their web page and was super excited to get to try them out. My little ones love to "help" with laundry and usually the detergent is the WORST part, two kids fighting over who gets to put the detergent in usually ends with more out of the machine than in it. So I was excited to try the New Purex Ultra packs. If you have ever used the little liquid packets you put in your dishwasher you know about what they are like. Except they are thinner- the first time I touched one it scared me I was sure I was going to pop it! Now after using them for a couple of weeks I still have not popped one so feel they are a bit thicker than the look. All you have to do is throw one of these in the barrel of your washing machine and done ( bigger loads may need two) I thought they did a great job washing my clothes and I LOVED the ease of just tossing them in ( or the kids tossing them in.) Keep watching my blog because there were be FREE coupons for this product as well. I don't know how many coupons they will send so I will post the giveaway at a later time!

Purex provided a free sample of their UltraPacks laundry detergent so I could write a review. However, all the opinions expressed here are my own.

Purex Crystals!

So Purex has been crazy busy sending me products to try. This last one had a double fun surprise it came with a Jockey terry performance sports bra! The product that I got to try this time is Purex Crystals. I would compare them to downy's unstoppables I didn't think they added as much scent as the Downy ones but I did like them. And my guess is in the store they will be much cheaper. You put the little crystals in your washing machine and they infuse your laundry with scent and long lasting freshness. I like to use this product on my sheets and my towels mostly because it really makes them smell good. They have three scents, lavender blossom, fresh spring waters, and tropical splash (which is the one I got to try) The product is "better" than fabric softener on your wicking fabrics because it doesn't have oil in it so the wicking product will continue to work! Jockey has a deal for my readers too you can get your own sports bra and get a 20% off coupon by following me link. Not only did I get to try this but I get to give these two products to one of my readers. I can't wait to see who wins! Just comment on this blog or on my facebook link and I will let you know on Saturday who the winner is (entries can be entered until Midnight friday night)

jockey and purex provided free samples of their products so I could review them. However all the opinions expressed here are mine