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Wordless Wednesday- Camping for Halloween
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Camping for Fun
As you have probably noticed I have been missing most of the month of October. It has been crazy busy, full of broken things and sickness but this past weekend we escaped it all for a couple of days.
This was a trip we decided we needed in September and the only available weekend or chance for a reality break was based on the football schedule. I am so glad we made it happen! Lesson of the month, if a teenager suggesting getting away as just a family you need to do it.
We left Friday around 11:30 and arrived back in the driveway Sunday around 4pm. But we managed to squeeze lots of fun into a short time. We did not know when we first started planning that Ocean Lakes campground does a “Halloween experience” each weekend in October. We decide immediately to join in. We decorated out campsite and Easton enjoyed trick or treating with probably at least a thousand other kids. I got to spend at least 3 hours sitting on a beach with the sand on my feet and wind in my hair. I needed that refresher, even the need for a blanket in the sun did not damp my enjoyment but it did shorten the length we sat there. We enjoyed a food truck festival and bounce houses on Saturday. A fire pit and smores along with an outdoor movie added to the fun. The cost for this quick getaway was $1106 and I consider it well spent money!
Here is a cost breakdown if you care
Campsite $175
Golf cart $108
Water hose and snacks at campground $82.30
One tank of gas $82.30, this was our fill up at the beach we also had a tank before we left and another just as we got home.
Laundry $25 this was for our beds and towels so that less sand came home with us
Food Truck and bounce house $60
Pizza Lunch on Friday and we enjoyed left-overs all weekend $37.40
Buffet Dinner on Friday $275
Breakfast on Saturday $120
Sunday Breakfast $26
Christmas Mouse $112
As you can see we did ALOT of eating out and we enjoy this as it truly is a treat for us that we enjoy!
Wordless Wednesday- Fall Decorations
This year I have had time and energy to decorate! And it has made me happy!
September in Review
September has been a very long hard and stressful month. We have had multiple small things that have required extra time, money and attention. I am hoping that October is less eventful and expensive. I have had to do some major adjusting to the budget to minimize the impact and I am honestly not sure if I will be successful or not. What I am sure of is that I have a decent plan.
Groceries- Goal $800 per month. We spent $213.33 for the month of September. This met my goal for the month of staying below $300. We have lost 2 of our freezers recently so I am really starting to look at the food budget and using up everything and anything on hand. October will be more expensive due to needing to restock on paper products. I am going to set that goal at $600. I will be making a trip to Costco to restock these items. Other than the Costco trip, I am going to plan to do a Walmart order every 2 weeks at around $40 for perishable items that we need to replace. If we are able to complete this in October than I will reduce the November and December budgets as well accordingly.
Gas- Goal is $400. Total spent was $607.21 for gas this month. This amount does include the trip to Florida. Considering that the price of gas continues to rise we are doing all we can to keep this amount as low as possible. I am likely going to have to increase this to $500 a month for next year.
Blogging-The goal will be 15 posts per month. This is post 12 for me. I am very proud of this number based on my stress level alone.
Debit- The goal for 2026 will be to pay off the Home Depot Credit card without interest. We failed at this. September has been one of the most expensive months I can remember. At this point I am struggling with the budget. My new goal to to make minimal payments and to be able to come up with a solid budget starting in January. God has and does provide.
No Spend Days- Goal for 10 no spend days a month. Total honesty I was able to keep up with this for the first fifteen days of the month. 1 of which was a no spend day. I will try to make this a propriety in the month of October but so far it has not worked.
Health/Exercise-I am a stress eater. September was stressful. Enough said
Foster Care- Our next court date is set for October 20th. For the first time in 9 months, both parents have showed up for 3 visits in a row. This is progress on their part. E is struggling with visits with more aggression after each visit.
Stressful Month- Water Situation
September has been a hard month. It has been a month full of lots of little things going wrong which result in me having to spend all my extra time taking care of the little things and the big things and the normal things and seriously I am just overwhelmed at this point.
In September, we had one freezer die, our refrigerator is acting strange and has been breeding fruit flies that we can’t seem to find where, my car has now been in the shop two weeks including an emergency four hour stop. E has had two visits with his parents that have lasted eight hours or more, Lily moved apartments, Zach had a prank played on him that involved his car and last but not least a water leak.
The house we live in was built in 1976 so it is older and I have lived here for over 30 years so things are going to have to be replaced. We are responsible for the water line that goes from the water meter to the house and all the lines in the house. We have already replaced the entire line from the inside of the house to about 5 foot from the meter. Those last five feet are a pain in the but!
Last Tuesday, Zach noticed a water leak and Matt headed home to check it out and fix it. We first called the water company because if the leak is on the road side of the meter they are responsible. I also knew we had replaced most of the line and the connection on our side was replaced less than five years ago when Matt was out of the country for business. Good news, we thought as the water company came and said yeap it is definitely on our side you are good. We knew it would be several days before they got to it but was not a big deal.
On Monday as we are driving home, Zach calls and says that the water company has dug on the wrong side of the meter. So I call the company and was informed that it was not a mistake but that the leak of 10 galloons an hour was on my side. After three very long and unproductive calls, my frustration peaked and my number was given to the “general manager.” At least this fourth call was productive, the leak was confirmed to have been on my side for at least a week but the water company acknowledged that several mistakes on their side were made. Matt, Zach and I spent several hours outside fixing a pin hole leak. Matt originally fixed the leak fairly easily but as soon as he tossed dirt in it another leak started. I started counting repairs and this stretch had at least 3 previous repairs. We replaced the stretch of pipe and thought all was good but decided to leave the hole open just in case. Matt checked and we still had a small drip the next morning.
Part of my productive conversation with the general manager of the water company include forgiveness for the excessive water that had been leaking in the ground because Matt could have and was planning on fixing the leak last week. A second part was they were finally going to change my name from Green to Abbott. I just flat out refused to spend $50 on a name change even after 23 years. The final part of the agreement was that the general manager was going to come out and make sure that there was not another leak of their side of the meter.
This man kept his word and came out Tuesday morning. He did not find another leak but noticed the drip on our side and asked if they could repair it. Sure. Not only did they repair it but the replaced the entire stretch of line including new pipe and fasteners. This was a small gesture that makes me very thankful and relieves a huge amount of stress from us!
Trip Budget
I did not post a menu plan today because we did not arrive home until around 6pm and needed to fix a water leak which will probably be a whole separate post.
When Lily moved to Florida in August, she made a lot of the decision entirely on her own because she is an adult. However the apartment complex she chose did not end up being the best choice. The day of arrival she was notified that the air conditioning was not working. They actually had a temporary unit in the apartment. This problem has continued with resolution. The temporary unit was removed after about two week but the problems continued. An additional problem was her electric bill was the same amount as what we typically pay for our entire house. When the temporary ac unit was removed the outside window was not replaced correctly and could have easily been removed (UNSAFE). The stove did not work for the first three weeks because someone had stolen the electric cord. She also discovered last week that her sliding glass door did not actually lock. All this in addition to this was generally not a safe place for a twenty year old and Paul (her dog) cut his foot by stepping on glass. She made the decision to move and located a better apartment in the center of downtown Orlando! The only problem was she needed to move this past weekend.
Matt, E and I decided to make the trip last Thursday to help her move. We left of Saturday morning, grabbed a U-Haul truck and loaded everything up on Saturday night by 7:30pm. On Sunday, Haley joined us to help her unload everything in the new apartment. We finished around 2 pm, so E spent the night with Lily, Haley went home and Matt and I had a date night at Hollywood Studios.
I knew we wanted to make the trip as economical as possible and I feel like we accomplished it! Matt and I ended up eating at Hollywood’s Brown Derby for dinner on Saturday which was $200. I did not included that in the cost we chose to have a nice dinner which was not necessary but really enjoyed. We also have passes to Disney and parking is included in my pass so that really was our only date expense.
We stayed about 10 minutes from both of Lily’s apartments. The hotel was $148.10 which included a hot breakfast both mornings. It was not the worst hotel and not the best but I would definitely stay there again if needed. It was a short 25 minute drive to Hollywood Studios.
Total spent on gas $143.90 and we used a variety of discounts and did not pay over $4 a galloon with the national average is $4.19.
Food minus our dinner was $164.67
Miscellaneous expenses weare $312.23 which included a wagon for Lily, two new beach chairs that sit up high that I found on sale and two new shirts.
Total for the 3 day trip including extra spending was $769.00 I am super proud of this number!
Monday Menu Post
We had our second freezer stop working properly last week. Luckily were were able to plug up the electric cooler and set it to freeze and only lost a couple of items which are really not lost as they went to feed the chickens. We are currently looking at our budget to decide how quickly we need to replace it. The problem comes in when we make a Costco trip and need space for convivence items. I was able to make a batch of spaghetti sauce on Saturday which we used for two meals and I canned two more jars.
Breakfast- Saturday-Banana bread Sunday- Sausage Crestant rolls Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday–We have alot of breakfast leftovers from our Sunday dinner. This was planned and should make the week much easier. Find it (oatmeal, omelets, cereal and milk, sausage, pop-tarts ,cereal bars, pancakes and eggs).
Lunch- Saturday- meatballs, Sunday-NC Cancun(Weherley’s choice) Monday, Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday, Friday- Leftovers or salad.
Dinner- Saturday- Spaghetti and meatballs Sunday- Breakfast for dinner Monday-Cheesy Taco Potatoes Tuesday BBQ chicken legs and baked beans , Wednesday- Cheeseburger pizza Thursday- Chicken pie Friday- chicken nuggets
Season of Life
I have fully embraced the idea that each season of life is different. I also realize that although each season has some hard parts some of just hard overall. This season of foster care is much harder than I would every have anticipated. But at the same time I am seeing the huge difference and gains that are being made. Today I am going to share somewhat random thoughts about it. Let just say up front these are my opinions and thoughts,
- This summer we used paper plates EVERY day! It was a simple way to keep up with the dishes and not add one single thing to my to do list. This week we ran out of paper plates and I *think* that at this point we can start using the regular plates again however this may change when life starts to overwhelm again.
- This is a quote from Kendall’s special education text book and it is the most accurate description of what we have seen “Following Kanner’s initial research on autism, many researchers focused on inappropriate or bad parenting as a case of autism…. speculated that during their child’s infancy some parents, particularly mothers, withheld affection or exhibited extremely negative feelings toward their son or daughter: consequently the youngster retreated into a autistic “empty fortress.”
- E has been sleeping through the night with only a few exceptions since moving to his new room. Even the times of waking up have not resulted in me losing more than an hour of sleep! THIS IS HUGE
- E is beginning to eat a little more. Just this weekend he ate banana bread and a meatball. Although the struggle is still very much a struggle. It is an improvement.
- He is consider to be at or above grade level. We are in the process of discharging all EC services. The down side to this is that we will have to find private speech services and likely a play therapist. But at this point we can’t fit into the schedule on a regular bases
- Trimming is his nails is the most traumatizing event! I am honestly at my wits end!
- DSS had E approved for SSI, I am not sure what this means as far as long term but for the short run, it will pay for after school care instead of me paying half.
- E LOVES camp Manna and ask to stay longer and more days!
Friday Night Wordless Wednesday
Saving on Saturday
This week I was a lot slower than normal due to having a cold! I spent some extra time asleep today but I was still able to accomplish a couple of things that I wanted to share.
First up I collect a gallon of tomatoes from the garden. We really enjoyed the pizza sauce that I made last Saturday so I decided to repeat the process. I used about a gallon and half of tomatoes (filled up my casserole crockpot) add some fresh oregano and basil along with a 1/2 cup of lemon juice and a tablespoon of sugar. This sauce turned out perfect! I was able to can up 11 additional pints for future use! I went ahead and made a fresh crust but with the ingredients all out I also made and froze two additional crust which will be nice for using during the school year.
I can tell the garden is coming to a close. So I have decided to go ahead and plan for next year. I had purchased a small green stalk planter on sale in the spring. We used dirt from a garden bed that is currently behind the green house. This is a bed that is out of sight and out of mind so we will be moving it this fall. I am going to use this small green stalk for attempting lettuce and spinach this fall and in the early spring.. I actually received a packet of arugula seeds that I started on the top row. I also purchased two additional tops for my green stalk planter during the sale they had last week.
I did some research as to what type of garlic, spinach and lettuce would grow best in my area. One of the big reasons is that I have had very limited success with this in the past so I decided to try something new. I placed an order for all three things so we shall see if they work.
I am attempting to lower the grocery budget significantly during the final four months of the year. I would love to keep this month September to less than $200. I went through and skipped most of my subscribe and save order for the month. So far including the Amazon I have spent $106 for the month. We are starting to run low on paper products so a trip to Costco will likely occur around the first week of October which will mean at least a $500 budget for October.
EVERY BIT COUNTS!