I am starting to feel like my old self again today. What's more, the nephews seem to have had an attitude adjustment and are behaving better today, which makes my attitude far better as well. DS and I got through our homeschooling by eleven. I am thinking of buying a science program to hold us over until WAVA gets its act together, but I don't know if I want to have the expense. I am thinking I might be able to put something together from the library. Maybe pick something I know a lot about like coral reefs and make up a unit study on it.

After that I worked on the budget, paid bills, and entered everything into the spreadsheets. Here's what went out of today's payday:

$300.00 to pay back the Freezer Fund
_375.86 mortgage
__46.00 allowances for two weeks
_757.82 car payment (plus extra principal)
_300.00 dental (finally paid off crowns)
__10.59 medical DS
_100.00 propane fund
_100.00 property tax fund
_100.00 Mac Book fund
_100.00 vacation fund
__17.00 HoA dues fund
_300.00 Cash for sustainably raised meat purchase
_587.39 Fashion Bug (in full)
_100.00 Chase (no interest)
__64.30 BoA MC (in full)
__41.16 ADT security system monitoring
-------------
3300.12 money out

I've got a couple hundred dollars left in checking after this. It is earmarked for groceries.

Fashion Bug was a one time purchase of back to school clothes for my daughter and clothes for me. I haven't been shopping since I lost the 50 pounds so I ended up buying a few things while we were there. I paid this in full. The only reason I used the card was for the discount.

BoA MC was used because DH accidentally forgot the credit card he uses for day to day purchases one day and only had this one in his wallet. Normally there is no balance on this card. This was paid in full.

Chase is no interest for 18 months and we transferred a good chunk of what was on the BoA Visa onto it with the plan of paying off the BoA Visa while taking advantage of the Chase intro rate.

I went ahead and fully paid back the freezer fund from the money I borrowed from it last month to pay for medical, I think it was.

I took out $300 for our trip to the sustainable, organic farm tomorrow. I will be buying our month's supply of beef and pork. Any money left over will go into the freezer fund.

I am still really wiped out today. I am not sure why as I feel like I got enough sleep, but I just feel like a zombie.

My nephews are driving me crazy. Well, the younger one is the worst. He's being extremely disrespectful to my daughter. He also brought some video games with him that are rated M and are basically those games where you just murder people, including hookers and drug dealers. I told my son he couldn't be up there with them while they were playing those games. I am shocked that my sister is letting her kids even play those games considering how conservative she is about things.

My nephews also decided it would be fun to go lay down in the middle of the street after dark last night. It was still early, just dark. My son's no longer allowed to go outside with them unless my daughter or an adult is there. My son was pretty much freaking out when they did this last night, but he didn't tell me last night. He told me today. I kind of thought my twelve-year-old would be safe with them since they are 15 and 18, but clearly he is not.

I knew that my mother was going to invite them down and then basically ignore what they were doing and all this was going to fall on me to take care of them and my kids to entertain them. It's what she always does. I really did not want them here during the first week of school as it would make things really hard on us. I told her she should have invited them in the summer and when DH was home to help, but of course that would have inconvenienced my sister (who is supposed to be homeschooling the youngest right now). And heaven forbid we ever inconvenience my sister.

Well, I'm not taking up the slack this time. I am too tired and sick to deal with them so basically my kids and I are staying in our wing of the house and leaving them to their own devices. When they came down here whining about being hungry I told them to go tell their grandmother as she's in charge of them, not me. Or to *gasp* make their own food. They're certainly old enough. And Mom bought them enough junk food to feed an army, including a bunch of stuff that my son likes but is allergic to.

I will be so glad when they go home. It's times like this that I hate living here. Most of the time I'm okay with it, but right now it's all just making me so irritable. I am so glad that our house will be done in about two more weekends and then we can put the thing on the market and hopefully it will sell and we can buy a new house and get the heck out of here.

Adjusting to the new school schedule hit me hard today and I was ready to go to sleep at 5:30. *yawns* Hopefully DS won't give me any grief about going to bed tonight. He's been yawning for the last few hours. I've got a few financial tasks I need to do, but am too tired to do today. I'm afraid I'd screw up entering stuff into the spreadsheets.

I spent $90 on medical today. I was tempted again to get takeout, but really wanting to meet this challenge of no takeout in September is helping me to overcome that temptation. So far I am 5 for 5 on cooking at home this month.

I made the lasagna today and an extra one for the freezer. I have found that the hassle of making lasagna means I should always make a double batch because it's just so much work that only making one is not worth it.

WAVA is still not on top of things. I may end up saying screw it and putting together my own curriculum after all if they don't get their collective heads out of their collective backsides. We've faxed them everything they claim they needed and gotten confirmation of these things and then they turn around and claim they never got them, even with copies of the confirmation letters sitting in our hands. And you can't get through to them on the phone. It's an hour wait on hold and of course they keep school hours so just try getting ahold of them at any other time of day and you can't. So annoying. If DS didn't like the K-12 program so much I'd not even bother at this point.

/whine

I ended up swapping tomorrow's dinner with today's since my nephews got invited out to my eldest neice's house for dinner. So I'll finish making the lasagne tomorrow. I did chop up all the onions and the garlic for it so that will be one less thing to do tomorrow. So tonight is pizza instead. Doesn't it look scrumptious?



It's been a while since I've costed out a meal so I thought I'd do that with the pizza. This is the same size as an XL specialty pizza from Round Table Pizza which costs $28.17.

$5.99 for nitrate free Canadian Bacon
$0.99 for 1/8 pound of pepperoni
$0.50 worth of leftover homemade spaghetti sauce
$0.00 for a quarter of a red bell pepper from the garden
$0.10 three slices of an onion, cut into strips
$2.00 worth of mozzarella cheese
--------
$9.58 total

Salad is free from the garden
Homemade garlic toast is 15 cents.
Milk is $1.50

The total of the meal is $11.23 or a savings of $16.94 for just the takeout pizza with no salad or drinks. And there will be half a pizza leftover for DS's lunches this week. Pretty good, methinks.

DD had a great time at school today and has lots of friends in her classes and she likes all of her teachers, including the one who is supposed to be an "old hag" according to many students, but DD thought was really sweet. Of course, DD can get along with just about any adult on the planet. Or child for that matter. DD needed a graphing calculator for Algebra 2 and she'll need it next year for pre-Calculus, too. We picked that up after school. It cost $56. Her photo package will be $38.



The first day of homeschool went well with DS. Not that we can do the official stuff because WAVA still hasn't finished the enrollment process or sent us the password. So I'm just doing some general stuff that I've found online and that I'm putting together myself.

I've set spelling words for the week. This is something that will be beyond WAVA anyway, since they don't do spelling at this age. So he did write out all of his spelling words three times and then we went through and defined any he didn't know. We also looked up photos of gazelles so he would know what one looked like since it was one of his words. And so were Connecticut and Argentina so we talked about where those were located and found them on the map.

After spelling we did a math review of prime and composite numbers that I found on IXL. DS got all but one right which is great. Then he did two pages of cursive handwriting practice.

When he had finished that we read the first chapter of Little House in the Big Woods for history/literature. The first chapter covers things like preserving foods for the winter, how they smoked their meat and fish including how they built the smoker, how they braided onions and strung peppers and hung them in the attic, how they dried and set aside both cooking herbs and medicinal herbs.

It talked about how they butchered the pig, but had to wait until it was cold enough out for the meat to stay frozen through the winter. It talked about rendering lard and how they used every part of the pig including the bladder to make a balloon for the kids to play with and how Mary had a real rag doll, but Laura's doll was made out of a corncob (although I think it was really made out of corn husks).

It discussed how Pa went hunting, but sometimes he didn't get anything and that was why when he did get deer or something else big, they would preserve most of it for the winter. It also talked about bringing in the big squashes and pumpkins to keep in the attic and root vegetables to keep in the cellar.

Anyway, I found a UNIT study online for some of the things you can do along with the Little House book including making a cornhusk doll and making your own butter from cream so we might do those things as part of our study if WAVA doesn't get on the ball and send us our password soon. I also found a word search and word unscramble that went along with it, as well as vocabulary lessons based on the book. Like what is a trundle bed, etc.

I'm looking around for some easy science to do, but not terribly concerned with it as it will be easy enough to catch up on. We will start the beginner piano book tomorrow. I'd say the first day went really well.

DD starts school tomorrow. It's so hard to believe she is a junior now! Where does the time go? She is really excited to see her friends. She probably only saw her best friend twice this summer, although they are constantly attached at the fingertips (texting, IMing) and she spent one day at the mall with five or six of them. We've had such a full summer between swimming, gardening, visiting family, getting the house ready for sale, and day trips, that schedules just never seemed to line up.

I'm not sure what we'll be doing for DS's homeschooling as WAVA is so behind on processing stuff that even though they've had all the necessary information for quite some time they haven't issued us our password for getting into the system, and they certainly haven't mailed out the consumable books. I did manage to get a list of the required 7nth grade reading books he has to read 2 of, so if nothing else he can start reading My Side of the Mountain.

I can also print out some standard 7nth grade refresher math work sheets for him to do. And I can find a spelling lesson and have him practice his cursive. Last year in 6th grade at the middle school they did not do spelling at all or have the kids even using cursive. I know it is becoming obsolete but I still think it should be taught. I mean how are people going to be able to read old letters or old documents in the museums if they don't know how to read and write cursive? Not a very interesting curriculum to start with, but what are you going to do? I hope WAVA gets it's act together fast this week. They are really such a good program, but it doesn't work so well when you can't get access to it.

I need to cook up the food for DD's breakfasts and lunches for the week. She eats low carb at those meals as part of her pre-diabetes diet so I do stuff up beforehand because DD and mornings don't mix so well when it comes to cooking. Better for us to do stuff up the day before so she can just heat and eat or pack to take when she's groggy.

She'll be taking sausages and cabbage shreds this week for lunches and for breakfasts she'll be eating a low carb meatloaf (no breadcrumbs) and cucumber slices for breakfasts so that needs to be cooked up before dinner tonight. Or chopped up and sliced in the cases of the cabbage and cucumbers. While I'm cutting and slicing I'll also cut up the broccoli and cauliflower for this week's stir-fry. The carrots and celery can wait until the day as they don't hold as well cut up.

I've got some spreadsheet updating to do tomorrow. Because of the long weekend none of the first of the month autopays go through until tomorrow morning. Then I can update the checkbook.

DD will need her photo money and her ASB and yearbook money this week. ASB and yearbook is $90 together, I think. Not sure on the photo money, but last year it was around $24 for the package we bought. We use the photos as Christmas presents. I'm going to have to arrange something for DS this year since he's homeschooled. Maybe WalMart or Sears. Unless the mall has a photo place again. They come and go so much over the years.

I need to do a little grocery shopping today, maybe spend $30 and then I shouldn't need to spend any money until Friday, which is payday.

Okay, so I've figured out the meal planning for the week. It would be too difficult to work around my nephews, so I'll be making easier, less expensive food than usual as my mother can get very, very lazy about cooking when she invites them here and then they end up making puppy dog eyes at me because they'd much rather have my real cooking than another can of chili and tuna fish or toasted cheese sandwiches.

I can't afford to feed them our nicer cuts of meat from the farm, teenage boys eat too much, especially these two. If I wasn't up to my ears in medical, dental, and vision that had to paid right now and wasn't budgeting our food money so closely I could have managed, but right now I can't. I can spare some hamburger and chicken from the farm as long as there are plenty of starches along with them for the boys to fill up on.

Mom did ask me to make a big pan of lasagne which we'll have for dinner one night and then the boys can eat it for a couple lunches, and she even paid for most of the ingredients for a change, but everything else will probably come out of my pocket. They love my spaghetti. They love my pizza. They don't arrive until Tuesday so I am holding off on my pizza making until later in the week. I am over the craving anyway.

I will be making a lot of bread this week. Double batches each time for certain, because we will need rolls and I'm sure they will still eat a lot of PB&J and tuna fish sandwiches, because they are pretty much constantly eating when they visit.

Monday--
Salmon
Green beans
Fried potatoes
Galia melon

Tuesday--
Lasagne
Homemade garlic bread
Salad
Watermelon

Wednesday--
Pizza with pepperoni, ham, red bell peppers and onions
Salad

Thursday--
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Leftover homemade garlic bread
Cole slaw

Friday--
Chicken and vegetables stir-fry
Egg fried rice
Apples (pear for DS)

Saturday--
Cheeseburgers
Homemade french fries
Cole slaw
Berries

Sunday--
Fried Chicken
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Green Beans
Drop biscuits with homemade jam

It's Day 2 of the September No Eating Out Challenge and I spent a grand total of 2 hours arguing with myself (off and on) about ordering a pizza. *sighs* I did not do it, and I have a roast in the crockpot for dinner and had chili for lunch (even though I really wanted pizza). I have decided that pizza is on the agenda for tomorrow. I will go ahead and make the dough tonight though so all I have to do tomorrow is roll it out. Well, I say roll. I really just push it out with my hands.

Anyway...the applesauce I made yesterday turned out well, though I did end up having to add some more sugar because those apples were really tart still with only a half cup. I ended using a total of 1.5 cups altogether. More than I wanted to use, but far less than what goes into jam. And I don't think anyone wants to eat sour applesauce, so it was the best thing to do. Next time I make it I will do it with different apples than the ones from that tree.

I ended up with 8 half pints. I thought I'd get at least 10. You just never know until it goes in the jars though. Everything processed just fine. I have yet to have a jar not seal properly for me. I have now filled one entire shelf with home canned food, stacked three jars deep. I'll probably start another batch of tomatoes cooking down tomorrow, since I am using one of the crocks for tonight's dinner. I want to make up some mustard this week, too, something slightly spicier than the last batch.

I need to sit down and figure out my meal plan for this week. School starts for DD on Tuesday so I have to plan her school lunches as well. All I know for sure is that tomorrow is pizza.

I don't know what is up with this virus. One day I'm up, the next day I'm down. It's starting to get annoying. Yesterday I took the day off, didn't do anything but make meals. I put off just about everything I could.

Today I still feel out of it, but not nearly so yucky. I did peel up twelve windfall apples, cut them up, and throw them in the crockpot with 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 TBSP of cinnamon. Set it on low and after four hours I'll mash it with a potato masher and then can it. Easy peasy in comparison to most canning projects.



The nice thing about using windfalls is that you are using up apples that are bruised and wouldn't be used for straight eating and wouldn't be able to be stored for later. It's the ultimate in frugality, I think, to take something most people wouldn't even look at twice and make it into something nourishing to feed the family.

Even if you are like me and have huge textural issues with applesauce, you can put it into cakes, brownies, or cookies, and not have to deal with the texture. You will be cutting some of the fat and increasing the flavor. And apple muffins are really delicious.

I reckon this batch will net me 10 to 11 half-pints of apple sauce. Cost to me is about 25 cents for the sugar and cinnamon. Not bad. As for the cost of it in the store, I'm not sure. I think the last time I looked you could buy a quart of regular applesauce for $1.99. I don't know about organic applesauce. Probably twice that. So it's not the huge cost savings that growing organic berries and making jam gives you. But it's still 25 cents of ingredients versus $5 for non-organic and $10 for organic for the same amount. So for me, I chalk this batch up to saving $9.75 and I know exactly what went into it. That's peace of mind.