Simple Woman's Daybook 3/9

Outside my window...  We are getting some "spring" showers today. Going to be rainy and gloomy. 

I am thinking...  how "interesting" raising boys is. They are hyper, yet fun!! 

I am thankful for... awesome resources that I find. It sure makes things run smoothly

I am wearing... light blue PJ's pants, a PJ shirt and slipper socks. 

I am remembering...  7 Kids die in PA Housefire  This just happened today. I don't know this family, but this is a huge tragedy. I pray God will comfort this family!

I am creating... I have some projects in mind, just have to get on the ball and get them accomplished.

I am going... to church for Mid-Week Activities.

I am reading.... lots of great library books(see right sidebar). I love reading blogs also. Just picked up a series of books by Lisa Wingate from the library. 

I am hoping... that our tax refund will be deposited in the next week or so.

On my mind... budgeting our tax refund in my mind and going over needs and a few "wants". 

From the learning rooms... Doing our regular studies this week!

Noticing that...  Produce Prices are coming down

Pondering these words... 

Proverbs 16:3

Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established.

I know that my plans are not always God's plan. By committing "my plans" to the Lord he will work out every detail much better then I can. 

From the kitchen...  Here is our Menu Plan for 3/6-3/12

Around the house... Nothing much going on. We will be gone much of the day today. 

One of my favorite things~  StumbleUpon   I have been using StumbleUpon for about 2 1/2 yrs and I love it!! It is a neat way to find sites according to your interests, just with a click of a button. For those not familiar with StumbleUpon check out this StumbleUpon Tutorial. Things I like about StumbleUpon: Social Networking, Bookmark Manager, discovering new and cool sites. 

A few plans for the rest of the week:  Today we have Mid-Week Activities at church. We are stopping at a local library on our way to church. We don't have many plans for the remainder of the week. 

A picture to share:

Homemade Fruit Smoothies

Simple Woman's Daybook 3/9

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Works for Me Wednesday

A couple months ago I made the switch to Blogspot blogging platform. I had 3 different blogs: 2 at Homeschoolblogger and 1 at Xanga. HSB made some changes last summer and it made it less friendly to customize the blogs nicely. Xanga has been good, but I wanted more to my blog that I just couldn't do at Xanga. So I combined my blogs into one and made the switch to Blogspot. I didn't import any of my stuff over, just started anew! 

I found some great resources along the way as I was setting up my blog to "fancy" it up! I had an idea of how I wanted my blog and through doing some "Googling", I found great tutorials, templates, backgrounds,buttons and more. I was thinking I would have to pay a blog designer to design my blog the way I wanted it, but I didn't have to. It was all FREE via the resources I found. 


Many resources I found led to other great resources and so on and so on. 

Here are the wonderful resources I found:

Beautiful Blog Designs has great FREE Templates and Tutorials. 

I was led to LeeLoublogs from the above resource. LeelouBlogs is by far my favorite FREEBIE for templates and backgrounds. Make to read about the difference between a template and background The template comes with lots of "Fun stuff" and a background is just a "background". You can install both, as I did, but there is a slight difference. I like the Template because it comes with Post Dividers, Favicon, Sidebar Title Dividers, Blog Header and more. A Background is just that a background design. 

Beautiful Blog Designs and also Simply Blog it Backgrounds both have a nice list of Blogs where you can find free templates and backgrounds. Some are the same on both lists, but there are lots of options! 

Some of my favorite were/are: 
Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates
Hot Bliggity Blog
Dotty Dot Dot
BlogaholicDesigns

I really wanted to have a Navigation Bar at the top. This would allow readers to jump to all the posts of a particular "label". In order for the posts to appear when a reader clicks on a particular catergory, you must add a "label" to your post when posting. I found a great tutorial that was very easy to follow and got me the resulted I wanted:
Creating a Navigation Bar or Menu Tabs

I recently added the current navigation bar with the drop down menu. I used this tutorial to create a Horizontal Drop Down Menu Navigation This type of bar allows for subcategories to drop down in menu when you hover or click on the menu category. 

Do you want others to promote your blog on their blog? I found a really nice and easy tutorial about creating "Grab the button".  Creating a Blog Button

Sneaky Momma Blog Design has tons of tutorials for all levels of bloggers. 


Do you post personal pics on your blog and don't want them "captured" for use elsewhere on the net? I personally make slideshows for my blog when posting lots of pictures. Although, when I am posting only a couple of pictures, I create a watermark on my pictures before posting to identify that the pic is mine. I use this tutorial:
Creating Watermarks on Pictures

Do you post a lot of recipes on your blog or other things that readers might want to print? Want to make it "Printer Friendly". Here is a great tutorial on Adding a Printer Friendly Button to each post. 

Want a "signature" to automatically post with each new post? I used this tutorial to Create a Signature for my posts

Tired of the same old fonts? Want something different? I used this list to change some of the "font family" on my blog: Font Family List


Want to know how many visitors you are getting on your blog and your blog stats? BraveNet has lots of great tools and widgets for your blog.  

Some other neat sites I found that could be useful for designing your blog:

Blogger Tricks

Spice Up Your Blog

Blogger Buster

Beautiful Blog Design Tutorials

It didn't take me a lot of time to get my blog the way I wanted and I am really content with my blog look and design and I did all for FREE!! I can now update and change my blog around when I want and "fancy it up" with any cost whatsoever!! I would enjoy seeing some "newly designed" blogs if anyone uses any of this info!!! 



For more great hints and tips visit Kristen over at We are THAT Family.

Works for Me Wednesday

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AHHHH, Spring Produce prices!

A sure sign that Spring is just around the corner is when I can go to the Fruit Market and the prices are much lower! We love our fresh fruits and veggies in this household, but in the winter it seems we eat less variety because the prices are just too expensive. A weekly staple in our house is grapes, but in the winter we barely have any because prices can reach $3/lb.

Today was shopping day for the week and I went to 3 different stores: Aldi's , a local Fruit and Meat Market called Familia Foods and Super Tony's. The 3 stores are all within 6 blocks of my apartment.

First stop was Aldi's for our weekly "basics". I then headed over to Familia Foods where I "scored" on some Fruit, Veggies and Deli Meat.

I purchased 7 California Oranges @ .39¢/lb, 8 Honey Tangerines @ .49¢/lb, 6 Granny Smith Apples @ .49¢/lb, 6 Red Delicious Apples @ .79¢/lb, 4 Tomatoes @ .59¢/lb, 2 Cantelopes @ .59¢ each, 1 3lb bag of Yellow Onions @ .99¢, 35 Loose Bananas at .10¢ each, 2 lbs of Polish Ham @ $1.99/lb, Quesadilla Cheese @ $2.49/lb, 1 box of Frosted Flakes @ $2.50(for hubby). Here are some pics of the fruit!

  

I purchased 20 bananas that were "over ripe" so we can make some Banana Bread and Banana Muffins. 15 bananas are just right for eating, and we will snack on those!

I headed over to Super Tony's where I purchased some Deli meat and cheese from the Deli counter, some Paczki's @ .59¢ each, Grapes @ .88¢/lb and Oreos(for hubby).

I am super excited to see the low prices on Fresh Fruit and Veggies. I can start making my 2x a week run to the fruit market. We eat a ton of fruit and veggies from March until October, we eat less after October due to the prices being so high. I make sure they get fruit and veggies in other forms though.

Now I just have to wait on Whole Seedless Watermelon to get down to about $4 a watermelon. I won't spend more then that on a Whole Watermelon, but I love love love watermelon!

Yummo Yummo Yummo Spring Produce!!

AHHHH, Spring Produce prices!

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Menu Plan Monday

I am happy to report that we have used most of our freezer stuff the past couple of weeks and didn't sway too much from our menu plan. Lunch seems to be the meal that we still tend to sway from. I am "reusing" 2 of the lunch plans from last week because we didn't use them last week. Also, if you get a chance read my post on Homemade Fruit Smoothies to see how we were successful in freezing and using oranges in our smoothies.

I will be doing the weekly grocery shopping this afternoon when hubby gets home from work and this week I will need to "stock up" since we used our freezer stash.

Here is our menu plan for this week:
(The words on the document in blue are clickable recipe links)
Weekly Menu Plan 3/6-3/12


For more great recipes and menu plans visit: Organizing Junkie. 

Menu Plan Monday

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Homemade Fruit Smoothies

Fruit Smoothies are a favorite here in our household. We usually have them for breakfast at least once a week and for snacks a couple times a week.

I buy a 5lb bag of Frozen Strawberries and  from either Sam's Club or Costco once a month. I purchase Mixed Berries and Mixed Frozen Fruit in smaller bags from Aldi's about once a month. We had been stuck in a rut of just Strawberry Smoothies until I came up with an idea about 18 months ago for freezing our own fruit. I personally like bananas for smoothies, but no one really sells Frozen Sliced Bananas anywhere. I purchased a couple bunches of bananas from the produce store and peeled, sliced and bagged them. We froze them and used some in smoothies the next day and it worked wonderfully that we have been doing this every since. I really like the "Frothy" ness of frozen bananas, they are much more creamier then regular bananas. I also like the added benefit of not having to use ice in our smoothies. The Frozen fruit is your "ice".

A couple months ago, Nathan(7yr) began asking me if we could make orange smoothies. I finally got around to buying oranges this past week when I found them on sale for .39¢/lb.

I purchased 9 oranges. I peeled and sectioned them and put them in quart sized bags. We froze them for a couple of days. Today we made some orange smoothies and  !!! They are ohhh so good! We are going to try Strawberry Orange and other varieties using orange very soon!

A friend of mine shared with a fabulous link for tons of smoothies recipes: Smoothie Web. I really like Smoothie Web because there are so many different recipes for smoothies and they are all categorized very nicely! I am going to start sneaking in Flax Seed into our smoothies for added nutrition!

A few weeks ago while at Bed, Bath, and Beyond  I came across something that every household should have . I found a 50ct. bag of Milkshake Straws for $1.99. I like the fact that they are thick and round and also reusable!

Homemade Fruit Smoothies are one of our favorite things. I am so thankful to my 7yr old for thinking about Orange smoothies and that I was able to freeze the ones we purchase at the Produce store!

Homemade Fruit Smoothies

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Yearly Eye Exams

Today was "that time of year" for yearly eye exams for all 3 boys! We have been going to Illinois Eye Institute for the whole family for about 5 yrs now. Illinois Eye Institute is part of the Illinois College of Optometry, so the examining Drs. are Residents and then they are followed up by the Attending. They are very very through in their exams and each exam takes about 60-75 minutes.  

The boys all were scheduled for 9am. Harlin(hubby) had the day off of work and that is why we scheduled them for today. He went in with Daniel, I went in with Nathan(because I understand Nathan's vision issues best) and Joshua went in a room next door so we were "room hopping" checking on him for awhile. Daniel, 6yr, he has no vision issues, yet. I am sure down the line he will, seeing as almost everyone on both sides has vision issues.

Nathan, 7yr was diagnosed with Convergence Excess in Oct 2009. He was prescribed Bi-Focals in March 2010 and has been wearing Bi-Focals since June 2010. I can honestly say it has not only helped his vision but his behavior issue also. Nathan "appeared" to have all the signs and symptoms of ADHD, but "mommy instinct" kept kicking in and saying that wasn't the issue. I had been noticing his eyes were never focused properly and he could "cross" his eyes to the center in a spilt second LITERALLY.  I was very happy that he was diagnosed with Convergence Excess. I also found this blog about a boy who was diagnosed with Convergence Insufficency(the direct opposite, but very much associated "sister" to Convergence Excess). The mom describes how her son was diagnosed with ADHD only to have a vision issue diagnosis 2yrs later. The mom soon discovered that a child with an issue of Convergence of the eye, can and will seem like they have ADHD. The reality is though, that the vision issue is the cause of this because of the inability to literally FOCUS. Focus their eyes/vision and not their brain. I can see now how the Bi-Focals have truly helped Nathan. I know that if he were in the Public School system he would have been "labeled" ADHD a long time ago. I am so glad I trusted my instincts and kept up with his eye exams. I am also very grateful to the very through eye exams and the great Eye Care Drs. at IL Eye Institute!! Nathan did very well today at his exam. He didn't need a change in prescription but we did pick out new frames and he will be getting a new pair of glasses soon.

Joshua, 8yr old, was also diagnosed today with Convergence Excess. His condition is not as drastic or noticeable as Nathan's. He was also prescribed Bi-Focals, up from just having Reading Glasses for the last year. He picked out frames also today. For now he is to continue wearing his reading glasses as before.

I wised up from last year. I allowed Nathan to pick out hard plastic frames last year and we have had so much trouble with those frames. I told them that this year they needed to pick out steel frames with the flexible hinges. They both found some really nice frames that will look great on them! The only drawback to getting glasses from IL Eye is that there is usually a 2-3 month wait to get the glasses back because the high amount of orders they do from there and because they send them out to a place that has a back log of orders a lot. We don't mind the wait, as IL Eye is an amazing place!!

Harlin and I will be going for our exams near the end of the month. We have to schedule on different days as they dilate adult eyes so the one not getting examined has to be the driver home.

I am very glad for a wonderful place for Eye Care for our family!

Yearly Eye Exams

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Simple Womans Daybook

Outside my window...  The sun is shining beautifully. Although, it is one of those days where "don't let the sun fool you". It is cold out there! 

I am thinking...  about a Supreme Court Decision that came down today. Supreme Court sides with Anti-Gay Funeral Protests  This is very frustrating! I think that our servicemen and women should come before the 1st Amendment. I know that will never happen, but I think it should. 

I am thankful for... the blessings stowed upon us and so we in turn can bless others. 

I am wearing... Blue Jeans, a long sleeve "t-shirt", and gym shoes. Have to run a couple of errands today. 

I am remembering...  Dr. Seuss today! Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

I am creating... Nothing! I don't have any creative juices flowing right now. LOL

I am going... downtown with a friend today and then to church for Mid-week activities.

I am reading.... lots of great library books(see right sidebar). I love reading blogs also.

I am hoping... that all will go well for my friend today at her appointment. It would be financially beneficial to her.

On my mind... budgeting our tax refund in my mind and going over needs and a few "wants". 

From the learning rooms... Doing our regular studies this week!

Noticing that...  my boys have matured and done some amazing things this year! 

Pondering these words... 

Proverbs 16:3

Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established.

I know that my plans are not always God's plan. By committing "my plans" to the Lord he will work out every detail much better then I can. 

From the kitchen...  Here is our Menu Plan for 2/27-3/6

Around the house... Nothing much going on. We will be gone much of the day today. 

One of my favorite things~   I really love books and I really enjoy socializing with other book lovers. Here is a post a wrote about Social Networking for BookLovers. I really enjoy these sites as they are help me with my book choices in the genres I enjoy!

A few plans for the rest of the week:  Today I am going downtown with a friend. We have Mid Week Activities at church today. Thursday all 3 of my boys have Eye Dr. Appts at the Illinois Eye Institute at 9am. We are visiting my parents who live only blocks from IL Eye. My dad is taking Danny to Superior Nut and Candy. He couldn't enjoy the candy a couple weeks ago when his brothers went, so he gets his turn now! No plans for Friday and Saturday morning I have to take my 7yr old to church for Spark O Rama practice. No plans for the afternoon yet!

A picture to share:

My Reading Area

Are you a blogger? Go on over to the  Simple Woman's Daybook and join the blogging and read what others are doing!

Simple Womans Daybook

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