Changes all around!

Life has been pretty stable and predictable the past 10 months or so.  But everything is about to change again - the life of us traveling nurses! :)  Tonight is our last night in our travel trailer for a spell.  We are taking an assignment (3 months or so) in PA starting the 12th.  I took 2 weeks off to get a handle on my ornament orders.  Well tomorrow we head off to Rochester where we will stay with family for a week.  Then the kids will hang there for an additional week while hubby and I head 5 hours away to PA for orientation.  While there we will settle into a 3 bedroom townhouse!  We are so excited!  It will be sooooo much more room than we have been used to these past 2 years!  We will then of course have to travel back to get the kids at the end of that week and try to settle into a new routine.  Christmas will be close - but we will get a tree and decorate!  After the holidays I will be focusing heavily on their schooling....

Many years ago when I was researching homeschooling, I remember coming across the Charlotte Mason philosophy of schooling - at the time the kids were quite young and I remember feeling it was "too loose" of a curriculum.  I remember just passing it by and moving on.  Well thanks to my very smart sister, I came back to it recently and realized it fit our kids perfectly!!!  It truly embodied how we approach homeschooling with actually more structure than we use.  And right now I can use some structure!  We have been doing ACE paces and they have worked well, but I want my kids to get more out of their education.  I wanted to start slowly - and transition one subject at a time.  But now I will be attacking this head on and breaking new ground right after the new year - something I am very excited about!  I have a lot of planning to do of course but I think I can get it all together before I go back to work.  Once I have everything planned out we should be all set.  It will then be a matter of showing hubby what to do on his days off.  :)  He wants to participate so it will be a matter of writing it all out for him! 

The great thing is I have a bit of a head start - we have a problem with libraries because we are never local people - always from out of town and some libraries charge a fee for non-locals.  So I invested in a NOOK and have started downloading a bunch of books we will need - they have a great Bible interactive app as well!  Even if we continue to travel in apartments, keeping our load of books to a minimum is necessary.  So the NOOK was a great idea.  Now it is a matter of sitting down to write out a schedule - I will try to get a head start with a 3-4 month schedule.  My next goal is a calendar!

Here is our new NOOK.

As for other things - life will change quite a bit - having a "real" fridge and stove and kitchen will completely change the way we shop and cook.  It will save us quite a bit of money and time.  No more grocery shopping 4 times a week.  We figured our fridge and freezer holds about 2 days worth of food on average.  That changes drastically whenever we have a special event like baking pies - at one point I had the flour, sugar, and 20 + apples in the trunk of my car for days!  I made 4 apple pies for Thanksgiving - it took over 6 hours total to make all of them as I could only fit one pie at a time in our oven.  So with a "real" stove I can bring that down to 3 hours!  :)

Anyway life will be crazy, but good these next few weeks - hopefully I remember to take more pictures!  

We will get there....eventually! :)

It's funny isn't it when we find ourselves waiting for the next big thing in our life and realize we are missing the here and now.  Not funny in the haha sense of course, but funny in that life is right there in front of us and we often miss it!  It's like looking out to sea, imagining the adventures you will be taking on a boat and all the new places you will see....then missing the boat. 

Hubby and I are at that point where we are looking too far ahead.  We have so many plans for our land - I often feel like I forget about what is in front of me.  So I stepped back this week and took a good look at myself - not good I must say.  I have of course gained weight (way too much eating the SAD way), our kids are fiesty (though not out of control), our dog has been a hassle, and it just seems like we are stalled on the side of the road.  We are still in NY - we are hoping to get a job in a few weeks in the south somewhere for better weather.  We have been praying for an answer as to where we should go next.  It seems God is still holding out on letting us know.  :)

So I have made some adjustments in the things I CAN control - number one the weight and fatigue had to be roped in.  I went back on a modified Maker's Diet. I still have to work so I must be reasonable.  I have kept an ever so small portion of carbs and dairy in (I mean like 1-2 oz of cheese per day and about 3 bites of potatoes worth + juice).  Not much - but enough to keep my body from severely detoxing.  I cannot afford to be so fatigued from the detoxing - I would not function well at work!  So out came my juicer and it has been such a blessing!  I have read over and over the benefits of juicing, but never did it consistently.  This past week I juiced 4-5 times and I have had more energy than I know what to do with the past few days!  It is amazing!  I know it is not the diet as the diet has always made me feel tired in the first few weeks.  Plus I notice a difference in the kids - they seem peppier if that makes sense.  :)

The dog has been a handful as neither hubby nor I have been consistent with training - never seem to have time!  But hubby got the ball rolling this past week with some serious training and attention.  And BOY has it paid off!  He really is a very good dog - and truly smart.  The past few days I have been working with him and not only is he soooo much calmer, but he listens and obeys!  We still have quite a bit of work to do with him, but overall hubby made a lot of headway!!  

The kids have been busy playing - very little school still as I have yet to clean the book cabinets out.  That is our project for tomorrow.  I realized the kids need a bit more direction with school - I am going to look into some other programs as I feel we need to expand more on learning.  I will keep the PACES, as they work well for all 3 kids, but I want to be more focused with schooling them.  R is going to be 10 next month and he is 1-2 years behind.  He was very slow to start in the reading department.  Now that he is reading, I am very much to blame for not helping him get further.  I have been focusing on too many other things.  My sister is doing the Charlotte Mason method - I may look into that.  I will reasearch a few different methods and see what is going to work best for each of them.  It will be hard with working, but I now seem to have much more energy.  

Currently I am involved in way too many projects.  I am almost done with the scarves.  R's is all done and mine is almost complete.  The girls still like theirs from last year so I may or may not finish theirs.  I started a patchwork crochet blanket with 4 diffferent colors.  I will post pictures when I get about  9 squares done.  That will be my project to finish by next winter!  :)

My other big project is truly consuming a lot of time - however sooo worth it!  Not only do I earn money from it, but it is so neat to truly make people happy over something so simple!  I am Polish and pierogi are a big tradition for holiday dinners.  I made some pierogi ornaments for my mother's pierogi stand at the Buffalo market 2 years ago and they were a hit - never intended to sell them - just made a few to decorate her table tree.  Well people kept asking to buy them - so I made more and ended up selling hundreds of them in a span of 2 weeks - including on Ebay - just before Christmas.  So this year I decided I should make some to earn a little extra money - and I have already sold close to 100 in the past 2 weeks - I went and got a whole bunch more supplies as we are still quite a ways away from Christmas!  I truly enjoy hearing how happy they make people!  


I am still looking into the future - we need to plan for certain things - like planting fruit trees this coming spring, and building a chicken coup on our property.  We still do not know when we are going to settle on the land - it changes all the time - but now we have to wait a bit longer as we felt called to buy the additional lot next to ours.  We prayed for the last 6 months over it.  And now it will be ours soon.  We are all so excited about this!  It is truly a blessing to be able to buy all that land!  

But for now I will focus mainly on my children, their schooling, dog training, and my projects.  I am also focused on eating all natural again and keeping our food costs down.  I bought a 2 qt container today and quite a few pounds of oats.  I am so sick of paying so much money for granola!  I spent 1/2 the price buying bulk organic oats - and mixed together my own granola - oats, raisins (organic bulk is still decently priced), vanilla extract, and maple syrup (all organic).  The kids tried a few bites and loved it!  They have been crying about having eggs almost daily - and I can't stand giving them cereal.  I have not had time to soak oats and grains for oatmeal and pancakes.  So this was a good compromise.  And better on our budget!  Especially now that I am making my own vanilla extract!  It still has 6 weeks to go, but it smells AMAZING!  Can't wait to have our home made vanilla extract! 

The juicing is adding to our budget though :( - it truly is more expensive to be healthier in the short term - however in the long run it truly pays off.  I am just hoping we can get some decent apple trees on our property this spring!  Apples are the base of our juice and get quite pricy when buying large amounts.  But feeling so much better in just a few days time is worth it to me and my whole family.  Berries are another pricy item and frozen berries make for cold juice.  Can't wait to have our own berry bushes!  :)

I will leave off with a few pics:

E going on a hike on the land - possibly our future driveway

Our 1st planned building site

Our new building site - this will be the view from one of our windows!

Scarves to keep the kiddos warm!

Pierogi ornaments