My thoughts on toilet paper

Now I realize that this post is not deep or spiritual in nature like my last one - but I have to share my recent experience.

When I went to the grocery store about two weeks ago, I saw that the "family" size of Scott Extra Soft was cheaper per square foot than Mega pack of Scott Extra Soft. The family size rolls are much smaller, and there aren't as many square feet in a package as the other, but the deal was better. So that is what I bought.

When I got home, Big P laughed at the size of these little rolls. We only have 4 people in the house that are actually using the toilet paper. B.3.5.B is using the potty and a little toilet paper, but we still use wipes on him some of the time. I didn't think it was going to be that much of a difference.

I had no idea what this little "savings" would actually cost me until we were going through 2 rolls a day in one bathroom alone! I feel like I'm constantly changing that roll of toilet paper!!! It's enough to drive anyone mad!

So, back to the Mega pack we will go - even if it costs an extra .3 cents (yes, that's point 3 cents!) per sq. ft. It's a sacrifice we'll just have to make for the sanity of this mama!

Now that I think on it, I can't believe I thought the extra work was going to be worth it in the name of frugality! LOLOL If we can't laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at?!

Joyfully busy at home,
Christine

Tropical Blackberry Smoothie Recipe

Did a little experimenting last night with a smoothie and came up with something that was really great! Had another one tonight. Here it is - let me know what you think.

Tropical Blackberry Smoothie

1 1/2 cups orange juice
1 banana
1 small handful of blackberries
1 very small handful of mango (I never really put this in my hand - it comes straight from the freezer bag into the blender)
2 good sized Romaine lettuce leaves
2 tablespoons raw virgin coconut oil

Put everything in the blender in this order, except the coconut oil. Do the momentary blending thing a few times to get it started then "let 'er rip". After everything is nice and smooth, drizzle in the coconut oil. If you don't - you will get "blackberry smoothie a la coconut mode", which would be very gross and hard to drink.

I'm thinking about letting the kids eat more "junk" for dinner. Okay, let me explain that. I make 3 very solid, balanced meals a day for my kids. It's a huge treat to get bagel bites for dinner once a month. But, I'm trying to tweak things a bit and make things a little easier for myself (per hubby's request) and honestly get tired of pb&j (even with natural peanut butter) and stuff like that. So, I'm going to be having a smoothie for dinner myself and giving them the "other stuff". I'm awful aren't I?! LOL

Let me know what you think of the recipe. I think it's going to become a favorite around here!!!

Joyfully busy at home,
Christine

Intro

I thought I would start out my "new" blog with an intro. I'm totally new to Blogger, but not new to blogging. You can see my "old" blog at www.homeschoolblogger.com/littlebitofeverythingmama.

You may first be wondering why I switched. Speaking of switching, it wasn't due to the Pearls and their child training techniques, as we agree with most of their teaching. It all comes down to cosmetics for me! LOL I'm not a "cosmetics" type of girl. I rarely wear the stuff - I put it on occasionally when Big P and I go on a date and on Sunday mornings. He doesn't care one way or another and I prefer not to wear it. But, when it comes to my blog - I wanted something a bit more, well, flashy! LOL

I really want a Bluebird Blog, but she doesn't work on homeschool blogger. So, I opened up this one a long while back to make sure that I could keep my name. That's a big deal to me because it suits me so perfectly! And I'm saving my "slush fund" as Big P would call it to "invest" in my blog.

So, now that I have chased that rabbit down a very long trail, I'll get back to my original reason for posting - an intro.

I'm Christine and we live in Texas, east of Dallas on 10 acres in the country. Nope, we don't have any animals, except our two labs - 1 yellow, Hot Lips (as in Houlihan), and 1 black, Velvet (as in Black Velvet). We've tried our hand at chickens and our last set were attacked by the neighborhood dogs. :( We've also tried our hand at guineas, and out of 20 saw 1 to adulthood. He/She ran off with some other guineas down the road and they roamed the streets (the many acres of land) around us to pillage for dinner (grasshoppers and bugs mostly).

We have 4 precious children who are growing up way too fast - C.11.B., P.8.G., B.3.5.B., and L.1.5.B. That's code for "I don't want some psycho looking us up because we are a funny family and parking in our front yard thinking that we are going to come outside and do a comedy act for them - or anything else some weirdo might do with information on my family". Basically, it translates to my children's first names, ages, and boy or girl.

But my biggest earthly love goes to my one and only and head of our family, my Big P!! The love of my life!! We just celebrated 11 years of marriage. God is great and I believe He set us apart for each other, since our union was so unique.

I'm a born again, Bible believing, trying to live it out, loving the Lord, and aiming to please Him with my life, and teach it to my children, and model it for my entire family, and learn more of it everyday for myself, Christian. I believe I was truly saved at the age of 18 although I walked the aisle at 8 and went to church every Sunday and Wednesday night for most of my childhood. My life didn't truly start to resemble the Lord had something to do with until I was 18. That was when I was pregnant right out of high school with my first child. A whole 'nother beautiful story in itself is how I met my sweetie and we became a forever family.

We are the preschool Sunday school teachers at our church and have been there about a year, I believe. It's a great church with a great pastor and great people. We have a few "kindred" families there.

Oh, we also homeschool! LOL I guess we've been doing it so long, it's not the first thing that comes to my mind. We use BJ Homesat and Little Hands to Heaven for the little ones (I throw that in there, because new homeschoolers always ask - I know, I was there once and STILL do it!). We have just started our new school year where my big kids are in 3rd and 6th grades! Wow!! I can't believe how time has flown by.

Okay, so that's "the intro" and I don't know what else to say. I could tell you how I generally blog, but you may just experience that for yourself if you are interested in visiting again. I love to write - apparently a little faster than blogger would have me, because it's lagging a bit here! I like to write about the weird and funny stuff that we do around here, funny things that the kids say, and weird and funny things that come to my mind during the day. I try to blog about the hard times and be "real", but that's pretty difficult for me because I don't want to drag anyone else down. Also, I have seen God work in a mighty way to bring me out of hard times pretty quickly and I seem to be pretty resilient, by His grace! I feel like He is teaching me a lot! Because I have SO MUCH TO LEARN!!!

I'm going to try to transfer over some of my old posts from my other blog as I have the time (laughing insanely at the keyboard, while sitting outside my kids bedroom door so that they don't get out of bed - again!).

Joyfully busy at home,
Christine

********Update********** We now have 6 children - C.15, P.12. B.7, L.5, A.3, N.4 months, 2 goats, 1 cow (other one was butchered for beef), and a horse. And a tractor!!!! Woohoo!