Day 4: My Daughter's Biggest Fan

Today I planned to take another photo. Actually, I did take another photo but just as I was shooting it, Dale pulled up and said hey you look like you're waiting for a bus. I explained to him I had this blog and was doing Project 365 with Project Life. As a professor of history, he of all guys might get it. So he told me I should take a photo of him instead because he was an important person in my life. He's right, so Dale became today's subject. Not only have I taken American Pop Culture from him, I've also spent many hours working with him. I've even sung folk songs with him in public. He is the Whitworth historian and we share a passion for US history and local history. Over the years he's also entertained Daughter #3 while I did setups for early morning events. He always asks me about her future plans and her skiing. Most of all, Dale has tried to mentor her (get her to choose Whitworth) and he claims he's her biggest fan.

Day 3: Email Overload

How much email is too much email? I came back to work and had way too many unread messages. Of course most of them were RSS Feeds and List Servs but there were way too many. I whittled it down to 6000, but I still need to clear out so many more. I also knocked off over 1000 in my person email over my lunch hour. I don't think I'll ever see inbox zero!

Day 2: Back to the Grind

Today was back to work & back to school for us. I had a great lunch at Petit Chat with my friend, Lisa so I could easy back into my routine slowly.  Apparently, school wore someone out though! After I picked daughter #3 up from the high school, she needed a little rest on my couch at work before our trip to Walmart to pickup makeup for her Disney trip.

Day 1: Happy New Year!

We spent New Year's Eve with our mountain friends. It started with a progressive dinner and then we opened 2013 with Chinese floating lanterns and fireworks. 

Shopping with E-Mealz

On Sunday, my youngest daughter and I went shopping at Walmart with our E-Mealz list in hand which I must say is awfully convenient. We altered it a bit because this week is yet another busy week and we will only be eating from the plan three times during the week if we are lucky. I already had some meat thawed out for dinner for the weekend, but we didn't use it because we had people over Sat for a steak and crab feed and then on Sunday we had leftovers. Who wouldn't love leftovers from a crab boil and grilled steaks instead of ground venison?

Anyway, we headed to our local Walmart Sunday afternoon after my daughter cleaned her dad's office. We had to get a few things other than the things on our short list so I don't know what the final total was on the food end of the bill. Plus, I found a few things I didn't need in the scrapbooking aisle. They had some adhesive on clearance and who doesn't need adhesive, right? The cool thing I bought though was a Fiskar's craft knife. I needed a new x-acto knife, but hadn't purchased one yet. I got the one above for $3! I've always wanted this knife, but couldn't justify it. Now I own it and I am very excited to use it. So much for saving money with my E-Mealz plan.

School's Out for the Summer so Let's Live

School is out for me. Yay! My youngest daughter still has a month to go, but my older daughters are out too. In fact, my middle daughter is on her way home from San Francisco. She drove down with a college friend and is flying back tonight so she can start her summer job tomorrow. My oldest daughter graduated from Whitworth University a week ago, flew to Oregon for training and starts her new job tomorrow. It has been a crazy month, but now I am back and hopefully I will have some time to craft.

Trying to create a little more time in our lives this summer and hoping to take a little stress out of my life, I bought a membership to a cool meal planning resource that I learned about from Becky Higgins and Stacy Julian. It is called E-Mealz. They have several meal plans to choose from including a portion control plan that figures in Weight Watcher's points. You can even choose which stores from which you wish to shop. I chose the Walmart plan for right now. E-mealz is even recommended by Dave Ramsey. It is pretty inexpensive. It was $15 for 3 months. In my opinion that is very affordable plus our weekly dinner bill is suppose to be around $75 a week if I am feeding a family of 6. Hopefully mine will be a little lower since I typically feed around 4 people or less and I have a freezer full of meat so I shouldn't have to buy much. The best part, it should also free up some money for scrapbook, crafting and decorating! Yay!