Thrifty Clothes Shopping

Recently it dawned on me that I was down to my last pair of comfortable every day pants. All the others had worn out, including my absolute favorite brown pants which I wore ALL the time (probably why they wore out!). So I headed off to my local Salvation Army Thrift Store for a couple hours of shopping. The Salvation Army Thrift Store near me is very clean, extremely well organized, and has fun music to dance to in the aisles while shopping ~ a much more pleasant experience than shopping at my local Wal-Mart! And the prices are unbeatable.

I found 3 pair of pants that fit me great and are very comfortable, as well as 6 tops. Any guesses how much money I spent??? (answer at end of post)

Here is one new outfit ~ white 3/4 sleeve, v-neck top = $3. Blue pants = $4.



And here it is again with matching snap up sweater ($4).


Total for 3 piece outfit = $11
(masked superhero = priceless!)


Here is a nice green blouse I fell in love with for church on Sunday.


Another white top, this one a sweater with a white on white pattern.


Another every day top.


And one more green blouse. This one is very sheer and needs a white cami or tank top underneath, but is made of a really soft fabric and feels GREAT on!


Total price for 9 articles of clothing.......$33! All the items look store bought new, and one nice thing I love about buying used clothing is that it's already shrunk as much as it's going to shrink, so the way it fits in the dressing room is the way it's always going to fit. For $33 I maybe could have purchased 3 items at Target or Kohl's if there was a really great clearance sale going on. Maybe. But instead I got several outfits that fit me well, are comfortable for my lifestyle as a stay at home/homeschooling mom, and make me feel great!

I was literally happy dancing at the store! (remember that fun music they play?) And my husband was SO happy that I was able to buy a few new things for myself. He is so sweet.

I encourage you to check out the thrift stores in your area ~ why pay retail when you can pay so much less? Coming soon.....thrifty clothes shopping for kids.

Blessing My Husband

Tank is full of gas. Check.

Engine was primed. Check.

Starting out on flat surface. Check.

Why won't the mower start?

Lord, please cause the mower to start. You know how much I want to bless my husband, so he doesn't have to do this. This is the only time today I can mow. Please cause our lawnmower to start!

R-O-A-R!!!!! (imagine sound of lawnmower starting)

Thank you Lord!

Now why was prayer my last resort?

What have you done recently to bless your husband?

Halloween

All but one of our children wore the same costumes for trick or treating that they had worn to co-op the day before, but here they are again.....

First, a concierge. Please take special notice of her costume, for though it may not look terribly spectacular, many hours were spent planning and preparing it, including a trip to the fabric store and about an hour sewing peach fabric over her brother's Civil War hat and adding ribbon to it. :-) (this is quintessentially our daughter ~ she loves to plan!)


Close up of her nametag. Clever, isn't it?


Robinhood again.


Our son L, dressed as a samurai, trying to look very serious. I made his costume from white posterboard (which we painted) and duct tape. One can do just about anything with posterboard and duct tape!


Our sweet hearted bat.


Little Man as the moon ~ I forgot to take a picture of him on the actual night of Halloween. My bad.


Earlier that afternoon, in addition to getting our dishwasher fixed, we had scooped out and carved our pumpkin. The children settled on a pirate.



It was so nice to have halloween on a Saturday this year, AND on the day we got to turn our clocks back one hour! All in all, a very fun evening!

UPDATE to Daily Challenges

Do you know what this is?




Here's a hint.....



It leads to this:



Yes, my dishwasher is fixed!!!!! One of my blog readers sent her husband over last Saturday. He came in with his toolbox and said, "show me what needs fixing." He tackled the dishwasher first. The little soap door now stays shut and when I ran a load, the dishes came out clean!! Yay!!!! Thank you to our friends for this lovely gift. Just fyi, you do NOT want to know what is inside your dishwasher, between the panels. Forget I even mentioned it........

There actually was a moment, captured below, when there was not a single dirty dish in my kitchen!


(Note to my hubby, if you're reading this, I know you could have fixed the dishwasher by yourself, but it would have taken longer and wouldn't have been as much fun, would it?)

Then he went downstairs to take a look at my dryer. I was horrified later to go down myself and find dirty clothes strewn along the basement stairs, toys on every single horizontal surface (including the school table which was COVERED) and my bra hanging over the line drying, right about at eye level. **sigh** Oh well.

He and my husband found that the gas valve going to the dryer had been partially closed, so they opened it all the way. The jury is still out on that one, as two loads have dried in the allotted time, and 2 have required more time. But I'm hopeful.

This same friend has offered to help my husband replace the struts on his car, so Lord willing that can get taken care of pretty soon too. We are so grateful for friends, for the help, and for the Lord's goodness to care for us in these seemingly small ways. He is good!

H is for Hygiene

And Halloween, of course! ;-)

We allowed the children to dress up in costumes when they came to co-op last Friday. Here is a dinosaur and Daphne (from Scooby Doo).


A character from Harry Potter (sorry I forget which one! I am not very familiar with H.P.) and a concierge.


Robinhood and Darth Vader.


A Ninja and an 80's rock star.


A bat.


A Barbie bride and Buzz Lightyear.


A pirate and the moon.


And last but not least, a washer and dryer (I thought that one was very creative!!).


Hygiene as our topic of the week was perfect for the day before halloween. We had a dental hygienist come and talk to us about oral hygiene. She demonstrated the correct way to brush on Darth Vader's fingertips. Imagine your finger is the gum of your mouth, the nail is the tooth, and your cuticle is where the gum and tooth meet. We should brush parallel to the way the tooth is growing ~ not across the teeth, but from the gum down (if it's an upper tooth) and from the gum up (if it's a bottom tooth).


She showed us the proper amount of toothpaste to use, which is a teeny tiny miniscule amount! Should save nicely on the toothpaste bill! Actually, she told us that cleaning our teeth with just water was best, saving toothpaste for "polishing" after the teeth were already clean.

She gave each willing child a fluoride treatment. (emphasis on "willing") :-)


And taught us the tooth song to sing or hum while brushing (to the tune of "Row, Row, Row your Boat").


Every child got a new toothbrush, toothpaste, and disposable floss picks.


Two of my children couldn't brush their teeth that night due to the fluoride, but the others brushed for a long, long, long, long time!! They took our speaker's words to heart and counted to 20 while brushing each individual tooth (I confess, if we have to be out the door in the morning, I let them brush the "old" way!).

Then Angela read us some books about halloween. I really appreciated one of her choices which was Is Halloween for Real? It talked about halloween from a christian perspective, how it started, what it's about, what's real and what's not. We munched on apples while she was reading, as we learned that apples are a kind of natural toothbrush.

It was a fun and exciting morning at co-op! For the month of November I will be the IEW writing teacher, and we will be doing unit 5 which is learning to write from pictures. I'm looking forward to it!

Movie Night - The Great Locomotive Chase

We watched this movie last Friday and really enjoyed it! The story takes place during the Civil War, so it would go along very well with Tapestry of Grace Year 3, Unit 3. A group of soldiers are hand picked for a secret mission, to go undercover, travel through southern territory, and meet up again at a certain train station for the purpose of stealing a Confederate locomotive and then using it to travel along the line, breaking up track and telegraph wires as they go. One saavy southern train worker realizes their plot and goes after them, hence the "chase". It was exciting, based on actual history (some details were changed but the story line was mostly accurate), and contained nothing inappropriate. I don't want to give away the ending, but it did contain an intense scene near the end which was handled with an appropriate amount of vagueness (for our younger children) and which led to a good discussion afterward about how success and failure is perceived (for our older children).

It held the attention of all our children. Highly recommended for those who love historical movies!

Fall Frolicking

Enjoy these photos and video of our children playing in the leaves! The pics were taken on Wed when it was a sunny and warm and beautiful fall day. The video was taken on Thursday when it was a gray and cloudy fall day. Not having enough rakes, we "raked" leaves with shovels, which work amazingly well for this purpose!








This picture doesn't do it justice, but we have the most beautiful tree on our parking strip that turns a brilliant shade of red in the fall. I get so much enjoyment from this tree!


And the fruit of all that labor? A big leaf pile to play in! After this picture was taken we bagged all the leaves, took them to our back yard, and dumped them onto the backyard pile, making an extra huge one. The video was taken of the backyard leaf pile.