Rummage sale...

This last weekend we had the biggest rummage sale we've ever had at our house. We had two other families put their unwanted things up for sale with us, and we were all amazed as to how many people were out rummage sale-ing on Friday. It was busy ALL day. By Saturday evening there wasn't much left to go through and figure out what we wanted to do - craigslist, ebay, used bookstore, keep, donate. Each pile was relatively small, which was a great feeling, because we had had a LOT to sell! I was even more excited about what our garage looks like now after all of our unwanted stuff is gone! We even have room inside our garage for our grill, which used to sit on our front stoop - now I can put a chair there and maybe some plants to enjoy!

Today I am off to getting caught up on household chores and getting a schedule plan done for the kids' school. We have been taking a break now since the first week of August, and that's the longest the kids have had time off in several years since we started doing year-round homeschool. They've enjoyed the time off while we helped our friends move and get resettled and finished the rummage sale, but I think we're all just about ready for some normalcy around here. I can't believe our summer is just about gone, however! One more camping trip and then it's time to shut down the camper for the winter...oh to start dreaming already of next year's trips!

Everything

I wanted to share this video today. I have seen it several times and every time it makes me cry. I hope you enjoy it. It's by Lifehouse, called Everything.

I haven't disappeared!

Yep, I'm still here! Just been very busy and not home for more than a day here or there over the last week and a half. I'll explain more on that later.

It's been a crazy two weeks (make that summer!), and it's not over yet. I am taking part of the day today to catch up on life, and then I dig headfirst into prepping for a rummage sale I'm having with friends in a week and a half. I'm looking forward to seeing extra stuff gone from our house and a little more breathing room. Things feel so cluttered right now, and I would love to see more room and less things! Then it's school time again. The kids got a few extra weeks off due to our helping friends with an unexpected move they had to make (hence our being gone over the last couple of weeks), so now we'll have to do some catch-up to make up for that time. They have learned a lot of life lessons during this time off, however, so I know that time wasn't without learning experiences. I am just so thankful that the Lord saw to it that I would have the strength and energy to help our friends.

I surprisingly was still able to get a bit of shopping done in the last week, and had a great trip to Walgreens. Our savings for the month of August is almost as much as our out-of-pocket, so I think I can say I have officially cut our grocery/household bill in half. It has taken almost 3 months to do it, but that really isn't very long at all! I have set a new goal for myself to keep my spending per week under $100. I did it this last week, so I'm hoping the trend can continue. It will be fun to try!

Walgreen's trip

I did pretty well at Walgreen's tonight with Jeff's help. I had him purchase most of the items that had register rewards first, and then I purchased the other non RR stuff afterwards and used the register rewards. Here's what I got - $117.28 worth of items for $40.13! I didn't realize the rice krispie treats also had a register reward on them until Jeff had paid for his purchases already, so I also have another $5 reward to use on my next purchase. That would have made it $35.13 OOP. I think that was pretty good!