As Most Bloggers Say...

I am the worst blogger ever.

Lately, I've been so busy with my work hours increasing (I worked 20 hours this week!), keeping up with housekeeping, trying to maintain something of a social life, trying to learn more than four dinner recipes, keeping up relationships with my family, and making sure I'm getting enough sleep and exercise.  I actually worked 4 days this week (not full days, obviously).

I don't understand why people now say that you should only use 1 space between sentences.  When I was a kid, you always put 2 spaces in there, and if you didn't, you lost points on your homework!  And now you tell me to use only 1?  No way!  I won't get 100%!  (Especially when the teacher turns the zeros into eyes and puts a little smile underneath?  I loved that!)

Tomorrow, my mom, sister, and I are volunteering as officials at the TBC Tournament.  I was always in TBC (Teen Bible Challenge, if you don't know, think Bible Bowl, but slightly less cheesy) as a high schooler, and our tournaments were just an extension of our regular season.  Each of the 6 competitions over the year would cover only one portion of the material, but tournament covered everything.  That's what made it so fun for me, because I studied regularly, so this material was still in my head once I had brushed up a little bit.  But for the kids who always crammed the night before the competition, well, they had 6x as much information to cram in now!

After high school, I volunteered as a coach for a year, but soon got pretty burned out on the whole thing, so I switched to officiating.  Now that I live 30 miles north of most of their competitions (area churches), I only volunteer at the ones really close to me.

They've recently changed tournament.  Instead of a way to challenge the current year's quizzers with everything they've learned, it's now a way to recruit quizzers for next year.  They take some of the next year's material.  Teams can consist of current quizzers, parents, veteran quizzers, etc., but they also must have a new quizzer to compete.  It's set up like any sports' tournament.  And then there are door prizes and stuff, too, because that's supposed to make more people want to come.

Okay, so I'm a little bit jaded.

I wasn't planning on volunteering at this year's tournament.  It's too far south for me, and I never really have a lot of fun (which isn't the main reason one should volunteer, of course).  But my poor mother got roped into volunteering (and she was not looking forward to it either), and there's a 50% off clothing sale at Salvation Army that day, and I thought, what if we suffered through it together (each room has 3 officials, so that's perfect) and then went and bought really cheap clothing, like we've been wanting to.

So it's a plan.

TBC really is a great organization.  It's amazing how many Bible verses kids learn, and how many I still know from high school.  They come to me when I need them most, and that is extremely valuable.  I really do admire the organization, but as with any organization, by spending too much time with it, it's easy to get burned out.

Today, I'm getting a free 30-min massage that I won in a drawing!  I never win anything in drawings!  (Well, I guess I can't say that anymore.)  I'm super excited!

Love and Thrift Stores,
Leah Joy

P.S.  They just switched all Bloggers over to the new look, which is what I had tried before and no one could comment.  I hope they fixed that!

The Wednesday Ramble: It's Been Forever

Not literally, of course, because that's impossible. And even to say it's been a very long time would imply that I had somehow become trapped in some wormhole in the space-time continuum and visited the past and lived for a while there before developing a way to return here.

Clearly, I watch too much sci-fi.

However, it has been a few weeks, I think, since I have last posted. I'd update you on what's happening, but there's not much to say. We've been living life, keeping busy, and preparing for summer camp. We do live on a camp, you know. Oh, I was mistaken for a high schooler. That was fun.

I saw the 7th-8th grade choir teacher from the school district I went to 1st-12th. I never had choir with her, but she recognized me and said, "Oh you go to Northview don't you?" And I, feeling that I really don't look that young, said, "Um, no, I've graduated. ...From high school and college... and now I'm married." She felt bad, and old, of course, and the real kicker would have been if I told her that I had 3 kids and another on the way, but I decided not be a jerk. :)

So yes, I haven't been baking a lot, but I've got enough recipes to keep Tasty Thursday going for a while. And I haven't been crafting a lot, but ... whatever.

I finished Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy... wouldn't recommend it unless you truly want to read it. You have to truly want to read it to make it through, and it's not that rewarding.

Our camp director and his family were gone for two weeks, so I was working short shifts every day instead of longer shifts twice a week. Meaning that I didn't blog in the morning because I was working, and if I don't blog in the morning, I'm most likely to forget. It's true, just check out the times of my posting! They're back now, but camp work is also about to pick up, so who knows what will happen next.

I've started a list of goals, projects, and garden ideas for this summer. Yes, we're starting a garden. If you have any suggestions for good goals, projects, or garden ideas, please comment. I might consider them. :)

Other than that, my biggest project lately has been a price comparison of ALDI and Meijer. Of course, any 6-year-old who has accompanied their mother shopping knows that ALDI will have lower prices than Meijer on anything, hands down. However, Meijer has far more sales - and coupons! Also, ALDI is much farther away than Meijer, so weekly shopping there is out of the question. Therefore, I went through ALDI one afternoon and wrote out every item, including weight, price, and aisle, that we might purchase there. I brought my several-page list home and entered it in the computer to figure price per ounce. Then I printed a version of that and took it to our local Meijer and wrote down the price there, plus any weight differences. Now I have all the information in my computer.

There are truly some interesting finds. For example, tortilla chips are far cheaper at ALDI regular price than on Meijer super-cheap sale price. But pretzels, on the other hand, regularly go on sale at Meijer and are a much better price than at ALDI.

I think the information will be very helpful to us in the future, and I'm glad I did it before we have little ones tagging along impatiently! (And that was not an announcement.)

I've also been enjoying Pinterest, and I've discovered the posts of Once a Month Mom. She has a big cooking day once a month and prepares meals for the next month that can be frozen. It's really quite amazing. With our tiny freezer (and the mystery meat therein from before we got married) we could only do a small version of it, but I do hope to try some of this sometime. It's fascinating!

Well, that's enough rambling for one day.

Have yourselves a merry little Wednesday.

Love and Pinterest,

Leah Joy

I'm Normal

To those of you who were wondering, I did get my blood test results back. I'm completely normal. I've also been sleeping a little better, first with the help of prescription drugs and now on my own.

Thank you for your concern!

Also, my Facebook is currently broken, so if you were hoping to get a hold of me that way, I guess I don't know how long it will be down....

That's all for now!

Love and Everything Cookies,

Leah Joy