Catch up time

This is our basement. It's not a nice basement, so I don't usually show it off. But I thought for memory sake we should have some pictures of it.
This is the Pellet furnace with James on top of bags of pellets. It's been great to have a furnace. A thermostat! Such a life of ease!!!! :)
We still have to get pellets (in my van) and keep the furnace loaded up (it holds about 5 bags and eats about 1-2 bags a day) But it's soooo easy compared to wood. We buy pellets for $160 a ton. It looks like we will have used 5 tons this winter. We still have to use some electric heat upstairs too. Our electric bill is about $170 a month. Outrageous isn't it! We only pay about .05 cents a kilowatt here too, so it shouldn't be so bad, but ....



This is Mark my very Italian looking son, eating a favorite Italian meal. My kitchen turned out pretty Italian looking too so it all fits well!I got ground beef on sale this last week. I actually bought 85 lbs of it. I fried up a bunch and put it in the freezer for tacos and such, and then I made 10 lbs into meat balls and meat loaf. We ate half the meat balls one night and I have 2 meals in the freezer. My children LOVE meatloaf. My older children didn't, but this bunch sure does. So I made 2 loafs for one dinner. It's pretty fatty ground beef too so I have to plan on shrinkage too. I put many 2.5 packages in the freezer and I hope this will last a little while!



It's been so long since I've had a chance to get on here so I have lots to catch up on.
I get so busy, stressed, and running around trying to get priority's straight. Do I really get much done? I hope so, but some days I just am recovering from the other days.
So whats going on?
Well just life and a little more.
I've been taking "financial freedom" classes every Thur night. I've really enjoyed them. I certainly don't have freedom from financial worries but at least I'm enjoying the class! I actually worry a lot about money. I do have to wonder if this is just my personality or if there is really need. We have a nice steady income for the last 3-4 years. Rick is a manager and tech support at an Internet company. We are thankful for a job, as in this small town it's really hard to have work. But I guess we are still on the poverty level according to the government. Maybe according to me too, unless I compare with other country's. Then I see how terribly rich we are. Well if I can ever get out of debt and stay out, maybe it will be easier to make it on our pay check.

I have been working on real life monopoly. I always loved monopoly was I was young. I was really good at it too. I wish I could be good at monopoly in real life. So I just bought a little house, it hasn't closed yet. But it's a little 2 bedroom house with a huge bump in the middle of the house. The house is so uneven that one end of the kitchen table is on the floor and the other end has about 2 inches of shims under the other side. Can you imagine eating dinner in a house like that! Well, I had to get an engineer, a house mover, and lots of estimates etc to find out if this house was going to be fixable and pay. We rephrased our deal many times. I ended up buying the house for $69,500. It's going to cost me about $3000 to fix it and that includes fixing drywall that gets messed up, plus insulating an area under the house that doesn't have any. The only other thing I will have to do to fix up the house is put a shower in it and add some kitchen cupboards. It has a beautiful claw tub bath tub in it. But it has no shower, so I will get one put in. I would like to add a dishwasher and some base cabinets too. After that I'm hoping the house will be worth at least $90,000 or maybe even $100,000. I will have to decide if I should turn around and sell it this summer and make a bit now (to help me get out of debt) or should I hold on to it for a yr or two and make more. Monopoly!

So I have also been working on Mishael and Cody's house. Not really working on it, but being the contractor. I enjoy that part too, but I have lots to learn and it's very time consuming. We had an electrician that was doing a bad job, plumbers that were fast and did a great job, drywall put up that had to be taken down 3 times! Well we are putting it up for sale this week without it being quite done. but the money I had to help them is gone, and they moved to Kalispell. Hopefully they will still make a good amount and I also will get a good return on the money I loaned.
So besides playing monopoly, I have midwifery, homeschooling, being a good mom and wife. Plus all my grown children . Grown children still take a lot of time, either on phone just keeping up, encouraging, advising, or asking advise, or if they need rides, or help with something plus there are birthdays. Lots of birthdays! We are all still involved a lot in each others lives. I love that our family is so close.
I got a home school CPR and 1st aid class together this week. Here they are practicing on their dummy's in this picture. I was happy they all picked it up really good.

Monica in her new glasses. Isn't she cute!
Midwifery has picked up business again. I have about 13-14 mom's now. My Wednesday appointments are getting to be a very full day!
Well a little catch up time.
I'll post pictures of houses as soon as i get some.