Household blessings

The past month has been pretty expensive. I broke a tooth and had to get a crown - $700. MJ's graduation and party. Vacation. Hubby's birthday. Those are the major things. Then summer is also a time to spend money with the kids having more free time and doing special things like swim lessons. We've also been in the house for a year now and there are several things that haven't been done yet or plans we had that I'm anxious to start working on. Of course all those things take money. We wanted to fix up our yard and do a little landscaping, still want to replace some carpet in the spare room and on the stairs, and we hope to remodel the kitchen. It's a matter of priorities and one thing I've been thinking about recently is our washing machine. About 6 months ago the washer, bought second hand, sprung a leak and flooded the basement. We had it fixed, but in the past couple months it's started leaking again so I'm just waiting for it to completely break again. I've been feeling a little concerned about all this combined, not because we don't have any or enough money, but I hate watching the savings that we've tried to build up, deplete so quickly. I trust God will always provide for us, but there's always the question of how He will do it.

Friday Hubby got the first paycheck with his raise on it! It is a $2 per hour raise so that's pretty good. He's still not quite up to where he used to be salary-wise, but he's so much happier with his job now and the raise helps us. Last week we also found out that someone from church who Hubby has been working for, is re-doing her kitchen and getting new appliances so wants to get rid of her current dishwasher. She will give it to us if we just haul it away for her! Our current dishwasher still works, but the knob is broken and we've thought we need a new one. The one we're being given also just happens to match the other appliances in our kitchen. Today my sister called me and explained their dryer isn't working as well as they like, it takes a long time to dry things, so they are getting a new washer dryer set and want to get rid of the old set. There is nothing wrong with the washer at all and Hubby thinks he may be able to fix up the dryer. Of course the washer is what we needed anyway. All of this in a week. Coincidence? I think not!

Yesterday we were straightening up the spare room to prepare for my younger step son to come tomorrow. It was discovered the dogs have been peeing in the room, probably due to an accident from a dog we were dog-sitting. Anyway, Hubby threw out the carpet section that was just laying on the pad, then tore up the pad. We worked on the room today and put a carpet we had somewhere else in the room and did a bunch of rearranging. It looks nice now, doesn't smell, and I'm happy with how it all turned out.

Overall, some really good things happened this weekend and I feel ready to start the new week.

Family Time

I have not taken the time to write for a long time and actually I'm not going to take a long time now. Two recent events are prominent in my mind and both would take pages to adequately describe.

First, on Memorial Day weekend we took a family vacation to South Dakota. It was awesome! It was beautiful, fun, relaxing, and we enjoyed getting away and being in each others' company. All of us enjoyed it. We stayed in Hot Springs where we went to a water park, visited a mammoth site, and played mini golf. We also drove to Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore. I don't know that it could have been much better!

This past weekend was graduation. I'm not sure I could find words to describe how I feel. It's been a mixture of pride, fear, relief, and sadness. We want our children to grow up, but then there's sadness when they do. MJ will not be moving away and will go to LCCC here for a while so that should lessen my sadness right? The day went very smoothly and we had a party after for MJ and his friend. It was a good day, but I think I'm still recovering from it all.