Thursday

New low on the scale this morning. Eep! Today was the first of the newly scheduled roamschool outings, and also field day, so attendance was...us. hahaha. I knew no one else was coming, but the kids were anxious to get out anyway, so off we went.

We spent half an hour at the wildflower trail in Cullman, then went down to a park at Hanceville that Chan wanted to visit and then over to Blountsville with plans to eat fried pickles at the Frosty Freeze, but it was closed *sob* so back home we wound our way.

The kids made a HUGE pot of beans and with a lack of cornbread fixins to go with it, we had cornbread stuffing! It was pretty good all mixed together. Matt topped off the day by coming home with a strawberry pretzel, the only non-chocolate dessert I will give the time of day to.

Canada anemone

Columbine

Coreopsis

Daisy

Early echinacea

Jack in the Pulpit

Maple

I am going with bergamont.

Phlox

Wild Geranium

red clover

Chan is pretty sure this is where her new muscles came from!

Short Update

Jake had his wisdom teeth removed today.  I can't say pulled because they never emerged.  He was a little loopy afterward, but seems totally over it already.  I am amazed.

We went camping over the weekend, had a great time.  Matt and I talked it over today and we decided to try doing all 22 miles of the Richard Martin Trail end to end and back.  We are in talks with a friend who lives close enough to come bail us out if it's too much, just waiting for the right weather for it.  There's some heat coming in this weekend.

I am down 45 pounds from 2 years ago.  These long walks are really pushing the numbers, we do 10 miles on Sunday and I am still losing weight on Tuesday!  I am glad, as I had stalled at 38-40 pounds for about 6 months.  I am loving the longer walks, I dread summer coming in because we won't be able to walk all day when it's so darn hot and dry.  Hopefully we will be able to just walk early, we can do 10 miles in less than 3 hours now.  5-8 in the morning should be cool enough most of the summer.

Sleeping around 7 hours a night now, with oak-pollen induced 10-12 hour comas from time to time.  I have been reading several sleep books, one recently done one by a Harvard-trained doctor has been interesting, he recommends taking your average sleep (when you are not getting enough) and say you get up at 7 and sleep about 5 hours. He says go to  bed at 2 no matter how sleepy you get and get up at 7.  The next night, go to bed 15-30 minutes earlier and so on until you're back on a 7-8 hour a night schedule.  It's called restrictive sleep and it resets your sleep schedule.

Waking up with an active brain is called hyperarousal and it's because your brain is in overactivation mode.  There are relaxation and other things you can do to calm it down, though I have not had much success with any of them yet.  Mainly-the pollen and long walks are knocking me out.

Richard Martin Trail North End

Today Matt and I headed out to walk the northern end of the Richard Martin Trail from Elkmont to the Tennessee state line, about 6 miles one way.

We did the southern 5 miles last spring.

We had barely gotten started down the trail when we saw this! 
There were at least a dozen scattered along the trail, it was very exciting.

These guys are not due to bloom until June.

The northern end of the trail is prettier, I think.  It winds around and goes down a long hill for a couple of miles (which is uphill on the way back and somehow steeper!)

 Other than 3 horses and a couple with a dog, we had the trail to ourselves all day!

The trail ends at the TN state line at Veto.

Matt took this one!  I thought we were doing 10 miles total, so I wanted a pic with the 10  mile marker.  When we got back to the van, we had done 12.1 miles.

 Looking waaaay back over the road toward Alabama off in the distance.

I got excited, thinking I had spotted the Easter Bunny off in the distance under that mower trailer!

*sigh*  No bunny.

We drove back out looking for a cheese place that was not open, so we kept driving to get to the next intersection and viola!  My grandparent's old house!  I have not seen it in 17 years, when they moved to Kentucky to live with my aunt.  It was SO much bigger when I was a child.  Needless to say, I chattered Matt's ear off on the way to Athens about everything Granddaddy and I used to do together.  : ) 

It was a great day, I really enjoyed our walk.  It took just over 4 hours due to us stopping and taking pictures and milling around at the bridges and the TN state line.  I was pleased with our pacing!

Tomorrow, Jake goes for his wisdom teeth to be removed.  I am a wreck! 

Wildflower Trail

On Thursday, we had to run into Huntsville to get a bracket replaced on Chandler's braces that had popped off.  Matt needed a ride home that afternoon as his carpool person had to leave early, so Chan and I had several hours between the ortho appt and Matt's off-work time.  After doing the only logical time-filler by having lunch at Taziki's and maxing out both our library cards, we went looking around for something else to do.  It was supposed to rain, the weather on the radio was nearly frantic with the horrific storms coming our way, but the sky was actually clearing by mid-afternoon, so we went to the Wildflower Trail off Cleermont. 

This is usually a gorgeous place this time of year, but the flowers had bloomed and gone and the creek was very low.  Still, we enjoyed ourselves for an hour or so just strolling along and poking around in the creek.

This stuff sure is healthy and robust this year! 
Poison Oak.

Trumpet Vine

Stonecrop

Vina minor or periwinkle.

Notice anything new?  A tooth!  She did not need the bracket to hook rubber bands to replaced, he went ahead and put on a regular bracket.  She's NEARLY done!!

Grocery

I have finally worked out a way to save money on our bigger grocery shopping trips that only takes about an hour or two of prep and seems to work better than any other method I have tried.  I thought I would pass along the info in case it helps anyone else.

1.  Keep a list on the fridge at all times so things you are running low on can be added.  Get everyone to help with this, it's annoying when you get in from the store and your child says, "Oh, did you pick up toothpaste, we are out."  Well, no I did not KNOW you were out!  If only mind reading came with the uterine package.

2. Make your menu out at least a week ahead. If you have a store you favor, use the sale paper to help guide your menu.

3. Add more snacks than you think you will go through.  Or whatever else your family seems to plow through.  You only want to go shopping once.

4.  Gather up your current coupons, the ones you clip from packaging and get in the mail. 

5.  Go online and print out coupons for as many items on your menu and running low list as possible.

6. Make your shopping list, grouping items into where they are found in the store.  I do a general area list: natural foods, produce, canned/boxed, dairy and frozen.  Split your coupons into the same sections so you can check quickly in the store for size or type limits.  This also saves time at the check-out when you can pull out the coupons you end up not using before you are in line.

7.  Make a note by each item of how many coupons you have or how many you need to buy for the coupon to work.

Here is our latest grocery trip, the total was $258 before coupons.  We saved a total of $75.41 with the store card and coupons.

Don't get sucked in to just using the coupons, check store brands against the coupon price and go the cheaper route.
Don't use a coupon for things you don't regularly buy.  The exception to this is when you want to try a new product. 

That's enough for our family of 5 to eat for about 10 days plus extra goodies for our camping trip. 

I don't have a magical place to get all my coupons, I just google the item I want plus the word coupon. 

Get on a couple coupon e-mailing lists and subscribe to your favorite stores e-mail list for upcoming sales.

Many times when you print a coupon, you can go back and print one more at the same time.  This is helpful when it's a bulk item like cereal or pasta.

It only takes a couple of hours each trip, spread out over a few days.  Saving even $40 for 2 hours of effort is a good trade-off when you are an at-home mom.  Not many other household tasks give you back $20 an hour!

Mid-Week check-in

After our eventful weekend, it's been nice to just be home a while.  It's amazing to me that the sleepless night and damp tent and the gnats and whatever bit me that left that hole in my elbow are all just glossed over now that I am home and all I see inside my head is the sun-dappled trail, the clear stream and that treehouse...wow.

I love selective memory when it works in this direction.  It's when it goes the other way and my brain want to wallow in little miseries that I wonder if there's something wrong with me.  Just last night, I was so mad at Matt for not inviting me to the prom that I started to get a stomach ache.  I mean, seriously.  What the hell? That was 20 years ago.

I will post a few highlights from the camping site so your brain, too, can bask in the eye candy.

hiking back to Virgin Falls

Laurel Falls Cave

Virgin Falls

Treehouse

So far this week, we've mowed.  Oh, and picked up more dog food.  Matt's carpool ride is off doing training, so he's driving the van this week as the Volvo needs some work.  Chandler lost a bracket on her tooth that is supposed to be under constant traction, so we have an emergency ortho appt noon Thursday, and hopefully the t-storms forecast will not interfere with a library run as well.  

Not much else going on, though I am sleeping MUCH better.  Not a full night yet, but getting there, hopefully the end of insomnia.  I hope it's not like the end of Insomnia because I don't want to get hit by a car.  Of all the King characters, I think Ralph is my favorite. 

I did realize today that my hair is growing back out, I need another haircut.  Which made me realize that I have not seen several folks since I had my hair cut.  My friends have all been scarce of late, several e-mails have gone unanswered.  Not sure what's going on.  The kids have stopped asking if their friends will be there when I come up with something for us to go do.

Last bit of update, we are tossing around alternate travel plans for this fall.  The big trip has to be scaled back to two weeks, if that.  Which means just the southwest, which...sucks.  We have been talking about doing Disney instead or even just taking Poppy to the beach and camping for a couple of weeks.  We have to funnel some money into house repairs is what it all comes down to: finite cash flow, infinite wants and needs.  But, it will all work out in the end.  As long as I don't get hit by a car.