I am ready! 

The first picture is what I pulled out of the freezer last Thursday am.  The 2nd picture is what I dumped into a greased 9×13 pan and cooked for 45 min that night. Perfecto.  Our frozen spinach/ground beef/ground turkey mini meatloafs were a hit! I made up a double batch of meatloaf and then froze them in balls in a muffin tin for about an hr or so.  Then I put them into a freezer bag so I could pull out how many I wanted each night.  I actually ended up just pulling them all out and we ate them two nights in a row.  Love it!

I really did enjoy the result of my freezer/baking day in November.  And I would totally do it again this month, but between closing up Kandela, a Christmas cookie exchange, hosting a Gift Wrapping Party, Hosting my brother’s graduation open house, hosting 2 Christmases and then Faithwalkers, I’m struggling to find the time and energy that I need to put together a plan for the month.  Then to make a list and do the actual cooking… I’m thinking it might be a crock pot month + a lot of easy dinners.  Fareway has bone in chicken on sale this week for $.99lb so I think we will have spagetti and baked chicken quite often in the next few weeks.  I’m ok with that though and I don’t think I will hear any complaints from my family.   I’m hoping to get started on a list/plan later this month for Jan so when the time comes I will be ready to jump in.  Or maybe I will save that list planning time for the drive to and from Faithwalkers.

“Behold the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love”- Psalm 33:18

I told myself it wouldn’t happen.

But it did.

Much to my chagrin.

I bought another snowman.

Some of you might remember last winter when I posted about how I was turning into a mom and how I was accumulating a snowman collection.  Now at the time, I only had two… so this one makes a 3rd.  But I am not sure how I am going to do this.  I told myself I wouldn’t buy anymore.  But it was at stuff and it was so cute and it was only $3 so I bought it.  It is a candle holder and I imagined on of my Kandela candles it it… and I LOVE it. (The shadow makes it look a little funny, it is just one solid piece of iron)

And here are my other snowmen that I have in my house… although the mug might be going shortly, I’m not so much a fan this year.

Anyway, my dilema is this:  I am not a collector of things and I am in NO way a pack rat.  I am constantly sorting/organizing/flipping or selling stuff that we don’t regularly use.  But with the snowmen in the winter… I think I might like to ‘collect’ them… sort… of.  *GULP* I have no idea.  I am very picky about which ones I like and to be honest, about 95% of them make me think “Who likes that sort of thing” – but then there is one every once and a while that catches my eye and the rest is history.  So, if I collect a snowman every year… by the time I am 80 I will have 56 of them.  And then people will start “adding” to my collection when I am old and they can’t think of a gift for me.   AAAHHH! What is a girl to do????

And seriously, all you ladies out there who are thinking you are going to gag gift me a snowman…. I know who you are.

This past year was what I consider my first real attempt at growing a garden and a few other things.  I had tried my hand at a garden two years ago, but everything died except for the zucchini so I don’t really count that.  But this year we had  a small garden and we put tomato plants in our front yard.  Along with all of that, I planted 2 blueberry bushes, 4 raspberry plants (only two survived and I planted about 24 strawberry plants.   I did fairly well with the veggies (although I hope to do much better next year)!  The fruit bushes/plants didn’t (were not supposed to) produce this year- so I am excited to see my hard work pay off next summer!  Especially for the strawberries, they look AWESOME!!

Spring '09- the strawberry patch

Fall '09 - the strawberry patch that has spread!!

Yeah for ‘organic’ food!!!

My how 4 years changed our lives!  Thank you for your kind and loving heart and your tenderness, compassion and your quick smile.  We love you and are so proud of you!

Here are two pics of 73 candles in my kitchen.  Although the photo does not do justice the absolute tornado that went through my kitchen.  The first pic is just a handful of them in the final stage of drying and waiting for the bows/labels to be added.  As you can see, this is no where near 73 candles, but I have them stashed all over my house in piles to keep everyone’s orders straight.  They are on the fireplace, my dresser, our bed, the piano, the kitchen table and on the counter.  Whew!

And then this second picture is of them when they are drying.  Jason built me two wood holders so I could slide the candle with the hot wax under and then tape the wick up so it would dry straight.  Pretty amazing, huh?  Again, I was getting near the end with all of this when I took these pictures, everyting looks under control (although in the bottom picutre the dishwasher was open and I was trying to clear dishes so I could have more than a 1×1″ of counter space to work with.  We had dinner last night and there was no room anywhere in our kitchen, so the hot casserole (thank you freezer meals!) was put at Jason’s dinner spot and he ate around it.   You think I’m kidding.   But I poured the final 6 this morning and I’m D-O-N-E until after Thanksgiving.  Looking forward to a little break.

“Love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not IRRITABLE or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrong doing- but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” – 1 Cor 13:4-7

One of THE biggest reasons I blog is that I like comments.  I admit it, I’m selfish.  So many other people blog to keep a record of their lives or to encourage others or as a place to vent.  I really don’t use my blog for any of these.  I like making people laugh, I love getting a reaction out of people (mostly good ones And somehow over the past few years (either to my diminishing blog reader #’s or my lack of sense of humor), not nearly as many comments were flying. So… I started “not blogging” about every topic that came across my head at 10 pm and I found that the break was nice.  But a few times I’ve thought “Gee, I should write about ____” but it just hadn’t happened yet.  And then my friend Sarah (sorry friend, I would link your blog, but I have no idea how to do that told me I should start blogging again.  I found myself with 10 extra min at nap time today, so here I am.

Here are a few of the top happenings at the Rohlf house:

I currently have 73 candles poured in the last few days sitting in my kitchen… I don’t like messy or clutter kitchens, it stresses me out   But we are saving for some new (used!) furntiture in the future, so I keep trying to imagine my nasty little loveseat outa here.   And we’ve decided that any extra money that I earn this season with Kandela will go into an adoption fund so we can have some $$ if/when the time comes that we would like to pursue adopting a little one.

John Boy- the kid poops a LOT and does not sleep much.  Seriously, he has been teething (only 8 left!) like crazy, but the kid will not sleep very well.  It is nothing like my friend (Sarah above but we’ve cut out Johnny’s mornng nap and pushed his beadtime back a good 30-45 min and the kid still wakes up between 5:30 and 6:30 am every day. There have been a few good mornings, but then nights like  last night he was up 2 different times crying, but then will go back to sleep.  And today at his nap, he woke up after an hr crying, I went in and patted his bottom and he went back to sleep (hense this blog entry:)

Belle- my baby is turning 4 next week!  I can hardly believe it!  Every day she is showing us more and more how much she is growing up.  She has started asking if she can help with anything at dinner time (still not all the helpful, but I am trying to slow down and teach her things along the way) and she loves to help her brother- they are the best of friends and the worst of friends at this point in their lives. And their relationships can turn on a dime around here.  One min they are laughing and running, the next there are screams and pulling hair and pushing… geesh!  It is nice that they are playing more together (I can hardly wait for Johnny to start talking so they can talk together!) but my goodness do they get in arguments like every other min.  Keeps this momma on her toes

And I did a cooking/baking/freezer day.  I do have an extra freezer in the garage,  but Money Saving Mom (who inspired me) cooked for her family of 5 in their little freezer above the fridge!  It can be done!  I’ve had freezer meals the last couple of nights (I’ve been busy pouring 73 candles!) and I’ll tell you what- the stress of that day was gone in an instant as the meals have been such a blessing to just pull out, thaw and heat.  Wow… I’m TOTALLY doing this again next month! (I only did about 1/3 freezer meals, with 1/3 crock pot meals and 1/3 normal cooking) but I’m hoping in Dec to do 1/2 freezer, 1/2 crock pot.  I hope to post more about how I did things/ what I would change for next time/what to do with the kids, ect in a later post.

The kids just woke up!  I’m out.

Well, minus the printer that I got for $5 that I just threw in the trash…(it sat out in the rain- someone was supposed to come get it) I was able to get rid of everything I purchased over the summer.  Most things sold on Craigslist- a few (that I learned did not sell well) went to Stuff Ect.  And I just went there and I had $$ in my account to cover the costs of those items I could not flip on Craigslist.  Those 5-10 items I considered a wash.

I tallied up everything that I spent/earned over the summer and including my $60 mistake (on a tool!  never doing that again!) I almost made it to doubling my $.  I think the final percentage was like 1.94%.  I am pretty happy to say the least… especially that my intial $100 turned into me spending almost $400 over the summer which means that I ended up with nearly $800 total at the end of all of this!  I just enjoyed it so much that I kept garage saling each weekend (and the garage sales here seem to go on and on and on!)  After tithing on my profits I was able to pay for part of our IPOD and we are saving up for our 5 year aniiversary trip coming up in Jan!

I plan to flip stuff again next summer, especially honing in on the items that I found sold the most.  Kids toys/stuff!  It is amazing what people will spend on their kids!  And how much people are willing to get rid of at rock bottom prices to get their basements/garages back!  I think I sold about 25 Little Tike items and around 6 exersaucers! However, I am glad for the break this fall and winter- but I’m guessing I will be ready to start wheeling and dealing come Feb!