**Walmart's School Supplies Deals**

Ran to Walmart today for a few things and fell in love with their school supply aisles. :) I knew they had the glue sticks on sale (2-pack for $.25), but I didn't realize how much else they had for sale!! With 2 girls in preschool this coming Fall, I figured I'd grab the glue sticks now for a quarter instead of when they're back over $1.

Well, I also had to grab 2 paints for our church garage sale sign. They were only $1.97 a piece for the big bottles, so I went a little overboard with the school supplies since I had $13 on me! I ended up paying $8.07 (including our crazy 10% tax!) for:

2 pair kid scissors (1 sharp tip, 1 blunt tip) - $.75 each
2 composition notebooks - $.50 each
2 wire notebooks - $.15 each
2 double packs of disappearing purple glue sticks (4 total) - $.25 each
2 packs of 24 ct Crayonart crayons - $.25 each
1 bottle Elmer's School Glue - $.25
2 large bottles of acrylic paint (1 black, 1 red) - $1.97.

I felt good walking out. I didn't use any coupons.....first time in a LOOOOONG time I've done that. But it was a nice reward for us. Ok, so school supplies aren't usually considered a reward. But in a couple years when all 3 of my girls are in school and my oldest is required to bring more than just glue, I'll be glad I picked up a few extra things during the sales!

On a different note, I painted the church garage sale sign today. I'm no artist, and I definitely don't have a steady hand BUT I was happy with how it turned out. I bought the stencils for the lettering but ended up just doing it free hand. The stencils kept moving and I was getting irritated.

Hoping everyone sees the sign from the street and comes to our sale!!!

DiGiorno Deep Dish

DiGiorno sent me another coupon for a free product. This time the coupon was for a Free Deep Dish Pizza. The only come in single-serving boxes (sadly). I chose the Four Cheese Deep Dish Pizza and cooked it in my conventional oven. The directions indicated to bake for 28-32 minutes. I got to 32 minutes and the outer parts were definitely heated and the cheese melted, but the center cheese was still in it's shredded form and not melted. I put my finger through the cheese and noticed the sauce and crust in the middle was just barely warm. I didn't heat it any longer for fear that the outer parts would burn.

The flavor was really good. DiGiorno has surprised me with their flavors. The Four Cheese was very cheesy. And we love cheese in our house, so that worked out well for me. :) I really like DiGiorno pizza crusts. They aren't too dry but they also don't get soggy from the sauce.They're sorta flaky but not to the point of falling apart when you try to eat it. I am not a fan of a lot of sauce, so DiGiorno pizzas are really great on that for me. They put just enough sauce to moisten the top of the crust but not so much that the sauce is pouring out all over after the first bite.

Overall, the pizza was pretty good. I think next time I'd lower the recommended oven temp and cook it for just a little longer to melt the cheese in the middle. And I wish they had a regular size deep dish product, instead of just the individual serving size. Because at $2.50 each (1 per box....and $2.50 on sale!), I don't think I'd purchase them on a regular basis. That's too much for my budget to buy and feed only 1 person!

Click here to go to the nutritional information on the pizza I ate. Thanks!

Summer is slipping away!

I feel like this summer has gotten away from me....yet, we've done so many activities. We recently went camping for 5 days. That was quite an experience! Two summers ago we went, but we only had 2 girls. This time we had all 3 girls and went for a day longer. Thanks to the rain, there were PLENTY of mosquitoes to fight off. We pretty much bathed in bug repellent several times a day. The nature trail at the campground was under water (as it was 2 years ago as well), so that was a bummer. We tent camp, which is always fun for us, but with the 90+ degrees in temperature each day we were there, I was glad to have 2 fans running constantly. :) The girls enjoyed every minute of it, of course. It was really neat to see them enjoy being outdoors all day....and it was enjoyable for us to see them fall to sleep so quickly after a long day in the sun and heat! The campground's name is Duck Creek Campground; it is in Wyocena, WI. The owners, Tom and Judy Buchta, are wonderful and "Miss Judy" will go to great lengths to ensure her campers have a nice time. Click here to see the site if anyone's interested. They do have cabins and pull-through sites as well, so for those not-so-big fans of tents theydo have other options. It's small but a great size for families.

The girls and I also went with friends to a FREE splash pad in Streamwood. It was very nice and fenced in, which helped with keeping the girls in sight but letting them run around and have a little freedom. We enjoyed a picnic lunch there as well before heading home.

My 2 oldest are participating in our library's Summer Reading Program, which ends July 31. They have to read 40 books and are about 7 books away from finishing that up.

I have volunteered to head up our church's garage sale. For those interested, New Hope Community Church in Palatine, IL will be having a garage sale on Saturday, August 7 from 10AM to 4PM. It will be at the church: 1023 E Palatine Rd, Palatine 60074. I have been busy, busy with making lists and advertising and gathering supplies. I still need to get a big sign out front. We have the info on our electronic sign but a big colorful sign would be helpful too. I'm just not that creative, so this will definitely stretch me. :) All leftover items will be donated to the WINGS Resale Shop here in Palatine; it burned down a few weeks ago.

We celebrated my oldest daughter's 4th birthday in June, my birthday in July, and had several cousins' birthdays in between. Summers are FULL of birthdays for our families. It is pretty insane how quiet the winter months are when it comes to birthdays. April to September has all of my parents' grandkids' birthdays. Ridiculous! :)

So, August will be a busy month at the beginning and hopefully quiet toward the end. My oldest goes to 4 yr old Preschoool in September and my second daughter goes to 3 yr old Preschool in October. We are working on her potty training now....I am determined to get her potty trained before she's 3 in September! LOL. We'll see if her plans are in sync with mine. HA!

I trust you all are enjoying your summer and this crazy wet and HOT weather we've had. Record rain, I hear, this summer and for the month of June. Thankfully, we've had no problems with flooding. And most of my vegetables still came up - radishes, tomato (only 1), green beans, and lettuce. My poor zucchini and cucumbers died - zucchini because of the dry hot weather while we were gone (didn't rain once!) and the cucumbers because of too much rain in one night. Oh well, it was a fun experiment and the girls enjoyed checking on them daily as well as scaring away the squirrels trying to steal from us!

I can't complain about my summer; God has been abundantly good....as always! Have a safe and happy August!

Weeds and Thorns

I have been so tired lately. Summer is just wearing me out...and there's still two more months of it!

Today, the girls and I went over to church to water the flowers. I noticed the weeds have really tried taking over since all of the rain from this past month! We decided (ok, I decided) to weed the flowerbeds. Bad idea. I mean, it's a good idea but I just wasn't mentally prepared for the amount of weeds. I didn't bring my gloves, and the girls kept hurting themselves on the playground and just walking! I noticed that all the flowers and plants looked relatively the same size as last week, but the weeds looked super huge! I was trying to think of ways to connect with the weeds spiritually, and I started thinking of how weeds, like sin, seem to suck up all the nutrients and crowd out the plants and flowers. Sin tends to suck up my energy and time and crowd out the good qualities in me.

Then, I came across a weed that had a very pretty flower on the end of it. At first, I couldn't decide if it was indeed a weed or just a different flower I hadn't noticed before. I began inspecting the stem and leaves and then realized it was just like the other, smaller weeds I had plucked up; the only difference was that this one had gotten so huge it was able to produce a flower. I started thinking of the ways Satan tries to deceive us by making sin look pretty and appealing and similar to actual good things. The more we inspect it and really compare, the more we can see that it is really just a huge sin in our lives that we've let go until we cannot recognize it for what it is.

It's amazing, the relationship between sin and weeds. Just like a garden, our lives need to be "weeded" to get rid of the sin that we've let sneak in and suck up our spiritual nutrients and try to just blend in with the rest of our lives.

I can be so judgmental. I usually try to justify it by telling myself that in order to be hanging out with positive and encouraging people, I need to pick apart their lives and habits and actions to know if they're good for my spiritual growth. Now, reading that with a clear heart and head just sounds awful. I don't recall reading anywhere that Jesus sat and judged everyone's actions before deciding to sit and eat with them. Or judging Mary Magdalene's actions before she wiped His feet. He simply accepted them where they were and fellowshipped. And HE IS JESUS!! I think I can handle doing the same, being just sinful old me. I mean, who do I think I am sometimes to go around deciding how good people are?! It's disgusting what I let myself get away with. And I'm ashamed to know that it's habitual for me. I don't even think twice now that I've done it so often.

And now to think that God will still love me. I ask Him for forgiveness and He simply accepts my apology and my sinful self as I am to fellowship again with Him.

How great Thou art. I couldn't have said it better.