Little is Much

Theres a really great song by the amazing band, Downhere, called Little Is Much. Buy it.

Its so true though. I was in my garage yesterday. I have a bin beside my door for shoes. I have another bin beside my laundry for rags and towels. Actually, I had bins in these two places.

The rule was: only shoes in the bin. No clothes in the towel bin.

But what do I find every time? Socks in the shoe bin and clothes in the towel bin. AH! So what did I do? I tossed the bins! Put in a NICE shelf for the shoes and said "throw the towels in the washing machine." Little is much. Little is more.

I've also done this in my kids rooms. It seemed that if there was a cranny to shove a piece of trash or soiled clothing.... they stashed it! SO I took it all out. They have a bed and a desk. No dresser. No book shelf. Clothes all get hung. They have organizational bins in their closet for school, art, and personal. Thats it. And its amazing how much cleaner a room can be with less stuff in it.

I've even read studies lately stating that with all our technology we are producing LESS. And that the more STUFF a person has around them, the higher their stress levels. I can't quote the studies... but I can say on a personal level that this seems so true. Before facebook my house was a lot more clean! Or, maybe that was before KIDS! They both kind of kicked off about the same time, so I'm not really sure who the culprit is! :)

Anyway, as we try to live on the excess of our nation and to support our friends as home-makers and local businesses... we are also finding that getting rid of stuff is so freeing.

Even my three year old gets it. His sister tried to give him a new cool bracelet. He checked it out, said it was "cool" and gave it back. She said, "no, its yours." He said, "I don't need it." She tried to convince him that it was still his but he was adamant: He didn't need it.

May I be as quick to get rid of the things I don't need and thus free myself of more stress and perhaps even become more productive! Lessons of a three-year-old.

Birthdays, Birthdays, and more Birthdays.

Wow, its been awhile since my last post. Whoops!

Here's why: I've begun homeschooling my 11 year old which I believe will be short-lived. I have two toddlers. I've been invited to lead worship for my Bible Study which means I have to dust off the guitar and learn some songs ;) I'm a wife. I live in a house with five other people, a dog, and a cat (though the animals stay outside). I am a writer (ha!). I'm the publicity coordinator for my MOPS group. All of these are great blessings. All of these use up my resource of TIME :)

That said, its 11:02pm. The kids are asleep. The cat is asleep. The dog is asleep. The hubby is working on school stuff. My guitar is locked up. My MOPS work is done (for the time being) and Im ignoring the unswept floor. Finally, my laptop is open before me. Here we go.

Since my last post we've had at least three more birthday

s, a child with a tummy ache (too much candy at one of the parties), an entire summer, and the beginning of the school year. CRAZY! I mention the tummy ache because it was the only time (in these last months) where I chose to break our resolution... for the love of a child.

Unfortunately for this resolution, my love language is gift-giving. My then 2-year old had snuck a gummy bear too many and his body was working it back out... of both ends. Sorry for the details. We moved him to our room so he could wake

us

up if he needed to. Did I mention he was potty training? (side note: he woke up one day and agreed to "no more diapers" and now wont let us put one on him if we try! He made it through the above episode without ONE accident! He'd wake us up in time to make it to the potty!) Back to the confession. He needed some crackers and 7-up...

both of which I was out of. So at 1am I headed to my neighborhood 24-hour Winco. God bless that store.

While there I saw a Buzz and Woody toy. I'd passed it a bunch of times knowing that I "couldn't" buy it out of loyalty for our decision. This time, however, I made the conscientious to love my

baby boy with a new gift. Hearing him say, "what's that?" and cry as his gummy bears punished his gut broke my heart and my resolution. I came home to a sweet son, dealing ever so gracefully with his situation, and gave him the NEW buzz and woody. He slept with them that night and recovered very well from his tummy-trouble. It made me happy to see HIM happy in a moment of such discomfort and pain...it was worth the break from our goal :)

Aside from that, though, we've really stuck with it! I've discovered some of the BEST thrift stores in town... and re-realized that I'm a yard sale junkie... so I'm not sure if this whole plan is helping my budget yet or not! We've had an Olympic-themed party, a Caribbean themed party, and a Lion King party... all using previously owned or handmade items. Even the gifts were either used or food. :) I've bought some beautiful handmade tutus from a friend as gifts for other little girl toddlers. SO cute. Here are some pictures of the various birthday parties

I stayed up till midnight making Pride Rock :) Fortunately I had the right Lion King toys already to complete the scene :) A closer look at the onlookers will ... well, you'll see some familiar characters. My son LOVED this (he's three so it didnt have to be amazing to anyone but him :)

Dirt cupcakes! We all enjoyed some "grub" with Pumba and Timon. Favors were animal crackers in some safari themed favor bags (last minute compliments of a friend, thanks!)

This was for my husbands birthday. This has been the year of making fun cakes (and I am NOT a baker). My husband is "from" a Caribbean island, San Andres. This was an ode to his islander side :) Everything was edible... the palm trees are made up of biscotti, bubble gum leaves, and white chocolate glue. The coconuts are chocolate covered raisins. The sand is ground up animal crackers. And of course, gummy sharks and fish.

Olympic-themed bday party for my oldest daughter! So much fun! We made all of the medals and awards with chocolate coins. Cupcakes were easy enough... as you can see :)

This is what I presented my daughter so she could blow out the candles. FUN!

We are still continuing to learn so much in this process. I'm still blown away by how easy it is to go meet our own needs and rob God of the opportunity to do it. Not that he doesn't sometimes meet our needs through Target... but I've had some really neat experiences waiting on Him. And its still amazing how much STUFF we have. Every time we have a yard sale or give something away I think: "Okay, now I REALLY have given everything I don't want away." And then someone says they need something, I happen to have it... and its gone. OR I just get in a mood of "thats gotta go." We will be having another yard sale in two weeks. :)

Thanks for patiently waiting for me. I'm not sure who I'm thanking really... maybe just the internet abyss out there... but regardless, its good practice :)

Immersion Blender FREEBIE :)

This is such a fun story and I can't believe I haven't shared it yet! But since I used my "new" immersion blender tonight for our soup (and loved every minute of it) I saw it only appropriate to come here and write about this gift... while my soup continues to simmer :)

Awhile back I had decided that I would like an immersion blender. I make a corn tortilla soup that requires blending... and more than a few times I have burned myself as splashes of boiling soup attack me as I pour it into my REGULAR blender, which, by the way, doesn't fit the whole soup. Needless to say, visiting friends and watching them blend so beautifully and cleanly created some blender-envy. I decided to see what I could find used. This led to a lot of nothing as it seems that many people are not looking to get rid of their immersion blenders (no doubt).

SO one day I get on freecycle and see a woman offering kitchen things. I check it out and sure enough, at the bottom of her list, is an immersion blender. FREE!!!. So I promptly send her an email requesting it. After I sent my email I looked at the time... it was posted the day before. I thought to myself, "there is NO way that is still available a day later." Then I realized that my messages were flipped! They were showing OLDER to NEWER! Sure enough, once I corrected my posts... there it was, the fatal "Taken: Kitchen stuff." I sadly emailed the person back saying how sorry I was that I'd missed the "Taken" post and to disregard my message. Thinking it was over.... I moved on with my life.

However, I received a reply email stating that while all of the kitchen stuff WAS gone... the immersion blender was still available and sitting on her porch waiting for me (address included and all!) You can bet that I jumped in my car and drove right over to pick up my beloved gift from God.

Its crazy how often we think that God doesn't care about these small things in our life. And really, in relation to all the tragedies in the world, He shouldn't. But what a blessing to know that in his omnipresence and omnipotence, He can care about the silliest things that my heart ponders. And then to take the time to respond! Had my freecycle posts been in order, I NEVER would have emailed that woman about her kitchen stuff! SO many providential things in place with an eventual leading to my "new" immersion blender. And tonight, as in so many nights yet to come, I am extremely grateful for His thoughtfulness... and the thoughtfulness of the woman giving it away! :)

So to all of you who wonder if God cares about the BIG things in your life, let alone the small things... know that He does. And though not every answer is a "yes" or even comes in the way we expect... He does love to give His kids good gifts. :) May you continue to be inspired to allow God to meet your needs!

Another Birthday! :)

Well, our new years resolution was tested yet again by another birthday! We celebrated my youngest love's first birthday! We decided to go Luau style (in April) since she wouldn't remember and we would have lots of fun!

I was so blessed by the generosity of friends AND our church to both loan and give us things for the Luau. EVERY decoration was provided for. My husband and youngest son had matching shirts (loaned to us :) and my birthday baby had three Hawaiian dresses to pick from! She also had the cutest little grass skirt given to us. I found a couple leis at thrifts stores but most were given or loaned to us. I offered leis as favors but most people just left them. I made the cupcakes and we all barbecued. It was a really fun day. Instead of spending money on gifts for my bday girl, we spent the money on loving our family and friends with a free meal. That was a definitely blessing. My daughter certainly wont remember that we didn't get her anything in particular... besides, so many others gave to her. We asked for used/re-used gifts so her bday wouldnt cause OTHERs to buy new either :) Some did, some didnt. But at the end of the day I was so honored to spend the birthday money on our dear friends and family who so love my little one... instead of filling our house with a bunch of new shiny noise imagination-killer toys ;)

Resoluting in Disneyland! :)

The inside of the book that I made. You can see that Corban added his own autograph too.
The autograph book that I made for the kids.

Yeah, you are reading that right. We went to Disneyland and worked VERY hard at not buying anything new! As a matter of fact, we worked hard at spending little to no money! Here is what we did :)

First of all, we jumped on the opportunity that Disneyland offered: Give a Day, Get a Day. I think its over now... but basically they gave 1 million people the opportunity to volunteer for an approved day of service and in return they gave a free ticket to the park! Jeremy and I and our two oldest children were blessed to help friends with a fundraiser for the domestic adoption. We made greeting cards for two hours and got tickets! (Just a note: we would have helped them regardless. The fact that Disney supported them was such a blessing!).

We were able to get ALL SIX of us into the park FREE. Do you know how much money that saved? Almost $300. Amazing. Liz had never been to Disneyland (Hannah either) so it was especially neat to take them!

We paid for gas with a Visa Rebate I had received for $90. Money already spent that we used to fuel our vehicle. I made lunch and dinner for the road. We stayed with a dear friend in Costa Mesa so our housing was FREE (along with a breakfast the next morning!). We slept and then headed to the park on Mother's Day. We paid $14 for parking. Then as we entered the park we were each given a number of buttons... Celebration buttons (for mother's day), Volunt-ear buttons (for earning our tickets) and my other two got First Visit buttons for being newbies. Then, they gave mothers a carnation for Mother's Day! There were all of our free souveniers (not to mention the plethora of pictures we took!)

We bought ONE meal in the park... which totaled about $50 (ridiculous, I know :) but used our saved up yard sale money from a couple months back. Then we bought sandwiches as we drove home that night.

Sounds easy, maybe. But really... I have had a tradition my WHOLE LIFE LONG of buying a stuffed animal (big or small) with every visit to Disneyland. I DIDN'T! And Im okay with that. I grew up in San Diego so you can imagine how many of these "traditions" I've collected over the years. The kids were content with their autograph books that I had made them, filled with signatures to pair with the photos we took. Our great friend Allison made all of the kids tie-dyed disney shirts (See above photo :). (the books cost $5 to make as opposed to the $10-15 for the ones at the park).

It was such a fun day and so inexpensive! I felt really good about our decision to stick to the "buy nothing new" plan. I think, in the end, we didn't have to use any of our month's income on the trip because we used my rebate card and our yardsale money... with some to spare! Its possible!

Because I told them I would: Why Not to use Avis Car Rental

A while back, some of you remember my troubles with AVIS. Here's the review in case you forgot (or never saw it :)

Before taking my trip from Cali to Orlando, I CALLED Avis to ask about renting a car. I needed to get from our cruise ship to the airport. I verified my trip with them to which I was told there was a free shuttle from Avis (at the airport) to my to my ship and back again.

Once we got off of the ship we were taken to the rental location in Port Canaveral. Here I was told that my car was reserved at the Orlando Airport (duh) and I'd need to pick it up there (with the free shuttle, right?). They told me that they'd change my reservation for me (which I had verified BEFORE my trip) but that they were out of cars and couldn't even provide cars for the people who HAD reservations. Really? There were a number of events in Orlando and they weren't prepared so people just weren't getting their reserved cars. I have 4 children... including a 2 year old and a less than one year old. So my family of 6 was stranded in Port Canaveral. They said they'd get us a shuttle to the airport which I was grateful for (since I'd been assured before my trip that there would be one, and it would be free). We all got on the shuttle when it arrived and only THEN were told that it would be $50/person PLUS a mandatory $30 tip. They even charged us for our 2 year old... so we had to pay $180 cash to get to our car (which again, I had verified would be there before I left for this trip).

When I returned home I contacted AVIS, explained the situation, and asked for some compensation, if not for an entire refund. After 2 1/2 months of faxing my receipts and getting past disconnected numbers, I was told they would only give me $75 in gift certificates. Seriously? I NEVER EVER EVER will use Avis again. They were rude, REALLY expensive, and wouldn't hold to their own mistakes of mis-verifying my information. I don't want gift certificates to use a rental Ill never use again... maybe Ill try to sell 'em. :( but certainly don't want to pass this problem company on to someone else.

I'm telling you this because in one of my letters to the supervisors of Avis, I explained that I would be using my various modes of social media to let people know how they handled the situation. They made their decision KNOWING that I'd be telling people about it. Unfortunately, as I'm reading the reviews now (so I can also leave one), I'm realizing many people find their service under par.

Of course make your own decision! But I wanted to share my story. Sometimes they come up as the less expensive option on expedia or orbitz... but really, they ended up WAY more expensive than any of the other options I could have used. Hertz made the same mistake on the way in and only charged me a $25 change in location fee. No big deal. They at least fixed it and gave me a car. Also, Hertz cars go through the tolls and Hertz pays them. NOT Avis! Guess what showed up on my credit card? TOLLS! I sincerely urge you to pay a couple dollars more to NOT use Avis.

That said, be on the look out for my next post: Hannah's Birthday Party, and LAPTOP LOVE!

Next birthday... comin up!

Its true. My daughter is turning one. Fortunately, it seems I've picked a theme that a lot of people can help with! We are having a Luau barbecue to celebrate her year of life. I have had so many people lend and give us leis, grass skirts, table cloths, lanterns... its been amazing. I've even found leis at a thrift store! It is slowly coming together and I'm so excited to see what the end result will be. I even found a grass skirt FOR my one year old! Oh, watch out for those pictures! Goodness.

Anyway, here we are in month four and still sticking to our resolution really well. Its amazing to see how little we need. In fact, we recently purged our house and had a yard sale. We made just over $100 on things we really would have PAID people to take away! The yard sale went something like this:

Customer: "how much for this _______?)
Us: "$5"
Customer: "Oh" and starts to walk away and look around
Us: "But how much will you take it for?"
Customer: "$1"
Us: "Excellent! Its yours!!!!!!!!"

We couldn't be talked down too low. The rest was donated to a local thrift store that I found on accident. The employer was out of tax deductible receipts and I didn't care- I just wanted to get rid of the left over stuff. That's the thrift store where I found two leis. He let me have them for free.

All that said... it seems our hearts are changing with this resolution in some interesting ways. Not only do we not want MORE but we are finding we don't even really want or need all that WE have. We are living on our own excess in so many ways. Its been so freeing to clear a bunch out. I feel round two coming on! Here's what we got rid of (in general): 3 dressers, 2 end tables, diaper changing table, baby video monitor, a bike, 1-2 bookshelves, bar stool, lots of clothes, broken skateboard (gave that away to someone who wanted to buy it!), lots of kitchen stuff... one woman even asked if we had any towels for sale. So we pulled out ALL of our rags and let her pick what she wanted! It was fun to run in our house and try to find things that people were looking for. A lot of it was just gave away too... so its amazing we made any money at all. One family was looking for baby dishes... so I ran in and pulled out my pantry for her to look through.

I pray that if there is anything hindering your freedom in this life, that you would be reminded that this is a HOTEL on our way to our permanent home. Your life is so short in the light of eternity. LET IT GO! :) This continues to be a lesson to myself... honestly, even as I look at my cluttered desk top right now. MOVE IT ON! :)

Blessings to you each as you endeavor to free up your lives however God leads you and to live on the plenty that we have!