Transitions

Transitions kinda suck.  I don't have any living room furniture. The only chairs to sit in are at the kitchen table.  My butt misses the recliner. There's no good place to read to the girls.  Blaaaaaah.

I am ready to be moved into my new house, with furniture and space. I am so excited to start a new journey. The waiting in between this house and the new house is hard. Transitions are hard.

It's been a while since I've lived in a season of transitions. In the 8 years we've been married, we've had a lot of them. Transitioning from a couple to parents. Transitioning from being students to being "adults". Transitioning from being renters in Lawrence to homeowners in Overland Park. Tim transitioning from one job to the next. Me transitioning from a full time student with a toddler at home to a full time, stay at home mom of two. 

There were several periods in the past 8 years where I had no idea what my day to day life would look like in 6 months or a year. I didn't know where we would live. Then I didn't know where I would student teach, or whether I would teach in my own classroom. Tim didn't know where he would work. It was a season of upheaval. There was a lot of wondering and uncertainty and worry about what was to come. And while there have been some hard patches, there have been a lot of very good times. Overall, I feel very blessed. 

So, I feel very certain that things will be OK. I do believe it will all work out, like it has in the past. I believe that there are good things in store for me and for my family. The waiting is hard. It's hard to have a lot of my belongings packed up. I went to watch Ghostbusters (my favorite movie, the one I've historically watched for comfort) the other night only to discover that I have no idea where it is. I made do. I'm sure it's somewhere.

I've spent too much time worrying about small, trivial things. What will our new neighbors be like? What if there are kids who are bad influences on ours? What if a table won't actually fit in our kitchen? Where am I going to put two litter boxes? Will we have enough money? Will I buy an Overland Park or a Lenexa pool pass next summer?  What if our buyers back out on closing day? What if we end up homeless? Blah, I can't wait to worry about more important things. 

Despite all these (pretty ridiculous) questions without answers, I do feel peace. This time of transition is hard, but it is fleeting. It won't last forever. Before long, we'll be in a new home figuring out what our new normal looks like. I know there will be bumps along the way. But I think it will all be OK.  

I'll have shelves to put books on, my comfy bed to sleep in, and a recliner of some kind to sit on. I'll make sure of it! A couch for reading books to the children. My kids will be able to ride their bikes. We'll have space to invite people over. Lexi will have a real bed instead of just a mattress on the floor.  I will spent some time helping Lydia purge even more stuff and organize what's left so she doesn't cry every time I ask her to clean her toys up. We'll get our new homeschool room unpacked and ready and we will get into a routine again. We will get there. We can survive this weird time, and we will. We've done it before. We've done way worse before, if I'm being honest. We'll be just fine. 

Only 38 days to go! I'm ready.

June & July Goals

June Goals Review

June was a most ridiculous month. I did SO VERY MUCH work on our house, you would not believe the amount of stuff I evicted from our home. It felt great. A good chunk of our belongings are packed and frankly, I have been thinking about donating several boxes without even opening them again. I read "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" during part of this process, which was excellent timing.

So, our house is in the inspection period, yay! We listed it, left town, and came home to 5 offers, 4 of them being above asking price. It was an awesome feeling, and it was great to not have to keep it super clean for an extended period of time for showings. It looks like we're going to close at the end of August. (PS, if you're looking for a great realtor, call Carla. She's the best!) The market is wild and crazy, and we've made multiple offers of houses. Hopefully, we will find our place soon. For right now, it's kind of a waiting game. It's nerve-wracking, but I have faith that we will end up in a good place.

I met the majority of my goals this month, which was great. I'm setting up some goals for July but I still don't completely know what it will look like. We will see. Oh, there were no "meh" goals this month, weirdly.

I'm feeling kinda lazy so we're limited to whatever graphics are already available on my blog haha.

Purge every room of the house - I got rid of so much stuff, it would blow your mind. Now I'm on a roll and I want to get rid of even more!
Organize the basement rooms - Not gonna lie, they look beautiful.
Finish organizing my files into the new filing cabinet - Check. I'm more organized than I have been and I hope to stick to it.
Clean every room of the house - Yup. Did you see the pics?
Get the house on the market for the weekend of June 25th - Check! It was a tight squeeze but I finished the last of my cleaning as the photographer arrived to take pictures. We've accepted an offer and are now in the inspection period.

Enjoy a staycation - We had a good time with this. It ended up being a fun way to do something different without breaking the bank. We hit up Old Shawnee Days, went to the pool and enjoyed eating treats.

Try out one new pool (and hit all the OP pools by summer's end) - We went to Youngs, which was fun!  One of the slides nearly killed me. Turns out there's only one pool we haven't been to, Marty Pool, so we'll have to hit that later.

Enjoy a reunion with the Paden side - We had a wonderful time. We need to see those lovely people more!

Host Usborne books party and purchase books to use for Science and Social Studies - Checkity check. Can't wait for the books to arrive. It'll be better than Christmas. 

Write something every week - Check.

Accept the fact that we may not do any school til August - Haha yeah, I've accepted that this summer is going to be pretty chill for the kids. I think they need more structure. Hopefully I'll have time to get to that soon.
Finish a book, maybe - I've read bits and pieces of 3 or 4 different books and I finished The Life Changing Magic yesterday. So a day late. Whatevs, that counts.

Pack up all non-essential items - I did a pretty good job at this. There were a few cabinets and drawers that I did not have time to get to. Honestly, I think I need to just get rid of the majority of the non-essential items anyway.
Coffee with a friend - Running errands with a friend counts, right??

Figure out how we could implement MoneySmart family system in a way that we can stick to - I mean I have some ideas about this but there's no way we are going to get started until we have a clearer picture of what is going to happen with our house and when our move will be. I'm debating whether I want to buy a copy of this for reference.
Determine a rough outline for Science and Social Studies for the upcoming year - Not so much. I mean, I bought the books, so I have an idea of what we are going to learn about...but that's as far as I have gotten.

July Goals

Personal
Read a book
See the new Ghostbusters movie

Family

Make Lydia's birthday special

Social
Coffee and/or dinner with friends
Celebrate my 30th birthday

School
Get back into some kind of routine
Do some art projects
Figure out a curriculum for Legacy for the fall

Writing
Blog weekly

House
Do an additional purge
Find a great house and buy it!!!

Online Grocery Shopping: A Review

I feel kind of lame writing a post about grocery shopping, but that's just where my life is at right now so I am going to embrace it.

BACKGROUND
Before I review the process of ordering groceries online, let me start by explaining my current process. For as random and unorganized as I am in general, I actually have this area of my life down to a predictable routine. I typically plan meals for one week at a time. I'll sit down on Sunday morning or afternoon and make a list of what we're going to have each night and what I need to buy. Then I'll circle everything I need to get at Walmart (basically whatever Aldi doesn't carry), head there, then finish out the trip by going to Aldi, then home. I go on Sundays so I can go without children.

A $1 steno pad, cut in half. The groceries go on the left, the meal plan goes on the right. Yes, that says "Tim yogurt".  

I like meal planning and getting it all over with in one day. I forget things sometimes but for the most part I feel pretty prepared. Some weeks I struggle to figure out what we should eat, and sometimes nothing sounds good so it takes longer.

For the past several weeks, I've been receiving emails from Walmart saying that they have a new online grocery shopping deal and that I should try it out. The emails have included a coupon for $10 off, and the service is free. I just have to pick up the food. I have been exhausted this week with all the house stuff, going out of town, and a poorly-timed cold, so I decided to finally give it a try.


THE "SHOPPING"
I sat down last night around 10pm and started adding things to my cart. I'd started a partial paper list so I added those items first. I've used Walmart's Savings Catcher program for a while now and because of that, they already had a small list of items I typically buy started for me, which I thought was very cool. I found the shopping experience to be very easy. I was able to create a list of favorite items, which was useful. I had the option of shopping by department or searching specific items. I mostly searched and it didn't take too long.

I liked how it kept a running total of how much I had spent. I try to do this as I am shopping, but I am not very good at mental math and it's hard to juggle a calculator and a grocery list while pushing a cart. I have a ballpark of how much I want to spend each week and I liked being able to tell how close I was while I was shopping. I was also happy to learn that I could add items like cat litter and vitamins to the list too.

When I finished, it was time to pay and schedule a time for pick up. Before I paid, it asked if there was anything else I wanted and showed a few items that I've bought in the past. I decided that yes, it would be good to have a couple of these things, so I added them as well. Then I paid with my debit card and scheduled a pick up time. I was a little confused about this initially because it was a one hour slot, but further reading showed me that my food would be ready by the start of the pick up time (in my case, 10am) and would be ready until the end of the window (11am) after which it would be put away. I was told I'd receive a call when it was ready. I went to bed kind of excited that I had finished my shopping from, well, my bed.


THE PICK UP
So this morning around 9:25, I received a call that my groceries were ready. I was surprised because it was 35 minutes before my pick up window. Luckily that wasn't a problem. I told them I would be there in about 15 minutes. Unfortunately for me, I went to the wrong Walmart (I'm special like that) and then I had to call them and let them know I'd be late. The lady laughed and told me it had happened before and that she would wheel my food back into the refrigerator. The correct location was quite a ways from my house, but it is very close to our church so if I want to try this again, I could schedule a pick up time for right after church so we could pick our food up on the way home.

When we finally got there, I parked in a reserved spot and called to let her know I was there. She came right out with my food and I helped her load it into the trunk. She told me that two items were not available so I had not been charged for them. It wasn't a big deal, but it would have been cool to have been able to substitute. One of the items was a package of blueberry yogurt and I would have been happy to sub in a different flavor, if that were an option. She presented me with a goody bag full of random sample items that we probably won't ever use, and I was on my way. I wasn't given a printed out receipt, which would have been handy for checking things over, but I do have a receipt in my email and could have done that.

The Freebies were pretty lame, but this little bag is cute. 

Lexi and I unloaded everything and it seems that everything was there. We noticed that they used a TON of bags, but I can see that some people would be picky about loading things separately. We Franzens are pretty simple creatures who like to make the fewest possible trips from the car to the kitchen so we tend to cram as much as possible into each bag. It's not a big deal because I will use the bags for cleaning out the litter box.

Holy bags, Batman!

PROS
+ Shopping from my bed! When I felt like it!
+ No herding children through the stores
+ Easy!
+ Free pick up
+ Can potentially free up 1-2 hours of my Sunday afternoons
+ Favorites list makes shopping quick
+ It was easy to compare prices between generics and name brands
+ Got $10 off my first order


CONS
- It's kind of a trek from my house unless I plan strategically
- Website was a little slow
- Substitutions? The FAQ says there is a way to substitute but I can't figure it out.  Before checking out, you can select whether or not you want to allow substitutions for each item, HOWEVER, it seems these substitutions are more about size/quantity of a specific item rather than flavors.
- Have to buy everything at Walmart
- Doesn't work with Savings Catcher  It DOES work with Savings Catcher! They provide a code to enter into the app.
- Timing. Picking up early wasn't a problem today but could be in the future.


THE VERDICT
Overall, I was very pleased with this process! I was really not looking forward to shopping this week and this certainly made it easier on me and the kids. I could see myself working on the list throughout the week which would streamline things even more. I'm not sure if I can give up shopping at Aldi altogether, but for busy weeks like the ones we've been having, this could be a real time saver, especially if I strategically schedule the pick up for a time when I'm near the store. I think I'll try it again.

This post was brought to you by a helpful cat. 

June Goals

It's been a while since I've done monthly goals but I feel like now is a good time to start up again! I'm feeling like my old self again, which is a wonderful feeling. We're several days into the month but I'm going to give this goals thing a go anyhow!


No pretty pictures because my life is chaotic. We're currently having the trim and rooms on the main floor of our house painted, so random things are everywhere. The living room has no furniture other than a TV stand. Next week, we're having the floors refinished and we'll need to remove all the furniture from our bedroom and Lexi's room as well. Good times!

Since we're planning to get the house listed this month, House Goals are going to dominate my life ;)