Yesterday when we were working on food storage, Gehrig and Nolan made quite a mess in m office. I must admit that is one of my pet peeves – the kids seem to mess up every room they enter so I really don’t like them running loose in my office. They spread styrofoam peanuts all over the place. It looked like a tornado swept through. After I came out of my office today at 5:00, Gracie went downstairs and cleaned them all up. I...

Tonight for family night we talked about emergency preparation, then we filled up about 30 2-liter bottle of water that we brought during the move. It was something that had been on my to-do list for a while and it was fun to get the kids involved by explaining why we do it and then working together as a family.

This morning I saw Gracie bring her scriptures into our room and she started reading them. Last week when we had our PPI she set a goal to read a scripture everyday by herself. I don’t know how she is doing overall, but I was happy to see her trying this morning.

Since we have been conciously focusing on our budget and finances lately, things have “felt” tight. For example, Rachel has been wanted to do a few decorating things around the house but we’ve been putting them off until they made it up the priority latter. Today she was ready to just forget the budget and go buy! Fortunately, before we left we reviewed the budget and made a plan. Even thought things feel tight, I think we are...

I’ve been working on a zero based (envelope type) budget application. I’ve registered inzolo.com for this site. Inzolo in Xhosa (South African tribal language) means peace or tranquility. The idea is that following this budget will lead to greater financial peace. It’s been coming along quite well. I keep telling myself that I need to stay focused on one thing so I can see it through to success. I’m hoping this is...