Close to my Heart Blog Candy

Post a comment to any of my posts and enter to win "blog candy" from Close to my Heart! If a friend posts and mentions your name, both of you are entered to win. One entry per comment! Drawing to be held September 1st. Winner's name will be posted on my blog, so check back to see if you win!

1st Day of School

This is one of my favorite times of year. I love getting ready for the first day of school. The crisp paper, freshly sharpened pencils, squeaky clean tool boxes, and shine notebooks inspire me. Every year is a fresh start offering a multitude of opportunities. This year is especially exciting starting a new curriculum in a new place with all three of my children. We will include the typical reading and writing, math, science, and history, but we are adding in lots of fun extras. We will also make time for Bible, sewing, cooking, music, Spanish, art, and card-making.

What are your plans for the upcoming school year?

Priorities in Unpacking

My daughters and I recently moved halfway across the country in search of a simpler life. While my husband finishes his tour in Iraq, I am left to sort and unpack thousands (OK, maybe a few less than that) boxes of stuff. We started out very organized when unloading the truck, putting boxes in appropriate areas and stacking them so the list of contents could be seen. As I began unpacking however, boxes were moved and shuffled around to get to other boxes. My goal is to create a home or something close to it for my husband to come back to next week. So what are my priorities? The beds are assembled and welcome anyone to climb up for a nap. The TV, satellite box, and DVD player are hooked up. All of our clothes are unpacked and put away. Because our temporary home is my mom's basement, all of the kitchen boxes are set aside for now. My scrapbooking things are out so I can send lots of thank you cards to my friends who helped us accomplish this undertaking. Next up, school books and supplies so we can be ready for school to start in a couple of weeks. Yippee!