7 Things I’ve Noticed while Thrift Store Shopping

7 things I've learnd shopping thrift stores

Since my financial situation has changed, I’ve been frequenting thrift stores. As a newbie, I’ve noticed a few things:

  1. Every thrift store has a different pricing structure. Some thrift stores charged higher prices than others. Each store will price things like books and clothes differently. Just because you bought a pot for $2 at one store, doesn’t mean that you’ll find it for that same price at others.
  2. Things are not necessarily cheaper at a thrift store. I ran into a few high prices where I could almost get the same item brand new for the same price.
  3. Some stores have a dressing room, some do not.
  4. Some stores do not accept credit cards. I found the large chains like Arc and Goodwill do accept credit cards while some of the smaller stores did not. I would say that a majority do accept cards. Just prepared for that one or two that do not.
  5. Items are color coded and on certain days of the week, a certain color may be half off.
  6. In stores where the price is not listed on the item (like books), double check what your cashier charges you. I had some childrens books that were supposed to be $.50 each, but the cashier charged me the adult book price of $1.00. I didn’t catch it in time.
  7. You can find some really good cheap treasures if you are there at the right time. It’s amazing what people give away!
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Overcoming Fears to go on New Adventures

Overcoming fears to gon on new adventures

This past weekend, I drove my 3 kids and I to visit a town in the mountains (Estes Park, CO). This is a huge accomplishment!

Why? Normally:

  • I am scared to drive too far for fear of falling asleep
  • I’m afraid to drive into the mountains because I get motion sick
  • I’m afraid of the possibility of scary narrow roads in the mountains
  • It’s too tiring to get 3 kids ready for an all day excursion
  • We can’t seem to get out of the house before 10AM, which limits our day.
  • I like staying home.

Now that I am a single parent, I feel more adventurous. I can’t be afraid or else I would do nothing.

Despite my thyroid still being off, I was feeling pretty clear headed for the first time in awhile and was actually able to get everything ready the night before. I printed the directions, got lunches ready, and packed bags.  Normally, I can’t think that far in advance. I used to be able to, but I have felt so brain foggy that it’s hard to think ahead.

We did get out the door around our usual 10AM time despite my goal of 9AM. Even though it was later than I wanted, I still plowed ahead with our plans. I wanted to get out and do something!

I think it took about 1.5-2 hours to get there. I made it! The roads were a little scary, but not too bad as long as I focused on the road and not the huge drops on the side of the road.

Rocky Mountain National Park was having a free day, which was the main reason for the trip. I braved the roads and drove quite far into the park. We couldn’t find any parking since it was so crowded, but I tried! Only on the way out did I happen to find one spot near a creek. My kids loved playing near the water, picking up sticks, running around, etc. I was surprised!

One good thing about the park on this particular day was the visitor’s center. It just happened to be Earth Day, so there were kid’s activities set up. My children loved it! Got some free homeschooling in!

We found a path near the Estes Park Visitor’s Center where my kids can ride their bikes. Next time we come, we will do this hike. I can’t believe that I’m thinking about a “next time”. I’ve always wanted to visit this area, but haven’t had the chance or nerve to. Now, I can’t wait to come back and explore more of Estes Park.

I figured I drove for maybe 4 hours. In light of that, perhaps I could do that 8 hour road trip I’ve been wanting to do sometime? 8 hours seems so daunting.

I’m ready to live life, explore, go on adventures and find the joy in living! I want to make memories with my children and for them to remember this time of life as fun.

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A Review of “Homeschool Planet” Daily Online Planner

homeschoolplanet1

I’ve been tracking our homeschool assignments and hours in a planner. However, I needed something easier to use now that I have 2 kids that I am homeschooling. That’s when I decided to try Homeschool Planet.

homeschoolplanet

Homeschool Planet is “a full-featured planner that doesn’t require hours to learn how to use it. Just launch Homeschool Planet, click on the calendar, and start adding classes, assignments, and appointments!” (quote taken from their website)

What I like:

  • I can add assignments for each child easily.
  • If the assignment is basically the same the entire year – like Lesson 1, Lesson 2, etc, the program can input that in automatically for me and change the number assignment each day.
  • Along the same lines, if the assignment is “do the next chapter”, I can easily put that down for each day without copying and pasting it or writing it down each time.
  • I can pre-assign certain subjects for certain days.
  • You can allocate times to each assignment to help you keep track of your total hours. I don’t really rely on this. I manually write down how long each assignment took. However, I like that I have this option.
  • I can easily print the day’s assignments for each child on separate sheets of paper. You can keep these in a binder to have a record of what you have done.
  • It’s easy to move assignments around. Maybe life got in the way and you couldn’t do any schoolwork. You can easily move the assignments to the next day and all the future assignments will shift out (or you could say to double up for the next day).
  • You can view your whole family’s schedule together to see how every meshes together or view each member’s schedule separately.
  • There is a free 30 day trial so you can try it out and see if it’s a good fit for your family before you commit.

Homeschool Planet Screenshot

Overall – I love this planner and will renew my subscription.

Cost: Homeschool Planet costs $65 for a 1 year subscription OR $6.95/month.

View their website here to see a full list of features.

 

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Praying for Your Elephant: Boldly Approaching Jesus with Radical & Audacious Prayer

praying for my elephant

 

I’ve been reading this book – Praying for Your Elephant: Boldly Approaching Jesus with Radical and Audacious Prayer” by Adam Stadtmiller. While, I got this from Amazon, it looks like there is a free downloadable ebook on his website.

Praying for your elephang

The book is about revolutionizing your prayer life. What if we did pray big bold prayers? What if we did pray for that huge elephant? The elephant represents the huge or small things that we are afraid to pray for because we don’t want to appear greedy or ungodly.

However, the author suggests that God wants us to pray boldly to Him. Yes, there is a balance and no, we don’t pray to God thinking he’s a sugar daddy (my word choice, not the author’s) and that He’ll give us everything we want. Our hearts have to be right with God.

Stadtmiller challenges the reader to come up with 10 different areas to pray for. Then, under each area, we are to write down 10 prayers and then pray for them every day. Areas could include: friends, ourselves, finances, family, work, health, the world, our country, etc. As time goes on, God may impress upon our hearts to change certain prayers to be more specific.

Stadtmiller also challenges the reader to put down prayers they are afraid to pray for. Ex: you may want to pray for a new laptop, but you feel like that’s too materialistic or greedy. Stadtmiller would say, put it down! Or, you may want to pray about going on a vacation, but again are too afraid since it seems like a frivolous idea. Put it down!

Don’t limit God. God may just answer that prayer you are afraid to pray for.

My takeaway: I struggle with praying for small things like wanting my son to stop sucking his thumb or money for a vacation. I wonder if it’s ok to pray so. God wants us to pray specifically, but I don’t want to appear “greedy”. This book reminded me that God cares about all areas of our lives. He wants to know what my desires are. He wants me to pray boldly.

I made my own list of 10 areas and have been praying over them for a few weeks now. I don’t quite have 10 prayer requests under each category, but there are at least a few I wrote down. I can’t wait to see how God works through them!

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