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Post by huskermom98 on Jul 21, 2022 21:06:51 GMT
Packing for a 9-day trip to CO/WY/UT...we leave Saturday morning...
Deciding on what crafts to do for VBS...which is 5 days after we get back.
Setting up an appointment for a cut and highlights.
Finishing an introductory and informational letter for the football coach to send out to fellow parents to round up help for the weekly team meals that start in a month.
Getting DS14 to sit down and pick what classes he will want for this coming school year.
Calling to set up DS17's Senior Pictures.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jul 21, 2022 12:44:49 GMT
My Honda van. It's served us well for so many road trips, scrapbooking retreats, floral delivery gig, and for hauling totes of supplies for football team meals. It's had a tough year, but is still holding one.
Which leads to DS's Altima. I like to joke that we accidently bought a nice & loaded car for him to drive after getting his school permit (it was 6 years old & had over 115K miles already so we got a good deal, thankfully a year before car prices rose & supplies dropped). We were able to take the car to CO last summer when we found out 3 days before leaving that my van needed to have half of the engine replaced...not gonna drive something like that in the mountains! DH's CR-V has issues & isn't that comfortable so it was great having a nice alternative instead of a junky teen car. Now I love having it because I get to drive it because I drive the most on any given day so I need the most fuel efficient vehicle with these crazy gas prices (DS tolerates my van because it has XM radio & remote start).
I have some shoes that are worth every penny. Some LLBean sneakers that are cute yet easy to wear everywhere (I even bought a men's pair that was exactly the same when I needed to replace a pair but the womens were sold out of my size). I also have a pair of Birkenstocks that I love because the straps are a red elastic fabric (not normal leather straps). They are comfy & unique, I always have people complementing them and asking where I got them (unfortunately they are at least 15 years old so they are unavailable...& irreplaceable).
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Post by huskermom98 on Jul 14, 2022 14:15:02 GMT
I think it's more for convenience. Unfortunately the money saved by not shipping is offset by the higher cost of Walgreens prints. I've thought about it at various times, but Matte photos aren't usually an option for Walgreens so I don't bother. But the prints would be the same as if you ordered directly from Walgreens.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jul 14, 2022 14:11:26 GMT
Code is no longer good as of 7/14. I quickly added my son's trip pictures to my cart yesterday because I knew it would be a great deal, but I wasn't ready to place my order because I really didn't want to order so many vertical 4x6 photos--I'd rather order 3x4s on a 6x4 since I know I'm going to be using a lot of pocket pages. I looked this morning and the code isn't being accepted. Oh well, it was a good incentive to start the ball rolling for this mammoth project (one of many I'm working on in various stages right now...) Thanks for posting it anyway--I had a feeling that it might have been only a one day code considering how good it was.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jul 14, 2022 14:05:58 GMT
Rarely--I like the idea of sketches, but not the "hassle" of finding one to use. I will search my stash if I'm really struggling with a starting a LO or if I'm tired of the design rut I'm stuck in.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jul 8, 2022 15:11:06 GMT
I had the pleasure of experiencing the August 2020 derecho that hit Iowa hard. I was at work & had to wait out the storm (an hour of heavy rain & heavy winds) before I could attempt to go home. It took me twice as long to get home because so many streets were blocked by downed trees and/or power lines. I was so thankful when I did get home to find minimal damage--my worst nightmare is our huge 75+ years old maple coming down in a storm. We never lost power nor internet unlike so many in our neighborhood, in the metro area & in the state.
I think we've had 2 since then, but neither were as bad. One of those was just on Tuesday. The wind was bad and we had rain, but nothing compared to 2020. I only know it was considered a derecho because the news referred to it as such. The other was back in December. Schools let out early because a storm was expected to hit in the afternoon, but it was closer to evening and again, not nearly as bad as August 2020.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jul 6, 2022 14:14:55 GMT
No, but that sounds like a good idea (even if I would never do it because I'm such a rule follower!) I have a little bit left in my WITL album and want to work on DS14's trip to St. Louis & DS17's trip to Europe before I think about our family trip to Colorado at the end of July (I don't like putting off trip albums).
I could stand for my boss to take another day off because I can bring in my WITL album to work on the Journaling easily enough--that's as daring as I would get!
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Post by huskermom98 on Jul 1, 2022 15:03:07 GMT
Definitely band/music concerts. My oldest son plays trombone so he is usually near the center of the back row. I'm maybe lucky to see him for brief moments but lose him completely when instruments go up to play. Thankfully he also does jazz band which plays on the floor in front of the stage so I can usually get some close ups (with tops of parents heads too...) The lighting is awful in the auditorium too.
I dread scrapping baseball pictures from certain school's fields. At our home field I can walk right up to the chain link fence (behind home plate & along the sides) and be able to take pictures thru the fence. But some schools have elevated bleachers so I can't get close enough to the fence to get a clear shot...or worse it's netting that doesn't stay still. Photos from these schools don't turn out great.
Easter is hard because the pastels of most Easter lines never worked well with my boys clothing.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jul 1, 2022 2:31:08 GMT
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 28, 2022 21:41:40 GMT
I like to keep my DSLR in the front seat with me, set for action shots so I can get pictures as we're driving fast on the interstates. I like to get "welcome to ______" signs, signs for major rivers, stopped traffic (if unlucky enough to hit some), skylines of major cities, etc. Or just anything interesting along the way, especially the further away from home & what you normally see.
Other things I've documented include the movies that were watched (on the van's DVD player), XM radio stations we listened to, places we stopped to eat/fill up/potty break.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 28, 2022 15:30:34 GMT
I trust Google Maps, but I usually check the route before I go. If it's some place really unfamiliar or some place I might not have service I will follow the route on the screen to see if anything looks odd.
What I don't "trust" or really just get annoyed with, is the GPS on my phone because it seems to like to wander. If I'm not careful it will start rerouting me because the signal shows me on the next road instead of the road I'm on. I've learned I have to use my AirPods or turn the volume off if I'm navigating while DH is driving somewhere unfamiliar so he doesn't start changing lanes unnecessarily.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 24, 2022 3:24:47 GMT
We were in CO last year for a wedding and had a choice between Avon and Steamboat Springs for some vacation time after the wedding. I was finding more for us to do (our boys were 13 & 16 at the time) in Steamboat Springs than Avon. I don't know if it was easier to find options in SS because it's basically one area vs Avon being close to other areas. We ended up deciding on SS and enjoyed it so much we're going back next month. We hiked, fished, rode horses, & enjoyed activities at the base of the ski area that are sadly now closed (mountain coaster and mini-golf). This year we'll do the horses again and I'm finding different hikes to try and lakes to visit. We didn't have any luck fishing so we're not dragging the fly-fishing gear out again, but we'll probably take some poles and a tackle box. DH was looking into guided fly-fishing trips (the companies provide all of the necessary gear), but I'm not sure we'll do one. Otherwise it was nice to just hang out at the condo or at the pools. I want to try the hot springs, but I'm not sure if we will. We are planning to go out of the way on the way home and visit Dinosaur National Monument.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 24, 2022 3:10:45 GMT
We've had T-Mobile for almost 2.5 years (used their pre-paid service for quite a few years before that). So far we've been very happy with it. My oldest son complains once in awhile, but he can be impatient/picky. We pay $140/month for 4 lines of the Magenta plan. I looked into what the Magenta Max plan entailed when I was considering upgrading to the Samsung S22 phones, but couldn't tell if I had to upgrade all 4 lines or if we could mix the two (but then I decided against upgrading my phone for now). We don't travel much, but DS just went to Europe and we didn't have to pay anything extra. Had the trip been a week or two later he would have had better data speed because they just announced more travel benefits. The coverage is fine where we live and where we go to visit family.
I'm not sure about other companies, but T-Mobile offers a lot of perks--we have free Netflix (one user at a time), I'm in the middle of one free year of Paramount Plus, had access to a free year of Apple TV, Free MLB TV (this would be an even better deal if we weren't in the middle of a 6 team blackout area, including the two teams we follow--the Cubs and the Royals, but I still use it for radio broadcasts through the app) and I think we will soon have access to a free year of AAA.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 23, 2022 1:29:18 GMT
I picked up quite a few digital items. We'll see if I get most of my order--I had some Story Kits and Stamps in my cart from the recent sale and they showed up as discounted and part of my order receipt, even though they don't show up in the shop any more...
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 22, 2022 19:22:47 GMT
...I don't even want to know...she whispers knowing that she averaged 2 albums a year for both sons for several years...and she's not even considering albums for WITL or DD or vacations...
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 21, 2022 20:14:46 GMT
I sort my knives, forks, spoons when I put them into the dishwasher so it is easier to put away when clean. Then I can just grab all the forks etc. at once. I hated emptying the silverware beforehand and this has made it so much easier. This is what I do (or really what DH or my boys do because they empty more than I do). Our utensil tray is in the door so it's just easier to grab one kind at a time instead of taking out the entire basket. The basket has dividers so we can keep spoons from spooning and not getting clean.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 20, 2022 14:07:20 GMT
I am doing this project for the first time ever even though I've been scrapbooking since about 1998. How do you keep from getting overwhelmed by all of the content out there? I am following this thread and mainly listening to Ali who focuses on the photos and the words, but there are so many creative takes on WITL on Instagram. It's hard to remain focused. I created a folder on Photos, and I'm doing what mom suggested about taking a vertical and horizontal picture so I can have options later on. For me, this project (and particularly this week) isn't about being creative - its more about getting it done. I can worry about the creativity later but this week is all about just taking the photos. If at the end, when I am ready to put my album together, I decide to be creative, then great. But if its just photos + some words each day, then awesome. Yup. Just focus on the pictures & writing things down. I wasn't good at writing things down nightly like I have been in past years (did my week during the last week of May) and as I'm printing our my pictures I'm struggling to remember when things happened or why I want to include the pictures I took. I don't even try to work on the pages during the week. If you can, great, but there's no need to get this done daily.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 15, 2022 14:05:41 GMT
Eggs were my first "seriously?" when I saw my usual 18-pack at $4.49 at HyVee. I was even more shocked when I was at Sam's not long after that when their set of 2 18-pack eggs were over $10 (while the HV eggs were still at $4.49!)
Yogurt has been painful. I even thought about buying a large 32oz container instead of the small cups, but there was no price difference per ounce.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 14, 2022 3:19:09 GMT
I really like parts of this story kit, especially the phrases, but it's not my favorite color scheme. I'm considering the digital version because it seems like every year during WITL I have something big happen unexpectedly, plus one of the phrases I use with my boys a lot is "go with the flow".
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 13, 2022 21:38:07 GMT
"Let's Get Lost" in a travel collection...nooooooooo, I really don't want my vacation ruined by getting lost in the wild!!!
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 13, 2022 2:17:18 GMT
DH smokes it on a simple Weber charcoal grill...so good! He's done whole ones and partial ones, but I usually buy whole ones because the price of a whole one on sale is about the same as a partial cut. It's also more worth his time to just smoke a whole one because we can freeze some of the extra meat.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 11, 2022 22:21:51 GMT
People were hit hard this winter with the price of natural gas when heating their homes. We are on a budget billing system through our energy company so we were not affected too much because we pay the average cost (also helped that no one was home from 8-3 4 days a week so we could keep it cooler). The average went up a little bit a month or two ago, not sure if it will again.
As for gas for our vehicles...we made DS give up his very fuel efficient car (that we pay for) when gas hit $4/gallon last month because I drive the most each day and he drives the least. He got to choose between one of our other two vehicles--one with remote start and Sirius XM radio...or one that is NOT a mini-van (a CR-V). I was only slightly surprised when he picked the minivan, but I know he has gotten spoiled with remote start and Sirius XM radio on his car. But as for changes in our driving habits, we really haven't changed anything yet, but we aren't the type that go out just to go out. I am starting to consider taking DS car on our trip to Colorado next month. We wanted to take my minivan for the space, but the mpg difference is too great to ignore.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 10, 2022 16:53:51 GMT
Perfect timing for DS's trip! At one point the tour company was saying to plan up to $250 for a test (but would likely be less, was down to $35-50 last I heard but still ridiculous when so few other countries required one).
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 9, 2022 20:36:30 GMT
My 17yo leaves in less than 40 hours for a school trip to Germany/Austria/Switzerland...I hope the worst is behind us. We signed his up for the trip in December 2019 for a March 2021 trip, but in September 2020 it was postponed until March 2022. Then in January it was postponed until June which meant instead of going over Spring Break when nothing is going on, he'd be gone for almost 2 weeks of baseball season (and he's one of the best players on the team). He decided to still go on the trip and just an hour ago learned that his Covid test was negative...oh happy day!!!
I worry when I hear about all of these delays since it's a group of 25 kids and 4 chaperones, but thankfully the teacher has done this trip several times and the rest of the chaperones are very experienced travelers. I am thankful that we were able to keep the original 2019 pricing because I can't image how much the tickets would be now!
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 9, 2022 17:08:53 GMT
We use the free version of Life360 and it's been nice for our older son--is he on his way home? are we at the right place for his game? oh look, he must be working... DH has it set up on his phone that he gets notifications when any of us leave a known location (home/school/work) and I think that's a bit much (although handy when I'm trying to time dinner for when ODS gets home from practice). As to when ODS graduates in a year--I'm planning to keep him on the app, especially if he goes somewhere that's not local, not to check up on him all day, but more for when he would be traveling to and from home.
I love using the app whenever the boys travel somewhere without me because I like to screenshot their location for scrapbooking purposes.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 4, 2022 17:03:21 GMT
Thanks everyone I'm gonna stick to my guns with daughter about me and granddaughter just skipping. That sounds like the best option. I'm not familiar with Cedar Point, but our local amusement park was recently bought out by a national company & have been implementing stricter safety measures. Most of the changes have affected little kids because several kiddie/family rides now have a minimum height (in addition to a maximum height). I would look into Cedar Point's height restrictions to see if that would help you convince your daughter that you & the grand baby should just skip the park.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 3, 2022 21:12:02 GMT
When I renewed 3-4 years ago I had the option to get the Read ID, but since we never fly anywhere I didn't bother. I now have a passport so I'm OK until its time to renew my DL which will be several months after the next deadline for starting to use one. DS17 automatically got one when he got his license last year.
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Post by huskermom98 on Jun 3, 2022 2:28:23 GMT
Technically I did WITL the week of May 23-29 (maybe through the 30th for Memorial Day) but so far I haven't actually done any of the work besides uploading all of the photos to my computer and I've barely done any written documentation to help me remember things when I make the album. This is the farthest behind I've been on the project since I started in 2015. It was a good week to do because it was fun to have a big moment to focus on for my youngest son (8th grade graduation and final day at the private school he's been at for 5 years) instead of including my oldest son's birthday because that's happpened more often than not with the earlier in May WITLs.
Now I'm not so sure, not just because I've not done anything beyond taking photographs (and there were days I didn't take many at all) but because the official week is looking more interesting...unfortunately it would feature a big event for my oldest DS (his return from a 12 day school trip to Germany).
I only got a few of the new AE supplies because I have so much leftover from past years including an entire kit I got at a great price (after initially skipping the kit). I wasn't wild about this year's kit and I've come to realize how little of the WITL kits I use, especially as I do more and more digital work on mini albums like this. I will do 6x8 again.
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Post by huskermom98 on May 25, 2022 17:25:01 GMT
Hunting rifles/shotguns--yes. Handguns or other other types--no.
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Post by huskermom98 on May 20, 2022 0:57:19 GMT
I like the idea of the 4x4, but it's too small for travel scrapping. I'm not sure how an 8x10 will work with those rings.
I need nothing for travel , but will still take a look.
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