Thanks! I love Fridays! Tonight we're taking our family and some international students downtown for a "scavenger hunt" through our local historical museum. Fun, fun!

I actually just signed up with Uppercase Living and am having a ball. I think with this type of company you really have to do something that's your passion to both have fun and do well. I love words, and I love making our home a great place to be, so this is a GREAT fit for me. My sister has done some direct sales and has tried to get me involved ... Longaberger, CABI clothes ... but since *I* wouldn't spend that kind of money on baskets, pottery and clothing it was never appealing to me (*she* does great!). With Uppercase Living, my heart palpitates as I look through the catalog, lol, and for the first time I can "see" enjoying doing Open Houses and book parties. Darla Homeschooling mom of seven in the fabulous Pacific Northwest.

Applesauce! A lady at our Farmer's Market sells organic apples for 50 cents/pound ~ Yippee!

Having read the board rules/faqs, I think it's okay to post it here. Again, correct me if I'm wrong and I can remove the post. It's http://www.wallthatandmore.com Ciao! Darla

Hi Carli!!! I miss you on the "other" board! But it's good to see you here. We love MM's cubed steak sandwich. A roast recipe I like is roast, some ketchup (one cup or so), a can of tomato sauce, bunches of sliced onions, a tablespoon or two of Worcestershire and then about 2-4 tblsp horseradish sauce. YUMMY! I cook it all day on the crock pot and serve it over rice or noodles. For the steaks, you could just grill them straight up! Add some seasoning salt if you'd like. Darla

I will have to join the small kitchen posse!!! What I don't like about ours is that it's in the middle of the house with the living room off one way and the master bedroom off another way and a bathroom off another way and the sunroom off another way. So it's right in the middle of the traffic flow for, well, everywhere!! Ugh. What I *like* about our kitchen is that we won a $1200 gift card at Ikea two years ago and so my dh (a handy, dandy carpenter) redid all our kitchen cabinets! They're *great*. He's still doing some of the finish up work, but we're getting there. Here's a photo: Anyway, to bring up the wall words topic ... I discovered the Uppercase Living vinyl-applique stuff a few months back and put some on our walls. I LOVE IT! It's *so* easy -- you order the design you want (they have tons of words, phrases and embellishments) or you custom design your own, and then when you get it you follow the instructions for rubbing them onto the wall. No mess! I put "Give us this day our daily bread" on our kitchen wall. I'll try to post a picture. What do you think? I have my shopping list going for more, they're so cool I love them! I enjoy these products so much I did become an independent demonstrator for the company -- so if you want any information, just email or PM me for my website info. I can show you how to access the online catalog (or I could post the info. here?). I hope, hope, hope it's okay to mention this here in the context of a message about kitchen decorating; I know I'm new here and I know not to spam, but in this case it seems okay?? If not, someone tell me and I'll edit my message. I loved seeing lots of pics of others' kitchens. We're looking at a house to buy and it has a bigger kitchen that isn't in the middle of the traffic flow. {*Dreaming*} Darla S. Homeschooling mom of seven

Does Ozark Natural Foods deliver to your area? When I lived in the Southwest and used the Tucson Co-op, I discovered Ozark. Now I live in the NW and use Azure -- I love their service! And I've used customer service numerous times without ever a problem. HTH! Darla

It has an ethnic movie feel to it (subtitled, foreign language feel) that also includes the strong family values of movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding and A Wedding for Bella. The story line is most excellent and it's very well done. It's high on my fave movies list too.

How about Milovany for a girl? (my username!) It's an adjective meaning "beloved" in Czech. From what I understand, it's pronounced mee-loh-VAHN-ee. You could use the nickname Mila, which I *love* for a girl's name.

I finally saw this today, Tap. Sorry it took me so long. Thanks for your description of your days in Portland. We walked to the library today (about 10 blocks) and then were able to drop in the history museum, into the donut store (big treat!), into the kids consignment store and into Safeway (cherries!) on the way home. All things we would not have done had we been in the car. Good idea about trying it for a month. Maybe! My "fine" for using the Suburban during that month will have to be assessed by someone else and HUGE or I'll just use it, lol. But that makes sense about stocking up on sale stuff -- it WOULD be harder if I was only shopping once a week and doing it via public transport at that. I want to call the local car rental place and see if they can offer me a great half-day rate if I did it once a week. Never hurts to ask! Thanks for your reply.

I will give another vote for the Pacific Northwest, specifically central Washington state. DH and I have both lived lots of places (me, western Washington, northern Arizona and Colorado; him New Mexico, South America and here) and just the other night on our walk we were talking about how THANKFUL we are that it has worked out to be back here in our college town (Ellensburg). It is truly a fabulous place: Four seasons, some rain but not tons, great summers and winters, foothills around the town, creeks and parks, the 10,000 student state university, a downtown that is in the process of restoration/revival (we hope it continues!), some great festivals (the county fair is here, also Jazz in the Valley, the Western Art Show, Dachsunds on Parade, an indy movie festival, a micro-brewery festival, etc.); it's a rural area but has great culture (music, art) because of the size of the town and the university, friendly people, lots of outdoor activity opportunities, etc. etc. etc. Seattle/Puget Sound is about 2 hours west, an easy drive over the mountains and Yakima is about 40 minutes away (if you feel you NEED a greater variety of stores for shopping; I've chosen to forego most of those and do the vast majority of my shopping here in town). Oh, and housing prices -- while they certainly escalated through the first part of this decade -- are still quite a bit below the Seattle area! I really have found our IT place (dh will say he DOES miss the thunderstorms of the southwest). Colorado was *okay* to me, but not enough water and too far from family; I do love the Puget Sound itself, but LIVING there is busy and fast whereas here it's more laid back. We take a family vacation once a year to a beach house on the Sound; we ride the ferry to and from so I can get my annual "ferry fix". Oh! (Sorry my thoughts are somewhat jumbled) ... our town was named by the National Trust For Historic Preservation as one of its 12 "Distinctive Locations" for 2007; that was quite an honor! Here are a couple of links to our town: http://www.visitellensburg.com/ http://www.ellensburg-chamber.com/ Let me know if you want to come for a tour! :)

First I have to say I love the quote in your signature! That's a good one. Okay, as for shopping, I would go from store to store WITH groceries and then call a taxi at the last store to get me home since the closest the transit would get me to my house after the last store would be about five blocks (and this would be after about 45 minutes looping around the campus). I'd have to have some kind of cart, some way of keeping cold/frozen things in that state, and a child or two, to make this work I think. The taxi is $8 one way. We would keep our Suburban, just not use it for a year unless in the case of a REAL emergency such as what you describe (then again, our hospital is about 10 blocks from where we live -- we could walk fast!! LOL). It takes a lot for us to go the doctor/ER. We've gone just twice in the 14 years we 've been parents, and one of those wasn't necessary. Here's what I'm thinking: Right off the bat we'd save about $200/month in vehicle expenses (no more insurance and no gas). In addition to that chunk, I truly think I'd save a bunch on groceries because I'd have to plan meals and shop with a list. I *know* I spend less when I have a detailed menu and list going. Then I would also save because I wouldn't be running through a drive-thru for a "treat" every time I go out, too. SO we probably could add another $200-$300 in savings in these costs. We're up to $400-$500/month in savings. Well, if we socked that amount away then we could rent a minivan for a day if we needed to run to the next town (45 minutes away) or to where my family lives (2 hours away). We only do these trips 4-6 times a year as it stands; with that $400-$500/month in savings, we could certainly rent a van from time to time. DH does have a week of paid vacation where we go to a beach house in the summer, so then we'd do a week-long rental for that (which is about $500 I think). All in all (and very unscientifically), we might be able to save $2000-$2800/year by doing this. I don't like how our society has become so car-dependent. I've done quite a bit of reading about how our culture has evolved into one that is based on the vehicle over the last 100 years. You pretty much HAVE to have a car to live the American lifestyle, eh? And in addition to all that, I just like a good adventure! :) Our town is the largest one in the county; all stores an activity centers (downtown, parks, church, dh's job) are within 2 miles of our house, most less than a mile. So I think it's doable. Wish I could get dh to go for it!

I've ordered from the homeschooler-owned EncoreInk.com many times and have always received great products and great service (at a great price; I refill and it's NOT that hard!).

I'm trying to convince dh that our family (of nine!) should go car-free for a year; your post reminded me of that, and of looking at the public transit schedule in our town (population about 7,000; 17,000 when university is in session). If I shopped once each week, I bet it would take me about 3-4 hours to hit each of four stores on the public transit bus with having to call a taxi at the end to get home. I think I'd save tons of money!!

DH is a cabinet maker/installer and we're thinking of getting into the casket making business (part time). Several years ago he made a casket for a little four year old boy in our church who'd died in his sleep; I made the pillow (cross stitched his name onto the pillow case). The owner of the shop where dh works made a casket recently for a guy who just couldn't bring himself to buy a casket at Costco (the funeral company he was using doesn't deal in caskets; they send their customers to Costco). So after that we realized maybe -- if dh's boss doesn't mind -- maybe we could talk to the lady who runs this alternative funeral home and see if dh could make caskets for her, for people interested.

Warm Vanilla Sugar at Bath and Bodyworks!! You just reminded me of it with this post, and I'm going to go there next time we're in the area and get some more. This is the best smelling lotion I've had the pleasure of using (and sniffing!); it's not too strong, just subtly wonderful.

For us, the nearest Costco is 40 minutes away so we let our membership go. I did this three years ago before gas prices shot so high and I *still* think we save money. I found that I bought a lot things that I wouldn't normally have purchased just because the price was so good. I also have learned that of the things I do use, they pretty much all go on sale eventually. I've learned the sales cycles of the local grocery stores through the regular weekly fliers, and I stock up accordingly when things are on sale. Now with gas prices the way they are, I *know* we are saving money by not shopping at Costco!!! I also like supporting our local economy and stores more than the neighboring county's economy/stores.

Perhaps you could do some looking around CraigsList.org to see if you can find any of these mobile homes; search for "Holly Park" (in quote marks) and any listings with that phrase in it will come up. A couple of cautions on buying a mobile home (we lived in one for four years, also in a park): 1) Do not buy one with the hope that you will make money on it. We bought ours for $30,000 in 1996, remodeled it somewhat significantly, and sold it for $20,000 or so in 2001. Mobile homes typically do NOT appreciate in value. 2) Be aware that when you do go to sell it that most likely you will not only have to find a buyer, but also rely on the park management's approval of their application in order to complete the sale. When we went to sell our mobile home, we got an offer within a month (more like a couple of weeks, I think). Everything moved forward until the park management rejected the buyer's application about a month later -- even though the mother of the buyer was quite willing to co-sign the application. It was very frustrating. We didn't sell for another six months. Anyway, I hope you find a situation that works for you!

nt

But right now we do have just one car -- a paid-for Suburban that seats all nine of us. We live in a town of 17,000 and my husband walks or rollerblades to work; we walk to church, the library, the farmer's market, etc. I do still tend to just jump in the Suburban to "run to the store real quick" which I wish I would do far less than I do. But we love our lifestyle -- trying not to rely on our car so much. Would it be possible to end your lease, sell dh's car and get something that seats all of you? How long until your oldest is driving? BTW, My thought with going car free is that without gas and insurance payments, we would have an extra $200/month or so. We could save this up and use it to rent a van for a day or a week if we needed to, or to buy bus tickets, etc. When I go shopping, I can call the local taxi service. Wonder if this would work? I think it would be fun to try!

Our internet only costs $15/mo so that's no biggie, but it's the TIME it steals from and my kids; and then when dh gets home from work he logs on after dinner and can be there until after I go to bed. I'll subscribe to email on my blackberry (cell phone), and head to the library if I *need* to do anything online. I do check our bank accounts daily -- instead of balancing my checkbook -- and I do pay all bills online, so will have to figure that part out if we do move forward with this. I tried to get rid of our local phone service, and bunch all cellular, internet and long distance into one package (changing from dialup to highspeed internet and foregoing a landline phone), but it worked out to the same amount financially so we didn't do it. Besides, we've had the same landline number *4evah* and I didn't want to give it up, lol.

You can check with the international studies department to see about meeting and hosting international students (for a meal or activity, not to have them live with you necessarily). We do this and it's great fun, plus the students love it and are extremely grateful for the opportunity to spend time with Americans, outside the college setting. Tomorrow night we are taking 3 gals from Japan and 1 from China to a homeschooling families picnic; you can have meals in your home, take them shopping or sightseeing, meet them on campus for English language practice, etc. HTH!

I'm somewhat new to this board (first time registering since the board change many months back), but wanted to add that I'm from central Washington state. Love it here!