A Wonder To Behold!

My husband and I and our four month old son moved to Arkansas WAY (okay not so way) back in 2003. We moved out here from California in the spring with a friend of ours. When we moved, the price of gas in California was about $1.60 - $1.70 per gallon and the price when we got to Arkansas was $1.45. I loved it. It was so much cheeper! Then things started to get expensive and we had a steady climb in prices for the next 5 years. We saw the price of regular unleaded gas jump to the extreme price of $4.00 a gallon and in some places it went so high as $5.00 a gallon for a short time. We saw the price of not only gas go up but everything else went up as well. Price of houses shot up to unbelievable prices. California, Florida, and many other places around the nation saw the price of small single family houses rise to more than $300,000.

Then at the height of it all when fuel prices, housing prices, food prices, and everything else skyrocketed, the bubble burst. At the very height of it all, in the middle of the summer this year, price of a single barrel of crude oil was $147 (yes that is one hundred and fourty seven dollars), and people just couldnt do it anymore. Humpty dumpty came tumbling down. Those who bought into the super high house prices couldnt afford it anymore. Their intrest rates adjusted and they could no longer pay the mortgage. They lost their houses.

Now, because of this bubble bursting, we have seen one of the fastest declines in prices since practically the great depression. The actual numbers are still pretty high but the percent of decline is steep. Percents that the experts are saying that we havent seen since that depression. Stock prices are dropping, house prices are dropping, and best of all gas prices are dropping. Today when I went to the store I saw the price at the gas station there and was absolutely amazed at the prices. Thinking about it, prices were in the $2.00 range only two weeks ago. Today the price was $1.45. The same as when we moved to Arkansas almost 6 years ago. In just about five months time we have seen the price of gas drop from the high of almost $5.00 in some places to less than $1.50 and its still dropping. WOW!! What a time we live in!! I wonder how low it will go? Will we see it drop to less than $1.20? Or will it stay where it is? I cant wait to find out!

As for me, Im just excited that it's less than $1.50 since Im going to Colorado to visit a friend for the holiday. This is going to be one CHEAP driving trip!

What are your thoughts on the recent economic developments?

Love to Read?

Well here's your chance to read some new books. Starting in January Simple Mom is going to be hosting a book club on her blog. Subjects will range from food to frugality, kids and home, money management and organizing. We will be reading one book every two months (to make it easy). Anyone can join and I hope you do!

Life just got a whole lot easier!

Have you ever noticed that when the little guys cant walk, life seems to be so much harder to deal with. Its harder to go out of the house, getting in and out of the car is difficult, managing play time. Not to mention the fact that there's not much to do outside the home when the little one is non mobile. Its not like they can play at the park or really enjoy what you are doing because they cant get involved with it.

My littlest one is 18 months old now and has been walking for a few months but only just recently got the hang of the whole thing. He doesnt wobble so much when he takes a few steps and he runs quite well. So now that the weather has cooled off sufficiently enough that we can do things outside for more than, oh say about ten minutes, we've been going to the park. He absolutely loves it! We have found a park that is toddler friendly for the most part and he loves to just get up there and play. There's one particular slide that he loves and he gets on that thing time and again. I think its because there's a slowdown after the turn in it. The playground has another slide but its a straight one and he goes too fast and bumps his head on the way down.

We went today after his well child checkup and had lunch. He was just so content to sit with me on the grass and eat his lunch while his brothers were off playing on the playground. It was so nice to be able to relax in the grass and not have to worry about him because I didnt have to constantly be chasing after him and holding his hand. I had to worry more about his big brother pushing him down the slide because the baby was taking too long.

I think that this right now is one of my favorite seasons with my kids. All of them are old enough to understand commands and follow through with it (doesnt mean that they WILL but they can), and they are all big enough to handle themselfs without needing to be hand held the whole time. It's nice and a very sweet change of pace.

Sucessful Homeschooling

I can say that we are sucessfully homeschooling. Thursday last week my oldest came to me telling me that he could read a page out of one of the little reader books that we have. I told him that was wonderful and that he should read the whole book. So he went back to his room and read it. The whole thing. I am so proud of him. He's really doing a wonderful job. I love the fact that he can read things on his own now.

Another wonderful aspect to homeschooling him is the fact that he's helping his brothers to learn as well. A friend gave us a LeapFrog brand word whammer so that the boys could practice their letters and putting together small words and I think that the little boys have gotten better use from it than the older one has. It has a feature that sings the ABC's and so they all get together and sing the ABC's. Its so cute to watch and listen to them doing that because they dont exactly get the names right (well, the older one does but the middle one tries and misses and the youngest just knows the tune) and they dance to the tune, but they are all having fun with it. I love it!

I HATE politics!

This was emailed to me recently and for those of you who dont know my political leanings (which is probably all of you), this will definatley show you what it is. I really dont like to talk about politics much because it is a hard issue for most people. You know .. its one of those subjects that you DEFINATELY should not bring up with strangers. But I have to here because for one .. its my blog and for another I really like the message that is being cast in this video. Please watch it to the end if you have the time to. While I dont agree totally with either side on all the issues, this video brings about some interesting comments that has really made me think about who I will vote for.

Mama Cloth

I've been doing this wonderful thing called sewing lately. I finally got a machine that WORKS!!!! Dont ask about the horror stories of the other machine. Im just not going there! But I have found that my new one has some really cool features. It might take me a while to use them all. So what is it that I've been sewing lately, you ask??

Laugh at the duckies I dare you!

"Mama Cloth". I found this stuff when I was researching cloth diapers for my sister. Everywhere I looked online for cloth diapers, I found these to go along with it and well, if you are going to go cloth on one kind of diaper, you might as well go cloth on the other too! I made the ones in the picture this afternoon with my WONDERFUL new sewing machine. Ive had them cut out for about a month now and because my other machine was such a piece of CRAP I couldnt sew them up.

These are made with three or four layers. Flannel top, towel terry (from a cheap new towel), fleece, and PUL (polyurithane laminate) on the bottom for waterproofing. I'll tell you that the flannel is such a wonderful feel. So soft. I like these because they are so much easier on the skin than that plastic crap they put in store bought pads. Its cheaper to do this too because you can make them last up to about 10 years if you really take care of them well, and a minimum of 5 years if you dont. Its not unusual for these things to last for a long time.

At a minimum of 5 years you can save about $300 or more depending on how much you use in the way of pads. If you know how to sew, its a lot less expensive to make them than it is to buy them. My materials cost me about $15-20 for the fabric @ 1yd ea, towel, notions etc. I will probably get about 15 or so pads out of the bunch. That comes to about $1.30 each when all the stores are selling them for more than $5 and sometimes more than $10 each pad. Talk about considerable markup!!!! You might be seeing me with an etsy shop soon!

Tell me, would you consider using cloth instead of plastic? Have you used cloth? What did you think about it?