BUY vs RENT

In Oklahoma we buy...

In California we rent...

Check out what I can buy in Oklahoma.
Go ahead scroll through the pictures on the above link and savor it.

Check out what the same amount of money buys in Teahacahpi, California, a place that is DIRT CHEAP in comparison to the rest of the state.  Go ahead, scroll through the picture on the above link.

Why am I looking at houses?  No. I'm not moving back...Yet.

The house we are renting sold.  We have to move by November 14th.  The house we planned to rent fell through (the tenants aren't moving now).  The back up has rented.

I'm stressing and yearning for home, where house prices and gas prices make (more) sense and family isn't 20 hours of driving away.

On top of that, V broke her ankle and had surgery (2 screws), we've had a stomach bug (which still has 3 potential victims to claim), our children are developing smokers cough (and none of us smoke) and I've had complaints from 2 of an ear ache.  It's been a long week and a half.  I miss the bi-polar weather, I miss my family, I miss football where everyone turns into a total wacko.  I miss Oklahoma.

Can you tell I'm disenchanted and stressed?

SPICE RACK

I made this spice rack and it was asked how I did it.  Here are the links to making this handy kitchen tool.

Here are the basic instructions.
This is the basic idea.  I took liberty in how I produced this.

These are the supplies I used:
30-2.5 oz tins and 10-4 oz tins
Neodymium Rare Earth Magnets I used 2 per 2.5 oz container and 3 per 4 oz container, plus I bought more to play with.  These are not cheap, but they work better than any other magnet option I have found.  This is the best price I have found for these magnets.
Magnet Board (IKEA) I felt it would be too easy to knock these off the refrigerator when the door got slammed.
J-B Weld I bought it at Wal-Mart
Lable Maker I bought this unit at Wal-Mart and clear labels.  I labeled them on the front in clear and on the back in white.  This is if multiple containers are ever opened and hard to identify.

The bottom 10 containers are the 4 oz and the rest are the 2.5 oz.  I think I may order 2 more just to have even rows.  I'm a bit OCD like that.

Will you be our parents?

At a Chinese restaurant in Ventura, the kids sat at one table and JR and I sat at the table next to them. After V finished eating she came over and said, "You seem to like us. Will you be our parents?"

Smart Alec kid.

I'm not dead.

I planned to blog about our move and CA adventure and it hasn't happened.

I will give a brief run down of a few things.

When we moved out here, we came with a 25ft RV.  All 7 of us (and the dog) lived in the RV for 4 weeks, in the Bate's Motel of RV Parks in Mojave, CA.  A KAO it was not.  We decided to us the California Virtual Academy (K12) for school and 165 lbs of books, a desktop computer and a printer arrived.  They more than covered our couch and I had no place to store them.  I cried.  I looked for a cheap house to rent.

Since we hadn't (and still haven't) sold the house in B'ville I looked for cheap and month to month.  Cheap here is more expensive than our OK house mortgage.  I relented when I found a 2 bedroom, 1 bath, month to month, with a decent sized living area for being only an 860 sq ft house.  It was better than the RV.  It was $850 all bills paid.  Our mortgage on 2700 sq ft and 5 bedrooms is around $730 in OK.

We kept thinking the house will sell and we will be able to find something and move on.  The month to month would allow us to leave with adequate notice to our landlord.  It's been just over 10 months and if nothing else we need a second bathroom, and 3rd bedroom.

I put in a rental app for the first 4 bedroom house I have found for less than 2K a month ($1100).  We'll find out next week if we get the house.  We've had found places that are quickly taken, or the landlord thinks 5 kids is too many in a 3 bedroom or that won't allow pets.  As it stands I'm not holding my breath, but I am praying for more space and a nicer area (the house is in Tehachapi, not Mojave).

That's a brief update of our CA adventure in housing, please pray we get the house and continue to pray for the sale of our B'ville house.  This home school mom needs more room and freedom for her kids.  Mojave is 1200 people with an inner city demographic.  My children have gone from freedom, to prison.

Keurig Coffee Maker Give Away!

I would love to win this.

Giving Up

Victoria broke my heart tonight.

For those of you who don't know V suffers from something called convergence excess, it is an ocular development issue which make reading very difficult.  V has been through 5 months of vision therapy and still have HUGE struggles.

Tonight she said something that brought me to tears.  She said she would give up climbing to be able to read well.  If you don't know V you don't know that she is a tree, pole, rope, cliff and wall climbing crazy person.  If it can be climbed she will attempt it and she finds great pleasure in climbing.  For her to say something like that shows how hard not reading well is for her.

I love her.

What would you give up in place of you biggest struggle?  I honestly can't answer that.

Zero Gravity

This is video of Jonathan at Zero G on G Force One.