November 21st

Guess I'm not very good at blogging, since it's been a long time between updates.  I had a lot of spilled milk to clean up during that time!!  Just today my 14 year spilled a whole glass of milk at breakfast down the tablecloth and onto the floor!  

Some of the things I have done for my giving challenge this month.

 I have donated food items to go into a military care package, brought peanut butter and jelly to church for our outreach for Kumler food bank, bought bread for breadline Sunday at church to help them, and took snacks for the kids at Nathan's play practice. 

While shopping I found the cutest Christmas outfit for my friend Jill's new little girl and got it for her, went together with 2 other friends and got a gift basket for chemo days for my friend who was just diagnosed with breast cancer and beginning chemo soon.

With some help from my little ones families we filled 4 shoe boxes to send to Operation Christmas Child.  We did 3 girls and 1 boy boxes for ages 5-9.  They really enjoyed filling them and giving them to my friend at co-op to take to a drop off site.  You usually think of little ones always "wanting" but they were so excited to be "giving". 

I took time to care for Laura when she had a bad asthma attack and ended up in the ER.  I took a day off work and didn't go to bunco when I felt she needed me more at home.  Thank God she is doing better.  Very scary for all of us. 

Went and stood along Veteren's with my hand over my heart as a fallen soldier was taken to the funeral home.  He "gave" his life while my giving is nothing compared to that. 

There are a few other things but I want to keep them between God and myself.   I feel funny even talking about the things that I've done as they are things I would hope I would do anyway.  I am trying to do above what I would to stretch myself this month though. 

Anyway I will try and update daily or as often as I can! 

November 5

Didn't get to post last night since our dog Star was having seizures for a couple of hours.  They are hard to watch, the medicine keeps them to about once a month but they last for a few days.  Poor thing!  I had trouble with the giving challenge again yesterday.  I am fine about giving to people I know but to give something to a stranger still is hard for me.  I hope I can grow from this experience and be better about that by the end of the month.  I ended up taking dinner to Laura's boyfriend Trever while he was working at Menards.  (he works security for the lumber yard)  I know he appreciated it but I didn't feel that really counted since we do that sometimes anyway. 

Today went a little better.  I was dragging because of being up with Star during the night.  The kids had fun in preschool this morning, as I told them I was tired and pretended to nod off a couple of times and they had to wake me up.  They found that funny!  One of them told me I shouldn't sleep in class I should go home and take a nap!!  We went to the library after co-op and my two little ones were excited to have a giving opportunity.  There were lots of toys out and no kids there anymore in the children's area.  I told them that if they helped pick up toys that would be giving and they were very excited.  They did a good job picking up.  Little kids amaze me how much they get excited to be helping.  I wish that lasted to when they were teenagers!! ;-) Just kidding!

I went to County Market after supper to stock up on the baking supplies they had on sale and use my penny pincher coupons.   I had picked up a pack of two cookies from the bakery and I was determined to find someone to give them to before I left the store!  I went through the checkout line of a teenage boy and told him from the beginning I had A LOT of coupons, he rang every thing up and I handed him the coupons and he said "you weren't kidding this is a lot."  He ran them up without complaining and the girl working even sacked all my groceries even though you usually do them yourself there.  I'm sure the man behind me wasn't too happy!  Anyway after I paid and was leaving I gave the girl the package and told  her to share with the checker since they were both so nice about everything.  She said thanks but didn't act like it was anything usual.  So I was happy to have gotten over being afraid of being giving to a stranger.  For today anyway! 

November 3rd

Today I thought of several things I could do for the giving challenge but didn't get any of them done!  I have had a full house with little ones the last couple of days so I was tired and didn't get to some baking I was wanting to do tonight.  I know I needed to get the newsletter I do for our homeschool group ready to copy tomorrow so I have been working on that.  As I was typing and looking up things to put in the newsletter I realized I am giving as I'm working on it.  I'm giving support to other homeschoolers through our group.  I guess sometimes we give without realizing it!  ;-) 

November 2nd

Today for the giving challenge I voted and I feel that is giving to my country.  I decided to give the people helping at the polling place some candy I got yesterday.  The funny thing was, I was nervous about giving something to strangers.  I thought they might think I was weird, since people don't do things like that very often.  After they gave me my ballet I pulled the candy out of my purse and told them it was for them and thanked them for giving their time.  They were surprised that someone would thank them much less give them something!  I learned a lot today, I don't care if people think I'm weird I want to show them that there are still giving and caring people out there and I am one of them!

When I was doing preschool with the little ones today we talked about how this month we are going to focus on giving.  Even little children can give, they can give up a toy they are playing with to a friend, they can give a time of picking up without being asked, and so on.  At that age they love to help grown-ups in their life, most of the time! ;-) 

Nathan and I have talked about ways to give during our school time also.  He is helping a fellow scout this weekend with his eagle scout project as part of this giving for this month. 

Only had one cup of spilled milk to clean up today! 

November 1st

Since I just decided to do this today I wasn't really prepared but thought a lot about it today.  I don't have a lot of extra money so I want to think of some ways to give other things besides money.  I needed to return some books I had borrowed from a friend today so I gave them back in a pretty bag I had bought a long time ago at Barnes and Noble.  I also included a note telling her how much her friendship meant to me.  The neat part was I don't think she realized that I gave her the bag as a gift and she didn't see the card until after I left so I'm sure that will be a surprise to her also.  Sometimes it's nice to get recognized for your giving but other times it's nice to do it in secret!  I want to try and get my family and my childcare families involved also.  It's going to be a fun month! 

My Story

I have been thinking of starting to blog but never got around to it, until today!  I was reading about the 30 days of giving and how several people on the website were linking their blogs to it so I decided why not!  I even figured how to set this up all by myself.  Pretty good since usually I have Laura or Danny figure things on the computer out for me!  I will have Laura help me pretty it up later though! ;-)

I a wife to Danny, a mom to Laura and Nathan, homeschool teacher to Nathan, and a daycare provider during the week.  My title of the blog comes from cleaning up a lot of spilled milk through the day and instead of getting upset we just clean it up and go on.  I guess that is a good way to look at life, if something happens you can either cry over it or clean up and move on.  I know that no matter how many times I have to clean something up God will be there to help me with it. 

I'm looking forward to this 30 day challange and blogging!