Flashback Friday

Flashback Friday is brought to you by Jill over at Scarymommy.com

I apologize! This post is long and rambly (is that a word?) and I only chose it because I am feeling sentimental today with my visit coming up tomorrow. You don't have to read it if you don't want to!

(Originally Posted) Tuesday, December 23, 2008

A Bond Between a Mother and a Son
Bear with me. This title may seem like it has nothing to do with my post, but hang in there and you will see the relevance.I tried to have a little fun teasing my son this past week. He was again reminding me what he had asked for for christmas. I was visiting this weekend and I got lots of reminders. And questions of if we were going to go and buy him some presents. I told him no of course. I was not buying any presents for him in front of him. We did go shopping and he had a lot of fun. I left him with my mom for a few minutes to pick out a present for me. Mom said he was very proud and impressed with his decisions. When he was done picking for me he wanted to go look at toys while my mom went to pay.And so it began, can I have this and this and this. No, No, NO! It is only a few days until christmas. My mom and I discussed this behavior after dropping my son off at his dad's. We have come to the conclusion that he does this because his dad puts him up to it. Not always in a fashion that points directly to him. More of a sneaky, I will pull one over on them type of thing. My ex will take my son to walmart, take him to the toy section and let him look at the toys. Now, there is nothing wrong with that. I do the same thing, because he likes to look at the toys and dream, "if I had lots of money". The problem begins when my son asks for something. Instead of saying no and being done with it, my ex says well sure you can have it if you buy it. Or he will say something along the lines of he does not get child support, so he can't afford it. Like my son should even be in a discussion about whether or not my ex gets child support. Or lastly, he tells my son, sure you can have it, just tell your mom to get it for you. Your mom should buy that for you. Then I take my son to walmart because he wants to go and "look". I end up with some sort of no I am not buying that for you today discussion with my son, because his dad said he should ask me. Not very nice for my little boy who thought that he would get a toy. Here is where this phenomenon gets interesting. This does not pass on to other stores. Since my ex only goes to walmart and lowe's, I can take my son to kmart and avoid the battles altogether. So, we now just go to kmart. It is as if my son does not realize that he could ask at other stores. I know that he wants "stuff" from kmart because he will point out toys that are "neat" or stuff he just wants. But he does not beg for them. I tell him we are just looking and that's what he does.Anyway, we ended up at walmart because none of the other stores had the present they (my mom and my son) were looking for and we ended up looking in the toys section while mom paid. We did make it out without any purchases. After all, it is almost christmas. Oh, but the "I can't wait" was fun. It was too long and too many days according to my son. I can still remember the agony of waiting those last few days.After mom was done paying he wanted to take my mom to see the games that he wanted for the nintendo ds. He was trying really hard to figure the best way to get them all. I could buy this game, Grammy could buy this one, Auntie could get this one, Uncle could get this one, and maybe Papa (grandpa) could get this one. And could he get one from his cousins. We then explained that since his cousins belonged to Auntie and Uncle, they would not be buying him an expensive game, and since Auntie and Uncle are married, they will not be buying separate games. He can get one from their whole family. And Grammy had already bought him some presents. We then discovered that he thought Santa would bring the ds and not bring any games. We quickly told him that Santa does not bring a game system and nothing to play on it. Well, that made him feel much better. So Santa brings the ds and a game, mom will get a game and Papa will get him a game, or two since his will be coming from GameStop.My son asked me last night if I had his presents yet. I told him no I forgot I was supposed to get you anything. Did we talk about that, did you say you wanted presents. I thought you did not want any presents this year. He informed me that he knew better, he knew that I would have presents for him. I asked him how he knew that and the answer he gave me touched my heart.He said to me that he knew I would bring him presents because I always do what I say for him, and I don't let him down, and I don't give up on him. He knows he can trust me.All that from an eight year old. I really wished right then that I could give him a great big squeezy hug. Instead we finished talking and I finished shopping when we were done.All of this behavior and especially the conversations makes me feel as if I have an unbreakable bond with my son. I figure I must be doing something right. After nearly two years of limited visits, monitored phone calls, and constant hearing of negative name calling talk about me, my son still loves me and trusts me totally. I know that his father said more than once before he got custody that if he had custody it would be the opposite of when I had him. My son would like him and want to stay with him and not like me and not want to go with me. I look at our situation and see that no matter how much he wants it not to be true, my son still loves me and wants to come home. And home is with mom, not dad. Even after almost two years, I am still Home. I am the rock and the safety. Most importantly, I am the love. I know that some folks may not approve of how I raised my son, and that is part of why I lost him, but how many of those that spoke ill of me could have said the same were they in this situation? How many people in general can say that they know their children have complete faith and trust in them? Even though I have not fixed this problem, my son knows that eventually I will. He still has a faith that mom will make it all right. Because he is my son, and my heart, I will make it all right. That is part of the unbreakable bond between a mom and her child.I would like to add a small disclaimer. I do know families that can say their children trust them completely. I know several that cannot, but I do know of tight strong families. My sister is one of them. I also have the feeling based on the posts from the pound, and their blogs, moms there could also say it. (Right Jmo, even when your child grows up and leaves home, they know where the heart is!)

Thankful Thursday

I am going to be thankful on Thursdays. Well, I will be thankful everyday, I will just post some random bits that I am thankful for from the past week. This week I am thankful for:

1. It has finally stopped raining here today(after raining every day this week).
2. I get to see my son this weekend.
3. That there is such a thing as Diet Pepsi. I don't know how I would ever wake up every day without it.
4. Chocolate
5. Coupons- I love those money saving little bits of paper.

So what are you thankful for today?

May Totals

Sorry I did not get these posted yesterday. Things have been very disorganized in my life right now. I will have to work on that. Anyway...The totals:
Items: 306
OOP: $262.69
Savings: $530.09
Merch Total: $799.78
Savings %: 66%

Nothing to complain about here. I saved 66% while building up my stockpile. I have filled my freezer and cabinets this month for a fraction of what I would have paid a year or two ago. That makes me smile!

What to Cook Wednesday

I would like to post a recipe for my lovely readers today. (I just love you guys! I am glad you come around.)

You could use this recipe with any meat as far as I can tell. I have used pork roast, chicken and turkey. I guess that you could make this in the oven too, but that is not how I have ever made it. I always use either my crockpot or my nesco cooker.

Italian Pork

1 Pork roast (or meat of some kind)
1 Bottle Fat free italian dressing
1 packet Italian dressing mix
1 onion chopped (can be chopped to what ever size you prefer-me, I like bigger chunks)
2-5 pepperoncini's (optional)
a bit of water (optional-see directions)

Place pork roast into cooker. Throw onions and pepperoncini's on top. Dump the bottle and mix of dressing on top of the whole mess. If I use my nesco cooker, I add a bit of water by filling the empty bottle of dressing about 1/4-1/3 full and shake it up to get the last of the dressing out and dump that in as well, but not if I use my slow cooker.

Since I am gone at work all day, I cook it on low or on the slow cook setting on my nesco. If you wanted to have the meal sooner or were not planning on being gone all day before you get to come home for dinner cook it on high or about 350 til the meat is fully cooked(this will depend on how large your roast is-check it with a meat thermometer).

When the meat is done cooking or when I get home, I grab two forks and start shredding. This is wonderful on some crusty rolls or hoagie buns. Serve with a salad and/or a fruit and dinner is ready!

I hope you enjoy this as much as my family does.

It's Color-Time!

I have changed around the colors on my blog. I am trying for a more summery feel. If you think any of the changes make things hard to read please let me know so I can change it. I would love any feed back on the changes you may have!

Political Post Follows

IF you don't want to read anything political, then please skip this post and move along. If you are not interested, that is fine.

This touches me personally as many of you know from reading my site. The following is a message from the site ParentalRights.org. I want to pass this message along to you as many of my readers have children or hope to have children some day. Please read this and educate your self further by visiting the site parentalrights.org. We must stand together and making a stand, or just being aware of this. Here it is:

The Message
A parent’s right to raise their children as they see fit is a time-honored American tradition, but today it is being threatened. The Supreme Court’s Troxel v. Granville decision in 2000 undermined a 75-year heritage of Constitutionally-protected, fundamental parental rights, which 8 of the 9 justices abandoned. At the same time, a growing body of international law fuels activist judges to legislate foreign standards from the American bench, while treaties such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child would subject parental decisions to government oversight and international review.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (MI-2) has proposed HJR-42, the Parental Rights Amendment, to stop the erosion of parental rights in American courts while simultaneously defending our laws from international invasion. Please, visit parentalrights.org to learn more about the Amendment, and to join their email network by signing the petition to protect parental rights.

Update for Several Days (Where Have I Been?)

Wow, I feel like I have been out of commission here for a long time even though it has only been four days.

I have been to the grocery stores several times over these last few days taking advantage of sales and q's that were about to expire. I now have a completely full deep freezer. I did not fill up the freezer on the fridge as it runs more efficiently when less than full so air can circulate. I also found Parmalat milk. I was looking and asking for advice on The Pound to see if anyone had suggestions as I could not find it. Well, this weekend I found it. I bought a couple of the containers. They are not big containers, but they will be perfect for my trips. I also have been taking advantage of the Vitaminwater10 q. It expires in a few days so if you are hoping to use it-hop to it. Most of the stores here have had the water on sale for a dollar, so I only pay a few cents tax. Gotta love FREE!
I also got gas this weekend. It cost me $75 to fill my tank. The gas prices have leveled off here for a couple of days now. The prices jumped a total of $.74 in nine days. Wow. I am sure it will continue to rise.

I plan to have my May monthly totals tomorrow. I did not have time to sort everything out last night as I went to the store again to get more vitamin water, and some flours and an oven thermometer so I can start making my bread. I plan to start the bread process tomorrow night for bread in five minutes a day. I hope that goes well! I will let you know. I also was getting my van ready for the weekend trip. I pulled everything that was washable out to wash last night. I was still washing this morning and I have two more loads tonight. (We have blankets, sleeping bags, sheets, pillows, throws, left over clothes, etc in there.)

As for the update on the Yesterday's news cat litter: My cats would like to tell you
"we do not like this stinky cat litter. We will not use it and you can't make us." This is a first for me as my cats have eaten just about any cat food and have used all cat litters that I have put in the box. I think that one of my kitties tried it, but only once and as far as I can tell no more even checking it out, pawing it, nothing. But we do have really full litter boxes for the other two. I will have to dump it for this weekend so my poor kitties are not trying to go in just the two litter boxes all weekend. I don't know what to do with the other half of the bag either....

I do not do the weekly meal plan because more often than not I do batch cooking on my Sunday at home for about two weeks worth of food. This Sunday, I was out looking at a motor home. It was about two and a half hours away, and it was owned by this wonderful older couple. They were very crafty and handy and we sat for about an hour talking shop about building, sewing, knitting, painting, crocheting, and quilting. Finally we made our way home. So no batch cooking for me.

In an effort to save money by not eating out, I will not buy pizza at lunch today even though that is what I wanted. I found some leftovers in the fridge that I might have needed to throw out if I did not eat them today or tomorrow. They became my meals for today. No extra money spent on food, and no waste. A win-win! Woo Hoo!

I will be back tomorrow with monthly totals and all that good stuff. And I will hopefully remember to take pics when I do the bread start tonight. Then the baking begins tomorrow!