Mud and Music Lessons

The morning light revealed more erosion and MUD, MUD, MUD! We've concluded we won't be able to do anything until spring. We had LOTS of rain again Saturday night and yesterday!

Now we need to plan how we're going to handle this mess. Merv has several ideas.

The two days of raking now seem futal as there are even more stones in the yard and more washed down to the road.

The gully is yet deeper.

And we've got more mud just outside the back door. Living with mud is the norm for right now. My husband and I both concluded that it's better than living on a dirt floor. I think of the Dominicans many times. Several days of rain can be depressing for them as they have dirt floors turned into mud. And I think their woman like pretties just as well as us. We've got it so good.

Our spring semester lessons start at 4:30 pm and last about 45 minutes.

There had been lots of tensions for the teacher lately: once they were out of power, then the lane was icy. Today the driveway wasn't too muddy as Dave had been out spreading stones with the tractor, but their heat circular wasn't working. The fireplace was nice and cozy.

And the lessons went well. I do love their teacher!

She dealt with the technical things of violin today. And assigned another song. Amber has great tone with her playing. Thanks to having a wonderful teacher.

Allison is doing well with piano and it is great having a full size keyboard to practice with at home.

Her assignment today was the hardest part in playing piano, having the left and right hands playing different notes. It's all good!

The boys love playing with their wooden train set. We picked them up, while the next party began their lesson.

We made a stop at the store on our way home because we needed 2 cans of chilis for the soup we had in the crockpot all afternoon. I walked through the store and noticed they finally had some Star products. I've had $20 worth of coupons since last summer and haven't been able to find them anywhere, although I forgot to look at Sam's Club. Wouldn't you know, our local store had some extra virgin olive oil that is BOGO this week.

This group of food plus 2 cans of chilis (the only thing paid with full price) cost me $9.30 - a whooping savings of $35.84!

Milk - $3.49 each

Chilis - $1.49 each

Olive oil - $9.89 each  sale price BOGO plus $4 coupon for EACH item totalling $.95 each

Pizza - $4.99 each  sale price BOGO plus $1 coupon totalling $1.50

I had read on my friend's facebook and blog about this Simple, Hearty White Chili soup. I decided to try it and fixed it before we left for music lessons so that supper would be ready when we got back. I had never heard of white chili before. We were not disappointed! This stuff is fabulous!