Mr. Branch heads out early to get to his property management job by 7:00 a.m. Twiggy One gets picked up for 7th grade at private school at 7:30 while Twiggy Two does her daily reading homework then meets the neighborhood kids to ride bikes or scooters to the public school around the corner for 3rd grade. Twiggy Three and I hang out in the morning doing household chores as well as a 1st grade home school curriculum before he heads out to kindergarten at the public school at 12:20.
Before the school pickup at 3:15, I do one of two things: teach piano lessons or donate plasma. I have 11 piano students, most of whom are home schoolers so that I'm free after school for my twigs. Some may laugh at donating plasma, but it's a pretty good income for 2-3 hours of my time. While I'm in that area of town, I do whatever shopping I may need to do so my gas is not wasted.
After the school pick up, piano is practiced, homework done, and Awana verses practiced. If the weather is nice, all the neighborhood kids are out and lots of bike riding, trampolining, and basketball happens.
Evenings find us either at gymnastics for Twiggy Two and Three, my cleaning job that Twiggy One gets paid to help me with, or Awana at church (where I'm a leader). Sundays, all Twiggys participate in the children's choir at church and Mr. Branch picks his brother so they can sing in the adult choir. Every 4th Sunday, I teach the 3's class during the morning church hour. Once a month, Mr. Branch runs sound for the morning service. He occassionaly runs sound for other events like weddings, funerals, and the special programs.
Now for some personality tidbits... The best way to describe Mr. Branch is that he is a quiet servant. He is the good guy that everyone likes and that likes to help folks with whatever they need. He's an amazing deal finder! Just for example, he recently got a $200 store credit for turning in new, unexpired printer cartridges that were being excessed at work. Way too funny! He is a supportive husband and father, encouraging us all in our endeavors. His sense of humor is dry but very funny if you wait for it. One of my favorite things to do is to make him laugh. His belly laugh is priceless.
Hmmm...I thought it would be easy to talk about myself, but I'm finding it hard to describe myself. Maybe I should have family members do this post. Uh, on second thought, maybe not! What I think other people see is that I'm organized, frugal and resourceful, a hard worker, a fun teacher, and mission minded. My overall goal in life is to grow in my relationship with Christ and to share His love with anyone I can. My next goal is just to have fun. The Bible tells us that God intended us to have life abundantly. That means deep, meaningful relationships. So for me, meaningful means having lots of fun together. I love to laugh and be a kid. One of my friends call me her "fun" friend. I'm not sure what that says about her other friends (grin) but I like it. So, combining my frugalness with the desire to have fun means lots of resourcefullness goes on around here. We have a VERY old tent trailer that doesn't even fit all of us and an even older, 70's green boat. But, boy, do we have fun camping and tubing. Two of the three twiggys have never been to Disneyland, so when Disney began their "Give a Day, Get a Day" program, you better believe we were all over that. We all volunteered a day and received a free Disney ticket. So, between the free tickets and driving instead of flying, we're making a dream come true in May for not very much money. And yes, I coupon. It is such a rush to walk out of a store with free or nearly free stuff. I save our family so much but I also have lots of fun in the process. For a busy mom, a little bit of couponing fun goes a long way!
Well, it's time for lunch so I'll have to save writing about the Twiggys until a later post. Twiggy Three has a followup doctor appointment tomorrow after his stay in the hospital 2 weeks ago for low blood sugar. I'll let you know what the doctor says.
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