Winter Snow and Spring Garden

Well there are several inches of snow on the ground and I am contemplating my garden. I have been looking through seed catalogues and spending hundreds of dollars on all the things I want...at least in my head I have. Always seems strange to me to contemplate my garden in the middle of winter, but I'd like to plant peas this year and they need to go in March or so.
Thanks to our new limited budget, I am going to make a go of actually planting and harvesting enough food to keep us through most of the winter. Not my favorite thing as I like the idea of a garden much more than the actual dirt. Probably because my allergies are so very horrible that it is awful to go pull weeds and what not. However, that said, I will be doing it anyway to try and salvage some of our money...maybe if I pull it off we won't be so deep in the red next year.
Blech to not enough money!
So this is what I want to plant for sure this year: corn, peas, green beans, wax beans, tomatoes, turnips, parsnips, potatoes, carrots, radishes, spinach, beets, zucchini, crook neck squash, spaghetti squash, pumpkins. I'm sure there is more, but my list is not in front of me.
We also have a rhubarb patch, grapes, apple trees, pear trees and I would love to add a heavier bearing cherry tree as well as a couple of peach trees. We really are blessed with abundance in this area. Of course this is assuming a good spring and summer. Last year it was so cold and wet that our garden didn't really do all that well and we got almost no apples or pears and oddly I didn't see any rhubarb come into the house.
My other desire which probably won't come to fruition this year is to add a couple of Goji berry bush/trees and at least two paw paw trees. They both sound yummy and beautiful.
Off to clean and continue planning what is going to be a massive garden.

Well it has been more than a month since the last posting and my playroom/house is wonderfully (mostly) still organized. I still have to tackle the craft drawers, but I think that will be waiting until after Christmas.

I just love being able to see my floors *smile*

Today will be a day to multitask. Though my laundry is clean (we won't discuss the several loads waiting for me upstairs) it needs to be folded and put away, I need to start sewing my 2 year olds Christmas present (a "Toothless" dragon, from How to Train Your Dragon) since I couldn't find them in store anywhere and online were running $150-$200. That wasn't gonna happen! I also need to start her Christmas PJ's (the other two kidlets, plus one set for my friends little girl are already done). I would like to clean out the window in the kitchen to display all my Christmas nativity scenes and what not. I think however, that I might save deep cleaning the laundry/bathroom for Monday.

Now as to budgeting...I still don't like not having money, but I can tell my mindset is changing because I walk out of the stores with only what's on my list, perhaps minus a few items that were non necessities instead of what's on my list and then some. I was still a hundred dollars over my food budget last month, but hopefully that will be rectified this month. Where we have run into a snag is that horrible column called "Extras". You know all that miscellaneous stuff that doesn't deserve a column of its own, but needs to be put somewhere. Yeah well that horrible column was sitting at almost $500 last month. Really?! Why do we need $500 worth of misc.?

On the upside of the whole budgeting thing, I have managed to procure a job watching a little girl during the day while my older kids are at school which will allow the kids to stay at their current school as it covers the cost of their tuition plus a whole extra $10. Whoo hoo. I am very grateful for this opportunity that God has provided as it meets all the criteria that we felt the ideal job for me should have at this time. I can work in my home, it covers the cost of the kids schooling, gives me the same days (mostly) off that the kids have, and best of all the little girl is my son's teachers daughter so when I pick him up, I drop her off. I also think it is a bonus for my 2.5 year old to have that experience of not being the youngest and learning how to deal with someone much smaller than her.

Well that's all for now.

Well just to add on at the end of this day, my laundry still remains unfolded, but the kitchen is clean, the downstairs is vacuumed, toys are put away, kids' rooms are cleaned, Toothless is maybe half done. Now my back is tired from all that sewing, but I feel good about my day. Perhaps I will even fold laundry while me and David watch a movie.