Random Five on Friday ~ August 7th Edition

The summer is two thirds over.  We’ve had a busy summer.  I’m glad that there are still a few more weeks of summer.

1.  We tend to school year round taking breaks when we need them and taking extra time at Christmas and Pascha so it is not unusual for us to continue doing some school during the summer. This summer is no exception though we have had more breaks and time off than I originally planned.  This is not a bad thing though.  I do usually pick an “official” first day of school that kicks off the new year. That’s the day we add in anything new and make the day special.  It’s a tradition to have a “First Day”.

2. I’ve rediscovered Swagbucks. They have redesigned the website and my friend Deb from Footprints in the Butter has been giving me mini-tutorials on how to up my daily SB so that I get bonus Swagbucks.  What is swagbucks?  Well basically it is a website that rewards you points, called swagbucks, and you can redeem those points for gift cards.  About 100 SB = $1.  They do offer $3 gift cards for just 300 swagbucks.  You earn SB by using their search engine or finding a code or doing activities.  I had been half-heartedly doing Swagbucks until this past week.  I’ve earned close to 500 in just this first week of August.  If you are interested in Swagbucks shoot me an email and I’ll send you an invite.

3.  Speaking of reward programs, a friend of mine introduced me to the Bing Rewards program. Like Swagbucks you earn credits by searching. Also like Swagbucks you can redeem those credits for gift cards.  The programs are completely different though. I only do the searches and I will click on the daily offers (that usually give 1 credit and often count towards the daily searches) but I don’t do anything else. When I am diligent about completing my daily searches on my laptop and phone, I can earn a $5 gift card in about 3 weeks.  At the Gold Level a $5 Amazon Gift Card is 475 credits.

4.  Our peas and green beans are not doing as well this year as they did in 2013.  (We had no garden in 2014.) They are still producing and we’ve had some peas to snack on and enough green beans for a couple of meals but not the amount we had before. I think it is because it’s been a dry and hot summer. 

5.  My twins are 18!!  We had some special friends over to help us celebrate. Their birthday is always bittersweet for me. Of course there is joy and happiness because we added two precious daughters to our family but there is pain woven into the fabric of our memories of that time.  The shock of finding out that our daughter has a life threatening heart defect and having to leave everything behind in Germany often taints the days before or after the birthday.  I am grateful that I am able to set that aside and just enjoy the beauty and love of celebrating their birthday.  Today though I realized it was 18 years ago that I woke up, left my house, and never returned.  Today though there isn’t quite the level of pain as I remember that morning. Mostly I think I am flooded with gratitude that we have made it to adulthood. On that horrible day 18 years ago no one really expected that Supergirl would see her 1st birthday let alone make to age 18.