Two Weeks with Equipping Minds, and Other Life Updates

This equipping minds cognative brain program is intense. After two weeks I can already notice some improvement with Reuben. For one, he doesn't cry anymore at art time! He usually dislikes art. After the first week he's enjoying it! And drawing extra! It's been amazing to see even such a small change.

Another change is he has started reversing letters. This is his brain working. He never reversed letters regally before. I think it is part of the healing process as his brain grapples with understanding what he is doing. For a bit he started writing the number 4 for the letter F and then he erased that and wrote F backwards. 

There are still 10 more weeks left, and the teacher hasn't even started the reading or writing portion of the program with him... I can't wait to see how he progresses as the program continues, and how many more positive changes I will see in him. Reuben is so brilliant and I am so thankful as we walk through this program together! 

I still have not memorized the first steps on the tic-tac-toe game which Reuben committed to memory in two days... my challenges are different then his though and I think I will need to tell myself a story about the number-color-animal sequence in order to remember it correctly. But I can see it is helping me too. My brain is a little clearer and I am noticing more details with less effort. 

I already know I will be including some of these games daily in our homeschool, even as Reuben graduates from the program. It is so fun and stimulating to the intelligence, and it is so good for my kids. I'm intrigued on the why, and also tired because I still have a chronic illness and 3 kids.

School resumed this week. I have not been able to get to math with Reuben so I am setting that aside (the teacher said it was okay to wait) so I can continue to work on the cognitive brain development with him...we will pick up Math again in April. We are doing all his scheduled readings and I will try to add in latin and grammar next week. I also quit doing written narrations with him as well as dictations, we will resume those after he is done with the program.

I am still doing math with Becky but not a lot, as she is doing the Barton Reading Program with Grandma Julie who is so thankfully taking that over for me because I cannot do one more thing. It is a blessing to have my mom retired! 

My birthday is this weekend and Becky's 8th birthday is next weekend. It's hopefully going to be a magical two weeks if no one gets sick, and I can't wait to see my little girl blow out her candles for the 8th time. Okay, she didn't really do that at 1, but you get the idea. 

The kids are hoping for more snow, I am hoping for more sleep, and we all tumble around in the middle. How are you guys?

Budget Jan 2nd - 16th 2026

First budget of the year! I haven't done one of these in a while because life has been so chaotic we've....not been budgeting. Which is not good for the budget. Or my bank account. I actually love budgeting. I enjoy organizing and structuring our income gives me the same feel-good vibes as deep cleaning my living room does. 

Our income for these two weeks plus what was leftover in our bank account came to 3,346. We have a very high spend month coming up with Reuben starting Cognitive Brain Therapy...and other things. We also owe about $1,600 on our credit card because our car needed new tiers, we bought some clothes, I ordered yearbooks from chatbooks for the kids, we put some groceries and car parts on it and other various things...but those were the big ones. We also put the kids swim lessons on the credit card.

my kids love swimming even in winter!

So, because we want to pay the credit card off completely before it's due in February there will not be much fun money for the next two months but I can hardly blame anyone but myself (and my husband). Our goal with the credit card is not to use it. You can see how well that is going. I'd actually like to cancel the thing but husband says he likes to have one for emergencies... 

January 2-9

This week had a budget of 1,673. Here is what we spent. (I round up to make it easy to skip the cents)

• Pandora Subscription $13

• Brian's Phone $35
• Internet $20
• Trash $32
• Reuben Piano Lessons, Month of Jan $120
• Cognitive Brain Therapy, Month of Jan $572
• Tithe 
• Credit Card Payment $600
• Groceries, Krogers 200
• Gas, $31

This left a total of $0 to roll over into next week. Oops.

January 9-16

This week also had a budget of 1,673. Here is what we spent.

• iCloud $3
• Deposit to savings $150
• Tithe
• Azure Order $1000
• Car inspection (it passed!!) $20
• Cava $25
• Walmart $81
• Kroger 134
• Raw Milk $78
• Vitamin for the kids $24
• Gift for Reuben (for one week of Brain Development) $31
• Renting Movies on Youtube $8
• Pajamas for myself from Poshmark $34

That leaves $115 left over in our budget to roll into next week. Unless we spend anything else...a tight budget but it's from our choices and I am hopeful next week will be better!

And that is everything I bought for our budget in the first two weeks of January. God is good. We made it and I'm very grateful. 

We are starting over with saving money after the last budget update I did in October. (wow was it really that long ago!! crazy) So, we will start saving again after we pay off our credit card. We do have an emergency savings account for if Brian suddenly looses his job but that is only for emergencies. Which groceries and swim lessons are not. 

What did you spend so far? When talking to my friends, I find I am somewhere in the middle. I have friends who make twice what we do and friends who I make twice what they do. It's always interesting to see. Remember, it's not a competition, and no one should feel bad--that's not why I'm posting. I'm posting this because no one talks about money anymore and I think we should talk about it. I think understanding budgets and what others are/are not spending should not be a taboo subject. For me, it helps me process and plan and not overspend, because I have to post it here. It helps keep me accountable. And it can remove boundaries and bring healing.

God is good, and no one is promised tomorrow. 

Today was a hard day

Today was Reuben's first home day of cognitive brain development! Yesterday we went to see the brain coach and it was interesting. She made him write his name and the lowercase alphabet from a-z. She said he is really tense when writing and also his eye tracking is all over the place! I never noticed that! Reuben did well with the coach. She had him do some finger and hand exercises, then they played a number-color-shape game back and forth. Then they did a tick-tack-toe worksheet that corresponds to color--that he is supposed to memorize, followed by two worksheets that utilized the same color-number sequence. It was very interesting. I wished my mom, a retired public school teacher, had been there to tell me what it all meant and how this will help my son. She ended by playing the spot-it game. 

This morning we did his equipping minds brain reflex exercises, followed by the sequence of cognitive development games the teacher did on Monday. Reuben did so well. I found the number-color-shape game very challenging. Reuben corrected me several times when I would say the shape instead of the number or the color instead of the shape. I am severely dyslexic, what a trial as a mother! 

I found the tick-tack-toe game fascinating. We played for around 7 minutes trying to memorize the color-number sequence and I found two "trick" ways of winning games by scrutinizing the board. Reuben won one game and the cat got the rest. 

I know I'm giving my thoughts on it all. I asked Reuben for his and he said...he doesn't like it. That was all. Brief and to the point. But he will do it he said, and I reminded him it's only 12 more weeks. We can do this! I'm so proud of him. He's a genius. 

After completing our brain games I did half of Becky's school, then we did two piano lessons--Becky's and Reubens. Poor Becky had an anxiety attack at piano and I felt so bad for her. I need to deep dive into anxiety soon so I can get some tools to help her. She doesn't like feeling stuck and she doesn't like it when she hits a challenging song! Anxiety is no fun...I am thinking Becky is a perfectionist and I am hopeful I can teach her that everyone makes mistakes and learns from them and it's okay, especially when related to a musical instrument. She is a beautiful piano player and I know she loves the piano so much. Its hard to see her so frustrated and stuck in a cycle of stress and anxiety at the tender age of 7 years old...

I was exhausted after Reuben's piano (that I don't even do anything for, I sit in the playroom with the girls while he has his lesson) and then we went home and did math and chores and read Winter Tales and went on a walk. Followed by a lot of resting. 

On the walk, 2/3 of the way home, Esther decided she wanted to be carried. The problem was she had a bike, so I could not carry both her and the bike. Anyway, I tried to carry her bike and get her to walk and she had a full on tantrum in the middle of the road and I may have internally contemplated my life choices as I tried to get her to come home. Becky finally had to run her own scooter home and come back for the bike and I carried Esther who promptly asked for Bluey when we got home and seemed surprised that she couldn't have her favorite TV show after throwing a tantrum in the middle of the road. 

Being two is wild.

Then I had chocolate and tea. And worked on my cardigan which has one arm done now!! SO excited. It's going to be gorgeous.

After all that I did NOT want to make dinner. But no one was going to save me, I am the adult in this relationship and so I made pizza and everyone was happy and I was glad I freeze sourdough pizza crusts like a responsible mom with three kids who does too much and needs a nap.

I do not know how much homeschooling I will get done with Reuben while he does cognitive brain development. Pray for me as I figure it out.

Oh and I had a medium headache today. It was bad enough to be irritating but not bad enough to make me lay down and turn off all the lights.

God is good and I love him. I'm glad he made me.

I'm also out of chocolate which...since I bought three bars on Saturday, is entirely my fault and I have only myself to blame. 

I wonder what Wednesday will bring? I have no idea what to make for breakfast tomorrow, I put the baby to sleep with Bluey, and I need to buy more art supplies and one of these for my bedroom. I'm making myself an art nook now that I have a nook again. 

Small blessings and tomorrow's hope. My birthday is in 10 days!