A Fabulous Apron Give Away. I LOVE APRONS!

If any of you like aprons even half as much as I do, then you'll love this giveaway, but it's almost over so hurry quick! http://www.anutinanutshell.com/2009/12/flirty-aprons-review-and-giveaway.html is the site. There's lots of ways to enter.

I want the Cocoa Lime really bad! I love polka dots, and the brown and green are so pretty together. That's the same kind of green as I have in my kitchen too!

If I don't win, I sure hope one of you all do!

Hoping you're all having an awesome day!!

A Great Giveaway for the New Year!

I'm all about saving money, coupons, contests, giveaways, gift cards, etc right now because I am determined to make 2010 THE year for us. The year we turn things around and do it right!

I came across this awesome giveaway and wanted to share. http://chaotickristy.blogspot.com/2009/12/getting-to-know-my-motor-oil.html

Kristy (who is also chaotic haha) is giving away a $35 Jiffy Lube gift card to one lucky reader. I didn't win a single thing The Pioneer Woman was giving away this week, so I am hoping I win this. I need to win something darnit! I need to change the oil in the van! If I don't win, then I hope one of you does!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Love,
Patty

Merry Christmas!

I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!!

Christmas this year in our household is going to be pretty good afterall. At least that's what I keep reminding myself ... like when the kids won't do what I ask/beg/tell/demand them to do to help out around here...

We have a couple of sick cats with some sort of intestinal worm or something .. I won't go into the gory details, but I have been trying to keep them outside, but when it gets below freezing outside at night, it's not so easy to hear them meowing pitifully to come in. But my house smells like an outhouse because of these two. I've not had the chance or the ability really to clean up as much as I'd like. When I fell down my stairs and broke my tailbone last weekend, it's made it very difficult to do any cleaning. I have to sit all day at work which is nearly unbearable, and getting out of the chair is painful and doing any bending hurts like the dickens... so cleaning up after 2 sicks cats is not really something I can do easily. And forget about asking the kids to do it. I kept the cats in the main bathroom a couple nights when it was really cold out, and they trashed it. The kids refuse to use it or clean it. They say since I put the cats in there I should clean it up, even though they know I am injured. They don't think about the cats freezing to death outside (They are indoor cats 90% of the time and don't have a real winter coat). I wonder if they even care.

So, anyway here it is, Christmas Eve. I have very sketchy plans for dinner tonight and tomorrow. I just know we're having sweet hickory pork loins tonight and a turkey tomorrow (I won one in a giveaway!). I have a can of cranberry sauce and a couple boxes of stove top, and some canned veggies. It's weird how meticulous I was in planning Thanksgiving dinner and cooking things each night that week to make sure it was all ready on Thanksgiving day, but here it is Christmas Eve and I'm just hoping there's enough stuff to make for sides. I don't even think I have enough good potatoes to make mashed potatoes. Eh, hubby will have to do the real cooking anyway, poor guy. He'll figure something out.

I am currently at work, it's kind of slow right now, so I can post this. I'm so tired. I had taken the two youngest shopping for their grandma and dad last evening and then came home, made a very late dinner and wrapped gifts. I was really slow going after sitting all day and then having to drive and walk around the store, so I didn't feel up to baking or cooking ahead. At midnight I had to go get hubby from work. So I was dawg tired and got to bed late. SO this morning I hit the snooze over and over and barely got to work on time. So no baking or cooking done this morning either. Now I won't get off til 7:15pm (on Christmas Eve). Thankfully hubby gets off at 5pm today. I just called him to ask him to get eggs on his way home, and he's in a really good mood. He only has 2 hours left to work, and got some gift cards from his employees and his boss. (I promised him, he could make it up to them and get them New Year's gifts since we'll have money next weekend.)
He's off work tomorrow thank goodness!!! (I still have to work 10:45am-7:15pm tomorrow)

I have always celebrated Christmas on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I was born much later than my siblings, so I still lived at home when my brother and sister had their own families, so the family gathering was at my house (Mom's) as I was growing up, and we'd have it on Christmas Eve. Then the next morning, I'd find gifts from Santa under the tree and go thru my stocking. Then we'd drive a 1/4 mile down the dirt road to Granny's house and have Christmas dinner with her and my aunts and uncles and my cousin Jimmy. Jimmy and I were a couple months apart and always brought our favorite toy with us to play with. We'd exchange gifts there too, but I remember mine always being lame. It was really just all about the food and showing off the cool stuff we'd gotten from Santa.

So, now... my family now consists of my sister and her family, and my brother and his family, both of whom live in my home town, an hour away. We seem to be completely incapable of getting together all at once around the holiday. We (well my family and my brother's) used to always gather on Christmas Eve at Mom's, til she passed on, and then it moved to my sister's house. But she'd been gone for 30 years before her hubby retired from the AF and moved back to my hometown... so they had their own traditions and didn't really like to host the gathering on Christmas Eve as it interfered with her plans... So it changed, so some day around Christmas we'd gather at her coffee shop since it was bigger than her living room and kitchen at home, and have a dinner and white elephant exchange. Til this year... Now we seem to not be able to get everyone together. So, we're hoping to get together in January. I'm ok with that since it means I can get better gifts for the exchange at the after-Christmas sales with the next paycheck. ... so now we have Christmas Eve and Day to ourselves. Since I was used to having Christmas on the Eve, I decided we would start doing that here as well, and then the Day would be for Santa and any of hubby's family that came over, and we'd have a semi big dinner both the Eve and Day.
Well, apparently Corina's fiance's family also celebrates on Christmas Eve, and she said she will attend theirs and not ours if I make her choose.... So, now we must wait til she gets home before we can exchange gifts. But I will not wait for her to eat dinner. She figures she'll be here by 8:30 or 9pm. Sigh. I've already changed traditions to let her spend early Thanksgiving with his family, I am NOT changing my Christmas traditions because of his family's. The problem is, she swears we never used to open gifts on the Eve, so I was just making this a "new" tradition and I should change it. The truth is, since we always went to Mom's it was always kind of confusing when we'd open gifts here. I never wanted our gifts to compete with Santa, but waiting til hubby's mom came over sometimes meant not opening gifts til 1-2pm which also felt wrong. So I guess she has nothing but memories of us chaotically trying to figure out the best time for us to open our family gifts. Fine, whatever. I can create the tradition for the rest of my girls. I made all my first-time-parent mistakes with my oldest, so she's doomed to be scarred for life anyway LOL.

It just does NOT feel like Christmas. maybe I need music... I hope you're all having a great holiday!!

Getting back in touch

I wanted to apologize for not checking blogs like I used to do or replying to all comments and visiting the ones who visited mine. My new work schedule is great, but it's been hard finding time to just sit and read blogs and do stuff I used to do. Now some of that time is spent cleaning the house and doing laundry etc. I guess that's a good thing overall. I'm going to try to find more time for my blogs that I love reading.

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season!

Learning the Lesson (and being real)

For those of you who have been following along at my increasingly depressing blog, you know things have been really tight for my family this month. This sucks even more due to the fact that it's December and thus Christmas time. However, even though it's been a month of having ZERO extras and no money for gifts so far, I think it's turned out to be one of the best Christmases and most instructional months I've ever lived through.

We have HAD TO actually stick to the budget this month for fear of losing our home. Yes it had gotten that bad. It's not that we don't make enough money, it's that we have STILL not gotten a grasp on how to handle money. We don't even have the excuse of youth and inexperience either. Married 18 years and will be 40 years old next year...

So, having to really stick to a budget and even deal with unexpected things like having to buy a new $100 car battery, and still make the house payments in cash, it's really kind of made me realize we CAN stick to a budget afterall. They aren't useless, they aren't meant to be broken, they can be followed and we can know where every dollar goes. It's unreal how much money we were just throwing away by not even caring where it was going. I have expanded the budget going into next year quite a ways, mainly as a look into the future to see what life can be like. I did have to redo a little bit of it when we found out the hospital Christopher went to last October when he had chest pains again (he had a heart attack in 2007), was taking us to court over the bill. We have amazing health insurance so the amount we had to pay was less than $1000 but we had no discipline with money. Both of us were so bad with it, that we never even paid one payment to the hospital. And they weren't the only ones. I have stacks and stacks of bills that we just didn't pay. I was so in that mindset that we were poor and broke and couldn't afford to pay any bills, that I made sure that was the case apparently.

So, I've been pretty up front and real with people so far, I'm just going to lay it all(well ok mostly) on the line and put this out there for a little more self motivation and accountability. It worked with getting my house clean (mostly), so I figure it can't hurt to do so with finances. Now I know finances can be a very personal thing, and it makes me a little uncomfortable posting about all of it, and I don't want people to be uncomfortable reading about it, so I may generalize a lot.

Ok, so hubby gets paid this weekend and we'll pay the final catch-up house payment which gets us completely current (WAHOO!!) and we have some cash advances we have to renew (this really watching every dollar has made me HATE those cash advance fees and they will be going away ASAP), then what's left is for prescriptions, groceries, gas and Christmas presents.

The New Year's paychecks will kind of be our babystep back to normal life. We'll be making the January house payment in full and on time YAY! Other things like car insurance, electric, water, internet/cable, trash pickup etc will be paid on or nearly on time. YAY! (Used to be I would just put off paying bills so I'd have extra spending money. I know the exact day they will turn off each utility. How bad is that!?) The kids will finally get their allowances again. They didn't get them for the whole month of December, which is the worst possible time. They weren't able to get anyone Christmas presents, except R who has part time gig with a kids' catering group. A double van payment is also budgeted since we're also behind in that. Then we'll still have about $300 for more Christmas presents for the kids. I'm not going to tell what we have planned for that money, because the kids might read this secretly hehe. I'm just praying it all works out. So, I'm really looking forward to that pay period. I'm going to continue to stick to my guns with the budget thing. I know if we can make it through this month, then we can make it through having a little less pocket change than we'd like (which is still a WHOLE LOT more than we had this month!)

The second paycheck in January is another one I am really looking forward to. We currently have FOUR cash advances out. I can barely believe it myself. FOUR of them. The fees for all 4 come to $240 a month JUST TO BE ABLE TO BORROW THE MONEY AGAIN... it's a sickening cycle. I am thankful we were able to use them when we really needed them, but it's a SHORT TERM solution (if one at all really). But we've been getting them over and over and over again, just because we didn't want to have less than a couple hundred bucks to just blow. Oh my stomach turns at how wasteful we have been these last two years. Seriously nauseated. So, anyway, the second set of paychecks in January will pay off ALL FOUR of the cash advances. That fact that we make enough money to pay off all four of them and still have money for gas, another double van payment, more prescriptions, twice as much for groceries as I usually budget, allowances, and still have $100 fun money - well it just blew me away. It's the same feeling I got when I realized we could actually make 3 whole house payments plus late fees in one month.

It made me realize that we are finally where we always wanted to be. We prayed for so many years to be able to make a decent amount of money. To be able to give our kids the things they need and also just plain want sometimes. To not have to say "No, we can't afford that." Instead, we'd say something like, "Sure I can get that when your room is clean or you do your chores all week and show me you earned it." Or something like that. I'm not going to just start spoiling them.

So, in February, we'll pay off that hospital bill so we don't have to go to court. Yes, we'll have to pay court costs too, which is another things that makes me ill. If we'd just paid it when we got it, this wouldn't even be happening, much less have to pay more on top of the bill.

A few more things I have planned for the year:

Have $200 for Faelyn's birthday, so she can rent out the movie theater party room and invite all her friends if she wants, or have a YMCA indoor pool party in the winter, whatever.

Have $500 to go shopping with Corina to get her prom dress and shoes and accessories, and then get her hair and nails done, and get pictures. I promised her this year we'd do her senior prom right, and I will hold to that promise.

Then have another $500 for Corina's 18th birthday. I don't know yet what that will entail, if it'll be put on a new car or fix up an existing car (still not sure about the house ta credit and getting her another car yet), or if we'll just get her a laptop for college and a couple hundred bucks in new clothes she could wear to a job. All she has are t shirts and jeans. We'll see.

Then comes graduation. According to the budget I have set out, we'll have around $2000 to go toward her graduation, whether it's as one big gift for her, or if we give her $500 in cash and then take a family vacation to Myrtle Beach to celebrate... I don't know. We've never been to Myrtle beach and I always wanted to take my family. We've already asked her if she'd like to have a big trip to the beach with us for her graduation (plus cash) and she was cool with it, but her fiance put a downer on it. It was lame, it was boring, there's nothing to do, blah blah blah. Maybe as it gets warmer, the idea of being at the beach will appeal more to her. I can hope. ;) I can't really afford to go any other time while the kids are out of school. Hotel prices triple just 2 weeks after we plan to go. It's one of those things you save up for a whole year or two to go one usually. I just have 5 months heh.

After graduation, we have the summer which means birthdays. Each summer birthday will get $200 for it, and the 4th of July which is our favorite holiday will have a big budget too. I want to be able to eat fair food and not have to pack soggy sandwiches LOL.

After all that, I have a big chunk budgeted for back to school. Almost $1000. I want my kids to be able to go to the mall and get at least one or two things they "just HAVE to have!" then we'll do the bargain hunting so they get as many great NEW clothes as possible. A few hand me downs are ok, but these kids have been getting nothing but hand me downs for a long long time. Of course, there's also the notebooks and paper and all that stuff too.

Now during all of this, I'm also budgeting pretty hefty payments toward old medical bills. We have so many, I really don't even have a clue what the total is. Probably around $5000 easily. My MAIN goal in 2010 is to pay off all those debts. Cash Advances first, then ALL the credit cards with the tax refund, then get ALL the medical bills paid ASAP, and get a medical savings account padded so that as soon as a medical bill comes in the mail, I can write the check that day and pay it off.
I want to be able to take the kids to Drs, dentists, eye drs etc, and not worry about it. We have excellent insurance for all of those, but that fear of being broke and not being able to pay a bill, keeps me from using them. So, it's going to be a year of teaching myself how to rethink everything.

I'm excited and really anxious to get started. It's going to make the rest of this month so much easier to bear, knowing we're near the light at the end of the tunnel.

A Week Later

So it's been a week since I posted. It's been a very hard one. Unfortunately, I think next week will be harder.

The budget is very very tight, such that there was no real room for error or unexpected stuff. So, of course there was unexpected stuff. I had completely forgotten about the $3.00/month donation my husband gives to his favorite website which comes out of the bank account. The money was not there to cover it, so that donation cost us $28 after the overdraft fee. It was a sickening feeling. It's one thing to have to use the overdraft to cover the electric bill and just deal with the $25 fee, but to have to pay it for something less than 5 bucks... OUCH.

I still have not been able to come up with the money for my 11 yr old's 2nd payment for her field trip to Space Camp. She didn't get to go to it last year because it was cancelled or something, so she really wants to go this year. I'm going to have to write a letter to the school asking if there is an after-school work program she can do to help earn the money for it, and then in Jan. when I have money again, pay off the rest. I don't see any other choice.

The worst part is that with these unexpected overdraft fees and the fact that my check will not be as much as I originally expected due to the pay period being cut off right before I was able to make up the day I took off... I'm going to have like $17 for groceries to last from Tuesday til Friday. I wish I could hold off on doing my cash advance renewals, even just not having to pay one of them til Friday would give me an extra $30. There is one that might oblige me. I'll have to see. I don't want to call the property manager and ask them to re-do the payment schedule I agreed to. I need to prove it to them and to myself that we can pay this debt off in the time I agreed to.

So, this coming Friday night at 11pm, my hubby's last check before Christmas gets deposited. I sure wish they gave bonuses, but it's not happening. So, we *should* have about $250 to get all 4 girls Santa gifts as well as gifts from us, plus I need to get a gift for my co-worker I had signed up to do a gift exchange for (before I knew things would be this tight). And the hardest part will be the 5 white elephant gifts I have to get for the gift exchange at my sister's place where my family will be getting together. Hubby has to work, but I'm taking the girls. I want it to be a relaxing joyful time with family but I'll spend the whole morning shopping for non-crappy gifts for like no money and wrapping them and then drive an hour to her coffee shop. I guess I can do it. Maybe I'll even feel Christmasy with the whole rushing thing...

I am really thankful that my youngest was chosen to be on the angel tree this year. She is the one that would least understand why she didn't get a lot of "stuff" this year. So, hopefully she'll get one of the toys she had asked for (which I wrote on the questionaire) and some clothes she needs. For the middle ones, I think a book with cash in them will be good, and the oldest just wants a starter for her car hehe. I still have no clue what Santa will be bringing them. I've not even been shopping online. It feels pointless.

I *should* have a $100 grocery budget for the week of Christmas, and with Save a Lot and making cheap meals, I can stretch it and still have a nice big ham dinner for Christmas. The really rough part is that neither of us gets paid again until the weekend of the 1st. I guess due to the holiday we'd actually get paid on the 30th or 31st. My hubby might not get paid til the 4th. But anyway, that's a week after Christmas. So we'll have two weeks to get through with hubby's paycheck next weekend. Normally, it's no problem, but when a HUGE chunk is taken out for the house payment and then Christmas, it really doesn't leave much room.

Well, I just kind of wanted to whine and complain a little because it is so rough. Oh it could be a LOT worse. If we didn't have the money to pay the house payment, then things would be much much much bleaker than they are, so I am SO thankful to my LORD for bestowing such a blessing on us. I know we will weather this storm. It just may be the longest month I've ever lived through! Haha!

Finally? Our Goal for 2010 (and beyond).

Are we finally going to get it right this time? My husband and I have had these new jobs for a couple of years now, but the whole time I have had a really hard time getting out of the old way of thinking. When you *think* you're poor white trash barely scraping by just to stay off welfare... something happens. You start living like that even if it's not the truth at all.

We've been married for 18 years, and for most of those years, we were scraping. We lived in a run down 2 bedroom trailer that was almost as old as we were. As more kids came along, that trailer got smaller and smaller. We were happy overall, and made some wonderful memories there, but the mindset became ingrained into my DNA I think.

Yes, we still live in a "trailer", and no it's not a double wide, and yes we are in a trailer park, BUT... this home is 1250 sq feet, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and the master suite is bigger than most I see on House Hunters on HGTV. hehe. We have 4 gorgeous and intelligent girls who are healthy (THANK GOD), and my husband and I still love and adore each other and actually talk to each other and like to spend time together. He is truly my best friend.

It's taken a year of living with the new jobs in the old house and then buying the new house and living here nearly a year for it to finally sink in. We aren't actually white trash. LOL (Not saying we don't have some for neighbors, but hey it is rural Appalachia ;) ) When we got behind on the house payment due to having to make the emergency trip to Florida to see hubby's Grandparents, things kind of started falling apart. For most of our adult lives, we've been so used to telling the girls "No, we just can't afford that." that we subconsciously were sabotaging our lives to make that true. But what's actually true is that this month, I will be making 3 house payments in cash from our paychecks to get caught up and make sure we undo the damage we did with getting behind. And we'll still pay the other bills and get groceries and gas and keep money in the kids' lunch accounts and even have some money for Christmas. Now yes it will be tight, but we can do it. Never before in our lives would we have been able to make THREE house payments the size of ours, much less still have money for other things. I guess that's when it kind of hit me. If we make enough money to be able to do that this month, then where has all that money been going every other month?

I still don't really know the answer to that, but I am going to keep a ledger to keep track of spending and figure out what's the deal. Hubby and I rarely ever go out of dates. The one had a week or so ago was the first we'd had in months, and the DVDs come from a $20/month online service so it's not entertainment that's sucking the money out. I can get groceries for the whole family for a week at Save a Lot for under $60 and even if I do go up to $200 a week, it still doesn't account for all that money slipping away. We don't give the kids money except allowances which are only $120 a month. The best I can figure is we just nickel and dime it away. It's all done in such small amounts that we don't notice. And the cash advances that we just keep renewing because we can't bear the thought of not having cash on hand in case something happens...That's got to stop.

So, hubby and I sat down to do the budget again for the first time in a while (another no-no was not even doing a budget at all, much less sticking to one). We made the arrangement with the property manager and also our auto finance people since we'd gotten behind on the van too (again needlessly!). Of course there was absolutely no room for any unexpected stuff this month - which meant of course that yesterday was the perfect day for the battery in the van to die altogether and force me to buy a new one.

Then we start making the budget for the new year, and it was just awesome. In January, we're going to be able to put a good chunk of money into savings specifically for medical expenses and medication since the health insurance starts over on Jan 1st along with a new deductible. We're also going to be able to pay the van off completely as well as two of the cash advance places. Then in February, we pay off the other cash advance places and start finally paying off these medical bills that I keep setting aside and telling myself I really need to get those paid. Faelyn also will have a great birthday.

With the tax refund (along with the home tax credit) we're going to pay off every single credit card and cut them up. We have no use for credit cards, and all they do is get us into trouble and ruin what little credit we had. I hate them. We're going to put $1000 into an emergency fund savings account. Then we'll get the kids some new clothes, get Dollywood season passes which we've been promising ourselves we'd get for the family for so many years now and just never could justify it. And we're going to get Corina a good car. She graduates high school this year, and needs a good car to get a job and go to college.

In March and April, we're going to dote on Corina even more. It's not every year that your oldest has their senior prom, 18th birthday, and graduates high school! So, I'm gonna put a chunk of money into her prom dress and hair and nails and shoes and the whole thing. She deserves it. And in April we're going to have another chunk of money for her birthday. Not a clue what we'll get her or what we'll do yet, but it's got to be good. In addition to all of this, we'll be making the house payment on time and even paying more than the payment amount as well as paying off those old medical bills, chipping away at them. I want to be able to allow Corina to have a magical and memorable last semester of high school and then also to get to where I can pay a dr bill as soon as it comes in and not have any still outstanding. That's how "normal" people do it, so that's what I want.

So then at the end of May, first of June we have graduation. I have budgeted quite a sum of money for this event. I keep asking Corina what she wants for graduation, but she really has no idea. I'm torn, do I just stick the money into a savings account and let her use it for something important like tuition or books or moving to campus,... or do we spend it on a family vacation to Myrtle Beach and let her fiance come with us and give her a wad of spending money while we're there. We've never ever been to Myrtle beach even though practically everyone I know here goes every year. It's like the local Mecca even though it's 5-6 hours away. I want to surprise her, but I also want her to get what she really wants. I'm not sending her and Tyler to Myrtle Beach alone. Even if she is 18 and engaged to him, I still don't feel comfortable with the whole idea until they're married. Call me old fashioned hah. I would have even said a trip to NYC and stay with family up there and see a Broadway show, but that's not Corina's style. She went to NYC this summer and hated it. Too many people apparently. She likes the country. Maybe we can go to Nashville? That would be cool. Maybe just me and her? I don't know yet. I really don't even want to think about her not being my little girl anymore either. Depressing.

So, after she's graduated and that's all said and done, medical bills continue to get paid off, money gets put into savings, bills get paid on time, money gets set aside to help a little with college (but we did tell her she's going to have to work her way through college if she doesn't get a scholarship). We'll get the van doors replaced. We'll redo the flooring in the house and get rid of the nasty carpet and put down wood floors. We'll go to Dollywood with the kids as much as we can. We'll stop telling them "No, we can't afford that" and start helping them manage their allowances and set up savings accounts for them. If they want something really bad, we'll show them how to get it or work for it themselves. Maybe even arrange to pay them extra for doing more around the house.

It's all about getting out of the "poor me" mindset. That's our number one goal for 2010. Once we get our thinking straight, then the rest will work out like we plan.








EDIT: I've been thinking and once we get the medical bills all caught up and where we can pay them as they come in, and put money into savings, and have good running vehicles, really our only outgoing expenses will be the monthly utilities, insurance, medical, allowances and some entertainment money. Even with all of that and still putting a good size amount into savings each month, I could probably start paying an extra $300-$500 a month on the house payment to pay down the principal. As it is, we'll pay it off in 7 years, and with making bigger payments we could pay it off a lot earlier. So, my long term goal is getting the house paid off early and then looking into buying a piece of land in the country (but not too far out cause we like being close to everything). We could move the trailer onto the land and live there. By then Zoe would probably be the only kid still in school, so we could pay tuition to keep her in the city high school if necessary. Then we'd need to decide if we want to just keep living in this home, or if we want to buy a double-wide manufactured home to be placed there, build a site-built real house, or sell the trailer and land together and buy a house in town or in the country... If we get a newer home set up on the land for us, we could keep this home for the kids to live in if they need it. My girls are always welcome to come back home, and knowing how hard it is to make a life for yourself out there, knowing that Mom and Dad have a trailer you can live in in an emergency is always nice to know.

This is just kind of thinking into the future. I know we're not going to be living in a trailer park forever. I do want to own land. I want to be able to have a clothes line outside without people yelling at me. I want to be able to have my cats and dog sit on my front porch without a landlord yelling to keep them inside. I want to be able to have a garden, and maybe even chickens and goats and a Great Pyrenees, and a view of the mountains, and to be able to see the stars at night. Living in town is very handy I do admit, but my soul aches to be back in the country. I want to be able to say this land is mine, and I will make it a home for my grandchildren to always feel welcome here, and I will be able to pass it down to my children. I think that's something I really have missed. When my Mom married my step-dad the year I went off to college, she sold our house and moved in with him. But it was HIS house, and when she passed away, it's still HIS house.

I want a homestead. I want a place that even if my kids didn't grow up in that spot, it's still their home because that's where family is and we can have grand-kids come visit and stay with us, and someday it will be theirs.

A request.

Things are really tight for us right now. Like, beyond as bad as I thought it would get. The sad part is that we're bringing in more income than we ever have in our lives, and yet we seem to be struggling more than ever. There are many reasons and excuses for why things are how they are now, but I'm not going to get into them. I just ask that you keep my little family in your thoughts, and maybe even send up a prayer for us to get out of this situation. We should be able to get through it ok if we can stick to the plan we were able to work out. It's just going to mean a very slim Christmas. The kids are used to that though, unfortunately. I just hoped our first Christmas in our new home would be better, different. At this point, I'm just praying we get to still have our new home for Christmas.

It's been a year of learning and gaining a lifetime of wisdom through a series of hard knocks. Up til now we've been able to kind of slide through life, but this year we slid right into a wall, and have had to really learn from our mistakes (mostly mine).

Next year WILL be different. We'll have our tax refund, and hopefully that tax credit for buying the house (not sure we qualify). And hopefully (praying!!) that hubby will get his bonus this spring as well. Even if all we get is the tax refund, and even if it's not as large as normal, we are going to put aside that $1000 emergency fund, and then get a month ahead on the house payment, pay off the van, and then pay off as many bills as we can. We are going to budget wisely and intelligently, and we are going to stick to it. I am going to read Dave Ramsey's book cover to cover and do all the work sheets. I am NEVER EVER going to let things get this bad ever ever again.

It's going to be a very difficult month for us, so I may not be blogging much. I hope everyone has a happy holiday.

Catchup, Sort of.

Hello again everyone who might actually read this! :)

I had planned on blogging all throughout Thanksgiving week and chronicle the prep I did, but by then I was too tired and not inclined to sit at the computer more than necessary.

I started working Day Shift on Monday. I did have 3 days to get used to the new "normal" sleep pattern, but it didn't help a whole lot. Monday after work (7:15pm) I took the turkey out of the freezer as well as the chicken for the dressing. The girls and I made pumpkin pies and banana pudding. (I will not make the banana pudding so far ahead next time!) Also, boiled eggs for deviled eggs and the dressing.

Tuesday I got the chicken in the stock pot to cook for the dressing. After work, the girls and I made the dressing and after that, I was done for the night. It's a labor intensive dish! I didn't bake it, just put it together.

Wednesday after work, we made deviled eggs and the two chocolate meringue pies. We decided to wait til Thursday morning to bake the home made cornmeal yeast rolls. Oh, and we also baked the HUGE sweet potatoes which I left in the oven overnight to soften a little more.

Thursday, hubby had to work 12-5pm and I worked 10:45-7:15, so we got the turkey going in the morning. Rhiannon, my 13 yr old made the bread dough and got the rolls baking in the small countertop oven we usually have in storage. Potatoes cooked on the stove for mashed potatoes later. After hubby came home, the turkey was finally done and we got the rest of the dishes fixed and in the oven. We sat down to eat soon after I got off work. My Mother in law did not get to come eat with us, and there was no other family visiting, so it just the ...5 of us. Corina was at her fiance's house having dinner with them. She and Tyler and his cousin did come over after we'd eaten, so they sat down to eat together. It just didn't FEEL like Thanksgiving. I'm also very much not in the mood to decorate for Christmas.

Friday, after hubby and I got off work, he took me to a movie. It was the first time we'd been to a theater to see a movie in months. Old Dogs looked really dumb, and we didn't want to see anything else in town, so we went to the next town and saw Men Who Stare At Goats. I like Koehn Brothers films, so I really liked it. I don't think Christopher was impressed.

Saturday and Sunday he worked 12 hour days, though he did go out after work Sat at 11pm with his sister and her husband who were in town passing through after spending the holiday with the grandparents in Florida. They kept him out til 2am. I didn't go, because I was sick. I'm glad he got to go have fun, but part of me would prefer he'd have come home to take care of me (but that's selfish I know), and I'm glad I was too sick to go, because the place they took him was not somewhere I'd be caught dead in. I guess I've turned into an old fogey.

I was sick the whole weekend and just didn't feel up to cleaning the bedroom which still isn't done. I had sworn I would get it done by Thanksgiving, but it just didn't happen. I'm just hoping I can keep babystepping til I get it all done and keep it clean.

I'm off to work on it now.

My Three Day Weekend

I did already write about my Friday, but here's what happened the rest of this weekend.

We have a swamp or moat starting to form around our home. I asked Christopher to get up under the house and see what was causing it. Looks like some bad plumbing job that was done before we moved in that's gotten worse. It's gotten to where the washing machine drain water is just gushing onto the ground below our mobile home. I'm hoping it's not gone beyond just the washing machine. He did fix an issue we've had with the tub as well. There have been times we can see daylight through the drain in the tub! Finally, he got under there and found the trouble and fixed it. Something had popped off, so it wasn't completely attached. I'm thinking the people who lived here before us really wanted to do some damage to this place when they were kicked out or whatever... actually that's a whole other blog post. I will just say that sometimes I feel like this was a crime scene straight off CSI.

Later on, while I was grocery shopping for this week and Thanksgiving, Christopher started working on our master bathroom.

Here is the dreaded before pic...




And here's how it looks right now... Sunday night.





Yeah, so much for us getting stuff done on our weekend off haha. Thank goodness there's a working toilet in the main bathroom! But we had a fabulous weekend with friends and family...

I had him stop working on the floor Saturday around 5pm, so we could go to a friend's house. Our friend has something wrong with him. He collapsed at work one day and has been home on almost all bedrest and undergoing testing ever since. I'm not sure if it was a heart attack or not, but he has a stress test this week and has to wear a heart halter monitor for 21 days. Previous tests have not shown anything conclusive. So, a bunch of us in our gaming group went to he and his wife's house for the evening and sat around eating fresh baked banana bread and drinking coffee and playing games and talking and talking and talking. I think all of us were so thankful to finally get a chance to get together with other adults who aren't co-workers, and just relax. We got home around midnight, then had to be at church this morning. We skipped Sunday School (mostly because we never really study much.) It's all very unorganized and there's no book we use or anything. It's taught by the new associate pastor and he ends up repeating everything he says in his class in his sermons anyway. But this morning was the senior pastor's retirement transition message. He's not leaving though, just retiring and becoming a layperson in the church. He's very adamant that we don't continue to think of him as the pastor after Jan 1st. Thankfully everyone likes the associate pastor who's taking over.

Well, anyway, after that was over, we went to a local town to look around and go to the mall, and just hang out together. We had all four girls with us, which hardly ever happens. Corina (the oldest) is usually with her fiance and his family. But today, it was just an old fashioned day out with all 6 of us and no one else. We all agreed it was nice (though her fiancee would not stop calling and bugging her. Needy... sheesh)

We decided having a good day out together was more important than getting that floor done tonight. Christopher said he'd do it tomorrow since he gets off work at 3pm. It is already a vast improvement over the nasty carpet that was there before. Even with the toilet still sitting in the tub, I like it already! If you notice in that before pic up there, the floor in front of the toilet is stained darker than the rest, well that's where it's almost always wet from some leak. Christopher said when he took out the old toilet, he thinks he finally figured out where it was coming from. We never could figure it out while the toilet was still in place.

So, overall, it's been a great weekend. Very productive. Family time. Good friends. A great way to start a week that's going to be busy, and a new experience in many ways. It will be my first full week on Day shift, and it will be our first Thanksgiving in our new home. I am really looking forward to this holiday, even though hubby and I both have to work it. We'll still find time for the parade on TV, hot apple cider and hot chocolate, getting the turkey in the oven and a lot will be cooked ahead of time, and we'll be able to have a great dinner together with my mother in law, and Corina's fiancee in addition to the six of us. I'll be posting my Thanksgiving Day menu this week sometime when I get the chance. It'll help me be organized with it too. Need to determine what needs to be baked and cooked ahead of time. It'll be a challenge, but I'm up for it!

Have to get that bedroom finished and quit procrastinating with it, just get 'er done! LOL Then get that kitchen spotless, make sure the "good china" is all clean and the linens are ready, etc. most of all, NO STRESS! I won't let stress steal my peace this year. It will be a true time of Giving Thanks.