So this adventure from switching to a one income from a two income family is going to be fun… LOL Don’t get me wrong, it is going to be totally worth it and there is no amount of money that would replace all that my family is going to be gaining. Yesterday my hubby had a double root canal, all said and done we are looking at a little over $1100 dollars to save that tooth, our part after insurance being about a cool $450… ya… I was TOTALLY for pulling that sucker LOL… Add to that the prescription for pain and we are looking at $475, AND he needs work done on 4 more teeth. The good thing is that since we will be picking up Johnny’s insurance Sept. 1 we can go ahead and do the rest of the work since we will have their dental rather than waiting until Jan. 1… is that good news? I have become the light police at our house, I will be the first to admit… I was an energy waister until a dear friend told me how she was trying to go green and how much she cut off her bill… hellur… that little bit of savings will be really nice. It is the little things that people don’t realize add to the costs of living that we really don’t think about when we are not being money or energy conscious. Mr. Fish no long gets his lamp on 24/7, only when we are wanting to enjoy our fishtank in the evening in our den, which is rarely. The microwave and coffee maker no longer stay plugged in so that they can flash the wrong time 24/7… And the biggest, and most significant change, I don’t leave the sink water running while I am cleaning, I know I know… Johnny used to get on me all the time, it’s like the minute I went into the kitchen I turned on the faucet and left it on the whole time I was in there… I don’t know why, something about the sound of the water I guess… Have I seen a savings? Um, not sure, I was the lady hunting for the city bill to pay before the late fee… Now that I look for the bill to budget in the amount, I am like… HOLY COW, our bill is ridiculous! But in talking to other moms, ours is actually quite good, our house is always cool and it seems to be well insulated, not to mention that the builder knew what he was doing and there are really no windows on the HOT side of the house and we have trees around the windows we do have… I am so proud that last year we were able to buy our new washer and dryer, they are beautiful and my babies because it is the first time I ever bought brand new appliances and the icing on the cake was paying for them in… hold your breath… CASH… me and my honey saved for them and we are hoping to get a new fridge and stove so they have a new brother and sister hahahaha… I so want my other new appliances before the holidays, we’ll see… Depends on our other purchase, we are looking to buy a small used car for Johnny to take to work, good on gas… so depending on how we fair with that, my appliances may have to wait a little longer. I am still trying to let it sink in that really, there are going to be so many of my clothes that I don’t even wear anymore, really… I will be wearing the school shirt with Noah 5 days a week (maybe I can add some sequins to that) and so the other clothes won’t get much use, Noah will be in uniform also so even he won’t have to use the clothes like before, I will have more time for laundry so no need to have clothes to last for 3 weeks (and then some)… Guess I will have to get to cleaning out that closet again…. My oldest sister Nena is leaving on Wednesday for
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Budgets
Monday, June 28, 2010
OOooooh What a Monday...
Well my family started the week off by oversleeping… Almost and hour and a half! Yes, I was generous last night and set my alarm for 6:30 and of course I cut it off and fell back into a coma and woke up at almost 8… wow, good thing I didn’t have a fashion photo shoot scheduled for today! Noah is at his Momo’s today so I got him all packed with all his favorite toys and a change of clothes, swim clothes and snacks. No time to pack mine and Johnny’s which is okay because my honey needs to eat a good lunch today because he has his root canal this afternoon… Yikes! My poor honey and he HATES shots… I am going with him to help hold him down LOL…. We had a great weekend, very busy but good. I am having a heck of a time breaking my son of the fact that he CANNOT have a new toy everytime we go to the store, his Momo and my sisters and niece spoil him rotten! Ugh… we had to go buy a bday gift for his friend Gavin’s bday party on Saturday morning and he gave me a hard time and I was determined to go through the motions and NOT lose my cool, I could literally feel my head pounding I was so stressed out with him whining and crying and me trying to be patient and gentle and not beat him in front of the cameras at Wal-mart LOL… I kept telling myself, he is 5, don’t try to reason with him or get him to understand just make him pick the toys and get the heck out of here… I was sweating by the time we left… that is why I feel complete compassion for other Mom’s shopping with screaming and crying kids. My niece Krissy who is a first time mom keeps asking when her 1 year old will grow out of his tantrums… um, they don’t… they actually perfect the art of it… as they get older… I just love when he screams “no no mommy please don’t hit me” in the grocery story… when he knows dang well I hardly ever spank him… mostly because it never hurts him anyway but kills my hand! LOL… I have this pampered child acting like a neglected orphan who has a hard life… cracks me up… okay, actually at the time it doesn’t but later on, I laugh… usually I am just trying to get to the car quickly and trying not to scream something stupid like “ you are never ever ever going to get McDonalds again”… very untrue but when you lose your cool and all you want to do is make them understand that you are mad you tend to forget your own age and act like a kid too… HAHAHA… “ and you know what else, Santa totally doesn’t want to visit mean kids who stress their mommies out and you are SSSOOOOOO off the list this year” oh yeah “ and Buzz Lightyear thinks you’re a crybaby and would jump out of the basket if you tried to take him home anyway!” so there… (by the way, I just thought those things and didn’t say it… only because he is a tattertale and would have told his Momo and daddy and then I would have had to get my tail chewed… totally not worth the additional stress… but I did scream “ get in the car!” pretty loud )
More to come about our weekend later… J
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
just me!
Smile!
Okay, the jig is up… I finally turned myself in to the Weight Watchers police yesterday… Yes, I am sure they already had a warrant issued for my arrest! LOL Okay, I have not been in at least 5 weeks…maybe 6? That is horrible I know, and my body feels it, let’s just say there isn’t as much room in those clothes that I remember having… ahem… I HAD taken off a total of 58 lbs… HAD being the key word there, and although the scale didn’t scream for mercy when I got on it yesterday, it did report a total gain of… (this would be a good time to sit down) 29 lbs. Now, in my defense this has not been just in the last six weeks, although I feel sure I could do a weight gain like that if you gave me a chance J… this has slowly, kinda slowly… crept up since November of last year… yes… my high weight loss was pre-holiday tamale time…. I have kept. 28.8 lbs off, which is still good but VERY disappointing… sniff sniff… but never fear, I turned myself in and I faced the music and it aint’ over til the skinny lady sings (and dances!) Just taking it one day at a time, so if you see me eating enchiladas… don’t worry, I can have them… just make sure I don’t have the rice and beans on my plate! LOL I went swimming in the pool with Noah and was doing my water aerobics, okay, my leg exercises and he didn’t appreciate me taking up so much of his pool time kicking around so I had to spend most of that time with him sitting on my back… of course I had a piece of banana pie to re-energize me afterwards… calm down, it was sugar free! One of my FAVORITE quick desserts, fat free graham cracker crust pie shell, fresh fruit…whatever I have… bananas, strawberries, pineapple, manderine oranges… sugar free pudding (vanilla or banana cream are the best) and sugar free cool whip on top. Yummo! I even made chicken stir fry with brown rice last night and my family ate it up. I got a two thumbs up for dinner last night… Yay for me!
My name is Marla, and I love food, and I am determined to learn to refrain from hogging so much of it… Peace out my people…
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Good News travels fast!
It is not like I was really trying to keep it a secret, but I guess more of the fact that I wanted a quiet exit, didn’t really want to have to talk about it much… and of course I really hate having attention on me. (I am serious!) You kinda forget who is related to who when you tell them about plans to stay home until one of their relatives comes up to you at work to ask the question of the day “is it true”…. Yes it is! LOL, I guess the cat never really was in the bag because it is gonna happen and really not a secret that I am going to quit work. I think I was more concerned about questions, why… or why now… and not when Noah was born… Well, we are at a different place now, Johnny has a good job with a company he likes and that was so important to me, nothing worse than not liking going to work. And to be quite honest, he is able to support us and why not? We won’t have any car payments (and never will again if I can help it) and our major expense will be keeping Noah in private school but THAT is a priority to us and why I want to be able to help at his school while I can, I don’t know that you have the option at public schools that you do at private ones… I LOVE that I can be in my sons classroom helping him learn, and being a part of that, I love that at St. James community service is a part of their curriculum and I can serve along side my son. He was lucky enough to have his Grandma’s watching him when he was a baby and now I feel very strongly that it is my turn to help guide him through his school years. My Mom and Momo are also at a place and time in their lives where they need me too. I can’t tell you how nice it is going to be to not have to take vacation days when they have appointments, to not tell them they have to get the last appt. in the day so that I can just leave early, to not have to go straight from work to take them to run errands, to the store, do things they can’t get to do then finally make it home to do what I need to do only to turn around and put my son to bed without spending time with him. That is my life, all the time, and I am so happy that we are going to be able to change that and YES, I know I am leaving a good job and will likely never make the money here in Seguin that I make now, but if there is anything I have learned through all of this it is that money is not everything. Don’t get me wrong, until a few weeks ago I was still waking up in a panic in the middle of the night worried that I was making the wrong decision, worried that I was giving up my independence, worried worried worried… But something just clicked last week, seriously… and I started talking to God (who by the way is the only person I should have been talking to) and I gave it all to him, because when I decided to do this, and my husband told me “Do It”… never once did I feel it was the wrong thing, I knew at that moment that this was the road God had been leading me to for a very long time and I completely felt his hand on my shoulder and I could see the smile on his face. But the devil knows my weaknesses, and he started wreaking havoc on my self confidence and I let him… I let fear consume me, doubt overtake me and complete panic fill me… I was weak, I was human… and my heavenly Father stood by me and watched it all but I would not let him console me, I would not let hope fill me, I didn’t accept the peace that he was trying to give me… So being the great God that he is, he improvised, you wanna listen to other people huh? Then I will talk through them. And he did, and reminded me of what was important, and now the joy is back, and I know we are back on track again. I hear my son laugh and I know that my days will be filled with it, I am going to miss my friends at work, but I look forward to adding more friends and my new lunch buddies, many of whom will be under 4 ft… LOL, I am excited that instead of rushing to work on Fridays I get to go to mass with my son. I can pack my husbands lunches and not throw things in a bag because I am in a hurry… and I will do the most important job that I will ever have, I will take care of my boys… the way they deserve to be taken care of. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I am sure my laundrey will still pile up and my house will always have something that needs to be done but that is a part of everyday life, of course I have to get my husband to stop saying how nice it will be to drive up to a freshly mowed lawn.. uhhh… no
I have been praying a lot and reading more about ways to save and cut back… I have been trying very diligently to focus on cutting back on spending, yup… the dollar stores will likely post a loss the next few months thanks to that… LOL and watching the family spending in general. Noah is taking a break from the Summer program at St. James and I decided to use that money and send him to different camps or take him to do things. He is enjoying hanging with his Momo and he starts ‘real’ school in August and he is really excited about the whole no nap thing. Man, am I going to remind him about that when he is a teenager and wishes he had nap times back! We are learning to live on Johnny’s income already, and so far, so good… of course both cars broke down this month, lovely… and our pool that we purchased for the house has turned into a money pit… but we are making it through. We are definitely taking advantage of all the budget friendly stuff for Noah, he joined the summer reading program at the library and he gets to hang out with his Aunt Kasey once a week and that is part of their day, they have all sorts of things scheduled for the kids AND Noah has already read 25 books! This week he is at Vacation Bible School for a whopping $10 he gets to do all sorts of fun activities and a great breakfast fixed by all those awesome Catholic ladies… it smelled so good when I dropped him off this morning, tomorrow is his last day of VBS and I am going tomorrow to sign him up for swimming lessons next week… $35 with the city pool versus $65 at the college and the big plus is that the city has classes in the morning and the college had theirs in the afternoon and it was so stinking hot I hated taking him…. so he will get two take two sessions of lessons versus the one session for just about the same price! I have been cooking a lot more at home which is better for us anyway… and let me tell you I have really been trying to pay more attention to what we buy versus what we need, I have even been making sweets that taste great and my boys love and that I have all the stuff to make rather than buying the store bought. No, don’t worry, I am not turning into Mary Ingalls Wilder, this girl won’t be churning her own butter LOL but I do know now how much money I was throwing away on quick fixes because it was more of a time rather than money issue with me…. Next month I am going to track my grocery money spending to see what is going out, we’ll see how that goes. Life is good… and will only keep getting better… chow baby!
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Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Hello...from the wild side
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Crazy
Friday, June 11, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
The Notebook
Last night Johnny and I watched The Notebook, he had DVR'd it because we heard it was good but had never seen it. Well, the whole dimentia side of the story really hit home and hadme crying like a crazy woman through the last 30 minutes, which made my headache worse but I just couldn't stop. It made me so sad thinking about my mom and hearing them use all the terms we are unfortunately familiar with like sun-downing. Especially after graduation this weekend when I truly felt there were times she didn't realize why we were there. A very very sad disease and just the little part of the movie that showed the actual nursing home and the patients really made my heart hurt.
Please pray for people with Dimentia and their family and care-givers. No one wants to see their loved ones going through this.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Graduation
They did it! TJ, Justin and Dana are officially High School Grads. We are all so proud of them... They KNOW their families love them because it was so HOT I was not looking forward to being outside... UGH, but it did seem to go by fast and worth every bead of sweat.
Look out world, here they come!
Friday, June 4, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
And the Journey begins
Well, It has been long anticipated and given much thought, worry, hope, anxiety, excitement, doubt, confidence and faith… But the time has arrived to announce my big news!! I will officially become a stay home mom/wife in 2 weeks (give or take a few days). Am I nervous about it? Heck ya! Am I excited? You have no idea! Johnny and I have been talking about it for some time, okay, I have been talking about it and he has been telling me to do it. It won’t be easy, there will be a lot of changes around our house because our income is going to be cut in half! Yikes, typing that gave me the chills. Johnny has always left it completely up to me and the only hurdle we had was him getting benefits in line for us and that has been taken care of so… no obstacles, and away we go! I am sure it will make for some really interesting future blog entries but I knew in my heart the minute that I said I needed to do this that it was exactly what God had planned for me and my family. I have felt his presence and there is no doubt in my heart that God is smiling too and has even more great things in store for me and my family. I just wanted to finally put it out there and it makes it that much more real, I know everyone is wondering what I am going to do now… I am going to do TONS of stuff! LOL but first in line is getting things cleaned up here at work so I can leave things in good shape. Keep those prayers coming!
Love, Marla… the worlds NEWEST Stay At Home Momma… J
This email and its attachments, if any, are intended for the personal use of the named recipient(s) and may contain confidential, privileged, or proprietary information. If you are not a named recipient, or an agent responsible for delivering it to a named recipient, you have received this email in error. In that event, please (a) immediately notify me by reply email, (b) do not review, copy, save, forward, or print this email or any of its attachments, and (c) immediately delete and/or destroy this email and its attachments and all electronic and physical copies thereof. Thank you.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Do you want to?
this is the huge sign posted as you are driving into the plant where I work:
I didn't get the smaller sides along the way "enjoy it" "share it"
What is IT? I dunno... but I am soon we will find out... it has been kinda fun actually...
Can you braid it? Can you eat it? Would I like it? Can I lose it?... i could go on... and on.. and on LOL
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
tuesday/monday
So Johnny got his lab results back in on Friday and we went to his appointment. Even though he suspected it, it was almost a relief to confirm that he is indeed a diabetic. This was not good news but we both felt like knowing that is all that came out of it, at least we can move forward and do what we have to so that we can get his sugar under control. We have his abdominal scan tomorrow and I ask for everyones prays that it come back clear and everything is fine, last hurdle and then we work on the tune-up! I know that it is hard for him to accept but I know we can get on track, it is not a bad thing because it could have been much worse, he will be able to start taking medication after we get the scan done tomorrow. I have really made an effort to be more conscious about the choices I make when I am shopping, I’ll be the first to tell you eating healthy is more expensive and it is more work. I didn’t do well this morning already, I wanted to get up and pack him a good lunch but I was worn out from all the work we did around the house this weekend and I overslept… Bad bad wifey… I know people may think I spoil my boys but I have to take care of them and Johnny will just grab whatever or not eat at all and I am determined to get this family back on track for all of our sakes. It was pretty funny when I served Noah his plate yesterday, he looked at the squash and black beans like “ what the?”, he just never had them together, he does love some veggies, just hadn’t had them served that way, I was very proud of him because he ate two bites of each… I guess we are going to be eating a LOT of broccoli. I love cooking, I just hate cleaningL… but I am always ready to try new recipes so I guess this is a good time to experiment huh? I made a pound cake, because you know baking is my thing, and it was pretty good and actually had very little sugar. Johnny is going to be a trooper, I know things will get better and hopefully he will get to feeling better. Now between his appointments, Momo’s and my Mom’s I should have my nursing degree! Keeping up with their stuff is a full time job! Today I have to go and drop off Momo’s prescription, Johnny’s prescriptions and pick up my Mom’s prescriptions, I had to call and follow-up on the cardio referral to Momo’s regular dr., which of course they are still waiting on, call the Endrocronologist and ask them to fax it to them, and then I will have to call back to make sure they got it so we can get her workup going… Hello?! This is kind of important!!! I have to reschedule Momo’s eye appt. because Johnny has his scan that day and I need to get Mom an appt. to check up with her
Twisted Sisters (these are their names, seriously?!)
Enjoy this little bit of laughter about my other three sisters… Remember, you have to read from the bottom up!
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 2:48 PM
To:
Subject: RE:
Darlene
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 2:46 PM
To: Lopez, Darlene C
Subject: RE:
From: Lopez, Darlene C
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 2:44 PM
To:
Subject: RE:
ARLENE
IRENE
RINA
And I ain’t EVEN JOKING!!!!!!!!!!!
Darlene
From:
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 2:42 PM
To: Lopez, Darlene C
Subject: RE:
Oh god…why
From: Lopez, Darlene C
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 2:42 PM
To:
Subject:
Importance: High
Darlene
UGH!
When you pray, move your feet.
-----African proverb
Be a positive change in this world today!