Budgets

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 Iowa, she is moving to where her husbands family is and I am going to miss her. We never get to spend much time together but the difference is knowing that if I needed her, she would be there in a heartbeat. That is where I know I am truly the baby because any of my sisters will suck up whatever they are feeling about someone or something else if I called them and told them I needed them. It is exciting that she is starting a new chapter in her life, me too… but I sure am going to miss that lady…

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

GAVIN's BDAY PARTY

Vacation Bible school awards

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…

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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Hello...from the wild side

Well, I haven't been a good blogger, been too busy to put a new post! Things have been a little crazy at work, we are getting ready for another audit, I can't believe it, last July now this June... they are determined to ruin my summers! Just a couple more months and I would have been gone, oh well!!! I am actually pretty much ready and good thing because I am off tomorrow because my sister is having surgery so I am going to go be her nurse... I am a very good waiting room person you know. Me and Fluffy (my oldest sister Nena) are going to hang out and pretty much torture her all day... we have to be at the hospital in SA at 6 in the morning... YIKES! which means I have to leave the house by 4:30 to go pick up both sisters and then hit the road to the hospital so we can get parked and where-ever we need to be... I have been car-less for the last few days because the pacifica was sicky... but Irene fixed her tonight so she is ready to go, it is no fun being without wheels. We were busy setting up the pool tonight and it is almost good to go, Johnny is filling it up as we speak! Yippee!... For some reason setting up this pool has not been an easy task, we had to till up the dirt, kill the grass, put sand, put a liner and then put the pool... it is a nice size one and it will be well worth the effort, I need to go and get stepping stones for around the outside and we are in business. The Sauceda Waterpark is open for the 2010 season... woohoo! After the long day tomorrow I am sure I will be ready to hit the waves...LOL I promise a longer post soon, hope everyone is staying cool because it sure is hot outside!

Crazy

Well it has been quite a whirlwind of events around here... Graduation was wonderful, and so was the party... Okay, of course I have been stressed. REALLY stressed... Having thrown out there that I am going to quit work I have been worrying more than usual on top of everything else I have going on. Then thinking about TJ Dana and Justin graduating and yes... here comes reality. Darlene put on the marquee at the hall "Welcome to the real world" how true that is. Never again is life as carefree. People tell you that and say it all the time when you are a kid but until you are kicked out of that group, you have no idea how true it is. How I wish I could pick up the phone and tell my Dad my car is acting up or ask my mom if she did my laundrey... WAHHHHHH! I was pretty spoiled in that sense. sigh.... those were the days... Well, gotta go do laundrey and figure out how I am going to get my car fixed... among other things...LOL

The Notebook

So it was a nice weekend, very busy but what made it hard was I was losing the battle against this summer cold... My throat hurt, my eyes, my head and this cough was killing me. I ended up staying home from work today because I am exhausted, I haven't slept well in about four days and I finally took Nyquil this morning about 2 and didn't wake up until 9! But I am still sleepy, I don't feel good and I probably look as bad as I feel... :(
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.