Saturday, August 27, 2011

Oh what a week!

So work has been hectic and my nerves have been frayed as has Peter's week and his weeks are scheduled to continue being stressful. Things kept going wrong Thursday and when I tried to give them a feeling of being a little bit more right by taking advantage of Redbox's free rental that day it just turned out to cause more stress as we were up til 10 o'clock! with Brielle trying to get her to do her math homework done. It's not that I over looked her math homework earlier in the evening but rather she said she had it done and I hadn't checked it yet and didn't realize how much of it was wrong. It was quite the fight to get her to do it correctly but eventually it did get done.
Friday I was so exhausted after the night before that I tried to pretty much hide in my office at work and even my Supervisor came in to say he was going to leave me alone that day after what had happened Thursday. Friday was okay though and led into today, Saturday, where I slept in very late and I'm glad that I did for the fact that I needed some good rest but it has meant I've had to rethink what I want to accomplish.
Right now I have the girls working on 'organizing' their playroom which means it'll be a huge mess but hopefully I won't have to go in there and be a drill sergeant for them to get things put away properly.
Pete's taking a rest playing video games and I'm not going to get onto him about that because of how his work has been for him and he got up with the kids this morning.
I'm thinking my first order of business is starting work on the sewing pile I keep putting it off and it needs to be done.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Sleep tight don't let the bedbugs bite....

I've never claimed to be the brightest person ever so until very recently when all the news broke about buildings becoming infested with these little bugs I really didn't know or perhaps not quite understand that bedbugs were real. I would have liked to stay naive personally but that can't always be the case.

Some friends of ours had a roommate who had brought bedbugs into the apartment and then said nothing and continued to sleep with them for months until the house was over run. My friends acted so casual about it while taking strong actions in their own home that I thought nothing of it until yesterday when another friend, I just had all her children over to my house, posted on Facebook that she had gotten bedbugs!

Well that news broke about 3 or 4 pm and Peter and I started doing our research and I started to freak out because our exterminator just sent us an add advertising for bedbug treatments and it was far from cheep and I've already been stressed about the budget. Starting at about 6pm the decision was made we are locking down our house from visitors and we started the cleaning process. This is going to be an on going ordeal especially since Peter and I could only get through the kids room and the living room really. I'm also washing everything which means my couch is full of washed stuff (thus why the living room was one of the first rooms to get cleaned) and my laundry room is piled high!

People who talk about bedbugs as though it is no more annoyance than lice really irritate me and sadly it may be half a year when everyone can prove they are bedbug free before I let anyone into my house again. I may be over reacting but if we are cleaning correctly then Peter and I should never know if it was an over reaction or not and you know what? I'm fine with that.

When Peter and I decided we did as much as we could last night and we needed to settle down so we could get some sleep (which for me meant about 12:30am before I fell asleep) I decided it would be a good time to take apart Katherine's cow touch lamp and find out why it doesn't work. Come to find out the touch sensor had burnt out on it so I ordered the new part and hopefully should get that in today getting out to Lowe's to pick it up will give me a nice break from cleaning.

Well it's just about that time to start getting the family out the door and me to my cleaning. This may be a 2 pots of coffee sort of day.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Another Sunday

I think out of all the days of the week I like Sunday the best. We don't worry about getting up early or the stress of trying to get everyone ready to go out the door to church but instead we enjoy our Sundays in the comfort of our own home. It's 9:40 in the morning, Katherine got me up at 8:30 to get her breakfast and help her turn on the TV quietly she was very concerned that it be quiet so that she didn't wake her sister up and I suppose it worked because Brielle and Peter are sound asleep this Sunday giving me some quiet time to go over sales and coupons while trying to figure out what we should eat this week.

I went back over the budget yesterday and I realized we had ate out way too often last month and it, along with some other items that couldn't be helped, destroyed this month's budget and we didn't save a dime infact we went pretty far into the red. I'm going to try and keep us on budget because next month will be a spendy month also with Brielle's birthday and Peter and I had already decided to have a pirate party next month so I'm going to have to start doing a lot of budgeting.

I was pretty disappointed with the sales this week at Krogers as they are the exact same as last weeks sales so I'm just getting together a list of the items I want that were out of stock last week and I'm going to see if I can reuse some coupons that they didn't collect up from me, if not it's not a big deal but I would like to know. I'm also going to go through my freezers and pantry and see what I can throw together from what I already have around the house. There's not a lot of things I can cut the funds on from the budget but food is one that I can sure try to.

Time to get on to the rest of my peaceful Sunday and perhaps get a few things done around the house so I don't feel stressed this work week.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Tired: Was that a mack truck or did you need something?

Well kids got off to school without a hitch it wasn't til after Peter left for work that things started to become stressful. I watered a few plants that the rain had not reached and then went inside and after a bit of himming and hawing I talked myself into pulling out the wii fit. First, I did not realize a near dead batter pack (I had to plug it in to play) would mess up the calibration and then I put it on some step aerobics knowing I was short on time but not exactly remembering why. Netflix gave me a huge fit and so while trying to do my steps I was fighting with that. I eventually got through one show and wrapped up my workout and went to warm up some broccoli cheese soup which I nearly burnt. Sitting down at my computer I thought I could watch one more show while eating before getting ready for work and then I looked at the time and it was 9:40 and I suddenly realized why I felt rushed... I had a meeting at 10 o'clock at work! So rushing I packed up my lunch, sprayed on some dry shampoo and ran out the door. I pulled into the parking lot at 10 and then nearly ran to my office. I found out though the meeting was delayed but it still took 15 minutes for my heart to quit racing. I hurried up into the plant and finished field checking the tanks we were suppose to have a meeting on and then rushed back to my office to fix the drawing which at that point my supervisor came in and said meet him in 5 min. up in the plant. It has been awhile since I had to work so quickly and the it was probably a good 15 min. before he got up there. It was a rough day at work to say the least. I got home from work at about 3:45 and waited for Brielle to get home. I had Brielle finish her homework and then asked her about school; come to find out the school did not put her in Orchestra so I had to call them up and leave a message with a lady in the front office.
Peter got home with Katherine about 5 o'clock at which point I was trying to make dinner. Peter didn't want the pork dried out so I needed to bread and fry it. I was so tired and had such a headache that I laid down at 7 but did not really sleep just kind of ignored everyone that tried to get me up. Back up at 9 because Peter wanted me on video games and now I know I should scrub out some dishes but it's much too late.
Tomorrow I'm going to Jo-Ann's Grand Opening here in town before work so it is shapping up to be another long day.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Tuesday is my Monday

As some might already know Tuesdays are my Mondays at work as I only work Tuesday-Friday most weeks. It was a typical Tuesday other than we had our school morning dry run! Alarms sounded at 6am as everyone (except my husband) got up and got dressed as if we were going to rush off to the bus. Things went so quickly and smoothly this morning I'm a little worried that has jinxed us for tomorrow.

Over all the day was less than productive as four cups of coffee this morning didn't motivate me to do more then go to the restroom a bunch.

Tonight we will have broccoli and spaghetti with meatballs, it's a very odd combination but we are trying to get food used and truth be told I forgot to use the broccoli last week. I'm still trying to search around for u-picks in the area because I'd like to get some food frozen while it's still in season but it seems a lot of farmers start their own booths in town and it costs as much trying to go to their booth as it does going into the grocery store so hardly worth it.

I've been doing research on DIY items and projects around the house. I'd really like to get all my cleaning supplies in order to see what I have and also make up a list of items I'd like to make up and put into the freezer for quick meals later on. I'm still posting a lot on my Facebook page in reference to things I'm finding.

I find it funny when people look at me and hear the stories on how tight I am with money and then ask me if I can do it for them. I've been more then willing to try and give helpful tips and information and even sit down with people to help with budgets, menus and how to plan around sales and coupons though I've yet to have a person show up and take it seriously. Money is a hard thing for people to talk about and even harder for people to admit they aren't sure how to bring their family budgets back into control. I hope in the future I might be able to help people out more in tackling these hard things.

Monday, August 8, 2011

School Supply Stress

As school is about to start on Wednesday there are all kinds of stresses involved trying to get out of the Summer laziness. As if going to the school picnics and introduction meetings was not bad enough there is also trying to get school supplies together and filling out all the paperwork required.

Today I was off of work and made it my goal to get the paperwork for the schools filled out, backpacks packed with the supplies and getting the kids ready for Wednesday but to much my dismay I found out in Middle School each teacher has their own supply list and requirements and that the supply list supplied before the school's 'jumpstart' meeting (for parents and students to find out what classes the student was going to attend) was way off the mark. I ended up going through past year school supplies and finding as many pencil pouches as I could to set up all the individual binders with basic supplies and I'm still short some supplies because it was not down on the general list provided to places like Wal-Mart. So, todays plan is to go down and pick up those odds and ends that we did not have and I must decide if I will take back the extra folders and spiral notebooks that were not needed or if I should keep them around so that if they are needed through the course of the year that we will already have them here at the house.

Do you think I have enough stress yet? Well apparently the fates have not so ontop of today's busy schedule of trying to get the kids to clean their rooms, doing paperwork for the schools, doing the homework the teacher gave me of writing about my student and packing backpacks I also get to go to Lowes and buy insulation and duct tape for when one of our skinny friends comes by to do some work for us under the house this afternoon.

All this I must get accomplished before 4 o'clock so I can come home and try and make a healthy meal for the Family's dinner. I've been updating my Facebook about where I'm at in my day not so much for other people but so I can look back and see that I have gotten somewhere in my day even if I haven't gotten to where I wanted to be like having a clean house.

I've been trying to also keep up with updating my budget group on Facebook, checking for freebies & valuable coupons, and keeping up with surveys so I can earn rewards to places like Amazon.com.

Yes, I'm off work but right now I'm thinking being at work would be a lot easier as I'm already getting very tired of this day.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Fiasco @ YMCA

I really didn't want my first blog posting to be like this I had hoped to give an intro to myself and my life but this is one of those stressful times I need to vent it all out before I get too upset... oh wait, too late.

Since the beginning of June my daughters, Brielle and Katherine, have been going to YMCA Summercamp. When I first signed them up I was told it was going to be $65 per week which I thought was cheep but after a $90 sign up fee and my $56 membership fee I was ready to over look how cheep that actually was. We've been doing summercamp for years now but I can't ever remember what I am charged. Well I find out today after asking how much I owed after the children being gone for the month of July and I was told $125 for this week by a girl in her early 20's maybe with a snappy tone. Now I remembered $65 so after being clearly shocked I went to my car and checked my carbon copies and sure enough I had been paying $65. I sit in the parking lot a little while and continously call the Y's main office and the start driving down the road still calling and THEN get to work and still continue to call. I'm told the director should be calling me and I wait by my phone for over 20 min. before calling back, by this time hopping mad. The forward me to the director and sure enough I was suppose to be paying $125 but he didn't understand why no one corrected this problem at the beginning and thankfully said because it was not corrected earlier that we did not have to pay the back fees and that we could pay $65 this week but Peter and I have decided to pay the full $125 as we have no problem with paying when corrected in a timely manner, just don't expect to spring on us a few hundred dollars of bills at the end.

So we survived thankfully but now I need to get my blood pressure to drop and try and focus some at work. Thankfully today is not proving to be exceptionally hard.