Again with the Busy!

Oh my word! It's been run run run! I've been so busy I haven't been able to fill out for many samples or coupons at all! Between holiday shopping, school performances for the kids, my husband's work keeping him over and working him weekends and my work just being stressful I can't hardly keep up let alone get enough thoughts together to blog. Not that I was any sort of master blogger in the first place.

I have been trying to keep the kids busy though during the little bit of time we do get together between all our hectic schedules. Mommy went a little crazy this past weekend when Daddy was at work and found some old window snow and I decided I'd like the some light from the outside world. Our livingroom window has the most horrible view so this was a simple solution for things I had laying around the house and the kids enjoyed me teaching them how to make snowflakes again. It also helps because my husband has been whinning due to the lack of snow and how green everything is this winter.

Winter is my time for baking and to make sure this spare tire around me doesn't go flat hahahaha! If you have a JoAnn's in the area and you're not signed up on their website then what are you waiting for! This is the first year we've had JoAnn Fabric and Craft in the area and I'm loving it. We had them when I lived in Oregon but I guess they are just now getting to this region. I got my 20% off coupon which is 20% off my total order and have been spending way too much down there. My latest investment was a cookie press to make up decorative spritz cookies. Next I'll be making up some Berlinerkraser and Shortbread cookies with the kids. I also plan to try my hand at making bread bowls for my potato soup this year. Sadly everyone is so busy we will not be having our lady luncheon so I'm saving the ham and soup til Christmas. No real Yule celebration here our goal is normally just to enjoy each others company and stay warm... so I guess that's pretty traditional depending what part of the world you are from ha!

Okay one other thing before I get back to life... Coca-Cola, you've seen the points on the caps and on the boxes and probably like me you think to yourself, "I'm sure that it takes so many it's just not worth my time"  and normally you would be right but Coke runs these deals if you search and pay attention. I got a coupon for a free 12-pack for 120 pts. (each bottle is about 3 pts if I remember correctly) and because I was trying to imput everything to get a Kroger $25 gift card but didn't have enough pts so I got 2 coupons. Now they are mailed in and the 12-packs was the deal at that time but keep your eye out I also got free ritz crackers coupon one time.

Have a Happy Holiday Season!!

The promised posting...

I've been a bad girl lately and haven't been forcing myself to take the time to write here. Basically it boils down to dealing with the school because of Brielle's disorganization which is causing her to lose assignments and also contributing to her showing up to classes late. I've also been very tired lately averaging 5 hrs of sleep per night so I haven't had much motivation for anything and then we also had Halloween. It's been a busy few weeks and other than taking pictures for A Budget You Can Live With of my shopping trips I've just not bothered spending the time I normally do. Let's see if I can catch up on a few things.

Product Review
Garnier Fructis Anti-Dandruff Shampoo - Clean & Fresh
Over all the smell of this shampoo is pretty good not too much perfume and I've had an over all positive experience with this product though it is pretty thin and I prefer a thicker shampoo personally. I don't really have heavy dandruff so I cannot speak to how well this product works on that. Would I buy it? It depends on how cheep I can get it but I would not be opposed to it if I found it on sale.

Kitchen
So this past Monday was Halloween which means we carved pumpkins this last weekend I found a farmer's market trying to clearance out their pumpkins and got each pumpkin for $1 so I bought 5 of them. What does all this mean? It means this past weekend I was baking a lot of pumpkin seeds, 5 1/2 cups to be exact!

My Pumpkin Seed Recipe
Separate pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin, rinse and try and get what little bits you can off and any seed shells that didn't develop seeds separated out. Boil seeds in salt water for 20 min. this helps get the salty taste in the seeds and also makes cleaning them much easier. Arrange tray's with cloth or paper towels, lay the seeds out in a single layer (this will probably take a couple trays), cover with a cloth and let the seeds dry over night (if you start this in the evening or approx. 8 hrs). The seeds do not need to be perfectly dry so don't try for that, you can also speed it up by patting out the moisture if you are in a bit of a hurry.
Now my recipe:
3 tbsp Butter
1 tsp Salt
4 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
1/4 tsp Garlic Salt
2 cups Pumpkin Seeds

Melt Butter then add salt, Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt and blend together. Add seeds and stir until all seeds are completely coated and then put on trays in a single layer. Bake @ 300 degrees for 40 min. (I prefer my seeds a little more crisp since I eat the shell and all so you may need to adjust the baking time). Remove the seeds, lightly sprinkle with sugar and then allow them to cool before storing them in an air tight container.

Alt. Recipe
3 tbsp Butter
1 Tsp  Steak Seasoning (You can definitely add more for a more pronounced taste I sprinkled extra on before baking)
1 1/2-2 cups Pumpkin seeds

Shopping & Planning
So I'm not going to go over my whole shopping trip if you want to see pics of this last week then please join my Facebook page linked above. What I will say is that I've already started buying for Thanksgiving. I'm trying to work out my complete list of what will be needed as we are going to have guests for Thanksgiving and if I leave it all to the last minute then I know I'll be doing some midnight shopping trips. As we get closer to time I will start working out my cooking schedule and will try and remember to post it up. I encourage people to go to my Facebook page linked above and look at the older document I wrote up about keeping your sanity during the busy cooking holiday season.

Well I've used up all my time and it's time to get ready for work but I will try not to take such long vacations from here in the future.

Busy busy! Zoo, Work, Fall Break....

Well I didn't make my normal posts Sunday on FB for 'A Budget You Can Live With' (I really should have came up with a shorter name I'll call it ABYCLW... anyone else get Abby Claw out of that? Okay okay I'll call it 'FB Budget page' more natural to type). I was going to take the kids to the Great Pumpkin Festival but when we added it all up it would have cost us about $60 to go to the farm with the kids and with us having the Louisville Zoo planned for Monday it just didn't seem like the best idea. Instead of pouring through ads all day Sunday I made my best guess meal plan and grocery list up at about 1 AM Sunday before going to bed, just long enough to look through the grocery ad. So Sunday I had to do my running, which is a bad idea since the places I shop stock on Mondays so the stores were cleared out of nearly everything I wanted which I guess is good because they had the items I absolutely needed so brought down the cost of my trip some.
This week Peter took off for vacation so he could be home with the kids during Fall Break, that and he really needed some time away from work.
Monday we went as a family to the Louisville Zoo because we had 2 tickets we had purchased at a benefit the prior year but buying 2 more tickets was outrageously priced. We got to the zoo about an hour after opening and had to rush through a good part of it because the zoo closes so early there thank goodness we didn't pay the extra for the 4D movie or carousel. The Outback area was closed that day as were the Lorries and when we went to go feed the Giraffe it just happened the girls got their containers of food and the giraffe was no longer hungry and walked away. We got our money back of course but it was a disappointment, but the girls were good and we all understood and we continued on our way. During the middle of the day we stopped for some food and something to drink because we didn't know we could have brought our own in there and that was a mistake. Peter and I have never in our lives seen such horrible prices for not so good food and not enough seating. We wanted to have a good time so we paid it and tried not to say a thing about it. The other mistake we made was going to the gift shop because you know you're going to walk out with about $30 or more of junk but I got my traditional coffee cup, Brielle got a shirt and Katherine got a stuffed baby tiger toy; Peter was the only restrained one in there and decided not to pick anything up. The girls fell asleep on the car ride home and they had a good trip and I guess that's all that matters because Peter and I are trying to make their childhood really something to look back on and smile about.

As I said above Peter's been home with the kids all week so they've been doing a bit of the cleaning up I've requested and he's been letting them color and go outside and actually play. He's also been doing the dishes for me and trying to help by cooking dinner though I know it still irritates him my ass still keeps being found in the kitchen. I'm not used to someone doing for me or helping me though I'm starting to get used to it right at the end when this little faerie tale is about done and now I'll have to program myself back into super mom.

I've been beating my head over work this past week too so been coming home extremely tired. Some nights I can't even find the will to work on my crocheting. I can't wait for a vacation myself but it'll be December before I have any real time off because the time off in November I'm cooking like a mad woman for Thanksgiving.

I hope next week is a little easier on me at work.

Product Review Overview

So I've gotten a lot of trials lately and a few good deals on products so I thought I'd give my own opinion on them.

Swiffer 360 Duster
The Swiffer duster is made from soft fabric so it does collect the dust and I did not see a lot of dust going back into the air. It has it's main frame as a thin design so the entire duster is good for dusting around TVs and getting under and around other electronics. One of the down sides is if you have a lot of nick-knacks like I do that you may find the soft fabric to get caught (especially since I have quite a few dragons and their scales are detailed) and if the item is light it may cause the duster to come back towards you or it may catch the fabric and take the duster straight off the wand. I have not looked in this area but prices are being reported as $8 per box of 6 refills. Personally I find the price steep. I may pick up a box of refills to make dusting door frames easier but for any heavy dust items like ceiling fans it will still be the old rag method for me.

Breathe Right 'Advanced'
The new Breathe Right strips are split down by the nasal passage which made them very awkward for him to put on and sadly our experience so far is that they do not help any at all. Personally I will go for the original design when getting his nasal strips.

Suave Dry Shampoo
Now we take regular showers in this house hold but Brielle has very oily hair so by the morning her hair looks greasy and shiny again. I use this dry shampoo and while it doesn't really help remove any of the grease it does take down the shine and give her hair a more dry look to it. I could definitely live without this product but if I find it at a good price I would still purchase it for her. Kind of a mix review but I guess I'm not sure what I was suppose to experience with this product.

Oregon Chai
I got this with a coupon and so far have loved the Original liquid concentrate. You mix half that with half milk and warm or cold I cannot say enough about this product. Every one's tastes are different though but for me I found my new favorite thing.

Super Weekend & Hopeful for the Week

Well sorry I didn't get my post in last week I was just very busy last Monday since I had a luncheon with the girls from work and I went to Sam's Club and ended up weighing and packaging 32 lbs of meat.
This past weekend we took advantage of the Smithsonian free museum day and all four of us went for $6 and went into a mobile star lab and then went on a coal miners tour. The kids enjoyed themselves and it was very educational. I also did a lot of crafts with the girls this weekend since our crafting projects were starting to build up because we could never find the time. It was a stressful week last week because I was sick and ended up coming home sick last Friday but the weekend made up for it and I'm hopeful for this week.
This week should be pretty standard other than I have to go into work today (Monday) which means I'm in a little bit of a rush right now because I still have to do my grocery shopping before I can go to work. I have a pretty small grocery list and I plan to stick to it because 1. there are really no sales to speak of and 2. I'm in a rush. Reason I have to work today is because there is no school Friday so I had to do the schedule shuffle to be able to cover the kids being home.
I did do some searching this morning for freebies and samples and posted what I found in my quick search on A Budget You Can Live With.

9/26 Menu

• Tacos
• Chicken Bake
• Breakfast for Dinner
• Spaghetti with Parmesan Chicken
• Steaks & Burgers
• Pizza
• Hamburger Helper

Weeeeeeee! & Adventures in Cleaning

Interesting title right? Well I'm on a bit of an emotional roller coaster as things stand right now. I've been getting very little sleep and I have so much work to do that none of it is getting done! Doesn't sound like it's making sense? Well basically I'm so stressed out I don't know where to start so I chase my tail and then get mad at myself when I see no progress made. I'm sure I'm not the first nor the last person to experience this so just have to push through.

Next Few Days Schedule:
Today

• I have to go searching for a toy horse to put on a cake for my daughter's 11th birthday party. I have been all over and calling every place in town and no one has a horse cake so I've got to try and put together one myself. I will also probably see if Walmart can have a cake done by Saturday afternoon because she really wanted a marble cake and I canceled my order when they told me they did not have the horse packet in.
• Brielle needs new shoes she's been wearing sandals with socks and before I just thought she was being stubborn about not wearing her shoes but with it turning cold and her still doing it that means there is a shoe run to be made because she really must have out grown her shoes in just the last couple months... growing like a weed.
• Need to find where Brielle lost her tooth so the tooth faerie can do her job.
• Katherine and I need haircuts.
• Need to find out if the kids are going to the Grandparent's house tonight.
• Cleaning house: kitchen floor, vacuum house, make beds, clean playroom, clean all flat surfaces in living room & kitchen, clean bathroom, scrub tub, fold laundry
• I need to take Katherine out to pick up her sister's present.
• Go to the bank.

Saturday
(Peter will be working)

• (if kids are at Grandparent's house) Get kids.
• Pick up Brielle's best friend Leslie.
• Take all the kids to the Scarecrow Festival (probably eat lunch there to make life simple)
• Pick up cake.
• Go home and get the house decorated for the party.
• By 5 o'clock people should be arriving by 7 o'clock everyone should be here so should have the pizza here by that time and will have a house full of girls watching movies and doing girl stuff while eating pizza, cake and cookies! Sugar high time!

Sunday

• Wait for all of Brielle's friends to go home then hopefully have time to clean up the house and rest.
• Search for coupons & match deals.
• Make the next week Menu
• Cheesy Chicken Pasta for Dinner - has to be prepped and in crock pot by 10am.

Monday

• Groceries
• Sam's Club
• Divide, weigh, package and freeze about 30 lbs of meat.
• 11:30 Red Lobster to meet the girls from work.
• 3pm Dental Cleaning
• Pick up Katherine
• Make dinner
• Normal nightly chores.

Adventures in Cleaning
As promised my little over view with my recent experiments with cleaning. As some may know I got my steam cleaner from 1SaleADay.com and it was advertised as a hard surface steam cleaner though I had hoped it'd work on fabric. Well it does work on fabric but not very well so you won't see me steam cleaning a lot of things around the home like that and it didn't do so grand on the grease on the plastic fake tile behind my kitchen counters but! it cleaned the microwave like a charm I had never been so happy I am now so willing to keep it clean because it's just steam and wipe. Also, I ended up using WD-40 on the grease I was talking about but I steamed it afterwards to help me wipe it back off to get rid of that horrible smell. The steam cleaner also did well on removing the built up dust, dirt and grease from my stove; the plastic and the metal areas and let me get in between all those little areas that I used to spray kitchen cleaner into and then use a toothpick. Over all I'd say a little hand steam cleaner is a must have in a house hold to help get away from heavy chemical cleaners and make some jobs easy as can be.

I got a fist full of hair

I'm literally pulling my hair out this week finding clumps of it in the shower and just all over my hand after I put shampoo in... I'm THAT stressed!
So we found out earlier this week that my in-laws were coming in town but we didn't know Wednesday or Thursday. Well Tuesday night they say it'll be Thursday, and then they call back and it will be Wednesday and then maybe Thursday... okay finally Wednesday. We finally know which when we get the phone call Wednesday morning. Which was a hassle to try and organize things with Brielle's friend who was coming to dinner with us for Brielle's traditional Birthday dinner. We went out to Chinese.

Brielle was suppose to have cooking club so I was suppose to pick her up at school at 4:30 but it turns out she didn't get registered soon enough so she couldn't go this month so she gave me a phone call while she was on the bus... okay so change of plans as I was leaving work I went home and got Brielle started on her homework then went ahead and left her there she's 11 now so I felt more comfortable and I knew it would be only about an hour. I'm trying not to mother hen quite as much. So I get Katherine from school then we drive across town to Walmart because I like their cakes better than Kroger and stand around and stand around until we catch a lady she can't find the bakery person so this produce lady took my order. I get a phone call at 9 o'clock that night saying that they do not have the horse kit that Brielle wanted and the lady was pretty rude with me saying 'Well I was on my lunch' in a very snotty tone. I wasn't mad she wasn't there I was annoyed that they didn't have the kit and told me that no one had ordered one or had plans to order it. Okay so I told her to cancel the order I'll go somewhere else. So that is what I have to do today before work is find Brielle a horse cake.

Pete's over stressed about work because they have thrown him and his team under the bus. My work is just being annoying. Oy Vey!

In any case so the Grandparents want the kids Friday night so I guess the plan is going to be Friday night driving about 40 min. out to the Grandparents' house then Saturday getting the kids back to load them up and go get Brielle's friend to go out to the Botanical Garden for the Scarecrow Festival and then that evening having the sleep over for Brielle. Peter is probably going to be working Saturday too. Sometime Sunday Brielle's friends will go home and then we can try to put the house back into place. Monday I have to go meet the ladies for lunch it's my turn to pay for one of the birthday girls over at Red Lobster at 11:30 and then at 3pm I have a dental cleaning and then I need to try and pick Katherine up before 5:30 so I hope everything goes smoothly. If it wasn't for the fact I already have started to defrost the chicken I would make crock pot chicken Monday instead of this week.

That's where this week is at... I needed to get it off my chest and just praying for the strength to get through it all and still find the time to take care of the house and not lose patience with anyone.

I Survived Monday! & My Plan for the Week!

Ugh Monday the word alone makes me shiver in disgust and I don't even have to work this particular Monday. The day started off like normal I zoned out drinking coffee after I got the kids up to get ready for school. I had spent probably a good 5 to 6 hours in total this past weekend on my shopping list and trying to get coupons together. I still went over my goal today because the Parmesan Chicken my family likes was on sale. I did my shopping though, got the bathroom clean and had lunch with Peter today before taking a nap because I didn't feel too good. The weather has been up and down in temperature and it has really been messing with my system.
After Brielle got home this afternoon we went and got Katherine and then came home and worked on homework and got that done before I started on dinner. Girls showered and did all their night time stuff, Pete messed around with the HDMI cables I had purchased him from 1SaleADay a few weeks ago and I did my dishes.

3 bags Birds Eye Steamed Veg. (1 corn & 2 broccoli)
1 box Frozen Garlic Texas Toast
Toll House Cookies
2 bottles Kraft BBQ Sauce
1 bag Beneful Dog Food
Chips Ahoy
2 16 ct. Kraft Singles
2 Suave Bodywash
Suave Professionals Shampoo
Suave Professionals Conditioner
Suave Deodorant
Minute Maid Orange Juice
3 boxes Parmesan Chicken
2ltr A&W Root beer
2ltr 7-Up
2 2ltrs Sunkist
3 boxes Hamburger Helper (Kroger Brand)
1 box Kroger brand spiral noodles
Gal. of 2% Milk
Loaf of Bread
5lbs of hamburger
Tennessee Pride 8 ct. Sausage Paddies
Doritos
Just For You Crest Kids Mouthwash
Kroger prepackaged roast beef lunch meat
2 Kroger brown gravy packet
1 Kroger meatloaf seasoning packet
6-pack 16 oz Coca-Cola
Kroger presliced mild Cheddar
Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss Vanilla Coffee Creamer

Total after coupons and in store savings: $75.02

This Weeks Dinner Menu:
Breakfast for Dinner (Today)
Cheesy Chicken
Wednesday - Going out for Brielle's Birthday
Stroganoff Hamburger Helper
Spagetti w/Parmasane Chicken
Saturday - Pizza for birthday party
Meatloaf, mashpotatoes & gravy, corn

It's going to be a busy week with Brielle's birthday on Wednesday, my in-laws coming into town Wednesday or Thursday, the Scarcrow Festival on Saturday and Brielle's sleep over Saturday night. I'm going to try and hold onto my sanity over the course of this week and perhaps by Sunday I'll have time enough to prop up my feet with a glass of wine and pat myself on the back for surviving the week.

TGIF!

So I've had another hectic week with my only relief being that I've done well to hide in my office at work and get some paperwork and organizing done.

The hospital is gearing up and finally started the PC replacement so Peter has been at work most nights until 6:30 and even one night he was there until 9pm. During this week I've been trying to keep up with the house while having to get the kids and play the role of a single parent getting dinner done while helping with homework and the sad thing is this trend is going to continue for another month.

I was pretty productful this last weekend taking care of the sewing pile. This week I've also been good and have the laundry down to only two loads I need to fold and put away which is impressive because the laundry had ate my couch. I also succeeded on getting all my dishes caught up. I am hoping that tonight I can get onto the floors.

I had planned to get my free rental from Redbox yesterday but with how under the weather I have felt I got into work late and there just wouldn't have been anytime to watch it anyways with the family.

Tomorrow night the plan is to go see the fireworks the County is setting off at the park and we need to plan Brielle's 11th Birthday party that is coming up in a couple weeks. I'm hoping for an easy going weekend though Peter starts on-call tonight for the rest of the week so I'm not sure if it is really going to happen.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.