Life likes to kick you when you're down

So the last few weeks have been rough on me while I fully admit that things may seem petty to other people to me they've just finally brought me to my breaking point.
Here's the run down:
Brielle's teeth will cost me $6,142 to have worked on
Katherine's teachers are pushing the ADHD thing again which is NOT the case
and
My mother-in-law decided that the corner cabinet that we pretty much designed our whole laundry room around 3 years ago that she wanted back.

Here's the results: I am trying to save and we are looking at making cut backs in our lives (okay I am though getting the family on track is harder than you would think), Peter will handle the meeting with the school and we are going to push for video cameras in the classroom and we have moved away from positive reinforcement at home and on to negative which is Katherine standing in a corner after homework every day if she does not get the needed number of behavior points. As far as the cabinet thing goes... well this is what we are left with:

 For now we will just have to deal none of the cabinet doors will open we can't get that draw back in because of no space so laundry is on the couch and everything else that was put away is stacked high... we'll save up and buy a new corner cabinet if that is what it comes down to though it has started a big fight between us and Peter's mother.

On to happier subject matters.

Friday I took off from work because the kids were out of school and I baby sat another little girl named Celeste. As a craft we did the 'melted crayons' that have been such a big thing lately. Though I didn't have poster board so I got some paper we had around the house and glued it onto cardboard and we used that instead. All the kids had fun.
It was over all a simple craft. I had just received a bag of old crayons through 'Free Stuff, Daviess County' on Facebook so we broke the crayons up to make sure that we would have enough and there was no real reason to use more than half a crayon in truth. We then hot glued the crayons onto the make shift poster board that I had put together and using a hair dryer we melted the crayons. I had also cut out little pumpkins to put on the board that the girls colored and we hot glued on. All in all other than a bunch of my time putting it all together and supervising and a few burns from the hot glue it was a simple craft that was really cheep to do and come on how many times do you not only get to purposely break crayons but also melt them?

Saturday was the Smithsonian Free Museum Day and after all the headache of dealing with Peter's mother that day we went ahead and packed up and went out to lunch at Five Guys Burgers and Fries which was much more expensive than I would have liked but Peter wanted to take us there and then we went to the museum. I hate to say it but I was glad we didn't pay because half the exhibits were broken and there was absolutely nothing new to see. 

We relearned many things we have already seen before because it's still good to do that and each time you pick up a little bit more information. So first it was Natural History and then we went into the Government section.

After that we all came home and took a nap before heading out to Lotus Guardian for Two-Headed Giant Pre-Release. The girls played on their laptops and Peter and I dealt with what turned into more stress than fun but we got some good cards a few people dropped out so we placed in the top 4 and got extra cards and Peter had done work for the store so we had store credit and didn't have to pay for the event though we did order pizza in. I think our problem is that when we get too stressed we throw up our hands and say heck with it and then money gets spent. Not for sure if that is how it goes but it's a working theory.

Today Peter had to go into work and I'm not sure how long he will be gone. I'm trying to make the menu for the month and I have to go grocery shopping today so my coupon for Save-A-Lot doesn't expire. I've started this new thing where I shop for a month and only pick up basics in between (eggs, milk, bread... things that go bad fast). I'm trying to see if this new method will save us money in the long run but trying to make a menu for a month is really difficult!

Well that's life currently. The world keeps turning and the sun keeps coming up and we will see what new things arise. With any luck my work and Peter's work will slow down so we can truly give the rest of our lives the focus it really deserves.

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A Blessing in Disguise

For those that have been reading this for awhile or to those people who know me then they'd understand my obsession with coupons and trying to get every good deal out there. I used to have the hook up for news papers but because of my friend getting a second job and a bit of a falling out with others in the group my newspaper addiction is no longer being fed well not really a newspaper addiction I just wanted the coupons!

Going through the menu I made for the month, which this is a new one for me, I ended up picking up nearly everything at the start of the month to the tune of $166 and some stuff will carry over to next month but not a whole lot. Now normally I'd be stressing out about not having coupons but I realized I was over stocked on many things that I did not need at this time. Yes, they would eventually be used but for now they'd just be taking up space in my house. Without coupons I'm not looking at all the sales and thinking of various ways to stock up and seeing how rarely is anything free while I was stretching my dollar I was still using extra money at this time. I'm going to look at the no coupon thing as a blessing and try to stay within budget instead of failing horribly but having a years worth of rice-a-roni in my cabinet. :)

As for other news things have been hectic around here. We first had the bathroom problems so we did the remodeling and then we had the bed bugs so we had to have the house treated... we're up to $4000 on those two items not counting all the little added things (like the heat treatment for the bugs melted my blinds!) and then we had our central A/C unit go out and had to have the whole thing replaced due to age that was $3500 so we are up to 7500... keeping track? Then come to find out we have no insulation in our walls! We haven't gotten the quote back on that but to try and work on the cooling (and soon heating) problems we are looking at having the windows replaced the quote came back for that at about $3500 so now we are at $10,500 since the end of May. Needless to say our savings took a hit but to make sure that we could cover an emergency we took out a loan and are looking at taking out a second loan. To top this all out Brielle starts seeing an orthodontist this month so we will have to see how much our insurance will cover.

It has needless to say been a rough and stressful few months with rising energy costs, disasters on the home front and work for myself and Peter being hectic I am looking forward to this fall for some relief to the pocket book and this winter for us to have the perfect excuse to stay inside and snuggle up together as a family with hot cocoa and movies. I'm looking forward to holidays with my family (and maybe my parents I'm still trying to convince them) and with my friends and over all trying to stay hopeful that these storms in our life shall pass soon.