Category Archives: Life

What’s Up

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After the month of January seemed to drag on and on. The first week of February has flown by.

Last Saturday (2/3) we spent the majority of the day shopping in Winston-Salem. Both Lily and Kendall were able to pick out new frames for glasses that should be ready some time this week. I was also able to find some awesome deals on dress clothes for Zach. I purchased 3 suits (shirt, pants, tie and vest) for $46 total. We also had a huge stock up for the month trip to Costco.

Sunday was supposed to be an easy day for me but I had forgotten how much food I had planned for our Super Bowl party. The party was awesome with a great time had by everyone. I really enjoyed myself and we cleaned up and watched the last few minutes of the game in bed!

This week I have actually worked more than any week since the first of December. I worked a total of 31 hours at the hospital and another 5 at the Nursing home. Lily has cheer-leading 3 nights a week with church on Wednesday. In addition to all that I have managed to make it to YMCA 3 times to exercise!

An unexpected blessing this week is that our Federal tax money arrived. I was so shocked to discovery that after one week our refund was in the bank.  Our decision to split the money into 3 different areas seems wise to me at the moment. The first portion we used to pay down credit card debt. After discovering that currently we were paying 29.99% APR this became a very apparent good step to make. This is also a huge step toward our overall goal to be complete out of debt except for the house by June! Next we decided to use this to pay upfront for an education class for me. This will eventually be reimbursed by my employer. At the time of the reimbursement, the money will be used as travel money.  Finally, we used the money to purchase several items that we have been wanting for several months. The biggest of these is a Kitchen Aid Mixer. I have been looking at this for at least 3 years. I have watch the prices especially around Christmas when they should be prices lowest. At Costco today, we decided to check out the mixers. I was amazed to find it priced at $199 with a $20 mail in rebate! The other good news is that we will also get credit for this at the year need with our 2% rebate from Costco.  I am excited to finally not only to have matching dishes and glasses but a real kitchen appliance! I can’t wait to use it!

Next week does not look any less hectic as we have a fundraiser at church tomorrow where I am in charge of the food. I also have the continuing education class on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for 8 hours each day. I am working extra on Monday and Tuesday to cover for missing so much of the week.  My goal is to  find at least one time during the week to make a post!

Chairs

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I love shopping Big Lots for furniture. My living room set and our bed were both purchased at Big Lots. We have been talking about wanting a small sitting area in our bedroom for a while. Last night, Matt and I went to Big Lots after the kids were in bed, thanks to Haley watching them sleep. Here is what we purchased.

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The Best Laid Plans

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As most of you know, I am a planner. I like to plan it gives me a sense of control and peace with  my life. This month just seems that every time I make a plan it needs to change. I am proud to say that I am just rolling with the changes or at least I hope I am rolling with them. So here in random order are my best laid plans and how they have changed.

  1. In September, I began working “full-time” which for me is 30 hours a week. My plan work 7.5 hours a day and then have the extra time at home. Of course this is not working. Part of the problem is that our patient load is really low. So since the first of December I have been taking anywhere from 6 to 16 hours of PTO every 2 weeks to keep my hours at full-time. I am thankful that I have the option to do this but I really would like a schedule that is not so flexible!
  2. For the past two weeks on Friday we have had icy/snow and just generally cold weather. Our plan was to head to Vision Works on Saturday, order new glasses and then Costco to have a tire on my car fixed. Instead, after arriving home at 2pm Friday afternoon, I was not going anywhere. So I spent most of Saturday, cooking. I was able to make several dishes up for this week so again it turned out okay. I also worked hard on catching up and even getting ahead on laundry.
  3. After cooking on Saturday, in my head I decided that I was going to have a day off on Sunday. WRONG!  We ended up picking up pizza for lunch that I ate while preparing Taco Soup and Plum Crumb desert for our church annual meeting. We left early around 330 to deliver food to a family. Next was the annual meeting. After arriving home at 8pm I was done for the day with no rest.
  4. I was excited to get a menu plan together for the next 2 weeks on Saturday but I changed the plan tonight. It was 65 outside and I really wanted a steak for dinner. I needed to stop by the store for milk and ended up purchasing steaks, salad ingredients and desert for tonight. I was happy to only spend $20 on the splurge but it definitely was not what was on the menu plan.
  5. I was planning to complete our 2012 taxes this past weekend. We ended up cleaning our some cabinets and shredding a lot of documents. Friday night, Matt and I organized all the tax paperwork and I made out all the spreadsheet so that I could easily imput data on Saturday. I actually did sit down on Saturday to complete the task to discover that I saved the wrong pay stub. I saved the first one of this year instead of the last one of 2012. I was able to complete our taxes on Monday and am thankful for a refund!
  6. This last item is a plan that I hope will not be changed. I have really been trying to get a work out in 3 nights a week with at least one of those at the YMCA. On Monday, I realized that if I take Zach and Kendall to the YMCA while Matt takes Lily to tumbling, childcare is provided!!! I was so happy to go last night and the kids enjoyed it. My plan is to make this a Monday night routine!

As you can see this past week has all been about my changing plans!

January BLAH!

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This month, January, feels like it is dragging by for me. I was thinking about it today and came up with several logical reason that it feels so long. It is a full 5 week month, I receive 3 paychecks this month, it is freezing cold outside (36F) today and my crazy work schedule does not seem to be helping.BLAH!  I should be excited about 3 paychecks this month and I am. I actually used part of one to place a deposit on our beach trip this summer. But I also am trying to reduce our overall spending. One of the biggest reductions is in the area of grocery. My plan was to go from $800 a month last year of which we ended up spending an average of $773 to $600 a month this year. Currently I have overspent the budget by $83 but I am hoping to make this up and even save some more in February. The reason this is so difficult for me is that we are also at the point where alot of my freezer pre-cooked meals are gone. Last weekend I cooked up  beans to freeze and am currently working on pintos as we speak. Matt informed me today that I need to fix another big batch of chicken to shredded for soups and pies. It is just easier to run to the store and grab “x” to make this meal or go out to eat than try to re-stock the freezer but Matt is great and with a flexible menu plan we are sticking pretty darn close to the budget. I will be cooking and shredding chicken this weekend. BLAH!  Next is my crazy work schedule, for example today I worked until 11:30 and last Friday I did not go in until 11:00. I really don’t mind because Lily and Haley have been out of school for the past 5 days but I hate using PTO time because I want to make sure I have enough for the summer. BLAH! Another reason this month seems so long is the fact that I wanted to really really lose weight, I have been working out 2x and sometimes 3x a week but still have not broke through the weight that I have been stuck above for the past 8 months. To try and help in this area, I am also going to set a goal to drink at least 6 glasses of water a day. Today was a success but of course the scales did not change  BLAH!  Last but not least did I mention that I really really dislike COLD weather!  BLAH!

De-cluttering the Closet

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I have recently found a new blog that instead of setting resolutions sets challenges for herself to complete. She futher breaks this down by weeks. This weeks de-cluttering challenge was to clean one closet. Well did I have a closet to clean. Our master closet is 8×8 but lately it has felt more like 4×4 with stuff everywhere including the floor. This worked out great timing as well because I store all the snow village stuff up high as well. Here are a couple of before pictures….

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The floor and one shelf, this was the best of the orgainzation on the shelves.

The floor and one shelf, this was the best of the orgainzation on the shelves.

I have been working on the closet in my spare time for most of the week and was able to finish it last night with Matt’s help. The great thing is that not only did I gain more floor room but I actually gained an entire 4 foot section of a shelf as well. Now on to the better pictures

All snow village packed up neatly

All snow village packed up neatly

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Neatly organized and labelled shelves.

Neatly organized and labelled shelves.

The EMPTY space!

The EMPTY space!

 

Organized shoes with lots of floor space!

Organized shoes with lots of floor space!

So in the past couple of weeks, we have re-organized Matt’s office, the closet, one of the kitchen cabinets and most of our laundry room. I am so glad to be getting things neat and organized! Now to keep them this way!

 

 

What’s Up 1/10/13

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  • It has been a sad week at our house. One of our neighbors passed away on Monday after a battle with cancer. We are closer to this neighbor than most as they have a son who is Haley’s age. We actually carpool for several years, the wife made our wedding cake and Haley’s dress for the wedding as well. Haley and I attended the visitation last night. It was hard and of course I didn’t know what to say but that is okay because I realize it was not about me! Another family that could use some prayer is Elizabeth and her son Jacob at http://trenchesofmommyhood.blogspot.com/ .  I have never met her but read her blog and know she would appreciate it!
  • I am finding that by using the envelope system on my Iphone I am keeping much better track of my spending especially in regards to groceries. I made a huge trip today to Food Lion to stock up on some items. But that will be the last one of the month because I only have $18 left in the budget for the month. I am determined that I will not go over, even if I have to end up missing a couple of deals over the next several weeks. I am also thinking toward making February “eat out of the pantry month”. This will mean I can reduce my budget to $100 and use the extra to pay off some more debt? Not quite sure if that will work or not but I will  make that decision after the next 3 week with less than $5 a week to spend on groceries!
  • Matt has a really good job in the works! This is awesome and a definite answer to prayer. I also am starting to pick up a couple of hours at the nursing home so I am excited to see how much we will pay off in debt/outstanding medical bills by the end of January.
  • Lily has a cheerleading competition this weekend. It is only an hour away so I am excited to see them perform!

 

Decluttering/How I spent my Saturday

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Last summer, we spent $1000 and did alot of updating to our house. One of the first changes was to move Zach to his own bedroom, giving Matt his office. Since then, I have been noticing how little storage room, is actually in the office and how much “stuff” ends up on the desk. Last week, I came up with the idea to move the server up high above one window to give us some more space it worked!photo (13)

So while completing this task, we came up with several more ideas for shelves and moving items around.  We did end up spending around $60 total for all the new items but I think the results are well worth it. It feels like we have twice the space, we now have all the records in the office, instead of the playroom and everything has a space.  Here is a peak:

the back wall

the back wall

over the desk

over the desk

front wall with a better view of the new shelves. Matt plans to paint these this week.

front wall with a better view of the new shelves. Matt plans to paint these this week.

 

 

 

 

Christmas 2012

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Christmas is absolute my favorite time of the year! This year it has seems so special and calm that I have to say this is absolute one of my favorite Christmas EVER!  We have a lot of traditions that make it easy to have fun.

The biggest and best of these is that we spend Christmas Eve at my parents house. This year we arrived around 3pm to start the fun. The kids enjoyed a game of Trouble with my mother, Kendall was the winner!  BBQ shoulder and chips are the standard food for a Christmas Eve celebration. Gifts are open individually with lots of awww and uuuuuuus starting with the youngest going to the oldest. Zach was so excited to learn he was the youngest and would not trade this for anything. Zach received a tool bench, cars and pillow pets. Pillow pets were the gift that everyone received. We ended the night by playing Rook.

Christmas morning could not wait to come. Kendall and Lily started asking at 12:30 am if it was morning  yet. They ended up sleeping in my floor, with a question every 2 hours. Haley and Zach waited till 6:02am to announce that it was time to see what Santa left. Santa was not hungry this year as he didn’t eat any cookies but did have some milk. Rudolph definitely got his sugarless gum. This was a secret that Santa told the kids about at Bronners. After all the gifts were opened, we have spent the last two days enjoying the new toys, playing different games!  The little kids received everything they asked for and both the older girls seemed to like their gifts as well.

As you can see it has been a quiet but awesome Christmas!