Oops... I did it again!

I can not believe it's been almost a month since I posted anything on this blog. I am a horrible blogger.

A LOT has been going on.

Chris is home, but leaving in a few days.

My bow business is booming. (I never expected this but am extremely thankful)

I have been feeling incredibly blessed lately.

Lilly knocked Chris's laptop off the coffee table and broke it. We are trying to fix my old desktop so he can take my new laptop with him instead of buying a new laptop. I am too cheap to buy a new laptop.

Back when we paid off our car I mentioned that we are now debt free. What I didn't mention were the collections we had. They have been laying VERY heavy on my heart. As of Monday, every single collection or past due account is completely paid off!

Zip. Zero. Zilch!

No more ANYTHING on our conscience.

I can't tell you what a relief it is for us to have it paid off. Now onto saving as much as possible to be able to buy a house.

11 Step Program

I saw this posted on facebook tonight and after the last few weeks I have had, it really made me laugh. 

11 step program to those thinking of having kids, by Amy Lawrence.

Lesson 1
1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their...
1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.

Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3
A really good way to discover how the nights might feel...
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive).

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out...
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.

Time allowed for this - all morning.

Lesson 6
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 7
Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8
1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.

You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 9
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney, Disney, Dora, and Thomas. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or 'Noggin/Nick Jr. for at least five years. (I know, you're thinking What's 'Noggin'?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10
Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying 'mommy' repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each 'mommy'; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 11
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the 'mommy' tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Umm... Hi there!

Long time no see. Boy has this past week been a blur!

First off, my dad came to visit me for my birthday. Happy Birthday to me! And I am so excited because he got me a webcam for my birthday and now he and the girls can skype! It's so much fun!

Second thing, I had a comment game on facebook the same day that my dad got here so I was busy filling orders all weekend long. YAY for business!

I looked on my memory card last night to see if I had a picture or something I could post, only to find out, I haven't taken any!! Nothing, in almost a week! Well I did take pictures of some new products but that was it.

Aren't these so cute!

It's been raining for a week solid and it's just too dark without the sunlight to get really nice pictures inside.

Third and last thing, Caitlin hurt her foot on Monday at school. She bent down to put something in her backpack and this girl and her friend kicked her foot. She had been telling me all week that it hurt but I told her to suck it up. It will get better. Well today she called me from school to tell me she could hardly walk on it. This was 2 pm mind you and I hadn't even taken a shower. What? I'm a stay at home mother... I don't have to shower every. single. day. Right?

I went to get her around 3:30 from school and we went straight to the urgent care. Went right in but were told their x-ray machine was not working and that we would have to go to the other one on our side of town. No biggie. We were told we would just go straight back to have the x-ray done and be out in no time.

HA!

2 hours later... Oh they lost our paperwork that was faxed over from the other office AND forgot about us. It's now 7pm. FINALLY we go back to get it done. 10 mins later she's done and we wait for the Dr. ... and we wait... and we wait... for 45 more mins! I had just opened the door to leave when the Dr. was pulling her chart from the door. Guess what... she told us that no one told her we were there....

8:30pm we left that place. We got there at 5pm. 

Guess who's NEVER going back to *that* urgent care?

We still don't know what is wrong. The radiologist will have to take a look at her x-rays tomorrow. I being the medical professional that I am think she may have fractured it. Although she very well may have just pull some ligaments in her foot. Which I personally know is very painful.

So that's my week in a nutshell. Busy, no time for anything. Hope to be back on a regular schedule soon. :)

Goals are meant to be broken, right?

So I set this goal for myself to blog everyday. Well it's already been broken.

I have such a habit of that! Maybe I should make a goal like "My goal is to break this goal in 2 weeks". Now there's a goal I could keep. Or would I?

Hmmm....

We haven't really been doing anything around the house lately. At least nothing exciting.

I have been working on bows and hair clips. I'll post them here tomorrow if I remember.

OH! I do have a picture of Lilly from the other night at dinner that I think you will enjoy.

You're welcome. :)

Complete opposites - Wordless Wednesday

Can you spot the kid?

We have a speedway in our house and it is incredibly LOUD.


Can you see my little speeders?

I'm sorry, what? I didn't hear you. There is a race going on right now. 

There's one of them! Do you like her ripped up pants and mismatched stripes?

She stopped long enough to pick up her pillow pet and then it was back to the speeding.

I bet my neighbors just love me.

...And the after pictures

Now this is what I am talking about! I can't tell you how much better I feel just by getting rid of all that junk!

The only thing left that I have to do is shred a bunch of personal mail that I have been putting off.

That's it!

I had coffee and doughnuts for breakfast Monday and I think that's the only thing that kept me going.

I got rid of so much stuff that there is now an echo in here.

I like it. I think I'll keep that echo.

From the living room looking toward the back door

From the back door looking toward the living room

From the back door looking towards the dining room and kitchen

From the corner with the lamp looking toward the back door

From the corner with the TV looking toward the front door

Another view from the dining room into the living room

From my desk looking toward the living room and hall

So there you have it.

Better, no?

And it only took about 5 hours from start to finish and that includes the trip to the donation center.

And the after shots...

From the door looking into the room

Looking to the right from the doorway

Standing in the corner by the lamp looking toward the other corner

Standing in the corner with the sewing machine looking toward the door

I know it doesn't look all that much better than the before picture, but trust me. It is SO much better. There is more room in there now and that is always a plus!

Before we put the bed in here I had room for a large table which I took my pictures on, my ironing board AND my fabric bin. But now all that stuff is either hidden or in another room of the house.

So now I am off to tackle the living room.

Then after that will be the dining room and kitchen. The kitchen has so many dirty dishes piled in the sink! GAH! I hate that! I run the dishwasher at least once a day and before I can even Caitlin unloads it, there is already a sink full of dirty dishes. Does it ever end???

My guess is no.

Fresh bread, coffee and time-outs

Monday morning started out fabulously. I set my bread machine the night before so I could have some cinnamon bread first thing in the morning. Let me just tell y'all...Waking up to bread baking has to be one of the most happy inducing smells EVER! Let's not forget the coffee maker that was starting to brew my first cup of the day as well. My house had never smelled so good in the morning!

Once the kids got up and moving around, my house literally felt like a circus. No one woke up as happy as I did. Maybe one day they will realize what an awesome smell fresh bread and coffee is first thing in the morning.

Since they have been awake, there have been 85,634 fights with just as many time-outs.

Kicking, pulling hair, stepping on fingers and calling names all before 11am.

Can I go back to bed?

Lilly and her crayon lipstick

Spare bedroom/craft room decluttering!

I had big plans for rearranging my desk area (in the living room) that would allow me to work on my bows and sewing without it taking up any space in the spare bedroom. That didn't work out. It was too cluttered in the living room so I set up a temporary work station at the dining room table.

Uh... that was not the smartest idea I have ever had.

Oh what a mess it was. It was one of those messes that was SO bad, that when you heard a knock at the door, you only cracked it to see who it was. I took a picture with my cell phone to send to Chris and I think he nearly had a heart attack.

Y'all... it was B.A.D.

When he came home over New Years, I quickly shoved all my bow supplies into the spare room. Hey at least I could close the door and not look at the mess right?

Well until we have company at least. Which actually will be in about 2 weeks. Oops.

I don't have a before picture but this drawing is so dramatically life like that it's practically a professional photograph.

See... told you it looked real. Also please note the thickness of the walls is absolutely to scale.

Anyway, I have been working on this thing all week trying to get organized. I am to the point where I just want to throw stuff away or donate most of it. Which is a GOOD thing.

Chris is a pack-rat. I am kinda like a pack-mouse. Not as bad as the rat.. yet. I don't want to get as bad as the pack-rat. I do not want y'all seeing me on Hoarders anytime soon so tossing stuff out is a very good thing.

Y'all I had ribbon in my stash that was umpteen years old and guess what? It STILL had the plastic wrapper covering it. I never used any of it. Toss. Some crafter who stumbles on all my ribbon down at the Salvation Army Store is gonna be one happy person.

I have about 3 more hours of work to do in there but when I am done it is going to look so much better. I'll be sure and post an after pic!

I have BIG plans for the rest of the house too. Decluttered by the end of the weekend!

Not clean, just decluttered.

Forget horses, my kids ride zebras - Wordless Wednesday

The kids at the Zoo

Lilly doesn't like smiling. Obviously.

Sophie will smile on queue. Always.

Caitlin being silly. I think she may have broken the zebra. Don't tell the zoo. Kthx.

Watch out! Momma's cleaning house!

I have a post ready for today but I didn't like that it was another whiny post. I need to stop doing that!

I'm working on de-cluttering the whole house. It is a disaster!

We have an abundance of stuff which is a big reason why I have been whiny. I can't see how blessed we are because we have too much. I resent the stuff we have.

Seriously, we have TOO much JUNK.

Throwing away and donating feels so much better than looking at the stuff piling up.

I can already feel a huge weight being lifted from my shoulders.

and that is a GOOD thing :)

Sophie chatting with the stick in the t-ball holder. Gosh I love that kid.

Saturday with the kids

On Saturday I took the kids to the park for a picnic and some much needed play time. It was a GORGEOUS day outside and there was no way I was staying indoors!

I took my camera and made sure the battery was charged and do you know I didn't take one picture. We got to the park and started to eat when everyone decided they had to go potty. Figures. Luckily I had some diapers in the car so I slapped a couple on the little ones. I don't think they ever went in them though. Anyway we finished eating and then came straight home.

The park was packed and I don't think I would have been able to keep an eye on them both AND take pictures. We settled for our little neighborhood playground and they loved it just as much. Play time was cut a little short when Lilly got a splinter, but after all that running they were pretty worn out.

Back in December we drove down to St. Augustine to see the Night of Lights display they have. Oh my word it was packed. They had the main roads closed off so we couldn't even get close enough to take pictures. Lucky for me they keep the lights up until the end of January!

We decided to take a little ride down there Saturday night and look at the lights sans crowds and road blocks. This is definitely the way to do it! There was so little traffic, I was able to stop on the road and get some pretty good shots.

This was NOT one of them. :) I was going to delete this one but Caitlin likes how it looks, so it stays.

We were going to ride the carousel, but the sign clearly says no pets allowed.

Random Foto Friday

I recently found a disk containing some pictures from my husbands laptop.

I found LOTS of pictures I had forgotten about. I thought I would share some today.

Aren't you lucky? :)

I can't imagine why I never posted this picture. Isn't it lovely?

Chris likes to teach the girls to NOT be scared of bugs. Cause I am a big ol' chicken when it comes to creatures like this. 

Welcome to Jacksonville. 

Good thing they caught up to her. I was too busy taking pictures obviously. 

The first picture was zoomed in. Here you can see how far she ran from us. She's a fast little booger. 

 

Some restaurant Chris ate at while on the road.

Sunrise somewhere in the U.S. 

Sunset somewhere in U.S. I think this is somewhere in KY or TN. I know I have seen this cross before.

How's this for random. I have lots of pictures to go through. Chris has taken lots over the past year, but some just are too blurry.

New name, new stuff

I mentioned on Twitter the other day that I just made myself a new goal.

Blog everyday, even if it's just to say HI!

I neglected this blog for a while because with life changes comes blog changes. I started a new blog. This one was more personal. It was about my new life as a truckers wife. A truckers wife with 3 kids at home trying to used to their daddy being gone for 6 weeks at a time. Compelling stuff I tell ya.

My life suddenly went from organized couponer with a rock solid budget to a frazzled wife trying to keep it together in my day to day life. My life, in essence, took a complete 180.

I considered abandoning this blog and just keeping my other one since I wasn't really doing any heavy duty shopping. Chris was always the one to go get the papers on Sunday while I cooked breakfast. Sunday afternoons were spent playing with the kids while I matched, clipped and sorted the coupons. Now I just get a paper if I remember or I'll print out the occasional coupon from online.

I don't have a budget anymore. I don't know from one week to the other how much Chris will make. I actually just reinstalled some budgeting software last night in hopes to at least track where our money is going. We essentially have two households here. One at home and one on the road. Keeping track of expenses takes time and I have just been too lazy busy to do it.

The thought of putting my personal rant of being a truckers wife kinda worried me.

I ranted.

I complained.

I said thing I wouldn't normally say on my serious, budgeting blog.

I needed to get things off my chest and without anyone to talk to, the blog was my catch all.

I started thinking that maybe I should just start a new blog. A random, catchall blog that really had no meaning.

But after realizing how much work it would be to start all over much consideration, I decided to keep this blog and just transfer my other blog posts here. Hence the new look and name.

This will now be my place to share my real life. Both sides of me that were once separated online.

I may come across as negative. I really don't care. When your life does a back flip and suddenly your husband is gone for 6 weeks at a time and you have 3 kids to take care of on a wage so low that it would make your head spin, THEN you will see why I am the way I am.

I don't love the situation we are in at the moment, but aren't in this for the moment. We are in this for the long run. It will get better, but right now, I am just keeping it real.

And sometimes, real... sucks big time.

The honeymoon is over...

I should really stop saying nice things about who my husband works for. It bit me in the rear last year and it's about to do it again!

Let me just tell you about this.

Right before Chris came home at Thanksgiving he got a message over his Qualcomm letting drivers know about a bonus they were giving. The bonus was for anyone wanting to stay out on the roads over the Christmas holidays in exchange for $$. I knew we would be driving to my dads house and knew he wouldn't really want to spend his home time driving, so I said go for it!

He would be home for New Years and we get some extra cash! Yes please!

Well, now this is where is gets aggravating. Apparently while Chris was home in November, a message was sent out that the cutoff to get your name on the list for the bonus was December 1st. Since he was at home, he didn't get that message. When he contacted his dispatcher to change his home time, the guy made NO mention that it was past the cutoff time.

Chris stayed out at Christmas. Sat for nearly 3 days. For those of you that aren't truckers, when your truck is stopped, you don't make money. He doesn't get paid by the hour. There is no pay. Period.

Fast forward to last week. Chris called payroll to check on the Christmas bonus we thought he was getting. Payroll informed him that the bonus would be paid this coming week but that he should have gotten an authorization number from his dispatcher.

UGH.

Of course his dispatcher is playing dumb to the whole thing.

What is most upsetting to me is that not that the money, but rather that he missed Christmas with his kids. We celebrated when he got home of course, but it just wasn't the same. We made a sacrifice thinking it would be best for the family, but it feels like a big ol' slap in the face to me.

And because if you got to the end of this post without dying from boredom, you deserve a prize!

  

Yes I know this isn't a REAL prize. It's a store. But I thought it fit right into this post.

Back to the grind

I fully intended to have a blog post ready to publish while Chris was home but once again, my intentions were better than my actions. I get so wrapped up on when he will be home that my mind just kinda goes to mush about a week before he actually gets home.

He was scheduled to be home the Wednesday before New Years. He got home New Years Eve. That was cutting it close.

It's so nice to have him home. Everything just flows better. He is so even tempered and well... I'm not.

I know for certain I am a much better parent when he is around.

He was scheduled to go back out on Wednesday but on Tuesday he got a text message from his co-driver saying that his license was suspended. What's more is that it had been since the 15th of December! Oh my word.

Chris has been wanting a new co-driver for a while. The guy he is with should NOT be driving a truck. This bit of information was perfect! Surely he would be fired if the company found out his license was suspended. Not to mention he had just gotten into an incident at a truck stop where he hit another driver's trailer and ripped the hinges off the doors.

Yeah he shouldn't be driving.

So as of this moment, Chris is sitting in the safety department of his carrier explaining to them why he needs another co-driver. 

Road trip last week

We went to my dad's for Christmas again this year. Since Chris wasn't coming home until this week, it worked out great. We loaded up the car on Wednesday and set out for the 4.5 hour trip.

First stop... Chick-fil-a or as the little girls call it "flick-chi-lay"

I was teaching Caitlin how to use my good camera so the pictures taken in the car are from her.

We saw some really cool looking clouds on our way there. This one stretched out as far we could see. It was bright blue on one side and then white on the other. The clouds were so thin behind that puffy cloud that it looked bright white.

We were coming to the top of one of the many hills along the way and I saw a lot of smoke all of the sudden. Once we got to the other side we saw this.

And then this. The family did get out but I can't help but think about the panic that they must have felt. Notice the trunk is open. I hope they got all of their gifts out of the back so at least their kids had something to open on Christmas.

Scary. I had a car do that once. It's the scariest thing I have ever been through.

Sophie pretty much stayed like this the whole time.

While Lilly stayed like this. Constant motion. Always.

Salvaged picture. I forgot to change the settings from the night before and the picture was WAY off but I really like it in black and white.

Trucks picked up at the truck stop on the way.

They were on clearance so everyone got one.

I stepped on them approximately 1,357 times while we were there.

Sophie's boo boo from the mean concrete.

One of the many messed up pictures I took while we were there. I love this one though even if it looks terrible.