What Mamma Does Best

Surprise!

2012-01-26T20:52:00.000-08:00

My hubby got home today around 2ish and at 2:30 my son gets out of school. He thought it would be a good idea to pick up Texas from school and to take Marilyn with him to give me a 15 minute break. A break to do something just for me.
The moment he walked out the door with Marilyn I stood at the door for a couple of minutes not knowing what to do in my free time. I couldn't paint my nails, or take a bath, not enough time for those things. So what do I go and do? I walked to the bathroom and sit on the toilet without any interruptions. That's right, I took a poop without any little ones knocking on the door and I never saw any little fingers wedged under the crack of the door with little voices asking random questions. Honestly, I think that's the best way I could of spent my time alone.

Life Coming At Me Fast

2012-01-23T14:04:00.000-08:00

Dear Life,
I don't know what you are trying to do to me. You have me confused and I would like to do everything at my own pace. We were planing on having enough money to pay cash for a place in the next three months. I'm sick of being in an apartment and tired of paying a mortgage that we don't make a profit with the rent coming in. We've requested that all of our bonuses and our commissions be held so we could have a larger lump of cash to put into our new home. Who knows if we will get into a home.
Because my kids turn into klutz' when they are tired, the little miss knocked her teeth crooked. Her crooked teeth caused an unexpected dentist bill. On top of dentist bills I was having pains and that caused more unexpected bills.
Plans are changing constantly. We were not going to try to have another child until after we got into a house. The doctor gave the impression that it was a now or never thing and told me that I had to decide right then and there if I wanted another child. Am I being greedy that I'm ok to try to have a child in the nearer future? The later option might not be an option. We find out in three months if the nearer future is even in the books.
Life, please remember that we are not made of money and this is coming at me really fast. It feels like you are trying to break me. The past year has been rough enough. Life, please go back to a normal pace.

The Olive Garden

2012-01-21T21:49:00.000-08:00

For my birthday lunch I thought that cheap Italian food sounded good. What's better than the Olive Garden? So we packed up the kids and we all had lunch there. Now it's Marilyn's favorite restaurant. She loved that she was able to order mac and cheese with a side of grapes and an overload of carbs. When we were leaving she said, "Mom, I can't wait until we can go here again". Seriously? If she's really lucky I'll let her discover Fazoli's some day. Too bad it's about 50 miles away.
Olive Garden is one of the places that I don't go often because the food isn't that great. Every has one of those restaurants on their mind. You know, the one that you order something and think, "Why did I get this? I can make better at home". Honestly, all that I wanted was to dip breadsticks into their alfredo sauce. I's so ghetto and I know I can make sauce just as good (or better) at home but then I would have to do dishes. The birthday gift to me is that I'm getting a break.

During Marilyn's night time prayers she thanked heavenly father for Olive Garden, and then, one item at a time she preceded to thank he for everything that she ate there. I found it humorous. Her prayers are getting really long. I guess it's the age. She's still cute.

Following up on the TMI

2012-01-19T05:25:00.000-08:00

I had a doctors appointment and then another day I had an ultrasound and then I had a follow up doctors appointment so the doctor could tell me the results of the ultrasound.
Good news is that the doctor found a reason for my evil cramps. Yea, I have cyst but the doctor said that those really shouldn't bother me that much. He said that one of the of the main reasons for the pain is that both of my Fallopian tubes are dilated, inflamed, enlarged, what ever you want to call it. My left tube in a goner. It's so inflamed that if and when the inflammation goes down (if it does go down) it's not going to do it's job. My right tube may or may not last. More good news is that because I've been morally clean, I have a better chance of recovery.
Right now I get to take ibuprofen and birth control pills till the swelling goes down. If the swelling doesn't go down on the left side I have to get it removed. Boo.
This is making my baby making list longer and longer. So the next time we try to have a baby I need to have radioactive die shot through my Fallopian tubes to make sure they have a clear shot, I have to take thyroid medication, and get a Rhogam shot because my husband and I have different blood types. I guess the list isn't that long. It's just that we are one of the many without health coverage so paying that amount of money each time you might become pregnant is emotionally and financially draining. If my tubes are not clear, then we can have a family more like Madonna or Angelina Jolie. Maybe not as fancy as theirs buy you get my drift.
I am SO thankful that I have two beautiful and healthy children. I'll admit that I'm jealous of all of those ladies my age that have five or more children. My kids are to the point where they've started asking for another sibling. It's going to be a year+ process to get knocked up if I can. I just need to remember that god only gives you what you can handle. Those baby making ladies might be able to handle eight children, but I can only handle two and god knows that. See, even god knows how lazy I am lol.

TMI

2012-01-09T21:18:00.000-08:00

If it's too much for you to be reading anything about the gynecologist then I think you should stop reading right here and go to another blog. K, stop reading!
I guess I am letting all the other people that did keep reading all about my lady problems. The thing is that I get cramps so bad they make my puke. I hear people complain about how they have the worse crams ever and half of the time I don't believe them because they don't even look like they are in pain. Seriously? They are walking and talking, without a cold sweat or anything. I call bull shit on some peoples nasty lies!
Because I have these nasty cramps that make me exhausted to the point when I puke all over the place and I'm useless. My cramps are not just during that time of the month, they are all the time. Mother nature didn't get the memo.
Because of these nasty cramps, I decided to make an appointment with a doctor so he could tell me what is wrong with me. Guess what the doctor said? He said I have cramps. Just kidding. I have another appointment, and then a follow up appointment after I get test results back. He was going to give me some kind of prescription for horse tranquilizers. He said that they would knock me out and I wouldn't be able to operate a vehicle. I am getting to the point where Advil should start sponsoring me though.

Here's to a nap of Advil and horse tranquilizers! Good night interweb of information!

New Years Resolution

2012-01-07T17:31:00.000-08:00

I know that this is a little late. In the back of my head I say, "Ewe, I hate people that make New Years Resolutions when they know that they are going to break them" but in real sense their resolutions are goals.
Two years ago I made a resolution not to go to any buffets. I broke it in August. So that whole year I only went to one buffet.
This year I kind of have two goals. First one: I need to start couponing more. My husband wants this. Because I love him I guess I do it for him. He got so use to me spending less than $20 a week on food and toiletries. When he goes out he spends more; lots more. Just for Spencer, I started my extreme couponing again. Yep today I went to target and bought: two rolls of wrapping paper, four venus razors, a dozen eggs, eight cups of yogurt and a spin toothbrush for seven dollars out of pocket and then they gave me a five dollar gift card to spend later. Yeah! Two dollars for all of that. Ok, after all of that mumbo-jumbo, what I'm trying to say is that I need to keep it up, keep the fridge stocked, and I love always having toiletries on hand. It might be hard to take the time clipping all of the coupons but it saves so much on the things that we are already getting.
My other goal is to start eating better. Everyone says that! The details? I want to eat more fruit and veggies of course. Then I would also like to switch out some of the junk oils that I eat to some healthy oils. I am going to try to fill up more on those avocados, coconuts and fish. I am still going to eat fat because the lack of DHA oils can cause depression. No one likes a Jennifer that is down in the dumps. I'm just going to be eating less of the garbage like white bread and hamburger (beef is still ok). My biggest addiction is french fries. Going without a cheeseburger will not be hard. What will be hard is passing on those salty, greasy, hot french fries when my brain is telling me that the'll raise my serotonin. Yum, I love comfort food but the thing is that I need to switch the food out.
There you have it. Does anyone else have any interesting resolutions?

Christmas Time

2011-12-26T19:34:00.000-08:00

My kids were all syked about Christmas. Texas asked Santa for a blue Lightning McQueen and Marilyn asked for a pink one right after her brother request the blue one. She's mentioned that she wanted a Jessy doll, but she didn't dare to tell Santa what she really wanted to his face. It's funny what turns into their favorite gifts.
Texas got his Dinoco blue Lightning McQueen and Santa also got him one of those fancy ramps sets for his new Lightning McQueen to drive on but he was needing some new bedding so Santa gave him a Lightning McQueen bedding set that he got at Walmart on Black Friday (Santa had help from Auntie Phat). Texas cracks up when I take the pillow and hit him in the face and tell him that Fin McMissile keeps on crashing. "That Fin McMissile needs to learn how to drive!" He keeps on taking the blanket off his bed and he's ask me to cuddle. He's five so that's getting a little weird but I love him so I'll let it slide.
Marilyn's favorite Snow white shirt was getting too small so Santa got her a bigger one. On Christmas day she changed her outfit eight times (I counted). I think it was mostly because she wanted to try everything on. Instead of telling grandma and grandpa that she got a Jessy doll she told them that she got princess shirts. She wore each outfit for at least an hour and I think everything that she wore got some kind of goobers on it. Her happiness is giving me extra laundry. It's so worth the extra laundry.

It's Logical

2011-12-17T10:06:00.000-08:00

Me, "Miss Marilyn, are you wearing your brother's underwear?"
It's clear that she is wearing boys undies under her shorts. You can clearly see the band of the undies because her pants are always fall down because of the lack of a behind that I genetically passed down to her.
Marilyn says. "No, these are not his underwear".
Then I say, "Who's underwear are they then?"
Marilyn replys, "These are my underwear 'cause they had a two on them".
Checked the size and they are a size 2T. I guess they are too small for her brother and I should of boxed them up. Texas wears a size six. I never boxed them up she grabbed them out of the laundry pile and put them on because she was out of panties. She was out of panties because she's been preoccupied with playing. Texas' briefs fit better than her baggy panties. Maybe she should wear her brothers underwear every day. I'll be giggling about this every time she bends over and instead of seeing her little plumbers crack I see those tractor underwear.

Dear Santa

2011-12-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa,
There are some helper Santas that are better than others. Let me start off with the ones that my children do not like. They notice when Santa says "Next" right after the last child's picture was shot. They really do not like the Santas that look at the parents right after the child says what they want and then they make a comment to the parent. The kids want your attention. Please do not turn to me and ask, "Do they really make those things?" or "Lets get real, does your kid really want that?". Once you do this my children will start screaming or pouting. Why do they start throwing a fit? Because they can hear you. They now think that Santa doesn't want to give them what they want for Christmas.
The good Santas: Bass Pro has some of the best Santas. They greet the children with, "Oh I've been waiting for you". They complement my kids outfits even though my kids picked out their clothes (and it's obvious that they did pick out their outfits). They act as if they know the child with the strange comments like "I think you've grown a little sense last year". When the child ask for a odd gift, they simply say, "I'll have to ask if my elves can make that for you" or "That's a very rare toy". They excuse the children with something to remember him like, "Be good and I get you that (super rare toy)" or "I hope you come and visit me next year". These things really make a big difference.

This is the FIRST time that I've seen both of my kids with pleasant faces talking to Santa. A week earlier we saw the mall Santa. With the mall Santa, Marilyn was screaming and Texas has a somber face and looked like he wanted to leave.

Most of our other Santa pictures are like this.

I Must be Effing Crazy!

2011-10-30T18:48:00.001-07:00

I decided to take the drive from Houston, Texas to Salt Lake City, Utah without my husband. I have never done a trip this far without any help. I'm thinking that I will have to stop half way and get a hotel.

WHAT!

2011-10-22T05:38:00.000-07:00

I took Texas to the dentist the other day. He has a mouth full of cavities. I'm serious, he has ten cavities! What's the point of me buying him a toothbrush every other month if he's not going to use it? It's going to cost about 2 grand to get his teeth fixed.
On top of all of this we are paying for Texas' private school, we are planing on going to Utah for Thanksgiving, we still need to go Christmas shopping and I would like to send out Christmas cards but who knows if that will happen.
Ugh, I hate it when money gets tight like this. We wrote out a budget and I need to scrounge up a few hundred dollars to make ends meet or we'll have to cancel going out to Utah all together. I'm thankful that it's not a few thousand dollars that we have to scrounge up but still, I should be thankful that my husband and I know math.

Musubi

2011-10-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

I love this Hawaiian favorite. I have people asking how to make it so here it goes.

Look how yummy and delicious it looks!

This is what you'll need:
Sticky rice
Nori: The seaweed on the outside
Spam- save the can
Furikake: The rice seasoning
Optional:
Teriaki sauce
A squirt bottle with water
Scissors
A rice cooker

Here's what you do:

First make the sticky rice. It doesn't matter to everyone what kind of rice you use. The trick to make sticky rice is to rinse it well. Rinse it until the water comes out clear. I don't use a colander, I pour water in the dish that I'm going to cook in, stir it with my hand and then dump out the foggy water.
I do not measure my rice with a measuring cup. I know people that do. The way that I measure is by sticking my finger in the water and the rice, the rice should hit the first knuckle and the water hits the second knuckle. I use a rice cooker so I can just walk away from the and not worry about it burning.

Shake the spam out of the can. I slice my spam so it's in the same shape of the top of the can. Grill it in a frying pan. Some people put teriaki sauce on the spam but I think the spam it too salty to add something even more salty in addition.

Slice the nori into 1/4 sheet strips. I use scissors to cut mine into strips.

Get a bowl and mix some furikake with your rice. If your rice is sticking to everything the trick is to use water. Have a squirt bottle of water on hand.

Use your Spam can as a mold. Spray the can that you are using for a mold with a mist of water to prevent sticking and then press the rice in until it's firm.

In this order, lay the nori down, then place the spam in the middle of the nori, then shake the rice out on top of the spam. Then take both ends of the nori and wrap up the rice and spam. Flip over your creation and now you have some musubi. Nom Nom Nom!

I love to wrap up musubi in cellophane and take it as a snack <3 It's good eating!

Wordless Wednesday!

2011-10-05T20:45:00.000-07:00

Do You Remember?

2011-10-05T20:38:00.000-07:00

Do you remember when you were in high school and you hung out with those girls that told you that you couldn't wear flower prints or you couldn't wear your hear in a low ponytail because it made you look too "little house on the prairie"? Trust me it was for my own good. Now, do you remember making the voodoo doll with the photo booth picture of the guy that used your for benefits? Do you remember what happened when that voodoo doll lost it's arm and you taped it back on?
I think karma is coming to get me! I can't afford to look super nice. The school that I put my son in is full of all of these super done up Stepford Wives, and then there's me: super frumpy. I need a honest friend that will tell me what I can and shouldn't leave the house in. We all know that you shouldn't leave the house in sweats, and caution wearing flip flops. I WEAR FLIP FLOPS ALL THE TIME. I need a stylist too. One that will play with my hair in the evening just for fun and it might be purple, but it's better than boring mousy brown.
I have two children and whenever dad goes out of town they feel like the rules have just gone out the window. Seriously, my son only had FOUR hours of sleep max last night. He was driving me insane. I need sleep too. Because he's five he was constantly crying and tattling. It was overwhelming. Because of the lack of sleep I didn't let him go to school and I wanted him to stay home so he could get some more sleep. It's not fair for his teachers to put up with a child that is going to constantly throw fits throughout the day.
Ugh, my head hurts. I think someone is pushing pins into the head of the voodoo doll that they've made of me.

Cleaning Cheater

2011-09-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

A short update: It was taking forever to close on the house so we withdrew our offer and we are now in an apartment. We are NO LONGER HOMELESS!

I wanted to let everyone know how I cheat with housework. I told some of the moms that I stick my kids lunchbox in the dishwasher when it gets too dirty and they were shocked. One of the moms the next day said that she tried it and it worked. I also put plastic toys in the dishwasher and I put dirty hats in there. Here are some more of my household cheats:

How I "mop" my floors: To tell you the truth I really don't mop. I keep my floors clean by sweeping first and then getting some good ol' kitchen cleaner in a spray bottle, squirting it all over the floor, then getting hose from the sink and spraying the floor down. Then I wipe up all of the wet soapy water with the mop or a old towel. I ring out the mop in the sink and I rinse it off in there. There is no need for a bucket with this methood.

To clean counters: I sweep all of the crumbs into the sink and then use that handy dandy kitchen spray to disinfect.

For your dining room, breakfast or kitchen table: Invest in some vinyl from the fabric store. It cost about $3 a yard and will save you time and the finish on your table top. The clear stuff is easy to clean and you can put a nicer tablecloth under it. It might look cheesy but it works.

Vacuuming: invest in a stick vacuum and let your kids fight over who gets to vacuum their room. Do not let the kids touch the other vacuum. The big vacuum is off limits because it's yours. This will motivate them to want the vacuum.

Voila! The time you spent reading this you can still have time to go and clean with my cheater tips. You're welcome!

Limbo

2011-08-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

So we are in limbo right now with our house. We were pre-approved for our home loan and as of friday they wanted to pull a bunch of tricks and wanted seven differnt letters explaining where the money in our checking account came from. That was on Friday, on Wednesday they wanted five different letters. Seriously? They were demanding all sorts of weird stuff: check stubs and invoices and letters from companies that gave us money in the past who knows how many months. Because of this they had to extend our closing date again and I don't even know when the next closing date is. Good thing it wasn't just us that helped extend the closing date. The owner of the home didn't have all of the receipts in for the repairs on the house and he turned those in right before 5pm. I had all of my letters in before 10am. The morgatge company requested this stuff on Thursday night. Goodness gracious, I'm not sure if all of their request are lagit. We have our hotel until tomorrow because that is what the second closing date that was given us was. The 31st is tomorrow.
I called my realtor and asked her if all of these demands were normal. She said it wasn't. I got a print out of all of the hotel receipts to show the underwriters. I'm thinking that they don't believe that we are living out of hotels. The mortgage company wants every check that we have written in the past six months that is over $200. Can you see how this is stressful? We have given them everything that they have asked for and now we are waiting to hear back. They could say no and if that's the case we'll just get an apartment. Or they could say that they need more paperwork. I'm hoping that they will push everything through.

Kindergarten

2011-08-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

My son started school on Monday. I really don't have a clue about where the time went so don't ask me that one. I want everyone to be prepared that the first day of school is not the same for every kid. Here is the update:
When dropping my son off on his first day I was hoping that he would act like he would miss me. He put his backpack on his hook, his lunchbox in his cubby and his water bottle on his little shelf and he told me that it was time for me to go. He was not choked up and he didn't act excited. It was like he's done this all before.
After school he acts tired and hungry. Why? I think it's because he's talking the whole time at lunch time and only eats two bites of his lunch.
Texas wants to go to school. He says that it's fun. If I ask him what his friend's names are he says that he doesn't know, but then later on he'll say a name and something about them. For example, "David is funny", or "Samantha says that I'm a gentleman". So he knows the names but doesn't want me asking questions.

His teachers (yes teachers, he has two: Mrs Pate and Mrs Bruins) say that he's doing great in class. I'm afraid that he's being a class clown or maybe a bully. I think that's just me being a paranoid parent. We'll see how the rest of the year goes.

Modest Clothing

2011-07-24T10:06:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else have trouble finding modest little girl clothing? My girl is two and it seems like it is close to impossible to find modest summer clothes. Everything is sleeveless, too short or bears the belly.

I kid you not, this is a toddler swim suit from the Gap.

Who are we trying to raise? It's getting harder and harder to find clothes for my daughter.

I Can Coupon Without Even Trying!

2011-07-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

I went to Target without any coupons. I wanted drinks, some good chocolate, ice cream and my favorite gum.

I got:
Juice boxes
2 2 letters of soda
A thing of ferrero rocher
A think of chocolate covered bing cherries
A box of klondike bars
2 boxes of wheat thin sticks
and a three pack of my dentine pure gum.

Wow, that shopping list you can tell what time of the month it is for me. That aside, I thought it was going to cost about 20 dollars. I found some peely coupons and I snagged them. I waked off with all of that for less than 14 dollars and then I have 10 dollars in coupons for a future trip. Not too shabby for not clipping any coupons.

Can you tell that I am going insane without all of my coupons? One more month or so and I can have all of my newspapers again!

Long Day = Good Day

2011-07-21T23:45:00.000-07:00

I had one of those super long days where you think you will never be able to fit everything in. Today went really well believe it or not. I guess today is more of a journal entry. There is always a first for everything.

To start off with, I re-signed the papers for the house bright and early at 8am. The owner said that he will cover all of the repairs that my inspector finds. That sounds awesome.

We went to a church potluck. Because we do not have a stove we brought some Domino's pizza. The 8 minutes that they told me that it would take to cook turned into 25. Oh well, when we got to the potluck there were still people there. The kids loved seeing friends and being able to run about a play. There was a girl there from the same town in California that I had to get out of. Her parents still live there, but she needed out too. I'm not the only one that has to escape California.

I was able to stop off at the post office to mail off a few packages.

My hubby wanted me to call some of the private schools in the aria to see if we could get Texas in. I called the number one place on my list there was someone there! I was able to hurry over and get a tour. I think I found Texas his school. I should go and look at some of the other schools. But then this school is super close to the house too.

We were able to fit a nice nap in. It was one of those naps where I didn't want to wake up because I was so comfortable. I am sure everyone knows what I'm talking about. The kids woke up so I had to wake up too. Ugh... just four more hours.

We ate dinner outside at Sonic drive in. It was perfect weather. It wasn't sticky outside and it wasn't chilly. It was the kind of weather that you can sleep outside without any blankets kind of weather.

All day long I got some cute text messages from my cute little sisters.

I checked my email. I got one email from a site that I ordered some five dollar swim trunks for Texas on, saying that they had to cancel that one item. They gave me back my five dollars and gave me a $10 shopping credit for me to keep shopping with them. I like that.
Another email that I got was from Etsy. They are showcasing one of my items:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/Njk2NjEwM3w0NzkwMzY2MDE/dinosaur-love

Happy Dance!

Now it time to go to the Land of Nod. I wish every day had just all of the ups. *Yawn*, Good night everyone.

Rocky Start

2011-07-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Who does this happen to? I have never heard of someone withdrawing a written housing contract after it's accepted, but yet this morning it happened to me. On Friday they accepted, today is Monday and they're changing their minds because they want an extra three grand. Now we have the privilege of doing the paperwork all over again.
I tried to call Spencer to cry about it but he had to hurry off the phone because one of the work trucks was stolen. Seriously? My husband can't work today because some tard thought it was a good idea to steal his work truck.

The kids packed a picnic so we are going to try to make this day better. I'm not sure if muscle milk and jello pudding is a good lunch, I think we do a drive through.

Little Heart Breaker

2011-07-18T06:26:00.000-07:00

Marilyn broke down in tears yesterday when her Daddy was leaving to catch his flight. He told me that she's a little heart breaker and he wanted to take her with him. She's the hardest part about leaving on trips. Spencer also asked me if I put her up to it.
Both of the kids would love to go on business trips with dad. A couple weeks ago Texas packed all of his bags and told me he was ready to go to the airport. That little boy was serious and thought all that he needed to do was pack his bags and then he was all ready to catch his plane.

Naive

2011-07-17T22:42:00.000-07:00

Has a person ever told you that you were naive for saying something in a sarcastic tone. The reason that you used the sarcastic tone in the first place was so you could get away with being down right rude. In your head you were serious and they don't see it. They don't want to see the seriousness in it. They'll call you naive because they think that you don't understand what they are going through but you have been there so many times and you wish that they would be able to understand that they are not the only ones that have been through crap in their lives. Maybe a big kick in the balls will show them the way? Who am I kidding? These people are the "woe is me" kind of people that you can NEVER make happy. You'll just keep on running around in circles, stressing yourself out because you are putting all of the energy in to making things right but not getting anything in return. It's a bad investment.
These kinds of people get depressed often. You can try to say things that they want to hear, but that's not going to help them in the long run. These people need to find their purpose in life. I believe that everyone is here for a reason. Everyone is here for a good reason. A reason to make the world a better place.
Ugh, it's so selfish of them to do crap like this. Get on with your life, stop blaming others for your crappy life, and do something about it. The best thing to do is to try to make someone else's life better instead of moping around telling us how shitty your life is.

No ones life is perfect. Right now people comment on how "things must be hard" for us. For heavens sake, we are living out of a hotel! Two kids, and a mom in a single hotel room for three going on four months. I'm thankful that my kids are young and my husband loves me. For sure it's a pain because we all have cabin fever. We'll live though.
Something else, I'm terrible because I feel like I can relate to the women on "Desperate Housewives". They have the same drama that I do. Dear ABC, If you could see my crazy family, your ratings would go through the roof! I think all of my family could agree with this so it shouldn't be offensive.

I just wanted to get this off my chest because this kind of things eats at me. I had to work hard for everything that I have. Nothing was handed to me on a silver platter. I know that the person didn't mean to offend me but I was a little bit crushed.

An Update On Myself

2011-07-16T06:39:00.000-07:00

I thought things were turning around and they are. After three months of being homeless in a hotel someone took our (fourth) offer on a house and I think it will pass inspections. The house hasn't had any updating and it was built in the 70's. The house was taken good care of so the house doesn't smell, it's just really outdated. When I say outdated I mean that the house has some vintage mustard yellow and orange shag carpet that doesn't coordinate with the baby blue walls.

The kids are growing. Texas isn't growing very fast. He was a big one year old but now all of the other kids are catching up to him in size. Texas is five years old but wears a size six. We had to buy him some new shoes because his other shoes he out grew. I spent some money to get him some school clothes. I let him pick out all of the clothes. He picked out graphic tees and shorts. There were no pants that he wanted or any other kind of shirts. Luckily I had gymbucks from Marilyn's clothes so I was able to afford a few outfits for Texas. $30 for four outfits isn't too shabby.
Marilyn is the one that I had to go and spend money on clothes for. It seemed like she sprouted overnight. I had to get her a whole new wardrobe and some new shoes . The only shoes that were fitting her were her rainboots and rainboots do not count as Sunday shoes.
Because I'm cheap spending 100 dollars gives me a headache. But then I wanted to buy her overpriced dresses that I would see while window shopping. I passed all of those overpriced dresses up because that money could be going to the house or to a trip to see family.

My sister out in Utah wants to sell some cloth diapers at a fair in Logan. I told her ok. I don't have a clue how many diapers to send out there. So far I've sent 24. but then with 24, two people can buy her out and then there will be no more diapers. I would like to get some wetbags and some wipes out to her. With how long the takes I think wetbags are not going to happen. She also said that she would sell some of the bows that I've made. I would like some hard numbers for what she would like but I asked her and her response was "I don't know". After I get some more money in my paypal account I think I'm going to send some more diapers over.

I've been in a painting mood. That's really random. All last night I was thinking of how I want to paint. I want to smell the fumes of acrylic paint. I want to feel the paint go on the brush and the feel of the paint glide over a canvas. I miss painting and I crave it. I know some people think of any kind of painting as a chore. It's stress relieving if you do it at the right time. If it's forced, it's not going to help and you can see the stress in the art. At least I can see the stress and it bothers me. I should be an art critic. I'm no good at design though. Well, I shouldn't say no good, there are people out there that are better than I am. So... does anyone want a cheap portrait or four cheap portraits lol?

Turning Around

2011-07-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

Things are staring to turn around. As everyone knows I've had the worse of luck. Seriously, we tried to put an offer on a house that was available sense January and there was a offer put in two hours before I called. Of course I cried about it.
I had to choose the ER or running to the supermarket for super glue to use for stitches in the middle of the night. Yes, now that I look at how hectic toddler energies can be it's now a little bit funny if I think of all of the peoples faces seeing me holding a two year old that is holding gauze to her nose and me asking where the super glue is. Before the accident she thought it was funny pretending that she had no arms until she crashed into the corner of the bed and split open her nose. I took a picture (and now I can't find it), but now after four days and a good job of gluing her nose back together it's healing well.

Hey, Guess what? Great news! My luck is turning around.

The picture was taken on the 3rd. Texas isn't wearing his tie because he dipped it in the peed toilet water. He cracks me up. They are doing a silly pose because they are pretending to be super heroes.

The Independence Day holiday was lots of fun thanks to my sister in law Melanie. She went to a parade with us and we went over to her house for the kids to run in the sprinklers, to eat lunch and dinner. Then at night I left her hanging and we went up and saw some fireworks. I forgot to charge and take my camera but she was nice enough to snap a couple of pictures for me.

Today Texas lost his first tooth!

He was a little bit in shock because he doesn't have any friends with teeth missing. He started to cry when I was taking the picture. He thought that his tooth fell out because he wasn't brushing his teeth well enough. I told him a new tooth would grow in it's place and the tooth fairy would give him a dollar when he's sleeping. The tears disappeared, he took a nap. I had to walk to the hotel's front desk to get the "tooth fairy" a dollar. When he woke up, the first thing he did was look under that pillow. He was excited. And because he took a nap I was able to make some bow clips. Two birds with one stone ;)

I won something! I can't ever think of a time that I won a drawing. I've won awards but that's different. Awards you have to work for. Can you guess what I won? . . . Um, I'll tell you: I won a cloth diaper! I thought I won a swim diaper but I looked and they have two contest going. I guess I'm wining "fun gift packs including wipes, wipe cubes, pail pals, diapers and more". About time for me to try some cloth wipes. Oh, Monkey Doodlez made my day!
I called my husband super excited and he acted like I was wasting his time by calling him to tell him "this" kind of good news. He was hoping that I had better news (like me getting our dog back or me finding a house). It's still good news in my book.

I'm going to look at more house on Thursday. I don't want to jinx myself but I hope I find something. Thing are looking like they are turning around. The past couple days have been good.

Business Trips

2011-07-02T07:03:00.000-07:00

My husband is out of town again. He goes out of town often and doesn't like me to tell people because he doesn't want the world to know that I am home alone.
I know it's nothing new that he's out of town. The thing is that I don't know a lot of people out here and people don't really know my schedule. It's boring and lonesome. I know this is the guy that I married. Normally I would only see him on the weekends. It's been different lately. Now it's more of him leaving on the weekends and me seeing him one night every other week. So I see him maybe one day out of two weeks.
Why am I pointing this out? I am pointing this out because I am jealous of all of the families that have their husbands deployed and have a support group. I don't have that and I never will have some nice support group that I can run too when I'm having a hard time. I think I see my husband a smaller percentage of the time than military families. Yes, I see my husband about 40 days out of the year, every year. Most of those days are on holidays. I'm jealous that they give the military time to call their family often. Once they get home, they can stay home as long as they want. He would be less likely to be killed in war. I worry that he'll get in a car accident with all of his driving.
I miss all my California friends that knew my schedule. I thrive on playdates. I realized before The kids were doing four playdates a week. Those things were keeping my sanity.
He's been gone for a week and now I am counting down until next week when I get to see him again and send him off again.

Dibs

2011-06-30T19:26:00.000-07:00

I'll be honest and I don't do too many of the proud parent picture post because I don't want people stalking my kids. I guess this is my first one.

I caught Marilyn hiding in the corner with a tub of ranch. I told her that she couldn't finger dip because she was suppose to share. She so called dibs on the ranch. "It's not my fingers Mamma!"
Go figure. I've had lots of days like this with Texas. He's more creative. I think I've mentioned long days with him before. I love my silly and creative kids.

Teaching Texas to Count

2011-06-28T16:27:00.000-07:00

My husband told Texas that if he could count to 20 with out any help he could have desert for dinner. He can do it if he's looking at numbers and I point to each number. He figured out how to count to ten by the time he was about two. His little sister can count to 20 (but she can't read the numbers) so we thought it would be fair that Texas learns how to count.
I feel like Texas is delayed scholastically because he doesn't show an interest in numbers or letters. He only knows how to write "Tex" out for his name. Most of the time when he makes me a card it's a bunch of "i"'s, "o"'s, "m"'s, and "t"'s. He's great at coloring and art. Most 18 month toddlers can not color within the lines, yet Texas could. Texas has always said that "Marilyn draws fire", because she scribbles. Most toddlers scribble. But now that Texas is five I think he should be able to write his name and count to 20.
We did a co opt preschool last year. Texas is the only kid out of the bunch that can't read. Can you figure out what he would do with the worksheets? He would color in the pictures and doodle in the margins. He's not suppose to be rebelling like this until high school!
Does anyone have any pointers for me to help my child learn to read and write?

Her Own Style

2011-06-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

Marilyn is two. She is stubborn. She is a little bit spoiled. She wants to dress herself each and every day with out any help from mom or dad. She throws tantrums if she doesn't get her way. She's two.
She is getting to the point where I let her pick out parts of her outfit everyday. She has her own unique style. She loves the bright colors. She likes all of the cartoons that her and her brother watch together (no problem). She wants shirts with characters from these shows. Lots of the shows are retro shows. The question is how am I going to find a girly shirt with Heman on it? Oh the joys that you don't think of before having girls.
Girls are more emotional. Miss Marilyn has started crying because Texas has more friends, because they don't make dinosaur shirts for girls, because she can't pee standing up. Seriously, my son would just brush it off if I said something like "No Texas, that's only for girls".
I felt like it was time to let Marilyn pick out the clothes that I buy for her instead of picking out the clothes that are clean and coordinating an outfit for her. So I had a few websites to pick from: Disney, Gymboree, Crazy 8, and Janie and Jack. I honestly liked a dress at Janie and Jack and was hoping that she would pick that one. I thought that she would pick Disney, but she didn't: she picked Gymboree.

Out of all of the pink dresses that she could of picked these were her two favorites. She was all sorts of excited to get her blue dresses.
This is the dress that I wanted her to pick. I may cave in and get it anyways. It's really cute.

This is the kind of character stuff that I thought she was going to pick. They didn't have any Jessie from Toy Story, She Ra, or any Snow White so she didn't want any of it.

I thought that she would like these kind of dresses because she rotates through three shirts: her dinosaur shirt, her dragon shirt, and a Halloween shirt. I know that her style isn't too girly but it's her own.
-Texas' fashion is his rainboots, some shorts and a yellow shirt. He wears that almost every day. He's simple. Marilyn is complex.

Busy, Wishing It Was a Different Kind Of Busy.

2011-06-20T07:50:00.000-07:00

I have been so overwhelmed with everything going on.
I dumped my realtor and got a new one because of our housing situation. With our new realtor we put an offer on a house but the house failed the inspection. So today we get to start all over again with the house hunting.
As everyone should know I am sick of being in the hotel. My kids are sick of it too. Both of my kids need to get out and play with friends. It got to the point the other day that Marilyn started crying because she thinks that she doesn't have any friends. She was bawling.
Something that I thought wasn't going to happen as a result of living in a hotel: I truly miss chores. I miss vacuuming, I miss having a kitchen, I miss cooking, baking and dishes, and I miss having a washer and dryer.

Ebay is going ok. It's still hard because I have to pick up everything from our PO box and I only have so much space to store everything. I can't list as many items on ebay because I I only have so may items on hand at a time.
This hotel has issues. We pay by the week but every so often something happens. The water is turned off, a bag from our room goes missing, our dog gets taken away, computer glitch in their system and they want to charge us an extra 600 dollars for our 200 dollar a week room. I really want to yell at someone about this. FYI, we are at the Ramada by the Bush air port. Most of the time that I complain about something to the front desk they act like it's not their problem. I seriously don't want to be here, an extra 600 dollars can break us and we'll have to stay in the hotel longer. Both the hotel and I do not want that.
Good news: Today I will be looking at houses again. I hope that we find something good. We need lots and lots of prayers.
I feel naive at times for up and leaving California. We gave our other realtor months before we came out here to help us find a place. We had renters lined up to rent our house. We did everything in the right order so I though. Texas will save us money in the long run. The people out here are nicer. I miss my friends out in California. You can never have too many friends. Texas starts school in the fall and the schools are better out here (but that's not hard to do). There are so many good things about being in Texas. I think I just need to breathe and let everything fall into place.

I Love Mondays!

2011-06-11T11:22:00.000-07:00

Just a part of my conversation with my realtor:
Me: "Tomorrow is Sunday, AKA the Sabbath for us so take a break from hearing from us and we'll start everything up again on Monday. I think I'm the only one that likes Mondays. Mondays are good days for me."
Her: "Alright girl that sounds good... Monday appreciates you...because you are the only who likes it! Haha"

Ok, I did get a new realtor and she's awesome. And I really do like Mondays. Good things happen to me on Mondays. Yes, Mondays are busy and hectic, but the at the end of the day Monday is always good to me. I look back at the day and think, "Wow, I got so many things accomplished today". Mondays are never boring. Stressful they may be, boring hardly ever.
Sundays are lazy, and Tuesdays are sometime busy but they never seem as good as Mondays. Monday has a bad reputation. Maybe I like bad reputations. Oh, I can't wait until Monday.
I tried to find some clip art for loving Mondays. All of the pictures were sarcastic. More "blah, it's Monday again", instead of "It's the first of the week", or "get-ur-done, it's Monday". So of the clip art was showing pictures of people loving Mondays because everyone else is miserable. Common now? No fun clip art for Monday.
Oh, Oh! It it weren't for Monday, God wouldn't of created light. God does have good ideas. He started the whole project on a Monday. Mondays are just a start of a good thing.

There you have it. I Love Mondays and you can't do anything about it!

FYI: Depressing Housing Situation

2011-06-05T13:26:00.000-07:00

We are still in a cramped hotel room. It's been a couple months. I've been driving around in circles and calling every for sale by owner sign and my realtor isn't on the ball.
If he doesn't want to show me houses tomorrow I am going with another realtor. All of the post that say that they will take pets, my realtor says that he called and the person listing the house says otherwise. Seriously!?!? I am tired of this run around. I do most of the work trying to find the place's anyways. Most of the time I drive my butt to the place myself and look at it from the outside because he has something else going on. If he wants this job, he needs to work for it. That's why it's called work. I have another lady that wants to be my agent and she is already doing backflips and I just ran into her while I was taking myself to look at homes.

This is what I want in a rental: A place that is cheap but it has enough space for all of us and will take pets. Minimum: Two bedrooms, one bath, one living area.
If we rent and have low rent, we will be able to pay cash for a lot, and slowly start building. In the state of Texas they will let you do one thing at a time instead of doing everything at once. It might be us building a mother in law cottage first and living in that for a while and then building a standard home later on. But the dream of having a home that is paid for is a big dream of mine.
I am thankful that my mother pushed us to finish our basement to save money because I learned some useful skills (even though my mother's basement was ghetto). I feel like I can do most of the aesthetic work on my own and have someone do the electrical and the plumbing (the expensive stuff. Owch).

Spencer and I can not agree on a place to live. I know he wants land, but all of the places that we have looked at they are overcharging. He would like a house, but again, if you want two good things on one lot, it's going to cost you. So we can get a lot with a trailer for 70 thousand, but across the street the house is going for over 300 thousand. We can't get a VA loan and a construction loan, it has to be one or the other. If we do get a construction loan, we can't move in until the house is finished. The VA loan the house needs to be in livable condition.
A vacant lot is running about 30 thousand, but then you need to clear it and that cost about 25 thousand dollars and then you need to put a septic tank in the ground, there's another 5 grand, and a well, another 5 grand. Life is unfair.

For right now I am going to count my blessings. We are out of California. We have renters in our house out there. We are able to afford to stay in a hotel. My husband is working hard to grow the company and I love him for taking care of our little family and many other reasons.

Hidden Talents

2011-06-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

Marilyn has a hidden talent. She will not have a runny nose, but she will get the biggest eye boogers ever! Most kids get a runny nose, right? Not her, it goes strait to her eye ducts, swells up her eyes for a few days and she'll get massive eye boogers. I've never seen eye boogers this big before! Seriously, they are like the boogers that my son picks out of his nose when he has a head cold. They are that BIG!

Acne

2011-05-30T14:21:00.000-07:00

My face is breaking out like I'm 15 again. I am sure that it's a combination of stress and diet that is doing this. I have so many stress factors so I think I'm not even going to start telling you what they are. See, I am not telling you any of my drama. This is the only time that this is going to happen.

Stupid Thyroid

2011-05-25T17:48:00.000-07:00

My thyroid is acting up. My fingers are all fat. My hair seems to be falling out like crazy and it's starting to look like I am balding. My muscles are sore. I have Charley horses. I think the reason for my skin being itchy is because all of my peach fuzz is brittle and giving me little tiny ingrown hairs all over my body or that my body is finally rejecting body hair. On top of all of these little things it feels like someone is choking me because my thyroid is a little bit enlarged. It doesn't look different in the mirror, it just feels like it.
I guess I feel better than I did a couple weeks ago when I had the flu. I'm just feeling run down. Thanks for letting me vent.

Dinosaur Shirts Coming Out My Ears

2011-05-23T20:04:00.002-07:00

I made a shirt for my daughter and I posted it on facebook. Now I am getting request for shirts. Some of the shirts are coming super cute.
The one with the tiara needs some fixing but other than that all of the shirts are cute.

My Tap Water Smells Funny

2011-05-22T22:07:00.000-07:00

This might be one of the weirdest things you have ever heard but when I'm pregnant tap water sets me off. My husband thinks it's a riot that I can't even wash my hands throughly, because when I try I start gagging and puke in the sink.
What I'm trying to get at is that the water at this hotel stinks. The water was turned off a couple weeks ago and I can not handle the smell of the tap water. Maybe my nose is super sensitive? Or maybe it's that the water smells funny. I am 99.8% sure that I am not pregnant. Yes, I do dry heave when I get a whiff of the smell of the water here. I can't describe the smell to a point. It's a dusty smell not like the smell of rain or an air conditioner. I like the smell of air conditioning with a brand new clean filter. Do you want to hear a secret? I think I get the air filter changed on my car every other oil change just because I like the smell. Gosh, I am weird. The water still smells funny, how do you fix that?

Giving In

2011-05-20T19:05:00.000-07:00

So about a week ago I was saying how good I was for not spending money on clothes for my daughter. Now this week my husband points out that all of the pants that she has are too small. Go figure.
We put an offer on a house but they excepted someone else's offer. It was crushing that we didn't get the house that we wanted. I loved the lot. The house was so much better than our California house.
Because we didn't get the house we are able to spend a little bit. Marilyn will be able to get some pants that don't flood. Because I have been selling on eBay I was able to use my Palpal account to transfer money and it won't seem like any money is missing out of our checking account.

Tomorrow we start a background check for renting an apartment. We are sick of living out of hotels. The apartment wants a six month lease. The last time we rented we were put through the ringer. I dislike renting but we need some more room to breathe.
In the meantime we hope to save up enough money to pay cash for a lot, and cash for a house. I guess this is just wishful thinking.

Q&A:

2011-05-17T17:54:00.001-07:00

Why do so many white people adopt black babies?

Seriously I have people ask me this question. Both of my kids are mine. The question has only been asked by black people. It's weird.

Answer: Black babies are way cuter than white babies. There! I said it!
Most people that adopt out of their race would love any child that will come into their family. Be honored!

Refrain From What?

2011-05-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

I don't know if any one else has this problem, when I get a really good coupon in my email I want to use it. The other day Gymboree sent out 30% off coupons and they are having their earn gymbucks promotion: when you spend 50 you get a coupon of $25 to spend later. I have to be honest and that coupon is calling my name.
I found this cute little dress that Marilyn would like and some shirts that Texas would like. Right now both of my kids have boxes of clothes that are in storage and the clothes fit them. We are also living out of a hotel with out a shipping address and pinching our pennies for the new house that we get. So I did what's best and told myself not to buy the cloths no matter how much they would like them.
I feel like because I did this I am a better person, even if everyone does this same kind of thing every day.
Some of the money that I didn't spend went to supply me with diapers (I am running really low but last week people bought over $400 worth. Sad that my supply is so low, low like 20 diapers when I normally have about 100, happy for all of the cloth bums!). Some of the other money wen't to the house fund.

Wish us luck on everything!

I Miss Him

2011-05-08T20:58:00.001-07:00

My husband has been working some crazy long hours the past few week. Normally he works about 70 hours which is above average. I love that he is willing to work so hard for our family. Right now every braking second that he is awake he is working.
Because he's been working so hard I didn't get to have him around for Mother's Day. I am cooped up with two children in a little hotel for Mother's Day: Oh, joy. When I went to church I had a couple of people ask me where my husband was, I said that he was working, and then I said that he was out of town. Why do people need to ask if it's depressing that a spouse is gone? It wasn't depressing until they brought it up. Before they brought it up, the holiday was any other day.
Sorry for the sarcastic tone. At this moment in my life I only get to see my husband for a couple hours on the weekend when the kids are around and then he is off to work again. Because he hasn't been getting enough sleep he's been cranky beyond reason so I am the only one that really wants to be around him.

On a better note: Luckily, because I went to church I got some phone numbers for realtor's in the aria. Because our current realtor isn't on the ball when it comes to getting things done, I thought that we needed a new one. I also hope that this week the kids can go to a couple of play dates before my hair starts coming out in chunks.
Texas told me that the girl that he sat next to in church was "beautiful". She has glasses and told me that she was five: too cute. Marilyn flicked the light switches during sacrament meeting and was making machine gun noises: go figure, she has a brother. After church Texas was playing leap frog in the hall and another mother thought that it was her kid because she was just saw it through the corner of her eye. I think we will fit in the aria just fine.

Soundless Sunday

2011-05-01T22:37:00.000-07:00

I Kid You Not!

2011-05-01T07:41:00.000-07:00

There are room that are filled with young teenage girls on the same floor as me. You would think it's enough to be knock-knock ditched a couple times in the middle of the night. This morning I discovered why they are here. They are here for Dance competition. What kind of dance? Clogging! I woke up to my neighbors practicing clogging.
I even googled competitions out in this aria and I found it:
http://danceshowcaseusa.com/2011%20Brochure.pdf

I think it's funny more than anything. I am glad that the girls are doing something good for them. It's just really weird that I woke up to clogging.

Playlist

2011-05-01T00:31:00.000-07:00

I first listened to Jessie J - Price Tag ft. B.o.B.
That song reminded me of City High so I listed to Carmel.
The video had Eve in it so I looked up her song Satisfaction.
Her little basketball dress made me think of her in the video with Gwen Stephani.
I skipped "Blow ya Mind" and now I am going to watch her Bananas video or "Hollaback". Thought that I should cool down the mood because it's late and watched her "Cool" video.
I'll admit I have a girl crush on Gwen. Seeing all of the beautiful magazine like faces in Gwen's video I think I should watch one of the newer Spice Girl videos and I can only think of one new song that they have "Friendship Never Ends". I don't have a clue what they mean in that song when they say, "lets make the headlines". Maybe they just needed some words that were not copyrighted.
I thought I needed something more soulful: Nat King Cole, Please be available for me. Unforgettable is a lovely song. I listed to that song.
Nature Boy is a great song too but I think Moulin Rouge did a better job with it. I love how they covered it. Yes. I listed to Nature Boy. I googled that Cover and it was done by David Bowie. Who Knew?
Now it's some Adele. That girl loves some revenge. She's the 21st centry Alanis Morissette. I would hate to be her ex. Adele has some wonderful vocal chords. I would love to see her sing in person.
Going to KT Tunstall, "Big Black Horse and The Cherry Tree". I think I'm done for the night. Well, maybe after some Jackson 5. My mind is all over the place tonight.

I wanted to share my playlist because normally it's just one single genre like Pop, classic or Country. I think tonight my taste for music was well rounded. I started with Pop and now I think I have circled and came around to the opposite genre. Tomorrow I can go back to my Lily Allen and Blondy.

My Etsy Shop

2011-04-30T14:59:00.000-07:00

I never post anything in my Etsy shop because nothing ever sells. I thought I should give it another go. I just listed some of the clips that I made the other day and stole some photos of my friends children wearing some of the cute little clips that I have made. Sorry that the pictures are so bad. I took all of the pictures with my phone.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/JenFun?ref=pr_shop_more

I am going to try to give Etsy another go to see what does better. I made ten sets of bows and I personally think that eBay does better for me. My mom started an Etsy shop yesterday and I told her I never had any luck with it. I need to have some more faith in people. I need to have some more faith in me. My clips are cute, I can admit that.

Sick as a Dog

2011-04-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

I caught a bug from Miss Marilyn. All yesterday I was super sick. I think I barfed six times. Texas was sick also. So both of us were puking all over the place. I had to call housekeeping to help clean up the messes. When we leave we need to leave her a good tip.
It was one of those exhausting bugs where all you want to do it lay down and sleep. I think I slept an extra 10 hours yesterday.
Texas wasn't doing so hot. He was so dehydrated that he blacked out. He didn't know what was happening. All that he said is, "I can't see". I thought that he might of had something more severe going on. I was about to take him to the ER. But I realized that he was just dehydrated and needed to drink something.
Yesterday I had to drop Spencer off at the airport. It was easy to find the airport, it was a challenge to find a drive through for a drink. We needed some drinks because all of us were so dehydrated. My head is still hurting from being so sick yesterday. I'm feeling better but I hate getting sick like that.
I was going to post some bows that I made on eBay, I was so sick that I didn't even find an hour to post some bows. I guess it's going to wait until Monday.

Homeless

2011-04-27T05:56:00.001-07:00

For all of you that do not know this yet: right now at this moment we are homeless and living out of hotels.
Why am I doing this? We figured that it would save us money to stay in hotels until we found a place to live. We have put offers on a couple of places and we have not heard back yet. The past few weeks we have been traveling so often that we would not even stay in the same place for over a week so right now we are living in hotels. It only makes sense in my head to live out of hotels and save the money that we would put on a down payment in the mean time.
We still have a house in California but we are renting it out at the moment.

Why being homeless is a struggle:
I have two kids that need to get out and play. Some times I feel cooped up. Then I need to google a park and then it's about nap time anyways.
There is only one main aria and our walls are thin, so when it's time to sleep it's quite time! The drunks by the pool do not understand this concept at any time: day or night, they cannot control the volume of their voices.
I am the one that does laundry. I have to go out to a laundromat to get all of the laundry done. Most of the time my diapers need to go through the wash more than once to get the stink out.
Eating out. I'm sick of it. We have a crock pot and I am tempted to go out and buy a small microwave so we can cook simple meals.
I drive more to get out and away from the small room. Gas prices are at four stinking dollars a gallon. When I go out and drive it seems like there is a weather storm following me. Two weeks ago it was a wind storm with tornado and fire warnings, this week it was heavy rain, rain so hard it got dark outside, then some dime size hail, and then on the fence that I was diving past lighting struck! That got my adrenalin going! Holy cow the weather is crazy out here!
We own a dog. Most hotels do not allow dogs. Picture me, yelling at both of my kids not to run in the road and trying to walk a dog.
The last thing that makes it hard being homeless and living in a hotel: My business that I am building up. The address that I have is a UPS Box. Other than that I do not have a permanent address. I need to spend money to make it because I am in retail. It's hard to rebuild my inventory when I don't have a definite place to ship to and the only place to store the stuff is in a storage unit or in your car. This is why you are not seeing 20 items in my ebay store. Everything that I have in my store are things that I have in my hotel room. Because of this, it makes it hard to do any kind of special order when a customer request one. Half of the time I have everything that they'll want, it's just that some of the stuff that they want is in storage, so the order is never made.

We have this room booked for a week. My hubby flies out on Friday for a business trip and it's just me and the kids in the dinky hotel room for a few days. I know I am not the first person that has lived out of a hotel. I know many people that have lived out of a hotel for months for one reason or another. I just need to keep on telling myself that it's not forever and that we are saving money each and every day that we stay in the hotel.

Taxes and Budget

2011-04-13T09:29:00.001-07:00

Last year the lady that was doing our taxes wouldn't let us write everything off. We had all of the recipts: she was just lazy. Last year we came in at the end of January to get our taxes done too. On top of that, on the 14th of April the lady sent all of our paperwork to another office so they could do our taxes. Grrr! Seriosly, we had thousands of dollars to write off and she refused to write them off even though we had all of the paperwork for it! She told us that we needed to work less because we had too many things going on. What a bitch. Seriously, we worked for all of that money and we had to pay an extra five grand that year. Me being a full time mom on a budget and my husband working 80 hours a week isn't enough for the state of California!
The lady that we went to this year was 1000% better! She got everything completed in a couple hours and she got us money back! We were able to write off $38,000.00! SCORE! This year we are getting money back from the government. I did our budget and found out that we will be saving $1600 a month just by moving out here! That is a big number. Going from a $20 dollar a week spending budget and then seeing that is crazy! I think I will still stick to my budget so we can save up some money.

I think we will save up enough to pay cash for a lot so then all that we need to pay for is utilities and taxes. Then all of the other cash we save up, we will pay cash to build a house on the lot. Out here in Texas, if you have a parcel of land you can do whatever you would like with it. The permit fees in Texas are about $6000 to build: California's are over $150,000. California charges you by the foot when you build. It doesn't make sense to me that you would pay more in permits of what your house is worth. It's odd and surprising how different things are out here. I LOVE IT! The State of Texas has welcomed me into their state with open arms in more than one way! I do have to admit that I will miss my friends out in California, but Texas will be better for my family.

Itinerary for Utah

2011-04-13T06:40:00.000-07:00

I have so many things to do when I go out there. The last time that I was out there I wasn't able to do everything because I got sick and the kids got sick. Right now I have a cold bug but it's going away.

So this is how the week is going to go:
Thursday and Friday: Driving
Saturday: Wedding
Sunday: Church and Easter Egg Hunt with the Hubby's side of the family
Monday: Spencer goes back to work. Permanent eye liner day. My appointment is at 11am, two of my sisters are getting it done on the same day.
Tuesday: Chill if possible. Hang out with My Aunts, Uncles and cousins.
Wednesday: Grandpa gets into town from Oregon
Thursday: Hang with family. My cousin graduates from BYU.
Friday: My Anniversary. I don't know if we are going to do anything that day for it but I know I'll get a phone call.
Saturday: My little sisters Birthday
Sunday: Church
Monday: Head back to Texas.

We'll see how everything goes. I can stay a couple extra days if I want to. My hubby said that I need to drive the big ol' truck back to Texas. I'm not looking forward to that. I wish we could just take the car but that isn't possible. Wish me luck!

What's in a name?

2011-04-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

I get so many questions about my kids names. I just want to clarify what some of the names mean.

I will start off with my name: Jennifer
Jennifer means "White Wave" or "Fair Phantom". That sounds so pretty but if you dig deeper to find on why the name means white wave or fair phantom you'll learn a bit more. The name was branched off of the name Guenevere; the same Guenevere that was married to the King Arthur. The story goes that she was unfaithful and sleeping with Aurthur's friend and greatest warrior, Lancelot. She was said to have been abducted by King Mordred. When she was eventually returned to Arthur, he had her condemned to death for infidelity and ordered that she be torn to pieces by wild beasts. Later on her pail body washed up from the lake. Stories tell the she haunts the lake where she was found.
The other story of her death is that she locked herself away in a tower because of the guilt that she fell for falling in love with the knight in shining armor. She later died of a broken heart. Both are good stories. The name comes from the story of her death.

My middle name is Ruth. Not as pretty as the name Jennifer but the meaning is better. Ruth means "friend". In Hebrew it means "companion". The name Ruth comes from the book of Ruth and shows how she was kind and compassionate to her people.

Now for Texas. The meaning of Texas is "Friend" in Caddo Indian. Why the name Texas? When my husband was out of town in Texas I called him and told him I was pregnant. We were thinking of a different name to name the baby but a couple months before, my sister in law that was expecting took the name that we had chosen. I didn't want two children with the same name. Right after that happened, one night my husband said said, "What do you think of the name Texas?" I said I liked it and we never really talked about it after that. Then when it was time to fill out the birth certificate, I put down "Texas James Nelson" never even asking Spencer if that was the name that he really wanted. Our parents were not too happy on the way that we picked his name. One parent was upset that we kept the name secret, and the other didn't like the name Texas. I love how we chose the name and the meaning behind the name. I love the name Texas.
Texas has started to say that he wants to change his name. I love his name but he is starting to tell people every once in a while that his name is "Tex" and that's ok.
Texas' middle name is James. James means "Supplanter" and it's Hebrew. I think the meaning of James comes from the King James. Supplanter means: one who wrongfully or illegally seizes and holds the place of another. King James was a sneaky man! My husband and I picked the name James because it is my husbands middle name.
Texas' full name is feng shui and has good balance.

Now for Marilyn's turn. Marilyn is a combination of Marry and Lyn. Marry means "Sea of Bitterness". Why would I name my daughter that? Have you ever heard the story how the sea is salty from the tears that people have cried? Or how Marry cried bitter tears when Jesus was crucified. I feel that the name Marry is a powerful name with feeling behind it.
Lyn means pretty. Spencer and I had a bet going on. He wanted to name her Maryland. I won the bet and her name is Marilyn. That is how we got the name Marilyn. Sad but true.

Marilyn's middle name is June. I know she wasn't born in the month of June. The month of June was named after the god Juno. Juno is the Roman "Goddess Of Marriage & Childbirth". She was not the Goddess of Infidelity. She is the queen of all the other gods and that shows power. The name Juno is connected to love. Ancient etymologies associated Juno's name with iuvare, "to aid, benefit", and iuvenescendo, "rejuvenate". Juno was a goddess that showed nurturing. There are many stories of the Goddess Juno. I felt that the name June fit well with the rest of her name other than the Hebrew and Roman mix. I love that the meaning behind Marilyn's name has so much emotion.
I feel that Marilyn June is a name that can be grown into.

I have seen lots of names that work well for little kids but when they get older and get jobs, what are they going to go by? I wanted names that would work for them as children and as adults.

I have so many people ask me why I name my kids what I did. I tried to pick out names with depth and meaning. Most of the time I don't want to explain the meaning of the names. I have gotten bad comments from people with that don't even know the meaning of their own children's names. Seriously, I think those people shouldn't be aloud to speak.

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2011-03-27T09:18:00.000-07:00

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I'm glad you understood that. I was thinking I was the only one that didn't have a clue what this email was saying.

Overload

2011-03-26T11:37:00.000-07:00

I am officially sick. It seems like I always get sick when there is a lot of stuff going on. I an glad that my ebay is going well. We are trying to move. There is easter coming up. Texas has his birthday next week. My sister in law is getting married. AND WHAT? The state of California is garnishing our wages!
We called our payroll to see what is going on and the pay roll didn't know anything about it but there was a phone number to call. My hubby called the phone number and they said that they can't do anything for three months! The person on the line wasn't even able to tell us what it was for. He was on the phone for an hour and a half! We paid California taxes last year too. GRRRR. That's 300 dollars for three months? Ugh, California is stupid. That amount of money throws us in debt 12 dollars a month before food and gas. We know that there is another guy with the same name as my husband that was born on the same day... if this is because that guy I am going to hunt him down and kick him in his balls! I know that Spencer has not been married before and doesn't have any other children floating around!
This just motivates me to move out to Texas sooner! Texas is going to save us THOUSANDS! There is no income tax, property taxes are lower, we have already transfered some bills out there and our bills are lower out there too. We are saving over $800 dollars every six months and we have an extra person on our car insurance. It's also nice knowing that our utilities are going to be a couple hundred instead of a thousand a month. We know the state of California is in debt, but taking that out on the working people is terrible! It's like a dream to run away from California♥

Marilyn's Easter Dress

2011-03-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

Marilyn and I picked out her Easter dress the other day. It's so obvious that she picked out her dress. I even tried getting her to pick other dresses. I kept on holding up two dresses at a time and saying, "Which one? This one, or this one?"
Sure enough, she picked the one that's mostly bright pink.
I made some matching bows. I think she'll just wear one at a time because she can't wear pigtails because of her latest haircut from her brother. I think I got into the habit of making two bows at a time because it's more orderly to have a set of bows. She'll be so stinkin' cute in her dress.

I picked out some pants for Texas. He doesn't need a new shirt for Easter. He does need new Sunday shoes though.

Something else. We are moving and also have a wedding to go to right before Easter. I really don't want the Easter basket junk. I think we'll just do eggs and jellybeans. What does everyone put in Easter baskets?

Payment Unreceived

2011-03-24T12:43:00.000-07:00

One of my friends sister in laws wanted some diapers. So I told her I would sell them to her at cost. It's two month later and I still have not received payment for the diapers. She has had the diapers for the two months. I know it's only two diapers, but for those two diapers, I need to make a profit on six sales to make the money back. Do people not see this? Now I can't go on anyones good will and I need to get the money before I send out the item. I know that there are times where I screw up and I'll try to fix my problems.
Maybe I should email her and tell her that I want the price of the diapers at retail price because she's taking so stinking long to pay. Ugh... maybe I should give her what she wants and I should leave her alone and let her feel guilty. What do you think I should do?

I'm Thankful For...

2011-03-23T18:59:00.000-07:00

I have had a bug coming on for about a week now. The last time I was sick was in the beginning of January so I shouldn't complain too much. As of today, I am officially sick but, with the deal that I found a couple months ago I have a year supply of cough drops. I'm glad I don't need to schedule a trip to the drug store and I can just relax at home.

Cuddle Bug

2011-03-21T08:07:00.001-07:00

Little Miss Marilyn wasn't in her bed this morning. Most nights she wakes up and tries to crawl into my bed. Right after she crawls into our bed we walk her back to her bed and tuck her back into bed. This morning she wasn't in my bed and she wasn't in her bed. She went to the one place that she knew she wouldn't be sent back to her own bed. Texas is out cold and I am not sure if her realizes that Marilyn is laying right next to him.

Rocksprings, Texas

2011-03-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

Half of the town of Rocksprings Texas came to introduce themselves. I think they were just curious to to see what we were doing. With all of the small town pride that there is out there, they invited us to move there.
Rocksprings is a little town that is in the center of Texas. There are about 2000 people that live in the county. I went to the post office and the post office is only open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Those are the only days that the mail gets sent out too. When I went into the post office, there wasn't a single person there, when I walked out there were five.
It is a town that everyone knows everyone. Met the 4 people that worked at the doctors office. The doctor does house calls. While we were there the town electrician drove past and saw a truck that he didn't recognize and wanted to see what was going on.
We went to go pick up some diapers at the grocery store and they had two people working: one was a cashier and the other was stocking the shelves. The same thing, I waled in and there were just the two workers there, when I walked out four old men made a line behind me and started chatting about how one owes him money.
It made me feel special that they wanted to see what was going on but I am not sure if I would be able to take it every single day. Thanks for the hospitality Rocksprings.

Fun Bum Diapers

2011-03-10T13:13:00.000-08:00

http://funbumdiapers.blogspot.com/

I just started a cloth diaper blog for all of the cloth diapering mommas out there. I picked out a name for the diapers and I was thinking that I'm ready to take another baby step forward. There isn't much on the blog. Now this blog will just be myself venting about one thing or another, the fun bum blog will be about diapers and diapering needs.

Enjoy!

To Do

2011-03-06T19:37:00.000-08:00

I have so many things to do this week. I have the normal mom things to do this week like cook and clean and tend the children, but then I have the other things. I need to get out all of my ebay things this week, I am in charge of preschool this week, I need to pack, I need go to Kenpo, we still need to do our taxes and I want to get a mani-pedi like I told my mom I would.
The count down is on. We official move in three weeks, but I only have two week of prep before we go. I have not told any of my family because I don't want to jinx it. So if you are family reading this pretend like never heard anything.
We are in town this week, next week we are going to be looking for houses, and the week after we will be back in town and we'll give Texas a birthday party before we leave. Oh, and a week after we move, we'll be going out to Utah for my sister in law's wedding.

I hope at the end of April I can get a little bit of a vacation. I also want to downsize and get rid of a bunch of stuff that I have. I want to take with us on the move all of the year storage and all of the basics, that's it. All of the toys and things that we never use I want to get rid of.

Fundaes

2011-03-03T18:38:00.000-08:00

I was cleaning up some school glue that was dumped on the carpet when my children decided to give themselves hair cuts.
When the school glue got dumped out I was cleaning up yogurt all over the kitchen floor buy a child that jumped on a yogurt cup.
She jumped on a yogurt cup when I was cleaning up some rice that she opened with her teeth.
When I was cleaning up the rice, she decided to dump out a box of teddy grams just to step on them and hear them crunch.
When I was cleaning up the teddy grams that were smashed into the carpet, she was chewing up oreo's and spitting them inches away from the wall to make a art.

After all of this damage that only took about an hour of destruction, I had enough. I called my husband yelling because I couldn't keep up with everything. A day without naps is a day without a break for mother.

The house is not restored to it's original state and I am letting my kids have silly haircuts for a while. I need a breath of fresh air at times and yesterday was that day.

Blah.

2011-03-01T19:28:00.000-08:00

I don't know if any of you readers ever have frequent visitors coming over to use your house as a hotel. Because we are part of a company it's more affordable for us to have people stay at our house than to pay for a hotel. So that is the way it works at our house and that's the way it's been for a long time and I can handle that.
This is the part I can't handle. We have a worker and his little family staying at our home, and the mother is a stay at home mom. She's lazy beyond reason. I admit that I like to take brakes every once in a while, but an all day break never happens.
Yesterday she said that she needed to do some laundry. So I showed her our washer and dryer. This morning she said that she wasn't able to do any laundry because we didn't have the right kind of soap so I invited her to go to the store with me while I was running errands. Nine miles away from the closest El Pollo Loco she ask if we can go there for lunch. I don't have the time or the money so I tell her no.
Later on it's quite time at my house so both of my kids are up stairs while I vacuum and prepare dinner before I head off to my kenpo class. I don't mind if you ask what I'm making for dinner, but if you are going to say that you don't want to eat it, I'm going to agree and tell you that you don't have to have any.
While I an doing my chores and the kids are having "quite time" I ask her not to let her baby upstairs because the kids should be napping. She is playing her games on her phone while her little one crawls upstairs. Sure enough after a few minutes of her baby being upstairs and I am in the kitchen cooking she wanders upstairs to check on her baby and claims that Marilyn was choking her. Choking with a hug, I can believe because Marilyn likes to give hugs, neck-tie no.
She comes down stairs, hides in the bathroom and makes a phone call to who know's. Our walls are thin and I can hear everything! She was taking smack on you know who! ME! She was saying things like, "I'm not getting any help with her [my daughter]", I think the person on the other line asked what I was doing all day and she said, "I don't know? playing on facebook?" and "I need someone to help me with my laundry".
For real? She never asked for help! Why do I need to do your laundry? Anywho, it's your kid, you need to take care of her. Oh, and you know damn well that I wasn't playing on facebook, stop making up damn stories.

I took my time coming home from kenpo to avoid seeing her because I was so pissed off about her making the phone call and not asking me for any help.

To find out after I got home, once I walked out the door she started crying because she's helpless. My husband got home right after I left and sat through three hours of her crying about how it's ok for me to tell her kid what to do in my house but at the same time she can't do anything about my kids. Ugh, I wish she would just listen to me and watch her own kid. I tell her kid not to do things so she won't get hurt FYI. I seriously want to yell and scream at her because of her little pity party. My husband told me that I need to make her feel welcomed because she doesn't know anyone out here. She is not making it easy for me.

She just left so her husband could work in Northern California and I feel so relieved. Just to let you know I am not being a super bitch about this whole thing or exaggeration one bit on this story. I should be thankful that my life is not one bit boring.

Mother's Don't Get Enough Sleep

2011-02-28T12:35:00.000-08:00

This is what I get in the middle of the night!

I'm not sure how many mothers go through this. My daughter is a binky child. She likes to sleep with a pacifier. recently she has been wanting to drop the habit. But because she does not have something soothing her to sleep she'll mosey around the house at 1am. I am not joking.
Last night she let the dog out of her kennel, and found some mascara and painted her brothers room. I was awaken by a dog trying to lick my face in the middle of the night.
The night before she got into the fridge, pulled out a tub of butter and sat right next to the dog kennel and was having a little conversation with the dog while having a midnight snack of butter. The conversation woke me up.
The night before that is all in the picture. If you were wondering what that is, it's my eyeshadow. She was eating it. She crushed it and was eating the chunks of my eyeshadow. But knowing her, she was able to find a couple bows to complement her makeup.
So this morning I decided to wake the kids up at 6am. I have been fed up with the sleeping until 9am and not taking a nap and then staying awake after I crash out at 11pm. Today had run smoothly so far. Both of the kids have been sick, but they are both down for a nap. I am going to wake them up in about an hour. And then at 9pm it's bed time :D

Year Storage

2011-02-28T11:56:00.001-08:00

So I need to update my pictures. My hubby got me some shelves for my birthday back in January. I've been couponing a little bit and one of my friends in England was wondering how I did it all. I told her I would post some pictures for her to see. i will admit that I am not the most organized person in the world. This is the best organization that you are going to get.

This is all un opened items that we hide in our ottoman.

Our opened #10 cans I store up high in the kitchen.

I don't know why this is upside down. These are six gallon buckets with basic staples like flour, sugar, rice, salt and beans.

Simple minds are easily excited. I got each razor pack for less than three dollars each. I have 19 of them. I think my hubby will use two blades (one pack) a week. This is just one step closer to a years worth.

We have some #10 cans on the bottom, and some water and oils that are "staples". In the tubs they are things that critters can get into and that is why they are in tubs. I found out last year that we had a mouse friend in our garage that liked chocolate bars. I also have some canned foods.

This is some of the bathroom and cleaning stuff. I do keep some of the year supply of bathroom toiletries up in the linen closet separate from this. As you can see I just go myself a year supply of dish soap. I have everything to make my own laundry soap and dish detergent. I have lots of wipes and lots of toilet paper. When I get out of the shower and I am in a towel, I hate having to walk all the way down stairs and out into the garage to get some toothpaste. That is the reason that I have my storage in some of the closets upstairs.

If you can figure out how my system works. These are the containers in my pantry. The big six gallon buckets are not my style to have inside the kitchen.

Busy Busy

2011-02-25T08:40:00.000-08:00

Last night I was contacted back by one of the textile company's. They do have some diapers that I like but I really want minky animal prints. So I talked them into making me some. It took about an hour to get the company to say yet to the project. I am so excited!
So today with everything else that is going on. I need to go to Target, go to Riteaid, go to JoAnns fabric to get swatches of prints, and then go to the post office to mail off ebay stuff and the samples to China.
The way that I got them to say yes to making the diapers was that I asked them if I bought a bolt of fabric if they could use that to make the diapers. I can get about 800+ diapers out of one bolt of fabric. That's a whole lot of diapers.

A Sad Day For Ebay

2011-02-24T18:40:00.000-08:00

I tried to place another order with the factory in China and they gave me some sad news. My best selling diaper is sold out and they discontinued it. They discontinued it because it cost more than the other diapers and most people want cheap from that factory. My best seller is twice the price as their best seller and now they are not going to have it any more. I placed an order for what they still had and now I need to wait a month to get it.

Ebay Update

2011-02-21T17:35:00.001-08:00

I guess this is all trial and error. The first whole month that I was selling on ebay I only made 100 dollars. That was with four trips a week to the post office and waiting in line. Looking at that I cringe.
Now that I am getting the hang of the whole ebay thing I am now racking in more money. Like 100 dollars a week (still not much I know, but being a stay at home mom, that's awesome in my book). I figured out that I only need to go to the post office twice a week if I have the auctions end at the right time.
I have my bag full of padded envelopes with different peoples orders. Mondays are my good selling days.
I received my big shipment from China about two weeks ago. Today I am almost sold out of all of the diapers. Because I am almost all sold out, Saturday I need to order more and tell all of the people that some of the diapers are on back order.

Sorry but if anyone would like a minky giraffe diaper, a minky cow diaper, or a retro dot diaper, you'll have to wait a month. I still have black diapers in stock.

Fashion Week

2011-02-20T23:54:00.000-08:00

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/beauty/is-it-easier-for-a-guy-or-girl-to-crash-fashion-week-we-found-out-2453868/;_ylt=AjIgbBxJq73oEsUMNLLz_AZpbqU5#photoViewer=15

I found this post on how to get into fashion week. Some of the things that it says is really funny so I wanted everyone to see it.

What I learned:
Drinks that make you poop are highly fashionable.
Wearing a bathing suit over leggings is, 90% vagina and 10% fashion.
Fashion is just dressing like a maniac.
Men don't need to accessories.
Who needs flashcards when you can speak in a phony accent.
Pepsi is the skinny diet.
Dressing like a ballerina with glasses can and will get you in, not just in to fashion week but in anywhere!

The Terror

2011-02-17T19:35:00.001-08:00

Ugh! Texas is being a bad influence on his sister. All day long I hear him whispering to his little sister to do things that will get her in trouble, then right after he has to tattle on her. It's driving me crazy!
The other day I got rid of a bunch of his because he refused to pick them up. He's blaming it all on his sister.
The last straw: Texas decided to tell his sister to dump bleach cleanser all over the carpet when he was suppose to be in the hall picking up his toys. I walked into the hall when Texas was dumping water over the pile of cleanser. I saw them doing this and yelled, "What are you doing!"
I picked up Texas' Buzz Lightyear that was laying in the hallway and gave Texas an ultimatum. He can stop trying to get his sister in trouble or he can let Buzz Lightyear go to the dump.
I'm so frustrated with the kid. I have caught him doing this whole routine daily and this is officially the last straw!

If I hear the kid telling his sister to: dump out her Kool Aid, mash food on the carpet, pee on the floor, draw on the walls, change her own diaper, paint her own nails or anything else that he knows that neither of them should be doing that Buzz Lightyear is going to have a new home in the city dump! I have used a full 32oz bottle of rubbing alcohol scrubbing up sharpie markers this week already. Momma is FED UP!

Weeding Out The Drama

2011-02-15T19:07:00.000-08:00

I deleted about 100 of my facebook friends because I was being too much of a facebook whore. The people I deleted were mostly the people that cause drama.
Everyone knows that person that is always wanting you to start playing the new game that they are playing. Or that person that constantly post that they want you to vote for them, but they have to enter into a different contest each week, and post that they want you to vote every stinkin' day. And I can't forget about the person that post chain update status' every time they see a new one. Just because it says that 96% of us won't re post it, doesn't mean that you should post it.
I know that I can block all of their post, but knowing what they are doing gets on my nerves.
I can not say that I'm not guilty of doing any of these things, but when someone does this kind of thing too often, it makes me want to punch them in the face.

Ebay is Funny

2011-02-15T09:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I received an email from a lady on ebay asking for a special order with some of my set prices. She wanted to buy multiple items and have them sent at the same time of course so I cut the shipping just a bit. I listed the item and sent her the link. This morning I saw that the order was purchased but it was purchased by a different person.
If it was meant to be this way, I won't have an upset lady messaging me today. If the other lady bought the listing with out the other lady knowing, I can just relist it. I don't mind that the lady bought it, that is the name of the game.

http://shop.ebay.com/buffnclean/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

I don't blame the lady that bought the diapers. I do have some super cute diapers listed.

Time To Move

2011-02-12T15:37:00.000-08:00

I think it's time already for us to move. My husband for the last five months has been telling me not to enroll Texas in kindergarten yet because we are moving. Um, it hasn't happened yet. I've looked into private schools out here because all of the public schools by us our crap. Last year I found out that the school that is three blocks away from us teaches the children in Spanish because the majority is Hispanic. The last day to transfer my kid out of that school was last week. So I am screwed on that one.

When we bought this house that we are in right now we were in a pickle because the guy that we were renting from let the house that we were renting go through foreclosure and wasn't going to tell us. We moved into the house that we are in the same week that the bank took the rental. I was never able to do a walk-though of the house that we are now in before we bought it because the day that Spencer did the walk through, I had super bad morning sickness. I don't like our house. The layout is bad and the people who panted the walls must of been colorblind.

The town that we live in has a high crime rate which should be higher. I think most of the time the crimes go unreported because the people figure that the cops are not going to do any thing. Sometimes the cops won't even file a report which pisses me off a bit.

I'll be honest and I do have some super awesome friends out here. A few of our good friends are moving soon. One of Texas' friends is her son so he is going to be really sad when he goes. Texas' posy is slowly shrinking. About a year ago one of his other best friends moved out of state. Poor kid, whenever he becomes best friends with anyone, they move.

I guess I am in morning. Things will change. I am not sure of when, but they will.

What The!

2011-02-09T22:08:00.000-08:00

The other day when I was shopping for some clothes for the kids, a little girl about three years old came up to me and asked me if she could get something that I was looking at. There was a pregnant lady standing a few feet away that looked like she could be her mother and obviously in her third trimester. Right after the little girl asked me, I told her to ask her mother and looked at the lady standing right next to her. The little girl replied, "That's not my mom, that's my grandma".
Seriously! The lady couldn't be over 35, with a slender figure and was about eight months pregnant. After the little girl said this the lady nodded in agreement. Here I am still in shock.

Disappointing Valentine

2011-02-09T19:21:00.001-08:00

Poor, poor Texas. Today we went home early from our play group because he started to throw a fit. Let me start from the beginning:

There were many kids today during story time. More than usual, and they had to combine the toddler group with the preschoolers so there were twice as many in one room. Most weeks there are only 15 children all together. Today, there were more like 30! The whole shindig was lots of fun. We exchanged Valentines and Texas and Marilyn dressed up for the occasion. There was this little boy that was absolutely fascinated with Miss Marilyn and the mother of the other boy had to keep on pulling him away. I thought it was super cute. Everything was find and dandy until craft time.

When craft time rolled around Texas wanted to sit by his friend Amie. Instead of asking the boy next to her if he could sit there he started to throw a fit. There were not many seats to pick from because there were so many kids there. Texas did not throw any ol' kind of fit, it was a whole tantrum. I warned Texas that once Marilyn was done with her craft we were going home.

Once Marilyn was done with her cutting and gluing, I dragged Texas out the door. He cried, "But mom, I love Amie", "Mom, you don't understand how I feel about her", and "I am going to miss Amie so much, I need to see her".
To note, He is saying all of this outside of the library balling his eyes out. Me walking away from Texas in embarrassment, two men start laughing and one said, "Man, young love is rough".
Texas is going to have a rough Valentines day.

Marilyn is the opposite. She was yelling "I WUF YOU!" and when I would say, "I love you too", she would come back with, "NO, I WUF YOU!"
Silly girl. She's not going to have a rough Valentines Day like Texas is.

Should I?

2011-02-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

So many debates.

Should I die my hair? Should it be dark red or dark brown?

Should I finish cleaning the garage or deep clean the kitchen?

Should I go to Kohls today?

Should I get my butt in gear and do a couple hours of KenPo?

Should I list more things on ebay?

Should I vacuum the whole house or just spot vacuum?

What should we have for lunch? What should we have for dinner?

Should I go to the grocery store this week or should we eat our food storage?

What ever I should be doing I need to get off this blog and get my butt to work.

Making The Most of Gift Cards

2011-02-05T11:31:00.000-08:00

Because I live in a different state than most of my family; I get gift cards. Gift cards are nice for the people giving them because the postage is cheap. Honestly, most of the time my gift cards sit in my wallet until there is a time for me to splurge. Luckily, in the state of California they don't expire. I am trying to change the whole gift card sitting in my wallet and use my gift cards more like coupons.

My dad gave me a gift card for my birthday to go to Walmart. Walmart? Of all places I seriously go to Walmart three times a year. Luckily I have some awesome friends that post pictures of great clearance items in the aria. $2 winter separates for boys and girls. I could of gotten five outfits for both of the kids but by the time I got there most of the stuff was picked threw. But I was able to get a couple of $5 videos for the kids (It's for me too because it gives me time for myself). Thanks dad!

Almost all places will let you use coupons and sales with your gift cards. My mom gave me a gift certificate to Kohls. I love Kohls! I try to find things for less than $5 and get it for free with coupons. It's me searching the clearance and the sales. Then all of the random things I get for free that I am not going to use I put it in a big Rubermade tub and give them as gifts later on.

Me doing this makes those gift cards go a long way.

Officially a Toddler

2011-02-05T08:17:00.000-08:00

I have a need to point out that my Miss Marilyn is officially a toddler. She is going threw another one of her growth spurts. Whenever she has gone threw a growth spurt she of course eats me out of house and home but unlike my son her legs hurt. Last time that this happened to her she refused to walk and started to crawl. This time it's, "Mom, a snake bit me. My legs hurt!"
I don't know where she got the idea of a snake bitting her. She's really convinced that her legs hurt because she was bit by a snake while she was sleeping.
Another thing: Marilyn has only been talking for a few months. It has been an outpour of words all at once. Now she is starting the whole, "if you don't understand what I am trying to say I am going to yell it" bit.
Most mothers repeat what their child is trying to say. So what the toddler is saying sounds like, "these are my nails", The mother will say, "Yes, those are your nails". And of course, the toddler has to yell the same thing that she started off with because the mother did not translate correctly.

Easily Excited

2011-02-02T21:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/01/15/feminist_obsessed_with_mormon_blogs

My little sister sent this to me earlier this week. This was a post that is freaking awesome! I remember in high school in Northern California some girls would give me grief for being Mormon. The whole not drinking, no coffee, staying morally clean. This post was so flattering. And this is the first time I have been able to sit down a let you guys know about it.
My hubby is still out of town so I have been keeping busy with play dates, ebaying, Kenpo and chores. I've made about 90 dollars on ebay the past couple of weeks. I know it's not much, but it's a start. I should be getting my Orange belt for Kenpo any day now. My house is still a mess.
Great news! Today I stopped over at my friends house (the one that takes care of the goats). We are going to have a girls night. I have been invited to other girls nights but it's always going to the theater and some ritzy place for dinner. I look up the ticket prices and decide not to go. My hubby gave me a budget of 100 dollars. Mani-pedi's and dinner at a Mexican joint. Maybe we'll ship all of our kids to one house and let the guys take care of them: Three five year olds and four two year olds, that will be an adventure.

Something on a different note. I've been chose to host a Huggies Pull-up party. Even though I cloth diaper and I put that on the survey, they chose me. Not just me, but my friend Darbi too! The last party that I threw that was sponsored was Durex and both of us were chosen. How funny is that?

So everything that is going to happen is getting me all excited. My orange belt, me getting chores done, my ebay, the girls night, my hubby coming home, and getting free diapers for my friends. My husband told me that I get too excited about little things. He doesn't realize how cool some things are. I called him today to tell him I got two Gillette razors for $2 and he said, "Is this really what you called me about?"
It was. But isn't that exciting?!?! I told him it's like finding a $20 bill on the sidewalk. We just left it at that. He's glad I save him money.

Today is going to be a good day!

2011-01-27T10:33:00.000-08:00

This morning my son took out the dog. I was able to sleep fo an extra two minutes.
I opened a box of granola bars that said that they were chocolate, but inside the box it contained peanut. Called customer service and they are sending me a coupon for three dollars off another box. Sweet! Even better, I think I only paid a dollar a box.
The kids are bathed and fed. They were the ones tht wanted the bath.
My Ebay is doing ok. It's only maiking me a few dollars a day, but it's a start. I'm selling cloth diapers, used clothes, and some of my homemade laundry soap. Yesterday I made over 10 dollars :)

I gave the little miss some new rules the other day and she is folowing them. I took down her crib because she started climbing out every hour. I warned her if she climed out one more time, she wouldn't be able to sleep in the crib any more. Now she gets to sleep in her "big girl" bed. It's working sofar.
On top of that, she only gets pacifires when she is laying down in bed. I don't want any more of this binki in the car, park, or store: Bedtime only!
Another rule: If you take of your diaper, you have to sit on the toilet until you pee.

Sofar the day is going the way I want it.

What Birthday?

2011-01-20T08:33:00.001-08:00

I totaly spaced my birthday. Last week I was scedualing Kenpo and asked what the date was on Thursday. Yesterday my little sister said that she was going to call me at midnight; I just thought she was being weird.
I know that Spencer ordered me my birthday present, but is it already my birthday? I have all of these post on Facebook saying it is. I'll just pretend that I am three days younger and celibrate on Saturday when my hubby is back in town.

Selling Diaper Kits

2011-01-19T15:50:00.000-08:00

I am going to start selling diaper kits on ebay. They will be new, not used. I have been able to find used starter kits with different items that one would need to start cloth diapering. I have also found single brands that have starter kits: Brands like Bumgenius, Fuzzibumz and GroVia. They don't have anything inbetween.
So what are the options that everyone has? They can buy a set of the things that they need used, or get a new set of things that they might only use a couple things of the set in.

I want the sets to have 6 prefold diapers, a snappi (they don't use diaper pins any more) a one size fits all cover or a pocket diaper, and some disposable liners. If you perchase all of these seperatly it would cost about 45 dollars or more. I would like to note that I would only sell items that are made in the USA.

http://myworld.ebay.com/buffnclean

Here is the link to my ebay. I ordered everything today to start selling the sets. I'll start selling in a couple of weeks.

Little Bit Boggled

2011-01-18T17:31:00.000-08:00

I just got back from Kenpo and I was messing up on every other thing. What is wrong with me? At the class before last he said that we would have the next test in three weeks, that's five or six lessons. Today he said that I know everything and he wants to do a practice test in a couple days. That means that the test is in three lessons. Ugh, I so don't have everything down. Time to get my butt in gear.

Something for all of the people that like to hear about diapering. I have a lot of those micro fiber inserts for diapers. They don't absorb very much. The pee smell is also a bit harder to get out of them because they are made out of polyester instead of natural fibers. Of course they dry fast, but is it worth it?
I was thinking of switching off of my inserts to 100% cotton trifolds and using them as inserts. I have a trifold that isn't 100% cotton, and holy heck, that thing is not fun: It's stained because of the cotton outer, and it doesn't hold much with it's polyester batting inner that you can't scrub the oder out of. Only 100% cotton for me.
For the trifolds that I would use for inserts I would only get the preemie and the newborn sizes so they can fit into the diapers. If I got that size I would be able to use them for the next baby as normal trifold diapers which is also a bonus (if I did that I would also need to buy some "snappis" for the next baby). I think the cotton absorbs more. Right now we use the cotton premium sized (they are in between the infant and the toddler size). We use the diapers as inserts in the "Smartipants" diaper and they work great. I have never used my trifolds as a true trifold diaper. I have the pins for it to be a true trifold, but I've never gotten around to putting all of that effort into a diaper change.
Here's the thing though. I want peoples opinion. I am going to sell all of my microfiber inserts on ebay if you think this is a good idea. If you think this is a terrible reason, please tell me why.

You Know You're Addicted to Coupons when...

2011-01-13T16:29:00.000-08:00

You find your 2 year old daughter cutting up junkmail and she tells you she needs pink scissors for coupons.
You tuck your four year old into bed and he hands you a storybook with coupons in between the pages. He says that he likes it so much because it has coupons in it.
You feel like you can buy something when you don't have a coupon for it.
You got all of your close friends to coupon.
Your 4 year old tells the store workers that we can't get *blank* because we don't have a coupon for it.
You have both kids scrambling for coupons for the place that they want to eat when we decide to eat out. This is the reason that we can't find the coldstone coupons.
You watched a show on TLC and thought that what they were doing was normal.

These are some of the coupons that I have. "Some" meaning that I have more. I was sorting them out and thought, "wow, I do this every week".

mommiesbrain

2011-01-13T10:53:00.000-08:00

My sister just made a forum for parents out there. I think there are many parents out there that started to have a different mindset once they became a parent. So if you have questions about being a parent, and would like other peoples advice; this is for you:

http://mommiesbrain.30.forumer.com/

Coupon Crazy!

2011-01-11T14:48:00.000-08:00

So the past couple days I posted some coupons on ebay. This is the second time that I've tried posting anything on ebay. The first time was about four years ago and I didn't make any money. This time around I've made about 18 dollars so far. I'm only selling high value coupons so that might be one of the reasons that I've gotten that much.
I called my husband excited about the small amount of money that I made off of the coupons that I sold. Well, legaly I am not suppose to be selling coupons, I am selling my time and effort for getting the coupons to the person. But still, I had three people give me money for the coupons that I sent them! Happy dance!

How Many Ounces Can a Diaper Hold?

2011-01-11T00:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P-HF6TA1AY

This lady is doing her little experiment in the video seeing how much a diaper with the recommended inserts will hold.
Me being curious wanted to know how much other diaper could hold. I have friends that ask me if my daughters diapers leak. They don't.
After googling how many ounces a diaper holds I found out that Huggies will hold 15 ounces, and Pampers will hold 10 ounces.
Can you figure out what diaper was able to hold the most fluid before they started to leak?

Spoiler alert: The cloth diaper with one insert held over 16 ounces, she said it was at 22 ounces, and the one that was doubled on the soakers was at 24 ounces when she quit. So now you know.

What is this?

2011-01-10T14:59:00.001-08:00

So this is how much motivation I have to clean. This is what my front room looks like right now. Marilyn has been ripping up random papers that I keep on picking up and for some reason there's Pepsi on the floor, clean pajamas, shoes, toys, my makeup, and a vacuum that apparently needs to be used more often. What is ironic is that I would blog about how bad it is instead of cleaning it up again.

Something else. If anyone that has been folowing my blog for a while and has seen the video about washing diapers will see that in that video I didn't have this many diapers. What happend? Well, I converted my older sister to use cloth (and she loves it I might add), but my sister gets all of her diapers off ebay from china. So I wanted to try them out.
I have to say that some of the cheap sweat shop diapers are way better than some of the ones that bought at first for 20 dollars. You can get the sweat shop diapers from ebay for less than five bucks a piece shipped; I have gotten a few. . . um, a few meaning 10. I started off with 12 diapers. And when I find good sales on Babysteals.com or at babyhalfoff.com I get them there too. Don't worry, I am still coming out ahead. I have spent less than 300 dollars on all of the diapers that I have. The first shipment was the most expensive: 200 big ones. I wanted to try some of each, I justified it then, and it's worth it to see what you like.
I have to say I like the cheap diapers more than a couple of the 20 dollar ones. There are a few known "ebay" brands like: coolababy, babyland, natures love, and sun baby. They all run big: 13-35 lbs, not 8-35 lbs. I have noticed that some of the brands that should be the same look like they were made in different sweat shops. For example: I have a six babyland diapers, they are all one size pocket diapers and all different. One of them the outer is peeling but it has good elastic (reviews say that they don't like the let elastic on this brand), a couple others have the double snaps on the waist (fixes the leg problem), a couple others have a flap for the pocket to hole the inserts, and I have one that the snaps don't work well, and another that the waist snaps are too close to the center. All of the diapers work better than my Happy Heiny's. Downside: they take about a month to ship.
If you want to try cloth diapers, look at reviews at diaperpin.com for brands that you are considering. At the site, it's not one sided. You get to see a few different reviews from people that have tried out the brands. I have converted to cloth diapering. It's as easy as disposables. My sister that converted said that she thinks it's easier than disposables, just depends on who you ask I guess.
Ok, so in short; I like the prints of the cheap diapers, and the cost of the cheap diapers, and the fit of the cheap diapers on my toddler, I just like the cheap diapers all together.

The Holiday Season.

2011-01-08T00:52:00.000-08:00

It's 1:30am, so I am going to let you figure out what picture goes where :)
So the holiday season is pretty much over. There was so much that happened. I am glad that it's over. Every day was a countdown to when things would slow down. Every day was a day that was never ending.
Many things happened:
My baby sister was able to get married in the temple to a nice guy. I think the wedding was more stressful for my mom than anything else. My mom was stressing out like crazy.
Another thing that happened was that my other little sister was able to get her endowments out. For everyone that is not Mormon that means that she was able to go through the temple.
Because my brother in law was on leave and home from Iraq; he was able to be sealed to my sister and my niece. It took some time because my sister was married in the temple before and my sister needed to get approval from her ex that is also now remarried. Funny how that works.
We were able to have a family dinners almost every night that I was out visiting family. That is a lot of dinners because I was out in Utah for almost three weeks.

Because of all of the stress of the wedding my mom did not prepare for me and the kids coming even thought she knew about us coming for months. Spencer had to work so he was only out for Christmas eve and Christmas day so he was lucky that he didn't have to deal with this. Even though I drove 14 hours with two young children, my mother still wanted to wake up at the crack of dawn to help her get things done. Ugh. I am not surprised that she did not organize everything well; I know my mom, but did she really need to throw this on me?
She was unreasonable. I had two sick kids before I left to Utah so I was not able to finish sewing the dresses. I was averaging two hours of sleep a night. i had to finish the dresses before the wedding and all that I had done was the patterns cut out and they didn't sell the right color fabric and any of the shops by me. So in between driving to BFE and doing family events I had to finish sewing two dresses and tending to sick children.
The wedding day my mom was yelling at everyone and trying to change my baby sister's wedding that was getting married. My little sister wanted to get her pictures done at noon because it was light and my mom said that she wasn't going to be there because it's before the wedding and NO ONE was going to be there. My little sister cried. I went without my hair being done because I helped set up the reception.
The whole time that I was out there I kept on telling myself that it was only going to be for a few more days and then I could go home and get a reasonable schedual. The whole time when I was out there Marilyn was sick. I should of just gone to the big events and let Marilyn rest, but when I tried doing that, someone would throw a hissy fit. The day after my sisters wedding was day four of having a sick child that has been going without naps. When she was getting worse it felt like I was abusing her.
The day after was Sunday and because both of the kids were exhausted to the point of vomiting (and they did). I let both of the kids sleep past noon. It was worth it.I had people trying to get a hold of me like crazy but the kids needed to get better and I was giving them medicine, don't think that I wasn't; what the really needed was rest.
My Oldest sister was sealed a couple days later, then Christmas was a couple days after that.
Christmas was great. I loved seeing how excited Texas and Marilyn got over their toys. Texas' favorite things were his pajamas (he got a dozen sets. He loves pajamas!), his lobster, and his Buzz Lightyear. He got a scooter and a ATV but he really didn't care about those things. Marilyn's favorite things were necklaces, play food and a doll that she calls Mini Me because it looks like her. She also received a scooter from manta. I think it's great how my kids get so excited about little things. He likes a rubber lobster more than a four hundred dollar ATV. It's worth all of the work that goes into Christmas just to see their little faces light up in the morning.

No Mo' Motivation

2010-12-14T07:45:00.000-08:00

My sister is getting married in three days. I have NO motivation to get things done today. It could be that there has been 80+ degree weather the past week and the heat is draining me or it could be that I have a headcold. I need to get my butt in gear, get off the computer and start sewing so I can have everything done today. I think I am going to take the kids to the babysitters so I can do chores.

Black Sweat Shop Friday.

2010-11-30T19:16:00.000-08:00

I went Black Friday shopping. I am sure that everyone knew that already. I went with a couple of my sisters right at midnight. We went to Walmart and stocked up on what was left at their store. We got there right at midnight so some of the things that were door busters were already gone.
After we went to walmart we decided to go to the mall because they were suppose to have some good deals there. The mall was insane! Last year when my sister in law was working there she said that there was no one. This year there were lines starting at the register and going out the door in all of the stores that we had on our list. So we decided not to get anything at the mall.

On our way out these are the friends that we met. They told us that we could take their pictures if we didn't buy anything from the mall. Good thing that the lines were too long.
The signs got me thinking. I think I am pro sweat shop. It gives people in other counties jobs. Most places that you purchase are made outside of the US. Think about it. Even your food is grown in Central America. We told the guys that we are tree huggers and we put our kids in cloth diapers. But our cloth diapers were made in sweat shops. I will be using each cloth diaper at least 20 times and there is more energy put into all of those disposables and the disposables just go into a landfill. You choose your battles.

International Make Someone Feel Uncomfortable Day

2010-11-19T21:49:00.000-08:00

So many weird things were happening and I told my husband about them. I think it might be normal to have one weird thing, but it was one weird thing after the next.
First off: There was a guy on the side of the road, hitch hiking, while pulling up his pant leg to show some skin. I automatically looked around to see if he had any friends around him and he was alone. It was so weird!
Then when I was in Target, there was a lady in a neck brace, in one of those electric power chairs, with her dwarf boy friend. I wouldn't of thought anything about it until he go up on her lap and started kissing her in the middle of the isle. Something like that is SO not NORMAL!
Then after that when I was walking out of Target, there was a group of handicapped adults (Handicapped enough that they would need hospice care) sitting by the bench outside smoking some doobies. I am not sure if they got the memo, but that made me feel really uncomfortable that their caretaker lets them have smoke breaks.
I told my husband how weird it was. I also said that all of those things are normal for the town that we live in but three things in one day is weird!
After the day has ended I look on my facebook page and see that I was invited to join the "International Make Someone Feel Uncomfortable Day". Jokes on me.

What!!!

2010-11-11T22:15:00.001-08:00

For any one that has children they feel panic when they hear a boom in the house. On Tuesday, around 9 o'clock, one child of mine was climbing on the cabinets that go above the toilets while the other child watched. I was getting ready for the day upstairs in the bathroom. I heard a crash, then I heard two cries right after it. I tried to open the door. The door wouldn't budge because the cabinets the fell over were about the same with of the little half bathroom. In a panic I ran up stairs and called 9-1-1. When I called 9-1-1 both of the kids were under the cabinet. I was afraid to pus the door open more because I was afraid that I was going to injere them. I talked to the operator with tears in my eyes because I didn't know what to do.
They sent over a police officer and the fire department. I was able to talk the kids into crawling out from under the cabinets (good thing it had doors on it!). All that they did was reach on arm into the bathroom and rotate the cabinets enough to pull both of the kids out.
After all of this I called my husband to tell him what happened; he laughed. I had a baby sitter come over to watch the kids and I told her; she laughed. The same thing with my kenpo instructor and my dad.
On top of all of this Texas is telling people that he had firetrucks come to his house.
I also think that the kids might of knocked some marbles loose during all of this. Today I caught Texas trying to teach Marilyn how to kiss: ON THE LIPS!!! I yelled at him trying not to laugh, and told him that he can only kiss the girl that he marries, and he CAN'T marry his sister! It was just funny because he had her in a dipping position with his lips puckered.

Whew, all of this stuff may seem really funny but it's taking a toll on me. I need to be getting to bed. Spencer is sick from the stinking strep bug that has been going around and I told him that I would run to the drug store before he heads off to work for some medicine. I clipped some coupons and everything so all that I'll have to do is throw on some clothes.

Our Environment

2010-11-09T06:40:00.000-08:00

Environment? I have all of these things that I am allergic to and I keep them out of my house, the hippies that make organic items are doing this not just for marketing but for our safety, and there are all of these hippies that are trying to control every aspect of our life and tell us this is the way that it should be. To make your home a better environment for you and your family should be your own choice.
I'm trying to make my children's environment better by doing little things like dusting, making sure there is no harmful chemicals in contact with them and things like this (mostly it's because my kids think spray bottles are squirt guns). There are some downsides like the cleaners without the harmful chemicals don't clean as well. You win some and you loose some.
Ok, My sister in law gave me some essential oils to try out. I was sceptical. I tried them anyways. I have to say that they do help. They don't cure, they help. I Was thinking that they would just smell pretty. The oils really do seep into your skin, and into your bloodstream to help medicate you. I wonder if the people that invented cigarettes thought that the harmful chemicals didn't go into their bodies when they inhaled that junk?
This is just something to think about.

McCormic Cinnamon Chipotle Rub

2010-11-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

We have this McCormick Cinnamon Chipotle Rub. I thought I would make something up around this one seasoning. It came out to be really good so I am sharing what I did with everyone:

McCormick Cinnamon Chipotle Chicken Nachos

About a half a bag of corn chips
rinsed pinto beans
Avocado (optional because my kids don't like it)
chopped cilantro
1/2 cup cooked corn
2 cups shredded mild cheese (I used Mexican cheese and Mozzarella)
2/3 cup mango salsa (sold at Costco)
A dollop of sour cream for each serving

Chicken:
1/2 lb diced chicken
3 Tbsp McCormick Rub
2 Tbsp oil to fry in

Rub the chicken with the seasonings, fry at a high heat until fully cooked.
Lay out chips on a cookie sheet. Top the chips with beans, cheese, corn, and chicken. Place in oven at 350 until cheese is melted (about 10 minutes).
Top the hot nachos with cilantro, avocado, and sour cream. Serve with salsa on side so chips don't get soggy. Enjoy the sweet and spicy nachos :)

Megan's Law

2010-11-02T22:47:00.000-07:00

Every so often I go onto Family Watchdog and type in peoples names. Don't worry, it's just the names of people that I don't want to be around in the first place. I guess I am subconsciously trying to find another reason not to go around these people.

Hashimoto's

2010-11-01T17:46:00.000-07:00

I know that I have not been on here in forever. I have been busy. I was also feeling sick. Sick enough that it makes it hard to do the every day things.
Just a background check on me. I have all of this crazy "unhealthy" blood running through my veins.
In 2003, I had sinus surgery because I was always getting sick. Not hypochondriac sick, sick enough that they tell you to go home from work because they are affraid of you getting everyone else sick.
Later on that year, I had a really bad head ache. I went to the doctor, he sent me to a Optomologist and he that thought that I was deathly ill. After a bunch of x-rays and CAT scans they said that I just had migraines.

After giving birth to my son I was told that everything should be back to normal after 9 months. I weighed more than when I was pregnant with my son after nine months, and my hair was still falling out. I was dieting and exercising. I never exercised or dieted before. I found out that I had hypothyroidism a couple years later.

I made an appointment with a new doctor that is a little bit out there. After all of my blood work coming back crazy as ever. This doctor told me that he is pretty sure that it's not my diet that is causing my blood results to be so bad (almost all of the other doctors told me that it could of been my diet. Even when I was on a vegetarian diet!). I know there is no way that it could be my diet, or lack of exercises. There are days where I work out 4 hours, and I still take care of my family! The doctor told me that I have an auto immune disease that is causing everything to be out of wack. He wants to charge me more that I can afford for the "treatments" that he wants to give me when he told me strait up that he is unsure if they will work or not.
This doctor gave me a book about what is going on with my body. He thinks I have an auto immune disease called Hashimoto's. One of the main things is being gluten intolerant. I have always eaten bread and I never thought to just cut out gluten. I have not had gluten for the past three days and my waste line is getting thiner. I am not cutting carbs. My bloodsuger is starting to feel like it is getting back to normal. My vitamins feel like they are going back in wack.
I am still taking my handful of vitamins a day. I am just thankful that I am starting to feel better.

Peaches

2010-10-01T23:15:00.000-07:00

Say hello to Peaches Wally. The four year old named her if you were not able to tell.

I haven't been on here for a, um, long time.

2010-09-26T21:25:00.000-07:00

So this is a update on everything. I have been super busy and I know where all of my time has been going.
First off, last week we got a puppy. If I don't have enough on my plate. I let my hubby talk me into getting a puppy.
Texas is also doing a co-op preschool with three other moms teaching. My day to teach is tomorrow.
We are still doing play dates every week.
I was chosen to host a Durex party ;) I was chosen to host a kleenex party before. Yeah for free stuff.
I am still doing lots and lots of couponing to cut the grocery bill down.
I have been making lots of bows. People have been asking me where I have been buying them so I am going to teach a class on how to make bows.
Our vacuum broke the same day that we got the puppy. I went to a vacuum shop and they wanted 32 dollars for just the brush. Dude, for three dollars more I can buy a new vacuum! Thanks Target for having vacuums for 35 dollars.
We have had the puppy for a week and the puppy still isn't house trained. She also howls whenever she is lonly.
Spencer and I let Texas name the puppy. Her name is "Peaches Wally".
We are still doing Kenpo. Spencer has been doing really well in the class and he was asked to be in a professional fight. It's next week and it's only a minute long but he is still exited that he was asked.
My little sister was proposed to last week also. The guy seems nice. She wants to get married in Decamber. No she is not pregnant, we are mormon lol. She also wants me to make all of the flowers by hand. I am going to try to have all of the flowers done by thanksgiving.
My other little sister is finaly going to bless her baby. Her baby is now three, so she's not really a baby any more. Normally they try to have babies blessed when they are newborns.
I think I have everything. I should take pictures of the bows and some of the flowers so you can see what they are turning out like. I think I've updated you on all of the big things. Of course there are other things like Spencer going fishing when I am having a bad day (grrr!). But all of these things are just life.

Beckwith Estate

2010-09-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Palmyra-NY/The-Beckwith-Mansion-Estate/90782943653

My dad rents out his HUGE house. He lives in a town called Palmyra NY. It's a small town that gets tourist durring the summer. The rest of the year it's pritty slow. He created a facebook page to get the word out that he rents out his house.

We went out to visit my dad for Christmas. It was nice. For the house being so old the house is HUGE! It's a cute little town that he lives in. Lots of old shops and some Amish live not too far away. They have a Menonite store not too far away from the town if you want to buy some amish food and see some of the things that amish and Menonites use. It was a nice trip. I think I bloged about my trip back in January.

There is only one Hotell in the whole town and that place gets booked fast. So if you are thinking of going to the west side of New York, My dad has a few rooms. Click on the "like" button to become a fan, and on that page it has a link to his blog that has more pictures.

I do have some crafty skills...

2010-09-10T00:33:00.000-07:00

I just don't use my skills as often as I should.

Laudry Soap

2010-09-07T23:05:00.001-07:00

I feel so weird posting this. I started making laundry soap. I have a year supply of other "free and clear" laundry soap, but Marilyn is allergic to almost all of our soap so she is getting special treatment just because I would rather not rub creams on her morning and night.

All that the soap has in it is:

1-2 inches of a shredded Zote bar (or any oil free bar like Ivory) cost about $1
1 cup baking soda: cost about $3 for the big box
1 cup washing soda: cost about $3 for a huge box
1 cup borax: cost about $3 for a big box
2 table spoons oxiclean: cost about $5 for a tub

I just mix off of the ingredients in a container. I keep this laundry soap dry and I use it as a powder because I see it as a hassle to boil all of the ingredients. At first the zote will be really soft and look stringy in the detergent but after a couple of days with all of the other ingredients, the zote will dry up and start to crumble so it will look more like a normal laundry soap.
For all of the ingredients it cost less than 20 dollars, but per recipe it cost less than three bucks. Each load of laundry: less than 5 cents. Most other laundry detergent cost about 10 cents a load. For Dreft or another gentle laundry soap, there is no way that you are going to find something for 5 cents a load.
I use about 2 tablespoons per a wash and all of the clothes come out looking clean and smelling great. This recipe helps remove yellow stains (like all of the pit stains on my white shirts) wich is awesome in my opinion. And the baking soda takes out all of the smells. I was doing a mixture of Oxiclean and baking soda before for presoaking diapers, now I just make this soap and use it with a gallon of water to soak the diapers.
For my fabric softener I am still using about a tablespoon of vinegar in the wash. I've heard that you can use watered down hair conditioner as fabric softener, but that sounds iffy to me because of all of the perfumes that they put into most conditioners. I guess it would work, I just don't want to try it.
I hope this is helpful for all of you economically cautious, environmently cautious, and paranoid people out there. Wow, I just described myself in three short phrases. Enjoy people!