humble

This humbled me..... Things could always be worse..there will always be someone worse off.

Why does Karma hate me?

To sum up my week....PURE HELL! The weather has been anything short of CRAP! It has been -3 at night almost all week long. My house is big and even with all the work that we have done/doing it's fighting to stay warm. Wednesday night the power went out, We tried to suck it up for three hours! At 3 a.m we drove to my mother-in-laws house 30 miles away. I love my mother in law...really I do...but HOLLY HELL she keeps her house freezing!! We didn't sleep at all. The power was out for 6 hours. When we got home the pipes were frozen. Thankfully it didn't take me long to unfreeze them and none of the pipes broke. When it gets this cold I wish we had our two wood stoves. Then I think of having to wake up in the middle of the night with them, the mess, and stacking it....and lets not forget that I worry about everything so add not sleeping well because I just knew we were all going to die in a fire!!  Can't wait to get the heating and electric bill..HA! I have been using three small heaters the stove (you know the baking kind) and the forced air has been running none stop..sigh. Today after dropping KayLynn of at preschool I had to get a few things at the store and when I come back out the car wouldn't start!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so freaking cold! Called my sister in law, her husband came and helped me...the car was towed. Long story short it was the anti theft. They only charged me $50 for the towing...sense I have that in my car insurance I didn't have to pay anything. And Fred's work truck broke down so they were in a hotel...nice.And I also didn't learn anything new form the bank. Good news....The weather is going to warm up and when Fred was home this last time we got a few things done on the house...which I will have in another post. This blog post is a hot mess and I need sleep. So a hot mess it will stay. (And if you didn't guess it..nope my husband never seems to be around when these things happen.)

Sale Palooza!

  So I may or may not have hit some really good sales and bought things that I didn't budget for....sigh...it happens. That is what I keep telling myself! I'm totally trying to justify it!!!!



They had a nice sale at Children's Place online. It was free shipping with a 20% off so I got 5 Hello Kitty T-shirts and jewelry. The jewelry I got to put in their Easter baskets! Total $31



OK the jeans are mine and they were not a sale BOO! The outfit I got at Kohls for PeeWee, it was on sale for $15.98 and after a $10 coupon I got from them in an e-mail it was $6.22. The Elf on the shelf and movie I got from the Hallmark store they were $32 and I got them for $12.38 and they will be brought out for Christmas.



I found these at Bath & Body works!! They were $10 and I got them for $2.50. The travel lotion I got for free with a coupon I got from their Facebook page. 



Teacher gifts for next year!!



These are the dresses that I got with my gymbucks. This I did have written in my budget! The pink one is for KayLynn's (PeeWee) Preschool graduation. I made sure that she would also be able to wear it through out the summer as well. I really wanted to buy the jewelry and the matching headbands but HOLY HELL! That was like $30-$40...ummmmm right. I will either wait for them to go on sale or find something on etsy.
Total  $27.98


MUST NOT FIND ANYMORE SALES!!!!

I'm in a MOOD!

This is  how I have been feeling lately.......I pretty much have nothing nice to say. I"m mean and moody!! The above picture was taken summer 2012. That pile of rubble is our living room and the guy sitting in the middle of it happens to be my husband. This picture also captures what his vacation days look like...yep. To keep costs down my wonderful husband helps the contractor with the work load. Funny thing is, just until a few years ago we didn't have the money to hire others to do the work. So up until then my husband did it all along with his very long hard days working in a stone quarry. My husband has yet to ever have a vacation, the guy is 31 and has watched the girls and I go on them. I have been back to MT a few times and Utah, gone to the beach (which she paid for) with a girl friend. Why is life so unfair? I'm feeling a lot of stress lately...which really the last 8 years has been nothing but a big stress feast. WE have been working on the pit for almost 9 years. That is along time to have to live like this...we are tired and frankly over whelmed and at our wits end....Tuesday we are going to the bank to see if we can get a loan to help finish this house so he can find a local job.I just want to sleep in the same bed! I really really want this to be able to work out, so keep your toes crossed for us! We are due for some good Karma!

Now that I had a mental break down for the world....on to the pictures from this last summer! I'll post the living room in the post and right about the kitchen in another one later.

Before

The walls in this room have already been redone by the time this picture was taken. The windows have also been replaced and the molding as well. I will have to try and find the wall paper pictures.....the wall paper had water stains on them..there might have been a bathtub that had damaged the walls???



Because my 7 year old is FUNNY! Shhhhh




Sometimes if you don't laugh... One might have a melt down!

We had to stay in a friends camp for a month! My husband told me two weeks....we were not happy campers!! We also went over budget and my husbands truck broke down, so we also lost a pay check!

I know that I have other pictures of the living room....but I can't find them. So this is what the floor looks like. The floor is now level, the main supporting bean was replaced along with all the other beams. The walls are painted and the stairs have been up on our every growing to do list. 

Super MOM secret #1 Cleaning.....

You can do anything for 15 minutes right? That is what I ask myself when it comes to cleaning my house. Everyday (through out the day) I spend at least 15 minutes in one room....yes I'll even set the timer. Sometimes I'm worse then my 4 year old! And that America is how I keep my house clean.....My secret is out! When it comes to laundry I do it every other day. I don't like seeing it pile up! I grew up in a very large family, with mountains of laundry that never went away. I'm not even joking. It would get so bad that we had a monthly trip to the laundry mat to get it all done. We would take up every washer and dryer! And even after going to that extreme to get it done it only took a week for the mountain to come back.And I can't even tell you how many times I had missed school because I didn't have clean clothes. That is why everyone should have a plan set in place. I get that life happens, people work or have school...still you need to have a plan!!!! I dust once a week...I hate dust. What really works out great is that I don't have a lot to dust. I don't have a lot of shelves or nick-knacks. If I did I'm sure that it would take me a lot longer to get it done. My girls are also a big part in helping keep the house clean, they live here too. And you can see on their face that it also brings pride to them. And if they start whining about helping out...ummm...I have been known to show them a clip of "Hoarders"! In all honesty I only had to show them once..yep I pretty much traumatized my kids. My favorite trick I have is a clear bin that is in my living room! This bin makes me so gitty! If I tell you more then once to put something of yours away, it goes in the bin!! And you have to do a chore to get it back.. If your my 4 year old and think you can just live without it and you'll just leave it in there, well you only have two days. We clean the up stairs every Sat. and only have tell lunch time to get it done. If it doesn't get done, then you lose out on anything that you wanted to do...I don't play around. The upstairs doesn't get that bad..again because we don't have a lot of crap(everything has a place). I know reading this might sound like I'm a drill Sargent but it works great! And with any luck my girls will be able to keep their own homes clean when it comes time. I have been very surprised at many that don't.

From the Beginning

My husband and I were married at the very young ages of 18 (me) and 20 (him). Just reading that brings a shocked look to my face! I had worked for under a year before we had our first child. I have been a SAHM for 9 years (8 months before I had given birth). I’ll just put it out there, I haven’t ever really had a job and have get to go to collage. So at 19 I had out first DD (daughter) age 22 for our 2nd dd and age 24 when I had out last and final dd . Yes you read that right, THREE daughters…..you can say it….teenage years are going to be a blast!! When my oldest daughter was 1 we bought our house we are living in now, a very large (3 thousand square feet) falling a part needs more then a little TLC house. We bought this house for 21k and taking out a loan for 31k , I was 20 and he was 23.…..yes so very very young! For the first five years that we lived here we did very little to the house in way of fixing it up. Why? Well, because we were so broke. Fast forward to today, we are 28 (me) and 31 (him) with our daughters 9,7, and  4. In the last year of my husband having a well paying job we have gone full force into fixing our “Money Pit” . And when I say a well paying job, I mean when your rmaking $24k a year with a family of 5, anything above that is great! My husband is now a truck driver and is gone for 2-3 weeks at a time, more 3 weeks then not. This job is a short term one (he has been working there for 3 already) we hope for him to come off the road from this job into a local one in the next 2-3(ok not so short term) years. But until this house and our debt is done sucking money from us this is the job he has to stay in for now. And as you can imagine in those years of not making ends met, we racked up our fair share of debt. So there you have it, my whole adult life story…in a nut shell anyway.

Here is a picture of "The Money Pit" and in all fairness to “The Pit” this is what it looked like when we were having the old siding taken off, but this gives you an idea of what we have been dealing with. Funny thing these pictures are the G rated ones...just wait...I have worse!

Pintrest Find of the week

My Pinterest find of the week is a meal planning printable chart! If you personally know me, you know that I hate trying to come up with a meal plan and that I loath grocery shopping!! I found a few, but this one I liked the best. Normally I will have three lists that I'm writing at a time in preparation for my shopping trip! THREE!! One for the meals that I plan to make (which is really two because I also have to make a weeks worth for my traveling husband) one for everything I need and one for everything that I already have to make what I have! I made myself crazy...I admit it. So this week went so much smoother with my new printable list. I wrote it up without having a melt down and was in and out of the store without forgetting anything!


http://theprojectgirl.com/downloads/theprojectgirl.com-mealplanner.pdf

January Budget goals

It's not a secret that with out a budget written down on paper and also having one on my computer causes me to have a melt down! Being able to look at it everyday to make sure that we are on track calms me..I'm sick..I admit it. So also having one on my blog will just make me smile!! I'm not going to post my whole budget, things like my mortgage payment etc. stay the same...these are my goals. I'm really hoping to accomplish all of them.  OK here is goes!

Groceries $800 this includes anything that I would get at walmart, like TP.

Clothing $50 I have already spent this, which I spent on myself. I ordered snow gloves and a Columbia fleece online. (They might go back as I have yet to get them.)
    -$50 I also spent on Two of my girls for new pants

Eating out $20 I know I'm a ROCK star with our eating out! BAHAHA! We already spent this at subway.

$60 will be our copay for two of the girls to have their yearly check up...This just makes me mad, but I just have to pay it.

Extra Debt payment $600 ugh.. makes me want to barf!

Kid Money $40 OK with this I know that I have one gymbuck that I might spend at the end of the month (might also sale it) and my two older girls will need $8 to go skating.

$7 for a wax ( I can't do it myself and I'm a hairy beast!)
$45 I'm trying to see if I can make it to the end of the month before I need to get my roots done....so far it's not looking to good.

Sense our pay checks aren't always the same I'll just stick with these for now.

I'm back

I started a blog last year, and for some unknown reason I wasn't able to get back into it! Which just really made me mad so I thought I was done with it.....here I am six months later. HA! I need an outlet so I don't drive the few people I still have in my life CRAZY!! So from here on out I will post everyday on whatever crazy thought bothers me the most...there might be a few..just a warning.