Show us your Life - Fashion

Well so I'm show-us-your-lifeing at Kelly's Korner this week and I have to say I LOVE trendy new fashions (usually) though I can't always afford them. So the first half of this blog is dedicated to my money saving fashion tips and the second half is my favorite things in fashion, most of which I only wish I could afford to buy or justify wasting money on!

Money Saving Tips

1) Rule numbero uno: NEVER PAY FULL PRICE! Don't shop the mall, you silly people, you can buy that online for half price. Know what you want? Take your time and look for things at thrift stores, online, or places like TJ Maxx or my fav The Rugged Warehouse (rejected items from the department stores, you usually can't tell why). Place bids on ebay! The thing to do is go and try on the brand you like and remmember the size and then go look online for it. That way you know you're getting the right fit!

2) Like what you buy. If you don't like it you won't wear it and you've wasted your money. If you like it buy one and watch till they go on sale super cheap and buy a 2nd or more o you'll have a variety. Example: You like the leggings look but it's like $15-$20 a pair. Buy a pair of black becasue that matches alot of things. Watch your local stores until they're like $5 a pair, then buy your color variety.

3) Um, yeah. Try it on first. Because you might look stupid. That's not so much of a money saving tip, just a tip everyone should consider.

4) Usefulness. OK here's what you want to consider.
Recently there was a big trend (is still maybe?) to wear distressed jeans. So people were buying brand new jeans from Hollister and such for like $95 but really the jeans are torn up before you get them so its not like they're gonna last that long. Currently there's a trend for skinny jeans. Skinny jeans are a regular jean, just cut a bit different so realistically, when they go out of style, you can still wear them under boots or whatever so this is a good investment! Leggings are a great investment because they may not be in style forever but they can always be worn underneath lightweight pants in the winter or whatever because they're super tight and act like stockings.



OK part 2 : My favorite things


Sweater dresses


skinny jeans


scarves


this adorable haircut but all in black since I can't wear funky colors at work... I'm waiting to treat myself with this lovely style until after the movie's finished.


and flats. because I love heels but my feet hate them. And I'm tall so I don't wear them much because everyone else looks so short when I do.

Get Motivated

HAhahahaha

Today I feel like sitting around doing nothing. Frankly I have about 3 days worth of work to get done. While I'm at work.

I need to get ready for the shoot tomorrow night. That means cutting Brent's hair. Checking the shot list. Getting the equipment back. Sending photos of haircuts. Sending costume descriptions. Getting a sitter/sitting arrangement. Getting my kitchen clean - immaculate - for the shoot. Cleaning the fridge. The counters. Oh and the dishes... the piles and piles of dishes that I've yet to catch up on... Draining the water out the bottom of the dishwasher. Making the kitchen movie-set-worthy. Probably washing clothes so that we have the right costumes clean. Showering and shaving my legs (can I reach them? Not really)...

Oh and I need to start reading this book assigned by our Growth Institute teacher(Experiencing the Father's Embrace by Jack Frost). And I have a lesson in our discipleship book to complete. Oh and I was supposed to start reading the Psalms this week. And I really felt like I need to be reading that to Alina. (I've yet to do that...) Oh and yeah I've yet to do my random act of kindness....

And I need to pay the bills... and I need to call the morgatge company.... and I need to stop focusing on all the external thing and start focusing on spiritual matters and the things that are important. HAHAHA

I'm excited though because my friend Tamara has started cuponing and store-vouchering and is getting a bunch of things for REALLY REALLY cheap (like a $4 bottle of shampoo for like 50 cents) and is sharing the love. I'm going over to her place sometime this week and we're getting 3 packs of Huggies (the $9 packs) for $4.30 each. And she bought a 7lb spiral ham for me the other day for about $5 so I'm picking that up and baking it and putting most in the freezer. And, oh yeah, she got cheese from Kroger the other day and bought about $75 worth and paid $20 so she's just giving me about 5 8oz blocks of Kraft cheese.

I have acomplished taxes this week though! I got all the info and sent it off to John Leighton and he's filing them on Saturday! So that's something!

Oh I haven't even thought about the trip next weekend......

OK time to start working and stop talking about it!!

Nailed him!

I sat and watched DVR footage forever today to find the footage of when the money is stolen and I found it. It's pretty damning evidence, though you don't actually see him take the money out of the bag... Basically you see me put the cash in the deposit bag, lay it on the counter and lock up when I leave on Saturday. Sunday they come in and the kid (eventually) knocks the bag and paperwork off the counter. He crouches down, paperwork goes up right away and he turns his back to the camera and messes with the deposit bag pretty extensively. Bag goes back on counter, he goes around the counter and shifts a stool that was turned upside down on the counter so it covers the bag. Kid moves the stool around 2 more times, and at the end of the day when the stool is put down on the floor, the deposit bag is missing. He's the only one that touches it the entire time.

This was very relieving to me because #1) I know I didn't take it. but #2) they didn't know that I didn't take it (for sure, anyway).

And, why would you go through all the trouble of preparing a deposit if you weren't depositing it? And why would you go through all the trouble of sneaking around and hiding the bag if you didn't take it?

But, it's really nice that we have a security camera and my desk is right in front of it and all so you can see me put it in there and leave it and you see the kid messing with it. It's wonderful really, because it's plain and clear that I didn't do it and the LAST thing I need right now is to be suspected of theft. And, seriously, if I was gonna steal a deposit I would take like a $2,000 one, not $400 but lol oh well. Theives are stupid, really.

Well, I'm pretty glad that I found the actual footage of it all. It's a big relief. and I just wanted to tell someoene else about it because I feel strange chatting on about it at work - like I'm almost too glad that we see the kid knock it down, you know? So I'm not talking about it anymore, but I'm exploding to tell someone about how I proved my innocence so I'm pretty much stoked.

OK, I'm good now. LOL. Thanks for listening.

Back to Life

why does everything hit all at the same time?

let me see... the floor waxers stole the deposit from Saturday off the counter on Sunday when they were in here... so Monday was spent looking in vain for something that was not here and explaining why the $400 wasn't in the bank (which was closed) and being yelled at and told to be more careful in future over something that I should not have to worry about. What's strange to me is my employer expects us to lock up the $400 deposit and $200 in cash but not to lock up the cases that hold $1000's of equipment worth. *sigh*

Um.... there's been a garnishment pending for ever on my wages because these people that I owe $1400 (yeah, that's all) to wouldn't take small payments and I didn't realize until too late that I could make small payments and they just had to deal with it (live and learn). I've since then learned that I can pay $10 a month and that's enough to prove to the court that I'm paying on it and they can't take further action, but I learned that all in retrospect to loosing the suit they placed against me and the garnishment being filed. Well I got notification of it like back in December, and our HR lady said she'd not seen it and she'd let me know when that happened.... so today it happened and just when I was expecting a decent check, and was going to be paying off the total sum in 2 weeks (with taxes) they start taking 25% of my pay. Yeah, you read that right. One forth of my pay. So, the upside is that I won't have to pay too much back by the time I get my taxes back. The bad news is I have to pay the mortgage in the meantime. which, I can't really do anything about until I see my paycheck. So there's no use worrying about it but you know me. *sigh again*

Saturday some girl who works at Walmart went up to management because she says Brent put the wrong oil in her car and Brent says she didn't ask for anything specific. Well the problem is, that after he got wrote up for scratching that car a few months back, management could fire him over this. It's been a few days since then but we don't know if that's just because they haven't had time to bother or not.... *sigh* He'd probably get severance pay, I've got medicaid for my pregnancy, and the kids could go on peachcare and we'd get foodstamps I'm sure... but we'd loose our spot in the daycare.... and potentially not get back in at all when he got a new job. No use worrying but again, you know me better than that. *heavy sigh*

And, turns out that stomach bug Alina had she gave to me, and that's probably what's been bothering me so much and being the reason I couldn't get out of bed, etc. I woke up at 5am and felt like puking and had awful stomach cramps and diarrhea and coulda sworn I had salmonella... had to take a hot shower for about 45 mintues before I could get back in bed. But Brent and I ate different lunches and dinners last night and he's sick to his stomach today too. So, I gave it to him I'm sure. And now he's grumpy and mad at me because I didn't ask him how his day was when he was on lunch because I was trying to handle the next problem on my list here... *sigh*

Which brings me to my final hoop-la in that we got our W-2's today and turns out that Walmart adjusted Brent to a family of 4 at the beginning of this year instead of leaving him as an individual on his W-4's. The deal is that when you list as just one person, the government takes too much during the year and then they give it all back at the end.... and that's what we're used to - $6000 in taxes back all at one time. That's how it was last year. That's how mine were filled out. His were adjusted apparently, because they only withheld like $300 in federal. So. Naturally when I saw his W-2 I thought it was wrong and spent about an hour trying to fix it... and was basically told to call someone else like 5 or 6 times (each new number I called would send me to another new number). And so I finally investigated by looking at his paystubs from the year and realized they really haven't been withholding much (if at all) so I called my tax-preparer John Leighton and talked to him about it and John says we'll be fine and get more than that back he's pretty sure, but we won't have to pay in for sure.... so that's that. But it means we're probably looking at about $2,000 less on our return... and that sucks.... so *sigh again*

And this week I'm supposed to be reading more scripture, preparing for our trip to SC, paying all the bills, working full time, taking care of my kids, and practicing love to people I regularly don't "love on" in an attempt to strengthen my character by practicing a fruit of the Spirit (for our growth institute cell group). And, for some blessed reason I feel called to practice a more loving attitude to the manager at my store because I've always been very negative towards him. And of course, today, his wife is in here chatting away and I think I'm exercising more patience than love. *sigh again and again and again*

God is good. I just have to remember that.

Sick sick sick sick

OK so I finally get over the whole "oh my life is confused" feeling that I brought home from the weekend and I start taking my iron supplement (as required by my OB) and I'm sick as a dog. I hardly pull myself out of bed Saturday morning and I get to church on time Sunday only to come back home after about 45 minutes because the kids were grumpy and I was not feeling up to chasing them around the church or holding them hostage and letting them scream.

I went home and laid in bed for 4 hours. Raziel took a good long nap after playing in his crib for a while. Alina laid down for about 15 minutes and then came and told me she was awake. So, for my 4 hours I slept for about 15 minutes and then was read to and talked to by Alina. She was sweet for a while and then played on the floor with her piano and blocks and so forth. It could have been more restful... Oh well.

I cleaned nothing, I did no laundry, I washed no dishes. The most productive thing I did was bathe my children and give them haircuts. Raziel needed a full on haircut, and Alina we just trimmed about 2 inches off the ends of her hair (mostly because she wanted a haircut too). It's still mid-back length; hers was almost to her little waist. And by the time I was done with bathing them and cutting their hair I was exhausted and went back to lay down on the couch.

I'm gonna call my OB today because I can't do this at all. I've got too many things on my agenda to lay in bed because I feel horrible. But I didn't feel well enough to not lay in bed.

I'm super excited about the shower -- Brent got permission to have the weekend off, they fixed his schedule. And, my BFF from when I was like 12, Helen Joy George, might be in Charleston that weekend and will come to the shower if she is and is available!!! I am delighted out of my mind! What a wonderful addition to an already wonderful event :-)

OK so on top of it all, we may have offically changed the baby's name to Judah Aiden. Which I think is beautiful and it means "little fire of praise" and that is just straight up cool! Anyway, we'd pretty much been talking about how Brent didn't want to use the name Dante if we weren't calling him that (which I'd rather become attatched to the name but oh well!) and he suggested Aiden which is one that I'd been thinking about so I think that's it! Now the next kid's gonna be a real odd ball and not have a middle name starting with the letter A.... hmmm I'll have to be creative. But, we're talking about the girl name Tamari Sahara and that's just pretty too and would effectively break the A middle name thing I have going currently.

OK thats all for now, I need my sonic ice for the day.

Feeling Better

Ahh.

I'm feeling better. I don't know exactly what all I've concluded but I feel alot better about everything and I am less emotional and more confident in my ability to be.... well, just my ability to be. to exist. I think I just needed time to understand my dreams and understand what happened and get used to the idea that something affected my husband and that means it affected me too.

Anyway, in the meantime, Alina has been horribly sick. She's totally fine all day and then she just pukes out of no where. Wednesday morning she had puked all over her clothes and bed and everything and she came in Raziel's room when I was getting him dressed and told me "mommy, I hiccuped and threw up on my bed" and I turned and freaked because she was litterally head-to-toe covered in puke. We tried to take her to daycare because she seemed fine and was acting normal and not sick at all. But she threw up in the car on the way so my day off was shifted to Wednesday and I missed Thursday cell group and that made me sad. She was fine all day Wednesday and she went back to the sitter on Thursday but she threw up during nap time again. So, she's home with Daddy today on his day off and I'm hoping she gets over whatever this bug is.

I learned my lesson about rain and GA last night. I went over to pick them up from the sitter and decided to go out through the yard path because its easier than backing through the driveway. Well, I hadn't realized it had rained all day. And also I hadn't realized that just because the yard doesn't look wet does not mean that the yard is not wet. And... well, to my friend in SC, GA is alot different in the way the ground works. In Charleston if it rains the water just stands on top of the sandy ground until it evaporates. The sand is still plenty firm enough to drive across, there just happens to be an inch or two of water sitting on top. Apparently in GA the ground absorbs every bit of it so as you may have deduced by now, I got stuck. Very stuck. So stuck that the sitter's hubby had to pull his van into the yard and push my itty-bitty-low-profile suzuki out of the mud and onto the gravel. I had Brent call them today and offer to shovel or rake out the tracks so their yard didn't look so destroyed. I apologized about 80 times and just felt horrible about it but I honeslty truly didn't know that I'd get stuck or that I'd even be risking it by driving through the yard. Nick said you never drive through their yard after its been raining. I didn't even really know it had been raining... Oh well.

Now it's back to life. Back to paying bills and budgeting and grocery shopping and washing all the dishes that haven't been washed in the last 2 weeks because the water pipes kept freezing and busting in spite of the fact that we left it running. Back to getting my act together to shoot a few last scenes for our film. Back to hoping that Brent and I get to go out on a hot date tonight. Back to hoping that my commission will be enough to pay the morgatge, the sitter, and have some money left for life. Ahh. Maybe I'll blog more often as life settles back down. And maybe it won't settle because after all Judah is coming in the next 8 weeks and I haven't even seperated the clothes from all the stuff I have put away for him.... and I have a baby shower first weekend in February in Charleston which I am VERY excited about because I miss my family and a baby shower will be a great thing to put me in the mood to get ready for this baby.

Lots of Processing

Have you ever gone on a retreat that was supposed to be refreshing and turned out to be nothing but exhausting and confusing and frusterating?
That's how my Encounter weekend was. I don't know why. But it was not refreshing at all and just plain frusterating. Every time I've been on a retreat before it was encouraging and renewing. This time I came home feeling nothing much beside confused and lost and insignificant.

Don't get me wrong, the retreat was wonderful for everyone else.... on Sunday morning everyone was talking about how they felt like a fog had just lifted, or a weight had been lifted from their shoulders, etc. I just sat in there and cried because I realized I was different and felt like there's something wrong with me - surely if everyone else was encouraged I just wasn't in tune or something because I was all worn out. I slept well, ate plenty of really good food, rested alot, etc.

I just was spiritually hit by a bus or something. I am still sorting out whatever it was that "shifted" in the spirit because I didn't feel the shift but I'm still reeling from the after effects. Brent was freed from some strongholds but nothing really drastic happened to me but now I just feel like I'm a lost little child and I don't even know where to begin on picking up and moving on.

I'm journaling alot now... I've started dreaming (strange because I never did before) and remembering the dreams. I am trying to write down the things that I see in dreams and the visiony/revelation type things that I get during the day. Maybe it's God speaking to my confusion. Maybe I'm just daydreaming.

Maybe things will sort out soon.

New Years Pictures

Us with Brent's family (mom and siblings) BACK: (L to R) Clint, Pam, Rebecca, Jessica
FRONT: (L to R) Alina, Beth, Brent, Raziel. Raziel was so funny, he just stuck that spoon in his mouth and he laughed so hard when we took the picture he almost fell over!!

My new desktop background. I love this picture. Couldn't get Raziel to be happy without something in his mouth, but at least its a picture of something other than the top of his head!

Raziel in a Christmas bag full of goodies, eating the bows and playing with them

This picture is adorable and I love it! No red eye, got a smile, everything. Her hair isn't even in her face!!

Day 3 of Everpresent Snow

Well I think I need to send an email to the weather guys. Attention: We live in Northern GA (truly the deep south). We do not need snow for more than a day at a time. It is important to our lifestyles that the snow melts following day 1. So, stop broadcasting that it's going to be so cold! Give us a few degrees -- say 15 or so-- and we'll all be much nicer folks, I promise. We need our sweet tea and sonic ice and light jackets. My children don't own clothes thick enough to play outside and are tired of wearing 2 layers! So, hurry up and warm it back up around here -- please and thank you.

Currently, Tuesday is the first time it's supposed to get above freezing... a whollaping 38 degrees for our high. If it gets that warm, I might not have to give myself an extra 30 minutes to drive in case some other person decides that they don't know how to drive in the snow (though it's on the sides of the roads, not on the roads anymore) and go 15 mph down the highway with double solid yellow lines so I cannot go around them. If it gets that warm, I may be convinced to not wear leggings underneath my work pants and a tank top under my uniform shirt. I might even be convinced to take a shower again!

I went to take a shower last night, after washing some dishes almost an hour previous to that. Well, I turned on the hot full blast and kept waiting for the warm water to appear. I stripped down in good faith, freezing my buns in the meantime, and finally decided that the water was warm enough. I hopped in and the very second the water touched me I shrieked like a child and scrambled back out of the shower. Brent thought it was hysterical and dried me off (well the small section of me that had gotten wet) and dressed me and stuck my hands under my arms so that my core would heat up faster and wrapped up around me to try and warm me faster. Its so nice to be married to someone who knows how to fight off/prevent frostbite. Ok, not that I was in danger of loosing a toe or something to frostbite, but I was cold and he knew the best ways to warm me up! He tucked me in bed and brought chocolate covered cherries to feed to me :-) They were REALLY good but I only let myself have 3 because I really probably don't need them.

Today I work until 5. I need to finish washing dishes, throw in a load of laundry, straighten the house a bit.... and pick up milk and bread and a few things from the store. (It's been hard to find milk and bread lately, the weather man said the s word and everyone ran off to the store like they were expecting a blizzard!) I think tomorrow Alina and I will make some more "princess" cookies (sugar cookies with pink icing and sprinkles) because we are out of them and she seemed to enjoy them so much. Something about homemade cookies just makes me happy... I don't mind giving those to her as much because I know exactly what's in them and that seems to give me some comfort (I don't really know why).

Next weekend Brent and I are going on a church retreat together - I think this is the first one we've gone on together as a married couple. We're really excited because this is leadership training for our church and we were asked to go by our pastor. We'll be there Friday night, all day Saturday, and Sunday morning - no kids :-) so it's actually a retreat, and a mini vacay together. I'm really excited to see what all we do on the trip, and what things we look into and stuff.

I know a big part of the retreat is finding out what your gifts and strengths are and how to use them to benefit the body -- and that's really cool to me. I've taken like a bazillion of those "what is your spiritual gift" tests and it always comes out different... depending usually on what denomination is administering the test and what they call things. I know I've got alot of hospitality that's naturally oozing out of me - so much so that we had a prophet couple come to our church one weekend and they looked at Brent and I out of the blue (we hadn't even met) and said "you have a very hospitable spirit, and you've always kept your home open and you need to continue to do that." I know I hear specifically from God pretty frequently about doing things or not doing things -- but it seemes to be more prophetic than discerning... but I also know that I'm very much a teacher and shepard but I also know I can't be everything so I just don't know (LOL). Ahh if only it was on an index card one day when I was reading in my bible or something. Just tell me "hey, you're a prophet" and I could handle that pretty easily! I don't think I'm an evangelist... I feel more concerned with teaching people how to live correctly and how to impact others than I do going out and "preaching to sinners" so to speak. And I don't think I'm an apostle either -- I'd rather stay with a group of people than jump from church to church to church planting and growing them for a little while and coming back to kick their butts when they've been stupid. And, for that matter, I've never really felt a calling for intercesory.... sure, I pray for people and on their behalfs on rare occasion, but its only happened one time that I really felt like I needed to set myself entirely aside to pray for something/someone specific and I have the feeling that that had more to do with the person whom I was praying for and what I'd just been told about what they were going through. I think that qualifies more as worry than intercessory. I think part of the deal with being a true intercessor is to know someone needs prayer before you hear about what's wrong or if there is something wrong -- like speaking prophetically doesn't really count if you look at someone you know is in drug rehab and tell them that drugs have been controlling their life. It's sort of a duh statement.

Well, our first bible study is Monday, and then we have the retreat (called Encounter) and then we have bible studies on Monday nights till like June I think... I'll be really interested to learn about what it is exactly that God has for me. Lately I've felt like I was just waiting around for whatever it is to happen so I can start to reach out and minister.

I remember a few months back, Brent and I were asked to go to a meeting about starting a youth group. We were ready to be involved and be leaders but God stepped in and said "nope" even though we weren't really listening. He timed it to where Becca went into the hospital the weekend of our first youth group night so we didn't go to the first meeting and just never really went back.... probably a good thing, anyway, because the guy in charge was very zealous but seemed to think that his passion for the kids would be enough to make them realize how awesome God was -- and didn't really have a course of action besides "let's have a church service and just invite teens." ech. We tried to talk to him about it too, because they've been tons and tons of people to come in, start a youth group, loose zeal, and dissapeer at that church and it's just frusterating. Brent and I KNOW that whatever it is that we have to do is going to be involved with teenagers somehow -- we've been told and shown that time and time and time and time again. We both knew it while we were still like 15 and 16. I was a youth leader in high school and I even organized and ran entire retreats -- and let me tell you, Happening was alot of work. I didn't sleep but like 5 hours all weekend. It was exhausting, but let me tell you, I knew that was what I was supposed to be doing. I was sure that was the thing that was meant for me. But since graduating, I've just been... on hold. Now I'm married and have kids and my own schedule and stuff, so its different. And I guess, good youth ministers have their own teenagehood under their belts a bit and aren't still growing up (not that I'm not still maturing but I'm past the teenage part of it). But, I'm ready to be doing something. I'm ready to be ministering and making a difference. I'm ready. But right now I'm still waiting. Maybe Encounter will change this and it'll be a step towards whatever-it-is.

Snowy Frozen Day

Thursday called for 70% chance of snow with a high of 26 degrees and the lows below 10. Today called for flurries. It's a might cold... 18 degrees right now a bit past noon. 2 degrees after wind chill at Brent's work today.

We got about an inch of snow between yesterday afternoon and last night. I took pictures as this was the first snow that Brent was home to enjoy with Alina. Alina was super super grumpy for a while - I'm not really sure why she just felt like screaming and crying whenever she woke up from her nap. But, she and daddy made Jello and then went to play in the snow and she cheered up a bit (pacie and all).





She only played for about 30 minutes before she broke down in tears out of the blue and said she was cold and wanted to go inside and watch Ice Age. (funny that she's cold and wants to watch Ice Age)



They had a snowball fight. Daddy made snowballs and Alina threw them at him and he threw them back at her. Brent said the first one she hit him with made her little face light up and she laughed like it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen!


Its been so cold that we left the water running everywhere in the house but the water pressure is poor in some places because its freezing the pipes some anyway. We've had to bundle up an extra bunch - Alina had on leggings and a close fitting shirt under her normal clothes today. She wouldn't wear 2 pairs of socks for me but she gladly wore mittens and her jacket. Raziel's been so sick I was scared to bundle him too much - he's had the worst diareaha ever. I changed him every 2 hours yesterday and put baby powder on him and everything, even got up and did it once in the night. His diaper rash is so bad that he screams and cries so hard he shakes when I go to change him - it breaks my heart. But, he's gotta get cleaned or it'll get worse. If I go more than about 2 hours without checking him his diaper explodes all over his clothes and blankets and everything he comes in contact with. So, I just left him in his fleece PJ's and brought clothing changes to the sitter today and that seemed to be enough for him under his heavy jacket. I hope he gets better soon, this getting up in the night is too much for me and all this diaper rash is too much for him. :-/

I've finally accomplished that whole to-do list from the other day. I'm very proud of myself. I even got all the paperwork I needed faxed over to HIPP so that GA Health Dept can look at re-imbursing us for our health care costs. It may only be $70 a month but every little bit counts. I do need to call back my OB about taking iron pills.... I don't want to do it but I've been so tired lately that it's very possible I just need to buckle down and do it (yuck).

Ok. I'm done for now. I need to go clean up at work. We did inventory the other day and haven't finished re-organizing since then, and I can't find anything.

Got my hands full

Seems to be that everyone says that to me these days. When I called my precious g-parents I found out that they hadn't been told at all about Judah until a week or two ago and I couldn't believe it! Surely -- surely, my dad would call them up to announce another great-grand.... I guess not. But, even my blessed wonderful granpa said "wow, you're gonna have your hands full." Everyone seems to say that - strangers, family, friends. Oh well, I guess I probably will!

Today has been interesting. I got ALOT of my to-do list done... not quite all, though. I still need to re-schedule my ob appt and there was something else..... hmmm.... but I did start some laundry. When I finally got home last night the kids were both already asleep and I just stuck them in their beds and turned on the heaters and they slept just fine. I was FREEZING last night for a while until my eagle scout asked if I'd worn those socks all day and told me that they were holding moisture and I needed to take them off. Its wonderful to be married to an eagle scout when the house's insulation isn't the best. He tells me that the secret to being warm is wearing as few clothing items as possible (or none, really) and snuggle up under the blanket. Your body heat will be trapped by the blanket and you'll be warmer faster. The problem with this arises whenever you have to get out of the bed to pee or to get up in the morning.... because the warm doesn't come with you :-/ I tell Brent this is just a ploy to have me wear less clothing and he says that he finds that amusing because he used to tell it to 11 year old boys at scout camp and he hopes that I don't really think that's the case. LOL.

We tried to put the dog in the shed last night so he'd stay warm while it dropped below 10 degrees... he got out anyways and went across the street to cuddle with the in-laws dog. Can't blame him, I would do it too! But poor thing had ice chips on his fur when we brought him in this morning. He's such a good dog, Brent didn't have to keep him on a leash or anything while they were going in and out the house all morning... he just hollers and Odin recognizes something (not sure what it is because he's pretty darn deaf) and comes running up to him every time.

The current battle has been keeping warm at home... the insulation is just awful, the heating and air is too expensive to run because it's not working right... and we're out of firewood (which is expensive too). So, we use space heaters and we've borrowed Pam's radiator and we do all right but it's still pretty daggum cold... even if the heat was running all day, we'd still be cold - we've got 70% chance of snow on Thursday and it hasn't been above 30 degrees all week long. I saw some thing about weatherization the gov't is doing but I haven't had the time to try and see what it is or how it works much less apply and go through an interview for it. I know that it's created to weather-proof the homes of people that aren't well-off-enough to do it themselves... which sounds great but man that means I have to fill out an app and talk to the gov't etc etc etc etc etc. sigh.

I did start a load of laundry.... and I took the trash out of Raziel's room, though not to the dump yet. Razzy was sick yesterday when I got him from the sitter, he'd thrown up all over himself.... Alina had that little stomach bug while we were on our trip to FL -- effectively puked all over me right when I was discovering the bathtub in our hotel that was big enough to fit 3 adults into (not that there'd ever be a need for that as far as I can tell!). I was sick on Saturday night too... and Brent had it on Thursday night. So, I guess it's a 24 hour puke-once sort of thing, and today Raziel's doing fine. I even called mid-way through the day today to check on him and he's doing just perfectly normal, so I'm glad. I hope the kids don't get as exhausted as I was Sunday (couldn't get out of the bed). So, the point of this long confusion is that it's been so cold that the clothes that were wet from when I washed Alina's puke out in the tub were frozen when I threw them in the wash LOL

wow I'm random today and I can't really focus. I'm gonna end this rambling.

Catching Up on Life

Ah my to-do list is long

#1) bugdget, pay bills, make billing arrangements
it was so odd to not have a $3000 check in December, we've got a bit of catching up to do because we did really really well but still aren't used to the no-extra-money thing during Christmas. I like this job way better but it's different in that respect.

#2) clean out the car, bring in all the lovely New Years gifts and distribute throughout the house. Exciting gifts worth mentioning include a breadmaker and knife block and set for hubby and a beautiful yellow purse from New York New York in Las Vegas :-D and a new bottle of my fav purfume.

#3) must purchase a new year's daily planner... I am lost without one. I started using one last year to help keep up on bills and it's been the best thing I've done along with online banking and billpay.

#4) laundry. Ah, traveling brings piles and loads of laundry. I was off yesterday but sick as a dog all day and couldn't even get up out of the bed to think about doing laundry. Good thing I washed all the dishes before I left, but leaving the diaper genie full was a mistake! IT STINKS!!

#5) clean Alina's room. While I was sleeping all day yesterday the babies were playing happily. I was right there, on Alina's bed, so it wasn't like they were in any danger, but gosh did they make a mess!!

#6) make arrangements for Child care while on my retreat... brent and I go on a church retreat on the 14-16th of this month and I need to make sure my in-laws can keep the babies at nighttime for us. (they'll stay with the sitter during the day)

#7) get up the nerve to go outside in the 26 degree weather without my jacket (don't know where that is... lost in the new years stuff to be taken from the car) and go pay the car insurance.

#8) upload new years pictures to my blog. We had a family picture taken of brent and myself and the babies and are very excited because it turned out GREAT. I'm going to post it here and then email it to my mom because she'll want it

#9) call my grandma back because bless her heart she called like the day after Christmas and I still haven't had a minute to call her back!

#10) Re-schedule my next OB appt to correlate with my next day off so that I don't arrive to work late (which I was 5 minutes early today! WOOHOO!)

Gosh my life is so insane. I don't really have time to blog either and I have about 30 posts to catch up on people's blogs!!