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.