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Yep – I’m a Joiner!
Why Do I Decide To Make Major Changes Right Before A Big Event?
So I’m all, “we’re going to be crazy cheap/frugal from here on out” two days before my kids’ birthday party.
What kind of a jackass does that?
*points to self*
This kind of jackass, that’s who!
So now, instead of being cheap, we are being frugal in planning a party.
I think i have enough ingredients to make a bunch of cupcakes from scratch, so we won’t have to buy cake mix. I don’t know about making the frosting from scratch and I certainly don’t have the ingredients to make red velvet cake without a trip to the store. Not only for the assload of red food coloring, but for the buttermilk, too.
So after this weekend we’ll be frugal again. Until then? We’ll get by for as little as possible.
On the bright side, I bought my kids’ birthday presents when I bought their Christmas presents. So no present buying needs to occur! Yea!
With that as my bright side, keep me away from the razors, cause it’s kind of bleak when you look closely. Being cheap about a kids’ birthday party is so pathetic.
But everyone will have fun … even if I have to liquor everyone up and spike the punch.
Crap. Should I have punch? LOL
Christmas Before Thanksgiving? I Get it Now!
With another week until Thanksgiving I saw an ad for Walmart. I don’t know what it was selling. All I remember was kids, dressed in pajamas, running into a living room with a lit tree and jumping on the couch with mom and dad to read a story.
That’s when I started to cry, which is probably why I missed what the hell those kids and that couch and that tree were trying to sell me.
I always get emotional in November. I have since my early twenties for reasons I won’t go into here, other than to say something kinda awful happened at the end of September this one time way back in the day. So November has always seen me feeling this weird impending sense of overwhelm and doom – but not really in a negative way – just a world-on-my-shoulders feeling.
I’m explaining this because I think it’s kind of amazing I’ve been able to channel that feeling into a sense of overwhelm at how amazing my family is, and how I want their lives to be this amazing experience. I want to be a good mother that raises soldja girls (Is souldja girl a real term that is used by actual people? If not, screw it, I made up my own term.) that learn from pain and love life to the fullest. Well, maybe not the fullest, but as close to the fullest as possible without needing medication to function.
Somehow, the Walmart commercial sparked that feeling…and now it’s a downhill slide all the way to Christmas. On the bright side it’s more like a slip and slide drenched with the tears of my love.
How awful does that sound? I’m laughing at myself. Say it out loud. “A slip and slide drenched with the tears of my love.”
Classic.
Wii Fit Plus with Board & Fitness Ultimatum 2010 Giveaway
Sports Authority and I are giving away a Wii Fit Plus (with Board) and a copy of Jillian Michaels’ Fitness Ultimatum 2010.
Come on over to MommyBlog Reviews and enter the contest running through November 23 @ 9am CST. More details including date and location of personal appearance are available on the site.
Good Luck!
I’m A Thanksgiving Virgin
I’ve always gone somewhere for Thanksgiving.
Complained as I bundled up the kids and wished that I could just, you know, do it at home.
But now with a partially completed kitchen renovation and an addiction to Food Network making me wonder if I have the cooking chops to pull it off – I’m nervous. Really, really nervous.
I’ve even been planning emergency maneuvers – just in case.
- If someone eats a bite of food and makes a face, I’ll tell them the kid spit in that dish. Then it won’t be my cooking that’s to blame. Yes, this is unfair to the children…they’ll have years and years to put me through hell and more than make up for some misplaced blame when they were itty bitty.
- If something is taking longer than expected to cook, I’ll play a round of “pass the baby” – hopefully that will buy me an extra half hour or so. I just have to make sure the baby is changed and well-fed, because a round of “pass the baby” doesn’t last long at all if the baby is screaming at the top of her lungs, and I’m pretty sure the appetizers I’m making don’t go well with changing a diaper.
- I may choreograph a routine with the two preschoolers as another time-buying tactic. Maybe a song and dance number. If I have to put glasses next to them to really distract the guests, it’s not beneath me to set my kids up to break a little glass as a distraction. I hear if I make them scream, “Opa!” after they break the glass everyone will think it’s funny and not scary and dangerous.
If you’re hosting Thanksgiving, do you have some distraction ideas lined up in case something goes horribly wrong? Maybe spiking the punch to keep the guests compliant and calm? I thought of that too – but my grams can be a mean drunk so we’re going to keep the booze away from her. (Actually, she’s just not allowed to drink, doctor’s orders…but we tell her it’s because she’s a mean drunk – she thinks it’s hilarious because she knows it’s the doctor but plays along with us.)
Even though I keep making plans on how I’m going to cook the Turkey, we’re really having ham for Thanksgiving. I was thinking about trying the Neely’s Peach Glazed Ham recipe from Food Network.
But maybe I should be making a turkey. I’m just not sure. I have my distractions all planned and the liquor cabinet is stocked (it’s all for me, don’t ask me to share) – if I could get the menu down pat I’d be all set for the holiday!
But hey, it could be worse…we could be hosting Christmas!
Oh, wait…we are.
Back to Normal and the Economy is Not Improving
While I realize there really is no true “Normal” in anyone’s life (especially mine) there is a sense of peace when things are familiar. The baby crying isn’t a wonderful, amazing event…but it’s something I’m used to, so it doesn’t cause me any great anxiety or stress when she does cry.
My goal in life is usually to try and keep everything around me as familiar as possible. Sure, things come up and new jobs are acquired which change up everyone’s routine…those are stressful, but also exciting because who knows where those paths will lead?
One of the things I have been thinking about is the mall job I just took on – about 60 people interviewed for 7 part-time, holiday positions. I’m thinking the economy hasn’t been recovering as much as the television would have me believe.
It’s kind of scary to know that many people competed for a job that only pays a nudge above minimum wage. If I don’t need the money, does that mean I took the job from someone who may have needed it to pay rent or feed kids or something really important? It’s something I can’t know, but at the same time if I was a good enough fit to not even need an interview, maybe I shouldn’t borrow trouble or worry. I’m not the only one who got hired…maybe one of the other six took the job from the person who needed it the most.
My kitchen remodel is almost done. I’m SO excited. We got these beautiful oil-brushed bronze pull-knobs for the drawers and cabinets – they will coordinate with the light switch covers and outlet covers.
Even better? I measured the countertop and I will have five and a half feet of counter space. In a row. Usable, awesome counter space. I am going to cook like a madwoman this holiday season. Because nothing makes me want to cook like having a great place to do it – know what I mean?
Father’s Day And The Budget
When Randy and I first got married, we were kind of stupid about money.
I mean, it wasn’t until we were married almost three years that we (for the first time) wrote down every bill we had and tallied up how much it came to. Only to find out that the reason we were struggling was because we did not make enough money to pay our bills.
It wasn’t a budget problem, it was an income problem.
Since that first “Aha!” moment we have come a long way. We have a baby emergency fund and are working on our 8-month emergency expense fund.
Holidays like Father’s Day remind me how far we’ve come 
I was able to buy a pretty kick-ass gift for Randy for Father’s day. This is the first year (we’ve been married six and a half) that I am able to buy him a present beyond the fun arts and crafts that have been the mainstay of Father’s Day for the past years.
Don’t get me wrong, there will still be arts and there will definitely be crafts. But an extra something to show my appreciation for how hard my husband works and how amazing a father he is…well…I couldn’t resist.
I didn’t buy him a flat screen TV or anything. This gift I consider pretty big and awesome was only a nudge over $100. For some families that probably isn’t an amazing price tag on a gift…but I know how much this is going to surprise and thrill him – especially because I don’t think he knows it even exists.
I would tell you what it is, but you know that would be the one time he decides to read my blog, I can’t take that risk.
What Day Is It Again?
I keep thinking it’s Monday! Randy was home from work yesterday so it felt like Sunday.
The first thing I usually do on Monday morning is plan my week. So I’m getting not-quite-a-jumpstart by doing that today.
One of the major benefits of working from home is having almost complete control over what I do on any given day.
The downside? On days like today…cold, rainy, and gray….all I want to do is curl up with a book and a cup of hot tea and enjoy it.
The question is…should I enjoy the day and relax? Or should I plan for January and the rest of 2009?
I have writing work coming in this week so if I don’t do it early in the week, odds are after Wednesday I’ll be super-busy again and won’t have time to plan anything.
Or maybe I should take that time and complete our Christmas gift chart. We are still figuring out who is getting what gift and who we still need to buy for. Yes, we are total last-minute shoppers.
Randy is going to call the preschool again to find out what’s going on over there. I guess if we don’t hear from them I’ll put the girls into public preschool. I need a crystal ball to know what the right decision for them is.
I’m going to hop on the elliptical (maybe I can beat my previous awesomeness and stay on it for five minutes) and make the decision after my head is cleared from the first-thing-in-the-morning cobwebs.
On days like this, I wonder how I managed driving to work in the cold and the wet – barely awake and drinking coffee like it was going to save me from something. Only to get to work still not quite awake and start working at a desk, only leaving to go to the bathroom or go to lunch. Staying there for nine hours a day before coming home and only having a life on weekends or after 6pm.
Now I get to choose between relaxing, exercising, planning my future, or none of the above. Having control over my own life is something that I could have never imagined being possible, but now that I live this way, I cannot imagine living any other way.
I know I’m a few weeks late for the "being thankful" theme – but Christmas…it makes me happy and reflective. It hasn’t always, and I’m glad Christmas and I found a middle ground where I don’t care about the people who run up credit card debt and turn the holiday into a "who gave the best gift" contest. I’m in it for me. Me…and my family.
