Halloween........

Here are the kiddos. I thought I posted some of me, but I'll have to go back and check.
This is mother-in-law, son, foreign exchange student staying w/in-laws, and daughter.

And here we are at C's house, with A's dog visiting.............DS loves dogs!
There is C's dog.
And here is DD going to her first school dance. Unfortunately this was the night I had to take DH to the ER, so a friend got her ready and took her to the dance.And here she is at the dance, meeting up with best friend.

PIctures coming soon!!

I am currently downloading 352 pictures from my camera to my computer. It looks like they go back to Halloween! Lots of new posts coming!!

My Addiction

I'm ashamed to admit it. I blame it on my mother. I've been doing it since I was like 6 years old. Any guesses??







Soaps.

Yep, I'm a soap whore. Well, not really that bad. I only watch 3. In the past it's been more than that. I no longer watch Days of Our Lives, Guiding Light, All My Children or Anther World (only because it's no longer one).
So, that's good, right??

And the last couple years I've had the time to keep up with the last remaining three. Especially since we got the TiVo!

But now that I'm working full time, it's getting hard to stay on it. Even with the TiVo, I've been getting behind. Although, as of yesterday, I have watched them all. Last week all I did was catch up on like 25 episodes. Granted there was a lot of fast forwarding going on.

Now that I'm getting ready to go back to school, hopefully full-time, I have no idea how my addiction is going to continue.

I'm down to Young and the Restless, As the World Turns, and General Hospital.
I've decided since I do the most fast forwarding on ATWT, that one will probably be the first to go.

But, how do I let go?!?!?!?! All these years down the drain. Maybe I can keep up..........

My budget and get out of debt plan

is working pretty well!!! It's not a very strict budget, not near like some I've seen. But, it is good for us. I use Microsoft money and have entered all of our regular bills and paychecks into it for the rest of this year. I've entered an estimated amount for groceries, gas, etc.. That way I can see how it will work. I then entered my credit card payments, started the 'snowball' effect on them and we pay around $1500-1800/month.

We also have $450/month going into a savings account. It is used for non-monthly items such as vet bills, car tags, car insurance, birthday gifts, etc...And once that balance reaches $1200, we take $1000 out to put on a credit card, or move it to our ING savings account.

Our ING savings account is for house repairs. We have around $2,000 in it right now. This summer we NEED to replace that back part of our fence, replace the gutters and boards under them, and do some work on our roof. Those are must-do's. There are a couple rooms I would LIKE to paint inside, depending on how things are going.

We also have another savings account that is our emergency fund. We try to keep it around $1,000. It will be used for brakes on the van, and whatever else comes up.

We have a good sized FSA. Since 3 out of 4 of us wear glasses, we are not worried about not using the money and losing it. Both kids usually get glasses at the end of the year, and if there is money left, I also get a new pair.

We have NOT used our credit cards since December!! That is the month we had our "WE ARE FUCKED" moment!! I am very proud of the progress we have made. I will post a semi-detailed report of how bad it was then, and the progress we have made in just 4 months.

As far as fun money goes, we also do this differently than most people. I have a very flexible job. I can work anywhere from 20 to 40 hours a week. So, in our budget I put the amount for a 25 hour work week. If I work more, I divide that amount in half. One half either goes to our emergency savings or a credit card, and the other half I cash. I use that cash for eating out, drinking, a new shirt or pair of shoes, or whatever.
I believe that has really helped me succeed. If I wasn't able to do those things, I'm pretty sure I'd have the credit cards out again. It's a reward for myself.

DH's fun money is similar. His paycheck is direct deposited. So much goes into our joint account for paying bills, so much goes into that non-monthly bills savings account, and so much goes into his checking account.

It may sound odd and maybe even a little difficult, but it sure has been working for us! Just wait until you see the results!

Feel pretty party

Last weekend I went to a friends for a "feel pretty" party. It was a Mary Kay party. I hadn't seen most of the ladies for a couple months, so it was nice to see everyone.
As far as the make-up goes, I was out of moisturizer and powder, so I went ahead and bought some. Instead of just powder, I got their new powder foundation. Today is the first day I've actually used it, but so far, so good. It covers well and I feel like I don't have anything on.

I actually stopped wearing foundation a couple years ago. I just hated the way it felt on my face, like I had paint on. A couple coats of powder seemed to do fine for me, and maybe some concealer. So, to have a powder foundation sounds like a great idea to me!

Anyways, it was nice to see everyone! And learn some new skin care tips.

Like, when applying moisturizer under your eyes, you should use your ring finger (it is the softest) and just dab it towards your inner eye. I think this was to not stretch the skin and cause wrinkles??
I also learned that I put eyeliner on wrong. I always stretch my eye out, so it goes on smoothly. OOPS!
And when putting anything on your neck, you should go in an upwards direction.

It's been almost 2 months.

I don't even know where to start!! Let's see.
In February, on DH's brothers' birthday, we found out his grandpa died. He had cancer, so we knew the time was coming, but it was still hard. We traveled out to middle Kansas for the funeral. It was nice seeing all his family. They are scattered about the country, so it's not often they are all together. We went bar hopping the first night we were there. Two bars. Let me tell ya, it was like being back home. Except I didn't know anyone. But everyone knew who we were right when we walked in the door. That's the thing about small towns. In fact, the next day at the funeral, the preacher came up to us and said he knew where we were last night. Startled the people who grew up in the city, but not me.

What next? My son's birthday was in early March! We did transformers theme. Pretty cool. He had fun and I got to eat cake! Yummy.....

I know I'm missing some stuff here. Oh, I got more hours at work. Yes, I'm still at the same place that I was ready to run from a couple months ago. That drama has smoothed over and I've moved on. Still get pissed when I think about it...........but life goes on. When my boss found out I was looking elsewhere, she offered me flextime. I can work 20-40 hours a week, basically coming and going as I please. I've added a lot more duties for myself and my title is now Legal Assistant/Accountant. So, the duties are more of what I want to be doing. She also gave me a $1/hour raise. I really couldn't not stay there. Flextime is awesome!! If my kids' need me, or if I have pet sits, I can go!

So, in turn, that means I am keeping my pet sitting business open. Still not taking new clients, but with the flexible hours, I can work full-time and still make money from my business. Which is needed to pay off the credit cards. Once those are paid, I will quit the business. I really want to work 8-5 Monday - Friday. I hate being all comfy at home in the evenings, only to have to leave to go let dogs' out to pee. And Kansas winters are not conducive to dog walking.

It has also led to the decision that I am going back to school. I have a Bachelor's in Criminal Justice, but will never again go back to that field. So, I'm going for a Bachelor's in Accounting, then my Master's, then I plan to take the CPA exam. It's definitely what I should be doing. I actually started college with that major, then for some still unknown reason, switched to Criminal Justice.

I think that may be it?? Until next time........

DH's birthday

It went as planned! I hated lieing to him, but how else do you have a surprise party??

He said he started wondering what was going on, when I couldn't find my purse and I said I must have left it at my friends house. Yet, I had my phone.

That was the only way I could think of to get him into her house. We were going to stop by and get the purse on the way to the movie. When we got to her house, I asked him to go get it, because if I went in, we would talk forever and then be late to the movie.

Sanity? What's that?

It's a 2 post day. We'll start with the bad, then go to the good. Maybe that way by ending on a good note, it will lower my stress level?

Anyways, last week was not so great. Without going into too much, we had parent teacher conferences with my DD. Did not go well. Ended up in the principal's office. But, we did come up with a plan, hopefully the teacher will put enough effort into it that it will work.

She's not a bad kid at all. I really don't know what the deal is, but she just won't do her work. And even when she does it, she won't turn it in. I don't think she fully understands that by doing this, she may not move on to the next grade.



Then I made a big goof while paying bills. I'll be the first one to rave about online bill paying. I love it. It is so easy. Maybe too easy. I wanted to make a payment of $86.20 for DH's ER visit a few months ago. Apparently I forgot the decimal point. You see where this is going?? I checked my account balances on Thursday..........and we were overdrawn. Which seemed to me to be impossible.

You see, we had $7,000.00 in our account. DH had received his reimbursment for his China trip and the bill wasn't due until the 20th. So, how the hell could we be overdrawn??? Yes, the payment went out for $8,620.00.

When I saw that, I didn't even bother with a phone call. We had more bills scheduled to be paid within the next few days! I immediately drove to our bank. On the way the only thing I could think of was all the charges they were going to be happy to give us. Isn't that what banks do?

Well, I'm not sure what I looked like when I walked in there. But, I walked out very happy. This says alot about having your bank in an actual building. I'm afraid if I would have tried to straighten this out on the phone, I would have ended up talking to someone in India who would in turn tell me what a loser I was and how much this was going to cost me.

But, instead I ended up with a very nice lady who seemed very understanding. And considering it really was MY mistake she had every right to have me pay fees. BUT, she waived them all. She called someone, they put a stop payment on the check. They said the check was received by the company, but not cashed. In other words, I could continue to live. She put a floating credit on my account, until the real one showed up.

I have no idea what would have happened had I not caught that error. She said if they had cashed the check then the bank couldn't have done anything. I would have had to go through the other company and requested a refund. And who knows how long that would have taken. In the mean time we would be paying all kinds of fees, then DH would be out a job and we would be living on the streets. Seriously.

Why would he be out a job? He wouldn't have been able to pay his company credit card by the due date. That is grounds for immediate termination. They are very serious about that. I almost got him fired last year. When my DS was in the hospital for a week. I was ONE day late with the payment.


Then today was not any better. I'm completely exhausted. I woke up at 4 am to some very loud noises. You know when you're just waking up and you can't figure out what is going on?? I hate that. We had the strongest downpour of rain, and tons of thunder to go with it. It was so loud!


Then DH calls me at work and tells me his grandpa died this morning. He had cancer and wasn't fairing well, so we all knew it was only a matter of time. But, I don't think that makes it any easier. And today is also his brothers birthday. Not good.


Then when I get home I decide to take a nap. About 5 minutes later my DD is home and complaining about not getting to eat lunch. They said her account was -10.00. BS! I just put $20 on it last week. Nowadays it is paid online. So, I looked online and sure enough, negative. But, my payment is on the payment history page. So, I call and they say the last payment was in Jan. I say, no, I'm looking on your website and it's right there, and it cleared the bank! (obviously before my $8,000 mistake) She takes my name and says she'll call me back. I'm thinking, right, whatever.

Well, she did call back, said it was their fault, blah, blah.....they are sorry my daughter didn't get lunch today....blah, blah, good-bye.
Normally I would have been like, what are you going to do to make this better? But, the mood I was in would not have helped the situation, so I just kept quiet and let her hangup on me.


Let's hope the day gets better. Let's hope that $8,000 clears tomorrow and my daughter gets to eat lunch. And let's hope I find someone to do my pet sits so that I can do to the funeral. Let's hope my DD turns in all her assignments. Let's hope I can keep my sanity for a few more days.