Stress

As you can imagine right now life for me is very stressful. As I got up the morning of my Mom's funeral to get in the shower, I noticed my face in the mirror. Suddenly, at the age of 33, I had a new crop of pimples. Ugh!

I have always had pretty severe acne. Thankfully as I get older it seems to be getting better. But stress is always a trigger for me, it seems. I am so grateful to the companies who make acne treatment products. When I was a teenager they still thought chocolate caused pimples.

How times have changed. Now I wish my skin would follow suit. ;)

Christmas Wishes

Every year as we get closer and closer to Christmas I try to think of cool presents my kids can make for our family.

The last few years we had made some kind of photo project. Then after Christmas this year I found out about these custom printed calendars. They are a perfect gift for grandparents or any relative who likes to see your family year round. :)

I think we will give them a try this year and see how they look. The kids will think it is so cool to have their picture on a calender.

Holy Smokes!

We were watching one of those design shows on HGTV this weekend and they had the coolest t.v. console. The t.v. slides down at the touch of a button INTO the cabinet. On the design show they had this in their bedroom. "What an awesome way to hide a t.v. in the bedroom!" I thought. So after some research online I found a page full of tv lift cabinets.

I am so totally in love with this one. A t.v. cabinet and fireplace in one! And while they are spendy, if you compare the price of a fireplace and lift cabinet alone they aren't bad. And shipping is free, which is even better.

To-do more

I have fallen off the exercise wagon for the last several months. I had finally gotten my motivation back when the flu hit. I would like to get back to Denise Austin in the mornings but now she only has one show on and it is on at the exact time I need to get up and get moving in the morning. So then started dreaming of an exercise room in our basement. Only our basement is icky. It would involve a lot of work to make it an exercise room. And the only exercise equipment we have is a treadmill right now. My husband dreams of the day we can buy weight benches and free weights to use.

I guess we will just have to add an exercise room on our list of things to do to the house. I don't think that list ever gets shorter. It just keeps changing as time goes on.

Thankfully

Still sick today. Thankfully I was able to get Tamiflu through my doctor. I was rather skeptical but I took it anyway. I took the first one last night about 6. Sometime during the night my body aches and headache subsided. Then this morning I took another one. I seem to be slowly getting better or at least I am not getting worse. Yesterday morning I felt icky but nothing too bad but by bedtime I was really really sick.

Hopefully by Monday I will be feeling "normal". And hopefully I will be able to eat more than soup and juice. That is probably the only good thing about having the flu. I have no need for weight loss pills. I am on the Influenza Diet. ;)

F-f-freezing

It is almost noon and I still haven't gotten in the shower.

Not because I am being lazy but because our water heater is on our power company's energy control program. That means they can shut if off whenever they need want to.

And lately they have been shutting it off from about 6:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Which isn't retarded. Not all all. Afterall who wants to shower before going to work or school?

Sure we could call and take our water heater off their program. But that would be like trying a credit card telemarketer that you DON'T want their insurance for 50.00 a month.

So instead we are going to install tankless water heaters in the bathrooms. So we get hot water when we need it. Like in the morning, when we are showering.

Eval

Holy smokes Billy's work needs to get this for their employee's performance reviews. This year he was due for his evaluation in June. He finished the paper work and handed it in by July 1st, as requested.

But he didn't have his actual evaluation meeting until DECEMBER! 6 months is way too long to keep an employee hanging.

One goal at a time

Right now I am totally immersed in getting ourselves debt free. It seems to consume most of my energy. I would like to lose weight too but I don't seem to have enough brain power to do both at the same time.

For now I am content to watch our debt go down. As that gets easier and starts to flow I will start working more on the weight issue. One goal at a time...

Cuppa Joe

When I go to the grocery store, my favorite aisle to walk through is the coffee and bread aisle. It always smells so good. I just don't understand why coffee doesn't taste as good as it smells.

Not that it stops me from trying it over and over. After all if it smells like irish creme it should taste like irish creme right? But it never does.

I have been looking at the new coffee makers online and some of them are really nice and would look so pretty on my counter. I just need one that make hot chocolate I guess. :)

Woody

When I hear someone talking about putting wood in a car I think of this:

But in today's world it seems everything can be recycled in a more sophisticated manner. Now when we think of wood being used in a car there is this:

For the person who has everything or for the person who likes to customize everything they own (like my daughter who has recently learned how to change my desktop wallpaper, screensaver, and cursor). They can have their own car decked out (couldn't resist the pun!) with these new wood dash kits.

It is a far cry from the ugly paneling of the 80's isn't it?

Tacky or Trend?

I was watching one of those "sell your house" shows the other night on t.v. and the realtor/designer gal walks into the master bedroom and gasps at what she sees hanging on the wall.

A t.v.!!!!!!!!!!!!! The horror!

Apparently it is quite a fashion disaster to hang your t.v. up now. Who knew? (Well of course unless you have a flat screen t.v.) So I was really surprised when I saw a website that sells several tv mount designs. But then they aren't a few two by fours slapped up on the wall either. They are stylish and practical all at the same time.

I prefer my t.v. on the entertainment center and one day I intend to find one with doors so I can close the whole mess up.

Giving

As the tax year wraps up I have been hearing all kinds of tips and tricks to lowering the amount of taxes we will need to pay by donating to charities.

While I know there are many charities out there that are needing help and money, I am always hesitant to give to most of them.

Then I heard about Car Angel (http://www.carangel.com/). Car Angel is a non-profit company takes cars as a donation, as well as other donations to make movies on video for kids. So far they have given away more than 2.4 million videos to children. You can see the movies they make here.

Now I live in hickville where many landowners have fields and fields of old cars. Maybe if a few of them would take a look at Car Angel and donate car, boat, r.v., or even a house. The cars don't have to be running. What a great way to clean up a yard and benefit kids.

Prom Envy

It is apparently that time of year again.

Time to go prom dress shopping.

I have been hearing ads on the radio, seeing them on t.v., and watching them all over people's blogs.

I love seeing the beautiful prom dresses in the stores. When I was of prom age my Mom was more interested in saving money than buying me a dress. Eventually I ended up borrowing a dress from a friend of my Mom's. And while it wasn't an ugly dress it wasn't mine and when I had to return it I was sad.

Do you think men have the same memories of their tux or cufflinks?

Nah, I didn't think so either.

Mall Walking

99% of my regular shopping is done at Walmart. It is not because there isn't a wide variety of stores around me. It is because everything I could need or want is there.

Well almost everything.

At Christmas time I decided to get my husband the "ultimate" gift. I just had to find a little red nightie in the women's lingerie department. What I discovered is that Walmart has a very small selection of clothes in this department.

Which required me to venture out of my comfort zone. I checked out several stores in the mall and found myself blushing as I explored the possibilities.

Needless to say my husband didn't get the "ultimate" gift. Instead I got him a power wrench.

Welcome to married life. ;)

Saving for later

Continuing with my debt-reduction theme for the year I have been checking into other insurance companies for our life insurance. We currently have the basic term insurance that ends when we are 60-something. My ultimate goal is to get it moved into whole life insurance so the rate does not continue to go up and we are covered until death-does-us-part.

I have been asking for a life insurance quote from many companies and then comparing them to what we have now and what we would like to have. So far the quotes are not compatible with my budget. But that doesn't mean I have given up. Once we get a few more bills paid off this year, I will re-evaluate and see where we are then.

I do not want to leave our kids in the postition we were in when Billy's mom and dad died. Their funerals were 8000.00 each and we lucked out because we didn't have to buy a plot at a cemetery.

Shopping Sensibly

I have been reading a lot of websites geared towards gaining financial freedom.

One tip that almost all of these websites have in common is their push to use coupons when shopping to help save you money.

I have to admit I am not a big coupon user. If I have one that is for something I buy regularly I will use it if I remember it when I am shopping. But for the most part I don't use any coupons.

I also do a lot of shopping online so I have learned to do a search first to see if there are any available codes or coupons to use. Like these Shutterfly coupons which will help save you some money on your photos or let you get a jump start on gifts for Christmas.

I guess I need to make coupons more of a habit to help save us more money as I shop.

Oops...

When we remodeled the downstairs bathroom...well let me back up a bit...

When we made a bathroom downstairs out of what formerly was the walk in pantry (I use that term very loosely here) we planned everything down to the light fixtures. We decided to go with recessed lights because they would provide a good amount of light and we could have light not only above the vanity but also above the shower.

After we finished the bathroom and began to use it, we discovered we had made a major oops when it came to the lighting. We didn't install any kind of lighting close enough to the mirrors (the ceiling is 9 feet up so the recessed lights don't cut it) so it is hard for anyone, me in particular, to see much detail in the mirrors. Which isn't a problem unless you are trying to put on makeup evenly.

So now we are shopping around for a new light fixture to put over the mirrors. I don't think home improvement ever ends.

Sleep Blissful Sleep

I was talking to one of my friends the other day and she mentioned that she intended to buy a new mattress and boxspring with her income tax return. I laughed and said that is something we should probably do too since our bed is well over 11 years old.

I had to hold the phone away from my ear as she screamed something about bad backs and bugs and allergies.

She started telling me all about the new memory foam mattress she was going to buy. I told her our bed was just fine and was comfortable so we wouldn't be replacing it for a few years at least.

I think I heard some gagging on her end.

So tell me how old is your bed? Have I broken some rule I don't know about by not buying a new mattress already?

Watch Me!

I have worn a watch off and on for most of my adult years. I started this in high school and then it would break or the battery would die and it would be weeks or months before I got a new watch.

In high school (I am going to show my age here) we had to have Guess watches and then the Swatch Watch came out. Do you remember those? They were sooooo cool! I think at one time I had 3 or 4 that I wore all at the same time. Because in the 80's more was better.

Now of course I am a stay-at-home mom and I really don't have much need for a watch. I have a clock in my car and several in the house. Plus I have my cell phone so I really hardly ever need a watch. Now that I am all grown up I don't imagine a plastic Swatch Watch in Neon pink would really match my style anyway. But I am a little to redneck for a Rolex President watch either.

Until I get a "paying" job, I really don't need to know what time it is anyway. Except when I am at the doctor's office. Because clocks are apparently illegal there. You know because they don't want you to know you have been waiting in the waiting room for over 45 minutes.

Retro

Yesterday I ran some computer parts to town. While I was there I stopped at Taco John's for lunch.

As I sat eating my lunch a guy walked in the door. He was dressed very much like Vanilla Ice was in the 80's. I had to chuckle as I saw this teenager sit down for a job interview with the manager. That certainly isn't how I ever dressed for a job interview no matter how casual the place was.

I was telling a friend about the guy and she laughed. She said she is seeing so many 80's things making a comeback. The other day in the shoe store she said the old canvas shoes were there waiting for some poor fashion fool to buy them. She said she even saw Nike golf shoes.

I said, "Whatever sells I guess." I don't know why we want to repeat the neon big styles of the 80's. Although I do still feel my heart go pitter patter when I see an 80's boy band with big hair. I guess you never get over some fashion trends. :)