Frustrated

Word of warning, this is a rant.  It's a way for me to "just write" and get things off my chest to hopefully move on and feel a little better.

I'm just frustrated.  With life.  With our finances.  Despite the fact that it would seem my entire life story is splashed across your Facebook feed and this blog, I actually hold quite a bit back.  But I've come to the point with this situation where I think writing will help.  The problem is trivial, but is really bothering me.

To be blunt...I am tired of having no money.  We are a two income household, we both work FT during the week and both work extra, when possible, to bring in even more.  I really thought it would get easier when we started our new jobs in August.  But due to never ending medical bills and credit card bills, from trying to make ends meet for so long, we STILL have zero money.  We STILL overdraft onto that credit card at least once a month.  It's so incredibly frustrating!  We both bring in decent salaries from our jobs and therefor make too much to qualify for any help.  Yet just buying groceries for our family is a struggle every week.

One aspect that bothers me is that we can't do anything "extra" for our kids or ourselves.  This will be the second year in a row that we have not been able to go to a Pumpkin Patch or Fall Festival.  The second year with no pumpkins to carve as a family.  The second year with homemade and reused costumes.  Not because we want to, but because we can't afford to buy them costumes.  It's such a little thing, but something we took for granted would happen in the past.  I know it's not a necessity for our children to have these things, BUT...I want it for them sooo badly.

Over the last few weeks a mouse/mice has destroyed three pairs of winter boots and both kids' backpacks.  We don't have the money to buy ourselves, Justin and I, new boots.  Getting Adam boots was already necessary and thank goodness we have another pair to fit Noelle.  Clearly the kids HAVE to have backpacks for school.  A friend gave us an old one of her daughter's that they no longer used and Adam will use one we have around that was Justin's from over ten years ago.  It'll work, but I wish we were able to take them to the store and let them pick backpacks that they want to use.  Again, not a necessity,  but a want on my part.

You might think to yourself, "Well you just went to Texas, how did you afford that?  Why did you go?"  Wow, that trip was stressful.  Let me tell you, it's HARD to go on vacation when you have no money.  Justin and Noelle were both invited to be in the wedding and it was Justin's brother so we wanted to be there.   We didn't feel the trip was an option and cut costs any way we could.   We brought food for the drive so we wouldn't eat out.  We bought food for the hotel.  We turned down outings.  AND, the entire trip went on the credit card.  There was no other way to afford it.  It was very hard.

It's easy for someone to say, "Well, such and such only costs so much.  Just get a new one." or "Why don't you just buy this or that, I'd be easier."  It's hard to say I CAN'T.  Especially when the person is a well meaning family member.  It's not easy to talk of finances.  I naturally want to hind that we struggle and pretend everything is peachy-keen.

I think as a parent it is ingrained in me to want the best for my kids.  It's really hard to face the reality of not being able to do that.  I'm working on the acceptance part, but it's hard and slow going.

There's so much more, but I'm weary and sad.  I try not to think about everything we can't do and embrace what we can.  It's a work in progress.

Home Sweet Home

It's been over 2 weeks since I posted last. So much and yet, it seems, so little has happened in that time. We bought our house and moved in, fortunately uneventfully. We are very much enjoying making a "home" for ourselves. Even though we owned the mobile we never really wanted to make it ours, we just kind of tolerated living there and wished to get out some day so we could have a real house. We have been having fun picking out things for the house and deciding what we need now and what can wait. I was actually excited to buy an outside trash can because it means we no longer have to use a dumpster! Word of caution: Only continue reading if you really want to know what we are doing with our home. (There are some cute pictures towards the end though.)

We have put vertical blinds on the sliding glass door as well as cellular shades on the 3 windows in the master bedroom. The sliding door was a big priority since the sun comes in shining on the dining area all afternoon and directly in our faces at dinner time. Then, after spending about a week having to change and dress in the bathroom, we made the decision that our bedroom had to come next, thus the cellular shades. Since the sun shines directly in the kids rooms in the morning Adam's room has the blackout curtains that we used in the kid’s room at the apartment. I had tacked up the flat sheet to Noelle's bedding on her window, which worked great and of course matched her room. I was even considering just turning it into the curtain for her room that would go in front of blackout curtains. Then a couple days ago she decided to pull it down. Now I can't figure out what to put in her room. I originally didn't want to do blinds since her window only starts about 2 feet off the floor which gives her great access to break and ruin the blinds. But now I am hesitant to put in curtains because I don't want her to leave a hole in the wall if she decides to tear it down once we have them on an actual rod. So I am now leaning towards the faux wood blinds like we will put on the 2 windows in the living room. I feel they are sturdier and would be best since she could easily move them out of the way to see outside and they wouldn't bend easy like metal or plastic blinds would. If anyone has any ideas or opinions I would love to have them!! Right now she has nothing on her window so it is very bright in the morning and gets very warm on nicer days.

We are slowly unpacking with the goal of having the boxes already in the house unpacked by next Sunday. I also hope the new living room furniture will be installed by then. You see, we are having Adam’s kid b-day party that day and it would be really nice to have the place looking like a home for our guests. I am still working on organizing everything as well. We have a very large pantry in the kitchen and extra storage above the washer and dryer, BUT no linen or coat closets. When I bought our front load washer and dryer when we moved in I purposefully got the pedestal drawers to go under them so we could use the space above them for extra storage. I am also working on organizing the kid’s rooms/toys. Noelle’s is a challenge since we have to be able to put ALL her toys in her closet when she is sleeping. The closet then gets locked so she can’t make a huge mess and will go to sleep sooner. I got some pink and purple bins with lids, to go on a bookshelf in her closet, for her toys that have a lot of pieces and don’t come in a storage container. Since she doesn’t have a dresser the only things left out in her room during sleeping time are her bed (including bedding and stuffed animals), doll station (but no dolls or toys to play with it), and the humidifier (which I usually have to turn back on and/or plug back in before I go to bed LOL).

The kids and I are really enjoying being able to play outside so easily. When we get home in the afternoons I usually let them play in front for a while. The block has lots of kids on it, varying from about 3 years through elementary school. The 3 year old girl lives in the other half of our paired home. The kids love to blow bubbles and run around with her. It was so nice out Wednesday that I let the kids go out back after lunch. They had a great time running around and having a squirt gun fight. It is SO nice to be able to open the door and just let them go out to play. After 2 weeks I already know several neighbors names, which is more than I can say I knew after 7 years at the mobile. Everyone seems very nice so far and hopefully we will continue getting to know them.

A quick funny story about our mail and then I am done. When we moved in we got 1 mailbox key, but we had no clue which box was ours. The realtor told us to take the deed of sale to the post office and they would tell us which box the key went to. When I did the guy handed me a piece of paper to fill out and said it would be $35 (or some ridiculous number) to re-key the lock. I told him I had a key and just needed to know what box it went to. His response, “I don’t know which box it goes to, you’ll just have to try it in every hole until it works.” WHAT!! I think that falls really close to being mail tampering. Since I really had no other choice that’s just what I did. I felt like an idiot standing there trying it in every box until it worked. And of course there were other people getting their mail AND landscapers doing some work right across the street. I had to go through more than half the boxes before I hit the jackpot, and there was even mail in it!!

A great drink! and A Fire Waiting To Happen

Shhh....I actually went to Starbucks twice today and technically had three drinks! Noelle and I went this morning since I had about an hour to kill between dropping Adam at school and going into work for an hour. Noelle had a screaming fit at breakfast so hadn't yet eaten anything and it was about 8:15 already. I brought her some breakfast along and we sat for a while. Me with my Grande Mocha and Old Fashioned Glazed Donut (I am in LOVE with their Donuts at Starbucks!) and Noelle with her crispy rice bar, fruit leather, and milk. I kinda felt mean eating a donut in front of her but I kept it in the bag and she never even noticed I was eating it. She could not have a donut because she is off both wheat and dairy for the next few weeks still, I was not just being mean. Then, after nap time we needed to run to Target for juice for Adam's v-day party Thursday. I thought it would be nice to take snack with us and sit and relax at Starbucks. You know, I really think it's great business practice to have Starbucks in all the Targets now, but I hate that it is so darn accessible!! I was feeling very dehydrated so I wanted to try a cold tea drink. I got this iced passion tea lemonade thing. It was SOOO GOOD!! Both of the kids liked it too, see I'm a nice mommy who shares! LOL Then the lady told me how they do refills on the same visit for half the price. How could I possibly pass that up? I didn't! It really was good, I almost think I like it better than the coffee. Okay maybe not THAT much, but very close. For you Starbucks junkies like me, you have got to try it.

When I started this post tonight it was about 7 pm and all I really wanted to write about was Starbucks Iced Tea. Then I went to switch the laundry over. I have been needing to run the dryer twice the last couple of days to get our clothes dry so I decided to check the lint trap. Keep in mind that I knew there couldn't be much in there, J and I both clean it after every load. Sure enough barely anything there. But as I went to put the trap back in I noticed that it wasn't going down in it all the way. So I pulled the trap back out and looked down in the hole. It looked a little built up so I grabbed a chopstick, it was the only thing I could think of that would fit down in there, and began trying to pull the lint out. Well let me tell ya, it just kept coming and coming. It was nasty!! Sure explained why the dryer was so inefficient! It was like a rat's nest, I can't believe it never caught fire. I finally unscrewed the cover because I just wasn't satisfied that I couldn't get all of it out. I ended up vacuuming out about half as much again as I had already pulled out (so the picture only shows about 2/3 of what came out of it). It will be very interesting to see if the dryer runs any better now. If we ever get a used dryer in any way you can bet I will be cleaning it well or just hiring one of those vent companies. Charlotte's handy tip of the day is: Clean you dryer vents regularly!

YUCK!!