blah-ity blah blah blah blech

I just feel so...meh

I also feel buggy.  You know the feeling you get when you feel like bugs are crawling all over you, but they are not?  Like you just found out your close friends have lice, but you have not been able to go home and check youself out.  Grrrrrr, I feel nasty buggy.  (no, nobody has bugs)

I didn't take my meds last night, because it was too late to take them when I got home.  I wanted to be able to wake up in the morning and go to work.  Really, it was only one night; but today (tonight actually) I feel really on edge, and irritated, and blah.  I seem to have a short fuse.  Withdrawls...gotta love em right?  WRONG I hate them.  ick.

So, we cut all the bills down and we STILL don't have enough money to pay everything.  I was suppose to go tomorrow and get my background check done for nursing school.  Doesn't look like we'll be doing that.  First, I don't have enough gas to get me through the weekend, and second, we don't have the money to pay the $50 for the fee.   Love life.  It keeps throwing punches, but we keep bobin' and weavin'

I should be doing my Visiting teaching, or making a grocery list; you know-useful things...but I just feel so eh.

Stephanie wants me to teach her German.  Zsusanna is suppose to be helping me learn more Spanish.  When I try to recall Spanish phrases, the first thing that pops into my mind is German.  :-(  I'd say I'm too old to learn anything, but that's a crock and I know it.  I'm still young enough...but I feel so overwhelmed really.  Lots going on.  At least, I feel like I have lots going on.  Probably not as much as other people have going on-but for us I feel like it's a lot. 

Picking up Stephanie from school every day REALLY sucks.  I hate it.  They won't let the kids walk to their cars any more, so I have to go through "the circle".  I hate the circle.  I don't even leave the house until Stephanie is OUT of school.  Even then when I get there-the place is still packed.  I hate it.
Tuesday is cheerleading, and Wednesday is Church and dance class.
Add work to any and every one of these days.


I keep getting side-tracked by Ghost Whisperer.  Stephanie is watching, and I don't wanna watch, but it's interesting.  Oh well, guess I'm gonna resign myself to watching the rest of it.

I'll worry about our "money problems" later.

Watching General Conference

1. forget not to be patient with yourself

2. forget not the difference between a good sacrifice and a poor sacrifice

3. forget not how to be happy now

4. forget not the WHY of the gospel

5. forget not, that the Lord loves you

These were the points made by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf tonight at the Womens Session. 

Life as we know it

Is about to change in approxamately 3 months.  I recieved my confirmation letter from HCC for the nursing program.


 But right now, I'm not exactly thinking about that.  I'm thinking of the spiritual well being of my family.

I'm to angry/hurt/mad/confused/pissed/heart broken to blog right now.  Guess we'll all have to wait out the "emotion" storm Amber is about to go through to see what's going on, and how I'm going to handle it.  Probably the same way as always, so we end up right back here.  Just sit and wait and see if anything changes, knowing FULL WELL it won't.

amazing how I planned on blogging about nursing school, but the kids got me side tracked to something completely different.

Reading. I'm actually READING!

Since we did some budget cuts, and got rid of the easy entertainment in the house, I took my second oldest to the library and paid her $10 fine.  (My fine is almost $40.)  So, I unrestricted her card after we reinstated it.  We can get out like, a ridiculous amount of books.  I mean, seriously, I think they said we could get out 50 books.  Really?  Do we need 50 books?  SHEESH PEOPLE.
Any who....back to the story.
I got a book.  YAY!  That's right, I, me, got a book.  Now, I love reading, so really getting a book isn't like the end of the world, but I do have  4 kids and a full time job-so when do I have time to read?  Normally I don't, but today I did.  We went to visit family about an hour and a half away, and so I REALLY got to read a lot.  I'm reading "The Kid-Friendly ADHD and Autism Cookbook".  I've always been interested in what food does to Brina.  (ADHD)  There are things in this book that make so much sense, even when applied to myself. 
I've tooled around with taking gluten out of our diets before, because I had heard that some ADHD children have an intolerance or even an allergy to it; like it just kinda comes with the territory.  So, now that I'm reading, and learning, I can see things that completely correlate with what is being said in the books.   So, of course I want to see if removing these things from our diets bring changes that others have seen.  If not, what's wrong with a little experiment?  Nothing at all.  The family still gets food, and I get the satisfaction of knowing if I'm right or wrong.

So, while I was grocery shopping a few weeks ago, I found this.  I'm not sure if I was allowed to take the picture or not.  I really don't know, but it reminded me of my friend Lisa.   The row above it was GF (gluten-free) also.  I'm thinking I may have to buy some of this and frequent it.  Although, I complain about having to pay almost $2 for a loaf of cheap candy white bread.  However, eating better, and possibly making my child have an all over better feeling about herself and life-is fully worth it.  My husband isn't so keen on my idea of eliminating things out of our diet, but if I make it so he can't taste that anything is missing, then I don't think he'll fight me too hard on that.  I think it just reaffirms for me that I know in my heart what I need to do for my child.  Many times I have prayed over what to do with her, how can I as a mother, HER mother, the one God chose to care for this precious child on this Earth, best care for her.  I pray every day, and often I pray about what to do about "things" with the family and the girls.  I'm going to take the plunge next grocery day (in a little over a week.  I've gone back to shopping for 2 weeks.  It is cheaper, but I got away from it, because I was lazy, and shopping became a chore.  I'm going to head on over to Lisa's and see what's up over there.  She's my GF momma friend who rocks.

Tomorrow Zsusanna gets her learners permit.  We tried to get it Friday, but we were too late, and the tax office wasn't accepting drivers license business any more, and then when we went to the DMV, the woman who was checking people in said "I can't serve everyone, but you all can make an appointment.  I have cut the line and after that you'll need to make an appointment."  Problem is, she never told us where she "cut" the line off.  So, tomorrow is the day!

Cutting the fat

I know, that last post was about cutting spending, and all that jazz.  We've decided to keep the Internet.  It's going to the the only way we watch TV, communicate with others, and of course blog! LOL

But seriously.  I google "How to save money" and I get "Trim your credit card bill",  "Pay down your debt".  OK, lets be realistic.  1. I'm way too poor to have a credit card.  That is just so hysterically funny to me, that people out there actually think that everyone in the world has a credit card.  Well, they don't.  Some of us have screwed up our credit so bad, that the pens we apply with laugh in our face.  That's right- the pens laugh.   And of course 2, which I have already mentioned bad credit.  I think even if I HAD good enough credit that I wouldn't really get a credit card.  Why?  They are SO inviting.  The whole "I don't have enough money for that, but I REALLY REALLY want it, lets put it on credit" thing...just too temping you know?   Seriously, I can see myself doing it-and I don't like that.   I guess the next thing to do is stop taking showers?  Stop washing my clothes?  Our electric bill is on a levelized program-so it stays the same every month; but around February it "adjusts" and we either owe or get a credit.  I think we've gotten a credit the past few years, which is nice.  Although this year our bill went up.  However, I think that's because of a rate increase. 

I'm going to cut about $40 out of our Verizon bill.  (OMgosh... every time I type the word bill, I want to type Bill, because in my mind the word bill is Bill. sheesh)  That mixed into the $90 a month we are cutting by not renewing our cell phones, is a good amount of money.
 98.42                                 43.43
-54.99                               +90.00
----------                            ----------
$43.43                              $133.43

Ok, so that's not a bad load of money to save right off the bat.  Now, just to wittle down everything else.  Oh yeah, I cancelled my WoW account, so add an other $14.99 to the saving's and that's $148.42!  Woot! 

That's enough mind blowing math for one day (simple math-not my forte').  I have to work in the morning, so I'm going to run away, read my scriptures, do my prayers and try to sleep.


Guten nacht; meine damen und herren.

Wow, it cost HOW much?

So, it's time to buckle down and actually do what I was setting out to do MONTHS ago. 

trim down the bills

so, here I am...looking through pages upon pages of how to cut this, and trim that, and this can be moved here, and that can be watched there.  It's exhausting!  It really is!

I had to actually TALK to someone at Brighthouse to find out prices.  Actually, I should be more specific and say that I had to "chat" with someone at Brighthouse.  I would NEVER call them for anything.  We've had them before, and the service we got from them, well, the call center really wasn't ever a problem, but we have moved on to Verizon.  We like them.  They talk to us, they actually SHOW UP when we call them.  They fix it the first time (insert shocking look here)  (and no people I am not paid by anyone to tell you this, so keep your pants on).  So, I was looking at prices, and yeah, we're gonna stay with Verizon. 

I hate to put that out there so bluntly, using names and all, but I guess I could disquise it, but eh-I'm a consumer, I am entitled to my opinion, and there it is people....there it is. 

Bill and I discussed buying a little beater car so I can drive to work.  Right now I'm driving the van, and well, at $75 a fill-up, that's pretty spendy.  He has the truck, but the truck is BARELY driven.  Like, I think if he filled up the truck (ha ha ha ha, he would never but I think he should) it would probably last him AT LEAST 6 weeks.  School is back in session, and he takes 1 girl to school, and 1 home from school.  So, maybe something like, a geo metro death trap, that gets 500 miles to the gallon (or squirl as Bill says LOL); just something I can drive back and forth to work.  Then we can use the minivan for going to Church, and to the Zoo. (If we ever go again)

Speaking of school.  HOLY CRAP THIS IS EXPENSIVE!!!!  I save everything.  My husband, and parents can attest to this.  If it were not for some VERY carefully interjected "cleaning" I would probably keep every thing.  (it's a sickness people...it's an evil evil sickness)  Anyway, because we have 4 kids in school I save everything that may be used again.  Binders, dividers, crayons, colored pencils, rulers, calculators, scissors. Do you know how many pairs of scissors I have?  HOLY PIZZA ROLLS!  (figured you guys were getting sick of holy crap. lol) Anywho; today I finally yelled at the kids for not getting me the list I wanted, by the second day of school (yesterday).  I got a kid telling me "my teacher wants me to have my stuff by tomorrow".  Well, maybe you should've given me your list.  I'm pretty sure, we have most of the stuff they need, but I don't really wanna hear "I don't want that binder, I want a new binder."  Eh, new is over rated.

So, it's back to school time, it's cut the budget down time, and it's figure out what Santa's gonna bring the kids time. 

I'm starting to lose track of why I came here.  So many interuptions.  Kid stuff, dinner stuff (who knew we had to feed these children?), I'm also getting a cold.  :-(  A lovely sinus thing that Shelby decided to share with me.

So, I'm off to peel, cut, and chop my way to dinner.  It's salad night.  Veggies for everyone!  Oh yea, and loads of fruit too!

The a/c went out last night. LORD GIVE ME STRENGTH. Cause the kids are already on my nerves. Also say a prayer for Bill who is home with them all day tomarrow.