Sun, Sun, Mr Golden sun...

Where did you go?!

Last week we saw weather in the upper 60's and low 70s. this week we've had snow, rain and 30 degree weather. Um.. isn't it spring?!

The cold wet weather has slowed down my painting. I got the living room painted while it was still warm, and the fumes were so strong we had to keep the windows open with fans in them for 2-3 days.  I'm afraid to paint the dinning room because it's too cold to open windows. the thought of us being in here all closed up with paint fumes doesn't sit to well with me. So we're living in a house with spots all over the wall... maybe some day it will warm up enough to paint again!!

We're still working on making the living room look good. I haven't hung any pictures yet, we have so many big walls that I don't know where to put the pictures we have! We've hung the front speakers for our surround sound, but we need to get some speaker stands and figure out some way to hid the wires for the rear speakers before we get full surround sound. I hope to get the house feeling like our home sometime soon, maybe then I wouldn't be ready to move already!!

Old memories

I've been thinking about some old memories, not real old, just some things that happened when Eugene and I first started dating. We were involved with a church that had family camp-outs twice a year.  We were also semi involved with the youth.  One of the camp-outs I remember very distinctly.

At the time of the camp-out I was a nanny for two families. I watched four children, two four year old boys and two one year old girls. Eugene and I were newlyweds and active, he was big into rollerblading and I was... well, trying.  I was not good at all, and one particular time we had taken one of the boys out for a bike ride around his neighborhood while we rollerbladed.  While going down a small hill i got nervous and decided to bail... only I, being the smart person that I am, chose the paved driveway over the grass yard. needless to say I ended up with a foot long, 6" wide strip of road rash down my leg.  very painful.

Fast forward about 4 weeks to the time of the camp-out. We're helping/hanging out with the youth/young adults.  we were playing games. one of the games was shoes wrestling. pretty  much the point was to get each other's shoes off while keeping yours. the last one with at least one shoe on was the winner.  There were about 25 of us to start,  and i made it to the top 3. It was me and two guys. They decided neither of them could handle me alone, so they tag teamed me. I was attacked.   one of them pined me down and the other put my leg between his and pulled down. At that moment, any scab that had formed over my road rash was torn off. (no I didn't give up the game, I still fought, but they got my shoes off).

One thing I know... road rash hurts. I can't imagine being in a bad accident and getting road rash over the majority of your body. Ouch.

Little town moments

We live in a small town, but it's bigger than the one we lived in a few months ago.  Today I had to take the kids to the doctor which is down by where we used to live. While driving through the small town we passed a house with about 10 lawn mowers in the yard.  Some pretty nice riding lawn mowers and some nice looking push mowers, nothing awesome like a simplicity zero turn mower but that would look even funnier in a town like that.

We see some pretty interesting things in our small town,  bright pink cars,  houses painted colors you wouldn't dream of even looking at, There's even a horribly ugly baby blue Escalade, something that big should not be painted a solid baby blue...
 
People are great too... especially those at walmart. I don't think I need to say anything more about that. There's just something great and unusual about small towns.

Elevator fun.

We've been trying out a new church for the past three weeks, We've enjoyed that they have a special class for the girls, where they actually get a lesson and learn different Bible stories. So far everything has been good, the kids have been happy in their classes, and we've enjoyed the service.

The only thing I don't like is that the children are downstairs and we are upstairs, and the downstairs has it's own entrance. Other churches have security, either locking the doors or people patrolling, and they might too, I am just not aware of it.  There is an outside stair case to get from one floor to the other, or there is an elevator. Sunday after church I went down to pick up the girls, then went back up to meet Eugene who was talking to the pastor, and apparently some kid had hit the Call button and there was a man talking to us asking us if we needed emergency medical assistance. It was kinda interesting to tell a voice in the elevator that we were ok and someone must have hit the call button on accident.  It was a new experience for me!

perfecting pizza

I've been making homemade pizza for about 4 years now. I can't believe there was a time in my life when we bought frozen pizzas. We've bought maybe 4 in the past 4 years and each time we do i cringe at the price then am disgusted at the taste. Even the "best" frozen pizzas do not touch the yumminess of homemade pizza. I was shocked at how easy it was (I use a no rise recipe so I don't have to wait forever either).

Even though it has been delicious since day one, I still try to learn a new trick every once and awhile. I learned on the other day from The Natural Mommy.  The trick is a hot pizza stone and preparing it on a piece of cardboard or wooden pizza thing like they use at pizza places, then sliding it onto the hot stone (never taking the stone out of the oven).  My pampered chef pizza stone has never been good to me, so I was nervous to use it, but it worked great. The pizza was SOOO yummy.  I love my stoneware, sure it's not le creuset stoneware but it works just fine (now that I got the hang of the pizza stone...)

Next time I make pizza I'm going to attempt to make the papa John's pizza dough recipe... yummy. 

Green thumb

My mom has the ultimate green thumb I think. Growing up our house was full of plants. Life filled our house, green leaves everywhere we turned.  of course that wasn't always a good thing, because we also had dogs, and well, dogs like to run and play etc. Many times while we were gone they would play a little too rough and knock over the plants. We'd come home to dirt everywhere. Makes me wonder what would have happened if my mom used hydroponics instead of traditional soil plants, some days I think our house would have been flooded by the number of plants they could tip over in a few hours.

Since we've been married I've been on and off with plants, I normally have about 3-7 at a time, I'm not bad with them, but I'm no where as near as my mom is at keeping them looking healthy and pretty. I only try easy plants. The best I ever had mine look was one summer about 6 years ago, I lived with some good friends while Eugene was on tour. They had an amazing deck and I set my plants out there for the summer, watering them every once and awhile. They tripled in size over the summer, they must have just got the best light and weather there. They looked beautiful.

Then I moved into our apartment when he got done with the band and one fall night I left them outside... it got too cold and that was the beginning of the end for most of my plants.  It was sad since several of them I started from pieces of my sister's plants. Right now I have 3 plants, they are all doing well, but some day when we have our own house and nice deck I hope to get several more and do my best to make our house feel more like my house growing up.

Why is this still here?!

I've found several misplaced items in my house since we moved. One of the most random are the utility knives that are sitting on my kitchen counter. I have no clue why they are there. I look at them every day, probably 3-5 times a day yet never put them away. Why?

There's also some tacks sitting on the book shelf in the dinning room and some packing tape on the fridge.... I have no clue why I don't just put them away. It couldn't possibly be because every time I see them I am in the process of taking care of something for one of the impatient kids or cooking supper or something similar.  Oh well, I'm sure I'll take care of those things eventually...

The weight loss jouney begins again

I've done horrible with my weight since Josiah was born, I think I've actually gained a few pounds from the lowest I got. (I dropped 30lbs in 10 days right after he was born, but I've gained a few since then.)  Yesterday morning my husband and I both got on the scale and realized we both have between 25 and 30lbs to lose to be at our ideal weights.

So we decided we'd do something about it. And since we're both in it together, maybe we will stick to it!  Instead of trying to find diet pills that work, we're going to stop buying girl scout cookies (and all other forms of junk), start eating smaller portions and exercise! My knees have been good for a week now, so next week we are going to start walking 3-4 days a week and see what happens. If all goes well with my knees we'll up it and start jogging, or walking more often and further.  Hopefully in a month I will be running again. 

My husband's face was priceless tonight at supper when I told him he could only have two pieces of pizza. lol. About what my mind was saying the whole time I made one small pizza. Amazingly enough I'm plenty full. I've been doing good this week to avoid eating snacks after supper, I get bad cravings right after supper and around 9:30pm.  The good thing is I KNOW my weak times and the foods that I have no self control on, so I can be sure to not buy those foods, and also be prepared with a full glass of lemon water at my weak moments.

Hopefully soon we'll be looking good!  We've got a year to get ourselves looking great for our 10 year anniversary trip!

no more chai...

I am sad. I love chai but it seems my Josiah does not like it so much. I bought a container of Oregon Chai, and every day that I've had a glass, 12 hoursish later he fusses like crazy. Nothing other than gripe water calms him. I guess it's bye bye Chai for me!

It's been warmer here for a week or so now, I love it. Last week we went to the part 3 days in a row. I wanted to go yesterday but I seem to have come down with some weird bug. I've had a fever, head ache, achey body and today a stomach ache. It's no fun for the girls or me when I'm sick. I do a lot of sitting on the couch or laying in bed if Caylee is asleep.  They have to wait for snacks and drinks, and they have to get stuff for me. poor kids. Lexi's been super sweet though, she sits next to me and rubs my back, she'll often throw in a "I'm sorry you're sick" comment here or there.   at least she's sympathetic.

Love Languages

I know the way to my husband's heart. It's in my cookies. or cookies in general, but he really likes my chocolate chip cookies.  I'm not saying I could get away with anything and then make him cookies, but they never hurt anything that's for sure. It's kinda the same with flowers to me.  Although I make cookies way more than I get flowers, but hey, Chocolate chip cookies are a lot cheaper than flowers. With the help of a proflowers coupon flowers are a little cheaper!  Still not as cheap as cookies, but cookies take a lot more work. 

Of course, I'd much rather have flowers. Flowers don't make you fat. :) 

More Park Fun!

For the third day in a row it was a gorgeous day here. Today wasn't as hot as yesterday, but it was still nice enough to enjoy some time at the park. Since Eugene was with us and we had the car we went to the park that's about 10 miles away, it's bigger and has a lot more for the kids to do, they love it. Today our big adventure was throwing rocks in the creek. The girls are always surprised when I tell them they can do things where they might get dirty, I love to see Lexi's face when I say "Go ahead, play in the dirt!" or, "dig in the mud!" She lights up like I just gave her a big ice cream cone. Makes me wonder just how sheltered I've made them!

I get a little frustrated at this park, like I said, it's bigger so there are a lot more people, and with more people come bigger kids. and with bigger kids come trouble. Especially because bigger kids want to do whatever they want and bigger kids parent's don't pay attention to make sure they're not doing anything bad... I had to tell a few kids a couple times not to do things. They thought it was fun to climb up slides while Lexi and Caylee were trying to go down. climbing up slides is one of my biggest pet peeves. If you're the only one on the playground- fine, but if you're 9 and there's a 2 year old trying to slide down.... Yah.  They also wanted to throw rocks (by kids, not in the creek). Made me wonder if their parents bought mass amounts of insurance to cover the damage their kids must cause.

Hopefully  as my kids grow they will learn to respect others and property. and general rules like "don't climb up the slide when other kids want to slide down!"

um... okay.

We are buying new locks for our doors today. For security reasons. We've had two things that just make us say "ummm.. okay."

First about a week ago I was sitting on the couch and looked down next to the cushion and there was a cap for a bottle of beer. We don't drink. We don't have wild parties where people drink. We have no clue where that came from. Also we have this plastic shoe box container that my husband keeps his clippers in. We keep it on top of the medicine cabinet. Way up high where the kids can't reach it. We just put the clippers in it a few weeks ago. We pulled them down the other day and there is a crack in it. um... okay.

Nothing is missing from our house. Nothing else is out of place. just a random beer bottle cap and a small crack in a plastic container.  I don't really feel scared. The thought of someone in our house scares me, but those two things are more just a "weird" thing than a scary thing. Who knows! but either way we're changing the locks, they weren't changed before we moved in so the people who lived here before could still have a key.

My husband wants to get a gun.  I'm not against it, he's wanted one for years. It would have to be kept somewhere where the kids wouldn't find it,  knowing him he'd want a permit to carry it and blackhawk holsters to carry it in or something. He has a little bit of redneck in his blood.  of course, I do too so it's ok.

warm sunshine + fresh air+ being at the park = tired momma!

I don't know what we were thinking moving to a place that doesn't have a yard. I guess we were thinking it was winter so we don't go outside much. Now that the warm weather is visiting, I've missed the yard. Just being able to walk out our front door and play in the grass, or ride bikes was nice. There is a park about half a mile away from here, which is what I was counting on using when we thought about moving here.

Today the kids and I walked there to get some fresh air. I hate being cooped up in the apartment all the time, so it was nice to get out! Plus it gave them a chance to get some energy out of their system, gave me a bit of exercise, and I was hoping we'd find some other kids there. We ended up being the only ones their for most of the time so they didn't make any friends.

Watching them run around and climb and play was so nice though, it's a small park, all fenced in, so I relax a bit there, plus we were the only ones playing.  I love to see them use their imaginations as they play in the sand and race to climb up and slide down the slides.  It gave me some great toddler gift ideas as they sat in the sand making homes for their "friends" (the acorns they found on the ground).  We were there for probably an hour and a half at least, then we started our short walk home, we took a little break for some ice cream at a cute little ice cream and coffee shop.

I think we're all worn out now, they are sitting on the couch watching tv for the first time today (something we've been working on cutting out!), Josiah took a nap and I'm sleepy!!  I did open all the windows and get dinner in the oven before I sat down though, which is good because I don't want to get up!

Chocolate craving

I've been trying to be really good lately with my eating. Especially my night snacking. the past two nights haven't been too bad, but tonight the craving came full force. Right now I'd love to have a vending machine business to go raid. Something chocolate would be nice right now, some homemade chocolate chips cookies maybe.  But alas, I will be good, and just drink water to try to get through this craving.... Since I can't exercise I have to lose weight by controlling my eating alone. After two days of being good I lost a pound so hopefully it will keep coming off!! and the good news is that my knees aren't swelling or hurting much. I am able to do normal day activities so hopefully walking and running will happen sometime before summer is over!

Parenting commercial style

There is this commercial for Bona cleaners that just makes me laugh. Have you seen it? There is a little girl painting a flower on the hardwood floor, and a son and dog with muddy feet running through the door leaving foot prints through the kitchen, a husband spilling coffee on the floor. All while the narrator says it doesn't matter if they make messes because Bona makes it easy to clean and protect hardwood floors...

Um, excuse me? I don't care who you are, even the most patient mom is not going to just let her child paint personalized Easter gifts on the floor. Even if it does come up easy. Even the best mom is going to tell the boy to wipe his feet, or tell the girl to stop painting on the floor and paint on paper. Thank you very much, but that was a little unrealistic, even for a commercial mom.

My workout

I can't run or walk or ride bike and even swimming hurt my knee.  I've been trying to just do some fast upper body circuits, including lots and lots of weights and crunches. I also have one thing I do every day a million times a day, lift Josiah. He's my little muscle stimulator. Not sure how I don't have toned arms  with as much as I carry him. He loves me to hold him, and fusses when I put him down if I don't stay right near him.  We had several good days and nights where he took naps and slept in his crib, now he's back to wanting me near him every time he is sleeping.  It was only 3 or 4 days, but I got used to those long naps he was taking in his crib, so it's kind of annoying now when he wakes up every time I put him down.  I'm sure we'll find that pattern again... soon I hope.

Mail

 I realized how little I've had a paying job in my life the other day when I got the mail. The government had sent my husband and I the little updates that tell us how much our family would get a month if one of us died, or how much we could collect on Social security disability. The amounts on mine weren't much because I honestly haven't worked much. For the past 4.5 years I've been a stay at home mom. While I was in college I had part time jobs that didn't pay much, but covered the cost of books and a little entertainment. I worked  steadily for a few years between college and being a mom and that's where most of my money came from.

Lately I have been considering trying to take classes to finish my degree. I have two years towards my Elementary Education degree. Problem is I am not so sure I want to teach elementary school anymore. I'm leaning much more towards middle school or high school math. (Yes, I LOVE math).  I'm not so sure they offer the classes I'd need to take as online classes. I'm in no rush to get it done since I'm not looking to get a job until Josiah is old enough that we can either leave the kids alone during the day, or if we decide to put them in public school at any point in time. It would just be nice to have something to fall back on if something happened where Eugene couldn't work, or we really needed the extra income. Of course, teaching jobs are really hard to come by these days so who knows if it would be worth it.  It's just a thought.

Dirty diapers

We love our cloth diapers and i love our diaper sprayer. So far I haven't had to use it for Josiah's diapers yet, we haven't even hooked it up since we moved. I've missed it though, even though we don't need it for diapers. I got in the habit of using it for the little potty when Caylee uses that. She doesn't use it often but if I'm feeding Josiah or can't get up for some reason. And I'm not going to lie, every once and awhile I forget that she used the little potty so it sits for a few days.... A diaper sprayer comes in really handy then. 

We bought ours from cotton babies, but I've heard of people making them using a sprayer (like you'd have on the kitchen sink) and a metal hose attached to the hose that fills the toilet. I'm sure it works just fine and probably doesn't cost $40. 

House Hunters

I've been watching HGTV and it made me start thinking about looking for a house. Just to get an idea of what type of down payment we should be saving.  There are a bunch of houses between 100-150K that meet our criteria, I was hoping to spend less. While looking through pictures I saw an adorable log cabin on 10 acres of land, it only had 2 bedrooms but it had a porch with cute log furniture on it, an amazing fireplace and a ton of windows. 

I'm not sure what type of house we'll buy when we are looking i like a lot of different styles and types, and different features so I guess as long as it meets our specific needs it doesn't matter what type it is! For now we will work on paying off the little bit of debt we have and start saving a down payment and worry about the choosing later.

Mommyness

There are so many days I spend stressed to the max from the kids. I feel like all I ever do is get stuff for them, wipe their bottoms, cook, clean, break up fights and clean up messes. Some days I feel like all i do is yell at them, and those days I can't wait for bedtime. Then when I crawl into bed I'm a big exhausted mess, feeling like being a mom is just a straining job. I feel guilty for not spending time with them and guilty that they watch tv. Those days I start thinking about ending my full time mom career and  starting health care careers.

Then there's days like today. Days when I remember they will only be this age once. Days when I remember that a little mess is ok. Days when I remember that it doesn't matter if it takes me a few minutes longer to make supper when they help. Days that we play, do crafts, make messes, bake together, cook together and snuggle together.

Days like today when I let go and have fun, and realize that being a mom is awesome when you take the time to enjoy it.

Summer

This weekend has been great, I've enjoyed the weather. I wish I could have taken better advantage of it. I love that warmer weather means Spring and summer are on it's way.   With summer comes trips to the park, camping vacations, birthday party invitations and trips to the beach!

This year my sister and I decided to make our yearly camping trip to Virginia beach instead of Myrtle beach. I kinda feel like we're cheating on Huntington beach state park by not going. We've gone every year for the past 3 years so not going this year will feel weird. I'm sure we'll have just as much fun at VA beach, after all, it is a beach.

We also have a camping trip in PA planned too like last Memorial Day, with a bunch of my family, this year another one of my Aunts and her family are joining us, maybe next year more family will join!  I'm so excited.

Guaranteed approval- what a deal!

This isn't a financial blog by any means.  But pretend it is for one minute while I share a little something, okay?
Right after Lexi was born we bought a used Ford Taurus, up until that point we had been driving a two door Hyundai accent, the car seat fit ok in the middle, but we were ready for a little more space, getting that infant seat in the back was a bit of a challenge. We started to think about looking for a car, we had no money saved for a down payment, not great credit and we were still paying on the accent.  Then the middle seat belt broke and we couldn't put her car seat in there anymore, so we put her behind me in the passenger seat and I ate my knees while we went to look at some cars.
We wanted something bigger, but were not ready for a minivan. Looking back now I wish we would have just got one then, but hindsight is 20/20.  We knew what monthly payment our "budget" would allow and were stupid enough to only talk monthly payment not APR. With bad credit, and having to add the amount we still owed on the Accent onto our loan we ended up with a monthly payment that fit nicely, but an APR of around 20%. HORRIBLE.   Once we started getting a little wiser we started working on paying off the car, we ended up paying it off two years early.  In the time that we were working on paying it off we added Caylee to our family. The car started getting small. We could squeeze a small person between the car seats in the back, and going on vacations was a mess, our car was stuffed from door to door, floor to ceiling.  Now we have Josiah too. the three car seats barely fit in the back seat, I'm not even sure they are installed properly because there's no room to get around them to check. We've been on one small trip, but we didn't have to bring half of what we normally do, I have no clue how we're going to make any trips if we don't get a mini van.
Some friends of ours sold us a big GMC conversion van for really cheap, but we've yet to get it on the road and don't think we really want to. We know it will suck the gas so we wont be able to afford to go anywhere. We've been talking up plans as to how to go about wisely buying a van.  We can't really afford monthly payments, but we figured if we could sell our car and the van we could easily afford an older used van.
Today we stopped by a small dealership we drive by a lot because we saw they had a minivan there. The owner came out to talk to us as I was peeking in the windows.  He asked us if we were looking to pay cash or get a loan.  We told him we were thinking about using the credit union that my husband 's work offers. He then told us a price. but not before telling us a little something.
The price if we were going to get financed through him was in the  $9,500 range. With our own financing or cash.... $5,500.  That's right, $4k less. He said the financing company takes so much he has to charge way more in order to make money.  So be careful when car shopping, a guaranteed approval might cost you $4,000!!!
I'd like to see the money that finance company is making, maybe I should try to get one of their accounting jobs!

Spring, spring... where art thou spring?

It's March 11th. It's 35 degrees out. I live in the south. It should be spring by now right? I'm sitting here in long sleeves, pants and socks and my feet are numb. My fingers are numb. My nose is numb.  Seriously, I'm ready for spring!!!  A few months ago we got a really high electric bill (around $360 for one month) Since then we've learned to live with the house cold. In fact, since we moved here a month ago the only room that has had the heat on is the girls room. We've turned the heat on a few times in our room as we were getting into bed, but we always turn it back off in the morning. 

I really expected it to be warm by now. Not hot, or even t-shirt weather, but at least warm enough that my feet don't freeze when I'm inside my house.  We are always snuggled up under blankets if we're sitting on the couch, Eugene even keeps himself covered with blankets when he's sitting in his chair working.  I guess we could suck it up and pay another high electric bill, but really we can't afford a higher bill than we got this month and turning on more heat would make the bill higher. So for now we'll survive.  too bad they don't have a cheapestheating.net like they have a cheapestautoinsurance.nethttp://www.cheapestautoinsurance.net/! Heating is only available in one option here. oh well!!

New diapers

I sold some of our unused stash of diapers on Craigslist so I could purchase more Flips. I was so excited when they arrived today. Of course they arrived as soon as I hung up the diapers, so I had to do another wash for the new ones, but that's ok.

I heart craigslist. you can find anything and everything you want on there I think, or you can sell anything you want!  From cloth diapers, to clothes, to toys, to baby stuff, to cars, to houses, to animals, to thrust bearings to microwaves. you want it, you can find it there.  There's my commercial for Craigslist.  now back to the diapers...

I bought another Flip day pack with the stay dry inserts, a clementine (orange) cover and a grasshopper cover (light green). I love the colors. :) They also threw in a free pack of disposable inserts too, which will come in handy with the traveling and trips we have planned. We normally buy disposable diapers when we're traveling, just because some people don't like the thought of washing diapers in their washers, and then of course when we go camping you can't wash diapers!   I'm excited to try them out.  Now we have enough diapers that fit Josiah so that on laundry day I wont feel like I have to leave him in dirty diapers longer than I like! We have 6 organic inserts for the Flips, but right now they are a bit bulky on him, once he's a little bigger I'll use them, I loved them on Caylee.  I really like the Flip diapers, can you tell?

Snoring child

Today has been a little bit of a trying day. I'm tired probably a combination of a side effect of the anti inflammatory I am on and Josiah waking up a ton last night. Josiah was really fussy today and didn't let me put him down. Even as I type this he is on my chest snoring away. I got spoiled because he was going to bed around 7:30 (in his crib) and he was taking a long nap in his crib in the mornings too. The girls were also a little disobedient but Lexi was an amazingly good girl while doing school today. In fact it might have been the first time in 120 days of school that she didn't whine ONCE. She didn't throw her pencil and give up when I told her she wrote a number or letter backwards, and she didn't hide her head and pout when I asked her what something said. I was so impressed I rewarded her with some nerds. 

I did manage to get a couple phone calls made today, one for a quote for health insurance through the company we use for car, life and renters insurance.  I also looked up some car insurance reviews to see what people had to say about other companies. We've used Farm Bureau for years now, we tried State Farm but they charged so much more that we just decided to go back to our trusted Farm Bureau! for now I think we'll stick with them.

progress

Well, the landlord showed up today, and we've made some progress towards a semi completed apartment.  Our walls are now spotted, since he filled in all the holes left from the previous tenants. I'm not sure if they just put nails all over the place or what, because i have never seen this many spots on a wall before...   excuse the mess.

this is what all the walls look like now, hopefully sometime tomorrow or Saturday they will start to look better.  We had to move a bunch of furniture, making sure when we moved our desks not to let our monitors fall!  We also finally have a handle on our oven. I'm excited.  Oh, and our toilet doesn't run constantly anymore either! Yay for working toilets! Now to get the sink unclogged!

My first swim

as you are well aware, my knees are acting up and running is not an option right now. Neither is walking. I've been very discouraged because I can't do any cardio which means I am not losing weight.   The other day I was searching the website for the local rec center and found out they have an indoor pool which is open to the public for swimming laps just a few hours a day for the cost of $1.50 per time you swim. 

After talking to Eugene we decided I'd go try it out this morning. I was there ready to get in the water by 7:15 ( it was open from 7:15-8:15, but I had to make sure I was home by 8 so I could shower and be ready to be mom so he could go to work.)  It didn't take long for me to feel like a fool. I really do not know how to swim. Yes, I can get by, I could dog paddle forever, but to actually swim laps next to people who knew what they were doing made me feel like a fool.  I explained my situation to the older lifeguard there, who was very encouraging and kept telling me to keep going, and keep trying. I was grateful for her, because the three other lap swimmers in there didn't say a word to me and I'm sure were just waiting for me to get out of the pool and out of their way. lol.

So I managed to slap around in the water for 20 minutes before my pride and tiredness made me get out of the water. I promised the life guard I'd be back Friday morning to try again. As the day goes on though my knees are starting to hurt and I'm wondering if it's from swimming or just because I didn't take any steroids today. By Friday morning I should know if my knees are going to swell back up or not. Hopefully the anti-inflammatory medicine works and keeps the swelling down. I'll live with some pain as long as I can function as a mom. Not being able to move and care for your children is depressing.

If they swell back up I'm afraid we might have to get health insurance so I can go to a real doctor and get a real diagnosis, which will probably result in some physical therapy.  I've checked out some quotes from NC Blue Cross Blue Shield so I can compare them with the quote my husband will bring home next week when he has his 90 day review which will qualify us for insurance through his work.   I guess we'll see what happens!!

my wonderful laundry octopus

I wish a laundry octopus was some 8 armed person who came to my house and did my laundry, but it's not. It's almost that nice though...

Laundry is not that exciting, and since moving into our new apartment a month ago I have had to start hanging my clothes to dry. That makes laundry even less appealing to me. Especially since we have no where outside to hang clothes, which means laundry becomes the focal point of our house. every day.

Over a year ago I bought something from Ikea. I had no clue how much I would grow to love this. It's especially helpful for hanging up socks, wash cloths, underwear and... diaper inserts! We use it when we go camping for wash cloths and bathing suits too. It is by far amazing, and I wish I lived closer to an Ikea so I could get another one. of course, with a nice payday advance I would purchase way more than that...

My laundry octopus was well worth the $4.99. Go to Ikea, buy one. they are amazing.

Settling in

We've lived here over a month now and we're starting to get settled in I guess. There are still things that aren't put away, a few boxes of pictures to go on the walls, shelves, posters, other things just sitting around waiting to find a home. I've put it off because we are still waiting on our landlord to bring us the paint for the walls. 

Turns out we have a bit of a slum lord who makes promises but doesn't actually follow through.  I guess we should have expected it by the condition of the apartment when we looked at it, but we still trust people and expect them to stick to their word.  There's nothing extremely wrong, I don't feel like our health or lives are in danger by living here or anything, it's just little things like door knobs, or a handle for the oven, the paint, and well, now the toilet wont stop running. It's just stuff that as spoiled American's, we expect. 

I've been watching HGTV lately and it really makes me laugh, the amount of money people have to spend on their summer homes in Nicaragua, or the people buying their first house that get upset because the backsplash isn't glass tile.  It gives the impression that most American's wouldn't even consider living in an apartment like the one I currently call home.  I've learned so much about different things from each place I've lived, none of them have been like places on tv, but it doesn't matter honestly. I choose a less fancy home so that I can fill it with love, not stuff. I choose cheaper rent and home cooked meals so that I can be home with my children, teaching them, playing with them, finger painting and sharing Christ with them. I choose to wear used clothes, or clothes found on clearance racks over American Eagle, Aeropostale, Tommy Hilfiger or whatever the expensive brands are. Sure, you might look at me and feel sorry for me because I have less, but when you look on the inside, less is more.

pieces of dreams

the past few nights I have had the weirdest dreams, but they are more like mini dreams, or previews of dreams that never come instead of actual dreams.  Last night I dreamed I was in labor, only I didn't even look pregnant, but i was so scared I was going to bleed to death- surely that's a fear from all I dealt with after the birth of Josiah.

Two nights ago my dream was much more pleasant. I dreamed about diamonds. Sparkling diamond rings, like ones by Scott Kay.  All I remember was looking around and seeing all these women with dazzling, clean diamond rings. It was a pretty dream.

I liked dreaming about diamonds much more than going into labor. :)

Faith Like a Child

God calls us to have faith like a child, (Mathew 18:3) and the longer I am a parent the more I understand what exactly that means. Children trust their parents, they accept what they have to say and don’t question them, they just know if mom or dad says it, it will happen. (at least until they are a certain age!) That is how we are to look at God’s promises, just know that if Daddy said it, it will happen!!
The Bible also tells us that as his Children He has given us each gifts, some teachers, some healers, some prophets, some preachers etc. (1 Corinthians 12). I’m starting to think we have a healer in our house.
I’ve been struggling with my knees since we moved in here a month ago. I’ve had almost 4 weeks of pain and swelling, aside from the two times I’ve been on prednisone. Several times in the past month Caylee has asked me to get her something or carry her and I’ve had to tell her not now, or that I couldn’t because I have boo boo knees. She would almost always come over to me, put both of her hands around my knee and then walk away. Sometimes she’s throw a kiss in there. I didn’t think anything of it, She’s Caylee, she does odd things sometimes.
This morning she said she had to go potty so I got up to take her. (i’m on my second round of prednisone and my knees are feeling fine) On the way to the bathroom we had this conversation:
Caylee: Mommy, do you have boo boo knees?
Me: no, they are better
Caylee: Now you can really hold you me cuz I prayed your knees better!
It followed by me thanking her for praying for my knees and me tearing up at the realization that at 2.5, She had prayed for my knees and knew they were better because of her prayers.  I think she will have many heavenly trophies and awards waiting for her!
Oh how I with I had the faith of my child.

New Favorite song

 I heard this song by Lighthouse today and i love it. It's called Everything.

Find Me Here
Speak To Me
I want to feel you
I need to hear you
You are the light
That's leading me
To the place where I find peace again.

You are the strength, that keeps me walking.
You are the hope, that keeps me trusting.
You are the light to my soul.
You are my purpose...you're everything.

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

You calm the storms, and you give me rest.
You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall.
You steal my heart, and you take my breath away.
Would you take me in? Take me deeper now?

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?
And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

Cause you're all I want, You're all I need
You're everything,everything
You're all I want your all I need
You're everything, everything.
You're all I want you're all I need.
You're everything, everything
You're all I want you're all I need, you're everything, everything.

And How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?
How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?