On a Happier Note

I went to a consignment shop on Friday. I've been wanting to get bouncy seats for the twins, and I decided I would like to have a boppy pillow for while I'm feeding them, more for propping one of them than using for myself.

For general reference, a Boppy is a pillow that looks like a stuffed horseshoe. We had one with Izzy and it was great. It was sold to a consignment shop a couple of months before we became pregnant with the twins. Go figure. We didn't have a bouncy seat at all with him, and I really missed that. By the time I thought to get one, he was basically too big for one, so we didn't bother. I thought he'd love the swing, he hated it until he was bigger, basically too big for the bouncy. Oh well.

I'd gone to the consignment shop before. I had gotten clothes for the kids there. I knew the had nice stuff at decent prices. With "needing" to be prepared by 35 weeks, I've been feeling the pressure to make sure that the newborn needing stuff was done and accounted for. The boucy seats and the Boppy are on that list.

The basic of basic boucy seats runs about $20. Most usually come with a vibrating feature now. Babies love that for some reason. A Boppy is anywhere between $30 and $40, usually more close to $40.

I picked up two bouncy seats and one Boppy for $40! The Boppy has a slipcover on it, so it will be handy for washing, and I was thinking I could pick up another one, which run about $10. One bouncy seat is a run of the mill basic with just a detachable toy bar and vibrating. The other is a little fancier with a toy bar that lights up and plays music, and can be set to do it continuously or baby kick activated, and vibrating. They are both blue, so it really doesn't matter WHO sits in which one.

While at Wal-Mart the other day, I found the high chair I want to get as well. It does everything our current one does, which means it will be PERFECT! The 2nd high chair isn't something that we are picking up until much closer to Christmas. The twins really won't need one before then. I'm keeping my eye out for bumbo chairs. We had one with Izzy and it was so useful and handy. They are another $40 a piece purchase and I'm hoping I can find them at consignment shops. Who knew that a piece of shaped polyurethane made in Africa (I think, it's either that or Australia) would be so handy?

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope that while you are out shopping you too can find some great values and help your budgets stretch that much further!

Make Up Post 101

This is the post to make up for missing out on Friday. I don't know why I didn't post on Friday. Oh wait, yes I do! It was an odd day, to say the least.

I had stayed up all night and I made the mistake of laying down on the couch to watch a movie, the 1st National Treasure. I fell asleep, and the kids let me sleep all day. James got food for Izzy. I think I woke up once to change a diaper. They trashed the house. Jayden ate way too much candy. James was on the computer the entire time. Well fuck me. When Jason got home, he was on the computer all night. Past midnight, so no post for me.

Today (I'm still on Saturday folks) was GREAT!!! I only spent about $30. I really didn't go to BUY stuff, it was more just to GO. Ya know?

I DID get some really great beads. I'm a weirdo, I KNOW. I got 6 mood change beads that I'm going to make in to a bracelet for myself. I got some really pretty blue and white glass beads that look like they have little flowers in the middles of them. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with those yet, but I'll figure it out. I also bought a couple of multi strand clasps. They are pretty and the kind of thing I've been looking for.

Lately, I've been making barrettes. I was thinking about opening an Etsy store with them. I like the name Crafty Intentions, but I feel like I've heard it before in regards to someone else. I don't know if it was another Etsy store (I did a search and nothing came up) or a person's blog or what. I need to do more research to figure it out first. So I'm looking for suggestions on names. I don't want one that is specific to the barrettes because I'd like to eventually list Jason's Fimo creations and maybe some hand made jewelry. Did I post about this yesterday? I *think* so! Oh well, that is just how my mind works some times.

I am going to have Jason take better pics of the barrettes tomorrow, and have them in my hair, and in Jayden's, so I think that will be my Almost Silent Sunday post. Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope your weekend went well.

I Know I Missed A Day.

What can I say? I missed a day. Maybe I'll post 2 posts for today. I'll probably do that at some point this weekend.

Later today (because it IS Saturday now) I am heading on a road trip with MF Jenn. We are heading to Shipshewanna! It's not a short drive from here, at least an hour, if not more. It really isn't about the shopping down there either. It's the point of getting out and getting away from the day, something I REALLY need right now.

This past month has been SO much. I'm tired and worn out and ready to throw in the towel, and the holidays aren't even here yet! Those mean travel and family and coordinating visits with about 12 billion people and driving and presents and wrapping and shopping and and and...well, you get the idea.

To add to it all, I think I'm going to open an Etsy shop. Keep in mind, I'm really no where near having enough inventory to be able to do that yet. I'm working on making the stuff now. I don't even have a name!

I've started making these cute beaded barrettes (is that how it's spelled? Could it be barettes?). I'll take a pic of the ones I have done when it is daylight out. The current pics I have now just aren't good at all. So far I have three barrettes made and I'm working on a fourth. They are going to be sold as singles, not as pairs. Each one will be unique. To start off with, I'm going to use only materials I have here in the house. I bought a package of 30 "blank" barrettes last week, so that is my goal to start with. I'm thinking that at some point after the holidays I may have enough inventory to start up the shop.

I'd like to also list Jasons Fimo sculptures. If I can get him to make me more of them. We tried selling them on EBay once. I think Etsy will be a more appropriate forum for sale of those.

This post will be short and sweet. I need to be heading to bed shortly so I can be awake by 9 so I can get ready to head out when MF Jenn gets here at 10. I'll be bringing the camera. I don't know what I'll be taking pics of, however I'll share whatever it is I do see! Prayers and blessings everyone, I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend!

Today I do Some Shopping.

How I wish it could be unadulterated unlimited shopping. Nope. I have $95. With that I must make sure I pick up Jason's cigs, $10, water, $5, Jason's apples, $5, Jason's Breakfast Sandwiches, $10. There goes $30 right there. Thankfully I've got a full tank of gas. And plenty of energy drink to last well in to next week. Jason needs cigs later this week, however I want to have the money set aside for that. I am going to go clearence shopping at Wal-Mart. The one where I slipped and fell.

All of the kids have grown out of their clothes basically. So clearence shopping I will go. I want to go to the 2nd Hand Shops too, however I want to wait until a little closer to the school year. As it is, I don't think they will carry clothes that will fit Katy.

That child is like a little Amazon. She's 10 1/2, and is 5 foot 2 inches. Holy Toledo Batman! I'm 5'6" on a day when they are nice to me. She wears a girls 16 and a juniors size 1. There is a problem with your 10, almost 11 year old, wearing juniors sized clothing. Most of it is geared toward high school and college girls. And some of it is quite hoochy.

I don't understand the absolute need to show as much skin as possible? What are they offering to all those hormone rampaging boys? I understand that the girls in college are adults and can do "as they please". However, do they really need to look trampy while doing it?

Yesterday, while at work. I was working at the U-Scan. A young lady came through with a cart of stuff. She was college age. Her skirt was so short that when she bent over the cart to reach in, I swore I was going to see her ass. Literally. And she was wearing a thong. How can I tell? All women can tell. We look at panties, just not in the same context as guys do. Needless to say, I saw the VERY top of her thighs. Admittedly it was over 80 yesterday with a rather high humidity. However, does the skirt really have to be THAT short? And if it is, why couldn't it be a skort?

I found some cute stuff on the clearence racks a couple of days ago, however I didn't have money for clothes then. I had money for groceries, so that is what I bought. Groceries. Today I have a little money for clothes for the Children Who Won't Stop Growing. Izzy is now in a 3T/4T shirt and 2T pants. The boy is 2. However, he's another Amazon. Oh wait, I think the term "Amazon" is reserved for girls. I digress. He is 3 feet tall and weighs in at 30 pounds. Chunk of funk he is not. He's a skinny solid dude.

Speaking of Izzy, he is speaking more now. He's picking up signs. He's vocalizing and trying to imitate words and mannerisms. Jason taught Izzy hair and ear. I taught him nose. James taught him to give a raspberry like he was farting and say "What's That?" and to spank his own butt saying "Can't Catch Me". The What's That comes out sounding like "WhaTha?" and the Can't Catch Me is more like "CahMeh" but at least he's trying. We are really working on Please and Thank You, both word and sign. His speach is still so garbled that signs really help us figure out what he is saying.

James is James. Not much more to be said on that. He recently got glasses so I'm constantly reminding him to "Put On Your Glasses". Jayden is still as girly as ever. Katy is smart and charasmatic. She's going to a summer program where she will hang out with her friends and be at the middle school. It'll help her get a little used to the building and the teachers and stuff. Crap, I'm the parent of a middle schooler. I just hope that James makes it to middle school. If he has another year like last year, I'll be home schooling the boy. Cause it's either that or send him to a "special" school. I don't want him around other trouble causing kids all day. He'll learn even more bad habits. Maybe I can "threaten" him with home schooling to get him to behave?

Budget.

It's just one word. It's how I look at it. One word. Budget. Not Our Budget. Not The Budget. Simply Budget. Or otherwise known as "how do I pay for everything we have come to expect out of life with falling dollar values and increasing fuel and food costs?" That takes up a bit too much room to do regularly though.

Ugh. So I'm sitting here, playing a game of solitaire. My mind keeps wandering, as it does when I play games like that. It keeps wandering to the budget. Ugh again. I keep trying to figure out how I can cut our food costs.

Here's the thing. I only shop for food at Wal-Mart. Have done that since I started working there, which was shortly after we moved here to this house. It's a loyalty thing. It's also the fact that I KNOW I'm saving money over going to Meijer. I've done the price comparison. It's honestly cheaper, and I'm not just saying that to support "The Company".

So our grocery cost has reduced some because of that. No more Meijer. I don't shop at Save A Lot anymore however. I'm wondering if I need to start doing that again. In all honesty, what I would get at Save A Lot were the boxed/canned goods. Some frozen foods. A little refridgerated stuff. Otherwise, I went to Meijer. Since I've been shopping at Wal-Mart all the time, Save A Lot has been cut out. We use store brand items as much as possible. That cuts out quite a bit of cost right there. We buy in bulk, so we can save 20 cents a pound on meat and use the extra freezer to stock up, though that may no longer be an option, which I'll get to in just a second.

There is also the option of NO extras. No chips. No soda. No popscicles. No breakfast sandwiches. No snacks with lunches. No cheese sticks. No higher quality lunch meat. No higher quality cuts of meat at all. No frozen pizzas or pizza rolls. No yogurt. No cereal bars. No granola bars. No marinades.

Wow, that cuts out about 1/2 of what we eat regularly. And everything else would be the cheapest of the cheap. I really don't want to live like that however. I will fight that with tooth and nail, kicking and screaming the entire way. I lived like that with Homer, with Chris, I won't go back to it. It's a miserable existence.

Jason takes the bus back and forth to work. So that cuts down on gas usage. I will only be going out of the house for errands if I ABSOLUTELY have to. Otherwise, I'll do my shopping after work. As it is, I'm not sure how we are going to finagle the kids' school/fall/winter clothes. All four of them have grown. They will all need refurbishing to their wardrobes.

I'll be going through the boxes in the storage room, looking for things that used to be Katy's that Jayden can now wear. It was about this size that I started keeping everything. I should be able to find some stuff, hopefully. Listing stuff on EBay. The kids old clothes. I need to become much more Gung Ho about that. Treating it like a part time job. One that I do late at night, after everyone has gone off to bed. I can take the pics during the day in the sunlight and then edit and post the items at night. Go and do one to two bulk mailings a week.

Jason is still looking for a different job. Right now, I'm not sure if I should be or not. The job I have pays decently. It works according to the availability I have. I don't get asked a bunch of questions when I change it a little to better suit my home life.

The freezer. Ah yes, it seems that our 2nd stock up so we have it fridge/freezer is taking a dump on us. Well Crap A Doodle Bob. There is no way Garry will replace it. It's our 2nd fridge. He was going to take it out when we moved in a year ago. I looked on Craigslist. There is a listing for one for $50 about 20 minutes from here. Jenn says she can get it in her truck so we could go pick it up that way. However, if it's gone, I'm out of luck. Jason is going to have a fit about buying a new one as it is. He wants to get rid of the 2nd one. He feels that we'd save energy by not having. I'm sure we would, but I highly doubt that unplugging one fridge will save us much more than MAYBE $20 for an entire year. Our energy costs are elsewhere.

So I do this, I sit and I worry. It makes me feel like crap. It wears me out and I just feel like I'm dragging ass all day. Trying to walk through a swamp as I'm slowly sinking. I can't even see the shore that I'm working toward, but I keep getting reassured, by the voice through the over head speaker, that it IS there and it WILL be worth it. There are many days where I want to just say "Fuck it!" and stop walking. I keep going. Cause I have to. Ugh.