Yardsale Score

The upper class neighborhood down the street from my parent's upper-middle class neighborhood had a big yard sale today. I got Megan a cassette player with microphone for $1.50, 3 nice t shirts (size 5) for $.35/each, a puppet for a quarter, an herb grinder for $1.00, 2 large-cable knit sleeveless sweaters for $.50/each and my favorite buys...The second and third editions of The Tightwad Gazette for $2.50 each. They are in perfect condition and I'm thrilled. Big news of the day is that Dawson crawled up the entire stairway at my parents house!!! Of course I was spotting, but didn't help at all. Once he figured out the first step, he was off!!!

Megan fell in love with a childsize stroller, so her backpack doll is now riding in a it. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but now that Dawson is riding in one more often, she is just wanting to model after the way I do things I guess. Mom bought it for her and she has played with it all afternoon. She has also harassed her brother all evening and I found a bite on his back when I put him in the bath. I didn't see it happen, but I know when it did happen this afternoon at my mom's house. I don't know how many times I'll have to tell her that her teeth are not for hurting with...food can be bit, Dawson can not. Hes soon gonna learn the behaviour from her and I'm gonna lose my mind from all the screaming between the two of them. I am doing a shitty job of staying positive with her and there are some hours that I can't even remember thinking a positive feeling toward her. Half the time I am wishing she would wean because she insists on nursing every time Dawson does.

I had a stressful evening so after Dawson was in bed, I ran out for a large frosty. I don't get them often but when I do, I do it right. Off to watch Harry Potter.

Hee Hee
I just told J he had a choice. He can clean the kitchen or nurse Megan to sleep. LOL Guess who's husband is cleaning the kitchen? :D

Dawson is getting his 8th tooth. Poor guy is miserable. I was once again wondering if he was coming down with something when I found the tooth pushing through. Dinner at Nana and Papa's was cut short because he was just in a horrible mood. His afternoon nap was only 30 min and I had run out for groceries so I wasn't there when he woke up. He seemed ok but wouldn't let me put him down the rest of the night. But when we came home, he wanted to play. Go figure.

I got a call tonight from one of my oldest friends. We met on the first day of Kindergarten back in 1981. We grew apart but after I moved we got back in touch by mail and we have seen each other a few times in the past 10 years. She just had her 3rd baby, a girl named Hannah. It was nice to hear from her. Ro, I think I should give you her contact info to keep for me in case I lose it for the 3rd time!!! Thankfully she has always kept up with mine!

I don't really understand all that has happened over the past few days but I am sincerely sorry that people have been hurt. Blogs have gone down and I think that just sucks. Dirt took hers down simply because (or so I understand it) she didn't agree with Lisa's comments and perceptions. But as the blog is hers, I guess she can do as she pleases with it. Rhonda, I hope your break isn't a long one! Yours either KWK! I don't know who emailed you or what it said, but it must have bothered you greatly for you to have taken down your blog.

My mommy came home last night but we won't be spending any real time with her today. SHe has to do her school board duties and prepair for graduation tonight. She has to speak at one of the high schools I think. Anyway, we are eating salmon with my IL's for dinner and I said I would prepare some pasta salad to go with it. (and the chicken that the men would rather have). Tomorrow we are spending the day with mom. My house has been neglected and my zones have been left untouched for the past week. I've done some 10 minute tidy's but no real cleaning and no laundry but only because we were out of detergent and I'm still afraid of using the account. (I borrowed some from my mom so I'm catching up right now) Josh used the last bit of cash we had last night for some necessities. He gets a "weekly" check today so I'm going to deposit some of it and keep some cash for groceries. I think I like it better that way for now, it keeps me from buying stuff we dont' need. I know things always work out for us but I can't help but wonder why we are going through such hardships. 18 months ago things were hunky dory and we were talking about buying a house. It didn't take long for every bit of security we had to be ripped out from under us. We were by no means rich, but very comfortable and we accumulated more debt than is advisable. So, now we are living week to week and doing the best we can. I'm not sure what will happen this month, so far things are slow but somehow we always manage. We will this time too. It just sucks. I long to be financially independant of our parents. (borrowing money for the taxes or having to mow lawns for extra money instead of to help them out because we can) I long to own our own home and land. To be able to give freely to those in need instead of being the needy. Something in the back of my mind tells me that until the lease is up on the Blazer, we will be bound financially. When we get rid of it and cut our payments, I think things will turn around. I'm not sure why I think that, its just always seemed to be the point in my mind where I could see things changing. We are paying more for that stupid lease than our rent costs. Its up at the end of the year. I'm hoping to get rid of it a month or 2 sooner but that remains to be seen. People always told us the first year of marriage was the hardest but they lied. We soared through the first 3. We are coming up our 5th anniversary in august and the past 2 years have by far been the hardest. We rarely fought, but since Dawson has been born especially, we argue a lot more and the money situation hasn't helped at all. As soon as Dawson is able to be left, I'm going to push for some counseling. I don't see us headed for disaster, but I would like to go through some counseling before things could head that way.

Mimi is playing with playdough so I'm gonna get off here and spend some time with her before Bubba wakes from his nap.

I finally got my garden planted!

Its not a huge plot, I have a row and 1/2 of lettuce, 6 sweet pea plants, a row of peppers (that I hope will live, I'm concerned about them), 2 mounts of zuchs and 2 mounts of yellow squash. If my peppers bite it, I'll just get some plants I think. We don't have a real big garden this year, but I'm learning and next year should be bigger and better.

One of my friends lost her mom this week. She probably weighed 500 lbs and reminded me of the mom in "what's eating gilbert grape." I can't remember what the details surrounding her death were, but it seems like Robin said she had liver failure. Shes been in and out of the hospital all year. Well, I asked Robin to keep me updated and let me know when they set the time for the graveside rights. (there was no funeral). Robin forgot and came by my IL's this afternoon around 1:30 to let me know that she was on her way to the graveyard. UGH! I had been in the outside working in the garden and was filthy from my knees down, my hair was a mess from the hose spraying me, my kids were filthy and tired and had I known, I would have arranged my day differently but there was no way I could make it even though Robin assured me that going as I was would be fine. To top it off, I my truck was dead when I tried to start it to go home for the kids naps. I feel horrible but hopefully I'll be able to go visit with the family on Friday.

My mom comes home from MI tomorrow night so my daddy asked me to come over and do the laundry and light cleaning of the house before she gets home. In return, he said we didn't have to pay him back for the stuff we got at Sam's earier this week. Every bit helps. Josh is going to take on mowing their yard once a week starting sunday for some extra money as well. They have been paying someone $150 a month to maintain their yard. This guy wasn't doing a very good job at all and they were paying him WAY too much.

I don't know why I stay up so late...I should be in bed!

Well, I called the bank. Our entire account was frozen. So, everything that tried to clear ended up bouncing. I got so upset I started crying on the phone! I had Josh call back and they said they would split the bounced check fee with us. IMO they could completely wipe it out because it wasn't fair that they did that without notifying us...but oh well. J's parents deposited $1000 in our account and hopefully we can get this mess cleared up. I hate owing his parents money...this sucks!

Nothing is new with Valley Cherolet. Same old shit! His boss isn't happily married anymore so he doesn't give a shit if anyone else has a family they want to be at home with. They are just seperated, but this will be his 4th divorce. Josh didn't know why they had seperated, but saw it coming. She got a brand new LOADED Duck's Unlimited Tahoe out of the deal anyway. Barf! Her son won't have the stability of a man around (He wasn't his dad, but a father figure none the less), but he has the nicest ride in town. They were told that they were NOT to take any more days off this month because the numbers were low. Josh said that if he decided he wanted to take his day off tomorrow he was taking it anyway. I left it up to him...We sure could use the extra money if he were to sell something, but I would like to see him too. If he stays home and they fire him, oh well. He knows I would prefer him out of the sales industry all together. I think that once we do get things cleared up financially he will start looking elsewhere. That dealership has screwed him 4 times and is the very reason we are in tax trouble. (they didn't take out enough).

I've been looking for some really large baskets at yard sales and discount stores. I want to make fitted liners for them like Pottery Barn sells and use them as laundry baskets in our new house. Weeeelll, yesterday we stayed home and cleaned out the garage. Josh was taking things up to the attic and I decided to go up there because I knew I had some books I could sell up there. I was scoping the attic looking for the books when I found a large basket with handles on each side!!! PERFECT! 1 down, 2 to go.

Josh's parents are going to loan us the money to pay our taxes. We will also be borrowing some more out of our IRA for other debts. What I can't figure out about our accout is that we bounced 4 checks but right there on the notice they sent, it said we had almost $400 in the account. The amounts of what bounced came to about $300 and that fits with what I thought was in our account. I'm baffled and Josh wants me to call and ask. I hate doing things like this. Especially personal things over the phone with someone I don't know looking at our financial statements. It makes me feel like a child or something. (not that I feel like an adult). We really need to get our ass in gear here and take care of this stuff. When my lease is up in the fall, we won't be able to get a loan for anything else because of the shape of our credit...:( We worked for a year really building up our credit. We had Josh in a position that we could buy a house and in no time that was squashed.

Were going with my daddy to Sam's Club today. Mom comes back on thursday and I don't know WHAT he and my brother have been living on. (probably takeout)

Never keep nail polish in the house when you don't have nail polish remover (a little hard to see)

Megan dumped half a bottle of hot pink nail polish all over herself, my leg and the computer chair.


More cuteness than you can handle