Friday, January 29, 2010

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs




Today my oldest son had out of school for a teacher workday. We took the opportunity to watch Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. The movie is very cute and definitely worth the time to sit and watch. I thought it taught some good lessons such as "never give up on your dreams" and "being greedy and getting everything you want isn't always best." I don't generally let the boys watch a whole lot of TV but this movie was such a good one and they were being good so I let them watch it twice when they asked to watch it again.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Since When Is My Time Less Important Than Yours?

Today is the first time I have had to have a military provider appointment and man am I disappointed. In the States I used Tricare standard so I could pick and choose my doctors and if I didn't like my care then I could switch without the headache of referrals. Being overseas I do not have that much luxury. I have to be seen at the Military Treatment Facility. I arrived for my 12:45 appointment at 12:25 knowing that I would have to fill out some paperwork since I haven't been seen there. I filled out the papers and was called back to a room promptly. Yay, I am going to be seen like a normal human. WRONG!!!! After sitting in the little room alone for 30 minutes someone finally came and said it would only be a few more minutes. Yeah right a few more minutes. It was almost 15 minutes later when the doctor would finally walk in. I was there for my annual pap and to get my IUD removed. I had originally tried to get an appointment in the OBGYN clinic as that is what I would have done in the States. I was denied and told to go to the Family Practice clinic. Guess what?? They couldn't take care of my IUD removal so now here I wait for who knows how many days to get a referral and then who knows how much longer to get an actual appointment. This is definitely not my ideal heath care system.

Monday, January 25, 2010

The Free Store

Being a part of a military family does have a few perks. Most bases have some kind of help for families in need. Here they have a free store commonly referred to as the Airman's Attic or Community Closet. This is like a free thrift store. Being overseas this is open to all ranks but I believe that in the States it is usually limited to E4 and below. You can go in and find clothes, housewares, books, toys and more. The only rule is that nothing there is for resale. This has been a great resource for us since we have 3 growing boys who always seem to need clothes. The best part about it is that when my boys are done with the clothes or shoes or toys we can bag them up and take them back to help out another family. We also take in stuff that we have bought ourselves to help replenish their stock. I find great joy taking a bag of stuff in to help others. It really helps me in reducing clutter and it definitely helps in my debt plan.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Free $5 Gift Card


Today I got another $5 amazon gift card from Swagbucks!!! Swagbucks is a search engine that you can earn points for searching anything that you can imagine. Once you get enough points you can cash in your points for prizes. They have lots of prizes but I usually choose to get the Amazon.com gift card since I shop on there all the time anyway. This is very helpful at helping my budget.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Usborne Books & More

So I decided to become a consultant for Usborne books and more so that I could get some great learning books for my boys but also to help earn a few dollars extra towards paying off debt. I am still waiting on my kit as mail can be goofy coming from stateside to the APO address. Once I get my kit I will spend time learning all about the company and hopefully it will give me some ideas on how to host home shows. I am hosting my own eshow right now but so far I am the only person who has placed an order. Hopefully just one of my friends will place one so I don't feel like a total loser. If you would like to look at my website you can find it here. If you find something you would like to buy you can do that through the website and it will be sent straight to your house. If you just browse at the selection please take a minute to at least sign up for the monthly drawing for $50 in books. I think this is a great incentive from the company. I cannot wait to get my package in the mail. Even though the books will be for the kids for fun and to learn from I am like a kid in the candy store when I get packages in my mail box.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

How do you do it??

I would LOVE to know some tips on how large families make everything work. How do you manage to take care of all the kids and make sure all the housework gets done and from scratch home meals? If you have some wisdom to share with me I would be eternally grateful.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Happy Life

I have a great life. It has not always been that way as I had a terrible time the first half of my 20's with bad luck. I try to not dwell on those awful things that happened to be but rather give credit to them for making my life the great life that it is now. I have a great family. My husband has got to be a rare breed since I dated many guys before my husband and NEVER did even one come close to being as perfect as he is for me. I have 3 awesome children. S is 9 and poor guy had to go through the rough part of my 20's with me as I had him when I was only 20. He is growing up rather nicely despite the yuk that we went through. He does well in school and strives to be the best in math in his class. He will do something great someday. T is 3 and he is quite the spitfire. He is me when I was 3, looks and attitude. I can tell he is going to be a handful always but I cannot imagine my life without him. K my little guy is almost 14 months and he is so cute and funny and watching his personality develop is fun. He has learned to crawl up the stairs so he can go play with the big boys. He thinks this is the best part of life right now. Oh to be so innocent. My D.O.G. Angel I could never forget her. She is my rock when my husband is gone for work. She knows when I am upset and need comforting or when I just need a slobbery doggie kiss. She is the most expensive cheap dog I could have ever imagined. She was $100 when we got her and between all of her food, shots, her spay, her doggie spa days, and her the expensive trip to England she has cost us well over $3000 in the past 4 years. We are pretty financially secure. We do have some debt but we have an end in site to being debt free. We have a small savings to help deal with emergencies like tires or whatever so that we don't have to put them on our credit cards. We also have a tiny savings that is started for the farm fund. I have to say this is never where I pictured my life to be when I was young but I can say honestly without any doubt in my mind that this is WAY better than any life I had pictured. I LOVE MY LIFE!!!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Farm Fund

We are working our tails off to be debt free. I figure it will be the first quarter of 2011 when we will have all our credit cards and our van paid off. After we pay all of this off our money goal will be to put money away in our "farm fund" savings. The farm fund is to help us in the future to buy a house on some property and to be able to have what I am referring to as a mini farm. We hope to have a medium to large garden, some chickens, and possibly a cow or two. The mini farm will not be able to be started until my husband retires from the military in 8-10 years unless we manage to get stationed somewhere we love when we go back stateside and find a killer deal on a property. Currently we are learning about gardening through books and trial and error. I hope to learn some canning skills as well this year so that we can preserve the garden bounty. Right now we have some winter onions and garlic in the ground that should be ready to harvest in June. We tried to grow some tomatoes and eggplant this past year but we got started a bit too late and only ended up with one tomato that was edible. The beginning of February we are going to order our plants and seeds for our garden this spring. We would love to have a couple of chickens but due to us living in military housing right now it is not possible. I am a planner so I have this all laid out on a spreadsheet so that I can see the end result. I figure if we play our cards right we should be able to live on The Man's retirement check and part time jobs. This is definitely not most people's ideal living but this is our dream.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

A You're Adorable



We picked this book up the other day and my two youngest are in love with it. It is a very easy quick read for young children. It has the A You're Adorable song in the front and back and the whole book is written out with pictures depicting the song. I would definitely recommend this book for helping young kids to read the alphabet.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Wow 2009 is done and we are now into 2010. What a wonderful year I am hoping this to be. I am still working towards my goals at being debt free. I have made up a bills plan and hope to have 3 out of the 4 remaining credit cards paid off by May. The final credit card is going to be a little tougher but I think with being strict maybe it can be paid off by December 15, 2010. I will still have about a year to pay on our van and then we will be totally debt free and never to have debt like that again. After we pay off our credit cards we are going to start putting money away in what I have named "farm fund". I am hoping to have enough money to either be able to pay cash for or only accumulate a small mortgage to buy a house with 5+ acres so that we can work at making a mini farm. I want to be able to raise some chickens and have a garden and maybe if we feel brave enough raise a cow or two.

This year I will also turn 30. I am not dreading turning 30 at all. I am actually very excited about it. I had quite a rough start to my 20's that I am convinced now that I have the life I love I most certainly am going to have an awesome 30's. I must credit The Man though for helping to make my life so wonderful now. He is a very sweet loving husband that supports me in all that I do. He also helped bring some very wonderful children into this world and who couldn't love him for that.

This year also will be The Man and I's 5th wedding anniversary. I am thrilled to have made it so far and still so happily. We had a bit of a rough start but we have settled into a great groove and I couldn't ask for a better husband.

My goal this year other than paying off debt like a crazy woman is to try making more of our food from scratch. I don't mind cooking or baking I just despise dishes and a dirty kitchen. My good friend B showed me how easy and yummy homemade bagels are and that is going to be my next new adventure.
I hope everyone is looking forward to 2010 as happily as I am. Happy New Year!!!!