Monday, September 24, 2012

Moms need sick days too

I am not feeling well today. My head hurts and my sinuses are stuffed up. I really wish I could have a sick day to drink hot tea and lay in bed all day. Unfortunately, that isn't going to happen. I had to be up at the crack of dawn to get two of my kids off to school and stay up to take care of the other two. Wouldn't it be nice if being a stay at home mommy came with a couple sick days too?

I hope everyone has a great day!

Friday, September 21, 2012

Stress is not good for me

I failed at getting all the laundry done this week. The past two weeks I have been caught up by Friday. This week I only got about half done. I did get other things in the house done and cleaned the van which is a whole task on its own. I have been feeling very stressed and down trying to figure out what to do about the future since The Man didn't make his rank and most likely wont have a job come next year.

I am scared! I do not want to think that after all these years that we can just up and be left without a place to live or any income. It is sad to know that you are just a number and can be replaced at the drop of a hat. I keep trying to think of new plans or ideas. I keep running into road blocks due to the fact we are stationed overseas until the end. It makes me sick to my stomach. It gives me headaches. I cant sleep. It is terrible. I am going to have to go to the doctor and see if they can give me something to help calm me. It is ruining my life. I don't want to stress and be miserable.

I don't know how people make it when they lose their jobs. We wont have a place to live since we have been living in base housing our whole marriage and we are supposed to be stuck here til the end. Then we have no where. Military life while a tough one has been good to us. We have had medical insurance and dental insurance. We have had a roof over our head and a steady pay check. The Man has been in the military his whole adult life. He does not have any other kind of job experience. I have been a stay at home mom for almost 6 years now since I was put on bed rest with T. I was a hairstylist. I haven't been working so I am a little out of the loop. I am sure they have changed or improved techniques since I started staying home. I am not up on current trends or hairstyles either. I was and am still good at doing hair cuts and colors. I have been cutting my family's hair and coloring friends' hair since I have been home but I haven't had any salon experience. The only other job I have had was working fast food. I am not even sure how easy getting a job in fast food is in this day in age. I read the news about how many, many people are jobless but I have not been living in the USA for over 3 years now. I have not seen it first hand. I am scared to be thrown out on our behinds and then not be able to find jobs as well. This is the scariest time in my life. I do not like it one bit and I am not handling it well. I need some answers and soon or I will probably go loony.

Anybody Out There??

Does anybody actually read my blog? If so would you please leave a comment and say hi?

I keep checking my page counts and it appears that there a few people who read it but I don't know how to tell if the page counts are me coming to find the blogs I follow. I do have it clicked so that it isn't supposed to count me but I don't know if that works or not.

Anyway, if there are people reading......HHHHHEEELLLLLLOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! And, I hope you have a fabulous day!!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Happy Birthday Mom and Mother In Law


The first year The Man and I were married I called my mom to wish her happy birthday and as I was on the phone with my mom, my sister in law called to remind The Man to call his mom and wish her happy birthday as well. How cool is that? Both of our moms have the same birthday. This makes me a super awesome daughter in law since I will never forget The Man's mom's birthday.

Since two very special ladies share a birthday and we cannot be with them we celebrate in our house and share pictures via Facebook with them. The cupcakes above are what we had last year. They were homemade carrot cake cupcakes. This year we picked up a store bought cake. I must say while picking up a cake at the store is easy, homemade cupcakes were tons better.

I hope they both had a fabulous day. We had fun celebrating their birthdays with our own celebration.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Cleaning the van

I wonder.... Does washing and vacuuming the van count as cleaning for the day? I haven't gotten to my house chores yet today but I did run a couple errands and wash and vacuum the van. It really needed it.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a wonderful hump day!

Monday, September 17, 2012

Whew, more done

I didn't know that when Child #2, T, went off to kindergarten this year that my life while a lot busier surely seems a lot easier. The two kids at home with me all day are much calmer and more willing to do whatever I need to do without fuss. T is a high energy kid who needs to be entertained at every given moment. I thought it was just me being a lazy person when I couldn't keep my housework caught up. It probably was partly my fault, but I now know that I was spending a good portion of my day running behind T dealing with his fighting with his siblings or making more messes. I have been caught up on my laundry and dishes for the whole two weeks since T started kindergarten. It feels so great to see the bottom of the laundry closet or walk into my kitchen and not see a whole sink full of dishes. I love T with all my heart but I really didn't realize what  handful he was. I really cross my fingers that he is being much better behaved at school. I did ask his teacher and she said he was doing great.

Do you have a high needs child? How do you deal with the needs while getting everything else in your life done?

Friday, September 14, 2012

Getting off WIC

Originally, I was going to get off WIC when The Man made got a promotion and a raise. The promotion and raise didn't happen, but after a few months I have decided I am going to give it a go and try to go without it anyway. I was supposed to go in and do my recertification this week and I didn't feel good about having to go in and get WIC again so I cancelled my appointment. Could we use it? Sure we could, it is a big help when money is tight. Do we need it? I don't *think* so. I really feel that we in our house should change our priorities and try to go without it. I dont like depending on others when it is not a need. In a year, if things are worse than they are now, since The Man probably wont have a job, we will reconsider our options. I am hoping that things will get better even with the chance of The Man losing his job. Our priorities in life have changed quite a bit from even a few years ago and we are going to do our best to keep our heads up even in the rough times and try to get through it in one piece.

I am in no way bashing WIC or anybody who receives it. It is an AWESOME program that provides food for women, infants, and children. It has been a great help for us during our times of need. I am just hoping for my family to try to become a little more self sufficient and for me sometimes it takes just jumping in feet first.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Good Week but Dealing with Jealousy

We are on our second week of school for T and third week for S. It seems to be going well. I feel like last week just flew by. I had been spoiled by the fact that S had been old enough to walk to the bus stop by himself for the past couple of years and that I didnt have to get up and get dressed. This year, we all have to get up and dressed every weekday. S still walks himself to the bus stop since he has to be on the bus and gone before we pass his stop. The three littlest and I get ready and have walked every day so far to take T to kindergarten. It has been a bit hectic getting everyone ready and out the door but found that me getting up and getting dressed to walk him to school has made my day start earlier even though I was waking up the same time last year. I didn't have to actually get up and get people ready or lunch made or do any exercise. My legs actually hurt last week from the walking.

Once the two littlest and I get home from taking T to school, I let them watch a few minutes of TV and start a load of dishes and laundry. I even managed to get all the laundry done for the past two weeks in a row. This is a big feat for me. I am going to make sure to do it again this week. It felt so good to get to the end of the pile before Friday and not have to do laundry on the weekend, other than helping S with his laundry.

I found out this past week that I have a bit of an issue with jealousy. I never thought I could or would be a jealous person. I have been a stay at home mom for 6 years now and been living here with no friends around for the past 2 years. I never paid much attention to the people when I went shopping or out and about. Well, last week when T started kindergarten The Man went with us the first day and found out that one of his coworkers children was in T's class. He introduced me to his coworker and his coworker's wife. She is beautiful! Tall and thin and has a great tan and name brand clothes. Remember, I am fat and frumpy and don't really have any kind of fashion sense. Her children were both decked out in Gymboree clothes, shoes, and accessories from head to toe. I love the clothes and things her little girl was wearing. I haven't bought my daughter many clothes since she has been born because my mom has sent a huge wardrobe and I don't see much sense in spending more money when she has perfectly fine clothes. But man! I really long to be able to dress her in fancy, expensive, matchy-matchy clothes, shoes, and accessories. I also wish I could be tall and skinny and tan. How did this jealousy come over me? It bothers me because I do not want to be a jealous person. I was perfectly fine with the things we have until last week. I am not sure what came over me. It is terrible.

Do you have an issue with jealousy? How do you combat it without trying to keep up with the Jones'?

Friday, September 7, 2012

I Buy Cheap Vodka

I know, I know, I am poor and shouldn't be buying vodka.

It is bad for my health, I shouldn't be buying vodka.

I don't buy vodka to drink though. I buy it to make things with. I have been making our homemade vanilla extract for a few years now and am currently attempting to make mint extract. We cook and bake a lot at home and so we go through quite a bit of vanilla extract. It is expensive at the store and I had found blogs a while back that showed me how to make it for cheaper. It is simple. I split 10 vanilla beans in a liter of cheap vodka and let it sit for a few months and the end result is vanilla extract. You can choose to strain the solids out but I leave mine in while we are using the bottle. When we get about half way done with the current bottle we start a new one so it will be ready in time and we wont have to try to find a deal on it. You can also top up your current bottle with new vodka a couple times before your beans are spent.


We bought a live mint plant not too long ago to make some food with and when we were done I planted it outside. It hasn't been long but that plant has gotten quite big. We have been picking the leaves off to add to our water. It helps to get more water down if you don't like plain water. I had a bright idea when I realized I had to start a new bottle of vanilla this week that maybe I could use the leaves to make mint extract as well. I did a little looking around online and sure enough there were sites that said they put bruised mint leaves in vodka and let sit for a while and had mint extract. I got a bunch of mint leaves and bruised them. I put them into a canning jar and poured the cheap vodka over the top. They are up high in my cupboard to sit and mix for a while. I am excited to see if this turns out as well as the vanilla extract.

Making these extracts at home are an easy way to save money if you do a lot of home baking.

Have you ever made any extracts at home? Which ones? Did you like them?

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Pumpkins - Who Knew??

The kids asked for two items in the garden, the sunflowers and the pumpkins. Last year we tried to grow both and both failed miserably. I think a dog ate the sunflowers and the pumpkin plants ended up with some kind of disease.
 
This year we tried again. The sunflowers have gotten huge and are beautiful. The pumpkins have been a pain in the rump again. We would get excited to see a baby pumpkin with a flower and then the flower would die off and then the baby pumpkin would die off and fall off. I thought it was snails and slugs so for days and days we went outside with a jar full of salt water, picked up the snails and slugs and put them in the salt water. After several days there were not many snails or slugs around but the baby pumpkins with the flowers were still blooming and dieing off. I couldn't figure it out until one day I was reading another blog and in the comments about her squash plants some one mentioned that the squash weren't getting pollinated. I went to research.
 
 
Sure enough the search brought up pictures and such just like this one above that is what was happening to our pumpkins. It confirmed the comment that our pumpkins weren't getting pollinated. Who knew they would only flower for a day or less each and if they weren't pollinated then they would die off. I then started trying to figure out how to make sure our pumpkins would get pollinated. One site suggested to take a paint brush and collect the pollen from one of the flowers that didn't have a mini pumpkin on it and use it to pollinate the mini pumpkin flowers. S, the oldest boy, and I started watching every day and managed to catch a mini pumpkin flower open. We tried the paint brush trick and guess what??


We finally have a pumpkin growing. We have now managed to pollinate two flowers so with any luck we might get a pumpkin or two this year. Next time we grow pumpkins we will also know what to do instead of being sad and watching our poor mini pumpkins die off.