Ebates Headache

So as I mentioned about buying the soccer shoes for my son and going through ebates to get the deal, it has been nothing but a headache. I did not get any money back from them when I shopped through their site because I used the "we miss you" coupon that adidas sent to my email. Well apparently you cannot use a coupon found elsewhere when you are using ebates. This is not the first time I have been denied the money for some reason or another but this time I was able to at least get an explanation. At the moment I am waiting on the money sitting in my ebates account to be deposited into my Paypal account and then I will not be using them any more because I feel like I can earn money faster with Mypoints and Swagbucks as they have other ways of earning the points than just shopping online.

The Other Female In My House

My dog is a big huge baby. She is a labrador-bullmastiff mix weighing in at 120 lbs. She was a $100.00 mutt that I finally convinced The Man to let me get after I was gifted $100.00 in a tip for doing my friend's hair for her wedding. She was a tiny little thing when we got her and she was squirmy but loved her cuddles. We drove almost an hour to go pick her up. She was the only chocolate female puppy left. The others were all solid black and most were boys. I have always had a soft spot for a chocolate labs and I wanted a girl puppy since at that point I was outnumbered 2 to 1. We drove her home and I got to be the one to take care of her every deed. The Man deployed for a few months 2 weeks after she came to live with us. I was pregnant with son #2 and I managed to successfully potty train her and make sure that she didnt chew up anything other than her toys before he got back and I had the baby. I was a sucker and let her sleep with me while he was gone that time and several others. I found that she is a huge comfort to me. She hogs the bed like The Man. She farts like The Man. And she snores just like The Man. She is almost 4 years old now and I cannot get her on the bed anymore. She doesnt have the spring in her to get up there by herself anymore and she weighs too much for me to lift her up there. It makes me sad so I try to lay on ther floor or her bed as much as I can so that she still gets the spoiled cuddles that she deserves. She is awesome with the boys. She lets them play all over her and she just lays there. I almost wish there was a way to recreate her so that I could have her forever. I love the dog. We girls stick together.

My House Is Relaxing Now

It is amazing how relaxing a clean house is. Since The Man and I got married almost 5 years ago we have just had too much stuff. Even though our house wasnt messy it was most definatly cluttered and unorganized. I decided this is my year of change since this year started a new decade in my life. I was not going to keep looking at the clutter and keep getting frustrated because I felt that my house was a pig sty no matter how much I cleaned. I have been going through room after room and trying to figure out if the things we have are things we need or actually use. If it is not in one of those two categories it must go. My house over the last week or so has finally started to feel like a comfortable place to be for me. It is still a work in progress and probably always will be but my hope is that if I can keep one step ahead of the clutter I will not dislike being in my own home. Do you have any tips for keeping the house clutter free?

Half A Pork

I was looking on our local ad list yesterday and noticed a local farmer selling half a pig for 75 Brittish Pounds (or about $115). This is an extremely great deal because it works up to less than $2.50 a pound of meat which is considerably less than the commissary. I wrote to the farmer and asked him what all this included since I have never ordered directly from a farmer before. He said it would include all the meat from your half of the pig (approx. 50 lbs) already cut up and bagged including pork sausages from the excess. Once The Man gets home from his TDY we are going to do this as I would love to have a ham, pork chop, or ribs since we havent been able to swallow the price of pork here.

Yesterday

Yesterday was a really bad day. The Man has been gone TDY for over a week and for some reason this trip has been very hard on me. I have been through deployments, deployments during pregnancy, TDYs, and training making him gone for a good portion of our marriage. I think I have dealt pretty well on all of them except the first one after we got married til this trip. We got paid and so I decided it was time to go grocery shopping which being the weekend meant I had to take all three boys. I decided since most times they are in great moods in the morning I would take them after breakfast before they got hungry and tired. This logics did not work for me. A trip to the store that probably should have taken me about 30 minutes took me over an hour. I was all prepared with my shopping list and coupons knowing I was going to be bringing them along. The two older ones decided to fight and pick on each other and run through the store like maniacs. This made me crazy. I was so upset when I left the store I broke down and cried a bit. This attitude from the two older ones continued through the rest of the day.

The baby was pretty good during shopping but he is a needy child. He constantly needs me near him. He cries a lot and for reasons I dont understand. I make sure he is fed, clean diaper, drink and cuddles and sometime this just doesnt make him stop crying. The only other thing I can think of is he is teething again. I do not know what to do about teething besides give him some tylenol which I dont like to do since the teething neclace broke. I really believe that necklace worked miracles but havent been able to replace it as of yet.

I also decided I needed to shampoo my carpets since someone spilled something purplish on it. I tried to get my kids to help me pick up their clothes and toys and this just led to more fighting. I cant imagine how hard it is to pick up about 10 items that belong to you when someone takes care of almost all of your other needs. Everytime I ask for one of them to do something I seem to always get the "but why?" or just flat out ignored. I would really LOVE to know the secret behind a mid to large size family and their tricks of getting the children to help and being able to keep things in order.

I am so glad yesterday is done!! Today was much better and I hope tomorrow will be even better.