Friday, July 30, 2004

I paid off 2 small credit cards today.  It felt so great!  Sometimes, though I don't understand it, I think the rain motivates me.  Mostly you hear that people feel tired or lazy when it rains.  Apparently I work the opposite way.  I feel tired and lazy when it is bright and sunny out.  I was in a cleaning mode this morning...and it feels good to have some much needed tasks completed.

 

I can't do laundry.  Kris said so, so I will "obey."  He went down last night to put some whites in (he needed socks).  He came back up and said that I couldn't go down there and do laundry...that he would do it.  Confused, but thinking "cool" I asked him why.  Well...we've had grasshoppers in the basement since we moved in.  Apparently, some of them decided to mate and then have babies...right in the middle of the pile of clothes that was down there.  It should teach me to keep up with the laundry...but I doubt it will.  So, Kris was telling me how gross it was, and I was thinking "well, it can't be as bad as the cockroaches we had at the college apartment."  I asked him how bad it was and he said he wasn't sure but he had seen at least 10 small baby grasshoppers!  Yuck!  So, he knows me too well and knows that it will be a bad situation for me to go down there and see them all hopping around.  We need to spray down there.

 

I picked up a Spanish review book/workbook at Borders Monday night and have started going through it.  I am so excited!!  I have so much fun when I am "involved" in any way with Spanish.  What I really want/need is someone hispanic to come and live with me for a while so that I can get some practice conversing.  It's fine to go through grammar and learn vocab...but it would be so much better to actually be able to practice speaking on a regular basis.  Anyone know how I can get someone to come live with me?  I'm serious.  Oh I know...Jenn Reedy, you just come live with me for a while!  :)  You should be pretty good with the Spanish by now!

 

I still need to call a lady about life insurance.  I wish these things didn't keep coming up.  I had made a budget that was going to be really good for Kris and I for after we pay off our debt.  I included everything, or so I thought.  Until today, I didn't realize that it did NOT include life insurance.  There are 5 of us...and we have none at all.  I think I am going to do the Gerber thing with the kids...should be pretty cheap for them at least.  Maybe I'll do that today.

Thursday, July 29, 2004

I'm very excited.  Today we got a check in the mail from Metlife for $6500!!  Yippee!!  Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have a bunch of credit card debt to put that on??  Oh well...it will feel so good to take $6000 of that and put it directly on our debt.  That will more than cut it in half!  Yeah...we have a lot of debt!  I say $6000...the downside is that we need new brakes on the van and all that good stuff...so we have to set some aside!



And anytime now, we should be getting 2 other checks from Met.  What a relief it is going to be!  We have vowed NOT to go back into debt.  God help us with that!!!



Abbey was so cute today.  Up to this point, she has not really said "dada/daddy".  Well Kris called today to talk to Katherine about something and so of course all the kids wanted to talk.  And I gave the phone to Abbey and said "tell daddy hi" and she gets this grin on her face and says "hi" and then she said "dada...dada"  It was so cute.  Very very soon she will just take off talking I will not remember what it was like without her talking...but that's ok with me.



Of course the downside to talking is with Katherine right now.  Her favorite phrase right now is "I don't like you..."  Usually it is directed at Mommy...today it was Kaleb, so I told her to go to her room...and THEN it was "I don't like you MOMMY!"  Oh well.  I don't really care.



Jenn...in case you read this and I haven't called you...which day next week (if either of them) work out best for you for dinner--Wed. or Thurs??  Let me know.



I am going out ALONE tonight.  Kris is going camping this weekend, so I get one more night off before the weekend alone starts.  I'm kind of looking forward to it though...the way things have been right now it will be kind of nice I think.  And it will be good for Kris.



Ooh...I was going to take a Spanish class in the fall...but I found this really cool review book/workbook at Borders the other night...and so I am going to go through that.  I think it will be right at my level and very helpful.  I'm very excited about it.   Andy and I were going to take the Spanish class together but I am going to see if he wants to go through the book with me.  We'll see.

Friday, July 23, 2004


I love that I can put pictures on here now. How adorable they all are! Posted by Hello

And look at this cutie now! Posted by Hello

And my other beautiful one, Abbey. So tiny they used to be. Posted by Hello

Does anyone have any doubt that this is Kaleb?? That seemed to fit his personality VERY well!! Posted by Hello

But look at my big boy now! At least he isn't crying in that picture! Posted by Hello

My first beautiful baby girl-Katherine Posted by Hello

How fast Katherine has grown! Posted by Hello
Well Dacia, thanks for making me feel guilty!  :)  I check the blogs quite a bit...but recently just have not had much or wanted to say much.  A lot has been going on, but nothing extraordinary.  Life has just been passing me by.  I get through day to day, not really sure how.  But I make it through.  To say I've been unhappy lately would be an understatement.  I've always heard that years 5-7 really can take a toll on marriages...guess we are finding that out.  Kris impressed me though and made a counseling appointment for Tuesday night.  So maybe we can start to figure out who and where we are as a couple.



On a positive note, Kris and I will be able to pay off ALL of our credit card debt within the next two months.  Kris decided to cash out his 401K from Met and that will arrive by the end of next week.  That will knock out the majority of the debt and then in August we should recieve a little over $3000 from his retirement from Met and that should take care of the rest.  It will be so great.  I wrote everything out today and came up with a budget that will allow us to save but also give us some freedom and flexibility with our finances.  I'm so excited!  Now if we can just stick to that budget!  That will be the hard part.  I need to open a checking account where I transfer all the stuff we are trying to save directly over when he gets paid.  If I don't do that...we might end up finding ourselves in the same place.  This will be the third time we are out of debt...you know how the saying goes.  We'll see!



The kids have been about as crazy as they could be.  This entire week there has not been one calm day.  And I know--can you have a calm day with 3 kids so close in age (or any 3 for that matter)?  Well, there are days that I would consider calm.  There were NONE this week.



My frustration turned to laughter by the end of Tuesday night.  It was just ridiculous.  So, for the most part earlier in the day they were ok.  They didn't really fight much.  Then later on I found an empty koolaid package (black cherry-not that that part is important besides the fact that it is dark red).  I didn't think much of it...until I went into the living room and found a baseball size spot on the carpet where the koolaid had been opened up and poured out.  Now keep in mind that this was just the powder.  I think there was a little milk or water in the center...but I didn't think anything of that either.  Actually I just didn't think.  So, I got the woolite oxy deep out...BIG MISTAKE.  Remember that baseball size spot???  It became, within seconds about the size of a small child!  It wasn't long after that that I decided to give the kids chocolate milk.



So, the chocolate syrup container was empty (or so I thought) and I put it in the trash.  Katherine came into the living room (maybe about 10 mintues after I had TRIED to clean up the koolaid) and said that Kaleb has the chocolate syrup.  So I go into the living room to find that Kaleb had indeed gotten the chocolate syrup bottle which I thought was empty and had proceeded to put that all over the carpet in the giraffe room.  Well, not all over, but ENOUGH.  So, that was interesting...both spots still are not completely cleaned...after about 5-6 applications of spot shot and it still was not clean, I decided to give up for a while.



Okay...so that in and of itself was enough for the day to be "hectic."  Well, during dinner, I had made a comment on the amount of things that had been spilled today (I think there were more before/during those other two that were mentioned).  Seriously...right after I said that, Abbey proceeded to take the lid off of Katherine's sippee cup.  Fortunately it just had water in it...but that ended up all over the floor in the dining room.  I just laughed.  What else could I do???  Okay, now this next story...I am not kidding-happened probably within 10 minutes of the other.



Katherine came into the dining room where we were playing cards.  This is what she says:  "Mommy, Kaleb has the coffee."  My heart sunk.  I knew that meant that not only did he have the coffee (it was the instant kind...coffee grounds...not already made), but that he had most likely opened it up.  Sure enough, as I walk into the giraffe room...coffee all over the entrance to the giraffe room.  I just kind of screamed!  I was in shock I think.



I still shake my head just thinking about it!  I seriously need like a week off.  Other people with jobs get a vacation...can't I have one?  And all of this is WITH me taking wellbutrin!  I can't imagine what would have happened if I hadn't been taking it.  Actually I know what would have happened...either one of my kids would have gotten hurt or I would be in Florida right now staying with my grandma and visiting the beach!



Anyway....I guess that is all that is going on for now.  Dacia, I will try to be better about blogging!  :)  Just teasing you.  I'm glad you had a "good time" with Kyle when he got home! :)



Jenn...when are you going to come over for dinner??



Okay...I see there is a place to upload images on here, so I will try that since I could not get pictures on here the other day.





Thursday, July 8, 2004

Katherine said some funny things recently. Yesterday she was walking by Abbey and said "Abbey you're just the cutest baby." And then she turns to me and says "Mommy isn't Abbey a cute baby?" I thought it was funny. And then this morning I was changing Abbey's diaper and she started asking me what was wrong. I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but to set it up, the kids are supposed to have their cups on the table or in the fridge. So she asks what is wrong and I ask her why she's asking that and say that nothing is wrong. And she says "Why aren't you saying anything?" I just looked at her. She said "Well we all have our cups out here-aren't you going to say they need to stay in the fridge?" I love having conversations with her!
Kris and I are very excited! Katherine got placed in preschool for the fall! We didn't know what we were going to do, as we both felt like she would do really well to go ahead and start preschool, but we cannot afford KCA. So, we just kind of left it in the Lord's hands and then I found out that Hazelwood offered preschool. But it is all done by a lottery. The child has to take this Dial 3 Screening thing, and then if they do well enough on that, they will be put into the pool/lottery. And if the child is not placed from the lottery, they go on a waiting list, and depending on where they are on the waiting list, they could be placed that semester or the next year. Kind of up to chance really. And so I took Katherine for her screening--she did really well. On most all things they "tested" her on she was scoring at a 5 and 6 year old level. Pretty cool--of course we are so proud. So, anyway, I got the letter the other day that said not that she was on the waiting list but that she had actually been placed for the 2004-2005 school year afternoon preschool!



I saw Spiderman 2 tonight. I really liked it. I thought it was better than the first, which I liked also. I am not sure though if they left it open for yet another Spiderman film or if that was just the end. I guess we'll see. It seems that in July/August there will be a bad season of movies. On an interesting note, in November there is a movie coming out that is based on John Grisham's "Skipping Christmas" which I think looks really good. The book was okay--but the movie will be with Tim Allen and I just think it will be funny.