17 days

Only 17 days until Tom and I fly out to CA! I'm hoping that we can find something nice, preferably to buy, but I have a feeling that we won't get enough money to do that. We'll see though. Otherwise I hope we can find something to rent that won't be available until the middle of Oct or beginning of Nov.

I had high hopes for base housing until I remembered that you can't run a business out of your house if you live on base. So, the whole photography business thing would be a no-go unless I pulled some money from who knows where to get office space - and that wouldn't be cheap.

We've got just over 2 months until Tom checks out, I can't believe it's August already! Anthony has a meeting to be "tested" for kindergarten on the 7th, Tom has duty on the 9th (gee, how nice, another Saturday duty), and the boys go to MI on the 16th. Next week there are a bunch of places that we need to call to double check on things, TMO for moving, Soccer Association for information on Tommy's uniform, USAA for insurance stuff and once we have a pack up date we have to call our loverly landlord and tell him. We have a long list of things to take care of while the boys are gone too, we'll have a couple of days that Tom will be off work and the boys still gone so hopefully we'll get most of it taken care of instead of sitting around playing games. lol

a talking fool

It always amazes me when I realize how fast the boys are growing up. Since coming back from MI Alex has just been talking so much. It's obvious that he's trying to repeat you, he repeats almost everything that we say to him. Once again I realize how nice it is to have him tell me cup, chicken, or cheese when he wants something.

We've been going for nightly walks (except for tonight) and he loves it. He likes to get a piggy back ride from me, but that is only possible when Tom is out with us since lil man likes to not hang on and lean back alot.

I've been neglecting my camera lately. I don't like it, but I can't find the time or inspiration with all the stress. My MIL and FIL come in this weekend to get J. They want to go up to DC to a museum or something on Saturday so I'm hoping the humidity isn't bad. It's been pretty miserable here the past few weeks, with the odd nice day here and there. I feel bad because I get miserable in the heat and humidity so I don't want to take the kids outside. Besides, there's always something that needs to be done. I neglect the laundry or dishes for a day and they take over the house.

So, I haven't done anything in the way of scrapping. I have a layout partially finished sitting open & unfinished in photoshop, really shouldn't do that to myself, I need to remember to save these things. I would like to finish it, but I just can't see the final couple of things that it needs to be done. Besides, I haven't quite finished the journaling on it. Only a few more days and then I get my family back for 2 weeks. Then my boys go to MI for 2 weeks. I hope that while they are there they don't become disrespectful brats like the one that is visiting here is. I'm so tired of the attitude and unwillingness to cooperate and listen, it just gets old.

Well, it's time to try to get lil man to bed.

no more games

That is what it has come down to in my house. I tried to be nice today and set up the Wii with the old Gamecube controllers so that they could play a gamecube game. I made them promise me that there would be no fighting and that they were promising to be good the rest of the night and tomorrow (a buddy of Tom's wants to take them swimming). A bit after beginning to play I hear J tell Anthony that he doesn't like him anymore (or it might've been he hated him, regardless) so I yelled down the hall to turn off the games. I asked and they just stared at me like I was speaking a foreign language. So, no more games today or tomorrow. I needed a minute to cool off from the whole thing so I sat my lazy but in front of my computer for a bit.

I listed some more old games on ebay. I want to scrap but have no motivation to. I think this whole disrespect from J is really getting to me. I'm in awe that he acts the way he does. He comes from an entirely different home environment and I try to remind myself of that, but some of this is just ridiculous. If either of my boys looked at me, talked to me or treated me the way he does I think I would just haul off and slap them and lock them in their rooms. Of course I can't do that with J because he just sits in the room anyway (I wouldn't be able to bring myself to smack him) missing his mom and being sad that he can't go home yet.

I have this strange feeling in the pit of my stomach that they are going to come back from 2 weeks in MI with little attitudes. And right before school starts too, nothing like a new routine, lack of sleep from staying up so late, and new school year jitters to content with along with some newly acquired attitude changes. Just what I want to deal with the first couple days of school. I'm almost hoping that Anthony will have an orientation with his teacher, an open house or something that week so she can bring them home early. As much as I'm going to try to get a ton of stuff done while they are gone, having them be good kids is much more important. The two older boys will be in school this fall so it'll only be me and Alex. I might be able to get some things accomplished.

Ok, well, enough venting for me...I've got to go take away the game systems before little hands gets on the Wii or it's bed time. What a wonderful night this will be.

so happy it's Friday

I am so glad the weekend is here. It has been a long week with all 4 boys here. I can't wait for next weekend though. Then I'll have 2 weeks to spend with just my boys.

Our internet was out through most of yesterday & last night from a storm that went through the night before. Of course my phone was fine until I was talking to Kathy (it's all your fault!) and around 12/12:30 it just cut out. Then my internet stopped working. We finally figured it was time to call about 6 or so and we were told it was estimated to be back running on Monday. I was so irritated. It turned back on sometime after 12 I think and then at 6 Tom received a text from Verizon saying the problem has been resolved. Gee, thanks for the notice.

Poor Tom has duty tomorrow so we are trying to make the best of tonight. The kids have been nearly impossible since about 1:30 though, so it's been interesting to say the least.

Well, I'd love to ramble some more but there is a 2 year old on my lap that is threatening to knock my laptop onto the ground or rip off more keys.

{frustration!}

So, I think that I'm really not cut out to have 4 kids. lol These past few days with my nephw here have just been near horrible. He's a good kid, most of the time. My SIL doesn't push him on a lot of things so he skates by on a lot of things he shouldn't do. There have been quite a few times this week that I just wanted to smack the smug, disgusted look off his face. I try to remind myself multiple times a day that he's used to it only being him & his mom, but then I see how he acts when we tell him to do things and the way he treats Tommy, Anthony and Alex.

I had a blow up this morning and had to call Kathy. I was so close to running outside to smoke. I haven't been able to do things I want, let alone need to do because I constantly have to be on their cases about not sitting and watching tv all day. No matter if it's a show they probably don't like they will sit there for the sake of sitting there.

I know most kids do this, but J seems to have a knack for it. My boys do on occasion too, I know full well that they are far from angels. lol The difference is when I tell them to go do something productive for a bit they go and play. They go to the toy room & get their nerf guns and battle their stuff animals, they play with the army guys, they go down in the basement and make up games and play in the tent. When I suggested the past 2 days for them to go do something productive, J went and laid on Tommy's bed. He's a part of the family until he goes home, how can I accept him doing that but not my own kids? I can't . It's so hot here that I can't stand it, so we don't go outside like we should. Last night, however we went for a walk at 7:30 and since it was decent out Tom and I began to tackle the jungle that is our backyard. The boys, well they sat on the deck.

I'm at a loss as to what to do. We don't have enough money to be running around doing stuff everyday. I took them to the library on Sunday. I'm ready to go back, but I don't know if they are. We will probably go tomorrow regardless though. I bought a paper craft magazine and showed them all the cool stuff they could make and they started in on it, and that lasted about 20 minutes. I don't expect them to do it all day.

After the blow up this morning, which obviously didn't phase any of them because I've gotte n3 requests to play games. I said that they were disrespectful, spoiled brats this morning. Maybe not the bed choice of words, I'm sure the yelling didn't help, but I couldn't help it. For the second day in a row I offered something for lunch and it was disrespectfully rejected. I had had enough. My boys don't act like that and I will be damned if they learn it from J.

So, I think I'm going to find a good movie to watch and chill out in my room for a bit.

where'd all the {money} go?

So, yeah, Tom got paid last Monday, somehow, when I checked our bank account this morning, we are down to nothing. How could that have happened?! Thankfully I went grocery shopping (though only planned for a week) and all the bills are paid, but we should have had plenty of money to last us until next payday (which isn't until the 31st). WTF? I really have no idea how we went through it so fast. Because of the fact that we will need diapers by the end of the week I am seriously considering returning what I can of my goodies from Michaels. Or get someone to buy our desktop. lol

So, because of the money issue I decided that the rebate reward check from our credit card was going to go into the bank for cushioning purposes rather than go towards the balance of the credit card as intended. I piled the 4 boys into the car at 3 and headed to base, the branch there is closer to us? I get off Rt 1 and I can't turn left off the exit, because that gate to base is closed. So, I have to basically get on 95, go back the way I cam on Rt 1 (with no where close to turn around) or go through the other side of base to get to the other branch on Garrissonville Rd. I decided to just go back up Rt 1 to Garrisonville Rd. This took more time and was nearly unbearable in the nearly 100* weather and no working a/c in the truck. I sat through 3 rotations at a left turn light, then waiting behind 3 other cars at the bank because there was only 1 lane open. When it was finally my turn I found out that their system was down, but she could give me a hand-written receipt.

I'm done for the day. I think I'm going to do my pilates dvd or get on the elliptical for a few minutes and take a shower. I'm about ready for bed.

a new week ahead

A new week starts tomorrow. We had a pretty busy weekend with my MIL, SIL and nephew arriving Friday evening. Saturday we went to the National Marine Corps Museum, to eat at iHop and then on to Target. MIL and SIL left this morning before I got up. So we've been relaxing inside today. It's really hot here lately and I can't bear to go outside, tomorrow it's supposed to be hotter.

I got some new layouts printed out from scrapbookpictures.com...it's always so cool to see my stuff in print! I do wish though that I had tried a different type of paper, something with some texture and depth to it. Now I need a few more pages for my 12x12 book. I hit up Michaels after Target yesterday and grabbed some refills, but when I got home I realized they are for the wrong book. Figures, lol.

I'm on Blythe Evans CT as a guest for this month. She has a great new spiral bound alpha out in her store. I also just finished a layout with her Iced Mocha Latte paper pack.



How did my boys grow so fast?! If you are looking for a some new goodies, check out her stuff! She's got two stores, one at OScraps and one at Blythe Evans.com.

So, I need to go get dressed. I'm headed back to Michaels to return those refill pages...it doesn't help any that they threw in an ad that said today from 4-6 present the coupon and get 20% (or was it 25%)
off your order, including sale priced items. So, I think I'm going to go and get the right refill pages, look for another 12x12 album and some cute embellishments that are hopefully on sale to add to my stash. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

{100}

This is my 100th blog post! Wow...

So, I haven't been on here as much as normal, I didn't realize until Monday that my MIL and SIL would be here this weekend to bring my nephew to stay with us for another 2 weeks. I haven't been able to get into a routine with getting the housework done so I've tried to put off all my online activities until I get some of that done.

Currently I am taking a break from cleaning. I just finished cleaning up my bathroom. I hate cleaning bathrooms, I will take a mountain of laundry or dishes over the bathrooms. I would even be willing to cut back on some of our fun spending if it meant I could have someone come in to clean my bathrooms. Yuck! What can I say...my hubby didn't get a housewife. lol

I've been trying to find a place to get a logo designed that won't cost me an arm and a leg. Holly McCaig Designs has some nice pre-made logos that I like. They are less than $100, so I figured that I could get by with that for now and once I started making some money get a new one designed. But...there's this part of me that thinks I should just get the one I want designed from the beginning, I'm just afraid of the cost.

I got another layout done. :) 2 in one week, I must be on a roll. lmao I really like the way this one turned out, it took me hours to finally decide that a clean look was best. It was even posted in the Gallery Standouts Thread at DST! Which is a first for me, I wish I had seen the comment on it before the thread disappeared so I could thank the person who posted it in there, it really meant alot to me that someone noticed my layout.

Well, I feel like there are a million things left to do so I should remove myself from the pull of my computer and go get something accomplished. Plus the grocery shopping is waiting too, man I dislike grocery shopping too. We always spend too much money and never have enough food.

FOB2Y 7/10

So, my favorite vacation spot?

Definitely Sanibel Island. My grandparents owned a condo there from the early 80's through 2005. I was lucky enough to be able to go down there most summers for a week with them. Once my grandfather retired we would go down to stay for a month or more at a time. It wasn't so easy once I got a bit older and had a job, but I still tried to go when I could. I was lucky enough to be able to take Tom and Tommy down there one year (2002). It was always so peaceful there. It was horribly expensive, but the perfect place for a vacation. Tom said it too once we were there for a day or so, I don't think he "got it" until he was able to be there. I miss knowing that we had a place to stay if we had a chance to go again; I have so many great memories there.

Here are a couple photos of Tom and Tommy in Sanibel in July of 2002.

For the From Our Blog 2 Yours challenge at SSD.

Relaxing Saturday

So, today is Saturday. We spent the day doing nothing. We watched Definitely, Maybe and played games. Tom left on an infomercial that made me want to order the Malibu Pilates chair. We picked what we could out of the pantry since no one wanted to go to the store.

I took some time to start cleaning off my laptop harddrive. I need to get my photos all backed up along with my layouts and kits. Once I have a fresh back-up to work with I am going to try to run the EHD through the router and see if it works the way it's supposed to. If it does I'm going to do the same thing with the printer.

My goal for this upcoming week is to find enough South Beach phase 1 recipes as I can and make a grocery list that hopefully won't break the bank. I wanted to start it this week since J isn't staying with us this week, but I just can't get everything together in a day.

I did do a layout today. I was nice to lose myself in scrapping again. Tomorrow I think we will do much of the same things we did today, though I think I will do a load of laundry, get everyone a bath (or shower) and try to run to the grocery for some fresh fruit and things for the week.

Finally Home

So, we are finally back in our own home after a long drive today. It was all fine until we hit 395 and it all went downhill from there. We should have been off the expressway (at the very least, if not all the way home) by 5:45...we finally were able to hit our exit at around 6:45. Then we had to run and get some food; the joys of depleting your food supply before leaving town.

So, we are home again. Happy to be out of the car and with our own things and our own rules. Tom is currently recovering our gamertag on Xbox Live and I am catching up on emails and good web misc I missed out on while I had limited internet time.

Til another day when I have something better to post about...have a wonderful Friday night!

on vacation

So, we are out of our own home and visiting family in MI. While I really wouldn't classify this as a vacation since it's far more stressful and chaotic than being at home, Tom is off of work and we are just sitting around our own home.

We have been busy since being up here. Friday we went to the lake and visited with family, played in the lake, went for boat rides and watched fireworks. On Saturday we went to see my grandparents along with my aunt and cousins. We took the boys to the Yum-Yum Tree and had a small lunch, the intention was to get ice cream, but a few of us were hungry so we had a light lunch. We said good-bye to my aunt and cousins since they were leaving on Sunday to go back home and we ventured back to Tom's mom's house since Tom an I were going to let Jackie take the boys and we were going to go see a movie. We packed the boys a bag and took off for the theater. We saw Wanted and really liked it. Then we ventured on to Best Buy where we spent too much money, again. Tom is pleased though because now his parents are equipped with an Xbox 360 and some good games.

Yesterday was Jason's 9th birthday and the day was spent at the lake. The boys had a lot of fun since there were a couple of other kids there as well. I have a lot of photos, I took about 200 yesterday trying to get a good shot of the kids on "Great Big Mabel" lol the big tubing raft that the neighbors let us borrow. We all had a lot of fun on that.

So, I need to get up and clean up the mess we've left in our wake before we aren't the only ones in the house anymore.

{20}

This is my goal, to lose the 20 pounds I've put on since last August. I still can't believe that I gained that much weight. I felt pretty good about myself when Kathy & I went to NC in July; when I came home apparently it all went downhill.

So, with Kathy's advice and after taking a look at some recipes I have decided to try the South Beach diet. I really think that because of phase one and the 10lbs or so weight loss in the first 2 weeks I will really be motivated to continue with it. We are hoping to get to MI for the 4th and the week following so it will start when we get back. While we are gone I am going to make lists and gather recipes to try out. Tom said he wants to try it with me, and since we aren't eliminating so much stuff, the boys will be making the transition too. They won't technically be on the diet, we will still get them fruit & chips, but the meals will be the same.

So, wish us luck. I really want to just get down to 130 again. My jeans hurt when I wear them and I'm embarrassed about my pregnant belly I have acquired even though I'm not pregnant.

So, I think this Kalyn's Kitchen looks like it will be my go-to blog for SB recipes. I've only checked out a couple, but I think tomorrow I may try this egg muffin recipe; I'm loving the idea that you can make extra & freeze the extra. I just received the South Beach Diet Supercharged in the mail today. I've glanced through it and read through most of the first chapter. I'm glad I decided to order the book, I'll hopefully be able to look it over while we are in MI.

So, besides having losing weight & food on my mind I have been pre-occupied with all our plans for the fall. Tom and I have tickets to head to San Diego (I may have mentioned this previously) in August, hopefully to find a house to buy. Once we come back from MI I am hoping to get rid of the rest of our unnecessary items. The black desk that is out in the garage will go on Craig's list, the rocking chair in my room, I also have some computer programs and books that I plan to list on ebay and half.com. I'm hoping to sell enough to make a decent dent in our credit card balance. I also have to be diligent about reeling Tom in on his dvd purchases. So, we are going to start making lists of new releases, agreeing on a number and taking out the appropriate amount of money out of the ATM on payday. I don't think he has any concept as to how much money he gets paid, how much money goes out in bills, and how much money we should be able to save each month but don't because he likes to spend. Of course when he gets something, then I want things too...I'm not completely innocent in all this.

Goodness...I've just rambled on for far too long. I'm off to search out more SB friendly recipes and head to bed. :)