my week... Ford Ranger XLT, Family Reunion, thinking about change

It's been a week since my last blog post. {gasp} I can't believe I let that time slip away without posting. I'm trying to recall the events of my week and have realized that I shouldn't wait so long to blog because my recall is harder than just making the time to blog about it when it's fresh in my mind.

So.... let's start with last Friday (May 22). "Congratulations! It's a Ford!" I bought a truck! A 96 Ford Ranger XLT, to be exact. I had been without an automobile since April 18th. That was rough. I had to rely on a co-worker to get me to and from work (and even Dodger had to take me and retrieve me a few times). I had to rely on my dad and Dodger to get Dancer back and forth to dance classes and recitals. And had to rely on my mom to get Dancer to and from tennis lessons. I even had to put off grocery shopping when we really needed it because I had to wait for Dodger to have some time to take me. Ugh. BUT I sure saved on the cost of gas for that month. :) Always got to look on the bright side of things.

Last week was hell at work... my supervisor had hand surgery on Wednesday, so she wasn't able to work Thursday and Saturday night. Thursday night we ended up severely understaffed there were 4 of us that came into work that night out of the 7 that were scheduled. We were there until 3 am and still left a huge amount of work for the people that came in that morning. Saturday night was better but we still had one person not show up. You have nooooo idea how much that irritates me. There is no excuse for someone not knowing when they are on the schedule to work. Last week was the last straw for me... I'm looking for another job after being at the current job almost 6 years.

Sunday (May 24) we went to Dodger's family reunion in the afternoon. It was nice. I got some family hookup's on Facebook (still need to send them an invite) and got some family history. Dancer was happy that one of her cousins, that she knows, showed up. They played catch and kicked the soccer ball around for a bit. And I'm sure they talked each other's ears off about Naruto and other Japanese manga/anime.

I've been working a lot this week. I was on the schedule for 5 out of 7 nights. This is a good thing, we need the extra money right now because Dodger lost a job he had already put a week's worth of work into. The lady decided she wanted to do something different and he wasn't willing to do that kind-of work. His other checks have been slowly rolling in. We've both been a bit stressed lately because of it and it's nice that we haven't taken it out on each other. :)

I spent the first part of my week going through Dancer's educational receipts and narrowing down what was left to get rounded up. Yesterday I finally got the last of them from the college where she takes dance. I had a heck of a time with the lady I was dealing with there. I ranted about it yesterday on Facebook, so I'm not going to go into it again here. :) I'll spare you all my frustration. I am now well aware of just how much of a difference the home education credit can make on my state taxes and will from now on make sure I get the detailed receipts I needed at the time I register Dancer for classes.

Wednesday and Thursday were errand days. Wednesday, Dancer and I ran all over town registering her for summer classes. We hit the Arts Council for art classes (and happily ran into some good friends there), the Park District for tennis lessons, and the Y for swim lessons. We still have golf lessons to get registered for. Registration day for golf is coming up on June 10th. Thursday, I ran out to get the dance receipts all taken care of. Went to the post office to mail out those receipts to the state IRS and drop off some PaperBackSwap items and tried to get my printer cartridge refilled at Walgreens. Walgreens said that my cartridge was shot, so I'm now bidding on a new one on eBay.

Today, I've been doing some online banking... Downloading all of the eStatements that I still have available... Transferring money to my dad to pay him back for fronting the money for the truck for me last Friday (my cash advance wasn't released until today). I'm catching up on emails and blogging and now need to pay some bills online.

Ahhh... I feel better for getting my blog all caught up.

Oh, and I've been on a mad search for work at home jobs. I think I've narrowed some options down and just need to get more into the details. I also have an application half filled out for another place in town for late evening hours. It involves heavy lifting and I'm not sure that I can do that, I have back issues. I have a friend who currently works there and I think I need to talk to her some more about that.

Much of my anxiety and stress has lifted today. I am working on controlling what I can control and trust God with the rest. I don't believe in coincidences, everything happens for a reason. There is good in what we perceive as bad. I'll send you to my friend Dena's blog for a better explanation of this.

Franklin Covey & Walk Away the Pounds

It's been a rather lazy day for me today. I woke up with a pounding headache and can't seem to get focused. I broke out my trusty FranklinCovey day planner and it remains to be seen what I'll complete on my checklist today.

I've put on my workout clothes and am ready to pop in a Walk Away the Pounds 3 mile workout video. I hope that the exercise will help my headache and put me back into being able to focus on a few items on my to-do list before I will need to get cleaned up and head out to work this evening.

It's a nice sunny day out. I'm so glad that summer is on its way.

where are those WAH jobs?

I've been praying for years for God to show me the perfect WAHJ (work at home job) for me. I still have yet to see Him show me anything. I have friends who say follow your passions... well, I'm just not sure what those passions are anymore. I used to love to sew and craft. I used to love exercise. I still love those things but have very little time or space for sewing and right now I'm too heavy to do any exercise instruction.

I just keep wondering when the light switch is going to flip on and I'll *know* just what it is I'm supposed to do. Is that how it works, I wonder? When do I see what the Universe holds for me?

In the mean time, we have to pay bills! I have to work outside the home! And let me tell you, I'm tired of it.

I really would just love people to point me along the right path. The internet is full of opportunities but who can be trusted? Any ideas? Any helpful hints or words of advice?

it begins with a colour...

This week's color muse is yellow...

I decided to go outside on this beautiful day and see what yellow I could find. There wasn't as much as I was hoping that there would be but here's what I came up with. All of the picture editing and collages were done for free on Ribbet.



If you want to participate, you can find all of the details at apples for poppy anne.

Inside Redbox

In my efforts to save money and reduce monthly costs, I recently nixed Blockbuster Online and Netflix. But we still like to watch movies a few times a month, so I searched online for other options and what I found was Redbox and the Inside Redbox community. They have opportunities via text message, Twitter, and Facebook to get free rental codes to use at their Kiosk for one free movie rental. Their standard movie rental fee is only $1 per night, even for new releases!

We've gone from $13/mo for movies to only a few dollars a month at the most. That saves us $132 - $144 a year.

it begins with a colour...

I'm loving apples for poppy anne and decided last night to take her leading and join in on her creative color endeavor. I was turned on to Picnik by a few online friends and just finished playing around with a few of the pics I uploaded for the color project. This is what I came up with...

Sweet Baby Skunk

Here I sit trying to blog about something positive and all I can think of is the tiny baby skunk that Dancer brought home from my mom's yesterday. She fed it and even looked up information all on her own on the internet about it. She realized that it had worms and I realized that we weren't going to be able to call Animal Control until Monday. I couldn't even be certain that Animal Control would do anything about it. Animal Control didn't want to help us remove the raccoons (mama and babies) from our garage last year. So, I had no faith in them that they would do anything about the baby skunk.

Then Dodger got home from work. He wasn't thrilled with the whole thing and reasoned that it wasn't really right that my mom sent the little skunk home with Dancer anyway. And with the worms and all, Dancer didn't really want to take care of it. We wrapped it up and Dodger took it somewhere. I don't know where. I don't want to know.

All this to say, I'm really sad about the little thing. I cried for quite awhile last night as I was drifting off to sleep. I feel guilty and I'm not sure that we did the right thing. Nothing at this point can be done, so I will have to find a way to forgive myself and move on.

Printable and Customizable Grocery Lists

I ran across Free Printable Grocery List DOT Com last month as I was searching for the MS Works template that my current list was printed from. I didn't realize at the time that they offer DOC versions of their lists so that you can customize them with your own personal items. Here is what they have to say about their DOC files.

The DOC versions are Microsoft Word .DOC files that you can edit to your specifications. They are compatible with Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and other word processing applications.

If you don't have MS Word and don't use Google Docs. It will open up just fine in Sun Microsystems' Open Office Freeware. You can download Open Office here: http://www.openoffice.org/ Once you've downloaded the DOC file(s) from Free Printable Grocery List, you will have to save it as an Open Office ODT file. Then it will be ready for you to customize.

May's Grocery List: Aldi's Master Price List

I just finished up the last few details of May's list earlier today. I have a budget of $175/month but had some extra money left over from last month. Some of these prices may be different than what I have listed. There were a few items that I was unsure of because I didn't purchase them last month. I will adjust the numbers on my paper as I'm shopping so I can update my master list.

My master list is an Aldi's Price List that I found online, downloaded and printed. You can download the same list here.

As I've shopped, I've updated the prices. Some of them are the same as what's listed on this list and others are 10-20 cents more (or more) and some prices are actually less. I adjust the prices on the list that I take to the store and circle the updated price and then go back and update that price on my master list. You can see all of my circled updates on April's list in the former post.

Soon, I plan to start planning menus for the week. I think dinner to begin with and then work my way up from there.

April's Grocery List

This was my first full-fledged shopping list ever! I have a food budget now and had a pretty big budget for April because part of the money was from March. I had to stock up on a lot of items because it has been ages since I've been able to go shopping like this. I don't think I've ever been able to go shopping like this. Usually it's just grab a few items and go.

Thinking About Summer: Square Foot Gardening and Summer Activities

Dancer's dance concert is this Mother's Day weekend. I'll be spending most of my week gathering up needed items and making last minute adjustments to costumes as well as breaking out the make-up once again. I don't have a car at the moment, so all items needed can hopefully be gathered up from around the house.

The car issue is a bit of a frustration but I could actually see us living on just one automobile if Dodger had one that I could actually drive, one that doesn't start and shut-off with a screwdriver! LOL. Except that would only limit us to evening activities and I don't think Dancer would like missing some of the great activities that we can do during the day while the rest of the world works and goes to school. Maybe it's time to check out the city bus schedule.

The weather has hopefully started to normalize and warm up. This means that the majority of the kids in the world and in our area will be out of school soon. Which means it's time to start planning out our summer activities. There are the great art classes at our local arts council and tennis and swimming through the park district. I think she'll be old enough for the teen reading program, which has way cooler prizes than the kids reading program. Maybe she'll want to be part of the zoo crew or do a week long camp at the conservation district.

I have been inspired by a dear online friend to try squarefoot gardening. I just have to find a sunny spot in my yard. I have lots of shade but not much sun. This does not make for good vegetable gardening.

I just love summer time. Now, to get my butt in gear and get this weight off so that I won't be so miserable in the heat.