Monday, June 30, 2008

2.5 more days....

til I get to pick out my new kitchen cabinets...

Now I have told you before that basically my new kitchen is like PORN to me...

Give me a Kraftmaid cabinet book and I am one SAT-IS-FIED individual...

So we meet on Wed afternoon - cabinets here...drawers there...

High back pull-outs....keep talking
Dual Trashcan Storage...oh baby
Pull out tray divider....YES....oh YES
Divided cutlery drawer....that's the spot...keep going
Dual Lazy Susan...yes yes yes yes yes yes
Flip out spice rack .....{high pitched gurgle}

and I'm spent....

Hopefully I can control myself during the planning...cause if I can't I'll leave "happy" in more ways than one...

Oh and the other day TC pushed me OVER the edge...I have been jonesing for a nice big Kitchen Aid mixer for oh about 14 years now...the cost has been too prohibitive - and TC has complained about the cost so I have tucked it away to the point where I just have learned to deal with my handheld mixer...well appearently TC learned that some of the models of the Kitchen Aid mixer allows for a meat grinder attachment... so let's see...TC is a hunter...who has a freezer full of deer meat...and likes homemade sausage...

If I am remembering it correctly it went something like this

"when you buy the Kitchen aid mixer make sure it is the model that can have the meat grinder attachment"

what....WHEN YOU BUY....

hells bells babies...I'm getting a new mixer, I'm getting a new mixer....

how sad that is all it takes to get me excited...

Thursday, June 26, 2008

It's just a stinkin' dishwasher

Sorry I haven’t written lately – been up to my eyeballs in going-ons…

In addition to meeting with a general surgeon about the "unknown mass" that is currently in my lower abdoman and finally getting my sister married off last weekend with only a few minor problems (well ok some not so minor...like the caterer running out of food...to the tune of running out and still having 30 people not served yet...needless to say my parents aren't paying for ANY of the food...darn good thing they had a free-flowing open bar)

Last week we finally met with our contractor with his final budget numbers…looked at our wallet and said – no can do…so for the 132nd time our plans are being revised….

Goodbye breakfast nook addition…hello Three Season Room on current Deck area…

All well and good you say…

Yes and no.

See revising our plans means we now have breathing room in our budget…it means we are a good chunk of change below our budget…and here is the kicker – everything is a flat rate…so no surprises for us, meaning for our Three Season Room it will cost is X amount…no more no less…

Having breathing room in our budget is not a good thing…because I look around and think – well since we have extra room in our budget let’s do this and this and this…all little piddly things – like replacing the vanity in the girls bathroom, changing out the god –awful white and gold ceiling fan in our room, creating some shelves from dead space in our rec. room.

It means decisions…and now that we have extra $$$ floating around in our budget I am starting to rethink my appliance choices…

See the only thing I really cared about was my range…I am getting the mamma-jamma GE Profile double oven range…but the rest – the fridge and the dishwasher – as long as they were stainless I didn’t care…so I choose the lower end GE French door fridge…hey does it keep food cold – then that is fine with me…and for the dishwasher I choose a basic GE dishwasher…not the cheapest out there but not one that costs 1K either…

But now I wonder…maybe I’ll see how expensive the next model fridge is (which really only has a few differences – like they give you a wire can holder and the drawers on the side have clear fronts instead of all white plastic…) and then I started looking at dishwashers – thinking maybe I’ll go up to the next level…

Do you know how many stinken’ models of dishwashers GE has…really now...FORTY-SIX different stainless steel models of dishwashers...there really should be a law...each manufacturer should only have like 4 models available... $400, $700, $1000 and the I don't care what it costs because I light my candles using $100 bills...that way I can say give me the $700 and be done with it...in the price range I am looking at there are no less than 16 different models...oh the humanity...

In a few days I will be in a padded room and Dr’s will come by and ask “What happened to her” and all TC will be able to say is “I don’t know she keeps mumbling “dishwashers…dishwashers””

The real fun will begin next week when we kick off the plans with the all important “picking out the cabinets”…yes we are meeting with the cabinet guy and supposedly he can plot our measurements and we get to go to town…TC is coming with me – I’ll pretend to let him have a say but come on now…we all know I will be making all the choices…we did pick out the door style and color...well I picked it out and made it seem like TC had a choice - cause really after 14 years together you learn these sorts of things...how to make the man think it was his idea or decision...

So once we pick out the cabinets - what is going where, what pull out of other special features we want... we can set a timeline for the rest of the project so I am not without a kitchen for 3 months…

Oh yeah…during the middle of all of this I am scheduled to have surgery…on my abdomen. If everything goes alright I should only be down and out for about 4-5 days after the surgery but won’t be able to really pick anything up for 3-6 weeks – joy…So I will be busting my ass for the next 3 weeks to make a blitz through my house to get everything picked up and basically packed away before my house turns into a construction wasteland…and since we are redoing all the floors on the first level – this means EVERYTHING on the first floor has to be packed up…

Oh yeah and we plan to have pretty much every wall except for the girls room and the guest room painted…so we have to move everything away from the rec room walls (including a huge computer desk and a huge bookcase) and our Master bedroom (bed, dressers and oh yeah my ENTIRE craft area…)

So pray…pray that I make it through the surgery with flying colors and that I don’t have a mental break because I can’t decide which ceiling fan I like better.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

As gas goes up....

my spending has become more frugal...of course we are getting ready to revamp our whole downstairs as well...so I have to become even more frugal.

I haven't always been great with money - saving and all that...then I saw an Ultrasound that had 2 babies on it...something like that wakes you up fast.

Last year my goal was to really set a GOOD budget for my family - to insure we had some money to pay the bills...some money to save away...and some money to have fun with.

A friend of mine passed along a great budget worksheet a few years ago and I haphazardly used it - then about a year ago I got strict and really sat down to figure out just where our money was going...and why we never seemed to "get ahead" when it came time to pay our credit card bills...don't get me wrong we were doing well when it came time to pay our credit card and we could pay the amount due but there would still be a few hundred $$ on it from charging for the current month...

My goal was that at then end of the month ALL bills would be paid - including the credit card in full...so that means if I pay the credit card on the 20th of each month then I have 0 balance on the 21st...

I found out a few things...like I figured our grocery bills were about $350...but they were closer to $400...that I wasn't factoring in the one night a week pizza/Chinese food/Mcdonalds - which was adding up to about $60 a month....the girls had started school and while the daycare bill was lower I was handing out $10 for this and $5 for that during the month for things for school...another $50 or so I hadn't accounted for...never mind a qucik trip or two to Target at about $30 a pop...so what i found was that over the course of a month I wasn't accounting for about $400 ... a nice chunk of change.

So I sat down and did out a budget...factoring in when certain bills fell and what months we might have "extra" breathing room in our budget...

Within 5 months we were credit card debt free...meaning at the end of the month all bills were paid up in FULL...nothing hanging over our heads for the next month... and better yet watching what we spent has in turn made us more frugal and we have actually managed to boost our savings quite a bit in the past 6 months...

So I am passing along the budget worksheet for you to use - it is totally customizable - put in your own numbers (oh how I wish that was our monthly income) and your own catagories...I try to account for everything during the month...but I don't plan out every little $ to a catagory because we all know things come up during a month and the flexabiliy allows me to add categories and budget items when needed (see the Goodyear bill category...)

Hope you find it useful - click on the link and choose download file...BTW it is an excel file so you will need excel to open it...It is safe :)

SIMPLE BUDGET WORKSHEET

Friday, June 13, 2008

A night in my life...

So last night TC went to bed early at about 9:30…I settled onto the couch after making yet another batch of chocolate starfish pops for my sisters upcoming wedding…only 2 more batches to go – yeah me…

So about 10:30 I see our dog Murphy “playing” with something out of the corner of my eye…I sort of see where it goes up in the air and then she catches it – I think nothing of it thinking she is playing with her ball…then she lays down and I hear noise…but not the squeak, squeak noise of her ball…

I get up off the couch to take a better look and see a big fat dead bird on my floor…

I scream which causes Murphy to snatch the bird up into her mouth and stand her ground…

I scream some more…and yell “TC…TC…TC” and TC isn’t coming – so I run up the stairs and scream some more…

TC finally wakes up and stomps downstairs…

TC: Geesh it is just a dead bird
ME: It is sooo disgusting and gross
TC: You could have picked up and thrown it away
ME: OH NO…I don’t touch anything dead except humans…and I get paid to do that

After the bird was disposed of I turned to TC and…

ME: nice to know if I was being attacked you would wake up and come to my rescue
TC: I would have woken up if Murphy was barking – why didn’t Murphy bark
ME: ummmm because her mouth was full of dead bird

And through all the screaming and carrying on the girls never woke up…crap something else they have inherited from TC…

Note to self: Try not to get attacked in own home when everyone else is asleep…

is the week over yet???

Thursday, June 12, 2008

And yet the week isn’t over yet….

So last time I wrote I was without air conditioning and we had already been through 2 days of RECORD heat with more to come…

So Friday TC and I dropped the girls off at Girl Scout camp for the weekend after coming home early to meet with an HVAC guy…and excitedly ran out of the camp when the girls barely acknowledged our existence when we were leaving.

We ended up going to see the Indiana Jones movie as the thought of going back to the fiery pits of hell a.k.a our home did not appeal to us. Luckily when we got home it was cooling off so we managed to get some sleep.

Saturday we got up early and headed out…we managed to get a lot of things done as far as the house renovation goes – picked out countertops, appliances, cabinets, faucets. We also heard back from the HVAC guy – ummm pass – he wanted 9K AND told us it would be up to 3 weeks before they could install it…we managed to spend the rest of the day milling around here and there (I managed to snag some fabric at a yardsale for $1…the pattern is OK – I think I might make some simple totebags with it – to take to the grocery store and whatnot) and wound up at the $2 theater where we went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall…funniest movie I have seen in a long time…if you are a fan of the Knocked Up – Superbad genre of film you will LOVE this one.

Got home Saturday night and quite frankly it was cooler outside then inside our home. I spent the night feeling like something was crawling all over me and trying to eat me alive…must have been having some flashback to the Indiana Jones movie (those that have seen it will know what I am talking about).

Sunday go and pick up the girls from camp and off to a BBQ at a friends house…an “inside” BBQ because it was too freakin hot outside for anyone to stand. On the way home we stopped at Target and bought fans…yep fans…

By some miracles of miracles TC and I were outside on Sunday evening in our front yard and a neighbor drove by…he stopped to chat and we told him of our misery and then bid him farewell – or so we thought…15 minutes later he shows up at our door with a heat pump motor – he just happened to have one at his house (I didn’t ask)…oh did I also mention he is an electrician by trade…15 minutes later sweet, sweet cool air is blowing through my vents…I owe him ALOT...

So we are living on borrowed air. We got 2 more quotes on Monday and think we have found the right company…who has an excellent reputation and is almost 4K BELOW the first estimate….see it pays to get multiple quotes….

One crisis averted…another takes it place….

So I have been having some pains in my lower belly for a little while now along the left side of my C-section scar – I had bad intense pain about 3-4 years ago that I went oto my GYN about and she preliminary diagnosed it as endometriosis…over the years the pain faded away except for occasional twinges here and there so it got pushed to the “back burner” as I dealt with lifes other issues–

Well it flared back up and it got more intense and consistent after a night of playing Wii Fit for an hour (stupid free step) last week…I HATE Dr’s – I can literally count on one hand the number of times I have been to the Dr for myself in the past 6 years…so needless to say I don’t have a primary Dr…a friend of mine gave me the name of a Dr and I called Tuesday…lo and behold they had a 3:45 appointment for Tues…so I go and get poked and prodded and told I might have a possible incisional hernia – great…

So he gets me set up with an abdominal ultrasound for Wed morning at the hospital and an appointment with a general surgeon for next Thursday.

Go to the US yesterday and good news is I don’t have a hernia…bad news is I have some sort of mass…not really sure what it is but whatever it is chances are it is coming out surgically…personally I am *thinking* it is Scar Endometrioma

Scar endometrioma is an uncommon condition following caesarean section. It presents as a lump on the caesarean scar and can often be painful.

In reading more about this I was surprised to find that in many cases patients who are ultimately diagnosed with Scar Endometrioma are preliminary referred to general surgeons for possible incisional hernias…things that make you go HUMMM - and yes the "uncommon" would be right up my alley...

So hopefully next Thursday I see where I stand…what is it? will it get removed? If it is removed will it come back?

Such an exciting upcoming summer…house renovations and surgery

Friday, June 06, 2008

Feeling Hot Hot Hot

It finally happened – we knew it would happen – we were foretold it would happen…

Our Heat Pump is dead…

The motor finally burned up on the hottest day so far this year…

Tomorrow it is supposed to be 100 degrees…

The thing about it though is we were planning on replacing the heat pump unit with our remodel – so we have to move it up a month or two no biggie right…

Problem is three months ago when we had the HVAC dude out and he told us the heat pump was on it’s last leg I asked TC to start researching for a new Heat Pump - to figure out what brand, tonnage, seer rating we want, need, desire…so when the motor finally did burn up we would know exactly what we wanted…

TC is a man…guess what hasn’t been done

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Want to attempt to win something cool...

Check out Gretchen's Blog... Bananas and Toddlers

She is giving away a kick ass apron

A Tuesday quickie....

I can now show the other thing I made...

It was my first time attempting to make something like this - I think i did "OK"

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It's a stroller blanket - made out of very soft white fabric on one side and some funky bright fabric on the the other side...

Wish me luck - tonight I have to sit through the 1st grade play - TWICE...they split the 7 1st grade classrooms into 2 separate groups and wouldn't you know my girls are each in a different group...so tonight I get to watch "GLOW" at 6:30pm and again at 7:30pm...JOY

Monday, June 02, 2008

Jumble of Thoughts

First off – I wonder if we can get Congress to pass some sort of bill standardizing Tooth Fairy money. The other day I was grilled by TW why she only got $1 for her first tooth and Matthew got $5 for his first tooth…umm I didn’t know really what to say so I told her maybe the Tooth Fairy had a good night at the slots before Matthews tooth fell out…

I propose $1 for the first tooth and .25 for each additional tooth…

While we are at it maybe add a rider so we are all on the same page when it comes to the Big Guy…you know Santa…1 or 2 gifts per kid – rest comes from family and friends…

Secondly – after volunteering at my daughters Field Day I am once again glad (for now) that I only have girls…I was in charge of “Dancing with the Stars” (Hollywood theme this year) and the boys…oh the boys…running, jumping over each other, attempting to break dance in the grass. I did learn 2 things – the Robot seems to be making a comeback…at least in the 8 and under set and apparently “Who Let the Dogs Out” is about fugly girls at a party? Listen to the lyrics…I had to about 15 times because that is all the kids wanted to hear…I tried to fast forward to “Cotton Eyed Joe” but that song made me nostalgic for a beer, a smoke filled bar and the year 1994.

Third – I made more purses…want to see them…well it is a rhetorical question because you are going to see them anyway. I also made something else but I can’t show that until the person actually gets the item :) The top three are ones I was commissioned to do...the bottom ones are the ones my daughters teachers are getting for their year end gifty.

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I had to put my sewing machine away so I wouldn’t be tempted to make more stuff – I have a very busy week that involves sitting through the 1st grade play (TWICE – uggg), kiddie Dr. Appointments, hair appointments, baking a strawberry-rhubarb pie and packing the girls up for their 36 hour camping adventure this coming weekend

ForthKITCHEN ON!!!!!! – we met with our contractor again on Friday and hammered out a few more things and the ball is starting to roll…TC and I are going to start looking at a bunch of little things and hopefully we can make some decisions without too much bloodshed on either of our parts– Granite, sink , faucets, tile, cabinet style, cabinet color, etc…..

Fifth – I got a ME ME ME day…I went to an all day stamp fest (another of my many hobbies) on Saturday and had a great time making a bunch of cards…I even won a great door prize – THESE stamp sets - Sushi by Stampendous
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Aren't they stinkin' adorable...now to find time to ink them up and make a card...and if anyone can give me an idea for using the fish in the washing machine - that one has me scratching my head a bit - they were generously donated by Eclectic Paperie

That's all I got for now folks - over and out