Getting Back to Normal

Things are actually starting to get back to normal! My new kitchen is complete and we re-tiled the entire house (except the master bath and the bedrooms). I have been putting everything up and trying to get the house put back together. I'm almost done, just a have a few little things here an there that I need to go through and put up.

In the meantime of all the kitchen fiasco I read all 4 Twilight series books! They were all really good! Once you get into them its very hard to put them down. I stayed up until 5 A.M. to finish Breaking Dawn one morning. Yes, you read that right; I stayed up until 5 A.M. to finish a book! I know I'm crazy! So now that I'm done with those books I need to find something else to read, sugguestions are welcome...

After reading the Twilight books it kind of made me a little sad because I don't write anymore. I LOVE to write and I used to do it all the time. I used to always keep a diary and I wrote in it everyday, even if nothing important happend that day I would still write in it. I also wrote fictional stories and when I was taking classes in college I used to love to stay up late all by myself writing papers. It made me sad when I thought about how I just don't have the time to sit down and write the way I used to. My husband mentioned it to me and asked why I don't write anymore and the only explination I have is that I just don't have time to fit it into my life anymore. When I write I have to be completely alone and it takes me a while to get started but once I get going I just keep going. My life is just so crazy, busy and noisy all the time that I don't have the time to just sit down and even think about what to write much less give myself the time to get my brain juices flowing. I was hoping that I could use this blog to start writing agian, but just keeping up with this blog has been more challenging that I thought it would. I wasn't really sure that I would like the Twilight books becuase I'm really not that into Vampires and what not (for multiple reasons) but when I read the books I throughly enjoyed the way they were written. It just made me want to write agian, really badly. I only wish that I knew how to make the time to get my creative juices flowing agian! Anywho, that is just what has been on my mind lately...

Mike and I are starting a bit of a new adventure in our life. I don't want to say to much about it yet until it gets closer but I will be sharing. It won't be too different from in the past but it will be new and exciting!

I don't do this often but those of you that have prayer lists, I would appreciate it if you would add me. I need prayers for paitence and how to get my happiness back. I have felt so stressed and aggervated and really have no reason to. I don't know what it is. My patience has been worn very thin, esspecially with the kids. I am at a point where I don't know how to get back to the happy wife and mother I used to be. So please just some prayers sent my way so that I can show my family how much I truly love and appreciate them and get rid of the anger, no patience,etc. I just want to be the old me again! ; / thanks guys! Love you all and G-Night!

Things are looking up...

After a rough couple of months, with Mike losing his job, things are starting to look up. Mike is working again, granted it is another job where he is gone ALL the time. I'm just glad that he is working agian, we were really starting to get to the point where we were about to be in a serious money crunch.

About a month ago we realized there was a slow leak under our dishwasher and upon further inspection there was funky business growing under there and all up under my cabinets. I made a phone call to the insurance and an adjuster came out and informed us that the insurance would pay for new cabinets all the way around the kitchen and new countertops!! YAAY!! So I'm getting a new kitchen!! When we moved in this house 6 years ago we always said the kitchen was going to be the first thing redone. We have since painted the entire house twice and redone one of the bathrooms, finally I'm getting a new kitchen! I'm soo happy, I had NO cabinet/couter space and my counter tops were orange! EEK! The demo started yesterday so my house is crazy looking right now! Not having a kitchen sink is a bit of a pain but it will be so worth it in the end.

I have been so stressed and grumpy the past few months but now it seems like we are getting back on track. I'm a bit of a control freak so the past couple of months I felt totally out of control (but now I'm getting some control back! hehehe). I'm still working on gaining more patience and keeping my stress level down (we have insurance agian so I have my be-nice pills lol). But seriously, I always stress super badly about things that I have no control over (I get it from my momma) and I have really been working internally on myself about that. Its so hard but I know I will get it under control with lots of prayers! I read a great book though that has helped put alot of things in perspective. My mother-in-law gave it to me for Christmas, the name of it is Grooming the Next Generation for Success by Dani Johnson. I reccomend it to anyone who has kids of any age or even anyone that works with kids, i.e. school teachers, sunday school teachers, ect.

Well I think I'm out for the night. I was going to do some studying but I'm pooped out!! G-Night! Love ya!

Holly

My Simplx Investigation

I know this is long, but I know that there alot of people that have or are starting eBay stores and I feel like there is some good info here for those that it will apply to...

So I looked into this company some more. Its one of those sounds to good to be true companies that will help you make a monthly income you can live off of by selling stuff online, like on eBay. Their whole spill is that you pay them $40 or so a month and they give you access to their database. Which is basically a database of a whole bunch of websites like Amazon-ish. (I'm using Amazon as an example just because everyone knows what it is.) Anyway, they give you access to this huge list of websites that sell tons of different products at discount prices.


You know how you can go on Amazon and get stuff cheaper than you can at Best Buy. They tell you to find a 'niche', some specific product or category of products that you want to sell. So you pick your 'niche', for example, iPhone accessories. I decide I want to sell accessories for iPhones on eBay. So I go the Simplx database and do a search for iPhone accessories, it pulls up Amazon and whatever other websites similar to Amazon that sell such accessories. So now that I know that I can get these accessories from this Simplx database, I'm supposed to go and list them for sale on my eBay store. When someone buys an accessory from me on eBay and their payment has gone through, I then go back to the Simplx database and pull up all the places that sell such accessories. I buy one from this company and then during checkout when it asks for the shipping address I put the buyer from eBay shipping address instead of mine.

So they bought it from me through eBay, they paid me, I buy it from Amazon and put their shipping address telling Amazon to ship it to them instead of me.



Now as far as how you actually make money with this company, they tell you there are two possible ways to make money with them.

1. You can mark up the price of the product. Say you can buy an otterbox from Amazon for $29.99 and $5.99 for shipping, thats a total of $35.98. So you can mark it up and sell it on eBay for $35.99 plus $6.00 shipping. If it sells then you get paid $41.99 giving you a profit of $6.01. If you sell 10 of these, you've made $60.10 for not really doing anything but listing it on ebay.

Not a bad deal huh?

But this is what the average person or a new eBay seller doesn't think of...

You have to pay eBay fees and if you use PayPal, you have to pay PayPal fees. Ebay has a listing fee and a final value fee when your item sells. Listing fees vary depending on what type of listing you choose. I used to pay $.05 for a store inventory listing fee, however, eBay has now raised that to $.20. So anyway, my listing fee on an otterbox selling for $35.99 would be $0.20 and when it sells I would be charged a final value fee of 12% I believe (those vary too depending on the category of product). If my calculations are correct, the final value fee for this otterbox would be $3.88 and the Paypal fee $1.56. So that is a total of $5.49 that it costs you to sell this otterbox. That takes your profit of $6.01 to an actual profit of $.52. Your still making a profit which is great but the amount of your profit, not so great. So if you sell 10 of these your real true profit would be $5.02; not quite the $60.10 that I thought I would make at first glance. So its not much but its still a profit; its $5.02 that I didn't have before.

2. The second way you make a profit with Simplx is that they give you a rebate on the things you buy through their database. They say that you can get up to a 13% rebate on some of the items you can buy through them. The trick is finding the things that you can make 13% on. Simplx says they give you access to thousands or millions of products, depending on how much you pay them monthly. So really do you want to search through thousands or millions of products to hopefully find one that will make you 13%? Most of them only make you between 1%-6%.

There are many other web sites out there that work the exact same way as this only they are free. For instance, I am actually a member of Blastoff and was long before I ever heard of Simplx. With Blastoff, say I want to buy something online from Target. I login to Blastoff and then go to the Blastoff “Mall” and click on Target. When I buy something from Target by getting there through the Blastoff Mall site, I earn a 2% rebate on my purchase price from Target. So I spend $30 (before tax), I earn $0.60. Not much, but if you do all your online shopping from this site it adds up. Another thing is that with Blastoff you can invite people to join the site. When they sign up through your Blastoff site they are put in your network and you also earn a percentage when they buy something through Blastoff! Click Here To Learn More About Blastoff



So my conclusion is that I don't doubt that you can earn money through the Simplx system. What I doubt is how much money you can actually make and how long it will take you to make that much money. From the numbers I have used as examples on here it would take A WHOLE LOT of sales to even pay my electric bill, much less be enough to be my sole monthly income. You would have to sell a ton of different products and the thing is that people have to go to your store to buy them... Now if you are buying from Amazon and marking the price up, why would someone buy from you instead of Amazon. More than likely the product is going to be found easier from Amazon than your store. Even if you sell it for the exact price you buy it from Amazon for, you still have to pay eBay & PayPal fees. The little bit of a rebate you get from Simplx would probably barely be enough to cover those fees if it would even cover those fees. So in that case your really not making any money. It would take a lot of time and research and figure out which products actually make you good money. Simplx claims to train you and work with you to help you find the products that make you good money. I have to wonder about this because when I talked to Chris from Simplx and I asked more about the "training"; the way he explained it was basically you call into a conference call once a week and its like a group training. Unless you pay them more money and then I think you can get a little bit of one on one. They give you a 7 day free trail period. Sorry but 7 days is not enough time to find the good money making products and list them on eBay AND get them sold. Your prices are just not going to be low enough, and if they are its costing you money to sell it.



eBay has just raised their fees way too much, its hard to make any money at all on eBay anymore. That is the reason I started using eBid.net, With eBay you have to pay listing fees whether your product sells or not. Not with eBid. With eBid.net you only pay fees if you your product sells and they actually have ways to list items without paying any fees at all!! Here Is My eBid.net Store

Economic Down Turn

The economy has now definately hit us with its full force, at least I hope this is its full force. Our checking account has definately felt it over the past year with Mike going through 3 different pay-cuts and now it has only gotten worse. Our majority income has officially stopped for the time being. Its frustrating on so many different levels I can't even begin to exlpain it. For 5 years Mike has had this job where he was working out of town ALL the time. We had money but NO time together. We never had time together to go spend the money, now we have all the time in the world together and no money to go do things. If thats not ironic I don't know what is! There are so many different things we want to do and neither one of us know where to start or how we are going to start. I'm reluctantly writing about all this right now because I really hate to talk to other people about this kind of thing. There is so much going on in our heads and I hate to try to talk to someone only to hear negativity. There aren't alot of people that think about life the way Mike and I do. Rather than try to explain to everyone our perspective on life and our future I have learned to just sit back and keep my mouth shut. Everytime I have tried to give my perspective on life and money and the way I want my future to be, I only hear other peoples negativity and listen to them tear apart my thoughts and ideas. I know that I need to put my faith in God and give him all of my worries. He will take care of us. He always has. We have gotten into a financial bind before and somehow we always had enough money to pay bills and put food on the table so I know he will take care of us. I know that God has given us all these hopes, dreams, and ideas for a reason and that he has a path for us; I'm just not positive we are on the right path yet. I feel like I'm waiting for something, something to happen, something to find me, something that I need to find; I don't know really I just feel like I'm waiting for something. Something is missing. I haven't been sleeping, I have just been listing things on my new eBid.net (JustBuyIt) store like crazy hoping that I will start having one sale right after the other. Its funny how sometimes that happens, I won't sell anything for a month or two and then all of the sudden I'll have a bunch of sales right at once. I'm hoping that happens soon... I need that to happen soon. Mike has also been working with his Dad as sort of a partner in his Dad's construction company. Every job that Mike gets his Dad pays him a percentage. He has been out trying to sell roofs, remodel jobs, new consturction homes, etc like crazy; it just isn't fast enough. He needs to have selling spurt too just like I do. I have my little businesses and now all of the sudden I don't feel like I can work on them enough, fast enough or enough time to work on them. I have applied for jobs but I dont have a good feeling about any of them, who wants to hire someone that hasn't worked in 5 years. All of the sudden all of our side businesses have become our only source of income and we need these side businesses to blow up and grow, grow, grow. I make money with them now just not enough to supplement our majority income. I always get anxious at this time of the night. I do have some meds to help me go to sleep but not many, and we don't have insurance anymore for refills. I just hate this feeling, I feel helpless and like I'm drowning. Drowning in paper, those papers are bills and they just keep coming. I love my husband more than anything. He is so stressed right now and I hate seeing him like this. I know he feels helpless too. I think thats part of why I have been working so hard because I don't want him to feel helpless. I would love to be able to bring in majority income and give him a little break. He has worked so hard for the past 5 years. The whole reason I wanted to have my own businesses was to help bring in enough income so that Mike could get a different job and not have to worry about making as much money. I just haven't gotten to that point yet and them BAM all of the sudden I need to be at that point. I don't want to be this stressed. I would love to just relax for a little while and go to the park with my husband and the kids and swing on the swing set, just spending time together as a family. But every minute that I'm not working I feel like I'm waisting time and Mike feels the same way.  Sometimes it feels like our house just sits still with us stuck inside, while the whole world spins around outside

So I got an email about eBay raising their fees AGAIN!! It's starting to not even be worth my time to sell on there because they keep raising fees and cutting into my profit. So I decided to search for another auction site to use. I did a google search and came up with several different auction sites. After an extensive comparison between several different sites I quickly figured out that eBids is the absolute best alternative to eBay!! I've been transferring my items to eBids all day long! It's alot simpler than eBay. Ofcourse it's not as widely known so it looks a little low budget but there are over 1 million auctions. That tells me that there are enough people that know about it that I can make some money!! I urge everyone who uses eBay to switch to eBids!!! Save your money!!

What Happend to Marriage Values

nuI don't get it. Just about everyone I know of that got married after high school is divorced already. Some are even already re-married. Sometimes its for the best; but most of them only stayed married for a year or two and had no kids. I'm just so tired of running into someone and saying "Oh hey how is So and So". Only to hear "Oh they are divorced now". Sometimes its even a joke almost, like "Oh yeah they are already divorced, I'm surpirse they made it this long."


The ones that had kids, I can understand how kids can put a big strain on a relationship. They are supposed to make you closer as a family but all too often the couple puts all their focus on the kids and not the marraige. You can't have a happy family if you don't have a happy marriage. Marraige is the head of the household and it must be catered to. Thats really easy to forget after having kids. So I can understand how those divorced couples that have kids, could have possiby gotten to the point of divorce.


But these couples who got married in their early 20's and stayed together for a year or two, had no kids and then divorce.? Really, what is the point in that?
Why in the crap would you spend all that money on a gorgeous wedding, if you aren't going to be committed to the marriage?
I don't believe in divorce. That might be stupid of me to say considering my husband was married before me. And guess what? He was in his early 20's when they got married, and he was in his early 20's when they got divorced. He will be the first to tell you that it was a really dumb mistake and they never should have gotten married. Even after talking to him I still don't get why he got married the first time.


*Disclaimer* Before you go getting all crazy on me for saying I don't belive in divorce let me clarify. If you are in an abusive marriage, be it physical, mental or emotional, I do belive you should get a divorce. Cheating is also grounds for divorce in my eyes, esspecially repeat offenders, some just won't ever change. If you are married to a drug addict and have tried to see it through and its just not happening, I believe that is also grounds for divorce. Please understand that I believe there are exceptions, even The Bible has rules and exceptions for divorce. I also know that you can not change someone but you do have control over yourself. So if you have truly given it your all (and it will usually take more than a year or two to know if you have given it your all) then you may be an exception. You can't change people and you can't help someone that won't help themselves. So anyway I understand there is gray area around divorce. So please don't have a freak out.**


When are these kids going to realize that it takes maturity to be married. Marriage isn't a game. Its not like playing house. You don't just decide to stop.


Howcome I knew that when I was 19 and got pregnant but apparently all these others don't. I didn't want to get married just because I was pregnant. I was not going to have a shotgun wedding. And Mike, well he had already been married so he wasn't about to jump into it agian unless he knew it was forever. My family was agianst it, I heard it from my Grandma every time I saw her. They all made it very clear that they did not approve of us having a baby and not being married, esspicially when the second baby came along. But guess what, none of them could do anything about it. None of them MADE us get married, they couldn't. You know why? Becuase they aren't me! I am me and I made my own decision not to get married, well I guess Mike helped in that too it wasn't just my decision. But seriously, I'm probably hitting a serious nerve with some people but why do you have to have a shotgun wedding at 18, 19, 20ish years old. How can anyone really say that their parents made them do it at that age?


I think there should be restrictions or requirements to be met before you are allowed to get married. Maybe a phsycological evaluation should be done before you can buy a wedding dress or rent a tux. LOL I don't know but something has got to be done about all these stupid people marrying and divorcing all the time.


So exactly why do people give up so easily? I knew our generation was a lazy one but I don't guess I realized how easy it is for people to run at the first sign of trouble. Its like the first good fight they have after the wedding and its done.


Grow up people. Or better yet, Grow Some Balls!
You entered into a leagally binding contract so figure out how to make it work!


I'm defiantely no expert in the area of relationships or marriage but I have been with my husband for 7 years and we have dealt with alot of different issues. People trying to come between us, rumors about cheating, long periods of seperation (due to his job, not acutally seperating), kids before marriage, co-habbitating before marriage, tons of fights. If I had a penny for every fight we got in, big or small, I would be an extremely rich woman. There are probably a ton more issues we dealt with those are just the ones that come to mind right now. But we worked through it.


Why? Not only becuase we love each other but because we have a family and we know that everything happens for a reason. God put us together for us to make two babies so obviously he wanted us to be together. It was just up to us to stay together.


It just makes me so sad to hear about people I went to high school with who are now getting divorced, already divorced, already divorced and remarried, or divorced and getting divorced agian. I'm just really thankful that God put me with a man who has finally realized it takes alot of work to be in a marriage, and that the work never ends. It is always a challenge to stay married. Are you up to the challenge? Seriously?

Errrrr I hate Insurance Companies!

I just spent 4 days fighting with my insurance company! Apparently at the first of the year our insurance plan changed and they decided that they were not going to pay for one of my medications anymore, but no one told me this!! So I call and order a refill for my 3 month supply, that I have been getting through the same company for the past year, not thinking anything of it I just placed the order. Today I get a call from a lady at the insurance company. "Mrs. Evans I'm calling from Express Scripts to get authorization to ship your order out. The reason I need authorization from you is due to the amount that will be invoiced to you. The total will be $1,056.00."

WTF!! For the past year I paid $110.00 for this EXACT same 3 month supply! Seriously I have been on the phone ALL day long. My Dr. sent a letter to the insurance company last year stating that he needed me to be on the name brand medication instead of the generic. The insurance wanted me to have the generic so I had this same fight with them around this time last year when my husband's company switched to them. Finnally they get it right and have been giving me the correct perscription for the whole year of 2009.

However, apparently after the first of the year my insurance plan changed and decided that if my Dr. says I need the name brand instead of the generic I have to pay my co-pay AND the price difference between the name brand and generic.
Ummm Hi, isn't that the same as paying full price?!?!? What is the purpose of insurance if I am paying full price!?!?! They are telling me that now they need a letter showing "medical neccessity" from my Dr. Apparently this is different from the letter he sent last year saying I need to be on this medication. Now they want him to "prove" that I need to be on this medication! Seriously! I don't get it. I honestly don't get how insurance companies can do this. When your Dr. is saying you need a medication isn't the purpose of insurance for them to help you get that medication at a discounted rate??

I know insurance companies have lawyers that probably go over these kinds of policy changes, so I don't know if any of this is actually illegal or agianst my rights. But you can bet that come Monday morning I will be call PrePaid Legal just to double check!!
PrePaid Legal Services Inc

Long Time, No Talk

Wow, I knew it had been a while since I last blogged but I didn't really realize how long! I've been so busy with Christmas shopping and then doing all the family stuff. I have gotten way behind on my daily/weekly chores and activities. More so than usual! LOL

Aside from all the Christmas stuff I have also been working on all my home businesses. I bought a bunch of Avon to have in stock for Christmas. I don't usually keep an inventory so I wasn't sure how that was going to go. I actually did pretty well with it. It helped with Christmas money. I also recruited a PrePaid Legal Associate!! YAYYY! I get so excited when I sign up a membership and even more so an associate. The whole PrePaid Legal company is just amazing. A year ago I had no idea anything like this existed!! I believe everyone needs to know what PrePaid Legal is, if your not interested then your not interested but atleast you know that something like this is out there and that you have the option if you want it. As of today PPL has saved me well over $2000 from companies and people trying screw me over! They even got a speeding ticket dismissed for me! Its fantastic!! YAY! :)

Lastly, I have been working on my eBay store. I have tons of my personal things that I need to sell and get out of my house and I still have tons of other products to add. However, after doing a couple of searches on eBay I realized that alot of the products I'm selling right now are soo overly saturated and some people are selling them for less than what I can buy them at wholesale, which I don't really understand. That has to mean that they are getting them from a different wholesaler at a cheaper price or something. So my new mission is to figure how these people are getting this stuff cheaper than I am. Where are they buying this stuff?? There are also alot of companies that claim to connect you with hundreds of different drop shippers that sell thousands of different products for just a small monthly fee of $40 something a month. I'm going to look into these companies and find out if they really do what they claim to do. I understand that it takes money to make money but if I'm paying $40 a month I expect to be making a profit after the $40 and all the eBay and PayPal fees.

The company I'm working on investigating right now is Simplx. I spoke with a representative today and he gave me some pricing and information about the company. I then proceeded to do some google searches and found a blog that is supposedly written by the CEO of Simplx. The purpose of his blog is supposed to be to explain the way the company works, clarify things to potential clients, as well as get ideas and to propose ideas to current clients and customers receiving feedback in response to these proposed ideas. My investigations has only just begun so I'm not going to go into much detail until I have some more information. When I do have more information I plan on posting about everything I found out.

I'm even thinking about creating a whole separate blog dedicated these 'investigations'. My goal is to find out information about these companies that the average eBay seller needs to know before signing up for their service. I have been ripped off entirely to many times. Becoming a PrePaid Legal Associate has only made me realize that we (the consumer) need to have someone on our side and give us true information about these types of companies. You shouldn't have to be ripped off just to learn a lesson about how to create a successful eBay business. There are too many successful home businesses out there that get buried by all the scams. So I decided that I'm going to try to dig up the real things that can help you create a successful home business, because they do exist somewhere.

Why?

Ariel has been starting to ask so many questions. You know, the ones that I don't have the answers to. All the "Why?" questions but these are the hard "Why's". Every kind of bird we see she wants to know what kind of bird it is. Pff I don't know a stinkin thing about birds!
Where is the earth? How high is Heaven? How big is Heaven? Are Dinosaurs real? How come they aren't alive still? Why did God make bugs if we always step on them and kill them? How did God make Whales? Why did he make Killer Whales? How did God make the earth? Why did God make the earth? How did God make people? Why don't all people look the same? Why do people get old? When will Jesus get here??
My favorite random question from this week was "Why does Superman have laser vision?" "Umm, Well because that's just one of his super powers" "But why in the world would someone make fire come out of his eyes!!!"

So today my mom and I took the kids to Hastings (haven't been there in ages!) and we found some books to help mommy answer some questions! So mommy has some studying to do that way maybe I won't be so caught off guard when the next random 'WHY' Question comes flying at me! Ariel is so smart its ridiculous! I don't know if I can keep up with her!! She is starting to ask about months and years. So I need to sit down with a calender and attempt to explain all of that. And she doesn't quite understand that we live here and her cousins live in Denver City and we can just 'go over' to their house anytime. And she always asks me if random people we see are in Texas like us. LOL So I also need a globe/map to explain cities, states, countries, and continents. I have no idea if she is going to really understand any of it but I have to start giving some answers some time. And if she does understand, which would not surprise me in the least considering how fast she has caught onto everything else, Holy Cow she is going to be so far ahead when she starts Kindergarten.

Besides the Superman quote of this week; my other favorite was while we were watching 'Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer'. A while after Grandma got run over, there was a scene that showed all the reindeer flying and pulling the sled. All of the sudden she got real serious and said "I GUARANTEE it was the two middle ones that did it!!" LOL

Loving the Holidays

It's been a while since I have posted anything. Probably because my hubby was home for a while! ;) I do have to say that things have gotten much better since my last few posts! What ever it was that was making the kids act like crazy little monsters is gone!! I have my kids back!! YAAAYYY!
We had Thanksgiving this year at my sisters. It was pretty small compared to what we are used to. All our family has moved and we are all too spread out. :( Mike did get to be here for Thanksgiving though! He has never missed a holiday yet. So far for the past 4 years he has just happened to be in between jobs on both Thanksgiving and Christmas. So he has not missed one as of yet. He did have to leave at 5AM the morning after Thanksgiving though. It was close but he made it! I am praying that the same happens for Christmas. Last year his job finished the day before Christmas Eve which put him getting home on Christmas Eve. I don't know how in the world I would be able to do Christmas morning with the kids and no Daddy!
Went shopping on Black Friday with my sister in Lubbock. I just have to say that I absolutely LOVE getting up super, extra early to go shopping ALL DAY!! This is probably the one day out of the year that my husband understands that I need to go shopping and spend money, and that I need to do it with out the kids. So I get a whole day to myself, shopping! What could be better; oh wait, I know! The fact that there are fantabulous sales!!! I LOVE to bargain shop! So this year Toys R Us opened at midnight, me and my sister stayed up all day Thanksgiving Day and left Denver City at like midnight to drive an hour to Lubbock and shop like crazy women!! It was great! I got pretty much everything that I wanted. I even bought myself a pink BB Gun! ;) Can't wait to use it. I guess I can sit at my back door and pop squirrels... LOL
I still don't have the tree or decorations up yet. I had to move stuff around in my living room because we got new furniture and didn't really have room for our tree. (We need a bigger house, we out grew this one 4 years ago!) But I think I got it figured out. Now I just have to get someone to help me get the tree down from the loft in the storage building... Hopefully I will get that done tomorrow.

I have been DVRing a bunch of Christmas movies for us to watch as a family. I can't wait till Mike gets home!!

A Good, Good Day

Today was a nice change for the past week and half or two weeks. The kids and I went out and did some Christmas shopping and then we went to Chick-fil-a. It was nice watching them play at Chick-fil-a with other kids and also nice to know that I'm not the only one with crazy kids! LOL Ariel was telling all the kids as they came in the door where to put their shoes and please put your socks in your shoes so they do not get lost. And please do not climb on the outside of the toys, Thank you. LOL She cracks me up. Preston found a little boy to run around and play karate with. It was too cute! I really need to get out to do things like that with them more. I believe another big part of the discipline problem I have with them is that they are soo sick of being at the house. And I have to agree! We started staying home more because it seemed like every time we went some where I ended up at Target spending about $100 on I don't even know what. That store has a really bad habit of making me spend money!! I guess I am just going to have to get some self control and be able to go out and actually window shop with out buying stuff!

Why is it that spending money makes women happy?? I can honestly say that I could be totally and completely depressed but if I go out and by stuff, even just stuff for the house not clothes or shoes, it really makes me happy. All the way to my core, it just makes me feel good! Why is that? Why do women need shopping as a therapy? Do men do that too? Err well OK never mind, I have 2 motorcycles, a gocart, a fifth wheel, and an enormous storage building in my backyard to answer that question.

New Moon premiers tonight!! I can't wait to see it! I didn't think that Mike was going to want to see it but he told me last night that I better not go see it with out him! So maybe we can make a date out of it! ;) I soo need that! I don't' think I would want to see that movie with out him anyway. I thought Twilight had an amazing love story and I hope New Moon doesn't disappoint. I haven't read the books so I have no idea what happens. I'm torn a little about this series though. I have always been interested in Vampires and Werewolves, why I have NO idea. Any other kind of fiction I can't really stand but those two always interested me. However, the stronger I become in my faith of The Lord it makes me look at things like Vampires and Werewolves differently. It makes me feel as if this is just one more thing the Devil is putting out there to reference back to evil and himself. I do not want to indulge in anything like that. At the same time though, its almost like really what can you watch now days that the Devil hasn't gotten to in some way. All TV shows and movies are so vulgar now and sex is everywhere. So as far as this series goes, I'm kind of in the middle. I feel like if my faith in The Lord is strong then I could be able to watch a great love story, even if it is about Vampires and Werewolves. I just know that above all I only want my relationship with God to strengthen and grow. I want to serve him and I want my children to be raised to serve him.

Miss My Little Ones

I really miss when my kids were babies. I'm reading all these new moms blogs and how happy and excited they are about everything their kids do and are learning. I used to be like that. I used to be so excited to go get them out of bed in the morning. I miss being that excited about my kids everyday. I am so blessed to have two beautiful healthy kids. I think I just spend entirely too much time with them and they spend entirely too much time with me. I know that sounds weird because all you new moms feel like you can't spend enough time with your kids. But I have been a stay at home mom for over 4 years now. My husband has had the same job for over 4 years also, he is gone all the time for work. There are times he has been gone for 30 days or more at one time and comes home for a day or two only to leave again for another job. So me and my kids are literally together ALL the time. I'm so jealous of all you moms who have babysitters and get to go do things like go out with the girls for drinks and a girls night, or date night with your hubby, or concerts, or weekend shopping trips out of town. We very rarely get to do any of that and usually if we do get a sitter we have to pay out the butt for it. My mother in law did keep the kids about a month ago for a weekend so I could go to Weatherford (where my husband was working) and look for houses because we were/are thinking about moving. But trying to look at as many houses as you can in a 3 day period is not relaxing at all. And Mike was still having to work so I was looking at houses by myself all day. It wasn't exactly a nice weekend get away. I really don't think I would feel near as stressed if I just had a little time to myself on a half assed regular basis. It would be nice to get a pedi and mani once a month or even once every 3 or 4 months. Or to go shopping for an entire day by myself. Or to have a date night with my hubby when I'm not so tense and stressed that I don't let myself relax!! I think Mike and I get a date night probably once or twice (if we are lucky) every six months.

I guess the moral of the story is; Ladies, enjoy every moment that you have to yourself to get to relax and have a good time because somewhere, someone (me) is incredibly jealous.

In Need of a Vacation!

I don't' know what it is about this time of year but for some reason its like my kids forget any and all rules and just run wild. They did this last year... right before Christmas when they are supposed to be on their best behavior.

Is it like a full moon or something crazy going on in the universe? People always say that kind of stuff makes people act crazy.

Maybe someone came and stole my kids and left these two here as replacements...

I want my kids back. The ones that behave and don't get into stuff or at least not every 5 seconds...

I know I grip on lot on here but this is my only release where I can really say whats on my mind. ;-P

Why do I feel so far behind?

Why is that I feel like I fall behind with my wifely/motherly duties so easily? Every wife and mother has the same duties that I do but why do I feel like I fall further behind than everyone else? If I have a lazy day and don't really do anything that day, it just seems like I never get caught up from that one day of laziness. Each day that goes by I keep getting further and further behind. The saying "A mothers work is never done" has never made more sense to me than it does now. I don't know if I feel like I lag further behind than everyone because Mike is gone all the time, maybe that's my disadvantage. If I was a single mom like some of my friends I would at least get a break every other weekend when the kids go to visit dad. However, with Mike's job I have my kids ALL the time. Especially since I have taken the kids out of CDO (it just kept getting more and more expensive). I don't like saying that I feel like I'm at a disadvantage because of Mike's job but it really is how I feel. Am I really that much further behind than everyone else? Do I really have a little more of a disadvantage than anything other wife/mother? Or is everyone else just better at hiding it than me?

Do other moms yell and get onto their kids as much as I do? Sometimes I wonder if I expect too much out of my kids. Ariel is so smart, too smart sometimes. She talks like a 16 year old, back talk, smart mouth and all. Preston just does what Ariel does. I know that they probably learn a lot of it from me as far as talk and attitude. But seriously, how many times do I have to spank their butts for turning on the water in the backyard before they realize that they probably shouldn't turn on the water anymore. Do other moms have to constantly do time out and or spank butts? Yesterday both of my kids were just on a tear. Ariel literally got probably 8-10 spankings before lunch. Yes, I did say before lunch. I know that sounds horrible, but seriously when I see her walking to the water spout with a cup and I tell her DO NOT TURN THE WATER ON OR YOU WILL GET IN TROUBLE. She lookes up at me with a dirty looked rolled her eyes and threw the cup down and then proceeded to stomp off. So she got one for that. Then literally no more than 10 min later I look out side and where is she? Standing at the water spout with the cup and her hand reaching up to turn the water on. So she got another one. Then a few minutes later I look out and she is sitting on her brother on the trampoline just wailing on him while he's screaming like she beating him to death. So then another one. Pretty much every time she did something to get a spanking she would then proceed to yell and back talk after the spanking which only led to another one. I felt like the worst mother EVER yesterday. I felt like all I did was yell and beat my kids! I do have to say though that I started using a wooden spoon rather than my hand yesterday and it actually seemed much more effective! So today I have just walked around with it in my back pocket. Apparently with my children intimidation is the key. I have given less spankings all day today than I did before lunch yesterday. But seriously, do anyone else's kids act like this?? What happened to my sweet babies? They are only 4 and 5, is this abnormal to have THIS much attitude at this young of age? I don't think I have been like one of those mom's you see in a store who lets her kids run around yelling and knocking stuff over. And I don't' think I have been too strict (obviously not strict enough or something). So why are they acting like this? How do other moms handle it? Do they yell and spank and/or use time out like I do? Do other moms feel hopeless sometimes like I do? Is every other mom just better at concealing it all than me??

If you would have talked to me a year or so ago and asked me about homeschooling, I would have said not only that I think its stupid but that its not good for the kids. I feel very strongly about kids needing interaction with other kids on a daily basis (so if anyone wants to come get my kids to interact with their kids feel free! LOL). I think that kids need to learn how to be around other kids of all kinds of backgrounds. You have to learn how to act socially acceptable in school because by the time you hit high school or college its too late! All of the sudden your in a classroom with 25+ other people of all different backgrounds and by gosh you better know how to behave around them all.

Anyways, my feelings about homeschooling have changed quite a bit due to the amount of information I have been finding out about how much schools have changed since I was in school. First of all several months ago I found out that kids are lucky if they get 10-15 minutes of recess!! WTH! As far as I can remember we got AT LEAST 30 minutes but I swear we even used to get up to 45 minutes. AND I found out that the schools are really even trying to do away with that measly 10-15 minutes that the kids get to be kids. This year they have started the school day earlier and now run it later. I understand they want to have a better academic rating but really do they have to take away a kids right to be a kid in the process. I had my 30 minutes of recess and I turned out pretty stinking good. I graduated high school and went on to do some of my basics in college. No, I don't have a degree but I also feel that it is not a necessity to have a degree in life. It helps tremendously, and the knowledge that you gain to get that degree is priceless but unless you are a doctor or lawyer or something like that a degree isn't that big of a deal. I worked at a staffing agency for a while when I was 19-20 and I can not even begin to tell you the amount of kids fresh out of college that came there looking for a job. They all walked in all super proud with their degree feeling like for sure they would be walking out with a job. In reality what they heard was "Wow that's a fantastic degree! Now what is your work experience? Did you have an internship with reference to your degree?" There were a few that did have an internship and that helped. But what people really look for is actual work experience. I wasn't a staffing agent but I did hear the staffing agents on the the phone when they were trying to get these kids interviews and all the employers were mainly worried about was whether or not they had work experience in that particular field. Sorry I got off on a tangent, but what I'm mainly trying to say is that yes it is important to use school time wisely for education but kids also need to be kids because academic education is NOT everything!

Kids still need to be kids. They still need to have a good recess to let them burn off some of all that energy they always have (you know that energy that we always say we wish we still had). I just feel like the schools and school districts are trying to make kids grow up even faster. Everyone complains that the media is making kids grow up faster (which is true) but why doesn't anyone look at what the schools are doing to our elementary students? I mean really all the tests and what not, is that really necessary??? My 6th grade nephew had to take a 6 weeks test on a scantron and he also had to write the answers on the hard copy as well. The teacher graded both, on the hard copy he made a 94 but on the scantron he made a 52. So she did him a "favor" by giving him 1/2 credit. WTH!? Obviously he missed a line on the scantron, seriously who hasn't done that?? I have done it more than once but to the best of my memory my teachers let me correct it! I know what teachers say about this kind of thing, "We are trying to teach them responsibility and to slow down and pay attention to what they are doing. We are trying to get them ready for high school because in high school they aren't going to be near as lenient as we are here in junior high. We are trying to get them ready for college because in college you only get one chance, they don't let you have a second chance." just take your pick it will always be something relevant to one of the above. My problem with these is... Yes kids do need to learn responsibility but obviously he knew the answers to the work considering he got a 94 on the hard copy!!And this was his first test with a scantron! As far as high school and college not being as lenient about that kind of thing. Well that's just CRAP! Unless of course your at like Harvard or Yale or some other fabulously academic school like that. I was allowed to correct my scantrons because I missed a line in BOTH high school AND college!!! I honestly don't think teachers should be allowed to use scantrons anymore. They are the most unreliable source of testing out there. The scantron machine can count right answers wrong and wrong answers right even if they are bubbled in correctly. Those things are just plain stupid. And its more work on the teacher because they have to check it twice!! I wish that teachers were more worried about actually TEACHING the students rather than testing them just to show the kid that the teacher holds the power of pass or fail. I remember my teachers always being more than willing to help me if I was having trouble. I remember staying after school and actually getting help from my teachers until I understood the problem. It just seems like teachers now days don't care at all. It's like 'Oh yeah well you shouldn't have missed a line on your scantron. I'm too lazy to actually grade your work so you better get used to using these scantrons!!" Uggh

And kids get punished for the smallest things now a days! My niece got in trouble at school yesterday because 3 girls were picking on her friend Ashley and had her pinned up against a wall. Mallory (my niece) has 3 brothers and she doesn't take crap from any of them, so she steps in between the girls to break it up and just pushes one girl off of her friend, whom was getting beat up. One of the girls then proceeds to punch Mallory while another scratched her face. Mallory never threw a punch back (bless her heart she was afraid she would get into trouble) all she did was push the girl off of her friend to break it up and then her and the girl walked away after Mallory got punched. The school has threatened to put Mallory and Ashley in ISS for 3 days with the other 3 girls that were doing the actual fighting. Now tell me how the hell that is right that Mallory and Ashley get the same punishment as the 3 girls who picked the fight and were actually throwing punches!?!? Now, I'm not saying that I don't think Mallory should get any kind of punishment for pushing the girl; but why should it be the same as the girls who caused it all? Mallory is a straight A student and has NEVER been in any kind of trouble before. Not everything is black and white, there are plenty of grey areas in the world. But everyone now days wants everything to be 'equal', well they take all that and shove it where the sun don't shine because there is and always will be grey areas in the world. I'll be damned if my daughter get a punishment like that for a situation like this. I mean what was she supposed to do just stand there and let her friend get beat up while she's waiting for the teachers to pay attention long enough to figure out there is fight going on!? Actually if it were my daughter she probably would have thrown a punch, LOL she's too ornery for her own good!

There are so many other stories and things I have heard about that make me think about homeschooling more and more. But I'm still at a cross roads; I want my kids to have the experience of going to school with other kids. I want my kids go through the same things as I did in school, good and bad (as crazy as that may sound). I want my kids to experience the bullies and the nerdy kids that everyone makes fun of. Those are the kinds of things that made me the person I am today. Not everyone may like me but I like me. And one thing I did learn from being in public school and graduating in a class of almost 600 is that if you don't like me I will smile and wave, just not with all my fingers! ;-P


Now just to end with a funny little thing. My son has been sooo funny this week. The day before last they were playing in the back yard. I looked out there and saw him playing with his tractors so I finished whatever it was I was doing. About 2 minutes later I look out there again and he's jumping on the trampoline in his underwear!LOL So I holler at him and tell him to put his clothes back on. He gets off the trampoline and walks over to the house were the back of the fireplace is and opens the little door where you can sweep the ashes out into the backyard and pulls out his shirt, looks at it (all covered with ashes) and says "Look mom its dirty". He then proceeds to turn around and open the BBQ pit and reaches under the grill to get his shoes! I'm like what the crap were you doing son! You girls with little boys just wait! They are the crazy!!

Tonight there is a Goober Goob (I have no idea) in his room that he wants Duke (our 2 year old Lab) to eat so that it won't get him while he sleeps... So I'm off to put my crazy, crazy life on pause until morning but I must make sure the Goober Goob hasn't eaten my son before I do.

Good Night!

It's been a really long day today. I have been trying to make time to sit down and write my first blog all day today. Now here it is 12:12 AM and I am just now starting.

Mike left for work this morning. We have been so busy while he has been here for the past 2 weeks that I have fell down on a lot of my household duties. There is so much paper clutter on my desk it isn't funny. I had a little over 400 emails in my main email account, that doesn't even count the email account that I use for business! There were laundry piles all over the living room floor. Every floor in this house needs to be mopped and vaccuumed. I had so much to do today that I really didn't know where to start this morning. So I sat and drank a cup of coffee and watch a Desperate Houswives re-run, thats my favorite way to start the day. ; )

I did almost get done cleaning out my main email account and cleaned up a little bit of the paper clutter on my desk (we won't talk about the inside of my desk). Most of the laundry is done, except for the bed linens. Didn't get any floors done today. I did however make a to do list for tomorrow! Tomorrow is going to be just as long as today if not longer but at least I have a list to keep me on track (yes I am list maker).

It's so hard with Mike's job; sometimes he's home for 3 days and every now and again he's home for something like 2 weeks like this last time. Those of you who are mommies and wives have to know how much easier it is to do your chores when your husband is nowhere in sight. It's pretty difficult to tell your husband, whom you are lucky to have at home one week out of the month (and if its one week all at once, whoa!) to leave you alone and let you do your chores! It's always bitter sweet when he's home. I want to spend every minute that I can with him but if I don't stay on top of my chores the house ends up looking like it did this morning, or like it does right now. This first day of him being gone is always the worst. I'm kinda tired from all the running around we did while he was here but I have soo much to do around the house. I'm always grouchy with the kids and they are grouchy with me.

It might even be a little bit worse today because we have been remodeling the hall bathroom and the kids have been having to use my bathroom. I'm sure I don't have to go into a whole lot of detail about why I don't like my 4 and 5 year old having access not only to my bathroom but my whole room!! Normally they don't really go into my room because, well they just know better. But right now apparrently they feel that they have full reign over my bathroom and bedroom. Apparently they feel the need to go through my jewelry box and get out ALL of my expensive jewelry (they leave the cheap stuff alone) including my grandmothers gold rings and bring them to me just to tell me that they are pretty. I know it sounds kinda sweet that your kids think your things are pretty. But really, do you want your 4 and 5 year old messing with your expensive jewelry?? And it doesn't matter where I hide it, they will find it! I just want their bathroom to be done so that I don't have to give them access to mine anymore! You would think that I would pretty much always know where they are, I mean its not like our house is big but goodness they are sneaky little things!

I've been super stressed today and I have definately taken it out on them. It makes me feel like a terrible mother to say that I have taken my troubles out on my children who are innocent bystanders. I have been much more grouchy than I should have been. I got a good portion of my chores done today though so hopefully I won't be so stressed tomorrow when we are out running errands. But I don't know, I do need to go to Walmart tomrrow and that can definately be a challenge with my two...

I think my biggest challenge as a mother and wife is telling myself that its ok to be stressed and grouchy sometimes, it happens to everyone. I just need to work on being able to go to bed leave my troubles and stresses with The Lord so that I may wake up in the morning rested and refreshed. Tomrrow is a new day...