Money

Very few of us are strangers to lack of funds.  At one point or another, almost everyone has had a moment of wondering if there will be enough money in the bank account for groceries or bills.

We’re currently going through that moment.  And it sucks.

We live a very frugal lifestyle.  Simple meals.  No cable tv.  Dial-up internet.  Haven’t bought any new clothes in….longer than needed.

As most readers will know, I am the sole provider at this point and we make enough to scrape by.  Every time we are able to finally get a bit into savings, there ends up being something that causes us to have to pull it out again.

We’ve been so blessed that we’ve had that money when we’ve needed it.  But having the 3 months of expenses people say is a pipe dream. Especially when these things keep happening.

When we decided to try the Stay-at-Home parent thing, we cut down everything we could.  We even moved to a cheaper place when Baby Soup was about 6 months old that fits us better.

We heat with a wood stove but our thermostat still turns on when it gets below 50 degrees.  This winter has been fairly tough, so when I opened our most recent electric bill, my heart dropped.  It had doubled from the month before.

Even pulling the money we had managed to save isn’t enough.  Thank the Lord we rent from friends, so we are going to be able to pay our rent half now and half after my next paycheck.  But still, I’m an adult.  We are grown-ups.  We should be able to pay our bills!

As the great and fabulous Ramit of I Will Teach You To Be Rich teaches, it’s not all about cutting costs.  You have to figure out how to earn more on the side as well.  I’ve been slowly been trying to get ready to do that.  I’ve created a website with a portfolio to do design and photography work  and will move this blog over to that side fairly soon, as soon as I’m done designing the blog part.  I have a photography session scheduled for March with my cousin, and two more with her since she is pregnant again!  Hoping to also do a session with my friend’s baby that will be born anytime now (her water broke this morning!).  And I’ve landed my first wedding session as well.

But it all takes time.  And energy.  And I can only do so much.

So we’ve decided.

Mr. Soup will be trying to find a part time job.  My fabulous and amazing dad has agreed to watch Baby Soup a couple days a week so we don’t have to pay a babysitter.

It will be hard.  It will be difficult.  But we can do this.  We’ve been through hard times before and always succeeded.

I can’t help but feel like a bit of a failure though….it’s my job to provide for the family, and I can’t do it all.

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So to get my mind off this, tell me.  What is your best horrible joke?  You know the ones I mean.  Those terrible jokes that as soon as you start everyone groans, but when it’s done laughter is all around.

I’ll start (and I’m better at typing jokes than telling them….).

What are the two sexiest animals on the farm?

…….

Answer is in the comments.

Self Reflection

Lately I’ve been…thoughtful.  Not necessarily depressed, just trying to figure things out.  Maybe it’s the end of the year.  Maybe it’s the lack of good sleep or just the oft repeated pattern of my days and weeks.  Whatever it is, I’m not as upbeat as I have been in the past.

It’s not the weather, because it’s actually been a fairly mild winter so far.  It’s been really cold and sunny or cloudy and in the 40’s.  Yes, money is a bit tight, but we were expecting that having a stay-at-home parent with a little one.  My grandmother isn’t doing the best, but is doing better than she has been.

I wonder if it is because I don’t have a goal.  I am kinda wandering around lost.  My job doesn’t bring me joy.  I don’t have much time after work to do something I enjoy.  I don’t even really know what I enjoy, actually.

Maybe that’s it.

I have some things….I enjoy photography, but there is only so much I can do in the house with poor lighting and a not awesome camera.  The time and energy it takes to do what I want to with the photography is difficult because it is so vast and takes away from spending time with my husband and daughter.  I enjoy reading, and have tried to do more of that, but am having a hard time finding something new to read.  I enjoy playing The Sims 3 computer game, but it won’t run on my computer, so can only play when Mr. Soup is not on his.  Which then makes me feel guilty.

I wish I had a life vest.  Or a book that tells me where to go from here.  This fuzzy, messy, lost brain of mine is pulling me down and I’m having difficulty coming up for fresh air.  I am far from suicidal, so please don’t worry about that.  Just not feeling very useful.

I’m taking a 10 day vacation off of work starting Christmas Eve and hope that that will settle things down.

What do you do to make you happy?  What brings you back to your own “one-ness”?  Finding your center and all that?  Please share…even if you haven’t commented before, I would love to hear from you.

The Most AWESOMEST Interview EVAH!

So, a few weeks ago, the amazingly gorgeous and talented Aunt Becky gave an interview to one of her screaming throng of fans.  At the end of it, she put out a call for others to interview her since she was on a roll.  I figured, what the hell.

Here is the incredible and enlightening result:

Mrs Soup: Question Numero One: What is your favorite position?  NO, not sex position.  I totally don’t care about that, besides, I’m sure you’ll get into it in your Toy With Me blog.  Your favorite position to sit.  See, I sit usually with one leg underneath me or both legs up to my knees if I’m really bored.  So I want to picture how you sit at your computer.

Aunt Becky: If I could sit crouched on my knees, I would be the happiest person I know. But I can’t, because I SUCK. So it’s flat on my ass. But I sit at my dining room table. I should take a picture. TOO BAD I’M LAZY.

MS: Mac or PC?  Don’t care about the computer, I’m talking about the guys in the commercials.  Which would you rather do?  The Mac or PC guy?

AB: DUH. The PC GUY. He’s smokin’. That was a trick question, wasn’t it?

MS: If you were approached by this guy:

and he tried to hug you, how would you react?

AB: I would totally steal his hats and run away.

MS: Please explain, in your own words, the true joy that is found in using a Q-tip right after a warm shower.

AB: “Ear-gasm.”

MS: If you were to write a blog called “Aunt Becky Sucks”, which would turn into a snarky blog about your own blog, what would the main overwhelming theme be?

AB: Dude. How much MORE narcissistic can one person be. Also, the assumed familiarity annoys of naming yourself “Aunt Becky” is borderline psychotic.

MS: How much do you love me?

AB: 47.2

MS: How many times a day do you wish I had never started stalking you?

AB: 47.2

MS: Why do you insist on stealing my daughter’s photos and putting them up in your blog?  Is your daughter not pretty enough?  Did you really have a third boy and were tired of having people ask you if you were going to try for a girl so you made her up?

AB: I lost my child and had to resort to stealing another one from The Internet. Isn’t that what everyone is afraid of?

MS: If you were forced at gunpoint to play a Facebook game, which one would it be?

AB: Bejeweled Blitz.

MS: Your favorite movie quote.  You can only pick one.

AB: “It goes to 11.”

MS: What are your orchids names?

AB: I plead the 5th.

MS: You get a call from a newspaper/magazine/online blog and they go “Aunt Becky, omg, we love you so much and want to pay you a million dollars a year to write for us!  Please, oh please, will you do it?  We’ll buy you a great brownstone apartment in New York City and everything!”  Who is it from?

AB: Playboy. Or Maxim.

MS: We’ve talked about our mutual issue of guilt that occurs far too often in our lives.  How are you working past getting over guilt?

AB: I’m trying to remind myself that events aren’t always related. Your bad day isn’t related to the fact that I didn’t complete this sweet ass interview on time. MOSTLY.

MS: Do you believe in intelligent life outside of our planet?

AB: Yes. Mostly. Sometimes. Actually, I don’t really think about it.

MS: What is your biggest pet peeve when it comes to writing/reading?

AB: People who use “alot” as one word. It makes me shiver.

MS: Take us through a day in the life.  When do you normally get up, what do you do daily, etc.

AB:I normally roll over and run to the room where my boys are shrieking at each other and grab them up before they can wake their sister.The rest of the day is spent returning emails, keeping the children out of the garbage cans, admiring myself in the mirror, abusing pain pills and feeling morally superior to everyone else I know.

Then I go to bed.

MS:  Now then tell us how you wish it would go.

AB: I wish that someone else kept the kids from the garbage cans while I was free to feel superior without interruptions. Also, I would like to pay someone to return emails for me. OBVIOUSLY.

Friend Makin Mondays – 20 Questions

Hurray!  FMM is back with a vengeance!  Go visit Amber to play!

1. Do you cook every night?
Ha!  Hahahaha.  AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*coughsplutterchokegasp*  No.  I pretty much only cook on Tuesdays when Mr. Soup is at my brother’s playing D&D.  And I’m home alone.  And then, it’s either PB&J, Mac and Cheese or OCCASIONALLY I’ll “splurge” and make a salad.  But if it requires me to do something other than boil water, I’ll usually ruin it.  Or sometimes even boiling water can be ruined.

2. What kind of laundry detergent do you use & why?
We use Amway’s detergent.  It’s lovely and cloth diaper safe.  Although, we are using some Dreft, because we got a free huge box of it.  Yay for freebies!

3. Do you do laundry every day or loads at a time?
We usually do loads at a time.  Diaper laundry is run every 2-3 days and the rest, as needed.  These weekend we did 8 loads, including all of our sheets and the clothes we found in a box that we finally got around to unpacking.

4. How often do you eat out per week?
Almost never.  With only one worker in the household, it’s a rare thing.  Sometimes, we’ll have $.89 burritos at Taco Bell on Tuesdays when Mr. Soup is D&Ding and I’m not feeling up to “cooking”.  Occasionally though, we’ll go out with my Mother-in-Law on Thursdays when it’s too hot to have cooked food at her house.

5. Where do you usually eat out?
Taco Bell, Teriyaki Woo (a great teriyaki place, with smiley faces in the O’s.  The lady is so cute!), a mexican place by my MIL’s house.  Or Red Robin.  Oh, sometimes McDonald’s.  Yay dollar menu!  We have such a high class palate…

6. What is your favorite retail store?
ROSS!!  And Target.

7. What’s your favorite thing to drink?
Use to be Dr. Pepper and will be again once I stop breastfeeding.  But now, water with the occasional Root Beer or Caffeine Free Pepsi.  Although I’ve enjoyed water so much more, ever since experiencing months of not being able to drink it at all.

8. Do you take vitamins? What kind?
I have prenatals and calcium to take….that I really should remember to take.  Our new place doesn’t have a medicine cabinet so all our items are in drawers, which makes me forget it.

9. What percentage of the household chores to you do?
Probably around 5-10%?  I fold the laundry and put it away.  And…that’s about it.  I love being the working parent!  Oh, except I am also in charge of the money and the bills.  Does that count as household chores?  And I take care of the baby on the weekends and at night from when I get home until I leave in the morning.  So more than that percentage I guess.

10. Do your children do chores? {Or will they, did they, etc}
They will!

11. Do you go to church?
Not really.  We have tried to find a church that we enjoy and have not had any luck.  So we have our personal family spiritual time instead.

12. Do you have a housework schedule?
Nope.

13. Do you keep a working budget?
Yes.  Every penny is detailed on where it goes and when it leaves.  Mr. Soup was in charge when we first were married, but after the late payments that did not work.

14. What do you do at night as a family?
We eat dinner together, watch a movie or TV show and usually have some snuggly time on the bed.

15. How do you prepare yourself for a new week?
Try and relax Sunday morning.  Reading, watching a good show, drinking some tea…doing what I can to get motivated.

16. What do your mornings look like?
Depends on what you count as morning.  Usually sometime between 1 and 4am, I’m awakened by a frustrated cry from Baby Soup.  I bleerily stumble to the nursery, pick her up and bring her back to bed.  Pop out a boob and fall back asleep.  I’ve tried feeding her and putting her back in the crib, but she always pops up again with a HUGE grin on her face saying “MORNING MOMMY!”.  If I bring her into bed with us, she falls back asleep and is good for another couple hours.

The alarm for work goes off at 6am.  I tell Mr. Soup to snooze it.  Repeat several times.  I finally get up, shower, contacts, hair and makeup.  Oh, and get dressed.  Or at least halfway, before I feed Baby Soup again.  Also let the dogs out.  (insert old song here “who, who who who who”.)

In the car and on the road by 7:10.  Get to work, morning pumping session, make my breakfast (I have an entire stockpile of food items at work) and clock in.  Thus begins my morning.

17. What time do you get up in the mornings?
Usually 6:15ish.

18. What time do you go to bed at night?
I am the opposite of a night owl.  If I could be in bed at 8 every night I so would.  But usually 9ish.  If I’m feeling REALLY chipper or have something to do, I might splurge and stay up until 10.  But that rarely happens.  I turn into a kumquat by midnight.

19. How do you manage all of the paperwork that floods into your household? {bills, school work, magazines, ads, etc}
My biggest tip is to have as little paperwork as possible.  I go through anything that comes in the mail right away.  Partially because it cuts down on the buildup but also because I love seeing what comes.  We also only have 2 bills that come in the form of paper, everything else is paid online.  What we aren’t going to need to keep, we store in a box by the fireplace and periodically will burn it.  We only get Parents magazine and only get the free weekly paper.  We only keep ads we KNOW we will use.

If there is a paper we know we will need (invitation, coupon, gift card, etc.) we tack it to the bulliton board in our kitchen.

20. How do you keep your household organized? {calendars, charts, etc}

We try to keep everything as electronic as possible.  Google is a LIFESAVER.  We use the calendar, docs, etc.  We’ll see as Baby Soup gets bigger what is needed to keep track of her things, but for now, that’s it.

100th Post

This is my 100th post.  Crazy!  Only been doing this for a few months and already loving it.  I’ve met so many amazing and fabulous people because of this blog.  It makes me happy.

I started to do the trendy 100 things about me post that seems to be popular, but I couldn’t finish it.

How many people actually read it?  And enjoy it?

I thought I would do something different.  Well, not too different anyways, since I’m taking a page from The Badass Geek and ask you what you want to know.

Ask me a question about anything.  Anything at all and I will answer it.  I may not post the answer, but I will at least email it to you if it’s not public appropriate.

But first, thank you.  Thank you for listening to me spew my words, to express my thoughts and more importantly, being my friend.

There can never be enough love in the world, so thank you for letting me spread some more around!

Shirt says "Diva in Training". So very true.