Have you ever noticed.....

The times when life, the universe or God decide to slap you back into reality? Do you make note of when it happens? And the severity of the incidents? How about WHERE it happens?

Well, I came to notice such in my life. The reason for it is because I get peeved over money about once a month or so. When it gets really bad, I get sullen and grumpy, and crabby. The first couple that I noticed were burns and cuts. This time it was choking on a piece of meat that (duh me) I hadn't cut very small. Or at all really. It's always in the kitchen.

Money has been an issue for me. It's tight, always always very tight at the beginning of each month. It's something I have to learn to let go of and let God.

I'm needing to learn that about life in general. I'm currently reading The Purpose Driven Life. It's very interesting. And we are starting to go to church a lot more. Well, okay, last week was the first week, this will be the second. I'm also hoping to get into a bible study class.

Sorry, I'm more tired than I thought I was when I sat down here to write. I'm playing around with my iGoogle as well.....

Sorta back

We're back in a limited capacity. I've got to use a much slower computer than what I'm used to, but that's okay as at least my blog posts will go through. The last couple I tried to post (both crochet, odd......one to my own crochet blog, and one to the ripple blog I'm now a part of) were denied when I posted them from the library. They were still there, but I had to open each post to check it and repost. I hope we get a new computer soon! :-(

Techinical Difficulties

Due to unforeseen technical difficulties, I will not be posting to this blog any time soon.

Our computer decided to bite the dust, so until we can get ahold of a computer with a processor speed fast enough to handle Windows XP or we can buy one, we are up the creek without a computer.

Finally!!!

We've had a rough couple of days with this computer. First, on Tuesday, T didn't get to bed until nearly 2pm because he was working on figuring out why he couldn't get his co-worker's computer to connect to the cable broadband instead of the dial up like it's used to and wanted to. His co-worker came to pick up the computer that day, while T was in bed and we were at Weight Watchers. Then, when I sat down to log onto my side, and look at my stuff, including check my email to see if I got my first distributor there (which we all know I did :-D), it froze on me. It kept freezing and/or acting up yesterday, and today it took me 5 attempts to get it to load today! :-( At least I'm on now, but T says that it only means one thing, that it's time for a new computer, and I have no idea how we'd go about getting a new one. Even though T's been eyeing the computers at WalMart because I guess they're pretty inexpensive. It wouldn't be the first time we got one from WalMart, but the processor on that one burned out FAST. T went to upgrade the memory on it, and it blew somehow. That was about 3 or 4 years ago, at least the semester before I got pregnant with P. And he'd actually think about getting 2, so we each have one. That way we don't have to fight about who's on when, and I can have myself my own little office like center over on my desk which I hardly ever use :-(

Anyhow, last night's dinner was actually pretty good! :-) Tuesday evening the kids and I went outside, and they played a bunch with the neighbor girl. While we were out there, we checked out the neighbors porch, and got some veggies they had out there. The wife had told us any time we wanted any of what they had on there, from their plot of land about 10 miles from here, that we could just take it, so we have been. I've got a bunch of cut up zucchini in my freezer in the wash room (which I have to go check again, because the door must have been left open or something---things weren't frozen any more in there). Now I have several more zucchini and a couple more squash as well waiting to be cut up. But what pertains to last night's dinner is the tomatoes we also got. We got a few roma size, and a few bigger ones. I cut up 2 roma, and put them in the pan with some onion and olive oil, then tossed whole wheat penne in with some parmesan. It ended up nice and CREAMY, in part I think because of the extra little bit of oil, and the juice from the tomatoes :-) Take a look....YUM!

Non Noodle Tuesday!

I don't know if I'm going to start with that....but today's the first in a long time that pasta wasn't for dinner!!! We had chicken in barbeque sauce, corn, beets (for me, the rest of the family doesn't really like them!!!!) and microwave baked potatoes! :-) It was good. I like to put salsa on my baked potatoes :-) It tastes better than it sounds, trust me!!! For once in about 4 days, I FORGOT to take a picture of dinner. I took the camera in there, just didn't do it after I had it plated! :-\ Oh well, it was good. I can't tell you what was the best---it was all good :-) I love beets....and canned spinach....and other things too. Nice treat :-)

And I've got more good news than just the new recruit under me for the candle biz---I've also hit the 50 pound mark! As of today I have lost 51.8 pounds. I'm going to do something to adjust my weight loss table...it's just too big and bulky. Until I figure something else out I'm going to leave it there, but I'm contemplating other ideas :-)

Have I been zapped?

Well, I know I've been sliced (cut my finger....own stupid mistake).

But the person I talked to about the biz signed up this morning. I haven't talked to her again yet, but she's on my Yahoo messenger, so I will check in with her often (I hope!).

It feels good that I have one. I hope for more, and I hope to be a good sponsor! Not just good, real good! :-)

(Originally posted on my Candle blog)

Well, I know I've been sliced (cut my finger....own stupid mistake).

But the person I talked to about the biz signed up this morning. I haven't talked to her again yet, but she's on my Yahoo messenger, so I will check in with her often (I hope!).

It feels good that I have one. I hope for more, and I hope to be a good sponsor! Not just good, real good! :-)

(Originally posted on my Candle blog)

It's electric!!!

I titled this like this because today has been quite an interesting day! I was able to talk to 3 people about the business---but more on that on my Candle Biz Blog :-) Hee hee. Maybe I should have titled THAT post this instead. Or just that post. But the rest of the day went well too. We also went out today and had a bit of fun. And my daughter asked that her new friend come over so they can do their homework together. I had to go across town to pick up her friend, but she's a nice girl and it went well.

Today's feature dish is Twenty Minute Minestrone Soup (though with my activity this evening it ended up taking a bit longer than twenty minutes!!!). It turned out AWESOME, and I think because I put in a bit more than the recipe calls for, it is going to go a lot further than 4 servings!!!


Now what I'm looking forward to is having a Klondike Slim A Bear 100 Calorie Fudge Bar. MMM so smooth, and DELISH! :-D But I'm going to wait just a bit. That was part of us being out and about this afternoon, I went and bought 3 boxes. They will last me a while! :-)

Another Sunday

Someone made a comment on their blog about how interesting their blog titles are...seems she's just using the date. Hmm...I'm not going to go that basic, but it gets really hard to title a blog when either it's been a long time since I blogged, or it's just been another day when, like now, I'm on a roll with how often I'm blogging.

Yes, today's been a fairly normal day. I delivered the Penny Savers, came home, watched a little football (:-( Bills lost BIG TIME!!!), took a shower, called mom, lazied about watching the kids with their antics, did some stuff here on the web (the big one is updating links on the sidebar of my crochet blog, joining a webring [I'm not accepted into it yet], opening a webring for WNY_C and changing the titles of my blogs so that I can sorta start to brand myself [at least, I realized that's how it may end up :-)]), made dinner (see below) and now I'm just winding down before bed. Don't need another shower because I've already taken one, so I guess I'll be here just a little bit, then I'll go read more TPDL, then go to bed.

Dinner today was actually one of my favorites, even though I'm SICK TO DEATH of pasta and tomato sauces/based meals. Can't have pizza often either. But, I got the idea to make this from going to a local pub/restaurant for our anniversary last year, and the need to not have bottled spaghetti sauce on whole wheat pasta often.


It's often just the whole wheat pasta, onions and parmasean cheese. This time I added some of the zucchini from a week or so ago---at the time before I had only used half of the bag for whatever reason, so I threw in the other half. Takes care of my veggie requirement for the day, right? Good thing. Also today I had regular oatmeal with 2 frozen peach slices and about 1 Tablespoon of honey. Yum. Takes that bitter taste right away! :-)

I'm also working on that bread I started last night. It's now sitting in my oven for it's second rising. Here it is at the end of it's first, when I took it out of the oven (just a warm oven, I'm not trying to bake it now you know!), before I punched it down and kneaded it:


Now how it looks as it's sitting in the oven---hopefully getting bigger! (It actually DID double in size last time, that's good!!! :-D):


Looks pretty doesn't it? I cut the slits in it deeper this time, as I'm thinking they were too shallow in previous loaves. This one is ALL wheat flour. I didn't even try half and half before jumping right into this loaf. We'll see soon enough how well this one turns out. I'm hoping for the best! No way to find out Points at the minute though, because my computer and the WW website aren't agreeing with each other. :-| Oh well.

Night night

Trying to keep myself honest.

So, I like all these blogs with food on it. And I'm trying to lose weight, by watching what I'm eating. So I'll try to share as much as I can of what I eat with you.

Here goes. Here's tonight's dinner. The features are shrimp:


Zucchini and onions (onions, yum!):



And of course couscous. I always wondered what couscous was, and once I found out, I fell in love!!


Wow, that picture turned out better than I thought it would! It also has some crushed red pepper to give it just a touch of kick, tomato (it calls for a whole tomato but as I didn't get one, and lots of canned diced tomatoes, that's what went in), and basil (though it calls for thyme). I love couscous, did I mention that? It's actually my second dish of couscous for the day---I had onion, couscous and medium salsa for lunch. Not bad, actually. I like chicken in it sometimes, but the shrimp couscous is actually better. It's from a Quick Meals Weight Watchers recipe book I bought the first time I went to WW, back in 2003. I haven't bought a recipe book yet this time around, and I don't plan to. That's fine :-) I can do quite well with the web (especially the WW site) and my own inventions. I didn't think I'd ever like the Core Plan, but I really prefer it! :-) I'm even working on Core (or at least low LOW Point) bread! I have a yeast prep in the food processor right now...no big, I'm going to let it sit tonight, and see how it works tomorrow afternoon. T hasn't made his first loaf yet :-\ I'm not at all feeling guilty about going ahead and making as much as I want...he's got other items to create (like cheesecake, always cheesecake), but what if he decides to do that tomorrow too? Well, I'm planning on us going to church (which means another chapter for TPDL for me, a shower then bed for me soon), so maybe he can do it then. But that would mean him taking out my yeast prep...oh gees. Oh well...

I would have liked to have talked about Presto Pasta Nights over on Once Upon a Feast, but I got this recipe from a published cookbook so I won't put up the recipe, which takes me out of the running. Oh well, one day I will create something, and we will be on there! Ha ha ha....:-|

I'm sick of pasta, actually, and tomato based spaghetti sauces. I'm going to have to go surfing other blogs, so we will see if I can't come up with something. That's Core as well. Hmm...someday I might have my own food blog....

Something fun for once......

My husband and I have ....

....been Simpsonized.....
....For me at least, I think it's an improvement :-) Go try it yourself!

Have fun, this is going to be something of a lazy day....just gonna go off soon and get some groceries :-)

What a difference a week makes.

Mom's a whole lot better. The hallucinations may still be having their effects, and OF COURSE she's still hurting, but at least when I call (and, yes, come and see) her, I get MOM and not MOM ON SOME REALLY SERIOUS PAIN KILLERS. Of course, you know, having your MOM there has it's own drawbacks...such as the suggestion that I SHOULD look into little guy getting evalled on his speech progress. I still don't think so...but I told her that if things don't get a whole lot "better" by the time he's 2 1/2, then I'll look into it. Of course, I might have put that stuff in the to be shredded box. I don't know. Good thing---it's been about a month since I sorted everything out, so it will probably still be there 3 months from now. Ha ha. I don't forsee shredding that stuff right away, I want to sort through the individual file folders first.

Let's see, what else? Well, I got caught up on laundry---T's uniforms are in the dryer right now, and his shirts and underwear/socks (sh, don't tell, he likes them totally separate) are in the washer waiting for the uniforms to be sorted. My dishes are nearly there. My bathroom needs wiped down, and my carpet needs vacced, but it's picked up at least. My daughter's room is even halfway to decent (yes, I mean it's not all the way there, but hey you can see the floor!). Our room looks good, actually. The computer room here isn't too bad, even though the futon could be cleared off and the bucket on there (that I'm going to need tomorrow night) is still full of stuff to sort.

I've got to get to bed at a more decent time...soon.

Which means I've got to start heading towards bed. I've got to read another chapter of The Purpose Driven Life, tonight's chapter is #3. So far I know it's all about God and nothing's about me, and I was put here in this world so God could love me, and he made everything because he loves me (before you think I'm a friggin' snob or something, read the book!). I'm just waiting for the lady on the FIB group to let me know she's started reading the book so that I can type out and send her what I've written down as far as my thoughts so far. And we all know I'm nothing if not longwinded, so....she's in for a real treat. I'll send it to her in bits.....one every hour or so depending on how far along she is in rereading it. Of course I should just go and look if there's a Yahoo group for reading it, and tell her sorry, I would have loved to read it with her but I'm not going to give you the heck you'd have to go through with what I wrote and thought over while I waited. I'll just send her an email asking if she's ready, because I've already started reading the book and I'm on to chapter 3 in a bit....:-\ I don't know....

Well, otherwise, I worked on my crochet blog today. You can thank my wonderful group co-owner for that....gotta love the ripple afghans :-)

Later. Need to prep for bed :-)

At least I'm living....

Oh, I'm sure you can say it could be worse, but it's not fun either.

Mom's in the hospital again. Another planned excursion into her knee :-| This time just the left one, because it has been acting up bad for most of this year. 6-8 months, and no one was really trying to find out what it was while she was done in Ohio. But they went into her knee and, while none of the tests done on the aspirations said it was infected, it in fact was.

So things are now good, not so good, and difficult.

The good thing is that her knee has been taken care of.

The not so good---that she was right and it WAS an infection.

The difficult is she is not a fun person when she is on morphine. Because of her life, she's got natural tendencies towards paranoia and depression. She takes meds for that, that help a whole lot, smooth things out for her. With the morphine (or derivatives/similar meds), she loses all her hibitions keeping her from buying into the paranoia and depression---and it's not fun being in her room with her. What's the worst, is you KNOW that it's just the meds talking, this is NOT her, she's knows better and is a lot more rational than that!!! But it still rips your stomach out. I just couldn't go today, yesterday was that difficult.

There are a few other things that are weighing on my mind that I just don't want to go indepth about....money, kids, hubby, money, what might be going on in my body (with hormones, etc).

I've been sitting here and in the living room wanting a peanut butter sandwich. I bought just white bread because I didn't want to be eating several peanut butter (plain and with jelly) sandwiches by the doubles like I have the last few weeks. The bread being wheat just doesn't help much. And I want to be able to say I've passed the 50 pound mark (yes, I know that I currently have to update my weight loss table. I'll do it, don't worry). I might go and have another bag of popcorn (I had one this evening). That and a glass of water actually does sound pretty good.

I can't wait for next week. I'll talk this much about money. Some of it will loosen up once next Thursday hits.

I guess that's the end of it.

Good night.

And another day goes by...

You know, it's kinda difficult coming up with blog entry titles all the time. :-S LOL

I was a bit tired there a couple minutes ago, but not anymore :-| Oh, well, I'm still going to bed soon!

I got good news in my email today---my best bro's on Myspace now. What a nice surprise!!! :-D

I'm working on a felted hook case. It's my first felted project. We'll see how it turns out. I don't have much faith at the moment, but oh well. We'll see.

I'm also working on afghans for 2 people at the place my mom's at :-) I collected up the yarn for them out of my "stock" today.

I'm going to turn the second attempt at the tablecloth I liked so much into a yoyo tablecloth. We'll see if it works out.

My goal for this week is to get the other 1.4 pounds to a 50 pound weight loss.

I've had fun on the listing site this week as well.

Tomorrow's T's root canal. That's going to be somewhat *fun*. :-|

Later tonight....

I will be asleep. But hopefully not as late as last night! My little guy, thank goodness, was his usual self. No need to worry about his little bump on his head. It still hurts, poor thing, but he's his normal self. Like I said yesterday, I've had to thank goodness for him being so because it could be worse. But it's not! So that's a good thing :-D Also, after talking to someone at dialysis yesterday, mom asked me to ask the doctor's office about his lead levels, which I know where checked with his last bit of blood work. That was a bit of good news as well...he was a 4, and the range is a 0-9. So he's right in the middle, no real worries. Well, my mom and I are both concerned because this IS an old house---but it's not over the range, and he's pretty much a normal little 2 year old boy. Sure, he might not be talking quite as well as some people might want him to, but I'm not worried, each kid grows at his own pace! :-)

Funny thing happened to my mom and dad today. Nothing bad---but they had to spend the day with the mother of the trailer park terror. Good thing---we haven't had to deal with him much since I started complaining about him on here, LOL! My dad said that once she said who her son was, it negated any and all thing she had said up until that point :-S Well, she is full of bull :-( She sees the wrong in other people's parenting, and doesn't see the wrong in hers. And she wonders why....My kids are good kids, but I'm not too proud to acknowledge that they might have their faults too! :-\

Well, I have a few more things to do, and then I'm going to bed. I've got to take my shower, read a bit, crochet a bit and then I'm turning in :-)

Long day...

I've spent most of my day cleaning today. It was broken at about 3, however, by a quick trip to the emergency room. My little guy fell and hit his head on the wall. I'm hoping that he did not hit the brick fireplace which was within the 2 foot area where I know he had to have hit his head. He's been his usual self (so much so there were a few times when I had to repeat to myself "be thankful, be thankful, be thankful" because I know that it's possible the visit to the er could have been different!!!).

This weekend was actually a pretty good one. The local Festival was this weekend. My family and I were only able to make it on Saturday (though I would have loved to have gone to the parade on Sunday---now that I think about it, it would have been a great networking opp!! But we went to the other reason why this weekend was so good!), but I gave my card to 7 people during the short time we were there, BEFORE it rained, LOL. I got to see people I like to stop and see...there are 2 ladies, a lady I met at the gym before I went in the Army and a lady who I have bought jewelry from since before that! I also gave a biz card to my sister's maid of honor's mother---and instead of simply talking about the biz, in the few breaths I had I talked about her granddaughter, who is her other daughter's daughter. I could have talked about her oldest as well (the baby's mother and the girl I graduated with, where as my sister graduated and is best friends with her younger daughter), but we didn't have the time as they were on their way across the street and we were just arriving!

The get-together was fun. We had ladies from all over the state, not just local! One traveled 3 hours to see us---that felt good. She's a NICE lady! :-D We got together and made and afghan for one of the members who got married this month---she was so busy that she didn't even notice the one or two times someone slipped---because she deleted so many emails!!! LOL!!! I assembled :-) I'm hoping to keep that going, and I already have an idea for who the next recipient will be!!!!

My head is getting to the point where it hurts, but I have a few more other things I'd like to do.

Another thing that I've been pondering, pretty much since I sat down here. I find myself drawn to recommitting myself to the Lord. Two or five years ago you might not have seen me say that....but the pull is strong now. I found a great site when I first started thinking/working on this. And it's based on my favorite Bible chapter (yes, a whole chapter!), Proverbs 31
It's helped me with at least one thing that's been weighing on my heart. One I won't mention because it's a bit personal. I'll write that in my journal. The other is money. Now, I have a struggle each week when I see how much money we have coming in, and how much more needs to go out. It's part of why I started the candle biz. We've looked at the income potential for the fundraiser we might be getting from the lady whose house we were at this weekend, for the get-together. It's great. Now, when I look at it, what I consider first is all the problems it would take care of for us....bills I'd love to get paid so creditors quite calling, keeping up with the bills we have every month (for once in long time there's a bill I'm not sure I'm going to be able to pay all of this month. It went sky high this last reeval :-( It did not make me happy. How is it that in the summer things are tighter than they should be?? I don't get it!), investing in things for our future. I don't often think of the "fun" things we could do....you can check out my list on a cool new list site I found too! This is what I think of first, not "fun" things all the time (there is one "fun" thing I can think of on it---but consider this, it's still not for fun fun, it's for my walk with God!). Taking care of my family!!! That's ALL I think about!!! NOTHING else!!! So, what I'm worried about though is, being that money is something seen as the Devil's playground (right along with idle hands, which I DON'T have!), will we get corrupted? I hope not...I hope I'll always be the kind of person who thinks of her family and others first. And I can't say it enough, I LOVE the company and the product!!!!! :-)

Thursday's update

Dishes - today's are caught up
Clothes - towels got folded
Have breakfast - did it...lunch and dinner too...all added to WW online Point Tracker
Sort magazines - all the crocheted/knitting ones are done, looked at one other
Read Html book
Make squares/go through bag
Wash bathroom
Go to SA - hoping for tomorrow
Wash T's clothes - done, last load of uniforms are in the dryer, I'll do the tees and socks & undies next week! Not a big enough load for me!
Pay electric and phone bills - done, and upgraded the phone service so I have long distance for the candle biz

I'm pretty caught up, though not all of my list is taken care of. Some are, if you would remember, from the week long list. 2 more days without DD :-|

Thursday's PODA

Never did add that note later in that last post. I just wanted to say---there had been nothing in the washer or dryer, but I ended up putting something in it, which needed rewashed because I let it sit. Not as long as usual, but I added to it, so it needed a bit more.

Dishes - last night's got washed
Clothes - next on list
Have breakfast
Sort magazines - working on it
Read Html book
Make squares/go through bag
Wash bathroom
Go to SA
Wash T's clothes
Pay electric and phone bills

Seems good for now :-)

Wednesday's/This week's PODA

Dishes - washed and last night's put away*(see later note)
Clothes - the washer and dryer were EMPTY. I put a load in...I've also got to add T's to the list!
Swipe toilet - done
Organize kitchen - done (the person who does it now doesn't know how to keep it organized :-S)
Sort magazines - working on it
Read Html book
Make squares/go through bag
Wash bathroom
Bring stuff upstairs - done (and brought stuff down---to sell/get rid of/sort - already sorted!)
Go to SA
Wash T's clothes

Wednesday's/This week's PODA

Taken from one of my flying lists (yes, I'm on 2, I've been more active on the one than the other but I'm getting more active on the other now!):

I didn't set out with a PODA (and right now I'm feeling a little scattered without it, so I think I'll be making it up here shortly!), but I have gotten SEVERAL things done so far:

Mopped the kitchen floor (BOY did it need it!!)
Vacced the carpet
Folded towels (just have to put them away!)
Swept the front porch (just in front of our door, I'm certainly NOT touching any of the stuff they have collected in front of my daughter's bedroom window, on "their" side of the porch!)
Sorted the box of stuff left on my desk (this was a BIG job even though it was a SMALL box. There were a lot of things, some I didn't know before I sat down what I was going to do with them. I had been adding since the last sort of stuff last week, but I managed to find SOME KIND of home for everything! :-D)

I think that's all of it. I'm taking a break now, and then I've got to go around and see what else there is to do around here! :-) Here's what I KNOW needs to be done:

Dishes (including putting last night's away because the person whose job it is, is in Canada right now, LOL!)
Clothes? (I'm trying to remember if there is anything in the washer or dryer)
Swipe toilet

Wow, I can't believe that, despite letting this place go a bit last month, I've caught up enough that I've got nothing more in the ideas department.

More now...I've got several days when I'm the only female around. I find it interesting---it's easy to do stuff when it's just me and the little guy up than when she's here because (a) he wants to be with her and (b) when he is and she's "watching" him I have to pay attention and spread my attention a lot further.

There was nothing in the washer!!!

Anyhow, this list is going to be for the next few days. I've got several things I want to do, including going through a bunch of magazines, some before tomorrow evening (the ones with knitting patterns in them).

Organize kitchen
Sort magazines
Read Html book
Make squares/go through bag
Wash bathroom
Bring stuff upstairs
Go to SA

I think that might be it for now but if not, I'll post again or edit this...:-)