Feeling the stress

Over the last few days, the stress of our current situation has really been creeping up on me. I think hotel living is hard enough, let alone when you add two children, 3 dogs and a cat to feed every day, driving all the way across town 2 and 3 times a day, etc. Here is how our last week has been.

The first part of the week was really not bad. I felt like I was getting a routine down and things were working. However, living with transition in my home and my job is still very hard, even when things are great. By Friday, I desperately needed to get out of the hotel and get away from my children! Because Henry goes to work with me, I usually have zero time by myself. Most of the time this is fine, but sometimes it gets to me and this was one of those days. I had some drama/stress to deal with at work, which made my pray this transition is over with as soon as possible (but the work transition is on hold until the house is finished!). My mother in law agreed to have KK and Henry spend the night, so we headed out to Bourbon Street for dinner, where we ran into a friend and neighbor and had dinner with them. After dinner, we met up with Rachel and Kathleen at a sports/karaoke venue (which is really not our type of place!), but we had a blast although we were all hoarse from yelling over the music all night.

Saturday morning Ben went to work and I picked up the kids and headed to Claremore for a play date with my long time friends Lindsay and Daniele and their kids. We each have two children, a boy and girl for each of us. KK is a full year older than their oldests but all our our second babies were born within a 2 month time span. The babies played by themselves, but interacted with each other a bit. The older kids played together and had fun and us mommies caught up. After that I went to my mom's to see my sister off to her first dance. Then we headed back to Tulsa and KK went to spend the night with her cousin Will.

Sunday, Ben, Henry and I headed to Home Depot to buy paint for KK's room. My poor daughter's bedroom was still the blue cars and trucks design that they boy who lived there before us had. As we were mixing her paint, we found an "OOps" can that was the exact color I wanted for our bedroom so we picked that up also. We had to apply two coats of Kilz to the bottom half of KK's room because it was bright, primary blue! My mother in law ended up watching all four grandbabies so my favorite sister in law could come help me paint. (Katie is my push behind getting KKs room done and even offered to do the whole thing herself!) We painted for almost 8 hours before both rooms were done! While we did this, Ben layed down the missing quarter round and did some little things that needed to be done.

So needless to say, we are all exhausted today. KK spent most of the weekend away from home, and playing and she was worn out. Henry missed a nap each day, which makes him miserable. We all had to get up and over to the house early this morning. Ben had to meet with the hardwood floor people and I wanted to be there when KK saw her room for the first time. Then the kids and I ran some errands and are back at the hotel. I think the kids and I have a touch of the stomach flu and we are exhausted, so we are trying to rest, or at least not leave the hotel today! Tomorrow starts the week (thankfully a short one), so there is always the typical "getting ready for the week stuff" to do. This was supposed to be the week we were moving home and moving my office home, but unfortunately due to some problems with the floors, it will probably be next week, which puts a wrench in my office and work schedule. I am trying not to stress about that today!

Thanks for reading, now I am off to try to take a nap while Henry is down.

I cannot think of a good title for this post!

First I want to say congratulations to my friend Jenny on the birth of her new baby boy, Hudson Gray. I can't wait to see pictures.

Moving on. We are almost one week into our (possibly) two week hotel stay. It really has not been bad at all. I am saving money by have breakfast provided every morning, as well as using the hotel shampoo, condition, and lotion they have provided (its actually nice and smells good!). Ben and I worked out a deal where I go over and feed the dogs in the morning and does the afternoon. The problem with this is that I have to carry Henry with me through the gate into the backyard and hold him while I feed three hungry and attention starved dogs. Since I am still having some major issues with my wrist from my surgery this summer, holding Henry for more than 5 minutes is not a walk in the park. Other than this small issue, hotel living is not bad at all!

Since we are so close to Super Target, I am taking advantage of it! I went today and found a couple of 75% off clearance racks in the kids section. I ended up getting sweatpants and a sweatshirt for both kids for $0.98 each, a coat for next year ($5), leggings ($2), sweater ($3), and a dress ($4) all for KK. I was very very happy. I am planning on going back later in the week to see if the 50% of racks have gone to 75%.

I have been considering some goals for the year, but I haven't seemed to have any time to really sit down and think about them and figure out exactly what I want and how to get it. I have decided on one goal for sure: Have an emergency savings account with $1000 by the end of the year. I even have a plan to do it.

Here are some of the other goals I am wanting to work towards, but want to have a plan to achieve them and not just say I want to:

• Lose weight/tone up
• Declutter
• Generally live well (be more active, use less, eat better, make more time for myself...

I will be working on a better plan to actually do all of these and make them a regular part of my life. I hope to have another goal with a definite plan soon!

Great Deal Day

I did some pretty great couponing today. I made two trips to Walgreens and may make another one later on today!
Trip #1 (Bigger trip)
Total for all of this was $9.89 (this includes a $1.39 bottle of water I drank before I got home!)
Trip #2
Total for all of this one was $2.32!
I got half of my coupons from the paper on Sunday and half from the internet. On every item but two, I used both Walgreen's Coupons and Manufacturer's coupons. I am not savy enough (yet) to tell you my before and after coupon subtotals, but I am working up to that. I was pretty impressed with my trips and still have some coupons left (Progresso) so I may go back and do it again. Also, I missed out on the Electrosal, but I am going to check again and see if any of the stores have them left.

*Anyone who uses blogger, whenever I upload pictures, it always puts them at the top, I can't ever make them go exactly where I want to go. Any help?

An update on our life:
We are officially living in an extended stay hotel. They started packing yesterday and are finishing today. Tomorrow they will start work on the floors. We will probably be in the hotel a total of two weeks. Its a nice hotel, two bedrooms, two baths. Everyone who works here is very nice and they have a breakfast buffet every morning as well as hor dourves and drinks in the evenings. KK thinks it is the coolest place. She has called her Grammie on the phone in her room, got breakfast with my this morning, and bounced of the walls! I am sure the novelty will all wear off, but I am definitly thankful for a nice, safe place to stay and for good insurance! I am hoping that I will get some much neede relaxation while we are here, along with getting all of my coupons cut and organized and cleaning out my binder. I am also hoping that this will give me some insight and motviation to help me declutter by realizing that we can live without nearly all of the stuff we have in our house. For now, I need to run and get ready to pick KK up from school.

Tired

We are home from school/work another day due to the icy roads. Yesterday I was glad to be home as I needed the extra day to get stuff done. But by the end of the day, KK was driving me crazy. Bless her heart. We had spent alot of time together over the last week and 4 year olds are emotionalyl exhausting, as opposed to physically exhausting like younger kids. She ended up staying the night with her grammie, and it was a nice break for the two of us.

I stayed up later than normal last night because I knew we had no school and I could sleep in a bit. I also wanted to finish my book, "Second Chance" by Jodi Picoult. I finished it close to one and right as I got in bed, Henry woke up. He ended up spending more of the night crying than anything, so I am exhausted today. He is also a bit feverish and still recovering from his cold. Before KK came home this morning, I remembered an appointment that I could not miss. So as soon as she was home we bundled up to go to this appointment. I am glad I went, but its way too cold to be outside.

Now we are home. Henry is napping and hopefully will wake up feeling better. KK is watching tv and I am contemplating my next move. Shower? Nap? Lunch? Clean? Probably shower, since I did not get to this morning. One of my goals for today is to get pics of the fire damage posted here and on myspace and facebook. Hopefully I will get that done today.

Just a quick note

To the few who read my blog, I have tons to blog about but am recovering from the fire at the house, being very sick with a cold, two sick kids, and a husband out for a funeral. I do have every intention of blogging and posting pictures. Right now I am going to tackle laundry, another load of dishes and make sure everything is ready for school/work tomorrow. Hopefully I can get a little post done later on tonight.

Fluttering

I have been "Fluttering" for about 4 years. For those of you unfamiliar with Flylady www.flylady.com, fluttering is where you do just bits and pieces of her program but never fully commit. About two months ago, I got serious about starting again. One of the things she does is a new habit every month. November's habit is menu planning. This week I did my first menu plan. It has been so nice to know what I am going to fix for dinner. When Cadence was Henry's age, I cooked every night and tried out new recipes. For the last year or so, I have just been cooking the same things over and over and lots of stuff from a box. I forgot how great I feel about myself as a mother and wife when I cook! Last night I made Mexican shells and we had none left over. Tonight I made Jambalaya pasta. Cadence has started to become a picky eater, especially here recently. The last two nights in a row, she cleaned her whole plate and told me I was the best cook ever. This is high praise from her!

With the onset of menu planning, I decided to also start planning outfits for the kids for the whole week. I was doing it the night before, but the last 2 Sundays I decided to lay out everything for each day based on the forecast. This has also been incredible! Henry still spits up so he has to wear a bib every day on top of everything else. This has made my life so much easier! And I love anything that does that. I am really trying to get back on all of Flylady's programs. They have always made such a difference in my life. Go check out her website!

Weekend

This weekend, Ben and I were supposed to go to OKC for a "Stock the Bar Party" for Holly & Austin. We had babysitters, hotel, everything.... except enough money to do it! So we had to cancel and are now staying home this weekend. Ben is going to the Hockey game tonight with his dad and some friends and my lovely mil still wanted the kids so I am planning on hanging out with Rachel, one of my closest friends that I don't see enough! However, this morning it appears that both of the kids and possibly Ben and I have a touch of the stomach bug. Hopefully this will go away as the day goes on.

This week, I have really been struggling with some issues at work. Henry goes to work with me and he is just getting to the point where it is just not working anymore. He is mobile and there is no way to child proof an office enough. He is not napping as well, and gets tired of being in his play pen. I won't get into specific issues, but there is the possibility of some changes being made at my work and if they are, I will get to fulfill my dream of working from home doing what I love and not putting Henry in child care. Friday I got the opportunity to work from home. I just had a few things that "had" to be done and really needed a day at home. Henry slept for 2.5 hours for his first nap! At work, I am lucky if he sleeps for 45 minutes. I got everything I had to do done by 11. It really made me see that I can work from home and how great it will work for us. Now, I am just praying that all of the pieces fall into place that need to in order for me to transition to home. Hopefully by January they will.