Walking through the jungle... of our back yard.

A while ago, I mentioned that our lawnmower had been stolen.  Since then, we've been on the hunt for a lockable shed to place by the house before even considering purchasing a new mower.  Finally, a suitable shed has been found and purchased.  It's not much, just 4.5x7 ft in all, but of sufficient size for our meager needs.  It only took around 3 hours to put together (Justin did most of the work while I was at work, so I just was there to help put the roof on... and I must say, it wasn't too bad).  The price was a bit steep... $500 once we added in the taxes, etc... and we didn't pay to have it delivered and installed.  :(  Oh well, at least thieves will have to work a little harder to steal our next mower... (here's hoping they won't be interested in trying).

So, with the shed in place (on the uneven ground that we call our yard), we're now awaiting mower buying day.  Our yard, last mowed right before the mower was stolen, has grown into somewhat of a jungle.  The rain, which would have kept us from mowing most of the days since our mower was stolen, has brought about an amazing (and annoying) amount of grass and weed growth.  Right now, I'm thinking that our eventual new mower is going to get a painful initiation into the family.

Once we manage to get the yard back under control, I've seriously got to get some interior work done.  I've got stuff that needs to be sold or sent off to Goodwill soon to make way for Jessie's toddling.  And I'm hoping that making a little more room in the house will help make clean up easier and faster.  Lately, with all the changes in schedules and what not, we've been exhausted and running around without a shred of organization... and the house has suffered.  It's become somewhat of a jungle all it's own.  Dishes and Laundry awaiting my attention, dusting to be done... boxes to be gone through and things to be made ready for the yard sale (still need to set a date) and other items just waiting to be put away or worse, find a place for the first time.

Funny enough, despite all of the stress of late with unexpected expenses (the car's front brakes had to be replaced this week too... completely), I'm still feeling positive.  We've paid off the highest interest debts, so we're not having interest beat down on us while we deal with these current necessities.  Sure we've still got medical bills to pay off, and the car is still being paid on (the next big item I hope to get paid off)... but somehow I'm less stressed about these things. 

Our 4H club has finished meeting until after the summer, so we've one less time commitment for a while, though I kind of wish we were staying more active over the summer, but that's ok.  We've planned some weekend hiking/camping trips with the kids.  I've got all but one of bub's 4H project books now, so we should be able to finally start getting some of them done before the fair.  I've even started working toward my disaster/emergency preparedness goals of setting up some simple food storage for us (goal is to set up 3 months worth of reserves) in order to ensure we're able to eat even if one of us (or both) should lose our job or be injured, etc.  I'm hoping to even set us up with Grab'n'Go bags this summer in case of a fire or any event that would cause us to have to evacuate our home with little warning.  So despite some recent mishaps and minor emergencies, life is still working on shaping up for us.  Now if I can get organized enough to start cooking ahead a little again, I'll be rocking and rolling.  :)  Life my not be easy all the time, but it is good.  Well, to all a blessed day.

Happy Easter! Blessings pour into our lives when we least expect them...

Here in our hilly Ohio Valley area, spring has sprung and April has indeed brought us showers.  Lots and lots of showers, and thunderstorms.  :)  The Ohio and Guyandotte Rivers, that so recently were starting to ebb, are back up, muddy waters churning their way toward the Mississippi, thankfully still within their banks if just.  My beautiful little girl, now a one year old toddler, got to enjoy a little bit of Easter with her grandma Cover, wearing the beautiful blue dress her grandpa Alford picked up for her.  I'm working today, of course, as I've worked most Sundays for the past 5 years, but that's ok.  :)

It's ok, because just over a week ago, we finally got a little break.  Justin, who left an upper management job about three years ago, to take the chance on something better eventually, and to spend more time with his son, finally was given the opportunity to move up the ladder at his current job.  He's been patient, a little irritated from time to time, but overall patient as he slowly tried to work his way up from the bottom.  He'd made a couple moves, and gotten little raises here and there, but this time, he finally got to show his hand at his managerial skills again.  :)  I'm proud of him.  I'm proud that through the frustrations he's stayed and tried to make a name for himself.  I'm proud that he has stuck to his guns and not been afraid to speak up with his ideas for improving things.  And I'm thankful, that he's finally been given a chance to shine a little brighter.  :)  And better still, Justin's schedule will finally for set... no changing from day to day and week to week.  Now, he works the same thing all the time and now I can try to schedule myself for a steady shift as well!  Yay!  Oh how I've missed a steady schedule each week and not having to carry a calendar around constantly just to remind myself of where I'm supposed to be each day.  And maybe, just maybe, we can get Jess to bed on a set schedule again!  It's been months since we could do that.  Here's hoping.

Now good news never seems to come into our lives alone, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that just a couple nights after getting our lawn mower back from my mom and her husband (who had kept it over the winter to work on it for us), and one lawn trimming (first of the season even, and on the same night), our mower was stolen from the porch.  Gotta love thieves.  But things could be worse and I'm still more thankful for Justin's promotion than I am annoyed about the mower.

Anyhow, still working on downsizing some of our possessions, the mower wasn't meant to be among them though.  I'll have to ask for a weekend off soon in order to actually have a yard sale to get rid of stuff (maybe we'll be lucky and make enough to replace the mower).

Well, time for work.  May your day be filled with blessings and a sense of renewal this Easter Sunday.

Back again...

Well, I suppose I'm not the best at this blogging stuff.  :)  It's been quite a while since my last post back in February.  Life hasn't been too hectic though, and I suppose there's not been much to tell.

Anyhow, since my last post and my painful incident of breaking my toe (healed now, but still a little painful from time to time) Justin and I took a wonderfully relaxing trip for two to North Bend State Park.  Absolutely wonderful.  We came in just in time to catch the tale end of their winter special at the lodge which included lodging, dinner and breakfast for two (anything we wanted on the tasty and wonderful menu) all for $99 per night.  Not extremely frugal, but given there were no hotels in the area that we could find, B&B prices where about $100/night and eating out involved a twenty minute drive and offered your basic fast food fair instead of tasty, home cooked meals... well, that being said I think we made out like bandits!  The weather we great, my toe was healed just enough to walk fairly comfortably (good since our main reason for picking North Bend was their Rail Trail access), and the trail was awesome.  Rail trails are a wonderful way to get out in nature even when you're not in the best of shape, since the trails tend to be nice, flat or gently sloped and usually have great access sites so you can park almost beside the trail.  North Bend Rail Trail is a total of 77 miles and runs between Parkersburg, WV and Clarksburg, WV.  It runs through several small towns along the way and has many beautiful bridges and tunnels!  :)  We only put in six miles (from Cairo to tunnel 19 and back), but it was nice and easy going.  We hope to eventually go back and maybe bike the whole trail with friends (faster by far) and maybe to try taking the kids.  Such an as going trail is great for families.

When we got home, we were greeted by an elated little girl who was tickled pink to have mommy and daddy home again.  Not that she didn't love her weekend with grandma, but she's always happy to come home to us.  :)  Best feeling in the world I must say.  But unfortunately our return was followed with sniffling and congestion and suddenly I'm experiencing my baby's first sickness.  As I'm a new mom, part time stepmom (our little man lives with his mom and just gets to visit us) I was a little worried, but I think I stayed pretty calm.  I tried cough syrup and treating her at home first as was recommended since she started out with such mild symptoms, but then had to take her to the doc (and later myself) because it just wasn't working and she was feeling and sounding worse.  My sweet little Jess had caught bronchitus and developed a sinus infection.  :(  A quick shot of steroids, antibiotics and some breathing treatments and she was right as rain again in no time.  Hell, she was up and better far faster than I was.  :)  I'm still sounding all froggy in the voice over two weeks later.

Unfortunately, Jess and I were not well by her birthday (very first!) on the 3rd, so birthday dinner with the family (at least as many as were available to come) was postponed until a few days later.  Thankfully by then, we were feeling much better and we managed to have a wonderful dinner at home followed by cake and general fun.

As far as debt updates, I've managed to payoff the last of my medical bills from Jess's birth.  Yay!  There's still the rest of her NICU bills to pay, and now I've added ER bills for my toe, but I'm feeling pretty good about it still.  My savings was moving up nicely, though I have to dip into that for the unexpected expense of broken glasses.  Somehow bub managed to run face first into a pole at school.  He was happy to let us know that he wasn't the only one either, and that at least he didn't have to go to the hospital for stitches... yeah... I'm glad of that, thankful even... though utterly amazed at the ability of children to run without watching where they're going.  Anyhow, new glasses have been ordered and should make it in before his upcoming testing at school.

Well, time to get ready for dinner and spend some quality time with the family.  Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Ouch!

Well, after carefully arranging to have babysitting for the weekend before Valentine's Day so that Justin and I could sit back, chill and enjoy each others company for a while, I went and tripped on one of my daughter's toys and snapped my pinky toe.  :(  I caught it between two spoke like things on her Garanimals Shape Sorter as I was trying to take my sleeping girl to her crib so I could get some housework done.  Oh the irony of trying to get things cleaned up only to break my toe on something that wasn't.  Anyhow, after putting her down (thank heavens I didn't fall on her or drop her) in her crib, now totally awake, I proceeded to limp/hop into my bedroom and check my toe which hurt like hell.  Given the not so pretty sound I heard when I tripped and the severe pain, I highly suspected it was broken.  The funny lumpiness only added to that assumption, so I called my mom and asked her to drive me to the ER.  I knew there wasn't much they could do for a broken toe, but I was hoping they could at least give me something so I wouldn't have to try and put a shoe on that foot in the cool weather we were still having.

A few hours later I had sent my mom home with my daughter, had my dear Justin pick me up, and I had a couple nice new additions to our home medical care supplies, an ortho-shoe and crutches.  I was so thankful for the shoe.  :)  To add to my misery, the sun decided to come up and remind me just how much I want to be outside and on a trail somewhere, taking in a little nature and soaking up the calm I get when I'm out in the woods and country... calm I could so use of late.  So the last week has been a bit disappointing.  Beautiful, dry, warm weather and me unable to get my hiking shoes on again until today, and I'm starting to regret that decision as my foot has begun to swell a little more and is starting to hurt.  Lol.  One romantic weekend ruined for a broken toe along with any hopes of getting out to some of my favorite local trails with this first real brush of spring.  So here's hoping for a speedy recovery so I can get out on the trail, test my new hiking shoes and hopefully be walking comfortably by the time Justin and I get our next time off together, in about a month it appears.

The toy, by the way, it perfectly fine.  No dents, dings, paint chips or breakage at all... lol, that's what I get for buying a quality toy... lol.

2010 in Review... or what led me to start this blog

Well, we're half way through November, Christmas has been peaking around the aisles of stores since sometime in October, and fall here in West Virginia has been in full swing for quite a while with its gentle reminders that winter isn't far away.  While I've got a moment, finishing my lunch at work and trying to take a moment or two to myself, I'd like to take account of 2010, to give myself a reminder of where I've been and how far I've come as well as give my potential readers a glimpse at what's been happening in my life.

Let's start back a little further, with a month of happy announcements, August 2009.  At that time my partner and I had been trying to get pregnant for a couple months, his son was visiting us from Pennsylvania, and we were just getting ready to make preparations for the long drive back to drop him home with his mom when we were blessed with the news that they would be moving to West Virginia.  Even better, they were hoping to move to our town.  This was WONDERFUL news for us.  When my partner and his ex had split a few years earlier, she had taken a job promotion in Florida.  This made it pretty much impossible, due to financial constraints, to visit his son.  So for a year, until they chose to move north again and settled in Pennsylvania, we had to be content with phone calls and shipping gifts through the mail.  The thought of being able to see him practically whenever we wanted was just... freaking AWESOME.  :)  But good news doesn't mean there won't be stresses... so we soon realized that until they found jobs and a place of they're own they would have to stay with us.  Now, as far as ex's go, we all have a pretty good relationship.  We don't always agree on things, but we all get on well enough and we didn't have much difficulty past the simple notion that we were adding four people, 2 children and 2 adults (one of which was pregnant) to our rather small home.  Mind you, we're not living in a "tiny" house (check out the Tiny House Blog for true tiny houses), but we were still living in roughly a thousand square foot space... a thousand square feet of oddly arranged space at that... old, oddly arranged space.  So our tiny back bedroom/storage room had to be emptied and set up as bedroom for my stepson and his half sister.  The middle bedroom that he had been using had to be emptied out and arranged into a temporary bedroom (which included a mattress on the floor), our dining was already our master bedroom because it is the only room in the house big enough to hold a queen size bed with any walk around space, and all that extra stuff had to either be sold, given away or somehow find a place in the rest of the house.

During this time, some bills had to be put on the back burner to allow for the added utility usage of an extra four people, as well as added grocery bills and the like.  Privacy was an illusion supported by curtains hung in the doorways (we have a whooping two interior doors... one for the back bedroom and one for the bathroom), and quiet... while quiet never exists where more than two people are gathered anyhow, unless they're sleeping and not always then.  We adjusted as best we could, content in the reality that our son would be close to us for the first time in years.  And it wasn't long after our company arrived that we were blessed with the news that we were pregnant!  So our home of two became a home of six with two expecting mothers, two children (nine and two), and two bewildered dads.  Exciting isn't it.  :)  I'm sure somewhere someone is thinking about making that scenario into some kind of reality TV.

Anyhow, our company eventually moved out after a couple of months.  They were able to find a place of their own not far from us, and we get to see our little man (now nine years old) almost every weekend unless we're stuck working.  The rest of 2009 was more quiet.  We watched my belly swell, visited our son's mom and new half sister when she arrived, and started to catch up on the bills that had fallen behind.  By January or February we had caught up on our bills and were finally able to start paying a little extra here and there to help us get out of debt.  Sometime around there I started making a more concerted effort on getting us debt free.  I began keeping an Excel calendar/check register to keep track of expenses and budget ahead.  It's been an invaluable tool for me.  It's allowed me to really see what I have and what I'll need as the month goes by.  I also downloaded an Excel debt calculator that I think I found on Mint, but I'm not positive these days.  The calculator has been a great help as well since it helps me to visualize just when I will be able to get my debts paid off and allows me to change payment amounts so that I can keep a fairly accurate track of extra payments and such.  If you're interested in seeing either of these let me know I will try to make them download-able.  

In April, my daughter decided to make her arrival, 4 weeks early.  We spent a week in the NICU to let her lungs catch up a bit and get her oxygen levels up and her jaundice down, but despite all that we had ourselves a beautiful baby girl.  We both took some time off to enjoy this precious bundle of joy, to get used to having a tiny new person around and to share time with our families.  This was all old news for my partner who had gone through all the ups and downs of pregnancy and having a new baby in the house before, so he was a huge help to me.  He was extremely supportive and still is.  I must say, he is one of the brightest blessings I've had in my life.  

Despite the disruption in my sleep, the changes to our lifestyle and to my own body, and the fun of healing from a cesarean, it was the return to work that was my hardest adjustment for me to motherhood.  I've always preferred to do a good job at whatever I've done, to take my time and do things right, instead of rushing to do more at once and none of it well.  I was already feeling annoyance at not being able to keep my home as neat and clean as I'd like because I was coming home from work so tired, then add in a new baby... and you have someone desperately seeking a balance in they're working life and their home life.  My return to the workforce just six weeks after my daughter's birth had me feeling conflicted over not being able to care for my daughter full time, being distracted at work, and being too tired when I got home to wash all the dishes, or cook.  It's no wonder that my hope to breast feed dried up... I was so tired and stressed out that my body wasn't going to let me try to add milk production to the list. 

But slowly I've adjusted to the need to be a little bit of everything.  I'm not happy about it and I still struggle more on some days than others, but I'm working and providing and doing without rest when I have to so that I can keep working or play with my daughter or get the house cleaned up while the rest of the house is sleeping.  Trying to eat healthy was hard, but essential.  My partner and I had both come up with Cholesterol issues and he had added blood pressure problems.  But all the healthier eating and changes to our lifestyles (increased outdoor activities, cutting budgets to pay off debts and reduce stress) couldn't prepare us for September.  

On the 20th of September I got a text message from my partner.  He was having chest pains and was being taken to the hospital.  Chest pains, numbness and tingling in his limbs, sweating buckets, dizzy... not good.  I called my mom, had her take the baby and I picked up our car from his workplace.  I still made it back to the hospital shortly after he arrived at the ER.  He wasn't even in a room yet.  It was about 6:30 by then... we were placed in a tier two room and we waited, and waited, and waited.  He didn't want me to call anyone and worry them, but I at least Facebooked that we were at the ER and ask for prayers from our friends and family, I was too worried myself not too.  About 2am we finally got the confirmation that he had indeed had a heart attack or acute mitochondrial infarction... his blood work had confirmed what the EKG had been too late to see.  By 5am we were admitted and in a room, around 7am we had a little breakfast and I started making phone calls, by 9am they were taking him back for a cath and shortly after I was told he had three major blockages over 90% and another over 70%.  They would put stints in the three worst arteries and we would wait on the last.  I was too shocked to ask why.  By 11am he was recovering in the ICU and I was catching family up on what was happening and where we were.  It was surreal.  He's 31 folks, he just turned 31 in August... we had just had a baby in April... we were eating better and exercising more... and THIS was not supposed to be happening.  We were in shock.  He had a family history of heart disease but we never imagined that it would manifest so young.  In all honesty we were really quite lucky, despite three major blockages, his attack had caused no muscular damage to the heart.  With the stints, blood thinners and a continued push to eat healthier and be more active he should be fine.

The heart attack had taken him out of work for month, but thankfully our hard work at cutting our expenses and paying off our debts had paid off and gave us some wiggle room.  The kindness of friends and family helped even more.  It's been an eventful and somewhat trying year.  Things have changed and will continue to change, with and without our help I'm sure... and I'm hoping that we can guide our changes in the directions we'd like them to go, that we will continue to move forward with our debt reduction and hopes to get into a newer home that we can own out right (it won't be anything crazy, but it will be sufficient and the desire to own it out right instead of owning a mortgage is so strong for me it's pretty much become essential), and that eventually we can continue simplifying our lives and home and making it a greener and more peaceful place for us all.