Water, Water Everywhere...

I drink TONS of water and the annoying part is that most of it is at night. It's almost become like a diet supplement to keep me from eating at night (one of my worst habits). That's really hard for me not to do because of insomnia and the fact that it's possible to sit down and eat without catering to DD the whole time. I miss having peaceful meals. LOL I wish there was some other way for me to not eat really late because the bathroom visits every half hour get really old really fast. On the upside, I'm well hydrated!

Building Business

The lady that I work with is trying to get more people to her site as is one of her friends with her own. They both are looking into submitting to free web directories to see how that goes. I'm not really sure how those things work since everyone seems to google stuff all the time now and that's about it but I think it's worth a shot. I'm definitely not the most up to date or web savvy so I have no idea at all of what people do online anymore. I follow the same boring routine as with anything else I do so as old as it may be it's always new to me. LOL!

Cold Sore(?)

As we know, when it comes to me trying to figure things out health wise I'm really not good at it at all. DH keeps getting what looks like pimples but they really could be cold sores and I can't tell for the life of me. No matter what I've read the whole thing throws me off when I see herpes simplex because that term just turns me off right away even thought it's not THAT. LOL! I guess it's the 10 year old in me that giggles at "dirty" words or something. I don't know what it is but it doesn't SEEM like it because they don't actually hurt but who knows. I'm glad I never said I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up. LOL

My Daughter, the Artist

When it comes to Christmas presents I always end up stumped...well, when it comes to gifts in general I'm totally lost. LOL! Anyway, it was especially hard when it came to my grandma who has dementia. Normally I'd get her clothes or something that she can use but this last year I decided to do something different. Since DD's getting to a "crafting" age I thought it would be fun for both of them if she painted a canvas for her. It turned out wonderful. DD had a great time painting it and my grandma loved it with the printed picture of her painting to go with it. Now she wants to paint all the time, which is good because she did such a great job that I thought we could hang some in our room so not only can I finally decorate the walls but she can be proud of what she did. It went over so well my mom wants her to do one for the entry way of the house. Who knows, she may actually sell some one day, how awesome would that be?!

Classic Movies

DD is totally into The Wizard of Oz right now and it's funny because it's so old and a different area than from where we live so she has no idea what a tornado is yet. She sees the exterior shutters and things flying off and keeps asking what's happening each time she watches it. And lucky for me I now get to relive that part of my life over again too with the songs stuck in my head constantly. LOL! Oh well, it could be worse, she could be like a bunch of other kids who are glued to Nickelodeon all day. That would not be good at all...for either of us.

What is It?!

As I've gotten older my skin's really been changing and I end up with occasional rashes and I have no idea what triggers them. They end up going away within a few hours but it's really hard not to bother it when it flares up. I was trying to diagnose myself by looking at eczema pictures and stuff to see if it's similar but I have no idea. I've never dealt with this until quite recently and I can't see a dermatologist so I'm pretty stuck. I guess it would be good to have some cortisone lotion on hand until I can figure out what it is and what sets it off for those weird spurts.

OHNO!

I love the Olympics...especially when there's hot guys competing. I mean, Michael Phelps is fantastic but he's sure not my type. LOL! On the other hand there's Apollo Ohno. Man is he cute! I dated someone that looked like him but of course he was a total jerk and that didn't last more than a minute. It's nice to see that he knows he's good but is humble about the whole thing and not all, well you know. I'm so glad he got his seven medals too! That's an awesome achievement. I'll be sad once this is over and I know he won't be competing for me to see but hopefully he keeps going and comes back for one more round before quitting.

Super Babies

I always thought that it was a mandatory thing to take pregnancy vitamins because that's just what you're supposed to do. I never even thought that people could have adverse reactions to them either. I worked with this one girl that had that happen to her and with all her kids she went without them. The funny part is that they all ended up walking and talking earlier than most kids. I'm not sure if it's something in her or her husband's genes or something with the vitamins but they really produce super kids. One of them was walking and talking by 9 months! That's totally incredible to me. I couldn't even imagine that. LOL!

Career Paths

A few years ago I entertained the idea of going into the health care field some where since that's one area that won't ever have a shortage. The drawback was finding something online that provided courses. I had a friend who was going to night school and she was pretty bummed when she found out that she could have gotten an online nursing degree. That would have made things a whole lot easier for her since she had to work and had a young child at the time. I started thinking about going through an online university since I realized that some of them are a lot more affordable than I thought. Western Governors University for example is a non-profit so they aren't as expensive as some others. I always worried that even with financial aid I'd end up stuck once I graduated. I'll really have to think things through but I don't think it's a half bad idea to plan for later.

Redecorating!

I'm super stoked that I finally get to redo my room. I've been wanting a change for a while and have been trying to figure out what I want forever. It's finally all coming together and I can't wait to get started. I'm going out for paint this week and hopefully can have that done by the end of the week, hopefully. Since I share the room with dd it's going to be kind of tough so it will all have to be in one shot rather than wall by wall. Once that's done that will totally change the whole feel though. I have so many plans and can't wait to see how it's going to turn out!

Ouch!

My face has broken out SO badly lately! I don't know if it's because of a hormone change and stress or what but man, it is SO painful. I've been reading though some skin care product reviews but I can't decide where to go from here. I swear nothing works since it's gotta be hormonal. I really would love to go to a dermatologist but since we don't have insurance that's not going to happen soon. If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them!

Baby Books

I think this is probably the one thing in which I feel extra guilty. I never put together books for either of the kids. I'm really not one of those moms that ever got into scrap booking or anything like that where they have everything all cute and each page is special. I mean, I never even did birth announcements for them, how bad is that?! When ever I think about this kind of stuff I get all guilty and feel like one of the worst moms in the world. I really hope I'm not the only one that failed in this area.

Just the Classics

DD has found her way into the old boxes of videos and is loving The Wizard of Oz along with a couple others. It's funny how much she likes some of these when all you hear is how kids are stuck on anything and everything high-tech now. I guess some things just don't get old. The funniest part about the whole thing is that she totally doesn't understand what having to rewind the videos means yet. We will tell her that if she wants to watch one she has to wait a while and she'll keep asking why it's not coming on yet. It's pretty funny how at such a young age she is already like this. The next thing she'll probably end up on is why the quality is SO poor. LOL! At least I now which movies I need to replace on DVD will come first.

The Victory Garden

Vegetable gardening has been making a come back over the last few years and for the last few I haven't kept up with mine very well. From a young age I've had a love of anything hands on and gardening was something that I can still remember doing as a tiny tot. The smell of home grown tomatoes is probably one of the most comforting things there is for me. I had already vowed that I would start getting back on top of it this year and now more than ever after seeing how wrong the things we eat can be. I never use pesticides but I never did master organic gardening and that's something I really want to do this time. Our dirt in the yard is mostly clay and really crummy though so I have to amend it every season which I'm not very good with keeping up on. This year I know I'm getting into composters to save myself some money all the way around. The design of the recent ones has been really great and not nearly as gross as what it used to be so it makes the idea much more appealing. I'm so glad I can pass on some memories to my kids as my grandpa did to me.

Safe Decorating

So a couple of nights ago in the wee hours of the morning there was a small earthquake. I haven't felt any in forever so it was kind of my wake up call. I know we don't have the emergency kits that we should and some of the furnishings in our room can be dangerous. We have the TV up on top of this high dresser and although it's solid, the TV is extremely heavy and can easily fall over. There is some clearance room but if something were to happen I'm not sure how far the shrapnel would go. The plan was to get rid of this one and get a new lighter TV but of course because it's money that didn't work out as planned. I also wanted to get one of those low style entertainment centers to put it on so I don't have to worry about it falling too far down. Now that DD's older I don't really have to worry about her hitting herself on it or breaking the TV, it would just be the DVDs and that can be avoided semi easily.

Refund!

I'm SO excited! I'm getting a better tax refund this year than last and I know just what I'm going to do with it. I'll finally be able to get one of my business ideas off the ground and I totally can't wait. Pretty much from the moment I started working I realized that I don't want to be working for someone else. It very well could be that just about every employer has been a crappy one but all the same, I'd much rather work for me. I know I can do it but my fall back is discipline. I have THE hardest time staying on task at home and I often find myself irritated with myself. For example, I can only guess when I'm actually going to file the taxes to get the refund even though I'm already planning what to do with it. Oh well, better to be prepared before it gets here rather than fluff it all away right?

Comparing Coverage

When it comes to health insurance I'm always perplexed. I don't understand a lot of what the plans are or do and I'm sure the companies love it that way. I've started looking into health savings account stuff and what that all means but since I'm confused about the insurance to being with I'm not sure how they are combined. I know we could probably benefit from using one of these if we ever can afford insurance. It would be really nice to know that some of our expenses could be covered...although, knowing my luck the things that aren't covered would be the things that happen to us. LOL!

Hello?

I guess I'm kind of old fashioned when it comes to all of the technology in cell phones now. I just want a phone that lets me call people really. LOL It seems that almost every month there's a new phone coming out with some sort of gimmick as if a camera, music player and gps wasn't enough. If you think about it it's pretty crazy how much people spend to text and use all of these features. That's one thing we can't afford and it was kind of sad for DS when we got phone with music players in them and he could barely do anything with it. As it is we can't afford for him to be one of those kids doing the freakish amount of texting. I think some of the things that are built in are handy, like the gps, but I'd rather spend our money on something more purposeful than unlimited plans.

My "New" Diet

I haven't spent money on anything "frivolous" in a while and each time I do I end up feeling rather guilty. This time I'm feeling really great about my last buy because it's something that I feel strongly about.

I had ordered the "Food Inc." DVD from Amazon after seeing Oprah's show. I'm sure (and hope) thousands of people did too. I had wanted to see that film and others like "Fast Food Nation" but always forget about them because other things come up. I was excited to buy this one because it came with a download copy so I could watch it right away. Boy did my life change after seeing it! The next day I went to the store and picked up food that was sustainable, organic and locally grown. I can't even begin to tell you how much better I felt about my decisions. This film isn't just about animal cruelty or healthy eating, it's about the entire food system and the companies behind it. It's frightening to know what's going on with the scary things that we have come to know as edible. It' truly isn't food. My next feat is to read through all of Michael Pollan's books.

If each of us can make a change in what we buy we can demand that the industry make the changes that we want to the system. The #1 question I had after watching everything was how can we afford to make this change now? That was quickly put to rest after seeing the film. There is no doubt in my mind that no matter how poor we are I will find a way to make sure at least 80-90% of what we eat is a better choice. Not to mention I physically feel a whole lot better after eating now!

Back it Up

I've finally remembered to back up my computer! I know it doesn't sound like a lot but for me it's a huge accomplishment. LOL I'm lucky in that I really don't have a whole lot to store outside of pictures. I thought about getting one of those external hard drives but I'm not sure I really need one although it would save me some trouble in case I misplaced my storage disk or what ever I'm using. I love the convenience of flash drives but I always forget where I put them and I'm not one for those ones that come on a key chain. Some how I think it's kind of weird to be hanging all your info from something.