Things Are Looking Up, People!

I've been feeling a little better the last couple days. On Tuesday I locked my keys in my car 20 minutes before I needed to leave to pick the girls up from school. Things are looking up, people, I didn't cry!  Luckily I left one of the sliding glass doors unlocked so I wasn't locked out of the house too. Once I got inside I knew that actually finding the spare key would take some sort of miracle because in spite of constant work on my house since we arrived in July, there are still a few boxes that aren't unpacked. Like the box that was my junk drawer and housed my spare key. I know it's in the garage somewhere, but if you saw my garage loaded with boxes (man, I miss basements) and could experience the stifling temperature, you would understand that I didn't have a chance. On a side not, ya know the smell of wet cardboard? Like when you've got a box you leave outside in the trash pile and it rains. That's what my garage smells like. All the boxes combined with 99%humidity makes the smell almost unbearable. Anyway, what could have been a major disaster, turned out just fine. Fortunately I got a couple of the mom's phone numbers earlier this year and one of them was able to pick me up to go get the kids.

It may have already occurred to you that not only were my keys locked in the car but so were the car seats. Awesome. I am a car seat Nazi. Last year my parents decided to take my kids on a joy ride of sorts without car seats and I lost it. Lost it. I am typically extremely even-keeled (or should we call that passive, hmm???). I've never been more upset with my parents and I let them have it. In an assertive way, but let 'em have it none the less. Fast forward 6 months and the girls are buckled up in the back seat sans car seats of some woman's car I've only just met. Sweet. All ends well with this story though, made it home just fine. And somehow, I was able to keep my cool in what only three days earlier would have brought me to the fetal position in a fit of tears. Like I said, things are looking up, people!

Orlando and Other Things

It's been a long time. Again. I'm noticing a pattern here. It seems that when my mind goes idle I seek some sort of outlet and pop up in blog land. I could spend days updating whomever it is that actually reads this (I literally don't think anyone does) but I think the short and sweet will have to do for now. I'm still a mom of twins and I'm still living in a suburban circus, but the zip code of said suburb has changed. I moved from Colorado to Florida in mid-July and until just a week ago everything was fine. But now I'm homesick. Like really, really homesick. I miss my friends, I miss my family, I miss the familiarity of home and I am so over being hot. OVER. IT. Humidity sucks and heat plus humidity is even worse. I've been brought to tears by the smallest things lately and can't seem to kick it.

It started a week ago today at the DMV and things have been downhill since. All I can say is that I called ahead to make sure I had everything I needed to get a FL drivers license and plates. I left there after three hours, crying and not having completed the mission. So terribly frustrating. I haven't been able to put myself through it again so I will drive on with those expired tags.

Husband has been out of town and/or working late a lot which is hard even when you are surrounded by a support system but painful when in a new city. I'm feeling disconnected from him too which seems to be compounding the desire to go home.

Then there's just the little day to day stuff that goes wrong. It goes wrong everyday, but when you're already feeling down it seems worse. Today for example I forgot to bring the girls' immunization records when I dropped them off at school which were due absolutely no later than last Thursday. It's Monday. But I didn't remember until I'd already driven to Target so it took me an extra 30 minutes in the car to get home and back to school so the girls didn't get the boot.

Here's another one, also today, my husband washed the blender last night, like actually took the whole thing apart and cleaned it. Great, right? Nope, not great. Had he put the circle rubber thingy back in before screwing the bottom on it would have been fine. Instead he left it out and the near full bottle of OJ I poured into the blender flooded onto the counters, cabinets and floors I finished cleaning 6 minutes earlier. I later found the rubber thingy in the garbage disposal which tops my list of good places to store little blender rubber thingies. Once I found it and was ready to move forward with my smoothie making venture, I was beaten down yet again when I realized the base was screwed on so tight I couldn't get the thing open anyway. Yup, that made me cry. What makes this story even funnier (funny now, NOT FUNNY in the moment, actually funny is the wrong word altogether because this still isn't funny) is that my husband has been bugging me about proper blender cleaning lately. He read in some reputable source, ya know, Maxim or something, that poor blender hygiene is a leading cause of ecoli growth putting we blender users at risk. Let me just tell you, I've been using a blender for a long time and typically I rinse it and put it away. No soap. No dismantling of parts. And. No. Ecoli. Naturally, I've politely resisted his suggestions for more laborious blender cleaning routines, but the discovery of his A+ efforts with the blender today prompted a not terribly nasty, but not terribly nice email either, clearly defending my less labor intense ways with the blender. To which he responded so sincerely apologetic that I felt bad again. And, yup, that made me cry too.

The final thing today that really only peeved me for the first hour, I guess I've gotten used to it now, is that the control panel for the pool we just spent an unexpected $7000 to repair...gotta love homeowners that lie about disclosures when selling a home...has been beeping nonstop for the last four hours. It's not like an alarm: beep, quiet, beep, quiet, beep, quiet, but rather a you've inadvertently held down a key on your keyboard and it starts beeping nonstop, just beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep, kind of beep. I've called the pool guys, googled it and have come up with absolutely nothing other than the fact that the error it's displaying means my hot tub is at risk for freezing temperatures. Given that I'm in FL and FL has proven to be hot as shit, I suspect that isn't the actual problem. I'm holed up in my room so it's barely audible now. Things are looking up, folks, things are looking up. Let's just hope tomorrow goes better, because crying daily, let alone multiple times per day is completely out of character for me and getting old. These tears have gotta stop!

2013: The Year of the Budget

At the risk of sounding shallow and, well, completely irresponsible, I'm coming out with it: Over the last few days I put together the first budget for our family ever.  This is a little pathetic as my husband and I have been married for four and a half years and our kids are almost four (no they're not bastards...I just got pregnant practically the day after we got married and they were born REALLY early) and we're just now getting this done. As I mentioned in my last blog, my husband is still with the same company, just accepted a new position. It was our hope that in spite of the pay cut his overall hours and stress would drop significantly. In reality, he gets paid half the money, works more and is more stressed. AWESOME!!!! That being said, it is what it is, and after multiple transfers from savings to checking last year it occurred to me we most definitely are spending more than is coming in. DUH!!!! Enter the budget.

I actually had a blast putting it together. Don't get me wrong, the end result ain't pretty, but I feel so much better knowing exactly what is coming in each month and exactly what is going out. I made this pretty little spread sheet in Excel and am now obsessed. We actually do a good job with the frivolous spending, but realized that there are a couple of areas that we can improve on. For one, Starbucks.

Let me just preface this by saying since having kids, Starbucks is my drug of choice. It's my crack. I go every single day (sometimes twice). "Hello, my name is Ann, and I'm addicted to chai." However, when you're spending nearly $300/month there, it's time for an intervention. I have to add that the $300 isn't just me, my husband goes every day too. And after hot chocolates here and there for the girls and breakfast for the four of us at least one day over the weekend, it adds up! So the REALISTIC (really important) goal is that I will only go once a day and I will no longer order food. Let's be honest, there's no way, unless of course I donated my kids to Salvation Army, that I could (translation: would want to) cut it out completely. This is doable. The other big ticket items are tuition and childcare while I'm in school.

Childcare alone is almost $2000/month. Ouch! It makes it hurt even more that I work for free. I'm currently a lowly intern with a monthly income of ZERO dollars. Double ouch! Anyway, as of now we pay for my tuition out of pocket but we're looking into the option of taking out a loan which if I'm not mistaken, is interest free until I graduate (or six months after). The goal would be to chip away a little bit while I'm still in school, even more over summers as I won't incur the same childcare costs, and pay off the balance quickly after graduation. We shall see, still need to look into it.

Another doozie is Comcast which seems to go up every few months. Time to give them a call and let them know I'm jumping ship unless...

The budget is definitely an eye opener. It feels so good to be on top of it though. And, if you haven't done yours yet (which I'm sure you all have as you're likely far less shallow and far more responsible than I) GET TO IT!!!! 

That Time of Year Again

It's that time of year again. I've been on winter break for six weeks now and the mind is idle. I'm bored. Which brings me back to my blog. I was just reading through old posts and really would like to keep up with this. Not expecting a miracle or anything, let's be real, I haven't written in a year, but, I would like to be a bit more present. That being said, there isn't a ton of time for catch up, but perhaps I should cover a few things that happened in the last 360 or so odd days since writing last.

Still in school and it's going well. I actually love it. I'm still struggling with the balance, but I'm close...closer than I've ever been and that feels good. Given that my winter breaks are so long my mind has a lot of time to wander though. I've been running many possibilities through my head and there are some things I need to take a look at. For one, school is frickin' expensive! In addition to tuition, day care expenses are nearly $2000/month. Plus there's books, parking, and the stupid toll road every time I go to campus (this actually is a life saver, not stupid at all, just costly). I need to figure out how we're going to keep swinging this for another two years. You would think I looked at this before starting, I guess I was a bit idealistic at the time!

I'm also feeling torn because I strive for balance between home life and school, but this snail's pace, part-time thing is killing me. During the academic year, all is well, but come winter break (two months) and summer vacation (over three) I can't help but feeling like it is a colossal waste of my time. I could knock out at least two classes during that five months. Sadly, my program doesn't offer any classes outside of the regular fall/spring semesters. I'm exploring taking classes online elsewhere and transferring them in so that I would be able to attend full time next year (minus the classes I transfer in) and knock it out in a year. Then I'd only get charged the onesie-twosie things one more time too. So annoying that I pay for collegiate athletics and construction fees over and over and over again. It adds up.

Could be an option to put off school next year and wait till the following year when the girls start kindergarten so that I could potentially pull off the full-time schedule without transferring any credit. Still don't know that that's plausible even with the girls in school...who knows?!!?!?!?

I've even been fantasizing about getting my real estate license reinstated. Sadly it's been expired for over three years now so I'd have to retake the exam. I've taken the classes and passed with no problem but that was five years ago. And, the woman at the Colorado Real Estate Commission kindly reminded me that those who attempt the exam without having taken the class recently only have a 20% pass rate. Odds aren't on my side.

Ultimately, I'll just keep plugging along, but holy hell, this is going to take me forever. I guess I'll just have to plan some fun things to do this summer to keep my mind off the fact that I have NOTHING going on.

In addition to school, the rest of my life is good. Here is a family photo taken in July. I know that's an eternity ago, but it's the most recent pic. with all of us so here you go: Ummm, okay, clearly been a while since blogging as I no longer know how to post pictures. Will add some next go 'round!

What else??? Will accepted a new job (within the same company) a little over a year ago and although the pay is MUCH less, he travels every other week and there is more stress...sounds like an awesome career move, right...we're now settled into the new routine. In a later post I'll talk more about the pay. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I just did our first budget over the last couple of days. What an eye opener! Let's just say there's some room for improvement...we're talking $300/month at Starbucks (cringe)!

Girls are good too. Almost four (in March). Much more to update on them, but again, that will have to come in a later post.

Well, that's all for now. It's great to be back and here's to a wonderful 2013!