Another day, another dollar

OK not really...but I AM making more money with my businesses and I feel big things coming!! I'm really excited by it all! At the same time I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed with life right now...but that is pretty much a given with me. I hate the feeling of overwhelm and just tonight I'm starting to feel like its smothering me again...but this isn't an uncommon feeling. I am just thankful that its not super regular. For the most part I just keep on keepin on at life and I truly look forward to each new day to get more things accomplished and feel like I'm living my life to its fullest.

 And seeing these faces daily helps a lot:

My kiddos & husband, remembering our sweet baby Baelin on his birth/death day this month.

The thing about me is that I truly do believe that everything will work out eventually, somehow. Truly. I'm not even playing that up. I'm not a Pollyanna, mind you...but I just tend towards optimism. I'm happy that way.

I do wish that I could figure out how to juggle all the things in my life better though...This feeling of having far too many things to do and not able to do any of them well is tiring. But, it will all work out. And I don't doubt I'll eventually figure it all out...hopefully before my kids are grown!!

so much in my brain

as always, my brain is going a million gazillion miles a minute. i'm actually feeling really happy lately about not being on the go constantly. its a nice change. i really enjoy being able to know that i don't have tons of things to work on. still things to do, but not like crazy planning stuff like the discovery center event and maeven's birthday.

and yet my brain still goes into overdrive on ideas to work on. i do have to kick it up a notch for the learning village. i am going to do a solar system class that i'm really excited about. get to bring in a bunch of the neat activities and such that i used to use at SCICON and at discovery center summer camp all those years ago.

i'm in dire need of something to really get the learning village off the ground. that's my project right now. i need to put my energy into making it something that people will be lining up to join. so many ideas that i just have to put into action.

and also need to work on TDC stuff. we are planning a spring event, with an egg hunt. want to work on it now so that we can really make it awesome.

and tonight i was playing a game on shockwave, which was all about summer camp...got me to thinking about how fun camp was when i used to work at them. well not all fun, it was a lot of work and stress too. but i really want my kids to be able to go to camp someday. we just cannot even possibly afford it right now. but maybe if i am able to figure out something to organize, i might be able to make it happen for my kids.

anyway, its just funny how i always have all these things going on in my brain. and still always trying to think of ways to make money. always. someday i'm going to think of something that will more than supplement our income. someday i'll figure out a way to make enough money for us and still help others out by hiring moms to help them stay home with their kids too. someday. i think its just a matter of thinking of the right idea. someday.

nearly there

in just a few days i'll be done with the madness of the past month. first TDC's event, then halloween, then maeven's birthday then her party...october/november are really crazy around here and i'm feelin it. will be glad to be done with it for another year so i can breathe and start gearing up for xmas. (ack, its not much longer til that crazy season, bleh).

anyhoo. i am determined to get this house shipshape. went to several stores yesterday just to buy the supplies needed. got tons of cleaning supplies (we were out of so many), and am attacking with vigor tomorrow.

still much to do on the party front but i'm trying to narrow it down to the easiest and cheapest ideas. it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be wow, just fun. i have to keep telling myself that. and i'm getting maeven as involved as i possibly can. she's really a great help these days, and finds party planning almost as fun as i do.

going to have to figure out what to do with our large cardboard boxes we have collected...maeven wants a tea house with a roof, but i suspect that might be too much to do by sunday. well, its not a really difficult thing to make, but my biggest question is what are we going to use to paint it? i need to price paint and if i can find something affordable, we'll see...but we will need pretty much every color of the rainbow and then some. i'd just use tempera if TLV wasn't already so short on it. (and out of many of the colors entirely). i am thinking house paint would work best but i don't know how much it would cost for that many colors, even for the smallest of buckets. there's no way i'm going to be able to spend $50 or more on paint, no way. not feasible. i'll have to see what other sorts of paint might be available...i just doubt that tempera would cover the cardboard properly...it never really did before...hmmm...wait! i may have an idea...i think we have white house paint...and my dad might have some too...methinks i could paint it all white with what we already have and then see about getting more tempera to paint over it. it doesn't have to last...its going to be recycled after the party, most likely...but i just want the paint to pop.

hmmm...this could possibly work. it will be a lot cheaper to run and buy the tempera we are out of than to have to buy house paint in bright colors, methinks. i know i do have some colors, so i wouldn't need a ton. and i have plenty of brushes in all sizes. this could actually be quite fun! :)

and maeven's the resident artist so of course i'd put her to work on the main painting anyway. :) i'll just get the house assembled and we can all have fun putting the white base coat on and then see how it goes from there. tada! solution found. now i just have to go print up those house making directions again (i made one for maeve before, using our cardboard rivets.) and hunt down some white other neutral color'd house paint. voila!

so much to think about and do

yesterday a wonderful woman from the sacramento discovery museum came down here to fresno to do a site review of the discovery center for us. she was just MARVELOUS, let me tell ya! the four of us (myself, the director of TDC janet, susan and her husband) walked the grounds and talked and talked and talked about how they do things at their museum and what we could/should be doing at TDC.

one thing that i learned...is that things aren't as bad as i had originally thought. 2 reasons, one is that i was able to hear more from janet through the walk-through because she was explaining things to susan...and two is that susan perception of TDC was that things were really great!

now, of course we still know that we have issues to deal with. one of the biggest being that the central valley in general doesn't even know we're still here! but seeing things through susan's eyes was truly wonderful and left me feeling light and happy about things. way better than i've felt in awhile.

i still think that there is much more to dig into...and i'm still on track with figuring out how to tackle the things that i can (and am allowed to) tackle. (i say allowed to because i do realize that not every aspect of TDC should be tackled by me. i'm not superwoman, afterall, and i'm not trying to be superwoman here. i'm just trying to help where i can. stick with my strengths and all that. and also trying to not tread on any toes either.)

so with all that in mind, one of the things i asked susan was how to get the community connected to us again. and she said events. i asked how to do events so that they will profit, and she said charge entrance! seems simple enough, eh? i'm thinking the other key piece of info here is to make sure to advertise advertise advertise. and we got some ideas for that as well.

i've started thinking more seriously about events to do and am really quite excited by the possibilities! and in conjunction with those ideas, i'm starting to research where in the world we should be advertising...and how to get the word out far and wide!

i'm contacting other organizations and asking them where THEY advertise so that i can get a really good list going. hope it works. and in exchange, i'm offering to share my final info with them as well. wonder if i should open a new google spreadsheet for this? hmmmm. will look into that.

so much to do!

and here i am, trying to simplify my life and it continues to get complicated.

i'm actually pretty excited about the new things i'm doing though...and i'm happy to move away from some of the things that i've done for so long.

one is babyfest. i'm happy to hand this off. after this year i felt very much burnt out on the whole thing and think its definitely time for someone else to take it on. i think it will be best for all. i have a group in mind to hand it off to...going to a meeting of theirs next week to discuss it with them and hopefully hand it over. if they agree, it will mean a huge relief to me. if they pass on it, well babyfest may just fall by the wayside because i'm simply not able to continue to do it. this is the first year i've been able to say that its ok to let it die. i did a ton of work on it but all was not wasted. all that i learned from babyfest will be used to put towards new things. i am very happy to do more events for the discovery center.

right now my biggest project focus is the learning village. that is first and foremost in my mind. it will be the thing that our family spends the most time at and benefits the most from and i'm just jazzed to get it going! i am using some of the things that i learned from babyfest as well as learning new things. it is going to be awesome! i have a lot of people getting excited about it now and many that are helping me make it come to fruition!

the move-in date is now set for july1, so that gives us time to get fundraisers going to make some moolah to pay for the nonprofit paperwork. and if we can get even more than the $300 we need for that, then maybe we can even go about paying for our rent as well!

right now i'm trying to focus on what to provide families that start off with us...to encourage them to pay to join us so we can get the rent paid for!

i have some ideas but i want to try to come up with more that will make it just POP as a great thing to be a part of! time to do more thinking!

but first...i feel like working more on that 1023 paperwork...off to grind away at that...
(that's the irs paperwork to make the center a tax exempt nonprofit)

kids are ok, its mom that dislikes change to routine!

not that we have a set routine, really...but i have had things coming up lately that have been pretty important and they have made me feel like i'm running around like a madwoman at times to accomplish them. honestly, its only here and there, but its really make me detest changes to my usual week.

like next week i have tyren's dentist appt (rescheduled because he threw an absolute fit and refused to even get out of his carseat when we went the week before babyfest...hoping that that week was just stressful for us all and so he was picking up on that and this next week he'll be better about it...we'll see), and i have to drop the kids off at my mom's so i can go with my dad to DMV and transfer ownership of the van to us (its always been theirs but they paid it off recently and want to make it official...even though it lives at our house and we primarily use it) and get my driver's license renewed...something i didn't realize that i had let expire.

i think there are other things on my calendar next week too that i'm forgetting...i've had meetings lately to go to and more that are getting put on the calendar...not that i mind...i actually enjoy getting involved in things that are important enough to have official meetings, LOL! but just don't want my weeks filling up with these things. i MUCH prefer to be able to just relax and enjoy my kids and work on the house on a typical day. running from thing to thing is just not my thing.

today is a bit much too...i have my daughter's friend that is getting dropped off any minute, to spend the whole day because her mom is out of town today (which isn't a bad thing...we like having her, she's no problem at all so long as my kids cooperate and don't spend the whole time fighting over time with her)...then my mother-in-law will be here at 10 for her maeven time (which will be maeven/brooke time today) and i have to be ready and get tyren ready to go to music class by 10:15...and then later on this afternoon there's 4pm kid yoga...and then sometime after that brooke gets picked up and maeven goes out to her nana/bompa time.

not really any big things, but for some reason i'm feeling this morning like my day is crammed. probably also because i am trying to figure out how to go help a friend tomorrow to work on her yard...leaving the kids with adam if he's able to do it...i really really want to help, but i'm not sure yet if adam will be able to do this since he has a shoot but doesn't yet know what time that will be, and i don't like not knowing exactly how things are going to go...its bugging me! LOL!

i don't know, i'm just really feeling a bit overwhelmed with life this week...thinking of all the things i keep adding to my calendar and especially about that dentist appt looming on monday. its something that has to happen or else we are going to have to take tyr in to get him put under general anesthesia to get those teeth fixed...and i'm REALLY trying to avoid that because it scares the crap outta me, not to mention how he will be affected by it! just want to get the whole thing over with and fixed so we don't have to worry anymore.

i just hate feeling stressed...i really don't feel it all that often anymore (at least, lately)...so when i do, its such a yucky feeling. bleh. makes me feel like i'm in knots. probably once i get my day going and we get through a few of things things and i get to the point where i'm not thinking about the dentist, things will be better.

on the plus side, i'm moving forward very well with the learning village paperwork. got the bylaws written a couple days ago!! woohoo, go me! and i may have someone (hope hope hope) to take the babyfest off my hands, so that will be one less thing i'll have to deal with (of course, that wouldn't be til the end of this year when i'd be working on it again...but its a project that is always lingering in the back of my consciousness...so i'll be glad to be able to get it OUT of my head completely! and into good hands!)

anyway, i'm not sure why i feel all tense this morning...probably i didn't get enough sleep and that dentist appt is looming...i need to find something else to think about and get my mind on happy things...time to work on the learning village papers...it so makes me happy. :)

my updated weekend list

forgot to update this to show all that i accomplished! it was a pretty productive weekend!

• mow the back yard--got nearly all of it done, just left a couple small patches, but i kicked butt back there!
  
• water back yard--like crazy i did! and even went and pulled out the really thick stemmed weeds from the moist soil...they slid out easily and i find it strangely therapeutic to pull weeds, weird that i am
  
• mow front yard--didn't get to this...its ok, it can wait another weekend
  
• de-weed front of house--did about 1/3 of this on saturday...didn't get back to it yet
  
• organize/declutter my desk drawers--didn't get to this yet
  
• start making a plan to organize maeven's room--didn't get to this yet
  
• finish reading The House that Cleans Itself, and start putting the plan in action--still working on this
  
• finish and put away ALL the laundry--almost finished! i did a bunch!
  
• wash all the bed sheets and covers and make the beds in fresh sheets/covers--not yet
  
• wash the yucky wet bath mat--not yet...tomorrow!
  
• clean the tub...and if i get to it, the rest of the main bathroom--not yet
  
• wash the kitchen floor--not yet
  
• make new menu and shopping list--not yet
  
• make beef stew for crock pot and put on to cook all day, today or tomorrow--didn't happen, oh well.
  
• feed my kids a nutritious breakfast for lunch--sweet potato puree in the pancakes...it was yummers!! big hit with all of us!
  
• wash tyren's chocolate face--he actually ended up in a bath, he was filthy by the end of the day!
  
• figure out what to do with all the ebay/craigs list leftover stuff under my desk that i want to sell/get rid of but didn't finish--not yet
  
• swap out the winter for the summer clothes in all our drawers--yup, all done and maeven did hers herself! she was a HUGE help this weekend! she even helped me with my list!
  
• bag up clothes that no longer fit, put in van for goodwill/salvation army--not in the van yet, but i have a bag started! didn't pitch as much as i had hoped...must go through clothes again and pitch some more.

not too bad...i know there's a lot i didn't get to...but i actually ended up making a new list and got to a lot on there...so in addition to the above, i also:

• ran the dishwasher
• unloaded and put away clean dishes
• reloaded the dishwasher
• hand washed remaining dishes (i kicked BUTT on dishes this weekend!)

and adam:

• replaced brake lights on van
• checked all lights on both cars
• refilled windshield wiper fluid on both cars (but the van's doesn't work right...he worked on that for awhile to try to get it to work, to no avail)
• replaced the very leaky valve on kitchen sink that has been wasting hot water for over a month!
• got most of his tax paperwork done to give to our accountant friend

and maeven:

• swept the kitchen floor and cleaned the table for breakfast! (completely of her own volition!)
• got her own winter clothes out of the drawers and put into storage bin
• sorted and folded all her summer clothes and organized them in her dresser

so i'm pretty darn happy about our highly successful weekend! :)

it feels like i'm doing nothing

but i really am accomplishing things...

2 biggies:
our car registration was due on monday but it hadn't been smogged yet (and it was due)...i had thought we could get it done over the weekend but adam had some complications from his tooth extraction friday, so the weekend was full of pain and nausea for him so he couldn't do it and i couldn't leave the kids with him. finally on monday, i just took the kids with me and did it. i didn't want to wait til the registration was late, because then i cannot pay it online...and its MUCH easier to pay it online then to have to drag the kids to the DMV with me! (what a nightmare!)

so i drove down blackstone and found a tiny smog place...i knew there was one on that street i'd gone to before but couldn't remember exactly where...i think the one i found is different, but it did just fine! (its on the west side of the street, south of shaw, just before bobby salazar's if anyone local to me wants to find it! the only reason i saw it, since its set back from the street a bit, is that they had a van parked right near the street that said "SMOG HERE" or something like that...smart move, on there part cuz it worked!) anyway, there was only one other car there when we went, and it was on its way out, so no waiting (HUGE plus!) and then they had a cute (albeit, smoke smelling) little waiting room with a space heater and a tv, and tons of little toys like lego...the kids didn't want to leave when, after just about 15 min they were done! LOL! actually, i was enjoying watching "seventh heaven" for the first time in awhile and didn't want to leave either! LOL!

cost me $48 (no idea if that's standard fee or not, but it seemed pretty normal) and 15 or so minutes of my time with no hassle from the kids! pretty awesome! i was totally expecting a long wait and bored kids and behavior problems and such...nope. what a relief!

so then we headed home and i paid our car registration online and we're done! WOOHOO! ('course, i had to use our xmas money to pay the $75 for the registration, cuz we didn't have enough left in our main bank account to cover it.)

then the other big thing we've accomplished:
having adam's teeth FINALLY done. this is something that he has put off for about a year and a half! we knew it needed to be done cuz he had one that was sideways, like a 90 degree angle! and was getting food caught in the space back there and just made for a bad situation...but he still put it off for quite awhile...finally found the time to deal with it...and even though he's had complications (one of the extractions has turned into dry socket) its nice that its over with. he just needs to finish healing. its been a week and he's still dealing with it...but it will all be well again soon. (and after he's all healed, we'll start talking about getting that vasectomy we've been planning...but needed to wait til the teeth were done).

so getting those 2 big things over and done with has really made me feel good...even if my long list of other things to get done continues to grow.

but seriously, i am the kind of person that feels REALLY good once a big thing is accomplished...so getting 2 of them done in the past week has been really nice.

its funny because this time of the year you hear of so many people sooooo busy...and i always am. but not like others. i don't have any xmas parties to attend or plan, no major decorations (we have our tree up and that's about all i do, and the kids decorated it...it has more to put up but tyr keeps taking them off the tree and playing with them so i will just give up on that!) i don't have cookies or any other xmas baking to do...i don't do gifts for any friends, or xmas cards...never have...only family, and this year they're getting photo gifts once i get the pics sent off to walmart to print. a little work to laminate some of the gifts (we're making things like bookmarks and fridge magnets with pics of the kids...very inexpensive, but still, hopefully, something they'll like!) but nothing huge like knitting an afghan!

my biggest thing is just trying to find time (and ideas!) for gifts! i cannot even figure out what to get my own kids!!

i also have the money issue this year that we've not had in quite awhile...since maeven was born, actually...we've always had a xmas bonus check to cover xmas, for the most part. this year we are counting on NOT getting that, so i'm trying to figure out more ways to make extra money, since all our money is tied up in paying bills that eventually will run out and we will need to scrounge to pay! we have NO extra money for anything, so i'm having to MAKE money for xmas. i had like $260 i earned around the holiday hoopla on my site mommychats. but i used some of it already on stocking stuffers (i'll blog separately about that...this is getting long)...and a chunk for DMV and i've had to dip into it a little for food. so we are down to like $100 now, i think, for xmas...so i need to sell some stuff on ebay quick to make some money (i have a bunch of collectible ornaments i have been trying to find time to photograph, and a ton of disney movies i don't want anymore). i'm also going to have to get some ad specials up on my website so that i can get some cash there too. its just finding the TIME! its all very time consuming to do...and in the meantime i'm feeling really bad about my kids not having my attention!

*sigh* there's just not enough time in the day!

lets see how my list looks now...

i forgot that i accomplished another thing from my massive list of things to do or things i'm working on...
i went and applied for WIC. they turned us down. said we made too much money...turns out she counted adam's vacation pay that he had earned. i didn't figure this out til after i had left. i am going to call and ask about that. and then i'm going to try again once his new paycheck with the paycut comes out. although i don't know if that will help, since they go by the year to date info.

so next will be applying for medi-cal because the lady at WIC said that if we get approved for medi-cal that we will automatically be able to get WIC. they won't check income again. so that's my next step. have to finish filling out the application and mail that puppy in!

going over that list...

• still planning maeven's 8th bday party...but that will be over this saturday
• medi-cal application is in the process of being filled out and it's not that hard...i've done it before.
• WIC--done
• the learning village--i have the first thing all ready to send in...just need the $30 to send with it...had 2 people say they'd help with that.
• the hansel and gretel exhibit at storyland--i have already struck out from all the major hardware stores...its a bad time to be asking for anything...but home depot said that i could ask again this month because they'd be getting more alottments for giving out again this month...and lowe's didn't turn me down but said they needed an official letter faxed to them. so i will be pursuing that first. after i get through maeven's bday party!
• stevesongs--i have a meeting next week with the discovery center (they asked me to join the board! and i said yes! that will be my first meeting) and i'm going to talk to them about that then. because right now is a bad time to ask for money...so i may have to push this back to a later date...not sure yet. its going to the backburner for now though until i can sort through some other things. not going to forget about it though! :)
• babyfest--haven't done anything on this in awhile. i really need to take a look at this soon and see what i need to be doing. but it really can wait until january if need be. i'm not too worried about it
• maeven's education--this is another thing that i need to get busy with again. not that we ever totally stop doing things to help her learn...but i've not had any focused one-on-one time with her for awhile...because of tyren and no one being able to take him off my hands or just not finding time in the evenings to do something with her (its really not a good time to do stuff but i may need to make it work) but tomorrow mom's taking tyren for a little while so i will get to do some work with her. i'm looking forward to it! i really like to get that one-on-one time with her! its a silly time sometimes! and i think she's going to eventually remember these times as such a special part of her childhood. i hope!
• still don't know how the hell to help us survive financially with the pay cut...but we'll figure it out
• now its looking more like we may very well be able to get that dang room done! rob is coming to do some more work on it this week and he and adam have gotten the frame of the walls up this past weekend! so exciting! so i'm more optimistic now and rob says that once he gets that other window done (that's going to be a full day's job most likely...its got brick around it and we're not sure how its going to go) that the rest of the work is pretty small potatoes compared to what he's already done. sooo...YAY! :)
• housework--actually adam and i both got some done today...he did a lot to the living room and i have been hacking away at the dishes...so we're getting there...i am going to plug away at that this week as well. :)
• family palooza--starting to realize that that is going to take a lot longer to get going...although i'm still plugging away at it. but i'm working on the holiday hoopla now...that will get me some xmas money.
  
• holiday hoopla--started gathering vendors!

ok so that's all for now...i'm sure i will be able to find more things to add to my list and tweak...but its starting to look better to me now.

well 2 things down

my list is slowly being pared away...

today is maeven's birthday and so that's one thing out of the way that i no longer have to prepare for (her party is still coming up...this saturday...so there's still that to prepare for)

the birthday fairy came as usual and decorated the kitchen, maeven's chair, the hallway to our family bedroom and the doorways to the bedroom and kitchen (as usual), and left fairy dust everywhere she flew. (very sparkly and exciting for the kiddos!) she also left maeven a mermaid crown! (hand made!!) and a bella sara plush horse (w/special cards) and a notebook for her to write stories about her bella sara horses, beanies, and webkinz.

and mommy and daddy got her a binder with protector pages to put her collector's cards in. a pack of special cards, and a book of unicorn short stories. she loved them all, of course!

so that's one thing down...and the other thing is that i voted! i got us all out the door and we arrived at the polling place around 11:40am and there was no waiting! i knew they were predicting long lines today, so i wanted to try to get in there before the rush. apparently it worked! :)

ok so now i still have a long list of things to get done, but for now i am going to revel in have 2 less things. :)

how busy am i?

hmmmm....let's see....things i'm currently working on, in no particular order:

• planning maeven's 8th birthday party
• figuring out how to apply for medi-cal (turns out we qualify, income-wise, even BEFORE adam's pay cut!! we'll see if we qualify with whatever else they count)
• applying for WIC (we qualified for this even BEFORE adam's paycut! wish i had known a long time ago!!! and we didn't even barely make the cutoff...we were like a couple hundred a month BELOW the cutoff...BEFORE!)...got an appt on monday to figure that whole thing out
  
• working on creating the new homeschool resource center for our area (right now i'm learning how to become a nonprofit...getting ready to submit the forms!)
• working on getting sponsors to donate supplies to fix up the hansel and gretel exhibit at storyland (and then getting people to help do the actual work)...haven't started this yet, but its on my mind!
  
• working on getting sponsors for the stevesongs concert i'm trying to plan for next spring, to benefit the discovery center--haven't started this yet either, but i really need to.
• babyfest is always looming in the background...i really should get looking into what i should be working on for that. we don't usually start really working on it til 6months prior to the event though...let's see, that would be...crap. now. guess i better look into that pronto! i do already have the date set, at least! :) and i know that janet at the discovery center has said that she's already applying for grants and such to help sponsor the event. so at least there's not NOTHING being done. :)
  
• always thinking about maeven's education...and starting to think of tyren's as well...even though i won't start him on true academics for a couple more years.
  
• figuring out HOW THE HELL we are going to afford to live on this pay cut
• figuring out what to do about the "big room" ...now i need to think of what to cull from all the crap that is still in bags around the house because i'm facing the reality that that room is just not going to be done anytime soon and we need to get some of this stuff outta here and i need access to some of this stuff NOW.
• figure out how to catch up on all the housework that has piled up really bad lately
• working on getting my new website ready for a soft launch
• planning this year's "holiday hoopla" on mommy chats, which will most likely pay for our christmas this year since adam won't be getting that bonus we always pay for xmas with.

well that about covers it for now...i'm sure there's more. but yeah, i'm a bit busy. wow i'm tired just looking at all that!