most of the time i try not to think about how long its been since i had a separate room for art projects and play and homeschooling.
but its really hard when i think about all the stuff i'm NOT doing with my kids simply because of not having the space for it. i know, i know, i really should just make do with the space i have. but i don't.
we used to have art projects going on in the big room all the time. well, maeven did. we haven't had use of the room since tyren was barely walking. yes, its been that long. going on 2yrs this summer, as i recall! unbelievable. i doubt tyren even remembers anything about that room other than chaos and mess.
i HATE HATE HATE using the kitchen table for projects. our table seriously sucks. its all wood, and not the kind that cleans up easily. and it has leaves that go down, so stuff gets stuck in the cracks all the time. it seriously sucks for daily eating with kids, forget about it being anywhere close to good for projects. i know, i can just put a plastic table cloth over it, but i rarely do. my kitchen is ALWAYS a wreck, so doing a project at the kitchen table requires cleaning it up first. something i am obviously bad at in the first place or the kitchen wouldn't always be a wreck! and then there's the hassle of cleaning it up after we've done a project so that we can eat at it again. too much work, really!
anyway, i KNOW that i should just grin and bear it and use it anyway. but i don't. rarely, at least. there are still times when i do. just not very often.
and i read all these absolutely wonderful blogs about how rich other homeschooler's lives are with projects and exploration and hands-on activities and i think..."oh if only i had our big room!!" i know i need to make it work in another part of the house. but i just can't seem to get myself to do it often enough. it just adds to my work! ugh ugh ugh. and then i feel guilty all the time for what i'm NOT doing, and then i get moving and do stuff and it doesn't last.
that's not to say that we never do ANYTHING, because maeven's room can attest to all the projects she's done in there. until it gets totally trashed and then her projects slow down considerably because she hates going in there. (gee, i wonder why? don't talk to her about it, though, because its a losing battle.)
and i do set up stuff in other areas of the house sometimes...i just hate to do it.
so i have it in my head that homeschooling is seriously suffering because of not having that room. and that makes me very very bitter. because its taking so damned long to do anything in that room! its still as torn apart and as far from complete as ever it was!! going on two years!!!
and now we have run completely out of money. not only that but we can barely pay for the day to day things, so the room is, out of vital necessity, on hold. indefinitely probably. because we have no more help for it and we have no more money.
and right now we are fighting to just feed our family. money is so tight that i felt guilty buying 2 small books (just $10 each) at the book store today (they were AWESOME books!! i couldn't resist! i can see us using them a lot!!)
and
probably shouldn't have, but its been awhile since i bought any books for homeschooling, and i had taken maeven to the store to get some books with her allowance and i just couldn't resist when i saw these. i'm really excited to use them! :)
anyway...i just HATE the situation we're in without that big room. i get really overwhelmed by it every once in awhile (like right now) and have to vent about it. because we were FINALLY on a roll! things were happening! and then they just came to a halt again! UGH UGH UGH. it really upsets me when i think about it too much so i guess i should just not think about it anymore.
i need to figure out how to make do with what i've got. i did start to get things out of the shed and brought out the bookshelves that used to be in the big room and started de-molding (have to use a special mold killer to clean everything all over) the books that i wanted for those bookshelves. there's still a TON of stuff in the shed and in bags around the house though. *sigh* and i cannot access so much that would really be cool to use.
at this rate its beginning to feel like its never going to get done. because right now we are just fighting to survive in this economy. the $2000 that we borrowed from adam's mom to help with the big room is now gone...some of it did go to buying supplies for the big room...but most of it went to just paying for things like food...because of adam's pay cut, we've had to dip into that money a lot. and now its gone. :(
and there's a fair amount of money out there that is owed to us by various different people...but god only knows when we'll see any of it. *sigh*
i just need to stop thinking about it...i keep telling myself this and yet i keep wallowing in the dispair of the situation about every month or 2. *sigh* because my kids lives would be truly enriched if ONLY i had that stinkin room back! and i'm ANGRY about all the crap that happened to get us in this situation! ARGH!!
ok done venting. time to focus on other things.
The Life and Times of a Work-at-Home Homeschooling Mama
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Monday, December 22, 2008
sorta almost ready for xmas
things are getting less stressful, i think...we are sloooooowly getting stuff done (although my kids have been fighting nonstop, which makes mommy a beast to be around and growling and yelling seems to be the only way i am capable of communicating these days, *sigh*)
and adam just agreed to work new year's eve and day and some other days...a job that will mean like $650 for us. not happy about him being gone on new year's eve...but we really need the money.
what this means is that the $300 we are in the negative in our bank account can now come out of house money (the money we borrowed to finish the repairs on our "big room") ...because that will be replaced once he gets paid for the new year's job. yay! AND his boss gave him a little money after all the buttload of work that he's been doing for the company...working his ass off with little or no sleep for days (one day he literally had like one hour sleep cuz he worked all day at work, came home and worked straight through til like 6am, slept about an hour or so and got up and went back into work. sometimes its not always a good thing that he has an edit system at home.) stressed beyond belief, at the same time as his wisdom teeth being pulled and suffering from a dry socket and healing and not being able to eat real food cuz of the holes in his mouth. so he definitely earned a little extra money...but at the same time we know the company is hurting, so its really appreciated as well.
sooo...we have some money for last minute christmas stuff...which is really good cuz tyren's gift isn't going to arrive in time for christmas. i'm REALLY pissed about all that! i started a post about all the details on that...i'll have to finish it and post it to explain. its kinda a long story. and makes me angry to rehash it.
and now maeven is up and not able to sleep (happens every night lately) so i need to go see what i can do to help the situation...so i guess that's all i can write for now.
and adam just agreed to work new year's eve and day and some other days...a job that will mean like $650 for us. not happy about him being gone on new year's eve...but we really need the money.
what this means is that the $300 we are in the negative in our bank account can now come out of house money (the money we borrowed to finish the repairs on our "big room") ...because that will be replaced once he gets paid for the new year's job. yay! AND his boss gave him a little money after all the buttload of work that he's been doing for the company...working his ass off with little or no sleep for days (one day he literally had like one hour sleep cuz he worked all day at work, came home and worked straight through til like 6am, slept about an hour or so and got up and went back into work. sometimes its not always a good thing that he has an edit system at home.) stressed beyond belief, at the same time as his wisdom teeth being pulled and suffering from a dry socket and healing and not being able to eat real food cuz of the holes in his mouth. so he definitely earned a little extra money...but at the same time we know the company is hurting, so its really appreciated as well.
sooo...we have some money for last minute christmas stuff...which is really good cuz tyren's gift isn't going to arrive in time for christmas. i'm REALLY pissed about all that! i started a post about all the details on that...i'll have to finish it and post it to explain. its kinda a long story. and makes me angry to rehash it.
and now maeven is up and not able to sleep (happens every night lately) so i need to go see what i can do to help the situation...so i guess that's all i can write for now.
Friday, December 12, 2008
a frugal xmas
since we're so tight for money this year i made a decision that the kids stockings were only going to be stuffed with items $1 or less items. of course that means i had to hit the dollar tree!
i made the decision to do school supplies because i remember how cool it was to get a stocking full of that sort of stuff one year when i was about maeven's age. unfortunately some of the stuff that i got is not super cheap anymore. like dymo labelers. those are so cool but i couldn't find anything less than $5 (i would have gotten them if they were like $2, but $5 is way over budget)
but surprisingly, i've found a lot of really cool things for about a dollar! not just at dollar tree!
at walmart, i found packs of tiny notepads, some cool pencil/sharpener/eraser sets, 88cent compasses in cool colors, and more! at dollar tree i found holiday pencils, a GIANT pencil (with its own sharpener), reindeer antlers (2pack! with bells!), glow-in-the-dark star wands (the kind you crack and they glow for a day...and they had tons of other glow stuff, but i didn't want to go overboard), scotch tape, gel pens, keychain LED lights, and more stuff i'm forgetting...really cool deals!
so i think i have their stockings covered now...i just have to still do adam's and figure out gifts for the kiddos. i decided that we should not spend more than $20 per gift for each kid (and each other, even though i went a little bit over for adam)...and i'm not really worried about meeting that, because there's tons of great stuff for kids that is pretty cheap. but its just a matter of deciding WHAT to get!
i made the decision to do school supplies because i remember how cool it was to get a stocking full of that sort of stuff one year when i was about maeven's age. unfortunately some of the stuff that i got is not super cheap anymore. like dymo labelers. those are so cool but i couldn't find anything less than $5 (i would have gotten them if they were like $2, but $5 is way over budget)
but surprisingly, i've found a lot of really cool things for about a dollar! not just at dollar tree!
at walmart, i found packs of tiny notepads, some cool pencil/sharpener/eraser sets, 88cent compasses in cool colors, and more! at dollar tree i found holiday pencils, a GIANT pencil (with its own sharpener), reindeer antlers (2pack! with bells!), glow-in-the-dark star wands (the kind you crack and they glow for a day...and they had tons of other glow stuff, but i didn't want to go overboard), scotch tape, gel pens, keychain LED lights, and more stuff i'm forgetting...really cool deals!
so i think i have their stockings covered now...i just have to still do adam's and figure out gifts for the kiddos. i decided that we should not spend more than $20 per gift for each kid (and each other, even though i went a little bit over for adam)...and i'm not really worried about meeting that, because there's tons of great stuff for kids that is pretty cheap. but its just a matter of deciding WHAT to get!
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
*sigh*
ok, things could be worse. i KNOW that people have it worse out there...but i have found that i tend to feel better about bad situations once i vent about them...so here goes...
*sigh*
DEEP BREATH
ok so i mentioned before how adam got a 10% pay cut, right? well, now here's the thing...its kinda confusing, so bear with me here...
he's maxed out on vacation time...he never uses it! so he's got 3weeks paid vacation on the books which now he cannot use because, guess what? business is SLAMMED at his work right now...which is good, right? that they are making money again? well its still going to take awhile before they are back in the positive...they have been keeping the biz alive using credit for awhile, so its good that business is hopping, but that doesn't mean adam will go back to normal pay anytime soon...
and in the meantime...we CAN'T GET FRIGGIN WIC BECAUSE OF THAT VACATION PAY ON THE BOOKS!!! they don't go by what he's making NOW, they go by the past year, which is on the paystub, including that chunk of unused vacation time!
so, without that vacation pay, we'd totally qualify for WIC...we qualified before his pay cut!! but that damned vacation pay, which he cannot get anytime soon, is stopping us from getting free food from WIC!!! food we could definitely use.
and to top things off...we still have a house in chaos because its taking FOREVER to remodel our "big room"... i've blogged about it before...the room had all kinds of stuff...it was our playroom/school room so there was a TON of stuff in there...stuff i have really wanted access to ever since, but haven't for going on a year and a half now! stuff that is piled up in garbage bags because it still is covered in toxic mold spores, so i cannot take them out of bags until its been cleaned with mold killer...but i cannot do that yet until i have A PLACE TO PUT ALL THE STUFF! and the room still looks like this:
and this:
so obviously unusable. so the stuff is still piled up next to my side of the bed in the bedroom and packed into the shed (i have a really hard time getting in there to get anything since its all full of garbage bags of stuff). and of course my kids keep asking for stuff that we cannot access cuz its in a garbage bag somewhere (god knows which one!)
anyway, the person that was helping us fix up the room did a bang up job and got all the major jobs done. despite how it looks...its come a LONG way...the new windows are all in, the walls for adam's office are up (the frames at least)...oh did i mention that while we were remodeling we figured it was time for tyren to have his own bedroom? so we have 3 bedrooms but one of the rooms is adam's office...full of his video equipment which bring us in a little extra cash here and there, so are very important...
tyren doesn't yet have a space of his own...so we figured while we were working on the big room, we'd use part of it for a new office for adam so that tyr could have his own room finally. (not that he'll sleep in it anytime soon, but he does need his own space...especially since he's banned from maeven's room). hence, the new walls.
anyway....so we are VERY grateful for all the work that has been already done. but its not done yet. nothing's livable yet. and now we just found out he won't be able to help us anymore. *sigh* ok, adam panicked big time but i actually remained pretty calm...i mean all the big stuff has already been done...if he just helps to install the door to adam's office (which he mentioned he might be able to still do for us) and maybe finish the stucco on the outside of the house, we might be able to handle the rest ourselves. hopefully. i think we can. it will all be a learning experience for us since we've never put up drywall and such. but it has been getting harder and harder for our helper to find time to help us anyway...weeks going by with no word, and we don't really like to impose on his life (even though he does owe us money, we never wanted to make the situation unpleasant). so maybe now we can get the job done faster, who knows? i'm just trying to think positively under tremendous amounts of bad situation all around us.
god this post is getting long...but it feels good writing it all out...
ok, so one of the reasons we were having this person do our room for us is that they owe us a chunk of money. so he was working it off...also he's a kind person to offer to help us! so by his no longer working for us, they still owe us a chunk...some was paid off with the work he did, but not all...and since WE had to borrow money to purchase supplies to finish the room (all our money is now gone...various things kept popping up...and the original money we loaned out to a couple family members over a year ago was the money that we had for fixing up the big room in the first place!!) and that borrowed money was only to cover the supplies, not the labor because we thought we had the labor covered...we were initially pretty upset (ok so it still is not a happy situation, but all will be fine)...anyway...we still don't know if we'll have enough to complete the job...but i have high hopes that all will be well eventually...if i can just convince my stress-prone, negative thinking husband!
here's the sort of amusing part...we are a one income family...who makes less than one income of many of the 2-income families out there. seriously, i mean we would qualify for WIC and medi-cal, if it weren't for that unaccessable vacation money! so income-wise, we are poor by government standards (but don't think that we really feel poor, because i know we still have things much better than many people out there...just going by the numbers). and we are not a super thrifty/frugal family!
i think the only reason we are doing ok is because my parents let us use their van (no payments there, yet)...our other car is paid off....we have no credit card debt (we never had a huge amount, because we've always tried not to use them much, but we did have some that was paid off when we re-mortgaged our house and took a chunk of cash out to buy adam's business equipment and pay off all our debt except the mortgage)...we don't have lots of extras...no cable tv (but we do have cell phones and dsl for our computers...but the bare minimum available)...we don't spend a lot on things like clothes or things for our house...we rarely spend money on anything other than actual NEEDS actually...all of my kids clothes are hand-me-downs or purchased by family. i can't remember the last time i bought my kids any clothes.
and so we're actually doing pretty ok. we definitely don't live outside our means...we do eat out far too much, but that's like taco bell and such...we try to eat cheap when we do...and its been cut back greatly lately (hoping to cut it out completely soon...but we still HATE to cook and HATE to go grocery shopping, so that makes it hard...)
i mean, we are definitely not "well off"...my son is still wearing his 3T winter coat (way too small) because i cannot afford to buy him a new one right now (actually the next thing i'm going to do is post to my mommy group and see if anyone has one they can spare to give up for him...we are all about hand-me-downs, i tell ya!) the only shoes my kids own are because of nana (she's a bit shoe-happy)...and actually many of them are going to good will because they've outgrown so many. maeven has drawers FULL of clothes because of hand-me-downs (thank god!) and tyren is doing ok because of my mom buying things for him when he needs them...although the coat and long sleeved shirts are next on our list of things he needs...he's doing ok. could be worse.
and adam and i get clothes frequently for birthdays/xmas so we are doing mostly fine in that dept. hell, adam has a closet JAMMED FULL OF SHIRTS because he always gets shirts for gifts! but that's a good thing cuz he does wear them out fast.
and i made about $250 for our xmas this year since we know that besides adam's pay cut we won't be getting his bonus (usually about $1000 and more than covers xmas and all the current bills) so i ran an event and have been trying to do all i can with my websites so that i can make money for xmas...and now we are down to just $130 left of that xmas money cuz of various expenses, the biggest of which was our $75 car registration which i had to use xmas money to pay cuz we didn't have it elsewhere. so xmas is going to be tight this year. we're trying to keep all gifts under $20...and are making as much as we can to save further money.
*sigh* anyway...i think i've vented enough...you get the gist. we have had bad situations come up recently, but it's all going to be ok. it always is. i know this. and i feel better now that i've gotten it all out.
if you made it this far, thanks for "listening". :)
when all else fails, i have to remind myself that i know of people that have things worse, this mom, for example. :(
*sigh*
DEEP BREATH
ok so i mentioned before how adam got a 10% pay cut, right? well, now here's the thing...its kinda confusing, so bear with me here...
he's maxed out on vacation time...he never uses it! so he's got 3weeks paid vacation on the books which now he cannot use because, guess what? business is SLAMMED at his work right now...which is good, right? that they are making money again? well its still going to take awhile before they are back in the positive...they have been keeping the biz alive using credit for awhile, so its good that business is hopping, but that doesn't mean adam will go back to normal pay anytime soon...
and in the meantime...we CAN'T GET FRIGGIN WIC BECAUSE OF THAT VACATION PAY ON THE BOOKS!!! they don't go by what he's making NOW, they go by the past year, which is on the paystub, including that chunk of unused vacation time!
so, without that vacation pay, we'd totally qualify for WIC...we qualified before his pay cut!! but that damned vacation pay, which he cannot get anytime soon, is stopping us from getting free food from WIC!!! food we could definitely use.
and to top things off...we still have a house in chaos because its taking FOREVER to remodel our "big room"... i've blogged about it before...the room had all kinds of stuff...it was our playroom/school room so there was a TON of stuff in there...stuff i have really wanted access to ever since, but haven't for going on a year and a half now! stuff that is piled up in garbage bags because it still is covered in toxic mold spores, so i cannot take them out of bags until its been cleaned with mold killer...but i cannot do that yet until i have A PLACE TO PUT ALL THE STUFF! and the room still looks like this:
and this:
so obviously unusable. so the stuff is still piled up next to my side of the bed in the bedroom and packed into the shed (i have a really hard time getting in there to get anything since its all full of garbage bags of stuff). and of course my kids keep asking for stuff that we cannot access cuz its in a garbage bag somewhere (god knows which one!)
anyway, the person that was helping us fix up the room did a bang up job and got all the major jobs done. despite how it looks...its come a LONG way...the new windows are all in, the walls for adam's office are up (the frames at least)...oh did i mention that while we were remodeling we figured it was time for tyren to have his own bedroom? so we have 3 bedrooms but one of the rooms is adam's office...full of his video equipment which bring us in a little extra cash here and there, so are very important...
tyren doesn't yet have a space of his own...so we figured while we were working on the big room, we'd use part of it for a new office for adam so that tyr could have his own room finally. (not that he'll sleep in it anytime soon, but he does need his own space...especially since he's banned from maeven's room). hence, the new walls.
anyway....so we are VERY grateful for all the work that has been already done. but its not done yet. nothing's livable yet. and now we just found out he won't be able to help us anymore. *sigh* ok, adam panicked big time but i actually remained pretty calm...i mean all the big stuff has already been done...if he just helps to install the door to adam's office (which he mentioned he might be able to still do for us) and maybe finish the stucco on the outside of the house, we might be able to handle the rest ourselves. hopefully. i think we can. it will all be a learning experience for us since we've never put up drywall and such. but it has been getting harder and harder for our helper to find time to help us anyway...weeks going by with no word, and we don't really like to impose on his life (even though he does owe us money, we never wanted to make the situation unpleasant). so maybe now we can get the job done faster, who knows? i'm just trying to think positively under tremendous amounts of bad situation all around us.
god this post is getting long...but it feels good writing it all out...
ok, so one of the reasons we were having this person do our room for us is that they owe us a chunk of money. so he was working it off...also he's a kind person to offer to help us! so by his no longer working for us, they still owe us a chunk...some was paid off with the work he did, but not all...and since WE had to borrow money to purchase supplies to finish the room (all our money is now gone...various things kept popping up...and the original money we loaned out to a couple family members over a year ago was the money that we had for fixing up the big room in the first place!!) and that borrowed money was only to cover the supplies, not the labor because we thought we had the labor covered...we were initially pretty upset (ok so it still is not a happy situation, but all will be fine)...anyway...we still don't know if we'll have enough to complete the job...but i have high hopes that all will be well eventually...if i can just convince my stress-prone, negative thinking husband!
here's the sort of amusing part...we are a one income family...who makes less than one income of many of the 2-income families out there. seriously, i mean we would qualify for WIC and medi-cal, if it weren't for that unaccessable vacation money! so income-wise, we are poor by government standards (but don't think that we really feel poor, because i know we still have things much better than many people out there...just going by the numbers). and we are not a super thrifty/frugal family!
i think the only reason we are doing ok is because my parents let us use their van (no payments there, yet)...our other car is paid off....we have no credit card debt (we never had a huge amount, because we've always tried not to use them much, but we did have some that was paid off when we re-mortgaged our house and took a chunk of cash out to buy adam's business equipment and pay off all our debt except the mortgage)...we don't have lots of extras...no cable tv (but we do have cell phones and dsl for our computers...but the bare minimum available)...we don't spend a lot on things like clothes or things for our house...we rarely spend money on anything other than actual NEEDS actually...all of my kids clothes are hand-me-downs or purchased by family. i can't remember the last time i bought my kids any clothes.
and so we're actually doing pretty ok. we definitely don't live outside our means...we do eat out far too much, but that's like taco bell and such...we try to eat cheap when we do...and its been cut back greatly lately (hoping to cut it out completely soon...but we still HATE to cook and HATE to go grocery shopping, so that makes it hard...)
i mean, we are definitely not "well off"...my son is still wearing his 3T winter coat (way too small) because i cannot afford to buy him a new one right now (actually the next thing i'm going to do is post to my mommy group and see if anyone has one they can spare to give up for him...we are all about hand-me-downs, i tell ya!) the only shoes my kids own are because of nana (she's a bit shoe-happy)...and actually many of them are going to good will because they've outgrown so many. maeven has drawers FULL of clothes because of hand-me-downs (thank god!) and tyren is doing ok because of my mom buying things for him when he needs them...although the coat and long sleeved shirts are next on our list of things he needs...he's doing ok. could be worse.
and adam and i get clothes frequently for birthdays/xmas so we are doing mostly fine in that dept. hell, adam has a closet JAMMED FULL OF SHIRTS because he always gets shirts for gifts! but that's a good thing cuz he does wear them out fast.
and i made about $250 for our xmas this year since we know that besides adam's pay cut we won't be getting his bonus (usually about $1000 and more than covers xmas and all the current bills) so i ran an event and have been trying to do all i can with my websites so that i can make money for xmas...and now we are down to just $130 left of that xmas money cuz of various expenses, the biggest of which was our $75 car registration which i had to use xmas money to pay cuz we didn't have it elsewhere. so xmas is going to be tight this year. we're trying to keep all gifts under $20...and are making as much as we can to save further money.
*sigh* anyway...i think i've vented enough...you get the gist. we have had bad situations come up recently, but it's all going to be ok. it always is. i know this. and i feel better now that i've gotten it all out.
if you made it this far, thanks for "listening". :)
when all else fails, i have to remind myself that i know of people that have things worse, this mom, for example. :(
Sunday, November 30, 2008
holiday hoopla over
well nearly over. it was supposed to be over today but i didn't have everything done.
this is an annual event i do on my website mommy chats. this was my 4th year doing it! i can't believe its been that many years!
anyway tonite was the games chat...very fun! i host it and i do all sorts of fun chat games...scrambled words, holiday bingo, holiday trivia, name that song, name that movie...fun!
and i get to give out all kinds of prizes!
i was going to also pick the winners of the treasure hunt and cookie hunt...but there was a lot i needed to do to the file with the answers in it before i could call winners. i had to delete all the incorrect and duplicate answers and such...clean it up so it was just all correct answers, and only one per person per answer. took me hours to finally get it all done, but i just finished it and so i'm ready to draw the names now. i'll do it tomorrow.
i like to do it in chat because its more fun that way. people get all excited. chat events are fun! :)
i want to think of some new games for another year...but right now i'm just glad to be done with it. its not a huge amount of work, but its some work. in spurts. i got some money out of it. not a lot, but enough to help us through christmas.
next i'm going to work on my new newsletter for mommy chats. i have a bunch of fun things i'm going to put in it...book reviews, music reviews, links, product and business picks and such...things that should hopefully draw a lot of interest. and then i can start selling ads in the newsletter. i'll be doing it monthly. and hopefully that will get me some more income as well.
with adam's pay cut, we need the extra money. so far we've been doing ok. but i know we're going to eventually really feel it. especially if anything happens that requires an extra chunk of money we don't have. so anything i can do to help, helps ease that burden. if i do really well, we won't even really feel the pay cut.
i think i mentioned before, i used to easily bring in about $500-600 a month in advertising. it had dwindled down to barely $100 recently due to various reasons, one of which was neglect on my part. i just wasn't putting any time into my sites. but now that i need to, i'm doing what i need to do to get more interest going.
the more things going on on my sites, the more potential advertising, because they will want to advertise their biz's where there are mommies! and its fun anyways, so i'm glad to have a new burst of energy to get things going again.
its late now, though...so i think i'll start working on the newsletter tomorrow.
this is an annual event i do on my website mommy chats. this was my 4th year doing it! i can't believe its been that many years!
anyway tonite was the games chat...very fun! i host it and i do all sorts of fun chat games...scrambled words, holiday bingo, holiday trivia, name that song, name that movie...fun!
and i get to give out all kinds of prizes!
i was going to also pick the winners of the treasure hunt and cookie hunt...but there was a lot i needed to do to the file with the answers in it before i could call winners. i had to delete all the incorrect and duplicate answers and such...clean it up so it was just all correct answers, and only one per person per answer. took me hours to finally get it all done, but i just finished it and so i'm ready to draw the names now. i'll do it tomorrow.
i like to do it in chat because its more fun that way. people get all excited. chat events are fun! :)
i want to think of some new games for another year...but right now i'm just glad to be done with it. its not a huge amount of work, but its some work. in spurts. i got some money out of it. not a lot, but enough to help us through christmas.
next i'm going to work on my new newsletter for mommy chats. i have a bunch of fun things i'm going to put in it...book reviews, music reviews, links, product and business picks and such...things that should hopefully draw a lot of interest. and then i can start selling ads in the newsletter. i'll be doing it monthly. and hopefully that will get me some more income as well.
with adam's pay cut, we need the extra money. so far we've been doing ok. but i know we're going to eventually really feel it. especially if anything happens that requires an extra chunk of money we don't have. so anything i can do to help, helps ease that burden. if i do really well, we won't even really feel the pay cut.
i think i mentioned before, i used to easily bring in about $500-600 a month in advertising. it had dwindled down to barely $100 recently due to various reasons, one of which was neglect on my part. i just wasn't putting any time into my sites. but now that i need to, i'm doing what i need to do to get more interest going.
the more things going on on my sites, the more potential advertising, because they will want to advertise their biz's where there are mommies! and its fun anyways, so i'm glad to have a new burst of energy to get things going again.
its late now, though...so i think i'll start working on the newsletter tomorrow.
Monday, October 27, 2008
as if i wasn't stressed enough
adam just found out today he's getting a 10% pay cut starting with the next check (next payday is this friday). well everyone at his work is. its the boss's way of not having to lay anyone off. which is totally fair, i get that. times are tough, and the biz isn't doing well, so that's what has to happen. i totally understand and can appreciate the position they're in.
doesn't make it any easier on us, though, understanding... *sigh*
10% doesn't seem like much. but i think that will be roughly $130 less per paycheck. $260 less a month. that's HUGE for us! the way it was, we did quite well with his paychecks to pay for all our regular bills. nothing extra, just the regular stuff we could count on monthly. any bills that came in quarterly (like the $200 or so for adam's biz insurance, gifts, if the car breaks down, any repairs on the house, etc...) was money that had to come from somewhere else...which has been his freelancing work. or my websites' advertising income (which has dwindled to just barely enough to cover the costs of running the sites but does still give us a tiny bit of income...like less than $100).
and of course, even with all that...even during GOOD months...we STILL cannot afford health insurance for me. the kids have healthy families and adam has insurance through work. i only get medi-cal when i'm pregnant...so nothing for me now. luckily (knock on wood) i've not had much time spent in dr's offices in recent years. until recently i only went annually to my obgyn to get my annual poke-n-prod (aka pap smear), which i pay directly for. no discounts. recently i finally decided i needed to be seen by a doc because of my migraines (averaging 2-6 a month) and my asthma (that always kicks in hardcore whenever i develop a cold...which is not often, so i've been able to ignore for years...but recently it got really tiresome coughing up a lung and having nothing to ease it.) so i found a new primary care physician and am now on medication for migraines that seems to be helping and i have medicine for when my asthma kicks in. paid out of pocket (well, will be once we get the bill) for the visit.
anyway, i'm off on a tangent, sorry...recently adam's not been getting much freelancing work and the stuff he gets don't always pay him for awhile. times are tough for everyone, i know. so not only are we going to be short the $260ish from his salary, but we are also very short on the extra income. how the hell do we handle that?
well, we do have a little stash that we call "house money" that we try to keep in a separate bank account that is for the remodel of our "big room." that's our garage conversion that was remodeled to a family room by previous owners. because of a flood caused by a hose left on (by me, *sigh*) that triggered toxic mold to grow, the entire room is gutted. we are starting essentially from scratch to rebuild it. and we decided to divide it in the process so that adam will have a new office and tyren can finally have a bedroom (adam's old office).
ANYWAY. so looks like we're going to have to be living off our "house money" for awhile. which means we won't be getting that room back anytime soon. *sigh* i've lived for over a year now without that room and its been really stressful. there really isn't enough room in the rest of the house for what i need for the kids. that room was the playroom so now our living room is always trashed and we have crap crammed in every corner in the house (ok not every corner...in the office and in the bedroom next to the bed, though, and filling up the shed...black garbage bags full of mold spore covered items that i cannot yet clean and bring back into the house because i have NO PLACE to put them!!) this is all my homeschool books (and all sorts of other books) and all kinds of art supplies and toys and other kid related items that we cannot access at all right now. makes homeschooling hard cuz i cannot access all my stuff. and because we don't have a good space for any messy work. the kitchen table is just not a good spot. i'm already rambling so i won't go into why, but its not a good spot.
so back to the original thought....so now things are worse then they already were. but surprisingly i'm not feeling like i'm losing it. i really don't know why but i feel kinda calm about it all.
we had to cancel our annual trip to marine world homeschool days. (six flags in vallejo...not called marine world anymore but it'll always be marine world to me). too expensive. we also had to cancel our visit to our local cornfield maze. we're prioritizing and those things just don't make the cut. maeven's actually taking it pretty darn well, surprisingly. and so am i. maybe i'm just remembering that there are people that have lost their jobs, and my hubby just got a pay cut. and there are people that are losing their homes all over the place....we still have ours.
not sure what's going to happen...but if we have to go longer without the big room, so be it. at least we'll survive. i hate to think of having to go longer, but maybe i'll start dragging that stuff out of garbage bags and start getting rid of more of it and demolding the stuff i do want to keep. maybe i'll get more decluttering done around the house and move stuff around and purge and purge and purge and get rid of more stuff. maybe, in all my spare time (LOL! like NONE lately...i'm so friggin busy) but once i get motivated, its hard to stop me...so i'm going to hold this thought and come back to it tomorrow when i can do something about it.
first thing in the morning, methinks i will be trying to figure out where in the world to put my bookcase so that i can start demolding my books and bringing them in!!!
doesn't make it any easier on us, though, understanding... *sigh*
10% doesn't seem like much. but i think that will be roughly $130 less per paycheck. $260 less a month. that's HUGE for us! the way it was, we did quite well with his paychecks to pay for all our regular bills. nothing extra, just the regular stuff we could count on monthly. any bills that came in quarterly (like the $200 or so for adam's biz insurance, gifts, if the car breaks down, any repairs on the house, etc...) was money that had to come from somewhere else...which has been his freelancing work. or my websites' advertising income (which has dwindled to just barely enough to cover the costs of running the sites but does still give us a tiny bit of income...like less than $100).
and of course, even with all that...even during GOOD months...we STILL cannot afford health insurance for me. the kids have healthy families and adam has insurance through work. i only get medi-cal when i'm pregnant...so nothing for me now. luckily (knock on wood) i've not had much time spent in dr's offices in recent years. until recently i only went annually to my obgyn to get my annual poke-n-prod (aka pap smear), which i pay directly for. no discounts. recently i finally decided i needed to be seen by a doc because of my migraines (averaging 2-6 a month) and my asthma (that always kicks in hardcore whenever i develop a cold...which is not often, so i've been able to ignore for years...but recently it got really tiresome coughing up a lung and having nothing to ease it.) so i found a new primary care physician and am now on medication for migraines that seems to be helping and i have medicine for when my asthma kicks in. paid out of pocket (well, will be once we get the bill) for the visit.
anyway, i'm off on a tangent, sorry...recently adam's not been getting much freelancing work and the stuff he gets don't always pay him for awhile. times are tough for everyone, i know. so not only are we going to be short the $260ish from his salary, but we are also very short on the extra income. how the hell do we handle that?
well, we do have a little stash that we call "house money" that we try to keep in a separate bank account that is for the remodel of our "big room." that's our garage conversion that was remodeled to a family room by previous owners. because of a flood caused by a hose left on (by me, *sigh*) that triggered toxic mold to grow, the entire room is gutted. we are starting essentially from scratch to rebuild it. and we decided to divide it in the process so that adam will have a new office and tyren can finally have a bedroom (adam's old office).
ANYWAY. so looks like we're going to have to be living off our "house money" for awhile. which means we won't be getting that room back anytime soon. *sigh* i've lived for over a year now without that room and its been really stressful. there really isn't enough room in the rest of the house for what i need for the kids. that room was the playroom so now our living room is always trashed and we have crap crammed in every corner in the house (ok not every corner...in the office and in the bedroom next to the bed, though, and filling up the shed...black garbage bags full of mold spore covered items that i cannot yet clean and bring back into the house because i have NO PLACE to put them!!) this is all my homeschool books (and all sorts of other books) and all kinds of art supplies and toys and other kid related items that we cannot access at all right now. makes homeschooling hard cuz i cannot access all my stuff. and because we don't have a good space for any messy work. the kitchen table is just not a good spot. i'm already rambling so i won't go into why, but its not a good spot.
so back to the original thought....so now things are worse then they already were. but surprisingly i'm not feeling like i'm losing it. i really don't know why but i feel kinda calm about it all.
we had to cancel our annual trip to marine world homeschool days. (six flags in vallejo...not called marine world anymore but it'll always be marine world to me). too expensive. we also had to cancel our visit to our local cornfield maze. we're prioritizing and those things just don't make the cut. maeven's actually taking it pretty darn well, surprisingly. and so am i. maybe i'm just remembering that there are people that have lost their jobs, and my hubby just got a pay cut. and there are people that are losing their homes all over the place....we still have ours.
not sure what's going to happen...but if we have to go longer without the big room, so be it. at least we'll survive. i hate to think of having to go longer, but maybe i'll start dragging that stuff out of garbage bags and start getting rid of more of it and demolding the stuff i do want to keep. maybe i'll get more decluttering done around the house and move stuff around and purge and purge and purge and get rid of more stuff. maybe, in all my spare time (LOL! like NONE lately...i'm so friggin busy) but once i get motivated, its hard to stop me...so i'm going to hold this thought and come back to it tomorrow when i can do something about it.
first thing in the morning, methinks i will be trying to figure out where in the world to put my bookcase so that i can start demolding my books and bringing them in!!!
Friday, October 24, 2008
majorly stressed
i'm back to that kind of stress where i feel the walls closing in around me. after i write this i'm going to gather my kids and run some errands and get outside and breathe some fresh air and try to forget for a little bit.
what's stressing me? money. always money. especially right now. we have this blasted "big room" remodel (after the toxic mold situation) that we are always always always stressing over because we're short on space without that room...over a year now...and we have garbage bags full of the stuff from that room crammed in every spare corner and filling up the shed (all of which still need to be wiped clean with mold killer...but since i have no place to put the stuff now...there it sits in bags). and my son doesn't have a room and its starting to be a problem. and all of this is because of money. because we don't have the money to hire someone to just finish the damn thing...so we are relying on our brother-in-law, who's wonderful, but has a busy life. and so we keep having to wait and wait and wait for the damn room to be worked on! weeks keep going by with nothing done. then a spurt of work, then nothing for weeks. and right now i am ready to just charge the damn thing and get the damned room DONE!! because its a lot to ask rob to keep giving up his weekends to do this for us and its a lot for us to have to keep WAITING and WAITING for it to be DONE!!! its so friggin stressful all around!!! so what to do? hell if i know!
and then...there's more money problems...we have figured it out that adam's paycheck JUST covers all our necessities. all the regular bills. nothing else. i mean nearly to the penny. and then there's always this time of the year that has all kinds of things happening...halloween, maeven's birthday, adam & my birthday, then my brother's birthday, then tim's birthday, then christmas. oh forgot about thanksgiving. not costly, but we usually have to bring some food.
all that costs money. and of course with the country being in the financial state its in, its not a surprise that adam's work is barely managing to keep afloat. and so that will probably mean no christmas bonus this year...and that bonus usually pays for all of christmas and then some. so that means we are counting on not getting one, just in case. which means we have to worry about where the hell to get money to pay for everything. which means that adam needs to make some money and there's not a lot of freelance work available right now. and every bit we get we keep feeling like it needs to go into the big room...but then there's no work being done on it most weeks, so the money keeps getting friggin eaten away!!!
its sooooooooo frustrating!
so we are looking at canceling our trip to marine world. since we just don't have the money. our annual homeschool days at marine world trip is really fun, but it will be so stressful since we cannot afford it! my mom has offered to pay, but i don't know...we'll have to think about it some more.
anyway, i'm stressed. we have not enough money and we have lots of things that need money. ok i need to get away from this stress now.
what's stressing me? money. always money. especially right now. we have this blasted "big room" remodel (after the toxic mold situation) that we are always always always stressing over because we're short on space without that room...over a year now...and we have garbage bags full of the stuff from that room crammed in every spare corner and filling up the shed (all of which still need to be wiped clean with mold killer...but since i have no place to put the stuff now...there it sits in bags). and my son doesn't have a room and its starting to be a problem. and all of this is because of money. because we don't have the money to hire someone to just finish the damn thing...so we are relying on our brother-in-law, who's wonderful, but has a busy life. and so we keep having to wait and wait and wait for the damn room to be worked on! weeks keep going by with nothing done. then a spurt of work, then nothing for weeks. and right now i am ready to just charge the damn thing and get the damned room DONE!! because its a lot to ask rob to keep giving up his weekends to do this for us and its a lot for us to have to keep WAITING and WAITING for it to be DONE!!! its so friggin stressful all around!!! so what to do? hell if i know!
and then...there's more money problems...we have figured it out that adam's paycheck JUST covers all our necessities. all the regular bills. nothing else. i mean nearly to the penny. and then there's always this time of the year that has all kinds of things happening...halloween, maeven's birthday, adam & my birthday, then my brother's birthday, then tim's birthday, then christmas. oh forgot about thanksgiving. not costly, but we usually have to bring some food.
all that costs money. and of course with the country being in the financial state its in, its not a surprise that adam's work is barely managing to keep afloat. and so that will probably mean no christmas bonus this year...and that bonus usually pays for all of christmas and then some. so that means we are counting on not getting one, just in case. which means we have to worry about where the hell to get money to pay for everything. which means that adam needs to make some money and there's not a lot of freelance work available right now. and every bit we get we keep feeling like it needs to go into the big room...but then there's no work being done on it most weeks, so the money keeps getting friggin eaten away!!!
its sooooooooo frustrating!
so we are looking at canceling our trip to marine world. since we just don't have the money. our annual homeschool days at marine world trip is really fun, but it will be so stressful since we cannot afford it! my mom has offered to pay, but i don't know...we'll have to think about it some more.
anyway, i'm stressed. we have not enough money and we have lots of things that need money. ok i need to get away from this stress now.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
bummed
found out today that we will no longer be able to afford maeven's art classes. :(
i'm SOOO bummed! the place we've been going for about 4 years now is truly awesome, but very pricey...i had a deal with the original owner for free classes in exchange for advertising her biz on my local family website. then she sold it and the new owner offered me a deal where i could get every other session free... after doing this where we skipped one session (the one we didn't get free), i came up with the idea to do half price all the time and she agreed. i just couldn't see maeven having to have gaps in her art education like that. sessions were typically 8-10wks. so that went on for about 3yrs i think. half price. it was wonderful! and maeven adored her teacher, who also is the owner. and i loved it because for a change i found a place that really was in sync with my very opinionated views on art experiences for children! LOL! (i've been to art experiences around town and most all have been just crap.)
well i found out today that she can no longer do the half price deal and now we'd have to pay full price. i calculated it out and the full price for one art class next session is $25.83!!! ay yi yi!!! WAY out of our budget! even at half price we were scraping to come up with the money for it. i don't even have health insurance, but i was finding money for my daughter's art classes. well, sadly, we cannot do it anymore. not for that price. :(
i'm really bummed!
looking into other options but i don't have a lot of faith that i'll find any other program that will fit my philosophy so well. hoping i can find something that is "good enough" though. looking into it.
i'm just in shock over here over those prices though....guess the program is aimed at those with higher income. i had no idea we were so lucky getting the classes for what we were! that explains why none of our friends ever went. they're all pretty poor like us! *sigh* it sucks. ok we're not REALLY poor, but lower middle income, i'd say. i guess that's the price we're paying for me to be able to be home and give our children a quality education. minus the fabulous art program now, unfortunately. now i have to add art experiences to my FULL schedule of things to do for maeven. *sigh* like i don't have enough to do. i was really glad to have that one subject pretty well covered and just providing her supplies to do free art at home whenever she wanted. that class gave her the diversity of new experiences and supplies we didn't always have here. ah well. maybe i'll find an alternative we can actually afford. we'll see.
i'm SOOO bummed! the place we've been going for about 4 years now is truly awesome, but very pricey...i had a deal with the original owner for free classes in exchange for advertising her biz on my local family website. then she sold it and the new owner offered me a deal where i could get every other session free... after doing this where we skipped one session (the one we didn't get free), i came up with the idea to do half price all the time and she agreed. i just couldn't see maeven having to have gaps in her art education like that. sessions were typically 8-10wks. so that went on for about 3yrs i think. half price. it was wonderful! and maeven adored her teacher, who also is the owner. and i loved it because for a change i found a place that really was in sync with my very opinionated views on art experiences for children! LOL! (i've been to art experiences around town and most all have been just crap.)
well i found out today that she can no longer do the half price deal and now we'd have to pay full price. i calculated it out and the full price for one art class next session is $25.83!!! ay yi yi!!! WAY out of our budget! even at half price we were scraping to come up with the money for it. i don't even have health insurance, but i was finding money for my daughter's art classes. well, sadly, we cannot do it anymore. not for that price. :(
i'm really bummed!
looking into other options but i don't have a lot of faith that i'll find any other program that will fit my philosophy so well. hoping i can find something that is "good enough" though. looking into it.
i'm just in shock over here over those prices though....guess the program is aimed at those with higher income. i had no idea we were so lucky getting the classes for what we were! that explains why none of our friends ever went. they're all pretty poor like us! *sigh* it sucks. ok we're not REALLY poor, but lower middle income, i'd say. i guess that's the price we're paying for me to be able to be home and give our children a quality education. minus the fabulous art program now, unfortunately. now i have to add art experiences to my FULL schedule of things to do for maeven. *sigh* like i don't have enough to do. i was really glad to have that one subject pretty well covered and just providing her supplies to do free art at home whenever she wanted. that class gave her the diversity of new experiences and supplies we didn't always have here. ah well. maybe i'll find an alternative we can actually afford. we'll see.
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