From the months of November to March we spent roughly $2400.00 in heating our home. Four months. That was when the harshest of chill hit. October and April we probably spent about $400 those months but as I’m not going to pull out our oil bills, I’m only estimating.

Based off of the winter months, we spent $6200.00 on this house. Obsurd. Oil should not be costing this much. It’s not the cost of the oil, it is the fact that the house cannot retain heat. We knew we should have put plastic on the windows, etc. we should have prepared but when we moved in we were told that the previous renters spent about $200 a month, so we budgetted for anywhere between $300 – $400, thinking that we were high balling it. Boy were we wrong.

We decided that unless our landlord can lower our rent by $300.00 we wont beable to stay here throughout the winter. Which begins the great search for a place to live. I’m sad at the thought. As a lot of our options are mainly townhomes and apartments. We won’t rent an apartment as we are a decently sized family with a dog and a cat. We’d much rather a town home or a single family house. I’m sad about the idea of losing our backyard, our privacy, etc. depresses me.

We went and picked up Max on Friday and spent Saturday outside in the pool. The kids loved it, we enjoyed it and it was HOT. Pregnancy and heat don’t mix too well apparently. Or at least I should have known this since I’ve spent two summers pregnant before, just not THIS pregnant.

Sunday, the 4th we spent the day at my parents. I pounded the water and ice chips. Need to get my iron checked as I am definitely craving ice. My Mother has an ice machine that spurts out crushed ice so I was enjoying that versus waiting for the ice to melt a bit before chewing at home. My teeth aren’t in the best condition so I try to not cause too much havoc on them. Tori got to play with sparklers for the first time. It was nice to see her running back and forth and knowing to hand it back to Daddy when it got too low. Abby wanted to touch the ‘sparkle’ so Daddy held them for her. She actually enjoyed running around with her cousin Ainsley more than she did the sparklers.

That night we came home and well, TMI, but while using the restroom I had a very harsh contraction. After that contraction, I discovered that I had bloody show. I had a serious of contractions all night. However none of them were regular or even worth considering a reason to rush to the hospital. Though now we definitely feel we are playing the waiting game. I’ll know the baby will be here within a day or two when I spend an entire day nesting. That was how it was with both of my girls and I’m expecting the same this time as well.

I have my appointment tomorrow with my regular OB/GYN. Hopefully things will go well but I have this eerie feeling that something will not be quite right. Whether it’s my blood pressure, dialation, etc. I just have this feeling that baby will be here before the 23rd rather than wait until that day. We’ll see. I could be very wrong. I always tend to get anxious and then nothing happens. It could just be jitters because of all the action baby is causing in the belly the past few days. I do have a lot of pressure but I’ve had that pressure for weeks now.

And now…for some confessions. I saw this on a message board I read frequently and thought it’d be cute to do.

Four Confessions for this pregnancy

• I have not been consistent with taking my prenatals. I either forget or I can’t swallow them or they make me sick.
• I have at least one cafinated beverage a day. Trucking behind two toddlers and being 9 months pregnant requires cafiene.
• My sex drive is depleated. I have no urge for sex, no desire, versus my previous pregnancies.
• I’m not as excited about ultrasounds or ‘new’ things like I was with my first pregnancy. Perhaps it’s because this is my third time and I’m just ‘oh look baby on tv screen, looks like white noise’.

Through my husband and I’s marriage we’ve had quite a few pets. Some we have had to give up because of moving, because they were aggressive toward children etc. Our last dog, passed away from Parvo which was very heartbreaking. We had decided than that no more pets (other than the kitty we already had). We weren’t going to seek a dog and weren’t going to plan on getting a dog anytime soon.

Until recently that was. We didn’t start seeking or even considering adopting a dog until my husband came home telling me about a Golden Retriever one of his co-workers was looking to find a home for. His co-worker’s Father actually own(ed) the dog but as he has fallen quite ill, he’s going to a nursing home and as we all know, pets aren’t typically allowed in a nursing home unless they are a service animal. His co-worker was unable to keep the dog because his landlord does not allow pets.

At first dear hubby was just ‘mehh’ and didn’t think anything of it until he got caught up in a conversation with his co-worker about the dog. Everything the co-worker was saying sounded ‘perfect’. Too good to be true. And that brought us to today. We went to go visit dog, well Max. Max met all of our expectations and beyond so far. He knows all his basic commands, healthy, wonderful with the kids, up to date on health records, has energy but not too high strung and is definitely a ‘mans dog’.

Needless to say, Max came home with us today. It’s possibly a very silly thing of us to do, what with a baby coming in 22 days now but he’s an adult dog. He’s not a puppy we need to take outside every hour and he’s content to lay at our feet for a few hours as well. The kids are smitten with him and so are we. Im sure he’ll become a little less than perfect when he grows comfortable but I believe if there were any major training flaws or personality flaws, we would have noticed at some point today.

So yes, sometimes, if you wait and stop seeking that perfect ‘thing’ or ‘pet’, it’ll come to you.

I seemed to have done something to my big toe. I’m notorious in getting in-grown toe nails and I think I either didn’t get it or ended up cutting my nail bed getting it out. Needless to say either my nail bed is infected because it got cut open or the ingrown toe nail is growing and causing some pain. It doesn’t take much pressure to cause a jolt of pain. Moving my blanket at night with my foot even hurts. So that doesn’t help when I’m inches from deep sleep and bam, pain.

I’ve been full of complaints lately, little patience and feeling overwhelmed. I have a lot to accomplish before Audrey gets here but my dear hubby keeps telling me there is plenty of time, it will get done. I shouldn’t stress myself too much. Since she’ll come whether things are done or not and it won’t be the end of the world if all the laundry isn’t done when she arrives.

We’ll be spending our Independence day at my Parent’s house this weekend. I’m looking forward to it. BBQ, Sparklers, a few Fireworks, etc. should be a good day. We are not going to a big fireworks display this year. One, the date of the fireworks falls on days the husband works and he works nights, so that is not going to work. Two, due to PTSD, my husband has anxiety when it comes to large crowds. We thought we remedied this by planning to go the mall near my Mother’s to watch the fireworks from the car but given that their not doing fireworks till the 8th (a night the hubby works), we will not be able to go.

That’s okay. My toddlers love Grandma’s and they’ll get to swim, they’re water babies so they won’t care if they get to watch fireworks or not hah. Abigale counted to 3 today. It was amazing to hear her do it on her own. Often she will count numbers, not usually in any particular order unless I start with one, she says two, I say three, she says four and so forth.

I’ve got to get our pre-school stuff together and start preparing but I’m trying not to stress too much over this. Confession, I never went to pre-school. Neither did any of my siblings. I think I’m more than capable of teaching my children their ABC’s, 123′s, how to spell their name, the basics of writing, and the simple aspect of it. We don’t know if we plan on home-schooling or not, that is still the great debate but we have time before we need to make the ultimate decision.

Yesterday, I told everyone about a certain thing that happened with my eldest that cracked everyone up. And honestly it was very hilarious. I would love to have a place to write it down and I do have a place. Here. I’ll probably move my blog as yeah the name doesn’t really suit a ‘personal blog’ but none the less, it’ll still be me writing.

And as for that hilarious episode yesterday. Well a few weeks ago, two (out of four) of my brothers decided it would be hilarious to morph my youngest brother’s photos to make it appear like he had gained 200 lbs. They are both living in Texas and we haven’t seen Brother D since November. So of course, we are expecting some change. Just not that much of a change! Needless to say, they had the family going for a good part of the day believing that he really did gain a TON of weight. My Mother was near tears begging him to eat just vegetables and nothing else when they finally caved and told everyone the truth.

So that laugh had passed and Brother D has kept the photos on facebook just for a laugh. Yesterday I was going through his pictures there, checking out the new fat jokes everyone has posted and my eldest, Baby V happened to walk by. She suddenly exclaimed ‘Mama! Ashy is a fat boy!!!’ Needless to say, I was thrown into a fit of laughter, when we called Brother (well Uncle D to her) D, he was laughing, the Grandparents, etc. Everyone asked if I explained it to her and of course I tried but she is 3. So for now, she is stuck on believing that Brother D is a fat boy until she sees him again.

Now as for the ‘Ashy’ she said, that is what she calls him. I know where she gets it from and it’s not from his name but for the sake of my family, I won’t be explaining exactly how ‘Ashy’ became his name from her.

Home Management Binder

I have one and I do use it. It’s no where as elaborate as I thought it would be or should be and quite possibly nothing in comparison to many other home management binders. But right now it does house a few recipes, a menu plan, budgetting and cleaning schedules. I haven’t used the cleaning section of it once. Honestly. I do use the recipes. I do use the menu plan (to an extent) and the past few weeks the budgetting section has been helpful.

When I set to plan out the next 2 weeks budget, I pulled out the page that listed all the bills, the due dates, what was already paid, the amount due (or usual average with utilities) and knew exactly what had not been paid and what needed to be paid. This, I found, was possibly the best part of this make-shift binder of mine. It saved the stress of going through a handful of bills, checking the bank account and the websites of the corresponding bills to find out how much I owe, when or if I already paid etc. It was a god-send and quite possibly cut my typical budgetting time in half.

I think I’m going to empty out my cleaning section in the binder. Why? Because I have not used it. It’s been there since the day I spoke of creating a home management binder. Thats about 2 months now, I believe. It hasn’t been used once and only passed by to get to a different section. The cleaning schedules etc. will just have a over haul and eventually, something will be available there to check. But right now, it’s a waste of paper and space.

Budgetting/Finances

I touched briefly above on how we are doing budgetting wise. And honestly, we are better than we were before. I won’t go over again how I love my list of bills and income paper but I LOVE IT. We have been pretty decent about keeping a check book register/list of expenses. It’s been modified a million times over honestly. Mainly because every time I found a check book register spreadsheet that I liked, it screwed up. It wouldn’t calculate right or the help section didn’t answer my questions. So. I printed out a checkbook register. We are going paper and pen.

I’ll admit. Seeing the total left in the account after bills and bills that are expected to go out within the next two weeks, is haunting. Im staring at it right now and trying to figure out how we are going to make it until the 23rd of this month. I know we will. I know we will survive. But when our account drops to a certain point, I get the stress feeling. I don’t like that.

We tried saving $100.00 every pay period. It hasn’t been very successful. Every time we put $100.00 in, we ended up taking it out a few days later because we need it. Because the bank account is getting to low for our comfort. For many reasons. I wish it was easy to just leave it there. I wish I could some how put it in our heads to treat it like a bill. It’s money gone, can’t be touched, already spent. But I haven’t been able to.

I’ve been tossing around perhaps starting off very slow and small. $25.00 a month. If we can do just $25.00 a month perhaps we could eventually increase that amount and start this habit gradually rather than head on like we tried and have failed at.

I’ve tossed around doing the ‘envelope system’ for us. Ive thought it would benefit us. But it’s not something I have tackled yet. And I’m not sure if we will or not.

I’ve thought of seeking Dave Ramsey’s advice. I’ve heard his praises from all over the place. But I can’t bring myself to buy his book or anything of his that might help with debt/savings. Why spend money on something if you can’t 100% commit?

Coupons
In the past I’ve tried to play the coupon game. My brother is infamous in my family for it and my gosh he has a stockpile. He inspires me. But I also fear going up to the cash register at CVS and asking to make 3 seperate transactions to get the most of my ECBS, cash and coupons. It’s not ‘normal’. And I’m sure cashiers aren’t always fond of it. And what do I do if they say no? Walk out? Im generally a very non-confrontational person. I don’t like confrontation and I’m rather shy. Im an introvert to the ninth degree.

I do use coupons, definitely not to the standard of a hard-core coupon person but I do try and get a good sale with a coupon. And with the possibility of us losing part of our income, I’ve seriously considered trying again. Playing this drug store game, etc. but then that fear comes back and I have yet to make it to CVS because I’m intimidated by the cashiers. I do know, that if I make it to my first time, I will have my hubby there holding my hand.

YMCA/Playgroups
Everyone in my family has been so insistent on how badly my children need socialization outside of the family. That they need to go to the YMCA or be a part of a Playgroup. I can honestly say that we have not joined the YMCA because we can’t afford it. Right now with the baby coming, the many car repairs and trying to prepare for winter (yes, already, you spend 600 a month in oil and tell me Im crazy for preparing back in June), we just honest to goodness can’t afford the 78 a month fee plus the initial fees for signing the kids up for classes. We just can’t.

I’ll admit, we don’t have friends here. And the people I do know are not the kind of people I want around my kids. I know a lot of people from the town I grew up in (mind you we live 45 minutes away) and that town is not a good little NEPA town. I refuse to throw my kids into that mix. I’d much rather have them at home and family be their socialization then be involved in those crowds ever. We use to have a good secure set of friends when we were in the military. And I still talk to quite a few of them on a daily basis to this day. But we are all thousands of miles apart. That doesn’t benefit my children though.

As for play groups. There are two in this area. One that my sister in law is involved with and the other that looks like it is inactive. I considered the one my sister in law is involved with but when I started considering it. I got told “Don’t bring drama because they’ll kick you out” and a lot of horror stories. Not to mention my Mother told me in private that they are clique like. The ‘rich, snobby’ moms and then the ones that are ‘just there’. I would fit into the ones that are ‘just there’. Im not rich, I can’t afford 5 costly activities a week, unlike my sister in law. And I know, that drama will eventually come because of the fact that my sister in law and I are opposite.

So no, we wont be joining that group.

Honestly. At this point, I regret moving back to the great NEPA. I wish we were still in Georgia, where we knew a lot of people and my kids would have more available to them that everyone says they are lacking. I hate it here.

Inspired by Life As Mom’s post, it brought the need to write our story. I remember Memorial Day as a kid. It always fell on the weekend of my brother’s birthday and always we had a 3 day weekend from school. My family would bbq or we could go to Knoebels (a small amusement park a short distance away). We never did anything huge to celebrate. Memorial Day was just a day off from school and as a teenager, I looked forward to that. I knew it dealt with our military but I never made a big deal of it.

I then met my husband. My husband was in the Army stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado. He was part of an artillary brigade and loved (and sometimes hated) his job. He deployed November of 2005. He was deployed for an entire year and entire year I waited in Colorado for his safe return, along with many other wives, children and families. We had no children of our own, save for the one that was growing in my belly that was my mid-tour leave gift.

I remember those days, they were long, and a constant wait. A constant wait for a letter, a phone call, and some kind of information when he finally would be coming home. I avoid the news, not wanting to scare myself but kept myself informed of what was going on over-seas as best as I could. For my husband, he describes his days as short, hot, and busy. He still remembers all too clearly how walking outside of his hooch (sleeping quarters) into a dry heat that felt like a blow dry on high constantly in his face. Setting out to do patrols outside of the safety of the base and to return to attempt to get online or make a phone call back home.

Back then, everyone had Myspace and Facebook was barely heard of. The guys who were overseas would occasionally put photos up and most of them were of something to laugh about. I remember fondly a photo that was put up of a sheep. They named him Matt Damon because they said when he ‘bahhed’ it sounded like he was saying ‘Matt Damon’. Us wives thought they we’re all delirious, that the heat must be getting to them. But it was good to know that our men still could find something to laugh about.

And then would come the time where laughter could not be found. 3 days, sometimes 7 days would pass without a single word. Us wives would call each other daily to see if anyone had heard from their husband or anyone at all. Once the 3rd day passed with no word, a quiet understanding would come. Someone passed or was gravely injured overseas. Whenever this happened the men we’re not allowed to call home or use the internet because the Military as a whole wanted to make sure to contact the families before it began to spread by word of mouth. And while I detested these times of not hearing from my own husband, I was understanding. When those stretches would come, a paranoia would come with it that I’d have someone knocking on my own door to break the news, or a friend would have it happen to them. If something happened to my husband I would want to know directly from his NCO’s not from a neighbor down the street.

These occurances became somewhat of the norm. Quite a few times followed by a funeral procession on the military base. None of them directly affected us or friends for quite sometime. Another stretch came for 7 days. And while that paranoia was there, I didn’t think much of it. ‘No my husband is alright, it can’t be him’ I remember telling myself every time. 7 days passed and I finally got a phone call from my husband. I was so grateful to hear his voice, as I was every time but it was different this time. His veichle had been blown up. He was okay, not badly injured but two of our friends we’re lost. That was when it hit home hard. I kept back my tears on the phone but I remember when I hung up with him, I let everything come out. I cried and I prayed. I prayed for our friends who we’re on their way to see God, I prayed for their families and I prayed for my husband. I prayed long and hard.

I attended two military funerals shortly after that call and I’ll never get the image of the flag passed to the wives and mothers. I remember thinking to myself, ‘How can a flag possibly ever replace this loss?’ It is quite simple. It can’t. But the flag is given in rememberance. As a memorial. As a gift from the military for the service these men performed. For signing that paper giving everything up to and no less than their lives for our country. That these men, while they have passed on, will always be remembered by their country, their friends, their loved ones.

My husband returned from his deployment fairly unharmed. He was diagnosed with PTSD shortly after his return and will never see another deployment again. But again, his mental illness, is another reminder of the hardship of war. That when memorial day comes around, we need to remember and remember for the rest of the year what many brave men and women give up year after year.

I am forever grateful to the men and women who serve our country. Who fight for our freedom and what we believe is right. Who go to war, possibly with a million questions as to why, but serve their country relentlessly despite their political beliefs.

My husband and I are no longer active military. He is an Operation Iraqi Freedom Vet and I, a Army Wife Veteran. Our closest friends still remain those that we met during my husband’s time in service and our hearts are still very much military oriented and focused on our friends who still serve. We will NEVER forget. And we will ALWAYS remember.

I’m planning to make more this month. Except I’ll be doubling the recipe and using chicken thighs versus chicken breast. I want what I make from this batch to last the entire month opposed to only two 1/2 weeks this time.

This month is kind of a test run for me as I plan to hopefully do a great deal of freezer cooking the first week or two of July, considering baby will be here on the 23rd. It would make babies arrival much easier if meals we’re readily available and I think the hubby will thank me later. Maybe if I put my mind too it, we’ll only have to shop for the perishables at the end of July like milk, bread and eggs and will be able to do the rest of the menu plan right from our freezer! Okay…I can wish but we’ll see how far I get with that.

Any way, my freezer menu plan for the month of June is as follows:
Southwest Roll Ups – courtesy of Money Saving Mom
Cheesy Ham & Potatoes - Courtesy Meal Planning Mommies
Ham Steaks and Diced Ham for omlettes, salad toppers etc from left over Ham
Taco Meat – At least 4 lbs of it! We have a tradition of tacos every Saturday.
Pancakes – Some plain, some with blueberries, some with chocolate chips.
Lasagna – I’m debating between testing my own recipe as a freezer lasagna or using the Almost Lasagna recipe and freezing that. I’m also debating on whether to make one or two! We’ll see. Don’t want to overload too much.

I also want to do some muffins but right now, I’m seeking out a muffin recipe that will work for this (that we will enjoy). Or possibly maybe bananna bread. I’d like to throw in one more breakfast freezer option. French Toast Sticks might work as well. We’ll see!

We’re also going to supplement with work books. The Sonlight P3/4 is based mainly around reading and activities but does not include any workbooks. Right now Hooked on Phonics is having a fantastic 70% off sale and you can get an additional 50% off using the SLICK50 promotional code. I’m waiting till tomorrow to make the work book purchases because I am receiving a refund from a purchase I made on ebay. It’s only a $9.20 refund but it was unexpected and it should cover at least 3 different work books including shipping! I’ll also stop at Olli’s over the summer and check out the work books available there. As well as scope out what WalMart, Toys R Us and other online stores may be providing at decent prices.

I likely won’t be purchasing the Sonlight program until the end of the summer but work books I plan to gather over the summer months. And this way, even if we don’t have our ideal package ready at hand yet, we have something to begin until we do have it. Being that our decision to home-school did not happen till late April-Early May we did not have the winter to save to make all these purchases and I want to make sure that buying it, does not affect our family financially. So I’ll save $50.00 every two weeks, $100 a month, and by the end of August have the $300.00 it will cost to buy this preschool set.  I also plan on using School Express’s free work sheets as well. These we’ll be doing in the summer and throughout the school year, if we haven’t completed the ones I already approve of by then.

There are a lot of free home-school work sheet printables available, however, I am nitpicky. Not exactly nitpicky about how they have a certain letter shaped, etc. but I don’t like paper clutter all too much. Having tons of computer printed paper scattered around with doodles is not my idea and I’d rather it all be glued together in a book, opposed to every where around the house. I do think I’ll print out their entire alphabet work sheets for Ages 3-6 for both kiddos and bind them so they make a book but that may be the extent I go to until the kiddos have learned about paper control.

If your venturing on this path to, I think my biggest tip at the moment: Don’t overwhelm yourself. You don’t need a lot to do pre-school at home. Most of the things in your home are learning tools!

Our biggest decision is how exactly we want to go about it. There are many packages, small craft projects, books, etc. that can get you started. And I’ve saved a lot in my favorites. But I think my biggest task will be simple. Thinking of activities for the kids, that they will enjoy and learn from at the same time. I talk to friends of mine (who mind you, live all over the USA) that are putting their kids in pre-school and what they will be learning. Apparently Baby V’s pal, Al, will be learning to write, basic mathematics, the alphabet, how to spell and even write his name. I don’t remember learning that in pre-school. There seems to be a lot of pressure now to make kids learn quick and know many things before even reaching kindergarten. I would prefer an ‘at your own pace’ method, honestly.

To say I’m not nervous and a little lost as to where to start with this adventure would be a lie. I think for anyone it would be a bit intimidating to decide to homeschool your children. Whether you start in pre-school or with kindergarten. There are a lot of state laws and they vary state to state. Thankfully, with pre-school, I do not have to worry about that and have about a year before really learning the laws of my own state. There is also a plethora of information from different types of learning/teaching, to work books, to collections to start with, to opinions. Right now we’ve been having a huge toss up on where we want to begin.

Would it be better for us to pay about $300.00 and use Sonlight’s Preschool 3 & 4 set? Or should we pick up hooked on phonics pre-k to second grade set and start from there? The hooked on phonics I know I can find at Olli’s for much cheaper than directly through the site but at the moment I’m not exactly focusing on the initial investment. Or…should we come up with a variety of activities (at home and out of the house), pick up some pre-school age work books and games, and go from there?

I’m definitely a person who likes to have a plan, something sort of set in stone so that I know what I’ll be doing the next day. I think as a teacher and Mother for my children, I might feel more comfortable going with a ‘already made’ pre-school set and go from there. Being it the first year, I’d rather start off with something that is focused on what I’m looking for and then expand my horizons. So yes, as many times as I’ve been told that there is no need for a curriculum, that the majority of preschool is reading, I might go with the Sonlight program because I believe it would help me to be a better teacher instead of all over the place.

Really, I’m not sure where to begin. And I think, beginning is going to start with my first purchase. I’ll be continuing to update as we begin this adventure and prepare for pre-school!