May...

Well here we are already into the second half of the month. Time just is speeding by! Jeremy has been working a lot lately. He's had to fire two people, 1 quit and walked out yesterday, and 1 is moving. Plus his boss is going to be leaving as well and a new one is due in. Poor thing had to cook a double today. And will be getting about 16 hour overtime this pay period ending tomorrow. And then who knows how many hour over next week trying to fill in on the shifts. But at least he doesn't have homework! He's on a break until the 31st of June then starts back up with English and Chemistry. Oh boy!
However, I am sooo looking forward to our mini vacation to Vegas in June. We are going up to visit with J's brother's family! I'm so excited to meet my niece whom I haven't met in person yet and who I share a birthday with! :-) J's parents will be up there with us and his grandparents will be driving and spending some of Friday with us.
We actually just got back from a trip up to Wickenburg/Congress. We took J's truck to go get bookshelves from his parents house. What a trip! Lets just say we didn't have the best of luck with his truck. That hunk of metal will not be driven more than 60 miles from home again! We had a good time with J's parents and grandparents on Saturday though. We went to a travel show at the Phx Convention Center. Walked away with t-shirts, a sweater, frisbees, lots of notepads and pens, a BBQ cookbook, a 1 night stay at the Blue Water hotel/casino in Parker, Az (probably won't use), and a 1 night stay with breakfast and a $25 gift certificate to the tackle shop included at a B&B in Alpine, AZ (white mtns). Not too shabby!
The girls are growing too. We are teaching them about gardening and having them turn the water on and off twice a day. They planted seeds a couple weeks ago and J just transferred the seedlings that sprouted out to our big garden. Now we just need to keep all the birds away!
We did finally get renters into our house in NC so that takes a lot of financial stress off of us for now. Our insurance will be taking a big chunk of our checks from now on as our insurance with J's work has kicked in. (Now I just need the cards so I can go to the Dr again.)
That about wraps it up for now. Time for bed!
G'Night!
GG

Back to the drawing board

Well since Easter I haven't been doing the Weight Watchers like I am supposed to. I didn't go too crazy being off of it, but I wasn't counting points. My scale wasn't measuring right so Jeremy's mom gave me hers. Unfortunately, embarrassingly, I'm over the weight limit for that one so we have Jeremy get on that one and then onto the other one to measure the difference and then I get on ours that measures wrong and take the same difference off to get the right weight. But today is the day I start up again.
It's difficult for me to come up with recipes and make sure I have all the ingredients. I need to make time to sit down and plan out the week of lunches and dinners.
I've been pretty busy helping Jeremy plus doing my own housework and such. I had my first of 5 diabetes classes last Thursday. The next two Tuesdays and Thursdays I have the 2 hour classes in mid-morning so Jeremy was allowed to go into work late around noon so he is able to watch the girls for me. This is also the final week for Jeremy's classes and then he is off for 3 weeks! Thank goodness! We need this break - uh, I mean he needs this break!

Banks...

So I was checking my bank account today and realized we got paid so I went to my cable company to pay my internet bill. This took about 5 minutes. I went back to look at my bank account to figure up something else and WHAM.. there's a charge for just shy of $500 pending on my account from some company thats similar to ebay but is for electronics. J called the bank and apparently someone had used his bank card on line today. The bank said they couldn't file a claim until the charge went from "processing" to "cleared". I am thankful that the bank will put the money back into my account but can't they just deny the charge since it's still pending? I thank God that this happend the day we got paid. If not I would have a lot of overdraft fees. Bills can wait a bit to be paid once the claim goes through. Oh well we're not the only ones who have/will be hit with this crap. People who do this a selfish and greedy and need to be taught a lesson!

Really? To mow the lawn?

So we have decided to rent out our home in NC. We did a lot of cleaning and repairing before we left. That paid off because there are only a couple things to be done after 3 months of not being there. Fixing the smoke alarm, cleaning the refrigerator and mowing the lawn. The rental people tell me that people charge $65 to mow our lawn? Really? I know we have a pretty big back yard but it can't be that bad! We just got over winter! In addition, we paid a lady $125 to clean our house (sweeping, mopping, clearing cobwebs, cleaning the appliances) after we left. Someone, either her or the realtor, closed the fridge door when there was still moisture and now there's a bunch of mold all in the bottom of it! Arguh!!!! Stupid little things. But at least we are hoping it rents out fast. We are sending the repairs/cleaning money so they can get it all taken care of and start showing it.
I feel a bit apprehensive about this renting thing. I know we set aside money for 2 mortgage payments if no one rents it. I am worried about if something big happens like we have to replace a water heater or there's massive water damage or the AC breaks. We don't really have that much money to fix, but as landlords we would have to do that. Plus what if we get people in there that really tear it up? I know there is a security deposit, but what if the cost to repair damages is more than their deposit?? I just wish we could have sold it, it would be much easier.
Another side of renting our home out is how will this affect our taxes next year? So much to think about. I mean J and I have thought a lot about it and we've asked many questions. But anything can go wrong - then what? I'm having trouble not knowing what is going to happen with this situation. Oh well, life goes on.

My children are weird

Children are so crazy sometimes. I am really trying to get stuff put away and cleaned up from moving and all I normally hear is fighting or crying. It's when it gets silent that I know I need to check on the girls. So, this morning as I am putting away the clean dishes and was about to move on to putting clothes away, I recognized the silence. I checked the girls' room and they wern't there and then I hear whispers and giggles from the pantry area. I opened the curtain and there they were. Sitting on towels, with pillows and babies... STARK NAKED! What in the world?!?! I never did get a straight answer about what they were doing. One said the "babies were sleeping", the other said "babies taking a bath". Why they were naked, I have no idea. Oh, and also they are on this eating binge or something. I mean I feed them plenty of food but they are constantly getting into the fruit snacks and string cheese. Lately they have also been just getting and eating a plain slice of bread out of the fridge. At least those all are better than what they were doing in North Carolina. I would go into their room and find them with a tub of butter, a container of sour cream and 2 spoons. OY! Well, off to put a cartoon on for them so that I maybe can get this stuff all put away and arranged. Ta ta!!

Here we go...

So I am now officially signed up with Weight Watchers online! I'm excited! Got to go get a book and a scale and lots of fruits and veggies! I've been playing around with the website and found tasty-sounding recepies that I can cook. The hard part is going to get Jeremy to measure things out and write down what he puts in his meals so I can calculate my points.
Despite some sad times these last couple months, things are coming together. We've moved to our own place, set in motion plans to rent out our house in NC, getting our new bed and washer/dryer this weekend, and getting my health back on track! God is so great! And he has blessed me with wonderful in-laws that have been helpful and supportive with all that's going on.
I have got to get this house in order before the weekend--it's so chaotic right now. Boxes everywhere, trash bags piling up (we will have a trash can on Friday, thank goodness), and odds and ends strewn about looking for their rightful place. Just taking it one thing at a time or I'll drive myself crazy! Off to do a few puzzles then hitting the pillow. Night all!

Ode to Liberty

So when we moved into this place our landlord said we were to have no pets. So I had a hard time figuring out what to do with her. I wanted to give her to a loving home but the time seemed to fly and we were moved into the house pretty quick. I thought about how we had her outside in North Carolina and she stayed around the house pretty close. But I was scared cuz Arizona is vastly different. We live in a very rural/country area (dirt roads and animals). But what else could I do? So we just put her outside and left food and water on the poarch. We saw her for 2 days and then nothing for the next 5. I figured her for dead but it didn't sadden me for some reason. Maybe cuz it wasn't in proximity to me or I didn't actually see her body
But then tonight, as we got home from church and were about to close the door, she meowed and we all gathered around the door only to find she was missing an eye. First of all I started to cry (me and my stupid womanly emotions) which in turn made the girls cry. Jeremy was beside himself cuz all us girls were crying and then the girls started screaming/crying saying "Liberty dropped her eyeball" and "Liberty's scary, I don't like her". Jeremy brought her inside and when she walked toward the girls in the living room they screamed and ran to their room. We got her into her carrier and Jeremy made some calls. It would cost almost $900 to have a animal medic come to the house, administer first aid (what he could) and then transport her to a Tucson Animal Hospital. No way. I don't have that kind of money! When he called the AH in Tucson they said it was an emergency and if we could bring her in to be seen because there could be an infection and could go up into her brain if untreated. But then, what was going to be the cost of that? The gas alone would be about $50 round trip, plus the Dr cost and the cost of medicines and crap like that. I told Jeremy I couldn't make the decision. So he did. Right now he's gone with his friend Mike to make Liberty pain-free and I sit here and bawl my eyes out and write this. But it's better than letting her be in pain or letting her go into the wild again to just get killed or attacked again.I don't know that animals really have souls, but I hope Ginita is right and we will see our beloved pets again in Heaven. My little "Lib Lib" will be missed...