My Bucket list

I am glad I was able to grow up & be an adult. When I was 12, 13 or 15, all I wanted to do was grow up. I couldn't wait until I could drive, graduate high school, go to prom(or in my case JR/SR Banquet). I dreamed what it would be like to fall in love, get married, be pregnant, have my own family, buy a house! I wanted to ride in a airplane and travel to another country. There seemed like so many things I wanted to experience!

I'm 35, and thank goodness, and I did grow up! I experienced so many of my dreams. There are still a few things left I want to do:

1. Go to NYC
2. Go to Paris
3. Go to Hawaii
4. Have my grandchildren
5. Live in another state, preferably Florida!
6. Visit two more continents. Already been to 3- N.A., Europe and Asia
7. Go to a home Pittsburgh Steelers game
8. Build my own house
9. Travel across the country by car/camper.
10. Surprise my hubby by taking him away for a week without him knowing, or him doing that for me!

I am sure I could come up with more, but that is what I can think of for right now!!!! What is your bucket list?!

Why I am poor

Clever title, huh?

Yesterday was just a normal day, and this is why I am poor.  This is just a list of day-to-day expenses, and why I never can get ahead with money!

$6.00: Something Boys needed for school

$5.40: My lunch(maybe a little extravagant, but I have to leave the office or I'll go nuts, and a sandwich with chips and a brownie just don't cut it, when you sit for 9 hours a day)

$42.00: Gas(not to be political but when Obama took office gas was 1.85, and I paid 3.59 a gallon yesterday, almost double.  Am I better off now?)

$14.86:  Papa John's Pizza - I bought pizza for the kids and Tim for dinner.  Could I came out cheaper cooking, I'm not so sure - 2lbs of ground beef, spaghetti sauce and pasta for 5 including two teenage boys who just got out of football practice, very, very close!)

$110.00: Insurance for my 2 boys to play football.  (Mind you, I already paid $20/each for physicals.  And from what I understand, this does not actually cover them if they get hurt, this is just to protect the school district, from being held liable)

This adds up to $178.26 in miscellaneous expense.  This does not cover the house payment, power bill, and other household bills that got drafted from my account.  If you split up our household bills, and divide by 30 days, it is about $130 or 26 a day per person in our family.  This includes our house payment, food, gas, and car payments.

Today in our chapel at work, we had our reps from Bangladesh here to share about the work.   According to WHO, the extreme poverty level is $1 a day per person.  One of the outreach projects that our reps oversee is for people with leprosy who have disability and their income is less than 30 cents per person a day.  They can never get ahead, they struggle to have one meal a day, of just rice.  These are the poorest of the poor. 

So, am I really poor?  NO, and I get depressed sometimes because we have a hard time paying for all the extra's or the power bill is $305.00 in a month.  But I can feed my kids, and give them a comfortable life, and take them on vacation.  I am rich, and most of the people who live in this country are too, compared how to others in this world live.  I think most of us in the county are the true 1%. 

Think about it.... 

We're getting there!

Sorry, it's been a while.  I have been lazy with my posting, and mainly because I have been lazy at home.  Not truly lazy, I have been busy with other things, like getting kids started in school, working and football.

Here is the progress so far on our house.  The foundation is bricked in the first picture, and the floor has been laid in the second.  I am so excited!  Tim and I are adding a walk-in closet and a bathroom.  We wanted to get a big garden tub for the room.  I really did not want a jacuzzi.  I have heard they are hard to clean, but I just wanted a big tub.  Well, we didn't have the money for it at first(as it's taking all our money just to do the building part), but we really needed to get it bought, before he framed up the addition, since it would be too big to bring in through the house.  Tim and I were not sure what to do.  THEN, this past Sunday the church had a reception for Tim's 10th Anniversary there.  They took up money for him, and Tim and I decided to use it for the bath-tub.  We went Tuesday night to Lowe's and there was absolutely nothing in our price range and time frame.  The one I wanted was close to $700 and would take a month to get in.  Then our contractor told us about a couple plumbing wholesale places here in town.  Tim went after lunch yesterday, and they had the one I wanted - get this - for $375.00.  They told us it could be in by next Friday.  We were so excited!!! So, I placed the order, and then the guy called me back and said they had one at their other location in Greer, we could get it today!  Even better news!  We are going to have to wait until we have enough money to run the plumbing to it, but at least it will be in the house and ready to be ran when the money comes in!

 

Here is a link to our new tub, http://www.maax.com/en/UtilityPages/BuilderSpecHelper.aspx?modelid=%7B62B094BA-1C17-4B5F-B5E1-CF9030635C0F%7D.  If you want to get a sneak peek, at what it's going to be like!

 

 

I still have a couple projects left in the Katy's room and the boy's room.  But I am so proud to say they have a done marvelous job keeping their rooms cleaned.  Tim and I have been so surprised how well they have done.  We said we should have done this a long time ago, if we knew giving them a source of pride would have helped them keep their rooms clean. 

 

Enough for now!!



Sorry

Well, sorry, I haven't posted in a few days.  What a whirlwind of days...

My husband's grandmother passed away Sunday, and it was pretty sudden.  Today is the receiving friends and funeral. 

My sister, mother, and my niece and two nephews have been here since last Thursday from Arkansas, as well. They left to drive back to Arkansas today.  I enjoyed seeing them, and my kids loved it too.  All 3 of Anna's kids thought Katy was the greatest thing ever imagined.  Graham who will be 2 in November, would just come up to her and hold his hands out for a hug or to be held.  Last night was hard to say good-bye.  Graham pitched a fit, and kept wanting to give Katy a hug and kisses.  It was like he knew it was good-bye.  Those kids are precious and I will miss them.  They did like riding in their Aunt Kelly's car, since she has a tv/dvd!   Here's the pic of all 6 of the grandkids

Yesterday was finally my birthday.  I took half a day off and went shopping to the outlets with the family.  Then we went to Portofino's for dinner, and they gave me a free dessert.  I had Cheesecake!  Then my mom made my favorite cake - Coconut! 

Christian told me to tweet celebrities to see if I could get a retweet for my birthday.  I tweeted two: Hines Ward and Donald Trump Jr.  Donald Trump Jr. has tweeted with me a couple times, because I replied once to his, and we had a political discussion.  So last night, I get a tweet from Donald Trump Jr.  I WAS SO HAPPY!  I love the Apprentice, and he's my favorite.  He's really smart and sees through people's craziness, and a he's a savvy business man. Anyways, it made my night!

So, I still have a lot on my plate, with the house.  Tim is having some football coaches over this weekend, and I will be mad-rush cleaning.  But I work best under pressure and deadlines. The challenge is on!

Well, enough for now... it's almost time to leave for the funeral home... I hope everyone is on their best behavior today.  If you know anything about Tim's family, it's going to be a miracle!



3-5!

A week from today I will be 35...Half way to 40! Most likely, half of my life!!! Just thinking about this has made me more melancholy than normal.

One of the reasons, I decided to blog, was to share about my life and my feelings.  I seem to do this better through written words than verbally.  I am an introvert -- an ISTJ according to Meyer-Briggs.  To understand me, I have attached an ISTJ profile.  One thing that is profound to me about me, is "ISTJs are likely to be uncomfortable expressing affection and emotion to others."  This is me 100%.  I am trying to express more about how I feel through this blog.  But please don't try to hug me, I still need to work on that! :)

But every year at my birthday, I become super-introspective.  As this quote says,
"Under stress, ISTJs may fall into "catastrophe mode", where they see nothing but all of the possibilities of what could go wrong. They will berate themselves for things which they should have done differently, or duties which they failed to perform. They will lose their ability to see things calmly and reasonably, and will depress themselves with their visions of doom."  So this is where I am today--- full blown catastrophe mode and full of visions of doom!!!

I am disappointed in myself.  I wish I could re-do the last 10 years of my life.  I am super-happy I married Tim, 16 years ago.  He is truly a phenomenal husband, and we are sincerely meant for each other.  I love my kids, with all my heart.  I do wish I was more loving with my children, than just fulfilling the duties of a mother.  Christian is 13 now, and I realize our time with him at home is quickly coming to an end.  I just wish I could have been a better mother to all 3 of my children.  A single day does not go by, where I do not have regret in my parenting skills.

I wish I was not working full-time.  But in the same breath, if I had planned on working full-time, I wish I was more qualified and had a better job.  I enjoy what I do, but I could have been a lot more than what I am.  I just didn't know, I would end up working instead of staying home full-time. 

There are a couple other things, I wish I could have changed. I just really wish I could redo the last few years, and have a fresh start.  But I guess, it doesn't work that way.  I am just going to try change the future, and pray I will stop dwelling on the past.  But that doesn't happen easily for me!  But if an ISTJ, is super capable of achieving goals, than I am going to try!!!

Oh, 35.....

T.G.I.F.

It's Friday!!! I am so glad for the weekend!  Last night was actually very relaxing, the kids went to Tim's sister's house.  Tim and I decided to relax last night and catch up on our DVR'ed shows, and we were so exhausted from being up so late on Wednesday. 

The boy's room flooring is about 85% complete.  After I left for work yesterday, Tim called Daniel, a guy who used to be in our youth group, and in 2 hours, he did more than what took the other guy and day and a half.  Plus, he's coming back tonight as well to help us get finished! Cute story though...it was supposed to be a surprise, Tim didn't tell me and wanted me to come home and be shocked.  But he should have told the kids that. Brock called me, and was so happy to tell me all the work Daniel had done.  I had just talked to Tim a few minutes before, and he didn't mention him coming.  I pieced it together pretty quick, what was going on.  I told Brock, I don't think you are supposed to be telling me that.  He felt so bad, and didn't want me to tell Tim.  Brock is like me, he HATES to disappoint people.  It bothered him.  So I acted shocked, and then told Tim later last night, how cute it was. I was glad he did, cause him telling me caused a lot of my anxiety to go away in the afternoon at work.

Now, in a perfect world, I would go to Ikea Charlotte today or tomorrow.  There are several things I wanted to buy last time, but didn't have the room to bring home.  I really, really wish I had a truck!!! So if anybody with a truck, wants to driveup to Ikea and take me with you, I would be very grateful :)!!!

The yard sale is not happening this weekend, I really want to get everything back in their rooms, and sorted through before I have the big yard sale!  I have a lot to sale, I mean a LOT!!!

So, hopefully before this weekend is over with, I will have pictures to post of the rooms and furniture! I cannot get to the mattresses yet, until we move her dresser back to her room.  I will be so happy to get my house back in order, instead of look liking a house from Hoarders: Buried Alive!!!!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!! Again, feel free to comment!!!

Epic Fail

I'm sitting on my sofa about to have a nervous breakdown. Tim and I were up until about 1:30 trying to lay flooring. I really should not have bought cheap flooring. I'm not sure what the problem was, but it would not go together.

We realized we were not going to get it done last night before the furniture came this morning. We conceded that they can just bring the boys beds in, an not put them together. After realizing all this, we decided to get sleep, since we both have to work today.

I hate failure, I hate losing. I hate feeling like I wasted money. I hate giving up. I hate feeling powerless. I hate feeling incompetent. Needless, to say, I tossed and turned all night. My neck is sore, and my jaw hurts.

The last two days have been a rollercoaster. I have had two stressful days at work. Tuesday we had all day staff team building day, which culminated in a scavenger hunt. I was on a team with our CEO, who is ultra competitive, and another girl, who is the same way. We worked hard and won. But it was very draining. Yesterday we had another half day of staff training which ended up us each having to do a presentation. I absolutely hate speaking!

In good news, my IRS situation is resolved! But the issue with my kids is still up in the air! I'm one step closer for it getting fixed, but we had to make a decision yesterday, and turn down a possible scenario, because it just didn't work.

Well, I'm still waiting for the delivery. Feel free to comment on anything I have posted!