Nanamom's thoughts Blog

Our debt is a Yoyo. We are trying to eliminate it but the trips East are adding to it. Still wouldn't give them up for anything. I love my kids and grandkids. Just reduced it quite a bit tho. We have two cards that we are carrying a balance on. We also have one we use online and pay off every month. The goal is to get it back to 1 that carries a balance and then drop it to zero and use it for trips only, paying it off when the bill comes.

Hey the IRS gave me more money! Guess when they said early May they meant it. I promptly put it on a credit card along with DH bonus. He got a raise too so things are looking up. Now to set up things so we can save it. Have to wait till we get back form our trip East but it will be set up the day after that.

My 3 year old is not feeling well today. She crawled in with me about five thirty this morning and has been whimpering on an doff ever since. I keep putting her back in bed when she falls asleep and 30 minutes later she is staggering up to me. She then lays on me and falls back asleep. I feel so bad for her. No fever, just "my tummy doesn't feel good" as I was writing this she called and I ran up. She gagged a couple times and fell back asleep. Sometimes I wish she'd just throw up and get it over with!! Ah well, with 4 kids for the last 6 weeks I guess I am blessed that this was the first time any of em got sick, now if we can just contain this!!

I got an IM from my DIL telling my that my DS1's mid tour leave had been canceled. They were on a mission and would be unable to contact us for up to 2 months or more. In my DS1's words, they were going into "hell" I was to put it mildly terrified. Two days later I got a phone call telling me th emission was canceled because it was too dangerous. While I am VERY glad his leave is back on it has made me think of what others are facing. While I worried about him it didn't occur to me that others are in even more danger. Time to step up my prayers.

Somehow pipes are just not where I want my discretionary income to go. However after calling a plumber to put in an outside faucet and being told that all the pipes in the crawl space need to be replaced and that he found several leaks (he showed them to my DH) I guess that is where it is going, now to decide copper or PVC. The paper he gave me lists prices for each, PVC is of course cheaper, but only by 250 (only?) but i have to research how long each will last.

but taxes on it arent
DH got a nice bonus. Uncle Sam took half of it! What is cool is that we will get it all back at the beginning of January when we file. It was nice to sign into our account and see twice what I expected. Of course it has to pay off some credit cards from the traveling but at least it is there to do that.

At least for Mom! I had to send a little one to bed early. They were saying bad things. Why is the potty so funny for a 4 year old? To make things worse, I had to put nasty stuff (worcester sauce) in my 3 year olds mouth for lying to me. It was so hard! I like giving rewards much better! We did have a great school "day" today. We are reading about Pontiac and reached the 4th chapter. Today we made a wigwam, bow and arrow (he got one when he was 6) canoe, net to catch fish and basket of fish. It was fun and the kids learn so much more that way. WE also did several worksheets but those aren't as much fun. WE are going to a movie today. Nim's island. DH went yesterday and I get to take the boys (age 4) today.

We had so much fun yesterday and all it cost was a little gasoline for the drive to a friends house. We spent the morning outside playing in the snow (yeah in Wisconsin that Spring thing hasn't quite gotten here yet) and then we went to a friends and played games all afternoon. The 2 and 3 year olds napped so we could concentrate on the gaming. The boys had a blast with the other 4 boys that were there. Then when we came home we watched a couple episodes of the rifleman on DVD. It was fun and the show has a good message. On one of them the father told the story of Job from the Bible.
We have started a ticket brigade. When you do certain things you earn tickets. It is a more visible reward system for the kids than allowance day once a week for a 3 and 2 year old. The 4 year olds love it too. It is amazing how fast a 3 year old in a screaming fit can calm down when all I say is "do you want to lose a ticket?" WOW. At the end of the week they get to spend tickets on prizes I pick up at the dollar store or computer time. I do believe in good behavior being its own reward but when they are that close in age you need a little more ammo! I wonder how the pioneers did it! You also earn tickets by answering questions pertaining to hard stuff like electricity or adding, depends on what we learned that day in school and on what you are having a problem retaining! Questions are asked at meals when I have a captive audience and since I have a couple of finicky eaters (unless a growth spurt is looming) it makes them eat up cause no food gone means no question and that means no ticket! I realize this is way too lenient to some but it works for us. I like seeing the kids try to help each other without answering (cause that would lose a ticket too) and learning to accept a time out gracefully (cause screaming is a big ticket loser at our house.)

I now have 4 students in my home school. Two of our grandkids have joined our household for a while. Not sure how long yet but at least a month. Lets see when we adopted out little girl my DH said I shouldn't have to do dishes anymore cause I was doubling my work and he took them over (believe me I am grateful, lots of dishes right now) So now that I have doubled again, wonder what he will take over!!
Just invited him to read my blog, and he started laughing, wonder what that means!?

4 little letters that are a big relief right now. We drove from GA with 4 little ones ages 4,4,3,2 with stops in NC, PA, OH, MI, IN, IL, and WI. It was a long long drive. We have been gone for almost 4 weeks. I am really looking forward to my own bed tonight.

We are on the road,left at lunchtime yesterday after finalizing our youngest's adoption. We got pretty far yesterday, below the windy city anyway. That includes an hour and half stop at a curriculum fair for home schoolers where I enjoyed having some hands on with stuff I had been reading about. I picked a phonics curriculum for my older two (age 4) because they can both work out of it even if it is in different workbooks. I also found a reading comprehension book to challenge my 4 year old. I found copies of several of the biographies I have been searching for to read to my 4 home schoolers and was delighted to do so. the funny part is that the lady who was displaying them lives within a half hour drive from us in WI. I am looking forward to getting more of those books after we get home. We drove as far as south Bend and then settled two kids and two dogs for the night. This morning started early, DD2 was up at 4:19 WI time and never went back to bed. Of course it woke up DS2. So we were on the road before 6 AM. We drove as far as we could and then had to stop because of the bad storm that was predicted. It wasn't a dream of some weatherman. It is several inches of white cold vision disrupting road blocking trip destroying mess. We are stuck here till Monday. I am sure Sandusky is a nice place to visit however I wanted to be in PA by now. My family was planning a nice lunch tomorrow which had been canceled. We were then going to NC to see my DD1 and may have to cancel that as well. In all fairness it isn't just the storm, our car has started hesitating every so often and we are concerned. I am hoping it is due to an accumulation of snow. It could signal the abrupt end of our transmission. We are taking it to the dealer on Monday. They were closed due to snow today. We will see what they have to say. We will get to see DD1 at some point this trip. It may be after we pick up the grandkids though. Depends on how long the car is tied up. Ah well, we have a room, (there are others stranded when the road was closed), we have food(snacks for the road are plentiful at the beginning of the trip), so that makes 4 walls that are closing in rapidly, two kids ages 4 and 3, two large dogs and one husband who want sto take a nap. Good thing he has a hearing problem!! The hotel even has an indoor pool. I didn't bring swimsuits but maybe walmart when the snow clears tomorrow. or if?

I tried to put a picture on my blog but it isn't working. Or at least it didn't work on th eold entries. This is a trial entry to see if it works on future ones. My picture is of me with my oldest who is in Iraq. As I type my youngest son is also typing. Here is his work, letter for letter.
yanai and honey both kissed me at the same time.
and they noced me down.
and the cat is tacen uwae until we get bac.
Translation is Yanai and Honey (our big dogs) both kissed me at the same time. and they knocked me down. and the cat is taken away until we get back. Not bad for a 4 year old. I helped with the ow in down and encouraged the use of the space bar. The cat went to a friend for the duration of the trip.

Didn't blog when the Federal taxes were deposited (I was too busy sending them to bills) but it took less than 2 weeks for us to get our money. It is of course gone but that's ok, we owe less now. On the other side we had a plumber in so the money I had saved for DS2 bed is now gone but that's ok. His new bed is a bunk and he slept in it for the first time last night and loves it. It looks like an army bunk complete with toy box engine. I'll try to attach a picture. WE live next to the owner of th estore so we got a big discount. It is so cool. I figure it will last him a lifetime, cause if he ever gets too old for army cloth that can come off and he'll have a hunter green set of bunks.

I logged onto my bank account and almost fell over. It was about 3 hundred more than I expected. That is too much for a raise and too little for his bonus (both of which are due soon)so I asked him what was up. He said he changed the deductible since we are adopting in the morning. this way Uncle Sam won't get a big loan from us. I am going to try to "lose the extra" by hiding it in another account like the emergency fund when we get back. I am really trying t make sure we don't over spend on this trip East the way we usually do even though it is longer. When we get back we will have the "gift" from Uncle Sam to look forward to and his raise plus a couple other things in our mail. It might be enough to pay off the credit cards completely. That would make me extremely happy!

It has been busy around here getting ready for our two grandchildren to spend the next 9 months. Their Mom will be going to Iraq as a civilian to work on vehicles. They are hoping this will get them out of debt. An extreme way to do but it works. We are excited to have the youngest children here. They are 4 and 2 and my two are 4 and 3. It will rock around the clock here I am sure! We have been making plans for fun things to do, homeschooling materials, and trips to take. We are going to keep them too busy to miss their parents too badly (yeah right) We're at least going to try. We are also getting ready to finalize our second adoption. 9 more days to go. till the finalization and th etrip down to get the kids. We are stopping off on the way to see my family in PA and our daughter in NC and her family. We are waiting to see when their Dad gets leave so he can come see them. Hopefully their Mom will get leave at the same time and they can both come here.

I just bought the math program I am going to go with for the next year or so. i will have two 4s (turn to 5s in late summer) and i think it will be a good program to make concepts memorable. I also like that the songs come in two versions, Bible based and kids songs. I am sometime challenged to use the Bible in Math (you can count only so many arks) and am delighted that they did it this way. The 2 and 3 yr old will learn the songs and be further ahead too. This system goes into Algebra, geometry and precalc. They also have a stewardship program that i think is really important. Hopefully it will be a good system for us.

I was amazed to find my state taxes were already deposited into our account. That's less than a week.!

We debated on how to do taxes this year. Fro the last two years we have use a service because we had a special deduction that has now run out. So we considered how to file this year. Thought about snail mail for about 10 seconds. Didn't qualify for free file through the site.Looked at the HR Block online file and actually went through most of it until they tried to tell me I owed 500 more for the state than I had found when I did it on paper. I used their nifty live help and the girl asked me if I had called the state. Why would I the paper tax tables said one thing it was her program that was faulty. I left the site very disatisfied and bought Turbo tax. I was disgusted to find that after I paid 45 for the program I still had to pay another fee to file state and federal. Ah well I paid and hope to get my tax money in the next week or so. Just in time to clear some of the debt before we head south. I am hoping to get the tax rebate later as well. That will be another 1500 towards the debt. I have high hopes that we will be once again debt free by summer. This time I intend to stay that way.

We filed paperwork with the court today and a date for finalization has been set. Our DD2 will be official on my birthday.

My DIL is going to Iraq. She told the kids (who will come to live with me) that i twas to help their Dad and they agreed that they couldn't leave Daddy over their without any help. The 4 year old made her promise that when he is old enough he can go over and get rid of the "bad guys" once and for all so nobody else's Mommy or Daddy have to leave them. She has a civilian job for a year. It isn't the easiest way to get out of debt, 12 hours a day 7 days a week but it will do it for them and then they can hopefully buy a house. In the meantime Nana and Morfar get to have two more little ones. The older ones are staying with friends in the area. The plan is to keep them so busy they don't miss Mom and Dad too much (yeah right)

We are all sick, but the kids seem to be hit the lightest Thank God. DH is short of breath and weak even with the meds. He is also congested and coughing. I am weak, congested and coughing. I am keeping on because I have to with the kids. I am even doing some declutter in light of the company we are expecting later. First i have to make it to the store today, wish we had a drivethru grocery store!!

I can't risk collapse with two little ones around that count on me. I was so weak I could hardly carry them upstairs and I don't think it was just the fever. So I gave up the raw diet and went to my own. I am down 11 lbs so far so I don't think I did too bad. I am still eating healthy. I am still eating very little, so I guess it will do OK. I hope so anyway. I'm not very hungry with this cough thing going on so that helps.

But I'm not, I lost 2 more pounds which brings the total up to 9 #s. Had kids sick for the last 2 days, running fevers and stuffy. now I feel lousy and i'm not sure it was from that or from the crash diet I'm on. DH has lost 13 Lbs.

Looked at doing taxes last night. I believe we will get a couple K back which will pay for our trip east coming up later this month. If my DH gets a bonus we have a chance of once again becoming debt free. Then we will build up the EF again. It was frustrating to be so far ahead and then lose it but we needed to help out. No regrets except that we didn't start soon enough to have an EF large enough to handle it. Then we would have saved the interest. Next years taxes will be better. DH is going to change the deduction so we don't owe anything and pay very little, then all we get back is the credits we will be entitled too and the IRS doesn't get a free loan.

I didn't lose any weight yesterday. That is a problem with getting weighed everyday. On the off day you know it. I ate less yesterday. No justice in an old body! Oh well I will stick to the diet and see what happens tomorrow.

We have several appointments today including doing paperwork for finalizing the adoption so would normally be a great day to celebrate (read eat sugary stuff) but we aren't. We even went to Perkins last night and only had salad. It is kids eat free night and they love going so we went and had dry salad. I enjoyed it but my DH didn't so guess we won't be going back for awhile. Weight loss total is up to 7 # for me and 17.5 for him. That is a definite motivator.

They say the third day of a diet is the worst. I haven't found that to be true of this one. For breakfast I had half a grapefruit and some vitamins, then for lunch I had 2 dates, carrot and .25 cup of walnuts. We went out for dinner (kids eat free and they enjoy it) I had a dry salad with no cheese or egg or meat. i expect to have an orange and some nuts later when I take more vitamins. Not bad, hope i lost weight. i may stay on this after I lose the 50 pounds.

Today hasn't been too bad. Diet wise that is. I haven't been craving or super hungry but I haven't forgotten that sugar exists either. It didn't help that my DS2 wanted oatmeal for an afternoon snack (growth spurt, hollow leg time) and it is one of my favorites. I actually had less than we had planned food wise today. My kids are in the habit of eating off of my plate as well as there own and if what they are eating is fresh fruit and veggies, I tend to be very lenient as long as they had eaten their food too. Today for lunch I had half an apple and some nuts. I had most o f2 dates later. I had a salad and nuts for dinner of which they ate a good bit. My DS 2 has developed a taste for sprouts. Later tonight I am looking forward to an orange. If we eat them after 8 o clock I will get the whole thing. I get some more nuts too! Wow who could ask for anything more!!

OK so if this keeps up I will be inspired. I lost 3.5 # and he lost 7. Hope this keeps up. As to maintenance, when we have lost we will add in foods that are healthy, whole grains, brown rice (my personal favorite) and stuff like that a small amount at a time to see what happens.

How do you top the other 2 "meals" I had today? How about with a cucumber and .25 cup of walnuts. Add two dates and it is .. ...........................................
NOT ENOUGH!!!! Oh well, there is always tomorrow,
Not for food of course but for the hope that my stomach will shrink and that much food will actually make a difference in what I feel!
WE figure that DH wants to lose 100 # and I want to lose 50. I am doing a reward every time he loses 20 and I lose 10. Now all I have to do is figure out what would make a good reward.