Everyone Does This, Right?

So it's nearly time for DH to be home and I'm so glad it's Friday, but we are facing a dilemma of sorts this evening. The question: to attend or not attend the family Bible study tonight?

Now I know for a lot of people the answer is a no brainer--"Go!" "No, we'd never go!" Yeah, it isn't that clear cut for us right now. On the one hand, they are just starting a new study that is supposed to be pretty good, and tonight they give out the books and do the introductory material, etc. So it would be a great time to jump back in after a spring/summer break from it. On the other hand, DD would now be the only toddler present, and instead of having a 12 year old there to sort of ride herd on the younger kids while they all watch a movie, it would just be our DD and three other kids who are all 5 years older (or more). Hmmmmmmm. In addition, we have DS to consider--who is now a mobile baby who isn't interested in sleeping through the whole study time or being confined to my lap with a few small (and quiet!) toys.

Frankly I am leaning toward not going right now. I don't anticipate that DD is going to be able to behave herself without adult supervision, which knocks either me or DH out of the study group from the get-go. Secondly, I don't think DS is going to be well behaved without close supervision either, and at that point we are just kindly making a dinner entree or dessert for 8-10 people out of the goodness of our hearts and trucking it 24 minutes away to be able to eat it cold and pass up a lot of the other offerings due to our own pickiness as eaters. Oh, and that while we try to convince DD to eat something, anything, because she's so excited by the other kids (already) and doesn't want to waste time eating, for pete's sake!

However, I did make a big 13" x 9" pan of cookie-brownie bars this afternoon on the original plan of going, which will just go straight to my ample buttocks and thighs if we don't get it out of our house. And I am curious about the study they are going to do. And it would be nice to have some fellowship time with some of the folks from church, with DH.

It does seem like a cop-out to beg the "young kids" excuse to not do stuff, but really, if we're not able to participate at all because we are busy keeping our kids from inconveniencing everyone else (and not doing that well, given my DD's shrieking the last few aborted times we went)...is that worth it? I don't think so. I'm just trying to be honest here. And of course I'd be lying if I didn't say that vegging out on the couch with DH watching our recorded Survivor and eating some brownie-cookie bars with a big glass of milk doesn't sound oh-so-attractive after I've spent some time cleaning out baby spit-up from the Lego box (doesn't everyone have to do that on a regular basis?). And I really do think that my children going without baths for three days requires rectification this evening, don't you? Something which would not happen if we dashed off to Bible study the minute DH came in the door.

Hmmmmmm. I'm thinking the scales have been weighed here, folks. I'm calling it Survivor and bath night...and hopefully that is best for everybody.

Finding the Fulcrum Point

So I have the continual struggle (as all SAHMs do, probably) of finding the right balance between housework (so my house is not a pit of despair), playing with my children (so they aren't over tugging at me begging for attention or being naughty for same), and doing things that make me a happy person outside of being "Mommy" 24/7 (Bible study, gardening, sudoku, harp, knitting). Some days I think I handle it better than others.

Case in point: dirty dishes in the sink. Now, that does bother me. I hate having a sprawling mass of dirty dishes, pots, & pans that has taken over my double sink and part of my countertop. Rationally I know that it's only 1 dishwasher load, but nonetheless, it's been sitting there all day, demanding to be fixed and annoying me when I passed it.

However, there were other more important demands on my time thus far today. I had to do all five days of my Bible study homework today. And believe me, God does answer prayer, because I asked Him to keep my kids both asleep at the same time so that I could do it all, and He did! I have 1 table I haven't filled in, but that's it--the rest is done. I even got time to play around with my Greek lexicons and look up some of the original Greek for words that were bothering me. Hallelujah!

Also, DD had to be taken to the library for new books & storytime, something which she has missed out on for a month due to some page ripping in library books. After that, because she was so well behaved, we had lunch at our favorite local specialty market, and I miraculously made it out of there for only $16 after purchasing some Comice pears (*drool*) and lunch for DD & myself. DS ate all the tomatoes from my pizza (gobbled them up greedily is a more accurate description) and BOTH of them sacked out in the car on the way home, paving the way for my Bible study homework.

Lastly, my DS got some quality time with Mommy while his sister slept on, after I finished my homework. We played and laughed together, and then DD got the same attention while he slept when she woke up. I even went through my scrap fabric pile and sewed a little dragon hand puppet for her, after she saw something similiar on TV yesterday.

Yep, some days I think I do okay. However, pushing it to do the dishes and then blog today was clearly too much non-kiddo time for DD...who has just been "knitting" like Mommy, and unraveled part of my pain-in-the-@$$, slippery "cha-cha" yarn scarf. Grrrr!! *bangs head here* Why do I push it, why why why?? *sigh*

To be continued.

Misty Morning Part Deux

Today we have another misty morning, so I am actually playing all my good Irish music (DH scoffs at this, what I term "good" he and his family call "diddle-ee-i" music) to accompany the morning mist. Including, currently, Maire Brennan's "Misty Eyed Adventures" CD, appropriately enough! Luckily for DH, he works from home today so he gets to enjoy this splendid music as well, haha!

I did actually manage to construct a proper fire in the woodstove last night, after a few nights of fumbling and cursing when the fire would burn for a bit and go out. I summoned up all my good Girl Scout training and built a log cabin fire base, which worked very well. I kept adding logs in the proper order and had the house "roasting" by the time DH came home. So the thermostat kept the heat off for at least six hours, wahoo! I also secured a promise of more free wood from our neighbors next door yesterday, so I will be making a pilgrimage to collect that in our little mower-pulled cart. DH is insistent that we trade something with neighbors who give us free wood, and I think that is going to translate as ample baking and sharing since most of our neighbors aren't bakers.

Anyway, back to the original subject--I am thinking about the things I like or am interested in that DH is sort of "enh" about, and that includes Irish dancing and flamenco. I would love to learn how to flamenco, for the sheer fun of it. When we get our debt eradicated, I am going to look into flamenco lessons. I think Irish dancing is a bit beyond me, plus I'm quite sure that there aren't any teachers here and I'm not quite willing to do a ferry ride to Seattle just for that. However, maybe when DD is older she might have an interest in it, and then I could justify it. But, I do know there are flamenco lessons available locally. Give me a few years, I am going to give it a go! Why not? Life is too short to say, "I wish I had done that" years from now.

Well I think it's time for a new CD and also I have a rare opportunity to start my next 'fun fur' scarf while DD is occupied and DS is asleep, so I'm going to take it. This time I am going to ignore the purl one row, knit one row instructions that had my first attempt curling up like a tube and just do straight knitting, which I'm faster at anyway. Wish me luck!

Musings

Well I have comforted myself with the knowledge that our cash flow situation this month is because I am putting money back into our savings account from my overdraft oops last month, so that's something anyway. *phew* For a minute there I was thinking, "Ok, how are we going to eat?" I had scheduled it automatically and because it was entered early in Quicken, my brain just sort of ignored that line. Ah the fun of money...not!

And of course we wouldn't really have a problem eating because I am doing so well with the Grocery Game. I have done phenomenally well this week, scoring Campbell's microwave soup bowls this week for $1 each (absolutely rock bottom price!) for DH's lunches, and basically Quaker paid me to take some of their stuff off the grocery store shelves. So I was quite pleased about that, even if I did treat myself to a Tully's sugar free almond latte at the store.

Speaking of which, our local grocery store has dumped Starbucks from inside the store and swapped it for a Tully's. I like the lower prices of Tully's, and the fact that they have sugar free almond syrup (*drool*), however, I have to say the coffee is just a tad lower on the taste scale for me and their baristas are not nearly as personable. Oh well.

I am lamenting my inability to buy DS some good winter clothes through the Children's Place fall sale. In particular I am kicking myself over the sport corduroy pants which are on sale, but we have no extra moola so I can't buy them. *sniff!* They are SO CUTE! Ditto the long sleeved onesies, henley shirts, and jackets which he does actually NEED for this winter. *sigh* I am pinning my hopes on a MOPS clothing swap on the 12th, and hopefully I will get enough cute and warm things for him that it will assuage my guilt over that "inability to purchase right now even though it's a great deal" sadness that is plagueing me.

And, I have caught up with all my neighbors about their lives and such, so I feel like a Good Neighbor. I owe 1 apple pie or some other baked good to one set, and I really ought to bake something to bring along when I introduce myself to the 2 new sets of neighbors on our street. Hopefully I will get around to that shortly.

Kiddos are driving me a bit mad at the moment...cranky DS who I suspect is teething again, is now fully mobile and also has a really bad yeast rash for which we now have a prescription cream. DD is potty training and has her hits and misses. *sigh* How long does this process take, exactly? *LOL* Basically they are sucking up all my attention and I am not handling it well. I even skipped my Bible study homework the past 2 days in lieu of having some unstructured mommy time to myself, where I could read a magazine or the newspaper. I just couldn't handle another type of "brain required" activity. I know, I know...God would have provided. I just didn't let him. I'm too tired to feel too guilty about that, although I'm sure that will come around tomorrow when I actually do it.

Well I have to go off to the grocery store now and get some more milk. I have been skimping on the milk purchasing and now finally have a discount price to justify buying 3 whole gallons at once. Oh, the luxury of it!

No Fat Here (Or, Ay-Yi-Yi-YI, We Have No Money!)

So I have been working on the Budget. That is nearly a four-letter word in this house, but I chose to stick my head in the sand after my initial "Come to Jesus" moments with pen & budget papers from Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover". That was a costly move, to the tune of $XXX in overdraft fees. *gulp* So I sucked it up again, put on my big girl panties, and dealt with the Budget again this month, and we are really sticking to it.

This time I realized that our chief problem, apart from our Debt, is Cash Flow. Mainly, it was a lack of Cash Flow that was negatively impacting our bank account and our lives. So, I have done the mature, grown-up thing this month and attacked the easy bills to give us some breathing room and help us achieve our total money makeover. First call was to the cable company, to see what cable could be cut to lessen the ouch factor to that $100+ monthly bill. High speed internet had to stay for DH's work, but I was able to cut out several tiers for a net savings of $14 per month. It's a start.

Next I changed our phone service from Qworst to the cable company, for a savings of $20 per month, plus an additional $30 over the next three months with their new promo rate. You can bet I'm going to call them again and see if we can't renew that "introductory rate" of $20 per month for unlimited local and long distance when the 3 month period is up. Then I called my cell phone company to inquire about cancelling my contract. That would have been a $275 "ouch", but the CSR suggested I could put my contract into hiatus for 6 months, for a net cost of $15. This will allow me time to save up $$ for cancelling, and also give me time to either find or replace my cell phone, which is still MIA. Odds are I will opt not to replace it if I don't find it, and will just continue to use DH's pay-as-you-go phone.

So by next month, we should see savings of $94 per month on our bills. Just in time, too, as our winter heating season approaches and I know the electricity bill is going to start ticking upward. There is further incentive to stack up all the wood on our lot and scavenge free wood from our neighbors, something we have been too lazy to do up to this point. But frankly, there is not a lot of fat in our budget. I am cancelling the pest control company (finally), which will free up another $33 or so per month. However, there is really not a lot of wiggle room. I talked to DH about giving up his expensive parking for his commute, and trying out the bus. It is a true measure of love and commitment that DH is on board for doing so, even though it will mean fighting his way off the ferry first in order to catch the bus home. That would save us another $80 per month! Every little bit helps. And my new strategy is minimums on the CC (consolidated to one with the lowest and also fixed APR, hallelujah!) and aggressively pay off the car. As far as Cash Flow goes, the car is a HUGE chunk, and once we free up that money we can really aggressively go after that CC, then the HELOC. That's the plan anyway. Stay tuned!

Countermeasures

Watching my children play, it's clear that they are avid subscribers to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, namely, that spontaneous processes contribute to disorder in the Universe at large, and specifically this house. Give my children ten minutes and some toys, and they can scatter them in a perfect random distribution throughout the house. Furthermore, they can turn on toys, faucets, unroll toilet paper, and shred paper or books with uncanny speed and alacrity that is never employed to eat disfavored foods.

Thus, I have begun employing the "just five minutes a day" countermeasure to this clutter and chaos induction. For just five minutes each day, I am attempting to clean up and keep up with the spread of chaos by reintroducing order.

What this is turning into, in practice, is at least five minutes spent cleaning, but often more. I've just spent 30 minutes tidying and cleaning, because one thing inevitably led to another and while I started tidying 2 tables, I progressed to tidying the PlayDoh table, then toys in general, then "Oh my the carpet doesn't react well to Play Doh and it really needs a good vacuuming anyway" and before I knew it I had vacuumed half my house and reorganized the living room toys into an appropriate basket! Behold, the power of the "five minutes a day" head strategy for at least starting to make order from chaos.

Regarding PlayDoh, have you ever noticed how it is impossible to thoroughly clean out PlayDoh from the toys they make to shape it and extrude cool things? It's like the engineers purposefully obscured the design and added tiny little crevices to grab and hold onto the PlayDoh until it falls out, rock solid and unable to be used. I'm quite certain they did this on purpose, because that means eventually you will use up all of your PlayDoh and have to buy more. I wish I could talk to those toy engineers and reassure them on that score. You see, preschoolers leave PlayDoh out until it gets hard and crusty, and then a parent is forced to toss it because it can no longer be shaped. So really, it was unnecessary to badly design the extruder toys, because the child him or her self will render the PlayDoh obsolete far before those crevices can eat it all up. Further, a parent is also forced to wonder if the Dyson can really handle all those large-ish clumps of PlayDoh on the carpet and be forced to pick it up by hand, aggravating any sore back issues that may plague a parent.

Yep, five minutes a day to clean...and at least five to pick up PlayDoh. At least I finished my Bible study homework early today!

Clutter Conquering

I'm not sure if I'm conquering clutter or if it is conquering me...you be the judge.

I have cleared off the dining room table. In fact, I accomplished this momentous deed last night about two minutes before dinner arrived at the table. I cleared off all the crap (piling it out of sight in a chair, in truth) and put a clean tablecloth (my "fall" tablecloth, which makes my heart sigh with happiness when I look at it) on the table just in time for DH to bring dinner out from the kitchen.

There is a very reassuring and comforting feeling to a clean tablecloth at a clean table, devoid of everything but the appropriate eating implements and food vessels. It just makes my heart warm. Ahhhhhh. I was able to enjoy my dinner with my family, and this morning I tackled the pile of clutter that was perched precariously on one of the chairs. I have torn up junk mail credit card solicitations and put them in the woodstove, I've thrown out magazines which I know we will never read, and I have a tidy little pile of things to be filed.

Here is the rub, however--we don't have a place to file them. Our old filing cabinet was falling apart, so we not-so-cleverly threw it out before we moved (a, *ahem* year and a bit ago) and just moved the filing drawers (which were overstuffed anyway). So now I am sort of hobbling along with some filing boxes, including some leftover file boxes from my graduate school days. (To digress briefly, I emptied out some miscellaneous journal papers to render them ready for use and oy, I can remember it like it was yesterday...when do these psychological scars bad vibes go away, huh?)

So, I see a trip to Goodwill to hunt up a working file cabinet in my future. DH has already requested that I find some type of magazine/newspaper rack, as he doesn't like the (admittedly unsightly) pile of them next to the birdcage. What progress we have made...in the early years of our marriage, we would have bought a swanky looking brand new (and flimsy, as our past cabinet attests) file cabinet from Staples or some such Office Supply Store. DH would not even think of buying anything used. Now, seven years later, we are happy to buy used furniture and remake it into our own style (via painting, sanding, whatnot) and can't see the sense of buying something new for an outrageous price when we can find stuff to fit our needs elsewhere or buy something equally functional with some good design for a good price at IKEA. And that warms my heart just as much as a clean table--especially when I look at our credit card balance!!