Goings on

On top of looking for a house AND getting ready to pack AND dealing with all of my daily mommy/wifey tasks, I have taken on the potty training my 2 year old.  Am I crazy?  If not, then I certainly will be by the end of all this.  Sheesh.  This is certainly going to either advance my gray hairs or drive me up a tree.  Probably both.  I am trying really hard to just lean on the Lord.  I know I am failing because I feel like I'm sinking under the weight of all of the stuff that needs to get done.  My to do list keeps getting longer and I'm looking around for someone, anyone, to talk to and I can't find anyone other than my husband.  And I love him dearly but he works all day and kind of contributes to my to do list.  I keep thinking about my family who no longer talks to me for reasons I'm really not sure of.  I think of my adopted family and they have a lot of their own issues going on right now.  I just don't feel like I have anyone.  "Friends" aren't around either.

I am the type of person who will text or call a person just because to tell them I'm thinking of them and hoping they are doing ok.  I guess that isn't the norm at all because no one ever does that for me.  I think I may get a text every now and then from a friend at church.  But she's pregnant and dealing with her own issues as well.  I don't know.  I guess my expectations for people are just too high.  I'm getting used to being alone.  After the who thing with my family I was forced to really just be alone.  I didn't really care that my friends didn't contact me much when I had my family to talk to but now I have no one to talk to.  I mean, I could strike up a conversation if I really wanted to with someone but I feel like I'm always the one striking up the conversations these days.  Everyone is just so busy and I guess I'm not making it onto their radar.

I'm tired.  Really tired.  We have been looking for a house now for about two weeks and this process is going to drive me crazy.  We find one we like only to find out that someone swooped in and put an offer on it without seeing it, or even better, it's not a legitimate listing and we've wasted our time.  The places we can afford are literally in really bad neighborhoods, which also depresses me.  I am a stay at home mom, so we need somewhat of a safe neighborhood because people will eventually notice we are home all day with the kids.  I am literally so frustrated.  I can't even look at houses online anymore without crying.  Our only other option is to move out of state.  And with my husband not being able to find a job out of state, we are taking a risk even looking out of state.  This whole process is so ridiculously frustrating.  In the mean time, we have given our 30 day notice to our landlord and have no where to go.

I don't want to read my Bible, I don't want to pray.  I just want to crawl into a hole and disappear.  I don't know how to feel. I don't know how to act.  I don't know what to do.  I see the list of things to do getting longer and I just can't move into action to complete anything. I literally am paralyzed.  All the while my children are feeling the stress of all of this.  And our money is running out faster and faster every two weeks.  I look at what needs to be done and what can be done and so many things are just getting left undone.  Oil changes on the cars.....undone.  And I just see in my head my car stranded on the side of the road broken down because we couldn't afford to get a service and oil change.  It's the thoughts like this that drive me insane.  Another one lately has been the realization that I am going to have to pack up our entire house by myself.  My husband isn't a clean person this doesn't register in his head as something that needs to get started now.  And then I realized right after that thought that my house has never been 100% clean.  We are going on 2 years living here and our family pictures have been sitting in the same place collecting dust.  Never hung, never even considered.  I would love to do it myself but haven't had the chance.  I've asked for help and it has never been done.  So now, they get packed back up and moved to another house.  Next time I'm not even going to unpack them.  I'm just going to leave them in the box.

And then there's the whole homeschooling thing.  I have come to the decision that I will register my daughter by myself.  I could join a PSP, but we can't afford that either.  Registering her myself is basically free.  But with that comes the stress of having all the right documentation.  I'm not even sure what I need.  All I do know is that I have to have something on a specific color of paper and I don't even know where to get it!  And all of this needs to be done by October.  So I'm prioritizing in my head when things need to get done and in what order and it's driving me crazy.  And with school comes curriculum.  We couldn't afford to buy it at our home school conference.  So I found some lady only and mailed her a check for some math curriculum that we really wanted, hoping this lady isn't a scam artist trying to steal my money.

I am so ready for this year to be over.  It just seems like month after month there is something else.  Day after day there is something else.  I've got a daily to do list in my head and a weekly one and a monthly one. Nothing is being checked off because most of the stuff we can't afford to do.  It is so frustrating.  And my husband doesn't get it. I don't even know how to explain it in a way he would understand.  He just tells me to stop worrying.  If I stopped thinking about all of the stuff that needs to get done then who would take care of it?  I don't see any magical helpers swooping in to take care of that mountain of laundry sitting on my floor.  Or the dishes, or to clean my toilets or take out my trash.  No one is coming to my rescue.  I have to do it or it won't get done.

I need prayer.  And a miracle.

Chore Chart

My oldest is 6 as of July 1st and I feel like I need to have some sort of expectations for her around the house.  My husband says I need to give her more responsibilities but I haven't been able to do that in a way that is most helpful to me.  I am a bit OCD when it comes to cleaning and I don't want to have to run around behind her picking up the things she missed.  I would rather do it myself and get it right the first time.  I know that sounds harsh but that's the OCD in me.  LOL.  So anyway, I found a cute and easy chore chart over here at this super helpful website that can easily be edited to suit my family needs and I can change it as she gets older.  And this way, I will know what exactly she is doing and teach her how to do it and then I won't have to worry so much about it anymore.  And she will feel good that she is "helping Mommy around the house". I'm deciding if we should offer an allowance for the different tasks....I think we will.  I had originally tried to give her a number of tickets per day and give her an allowance based off of the number of tickets she had left at the end of the day.  This quickly fizzled because I had to actively give her the tickets every single day.  With the chart I can post it somewhere and as she finishes a task she can mark it off.  Then, at the end of the week we can take a look at what she has completed and give her an allowance (or tickets. Still deciding) then. This is the first one we are trying so I might not like it in a few weeks but I have to start somewhere right?

  

Click the link below if you're interested in downloading this adorable chore chart.

(image from suttongrace.blogspot.com)

Download here

Tip: on the left side of the screen under google docs there are two tabs: FILE and VIEW.  Click on the file and then select "download original".  It will then download to your computer and should open in reader automatically if you have adobe reader already installed on your computer. Then you can edit it to have whatever chores you like.  Have fun! 

Couponing 101

Ok, so I'm browsing some of my favorite coupon sites today noticing all of the cool deals out there and I though maybe I should share a little bit of how I save for my family.

I love couponing.  I love it most because I get what I need for a fraction of the retail price.  And this goes for everything.  While you may not find a coupon for everything you need, couponing has given me a great "savings" mindset.  I've learned to wait for a rock bottom price.  I've also learned that patience is key.  There is a lot of waiting with couponing.  You may not get the best deal if you use your coupon right away.  I usually wait for a really great sale and then I pounce with coupons in hand.  I've been so blessed to learn so many amazing tricks of the trade and consider myself an intermediate couponer.  I know how to get some great deals.

With that being said, I wanted to share some of my favorite coupon blogs.  I wouldn't be a couponer if I didn't have these amazing women hunting down the deals and posting them on their wonderful blogs for me to follow.

First up.  Hip2Save.com.  This is my ultimate favorite website because Collin, the blog owner goes so far out of her way to really get you a wide range of deals.  And she has the most easy to use coupon database in my opinion.  I love her blog.

Second fave of mine is southerncalisaver.com.  I am a southern cali girl and it helps so much to have another southern cali resident keeping me up on the best deals.  Josie does such an amazing job of giving me the best grocery store deals and drugstore deals.  Her site is simple to follow and easy to navigate around.  I love that.  I need things simple.

And last but certainly not least: totallytarget.com for all things Target (one of my fave stores of all time).

I like to keep things as easy as possible so I do my best to not follow a whole lot of blogs. If you are new to couponing I would suggest visiting Hip2Save.com or southerncalisaver.com and watch some of the videos they have on their site for newbies.  I still go back and watch videos to help me really understand how to shop at some of these stores.

A few things that really helped me dive into couponing was to first have a list of price points to follow.  Hip2Save and SouthernCaliSaver both of lists for you to print of price points for almost everything you could buy.  Knowing what a good price is will definitely make you feel more confident when making purchases.  Also, knowing store coupon policies is a big one.  You will feel so much more confident when using your coupons if you know what a particular stores rules are.  There's nothing worse than spending the time filling your cart only to be told at the checkout lane that your coupon can't be used for an item.  Ouch!  Been there, done that.  Now I carry my coupon policies with me at all times.  And one last bit of advice is to not freak out.  Don't let a coupon's expiration date make you think you HAVE to use it.  I used to think that way until I figured out that coupons show up in cycles.  Usually when a coupon expires the same one will be in the paper again soon. Stay calm and Coupon!

Happy couponing!

30 Day Mom Challenge

So I'm starting this 30 day Mom Challenge.  I've been praying for the Lord to help me be a better mother and I feel like this 30 day challenge will really challenge me and allow me to consciously try harder.  Not that the Bible itself couldn't challenge me but I'm a bit of a list-a-holic.  LOL.  So this is right up my alley. And the items on the list are spiritually derived so I feel as though I can do this and still find the Lord in it as well. 

My prayer is that others might see this and take the challenge themselves.  Being a mother is not an easy job but we have to remember that we are training up our children to give back to the Lord.  They are gifts to us.  We wouldn't take a gift from someone we love and drag it through the mud or throw it around without any care.  We take care of the blessings we are given and we need to take better care of our children.  

We have to make decisions every day to care for our children in such a way that they want to learn about the Lord.  We have to walk the walk and not just talk a big talk to our kids.  Children have a great way of telling the real from the fake and I know for myself that I would never want my kids to not want to get closer with the Lord because I can't walk my walk out in from of them without being a hypocrite.

I am going to take one of the 30 challenges each day and as the days continue I will add a challenge to the previous day's challenge.  So at day 30 I will be doing all 30 challenges on the last day.  That is my sincere hope. I might find myself doing fewer in a day or taking maybe 5 or 10 on any given day but the goal is to keep all of the challenges in mind and consciously doing them.  Prayer will help. It doesn't have that on the list but I would definitely add praying with your child to the list.