Re-Inventing Myself

I go for long periods of time not blogging these days. I'm struggling with my anxiety monsters a lot, and my diabetes is raging out of control. There are a lot of changes on the horizon for me and that's never easy. And as always, I struggle with a lot of the same issues every day. Major clutter. Weight issues. Trouble with food. Trouble with managing my life in general.


Sometimes I get so down in the dumps about it all that the only thing I think I can do is re-invent myself. I'll start a new blog somewhere, writing about my life! I'll get it all together THIS TIME, and I'll keep it anonymous until I have it all together, then I'll re-emerge like a glorious phoenix out of the ashes of my current miserable, decrepit existence!

This time the 'new' blog was going to be called "Small House, Big Life" and was going to be all about my BIG struggles and BIG dreams locked away in a tiny space, fighting to get free. That doesn't sound familiar at all, does it?? And I might have even started it too if someone hadn't already claimed the name on blogger.

As I was sitting there staring at my Google search results and thinking of similar alternate names for the 'new me', I realized that my OLD blog is still me too. That just because a bunch of people know about this blog, doesn't make me any less able to make the changes I want. It doesn't mean I will, and it doesn't mean I won't. That's up to me. It's NOT up to whether I blog about it or not. And if I blog about it and people read it and it takes a long time to happen, it doesn't make me a failure. As long as I persevere I will get there eventually.

Sometimes I just get so ashamed of everyone watching me go in circles again and again.

But like the old adage says, 'wherever you go, there you are'. Hiding in a different corner of the internet won't make me change any faster.

And as long as I keep trying and keep fighting, I shouldn't be ashamed.

When Bullies Endanger Your Free-Range Kid

We've been having a run of delightfully warm weather this past week. Highs in the 70's. I'm loving it, and so are the kids. Yesterday after school, Drake asked if he could go to the park one block from our house to meet some of his friends. In keeping with my desire to be a free-range mom, I said sure. He was gone for about a half hour. When he returned, he told me there was an older boy at the park who was bullying him.

"He kept saying bad words, and kept trying to get ME to say bad words. Like the F word, a LOT. And then he kept trying to get me to punch the girls he was with. He told me to beat the HELL out of them. He also wanted to know where I lived and where my parents were."

I asked him how he handled it. He said "I refused to say the bad words, and I told him I don't hit girls. I also told him I live down the alley, because there are lots of houses down the alleys. Then when he wouldn't leave me alone, I just came home."

There were a couple other kids at the park, all around Drake's age. Drake said the kid was bothering them some too but mostly was bothering him. As he told the story, the kid kept getting older... a generic 'teenager' to a 'high schooler' to 'at least 17' to 'a college kid!'. He also said the kid started following him when he began heading home, so Drake ran home.

I told him he did the right things, and asked him if he wanted us to walk back over and see if that kid was still there. He said yes so we did, me prepared to do some stern mama-talking (and possibly get my own ass beat, if these kids were REAL punks). Oksana (who is five going on I'LL KICK YOUR ASS) took off eagerly, ready to take down some bullies. When we got there, the park was clear of all children. In the distance, we could see three bigger kids walking down the block. "That's them!" said Drake. "I can tell because one of the girls had blue hair." They were too far away to do anything - not that this stopped Oksana, who took off at a full-on run after them until I called her back. "I'm mad at them for being bullies to my brother! I was going to kick that bully in the wiener!" (I have a feeling I'll be getting called to school quite a bit for this kid. I better start practicing my IT WAS SELF DEFENSE speeches now.)

I think Drake handled it pretty well, as a 7 year old dealing with three older kids. I'm not sure what other advice I could or should have given him. I know that kids can be assholes, and it's likely this kid was just being a little jerk trying to be 'cool' for his friends. He probably wasn't looking for a physical altercation. But what if he was? What do you tell your 7 year old about fighting with older kids? Or even fighting with a group of kids? We've told him it's OK to fight back in self-defense, and that the goal should be to drop the kid so he can get to safety, not for revenge or to beat the crap out of the other person. How do you answer questions when your child, rightfully so, asks what he should do if he fights back in self-defense and the bully's friends jump in? What do you say when they ask you "I will try to kick the boy in the privates, but what about the girls?" (I've already told him he CAN hit a girl if they hit him first.) Do I teach my kid to be a dirty fighter?

I tell you, there was a good part of me that wanted to go over there and punch those foul-mouthed little shitbags in the face. Not because I care about bad words (obviously), but because they were very clearly intimidating little kids and trying to get them to engage in bad behaviors. It made my blood boil.

Part of allowing my children to be free-range kids means knowing and accepting that they will run into situations that are difficult to deal with and hoping I've guided them and taught them the right ways to handle those situations. How do you teach your kids to deal with bullies and jerks? (That's not a hypothetical; I really want to know what other parents are teaching their kids about these types of situations.) A lot of the time I feel like the 'school sponsored' responses are kind of weak, but I'm not sure what else to do.

Keep Things Spooky!

Hey friends. It's Friday the 13th... well, it will be in 20 minutes... and I want to devote today's blog entry to a friend of mine. My friend Red Clark is an amazing person. He's funny, he's creative, he's talented, and he's one of the nicest, most genuine people I've ever met. He's also a huge horror fan and aspiring filmmaker. He's really active in the Chicago horror scene and he's always coming up with fantastic ideas and projects.

If you follow me on Facebook or follow my horror blog, you may recall me crowing enthusiastically about a cool and creepy little video we did that won third place in a Midnight Syndicate video contest. Red was pretty much the mastermind behind that, and he did all the filming and editing. The end result was incredible. AND HE THREW IT TOGETHER IN LESS THAN 48 HOURS. You can now find it on the DVD for the film The Dead Matter.

I'm telling you about Red because he has a new project in the works. It's perfectly suited to his unique talents and I really think his passion for old school horror and his keen eye will make this into something great, but he needs just a little help to get it off the ground. Stephen King (yeah, that's right) has given Red permission to make a non-commercial short film adaptation of his story Gray Matter, from the collection Night Shift. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and would be a great stepping stone for Red's career! I truly believe that the horror world needs more filmmakers like Red, with original ideas and a driving passion for the genre. Red is funding this project through Kickstarter. He's 8 days out and $1,100 shy of his goal right now. If you can find it within you to celebrate a little spookiness this Friday the 13th and lend a hand... whether it's through a donation OR just by spreading the word... it would be much appreciated.



Thanks, everyone!

Wonders of Nature

Oksana saw kitten and puppy birthing today, thanks to Milo and Otis. Which I'd seen once long ago, but only retained a memory of "OMG CUTE KITTEN AND PUPPY ADVENTURE!". I forgot there was birthing involved. Not that I have a problem with it, I think it's right to raise your kids to view birth as a perfectly natural process, not something taboo. I would even let them be present at the birth of my next baby if they wanted to be there.

At the same time, though, while I believe it is wonderful to treat it as a natural process and really, I applaud the movie for doing so... at the same time, when you randomly encounter something like a BIRTHING MONEY SHOT when you're watching TV with your kids, there's always an internal part of you that is completely caught off guard and totally squirms, like 'oh. OH! well. um. that's happening. My kid is now seeing this. ohhhhh.... kay. Here we go!' and you have to steel yourself for questions and reactions all while keeping yourself calm, collected, and NATURAL. ACT NATURAL. ACT NATURAL SO THEY'RE NOT SCARRED FOR LIFE DAMNIT!

My daughter's reaction? "Oh. EWWWW."

Two minutes later: "OMG THEY'RE SOOOO CUTE!"

The end.


you know you wanna see it.

Bedtime Conversation: 5 Year Old Edition

Sonic

Oksana: "I don't like when Sonic catches bugs. Well, I like when she catches OTHER bugs, but not when she catches moths." 


Me: "Why is that? You like moths?"


O: "Yeah. They're little and cute. Do you remember that one time when Sarah was over and she found a REALLY BIG moth?"


Me: "I sure do. It was big!"


O: "Yup. And part of it glowed red."


Me: "uhh... I... don't remember that part."

O: "it did! It was on the tail. Well not like a tail like Sonic has, but you know. Maybe that's it's butt."

Me: "Could be."

O: "And if it was a girl moth, it would have little boobs too."

Cecropia moth in our yard!
Not pictured: glowing red tail. Or tiny boobs.

Sarah and the giant moth.

Moving On

Christmas vacation is over! The kids are back in school today. I enjoyed having them home with me the last two weeks and I am kind of sad. Everyone's adjusting back to going to bed early and waking up early. Somewhat reluctantly, on all our parts, I might add.

Things are coming along in all the other areas of life. Financial Peace University starts tomorrow. I picked up our kit yesterday and I'm really looking forward to it. We have something of a working budget hammered out for now. We're so far behind on the house that for now we've decided we're not paying the mortgage. We are in communications with the mortgage company and have tried several angles to get assistance, to no avail. Right now what we will probably do is wait until they start foreclosure proceedings and then see if we can turn it into a short sale. That will, hopefully, buy us the time we'll need to get everything together to move somewhere else.

"Somewhere else" is looking like it'll probably be North Carolina. I'm open to it and OJ is really interested. We love Boone but employment opportunities are slim... so it'll probably be either Raleigh or Charlotte. He has friends in both cities, and I have a cousin in Raleigh.

On our radar is also Austin, Texas. We have friends there, and OJ's brother lives there. Neither of us have ever been though, and OJ is really not keen on how hot it gets (whereas I LOVE it!).

(And of course, lest we forget, we're probably going to spend about a year in Park City, Utah after I win my beloved HGTV Dream Home.)

It is our hope to visit all of the places on our list sometime this year so we can truly decide on our favorite and start looking for work. And of course, despite which one ends up being the 'favorite', it'll really depend on jobs. OJ's going to try to get a job and stay with friends while he finds us a place to live, I think. We'll just have to see how it all plays out.

I'm still working on the house. Getting lots of stuff purged. Which reminds me, I have a trunk full of stuff I need to bring to Kara, the lady that sells my stuff on ebay. She does an awesome job! She has an ebay store and does online consignment for several people, so she always has a nice variety of merchandise. If anyone is in need of stuff, and wants to help out me, or her, or any of the rest of us local moms that need money, you can find her store here: The Sweet Buy And Buy.

I've also started working on my health a bit more. I had stopped taking everything but the absolute necessary medications while I was having all my stomach trouble last year, and while that hasn't completely cleared up (the endoscopy showed nothing but some inflammation, biopsies of which gave us no information), we're chalking it up to stress/anxiety pain and acid reflux. So I'm easing my way back into my other medicines and vitamins, starting with my metformin, which is causing a little bit of stomach upset but is also bringing my blood sugar down to more acceptable levels, so yay. I'll do most of my health and weight loss blogging over at my blog, The Big Fat Breakup, if anyone wants to follow along.

one of my favorite recent pins. Are you on Pinterest yet? Follow me!

After Bath Goodness

A fluffy, slightly disgruntled Patches G. Pig after a bath last night. Curled up in towels on my bed, soothing his frazzled nerves with a delicious salad!

IUD-Day

Had my IUD removed yesterday. My five years were up and it was time. You all know I've been wanting another baby anyway... I'm still in the "yay babies!" boat. OJ is in the "baby in a year or two" boat. I'm putting him in charge of birth control for now.

Is this an ideal time to have a baby? HELL NO. Are there things I want to do to improve our lives before we have a baby? ABSOLUTELY. All the same, would I be thrilled if I got pregnant? You know it!
Life's funny that way. Things tend to work themselves out as they should.

We're working on our finances. Financial Peace University starts next week. We have hard decisions and even harder work ahead of us.

I'm continuing to get the house in order. Purging even more than before since it looks like we'll be moving in the next 6 months - 1.5 years. However we decide is best to approach the house issue, we're going to try to stay here as long as we can to get into the best financial position possible for moving somewhere. Right now we're leaning towards waiting until foreclosure starts and then seeing if we can get into a short sale. We need more information overall though before we really decide.

My health needs work. I need to eat better foods, have lower blood sugar, and exercise more. I should also work on some meditation / stress relief exercises to help with the anxiety. If I get pregnant I won't be able to take my anxiety medications so that's something I'll really need to work on.

Those three things remain my biggest priorities right now.

you can wipe your ass with my damn house

welcome to my life right now.

Aside from starting the day dealing with FECESCAPADE 2.0, it was a relatively normal day. Did lots of laundry, cleaned in the kitchen, cleaned more in Oksana's room (found more hidden pockets of cat pee, and lots more toys that need to be cleaned thanks to that), took care of animals and kids. Talked to OJ about our 2012 budget and wrote out a document that lays out where the money should go from each paycheck. Butted heads a couple times over how to best deal with money. Agreed to start taking the Financial Peace University class that starts next Tuesday. I'm sure we'll butt heads some more, but I think the group support will be good for us.

Right now our financial strategy consists of figuring out which steps would fuck us over the most for the longest, and then taking what appears to be the best path in that minefield. Walk away from the house? Short sell? Declare bankruptcy? Can we declare selective bankruptcy and keep some of our accounts out of it? Just stop paying some of our credit cards and wait until they sell them to collections and settle then? Pay off all the rest of our debt? Keep deferring things like student loans for the rest of our godforsaken lives? Decisions like that, where none of them are any good but some are (I guess) better than others.

I was surprised today when my mother told me that one of my cousins, whom I've always considered very savvy, thinks that the best thing for us is to walk away from our home. I know some of my other relatives think that's the case, but to hear that someone who is wealthy, intelligent and well-informed on a lot of matters like this agrees kind of surprised me. It's still hard for me to wrap my mind around. I mean, I understand that our house is worth about $100,000 less than what we owe on it... and that there's a good chance we'd never even get back to up to amount we owe on it in our lifetimes. But it was a risk we took, an obligation we signed up for, not to mention an emotional investment as well... and it's just hard for me to say 'ok, time to walk away'. Part of it feels right, but a lot of it feels wrong. I hate welshing on obligations and I hate the idea that my decision will make the overall economic climate worse.

Waking Up Is Hard To Do

I have a devil of a time waking up anymore. No matter when my morning comes, no matter how many hours of sleep I've gotten, it still feels like I'm drowning in sleep, swimming my way up through mud, trying to break through to the surface of wakefulness. I don't know what is causing it... I'm blaming general health issues, because it could be anything from my diabetes (high blood sugar) to my anxiety medications to my lack of activity to sinus infections to poor sleep to god knows what. It makes it REALLY hard to get moving for the first few hours of my day though, and I'm ready for it to change. I'm just a little befuddled because I don't know exactly HOW to make a change. There are a lot of health changes I need to make, that is, and it's a little overwhelming to know where to start. Especially when the house keeps screaming at me to clean it and just finish PURGING already!!

So I got a slow start today. Other than that, I spent a bunch of time working on Oksana's bedroom; it got a little messy around the holidays again, and of course, Casey started peeing on things again. I'm battling that crazy mess (AGAIN) right now. I'm also battling giant mounds of laundry, BAGS full of laundry, and a lot of that has cat pee on it too (because that's another thing she pees on if it's on the floor; dirty laundry). Which means that each load takes twice as long because I do extra rinses and vinegar washes on top of the regular washing.

A friend posted a great article on Facebook today: Why Lying Broken In A Pile On Your Bedroom Floor Is A Good Idea. It made me feel stronger, having read it. The author shares some insight gained from a Hindu goddess. Here's an excerpt:

"Akhilandeshvari:
“Ishvari” in Sanskrit means “goddess” or “female power,” and the “Akhilanda” means essentially “never not broken.” In other words, The Always Broken Goddess. Sanskrit is a tricky and amazing language, and I love that the double negative here means that she is broken right down to her name.
But this isn’t the kind of broken that indicates weakness and terror.
It’s the kind of broken that tears apart all the stuff that gets us stuck in toxic routines, repeating the same relationships and habits over and over, rather than diving into the scary process of trying something new and unfathomable.
Akhilanda derives her power from being broken: in flux, pulling herself apart, living in different, constant selves at the same time, from never becoming a whole that has limitations.
The thing about going through sudden or scary or sad transitions (like a breakup) is that one of the things you lose is your future: your expectations of what the story of your life so far was going to become. When you lose that partner or that job or that person, your future dissolves in front of you.
And of course, this is terrifying.
But look, Akhilanda says, now you get to make a choice. In pieces, in a pile on the floor, with no idea how to go forward, your expectations of the future are meaningless. Your stories about the past do not apply. You are in flux, you are changing, you are flowing in a new way, and this is an incredibly powerful opportunity to become new again: to choose how you want to put yourself back together. Confusion can be an incredible teacher—how could you ever learn if you already had it all figured out?"

I highly recommend checking the whole thing out.

Other than that... I got pretty loopy / dizzy after I took my anxiety medication tonight (that happens sometimes) and ended the evening playing Skylanders with Oksana.

Speaking of anxiety. The Bloggess shared a post yesterday wherein she talking about her battles with depression and anxiety and admitted publicly for the first time that sometimes she self-harms. I'm really proud of her for talking about it and for standing up for herself and all the other people that fight their demons daily. I don't suffer from depression, and I don't self-harm, but I do suffer from GAD - generalized anxiety disorder. I was diagnosed about a year and a half ago. The symptoms had been creeping up on me for probably a couple of years before that, but I didn't recognize them. I had no real context for anxiety disorder. Sometimes it is hugely disabling, especially when other things in life are hard. It's harder to take action on many things in my life right now, for instance, when so many huge issues are crushing down on us right now. It's hard for me to explain to people why I don't just go get a job and make more money, because it's just not that simple for me. That's not all due to anxiety, but a large part of it is. I worry that people won't understand. I struggle with explaining my thoughts and feelings to people because without an understanding of how terrible anxiety can be to someone fighting it daily, I fear judgment. Scorn. Dismissal.

I fight anxiety every day. I take medications to help me deal with it. I see a therapist and a psychiatrist. These things have all helped immensely... but some days, life is still a huge battle.

Through it all, I do my best to figure out what I can do to make myself and my family happy. Sometimes that means compromises, BIG compromises. Even compromises on my own principles / morals at times. Because I'd rather be happy than right all the time.

Financial Peace

I've always been a fan of Dave Ramsey, but I've never really put effort into following his ideas... or much of any ideas about finances, really. I'd dabble in fixing our finances but never really committed for more than a short while. Good intentions, bad follow-through. After reading about a friend's experience with Dave's Financial Peace University (and her recent encouragement to check out one of the local FPU classes that will be starting soon), I convinced OJ that we should take the class. It's $100, not very much to spend on one's financial future. I think taking it together, spending dedicated time for 12 weeks talking about our finances and ways to make things better, working together and finally building a solid partnered financial foundation in our marriage, is a good idea.

OJ is skeptical about the fact that it is a Christian-based program and that it is held at a church. He's become very atheist over the past year or two. I told him there was no way I was entertaining the idea of moving to the Bible Belt (North Carolina) with him if he wouldn't even take a class because it was held at a church. I'm sure we can filter out any God messages and apply them in our own spiritual / ethical / moral way. He also doesn't love the idea of paying someone (AKA making THEM rich) to give us 'financial peace', but I maintain that people's time and efforts are worth paying for if we learn something / get value from it. AND, as I said, $100 is not that much for two people to invest in a 12-week class.

I don't know which class we will be taking yet; I have sent an email to the most likely one with some questions. Hopefully we'll be able to start soon.

I wonder if there's a way to take these methods and convert them in such a way that they could be applicable to weight loss and clutter management. I could become the next guru of fixing up your life!

Daydreaming

Wow, I haven't posted since March? AMAZING. I post other places... I guess I just haven't been sure what I'm doing with this blog.

I'm daydreaming right now. I suppose it's only fitting I felt the pull to post on my million dreams blog when I'm daydreaming about things I want / want to do.

I want...

a beautiful vacation cabin in the mountains of North Carolina so my family can spend chunks of time playing in the wilderness together (and then we can rent it out during the times we aren't there)

a decluttered house with all this stuff finally sold and out the door (there's a LOT to go through still... this is no short task... and so I dream of it just being DONE already)

living a life with enough money to make ends meet AND having all our debts paid, living credit card free

being a foster parent (I just discovered the fairly new, yet entirely awesome, blog Backwoods Mom... reading through her blog isn't helping me quench my desire to be a foster mom OR live in the wilderness)


Having a million dreams is hard because I often don't know what I want to do for a living. I'm happy doing so many things it's hard to focus on one; it's hard not to get swept up in the excitement of a new idea (or the rekindling of an old idea that's been loved and shelved for a while). Even thinking about "what would I do if I was rich?" doesn't help, because I think if I had the money I'd do ALL these things. I'd raise billions of kids and spend lots of time being an awesome mommy but I'd still start up Spookytown, I'd just have the money to hire people to work in the businesses I started there rather than having to build it from the ground up...
I'd also own rental properties and vacation properties all over the place, and would rent out the vacation properties when we weren't using them, and would spend lots of time traveling from spot to spot.

Sometimes I wonder if I should focus on one VS the other (family's not optional; it's coming along with the ride. The only question is how BIG we let the family get, I guess), or if I should keep trying to have both. They're certainly not mutually exclusive but splitting our attention and goals means everything grows a bit slower. The spooky side VS the vacation side. And of course, since I'm NOT rich, building the spooky side is going to involve a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears from us, which means that we will have a lot less time to go on vacations for a while and will be paying a lot more in vacation property management fees once we start accumulating said property.

And since we don't have the money to buy ANY properties right now, what do I do for money in the meantime? How much of myself do I want to invest in working VS spending time with my family?
I decided recently to start selling Pure Romance (click the link to visit my personal Pure Romance by Kristi website if you're interested). I believe I can work that business part time and make the money we need while still being able to focus on my family. I believe I will ENJOY that business too, which is very important to me.

Sometimes I worry I'm going to enjoy it so much that it'll become a full time thing for me and I will find myself putting my spookytown dreams on hold to pursue this career.

Then I laugh and say to myself, oh, what a TERRIBLE dilemma to have, having to choose between two things you'd love to do.

Life's funny that way sometimes. You think you're going to open a haunted bar, only to find yourself selling sex toys from a mountain cabin several states away.

HEY Y'ALL (dialect vlog)

*I do not say "hey y'all" in this video. I am not from the south, much as I may want to be.*

This vlog was inspired by my friend Natalie over at Mommy Boots, who also did one of these vlogs. I think they're fun, so here's mine. See below the video for the words, the questions, and a list of other folks who have done this too! If you do one, please leave me a comment with the link and also tell me where you're from; I love to hear how other people pronounce things.

I noticed one error when I watched this after recording it; when talking about what I called my grandparents, instead of saying "my mother's parents / father's parents" or "my maternal grandparents / paternal grandparents", I TOTALLY referred to them as "my mother's grandparents" and "my father's grandparents". I really WAS talking about THEIR parents, MY grandparents. Durrr. Sorry. LOL.



Here is the list of words, and also the list of questions :

Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught
What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped
body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry
groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you change the TV channel with?


Other people that have posted a dialect video:

Mommy Boots (from Chicago, now living in Chattanooga)
Ashley Getting Dressed (from a rural area about an hour north of St. Louis, Missouri)
Pickles & Paisleys (from Charleston, SC)
She's Mommafied (grew up in Boston, now lives in New Hampshire)
Bravo Charlie Sierra (from Pittsburgh, PA)
Sara Kaisenberg (moved to Texas when she was four, but learned to talk in New York)

And just for fun, here's a dialect video my husband and I made TWO YEARS AGO, together, with a different list of words! (He's from Miami, FL; I'm from Chicago, IL; we're both living in Chicagoland at the moment.)

My Girl Likes To Party All The Time, Party All The ZZZZZzzzzzz....

I have been nothing short of exhausted lately. Bone-tired, brain completely fried kind of tired. It just seems to keep getting worse, it's interfering with my ability to get anything other than 'basic tasks of the day' done (I do manage a few extras here and there, like the monster cake pops I made for my son's class the other day, but it's with extreme effort and sheer force of will).

There ain't no second chance against the thing with 40 eyes, girl.

What's the reason? I'm not entirely sure but I really think it's lack of quality sleep, and I think there are several things that have been affecting this. (Which makes it much harder to fix!)

Problem #1: My teeth hurt, and they tend to hurt more at night for some reason.
Solution: I get my permanent crown on February 4th, and I'm hoping that will fix this issue. In the meantime, I am turning to drugs. Advil manages to work most of the time, but usually when the pain gets worse the Advil doesn't help or it wears off in the middle of the night and the pain wakes me up, thus interrupting my sleep. I took Advil PM a couple times but we're out of that now, and we do have some Codeine left still. The problem with the drowsy drugs is that it's hard for me to wake up in the mornings, which I need to do in order to take care of my family. This leads to...

Problem #2: I am not a morning person. Even in the face of sheer exhaustion, as soon as the sun sets I am wide awake, and find it hard to go to bed or fall asleep any earlier than midnight. I have school-age kids so we're up early to get off to school five days a week, and don't usually get to sleep in TOO late on weekends either.
Solution: Go to bed earlier? Yeah, not gonna happen. I've tried this off and on my whole life. My body is just programmed to be up at night. I can't seem to help it. And I ENJOY it. I just don't enjoy the 'getting up in the mornings' part. It would be easier if the world would just start conforming to my schedule. I know I'm not the only night owl out there.

Problem #3: We recently moved into the basement and have been sleeping on the futon down there. It's a fairly decent futon mattress, but it's not the most comfortable thing in the world and I don't feel that I'm sleeping very well on it at all. Not only have I been increasingly more exhausted every day since we moved down there, but I also wake up every day with a new ache somewhere in my body. Back, shoulders, and neck seem to be the most affected. I'm pretty sure that this 'bed' is not at all good for me.
Solution: We've talked about several options, ranging from getting a new mattress to getting a foam memory topper. None of them are particularly cheap, and while some aren't terribly expensive either, we still have to save up for them. I'm starting to be so tired that I kind of just don't care though and am almost willing to just charge it. Which we're trying not to do, but when you're tired and delirious you don't always make the best decisions.

Problem #4: We just got two kittens. Nighttime is playtime! Wheeeee! They run over us, they jump, the mock fight and growl, they wake us up for petting and purring and love, they roll around in the (dry) bathtub and clunk into things. It's ridiculously adorable, but it also wakes us up about 50 times a night.
Solution: Kinda just have to wait this one out, I think. Eventually they'll grow out of it, and they'll be used to the house and the dogs enough where we will be willing to leave the door open and let them roam all over the place while we sleep. Right now, we just have to put up with this one. It's like having a baby, only instead of needing to feed it or change it, it runs all over the place and makes a bunch of noise.

We are wine botttleesssss!

I think the bed is the biggest problem. Being uncomfortable all night long, every night, is awful. So I think I will focus on solving that problem this weekend and see what a difference it makes. Because I'm really having trouble functioning lately. And I can't spend the rest of my life sitting around like a zombie, watching reruns of Roseanne.

But hey, I got new glasses, and I think they're pretty spiffy. So life's not all bad.

I Thrill When I Drill A Bicuspid

I had my first major dental work done last week. I grew up with fairly healthy teeth, yet somehow managed to develop a healthy fear of dentistry anyway. I never even had to have my wisdom teeth pulled because I DON'T HAVE ANY. I was born with no wisdom teeth! Since they only seem to cause problems for pretty much everyone, I can't help but feel I dodged a bullet with that little congenital defect.

So with healthy teeth and an unhealthy fear of people hurting me in my mouthal region, I pretty much avoid the dentist. As an adult, eventually the guilt of 'I should really be responsible and take better care of myself' creeps up on you, and finally in 2007 I decided, after AT LEAST ten years of having avoided them, that I really ought to visit the dentist. I had lost a tooth somewhere in that time period; I knew it was coming because I was also born missing that adult tooth (FIVE teeth congenitally missing! go me!), and my childhood dentist had warned us that the baby tooth would eventually wear out. They're just not made to last that long. So it did, in pieces, and it was gross, but it didn't hurt, and it seemed to have all fallen out, and the tooth is kind of on the side of my mouth so I figured I didn't really look like a gap-toothed crack whore or anything so why bother with an expensive repair (though I always thought it would be kind of awesome to get a gold tooth, and maybe someday I will; I'm classy like that).

Hi, my name is ChaCha; for $15 bucks I'll blow you in this port-a-potty.

But eventually I started to worry that maybe the RIGHT thing to do would be to have someone official check it out and just make sure all the pieces, you know, came out and whatnot, and maybe they should look at my other teeth too and tell me everything was OK. My husband happened to go to this great dentist in Roscoe Village (this was back when we lived in Chicago; it's Perfect Smile Dental Spa, if anyone local needs an awesome dentist! Tell them Kristi Dorson sent you! Dr. DeMars is great!). They tend to cater to dental wusses like me. They'll give you massages if you have to wait for your appointment, they're very nice, they have foot massagers in the waiting area, it's comfy and cozy and they'll give you laughing gas and goofy pills if you're very anxious about seeing the dentist, and they'll give you headphones to listen to the radio or watch movies if you prefer, and they're very thorough. Perfect for someone like me. So I went, they cleaned my teeth and fixed a tiny cavity (the first in my life) and gave me my first dose of laughing gas and it was actually kind of fun.

And then we moved an hour away and I didn't bother going back. The thought of trying to find another dentist, a local dentist, kind of terrified me, especially after dealing with such nice people who understood what it was like to fear the dentist. I just wanted them to move their offices to ME. Of course that wasn't going to happen, so I just didn't go. Then I was diagnosed with diabetes, and strongly encouraged to see my dentist (and EVERY OTHER MEDICAL SPECIALIST ON THE PLANET) twice a year because diabetes basically fucks up your entire body, and it tends to do it kind of silently at first so if you don't have an entire team of professionals working on your tired old carcass year round you just wake up one day and your foot is gangrenous and they need to amputate, and your liver is shot, and you're blind and your teeth have all fallen out, and then you die from kidney failure. My future's so bright, I gotta wear shades! Ahem.

So I still avoided the dentist for a couple years. This year I vowed to take better care of my health overall. Also, one of my back teeth cracked in half last month. I figure hey, they're probably not supposed to do that, are they? Whoops, time to go to the dentist. By this point I decided that if I was really happy at Perfect Smile, it was worth the damn one hour drive to go rather than deal with the anxiety of having to find a new, equally awesome dentist.

As it turns out, at no great surprise to me, cracked tooth=bad. It was a hair's breadth away from the nerve, so I was really lucky it didn't hurt like a bitch; possible root canal needed, definitely a crown. I also had two other cavities that needed fixing and some majorly swollen gums. Higher blood sugar levels from diabetes apparently leads to some KILLER gum disease. So they had lots of major work to do on me! I got some Super Valium to take before the appointment, and then they gave me more at the appointment, AND they gave me the happy gas, AND the radio headphones, so it was a pretty happy experience overall. Except now I have a temporary crown on the cracked tooth and I can't eat on that side of my mouth because it's really tender and keeps hurting when I chew and I'm taking lots of advil and wondering when it will STOP hurting. I get the permanent crown next Friday. I'm hoping that will be the end of my dental miseries for a while.

Taking better care of myself sucks. Or maybe it's diabeetus that sucks. Or maybe it's avoiding taking care of myself and then having to pay the piper when I finally give in and make the effort that sucks. Whatever; my mouth hurts and I'm grouchy.

Hey, let's end on a happy note! We got two new kitties last weekend! Here's a picture of Hannah stretching after one of her many naps.

(Sorry both my pictures are from my camera phone. I know they suck. I've become really lazy with my camera lately; that's another thing I need to work on this year.


Also, I probably should note that this is NOT a sponsored post or anything. That's probably obvious because I swore a lot and made jokes about prostitution. I just really love Perfect Smile and Dr. DeMars. AND the drugs they give me. I DO get a referral bonus if you go to them and say I sent you though. So you should do that.)

ECIA: Ultra Foods - The Results

Welcome to day two of Extreme Couponing In Action! We continue our journey by hitting the local Ultra Foods for a few items I needed as well as a few things I wanted to grab based on price.


Yesterday I estimated that I would spend about $50 after coupons.

I missed five things on my list and added two extra at the store. My final result?

Spent: $34.32. I am guessing that if I had stuck completely to the list I would have been right at about $50 still, so pretty much on the money.
Bonus: I received a "$1.00 off your next visit!" Ultra Catalina at the register (from the Pillsbury deal)! Didn't know about that!

How did this all work out? Here's the list I made prior to shopping, with notes from the actual store experience beneath each. If you don't want to bother with reading an in-depth analysis, and just want to know the outcome, here's what I saved (according to my receipt) AND a short list of important things I learned during this trip:

FINAL SAVINGS OUTCOME:
My Ultra receipt tells me I saved $13.11, and I'm not sure where it's getting that number from! My coupon total appears to add up to: $11.99
My sales-price savings appear to add up to: $5.91
For a total savings of $17.90
Which would make my savings percentage: 34%

The register doesn't appear to count the sales price on meats into savings either. If you consider that about half of my purchase was meat, with NO coupons, just meat at a decent price, the savings percentage should be a little higher, even.
(These numbers do NOT account for the $1 Ultra Buck I received this week. I will count that on next week's write-up.)


AAAAND, I just noticed that I was charged twice for my pork chops. GO FIGURE. Even when you're watching the register pretty carefully, things slip past. I will have to go back in and take care of that at my next trip! That's $3.53!! (Totals above are pre-extra pork chop removal!)

THINGS I LEARNED:
1) Ultra puts their weekly sales fliers coupons out by the service desk. This was important because the sales flier I got was missing the pop coupon I needed.
2) There were a TON of coupon tearpads and even a small coupon booklet right by the front door. I don't know if that's normal or not but I will be scouting out this area diligently next time I go!
3) Ultra does rain checks. They were out of the oil I needed, but gave me a rain check good for the next 30 days.
4) DON'T FORGET TO BRING YOUR OWN BAGS. I forgot mine again. Ultra is supposed to give you .05 off for each reusable bag you bring in (just like Target does). Every little bit helps, AND it's environmentally friendly too.
5) I was told Ultra's produce is kind of sketchy, and ended up not buying my two produce needs there because the zucchini was all really SOFT. I was wary of it.
6) Check your receipts, check your receipts, CHECK YOUR RECEIPTS! I try to watch my items as they ring up and make sure it's all correct, and somehow my cashier still managed to ring my pork chops twice. Not even right in a row either! It's pork chops - pork roast - pork roast (yes I did get two pork roasts) - PORK CHOPS AGAIN. 

Now, here's that detailed analysis I promised:

Things I needed:


parchment paper (found a $1 off Reynolds parchment paper coupon!): cost ??
- was on sale for $2.99! .20 off with the sale plus $1.00 off with the coupon. Nice!

zucchini: cost ??
-it was very soft. I don't want my zucchini to be that squishy. I didn't get it.

onions: cost ?? 
-since I didn't get my zucchini here, I didn't get my onions either. I need both items to make these zucchini-potato latkes I promised my husband I'd make for Hanukkah. So they might not make it on the table DURING Hanukkah, but if not they'll be close! I'll probably get these things tomorrow so we should be all right.

Deals I wanted:


Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Select Pepsi Brand Varieties - $.99 WYB 5 (With in ad coupon)

-the in-store coupon did limit me to 5 bottles. I actually grabbed six because I had the 3 $1 off 2 coupons. So I paid .99 for my first 5, $1.50 for my sixth one, and got $3.00 off. Worked out to .56 each.

Pillsbury Ready to Bake Cookie Dough - 4/$10, In ad coupon for free Dean’s milk WYB 4 packages of dough. I've got 2 - $1.25 off 2 coupons! So my cost for four will be $7.50, or $1.88 each, AND a free Dean’s Milk!

-SUCCESS! Extra bonus in that buying four Pillsbury refrigerated dough items is triggering a $1.00 Ultra Buck Catalina at the register. AND there was a hangtag on my milk for .55 off. They wouldn't let me use it at the register today because the milk was free, but I've got it for a future milk purchase!

Sanderson Farms Split Chicken Breast, Price: $.98/Pound

- I skipped this. It's a good price but I remembered I don't like dicking around with whole, bone-in skin-on chicken breast. LOL.

Bone in Pork Sirloin Chops, Price: $1.28/Pound

-SUCCESS!

Whole Pork Butt Roast, Price: $.98/Pound

-SUCCESS! I bought two. I am going to feed my guests BUTT at our holiday potluck this weekend. Heh heh. Heh heh. BUTT.

Crisco Vegetable Oil, 128 oz. $4.99 , use $.55/1 from RP 11/07/10, Final Price: $4.44 each

-this must be a hot deal because they were CLEAN OUT of this stuff. So I got a rain check! My coupon is good for at least another month!

Hershey's Chocolate Milk $.79 ,I have 2 .35 off coupons. Cost will be $.88 for two, or $.44 each!

-Success! These will be a nice little treat for my kids!

Things I added while in the store:


I count the sixth bottle of Pepsi as an 'addition' because I really only wanted to buy ten total; either ten here or five here and five at Strack's (which is also running the same deal this week). Now I need to buy 11 to get the deal, but that's OK. I got my six here, and I'll get my five at Strack tomorrow, and we'll be more than set on pop for the party.


I also count the second roast as an 'addition' to my list, because I was planning on buying only one. But at the last minute, as usual, I got panicky about not having enough meat for our guests this weekend, and I grabbed a second roast. I would much rather have too much food than not enough. We will definitely re-use the leftovers if there are any, and at this price it's hard to beat!

BONUS FUN:


Did I mention the $1.00 Ultra buck that printed at the end? That was a nice little surprise!



These sales run through Thursday December 8th, so if any of them appeal to you, you can run to your local Ultra Food and take advantage of them too! Let me know if you need help tracking down any of the coupons. If you're a new EXTREME COUPONER and you haven't yet subscribed to the Sunday paper or started saving all the coupon inserts, DO IT. You could be saving a LOT of money!

FINALLY, don't forget to call the feedback number on the bottom of your receipt(s) when you get home! You only have a few days to do it, it's a short survey, and you get entered in a drawing. Ultra's drawing this month is for a $500 gift card. That's worth a couple minutes of my time, for sure.

Extreme Couponing In Action: Ultra Foods - The Plan

Tomorrow I will be heading out to our local Ultra Foods to see if I can score some deals. I haven't been there in, oh, probably 15 years or more (I know I haven't been there since they became Ultra; they were still Cub Foods last time I went!), so I'm a little nervous about tackling a new store. However, I hear they have good deals and I have to admit: I'm a natural-born skeptic. Even though I've seen some great results with our Extreme Couponing, I have this burning need to figure out if I really am getting the BEST deals in my area. Which means doing a lot of extra research and work, hitting a lot of extra stores, and even keeping a price comparison spreadsheet (which I started today). Over time, I'll be able to share with all of you the fruits of my labors, and you'll be able to benefit from my hard work. Theoretically, anyway. So, my pain is your gain! Enjoy!


Here's my plan, after looking at the weekly deal matchup One Year To Disney put together (side note: there really aren't many Ultra Foods matchups for our area, it seems! Mummy Deals does them sometimes but she's very pregnant and thus gets a pass on keeping up with everything for a while, lol. Does anyone know of other deal blogs that do matchups for Ultra?):

Things I need:


parchment paper (found a $1 off Reynolds parchment paper coupon!): cost ??


zucchini: cost ??


onions: cost ??
Deals I want:

Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Select Pepsi Brand Varieties - $.99 WYB 5 (With in ad coupon)

I have 3 $1 off 2 coupons, and one $1 off 4 coupons. I don't know if this is a limit of 5 or not. I'm hoping I can get ten (we are having a party this weekend) and use all my coupons. Assuming I can, that would make my net cost $5.90, or .59 each.

FYI - Strack & Van Til is running this exact SAME DEAL WITH IN AD COUPON THIS WEEK

Pillsbury Ready to Bake Cookie Dough - 4/$10

In ad coupon for free Dean’s milk WYB 4 packages of dough

I've got 2 - $1.25 off 2 coupons! So my cost for four will be $7.50, or $1.88 each, AND a free Dean’s Milk!

Sanderson Farms Split Chicken Breast

Price: $.98/Pound

Bone in Pork Sirloin Chops

Price: $1.28/Pound

Whole Pork Butt Roast

Price: $.98/Pound

Crisco Vegetable Oil, 128 oz. $4.99 

use $.55/1 from RP 11/07/10

Final Price: $4.44 each, or $.03 per oz

(Crisco oil is on sale at Strack & Van Til this week for 1.99ea, 48oz size; it's the same price per ounce so I'm getting the bigger one.)

Hershey's Chocolate Milk $.79 

I have 2 .35 off coupons. Cost will be $.88 for two, or $.44 each!

Deals I was interested in but ultimately nixed:

Palermo's Pizza - 2/$8

$1/1 - Click here

Final Price: $3/Each WYB 2

I nixed this for two reasons:

1) California Pizza Kitchen pizzas are $1.50ea at Meijer this week

2) Palermo's Classic Pizzas are on sale 4/$10 at Strack & Van Til this week; I can use my coupon there

Contadina Tomato Paste $.59

Use $1/3 from RP 09/26/10

Final Price $.77/3 or $.26 each

1) I nixed this one because I don't have coupon fliers going back that far, and I couldn't find any Contadina coupons online.


I also am hoping that either my mom has the Ultra sales ad and I can snag it from her tomorrow, or that they have copies of it in the store, because I need those in-ad coupons for this to work. I don't get the Sunday paper yet; I signed up for the 2011 deal the Chicago Tribune is offering (Sunday-only paper delivery $20 for the whole year! GREAT price!), but that doesn't start until next year. Until then, I keep stealing my mom's papers. I'm sick and I forgot to go over there and get them tonight. So tomorrow morning I will go and hope she has what I need!

Final analysis: I'm guessing this trip will cost me a total of $50. I don't know the cost on a couple of the items, and I don't know exactly how much meat I'll be buying, but I'm hoping for a decent size roast at the very least. We're having a potluck this weekend and we are providing the main meat dish; $.98 per pound pork roast would be AWESOME. Here's hoping for decent meat tomorrow!