Where has the time gone?

Seems like only a few weeks ago I had plenty of free time on my hands, and now I have NONE. Our weekends have been jam packed with things to do with Daniel, and the weeks are filled with work. Jeff's company has been super busy so he has been going in early and getting home late. I have been trying to train a new field agent and it seems like there are just not enough hours to fit it all in. I desperately want to try and find time to get in some exercise even if it is just a walk around the block but by the time I get home and get supper cooked I am exhausted. I am making a concious effort though to eat healthier than I was. My self esteem as far as looks goes is about as low as it has ever been and I want to do something about it. When you have a minor incident that causes you to go into that much self doubt and misery it is time to do something. I don't expect miracles, or even want to be as skinny as I used to be, but I want to feel healthier and lose at least a little bit of the extra weight I am carrying.

This weekend was a little bit slower than the past few have been, which was nice. Jeff heard on the radio that the S&S tire in Brannon Crossing was having Officer Don fly in in his helicopter on Saturday and that you could register to win 1 of 10 rides. We has planned on taking Daniel to the movies over there so it worked out good for us. He LOVED watching the helicopter land and take off and got to sit in it and have his picture made. He did not win one of the rides which is good I guess because he said he did not want to ride in it. We headed over to the movies and Daniel was all excited about watching Ice Age 3. Yeah but it does not come out until this weekend. OOPS. So I was all set to watch Transformers which he also wanted to see until Jeff opened his FAT mouth and mentioned there was another CARTOON movie playing. Yep spent $30 on UP in 3D when I would have much rather rented it for a $1. So now we get to make 2 more trips to the movies because he has already been promised he could see Transformers and Ice Age. #@%))!#$)*#$ men!

Here is Daniel just out of the tub after a long day of being spoiled on Saturday. I think his face says it all!

Speaking of faces saying it all: If your husband goes to the doctor don't just assume he knows what a prostate exam is. His face said it all when I came back in the room. PRICELESS! That and the muttered curses under his breath. Now you know how we feel honey!

Camping as an alternative to a staycation

Check out my newest article http://tinyurl.com/mr56nj

Happenings in Lexington this weekend for free or cheap

I have a new article posted. Check it out!

I finally wore my child out!

I never thought I would see the day that my child was actually worn out, but it has happened! Liz came by Friday night and was going out so my wonderful husband watched Daniel so I could go too. After I left they took a shower and he put Daniel on a movie to watch. At 11:30 Daniel woke Jeff up on the couch saying his movie was off. Jeff was only going to let him watch a little bit of it and then go to bed, but fell asleep on the couch. Needless to say he was in our room at 7am the next morning. So much for staying up late=sleeping later.

Saturday the Lexington Farmer's Market was having their Farm Tours. We ate breakfast at the market and grabbed our maps and tickets and headed out. We went to Abigails Apiary first. She told us some pretty interesting facts about the bees but Daniel was just not too into it. He did get to feed one of the boarder horses and thought that was really cool. From there we headed to Garey Farms in Paris, KY because they are one of our favorites at the market. They are always very nice and have good quality produce and meats. They had lunch set up their for a small price. Smoked bison, turkey or chicken and all kinds of sides to go with it. It was YUMMY! Then we headed to the back of the property to see the turkeys and chickens. It was a pretty good walk and Daniel of course RAN the whole way. He liked the chickens because he said they were laughing at each other and he liked the turkeys "Long nose that looks like a worm." Then he ran back up to the front of the farm. From their we went to Reed Valley Orchard and picked some red raspberries to take home with us. Of course he ran there too.

When we left all the farms we headed back to Jacobson Park in Lexington for Pig Day. They had all kinds of the inflatable things for the kids to play on. Daniel proceeded to run from the one on this side to the one the furthest away and then back to the other side and then back to the furthest away. Jeff and I drug ourselves around behind him. After about an hour of that we could not take any more and told him we needed to go but when we got home we would get in the pool and cool off. (Bright person I am I forgot the sunscreen so my face was burnt and Daniel now has a redneck tan on his neck.)

We played in the pool for a while and then headed inside for baths and relaxation. After he had a snack of a piece of pizza he wanted to watch HAppy Feet in his room. He made it maybe 30 minutes into the movie and was passed out asleep.

Sunday we went and ate for Fathers Day and ran a few errands and tehn spent the rest of the day in the pool. When we got out we had leftovers for supper and settled on the couch to read/watch the race. (Wonder who was reading? NOT my husband lol) Daniel had said he was cold so he grabbed my fuzzy Auburn blanket and his "squishy" pillow and snuggled into the couch. And would have been asleep 30 minutes later if we had not bribed him with some more berries and cream. SERIOUSLY my child was falling asleep on the couch! He NEVER does that. If it had been a little later we would have let him sleep but it was only 6 so he would have been up at 3 this morning. We kept him awake a little longer and then shot off a few fireworks that Jeff had gotten him and he was passed out 2 minutes after he hit the pillow.

I guess all the exercise and the heat wore him out but I never thought I would see the day that my child was actually wore out. Sad thing was so were his parents. Even more so than him!

Feeding the horse at Abigail's.

Picking raspberries at Reed Valley Orchard. Of course he had to try some even though they weren't washed yet!

He climbed up this like it was a breeze. My little monkey boy!

This was one of his favorite things. Plus he got a shiny silver skull ring that he refused to take off the rest of the weekend.

Daniel and Dad in his new Dad t shirt. It says Dad the man, the myth, the legend.

New article up

I have my new article up on Examiner.com on How to Save Money with Homemade Cleaners. Go check it out!

Mommy Fell in Cow SHIT Water and Other Tales From the Race

We all went to the Nascar Nationwide series race at the KY Motor Speedway last weekend. We went last year and had a blast so decided to go back again this year. We stayed at the same campground because the people are extremely nice and it is a fun place to camp. They have a stream that runs through part of the grounds that the kids like to play in. Daniel remembered it from last year and could not wait to play in it when we got there on Friday. After we had camp set up and had grilled some hotdogs we all went down to the creek. Jeff wanted to walk all the way down to the bridge and get out there. I told him I did not think you could get out there but he insisted that you could. Oh yeah you can get out there.....the same way that the cows cross over. Right where they um go to the bathroom. We were crossing the creek when SPLASH!!! I slipped and fell in. In the cow crap water. With my camera. And only pair of sneakers I brought with me. NOT HAPPY!

Needless to say I had to walk through the camp to get to the showers and all the people that worked there teased me all weekend long about swimming with the cows. The closest Wal Mart was 20 miles away and was the sorriest super center I have ever seen. I had to buy a new camera and a nice new pair of shiny silver sneakers because that was the only freaking pair they had.

I have rotten luck with cameras. I lost mine last year when I was leaving the race because my bag had a hole in it and it fell out. 6 months before that I left mine on the top of the car when I was getting Daniel in the car and forgot about it until I heard it bounce off the top of my car while going down the highway. This makes my 3rd camera in less than 2 years time. If this one does not last I am giving up lol.

We had a blast at the race on Saturday. (And no I did NOT go in the creek when the boys did.) Daniel chowed down on a huge bag of kettle corn and sat back and waited for the wrecks. (That is his favorite part) We got to see a couple right in front of us so he was very happy about that. Joey Logano beat out Kyle Busch right at the end of the race for the second year in a row. I was happy about that because I do not like Kyle Busch.

All in all it was a great weekend. Other than the cow water incident.

Monday night Jeff's brother called and Daniel wanted to tell him about the race.

D: "Mommy fell in the cow SHIT water!"

B: Hysterical laughing at Daniels choice of words.
J: "Daniel! Don't say that! That is NOT nice."

Oops I think I might have used a few choice words after falling in the water. Bad Mommy.

The clean part of the creek.

I want a job driving one of these

Coming out of the garage area before the race

Waiting for the race to start

Boogity boogity boogity let's go racing boys!

I got stung by a sting bee 10 times

Daniel is obsessed by "sting bees" and worms, spiders and ants. But mostly sting bees. He has been telling huge stories about how he has gotten stung by sting bees every day at daycare. In one story he was telling my mom he even went on to become friends with a sting bee who was nice and they played together but then the sting bee got sick and went to the hospital.

One of the other kids at day care did get stung by a bee when they were outside about a week or so ago. We have been telling Daniel to leave the bees alone when we are outside together. He chases them, hits at them, just generally annoys them. We kept tellinghim he was going to get stung if he did not leave them alone to which he would reply, "But I HAVE been stung by a sting bee at daycare." (He has trouble keeping his stories and reality separate lol)

He finally got his wish. He was stung by a bee at daycare yesterday morning. Evidently he has a mild allergy to them. His teacher called me because the place swelled up to the size of a dollar bill and he had hives on his back. By the time I got to his daycare the hives were gone and the swelling had went down quite a bit. So thankfully no trip to the ER.

He swears up and down that he was not messing with the bees, that he just turned around and "there the bee was and it jumpd on my shirt and stung me." Somehow I just don't believe that.

So he came to work with me and played games on the computer until we could go home. I dosed him up with some Benadryl and some Tylenol and he fell asleep watching cartoons on the couch. For about 10 minutes until Daddy got home.

Oh well, we knew it was coming eventually.

Eight Meme

Mrs B from Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom tagged me for this meme.



THE RULES: Mention who tagged you. Complete the list of 8’s. Tag 8 other people.


8 THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO:



1 Camping this weekend in Sparta for the NASCAR race

2 Summer

3 Tomatoes to grow on my plants

4 Being off work on Friday

5 My husbands 28th birthday so i can rub in how he is ALWAYS going to be older than me

6 Watching Daniels face while at the race this weekend. He is SOOOOO excited

7 Did I mention being off work on Friday?

8 Daniel starts school in one more year


8 THINGS I DID YESTERDAY:


1 Had leftovers for supper

2 Conference call about new insurance through work

3 Took a walk with the family

4 Rode around in the repo truck looking for cars.

5 Thought once more how I needed to order more tow lights for the trucks...and promptly forgot to do it

6 Drank lots of water

7 Took walk around the block at work

8 Thought about what needed to be done for camping/race this weekend




8 THINGS I WISH I COULD DO:


1 Sleep for 12-16 hours straight with not a single person waking me up

2 Be closer to my family

3 Be closer to the beach so we could take Daniel there on vacation

4 Fly

5 Make sure that nothing bad would ever happen to my child

6 Lose some weight

7 Eat whatever I wanted too and still lose weight

8 Sing better


8 SHOWS I WATCH:


1 House

2 Bones

3 Ugly Betty

4 Fringe

5 I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here (lame I know but there is nothing else on)

6 Hell's Kitchen

7 American Idol

8 Lie to Me



8 FAVORITE FOODS:


1 Pasta in any shape form or concoction you can think of

2 Mac and Cheese

3 Mexican

4 Sushi

5 Indian

6 Cheese

7 Bread

8 Smoked pork tenderloin


8 PLACES I’D LIKE TO TRAVEL:
1 Austrailia

2 Africa
3 Hawaii
4 Greece
5 France

6 Ireland

7 Scotland

8 England



8 PEOPLE I’VE TAGGED:
Please feel free to do or not do this as you wish. I know not everyone likes to do memes. I choose you:



Jessica at Don't Give Him Crackers

Liz at Narcississims

Janelle at Everyday Stories

MJ at I'm Just a Girl

Aaenson at Life with a Toddler

Stacy at I Eat Snowman Poop

Bobbi at Rightmyer Rants

Anyone who thinks this looks like fun!

Playing cops and robbers...supposedly I am the robber

One of the things about my job tat I have always liked is that it is never boring. I have been called every name under the sun and then some and there is usually something interesting going on, if not here at my office, then one of the other branches.

One of my employees called me Sunday afternoon to tell me that he had a debtor that was calling him about her personal property that was in her car. He gave her the office number and told her she needed to call Monday morning and MAKE AN APPOINTMENT.

On my way to work yesterday morning he calls me again. To tell me that they have been sitting at our lot since 6am! WHY would anyone do that? What freaking business opens that early?

So they came in the office and I told them sorry you have to make an appointment and I have to have time to clean out the car. You can make an appointment for tomorrow morning. Yeah she (whose name is actually not on the account it is her husbands account) did NOT like that. Started telling me how I can't keep her stuff yada yada yada. They finally make an appt for in the morning and leave.

45 minutes later she calls me back and tells me that Lexington PD said I can't keep her stuff that she is coming back to get it. I tlak to my boss and he says no without an appt she can't get it. So she calls the PD to come out here.

The 2 cops who came out here yesterday must not like repo companies because they told her she could swear out a warrant for ME if anything was missing when she picked up her stuff today. She was already claiming that there was money in her car so I knew I was going to have more problems today. When the guys repo a car that has personal items in there they do a quick check for drugs, guns and large amounts of money. I already knew there was not any money in the car.

Since I work by myself I had one of the guys come in this morning so I was not here by myself with them. People can get crazy I do not want to bleed to death by myself lol.

So this morning she blows up because her money is not in there, then accuses me of taking her food stamp card and debot card too. WHY would I want those? It is not like I have your pin and can use them! Needless to say the husband threw the clipboard with his paper work on it across the office and they called me a few choice names and called the cops again.

That paperwork he signed and threw across the office though is a personal property release: it says you do not hold us responsible for your personal items and anything that may be missing. Guess you should read before you sign? I also made sure that I had 2 witnesses when I cleaned out the car that can attest to the fact that there was NO MONEY in the car. Add to that the fact that the car was UNLOCKED when my employee picked it up and that is documented on the report he does.

Guess that warrant with my name on it just isn't happening today!

Maybe if your husband who appears like nothing is wrong other than being overweight got a job instead of disability checks and you quit spitting out kids like they were going out of style you would not be in this position.

I understand that there are hardworking people that for whatever reason lose their car. Shit happens. People like I have dealt with the past 2 days however just really get under my skin. Thankfully here I do not have to deal with them very often. Birmingham I dealt with them on a daily basis.

I am not a liar OR a thief. I wouldn't hold the title manager if I was.

I am now a Lexington Examiner!

Hey guys I have been selected to be an Examiner for Lexington on Examiner.com. Basically I write articles on whatever category I represent. I am the Lexington Frugal Living Examiner (but I am throwing in a green twist as well). Please go check out my quick introduction and there will be more articles to come in the next few days. The more views I get the better off I am so....PUUUUHLEASE go read even if you are not from Lexington.

I feel old

I remember just a few years ago I could stay out all night or only get 2-3 hours of sleep and then get up go to work and do it all over again the next night. We have been staying up the past couple of weeks WAAAAAY past our bedtime and I am worn out. What happened to being able to go on very little sleep for days at a time? I feel so old!

Off to get some shots

Daniel has his 4 year old check up and shots today. He is going to love me later! Mean mommy! LOL I will post some more if I get a chance this weekend. Just been taking a bit of a break.

My husband wonders why I do not like him to cook....

Last night I stopped at Wal Mart on my way home to pick up a frozen pizza to go with the few leftovers we were going to have for dinner. We really did not have enough leftovers for all of us to eat so I thought with the pizza it would be plenty.

My wonderful husband offered to cook the pizza while I soaked in the tub. That would be great!

I am soaking, reading my book, when Jeff comes in:

J: "You are going to be mad at me."
N: "Why?"
J: "I ruined dinner."
N: "How did you ruin dinner?"
J: "I did not know there was cardboard under the pizza. The pizza is all stuck to the cardboard and not cooked in other places."
N: "All pizzas have cardboard under them."
J: "I was not thinking."
N: "Go get another one."

And he wonders why I don't like it when he cooks.

The man who also fixed oatmeal one morning and thought he grabbed the cinnamon, but it was cumin. So he added cinnamon to it and then ate it. NASTY!

MEN!

I scored an AMAZING deal

One of the money savnig blogs I read posted last week about a deal going on at Kroger. Kroger has Kraft BBQ sauce on sale for $1.08. There were several coupon sites that had $1 off one Kraft BBQ sauce coupons. When you bought 6 you got a Catalina for $3 off your next purchase at Kroger.

I decided to give it a try since Jeff had said we were out of BBQ sauce and we LOVE to grill. Like every day if I would let him. Seriously.

I printed off the coupons, which took me a while because a lot of the sites had already reached the max that could be printed. On my way home I stopped at the Kroger on Hartland. Theirs was marked down to $1.56. I decided to see if a Kroger in a less ritzy neighborhood had them any cheaper so I waited. Friday I checked the one on Tates Creek. SCORE! They had theirs for $1.08.

I ended up paying 42 cents for 6 bottles of Kraft BBQ sauce AND got the $3.00 Catalina. So I made $2.52!

We should have enough sauce for at least 2 months. Maybe. Or not.

A dilemma

Most of you who have been reading for a while know that my mom had a scare with ovarian cancer a few months back. She had to have a complete hysterectomy done and was supposed to take 6 weeks off work. She did not have any complications from the surgery itself, but has been in excrutiating intestinal and abdominal pain since the surgery.

She has been to several different doctors and had numerous tests done. The consensus has been that because her uterus was so swollen (like the size of a volleyball) that all of her internal organs got displaced. Now they are trying to get back to normal and all the moving and shifting has aggrevated her colon.

She was supposed to start back to work towards the end of April, but because of the severity of the pain, this has been her first week back to work. She has been on disability whike out of work, but when you go from making over a $1000 a week to $400 a week, it is a HUGE difference.

Money always seems to be tight for them anyway. I love my Mom but she does not always make wise financial decisions. Since the cut back in her wages things have gotten REALLY tight for them. It will be another week before she gets a normal paycheck.

I was talking to my Dad on the phone earlier and he told me he is $400 overdrawn at the bank and has no way to fix it until he gets his monthly check. (My dad is a disabled retired US Marine.)

My dilemma is this: I could send him the money to take care of that, but doing that would take most of the money we have saved for our emergency fund. If something happened to us in the next few weeks we would have nothing to fall back on. I could send them both a little money to help them out until Mom gets paid next week but not enough to bail them out or disrupt our financial security. (What little we have.) I could send them the full amount with the promise that when Mom gets paid I get our money back. The last option makes me feel bad though because my parents have done so much for me and have not asked for anything in return. Ok other than occasional monthly visits from their grandson now that we have moved so far away.

BLECH! I do not know what to do! Anyone have any thoughts?

Smoked Bison Rump Roast becomes yummy sandwiches

Before Jeff's family left on Sunday we all took a trip to the Lexington Farmer's Market out on Southland. We wanted to show them how awesome our local market is, especially when compared to the ones in AL.

We all enjoyed some fresh ice cream made with fresh from the farm milk. I picked up some smoked garlic powder that I was out of. Daniel wanted "A tree of broccoli." Jeff wanted me to make squash casserole for dinner so I picked up some squash. My sister in law picked up a few things to take back to AL for their dinner that night. Jeff and I were debating if we should get some ham for dinner when he saw the next stall over had roasts. I wanted a Boston butt but the only one they had left was WAY to much food for our small family. They did have a Bison rump roast though. We agreed on that not realizing it was going to be quite as expensive as it was. $18 expensive to be exact. YIKES! The way I justified it was if we had went out for Mothers Day it would have cost us more than the $25 it cost us to buy our dinners ingredients.

We decided to smoke the roast in Jeff's smoker. I thawed the roast in some warm water while Jeff got the smoker going. I made a marinade of some fresh rosemary from my herb garden, olive oil, the smoked garlic powder and a little minced garlic, and some cracked pepper.

It was pretty darn good. Maybe not quite $18 good but good nonetheless. Bison is also a very lean meat so their was very little fat on the cut of meat.

We still had quite a bit left over so I decided to make it into sandwiches last night for supper. Jeff shredded the meat and warmed in on the George Foreman grill (best appliance ever). I sauteed onions, mushrooms and garlic powder in a little bit of olive oil. Then we made up a brown gravy. Toasted some rye bread and added some slices of cheddar cheese. Place all the ingredients on the bread and man was it yummy! I had the last for leftovers in my lunch today.

In the end I guess our $18 roast was not too bad of a financial move as we were able to get 2 dinners and 1 lunch out of it. Next time I will definitely check the price before saying I will take it however!

Daniel's Birthday

It does not seem like 4 years ago I was taking care of a tiny little baby. He has gotten so big and grown up so fast. He had a wonderful time on Saturday and thank you to all of you who helped make his birthday special.

We were worried that the weather was not going to clear up in time but by 3:00 it was nice and sunny outside. The kids were all dying to get in the new pool and finally after it had time to warm up a little bit we relented.

When the hamburgers and hotdogs were done Daniel did not want to get out of the pool. Finally we bribed him with his cake and he agreed to get out and have cake and open presents. As soon as the presents were open they were back in the pool. With a few of his new toys.

After a few of the guests had left Jeff's mom brought out one of her gifts to Daniel. A Spongebob slip and slide. Of course my husband the "big kid" had to show the little kids how it was done. They all had a blast.

It was so nice to be able to have so many people over and have such a good time. We never could have done this in our old apartment. Plus Jeff's family that came up from AL were able to stay with us instead of getting a hotel, so we were able to spend more time with them.

It was a great weekend for all of us.

Here are a few pictures:

Daniel LOVED his cake.



They were whales and sharks!

Supervising lol!

Eating cake with Uncle Brian and Gigi.

Fun on the slip and slide.

Big kid fun on the slip and slide!

I am a bit under the weather today so I am taking another day off from blogging. I will get a post up about Daniel's birthday tomorrow hopefully.

Spongebob Cake

Daniel loves Spongebob so I got a burst of inspiration to make him a spongebob cake for his birthday. Cakes are square, Spongebob is square. Should not be that hard.

After one cake that exploded over the sides of the pan, I got the cake baked yesterday. I started on the frosting this morning.

Here is the final result:

I am pleased with the way it turned out and Daniel LOVES it.

Sorry for the crappy picture quality I can't find my usb cable for my camera so had to take this with my camera phone.

Where does God live?

Daniel and I went to Meijer's today to get the stuff for me to make him a Spongebob cake. Meijers usually has some pretty good sale prices so I was looking around at all the clearance food items. We were looking at the spice isle for some yellow food coloring when Daniel asked me:

D: Where does God live?
M: Well he lives in Heaven but he is around us all the time.
D: Have you ever been to Heaven?
M: No not yet.
D: Are you going today?
M: Well I hope not!
D: Why?
M: Because when you go to heaven you are dead and I would like to see you turn 4 on Saturday.

Needless to say the other people in the isle were dying laughing at me and Daniel.

Fast forward to the area by the milk where they keep other markdowns:

D: Who works here?
M: Well there are a lot of people who work here.
D: What are there names?
M: Well I do not know.
D: I bet one of them are named God!
M: Um no I do not think so.
D: YES! One of them are God!!!!

More snickering and laughing from the people in the area.

He may not make it to 4.