Maybe I should just ignore it.

Did you know that close to 80% of the New Years resolutions made are not kept?

Every year, people say they are SERIOUS about it “this time”, and yet– we all still fail. Need I remind you of my post from December 30, 2010? How many of you are YOUR own worst enemy?

The one thing I did accomplish in 2011 is that I became a READER again. I found a new love for books after reading close to SEVENTY of them this past year.

So, for 2012, reading will still remain in my list of goals. I won’t even call them resolutions… they will just be called GOALS.

Here we go:

1. Join Weight Watchers – Long term goal is to lose 50 pounds. Short term goal is to lose 20 pounds before July 1st.

2. Read 52 books – I feel since I managed to do it in 2011, I can do it again in 2012. A book a week isn’t too shabby, either.

3. Find a church we like and start going again. Still have to figure out if we want a large church, small church, what denomination we prefer…

4. Start budgeting again via the Dave Ramsey plan. We really only do it halfway right now, which I guess means we really don’t do it all…

What are your New Year’s resolutions GOALS?

Last time I checked, December falls at the same time every year. It’s always on the same page of the calendar, always the 12th month of the year. So I really don’t know why it creeped up on me this year. I feel like I flipped the page from November to December, and I was completely caught off guard. I wasn’t prepared for Christmas, I wasn’t prepared for winter, I wasn’t prepared for anything.

I am, in one word, overwhelmed.

I have to-do lists that are not getting accomplished. The kids are busy with basketball season, and husband is working overtime 6 days a week. Also, he’s going to school two nights a week. Then there’s our weekly adoption classes, which thankfully– we only have two left of.

That leaves me with lists of things to do, gifts to buy, cards that probably will not get mailed out AGAIN (2nd year in a row, FTW!), a house to keep clean, a full-time job, and it leaves me frazzled.

I look at my calendar and see that Christmas is 16 days away, and I have only purchased a small handful of our gifts so far. This is so unlike, as I usually have most of my shopping done around Thanksgiving weekend. I have a home study to prepare for next Friday, which means more housework, husband is studying for finals, and all I want to do is lie down and put my feet up.

I know… cry me a river. Right?

And then I witness something that makes me put everything back into perspective.

Yesterday, I rode along to deliver gifts to Children & Families of Iowa. The employees at the company I work for adopted FIFTY families in need this holiday season, and loaded up a delivery truck with gifts for parents and children. It was incredible. Seeing the people at the organization when this truck pulled and watching the boxes and boxes and boxes and BOXES of gifts being unloaded for FIFTY FAMILIES, y’all!

Now THAT was OVERWHELMING.

I think I can handle my holiday stress for a little while longer.

I have always wanted to be “one of those bloggers”– you know, the ones that make a great income just from their blog. They have great advertisers, have tons of offers to review free product. What blogger doesn’t want THAT?

Oh to be a Dooce, or an Ali Martell, or a Barefoot Foodie, or heck — a Pioneer Woman. The ones that are offered writing deals, book deals, television shows, trips around the world, and the like.

I have stuck my toe into the advertising waters a few times over the years, doing sponsored posts, inserting ad-links into my blog, and even reviewing free products on occasion. Obviously, I am taking the wrong route– because my bank account? Doesn’t seem thrilled at the lack of blog income I’ve got coming in.

Recently, I was approached by a “writing service” asking me if I would be interested in adding a few ad-links to some of my blog posts. They would pay me $5 for each link I added, and it didn’t really sound like a bad deal.

Until they told me where I needed to add them.

I assumed they would be small ad-links at the bottom of my posts every once in a while, but oh NO. These people were thinking bigger.

They actually wanted me to add the ad-links into my post content on five posts, making it look like it was something I wrote. I read the email they sent me, with the list of links and wording they wanted me to add to my posts, and I felt violated.  Was I willing to compromise my crappy writing for a few measly dollars in my pocket?  

Five dollars for a link wasn’t worth selling my soul for. I’ve seen other bloggers doing it, and I keep thinking that maybe it’s ruining things for the rest of us. It makes us “mommybloggers” seem cheap and easy… not a good reputation to have.

Product reviews are a different matter, I guess. I don’t mind a company sending me free items for me to try out and review, as long as they don’t expect me to write something good just because they sent me something for free.

What’s your take on blog advertising? Do you accept ad-links into your site? Do you sell ads in your sidebars? Do you review products?

For me, I think I’ll just keep my zero income and the five readers I have and sit tight.

I am participating in the August Blog Challenge. Thanks to Belinda for the daily prompts!

Day 21: What has been your best vacation?

Usually, our kids are so busy with sports in the summer that it leaves very little time (or money) for us to take big family vacations. Traveling as a family of six can be quite hectic and pricey, so I don’t have a lot of vacation memories to choose from so far.

In the summer of 2009, we took our family of six to the east coast and stayed with my brother-in-law in Pennsylvania. He agreed to be our tour guide ( and driver) and led us to some of the most amazing sights the area has to offer. We visited Washington DC and got to see the Smithsonian Museums, nearly all of the monuments and the best part was– almost everything was FREE. My kids got to see the White House, the Vietnam Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and so much more. It was so amazing to me to see this part of the country that I had never visited before.

We toured Gettysburg, and several of the Smithsonian museums. We visted the Hershey Factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania. It was busy at all of these places, but it didn’t even matter to me. Because we were all learning so much on this trip — I couldn’t have asked for a better vacation.

I think probably my most favorite part of the trip was visiting Arlington National Cemetary and seeing the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We watched as the crowd fell completely silent and these guards changed shifts. I shed tears at the whole ceremony. What an amazing experience. We visited gravesites of some of the country’s most famous people, such as JFK, Bobby Kennedy, the victims of the 1986 Challenger crash, and so many more. I will never forget the experience we had there.

If you would like to see our vacation photos, click here.

It must be a law somewhere that every company I deal with has to have a barrel of monkeys working in their Customer Service department. Because boy– have we had some doozies! As my husband always says, there’s people that have book smarts and there’s people that have street smarts.

Redbox? They really don’t seem to have either one.

Saturday night, we stopped and got two movies from our local Redbox machine. Surprisingly enough, our small town of 1,000 people doesn’t have any restaurants or a grocery store, but I’ll be darned– we got ourselves a REDBOX!

So, we got two movies. When we got home, my daughter and her boyfriend were going to watch one of them, and my husband and I were going to watch the other.

My daughter brings up the case to the movie they were going to watch and said there were two movies inside of it. One was the movie that we intended to rent, and the other was the children’s movie “Rango.” Apparently, the person that had rented that movie before us had put two movies back in the same case.

So we were stuck with 3 Redbox movies and two cases, and thats when Mark decided to call Redbox’s Customer Service department. He was on hold for a LONG time before he finally got to speak to a Customer Service Rep(like we probably could have watched our entire movie). And this is the part where I just have to scratch my head and wonder what in the heck Redbox is thinking.

Mark explained the situation, how it wasn’t OUR movie that we were trying to return, but a movie stuck inside the case of the one we rented.

The Redbox rep told my husband we would have to go back to the machine and request a replacement case. An empty case would pop out and we could return the movie. Sounded easy, right?

Until the Rep told us we would have to swipe OUR credit/debit card to PAY FOR THE REPLACEMENT CASE. Yes, thats right. They wanted US to pay to return the movie THAT WE DIDN’T EVEN RENT. Someone explain to me how this makes any sense at all.

My husband asked if they would just mail us a replacement case, and the Rep said “No, we don’t do that.”

My husband kept explaining that we were just trying to do the right thing and return the movie that wasn’t ours. But again, Redbox insists WE’D HAVE TO PAY THE FEE.

So for now, we have a Redbox DVD that doesn’t belong to us sitting on our kitchen counter.

At least it could have been a GOOD movie… But we might just be the proud new owners of Rango.

Movie night, anyone?

During the months of May & June, we were invited to several high school graduation parties.  I gave each graduate a card with money in it.

Care to take a guess as to how many Thank-You notes I received?

TWO.

Only two of these kids actually took the time to acknowledge my gift and card.  No note in the mail, no text message saying “Hey thanks for the money and the card” or even a Facebook message.   The only reason I knew that they had even received the card and money was because they cashed my check.

So, basically they had the time to endorse and deposit the check, but not enough time to say “Thanks” to the person they received it from? 

Are thank you cards  just a thing of the past and not used anymore?    Is this something the parents should be teaching their children?  

I mean really… if I am taking time out of my schedule to personally pick out a card for someone (and we all know cards aren’t cheap), then taking the time and money to write out a check, and then making sure the card gets mailed… and no acknowledgement whatsoever from the receiver?

Maybe I’m being old-fashioned, but I guess I’m offended by this.  I’m offended that this is how the younger generation is being raised and how they are being taught to throw manners and common courtesy out the window.

I am sure most teenagers would be apalled if they invited dozens of people to their party or open house, and either no one showed up, or everyone that showed up came without a card or gift.    The HORROR of it all!

What do you think?  Has this happened to you?

What do you do when you feel completely helpless as a mom?

The last few weeks have been extremely frustrating for me, and has made me question “Do Moms really know more about their own child than a Doctor does?” At times, I think the answer might be a resounding YES– at least in this case.

During the week of July 4th, my youngest daughter Courtney’s (age 10) left ear started hurting. The pain wasn’t bad enough nor was it consistent enough for us to feel that a trip to the Dr. was necessary. Finally that Sunday, the 10th she said it was hurting pretty bad.

I took her to our regular family Dr. on Monday, July 11th. Our usual doctor was unavailable so we had to see a P.A. I was a little leary seeing a P.A. but I figured it was ear pain– it could be an ear infection or it could be Swimmer’s Ear. I was actually leaning towards Swimmer’s ear since it was summertime and she’d been swimming nearly every single day for the last two weeks.

The PA however had a different opinion.  He diagnosed her with an ear infection in the left ear, and prescribed 5 days of Zithromax.  Cost: $20 co-pay and $15 prescription

This got her through until Friday, July 15th.   She was feeling better but still had a little bit of ear pain– AM I THE ONLY ONE QUESTIONING THE DIAGNOSIS AT THIS POINT?

Now again, the pain was not coming back consistently nor was it as bad once the medicine was finished.   So we went on with our routine.

On Tuesday, July 19th, Courtney left to go stay with my mother-in-law for 8 days. 

On Thursday, July 21st, her ear pain was so bad they took her back to the doctor– a different one this time, closer to where they live.  Again, she was diagnosed with ear infection in her left ear- NOT SWIMMERS EAR LIKE I KEEP SUGGESTING.   Cost: $20 co-pay, $15 for new antibiotic (Amoxicillin) and $12.95 for numbing ear drops.

That same evening, Courtney called home and was miserable with ear pain.   She wanted to come home.   That’s when I knew it was hurting bad, because she was having so much fun at Grandma’s.    I had never had experience with this painful of an ear infection.  Usually, with my kids, the pain starts to subside after the first couple doses of medicine.

Not this time.

At 11:30pm Thursday evening, we made the decision to take her to the Emergency Room.  We were unable to control her pain, and by this point, it was moving down to her jaw and into her neck.

At 12:30am Friday morning, Courtney was diagnosed in the ER with Swimmer’s Ear.  As that doctor stated, it was “pretty obvious” it was Swimmer’s Ear. We were given a prescription for antibiotic ear drops and told to stop taking the Amoxicillin, but still can use the numbing drops. We were told if the pain did not get better, we were to follow up with our regular doctor.  Cost: $50 ER visit and $50 prescription for the new ear drops.

We went home that night thinking we had finally found something that was going to work.

I stayed home with Courtney all day on Friday and she was doing ok.  Still having some pain, but nothing like it was before. 

By Friday night, however, she was in horrible pain.  Again, the pain was radiating down to her jaw and into her neck.  She was not only complaining of horrible ear pain in both ears, but also a very bad headache.  And this wasn’t just complaining about pain.   It was doubled over, crying big crocodile tears, horrible “I can’t stand this” pain.   I was nervous pumping her full of Advil and Tylenol every few hours, since it didn’t seem to be even touching the pain she was having.

We made a call to the Mercy Nurse around 10pm Friday night, and we were told if we couldn’t control her pain we needed to take her back to the ER.

So, for the second night in a row, we headed to the Emergency Room. We arrived there around midnight.  I told the same lady that was there the night before what the problem was, and they took one look at Courtney, bawling her eyes out, and immediately took her back to a room.

We spent the next couple hours there, and THEY WERE WONDERFUL.   They promised her they would get rid of her pain, and immediately gave her a pretty strong painkiller.  (In order to not get flooded with spam, I will say the drug starts with a “V” and rhymes with SPIKE-O-DIN. hehe)

The Doctor also explained that she must have been having a reaction to the numbing drops the previous Dr has prescribed Thursday afternoon, because Courtney’s left ear was swollen almost completely shut.  By this time, I was almost ready to cry, because HOLY HELL- MY BABY WAS IN PAIN AND TWO FREAKIN’ DOCTORS MIS-DIAGNOSED THIS.

They had to put a wick in her left ear to get medicine into it, since it was so swollen.    I was told to keep using the antibiotic drops, THROW AWAY THE NUMBING DROPS, and they gave me a prescription for “SPIKE-O-DIN with a V”, and also a muscle relaxer (VAL-YUM) to ease the tension in her jaw and neck,  WHICH WAS BEING CAUSED BY THE HORRIBLE STABBING EAR PAIN, which had now progressed to BOTH EARS.

By this point, I was simply livid.  Happy that my baby was going to be feeling better, but royally pissed off that it took us this long to diagnose something that was so incredibly rampant this time of year. Cost: $50 ER co-pay and $30 for the two perscriptions.

Thank God we have good insurance.  Even though this cost us over $250, it could have been much worse.  Thankfully, she only had to take the pain pills & muscle relaxer through Saturday afternoon.  The pain was gone by then, and all she had left was an upset stomach from the meds.  She did end up throwing a few times Saturday evening, but by Sunday… things were back to normal.

If only I had a video camera with me while we were waiting at the 24-hour pharmacy for the second night in a row.  Because a 10-year old doped up on “wacky pills” ?? (as she referred to them).  THAT was pretty darn hilarious.

I shall never again have an excuse for taking crappy pictures or (gasp) not taking any pictures at all.

My new purchase over the weekend… SQUEEE!

I just want to cuddle this darn thing all the time.

Is that weird? Nah…

Oh yeah… you might have been waiting to hear the rest of the story about last week’s puppy extravaganza.

Well, as I said last week, we had gone to visit this breeder because she had a female Malti-Poo for sale. We arrived at their home, and she brought out the cutest little white fluffy puppy I have ever seen. (It’s so FLUFFAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!) We loved and cuddled on her, and I was sure that THIS was the puppy we would be taking home.

But then the breeder (Louise) brought out several more puppies she had available, which included a few mini-schnauzers and a Pomeranian/Schnauzer mix that was an “oops” litter. (The male pom had escaped from his kennel, and got into the kennel with the schanuzer.. hence, it was an “oops” litter) We played with all the puppies and then told Courtney she could make the final decision on which one to take home.

Did she choose the Malti-Poo we originally went for? Um, nope.

She chose this one, the Pom/Schnauzer puppy, whom we named Mia — after Mia Hamm, Courtney’s favorite soccer player:

Mia is now about 9.5 weeks old, and weighs just a little over 3 pounds. I lovingly refer to her as our “clearance puppy”, because she was discounted due to being part of an “Oops” litter.

Louise told us she would take the puppy inside to give her a bath and trim her nails before she went home with us. We stayed out in the yard and played with the other puppies. The little Malti-Poo, which was the one I was SURE would have been Courtney’s first choice, was being so playful and following us around the yard. I picked her up, hugged her, and made the comment ‘I don’t know if I can bear to leave this one here!’

For the record, it was MY HUSBAND that first started the whole “Let’s just get them BOTH” conversation. Of course, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Courtney was ALL. OVER. THAT. She begged and pleaded while I tried to be the level-headed one, reasoning with them that TWO PUPPIES means TWO VET BILLS, and TWO TIMES THE DOG FOOD.

I couldn’t even convince myself, because all of you know about my extreme lack of willpower. And my love for ridiculous decision-making.

Everyone, meet Gabby. She is our 13-week old Malti-Poo. We have not had her weighed yet, but she is about the same size as Mia, but ALL HAIR:

These two puppies are the best of friends, and they are wonderful companions. First, I thought we were crazy for getting two puppies, but I think things are coming along well. They are potty-training together, and they snuggle up together at night. SO CUTE!

Willpower is for the birds.

All I wanted to do is furnish a child’s bedroom. It shouldn’t be that hard, right? A bed, dresser, desk, a couple lamps, maybe a cool picture or bulletin board.

It should be simple. Easy, peasy. Right?

Given the fact that I might soon be the mother of five children, I am trying to learn to be more frugal. Thrifty. Fiscally conscious.

Notice I am trying to refrain from using the word cheap.

So my mission began. I made a list of every item we expect to need eventually for a new child coming into our home. Furniture, bedding, clothing, coats, shoes, toys, books. It’s a bit overwhelming. But I’m a planner. I like to make lists, I like to be prepared for every possible scenario. So I budgeted, I planned, I ran numbers. I spreadsheeted… (is that a word?)

It totally is now.

And I realized that I needed to pull in the reins and remain steadfast in my cheapness frugality.

So I cleaned off the practically new dresser we’ve been storing in the basement. (FREE!)

I found a nice desk at a garage sale across the street. ($15.00)

Now what I really needed to find was a bed. Mattress, box springs, frame, headboard… so I decided to turn to Craigslist.

Oh Craigslist, why do you hafta tease me so?

So I begin my Craiglist PAR-TAY by searching for “twin bed.” I was excited when tons of listings popped up in my area.

Well, the excitement soon ended when I began clicking on the listings and seeing the pictures, and then the PRICES people were asking for these “treasures.”

This little gem is selling for $200:

Here’s another for $150:

I won’t even bother to show pictures of the other beds some people are trying to pass of as being in “great” condition. YUCK. People seem to think that because they paid a lot of money for something, that I should have to then also pay a lot for it after they’ve used it for a few years. That’s not how the world works. I posted my frustration on Twitter yesterday and Stan was quick to remind me to watch out for bedbugs when buying furniture from people I don’t know.

Like our adoption journey, I just have to throw my hands in the air, quit being such a control freak, and remember that making over this bedroom is going to be a work in progress.