Friday, April 27, 2012

Today's Deal

With a giant sigh of relief, I hit the 'pay bills' button this morning while online banking. We've now gotten caught up with mostly all of the bills, thanks to a well timed payment into the biz account. OK, not really that well timed, because I was already getting anxiety over this, because in my mind the payment was late! However...it is what it is.

In more exciting news, I'm off to do some grocery shopping this morning. I have my coupon binder all ready, with flyers for price matching from several stores. I'm most excited about free milk this week. That's right, I said free.  Loblaws is having a sale, and the Neilson Trutaste 1L cartons are only $1. I have also found an online printable coupon for the same milk for $1 off, which makes the milk free! I love free! I also have some free product coupons, so I figure I'll pretend I'm on Extreme Couponing, junior style, lol. I'll be price matching a bunch of stuff in order to get the best price too.

There is a coupon swap meet up set for May 1st, 7 - 9 pm at the CitiPlaza/Galleria Food Court for anyone who is interested.

I'm off to go grab free milk now. Have a great weekend everyone!

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

What I did for my Birthday and other Stuff

I think I fell off the wagon, both with my blogging and with my finances.

I feel like I'm just in survival mode most of the time. I work, and want to just get to the end of the day so that I can relax and get some sleep. On a typical day, I only get a few hours at home in the evening with my family and then I'm off again to do more work, only to collapse into bed in the wee hours of the morning. This doesn't happen every day, thankfully, or I'd be a zombie by now. But the number of hours in a day that are eaten up by doing something for one of my sources of income has been steadily increasing. When I have downtime, I prefer to sit on the couch with Cub, teaching him the letters of the alphabet, or with DD2, reading 'Failbook' or something similar.

I must still remain silent on what's happening with work. When I am able to talk about it, perhaps then you might get some understanding of why my life has become so busy lately.

The finances are a mess. We've gotten behind in almost everything again, and that is because I have neither the time, nor the inclination to work on our budget. It may sound like an excuse to some, but this time of year is one of the worst for us financially. Within a month or so, our biggest contract should renew, and a large payment will come in. With that, we budget for a year, get caught up with bills, pay extra toward the debts and schedule in some fun for the family. I tend to stress out quite a bit about this contract renewal in the spring, so being extra busy is helping me to cope with the stress.

My 40th birthday came and went this past weekend without too much fuss. We celebrated on Saturday with a family dinner out, generously paid for by Gramma. DD1 then took the younger two overnight so that Dad & I could have a night out. We went rollerskating earlier in the day which was an absolute hoot! I haven't been on roller skates since I was 12 or 13. After a few laps around the rink, I was getting the hang of it again. I managed to keep myself upright until I was getting off the rink for the last time. My skate got caught up on something while stepping off the rink onto the concrete floor, and down I went onto one knee. I laughed and thought, well that could have been a lot worse. That evening we went to Yuk Yuk's and I indulged in two glasses of wine. The more I drank, the funnier the comedians got. I wonder why that is?

Sunday, my actual birthday, we spent most of the day just lounging on the couch and chatting while watching t.v. We did our grocery shopping, then headed over to DD1's place. She made dinner for us before we brought the younger two home. DD2 made me a huge birthday card complete with pictures glued on it. Grandcub got me a DVD of a show called 'Pushing Daisies'. We watched the 1990 version of 'The Night of the Living Dead'. It was a good evening all in all.

I have to get ready for work now, so 'll sign off. I hope to be back soon with another update.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Check out this blog

I was cruising around the web, reading blogs when I found this:

http://justmakingmywayback.blogspot.ca/

Glad to see our friend is back.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

A Catch Up Post

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I swear!

I'm still around, albeit a lot less than usual. I still read as many blog posts as I can in a day. I still wonder what became of our friend 'Judy', and if she's doing alright. I think about our friends Carla, Jane, Rafiki, marc, Lamb, Jenny & Sarah, Sam, Mysti and all the others that I haven't mentioned.

I've been knitting every chance I can get, and I'm finding that the more I do, the more ideas for new projects pop into my head. There are so many things that I want to make! (I even snuck some new yarn into the house; a partial pre-birthday gift from my MIL.) I'd love to say that I've finished a few knitted objects but I can't. I seem to do well at starting and not so well on the finishing, lol.

Work has been keeping me busy as well. Unlike a typical part-time job where you would go in for a few hours each day, I find that I am working up to 8 or 9 hours in one day, then take a day or two off, then work another full day (or more). There isn't much I can do to change it, and I understand that the nature of the industry is like that. I don't really mind either.

A terrible cold had me going slower than usual as well. I don't get the luxury of 'calling in sick', so I do what I can, when I can, and rest lots when I get the chance. Hubby has been wonderful about making dinners and dealing with the kids so I can sleep. I sometimes wonder what I ever did to deserve such a good man.

My birthday is coming soon, and I've been reevaluating and taking stock with life in general. More about this soon.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Morning routines

During the winter months, my morning consisted of sleeping until the last possible minute, then struggling through the morning to get the kids fed and dressed. I drove them to daycare and school respectively, and then went about my day.

An amazing thing happened last week. Because I locked my keys in the car, I got some walking in (and a little jogging too). Then I walked some more to help celebrate Lamb's Debt Freedom. That was enough to get me hooked again.

Today is only the third day, but this morning, Cub and I will be walking to his daycare again (then I walk home). Two kilometres every morning. It gets my blood pumping, I'll tell ya. My muscles are gloriously sore from having some form of exercise. I will continue the rest of this week and commit to doing it again the week after next. I'll check the scale on Saturday to see if it reflects my activity at all.

My challenge is the weeks when I have DD2 home. Her school is much to far from here for all of us to walk (maybe). I'm trying to think of when would be a good time to put some walking in my day during those weeks.

I'm also working my way through a pair of chunky wool socks for Hubby that I'm knitting. I'm on the second one, and I hope that I have enough yarn to complete it.

Anyway, I got to get my walking shoes on.
Have a great day everyone!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

SNCC: 01/04/12

What are you:



Reading?  I just finished The Union Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverini and have started Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult. I love the quilting book series. Not so fond of Songs.

Watching? I watched Crocodile Dundee while doing some stuff this afternoon.

Listening to?  The beeping coming from my breadmaker. My dough is ready to knead. :)

Cooking/Baking? I'm making another batch of home made bread. Carla, have I said thank you yet for posting your recipe? It's the one I use all the time now, and everyone in my family loves the bread.

Happy you accomplished this week? I got my 3 kilometres of walking in for Lamb's Debt Free Dash. Not all at once mind you, but I got in done.

Looking forward to next week?  Stocking up on coffee and butter that's on sale this week.

Thankful for today? Family and good friends who never let me down.