Money Madness

These tickers are here to encourage me on my journey to financial peace through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. Normal posts below!!!

Through the Glass & On The Ice

By the time I'm done writing this, it will officially be Christmas Day-- so, Merry Christmas!!

I've been busy this week but it still doesn't feel like Christmas week. Monday I helped my friend/co-worker paint her basement. We are hoping to get two more rooms done in her house before Christmas break is up on January 4th!

I babysat Tuesday evening and then drove to my parents' house, arriving around 2:30 am. What can I say, I'm a night owl!

Yesterday I took three of my four sisters out for the day-- we hit the new Alvin & the Chipmunks movie (very cute and funny, it was Rachael's choice!) and then had dinner at Pizza Hut before heading out for some ice skating. Rachael had never gone before- I'm not sure she'll ever go again. Let's just say she's not too adventurous, even though she only fell down twice!

Tonight at church there was no heat (BRRRR!) so that made for a long church service but now my family's out at a party and I'm enjoying the Christmas tree lights. I was going to share pictures of their tree, but, well...their tree is REALLY WEIRD LOOKING- so instead I started fooling around with a glass and my camera. Here are the slightly odd results (hey, at least they're colorful!)

Okay, I'm outta here. Enjoy your Christmas!!

550

Originally this post was going to be about simple things, but I guess I'll save that for tomorrow since I can't seem to focus on anything...

Anyway. 550.

It's the approximate number of hours I've spent babysitting in 2009. There are a few babysitting jobs that I apparently didn't record- or recorded somewhere else (like my old planner, which I couldn't find when I was adding up all this stuff. LOL.)

Because I love statistics...I cared for 9 families in '09- 17 children between the ages of newborn to 12. 8 girls and 9 boys.

I've given baths, successfully put all or most of these kids to bed, played red light green light, freeze tag, and Simon Says in a hotel room, rescued a little boy from a hotel bed fall, watched countless episodes of Dora, The Backyardigans, Go Diego Go, and Baby Einstein... I've encountered bee stings, growling dogs, kids vomiting, first steps, tears galore, and toddler hugs so tight I couldn't breathe. I've rocked little ones to sleep, played the Wii with the older kids, eaten food from gummy baby hands, become slightly addicted to said baby food, played tea party and Play-Doh, walked kids to the bus stop, fed them snacks and watched older siblings comfort younger ones. I've been involved in water balloon fights, pillow fights, and dart gun fights.

It all comes down to moments like these that make it worth it.

Moments like this? It's why I choose to spend a lot of my free time with kids. Moments like this are priceless.

Relaxing Break? Haha!

We finished school until 2010 yesterday!!!!

I'm really hoping for a relaxing break, and I know there's lots of time for that since we have SIXTEEN whole days off (okay, okay, including weekends...) but I've been busy, busy--

Last night I babysat two adorable boys who are 4 & 2- they are the sweetest things! They live in a mansion, no lie, and have a 20 foot Christmas tree. While this a crappy picture of it, the actual tree is gorgeous!

After the boys went to bed, I began my thank-you cards for work. I pulled in quite the loot this year-  gift cards to Bath & Body Works , Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, a huge shopping center, movie theater, Wendy's...plus multiple lotions, body sprays, boxes of chocolate and SOOO much food! I seriously won't be able to finish it all!

I worked on my thank you cards for a few hours today and finished them (THIRTY OF THEM!!!!, I try to do it early in break otherwise it's just hanging over my head and it's hard to relax!),

and then my friend/co-worker Hope & I braved the crowds to finish our Christmas shopping! Neither of us like shopping so after three stores and an hour or so, we were both done shopping for our families. I don't feel like any of the gifts I bought for my family this year are incredible or anything, but considering what's happened this month, I guess it's good they're getting anything at all. In addition, due to using some of the gift cards, I definitely didn't spend all the money I budgeted for Christmas- so that's a huge plus!

So, it's been busy (but boring to hear about, I'm sure). I'll have to think of something funny and off the wall to write about in the next few days ;) Oh, and here's a picture of our Christmas tree... nothing fancy!

Almost to Break!

It's been a busy week here! Last night I baked over 130 cookies- snickerdoodles, PB blossoms, and big soft ginger cookies. It took about three hours, and the majority of the cookies were consumed by my coworkers today. There's a possibility my kitchen looked somewhat crowded

but all of my cookies came out perfectly...

I definitely didn't BURN any cookies...no, no way!

Haha...

I've been working with the kids on a fun craft the last few days- actually a few of them, but I'll save one for another day. We've been making reindeer!!

We're hanging them on our classroom door and the parents & teachers seem to love them!

It cracks me up how different they all turn out!

This one makes me laugh- the artist told me his eyes are in his brain and he's SCARY!

More later, I really MUST get to bed! I have to be up in less than 6 hours to bake more cookies~

Cookies

Thanks for all of your support, ladies. Work went well today- the kids were all SO excited to see me and I was able to talk to many of the parents as well. More on that later...

I'm making cookies for a party later in the week and thought I might as well make some for work as well...I was thinking of making two kinds- if you were getting cookies, what would you want?!

Peanut Butter Kisses

c. http://media.photobucket.com/image/peanut%20butter%20kisses/scorpiad/TD2/peanut_butter_kisses.jpg

Snickerdoodles

c. http://img.timeinc.net/recipes/i/recipes/ck/03/04/snickerdoodles-ck-344808-x.jpg

Cathedral Windows

c. http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/Cathedral-Window-Cookies

Big Soft Ginger cookies

c.http://www.nibbledish.com/public/images/cached/567x/recipe_images/762bac9175b0484ac8a19da99c0ea0c1.jpg

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

c. http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/Peanut-Butter-Cup-Cookies

The Christmas That Never Was

That's how I feel about this Christmas, sadly. Usually by December 1, I'm listening to Christmas music while writing about 40 Christmas cards to send out. Certainly by this time in December I'm knee high in candle and cookie making.

Eh.

I know my Grandpa's death certainly has something to do with my not feeling like celebrating right now, and hopefully as the day gets closer, my feelings will change. I go back to working at the school today and with only five days until Christmas break, I fully expect the kiddos to be jumping crazy beans. I've done this for a few years...I remember! ;)

There has been one blessing since I've been back to BC- I had to cancel two babysitting jobs while away in NJ, and the evening I got back was asked to babysit the following afternoon before my Dave Ramsey class. Later in the day, I was offered two more babysitting jobs for the week!

Yep, I'll be okay. Pray for my day back at work though, I know my coworkers will mean well and I know how sweet they all are but I'm not looking forward to all the "how are you" questions, kwim?

Ramsey Fail

As most of you know, I've been involved in Dave Ramsey's financial class, "Financial Peace University" for a few months now. I have two more classes and I'll have completed his thirteen week course. After three months of budgeting, it's supposed to get easier.

Except I'm starting over completely now, after the car repair/ flying to NJ thing from last week. Sigh. My emergency fund is completely wiped out (one I worked hard on, one that took me months to even get to $400!), I owe MORE money to a family member...I'm going down, not up.

It's really frustrating! I was doing pretty well with the whole budgeting thing, but this month is just down the drain between Lyn's visit and then my Grandpa dying. I have about 10 days left of being in BC for December and the rest of the time I'll probably be at my parents' for Christmas break...so I'm going to readjust my EF ticker back to 0 and begin again in January. Dave probably wouldn't agree, but I'm curious as to what he would have done in my position: not enough money in the emergency fund to pay for a car repair AND transportation to a family funeral? I already work 2 jobs, I don't have a fancy car payment, I shop at Aldi-- there's not much for me to cut out! I'm almost tempted to email him and ask...haha!

Beginning To Move On

We buried my grandpa today. It was a hard day, undeniably-- but his services were attended by many of his parishioners, family and friends. I saw many extended family members- some of them I'd seen in January when my great uncle died but others I didn't even remember since it had been 20+ years!

The viewing and funeral went well- all 9 grandchildren sang for the funeral, one brother  & two cousins were pall bearers...Lily and I had to place a few items on Grandpa's casket and that's when I lost it. Seeing all the pictures of him from over the years was hard too- and I'm pretty sure it's going to hit me more as time goes by since the end was just so fast.

We're heading back West tomorrow, back to "normal" life for a few days. I'll have just five days of school left before Christmas break-- how is that possible?

I hope you all had a great week- I'm all mixed up on what day it even is!!! Miss you all, but hoping to get back into reading blogs someday, maybe soon? ;)

Heading Out

My grandpa died this afternoon, so I'm heading there tomorrow and will be gone about a week. I'm guessing once I get there I'll have some down time but it will probably all be spent with family.

I hope you all have a good weekend/week/weekend, I'm not sure when I'll be back.

Waiting

It's been a week of waiting and unexpected financial distress here... between the visit with my family and Lyn's visit, tonight is finally a chance for me to breathe and have some quiet time. Granted, I'm not at home but the baby I'm babysitting is sound asleep. Truthfully, I wish I could be sleeping, too- I don't think I've gotten many hours of sleep these last few nights.

Last night, we thought my grandfather was very close to his death and most of my family began the trek up there. I "slept" with my phone on and was up most of the night, expecting to hear news, I guess.

This week has been so hard-- the debit theft, car issues costing hundreds and completely wiping out my emergency fund (plus more), trying to figure out flights/buses/trains to NJ for when my grandpa dies, school stuff (Jessa has officially been out a third of the year so far...I was talking to one of my coworkers when she brought me home from work and I realized just how frustrated the situation makes all of my coworkers, not just me. It was good to hear affirmation of my thoughts, but it also makes me feel helpless because I can't exactly tell my boss to fire her!

Anyway, I was so stressed at work and just exhausted mentally and physically and emotionally. I haven't had my car there the past two days so I couldn't just leave, but there is a nice subdivision behind my school so I took my lunch time to walk and clear my head-- not sure I would have made it through the day without that, truthfully.

Anyway, I know this blog's boring and depressing these days- I wish it wasn't! I haven't had time all week to read a book or a blog with Lyn's visit (she's very low-key like me but we were just busy!). Having here here kept my mind occupied until it was just in overload...man, my eyes are tired. Bed sounds good right now!