Less is more.

While making my bed (at 1 pm) I came up with some motivational thinking, that I wanted to remember…

* Less is more. It’s a famous quote. But in a de-cluttering kind of way it’s brilliant. Less stuff, less house work. Less house work, more time for other things. Not to say I waste my day away on house work. I do what I need to do, but at almost all times I have a messy room. As in NEEDS to be tended to room.

* Take the full bath for instance. It’s been repainted, to be simple. Black. White. Grey. Red is my pop of color. We do NOT need all that crap. I donated a TON of overstock products to Joplin families. And tossed what was crap (seriously when your perfumed lotions separate, it’s WAY over due!)

* If creating is your passion. You want to paint, draw, sketch, scrapbook, sew, paper Mache’… then you NEED to make the house work MUCH easier. Hence ‘Less. Is. More’

* Actually follow through with having the kids pick up after them selves. At the age of 5 and 3 they can both do some sort of picking up. Not always you. NOW to work on Spaghetti cleaning up after himself (I was pretty lenient on him since in the baseball season he works 3 jobs… well for the next 2 weeks he does)

* My newer rule is ‘Does it belong"?” As in I wear my sunglasses on top of my head, if I make it up stairs with them on my head they DO NOT get set down on the desk. The rule applies here because there is NO sunshine in the loft, so there is NO reason for sunglasses. I tell myself this with empty cups in any room but the kitchen, since THAT is the room you get the beverage from.

* In a way I’ve been flying at this for going on 3 years now. De-cluttering is SUCH a process, and when you’re a professional procrastinator like myself, then being a Flybaby is a LONG time commitment. See Flybaby Baby steps.

Now that my brain full of motivating ideas is dumped out to blogger land, I can go back to making my bed, and folding more clothes, or I will find some blog, or website I must check…

Feisty

Money is a figment of my imagination now.

Does not exist.

I write this in tears.

I just hung up the phone with my dad. Whom I had to call and borrow $350 from.

NOT something anyone wants to do. My dad is very, very structured in his bills, and taught me well. I once was obsessive with bills, and money.

Now with kids for some reason I suck at it. I don’t have the patience to sit and track, and instead of buying groceries, we eat fast food. I just check and in the last 10 days we spent over $70 in fast food alone.

That. is. bullshit.

We are broke. Broke as shit.

It’s annoying, and it’s embarrassing. We are doing our dampest to make ends meet, and we get close, then we end up with a lazy 10 days and wonder what was I thinking? Just last week I wanted to really get into the office, and get back into my OCD ledger and file system.

But I was busy, then I got sick… I hate most of all pretending like we are not broke. I usually don’t. I’m honest with everyone that we have NO money.

Yes the economy is in the shitter, but I’m talking NO nothing outside of basics… except now I notice fast food seems to be our little perk?!

Gross.

So I’m bitter because I’m over weight, and now I’m more bitter because I spent $70 on fast food and we are super broke, and, AND I had to call my dad.

NOT happy. Very pissed.

He said he didn’t want to lecture me. He said he thought he did it enough when he was teaching me common sense. He said to treat yourself, it’s a must in this life. BUT make it a treat. Not an every day, or every other day thing.

Fanfuckingtastic that we are leaving for Arizona in 4 days. Not on my budget.

My inlaws are footing the WHOLE bill. Travel, food, lodging (they have a place they snow bird to) you name it. Awesome.

I love Spaghetti’s real day job, I do. I respect his boss, and the company, he’s been there going on 13 years.

It’s the shit hole video store. OMG I want to strangle those bitches. The are ALWAYS fucking calling the house. He is PART. TIME. as in no more then 15 hours, and NO MORE THEN 5 hour shifts!

OMG they screw him, KNOWING he is Mr. Nice Guy and won’t say no. Take tonight, supposed to be out at 10:30? They call at dinner, 2 hours before his shift… he’s closing. Which is now after midnight.

WTF. And he works the extra hours knowing we could use the extra money. Then there is Wrigley Field, YES he works at for the Chicago Cubs, he sells beer, makes good money doing it too. That helps. BUT we live over an hour south of Wrigleyville, and that’s not counting traffic. So a 4 hour shift of selling beer is a 10 hour day. Easy.

While I sit home and twiddle my thumbs.

Well care for our house, almost 5 and 3 year old children, two boxers, two cats and at the current moment (last 2 months) his parents diabetic cat too. AND the stress of the bills.

Fuck this. Fuck being a grown up. I quit. Tax return? Super, that my friends is going for the property taxes, because Illinois likes to rape us sideways in the tax department… someone again remind me why we live here?!?

I’m done. I need to NOW call Spaghetti and tell HIM I borrowed money from my dad. This should go over real well.

Then I’m going to go to bed. This day blows. Oh and I have a fucking head cold, my eyes water, my nose runs, and I sneeze every 10 minutes. Damn it. Hoping tomorrow is better… sigh.

Oh, and thanks for reading. Not one of my prettier posts, but that’s what you’re here for Blogger, the good the bad and the what the fuck moments.

Feisty

It’s official. I’m an adult.

 

Here’s the background on that… Once upon a time, Spaghetti and I were engaged to be married. In that time we agreed on this.

“We will NEVER grow up. We WILL do adult things, like pay bills, buy a house, care for children. BUT in that process even though we LOOK like adults, we will NOT grow up. Promise?”

I even painted a cartoon of us on this conversation. (I should scan that into the computer…) But the ‘official’ part comes with realizing these things…

 

1. I’m excited that today is day 3 of waking, on my own, at 6:30 am. As a result going to bed at no later then 10:30 pm. AND so the washer/dryer already running, coffee is half drank, dogs fed, best part. I got an hour by myself this morning!

2. My girlfriend time, is either on Facebook chat, or phone with my BFF. (I should work on that, I DO need more in real life friend time)

3. I look forward to a crazy breakfast of  an almost 5 year old girl telling her brother how to eat, but all he wants to do is hold his Wuzzy Bear and suck his thumb.

 

 

4. The big event of the week is on Wednesday’s and it’s my daughters Jazz Lyrical class. (see her at the end of the line. See Weaky in stroller (yes in his footies) dancing along.)

5. The most comparable thing I have to a hang over is ‘OMG I stayed up till after midnight, watching a movie, AND had junk food! I am insane! That can’t happen again! I’ll need to sleep till at least 8:00 am to function!!’

 

6. My husbands getting dressed and going out, is to play tug of war with the dogs for 30 minutes in the snow.

 

 

7. We have painted the VERY bright and playful blue bathroom grey, now with accents of red and black.

And NOW are in the process of selling Spaghetti’s pool table, to turn the BIGGEST room in the house, the room that is right off the kitchen, the ‘Sports room’, the brick RED room, with FULL size pool table, and TONS of sports memorabilia, into a comfortable t.v. room for the WHOLE family. (In my defense against changing this room, we have NOT played pool at this table since May 2010!!) While planning the room change, Spaghetti sighed, looked at me and said… “Don’t tell anyone this. But we are becoming more and more like grown ups.” Sigh. We are. But I’m almost enjoying it.

8. I drink my coffee black.

That right there should say enough. I used to drink a cup of sugar with a bit of coffee. Not kidding. 4 TABLESPOONS of sugar to a CUP of coffee?! Went black. Cold turkey, dropped 5 lbs REAL fast. Now to find a way to drop the other 30 lbs. real fast.

9. Planning for retirement is something we’ve been working on for 12 years already. Not kidding. The 401K hotline is on speed dial in Spaghetti’s phone, checking it at least once every two weeks.

AND the number 10 reason why I’m officially an adult…

10. This weekend is my BFF’s sisters birthday. Now each year they go all out. As in ALL out. Get hair did, shop all day one day, go to Chicago, stay in a fancy pants hotel for a few days, see the city, drink fruffy drinks, go to clubs. It’s a 3 day, sometimes more event.

Sounds awesome. And not to poo poo it, cuz I’d go if it was me. But for years I was happy for them, but that tiny pang of “I’d have to take out a small loan, get a baby sitter, and some one would have to pry these pajama/yoga pants and my favorite Glee T-shirt away from me and I think I have a pair of heels around here somewhere.” it was a thing where I was ecstatic that my BFF was getting an awesome weekend away, and bonding with her sister. (I did get to attend once at dinner via drunk dial by them. THAT was funny)

But it was never a jealous thing, more of a it would take a small army to get me to be able to go out. And I was wishing I could do that.

Now you ask? I’m ecstatic that they are out, having a blast but I’d rather stay in. I enjoy my family, my kids, and a hot weekend for me away from my family? Would be a 2 night, 3 day crop. Where I drag ALL my scrapbook supplies to a place that is designed for nothing but scrapbookers. I would eat, sleep (maybe) and scrapbook. I would spend the time away from my family, scrapbooking my family!

And now that pang of ‘I wish I could do that’ is gone. Elated they are having a great time. But at the age of 32 1/2 I’m good right now. (and yes I still say 1/2, I’m saying I’m an adult, not a grown up)

I’m good with home. Kids. Husband. Pets. Reality t.v.

Dance class is my big event. My social life is Survivor, Amazing Race, Real World, Bachelor, Grey’s, Storage Wars and Jersey Shore. And I love it.

So it’s official. I am an… Adult.

(one feisty, unconventional, silly, sometimes childish, and ridiculously goofy adult)

FeIsTy

I don't wanna be a grown up!

Before Spaghetti and I got married, we made an agreement. An agreement that we would not grow up. We would never be to old to have fun or be childish. But with that being said, we knew that we had to do adult things from time to time.

So with that being said, I have a big fat list of "adult things" to do. I will share them with you. (I know your thrilled)

• Check into switching out my insurance to AAA. My dad just did, and he is saving a bunch of money. We have the house, two cars, and my wedding ring. So I need to check into that soon.
• The mortgage and taxes... so the other day, I came up with the idea that if I took the taxes out of my mortgage (escrow) and just paid them myself, I would save $500 a month to put into a saving account, and actually budget food into, possibly even pay bills and be able to breathe afterwards. Now to pay the taxes each year, I would be using my tax return from the government we get each spring, and that should cover the taxes. I ran it by my dad, who is a budget and money genius, always shuffling money around to save him the most he can. And he said it was a great idea, good for me to think ahead like that. Well when any dad says stuff like that, a girl is awfully proud of herself. (just hope the idea works!)
• Government grants. Possibly food stamps? Well my mom, who is also a saver, was poking around on some sites and thought that it was possible for me to get food stamps. Now some people may be to proud or find it embarrassing, but shit ladies, if we don't claim it, someone else will. I know I sure paid into it all those years I worked. So we will see. I will post more as I find out.
• Spike has a flat head, well kinda, enough that it bothers Spaghetti and he wants to go to this cranial place to see if he needs a helmet. Spikes ped. suggested him. Sigh. I am not excited about this at all. I know it's not my fault, but I don't really like talking about it. It bothers me that he has to wear this thing. And now reading through the site, I am not looking forward to all the drama, crying, and not sleeping that may come with this helmet. But again, I need to be an adult, and take care of my Spike bestest I can.
• I also need to check our bank accounts, mail out Baptism Thank You's, do laundry, fold and put away more clothes (still got those bags in Spikes closet) feed and entertain children... ya know, the adult stuff.

Hope you all have a great day. I am actually having a good day, and I just started my coffee! So hopefully I can accomplish some things today!