So I teach and four years ago i intentionally took a job at a low-income school in order to be eligible for the loan forgiveness program that the government offers. At the end of last year I found out that my school would no longer qualify as low-income because some of our students were re-districted. Are you kidding! I have to work at a low-income school for five consecutive years. I just lost my 5000 dollars. I was so upset. My mom convinced me to call the customer service of the program and see if they would forgive this year since it was not a change of job on my part rather a county descision. Luckily, they said I was grandfathered into the program since I worked four years in a low-income school and remained at that school my fifth year. I'm so excited! It's great! It is going to help us get further out of debt so much faster! I'm so geared!
To add to my joy today, I made this awesome dinner. I used Asian spice packets and made fried rice, and honey glazed seaseme chicken. It was really good. I was so impressed with myself. It was great. My daughter ate it up, my husband ate it up and I look forward to a filling meal tomorrow at lunch.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Day Two
I had so much planned that I was going to do today. I didn't really get anything done. Since it's Martin Luther King's Birthday I had today off. I was going to finish report cards, reorganizing our bedroom and clean the house. Ummm, okay maybe it was a little much for one day.
I woke up to my 3 year old running around downstairs.....that's right folks. She got out of bed and was running in circles downstairs. I came out of my bedroom door at the top of the steps and she was starting to walk up, tears streaming down her face. I asked her what was the matter. She crawled up the stairs crying and said..."I thought you and daddy left me. You weren't downstairs, and you didn't read me a book last night." Bless her heart! My heart ached for her. I asked if she checked in our bedroom first and she said no because I was downstairs when she went to sleep. Oh my. What could I say. I just hugged her and told her we would never leave her alone. She asked me if I promised and you know I did. I even pinkie swore. :)
On a positive note: We have reached Day 4 with no pee peeing in our big girl bed!!!!! YAY! I'm so proud of her. I can't believe changing rooms and beds has made such a difference. It's as if it was just the motivation she needed to wake herself up when she needed to go potty.
Later on, my hubby and I went grocery shopping. We had to stay within 75 bucks on our groceries. You know what, we did it! We have budgeted out all of our money for groceries, gas, "blow money," bills, and savings. For the first time in 5 years we have actually managed to stick to the budget. We have put money away for summer cash, and for our daughter's college fund. I am so proud of my husband and me.
At the same time, it has been very hard. We have limited ourselves to $25 a month in blow money. We were spending almost $1000 dollars of our income on blow money about a month ago. We weren't saving anything and we were only paying minimum payments on everything. Now we are saving our $500 a month so I don't have to work during the summer and we aren't relying on a tax refund to cover our bills. We also managed to put $100 in our daughters college savings this month, and set aside $900 for an emergency fund. I wish we could manage to do that every month but this month my husband got paid his bonus money from work which made a huge difference.
My husband, who used to be the spender, is doing better at this than I am. It's frustrating. I wish I had more strength. I want to pay off our debt so much faster than what we will be able to pay them. I know we are getting there, but I want to be there now!!!! I know it took us some time to accumulate the debt, but it feels like it is taking so much longer to shake ourselves from under it.
In regards to the teaching side of things. I need to get my report cards finished....or started. I guess I have to start them to finish them. I have such a bad habit of procrastinating. I have been doing so great at staying on top of my work. I can only hope I stay motivated enough to keep it going. It seems to come in swings. I do really good at things for a while and then I slow done, just before I stop completely. I get so behind that picking it back up to finish seems like an impossible task. Until I am finally feeling pressure from so many directions that I explode into a frenzy of work and finish the job. Then I think, I'll do better next time, knowing that's not true. What causes people to be like this. I wish I could tell you. I've heard all the theories; fear of failing, laziness, lack of skill, etc. I just procrastinate. No reason, no rhyme.
Here's to no more procrastination. To anyone reading this....wish me luck.
I woke up to my 3 year old running around downstairs.....that's right folks. She got out of bed and was running in circles downstairs. I came out of my bedroom door at the top of the steps and she was starting to walk up, tears streaming down her face. I asked her what was the matter. She crawled up the stairs crying and said..."I thought you and daddy left me. You weren't downstairs, and you didn't read me a book last night." Bless her heart! My heart ached for her. I asked if she checked in our bedroom first and she said no because I was downstairs when she went to sleep. Oh my. What could I say. I just hugged her and told her we would never leave her alone. She asked me if I promised and you know I did. I even pinkie swore. :)
On a positive note: We have reached Day 4 with no pee peeing in our big girl bed!!!!! YAY! I'm so proud of her. I can't believe changing rooms and beds has made such a difference. It's as if it was just the motivation she needed to wake herself up when she needed to go potty.
Later on, my hubby and I went grocery shopping. We had to stay within 75 bucks on our groceries. You know what, we did it! We have budgeted out all of our money for groceries, gas, "blow money," bills, and savings. For the first time in 5 years we have actually managed to stick to the budget. We have put money away for summer cash, and for our daughter's college fund. I am so proud of my husband and me.
At the same time, it has been very hard. We have limited ourselves to $25 a month in blow money. We were spending almost $1000 dollars of our income on blow money about a month ago. We weren't saving anything and we were only paying minimum payments on everything. Now we are saving our $500 a month so I don't have to work during the summer and we aren't relying on a tax refund to cover our bills. We also managed to put $100 in our daughters college savings this month, and set aside $900 for an emergency fund. I wish we could manage to do that every month but this month my husband got paid his bonus money from work which made a huge difference.
My husband, who used to be the spender, is doing better at this than I am. It's frustrating. I wish I had more strength. I want to pay off our debt so much faster than what we will be able to pay them. I know we are getting there, but I want to be there now!!!! I know it took us some time to accumulate the debt, but it feels like it is taking so much longer to shake ourselves from under it.
In regards to the teaching side of things. I need to get my report cards finished....or started. I guess I have to start them to finish them. I have such a bad habit of procrastinating. I have been doing so great at staying on top of my work. I can only hope I stay motivated enough to keep it going. It seems to come in swings. I do really good at things for a while and then I slow done, just before I stop completely. I get so behind that picking it back up to finish seems like an impossible task. Until I am finally feeling pressure from so many directions that I explode into a frenzy of work and finish the job. Then I think, I'll do better next time, knowing that's not true. What causes people to be like this. I wish I could tell you. I've heard all the theories; fear of failing, laziness, lack of skill, etc. I just procrastinate. No reason, no rhyme.
Here's to no more procrastination. To anyone reading this....wish me luck.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Day One
I guess I can start out this blog with a little background info. I am 26 and I will have been married 5 years in June of '05. I have a little girl that just turned 3 and I am pregnant with number two, which is due June 19th. I feel like I started a new life five years ago. The first year looked something like this; I graduated from college in May of '05, I got married to my high school sweetheart in June of '05, I started my first year teaching in August of '05, we bought a house in January of '06 and finally found out we were 3 months pregnant in February of '06. We were due to have our first child in November of '06. Let's say I went through all of those changes with a lot of ups and downs. Did you know there is a statistic somewhere that says you shouldn't have more than one big change every couple of years. I don't know where that statistic is, but people tell me it every time they learn about our first year of marriage. Looking back, I think we did great!
Now I will fill you in on what's going on in our life today. So far I am 18 weeks pregnant. I am showing so much faster this time than last time. I thought this pregnancy was going to be "normal." Like the last one. I didn't feel the drive to read all those books this time. I haven't felt the need to seek out mommy groups. However, it's not the same. This time it's completely different. I was nauseous the first-trimester, eating twice as much as usual, exhausted, having leg cramps, and dry skin that itched like CRAZY!!!! Despite it all I have loved being pregnant again. I know I'm insane. I know there are some of you out there that hate me for saying that, but it's true. I love it. I love that I just started to feel the flutters of the baby in my belly. I love that when everyone looks at me right now, they look at my belly instead of my boobs. :) Sorry but when you are a size 2 with D cups (yes natural) the boobs are where guys and girls eyes go sometimes. Until you have kids. :) Then they are saggy D's. So those of you with smaller boobs gloat in the fact that those of us that were "blessed" have to have them hang to our belly buttons long before we reach our thirties if we have kids in our twenties. Talking about boobs, I love that being pregnant can make saggy boobs firm and perky again...and so does my hubby. ;-)
As for my three year old. I moved her out of the baby room and into a "big girl room." It's so cute. We found an awesome deal for a Queen....oh yes, I said Queen....size bed, a dresser and mirror, chest of drawers, and a night stand for $699. We couldn't pass it up. Brand-new it was mispriced in the sales ad. How lucky are we!?! The room is painted orange...it was meant to be more of a Tuscan and we bought it a little to bright. Oh well, it's kind of orange now, and we put polka dot decals all over it. It looks wonderful. When we potty trained her she did great during the day but we couldn't get her to stop wetting the bed at night. She has slept in her bed two nights in a row and hasn't wet her bed yet! We are so excited. She gets up and goes potty all by herself now. Of course her new bedroom is closer to the bathroom which might help, but it's great! Tonight she asked me if I could close her bedroom door. I know that seems minor, but she usually wants her door at least cracked open. Not now. She's a big girl! I'm so proud of her!
We shall see what tomorrow brings.
Now I will fill you in on what's going on in our life today. So far I am 18 weeks pregnant. I am showing so much faster this time than last time. I thought this pregnancy was going to be "normal." Like the last one. I didn't feel the drive to read all those books this time. I haven't felt the need to seek out mommy groups. However, it's not the same. This time it's completely different. I was nauseous the first-trimester, eating twice as much as usual, exhausted, having leg cramps, and dry skin that itched like CRAZY!!!! Despite it all I have loved being pregnant again. I know I'm insane. I know there are some of you out there that hate me for saying that, but it's true. I love it. I love that I just started to feel the flutters of the baby in my belly. I love that when everyone looks at me right now, they look at my belly instead of my boobs. :) Sorry but when you are a size 2 with D cups (yes natural) the boobs are where guys and girls eyes go sometimes. Until you have kids. :) Then they are saggy D's. So those of you with smaller boobs gloat in the fact that those of us that were "blessed" have to have them hang to our belly buttons long before we reach our thirties if we have kids in our twenties. Talking about boobs, I love that being pregnant can make saggy boobs firm and perky again...and so does my hubby. ;-)
As for my three year old. I moved her out of the baby room and into a "big girl room." It's so cute. We found an awesome deal for a Queen....oh yes, I said Queen....size bed, a dresser and mirror, chest of drawers, and a night stand for $699. We couldn't pass it up. Brand-new it was mispriced in the sales ad. How lucky are we!?! The room is painted orange...it was meant to be more of a Tuscan and we bought it a little to bright. Oh well, it's kind of orange now, and we put polka dot decals all over it. It looks wonderful. When we potty trained her she did great during the day but we couldn't get her to stop wetting the bed at night. She has slept in her bed two nights in a row and hasn't wet her bed yet! We are so excited. She gets up and goes potty all by herself now. Of course her new bedroom is closer to the bathroom which might help, but it's great! Tonight she asked me if I could close her bedroom door. I know that seems minor, but she usually wants her door at least cracked open. Not now. She's a big girl! I'm so proud of her!
We shall see what tomorrow brings.
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