May 10, 2008
My friend Megan over at SortaCrunchy is holding a giveaway for a $50 gift certificate at a delightful company, Warm Biscuit Bedding. Head on over to Megan’s and check it out!
May 9, 2008
That pretty much sums up how I’m feeling today.
May 9, 2008
Here’s my menu for the next two weeks. I’m on the ball this week! Yeah!
Monday - Craft night - Sadaf’s turn to cook.
Tuesday - Ham with mashed potatoes and veggies
Wednesday - Homemade pepperoni and ham pizza
Thursday - Game Night. Dinner to be determined later
Friday -Crockpot Chicken and Dumplings
Monday - Craft Night - Rose’s turn to cook.
Tuesday - Chicken Cordon Bleu
Wednesday - French Toast with Bacon
Thursday - On-Cor frozen dinner
Friday - Tacos
May 6, 2008
Mother’s Day Giveaways
Posted by Sara under Bloggy-ness, Give-Aways, Holidays, Mother's DayNo Comments
The lovely ladies at 5minutesformom.com are at it again. This time they are celebrating Mother’s Day. I’m getting on the bandwagon a little late in the game…You’ve only got until Friday to enter (May 9th) so hop on over and check out the great things they are giving away.
Unfortunately, the banner code provided by 5 Minutes for Mom linking directly to the site isn’t working properly for me, but CLICK HERE if you want to go directly to the giveaways!
May 3, 2008
So today was a special day. We took Bug to Free Comic Book day at our local comic book/game store. We got there early and since we know the owner we got to go upstairs a little earlier than everyone else to help set up, play around (Bug had a grand time playing with the balloons), and get our free comics. Wonder Woman was there, too. She was taking pictures with the kids (and those comic book geek adults.) Unfortunately, I left my camera home, which, in a way, was good since Bug wanted nothing to do with her so we didn’t force him. Since it was getting past lunch time we decided to head out to get something to eat. Bug decided on Burger King so he could have an Iron Man toy. As we started driving there I suddenly felt very sick to my stomache. I assumed that it was because I slept in this morning and didn’t eat breakfasat before we left the house. I managed to eat 3/4 of a chicken sandwich, 1/2 a bag of fries and 1/2 a fruit punch. I still felt like crap.
We had to run to Walmart for a few things and despite both Bug and Darling Hubby looking at all the toys and games and trips both down and up the escalator to get dog food I made it through with only some slight discomfort. We got home and after taking care of a few things I went to bed. Darling Hubby put Bug down for his nap and then ran to the library. I had the lovely misfortune of a restless little boy and a cat who decided to use my face as a scratching post. She attacked me for some reason and I have a beautiful scratch on the right side of my lower lip. Great.
Darling Hubby got home and later ended up feeding Bug his dinner (I could smell it from upstairs and my tummy just wasn’t having it.) I stayed in bed until around 6:30 when I came down feeling a bit better to ask if he could run to the store to get me some ginger ale before heading to meet up with Dave to see the Iron Man movie. I managed to get Bug to bed without much fuss and he went right to sleep. I still feel like crap, though. I’ve attempted to watch a movie and even the most recent episode of House, but I’m just not feeling it. I think I’m going to go to bed now. I just have to struggle to walk the dogs.
Does anyone have a magic pill that will make my tummy feel better?
May 2, 2008
Can I Have More Motiviation Please?
Posted by Sara under Annoyances, Darling Hubby, RandomnessNo Comments
Today is a very dreary day. It’s dark and cloudy and cold and rainy. I’m tired of being cold and feeling sad. I want my summery weather that we had last week back. That made me happy. This week I’ve hardly wanted to do anything, even the chores I need to do (and enjoy) like laundry. All week I’ve been wanting to clean out my closet and get rid of some clothes that don’t fit or that I haven’t worn in a while and I’ve just been putting it off because I haven’t been motivated.
Well, today, despite the dreary day and my down in the dumps mood, I finally forced myself to go upstairs and go through my closet. I pulled out every article of clothing I had hanging there and went through each piece. Sadly, some of the clothes in my closet are/were years old. One dress I’ve had since before Darling Hubby and I got married (2002) (I have pictures of me wearing it on our honeymoon on the Disney Cruise) and another I’ve had since at least 2003 (I’ve pictures of me wearing it at a friends wedding). Of course, I’m sure it’s been years since they’ve fit me properly…To be a size 9 again…
The rest of the clothes were sweatshirts/sweaters that I haven’t worn all winter (and I am constantly in sweatshirts) and a couple other shirts I haven’t worn or that were too big (gasp! I’m not sure I’ve ever said that before)…They were hand-me-downs from a friend and they were big to begin with. I also packed up some pants that I wore postpartum with Bug. They are big enough and stretchy enough that if I get pregnant again I’ll be able to wear them as maternity clothes. There was just no reason to keep them on hangers. I haven’t worn them in over a year.
Over all, I cleaned off 13 hangars of my meager and very out of style wardrobe. I’m hoping to go shopping at some point and get some new clothes that are more in style than my closet full of baggy sweatshirts, cable knit sweaters and pants. My only problem is that I don’t like to go clothes shopping alone. I like to have someone else help me pick out my clothes and I like to have another person tell me if I look ok or not. Usually I bring Darling Hubby along and, like any man waiting for his woman to pick out clothes, he gets impatient with me and hates standing around outside the woman’s dressing rooms. I rather bring a female friend or two along, but I feel odd asking them to come along. I know my friend Shannon would be good to come along as she loves shopping and has pretty good taste in clothes, but she’s always so busy…she hardly has time for herself, much less little ol’ me. On top of everything, I’ve decided I need a make over…I looked in the mirror and, I’m not sure if it’s because I’m feeling down today or what, but I look like crap. Ok…pity party over.
At least I feel good about getting empty coat hangers. Oh, and donating clothing to charity…that feels good, too.
April 25, 2008
Here’s another installation of Food for Friday. I had to get on the ball today as our grocery shopping plans tomorrow are quickly moving to tonight. I’m hoping that over the next couple weeks I’ll be better about sticking to my menu and actually defrosting meat when I need it. For the past couple weeks I’ve been just out of sorts so to speak and hardly anything on my menu got made. At least we didn’t starve. We have a ton of left overs still to deal with.
Monday - Craft night - Rose’s turn to cook
Tuesday - Pork Roast with green beans and au gratin potatoes
Wednesday - Homemade chicken fingers and fries
Thursday - Game Night - dinner to be determined later (I think I’m making pizza)
Friday -Tacos
Monday - Craft night - My turn to cook - Bourbon chicken served with rice and broccoli
Tuesday - Sloppy Joes and fries
Wednesday - Spaghetti with Homemade sauce
Thursday - Turkey Meatloaf with carrots and rice
Friday -Rotisserie Chicken Breast with veggies and potatoes
April 23, 2008
Wordless Wednesday - Go Fly a Kite
Posted by Sara under Bugalug, Darling Hubby, Happiness, Photos, Seasons - Spring, Wordless Wednesday[9] Comments
April 22, 2008
Don’t worry….I said DYEING…not dying… (Thanks Darling Hubby for correcting my almost insensitive typographical error)…So anyway, if you’ve ever dyed (i.e colored) your hair, you know all about the wait…that’s where I am now. Currently sitting Indian style on my bed, sans glasses (which I REALLY NEED to see) with my hair covered in dark brown goop, hoping it doesn’t start itching and dripping everywhere, armed with a wad of toilet paper and a pair of tweezers to relieve the aforementioned itching and wishing that the 30 minutes ticking down on my kitchen timer goes fast.
You may be wondering why I’m dyeing my hair. I’m only 27 and the only logical reason for me to be coloring my hair is because I’m vain and want a different color. Well, I am vain, but that’s not the reason for my current activity. I was blessed with the lucky genes that gave me gray hair. Yep, you read that right…I have gray hair. I’m been tortured by the nasty things since I was 17 years old…sadly, no one really believes me that I started going gray that early in life…everyone, that is, except my oldest brother who started going gray at the ripe old age of 16. He doesn’t dye his hair… He’s a man who doesn’t NEED to look like time (and genes) aren’t kicking his butt.
Since I dye my hair I really need to keep up on it. I’ve been meaning to dye since before Easter…yeah, nearly a month ago and I was meaning to do it several weeks before that, too. I just can never find time. It takes so bloody long to do as I have really long hair and takes forever for me to rinse it out and then go about cleaning up the tub as I make a horrible mess. Blah! I really should just have it done professionally, but you can’t really color your hair for less than $10 at a salon. Yep, I’m cheap! but really, I should start keeping up on it more. Darling Hubby usually starts to call me a skunk when I haven’t dyed in a long time. I get this lovely gray streak right down the middle of my head that’s several inches wide and to be completely honest, I do look like a skunk. Sad, but funny…
Ten more minutes and I get to relieve my hair of the noxious goop. Until the “timer goes ding” as Bug would say, I think I’m going to try to finish the last 5.5 pages of the Nora Roberts book, Birthright that I’ve been meaning to finish for ever and then it’s off to the tub for a rinse cycle. Thankfully, Darling Hubby is putting Bug to bed so I can finish before Deadliest Catch comes on. I love that show!
Well, the timer just went ding so I won’t be finishing that book. Off to the bathroom to de-goop. Ciao!
April 15, 2008
If I Didn’t Like My Hair So Much I’d Be Pulling It Out!
Posted by Sara under Annoyances[2] Comments
So we are had our closing on our mortgage refinance this morning at 9. We were told that we’d have to pay our next months mortgage payment and possibly the negative balance on our escrow account (yeah…we were in the red on our escrow account and have been for several months but hey…it’s water under the bridge cause apparently no one cared enough to make changes to how much money went in there and when they did we still got screwed at the end of the year, but hey…that’s a whole ‘nother b^&*ch session). At any rate, we were prepared for about $1200. Yesterday afternoon at about 3:15 I get a call from the person handling our refinance and she tells me we need to come up with $2500 bucks by this morning.
Um…WHAT! SAY THAT AGAIN! yep…nearly $2500 in closing costs…when we were expecting $1200…not more than double that. Of course I’m instantly shocked and pissed cause where am I going to come up with that amount of money by morning and because it’s over double what we were originally told. Why is it suddenly so high…because someone…I don’t know who specifically, failed to mention that we’d be required to place approximately 4 months worth of monies into our escrow account. Her excuse for us not having this information…”we don’t like to throw too much information at people.” WTF! Having to place 4 months worth of money into an escrow account at the beginning shouldn’t be too much information…it should be the right amount of information and should be provided up front. When dealing with large sums of money I like to know, up front, how much and how little. That’s just me…I don’t really know who to blame in all this so I’m just pointing the finger at “them.” It’s always “their” fault anyway…whoever “they” are.
The “good news” in all this…if you can call it good news…is that we could roll the $1500 into the amount we are financing so we don’t have to come up with it up front…we only needed to bring a little over $1000 this morning and I was able to write a post dated check for the whole amount and it won’t be cashed until May 9th. The bad thing is that we originally went in planning to save money…it worked out to be about $65 a month…now when the escrow amount is all worked out with how much we should (and should have in the past) be putting into the escrow, our monthly payment is $32 bucks MORE than we are currently paying. The way I figure it, if the mortgage company were to raise our escrow payment by $25 at our current percentage we’d still be paying $20 more each month at a higher overall %age and wouldn’t be saving much over the life of the loan. So in reality, we are saving money based on what we should be putting into escrow with the new bank. Oh, and we are swicthing from CitiMortgage to Wells Fargo. I have nothing against Citi…save the constant issues with our escrow and I’m looking forward to my dealings with Wells Fargo. I’m hoping they take better care of their escrow accounts than Citi did.
So, for now, it’s done. We have until midnight on April 28th to change our minds. We usually would only have 3 business days, but since the refinance corporation doesn’t do the payouts until the 29th of each month, we have until then to decide. I don’t think we are going to back out, but just in case.
In other annoying news…we are having to deal with a flooding basement. Sadly, it’s not from all the rain that the Northeast has been getting recently. I think it has to do with that angel fish incident. There is a drainage hole in the floor next to our furnace and hot water tank (for if the boiler or water heater ruptures) and apparently all the water in the house (sinks, toilets, washer) all drain through a pipe that runs under that drain…well, apparently something is preventing the water from fully draining away and was backing up in said hole…all over my basement floor. Thankfully we don’t use our basement for anything other than…well, a place to keep the furnace and hot water heater and it has a dirt floor so nothing was ruined in the process. We’ve been pouring Liquid Plumber down there and today after the closing we ran to Home Depot to get some main line cleaner and flanges (or something like that) so we can block the hole and hopefully force whatever is blocking the pipe out so water runs freely.
In reality, we think this may have been a possible cause for all the water damage that was down in the basement when we bought the house 5 years ago…the only people who will ever really know the answer to that question are long gone so I will never know the truth. At least in the 5 years we’ve lived here, we’ve never had issues before so all is good. Hopefully by tonight things will be running smooth and fingers crossed that I’ll be able to do laundry tomorrow without incurring more yucky water on my floor. Blech!
