Shopping Trip

I learned today that shopping for a soon-to-be 4 year-old is hard. At least when she's with you!

I had a couple of coupons I could use. The younger kids and I took off this morning because my Princess wanted to do something special today.

We went to JCPenny and to Kohl's. I had $10 off of anything at both stores! We went to JCPenny looking for something for my little man, his birthday is tomorrow! (I just can't believe it!) While we were there, my Princess found a stuffed animal that is also a purse. It's a while doggie with a blue rhinestone shirt that is actually the purse part. She could not stop looking at it.

We continued to walk around the store and I finally got her distracted enough to put the dog on the register. The lady double bagged the dog and we escaped with only paying $5 for her birthday present! Awesome!

Then we made it to Kohl's. My little man is totally into cars/trucks. He calls them "vroom, vroom"s. A couple of weeks ago, he found one of my Buddy's trucks and moved it along the floor saying "vroom vroom." So cute! No one even told him how to do that! My total at Kohl's with the $10 off coupon was not enough, so I bought me a new waterbottle...escaping Kohl's with only spending $5 again!!

Call me cheap...call me thrifty...I call me smart! Oh, and successful!

--sorry no pictures, but my Princess would totally know I got it for her if there was a picture!!---

New Kicks

A few months ago, yes I said months, Oswald and I were with the kids doing a little shopping. Now you may or may not know this, but Oswald is a shopper. He loves to browse and he loves to buy even more. He very rarely buys for himself, but just the act of shopping makes him happy.

We were in one of our favorite stores, TJMaxx, looking at the shoes in the kids department. We were looking for flip-flops for my Princess, but found some for my Buddy instead. Such a bummer! I left the store with my Princess to go and change my Little Man's dirty diaper, so Oswald could buy the shoes for my Buddy.

Then they went over to another shoe store, can't remember the name, and found a pair of flops for my Princess. The shoes were buy one get one 1/2 prices, so he had to get these kicks for my Little Man. They are Transformers and they light up! How could a boy in our family NOT love the Transformers?

But of course the shoes were too big and he didn't even put them on until a week ago. He doesn't really like to wear them because they make his feet all clunky. He can't really get into a standing position while wearing them, so that kind of defeats the purpose of wearing shoes, right?

He sure is cute in his new kicks...wonder if he'll ever get any use out of them?

Do you like to shop or do you do it only out of necessity?

--I love to shop, but it always seems to work like this: when I have extra money to buy something, I can't find anything. When I am strapped for cash, I find all kinds of things I want to buy. Kind of makes shopping not so much fun!

What was the last thing you bought?

--I bought groceries. Tons of fun, I know! The last thing I bought for me: a white shirt I wore for some family pictures.

One of those days...

 A look at my messy room...I bet your room never looks like this!

Do you ever have one of those days where you just feel pitty for yourself?

Well, today is one of those days for me.

I feel like a slovenly pig because I have not been eating the way I should.

I feel as though some of the decisions Oswald and I have made in the past might haunt us the rest of our lives.

I feel as though I have so much to do and so little time to do it.

I can't wait for my mom to get here, but I am also nervous about everything I need to do between now and then to get ready for her arrival.

I feel like I am just barely keeping my head above water sometimes.

And all I want to do is snuggle my sweet kids. A dear friend of mine lost her toddler this week and it makes me realize how fragile life is and how blessed I am to have my kids here on this earth with me. It makes me thankful for the knowledge of Eternal Families. 

I feel a whole lot better writing all of this stuff down. Thanks for letting me vent.

It's always nice to get things off my chest!

Arise

We watched Robin Hood last night, not the Disney one, but the newest one with Russell Crowe. It was good, very powerful, and one part was extremely poignant to me.

My husband and I are facing an incredible trial right now. We’re living in another state while we try to sell our first house in North Carolina. It’s hard because we’ve only had about four showings in four months. Rough. 

We just signed a contract to also put the house For Rent. Talk about a HUGE decision, one that Oswald and I didn’t take too lightly. 

“Are you sure this is what you want to do? What if the renters mess up the house we worked so hard to make look nice?” I asked each time we talked about renting it.

The house was in Foreclosure when we purchased it four years ago. We painted every single wall in the house, re-purposed the kitchen cabinets, put in new countertops, and new carpet. We spent hours fixing that house, so it has been very difficult for us to see no one even interested in going in the front door.

This is not the first financial trial Oswald and I have faced. When we first moved to NC, he was working in Real Estate and making peanuts. 

After he finished his bachelor’s degree at UNCG, he was without a job. I don’t know how we survived those months between graduation and his first job. 

I will never forget one experience we had. We were two months behind on our mortgage payment, and had no money left to our name. 

I had been praying and praying that the Lord would see fit to bless us. I had read in the Ensign one month that a sister paid her tithing, but didn’t have enough money to buy the food she needed for her family. She came home from work one evening, and there was a bag of groceries on her doorstep. Inside, was everything that was on her grocery list she was unable to buy herself. Miracle.

That day Oswald had spent the entire day working with his dad. I didn’t know when he would come home and what we would do if we didn’t get any money immediately!

I was coiling the cord around the vacuum when Oswald walked in.

He didn’t say anything to me, but put a check in my hand.

I looked down at it. It was for $900. Enough to pay our mortgage. Miracle.

I looked at him and with tears in my eyes said, “Are you serious? This is for us? How did you get this?” I proceeded to melt into a huge puddle of tears. I couldn’t stop crying. I got down on my knees immediately and said a prayer of thanksgiving.

So here we are now one year later, facing yet another financial trial. You’re probably wondering what this has to do with Robin Hood. Well, I’ll tell ya.

On a sword Robin is given is the quote, “Arise and arise again, until lambs become lions.” 

That’s what I’m trying to do right now. I’m trying to arise and arise again…until I become a lion. There is something Oswald and I need to learn in this trial. The Lord is testing us again to make sure we will arise. He’s making lions out of lambs, and I will never stop rising because in this world we need all the lions we can find.

***updated to add: our house has been rented. We're no longer behind on our mortgage and life has a way of fixing things. The Lord always blesses us when we need it. In his own way. In his own time.***

How have you been made a lion? What have you had to endure more than once in order to become the lion you are today?

Bi-weekly paycheck

For the first few years of my marriage, I worked. I was paid to write and loved my job. I worked for television stations trying to promote their late night newscast. It was a great job and very rewarding.

But, I got pregnant and being a stay at home mom was a no-brainer for me.

I wanted to be there for all of the milestones my kids experienced. I wanted to see his first smile, see her first steps, change all the dirty diapers, take her to the park, push him down the slide, everything, I wanted to do it all. But my husband was still in school and we both wanted him to finish his degree, so we moved across the country for him to work in Real Estate with an established Realtor. 

 

He continued to go to school all day and show property during the evenings. We did not think that commission work would be the end-all, but we didn’t think it would be as hard as it was either. He would work and work all summer long, make really good money and be very busy. Then the cold dreary winter would set in and no one wanted to buy a house. He couldn’t even get people to look at a house. So we would have to be creative, we would buy Christmas and birthday presents in August and save up enough money to last us for 5-6 months until his next commission paycheck came. This was no way to live.

Now, my husband is done with school and has a full-time job. We get a paycheck every two weeks. It’s heaven on earth. It’s so comforting to know that every two weeks X amount of dollars will hit our checking account. I know that if money is tight because of an unexpected doctor bill, we’ll be getting more money on Thursday. I know that my babies will always have food to eat. I know we’ll have a roof over our head. I can budget. 

Don’t get me wrong, there are great things about commission work. You don’t work for “the man”.  The sky’s the limit when it comes to how much money you make. If you don’t want to work one day, you don’t have to. I get all of these reasons to be self-employed, but when you’re working Real Estate and the bottom drops out of the market, it’s no way for a family to live. 

It’s amazing what consistency can do for my self-proclaimed worrying.

Do you prefer commission work or a steady paycheck?