Focus Friday

Thrifty and Chic Mom has a Focus Friday Challenge/Support thing going. It sounds like a GREAT idea to me. Especially after getting so behind on EVERYTHING in my life during the past 3 months Donna has been so sick, I have a bad time with procrastination and becoming exhausted and giving up just from thinking about what I have to get done. Taking things in small bite sized pieces would be much more productive.

Here's what she has to say about Focus Friday's. I also have her button over on my sidebar so you can check her site out for yourself. I want to get serious about coupons and sales to make my money go farther, and she is a great resource for this.

"New to Focus Friday here is the scoop: As we enter a new year everyone, myself included, has a list as long as their arm of things they want to accomplish. So I have decided to hold myself accountable by choosing one thing to focus on each week. It can be big or small, it doesn’t matter just as long as I specify what it is and get it done.So each week I will post my focus for the upcoming week as well as give a recap of how my week went with the previous focus. Now here is the fun part, I want you to join me on my little focus challenge. Grab my fancy button from above and post it along with your Focus Friday each week on your own blog. Then come and leave your link here in the Mr.Linky below. I promise if you participate that I will cheer you on and help you to stay focused and please do the same for me and all the participants. If you don’t blog just leave your focus in a comment below."

This next week I will be focusing on:

-getting and keeping my floors clean
-getting and keeping the kitchen counters clean
-taking care of snail mail backlog -- incoming
-sending some late packages and swaps -- outgoing
-making special time for my daughter and I
-making special time for just myself

It's all pretty basic stuff, but basic is where I need to start. What are you going to focus on?

GREAT NEWS!!

Ok, I have a concrete good and wonderful thing which has happened to me because of the Obama administration. The homeowner's assistance program. It's been difficult adjusting to being a single mother. The bills didn't magically cut in half just because Jim stopped contributing money to the household. I am only now actually making enough money to pay all of my bills. The problem is getting caught up from when I was NOT making enough money. Fortunately, my church helped me stay out of foreclosure, but I have been in default for a long time.

Prior to the Obama thing, the only thing Chase wanted to do was INCREASE my mortgage payments. Like that's going to help!! With this new bill, they immediately CUT my mortgage by 600 per month for 3 months, while I fill out paperwork and they figure out how best to help me get caught up and staying in my house. They will probably lower my interest rate and add a year or so to the end of my mortgage term to roll the behind payments into and lower my monthly payments permanently. If they keep my mortgage at 1200 per month, I will be able to get caught up, save some money and not have to take in any more roommates when Donna is gone.

I have worried about how things would work out without the income from her rent and the care I give her. Granted, I would go back to pharmacy full time, which pays double what the state pays caregivers, but I probably still would have to take in a roommate to make the 1800 payment. I have been trusting God would work things out, I just didn't know how. It is a real testimony builder that there are solutions to problems out there that we cannot even begin to imagine. Just because I can't figure out how it will work doesn't mean there isn't a way for it to work. My job is to keep my eyes and ears open and watch for opportunities. Opportunity may knock, but we have to open the door!

Back from the Brink

As many of you know, I'm the caregiver to a close friend who lives with me. She has been very, very sick since my last post in April. I have pretty much let everything go except caring for her, my daughter and work. Even then, I still managed to get pneumonia twice myself, this last time pretty badly.

Once again, Donna has beaten the odds, and is medically stable again. It isn't really possible for her to get "well" again, but we are hoping she will get well enough to go on a few day trips this summer. She is having platelet and hematacrit problems, as well as chronic infections. She's one tough cookie though, and she's not done living yet. I am really grateful, as she has been a pillar in my process of recovery from this divorce. I know I wouldn't be nearly as healthy, or happy, as I am becoming, were it not for her love and support.

I have also recovered from my illnesses, and am back at working 2 jobs, and I have hope that someday my house will be clean again. It is common knowlege thta I am NOT MARTHA. I am the messy artist type, a diehard collector, clutterbug, and I don't dust. I have way too much stuff, and am only now learning to get rid of some of it. I sold on ebay for years, but their new fee structure and rating system make it harder for a small person to be successful. Also, more importantly, I really don't have the energy to be a pharmacy technician 100 hours per month, a caregiver 180 hours a month, a mom, AND sell on ebay. Not unless I want to crash and burn again.

So, for now I am sitting on the boxes of stuff I need to sell. They'll still be there, along with the bills I will pay with the money. Thanks for everyone's support and prayers.

Mom on a Mission

Ok, so now I am on a mission to learn about this whole blogging thing. I seem to have been left behind somehow. I have faith. I am a geek, I can conquer this!!! I even found a blog whose entire mission is to show me how to do this whole blog thing, save money, tweet, whatever. That Blog is called "Mom on a Mission". I am putting her gadget up on my sidebar. She hunts down freebies and shares them, along with her knowlege with us! How cool is that?

Another day...hmmmm

I guess I am a little depressed right now. My son is constantly on my about my house, as is my ex husband, and I am tired. Just plain tired. Well, this isn't a very exciting post so far. I need to pep myself up, or get pepped up, or something. My son's cat, Teddie, is laying across the back of the chair I am sitting in, with his paws around my neck. My daughter has made a bed on the floor in front of the TV, because I finally was able to get cable back again. My Pomeranian, Poofers, is laying on the floor next to her. How can I be depressed when I have been blessed with such a beautiful daughter, wonderful animals, a good friend as a roommate, and 2 jobs that somehow manage to stretch and pay the bills. I need to look at the positive things in my life, and make them work for me.

If anyone reads this, thank you. Right now I am new to blogging, and I am not even sure what to do with it, except put other people's gadgets on my blog for extra entries in contests. I guess that is something. I will get this all figured out eventually! Any tips? I would be happy to hear them! I need all of the encouragement I can get!

I need to find the determination I had a couple of years ago, when my husband left, and I was told I would never make it, would not be able to work, or pay the bills. Well, I am working, I am paying the bills, and I still have my house. Most importantly, I have a wonderful daughter, who loves me very much, and a wonderful son, who loves me, even when he is being a pain. Teenageers tend to do that from time to time.

I have friends, who love me, even when I am being a flake, and I have a church family who also love and support me. I have faith that keeps me going. I know Heavenly Father has a plan for me, and I just need to trust and be patient.

I feel much better now than I did a few paragraphs ago. Healing is a process, and it takes time. Unfortunately, time just takes time. You can't rush it, or avoid it. It is what it is.

Humor for the day

Cute singing Cat Video....

When a Gel Pen Stops Gellin...and other tidbits

So I find some gel pens I have had lying around, and check to see if they work. About half of them do. Then I search the web for a way to restore life to pens you KNOW have ink in them. The collected knowledge says either it's hopeless, soak in hot water, rubbing alcohol, blow in the back, and I can't remember what else.

I decide to apply heat...which does NOT make the pens work, neither do any of the other tips. One person mentioned instead of wasting the perfectly good ink, she sticks a paint brush into the end and paints with it.

Hmmm..... blowing... ink... heat... twisted imagination... I take the pens apart, blow out the ink onto paper, paint with it, do contact prints, mix it, and basically have more fun than a little kid with finger paints for the first time. Of course, I have to take it one step further... Out comes the heat gun, not the wimpy little embossing gun, but the big daddy hardware store heat gun. I NUKED those pens, and all of their little pieces into an interesting looking little ball of twisted ink. With proper ventilation of course.

In the end, I have 2 "pictures" and a creation. The pictures are title are what to do when a gel pen stops gellin' and I don't know what I am going to do with the "Creation" I may mount one of the pictures on wood, and mount the creation to that... leaving the other one in my art journal. Or I could make a necklace or a pendant.

Sorry, my digital camera is hiding right now. I just used it to take a picture of one of the cats, who wasn't happy about that. Perhaps that is whay I can't find it. I will post some pictures later, and let you know the final fate of the "creation".

Overall, I rate this an extrememly entertaining past time. Be careful about plastic fumes, I hear they can cause all sorts of problems, besides just a nasty headache. If you go do something silly with a heat gun or torch, and hurt yourself, don't blame it on me!

Dead gel pens will never be safe around me again. One more thing saved from the landfill, whilst my 18 year old son attempts to throw EVERYTHING in the trash! You would think he would at least understand the economics behind recycling is free, and trash costs money, but he doesn't seem to get it, or care. So I sort all the garbage when he is done. Drives him NUTS.