ringing in 2007

How will you spend your night?

Usually DH and I head out to dinner and a movie and are home well before midnight. We stay bunkered down in the house because you never know which idiots will be out shooting off their guns. BUT ... We are doing dinner at his brothers house and then I am going to go babysit at 9 pm until ???.... FUN.. I know the kids might be asleep b4 midnight, but at least I can play with them for a while b4 they crash for the night.

I remember as a little kid my mom would allow us to stay up. We would get the metal pots and spoons and bring them out onto the front porch and bang the heck out of them at the new year. My neighbors would shoot off pretty & colorful fireworks and then about 20 minutes past the hour it would be all quiet. We would then go back inside and watch the West coast celebrations on tv. Little did I Know then that Dick Clark was TAPE DELAYED.. I was too little to know that he taped the New York celebration and then they replayed it for the West Coast. LOL

No, No New Years resolutions here except to have patience in the adoption process. I don't want it to take more than a year, but I have to realize that it could. Our agency is networking with more letters in January with hopes that some potential situations come of that.

I am doing well with Ebay these last few weeks and I hope to continue to grow the adoption funds. I need to update our marker on the fundraising. We hope we can pay cash for the next step in the process which is due when we are "matched" with a potential birthmother situation. Basically when she decides to accept our profile to be the potential parents to her baby. I think that fee is 5g's. Let me check on that.

Oh we got a new mattress this past weekend. We counted back and realized our mattress was 11 years old. No kidding. The pillow top was so beaten down and what remained of it was sliding off the side of the bed. We did not want to spend the money, but we had to. I could feel the springs poking through. Yikes. So I have to work extra hard to make up that money spend by babysitting and selling things on ebay and craigslist.

Speaking of Craigslist, my sister made a killing in December with selling things. She said it paid for all of her christmas gifts for the 3 kids and she had more to pay down a bill or two. So she did very good on there just cleaning out her garage and storage room downstairs. I will start working on the room downstairs(our "stuff" collection room) and start listing it on there. I need that room for my sewing set up and crafts so there is the incentive.

Cheers to a Happy 2007 for you and yours.

hounding the insurance paid off

back a few weeks ago I posted the picture of our gutter that was ripped off in the ice storm we had. DH put a claim in with our insurance full well knowing we have a $500.00 deductible. About 2 weeks later we got an adjuster to come out (while we were at work) and assess the damage. Since we were not there he could not get into our yard. Well actually they sent him out to look at the damage without setting up an appointment with us to let him in our yard through the house. The gutter was blocking the gate on the side of the house where most of the damage was behind. We got a whopping $36.88 check (again remember that we had a $500.00 deduct) for the difference in damages. I could not believe it. DH then talked to the adjuster and asked him how the hell he assessed the damage without entering the yard. The adjuster admitted the did his valuation from the FRONT of our house. Now from the front of the house is about 60-70 feet long to the back and due to the way the gutter came off you could not see the damage from the FRONT of the house. So I promptly got on the phone with my agents assistant just after Christmas and told her I was going to get 2-4 other estimates because I am not a fool to accept that there was only $536.88 worth of damage. I tried to call 4 roofing/gutter companies and they are all 6-8 weeks booked out to even do estimates. I then called the agents assistant back and told her to send out another adjuster this week. Thankfully DH was home so they met Thursday here at our house and DH let him in back and showed him the West side of the building gutter to prove it was damaged too. Today, Saturday, we just got a call from that new adjuster and they are cutting us another check for 600.00 additionally for damage. So our total claim amount was $1136.88. So we have a check for $36.88 and the next check for $600.00 will be in the mail Monday. YEAH... At least we have a good amount of money to hire someone to finally fix this gutter. Heck it might be until Spring before we can get a company out to do this, but at least this is out totally out of our pocket for this claim. Persistance and hounding pays off.

Bring on the New Year and .....

Joyful days for many.

Congrats to the Mae Midwest family on their new addition. Hard fought pregnancy brings .Next baby on board.

AND good luck to you all out there trying for baby #1 and 2 through treatments. I know how it is for baby #1 and if you ever need to chat, email me anytime.

Ebay is picking up. I need to sit down tonight and package up several of the items I sold on Buy It Now yesterday. I also have to fix a problem I had with a pillow we made that has a hole in it accidentally that I sold on there. I contacted the buyer and offered full money back or that we can make her another pillow, i hope she accepts the remake. So far in 2 weeks time I have managed to add about 150.00 to our adoption Fund. Thank you MOM!

Christmas was good to me. I got a 1gb flash drive. Nice, Now I can upload pictures so easily and bring them to work to share and move files around on the 3 pc's I have at home without fuss. Thanks DH.

I got an MP3 player. Now I need to learn how to fill it with songs. FUN. DH said he will show me tonight. Then I can get my butt walking at lunch at work so I can keep dropping the pounds away. Stalled at 6.8 lbs lost so far since late November. Still not too bad of a weight loss in the HOLIDAY season if you know what I mean. (COOKIES)

Going today to buy a new mattress for the bedroom. I sat down the other night and realized our double pillow top mattress is nearly 11 years old. OMG.. no wonder DH and I both wake up complaining of sore backs and especially my hips and shoulders. WOW.. can't wait to get it home. This means I will also go buy some much needed new sheets for the bed. When you buy a king sized mattress, regular king sized sheets are ok, but when you buy a double pillow top it does not fit the king fitted sheets so well.. they tend to pop off on the corners. So I need to buy those silly bedsheet straps.. You know, the kind that look like a old mans sock to shirt tail strap to hold his shirt tail down in the pants? Anyway.. I hear that we can get the mattress at a 1 year no payment plan thus we can pay it off in full with our small tax refund we hope to get this year. Ahhhh, thus No payments and no interest will accumulate if paid in full by that one year mark. I refuse to let it go over 1 year. NO MORE credit card purchases. NON.. NADA. And DH is on that kick too. Nice to have them paid off.

Ok, off to go shop for that lovely mattress.

I must return to work tomorrow after a long weekend. FUN I do AP/AR at work and they must all be done by Friday. New transitions at work are going well. Fingers crossed that it stays that way.

ok, I can't pry myself off the couch

procrastination is my middle name and let me tell you I hate it. I hate that I procrastinate like this. I have my shopping done, but now I have to wrap.

I have 5 nieces, 3 nephews bought for. My mom is taken care of and her boyfriend(thanks to my Sister). My MIL is dh's responsibility and he tried to get her gc today, but the gc network was down for several major companies today so DH has to go out tomorrow to buy her gc. Oh and I bought my bil's girlfriends name exchange item(nice perfume). I have all of those items sitting on my dining room table just calling my name. Calling me to come wrap them. I will do it, but not tonight. Too lazy. Bah.

Have I ever told you I was a professional gift wrapper? Yup, at a major department store. I did year round wrapping and two times during the year it gets beyond busy. Mothers day and Christmas. I loved wrapping things. No matter what size they were we had a system set up to be able to wrap efficiently and quickly. Have you ever made a professional bow? If not, hire me. I can make them.

Some of the paper the company used for wrapping patterns was hideous. Downright trashy looking... but we dressed it up with a nice looking bow and made the wrapping salvageable. They always had these little items to add to the bow as a highlight, but many people did not want them because they were even more hideous than some of the paper we had to use. At Christmas time those items were ornaments that could be hung on the tree that we tied into the bow...It is expensive to have items like this professionally wrapped, but let me tell you there are still people out there willing to pay. There were priced by size of the box and we had even charged 1.50 extra per item if it was from another store. Oh and we had to verify receipts of purchase in order to wrap those items so we were not wrapping a stolen item. LOL Yup we could refuse if they would not show proof of purchase.

Oh, DH mentioned we did not get any christmas gifts for the doggies and kitty. Well I guess I will be going to the store tomorrow again now. LOL

Oh.. and if you wonder... I did buy DH a few things, but he got himself a nice new tv a month or so back so that is his Christmas gift to him from me and him. Ha

be gone bug

I felt like crap 3/4 of this weekend. I had a tummy bug last weekend and I swear to you it carried over to this weekend. I think I got rid of it and it came back to me. I feel better today, but I have a headache that is dull and anoying. I had fever late Thursday, Friday and some Saturday, but it has gone back to normal. I just think I keep passing the bug between co-workers. Seems I had it first then my co-worker had it and I got it back mid-week. It was an upset tummy and the big D. yuck. I never actually threw up, but waves of nausea came and went. I hope it stays away. I missed seeing my friends for lunch both thursday and friday. I hate that. I hope I can meet up after the holiday with them. I hope I can stay ill-free this week too because my co-worker is off work and either her or I have to be there to run things. LOL

If I can't boot this crap I guess I will break down and call the doc tomorrow for some help. I don't know if anti-biotics will acutally help though. I heard that several co-workers took atibiotics and it did not help as they got it twice too. DH never seemed to get ill, why is that? lucky dog. I hope he stays well too.

I am so behind with Christmas shopping. I have a few things done, but I still have mil, nieces and nephews to buy for and then wrap. Yikes. I so hate leaving this until the last minute, but I know I will get it done now that I am feeling better. Just hope I stay better.

doesn't the post office sell stamps?

well apparently not today.. they were sold out of Christmas stamps at the local post office I live by.

You have got to be kidding me. A POST OFFICE SOLD OUT OF STAMPS?

Yes, shit like this only happens to me. LMAO

ebaying it

my mom and I are working hard to get things selling on ebay. It is hard to market these items so would you consider taking a peek? What do you think of them? Plus they are resonably priced. We also have some roll pillows she made and I sewed up.

baby bottle holders and more

saw that coming

DH put in a claim this past week on our Lovely gutter that 1/2 fell off in the ice/sleet storm the other night. Well, looks like our deductible bites us in the arse over this one. The adjuster came out today and said that the damage total was $536.88. So our claim amount is 36.88. Mind you we have a 500.00 deduct. Frick.

Yup. I swear to you there is more damage than that to the house. It pulled off the gutter and facia on the east side of the house and it has made the gutter bow out badly on the west side of the house. So that means we would have to replace both gutters the length of our house and facia on both sides in order to match. Or do they not care about it matching? WTF?

DH said he will call the adjuster this weekend and get an explanation as to why the estimate was so low. I want them to get 3 bids or I will get the bids to show them that there is more damage than 536.88.

Meantime, I got my hair cut today. YEAH. It feels so good. Now if I can only make it look as good as the stylist did. LOL

Off to go babysit. I was not feeling so hot last night, but after a few tylenol I am good to go to babysit tonight. I think I will have the kids draw me some holiday scenes to hang on my fridge. hehe

I will post later this weekend to let you know what the adjuster says to DH.

stalled

between the weight loss stall and my mental and emotional stall, I am so not in the Christmas spirit. Not one bit. DH forced me to put up and decorate the treeIno he really did not hurt me physically, but he decorated downstairs himself so I had no choice but to decorate upstairs incase guests show up unannounced.. HA), but I have refused to decorate the outside of the house yet and thanks to the ice storm and ripped up gutter I have managed to postpone that task too. HAHAHA. LOL I am just not ready for the Holiday. I have exchange names to buy for, 5 nieces and 3 nephews to buy for, DH's mom, my mom and her bf, work exchange to buy or make something for by this coming Wednesday and MAYBE something for DH. Well, maybe not for DH. See, he went out a few weeks back and got his flatscreen HD TV for the basement. THAT, my friends, WAS his early Christmas gift. I won't be buying much else for him. REALLY maybe another 20.00 in stuff, but he said that was ok.

I need to get my butt in gear and get things organized and bought. I managed to list several baby bottle holders my mom makes (wanna see the link to the items? ) and those sales end on Sunday. I have to file a NONpaying bidder complaint with Ebay on one item. Why must there be people out there like that? They say, "Oh I will send you a money order" but it never arrives. Go figure. Looks like a bad mark on them for a nonpayer. Not good on ebay.

One thing I will have fun doing tomorrow on my day off is getting my mop of a head of hair cut. Just in time for the Festivities to happen. I babysit tomorrow night and then I have a FUN party to go to Saturday night so my new do will help get me in the spirit of the season I think.

Day off work is a good thing. I had to burn up a few days since the adotion fell through and I was saving my days up for when we needed to travel, but currently I am planning on spending tomorrow off work and next Thur & Friday off and then the two days off after the 25th. I then get to carry over a 1/2 day of work into 2007. My work won't let me off the full week between Christmas and New year because of end of year bills that need to be paid. I understand and that is part of my job so I will use my future days for camping in 2007 instead. FUN.

DH already booked camping dates for APril 2007. hehe

3 weeks 6.2 lbs

I am the proud loser.

3 weeks of weight watchers and I have managed to lose 6.2 pounds. I am happy with that. I am looking forward to a good week ahead of sticking to eating my ww's meals and watching my points. I did not do that so well from Thanksgiving day until wednesday this past week.

It helps so much to buy foods for my ww's meals and divide them up in baggies. I have cauliflower and celery cut up in baggies and then I made ff dip again this week. I love those to eat with my usual ww's microwave meal. I eat yogurt for breakfast and then dinner is usually a light meal of some sort. Or even another ww's meal if I am too lazy to cook or DH is not home. LOL

I missed going to the meeting today because I volunteered (paid of course) to work overtime in our roadside call center taking calls due to the TERRIBLE weather conditions in the majority of the states our club services. I will go next week though. I think the meetings for WW's are a great help and boost to know I am not the only one out there struggling to not put that one bad piece of food in my mouth each day.

I wish I had a good movie to watch. Satellite is out because of ice on the dish and the dish being out of correct pointed location. I guess the wind and ice caused the dish to shift so our signal strength is out of wack. DH said they can't come until next Saturday to fix it either. Bummer. Bad thing is that the gutter is getting ready to fall the rest of the way and if it does that then we are totally out of signal because it will most likely pull down the dish cable that goes around the gutter. LOL

DH called the ins company about claiming our gutter loss, but missed the agents office calling back before the weekend started for them. He will try and get hooked up with them Monday and set up the claim. The west side of our house has the gutter and it is bowing pretty bad, I wonder if we will be able to claim them both now.hmmmmm

Cheers to a warm weekend for us all. I hope everyone that lost power gets it back soon. My MIL, Mom, sister and friend all lost their power and two of the 5 have gotten it back so far.