Featured Post
Posted by Lizzie on May-28-2008
I have issues with budgeting and planning. I don’t like to do either. However, with the way gas prices are today, I think it’s a good time to start. My husband and I aren’t going to retire any day soon and we’d like to keep our home, so this is something I really need to get a grip on. Right?
Lately I’ve seen a lot of people asking “What are you doing to cope?” That’s a good question. The economy is tanking and people are feeling the pinch. It’s come down to “Do I keep all 5 cell phones? Cut down to basic cable? Eat day old bread?” While I’ve been trying to learn to cut down on our expenses and find extra dollars here and there, I’ve been thinking of what my grandparents had to endure. And somehow managed to survive.
My great-grandmother was born before the Great Depression. They managed to live on $2-5 a week- if that. They didn’t have a car (much less two) and couldn’t afford to buy their children a different pair of shoes for each different outfit. As a matter of fact, my grandmother once told me that they had their “Sunday best”- which was only worn on Sunday - and their everyday clothes. Two outfits. That’s it. How did they do it? And meat was only eaten once a week- or twice if there was a holiday. They convened at the neighbor’s house when there was an interesting radio program playing, otherwise they did without (no TV mind you).
I look around my house and realize that we’ve got it good. I’m typing this on a PC and posting it via the Internet and if we were really that bad off, I would have neither of these luxuries. I wouldn’t have a special shampoo or be able to choose whole grain bread over white bread. I wouldn’t be able to say “Hey! I need new sandals because these are just ugly!” Nope. I would be canning and hoarding and scraping to make sure my kids had a roof over their heads, not worrying about going to basic cable instead of America’s Top 150 on Dish. My children have closets full of clothes and have milk and meat everyday. I’m scrimping and saving to keep these things. So they don’t go without them. Not so they’ll survive. Because I have no worries that our money woes are going to cause our kids to get sick, go homeless or die. We are LUCKY. I don’t think enough people realize just how lucky they are.
I’m still coming up with a budget, though. I like our little luxuries and don’t want to have to give them up. I like having cable and the internet and being able to buy my kids little cheap toys every so often. I like being able to choose between good food and processed. I like that I can take my girls to a decent doctor and not have to worry about them dying from an ear infection (my great-uncle died from an ear infection when he was 1 year old). We have one car (and it runs!), two tvs (we married our households so one of them is 15 years old), and one PC. Our bills are paid on time every month and our refrigerator is always stocked. We’ve got it good. I’m not complaining. I’m counting my blessings.
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Jun
20
Posted by Lizzie under
Parenting a teen parent,
family,
health&wellness,
irritations
As you’ve noticed, I haven’t switched blog platforms yet. I plan on it eventually. I’ve just been too busy.
I went to the doctor and they found a 3.3 sonometer multicystic mass on my ovary. What is that, you ask? Well, I don’t know exactly. I don’t even think I care at this point. I’ve got medicine and maybe some treatments of some sort (the ultra-private, feminine sort) and then “we’ll see”. Yay. I’m so confident in my doctors. Bleh.
KJ is doing well, though Pee Wee is having some issues. I want to spill my guts about it, but I know I shouldn’t. She’s having issues and it’s no one’s business really. It’s just that it’s effecting me and my health and I feel like ripping my hair out by the roots. I want to make sure the my teenage daughter is a good mom, but she makes it so difficult. I have never met someone so stubborn in my entire life. And, no, I’m not nearly as difficult as she is. My mother, who has known me since birth, even said that I’ve got nothing on her. Like I said, I’d love to go into specifics, but…
I want to buy a new swimsuit and go away on a long vacation. Just Mags, me and Grump. No one else. I want to leave the world behind and just get away. As it is right now I don’t even have enough time to post once a day for a job and (because of my health) had to resign. That just really, really sucks on so many levels. I still have a couple of gigs where I don’t have to post daily, so I’m not completely unemployed (THANKFULLY), but this one was so me. I liked it. It was just a daily gig and I can’t do daily. Not right now. Isn’t that wonderful?
Yes, I could be more dedicated and stronger and work harder. Except that I can’t right now. I really have to focus on getting well and then I can be strong and dedicated and whatever else I’m expected to do as superwoman. Yes, I have goals and dreams and know that it’s important for me to work hard to realize them. I’m just really frustrated right now. Overly frustrated. On the brink of out-of-my-mind insane, really.
So, I wasn’t really going to whine. I was going to focus on something positive. There’s a silver lining in every situation and my full intent was to find it. That didn’t work so well, did it? Well, maybe next time.
P.S.
I just noticed that some of my categories have doubled themselves since I moved hosts. How funny is that?
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Jun
13
Posted by Lizzie under
meta
Well, I finally got moved to a new server. Now I have to move to a new blogging platform. I’m still working on that. I almost decided against that, but then saw that once again WordPress has a severe security issue and sites all over are getting hacked. Wonderful.
I am happy to see that the site is running much faster now. That’s a relief. It wasn’t a plugin issue like a commenter suggested. It was sadly my old host.
In other news, I’m still going crazy, but I’ve got more work coming my way. I’ll update as I can.
Maybe.
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Jun
06
Posted by Lizzie under
Miscellaneous,
family
I didn’t get my blog transferred, obviously. I’m still working on that. I got really, really sick over the last couple of days and didn’t even have to energy to write. It sucked. It wasn’t an episode, though, just your average, every day flu bug. Now I can just wait patiently for the rest of the clan to come down with it. That’ll be really fun. Maybe I can get some work done before all the vomit hits the fan.
Speaking of stuff hitting the fan, I finally got some decent HDMI cables for my “home theater” (aka a couple of additional speakers for our 20 in television set). Someone (I’m not naming names, but I am married to him) left them out. Pooch has this thing for hard plastic and/or wood. Guess what happened to the cables? I didn’t get after Pooch though. We all know better than to leave anything like that lying around. The poor dog really doesn’t mess with anything else (rubber/hard plastic/anything similar and wood chunks are fair game to him). I did have to get after the person that left them out. And tell him he’s got to shell out the dough for some more. He’s not very happy, but hey that’s life. 
I expect that I’ll have my “home theater” hooked up sometime before Mags graduates high school. And she turns 4 this month!
Anyway, I’m going to try one more time to get this website transferred. Wish me luck.
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Jun
03
Posted by Lizzie under
coding,
meta
So far I haven’t made any progress. I’m still trying to figure out how to mirror this domain while the DNS is moving. You’d think the instructions would be easier to follow for a Technology major, but I seem to be lacking some kind of gene for the understanding of this stuff. I should just pack up the old Ping Golf clubs and go to the green. I’d have better luck with that, I think, and I don’t even know how to play golf.
I’m moving the archives from here to my subdomain that I mentioned earlier, but for some reason they’re not showing up. I really don’t want to use the WP on this, because I was really looking forward to learning MT. I like the admin interface and the default templates are pretty nice. The lack of real support kind of sucks, but then WP support forums aren’t much help anymore anyway. I think that I’ll have an easier time designing for MT than with WP themes- because, really, the code for the WP themes kind of gives me a headache.
I don’t know. We’ll see. I’ll be hunting for plugins, so if you guys have any ideas shoot me a message.
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Jun
03
Posted by Lizzie under
Miscellaneous
So, my blog is uber-slow and it’s really annoying me. Every page I load takes forever and a day. This blog is the only one I have that’s not hosted somewhere else and not surprisingly is the only one that I’m having difficulty with. This makes for a not happy me.
Now I’ve decided I’m going to move the hosting to the other host and see how that goes. I’m also considering moving to Movable Type (as I’ve been playing with it on a subdomain). Keep your fingers crossed that I don’t lose anything.
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May
29
Posted by Lizzie under
Parenting a teen parent,
family
We’ve been getting a lot of baby gifts lately: via mail, walk-in, etc. The main theme of these gifts, though, is clothing. And all the same size. Pee Wee’s friends are getting KJ all kinds of cute little outfits and so are our relatives. The problem is that we’re running out of diapers.
I breastfed Mags exclusively so I knew that breastfed kids go through a little bit more diapers than bottle fed (Pee Wee was bottle fed). I forgot that part though. Every time KJ has a meal, he fills up his pants. We’ve already gone through the two mega packs we bought before he was born as well as the ones the hospital had in his isolette. Pee Wee, unfortunately, has since run out of funds and isn’t going back to work until the second week of June. Uh-oh. Now I wish I would have told everyone to just buy diapers.
Steve’s a little irritated because of the diaper buying. Afterall, we just convinced Mags to use the potty for her BMs (last month). No more diapers! At least that’s what we were singing for a little while. We’re over that now.
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