Sad News and a Thing That Makes me Mad

I got a call yesterday from dh's cousin telling us his (cousin's) brother was killed in an auto accident yesterday.  It's one of those things that just shocked you numb.  We haven't seen this cousin in years, but dh helped him build his house when he lived closed by.  Today I find out that the cousin had been complaining of pain in his leg. Docs didn't find anything wrong and he was scheduled for more tests this week.  Well, docs, you're a litle late now, aren't you?  Just makes me so mad.  Docs today don't take you for real...they thing people come to the docs because they don't have anything else to do?  Geez. The view/funeral is this weekend four hours away.  It's just unbelievable and sad.  His first grandchild is due in only a couple of weeks.  What a black cloud this is going to put on the birth of the child.  When it's suppose to be a celebration, grandpa is going to be missing.  At forty seven years old, it's too young to be gone.

On another note, I had emptied my piggy bank and finally took the money to the big bank to deposit it in my account. I did not have enough change to roll it.  So I put it on the counter at the bank with my other transactions and the teller is saying she cannot accept my money unless it's rolled.  Man, that made me mad.  I'm tell her I want to deposit it in my account and she's telling me she can't accept money that is not rolled.  I said I don't have enough money to roll it.  She said then I have to wait until I get enough money to roll, then bring it in.  I said I don't want to wait to bring it in I want to deposit the money in my account now!!  I said so you are saying you can't accept my money and you're not allowing me to deposit my money in my account?  I said you're a bank and you're not accepting my money?  I asked her what she does when companies come in with their deposits..you mean to tell me you accept their coins.  The teller tells me that their money is rolled.  Give me a break.  I said and you don't have a machine to count money.  No, she says, or barks at me.  They don't have a counting machine money...they send it out to be counted.  Well, no she contradicts herself, doesn't she?  Then she leaves the counter and goes to talk to her manager.  The manager comes in.  She proceeds to tell me I can take my money to the grocery store to be counted...I said I don't want to go to the grocery store.  I said it's not that much change..I will help you count it.  The manger says they don't count change..it takes too much time and it holds the line up.  I said 'there is nobody behind me!!!'  The bank was empty...oh my gosh!!!!!  A bank that won't take money..never heard of it.  A teller that won't count money...isn't that ridiculous????  Unreal.  Finally the manager acts like she's doing me a favor and says she will make the expection this time.....unreal.

New Pegnancy Clinic Opening and Maryland March for Life

Last Saturday we attended the opening of the new Annapolis, Maryland Pregnancy Clinic...and it' directly across the street from Planned Parenthood.  I said 'we' but not me or dh...it's the clinic that I volunteer at. 

Grand Opening - Annapolis Pregnancy Clinic

If you look hard enough during the video you will see across the street the 'escorts' outside on the street where the building of Planned Parenthood is who are waiting for women to come in for their abortions.  Planned Parenthood was afraid of 'us'...like we would do something to them.  So very sad.  The 40 Days for Life is also going on and you'll see those people on the sidewalk with signs.  In fact, we even applaud them near the end of the video.  (If you look around the video you will see dd, dh, and me.) 

Tuesdays is when I go in to volunteer, but I do so in another office.  When I went in Tuesday we were told that a young women who was scheduled for an abortion that morning at Planned Parenthood saw our sign out front and thought that was the place she was suppose to be at.  Praise God that He directed her to our clinic instead and she left there with encouragment and the decision she was keeping her baby!! 

So last Monday was our Maryland March for Life in Annapolis, MD. 

DD is on the left behind the litte girl in the red.  Dh and I are next to her, but you can't see us.  Maryland has no rules when it comes to abortions which the prolife are trying to fight.  It's why abortionists are coming to Maryland to set up their practices.  It's disgusting that the lawmakers in Maryland have no conscious about outlawing abortions.  Shame on them.  There are some prolife lawmakers as seen in the above video.  Yeah for them!  Pray that abortion will be no longe.  Women need support when found in an unexpected pregnancy, not abortion.  We don't need to victimize the woman twice.



Freebies

I wanted to share the things I got free today because free is alway sooo good.  I had a $10 rewards coupon from Staples I had to use so I got some dividers for the new home management notebook I'm starting.  I still have $1.03 left to spend. :)  Then, I had to go to Petsmart to get some cat food and I saw a coupon on the shelf that said if you bought a big bag of Meow Mix (which I was there to buy) you could get four free Meow Mix food cups.  So, I bought two large bags, which, by the way, were on sale and I saved $2 on each bag, so I ended up getting eight food cups free!

I love free!

Organizing My Life

     Is anybody's life unorganized like mine?  I set out to do something, anything when I get up and get going in the moring (or afternoon because I'm a night owl), but I get busy on something else and never feel like I've accomplished anything.  Now granted, I do keep up with my clothes  (dh washes his own [that's another whole story]) and usually do the dishes (when they get piled up),  but everything else I have really let go.  Even dd gives me a "what for" about it when she comes to visit.  Do I like living like this?  No.  But I'm no hoarder; in fact, I have no furniture in my living room.  My family room is kept nice...but the rest of the house...well.  I could do better.  The reason I'm bringing this up at all is because my cat, Miss Puma has polyps that bleed in her ears ...not just trickle, I'm talking about my house looking like a crime scene .  Every time she shakes her head...you get the picture.  Last week we took her to a doctor who had us put meds in her ears (so, what was that suppose to do?) and she had to go back for a recheck last Thursday.  What it comes down to is this:   either do nothing, put her down or have a vet specialist operate on her ears to try and get all the polps out of her ears.  Now, the thing about this is that Miss Puma could become deaf, or could end up with a tilt to her head from her inner ears having to be taken out or damaged.  Okay, so what I'm getting at is that this surgery is going to cost anyway between $3,000 to $4,000.  Shocking.  But what choice do we have?  God says to choose life.  I believe He means all life.  My husband, not so much.  He thinks I'm crazy and he puts the finance blame on me all the time.  Whatever.

     I say all this because today, the weight of debt is on my shoulders. I really have to get back to basics...I need to start cooking at home, growing food myself, canning if need be.  I need to be frugal and hold myself accountable.  Today I searched the internet for a home budget form which lead me to stray and search for other things.  Hence, the reason for this whole story.

      Now, I do have a coupon binder that isn't always up to date, but I get in that mood when I can't stand having to go through a pile of coupons when I need something and I do file the coupons in my binder.  But as I was looking around on the internet today to try to get my life on track and be organized, I have come across women who have home planning books (that's a generic name; every woman has different names for them).  As I was watching their youtubes or reading about their notebooks, I like the idea of it, however, some woman are soooo organized that they have their day scheduled down to the hour each day.  How in the world can that be that fun?  I cannot see me allowing myself 20 minutes on the interent, let's say.  That's not gonna happen. 

     *Sigh*...I don't know.  What I do know is that I gotta get my act together.  I'm even thinking I need to go back to work.  That's scary since I haven't work in 30+ years.  I've never been scared of hard work...I talked to dh about it, but he never gives me good answer about what I should do. 

     I guess I will try to make a home planning notebook, but tweak it to what I think I an do each day. 

     One thing I KNOW I have to do is curbtail the spending.  Not that I go shopping because I don't.  Just have to be more frugal with what I've got. 

Another Car in the Utility Pole

Yes, it happened again the other night.  It was almost a replay of the accident the night the car ran into the telephone pole at the end of our driveway....very weird.  Again, I was watching tv when, right next to my window, a shot of 'lightening', than a big boom, then my tv went out.  Luckily, the lights stayed on, but I thought it was raining outside.  I realized it wasn't a thunderstorm when I heard the fire trucks stop up on the highway.  I looked out my bedroom window and the highway was lit up.  So, I put on my coat (I was in my nightgown) and walked up to the highway.  A car was hit the telephone phone two poles down from the one that was hit last month.  The car was totaled and they had to pull the driver out.  How strange that this happened twice.  As soon as I get a picture of it I will post.  The fire department took a picture; they'll post it on their site soon.

It's been raining today.  Down south there has been terrible storms and tornadoes.  Many tornadoes.  A lot of people killed.

We need to keep them in prayer.

Blessings!

I Did it Again

 

 I used my slow cooker again today.  I know this doesn't look so appealing...lasagna, but it wasn't bad.  It was missing a cheesy flavor and will know to add more next time I make it.  But it is nice to load the cooker up and not worry about it, yet have dinner at dinner time. 

On another note, look what's going on in front of my house:



They are putting sewer lines in the woods.  I can't believe that this is happening.  When we moved here 34 years ago it was all country with horses in the back, pigs, wild dog packs and eventually wild bores.  Now, there will be sewer lines next to my house.  This causes me anxiety. 

Don't know what I'll make tomorrow.  I'll have to work on my menu, too.

I'm Slow Cook'in

I'm doing it.  I'm slow cook'in...finally.

This is the first time I've used his new crock pot.  I saw it on the clearance rack at Target for $17.  I was debating whether or not to buy it, but I did and when it rang up at the register $14 I was pleasantly surprised!!  I have an old crock pot that was my mother's (I burned my up on the stove), but I haven't used it in a long time.  I was planning on using my mom's until I saw this one.  I guess you could say I've updated!

I'm trying to go back to the frugal livestyle.  I was very good at it when the kids were younger.  Then as we slowly earned more money I slowly felt a little richer and didn't 'frugal' as much as I should have.  Now I'm spoiled!  Hahah.  One thing I've started doing and I should have done this a long time ago is to recycle paper.  I usually threw away paper that was printed on one side.  Now, I made dh aware that we are using paper that can be printed on the clean side.  Let's see if he listens. :)

I have an esty shop, but I haven't put anything in it yet.  I'm crocheting some dishcloths right now.  Eventually, I want to make some baby things and whatever else I think might sell.  Here's a link to my shop:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/OntheBayDesigns  I'm slowly learning how to open this shop.  It's hard being the producer, merchandiser, advertiser, photographer of a shop.  LOL

That's it for now...gotta go check on my cooker.

Time for Spring Cleaning

First I wanted to mention that one night I was making meatloaf, well, at least I wanted to make meatloaf, but I didn't have any bread crumbs or crackers to add to the ground meat.  As I was looking through my cabinets to see if there was possibly anything I could come up with to add to the meat, I had Stove Top Stuffing.  Well, why not I thought to myself.  It had spices in it so I thought it would give the meatloaf a nice taste.  And I was pleasantly surprised to find, after it was cooked, that it was very good.  So, I may be adding Stove Top more often to my meatloafs!

Wednesday I sat down with my slow cooker recipe book and went through it to figure out which meals I wanted to make.  I have got to get back to cooking, no other way around it.  So I decided to make beef stew Thursday night.  But, I didn't have some of the ingredients so I knew I'd have to run to the store, but I had other errands to run to also, so by the time I got home and ten remembering I had to take the cat to the vets there was no time for me to start my dinner.  Dh and I didn't get out of the vets until 8:30pm!!  Our appointment was for 7:10, but they had a couple of emergencies and it put them behind.  We left there $500 more in debt.  What do you do...pets medical costs are worse than humans.  Miss Puma (our cat) had ears that bleed because of tumors and it's costing more and more to treat her condition.  Anyway, I'm hoping that today I can get started on my stew.

But the spring cleaning bug is starting to hit.  I'm tired of seeing piles of dirt and clutter.  Want to make the house pretty again.

This and That

There have been a few thoughts going through my head, but let me tell you, last Wednesday night I was sick!!  And it hit me without any warning.  Dh and I had gone out to eat.  It was good, we enjoyed the food.  We came home, did stuff around the house, got ready for bed.  We went to sleep and then a couple of hours later I woke up with a grumbling tummy.  And that's when it hit. It was the flu, or something.  Let's just say I thought about dying and going to the hospital all in the same thought.  I was so weak I could hardly stand.  Awful, awful, awful.  The strange thing is that I've had this happen at least once a year for the last couple of years...so, is it the flu or something else?  I'm feeling a lot better, but still tired.  But I'm trying to push on, you know?

Money is totally tight these next two weeks.  We really have to watch the spending for sure.

I've been volunteering at the pregnancy clinic every Tuesday.  I go in for a couple of hours.  It's okay....

I've been talking to an old co-worker...we have made plans to get together to eat lunch but twice I've had to cancel on him.  I do think he doesn't believe I want to have lunch with him.  Once, I had to go to the doctors with dd, and then I got really sick and had to cancel.  Let's just hope all goes well this week and three's a charm.  I'll let you know how it goes.