LOVING the new patio!!

Hanging out under my new patio!

My Amazing hubby and the things he does for me! :)

My husband put up my patio in one day! Instead of waiting for the company to deliver it, he got up and borrowed a truck and trailer and went down and picked it up so it would be done on his days off and wouldn't sit around while he was gone on his 7 days off. I love him!!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Day 11 of my 24 day Advocare Challenge

I was going to do this from the beginning but, I never have time! I survived the fiber drinks the first 10 days.  I also made it through super bowl and the last 10 days without a beer!!  I need to keep track of everything I eat and do today so, here goes.

I got up at 4:45am and started with the Catalyst and some Spark.  At 5:00am I headed to the gym. I worked out til 6:00am.  Before leaving the gym I took the first yellow pack of the ay so, I could eat after I get the kids up and going.  7:15am I ate my meal replacement bar and took the white pack with breakfast and 2 Omegaplex's.  At about 10:00am I had a handful of nuts.  We had to go to GJ real fast so I grabbed the rest of the pack of pills I needed and headed out.  My plan was to take the pills 30 minutes before GJ so I we could eat when we got there.  I ended up drinking all of my spark and forgot I needed something to drink to take my pills.  So, I had to take ALL of the pills I needed for before lunch and during lunch at the same time.  I managed to remember all of my Omegaplex's today too!!

31 Days!!

I saw this on a friends Facebook page and am going to try and do this.  It may take a couple of days to get started but I wanted to get the 31 days on here today.

day 1- recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself
day 2- five things on your bucket list
day 3- a picture of you and your friends
day 4- a habit that you wish you didn't have
day 5- a picture of somewhere you've been
day 6- 5 favorite TV shows
day 7- a picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you
day 8- short term goals for this month and why
day 9- something you're proud of in the past few days
day 10- songs you listen to when you are happy, sad, bored, anxious or mad
day 11- another picture of you and your friends
day 12- how you found out about blogger and why you have one
day 13- a letter to someone
day 14- a picture of you and your family
day 15- put your ipod on shuffle: first 10 songs that play
day 16- another picture of yourself
day 17- someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why
day 18- plans/dreams/goals you have
day 19- nicknames you have and why you have them
day 20- someone you love
day 21- a picture of something that makes you happy
day 22- what makes you different from everyone else
day 23- something you crave for a lot
day 24- your last five facebook status'
day 25- what I would find in your bag
day 26- what do you think about your friends
day 27- why are you doing this 30 day challenge
day 28- a picture of you from last year and now, how have you changed since then?
day 29- in this past month, what have you learned
day 30- your favorite song
day 31- the best thing about being you

Loss

We lost a really good friend of ours on Saturday.  I am very sad about it. It has also made me realize that I let life get in the way of the people who matter the most to me.  I travel to Grand Junction a lot and one of my VERY best friends in the whole world lives there and it seems like we can never manage to get together even for minute.  I have decided that from this point on I will see her much more! Pug didn't live that far away from us and yet we hadn't seen him for years, this angers me now.  He was my husband's best friend and one of very few friends of his that I really liked.  There is nothing I can do about it now except change the way I look at things and start spending more time with the people I love.  The house, laundry and all of the other chores can wait until later. RIP Puggy!!

This is a picture of Pug and Brendan up at Oowah when we went camping once.  I think Brendan was about 4 or 5 years old here.

Frustration!

I am freaking out again! Why? Well a million different things.  My husbands job could possibly be laid off at any moment.  I am afraid it is going to be like a Halliburton thing where no one gets hardly any notice or none at all.  I am panicking a little and starting to look at all of our options.  We have said that if we ever have to move, we would go back to GJ.  I have been going back and forth about moving for a while now.  Some days I don't want to go at all, some days I want to go but, its not that strong of a feeling and then there are days like today.  I feel extremely strong about moving. I had a weird dream last night about going back to work at the Regional Center in GJ, it was a job I had before.  I woke up this morning with this urgency feeling of needing to REALLY look at our options.  I happened across the Halliburton website and saw that they were hiring for Brandons old job. Is that a sign or just me looking more into things than they really are.  I just wanna scream!!  I love my friends here but it seems like lately I have more of a connection with my friends in GJ.  Maybe that is the reason I am looking more and more into GJ.  I have 2 other problems: I have my oldest son, he has 2 more years left in high school and there is no way I could take him from here. But then I think what if Brandon is one of the guys that get laid off?? If we are ahead of the game and find another job before that happens that is the best thing for us. What if he isn't one them that gets laid off and he quits for another job and loses this good job, even though he hates it!  The other problem is housing. Our credit sucks A$$!! so, buying a house right now is not an option.  I also don't want to just walk away from this house.  We have put ALOT of money into it. First, getting it out of foreclosure and then all of the repairs and replacement of things, trying to get the yard to look somewhat decent and everything else in between.  We could sale it but, I am not sure if we would get anything back or if we would be upside down since it has a weird loan where the government has paid for part of it and when you sale before the loan is paid, you have to pay back whatever they have paid for also.  Just re-reading this makes me CRAZY!! I wish I knew what would be the best thing for everyone.

Day 5!!

Well, it has been 5 days since I started my "Resolution" of eating good and exercising.  I have not had pop or coffee since Sunday January 2nd!! This is HUGE for me.  I have been eating good too.  I  have not had any alcohol except for a glass of wine today and I haven't had any junk at all!  I have been following the biggest loser club and so I have 3 regular meals and 3 snacks a day.  I have found it hard to eat all of the food.  It fills me up and a lot of the days, I have had to skip a snack or two.  If I could have the body and healthy out look of anyone, it would have to be Jillian Michaels.  She is awesome!! I weigh in on Sunday so we will see if any of it is paying off.  I started last Sunday at 144.4 lbs.

Where did all of our money go?!?!

My daughter had a toothache during Christmas and so we gad to wait until Monday to get into a dentist.  We went to one dentist that was on our provider list for our insurance.  He looked at her xrays and decided to refer us to another dentist.  We drove straight over there and they did a check up and xrays as well.  She has alot of issues towards the back so they made a treatment plan for her and they started that day.  Things are very high tech now, very different from when I had to go to the dentist all of the time.  It makes for a much better experience for everyone me.  I was afraid to tell her she was going to get a shot.  I told her it was going to be like a little pinch.  It was not like when I went to the dentist and you had to get that little pinch 5 or 6 times.  You get one little pinch and then a little machine pumps in the numbing medicine.  Much easier!!  After about 3 or so hours she was finally done with the one tooth.  We went out to check out and they gave me the estimate for her work and I about died!! It was going to be $2262 and the estimated cost that the insurance company was going to pay was $809 which left us with about $1453 to come up with.  Now, we can split it up into several visits for financial reasons.  It would cost more cause each time we would have to pay for the sedation since they say the insurance won't cover that.  Plus, it would mean that many more times she would have to go in and get stuff done instead of doing it all at once and being done with it.  When we got home I decided I would do a budget for us. I wanted to find a way to do this all at once.  Less traumatic for everyone me.  After figuring out what bills we have every month, I thought I would just see how much we had deposited over this year.  I COULD NOT believe the amount!! Unbelievable!! I sat there and re-added it several times because I was sure it had to be wrong.  But, no it was not.  Where in the hell did all of our money go???  I mean we have bills but, they don't even come close to what we were bringing in.  Here is a rough estimate of last year:  In: 70K, Bills out: 39K that is a difference of about 31K!! What did we do with $31,000.00??!?!  We have nothing to show for it that is for damn sure!  That 39K includes grocery store trips too.  I am sure that is overspent also.  So we are going to start the New Year with a budget and I am going to follow Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover.  With any luck we will have no big issues and will be able to pay off a bunch of debt and have some savings!!