I have been on a quest to live a better life, part of that was to bring Dave Ramsey’s teachings into the family and the other part is to learn to be happy with what I have instead of wanting bigger and better. Living frugally is living smart, not living poor. Why live on steak and lobster and have debt when you can live on rice and beans and pay a few hundred more dollars on the credit card balance.

Today I had a light bulb moment when I realized that with small changes, I would appreciate my house a little bit more. When I was at the library I found two books that caught my eyes, one was by “The Queen of Clean”, Linda Cobb, called The Queen of Clean Conquers Clutter and the other was Mary Ellen’s Guide to Good Enough Housekeeping. I recognized that part of my problem was lack of organization making my house feel smaller than it is and seem difficult to clean because it is cluttered.

When Bobby came home today, he came upstairs and found me in the bathroom with 100% of its contents in baskets in the bedroom and I was washing the light bulbs, he looked at my boys and said “uh-oh, mama has gone off the deep end again!” and he rescued Sophie and went to another room to play with her so I could finish my task.

I think I got rid of 3 bags full of junk, from magazines to expired products to the makeup I rarely wear, but Matthew frequently uses to “paint” my bathroom door with. I also got all the products off my counters (like mouthwash and detangler) and they now have new homes in my clean medicine cabinet or under the sink. I also hung a couple tiles that I have had for years that I planned on hanging after I painted, but we never got around to painting. My bathroom feels SO BIG now, I love it!

I am so impressed with how well Bobby is doing on our new “cash diet”, he decided he wanted a Coke, but we have been soda free for a few weeks now, so he got into his change jar and pulled out some silver to run to 7-11 to get a coke, I asked him if I chipped in some quarters if he would get me one too. He calls me from Safeway and says “wow, it is so expensive there, I decided to go to Safeway to get a better deal”. This is something I have been nagging at him forever, but Dave is right, it is a LOT harder to spend a dollar than it is just to swipe your debit card. I cannot believe how on board he has been with all this.

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Finally, a rice & bean recipe for you all.

Dad’s Red Beans & Rice (this is a recipe I grew up, my dad made this a lot)

1 cup of long/medium grain rice
2 cans of red beans (undrained)
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1 kielbasa (cut into 1/4 inch disks)
1 T minced garlic

Prepare rice according to package, either in a rice cooker (my way) or on the stove top (my dad’s way). Saute together onion, bell pepper, kielbasa, and garlic over medium heat. Combine cooked rice, undrained red beans, and kielbasa & veggie mix in a 2 quart casserole dish and bake until heated through on 350 (about 30 minutes).

I like to serve this with cornbread since all of the ingredients for those are staples.

*Money saving tip… get your green peppers when they are on sale and freeze them, that way you always have green pepper on hand. I wait for them to go on sale at King Sooper (our local Kroger chain) and I buy red, yellow, orange and green peppers and then slice them lengthwise and freeze on wax paper on a cookie sheet for an hour, then I put them into sandwich baggies and put in the freezer (1 pepper per baggie). Then I dice about 2 or three green peppers and do the same, again one pepper per baggie. The pre-freezing keeps them from sticking together, so you can use half a baggie in this recipe without having to thaw.

My special project this week is to teach myself how to become a plumber. We have three toilets in this house… the one in our bathroom is fine, the guest bathroom has a tendency to run and plug easily and the basement bathroom is leaking, but I don’t know where from. Last night I sealed the water connection with some teflon tape and let it sit all night with the water on (it had been off for weeks to avoid water leaks) and this morning I found a puddle under the toilet again.

Since I do not have $300+ to have a plumber out, I have decided it is time to teach myself. I figured the easiest source would be a book from the library… however to my surprise, the most information I found in the easiest to understand format was actually on YouTube! So I watched about an hour of videos on the subject and the one said to put tuperwear under any of the possible areas for leaks and wait, and voila, the one on the left of the tank was wet, since I just fixed the water connection I checked it first, and it was still dry…. so I flushed over and over again and I finally found a drip… not the seal under the toilet, but the left tank bolt! YAY!!

This video pretty much held my hand through removal and replacement of these bolts, down to reminding me to take the bolts with me to Home Depot.

I originally overlooked the bolts because I never saw them drip, they always felt dry to the touch and I was almost about to pull the whole damn thing up and replace the seal, which would have been a HUGE project and pretty close to out of my league.

The next toilet, I know the problem with it, the seal is bad and needs replaced, however I have done nothing about it since it is a Mansfield toilet and requires specific parts from a dealer, and you cannot get these from Home Depot *grumble grumble* and I have not had the time to make a special trip yet all the way up north, for this kit. Guess where I will be headed today??

*** Update ***

I am a master plumber. LOL

Not only did I fix the basement toilet by replacing the main seal between the tank & the bowl, but I also replaced the bolts and voila, no leak!

I also replaced a seal in the guest bathroom upstairs, moved the water level lower so it would quit leaking, and used an auger to clear the S bend.

Auger - $39
Valve Washer - $2.25
Bolt Set & Sponge Washer Set - $5
The ability to hold this over my husband’s head that I am handier than he is - Priceless.

Miss Sophie got to wear the onsie that was passed from Christopher to Matthew to her. This was the very first baby gift I received and [start geekyness] it was given to me by the Sysop of the BBS I had been a member of for 3? 4? maybe even 5? years of my life at that time. [/end geekyness]

Sophie was called a boy at Best Buy today… I told myself after 3 boys, if I ever had a daughter she would never leave doubt in anyone’s mind as to her gender. Oops!

This morning, Sabin was a furry door mat, this is how I found him when I opened my bedroom door:

When I got up, my house was 78 degrees! Why? Because Matthew decided to turn the thermostat up and then move the button over to heat! HOLY HECK it was hot! I think he was trying to prepare my friend Julia for 100 degree heat for her trip back home to Vegas. We were very sad to see her go.

I made my dad’s famous red beans and rice recipe tonight and it could not have tasted better, it was so yummy and SO filling. I doubled the recipe because I figured my little boys would not be full on just the normal serving amount, so I doubled the recipe… wow, talk about a cheap way to have TWO meals! They ate exactly one of the two casserole dishes and were full, so the second one went right into the freezer for an easy way to come up with a hearty, healthy meal for after I have the baby.

I also doubled the corn bread recipe so we can have it tomorrow with our chili, which I am hoping yields the same overabundance to make enough for a second meal. Each meal I am able to freeze will just be one less meal I need to burden Bobby with, or one less meal we might get from the drive through. I have to tell you, making 2 cups of rice instead of 1 was not any extra work, but it will save me the time it took tonight to make two meals later down the road.

My beans for chili are already soaking tonight and I am hoping I can get it into the slow cooker before my prenatal appointment tomorrow with my midwife so I have the crock pot doing the work while I am away.

Last night I was talking to a friend in IMs about my lack of energy to clean my house, and took some pictures of my horrible messy house to share with her, since she was saying she has not been cleaning due to a newborn, toddler, and preschooler… sheesh, what excuse is THAT! (Joking of course, she has more reason than I do).

So last night I got inspired to put a shelf in Matthew’s closet, but the shelf I had was about 6 inches too tall, so I found the perfect one at Home Depot’s website and decided tomorrow we would go get it… thinking I could get his closet looking better and then sit my ass on the couch and relax the rest of the day feeling accomplished enough with cleaning an ENTIRE closet.

So here is the before, you may not be able to tell but I *did* have a four compartment cart in there that I put his blankets in and on. Of course you probably CANNOT tell because he tore it down and all that is left is the frame and of course the blankets.

Here is the after, I actually was able to put everything in the before shot on one shelf! I used the others to empty two drawers of Sophie’s dresser, boxes from the other side of the closet, and a ton of stuff from my room!

Ok, so since we are on the subject of the corner o’ baby stuff in my room I will show you the before and afters of it:

This is all the crap I had in there before. Swing, bed, clothes, fabric, diaper bag, baby book, etc.

And this is all that is left, but only because they are two boxes of cloth diapers (clean of course) that I need to wash before I can put them away, and then also my Hypnobabies home learning package box that I need to find another home for, and some bags of baby magazines I need to go through and my sarong I need to wash for birthing day.

Here is the after of where those big boxes ended up, this side used to be crammed full with more clothes, blankets, and the crib (which now nicely fits in the closet behind the new shelf and a couple rails in this side).

Ok, so I could not start on the closet and leave his room looking like the disaster it was, so I started picking up and organizing his toys, here is what I did with his “cubby” shelf:

The before of course, yikes!

And the after, much better!

Moving onto his shelf:

Need I even tell you this is the before?

And the after.

His bed, before.

And after.

This is the changing table & Sophia’s dresser, before.

And the changing table afterwards.

And some misc after pics, because a clean room is so much more fun to take pics of:

His dresser & his diaper stash.

And his shoes on the back of his door.

Another project I have been putting off is my freaking NASTY toilet seat. I took a belly pic with my toilet seat up and could not use them because the underside of my seat had been scrubbed so much the paint was coming off, so it was stained REALLY bad from anytime anyone was sick (think splatter, EWWWWWW!) Here is a tiny before, since it is so so bad.

Gross, gross, gross, GROSS! Can you believe a new seat was only $10? Had I known this, I would have replaced it when we moved in! I seriously think the old owners cleaned the seats with turpentine, the other bathroom needs a new seat as well (of course I notice this AFTER we get home with the first seat).

Another before. And no, we did not paint, it was the only room in the house that was not white when we moved in.

And here is the toilet after, amazing how much $10 can make over a bathroom!

Much like the new shelf in Matthew’s room inspired me to clean the room, the toilet seat accomplished the same thing.

This is the right side of my bathroom vanity before.

And after.

Center part of my vanity before.

…after.

Sink before.

The sink after, not TOO much of a change there.

I also vacuumed my entire upstairs, even my bathroom because the jackass designer of this house thinks bathrooms should be carpeted, gag. I also cleaned the upper shelves in my walk in closet where I keep the curtains for my family room I need to put back up, and also the shelf where I am keeping all my pre-pregnancy jeans. All in all, this ‘makeover’ cost a total of $70, $50 for the shelf, $10 for the toilet seat and the final $10 was for zip-ties and tax. The zip ties are for redneck baby-proofing, to make sure she crib and shelf is secured to the wall. I also had a ton of help from Austin and Christopher (and a little from Bobby, who claimed he wanted no part of my “wicked shenanigans”) and between 4-6 hours of time. We got one box together of items to donate to Goodwill when I hit the drive through on Thursday after my prenatal appointment, and one large garbage bag of garbage. I also got about three arm fulls of toys to add to his cubby from his toy box in the family room, which was getting too full to clothes. So two rooms down, nine rooms to go!!

Wow, these last few weeks have been so draining I have not been able to update.

I got super sick on Thursday, had the flu and could not hold anything down most of the weekend. With Bobby’s schedule I took advantage of Bobby not working on President’s Day and went and got my 1hr fasting glucose done, and wouldn’t you know it, with not eating for almost a week I failed it. Crap. So now I have been fighting with myself and my midwife about the 3 hour test which I do not want to take because I DO NOT have Gestational Diabetes. I have been testing my glucose #s at home, and they have always been good. However my midwife will not accept those numbers because it is not from a lab… but would *you* want to take an unreliable test that makes you deathly ill while trying to keep a bored 2 yr old still in a busy lab for 4 hours??? Yeah, sign me up for THAT!

On top of all this is the financial stuff we have been dealing with, like taxes, taxes and more taxes, plus trying to refinance our house before our rates adjust and now me desiring a midwife for a home birth, but not having the funds to even play the fantasy out in my mind because my insurance will not cover it. I babysit full time to bring in some income, but that lately has been leaving me physically and emotionally exhausted, just because of the dynamics of my children plus their friends and the chaos of 5 kids under 11.

On top of this I am trying to sort out my emotions on a personal family issue that did not go as expected, but I am sure went as well as planned by the universe so I am just trying to accept things how they have turned out and let go of any issues I had surrounding it.

Bobby is still not over the flu, the rest of us have had it to varied degrees, but now round two is hitting as now colds are being passed back around (they went around before the flu episode too). I am just thinking of how nice it would be for ONE day this month for everyone to all be healthy for once.

The pregnancy is going well though, no leg or back pains. I had some arm issues from a pinched nerve in my neck that the chiropractor I saw fixed right up, but I still have not regained an appetite or had morning sickness relief. I am under 100 days for my guess date, will be starting HypnoBabies lesson 3 tomorrow, as well as entering the last week of my second trimester, 26 weeks. I am finding myself a lot more emotionally fragile with this pregnancy, and life issues and books and television often sends me into uncontrollable crying fits. I am so looking forward to my birthing time, I just can’t wait to meet this little princess and introduce her to all the princes, they will adore their new little sibling!

My two older kids are getting older, and becoming more responsible. With responsibility comes privilege, one of the privileges they have earned is to move farther from mommy and daddy and into their own space. We have a 4 bedroom home, upstairs is a master, and two tiny guest rooms, currently Austin and Christopher’s room, and the nursery (Matthew’s room), and downstairs we have a large room being used as an office. Since we rely more heavily on our laptops for daily use, we no longer need a large office because we only use one of the three desktops. When the baby comes we plan on putting him or her into the office until she/he is old enough to share a room with Matthew, but with the office downstairs that poses a problem. The solution was obvious, it is time for my little birds to leave the nest of the upstairs and fly down to the second largest bedroom in the house so that they may spread their wings.

Housework sucks so bad right now, because guess what? Dishes stink, laundry stinks, garbage stinks, vacuuming makes me cough and coughing makes me want to puke and my energy level is consistently somewhere in the negative levels.

However I thank my lucky stars for this pregnancy daily, don’t get me wrong…. but why does something so wonderful like a baby come with all these lovely side effects?? One would think morning sickness and fatigue are “natural birth control” for future children, except for the lovely mom-nesia in which you forget ALL the bad the moment you hold the baby and think to yourself “I could totally do this again, I LOVE being pregnant” WTH!?! Talk about mixed messages body!!

I wonder if I can talk Bobby into hiring a housekeeper for me a few times a week? LOL Hell, it’s half tempting to beg my friend to come clean my house for $10 an hour one day a week while I take a nap.

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Now playing: Norah Jones - Lonestar
via FoxyTunes

So, I have been casually mentioning to my husband that the lawn needs mowed. If you saw the pictures of my crappy yard, you would see that it is a 10 minute project that I just HATE doing and hubby said he would do since the end of August. I keep reminding him it needs to happen and it does not happen. I just about gave up and planned on doing it Monday afternoon when Bobby FINALLY went out tonight and did it, in literally 10 minutes! Of course this if after he told me Friday night he would do it; all day yesterday, and then last night he said he would do it early this morning.

Disclaimer: This entry is rated PG-13.

I had today’s blog entry pre-written in my head, I was going to call it “Mommy’s Little Helper: A love story” and gush about my love of Starbucks Venti White Chocolate Mocha, or my lifeblood, and how even after only 4 1/2 hours of sleep I can accomplish so much before 9am and how much I had gotten done already…. then at 8:50am my good day went bad.

So when I look back it was not the best day, but with all the pitfalls I was still able to get the kids off to school without choking them, the car jumped which involved calling the dealership to find out how to override the shift lock and moving a dead car onto the street, still got Austin to school on time at 7:30, got $150 worth of groceries, got a roast & veggies into the slow cooker AND got myself a dentist appointment for today for the tooth I chipped on Saturday… and then with one simple phone call to DH the day changed and my good day turned bad.

Now I am not going to say my husband ruined my day, but that is because he reads my blog… but I think you can read between the lines. I guess the main issue I am having is getting the kids up at 6am just does not seem like early enough for them to get showered, dressed, get their chores done, breakfast eaten, hair & teeth brushed and out the door by 7:20 & 7:30. I am really debating whether or not I need to start getting them up at 5:30 which means either I need to get up at that time also, which is nearly impossible when I don’t get to sleep until after midnight, OR if I can trust them to get up on their own with an alarm clock, and get ready without waking up the whole house. Some mornings I want to duct tape the mouth of my 9 yr old shut because he fills the entire house with nonsense noise… throaty noises like “uh-uh-uh-uh” which serve the ONLY purpose of comforting him and annoying the shit out the other 4 members of the family.

So the car battery was dead this morning, either Austin or Bobby left a light on inside and the car would not start, nor go into neutral without being started. So I called the dealership who told me to look in my manual for how to override the steering lock, which was a delightful discovery that I hope we never have to use again. Backing the car into the driveway did not work, my cables were about 2″ to short, so we gave some lady a heart attack as we pushed it down the driveway thinking that we were going to have the brute strength to push the car uphill into her car and she gave us a friendly little honk while waving at us with a single finger, I was thrilled with her strong level of perception that roads are only made for one car at a time and choosing to get pissed instead of you know, going around and driving on the correct side of the road instead of the middle.

Ok, so whatever… I got the kids’ papers signed as I was trying to run out the door to get Austin to school in time after the whole fiasco. I hate it when teachers come into the house early Monday morning and sneak papers into backpacks instead of giving them to the kids on Friday, it makes Mondays so much more interesting I guess. By this time I am already losing my voice because the kids have been up over an hour and in that time have only managed to shower and dress. The animals are starved, they have not eaten, and the bathroom, the bedroom, and the kitchen looks like a hurricane swept through it. I swear, kids have the anti-midas touch and everything they touch turns to shit. Ok, maybe not that bad turns to dirty, wet, filthy garbage, that is nicer.

So I get Austin to school, I go to Safeway to get a much needed coffee & some milk and ended up with $150 worth of groceries and we will still not have anything to eat. When I got home I browned a roast, cut up potatoes and onion & tossed them all in a slow cooker with baby carrots, garlic, and seasonings and dinner is done. While unloading the rest of my groceries I put a call into the dentist and snag a same day appointment at 4pm to get a filling put in the molar I chipped this weekend when I bit on the barbell of my tongue piercing which keeps rubbing on my tongue and making it swell. I called DH and asked him if he could come home 30 minutes early because there is no way I can get Austin at 3:30, pick up Christopher from home, take them a sitter and be at the dentist’s office at 3:45. Well that was a no-go so I had to call and reschedule at their next available appointment 3 weeks from now… I must be the world biggest baby because after 3 days of this I am ready to just pull the damn tooth myself… but after three weeks I will be wanting to shoot myself, I cannot handle tooth pain!

Ok, so I am frustrated with the dentist and my husband and my child who has already had his third trip into time out for yelling at me, getting into the fridge and for not listening, and the tears are starting to flow. I toss the toddler into the highchair with a yogurt, drink my coffee and try to clean up my mess from making dinner. The trash of course is overflowing because that is my middle son’s chore (that is a rant for another blog entry… I got to clean underwear off my curb because apparently my MDS got lost in his 20 foot walk out to the trash can). I also busy myself with filling my in-sink soap dispenser with the dish soap I bought today because I ran out of the bulk soap 2 weeks ago and have just been using my little bottle. I guess in the two weeks it sat empty it broke because I can push the dispenser down, but it will not come back up… so I just wasted 1/4 a big bottle of Dawn into the empty abyss of brokenness. In the process of trying to fix it I overflow my sink with suds and I learn that we have no clean dishrags to clean up the huge mess with. I turn to grab a paper towel and knock the cutting board off my counter sending the 1/2 an onion I did not use flying through the air. I take another sip of coffee and clean up my mess.

Meanwhile the baby starts complaining that he is still hungry and asks for another yogurt. I offer a banana instead which he gladly accepted and I left the room to come in here and start writing. Next thing I know a yogurt covered baby had escaped from his highchair, abandon the uneaten banana and made his way to my couch leaving a trail of yogurt paw prints all over my kitchen table, cloth dining room chairs, walls, and my couch… as I jump up I knock over my cup and my coffee ends up on my carpet. I am SO ready to crawl back into bed and call it a day… the baby can pick up Austin from school at 3, I’ll leave the car keys on my desk within reach.

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Now playing: Ani DiFranco - 32 Flavors
via FoxyTunes