Busy.... Busy....

With school 2 days a week and working the weekends my days are flying by faster than ever! I have soooo missed blogging on my Mommy page BUT have been busy blogging on my weight loss page HERE. I have been soooo successful and busy with getting my weight down that Mommy blogging has been put on the back burner. BUT I want to make a better effort now that Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner. So future posts are coming soon.

Oh My!!!

I have been soo busy lately and have not paid any attention to my blog. Lots on my plate but getting more organized with my time management.

My kids are growing so fast, I can hardly believe they are ALL in school now. My oldest is in 4th grade and my middle is in 2nd and NOW my youngest is in pre-k. Unfortunately my youngest has her birthday in December so she misses the cutoff for Kindergarten. She is sooo ready for school I could not bare keeping her out another year. So we opted for paying for pre-k. She goes Mon-Thurs for 2 hours a day and loves it!!

I'm still slowly pursuing my career goal of becoming an RN. By the time my youngest hits Kindergarten I will be ready for Nursing School. Right now I am still taking my pre-rec's one at a time so I don't have to worry about them while in the Nursing Program. Slow and steady!!

Not much is happening around the house lately. A lot of that has to do with our summer season in Arizona. It's just to HOT to do anything outside. AND if we are outside we are at the pool's. So now that we are nearing the end of our summer season I can see the projects piling up. : ) It's time to get those list started and start cracking down on getting stuff done!

My first goal is getting our carport organized, cleaned and junk free!!

Memorial Day

On this Memorial Day and just about every day I am very thankful that I am an American. I do know this would not be possible without the sacrifices of our military men and women who serve our country. Talk about the ultimate sacrifice these noble and brave souls go through to protect and serve. These men and women leave their families and friends to fight for our freedom. How do you thank someone for giving so selflessly for what they/we believe in? Well every opportunity I get I give back to our soldiers by donating for care packages, sending cards and letters of thanks in hopes that even for a minute they know that whatever they are going through someone back home is thinking of them and of course praying that God watches over them and returns them safely back to their friends and families.

I only hope that everyone takes a moment to give thanks for our freedom and for those who fight for it.

Updating the House

I was sooooo excited when we received our tax returns for 2008. My main focus was replacing our front windows after my DS and DH fouled a baseball into my living room window. We had been living with a wooden window for months. Really MONTHS! I'm glad to say all my patience paid off and we bought two new windows for the front of the house. Well !! If I was replacing the living room one I had to get the other for the kids bedroom so they would match! LOL!! No really it's paying off in the end because the old windows were original to the house built in '86. So it was long over due. So this is where it all begins.

My DH had a few helpers lined up and began taking the windows out all by himself. Little did he know his so called helpers did not show up, AT ALL! It's so discouraging when nieghbors offer help and never show up or don't answer the door when you come for help. Luckily my DH is married to a somewhat strong wife who is willing to drop it all to help him out.

This wooden form on the ground was 1/2 of my living room window for quite some time and boy am I glad to see it laying on the ground. I get giddy just thinking about it. We were up til 11pm that night getting the new windows in and decided to add the trim the next day. Not to mention the kids were already in bed and I'm pretty sure they couldn't sleep through the pounding.

Here are my new windows. Dual pane with an extra UV coating on them that will give us a nice little tax break come '09 taxes. See ... my '08 tax return is already paying for itself.

TaDAh !!! Can you see the big smile on my face. These BetterBuilt windows from Lowes are fantastic. The outside noise has dramatically reduced to almost nada. The house is soooo much cooler then last year and my electric bill has decreased. Making money every time a turn around. He he he he!! So the silver lining to that foul ball was my brand new updated windows.

Modern Technology

I have suffered with a slow and error prone computer for awhile now but have not been financially fit to spend the extra money on a new computer. So I was referred to a techy guy who would not charge me hundreds of dollars an hour to fix my computer and he reformated my computer. The reformat worked for the most part but as I started adding those programs that were lost after reformating some of the same problems started reaccuring. UGGHH!

So I decided since I was making all this extra money pulling some hours at work that we deserved a new computer and the kids would acquire the old one. I am pleasantly surprised that our new computer is fabulous. I did quite a bit of research before making this purchase and have been exciting about finding out what this puppy can do. I have yet to discover it's full potential. It is moderately priced for all of it's features and worth more then I paid for it.

Yes! It's a laptop. I don't ever think I will ever go back to a desk top. With many more semester's of school left and Nursing School on the horizon the portability of a laptop is essential for me. It doesn't help that our house is to small to support an office of it's own. My office is pretty much wherever I can plug in my laptop.