F this week

This week is shaping up to be absolutely insane. My sister’s car is completely done. The frame is broken, therefore she is getting a new car today. I’m excited and happy for her. She deserves it. I know she’s nervous about payment, but she has a great job and I know she will make it work. She has been without a vehicle for two weeks. She’s driving my mom’s car and my mom has had my car since Monday. Emerson and I can walk to daycare and the bus, so that isn’t a big deal. I am working until 5pm daily for the week, therefore my sister/mom have to pick Emerson up from daycare for me. It just gets CRAZY from there. I’ve been taking the bus to a different park n ride, which means I’m on the bus up to 30 minutes longer than my usual 45. On top of that, the bus has continually been 20 minute late, so I’m getting home even later. At the point that I get to the park n ride, someone has to pick me up and then take Emerson and I all the way home. It is just crazy. We didn’t get home last night until 8pm! I got on the bus at freaking 520pm. It is just exhausting. Work is killing me, but then the additional travel time isn’t making it any easier either. I’m happy to help out. It just sucks that I have to work late this week and that the bus isn’t reliable at all. This week has basically been a wash because we get home so darn late. I rush to feed Em, bathe him, then get both of us to bed. Last night, I had to do laundry, clean, pack lunch, and take the garbage out too. I went to bed at 915pm though. I was wiped!

I have three more days of this messed up work schedule though and I can’t wait to be done with it. I typically leave work at 405pm. It’s insane how much the bus differs from one hour. It makes sense. I’m sure traffic is 3 times worse at 5pm as opposed to 4pm. I will not miss having to do this. If the bus were on time, I’d be able to get dropped off at daycare to pick Em up. We could walk home. That’s not the case. Daycare closes at 6pm.  I’m not even close to making it on time. I appreciate the help this week. It wasn’t without struggle though. I tried picking him up on my own on Monday, but once the bus was late, that was it. I had to call my mom in for reinforcements. Insane. I am basically sick of working 7am-5pm this week and cannot wait to go back to my regularly scheduled program of 8 hours with a 45 minute lunch. Okay, enough about that. The overtime will be worth it, so I should just shut up right now, but DANNNNG!!!!!!!!

On Friday, we’re supposed to go to dinner as a family to send my nephew off to California. He is leaving on Monday to go with his dad for 5 weeks. We’re also taking the kids to the new spray park that was put in my parent’s neighborhood. I don’t know how it’ll be. I half wonder if it’s going to be super ghetto, or end up being ghetto because people don’t know how to keep anything nice where they live. I hope I’m wrong. We’ll go down there for a bit though to check it out. It looks extremely nice. On Sunday, we’re taking a picnic to the lake for Father’s Day. I am so excited! I’m hoping it’s nice weather. I haven’t even checked yet. That’s all that we have on tap this weekend. My nephew will have a nice weekend with us before he has to leave. We planned tons of things for when he comes back too.

Our grass was cut yesterday and my dad came over to cut all of the bushes/trees that were getting long. It looks so nice. We have nothing going on next week, so I’ll clean the pool up, so that Emerson can swim after work. I love when our yard gets freshly cut. It makes me want to be out there even more.

We have so much stuff coming up though. I’ve strategically planned our summer out, so that we get to do a little bit of everything. We’re doing Sandcastle (waterpark) and Living treasure animal park towards the end of the month. I’m so excited. We’ll toss in a couple of trips to the spray park too. I took off a Friday and a Monday, so I planned some good activities for us to do during our mini vacation. Because we’re getting Sandcastle passes, we’ll be going there A LOT. Emerson really enjoyed it last year, so I hope it’s more of the same this year. I plan on at least going once a week. Let’s hope he doesn’t get sick of it by the end of summer. They have so many kiddie pools and water areas that he should be occupied enough. When we take our mini vacation, I’ve actually planned for us to go twice that weekend. The nice thing is we don’t have to go for the entire day to feel like I got my money’s worth. We can go for a few hours and call it a day.

I can’t wait to take an actual vacation though. We plan on taking the kids to the beach next year. We’re just going to do a mini vacation of 4 days. I think that’ll be sufficient enough. We’ll see how it goes and then determine where to go and what to do after that. I still want to be able to do all the waterparks, amusement parks, zoo, etc around our city, so saving money by taking a mini vacation sounds like a good plan to me. We have so much to do around here that if you plan accordingly, it is pretty affordable. We’ve been spending no money at all. No eating out, no coffee for mom, nothing. Nothing additional outside of the necessities.

Alright, I have to get rolling here.

This is two days old lol

Well, this weekend was actually great! On Friday, we didn’t do anything. Our same routine. Work, daycare, then we came home and had dinner. I let Emerson stay up later than usual too. It was nice because he slept in until 730am on Saturday morning. I made us a big breakfast. We had blueberry white chocolate chip pancakes and eggs. It was so yummy. Emerson ate every bite. Afterwards, I took him to Great Clips for a much needed haircut. They have a sale right now for $6.99 for haircuts, so I thought I better snag the deal up now while it lasts. He was so squirmy. I had to hold him down. It was funny because he kept putting his hands on top of his head covering his hair. He looks so cute now. I’m glad we got that done.

After Em’s haircut, we went back home to swim for a few hours. It was so hot out. I think the temperature reached right around 92 degrees. Em had a blast though. He ended up taking a late nap around 1:45pm. The graduation party we had to go to started at 2. We didn’t make it until about 4pm. I waited until Em was done napping first. It was so much fun seeing my family. We stayed for about 2 hours. Emerson had a ball running around with the kids. Afterwards, we went to Walmart for diapers, then home to eat pizza and watch a movie before bath and bed.

Sunday, Emerson slept until 730am again. It was nice. We had cinnamon roll pancakes, turkey bacon, and eggs for breakfast. After breakfast, we went grocery shopping, then finished picking up ingredients for our Sundae Sunday party. We invited some friends over and my sister/nephew to make ice cream sundaes and swim in Emerson’s pool and splash pad. It was such an awesome day! The kids had a blast. I got so much sun too. Emerson has a slight sunburn despite the pounds of sunscreen I plastered on him randomly throughout the day. He is so fair skinned. It is already starting to tan up a bit, so hopefully that’ll lessen as the summer progresses. After everyone went home, we stopped to visit my parents after dropping my sister off. Her car is officially dead, so she has to get a new one. In the meantime, we are all playing car shuffle. Emerson took a late nap until about 5:30pm when we got home. I was able to get my meal prep done and make dinner (spaghetti, meatballs, and garlic bread). We hung out in the ac the rest of the night.

Emerson randomly woke up again around 230am. He broke the doorknob cover off of his bedroom door, ran down the steps, kicked the gate over, then flew into the living room crying. I fell asleep on the couch, so I don’t know if he went looking for me in my bedroom first, or what, but he was in such a panic. It scared the crap out of me! I tried putting him to bed with me, but that was a bust. After I laid him down in his bed, he fell right back a sleep. Poor guy. I hope he isn’t too tired today.

I am working 10 hour days this entire week because someone is on vacation and I have to cover their work. They run a help desk that is open until 5pm, so I need to be here until that time in case any clients call. It’ll be nice to log some overtime. Emerson and I will be able to add in a few extra adventures onto our summer bucket list. I want to take him up to jellystone park for the day. It’s $15/person and I believe he is free, so it wouldn’t be overly expensive. You can’t bring outside food though, so we’d have to purchase there, which I am sure is expensive. Overtime will definitely take care of that.

This weekend, it’s father’s day. Emerson and I bought my dad silicone grill mats and some new grill tools (tongs, spatula, etc). I also want to print out a picture of my dad, Emerson, and my nephew that we took last weekend to have framed. We’re going to the lake on Sunday with a picnic to celebrate. I pray the weather is nice and it isn’t ruined. I’m really excited to go. On Saturday, we’re going to swim at my parent’s house and just play it low-key to save our money. Nothing wrong with that. It was nice hanging out at home this weekend. We made the best of it and had a really good time.

My sister and I decided to get Sandcastle passes though for the remainder of the summer. Emerson and I had planned on going twice, so me getting a pass would actually be cheaper. $50 vs $64. That way, we can go many times. I can probably swap out some other things we had on our list and just replace with Sandcastle days.  I’m excited. It’ll be nice to have something to do when we’re trying to save money. We can pack our own lunch, which is one of the best parts.

Alright, I guess I am going to go now. I hope everyone has a great week

This sounds bitchy

Oh boy. Things got a little soggy for us this week. On Tuesday night, after I bathed Em and put him to bed, I heard water running. It threw me off because I wasn’t washing clothes, hadn’t flushed the toilet, and I didn’t have the sinks turned on. I headed down to the basement to do a leg workout, when I found that the hot water tank was gushing water all over my basement. The water was probably about 3 inches high. It doesn’t sound like much, it was. My entire carpet was completely soaked. I tried turning off the hot water tank, but was afraid to mess with it because I wasn’t really sure what I was doing. There wasn’t an on/off switch either. I ended up having to turn all of the water off to the whole house to get it to stop. Luckily, it was garbage night, so I was able to get all of the boxes that were soaked outside. I cleaned up the water and basement as best I could, while I waited for my landlord to respond to my text.

The worst part was having no water the rest of the night. I hadn’t gotten a shower, or even washed dishes, so that sucked. I didn’t realize how much I used water until I had none to use. I couldn’t even make a protein shake for snack. We don’t buy bottled water because it’s too expensive. I pay for what comes out of the tap, so that is what we use to drink, otherwise, yes, I would have just used bottled water.

My landlord texted and said he’d be over the following day to check it out. I didn’t have my work laptop with me, which meant I needed to drive downtown to grab it, then back home. Well, that only took me about 2.5 hours with traffic. There was no way in heck  I was using a vacation day though. I couldn’t just let my landlord come over without me being there because of the dog. She tried to attack him when he actually came into the house when I was there. I had to calm her down. He was there for almost 5 hours too, so locking her in my bedroom, or something would have just been ridiculous. I was also afraid that he’d accidentally leave the door open and she’d run away. Thirdly, I don’t like the idea of people being in my home without me being there. I don’t know why I feel the need to justify why I wanted to get my lap top to work at home for the day. I am a good employee and didn’t want to miss work. Period. Sorry, I just know some people who read this and I can already hear the stupid comments they’re reciting back to themselves. Eye Roll.

Anyway, working at home with no water really sucked. I couldn’t make anything to eat. I had popcorn and a bowl of cereal. The landlord had to turn off the gas too, so the stove wasn’t operable to cook. Let me clarify a few things too. I don’t buy junk. We have a limited amount of money for groceries, therefore I have to buy real food. I’m talking food that actually needs cooked and prepared. I don’t buy much microwaveable food. I also do not buy snackey stuff that I can just grab and eat (chips, cookies, etc). We are also at the end of our food inventory and due to grocery shop this weekend, so I had even less options. The stuff I had required water. I had some pasta, but I couldn’t boil it. Rice, but I had no water to boil that. I also had no gas to use the stove to cook it either. Same goes with the chicken and eggs I had. How was I supposed to cook this stuff? Again, I just know how some people are and how some things are read. I am not an idiot. Anyway, I had microwaveable popcorn, so I made that. I also had some cereal and milk, so I had a bowl for lunch.

Not being able to flush my toilet was a real delight too. I couldn’t spend money to buy a gallon of water to use throughout the day either. That costs money, and like I said, we are at the end of our rope until pay day on Friday. I didn’t really have extra dollars to spare to buy water, which is something I should have in my home because I already pay for it. I made it through the day though. The landlord replaced the hot water tank. I cleaned up the basement and put a fan down there, so that it could dry. I checked this morning and the floor was dry as a bone. I’m so glad. I just hope it doesn’t start to smell musty. I had to throw away my carpet that I had down there too. It was completely ruined. Taking a shower after two days was amazing last night though!

We haven’t been doing much outside of that. We have a graduation party on Saturday and I am finally taking Emerson for a haircut on Sunday. That’s all the plans that we have. We’re on a spending freeze until Father’s Day. We’re supposed to go to the lake with my family. Emerson and I are getting my dad a gift card for his favorite Italian Ice place, reusable silicone grilling mats, and cinnamon roasted cashews.  Luckily, none of that is too expensive. I’m going to dress it all up and decorate a bag to make it a bit fancier.

I have to work late all week next week because someone is on vacation and I have to cover their job until 5pm. It sucks. I’ll be late picking Emerson up on Monday and Wednesday, which means I’ll be charged $1 per minute that I am late. I’m hoping it isn’t more than 5 or 10 minutes each day. We will see though. I hate this. My sister can pick him up the other three days, but she works until 8pm on Monday and Wednesday. My mom is being the biggest brat right now, so I am not talking to her. When I reminded her about picking Emerson up on Monday and Wednesday, she was super rude to me and told me that because my sister is using her car until hers is fixed, that she won’t be able to help me. I don’t understand that at all. She could use my car those two days. The point is she doesn’t feel like helping me because it requires her to actually have to get off her butt and leave the house. It infuriates me. I am going to just drop that for now though. No sense in getting all worked up about it again.

Alright, I am going to end this now. Have a good rest of the week.

I wrote this 2 days ago...whoops

We had a really cool weekend even though a lot of things did NOT pan out the way I had planned. I guess I need to start making back up plans just in case something goes awry. Anyway, on Friday, we didn’t do anything. Obviously, I worked and Emerson had daycare, but afterwards, we just went home. We did the usual. Dinner, bath, bed. The lawn company came to cut our grass though, which was perfect timing for the weekend.  Anyway, on Saturday, we had planned to go to Strawberry Fest. We got up, ate breakfast, and got completely ready. We headed out around 10:30am. When we got closer to the farm, there was a major detour because the road we needed to take was closed. The road borders a river and a big hillside, so it wasn’t like I could just hang a right/left to go around. We ended up having to turn all the way around. The detour led us nowhere. We hit more closed roads. I have no idea what the heck was going on in that part of town. After 45 minutes of frustration, I decided to just GPS us back home. Emerson was snoozing in the back, so he was none the wiser. I was so disappointed though. We were meeting friends out there.

After the disappointment passed, we had a nice long drive home for me to rethink our entire day. It was pretty early still and the weather was gorgeous. I decided to stop past the dollar store to grab some items to have a barbeque, and some yard toys. I got Emerson some squirt guns, bubbles, and a couple of pool toys. I figured we’d save money from not going to the festival, but we’d still have a fun day in the yard. My sister ended up coming over for our cookout. We had such a good time. I think in total we were in the yard for about 5 hours. Emerson had a bit of sunburn too. I felt bad about that. I made him wear a shirt and sunblock for the rest of the weekend.

On Sunday, the weather was looking bad. There was an 80% chance of storms, so we decided to take a family trip with my parents, sister, and nephew up to the Sarris Candy Factory and Ice Cream Parlour. That place was cool! They had an entire castle made of chocolate. The whole store was set up so adorably. The ice cream was delicious! We all had such a great time and it was nice to be together doing something different as a family. Dad paid for all of our stuff too, which I thought was extremely nice. Afterwards, we went to the park, so the kids could play for a bit. I was pretty exhausted by the time we got home.

That night, Emerson awoke around 230am. I think he had a bad dream because he was FREAKING out. It was unreal. I put him in bed with me, which meant I got NO sleep. I ended up getting so sick around 5am anyway. I have no idea what was going on, but my stomach was like that ALL day. Em and I were off on Monday, so being sick and sleepy didn’t really matter, but I didn’t want that to ruin our day. We planned a trip to the Spray Park with my mom. When we got up there, we saw nothing but dead cicadas littering the entire park. It was absolutely disgusting. The kids were playing in them. There weren’t like 5 or 10 random bugs either. There were literally hundreds of them dead all over the ground. We turned around, walked back to the car, and ended up swimming at my parent’s house. Puke. Hopefully these things are all gone within the next month. At that point, we’ll make a trip back up.

This week, we have nothing planned, which is a good thing because my wallet is crying. We have a graduation party to head to on Saturday. Other than that, our weekend is pretty clear. We’ll play in the yard, hit the park, and visit my parents. That’s about it. I’m saving our pennies for Father’s Day. We’re supposed to head to the lake that day with our family. I am hoping the place isn’t littered by Cicadas! I fear that now. I have some friends who went up already, so I’ll ask around before we decide. We’ll be making alternate plans if that’s the case!

I don’t have much else going on. I’m just trying to make it through the summer and trying to manage money as best as I can, so that Emerson gets some fun experiences. It’s not the easiest, but I am working on it. I don’t have much else to report. I’m still working out, though I assume that’s just a given to anyone wondering about my life at this point. I don’t have any real goals right now either. I’m not killing myself on diet, but I still watch very closely. 80/20 right now.

Alright, I hope you all have a great week