I was able to go to the gym today for the first time in over 2 weeks.  Well I take that back I was able to once while we were on vacation.

Today I worked out for almost an hour.  I did 30 minutes of cardio and about 20 min of weights.  I felt so out of shape.  I was sweating and panting and feeling really rough.  But it felt great to get back in the swing of things.  Thankfully with all I ate over the last 2 weeks I didn’t gain much overall weight I just gained a little bit of fat which can easily be corrected with some working out.

I had a goal I wanted to hit before I went to visit my family and unfortunately I didn’t hit that goal.  Maybe it was unrealistic, I don’t know.  All I know now is that I have a new set of goals.  I will hit my solid goal by the time I go visit again next summer.  I may change my goal a bit if I find out it’s possible to go to visit around Christmas time but we will see.

I want to lose another 67 pounds.  That will bring me to a total of 117 pounds total loss.  It will also bring me to 20 pounds lighter than I originally said I wanted to be.  I think I am just tired of being on the larger side.  I saw pictures of myself from when we were on vacation.  I was still disappointed in what I saw.  I could definitely tell a difference from before I lost any weight but I need to work on my arms and lower abs.

I am trying to get back on track and we started “over” yesterday.  I am sort of counting calories.  Not completely, meaning I haven’t used my calorie counter program on my iPhone but I have calculated it in my head.  I am going to see how that goes.  If I hit a plateau again I will be more precise.  It just seems very time consuming to calculate everything like that and with 4 kids it’s just not realistic.

We will see how this Sunday’s weigh in goes.

I just got around to uploading all the pics from our trip to Illinois.  I am going to post a few today and then maybe more in the next couple days.  I need to go through all our pics and organize them, we have all these folders and duplicates and it’s just not organized at all.  So here are a couple of my favorites..All of these pics are from my Aunt Barb’s house.  My Grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins (and their kids) were all there.  I was upset some of them couldn’t make it but I understood and I promise it will not be another 7 yrs before I visit again.

Tomorrow I will try to post pics from our trip to Great America!

A couple months ago we received our water bill and OMG it was so high.  It was almost $500 for 2 months.  We are billed every other month.  I just about pooped my pants.  I knew something had to be wrong.  Well my concern was we had been watering our garden and I thought we had really used that much water.  Then I remembered when we had to clean out the pipes because we had slow draining drains but Tony said he didn’t think that was it.

So when I called the water company the lady I talked to said she would have to guess it was a leaking toilet.  My first reaction was no, it couldn’t be.  Well here is the story behind that, for the year that we have lived in the house the bathroom in Nicki’s room trickled a little.  I thought nothing of it.  Really I didn’t think it could have been a leaking toilet, just thought, old house and the landlord had just added the bathroom maybe he did something wrong.

Our water bills the whole year have been about $140 for 2 months.  When I asked the representative what our “normal bill” was she said “well I wouldn’t call it normal”  which struck me as odd.  What did she mean by that so I rephrased it and said “what was our last months bill”.  So what I am getting from that is $140 is not normal and that it is a bit high.  That kind of upsets me, I have been paying more than I should have for a water bill.  The worst part is I would have no idea, the toilet leaked like that since the day we moved in.  There was no change in the water bill for me to be suspicious.

Now I am eager to see what a “normal” water bill is for our house, it would be great if we paid a little less every month.  When we got that high bill last month I called our landlord immediately and had him come over and fix the toilet.  It doesn’t make that noise anymore.  It really would be great to save a bit of money.

I am trying to find any way possible to save money.  Save so in 2 years or so we can buy a home.  I have been going through my bills to see where we can save.  I really wish I could pay off the 3 credit cards we have.  Our new plan is to just use one each and use it for gas or groceries and then pay it off every month.  Build up our credit.  We have 2 with low limits and low balances and one with a higher limit and it is pretty much maxed out.  Between all 3 cards we probably pay $30 in interest every month.  Yikes!  Doesn’t seem like a lot but when you figure that over a whole year that is $360.  Could be saving it or something.

The only other bills we have is insurance.  Auto insurance.  I have done some research for online car insurance to see if we could save any money and honestly we are paying probably the cheapest we could, unless we want to go with a no-name company and personally I would rather pay a couple dollars extra a month for piece of mind that we are covered, truly covered…..no problems.

As for our truck loan, we still owe about $10k but do plan on having that paid off in 2 yrs.  Hopefully!  I really wish we had extra money a month to put towards the truck and pay it off that much sooner but having that loan will at least help Tony’s credit.

I really REALLY do want to get things in order and own a home in the next 2-3 years.

It has been a long week!  We returned home on Tuesday morning from visiting my family in Illinois for a week.  I miss my family but I really needed to get home and get my kids back in to a normal routine.

It was wonderful staying at my mom’s house, seeing all my family most of which I haven’t seen in 7 yrs.  It really made me want to move closer to home.  Tony and I are both open to settling down anywhere.  As much as I love Winchester (VA), I am sure I will grow to love anywhere else I live.

Right now we are a 12 hr drive away from home.  Kind of a lot when you have 4 kids.  It would be nice to live either really close or just closer.  Tony and I REALLY want a lot of land.  We were very sad to see a new listing in Southern Illinois for 18 acres and a 4 bedroom house for like 129k.  Tony is committed to his job for another 2 yrs.  2 things, if we had a down payment and Tony wasn’t committed to work we so would have tried to buy that house.

Over the last week Tony and I have made some financial and personal decisions for our future.  We want to try and get our finances and lives in order in the next 2 yrs.  That way when Tony is “free” to go we will be able to buy a place.  Neither of us want to move again unless it is in to a home we buy.  No more renting, if we are going to rent, we will just stay where we are.

In addition to our desire to buy a new home we also want to go back to school.  I have ponder this decision a lot over the last week.  I feel I don’t have enough time to do the basic household duties now how will I be able to manage going to school full time?  Between being a mom and trying to enjoy my hobby and trying to have a mildly successful online business and keeping a clean and organized house I just don’t know where to squeeze anything else in.  I am however determined to do something with my future.

I plan on going back to work once all the kids are in school full time, so we are talking about another 5 yrs or so.  Since I will not be able to go full time, well maybe won’t be able to, it may take me the 5 yrs to get a degree.  Tony wants to go to school to get a nursing degree.  He is very smart and I believe this will be a breeze for him.  I on the other hand feel I have a brain block.  LOL!  I did some of the sample admission tests, reading, writing and math and the only thing I aced was the math portion.  I am pretty clueless when it comes to reading and writing.  In addition I hate public speaking.  Oh this is going to be bad.  But when it is time to get back in to work I want to do something other than being a server at a restaurant or working for a bank.  I want a degree in something.  I am going to get a degree in Early Education, well at least that is the plan for now.

So we have made some changes and decisions for our future and I am excited to see how it all plays out!

OMG I have not blogged in forever!  I went to visit my family last week and had a great time.  So great we will probably be moving there in the next 2 yrs.  Why 2 yrs well I will have to go in to that in another post, this one has to be quick…..got a lot to do today.

I did however just want to post that I am still alive and just been busy getting the house in order since we got back on Tuesday.  Had to mow the lawn and clean and organize around the house plus Tony has still been off so we have been hanging out.  Haven’t had much computer time lately.  So I am off to make breakfast and then later head to the pool for a bit with the kids(and Tony).

We have been in town for a few days.  It has been pretty relaxing.  My kids are a little wild, new place……new things to touch.  Overall it is nice to get away.  Tony and I actually got to go work out together yesterday.  The kids were napping and we went to the gym.  Today Tony is going fishing.  Tomorrow I will have dinner at my Aunt’s house,  all my cousins should be there and their kids.  My grandma will have all her great grandkids together.

Friday, as long as it doesn’t rain, we will be at Great America.  Then on Saturday we will have a BBQ at my mom’s.  Sunday is Father’s Day and will spend most of it with my dad.  Then it’s back home on Monday.

Well off to play with my kids and hang out with my mom.

I am laying here in bed at 6:30am with lil Max-e-poo.  He just got done eating and is just laying around.  I can’t decide if I should go back to sleep or stay awake.  A lot of things are going through my head so I am not sure I could fall asleep even if I wanted to.

I have several things to do over the next 3 days before we leave.  Just basic cleaning, packing and organizing.   I want the house in order while we are gone, I don’t want to come home to a messy house.

Packing for 6, will I guess 5 because Nicki will pack her own bag.  But trying to get all of us in the truck and all our crap, that will be interesting.

As of 10pm on Sunday I will officially be on vacation, do I continue to count calories?   Do I worry about that while I’m away?  Now I am not saying stuff my face every chance I get but do I really need to worry about it?  We plan on going to the gym as much as possible while we are in IL.  The gym we go to has one right down the street from my mom.  I don’t know, I mean I am going to be eating out a couple times, eating at a BBQ and having a dinner at my Aunts.  As long as I don’t pig out, that is all I can do.  I can’t go and read all the labels and try and figure out calories.

Ahh the infamous money!  I am starting to feel a bit stressed.  I am trying to get my business up and running online but it seems to be taking forever.  I have only had 2 sales at Artfuldelight.com.  Most of the stuff I am selling is through eBay.  As much as I love the traffic I am getting through eBay, it is expensive to sell stuff on there.  You have the listing fee which is only $0.20 and then the cost once it sells, it’s a percentage of the item you sold.  Then paypal seems to charge some sort of fee and then the monthly “eBay store” fee.  Sometimes I wonder if I am making any money at all.  I mean even if I break even, that should be good.  Draw traffic to my online store the best I can.  And to top all the money stress, I have to pay some fines that my ex from 10 yrs ago racked up on my IL DL.  It totals $1500.  I cringe every time I see that number and think about it.  The jerk-off ran through the toll booths without paying.  So for $20 worth of non-paid tolls, I got $1550 in fines.  I called the agency that is holding my file and they were able to drop it to $1100 but that is still ridiculously high.  I need to get it paid by Sept because that is when my license expires and I need to renew.  Since my IL DL is suspended because of it I have to get it paid.  Ok I am going to stop now, I am making myself sick thinking about it.