I spoke to my sister last night and told her that if her husband wanted to stay in a hotel that would be fine with us and we wouldn't be offended. She said he would be fine at the house and that she didn't want to spend the money on a hotel for him. So, it looks like they are all staying.

I am kicking the kids out of their rooms for the next couple of days. They will sleep downstairs on the pull out couch with their cousin. My sister will take Emma's rooma and BIL will take Aidan's rooms. That way they have the whole upstairs to themselves. If BIL wants to get away from the chaos he can go upstairs.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice. I thought over the concept that he is just an introvert, but that isn't really it. He comes from a wealthy family and has said that my house isn't nice enough for him to stay in.


To Jim from Ohio- after 15 years of marriage and countless "relations" with highschool students behind my sister's back, for which he got fired from teaching for, I think I have the right to be a little judgemental. And believe me he knows where I stand. I try to make everything as pleasant as possible for my sister's sake since she is all the family I have left but BIL makes it very difficult. Personally I think he is lucky to even be invited. If that makes me a bad person, so be it.

Hope everyone has a good holiday and that there is peace at your gatherings.

Every year my sister and I alternate where we will be spending Thanksgiving. Since my parents passed away we have been doing this and it works out great. We haven't missed a Thanksgiving yet. She and her family are coming to my house tomorrow. It is about a 5 hour trip my car. We don't get together at Christmas due to unpredictable weather and not wanting to drive that far in the snow.

Now, for the interesting and somewhat insulting part. This year my brother-in-law asked if they could stay in a hotel and not at my house! What? Now, I know I don't live in a mansion but come on. It does tend to be a little crowded but isn't that what the holidays are all about? Being with family? Our house is a cape cod and we have 1 general family room. This is where we watch tv and hang out. I think my BIL doesn't like it because he has no where to hide. At their house he has the whole living room set up as his office and spends all his time there on his computer. I think he doesn't like having the constant interaction and interuptions that occur when there are 4 adults, 3 kids, 3 cats, and 1 dog in a small house. I love it! My sister and I could stay in a shack for 1 week and still have a great time.

I am trying not to let the fact that he doesn't want to stay at our house bother me but I find it insulting. We always do our best to make him feel comfortable. He is the type of person that makes it real well known when he isn't happy. I spend weeks ahead of time trying to come up with things to keep him occupied and happy while he is here and this is what I get.

The truly sad thing is his 8 year old son said to my sister the other day that he can't wait to come see his cousins and play with them BUT he is nervous about how his dad is going to act. Why does an 8 year old have to worry about that?! He shouldn't even be thinking about how his father is going to act because his father is the ADULT.

I am hoping by blogging about it I will be able to put this out of my mind. I am so very thankful for my sister and the close relationship we have. Through the common experience of our childhood we have grown to be best friends. There is an incredible bond between us which even though our parents were alcoholics and both died at an early age, our family circumstance gave my sister and I what we have today. I wouldn't change that for the world. This year as in every year past and every year going forward I am thankful for my sister.

which I think is pretty good. I got everything for Thanksgiving dinner and stuff for dinner and lunches since my sister and her family will be here from Wednesday-Saturday.

I saved $43.73 using my Bonus card and $11.70 using coupons and bottle returns. I got a 16lb turkey for $8. I stuck to my list and wasn't swayed by any extras. I did however splurge on a crab stuffed portabello mushroom for dinner-yum-o!

I want to make some cookies before everyone gets here. I still have to clean the bathroom and finish the laundry and then I will be in good shape.

I get paid on Wednesday this week because of the holiday. I am excited to see how much I have for Black Friday. I looked at some of the ads today and made a list of things I need to get at Walmart. My sister and I usually hit Target but I think Walmart is having better deals. We'll probablt also go to Kohls and possibly Toys R Us.

Well, I better get to work if I want to get everything done. It's not going to happen by itself-unfortunately!

So, I have a long laundry list of goals to accomplish today and I woke up ready to take charge and get them done.

Woke up around 8:30 and steam cleaned all 3 carpets in the house. They look pretty darn good. I won't bother telling you how nasty the water was that I emptied after each room.

Next I made my grocery list for Thanksgiving dinner. Felt really good because I had lots of coupons and some bottles to return. Go to the grocery store with Emma. We return all our bottles and then stop at Coinstar machine to cash in our change for an Amazon gift card. Saw the Red Box next to the Coinstar machine and let Emma pick out a movie for tonight. Turned on my cell phone incase Hubby wanted to add something to my list. Placed it in the pocket of my coat which I had taken off and placed in the cart. Went and got my produce, next stop Deli....then I noticed my cell phone was gone. Searched the cart, my coat, Emma's coat. Retraced my steps...no phone. Went to service desk, asked if it was turned in, no luck. Searched some more. Back to the service desk to ask if we could possibly call my cell to see if I could hear it ring. I was thinking at this point that I just dropped it. The rude service desk employee told me that they don't have a public phone and I would have to go outside to use the pay phone. I told her that defeated the purpose as I wanted to see if I could hear it ring. She said sorry and walked away. I was pissed! Went to the car to get change for the pay phone, passed 2 more employees, asked them if anyone told them they found a phone and they said to go to the service desk. At this point I realize it was probably stolen and told them I believed it to be stolen and they said "oh, that's too bad". What? No compassion, no help looking for it, nothing. Go get .50 to call my cell and it is turned off. Now I know it has been stolen since I turned it on. Left the store, left the cart with my stuff in an aisle.

Made a mad dash to Verizon to suspend service. I'll be damned if anyone is going to use my phone. They suspended it and said as soon as the person tries to make a call it will go straight to customer service and that they should be able to get it back. Not sure if I believe that but I am relieved that no one can use it.

Since I feel safer with a phone I signed a new contract and got a family plan for Hubby and me. I upgraded my phone and got a Blackberry. Since I work at the hospital I got a 19% discount on the phones and plan and they waived my activation fee.

I am just so disappointed that someone would take the phone out of my coat-which leads me to believe they were watching me and just waiting for me to turn my back. I am also disappointed in how the employees handled the situation, or didn't handle it for that matter. I am going to write a letter to the store manager tonight.

I didn't get the grocery shopping done so I still have to do that. I also have to;
*do lots of laundry
*clean my bedroom and put everything back from the carpet cleaning
*get my hair colored
*do some Christmas shopping
*put the laundry away from last weekend
*bake some cookies

My hair appointment is at 5:00 and I am hoping to be able to do some shopping after that. I'll be damned if I am going back to that grocery store.

And I know, I should have been more careful. Merry freaking Christmas to me.

This is Reilly. Former name was Jade. We adopted her about 3 weeks ago from someone who had rescued her from a neglectful family. The rescuer couldn't keep her due to allergies so we agreed to take her in. She is a 4 year old black lab. She came to use crate trained and with the ability to sit when told. Other than that she is pretty much still a puppy. The kids love her and she is getting use to our son. For some reason she growls at him most. Perhaps because he is a very active, very loud 3 year old. So along with the 3 cats, 2 adults, and 2 kids, we are now dog owners.

Funny story-
Monday I got home and let her out of her crate, took her outside, and fed her. I had to get Emma to soccer practice and my husband wasn't home yet. I decided to leave her out of her crate for the 30 minutes I'd be gone before my husband got home. Well, in that 30 minutes she managed to eat the following:

*an advent calendar with 24 chocolate pieces
*a bag of walnuts
*a bag of pecans
*a loaf of homemade pumpkin bread, foil included.

The first thing I said to my husband when he called to tell me was "Do you know how much those nuts cost me?!"

And then I asked if the dog was OK.

Guess I had to compress it to make it fit. Anyways-I have updated my sidebar with my goals for the 1st quarter of 2009. The picture I added is from our family trip to Salem! We didn the "touristy" thing and got dressed up like witches and had our pictures taken. It was kinda expensive but a memory we will not soon forget! We had a blast! We couldn't decide on what picture to buy so we bought the whole CD and plan to print some out for Christmas cards this year!

I had a picture and deleted it and want to add a new one but I can't get it to stick. Any ideas?

Spending for the day $4.10.

Not too shabby

Things I did right today:

*skipped Dunkin Donuts in the morning
*ate homemade pumpkin bread instead
*brought a Lean Cuisine for lunch
*went to the gym
*took Emma to soccer practice and made it home without having to stop at any stores!
*we all ate dinner at home

Things I could have done better:

*not ordered the coffee and muffin during my break today (hence the $4.10 spending)
*could have put away the laundry I did yesterday
*could have done 1 more load of laundry

All in all it was a pretty good day. Tomorrow I have to check my bank balance to see if the plumber cashed the check I wrote him and to see if some of my other payments posted. I am curious to see what I have left to start some Christmas shopping.

Back to work at 6am tomorrow. I am hoping to stop at the gym on my way home again. Guess I should go get my gym bag ready and my lunch for tomorrow!

Ok, so I bored myself with my last entry. Even though I was home most of the weekend I did indeed spend money.

Friday-$8.14 lunch at work since I didn't have time to pack my own. Seeing as I work in a hospital and it was hospital cafeteria lunch it so wasn't worth the $8.14.

Saturday-kid's lunch at McDonalds-$8.93. This was a special treat for them.
Movies on date night with DH-$21.00. He paid for dinner.
$160.00 to John the plumber-no relation to Joe the plumber.

Sundays trip to Target-$66.23. I bought a Brita water pitcher so we stop buying bottled water. Butter for baking (used coupon), ziploc bags(used coupon), walnuts and pecans for baking, fabric softner sheets (store brand) and 2 Christmas CDs.
Sunday morning stop at the grocery store on our way to church-3 donuts, coffee, chocolate milk, and a newspaper-$7.00. Total splurge

So that adds up to $271.30. Yikes! The $160 I might take out of savings to cover as that was not a regular expense. Still that is $111.30 for a weekend where I really didn't leave the house much. I will try to do much better than that this coming weekend.

I packed my lunch today so only expect to spend $1.35 on coffee. I am going to hit the gym today after work and then pick up Aidan and go home and MAKE dinner. Emma has soccer practice again. I am hoping DH will take her if his back is feeling better. The only other thing I have planned is to do more laundry and put away the clothes I washed yesterday-one of my least favorite jobs. Then off to bed early again since I have to be at work tomorrow at 6am again.

It's no wonder I am tired all the time-I never have a minute to relax! At least it feels that way. So, it's Sunday night which means it is time to start preparing for the week. I have to work at 6am tomorrow morning so I better get going!

My weekend consisted of the following activities:

Friday-worked until 6pm. Met my family at my in-law's house for my father in law's 70th birthday party. DH brought the kids and the dog. We had lasagna and cake, both of which were delicious and free!! DH had to go rehearse guitar with friends so I brought the kids and dog home and got them ready and into bed. I crashed around 10pm.

Saturday-had to wait around for the plumber to replace both our kitchen faucet and bathroom faucet. Both were very old and very leaky. He showed up about 1 hour late and worked for 2 hours. $160 was the cost to have them both installed. Knowing nothing about plumbing, I have no idea if that is a good price or not.

I took the kids to McDonald's for lunch (I didn't get anything ofr myself-yeah me!) while DH raked leaves. Happy Meals to go and they ate at home. Emma went to a friend's house and Aidan and I watched Madagascar. Well, Aidan watched it and I napped-oops!

Around 4pm we took the kids and dog to my inlaws and DH and I went on a, oh what's the word, a, a, DATE! Jeez-it's been so long I forgot what it was called! We went to dinner and to see the new James Bond movie. It was nice to spend some alone time together. We picked up the kids and dog and went home. Emma and I watched half a movie in my bed and I was asleep by 9:30pm.

This morning I woke and made the decision to go to church and teach my Sunday school class. I didn't go last week since I was recovering from the shingles and didn't think I'd be ready to go this week but I was. Plus I think that good old Catholic guilt was kicking in. After church I took Emma to soccer practice which didn't actually start for 3 hours. There was a mess up in communication and DH told me she had to be there at noon but didn't. So, after wasting some time haning out at the arena Emma and I went to Target to pick up a few things. Spent $66 but most of the stuff was stuff that I needed and went in to get. Back home I made meatloaf and smashed potatoes for dinner. Pumpkin bread for dessert. Took the dog out to play fetch. Cleaned up the kitchen. Did 4 loads of laundry-which I still have to put away. Bathed both kids and put them to bed. Now I am ready to crash! I am going to go get lunches ready for tomorrow as well as my clothes layed out since I have to be up at 4:30am and then I am sitting down to watch a House marathon.

Where is DH you ask? He hurt his back raking leaves today. He has been in bed for the past 3 hours and even ate his dinner in there! Men, why do they seem to feel pain so much more than women do?! Poor baby.

and I wish it was with good news. It is not! I seem to have ignored all I have learned during my brief time blogging here and dug myself deeper into debt. With the holidays quickly approaching I feel my panic creping in. I figured it was time to jump back on the wagon.

Since the last time I was here I was able to pull off hubby's suprise bday trip to Salem. It was awesome...thank you Koppur for all your advice! We stayed in Peabody and made the trip in everyday. We are thinking of going back next year we had so much fun!

I hate the feeling of having to rely on my husband becuase I have so much debt. I feel like I depend on him too much for things while I rack up the credit cards and live like we are rich. Several times I have tried to change my attitude towards money but nothing sticks. I have to make this work this time.

The first part of my plan is going to be paying off my smallest credit card first. I hate making minimum payments so I usually pay $100 to each card and I don't see that I am really getting anywhere. I am going to change my payments to making the minimum on all but the lowest and pay a bigger chunk to that one. I am sure this is common sense to most of you out there but for some reason the idea eluded me all this time.

I tried using Mint for a short period of time and got very annoyed very quickly. After the hassle of putting all my accounts in their system had issues and for about 10 days it wasn't updating half my accounts. I just deleted everything from their system today. I can't be bothered with a program that doesn't work. I liked that it was online-I was able to check it while at work.

Well, here's to my reinvigorated attempt to get this monster only control. Baby steps this time.