Thanksgiving

I just wanted to explain about the picture of the sideways turkey in one of my recent posts. All that we had for Thanksgiving on vacation was a fruit turkey and a Banner that said Happy Thanksgiving made out of local things like flowers and leaves and shells that we collected from the island. Eric made the banner mostly, and Mel and I made the turkey, we had SO MUCH FUN putting the turkey together. Both of those ideas came out of my favorite magazine, Family Fun! I highly recommend it! Especially if you have kids. They have so many creative ideas in there. That is where all the ideas came from for Calebs party, and I made this really cool Christmas dip for the Branch Christmas social. I have a picture with someone elses camera, I am waiting for them to send it to me. It is soo cute!

Coming Along

We are just coming along on our house. We have almost all of the vaulted ceilings in now. We are working on the recessed ligthing now. That is not going to take too much time. And then we can finish the last of the sheetrock in the dining room. I continue to box and I have started my classes up again. I am done with three of the 4 now!!!! I am soo excited. But the last one is the longest. I am done with about a third, but it is still the longest and it is going to take forever it feels like!!!!!!!!!! But I have added another thought to my list of possibilities. I have heard from Dad that I can get benefits from the airlines in 6 months of working for them. We would really like flight benefits. And Mom's D3 status just is not good enough for the packed holidays witnessed by our 48 hours in the airport on the way back from Thanksgiving. We are so spoiled that way! So if I work for AA I can have flight benefits within 6 months I believe. That would just be AWESOME! We can not always rely on Mom for benefits she only has a limited amount each year, and if we have our own benefits then she can use those for others who might want to come on our vactions.

So I have been looking into AA a little. Mostly talking to Dad, and he says they have an In-Home reservation job. I can do some training, and then work from home. And still get paid and benefits. I hope it works out. I will still get my Real Estate license, and do BPO's on the side, an dmaybe sell a house or two. But I can do this at home job too! I hope it all work out like we want it too.

Hurry up and WAIT!!!

Well a long time has passed since I last wrote and I have done much. I had a GREAT time in St Martin, getting back from St. Martin was HORRRRIBLE!!! But we made it and then we stuck around a few days to get some UTA stuff done. We did that and we have more to do STILL!!! They have us down for out of state tuition which is 5000 a semester!! we cannot do that and we were told we had in state when we applied anyway. So now we have to fight for that. And we have to fight for VA benefits to come through. AND the TA's have him down for TAing and he is a Research Assistant not a TA so we have to figure that all out! But Eric has a training meeting on the 8th and then school starts on the 14th. We are excited yet apprehensive! Then when we were in Texas we also drove aROUND A LOT TO different houses and we found a perfect one for us. It is a foreclosure so it needs work but not as much as the house we have now did. It is all one story which we like. It has a pool and hot tub that drains into the pool, and inside it has 2871 sq. ft., and a jacuzzi and sauna!!!! So now we came back to Ohio and we are trying to get this house fixed. We have made some progress and we are working hard. Well except for right now! We are also making an offer on the house today. I hope that we get it! We are starting to get excited! That is why we have to hurry up an wait! That is a common real estate term. We hurry to get our financing and get the offer in fast so no one can come in and scoop us and now we have to wait till they get back to us! I hate waiting!

Missed Opportunities

Well it is almost Thanksgiving and we have not made our weight loss goal. Not even close. We have had too many things go on this year. But we have made an improtant discovery that will definitely help our weight loss. Sorry to tell you this but Fast Food is VERY unhealthy for you. We looked up all the figures and we have sworn it off. A Taco Bell grilled stuffed burrito has 19300 mg of sodium in it!!!!! and almost 700 calories! It is almost as bad at every other restaurant. We have looked up almost every one we can think of. And they are all bad! Wendys potatoe is not that bad, and the simple hard taco is not that bad, but to fill up on those things would require more then one, making them bad for you. We focused more on the sodium then the calories this time. They look worse then the calories do!!! Now that we have the information fast food is just not appealing any more. I can drive by and not get a single craving. It is almost unethical how bad they are for you! It is almost like poisoning! We do like Subway especially their veggie delights, and we will eat only one or two slices of pizza. But no more then that! Each slice of the works has 330 calories and 900 mg of sodium!!!!
But since we have cut out most of fast food we have had a constant slow drop in weight.
Caleb was sooo cute for Halloween!
I hope we can get everything done with the house! We have most of the soffets done on the front of the house, and the porch is cleaned off, and we are just waiting for another warm day to paint the rest of the siding and then the back of the house. Hopefully it will happen soon!

I wish I were on vacation already.

I wish I were on vacation already! I am soo tired and I have been easily angered a lot lately. Part of it has to do with Caleb going into a non listnening phase, part of it has to do with the internet not working all the time so I have to limp along when I need to go fast! Part of it has to do with the fact that APPARENTLY I cannot budget very well because we just got charged an overdraft fee again. I had a Huge one last month and now another one this month. We cannot afford those right now. It reeally was no ones fault a check got put in the mail I had set aside till we had the funds for it. And some one saw the stamp and I guess put it in the mail. It might have even been me that put it there. Anyway I have been easily angered and snappy at almost everybody. I need some me time. Maybe I will do some sewing by myself for a while maybe work on my beach cover suit. I usually go shopping and get some small stuff but that is not in the cards right now.

We are supposed to be paying off our cards with a home equity loan soon so that our credit will have a chance to improve before we buy our next house, but we cannot apply till the outside of the house is painted and the weather is NOT cooperating. It has been raining all day and is supposed to rain the rest of the week. We have to go on vacation in the next 2-3 weeks! How are we going to get it done and finished in time. I am tired of this.

So many worries but anyway Caleb's party went over Very well. Everybody loved my little apple bites,

and my cat skeletons.

And the cake was ingenious. I had made two little sheet cakes and eric put a train track with a real moving train all around it.

We couldn't find a very small train so we had to settle for this one. But I think it was still cool. And we even got some little kids who weren't part of the birthday party looking and playing with it. Decorating the bikes was way fun except for the wind. We had to hold on to everything and we couldn't put it on the table becasue it would have blown away. But they loved the name tags, and the bells and they just went to town with the streamers. And they tried to put on the noise makers and there were a few who made it ut not that many. That was okay it was too windy to really hear them anyway. And then the bike race obstacle course was very popular and Everybody just loved going around and around. They even tried to pass each other a few times. We had a few accidents and we always told them get up, shake it off and keep going! It was soo cute to see these little kids shake it off and then keep on going. Then we directed them to the jungle gym obstacle coure and they did that one a few rounds and then they all got a medal for finishing. Then they played on the tire swing until Caleb said he was hungry and so we called the troops over and we all had cake and gatorade and vegetables. It was soooo windy that day unfortunately that we had to hold on to our plates with one hand and our forks with the other and we still had a few spills and accidents it was so windy! And I tasted the gatorade YUK!!! I'm sure the kids loved it but me I hate gatorade! Why did I think it would taste any different if I made it myself! But then they got to play a little more until all the kids had to go. We had so much fun on the bikes we just took the presents home and opened them there. I think they had more fun on their bikes then they would have opening the presents. And not as many kids showed up as I thought would so we have LOTS of goody bags left over. Now I did not know what to do with them besides save them for next year but I already have two years of saved goody bags and I can't find them so why would this year be any different? But then Eric the genius said use them for trick or treating! that is an excellent idea!!!!! I never have to worry again about buying too much goody bag stuff and wasting money that way!!!!

I feel so much better looking at all the birthday pictures. I like looking at old family pictures. It makes me feel happy and it definitely makes me laugh!