Monday, March 30, 2009

Beesley's: Budget Wise

Well, this month (April) kicks off a new 'tude in Casa Beesley. We've kind of gotten in a bad habit of waiting until the last day possible to make our house payment. This got us into trouble in February because the last day to pay our house payment is the 16th before it's late. Well, we forgot to do it the Friday before and the 16th was a holiday and the banks were closed. So, now we have a late payment on our record and that's just bad news bears. So, we've started being thrifty. We're clipping coupons, shopping the ads and sticking to a grocery budget. We're starting fresh for April. April 1st, we're paying our house payment and all the bills we let slide because we were on vacation to Florida and spent more money than we should. Things will be tight til the middle of the month check, but we're just going to start living like things are always tight and start building our savings account back up. If something should happen (knock on wood) and I lose my job, Nick & I are SCREWED. We can make things work on my paycheck if he loses his job, but he doesn't make enough to support us on just his check.

Being thrifty is causing us to do more stuff at home. Things I'd been wanting to do and putting off because it's more fun to go shopping or out to eat are starting to get done. Our garage is all clean and organized. We still need to get some sort of storage system out there (shelving and such) and I'd still like to get a chest freezer, but at least it's organized. This weekend we worked on the office and changed it to more of a crafting room. Nick's going to find some time and hook up the extra TV we have in that room and run some cable to it so I can watch TV while I make cards or maybe actually scrapbook one day!!! :-) We even measured our backsplash so when we finally decide what we want to do, we know how much of whatever it is that we need to get (our latest inspiration is beadboard. I saw it on TV and a beadboard backsplash looks really awesome!).

I need to make a plan for our yard and start getting it going. Our maple tree out front got broken in half in a windstorm we had last year and is dead. It needs to come out. We didn't ever get our sprinklers blown out last year, so I'm hoping that if we wait, wait, wait until the ground is fully unfrozen before attempting to turn it on that we won't have any breaks. I also need to do something with our bedroom. It's blank, boring and blah. I bought a bed in a bad deal at Linens & Things when they were having their store closing specials and I hated it 2 minutes after we bought it. It's nice but it's not what I want for my room. Sigh.

Well, spring appears to be roaring in like a lion here. We've had some rain, storms, wind, and some sunshine. Not too many warm days yet. I'm hoping this wind dies off soon, because I want to enjoy our outdoor fireplace. We had a yucky windstorm move through this weekend. Thankfully our house is pretty protected by the way it sits in our cul de sac and we didn't have any problems (a couple of chairs got scattered about in the back yard, but nothing major). Nothing like this:

these images were stolen from www.ktvb.com


It's still windy and FREEZING today. brrrrrr.

Well, that's about it. More later!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Tedium Tuesday

Well, it's Tuesday evening and here I sit. Nick is off to class and I'm waiting for Dancing With The Stars results show to turn on. Yes. this is my super fantastic life. The glamour. The intrigue. The sparkles (tee hee).

Anyway, we're about two weeks int to our new life schedule. So far it isnt' as bad as I thought it would be. Monday's, Wednesday's & Friday's Nick's at work from 12:30 pm til 9:00 at night. I've been taking my lunch earlier on those days so I can come home and have lunch with him before he heads out for his work day. Then I come home from work and fix dinner and take it to him on his evening break. I'm still up when he gets home from work, so we get to see each other off and on through out the day. Tuesday's and Thurday's are a bit different, as he goes to work from 8:30 am til 5:00 pm. Then he has school at 6:00. He as just enough time to come home and grab a quick bite before heading back out to school. I see him for maybe 2 minutes when he gets home. Then Saturday's he's at school from 9:00-12:00. So at least we have most of the weekend. But, over all it's not as bad as I thought it would be. The majority of the week we see each other off and on through out the day and that really helps.

Let's see, in other "exciting" news - we did a bit of spring cleaning this weekend and got our garage all nice and tidy.

okay - random side bar - for any of you that watch DWTS too, REALLY?!?!?! The Woz is safe? REALLY!?!? REALLY!??!? are you KIDDING me right now? UGH!

Okay. Sorry. This is what happens when you blog while watching TV. Random bursts. :-)

I really have nothing that exciting to post about. As usual.

Well, I've had this open for like 20 minutes with nothing new added, so apparently I have nothing of any interest to add. So, off I go. Ta ta now.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Bad Girl Tips

So, for Susan's birthday I sent her one of those daily calendars where you rip off the page every day - this one was a Bad Girls calender and every day it's got little tips, funny quotes, bad girl history, etc. Here's today and it completely cracked me up:

BAD GIRL ROAD TRIP TIP:

Look Bad Beauty for the Morning After


If you called in sick from the road, it helps to look the part on your first day back. Simply don’t do one thing that you normally do. Most people won’t notice what’s different – they’ll just think you look like hell and won’t question whether or not you were really sick.

1) If you usually wear mascara, eyeliner, and lipstick, skip the eyeliner. You’ll look tired and washed-out. No one will know exactly why, but they’ll feel sorry for you.
2) If you normally wear mascara and lipstick, skip the mascara. But be sure to wear lip color so people think you’re made-up. (And, in fact, you are.)
3) If you have short hair, do your usual beauty routine but don’t wash your hair. It’s disorienting to others – and quite effective – when you have flat, limp hair or lumpy, bumpy bedhair but the rest of you is all put together.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Well, we're back

So, last week we jetted off to Florida to visit Nick's family. Sunday was AWFUL. I have never had an experience like this while traveling before and I hope to never have to repeat it. We got on our plane to leave Boise, we pulled away from the jetway and then just sort of sat. Forever. Finally the captain came on and said they were having an issue and hoped to have it resolved soon. Then a little bit later he came back with another update, they were having a problem with a computer issue in the cockpit and needed to get a contract engineer to come fix it and they weren't sure how long that was going to take, so they were going to pull back into the jetway. Nick & I are getting worried, because we only had an hour and a half layover in Denver and at this point we were an hour delayed leaving Boise. Finally the problem was fixed and we left.

We touched down in Denver with JUST enough time to find and make it to our gate for the flight to Florida........just as they were saying our plane had been put out of commission and it would be several hours before a new plane would be ready for us, so just to sit tight! Yeah. Fun stuff man, fun stuff. We were supposed to get in to Tampa at about 6:30ish....we didn't land until right about 10:00, if I'm thinking correctly.

Our whole trip was fairly relaxed and loose. Monday we went off to our favorite orange grove place and got some ice cream and a gallon of OJ (which we finished by Friday). :-) Then we went off to Rob & Tara's in St Pete to hang out.




Tuesday Nick, me & his mom drove over to some place called Crystal River and looked at a park thing. I saw an armadillo! It was exciting... :-) That night we went back to St Pete and had dinner at a sushi place w/ Rob & Tara.



Let's see, Wednesday Nick & I stole some time for ourselves and headed out to Orlando. Did I mention I was sick? I caught some awful cold while there (still not over it yet), but was a trooper anyway. After we got back from Orlando, I went straight to bed. Woke up and attempted to eat (my appetite still isn't quite right) and then went back to bed.



Thursday we had a day of shopping with the Beesley crew and dinner at Caddy's on the Beach. It was a really great night!




Friday we got up, packed up all our crap and headed over to Rob & Tara's. Nick's parents took Shea for the night and we went out to dinner and then do this pub called the Cockney Rebel for karaoke. After that, we crashed back at Rob & Tara's house for the night. Saturday we came home!

I'm glad to be back. we had a nice trip and it was so great to see every one! Nick found that he got all A's last quarter - yay - and starts his new school/work schedule today.

Well, the coffee is finally done brewing so off I'll go! More later!