Can we do it?

Recently I became overwhelmed with the continuously mounting debt that we have and no matter how much budgeting I did I couldn't find something that I could stick to. Until now. Enter YNAB. Yes, You Need A Budget and so did I. I am still on day 4 of the 7 day trial but I already know I will be purchasing it. It has literally made me think about my money differently in the 4 days I have used it. I am realizing slowly that we do not have as much available to play with every month like I thought we did. I am realizing that without buckling down and doing this YNAB plan we may very well never get out of debt because I dont see the bigger picture I only see a 2 week snapshot. I am also realizing that this is what budgeting really is. Planning what you will do with your money  today and next week and next month etc. Now instead of looking in the bank account to see if we have enough to buy what I need I look at the budget and see how much I have left from what I set aside in that category. More to come later... children are callin!

The start of something new... maybe

I have had the worst November/December ever. In this month alone my 1yr old son has been sick twice most recently with Roseola and an ear infection at the same time and I have had a kidney infection and an upper respiratory thing.  Anyways the point is I have been home so very much in the past few weeks and I rather like it. I love the time I get to spend with my sons and the free time I get for myself. I don't miss the office politics or the work really. I especially don't miss the daily 3 hr commute. The problem is that my husband and I have massive debt and want to buy a house. (Ok, so its really not massive compared to how much debt America has. It's like 15-20k total but that feels massive to us!) I cant want both things right? Wrong. I want both. Therefore I will make both be possible. Somehow.

I haven't yet told my Husband.... but I am thinking of a hardcore 5 yr plan. I don't yet know if a 5 yr plan will be doable but I am going to start working on the details of the plan. I'll update you guys in a while after I think this through some more.

I hate bad parents "/

I've been in a pissy mood ever since my grandmother texted me earlier today.

I hate them so much. I wish I could do to them what they do to my siblings. Now that I am a parent I am even more appalled at their behavior.

My mother is the evilest, self centered, bitch. My step father ain't far behind her. They couldn't even stand each other for more than a few months at a time. I am convinced they both have mental illnesses but they have both evaluated by therapist and received a clean bill of mind. I'm not surprised. They talk a good game and are very friendly to strangers they want something from. You'd think, upon first impression, that these were the most outgoing funny sweet people.You'd be sorely mistaken. Unless you've crossed them or are under their power you'd never see this nasty evil side.

You may be thinking the same thing everyone thinks when I tell them my mother is crazy.... that I was probably a stubborn bad kid who was disciplined and didn't like it or something. You'd be right I was bad and I was stubborn and I talked back and got beat for it often. I was a pure rebel from birth. But that does not justify what these people have done. My son is beyond stubborn and he does the weirdest things (like hide BBQ ribs under the bed for 2 weeks) that make me want to slap him upside his head but I always address my son how I would like to be addressed. I speak to him like he has sense and I don't call him names.I'll admit that was after some serious evaluating of my character earlier on... that's for another post.

To show you the kind of things I experienced as a child...

My mother consistently referred to me as the devil's child when she was upset with me. As in "You stupid little bitch you are the devils child." 

She was not the physical type so hugs or kisses were far and few in between which is not so bad a child can live without that and survive I guess but it has made me socially awkward in some ways. I don't like to touch or be touched by other people. I  rather not shake your hand thank you.

She would always talk down to me and manipulate me into doing things she wanted me to do like lie for her to the government so she could get more money. My mother is hard of hearing but speaks and she plays the handicap card often by pretends she is deaf and mute and pretending everyone is taking advantage of her. I was her interpreter when ever we went everywhere and she lied about everything. I mean she falsified our birth certificates so we could start school early. That's illegal ain't it? but no one cared.

Ok I am getting off track.... My step father.... that man is scum. Scum on earth I would spit on. That man told my sister "You may be beautiful on the outside but you'll always be ugly on the inside." Who says that to their child?! Talk about a self esteem crusher and coming from your dad? ouch 

That man feeds the children how you'd feed your enemy. He doesn't buy veggies or fruits or orange juice or anything expensive and good for you. Because it's expensive. He buys a pizza and gets a salad for himself. His kids would like a salad but nope its to expensive for them so they get pizza and he gets healthy greens. He says he needs it. Hes sick. Yea in the head.  My other sister told me that one time he fed them each six tostitos scoops filled with taco fillings and that was their dinner. Six 1 in x 1 in tortilla chips. If they complain they are hungry they are called greedy. My heart breaks for them.

So back to why I am mad today. My grandmother needs a break. She goes over everyday for home work help she takes them every weekend. Usually on holidays he spends time with the kids. Shocking? Not really he's real big on pretending hes a family man. He brings them to someone else's house so he can hang out and they can eat. This Thanksgiving they were supposed to go to my mothers. My grandmothers text read as follows:

(Insert my name), I need help to think. Mami just called to tell me I need to pick the kids up for thanksgiving because her son is in the hospital and she is going in on Wednesday for her kidneys. J, F and P are counting on going to her. M badly wanted to go shopping with mami tomorrow for her birthday. They don't want to go to the other grandparents because according to J they don't want them there either. I can't stand the thought of their feeling nobody wants them, but I'm desperate for a few days without kids. I dont mean to put this on you, but 2 heads are better than one and maybe we can come up with something. It doesnt help that  (their dad), who'd rather spend thanksgiving out drinking with the guys and is walking out on them, insists that they must be together celebrating thanksgiving as a family.


So once again we (my grandmother, husband, and I) step in as the role of parents. More to come later my husband just got home and I need a serious hug.

Such is life

Every weekend it's the same thing. I wake up super early IE 5 am on a Sunday and my husband is asleep. He probably stayed up til 2 or 3 am and now he's exhausted. I fall asleep early all the time. We are always on opposite sides of the fence. So here I sit watching Primal Fear, blogging, and surfing the web while he lays there eyes closed knocked out. Such is life.

Knitting Woes

I am definetly not finding it second nature to knit. I am too much of a literal person and I over analyze everything. It is affecting my ability to learn to knit. I have this bad habit of making everything ten times harder than it needs to be by asking myself a million questions.

My first problem was learning to cast on. The book shows the slingshot long tail cast on method . I couldn't continually do the motion. I questioned if I was making the loops too tight and tried to learn this way for about  an hour. I gave up and found the new method I previously told you about. My next problem was learning to knit stitch. I couldn't figure out how tight to make the stitches and am still having a tension problem. Which leads to my third problem which was how to wrap the yarn to control the tension. It doesn't seem to be a huge problem to everyone else based on the amount of information available online compared to when I searched for cast on methods. I'll attempt to knit again now that I think I have a method to wrap the yarn that might work for me. After I master the tension and get nice even rows I will learn and master the purl and start really making something. I'll show pictures on my next post of my wonky work so far but I warn you its disturbingly bad. I guess this is kind of turning into a knitting blog for now. I am just so obsessed with knitting something worth bragging about. LOL

Warmies Mmmmm

I truly cannot remember what sparked my desire to learn to knit... A few days ago something must have happened but I cannot remember. I became obsessed with learning how to knit to make some gloves, hats, scarves etc. Now? Well by now I am attempting to take over the knitting world. Do I need another hobby? No. lol but I get sucked in and cant get out. Now I want to knit hats and scarves and gloves for my family and for charity. Maybe if I get reallllly good I can sell stuff ;)

I bought the book The chicks with sticks guide to knitting by Nancy Queen and Ellen O'Connell. Let me begin by saying I love the patterns in the book. Now... the instructions... not so much. I found a much better way to 'cast on' online after about 2 hours of trying their 'preferred easier method'. Thankfully they did say that there were 35 other ways to cast on so I went and searched for a different way that would suit me better. Somewhere I came across a tip in the comments about a video on ThreadBanger.com. So Google helped me find what I was looking for and I literally cried out YES! THANK YOU! because I almost gave up completely. This video is the best way to cast on. Period. I tried about 10 different ways. Try it out if you are beginning to knit. Let's see how I progress on this scarf. Wish me luck!

Really? Hmmm....

Really?! Hmmm.... Sometimes that's all I can say in response to some of the stuff my son says. Today we pulled up to the house and he says "Oh yes! Finally! We are home. Now I can go inside and lick my butt." Insert above phrase. Then he looks at the dumpster labeled 'American Waste' and says "American Waste, I guess we do have to waste it"