Financial Woes.

I've mentioned a few times in my weekly pregnancy updates that Mr. Skinny could be laid off. Terrible timing, right? So far, he was laid off for just 1 day before being called back to work, which still resulted in messing with our insurance so that we've gone 2 weeks without any. I was trying to do some research to see how it all works legally, and it seems like once you are laid off, you quality for COBRA, but most companies lay employees off at the end of the month when insurance needs to be paid (normally at the beginning of the month), but Mr. Skinny's company wanted their money back ASAP. Even if their employees were only laid off for one day.

I had a doctor's appointment the week that Mr. Skinny was laid off, and technically we didn't have insurance for that one day, but then, technically we should have because he was back to work. Anyways, I still haven't heard anything from the insurance, so I'm not worrying about it yet. We thought that we would be covered by the company for 30 days, or at least until the end of the month, but it's seems that's not true. We got a notification from our insurance that it was canceled the day Mr. Skinny was laid off, so we've had to jump through hoops to get back on our insurance.

We received a paper in the mail last week to fill out to get our coverage back, which was fine, but then while they were playing pass the paper - Mr. Skinny works in construction, so he had to rely on his foreman to hand the paper to the right person to eventually get it to the office - but, they lost the paperwork. Luckily, I needed a refill for my prenatal vitamins, but my pharmacy called me saying that my insurance was coming up as expired. This resulted in a short panic, a weekend knowing we had no insurance, and Mr. Skinny loosing 3 hours to personally run the paper up to the correct office, which is in the opposite direction of the site where he's working.

Bottom line of this adventure? The company Mr. Skinny works for stinks. The only thing they have going for them is that we don't pay anything toward our insurance, which is a blessing, especially having a baby, but they don't treat their employees very good.

As of right now, Mr. Skinny is back to work, but he could be laid off at any time while they're waiting for permits to come in. I will sigh with relief when these permits come in. We were worried all winter, but no one - in construction - expects to get laid off in April or later. The last time they were waiting on permits, the guys were laid off for 4 months, if that happens, Mr. Skinny is going to look for a new job. He's probably going to look for a new job next spring regardless.

With all this worry about Mr. Skinny getting laid off, and the obviously impending baby that will be arriving in just a few short weeks, and me quitting my job to stay at home with the baby comes worry about paying our bills. Right now, Mr. Skinny handles the finances, this isn't old fashioned for us, it just makes sense because he's more flexible with the budget, and if something comes up, he can rearrange the bills relatively easily. But, I figure with me transitioning to a SAHM, I should take the finances under my job. I'd like to figure out everything and be able to rock at budgeting, but how? We live paycheck to paycheck, and are up to our eyeballs in debt. The only variable bill we have is our food bill, which I am making my priority to keep as low as possible - if you know of any blogs that have healthy, low budget recipes, please let me know!


Sure, our cell phone, and TV could potentially be reduced, but we have to pay a fee to get out of our Dish contract, and Mr. Skinny heard that if you want to go back to a non-smartphone after having a smartphone, you have to pay a fee, is that right? I know if it comes to it, we'd have to give up our phones, but I really love my iPhone, and I know Mr. Skinny does, too. I'm really trying to be optimistic, cut out all my extra costs (like Panera every weekend), and make our food budget super small.

It's hard because every time we start to get ahead, something comes up and we slide back down to where we were. We've been trying really hard to save money in case something like this happens, but we have so much going on, that what we have saved isn't going to last us very long, especially with me quitting my job.

Living paycheck to paycheck with no wiggle room sucks.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Honestly, I'm not looking for pity, advice maybe? Stories that we'll get through it. Prayers are appreciated, too.

Home Alone.

I had this post planned out for yesterday, but Mr. Skinny got a surprise rain day, so he was home by 10:30am and we enjoyed our surprise day together by going over to his parents house where he had a fight with his brother and changed the truck oil. So. Much. Fun. Of course, this pregnant lady got involved and had to yell to, which lead to tears. BUT I got to use the "you're stressing me out which stresses the baby out" line, and that shut Mr. Skinny right up. I wasn't really stressed, but I'm pregnant, I can use whatever excuse I want, right? Unfortunately, my brother-in-law didn't shut right up and continued to curse up a storm. If he curses like that in front of my baby, he is going to get an earful from me, that's a promise right there.

Anyway, fighting aside it was a good day. I love these days with Mr. Skinny. After the six days he got off for Thanksgiving, I got a little spoiled and realized how much I miss him around when he's working six day a week and gone for about 13 hours a day. I am lucky though that I have his family and mine around so that I'm never home alone. Except for this week.

My parents will be married for 25 years on December 27th (our anniversary too!) so they are in Disney World this week, leaving me, my brother, and Mr. Skinny home alone all week. It's actually kind of nice because we don't have to follow Mom's "rules" of only putting certain dishes in the dishwasher and cleaning up the dining room table each night. I'm not gonna lie, I feel like I'm playing house. I put ALL the dishes in the dishwasher and run it every night, our dining room table looks like a bomb went off there, and I haven't washed the table off since Sunday. Half of me feels like a little kid who is free, and the other half is most definitely turning into my mother and cleaning up after everyone else and being responsible for my brother and making sure he's home before the snow started last night, even though he didn't come home until an hour after I asked him to and said the roads were bad. Ugh. But that's an 18 year old male high school student, right? In other news, he got into college this week! He didn't even care, but it totally made my pregnant hormones kick in and I cried when he told me I could open the envelope and saw that he was accepted!

After the fight, we went over to visit Mr. Skinny's grandma who is the grandma I never had. She always knows what's wrong, she knows what to ask, and she has an answer for everything. Oh, and she always has food :) She informed us that we need to start looking for a crib because she wants to buy us one! AND a mattress. Super exciting news for us! I didn't expect her to do that for us. Granted, she did buy us a couch and recliner when Mr. Skinny mentioned (jokingly) that we still needed one before we got married, so I shouldn't be too surprised. She's awesome. I'm so blessed to be in such a loving family and have such generous and loving in-laws, too.

Sorry for the random, picture-less, all over the place post, but that's what's going on!

Don't forget I have a post planned out for tomorrow about the baby's sex and if we want to find out. If you have any questions for me to make those predictions let me know and I'll include them!

I'm alive!

I'm alive, I promise. I've been reading everyone's blog, commenting when I can, but school is taking over my life.

This weekend was a food fail involving pizza, onion rings, Red Lobster and delicious subs. But hey, it happens to the best of us and we learn from it. I got back on track yesterday, and I'm even more on track today. I'm still not sure if I'm going to WI tomorrow, I might wait until next week and see what the scale says. I need a break from the scale, it's owning my life.

This all looks SO good!

I'm finished my huge paper - 17 pages later! And I have a list of what I need to get done before my semester is over. It's a long list, but I'm slowly crossing things off.

Exercising has been pushed aside, too, although yesterday Mr. Skinny and I got out and I started couch-to-5K again, and I'm really hoping I'll stick to it this time. Hopefully, I can work my way up to increasing miles. Hopefully finish a 5K and work up to a 10K, but I'll get there if and when I get there.

I loose weight slowly. And it's okay. I think.

I'm coming to this realization. Yes, I only had ~40 pounds to loose, and I've been on WW for 1 year and only lost 20 pounds, but I can maintain this. I don't think I could gain that weight back. Yes, it might take me another year to loose the rest, but studies show that the slower you loose weight, the less likely you are to gain it back.

And that's okay with me.

------------------------------------------

How do you balance stress, exercise, and healthy eating?

Tips would be appreciated!

Spring has sprung!

I'm making it official - spring is FINALLY here! That darn groundhog lied when he said that spring was coming early this year because it's just coming now! April 7th it finally looks like the temperature is going to be staying above 60 or so. Many now I can switch out my sweaters for my tank tops at last! You think?

Maybe I should wait.

The flowers are blooming, the grass is finally green. Well everywhere except for the yard behind our apartment, so I had to search for these daffodils to photograph since our grass is still yucky.

And might I add that the wasps were swarming around these babies, that's why it's not a very good picture. You should be lucky you're getting pictures of any flowers.

On the drive home it was that perfect mid 60s (although I could have gone a little warmer), and the sun was shining. A perfect day to put the windows down and blast the music. So I did just that!

Don't worry, I was parked in this picture.

Okay well maybe I just have to get through tomorrow and then it'll be spring. 48 tomorrow? Really, is that necessary? Sigh.

Oh, and you might notice that I finally got an iPhone! That's another selfish, materialistic thing to cross off my 101 in 1,001 list!

One last thing, I don't know if I've mentioned it on here at all, but I'm a federal employee (NPS), so all the talk of a shutdown directly affects me. Keep me in your prayers please, with all the money that we may or may not have to pay for taxes, we currently have no savings and don't have anything to fall back on. But it looks like a shutdown is imminent. I'll keep you all posted though, not that you won't know if you look at any major news website, listen to the radio or watch the news.

Hope you have a great evening!

weekend update!

1. I tried 2 new foods this weekend: brussel sprouts on Friday, and butternut squash soup yesterday.
-Brussel sprouts were good, I sauteed them in olive oil mixed with onion and garlic. Butternut squash soup was a fail. It took FOREVER to make and we didn't like it. I actually had a breakdown in the middle of cooking it because I filled the food processor too much and it started overflowing and I couldn't figure out how to pour it out. Mr. Skinny came to save the day, thank goodness. After all that work we didn't even like it and threw the whole thing out, not to mention the fact that we weren't eating dinner until close to 7pm and I felt like a terrible wife for feeding my husband so late.

2. We put an offer on that house!
-When we went to see it yesterday it was POURING! And I mean a downpour! The roof wasn't leaking, the water heater was replaced in 2005, the central a/c unit in 2003. Water was running away from the house, and the foundation was not cracked, from what we could see. The house was listed at $76,500 and we offered $75,000, and we're just hoping there aren't any more offers on the house that came in over the weekend. This is the only house in our price range that isn't in need of a complete remodel/renovation.

3. I started getting my summer clothes out!
-I'm leaving for sunny Florida is just 6 short days. I have a lot of stuff to do within those days (homework, cooking for Mr. Skinny, homework, pack, homework, you get the drift), so I pulled my summer clothes out and started packing this past weekend. One good thing is that the clothes I bought in summer 2009 when I lost 20 pounds fit me again! I was so excited, and I'm taking wayyy too many clothes, but that's a girl. I don't exactly know the weather, I want some options while I'm down there, I have to take a lot of clothes! On a side note, I'm glad my Momma doesn't take a lot of clothes, I might have to overflow into her suitcase! :)

4. I'm starting to stress.
-School. Sucks. Correction: Senior Seminar Research sucks. Seriously. I'm doing a paper (15-20 pages) on my paternal grandfather. He was a WWI vet, owned a machine shop, born in 1895 (he was 23 years older than my grandma, creepy, but not my call) and seemed to have an interesting life. I need to have 8 billion sources. Okay, more like 24 or something, and I have to know all the sources by March 24th. Yeah, it sucks. I have an outline, but I can't find the answers to any of my questions. I'm really starting to stress over it. I'm worried I won't find the information I need and I won't be able to write my paper, and I won't be able to graduate! It's on my mind constantly and I don't know what to do about it. I want to work on it, I want to write a paper on it, I'm just nervous it's going to suck. Sigh, I just have to keep working. I'm so nervous I'm not going to enjoy Disney World just because I know I have this to come home to. I don't want to ruin my vacation!

Serious, I rarely, rarely stress. But this is such an important paper and I don't know that I can do it, and it's worrying me so bad.

So yeah, I need to keep myself working on homework this week, and I hope I can enjoy my vacation. Any words of advice or motivation?

How do you deal with stress?

Happy Hump Day!

Wow, I can't believe it's Wednesday already! This week is already flying by and I can't believe it. Let's start with last weekend. Well, I had a blast, and I didn't really eat right at all. I didn't splurge like I would have, but I didn't really watch what I ate. We went to Olive Garden, oh yes, my weakness - pasta. I got grilled shrimp caprese, ate all the shrimp, and only about 1/2 of the pasta. I also had two helpings of salad, and breadsticks with alfredo sauce. Not as bad as I used to, but still, pretty bad.

I made dinner for my family, too, and although it was a WW-friendly dinner, I had two helpings, plus some leftovers late at night. I didn't get my GHGs in, and I didn't track anything on SP.

Follow through to Monday, I went to shadow a museum education program at a park, and I left my lunch in the car because I didn't know where to put it, and I ended up not eating lunch. Yeah, I know, not the brightest idea. With all that, I got home late which totally messed up my dinner plans. So what did I make? Pasta. Again, if you forgot in the minute it took you to read, pasta is my weakness. I had two plate-fulls, but I stopped myself from eating the rest and I took it for lunch yesterday. I ended up skipping class last night just so I could come home and run, and I successfully finished Week 6, Day 1, after my half-attempt on Saturday at home.

I am convinced that all this means that the scale will go up this week, and with it is the goal that I had set for myself, to loose 15 lbs. by Christmas. With this week's WI, even if I just maintain, I'm still 13 lbs. from that goal. Yes, it's still possible, but not realistic, especially with Thanksgiving in the mix. I'll keep running, that's for sure. I'm thinking that God got me started running to sort of, not turn off, but lower the baby fever that I've been having. I know that I can't run with a belly, and I realize that, and it's making me wait to have babies until I'm ready. Okay, now that I've said that I feel really selfish. Oh boy. Anywho, I'll keep running, and keep losing weight so that I can have them babies when the time is ready.

It's Hump Day!

I'm pretty happy about this. I did leave work at 11:30 on Monday and I successfully wrote my paper for tomorrow. I had one midterm last night, and it went okay. I have another tomorrow and my professor for the last one decided to do a take home midterm, which I'm kind of bummed about. I was looking forward to being done with midterms and since I don't have any midterms the week after fall break, I'm planning on vegging on the couch all weekend. I know I have some catch up work to do, but that's it.

I'm going to make the hubs his favorite meal - Sicilian meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, and broccoli smothered in butter. WW friendly? Heck no, but it'll be worth it. He's kind of stressed with our money situation right now, and I'm not helping at all. Hubs does the bills, and I feel like I need to take that over, then maybe it will teach me that we don't have money, and that money doesn't grow on trees, and we don't have a hidden savings somewhere. Then hopefully he won't be as stressed. He's having a hard time at work, too. He's such a hard worker, and the people that the company hires are crap. They're older, sliding from job to job to pay their child support and their divorces and new girlfriends. Chuck's waiting for a foreman title, then I think he's going to look elsewhere for a new job. I pray that he can find one, he's not making enough money for what he's doing, and the company is so tiny and is always on the edge of bankruptcy.

With that, I get to work for the day. I'm eating terrible this week, and I am fully expecting that scale to stay where it was last week or go up. Honestly, I might not weight myself this week and just wait until next week. I'm not feeling it this week, and I think that's okay. Maybe next Mon/Tues while I'm home I can get some good workouts in, maybe go for a walk and jog. I think I like that idea better than weighing myself on Friday, I just get depressed when the scale goes up.

Side note: I was talking to the hubs about eating healthier. His great grandfather died of a heart attack, his grandfather has a terrible heart, his father had a heart attack at 47, and I know who's next in this line.. He keeps saying that he works off all the calories, which he does, he's as thin as a rail, but he's not eating healthy. I'm going to try to help him. I mean he eats vegetables at home for dinner, but that's about it. I've been trying to give him grapes or something in his lunch, but he needs something he can grab and go, and I don't really have good ideas about that. Any suggestions?

It's going to be a stressful week.

I gave in. I had to stop at Walmart to get the hubs a new apple juice container for work, and I knew that I had a paper writing evening ahead of me, so I decided to get a Starbucks frappuccino. Not only did I get that, but I also picked up a King Size Reese's PB Cup, oh yes. It was delicious. I'm not tracking it. I will hopefully eat good this week, mostly, but it's going to be a stressful week, so I won't beat myself up for it.

Another Weekend Confession

Why, oh why did I eat so much. I have such a bad food hangover I couldn't even run this morning. I ran for only 5 minutes and I walked for 15, it was terrible. I felt like barfing. So now you ask, what did I do that made me feel like this. I ate, and ate some more, oh and I ate even more. We'll start with Saturday. I was pretty good all day, until we went to my cousin Mike's house, who is that fabulous cook I was telling you all about. And he made homemade spaghetti and meatballs. Oh. My. Gosh. It was delicious. Not to mention the fact that spaghetti, anything Italian really, is my weakness. I had two huge bowls, even though I wasn't hungry when I started eating the first bowl. And I finished it off with a nice slice of ice cream cake for his step-daughter's birthday. Felt like garbage yesterday morning when I woke up.

Sunday: I had my oatmeal for breakfast, we went out to the food court for lunch and I got Chinese. I know, not the healthiest option for me, but I haven't had Chinese in quite a while, so I gave in to the craving. I tracked it and moved on. I got home last night and what does the hubs want to do? Go out to eat. Now my lovely husband runs a very tight budget, and for him to say that he wanted to go out to eat, I'm totally going to take advantage of that situation and go out to eat. Where did we go? Buffalo Wild Wings. We had never been there before, so it was an experience. Especially to go to a bar-like atmosphere about 30 minutes outside of DC when there's a Redskins vs. Eagles game on. I think I went partially deaf last night it was so loud in there. I mean, honestly, I didn't eat as much as I could have, but I definitely did not make healthy choices. I had 3, yes 3, glasses of lemonade. There was only 3 different kinds, I had to try them all! I had fried pickles for an appetizer, and I ordered ribs and chicken tenders for my entree. The hubs got wings, so I had two wings, only ate about 1/2 the appetizer, and about 3 ribs, and 1 chicken finger. I did eat all my fries, however, and they were quite terrible, so I ate them all.

I'm not even calculating the points for this one, I'll try to stay within my dailies for the rest of the week and expect to stay the same or gain this weekend. I'll try to step up my "workouts" for the rest of the week and see what happens. I told Chuck this morning to remind me how I felt today the next time we go out to eat. Ugh. And it's raining. I'm leaving work at 11:30 so that I can go home and do homework, which I know is going to turn into doing the dishes and the laundry before I actually do my homework, and I have a speaker that I need to go to tonight, so I can't even do homework all night. This week is going to suck, flat out - 3 midterms, and two papers to write. The only thing that's going to get me through it is that I'll have next Monday and Tuesday off and I can relax and do nothing.

Maybe I should pick up a coffee habit this week...