Our Home

I can't believe in one month, it'll be a year that we moved into our place. Our OWN place.

I tell you though, it was some work. Many weeks of cleaning up and getting things ready to move in. Signing contracts and watching our money fly out the window with things like home refinance rates, homeowners insurance, deposits .. WOW! Never even thought of all of that when it came down to it all. But I did like buying the many MANY things that went along with the house. ;) Who doesn't like shopping? But the biggest down fall? Try doing this with three 6 year olds and a newborn. *sigh* It was a stressful time for us all especially in this Texas heat.


Little J stretching his legs. | Crashing after a long day of cleaning.

But in the end, it was all worth it! We now have a place to do as we please. The biggest pro of it all, and my husband loves this part, is the fact we have a yard. A YARD! And cookouts are our most favorite thing. What? Some friends are coming over and we're going to crank up the grill and just hang out? Why yes we are! Of course you cannot forget the birthday parties!

I could go on about all the good, even throw in some bad, but the most wonderful part about OUR home is that everyone finally got the space that was needed. No more being cramped in an itty bitty apartment. So lucky to have a place where the kids can grow up and we can finally sleep easy.

Rain!!

Over the summer, here in Houston, we were breaking records of consecutive days in the triple digits. Along with the insane temperatures we also were in the middle of a drought. A given right?

Well finally MONTHS later, we're starting to see strange things falling from the sky on a regular basis. Oh wait! That's RAIN!! It rained a good portion of Christmas weekend and we've seen off and on showers, but this is finally icing on the cake.


You like my new pond? :)

Grocery Shopping

So the beginning of the month I go out and buy my months worth of food. Although I would looove to be one of those people who can use coupons to get $1000 worth of food for like $100, I sadly am not. I do know that the price of food had to have gone up because my monthly "allowance" of food of 450 has gotten me NOTHING! I usually get the store brand/off brand vs the Nabisco, Pillsbury, etc. name brand only because a lot of the time I can get a whole lot more. But still, some days I can maximize my savings that way and I guess this month was just not my lucky month. I blame it on the holidays.

While surfing Pinterest, I found a pin talking about a "family's guide to $250/month to groceries" and HAD to check it out. Come to find out it was an E-Book that you can get for free if you post it in your blog.

I am willing to try anything at this point. Anything that can get my monthly budget to stretch the entire month.

You should too! The opportunity to spend LESS in the grocery store cannot pass ANYONE by!

006. Bleh

Well I don't know what is in the air, but since the 4th a few people in my family have been battling some sinus/allergy issues. Well I guess with that, that tells you what's in the air. haha And it has not been fun. My dad was supposed to come over to do some things on our house, the week before the 4th and couldn't because he was sick. He ended up coming ON the 4th and I was able to take him to Lowes and help him out, while he in turn did some things for me.

When we got home from fireworks that night, it kind of scared me because the baby was sounding congested and was coughing. To me, for a barely 3 month old to be coughing, doesn't settle right. I tried to suck up the nasty-ness in his nose, and noticed that his coughing was less when I did that. And as the days went on he seemed to be getting better and I was relieved. I called one of the nurses at the doctor's office and she suggest "Little Noses" (a saline solution) and suck it up with that. But that babies his age is normal for congestion. BUT then I started getting sick. I got that scratchy feeling at the back of my throat, my eyes were itchy & watery, and was sneezing to no end. Even my ears were itchy! So for the last of the week I spent it with my bff Benadryl. I can say I'm not 100% but I'm way better than I was.

While battling the allergies, I've had to deal with the agony that is "renting-to-own". As I've mentioned before, we moved not to long ago. We put down a good chunk for a down payment, and are paying rent up til the place is paid off. Should be about 5 years or less. Upon purchasing the place, we were given a 60-day guarantee on things like plumbing, a/c, roof .. things like that. But anything else was on an "as-is" basis.

WELL, we've had the A/C people come out twice, with word from the owner, and our A/C STILL isn't fixed properly. They come out, we get excited and then hours later something else is wrong. They came out Friday, and when I turned it off after being satisfied with the outcome, the inside fan motor was still going. After calling the owner & the A/C people and getting no answer I had to shut it off by the breaker box. I've been calling the owner since Friday. I've left messages, each with a more irritated tone added to it, and have not heard anything back. I got ahold of Tony, the A/C guy, on Monday and he was able to guide me over the phone about how to turn the fan motor off (he apparently had left the switch by the actual fan motor "on" instead of "auto") But at about 1 or 2 in the morning it starts blowing warm air, instead of cold air. So first thing Tuesday morning I was back calling Tony & the owner. Now it's Wednesday, and Tony says he can't get ahold of the owner. It's really quite irritating. Irritating that no one can get ahold of this guy and the guarantee is closing in. Oh but wait .. we did get ahold of the guy. How you ask? By calling from another number. Yeah! So apparently he's avoiding me. Not cool I tell you. Not cool.

003. *SIGH*

A couple of nights ago, my brother in law's friend came over to look at our air conditioner.

Ever since we moved into our trailer, running the a/c alone was just unbearable. It wasn't blowing hard enough to cool the place down. And well, we're in Texas so you know the heat is insane. We knew something was wrong with it because at night you could freeze your tush off, but once the sun came up you were sweating bullets. We tried everything to putting foil on the windows, putting blankets in between the window and curtain to darken the room. Nothing was working. My dad was so generous in "donating" one of his big window units. Once that was installed in the living room, it felt amazing.

Well, brother in law's friend got it working to where you could put your hand, mid-wall and feel the blowing of the a/c. I was so excited. But twice the a/c decided to freeze up and shut down. So yesterday we were relying on that one window unit to cool us down. 3 kids, 3 adults & a baby .. heh not likely.

There was always talk of buying 2 more units, one to go in our bedroom and the other in the boys' room. Their room is right in front so the sun heats it up like no other. But like I said .. all talk. Until finally when we spent not even 24hrs with the main a/c off, R had sent me to Wal-Mart to buy a little a/c for our room. (the kids spend most of their days in the living room we figured to hold off a couple of weeks to get their unit).

Talk.About.Heaven! It felt so great last night. I am so glad that my husband has been supportive through all this. If it would have been years ago, he would be saying that we could live without a/c blah blah blah .. but now I think he's gotten used to the fact a cool house, is a happy house.

Although, I still think it lit a fire under his booty when I told him the kids and I were going to be sleeping in the living room last night, because of the heat. He knew what he needed to do. haha