THANKFUL THURSDAY

This is my first time linking to any party. Ever. I'm not even sure I know how to do it. But I thought there wouldn't be a better blog party for me to chose as my first to link to. Megan is a fellow Kentucky girl that is pregnant with a baby girl named Harper. I have followed Megan's blog for quite a while now. I can't wait for her to have that precious baby girl and to share pics. :)

The Linky Party is called THANKFUL THURSDAY. And I know I have tons of blessings in my life to be thankful for. I almost don't know where to stop on my list. I could go on and on. But I guess I will narrow it down to a few things so I won't bore you to tears.

• MY FAMILY
  I have to start off by putting my family on here. I am SOOO blessed with the husband and boys I have. I have a husband that works hard for us and is very involved in the lives of our boys. And my boys, they are such good young men. All 3 of them get good grades, are well mannered, and never fight. Okay, I might have lied through my teeth on that last one. LOL But 2 out of 3 ain't bad, right? ;) And I'm very proud of my 17 year old for holding down a job. He has saved up the money to buy his own car (it's not new, but it's new to him). And he buys all the things he needs for himself. And he will occasionally come home with a little something for his little brothers.
  
  
  





• My HOME
  My house might not be everything I want it to be, but it's ours. I love where I live and I love that this house has been in my family for so many years. I love the yard we have. It's getting that time of year when we have a weekly fire outside at night. We roast weinies, and make smores. All while we sit and hang out with our kids. Can't get better than that.
  
  





• MY HUSBAND'S JOB.
  This one, you will find me complaining about at times, but I'm really thankful for it. He changed jobs at the first of the year and now works 5 minutes from home. He is still on night shift, but without all the travel time that he had with his old job, it seems like he is home twice as much as he used to be. When I complain about it, it's because he took a pay cut to work there. And with my layoff, it has made things extremely tight around here. But in the end, it's worth it to have him home more. The boys are LOVING having him around as much as he is.
  
  





• 
  
  
  
  
  BEING A SHAM (if only for the time being)
  I am so enjoying this time in my life. I love being home during the day while my kids are at school. I am able to spend time with my husband since he is on night shift. We have been attempting to work on our house and get it the way we want it. We aren't very good at the DIY thing, but we're learning. Baby steps. It's a beginnging. I love that I am home to cook and have a hot meal waiting on my boys when they get home from school. I love being able to sit down at the table and have all of us eat together. Which doesn't get to happen every day since the oldest works, but it happens more now that it ever has!
  
  Okay, I suppose I will end there for this week. Now I will see if I can figure out how to post this on Megan's linky thingy. LOL

UGH!

I had a few posts scheduled, and they've not posted. I'm so annoyed. How do you schedule posts? Did I do something wrong? Is there a book called "Blogging for Dummies"? LOL If so, I need it!

Bad bad blogger

Why do I even have a blog if I'm never going to blog in it? I want to start blogging on a regular basis. Really, I do. I just don't have the gumption to do it.

I always find reasons NOT to blog. Such as: My pics stink. I don't have anything to say. It will take time away from my facebook. LOL You know, important reasons here.

So from now on, I want to challenge myself to posting at least once every 2 weeks. I have tons of projects that I am working on that I could blog about. I just have to remember to take pics. If not pics during the projects, then atleast before & after pics. Taking pics is another thing I'm bad at doing. I can never remember to take pics! But maybe with this blog challenge I've given myself, I will get better about that too. Because no blog post is interesting with out a pic, right? So with that I will leave you with this lovely pic. :)

* Us at a Reds game on the big screen. It has nothing to do with this post. Just wanted to put a pic in here. LOL

Made By Monica

I have finally been putting my Mother's Day gift to work. I've made a few gifts for a couple of my friends that were expecting baby boys. I don't think they turned out too bad considering they're my first things I've made. Now I want to get to work on some cute UK shirts that I've had ideas for. I have tons of things in my head that I want to make, just not enough time to make them. Hopefully that will change soon though. Now that it's summer break I should get a little extra time at home and I won't be so busy.

How sad it it?

How sad is it that I've had this blog for 3 years now and I only have like 30 something posts in it? Boy, talk about lazy!

Mother's Day 2011

This is my Mother's Day gift! I have been wanting one of these for a year now. And my awesome guys got it for me. Well, I ordered it and told them it was my gift. LOL Plus I got a new sewing machine. I plan on making all kinds of crafts with it. I am going to start out by making some teacher's gifts for the end of the year gift. I am gonna print their names out on coasters and a coffee mug. How does that sound? A personalized coaster and mug set? Would you want that if you were a teacher? Anyway, if you would like to read more about the silhouette, go here. Now, I'm off to get my craft on!

Things I've learned over the past 7 weeks.

Some of the things I've learned are:

*If you and your husband are both laid off from work, its a guarantee that your kids WILL grow 2 inches and gain 10 pounds. Therefore making you spend money you don't have on new clothes.

*The cheapo laundry softening crystals are awesome. Really, they are. Try the new purex softening crystals in the purple bottle. They only cost $4 and the smell stays with your clothes for days.

*Couponing is really time consuming. But I guess if you don't have a job, you have the time for it. LOL

*My oldest got his first job. Did you know that working 4 hours a day at McDonalds makes you too tired to take out the trash? Yeah, I didn't fall for it either.

*I have the best family and friends in the world. They really are caring and generous even when you don't /want/ them to be.

*And most importantly, I've learned that my family can live on wayyyy less than I thought it could. And since my hubs is now back to work, we will have an emergency fund started by this time next week!!

My hubs was working 80 miles (one way) away from home. The price of gas was killing us. Not to mention how tiring it was on him to drive that far and then work 10-12 hours a day. So he went job hunting closer to home. Luckily, he found one about 5 minutes from our house. He got hired to be the night shift manager. The company didn't have a night shift at the time (end of FEB) but they were starting one the first part of March. Which was excellent timing (so we thought). He put in his 2 week notice with his job. Which would have meant we wouldn't be without a paycheck. Well...... At the end of his 2 weeks, he finds out that permits weren't in for the job he was supposed to start. So he called his other job and told them he could work 2 more weeks. They said that was great and to come back to work on Monday (this was on a Thursday). So on Friday he called his job to see which job site he was supposed to show up at. They told him they didn't really have anywhere to put him so he could just go ahead and sign up for unemployment benefits. So, he does just that. Well, we get a letter saying he quit his job voluntarily so he wasn't eligible for benefits. UGH! But then I was talking to a friend of mine that works for the Unemployment office and he tells us that if they told him to come back to work and then didn't have work for him (AND TOLD HIM TO SIGN UP) then he would be eligible. So hubs had to contest the claim or something like that. My wording might be off here. lol.

Anyway, since the government is all about promptness *sarcasm* we have waited and waited on the phone conference from them to let us know if he is being awarded his UE insurance benefits or not. We finally got a letter saying it will be next Monday when they call. So please keep your fingers crossed that he will get it. He has since started his new job. He loves it. And we love him being 5 minutes from home. We get to see him so much more than when he drove the 2 hour commute (one way!) every day! If they award him his UEI, he will get the money he would have gotten from the time he signed up for it until the day he started his new job. Let me just tell you, WE NEED THAT MONEY! We have been living on so little money. We've only paid the bills we had to pay. I think I'm probably one payment away from my car being re-poed. :( But he will be getting his first pay check on Thursday, so I will take care of that!

You know, my husband has worked for years and years and paid for his unemployment insurance. So I feel like he should get it. It was circumstances beyond him that kept the new job from being ready on the day he should have been able to start it. Please just say a little prayer that it will work out in our favor next Monday. We really really need it to.