Saturday, June 21, 2008

Day 160 and Right Between the Eyes

Well, first of all! Day 160! Can you believe I've been doing this for 160 days?! WOW!

Have you ever noticed how when you're feeling down or depressed about something that sometimes you'll read or see something that just hits you right between the eyes or right in the heart? Today, I was reading my daily devotional before I left for my class in Enid. I also went ahead and read tomorrow's since I don't always do good at doing the devotion on Sunday morning. Tomorrow's devotion was about not griping. At the bottom of the page, there was this quote: "When you feel like griping, start counting your blessings". I loved that! I know, it's hard to do, but it truly does help. Then the class that I took today covered some of the stuff that was covered a few weeks ago in the Conscious Discipline class that I took. One of the things that Dr. Bailey says is "What you focus on, you get more of". She's talking about the behavior of the children, but it's true in all aspects of life. When we're focused on the negative, that's what we see and that's what we get. When we focus on the positive, we get better results.

I have had a nice day today. The class was fun and full of great information and the 4 hours just flew by! Each participant got a bag of 5 hardback children's books and then I won one of the door prizes with 4 more books in it. If you know me, you know I love books so I was in HEAVEN!

Friday, June 20, 2008

Day 159 and Pampering Myself

Well, I promised to look for some ways to spend time on myself. As I've mentioned before, I'm a huge fun of Flylady. On her website, she has Pamper Missions listed. If you go to her website, go to the bottom of the page and click on "Dana's Weekly Pamper Mission". That will take you to a page with an idea for this week and a link to several more ideas. This week's suggestion is to have fresh flowers out, either a bouquet or a single flower. I love fresh flowers and I keep telling myself I'm going to start getting them to put in my house and I never spend the money to do it. However, every Sunday when I'm going to and from church, there are lots or pretty wildflowers along the road, I could stop and pick a few of those.

Other ideas listed included getting your eyebrows waxed (that actually doesn't sound all that relaxing to me, LOL), manicures and pedicures, fixing yourself a cup of herbal tea, re-read old cards or letters from special people and there are hundreds more listed there-go check them out!

As for me, tomorrow, I'm going to another child care training and then I'm going out for a late lunch with my friends! Can't wait!

Happy Friday!

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Day 158 and Fighting Temptation

Wow, it's so darn easy to slip back into those old bad habits. Last night, I was exhausted and my upper back/neck were both hurting and I really didn't want to cook. Tom & I talked about supper and we were both so tempted to go out to eat. I had planned on fried bologna, egg, and cheese sandwiches. When I mentioned that, Tom's eyes lit up so that's what we had. Tom said it was better than anything we could have got anywhere else. I think he was just being nice, but they were pretty darn good. I felt very proud of us for fighting off that temptation and not giving in to it.

I walked to the post office this morning with the kids to mail those other two credit card payments. These are the two that I wanted to send certified mail with return receipt. Holy smokes! It cost $5.32 each including the stamps. I'd already put stamps on them so it was $9.80 total to mail them. Yikes! I knew it was pretty expensive but it'd been a while since I'd sent anything that way and I'd forgotten how expensive. That's how Dave Ramsey suggests you mail all your correspondence with those credit card companies. Can you imagine? That would be over $30 a month just on postage and fees.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Day 157 and Looking for Positives

Ok, it's time to try to get myself out of this funk! So, here's some positives:

1. I got a 4.0 for the spring semester through the OU College of Liberal Studies and made President's Honor Roll again. With everything on my plate, I'm proud of myself for doing so well.

2. Once I send off these two checks I have here to mail, our total debt paid off will be up to around $5800! I think that's pretty awesome.

3. Even though we had all of those car repairs in the last several weeks, we had the money in the EF to pay for them and didn't have to put off or get behind on other bills.

4. Tom was able to sell back some vacation hours to help get our EF built back up, and I was able to sell a couple of extra things to help, too.

5. Even though I have an opening in my child care, I've been getting drop-ins quite frequently which has helped a lot!

6. Running my own business, while hard, is very rewarding and it makes me feel happy and blessed to be able to do it.

7. I have wonderful supportive friends and family who are always there for me when I need them.

8. I am married to the most wonderful man on Earth and he loves me and supports me for who and how I am, and believe me, sometimes that person is NOT very nice!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Day 156 and the blahs

I've got a serious case of the blahs today and can't think of a thing to write about! It was a tough day with the kids. Dang full moon and stormy morning! Blah! Did I mention I have the blahs? LOL! Hope everyone else's day was at least slightly less crazy than mine.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Day 155 and some updates and needing some prayers

I am very discouraged and upset today. I don't want to post the details on the blog, but I would like to ask for prayers.

An emergency fund update: Tom was able to sell back some vacation hours on Friday and I sold a couple of booster seats that I don't use anymore We added the money to the baby EF. That brings it back up to $668. That feels much better! Helps that security gland inside me! LOL!

A debt update: I paid $150 towards credit cards when Tom got paid last Friday which brings our total paid off up to $5726.57!!!
I will be paying $100 towards a couple of more credit cards this week when I get paid from some families. One of the checks I sent in last month still hasn't cleared, the other one finally did. So when I send those payments, I will be sending them certified mail/return receipt so that I'll know if and when they got them.

Guess what I did Friday night? I officially bought my first Christmas present for this year! I want to get started early and get it done so I'm not stressing out so much at the last minute.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Day 154 and I am so sick of hearing this!

Is anyone else tired of hearing all those comparisons, like a gallon of Starbucks coffee would be $53 a gallon, or a gallon of (individual) bottles of water would be $16, etc.? Really, who cares? We're not using those to fill our tank and I am not at all interested in the comparisons. However, there is one valid point to it. If you're having trouble with the high gas prices, it is time to cut back on those kinds of extras to pay for that gas. Examine the ways in your budget that you can cut back in order to compensate for the gas. Can you make more meals from scratch? Can you cut back on eating out? What about those extras you buy at the grocery store, like pop? Those could go, they are not necessities (although sometimes getting that Diet Dr. Pepper sure FEELS like a necessity! LOL).

Some of the ideas shared with me by a friend for spending a little time on myself (thanks Christina!) include: take a leisurely walk with my husband, read a book instead of watching TV, get a pedicure, and long hot soaks in the tub. One that I've already been doing is meditation. I got the idea from the Finding Your Smile Again book. In it, Jeff lists three ways to meditate. He also has an article about it on his website. If you go to his website (Explorations Early Learning linked at the bottom of the blog page) and click on the tab labeled "resources" on the left, then "articles", then "provider articles", you'll get to a page that has a bunch of articles on it. About halfway down the list, there is one called "Give Meditation a Try: Three Techniques". I highly recommend checking it out. Meanwhile, I'll keep looking for and trying to think of more ideas.