Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Lookin forward to 2011

2010 has been a pretty good year for us and I'm excited to make resolutions for the new year. I'll be starting classes come the 3rd of January and they are not going to be as interesting to me as last semesters were but they will knock off a bunch of general credits that I need for my associates. On the 4th of January it will be our 5 year wedding anniversary! This week I am packing and getting everything in order for our trip to Las Vegas on the 6th. I know that I am a basket case the first week or two of school so its best that I get packed before then. I plan on taking some time to get myself all dolled up for this trip :) so I'll probably throw in some low lights, and make my finger and toenails look great!
These past few weeks have been a nice break from school although it would be nicer if I had a car (it should be fixed today sometime) and then I wont be so stranded. Jared will be taking a microbiology class from Weber State this semester, we just paid for it and I really cant wait till the left over amount from Jareds Pell Grant at the ATC comes so that it will pay for it... classes and books are so expensive!
I'll post pics of our trip when we get back, everybody enjoy your new years!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Ah Christmas family pics













So every year its the same, Christmas picture time is a bloody battle that lasts about a half an hour, its full of cursing, crying, begging and finally bribing... no joke....and tonight was no different, although my camera has a cool feature that actually takes pictures when we are smiling all on its own! SO COOL!! Its much better than setting the camera up putting it on a ten second hold and hoping and praying that were all in position and smiling when the pictures start happening! I've been playing with piknic a free photo editing thing on the web and I've got my pictures ready for the 2nd Christmas letter we've ever done so if you want a Christmas letter this year give me your address please! e-mailing it to me is fine (zjanidame@hotmail.com) or you can just post it on here.


School is pretty much over, I have one final project due on Thursday for art, and that's not stressful its just fun for me. I'm thinking that my grades are gonna be pretty darn good... maybe all straight A's or maybe one or 2 A- we'll find out soon, I'm stoked cuz the last time I got straight A's I was in middle school..?


Tomorrow I plan on organizing my filthy unorganized house and that will be delightful, I can't find things and that makes me crazy so were gonna take care of that. Umm a couple days ago I got is a slight car accident so now I'm waiting for insurance to figure out liability and then maybe I can fix my van, its been stressing me out but I have little control at this point so I choose not to think about it.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Just a picture update

Konnor turned 1!










Halloween 2010



I put up new bathroom backsplash













and i know it looks like jared only owns one hoodie, apparently the only time I get a picture of him is when he is wearing his black hoodie.

My not break

As you know I've returned to school this semester, now I have one week left (finals week) and then I get a pleasant break before I return to spring semester for some really tuff classes. So while I have not been posting I have been filling my time with building a playhouse, not going on facebook or blogs, not watching T.V. and homework every night until 11 when Jared arrives home. I'm happy with my "wise" use of my time because I love control and I'm the type of person who can waste a lot of valuable time when I have the remote in my hand or if I feel the need to be current with everyone elses' life thru facebook and blogs. Not that it isn't enjoyable :) it just doesn't help me reach my goals. While I've filled my life with "not fun" I've discovered that there is still not enough hours in the day, it is impossible to do school work when the children are awake, and I can live on less sleep.
Jared and I have our 5 year anniversary coming up and were actually going to do something! The vacation plans have been purchased and the date is set so there is no going back- although at times I've thought I was crazy for spending so much money (it really wasn't that much). Which brings me to the point I felt like blogging about today- getting out of debt. This is more of a written commitment for myself so if money and debt bores you then feel free to quit reading now.
Were not in major debt, our cars are paid off, Jared's student loan is on deferral until he is again done with school and we have never used credit cards. The debt we do have is money owed for car repairs, to my parents for a small amount borrowed for closing costs when we refinanced our home, and two lines of credit. In the end if I were to make a pretty educated guess we probably owe just under 4,000.... (when I type that I think man that is a huge number). Its not all due at once and we plan on getting real people paid off first (its the smaller amount anyway) and then tackling the banks. I've tried approaching the debt in the past with what I would call a band-aid method, pay it off quickly in a giant lump sum with any extra money we seem to scrounge up, but not only is that super hard to do it is super depressing when you can't make those huge goals and life uses the "extra" money you thought you would have. I think my problem is that I keep picturing the future months as completely devoid of money sucking problems, that has yet to occur in my married life so small steps to eliminate our debt is probably a better solution. Things I think are working in my financial planning are adding debt to my budget, every month I have $150 figured in to pay down something. Another thing that seems to help is finding ways to earn extra cash to put toward debt. From the money I've made I've been able to pay for all but $60 of our anniversary so before too long I'll have the complete trip paid for. I think that when schools out I'm gonna find a couple financial books from the library to give me some fresh ideas on how I can help our issues. If you know of any good self help financial books I'm open to suggestions..

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

dollar store fairy princess

Today we went to Honks a dollar and bought this whole costume for $2, and i had fun putting clip in extentions to my little Makayla's hair and she loved the whole thing... were set for Halloween!



Monday, September 20, 2010

I know its been awhile

Makayla turned 3
up at the cabin









jared at bear lake



So I have several minutes and just because I hate feeling so far behind on anything I wanted to update you on how life is. I am in school and I actually stayed in my drawing class that I was so upset over in the last post... it was an emotional night and it didn't help that I had just gotten mastitis again. I absolutely love my drawing class, its pretty simple and i think its just so cool to draw again. I am on a team for the Wasatch Back Ragnar again and I'm gonna train hard to be ready for that, my only goal is to NOT get pregnant before that. Konnor and Makayla are doing good and growing like weeds. Jared has been at his job for a year now and he will finally be getting paid time off come October, its been a long wait. My yard had gone to pot since I've started school but slowly with the rains we get it will green up again. We've been trying to refinance our home for several months now and I believe it will all go through this coming month and we will be at a much smaller interest rate. My little bro will be home from S. Africa in less than 2 weeks now and I am so stoked to see him and have him home again. So ya that's just whats happening and If I get a minute again I'll tell you how its all working out ;)

Monday, July 19, 2010

At an impass

I like to take the path of least resistance and I hate to step on anyone's toes, and just like i hate being committed to someone elses schedule I know that others would hate being committed to mine. So for this reason i think I'm gonna drop the only fun class I've ever signed up for because it requires me to find someone to watch my cute kids, but as cute as my kids are they are also almost 3 and 8 months old and they need attention and someone who wants to watch them. It'll be nice when Jared is able to be home with them and I can have more freedom with my school schedule but I think for now I'd better choose something online to replace the drawing I class. I'm not posting this for volunteers I'm just posting this to get some of my feelings out :( But hey what mom hasn't made sacrifices? Thanks for letting me be a boob.