Pinching Pennies

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Happy Monday!  What a busy weekend we had!  My husband had to work on Saturday and on weeks where he has to work six days, it seems we never get that relaxed down time that we truly need.  We did have a beautiful weekend, nonetheless that I will recap for you later.

But I wanted to write one more blog post dedicated to finance and budget before I let go of this topic until anyone else has questions/comments that I can answer.  So with that....

Let's talk about pinching pennies.  This is written to be informative for you and in hopes that you will share tips with me as well.  Let's help each other out, shall we?

First, let's revisit the car.  I have mentioned it several times on here about the regret of taking on 10K in debt just to save money on gas.  We were dumb.  Don't do what we did.  But, to make any light out of a really dark decision, we are saving tons of money on gas.  Now that I am not working, I never really go anywhere.  Or anywhere out of a ten mile radius.  I can fill up my tank and run on it for a couple of weeks.  That alone, is a huge savings.  It has taken our gas budget from $600 to $400 and now down to about $300 a month.  Huge.  I plan outings that are super close to home.  We go on walks when we're bored.  I find things to do at home or in our neighborhood to entertain us.  Easy.

Coffee.  It's no secret that I am a die-hard fan of Dunkin Donuts coffee.  Medium, iced, cream and sugar.  That is my drink of choice.  But, at $2.25 a day, it just wasn't worth it to me. I mean, I love it-really, really love it- but I love paying off debt more.  So I have been (gasp!) brewing my own coffee at home.  It took a long while to find a brand that I could handle, and that didn't tear up my ever so finicky tummy, but I have found it and I really enjoy it.  AND, this weekend, I learned that I can take the leftover coffee from my morning brew and make a wonderful iced coffee in the afternoon.  Win!  It's Papa Nicholas brand, for any of  you wondering.  And I can't even tell you what it costs, because I'm not sure, but I do know that it was on the cheaper end--at it's way less than $2.25 a day.  As a side note, I did have a Keurig, but it died.  Which is fine cause the K-Cups are more than I want to budget for coffee.  End of the side note.

Laundry Detergent.  That stuff is not cheap.  I love the smell of Tide for Cold Water--but the price is just stupid.  I couldn't see paying that much for just the scent.  So now, I buy my detergent at the Dollar Tree.  It's a dollar store (and I'm sure it's nation wide) and they have detergent that is pretty decent.  It smells good, cleans our clothes, and is only $1.  Serves it purpose.  I also buy dryer sheets at Dollar Tree as well....and any other cleaner that we may need.  It's $1!  You can't go wrong!  Now, if it didn't do it's job--I wouldn't think it was a good place to pinch pennies.  But it does, so I do.  And, pinterest has recipes for homemade laundry soap that is equally as cheap, but it makes like 5 gallons at a time and I have zero space to store 5 gallons of detergent.

Aldi.  I used to despise Aldi.  I remember shopping there with my parents when I was little and I HATED it. I felt poor.  I didn't like it.  But you know what, my parents lived on one income and had a house and three kids.  We WERE poor!  My dad was a small business owner, in a small town.  He worked his behind off to provide for us.  --stay on track--  Aldi has come a long way since my days of despise.  I now do 98% of our food shopping there.  You save so much money!  I refuse to do extreme couponing.  I don't have the time, attention span or storage space to even begin that mess.  We eat pretty darned well each week for about $100 or less in groceries.  I have made recipes from pinterest using Aldi ingredients and they taste wonderful!  I can share those if you are interested.  There have been a few items from Aldi that I deem not acceptable and those are:  mac n cheese, coffee, and chicken nuggets.  So I still do use the "regular" grocery store for those items.

Yard Sales.  Let's face it, I'm a girl and I like to shop.  I hate feeling "broke" when we're not broke.  We're living on a budget and paying off debt.  But I still want to shop!  So I have dived back into yard sale shopping--occasionally.  It's just fun to get something new--and at a great price.  I don't go all the time, and you won't find me waiting on one to open at 6 a.m.  But we will venture out in the later morning if we have nothing to do and are up and moving.  This past weekend, I got an adorable basket, a pretty good sized one too, for K's room.  It now holds her current stuffed animal loves.  And, it was $1.  We also scored a stacked plastic bin thing in pink and purple for her room.  More organization for her mess of a toy box.  It was $3.  And then my big item, that was probably a dumb move, but maybe not....a desk. It's white and super cute and it was only $5.  Now, currently, we have zero room for it, so it's in the garage.  But my neighbor was into refinishing furniture before downsizing and moving in to an apartment, so I plan to pick her brain about painting it a bright pink and later putting it into Kinley's big girl room.  My next yard sale find, will be a chair to go with it that I can paint green.  I am super excited about it.  So you see, my shopping itch has been scratched and we spent $9.  Score.

Budget Billing.  I did this more for my spreadsheet planning than anything, but what the heck.  It keeps our gas bill at a steady $34 a month, every month.  No surprises.  You can set this up on (most?) utility bills.  I was able to do this online.  I just checked the box for "budget billing" and it estimated what our new bill would be, right there on the spot.  So now, I know that every month, I need to budget for that much for our gas utility.

Craigslist.  This should have gone after yard sales, I guess.  But I also do a lot of shopping on Craigslist.  I recently bought Kinley a new bedding set for $15.  It's a princess theme, which I don't like, but it's $15--regularly $50.  The lady bought it for her daughter, in hopes that she would start sleeping in her own bed, and it flopped.  So she just wants to get rid of it.  It's never been slept on.  So, Craigslist is not only a place to make money, but to find steals too.

Free Days.  For our daily outings, I scour the internet to find free events.  Kinley needs stimulated, or she makes me crazy.  Sitting at home day after day is not an option.  For me or her, really.  So I plan things out on a printed calendar (just used MS Word to print one) and fill it up with as much as I can.  The only "pay for" summer activity is her dance lessons on Tuesdays.  Other than that, it's free stuff.  We are super fortunate to live in an area with amazing park districts.  Which is why we stay where we are...  The park districts have so much to offer, and mostly, things that are free.  On Wednesdays, we are doing "Story time in the park" from 10-11.  Each week it's at a new park in the area.  They will be reading a story, doing a nature talk and discussing local wildlife, etc.  And after, we can play in the park or have a picnic lunch.
We also have a free splash park in our town.  Kinley loves the splash park!  The library often hosts a free story time, or we just go to sit and read and do puzzles.  Kage loves to check out puzzles and books to take home.  So if there are no free events for the day, I let her go to the library.
You can also just go on a nature walk.  Have your little one look for different leaves, or rocks.  On Friday, we went looking for rocks and pinecones and then brought them home to paint.  She had a blast!

Meal Planning.  We initially tried the e-meals program.  It was a great starting point for us, with both of us working.  It planned the meals, shopping list, recipes, everything.  We did the 3 month plan and I feel that we got our money's worth.  But with the start of pinterest and finding easy recipes there, I learned that doing on our own was just as easy.  I now plan our meals, staying on the cheaper to make recipes, for the full week and then some.  Then I make my complete list and head to Aldi.  Like I have said before, I am able to feed our family of three for $100 or less each week.  You just have to take the time to plan. We now have favorite meals that we cook almost weekly, so it's a lot easier than dreaming up new, fancy recipes all of the time.  We're living on a budget, we eat simple, but good.  We'll save the fancy stuff for when we're debt free.  Again, I will share some of my recipes if you are interested.

Hair-cuts and products.  This one was hard for me.  I was always accustomed to using salon products.  I paid $25 a bottle for shampoo and conditioner, and my hair products would run around $15-$20 each.  I spent good money on my hair.  Haircuts/styles would run me about $160 every 6-8 weeks.  Yikes.  Thinking about that now, I feel dumb.  Since learning to "live like no one else," I have learned that cheap inexpensive products are really, just as good.  I now use the Suave Professionals line of shampoo and conditioner and honestly, can't tell a difference.  I'm not joking.  I can not tell the difference from this and my Biolage.  I can't even tell you how dumb I feel after spending God knows how much for that expensive stuff.  Suave Professionals.  Love it.  And, it's like $2 for a big bottle.  Also, my products.  I have stupid hair.  If I don't do anything to it, it's the biggest afro ever.  I wrote a post about it, like forever ago, so you know that I can't go sans product.  I usually go curly, since I'm now a lazy SAHM.  Not saying that SAHMs are lazy....but this one can be!  So I need curling product.  My old stuff was $19 a tube.  Small tube.  Now, I use Garnier stuff.  It's like $4 and does almost the same job.  When/If I flat iron my hair, I go sans product.  Now, I know that this may be bad, but it's what I do now.  I do have some left over Chi product that I sometimes put in it before I dry my hair, but mostly, I just dry and iron.  And, I scored a new flat iron (my Chi died) for $19 (this thing was regularly over $150) on one of the "one sale a day" sites!  My haircuts?  Well, I decided that since I couldn't afford the $160 stylist, that I would just let it grow.  Not such a good idea.  It got crazy unruly.  So I held my breathe, and walked into a Great Clips.  Twenty minutes later, I walked out unstyled but trimmed.  And with tip, I paid $16.  I'm sure that she would have styled it, but it would have cost me more and I really didn't mind just putting it into a ponytail for the remainder of my day.  The next day, I styled it and loved the cut!

Energy Savers.  Luckily, we don't have the pay for water in our apartment.  One less bill, right?  But to make a savings on everyday chores, I always have our dishwasher on the "no heat" dry cycle.  It probably doesn't save much...but some.
And our washer, washes all clothes in cold water.  And I swear, I don't notice a difference.  Our clothes don't stink.  The only exception to this, is our bed sheets.

Those are just a few of the things that I focus on to pinch pennies each month.  They really aren't much, but it's a start.  I am working to add to this list and find more ways to start saving even more each month.  Our current "cost of living" is about $3530.00.  That's what it costs to run our family of three each month.  I know this because of our budget.  So I know that we need to make as much over that as we can to put toward debt repayment.  Or, my goal is to drop that number as much as I can by pinching pennies wherever possible and increase our income each month.  Do you run your family on less?  Can you pass along any good budget saving tips?

Choppity, Cut, Cut

Today is my hair day!  I'm so excited.  It desperately needs cut.  I never thought I would get to the point of looking forward to a haircut after the great hair catastrophe of my life.  But, somehow, I do again.  I was introduced to a new stylist by my bestie and she crafted my ruined hair into something not so ruined. 

And I'm going back again to get one step closer to kissing that catastrophe good-bye.  You see, the whack job at Ulta (in Wheaton, IL) that ruined my hair did such a fine job at ruining my hair, that I'm now two cuts post-catastrophe and it's still not fully repaired.  If the new stylist wanted to repair it fully, I probably would have had a pixie.  Which my bestie can pull off....but I can not.

And let's not even mention the fact that I was a lard-o on my wedding day.  Obviously, I did not care that I looked like the Michelin man that day.  Whatever.  I still don't care.  I lost it all after the wedding and still keep it off today.  That's what counts.

So back to the story, if my hair would have been fixed in one appointment, it would have been chopped to that length.  I probably would have had a heart attack and died to have to go from my super long hair to that in one week, so we opted to do it slowly.  And today, should be the end of repairs and the beginning of growing out evenly again.  I doubt that my hair will ever be as long as it once was.  My patience isn't what it used to be for things like hair.  But I'm okay with that.

The new stylist is great with color and gave me a super subtle blonde highlight in the front and this time, I think I want more blonde.  But we'll see.  I'm one of those girls that sits in the chair and says "do what you want."  (And go figure that the one time I brought pictures of exactly what I wanted, I got butchered.)

So this is my hair now:

Later, I'll take one and post it of the new style.  Wish me luck!

And can you believe that I woke up this morning to find that I am out -OUT- of K cups and have zero coffee.  Ugh.  Yeah...I know.  Kage can't get up soon enough today so that we can go to Dunkin'.  Today is her day care day, so I get to drop her off en route to the salon. 

We went to the gym last night.  Together.  We put K in the day care there.  She did great.  I felt like a fish out of water.  I did like 20 minutes on the elliptical. But on the quick start mode...so it was pretty easy with little resistance.  But it was my first time back.....so I was being easy on myself.  And then we went and wandered around and tried some different machines.  I'm guessing that I didn't do enough because I'm not sore.  At all. 

We were upstairs doing some weight machines when one of the day care workers came to find us to tell us that Kage was poopy.  So, I call that workout "saved by the poopy."  I was tired and ready to go home but didn't want to admit it.  Thank you, Kinley.  I got an hour in.  And will go back again today.  Slowly but surely.  I think I may have to just hire a trainer for one or two sessions just to get a program started because that place is so big that I just feel overwhelmed by all of the options.

Helping vacuum

For some reason, Blogger hates me and won't accept my
rotated pictures.  So just turn your head accordingly. She was
trying on her new panties.  And two seconds later, she peed
in her panties in that very spot.  Nice.  The panties were washed
and put in the drawer for a much later date.

Happy Friday and have a safe Memorial Day!

Weekend Recap

What a crazy weekend!  We were on the go the whole time, or it felt like it anyway.

My husband's brother and his girlfriend (the brother's girlfriend, not my husbands....cause that would be weird) came up early Saturday morning and are staying with us through tomorrow (Monday) afternoon (I'm writing this super late Sunday night {super late meaning 10:30 p.m.} and not sure when I'll get it finished and published).  Whew, that was a lot of explaining....and a lot of ( ). 

Moving onward.

Saturday morning we went to a local health fair where Mike Ventrella and his mother, Maria, from Biggest Loser season 9, were doing a meet and greet.  We also got to meet Jerry and Stella and I got to have a pretty lengthy conversation with Jerry.  It made my day.  That guy is amazing!  He told me some "secrets" about the Ranch and just talked to me like we were old friends.  Super cool guy.

After our "brush with celebrities," I had a hair appointment at the cucumber water salon, remember that place? 

On Friday evening, I decided to talk with one of their stylists while I was there for my eyebrow wax design.  She was shocked at the cut that Ulta (in Wheaton) left me with....it was BAD.  She walked me through step by step of what she thought she could do to help me fix the issues....so I booked with her for Saturday afternoon.

My brother in law and his girlfriend came along and had massages done while my hair was fixed, or as fixed as it could get after the severe butcher job (from Ulta in Wheaton).

And yes, this time, I had the cucumber water.  And it was very.......cucumber-y.  Refreshing, yes.  But very cucumber-y.

So now, my hair is fixed to the best of her ability and I'm just going to have to keep my trims at every 8 weeks until we can get it to where it should have been.  So frustrating.

She really didn't have to take much length off...just fix the half inch difference.  And the layers....oh the layers....they were/are a wreck.

We spent the rest of our weekend doing touristy stuff since we had the out-of-towners with us.  You know, going to the food places that you just really don't visit unless you have friends/family in....like Giordano's.  We love the pizza, but it's just not somewhere we go by ourselves.  Maybe we should start, cause it is great pizza.  There are just so many pizza places to choose from, I guess.

This is a picture of us from Giordano's and I swear it reminds me of a picture of The Farmer in the Dell.  If "Dell" meant wife or something. But it doesn't.  I just looked it up, it means "small wooded valley" and well, I'm not that.  But if I were....we could call  this picture "The Farmer in the Dell."  Whatever.  Don't you get that vibe from this picture?

On Sunday, we went to Church ABC and the brother-in-law and the girlfriend came with us.  She loved it, the brother-in-law had no opinion.  Typical.  I enjoyed it and my husband enjoyed it.  And Kinley did great in the nursery again.  The ladies that were watching her said "she's going to be walking at any second."  And I know this.  I'm in denial.  I'm not ready yet.  Ugh.  And her starting day care this week means that I could quite possibly miss the first walking day.  She's taken a few steps here and there but I don't want to miss that day that she decides that it's time to be a walker.  That's hard.

It has been exhausting but fun. 

So not ready to start this new week.  School starts in full swing and I have had to pick up another class (ugh!) so now I'm gone three days a week.  Not happy about that one bit.

I'm tired, so until tomorrow....

Never thought I'd say this...

Ummmm, dare I say?

I'll deny it later, I'm sure.  But for today....right now....

I like my hair.  Maybe not LOVE, but it's not killing me today.  And I feel a little bit pretty.

It didn't grow back

I almost wished that I would wake up this morning and it would have all been a bad dream. I wished that I would wake up in the puddle of my hair on my pillow.  But I didn't.  It wasn't a bad dream.  It's reality.

Ugh.

So many of you recommended calling the salon and we did do that.  My husband did, actually.  I was too chicken.  I know.  Pathetic.  But he's a meanie when it comes to things like that....and where I would normally tuck my tail and go running in tears, he doesn't back down and almost always "wins."  As if there is a chance to consider any part of this situation a "win."

Calling the salon manager was a joke.  The salon manager was the one that did the hair cut botch job.  So of course when he called her, she swore up and down that the style she gave me was just like the pictures.  Ummm, no.  She also said that my color, was the "agreed upon" natural color.  Ummm, no.  She said there was "nothing that she could do" and that "they don't give refunds" so we he demanded to speak to her boss.  She claimed that she "didn't know the number" and would have to call him back later with it.  Seriously, lady?!  Ugh.  I'm sitting next to Richie mouthing off everything that I wanted him to say, that I didn't have the guts to say myself.  He ignored my arms flailing and my "WTheck" gestures as I heard her trying to sound innocent.  Oh, I was mad. 

Over an hour later, she called him with the number.  (I think she waiting long enough so that the customer service line would be closed, and it was.)  This morning, after waking up and and running my hands through my lack of hair, I was ready to call.  And I did.  And it did no good.  The customer service rep said that because it was a salon service, I would have to speak to the district manager.  And they are "very busy" and may need time to call me back because they manage ten stores and yadda yadda yadda.    Not very good at the customer service there at Ulta.  *shakes head*

I'm still waiting for that call back.  I have a feeling I'll be waiting a while.  I want my money back.  I need my money back.
We so can't afford to get this color corrected and I'll be damned if I'm going to go back to her for it to be corrected. (as I'm sure they'll offer)  I need the style fixed and the color corrected.  End of story.

**And just now, I got the call.  They are refunding me for the style.  Ugh, I still don't feel satisfied.  And I don't feel satisfied because they are saying that I *wanted this style and color* and was fully aware of how it would look.  GRRRR. 

Let it go, let it go.

Tonight is our first Dave Ramsey financial course.  To say that I'm excited would be an understatement.  I'm sure that Dave Ramsey doesn't agree with high dollar hair cuts anyway.

Cried all day long!

I have a crying headache.  They are the worst kind.  I'm not usually a big crier, not usually.  But today, I made up for lost time.

My intentions for today were to get up at 4:30 and act like it was a school day.  I wanted to wake up, get myself ready, get Kinley ready for day care, etc  Even though I don't start till next week, this week is my "dry run" week.  Well, all was good with the intentions...until Kinley got me up at 4:00 to nurse, I went back to bed at 4:30 to just have some pillow talk with the husband and then the next thing I know, it's 6:30.  Crap.  I fell asleep.

So I hurriedly jumped into the shower and pretended that it was 4:30.  Oh well.

Kinley got up at 7 and we started our day.  I knew that I had to be out of the house no later than 10:45 so that I had time to stop and make a copy of my license for her day care lady (I'll just call her D, sounds so much better than "day care lady".....reminds me of "lunch lady" and that's not a very nice title). 

I made her lunch and packed it into little containers.  I packaged up two snacks and her bottled water, her sippy cup and extra outfit.  Cleaned out the diaper bag, because it holds all things baby and all things non-baby (coupons, receipts, wrappers, ummmm, trash).  I couldn't let her see my unorganized diaper bag.  How embarrassing.  So I cleaned that out and then printed out the little Kinley forms that I made to explain her day at home so far and what to expect for the rest of the afternoon.  Yes, I made "Kinley's Day" forms.  With her picture on them and a cute font.  Sue me.

Only five minutes late, we were out of the house.  I got my license copied at the cute little copy shop down the road (I love that place, the little old man owner is so stinkin' cute.  Well, not really, but kinda.  And his name is Sterling.  Love it.) and on to day care we went.  She lives only fifteen minutes from us, so it's a short drive. 

I used our time in the car to explain to Kinley that mommy was going to be going to school and she would be going to play with "D" and her two boys "J" and "M" and that she would have so much fun and that mommy would always come back.  By this point in the story, I'm sobbing and my mascara is running and I'm spending more time turned around looking at her to make sure she's fine with everything, instead of paying attention to the road.  (Ummmm, it's not texters that are the problem, it's moms like me.)  She just kept looking at me like "mommy, why are you crying?!"  She obviously didn't care at all about what was going to happen.  She had no clue.  But I did.  And I cried.  Hard.  And I had her Winnie the Pooh doll up my shirt the whole way in hopes that it would somehow soak in every last ounce of my scent to help ease her into her afternoon nap while I was away. 

I managed to drop her off without crying.  And she didn't cry either.  It was rather simple, actually. 

But I cried all the way to the salon.

Oh, the salon.  How I wish I had never made it there.

Let me start by saying that these are the pictures that I took with me and went over with the stylist.

I told the stylist (I don't even want to call her that) that I liked the top picture best.  She asked if I wanted that color and I said no...I want my natural color, sans highlights.  Girl that cuts hair then says, "I love when clients bring pictures so that I know exactly what they want."  Hmmm.  I then explain to her that I want to give to Locks of Love but didn't think I would be cutting enough.  She agreed with me and said that they need at least 6 inches and I would only be losing about five.   Ummmm, okay.  Great.

The girl that cuts hair then says, "I'm just going to do a quick dry cut so that I don't have to apply color to a ton of hair that I'm going to cut off anyway."  Sure.  Great.  Whatever.  You're the "professional."

Whack, whack, whack.

Wow.  Okay.  I'm okay with that.  I was prepared for a shorter length. 

She applied the color.  I sat under the dryer.  She washed the color out.  Sat me back in her chair.  And she began to Edward Scissor Hands my head.

I was panicked.  She just didn't stop cutting!  I said to her, "Ummmm, it's getting really short" and she said "it's the layers...it looks like more than it is."  I just kept telling myself that it just looked shorter from the front and that I had my "to my armpit" length in the back.

She started to dry my hair with the round brush and blow dryer and I think that it was at that moment that she realized that she messed up.

She dried it and dried it and brushed it and brushed it.

Stop lady!  You're not going to stretch it.  You're not going to pull it out longer.  YOU MESSED UP.

It was all that I could do to get out of there before breaking down into tears. 

I paid the $105 and ran out.

I haven't cried so hard in years.

My pride and joy....my long hair....is gone.

She cut almost 10 inches off of my head.  And she didn't do it gracefully so that I could donate.  No, she chopped at it in little pieces so that all that was left was tiny shreds on the floor. 

And she's the salon manager. 

Don't go to Ulta in Wheaton.  Please.  (and I don't live in Wheaton, so don't stalk me there, you won't find me.  and if you are a stalker, go to Ulta there in Wheaton, Shana does an amazing job.)

Now what?  I'm ugly.  I hate it.  My hair is not what I wanted and I have no idea how she got this from the pictures I brought to her.  No idea.

Let it be known, my natural color is not almost black.  Great matching job there, genius.

My husband offered to go and get me extensions.  I just want my hair back.  Too bad there is no return policy.

Weaning myself

Last night we played catch-up on our shows.  We watched The Middle (which was freakin' hilarious!) and then Modern Family (so funny!) and finally Mike & Molly (which is a new favorite, AND they are in Chicago! sweet!).  Those three shows never disappoint and we were both cracking up through all of them. 

While watching Modern Family, I realized that the hairstyle that I've been in search of was right there in front of me.  Claire!  It's perfect!  It's long, but not too long, it looks good when she wears it straightened and when she leaves it with some wave.  I think I'm going to go for it.  And I even went so far to make an appointment.  So, it's happening.  Next week.

Isn't it cute!?  I'm not going to be that blonde, of course.  I'm doing an all over color but just because I am thinking that I'll save my highlights for summer.  And the all over color is cheaper easier to maintain.  Now I hope I won't chicken out.

Kinley and I went to visit with the day care lady (I hate calling her that, but I don't want to post her name) and the visit went well.  Kinley was a little clingy to me, but I think that it was just her shyness and not that she was uncomfortable there.  I'm still so upset about having to leave her but realize that it will be best in the long run.

Next Tuesday is my hair appointment, at noon.  So since next week is our "break her in" week and she was going to spend two half days at day care anyway, I thought I would spoil myself and get a hair appointment.  Tuesday she'll be at the sitter from 11:00 till about 4:00.  Wow, that seems like a very long time.  Is that too much for her first day?  I tried making my hair appointment for Thursday, her second day at day care, but they had no openings.  Ugh.  I'm stressing.

For the past couple of weeks, we've been dealing with Kinley getting up in the middle of the night to nurse.  She (usually) only gets up one time and normally it is around 4 a.m.  She nurses both sides and then goes back to sleep.  Why all of a sudden is she doing this?  And the even better question is, what can I do to stop it?  Now that I'm going to be back in school, the last thing that I need is to not be getting a full night's rest.  Especially since we've been spoiled with an all night sleeper since she was 9 weeks old. 

Last night (this morning), I had daddy get up and go in to her with her sippy.  She cried HARD, real tears and everything, for an HOUR.  She threw the sippy, threw the passy, threw his every attempt to calm her out the window.  I sat up in bed crying with her.  I just wanted to run in and nurse her.  But I knew that our goal was to break the cycle and I managed to wait it out.  He finally got her back to sleep.  Fifteen minutes later, she was up.  He had to get ready for work, so I went in and nursed her.  She's back to sleep now. 

So she got what she wanted, and we lost an hour of sleep.

I am beginning to question my decision to not wean at her first birthday.  I should have done it.  And I admit that I didn't do it because *I* wasn't ready to wean.  I wasn't ready to close that chapter.  Weaning her means that she's growing up, she's not my baby anymore, she's a big girl.  That's a big pill to swallow.  I told myself that I would wean BY 15 months.  That's coming up really quickly.

With school starting, I'm really feeling the stress of not weaning.  And because of it, I'm facing this schedule:  wake up at 4:30 (I'm sure I'll be up with her at 4:00 anyway, if things continue as they have been), shower, get ready, pack Kinley's food for day care, eat breakfast.  By 5:30 I will need to get Kinley up, nurse her and get the car loaded.  I have to leave the house NO LATER than 6:15 so that I can drop her off by 6:30 and make it to class in time. 

I'm doing the "dry run" commute to school next week during her half days at day care...so maybe I'll be able to push my time a little.  Or I hope I can push my time a little later. 

But if I wasn't nursing still, I could let her sleep till 6 and possibly 6:30.  Ugh.  A few more months and hopefully I'll be ready to wean.

A newborn baby has only three demands.  They are warmth in the arms of its mother, food from her breasts, and security in the knowledge of her presence.  Breastfeeding satisfies all three.  ~Grantly Dick-Read

Hair today...

What is your hair routine?  Is it a long and drawn out process or do you just wash it and go?  Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of wash and go.  I blogged about my after shower afro a few months ago...and well, because of that, I have to do something with my hair each and every day.  I mean, I do have days where I wad it all up in a bun and call it good.  But on the off chance that I have to leave the house, I normally use nap time to shower and spend the 30-45 minutes to dry and iron my hair.  Because of how long it is getting, my beloved curl product is just not cutting the cake. 

So I've been thinking a lot about chopping it all off.  The hair.  It's just long.  And well, just long.  Not much else that I can say about it.  I feel the need for a change.  This morning I took the time to pull some old pictures to see my own hair through the years and what I've come up with is so funny!

I can totally see where I was in my life with each picture.  Why do I hear Kenny Rogers singing in my head?  So, I give you--my hair diary:

2002-Short hair, married to "the butthead"-this cut was actually a
mistake by the stylist that I "tried out" and I asked for a trim.  Ha!  Nice trim.

2003-Growing it out and some funky color going on.  Very homely.

2004-Beginning to find my own place in this world.  Losing weight and
trying to do something with the hair--and the life.

2005-Lost the weight, and the butthead!  :)  My ideal weight here.

2006-In my prime!  Haha  In the bar.  Ugh.

2007-And the hair continues to grow.  And so does my relationship with Richie.

2008-The hair continues to grow (see a trend here) and I get hitched.

2009-I went dark!  But it still continues to grow.

2010-Highlights are back....but it's still long.  Oh, and I had a baby.  :)

So you see now why I am screaming for a change.  It's time.  It's beyond time.  I just have to go and find a stylist that I like, and can afford.  Chicago stylists are A LOT more expensive than southern IL stylists.  Richie almost strokes when we discuss how much it's going to cost. 

I asked my super trendy bestie for advice on what to do with the hair and she got right on the task and presented me with four "options" that she thinks would work best for me.  And here is what she thinks:

This one is my favorite.  But I'm scared that styling it will be hard
and I'll end up never doing it...and look just the same.

I really don't have an opinion of this one.  It's cute, I guess.

This just seems super short.

This is her favorite, but Richie and I both say no to bangs. 
I don't pull them off well at all.

What do you think?  Do you like any of the options or do you have a better idea for me?  With school starting in a month, this is the start of my new second chance and I want a new look to go with the new opportunity.  Reason enough.  And, I'm a girl and I want to feel pretty.

Iron Woman

Finally!  A full night's sleep!  Kinley didn't wake up at all during the night.  And it's a good thing because Richie and I were both feeling pretty ick when we went to bed last night.  I had that ick feeling in the back of my throat....you know that one that taunts you right before you get sick?  And Richie was all stuffed up with a headache.  We were both falling asleep while trying to watch The Biggest Loser and Kinley was still playing up a storm.

She is getting so big...it seems that every single day she's learned something else.  And I love watching it happen.  This is when being at home pays off....I get to see each moment when she has that "ah-ha!" when she figures something out.  Her newest thing is pulling up.  She will only pull up to her knees but is so close to going onto her feet.  I think she's still scared, and secretly, I love that.  But she's pulling up on everything.  Everything.  It scares the bejeezes outta me and if you think that the whole "wrap your kid in bubble wrap" hasn't crossed my mind, you're not a devoted enough reader.  :)  I want to prevent every bump, bruise, scrape, heartbreak...but know that I can't.  That's got to be one of the hardest things as a mom.  But only one of the hardest.  There are about a million hard things.



Richie got off of work a little early yesterday and was able to go with me for yet another pediatrician interview.  Let me just say that this doctor knocked me off my feet!  She hit it out of the park!  It was almost like she knew exactly what  we wanted before we even opened our mouths.  I scheduled Kinley's one year (gasp!) appointment before even leaving her office.  We both were just so happy with her and her practice.  I thank my friend, Rachel, back home for referring us to her.  I now have one less load on my shoulders to carry.  Now if only I could drop that whole Shakespeare load...

Today Kinley and I are going to the police department for her carseat safety check.  She's been in her new carseat for several weeks now but the lady that does the inspections has been on vacation and just got back to me yesterday to schedule.  After that, we're heading to a mommy group play date.  It'll be our first time meeting with the group and I'm pretty nervous.  Hopefully we fit in...  Being the psycho mom that I am, I'm already stressing because it's in a mall play area and I know how badly those places breed germs.  You don't know how tempted I am to bring my Clorox Wipes and Lysol.  That would make me look too over the top though, right?  I guess there is a cushy play area for the itty bitty's to crawl around and play, so we'll see how this goes.  I'm sure that Kinley will love it.  It's just the psycho mom that will be a nervous wreck.

We had to take Kinley's mobile away yesterday.  I put her down for a nap and then jumped into the shower.  I turned on the monitor just because, I'm psycho like that.  I was not even to the conditioner stage of my shower (I shower in the exact same order every.single.time) when I heard her mobile turn on over the monitor.  I thought, hmmmm, how did she figure that out?  So I just figured that it was a short nap and she decided to get up.  Then I hear the clang (or is it klang?...actually, it wasn't a c/klang at all...the mobile is not metal, it's plastic......you get the idea) and I can't figure out what she's doing.  Then I hear a very loud "thud" and then a hard cry.  I'm guessing that she was trying to hang from the mobile.  Nice, huh.  Not really what you want to hear in the shower.  Needless to say, the shaving my legs step was nixed.  She had a nice red mark on the side of her face but she was okay.  Daddy took away the mobile last night.  Just another step toward the "not my baby anymore" life.  In all honesty, that mobile was a waste of money.  I think that the hanging from it incident was probably the most attention she has ever paid to it.

Oh, and speaking of the whole shower thing....I took this picture to prove to you how bad my 2 foot by 3 foot afro is un-ironed.  I kid you not.  It's a beastly thing, no?  Who needs a Halloween costume when you have locks like this?  Maybe I should go as the Un-Brazillian Blowout?  You've heard of the Brazillian Blowout, right?  I so want one but totally can't justify spending $200 on something that will last like 9 weeks.  Can't do it.  I am getting closer to making the time to go to Ulta to get my curl product though.  Richie keeps telling me to just go and get it and it's now becoming less of a "don't want to spend money on luxury items" to more of a "I'm too lazy to drag myself and Kinley over to Ulta" issue.  But I'm really tired of ironing my hair everyday.  And it's not really the healthiest thing to do for your hair. 

On that note, I have to go iron my hair.