Modern Day Witch

Today I fell out of my house.

Lucky because a house didn't fall on me, but falling out of one is no picnic either, I assure you.

I have an attached garage. I keep my nasty work shoes in there because bringing home what I step in every day/night into my home is NOT an option. As I was entering the garage to put my shoes on and leave for work, I stepped on kids boots (of course they were) that were on the STEP instead of where they should be (anywhere but the friggen step) and I stumbled (tote bag, lunch bag and COACH bag for God's sake). I caught myself though and I would have made it had it not been for DH's boots. The friggen boots that were where they "should" be but that didn't matter. None of that mattered.

The fall was NOT graceful.

The fall was NOT pretty.

What came out of my mouth made sailor's everywhere cover their ears and cringe. Truck driver's pulled over and curled into fetal positions.

My children went running......RUNNING for cover. My DH struggled in the Garden of Good and Evil and I could see how he was frantically volleying between laughing or feigning concern and sympathy for my injuries while I was into my full blown tirade.

I limped off to work. Scraped knees and all.

The Secret to Life Revealed

That's right people. I have learned the secret to life...........life with stainless appliances that is.

There are those of you who know my pain.

The bain of my existence.

The very thing that drives me to the edge of insanity from the moment I wake and walk into my kitchen until I shut the lights out when I go to bed.

The war that is waged every day with expensive purchases, homemade concoctions, prayers, threats, swears.

Countless hours spent on the Internet searching, searching, searching for answers.......

I have found it.

FOUND IT!

It comes from a sweet old Lowe's man.

Appliance God.

Appliance Genius.

I will share it with you. You shall go out and spread the word. You shall save other's from the pain we've all experienced every day. You shall praise the name (which I've forgotten) of the Lowe's Appliance Genius. You shall cry tears of joy when you see that this works!

IT WORKS!

How do you remove fingerprints, hand prints, face prints (if you have boys like I do) ANY PRINTS from your stainless appliances? How? HOW?????

With Pledge. For the love of all that is holy.....with PLEDGE!!.

It works. In all it's beautiful glory...it works.

I cleaned the appliance as normal. I then took a soft cloth and sprayed some Pledge on it. I then buffed those mother lovin', DNA laden, nasty lookin' prints off my stainless!!!

It works like a DREAM.

Gone.

Gone.

Gone.

Go forth and clean my pretties. Clean like you've never cleaned before.

I looked around...and it was good. Shiny and good.

Budget FAIL?

Why am I such a budget retard?

I think I'm subconsciously (ok guess it's really not subconsciously since I've not only verbalized it here but thought enough about it that it's now in my consciousness) that I'm sabotaging my attempt at budgeting.

Here's the issue.

I don't know where to start. I've stalked the Dave Ramsey message boards over at the Babycenter web site but every time I start attempting to make this damn thing out, I just don't know implement it. For instance, I can fill in all the blanks on this form, but since we get paid biweekly, I don't know whether to just take our combined paycheck deposit amount and assign all the money for a zero balance then do the same in two weeks again OR try to do this for the entire month (which would be hard since I don't actually have the money in hand to pay all the monthly bills at once so to speak). Like do I take the $400 that I budget for food out on the 1st paycheck of the month or $200 the 1st check and $200 the next check, etc. This example could also be used for gas, spending money, entertainment money, babysitter money, etc.

Does this make sense?

I need to make this work. I HAVE to raise some serious cash for this kitchen remodel in May. Any advice is welcome!

New Year Project #1 USE WHAT I HAVE

Ok, new year, new projects. I'll post a new project when I'm done with the old one. Unless it's specifically something that will be on going but at least the initial kick in the ass to get the project done will start here.





How pitiful is this?




That, my friends, is my pantry in all it's dysfunctional glory. Pitiful because, OMG look how much food I have and I still have shopping lists weekly.

Sooooo.......New Year Project #1 is to USE WHAT I HAVE in regards to meals. I will go through the pantry, organize it and make my meal plan taking into account the ingredients I already possess. I have already done the shopping for the next two weeks BUT I'll start making the meal plan on paper for the weeks following after inventorying the pantry.

Ready.......GO!