Party People Say A''' March 20th, 2014

I'm officially back on my feet, and I hosted a get together tonight. Just a few moms for some food and drinks, and some House Party & Mom's Meet freebies :) If you're not a member of these sites, join! No really, they have some fun sampling programs, and you apply for the ones you want. If you're chosen, they send you free things to try with your friends, coupons, and more. You never buy anything. As my father's daughter, you better believe I love free things, and I apply whenever I think something would be fun to try. Most times I don't get chosen, so don't get discouraged if it takes a while to get a party.

Tonight I combined two parties in one. We each got a book to read from House Party and salad mixes to try from Mom's Meet. They also sent tea, cookies, and more. I supplemented with a few things of my own. Even though the weather wasn't great, it was still fun just to catch up with friends and relax!

March 19th~Sick Day, take 2!

I woke up feeling a ton better today, thanks to the help of pharmaceuticals and a lot of sleep. I jumped (okay, let's be real people, I kinda groaned while forcing my body out from the warm covers) out of bed ready to be productive! Those are my kind of mornings.

I headed downstairs where I find a very distraught Olivia. She tells me she doesn't feel good, and she wants to stay home from school. Daddy had already checked, no fever, but I knew how miserable I was yesterday and I didn't have a fever.

So I pulled out my sickness lie detector. "Olivia, you have Awana tonight. If you stay home sick you'll have to miss it." At this point the child either a. is caught in their desire for extracurriculars sucks it up, and heads to school or b. breaks down in tears. Any guess as to the one I got? So it was back to bed for Olivia. Poor thing, she slept most of the day, and she did end up with a fever. Hoping tomorrow is better for her, looks like I'll have a buddy around the house.

Luckily, Clara was not sick, so she went to Awana. Tonight was wacky night. Here's Clara's wacky outfit. Even in this she didn't win most wacky. I wasn't there so I don't know what happened, but there must have been some STIFF competition!

Sick Day March 18th, 2014

Today was a mommy sick day. I still worked around the house but at a greatly reduced speed. We skipped Rumble tonight because I just couldn't do it. I hate feeling sick, but I know I did it to myself after my crazy last week. Lots of sleep and hopefully less coughing on the agenda tonight. Peace people!

St Paddy's Day March 17, 2014

So, the trifecta of stress finally concluded today. I got up early and dropped off at the resale (only 2 loads, I sold WAY more than I thought at Granger), came home and said a sad goodbye to Rachel and Peter, and immeadiately laid down and took a nap. Okay, not immeadiately. First I fed Clara and played with her. Then I put her in her room for "quiet time" which every mom worth her metal knows is just an excuse for US to get some peace and quiet. Clara happily played in her room, when I went up 45 minutes later she was hiding under Olivia's cot. Silly girl!

Oh, and of course it's St. Patrick's Day! So we all wore our green and avoided being pinched. Here's Ms Clarebear in hers.

Yep, that's her! She always squints in the first photo because she's scared of the flash, and she overcompensates on the second one. By the third she's moving around like crazy, so she's blurry and the photos are unusable. But I love her unflappable energy.

Happy St Patrick's Day all, and Go Irish!

Sunday is My Day to Rest March 16, 2014

Day 2 of the three day marathon....We had a GREAT morning!! Went to a friend's birthday party at Gymnastics Michiana. The kids ran around and burned off energy, and I was on the other side of the birthday party so I got to stand around and chat with the other parents. Heaven....

We even played on the gymnastic equipment a little. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of that ;)

We headed home, had lunch, and Rachel and Peter arrived. It was so good to see them. We talked for a bit and sat down in the living room. I didn't want to miss a second with them, but I was so tired. I tagged the last of my resale items to keep my hands busy and my body awake. I told Mike there was no way I could make dinner so we headed to La Esperanza. Amazing, as always. Poor Mike spent a good 30-45 minutes in the car talking to our insurance company. But I ordered his food and a drink so he was a bit happier when he finally was able to join us.

And insurance companies. WHAT...THE...HECK? So, long story short, I'm taking a drug that has a 5-6 month course. The side effects are pretty terrible, but for 5-6 months I'll deal until I can get off this drug. So, I've just finished month 2 and go to pick up month 3 from the pharmacy, and they tell us the cost will be $700+. I just looked at them in shock. Apparently, the generic we used was on a manufacturer's backorder, and this other GENERIC cost over $1K. For one month. Ridiculous!! It makes me remember how lucky we are to have insurance, as I have no idea what my normal generic costs but I do know we only pay about $20 for it.

I called my insurance company, and they were no help. Their scripted line was, "we didn't say we won't cover it. We just cover it at 40%." No matter what I said, the line was the same. I think some people actually feel glee denying people their medications. So here I am stuck between stopping the med and restarting when the drug is available, and basically throwing away 2 months of these side effects I've endured, or pay $700 for one month's worth of pills. At this point Mike took the phone from me, and sent me inside with the girls.

When he joined us, he said he had asked for a manager, and was sent to a "resolution specialist," who basically just called pharmacies in our area until he found one that had the med in stock still. So we're good for this month but next? I would say I hate big Pharma but then they sign my husband's paychecks, so can't bite the hand that feeds you.

Anyways, that's enough excitement for today. This is one pooped momma.

A Big Top Birthday March 15, 2014

What a day!! Our normal Saturday's are crazy enough, but by the end of today I was ready for an extra 8 hours of sleep.

Today was the BIG day of course, and I was feeling pretty good. I had most of the work done, and while Mike took Olivia to march in the St Patrick's Day parade I was going to finish up the last few things on the list.

I woke up nice and early when Clara bounded into the room completely dressed in her dance outfit. Oops...I kind of forgot about dance class, and hadn't really factored that time into my schedule. Obviously, Clara was ready for class, and I wanted to take her commitment seriously, so I took the 5 minutes of work I could do in the car and drove her to dance. I made my last 6 cotton candy cones and then sat and read a book. Honestly, it felt pretty decadent, to be sitting and reading with my daughter's birthday only hours away. I knew I would pay for it later, but I savored the moment.

After dance we headed home and I frantically got to work prepping veggies, stuffing cotton candy cones, ironing, just general chaos before a party. I had talked to the zoo and we had 30 minutes to set up, and I had plotted that time for both Mike and I, with job assignments, table charts, the whole shebang. I told Mike I wanted to arrive at the zoo by 1:20, so when 1:30 came we could storm in like Normandy and get my 101 decorations in place.

We drove separately due to the sheer mass of the party items, and we were about 10 minutes from home when I realized I had left my party set up and party flow plans behind!!! I am not a flexible, think on my feet person. I am a planner, through and through. I called Mike in a panic and he turned around since my car was full of the party items. I got to the zoo and started carrying everything to the gate, staging it.

Kelly, the zoo liason came out and helped me carry in the bins and boxes, and I tried to set as much up by memory as possible. Once Mike arrived we ran around like crazy people (okay, that could have just been me). Our friends Tabi & Erin came early and they pitched in to help (friends are BLESSINGS, enough said!).

The party pretty much flew by, and by the end I had some happy and worn out kids (and parents) to send home. Below are some of my favorite photos from the day.

Who needs a half hour when you have great friends? Erin got more set up with one arm then most can do all day ;)

 Me, frantic, as usual

The birthday girl :)

Olivia clowning around

Games, food, and friends!

May all your wishes come true

Elsa!!!

Living Lean March 14, 2014

Sooooo....I am slightly OCD/type A. And if you're sniggering into your hand right now because the use of my term, "slightly," know that the first step is admitting the problem, and I'm still standing at the top of the stairs. One benefit to my SLIGHT problem is that I try to get things done as efficiently as possible. We're talking how do we shave 5 seconds off this process? Anything, from cleaning a room to pumping my gas has a step by step system to maximize time and minimize effort. Listen people, I've got a lot to do and not enough time in the day to do it, so every second counts.

When Mike started working for Bayer (now Siemens), he started using the buzz word "lean manufacturing" in our house. This term has nothing to do with waist sizes, fat content, or long and lean muscles, but instead refer to making processes as simple as possible for all involved, maximizing output and minimizing input. Sound familiar? I guess I've found my people. Who knew they would be Japanese?

Even not taking into account my work systems, Mike & I have lived our married life working, planning, and taking care with the assets that we have. We aren't always successful, come on, we're PEOPLE, but we try really hard. We have been "living lean" and never knew it. When we were married we moved to town where we knew no one. This was the first time either of us had lived outside of our parent's homes. We survived with one car, Mike's graduate student stipend, and any income I could make doing odd jobs. Nothing like handyman jobs, we all know I don't have the skills for that!! But tutoring, running the labs, teaching nutrition classes brought in a few extra funds. We were both full time students and we knew we were working like we were so that our futures would be easier.

We lived in a tiny apartment, which we traded for a small home, because the costs were about the same. We had nights in with friends, went to church, and rarely went out for dinner. But life was really fun! I know not being able to buy everything you want when you want it hardly qualifies as fun in this society, but we were free. We had each other, we had friends that loved us, and we had a future. What more could two young adults ask for?

Over the years, we took out some small student loans to, gasp, pay for school. I know a lot of people maximize their student loans to buy things they want. They justify it as a low or no interest rate loan. I'm not judging, because everyone has to make their own choices, but Mike & I both agreed that any loans we took out needed to be used carefully. 

When I started graduate school, I received a scholarship. It was the mother of all scholarships. It paid my tuition, books, plane tickets to the university I was attending, everything. The one stipulation was graduation. Everything went well for the first year, and then Olivia was born. Pre child Ashley had no idea what post child Ashley was going to feel like, but mostly, she felt like being with her baby. (Yes, that's me, talking about myself in the third person. Hi self!!). I didn't go back to school at that time, which I don't regret, but it meant I had a big (to us) scholarship turned loan to pay off.

Over time we've been slowly whittling away at our debts. We throw extra money towards debt, trying to pay things off as quickly as possible. Finally, finally, we are seeing results. In the past year we paid off our smallest student loan, Mike's car, and now, finally, my U of A loan. We received this in the mail, and I was celebrating:

Don't misunderstand, we still have debt. We have a consolidated student loan, our Jeep loan, and our home loan. We will continue to whittle away at each one until we can say we are debt free. It's still not exactly easy, although our lifestyle has come a long way in the past 13 years, but it is 100% worth it. Hopefully in another 13 years we'll be FREE!! :)