Catching Up - Part 7 - Tax Returns and Shopping Sprees

The past month for us has been one huge shopping spree! We got our tax return and we have been spending away! I know some people may frown upon this but we have been waiting for this for a very long time and I do feel as though I fully deserve to buy the things that I want, after waiting for so long and working so hard.

Anthony got audited on his taxes and got no money back at all (that's a long story involving his family and we really have nothing to do with it). On my tax return we got a very large amount back. We were able to pay off my lawyer and buy many new things that we needed and wanted too.

I bought a new laptop, a Samsung Note 3 cell phone (love that thing so much!), all new dishes and kitchen ware, a bunch of clothes, some other random things as well as two really big things that I plan to write entire blog posts about =]

We made out really good! I am so happy with all of our purchases and I do not regret a single one. We originally did plan to pay off Anthony's computer but in the end deiced not to because we wanted more money to get the things we have been wanting for for a really long time. And the $65 a month is not that bad, along with the fact that we are helping his mom build credit by paying that every month as well.

Now that our funds are winding down we are not buying anything else, I am really able to say I am all shopping spree-d out! I do not want to buy anything or go shopping for a long time! All though I know I will have to still go food shopping and such, I just am not interested in buying anything else lol.

NOTE: I know lots of people see this a irresponsible because they think that when you get money you should pay off all your debt... we don't have any debt. Only thing we owed was money to my lawyer which we did pay off in full and the money on the computer which we decided not to pay off for the reasons listed above.

Catching Up - Part 5 - Anthony Got a Job!

Anthony got a job! Seriously, for real! My stay at home dad husband is now gonna be going to work! We are still going through a very long and grueling hiring process, but he has already been told that they have chosen him for the job and they are offering it to him and he has accepted their offer. He will be working with me at the School Board in the department that handles student records and report cards. He will only be working part time for now, but we are hoping that this will be a great way to get his foot in the door and hopefully with in a few years, a full time position will open up that he can apply for. That is how I got my full time position with the School Board as well, I worked part time for 4 years and gained experience and then got hired on full time. So in good time, we hope he will get a full time job, but for now we are so thrilled over his part time job!

We are hoping he will start working in the beginning of April. Currently we are waiting on his transcript to come in the mail and he also has to go to a new employee orientation and do a 2nd interview as well. And after that he has to get finger printed and drug tested, so it is going to be a few more weeks at the least. 

We do still plan to Etsy as I was the one doing most of the work anyways so the fact that he is going to be working has not really changed that at all. We will simply do our post office runs during our lunch hour to make sure everything gets out on time. 

As for Bear, he is now attending day care! (more on that tomorrow!). 

We are so so exited to begin this chapter of our lives and really just can not wait! Well... I can not wait anyways lol he is prolly not so thrilled about going back to work after not having to work for over a year. Never the less! I am exited! =]

Saving Up

I go round and round on how I do manage my money. Sometimes I spend it and other times I save it. Ultimately, it will all get spent in the end.

There are a lot of things that I would like to buy, at this time, I am dying to buy clothes for my new wardrobe and coloring books to start my hobby, not to mention I still need to finish buying all the things for my house like decor and organizational units etc.

Currently, my spending goes a little something like this, I do it in bursts of about $35 to $120. I only spend money (on things I don't NEED) when there is at least $300 floating in my account doing nothing, meaning I have 300$ that is extra after the bills have been paid. If I have less than $300 I will not spend it unless I stumble across something I really REALLY want, and this is rare.

I still plan to use this same method because it has been working out really well for us but I am now going to tweak it a little bit. I am now going to save up $1,300 and I would like that to be floating in my account at all times. If there is not at least $1,300 (not including the money for the bills) in my account, I am going to consider myself broke. I will start spending once I reach $1,600 and I may spend a little more than the $300 but that will be okay because it is all extra money anyways. I will then save it up again and repeat.

I feel this is a very good idea to provide us with some fall back for if something should come up (like our car breaking or having to pay the lawyer!). At the end of the day we will still have money. I have currently saved up about $205 so I have a long ways to go but the cash flow seems pretty good coming for Etsy so I am hoping to have the money saved up by the end of December.

Just When Everything Seems to be Going Great....

My car decides to blow a gasket.

I finally got to where the fiances were ok for me to give my lawyer $600 this month and still have a considerable amount of money left over. Then on Friday my car blew a gasket. My car van, is very old. It is pushing 20 years! To get this fixed it would cost between $400 and $1000 and I just do not feel that I want to put that much money into this van. So we are being forced to buy a new one. Which is VERY inconvenient, because there goes all our money! Now we are going to be super tight for the rest of the month :[ and on top of that we are going to have to make monthly payments on the new one because we do not have enough money to pay for it in full ATM. So we are going to be just a little more broke each month.

It's crazy how I finally come into some money and things just keep coming up and coming up. First it was my lawyer and now it's my car. Makes me wonder what will be next? Sigh.

On the bright side though... because no one likes a downer... at least we have enough money to get a new car.

Hope everyone's Monday is going well!

Selling the Old to Buy the New

I have decided it is time to buy new clothes for myself. I have been holding off on this for a long long time. Partly because I gained 10 lbs with my pregnancy and was hoping to lose it before I bought new clothes and partly because I am really bad about not buying stuff for myself - it makes me feel guilty like I should have used the money for Bear or Anthony. But they have everything they need and I don't think I am going to lose this last 10 lbs anytime soon. So here goes!

I do not have lots of money to spend, so to justify it and to make myself feel a little better, I am selling a bunch of stuff on eBay then I plan to use that money to buy new stuff :]

Right now I have 26 items listed and I plan to list more next week. I don't want to sell too many things at once because that will be a lot to handle when it comes time to ship them all out. I currently have listed a bunch of my old clothes that is too small and in great condition. Next week I am going to be listing random things I do not need like some baby things as well as jewelry and maybe some electronics too.

I have my fingers crossed that I will be able to save up at least $200 toward a new wardrobe. I know that is not a lot when you are buying clothes, but I am a serious bargain hunter! and I plan to start with a little and add to it every month. Once I buy new stuff to wear I then want to sell what I have in my closet that still fits (the stuff that I didn't list on eBay because I still need clothes to wear in the meantime), because I am tired of wearing the same things all the time, some of my clothes are literally still hanging around from when I was in high school! 8 years ago!!! After I sell what's in my closet I then want to add to what I bought. Seems like a great plan! I really hope it works! I currently only have one pair of work pants that I have to wear to work 4 times a week and then I have 4 pairs of jeans but I can only wear jeans on Friday. I have about 10 tops and I have been wearing the same 10 for over 2 years now. So I am PRETTY tired of them! lol And my jacket... well lets just say I have been wearing the same one for four years now and it has 3 giant fraying holes in it, but I still wear it because I could not bring myself to buy a new one.

Anyways, here's to hoping I can re-do my whole wardrobe, not dent my wallet, and not feel bad about it either! I will do a follow up post about the stuff I sell on eBay and the new clothes I buy :]

Have a great Monday!

What I have learned from living with Anthony

When Anthony first moved in with me I did not really know what to expect. I did not know how everyday life would go or how we would get along. What we would eat or what we would do when we were bored. These past three months have been a huge learning experience for the both of us. I continue to learn more and more about him everyday and I continue to fall more and more in love as well. Here is what I have learned and noticed so far:

• Anthony does NOT like to wake up in the AM. He does a lot better when he stays up all night than he does when I have to wake him in the mornings to drive me to work. It is a struggle just about everyday to get him out of bed. I have found that coaxing him with food (sounds funny I know) does the job pretty well. So now I tend to make him breakfast in the mornings when I can.
• Anthony goes through stages. Sometimes he will be in a bored stage at which point he will spend more time with Bear and I and be more clingy. Other times he will be in a gamer stage when he will spend hour after hour and stay up day and night on a game. He does also have a grumpy stage where he will grumble around the house and not play back with me when I am cute with him. He tends to come out of his grumpy stage pretty quickly though.
• Anthony can go days with out sleep. I am not sure why he does this but sometimes he will just stay up for about 2 days with little (meaning like 1-2 hours) to no sleep at all. He will eventually crash and go back to a normal cycle.
• Anthony has food cravings. Not very many men have these. Or at least men that I have known. Some of his cravings include jelly doughnuts, wings, and grilled burgers.
• Anthony does not get aggravated much at all. Much like myself he has a very long fuse. We do get aggravated by many of the same things like the dog being bad or Bear screaming for no reason.
• Anthony WILL help me if I ask for his help. He is not one to just jump up and start helping but if I ask him to help me he will normally drop everything and come to help.
• Anthony LOVES his baby boy! He has a great bond with Bear and it is growing day in a day out and it just warms my heart to see them together.
• Anthony also really loves me. I used to be very insecure but now he has shown me the great amount of love he has for me and our family. I know that we are the most important thing in his life.
• Anthony is lazy. I love this man to death but he is LAZY! He always tries to do things the easy or quick way and never wants to do the unnecessary. And with 99% of everything he would rather do it later even if he could do it now.
• Anthony can eat 2-3 times as much as I do. He does not eat lunch unless I make him lunch or leave him leftovers in a container and tell him to eat them, so typically dinner is his only mean unless I made him breakfast that morning. So the fact that he eats over two times as much as I do at dinner is not all that surprising, but the amount he can inhale really surprises me some days.
• Anthony loves to cuddle. A lot of couples grow out of cuddling. We are not that couple. If I am laying on the couch a lot of times he will come up and cuddle me for no reason. I absolutely love it. We will also give up space just so we can cuddle, like in the bed. Instead of putting bear in the middle and getting a good amount of space, we put him on the right side so we can cuddle, even though we end up super cramped because Bear takes up 70% of the bed with all his pillows.
• Anthony gets hot really easily or maybe I get cold really easily lol. We do not typically touch the A/C it tends to stay at 78 degrees. But we do have fans that we flip on and off. He always wants it on when I want it off because he will be sweating with I am literally freezing.
• And stuff I have learned about budgeting. Living with another person or two is WAY more expensive than living alone. It is not even double but triple the cost because together you want more. You want more for each other, when alone you tend to deprive yourself of stuff and say you don't need it or can live without it. When in reality you can but when you are with another person you want it if not for yourself but for them. Like paper towels for instance. I never used to buy them when I lived alone and when Anthony moved in, well now I can't live with out them!
• Stuff I have learned about food consumption: Food goes WAY faster with 2 than it does with one. I used to cook every other day. I would have enough food for the night I cooked, the next day for lunch, and dinner the next day. Now I cook EVERYDAY! I almost never have leftovers for lunch too. We can go though a loaf of bread in 4 days compared to the 2 weeks it took me alone. And we can go through a tub of butter in 2 weeks compared to the 2 months it took me alone.
• And last but definitely not least! Eating habits. I have noticed that our eating habits have grown together as well. I used to be ok with just eating a frozen pizza for dinner or on some nights even a few snacks like some cheese cubes and fruit. Now a days I have to cook because I can not leave Anthony with no food and he will not cook for himself unless I tell him what to make and step by step tell him how to make it. He also likes many things that I never ate before like fried foods. He likes to fry his fries, egg rolls, and other things that I would usually put in the oven. He likes to dress up his sandwiches when I could settle for a plain one. He won't eat baked beans or anything with seeds in it (like smoothies or jams). He won't eat anything with a gritty texture like grits or oatmeal or even couscous. He likes his rice to be short grain not long and his meat to be cooked well done. He does not like Dijon mustard or too much onions. He will not eat sweet salads or just a salad alone they need to be a side dish. He prefers red meat over white and laughs at the thought of a meal that has no meat. He hates sugar cookies and is really picky about icing and cake too. He likes stuff to be spicy and full of flavor. Stuff with weak flavor is never a hit. He typically does not like anything that is southern cooking, like chicken and dumplings, grits casserole, or even sweet potato casserole. He does how ever like chicken pot pie. He will eat mostly anything I put on his plate even if he does not like it, but I still try very hard not to serve things that he does not like. Oh boy I could go on and on about this mans eating habits! But I think I will end it here with some pictures. Because after all pictures are worth a thousand words.

This is a meal that we made together. Note the fried fries and egg rolls and hey even a fried egg! And a coke on the side lol. Not so healthy if you ask me.

 Another meal we made together, chili baked potatoes, salad, and fried empenadas.

And the breakfast he made me one morning. Half an egg burrito and a bagel with cream cheese and raspberry jam. (so sweet :]) 

 

Here's to many more to come! I love you so much.

Bad Luck

This past week it seems like the bad luck fairy attacked my family :O!

It all started on Valentines Day.

Thursday:
I wake up, start getting ready for work, make my lunch (a cute bento)... take pictures in the kitchen... decided I want to go into the spare bathroom to take pics for better lighting... walk past the A/C unit and hear dripping water. I went past it into the bathroom at first thinking that maybe it was just a little normal dripping. But as I stood there in the bathroom taking pics the dripping noise got louder and louder. I opened the A/C unit to find water dripping from an odd place, I could not really pin point where it was coming from. It started coming faster and faster. Ten minutes later the whole A/C cubby was flooded and the water was creeping toward the carpet! I quickly woke Anthony up and we called maintenance. They said they would be there ASAP. I was not able to go to work because Anthony is still not on my lease (they are taking FOREVER to get that done!) so I had to be there so they didn't say that he was living with me illegally, this way I could say he was just visiting. So I had to take the day off of work and I could not make it up on Friday because we had to go to Kissimmee to get our washer and dryer and Anthony's settlement check, so we lost a whole day's salary. Now back to the water, once the maintenance guy arrived the whole bathroom and kitchen were flooded too! Water was coming from the walls, the roof, and out the sockets. We thought maybe a pipe had burst or something. We were told that the person on top of us on the third floor had overflowed his toilet and then went to sleep, causing the water to come down through the second floor, and then down to us and pool there. Apparently we got the worst of it. It was so bad that the carpet sloshed when we walked. They eventually fixed the toilet and the water stopped. Then they came in ripped our carpet back and installed a really LOUD, annoying blower to dry the place and told us we could not use our lights over there or our A/C. So with all the water it was very hot and humid and muggy in our house. A few hours later they said that the wall was in danger of molding and they might have to tear it down! But before they decided if they were going to they were first going to try and dry it out. They cut a giant hole at the base of the wall and set up ANOTHER blower! At this point we had to scream at each other to hear when we wanted to talk. They left and said they would come back and test for the mold the next day.

Friday:
Friday was not that bad. We slept in and went to Kissimmee around 3PM. Anthony made it to the office to get his check with like 10 minutes to spare! We hung out at his mom's place for a few hours then we loaded up the washer and dryer and we all headed back to our house (including Charlie). On the way there we had the change oil light come one and we had to stop at a gas station for like an hour while Anthony and his brother tried to figure out what to do (they aren't so great with cars). We made it home, and put the washer and dryer in the living room temporarily because we needed to buy the vent tube for the dryer before we set it up.

Saturday:
On Saturday we went to get Anthony's taxes done. We were expecting around $2,400 but we only got $700 back because apparently he made so much money that the government decided he didn't need all his money back! How stupid and since when is $9 an hour a lot of money?! And get this! if Bear would have been born just THREE days earlier than he was Anthony could have claimed him and gotten back ALL of that $2,400 plus Bear's credit and we would have gotten almost $6,000! Oh how we needed that money so bad :[. But that's ok I still feel very blessed to have gotten the money that we did. So after we did our taxes we went to get the vent tube for the dryer and then to Wal-Mart to do a little shopping. We bought a blender, a knife set, a crib, a baby swing, and some other random things like a bark collar for Charlie (since he decided he was going to howl and bark every time we left the house). We took all our goodies home and decided to set them up! First we set up the swing, that seemed to go well Bear LOVES it! We decided to set up the crib the next day. We then tried to put the vent tube in the dryer and start doing some laundry! Let me just say.... that didn't go as planned either! First Anthony couldn't get the tube on the back of the dryer, but after about an hour of trying he got it. We moved the dryer into it's cubby and when we went to put the tube in the wall... it wouldn't fit. We had to bend the tube in the wall and try and try and try some more to get the vent tube to fit. After achieving one very bent up and mangled looking vent tube and a few hours later we decided to call Lowe's and ask if there was a bigger sized tube... their answer.... no. So back to trying. I decided to cut the now mangled tube to start fresh. We eventually got it about 3/4 of the way in the wall and decided that was good enough! After all this work I was much to beat to even think about doing laundry so I ended up putting it off until the next day.

Sunday:
We woke up Sunday morning to find that we were out of formula for Bear and our WIC checks were not going to be in until just today (Thursday). So we had to go back to Wal-Mart. While we were there we got some more stuff we needed like the mattress for bears bed, some food, and a high chair (which is still in the car 4 days later). We took all of our stuff home and cooked a little lunch. Everything seemed ok and I decided to do some laundry. I got all the clothes ready, took them over to the washer and went to turn it on... I turned it on and no water came out. So then we figured out that we were supposed to turn on the hoses in the back of the washer. When we did that water sprayed EVERYWHERE! like it was not screwed in correctly. But it was on there as tight as it would go. So we called Anthony's mom and she said the rubber piece inside it probably had fallen out during the move from Kissimmee. So back to Lowe's for us it was! We decided to wait til the next day to go out again, as it was Presidents day and I had the day off. I also went to the office to remind the maintenance people that they STILL had not removed the blowers from our apartment and we were VERY hot and wanted our A/C! Once reminded they did come down and remove the blowers and said we could turn on the a/c and that they would come and fix the wall the next day (Monday) because it passed the mold test so would not need to be torn down.

Monday:
Monday morning we started putting the crib together. Let me just say, these instructions were BAD! We got very confused and still have not been able to put it together. We are planing on trying again this weekend. After all the aggravation we decided to go to Lowe's and get the rubber for the washer. They were only a dollar so we lucked out there. Once we got home Anthony set it up. It seemed to be working fine. I started some laundry then headed to the kitchen to do some dishes. About ten minutes into the cycle the washer started making funky noises not like anything I had ever heard a washer make! It seemed to be working fine despite the odd noises so we did two loads of laundry (we have about 10 more we need to do). Meanwhile the wall still had a hole in it and no one had come to repair it or to clean my carpet like I was told they would do (what a surprise...not). The batteries to Bear's swing also burnt out on Monday not even a week after we bought them. So new we are looking into rechargeable batteries because we are not about to spend $10 every few days on batteries!

Tuesday:
Tuesday Bear had a doctor's appointment for his 1 month (late cuz he was almost 7 weeks) and to meet his new doctor. I went to work that morning and left early. Anthony woke up late for this and grabbed Bear a pair of PJ's that were too small. But we couldn't take him naked so we had to cram them on him, poor thing couldn't stretch his legs. We got lost on the way there and ended up being like 15 minutes late. They did not mind too much. In the lobby Bear peed and it leaked... stupid Huggies! Normally we use Pampers but we had some Huggies we got as a gift. We had to take all his clothes off and put him in a spare onesie that was in the diaper bag. The doctor seemed nice and everything went well. We then headed home for some lunch before we had to head out to Lake Wales (30 minutes from where we live) for my 6 week postpartum appointment. We left for that and got there okay. Once in the parking lot Anthony's mom called. We had just got there on time and instead of waiting for him to talk to her and making us late, I decided to go in alone and told him to meet me inside once he got done talking to his mom. A few minutes later he came in and sat down, and said "We have a problem". I figured it was something petty or stupid and was not initially worried and I was like ok what is it...? He said to me "I kinda locked the keys in the car".... all I could think was "OMG!" So here were were 30 miles from home at the doctor locked out of our car. Then he informed me that his phone only had 5% battery left. As if it couldn't get any worst! We had a spare key at home but would need a ride home to go get it. And who ever was going to drive us home would then have to take us back to Lake Wales to get the car. The keys to my house were also on the key ring in the car! So the only people that could help us were my dad or sister because they have spare keys to my apartment. My sister was still at work so I called my dad (all though I REALLY didn't want to). We talked for a few minutes then I told him what had happened and he said "No I can't help you I am just about to go home and relax"... so essentially he was not going to help me because he didn't feel like it! Here we are stranded with a new born baby and my own father would not even help us out. You have no idea how upsetting this was to me. So we then called my sister, she said that she had to go to tutoring after work but if we waited til she got done (three hours later) she would come and help us. That was great but we didn't want to wait that long. We told her ok and to come but in the meantime we walked to the gas station to look for a slim jim to try and break into the car. The gas station was like half a mile away and one of us had to carry a sleeping baby while the other carried the carseat and diaper bag so we were very sore and tired once we walked there and back. They had a slim jim and we went to the car and tried to break into it.... with no luck at all! We tried and tried and could not get in. Not to mention here we were trying to break into the car for like 45 minutes and NO ONE called the cops on us! Makes me think someone could really steal a car in broad daylight. It started to get dark so we went to Arby's that was near by and sat down for a snack while we waited for my sister. After about two hours of waiting our phone had died and we were getting worried. We asked a couple of people if we could borrow their phone and they all said no (people these days!). Finally we got the people at Arby's to charge our phone for a few minutes. We got it to 7% and called my sister. She had lost the keys to my apartment but found them and was now on her way. Once we got home Anthony could not find the spare key! He looked for about 45 minutes with no luck at all. He then decided to just call a locksmith. The locksmith met Anthony and my sister in Lake Wales and ended up charging us $70 (sigh). Turns out the spare key was in the car too!

Wednesday:
I woke up Wednesday morning to find that the carpet that was flooded in the flood on Valentines day 6 days earlier was now soaked again! After some investigating I figured out that the water had come from the washer. Good thing the maintenance guys didn't put the carpet back in place because they will need to come by and install another blower. So, now we can't even use our new washer because there is clearly something wrong with it so we will be returning it. Which unfortunately means we have to go all the way to Kissimmee to do so again. We were also told on Wednesday that they would be fixing our wall today (Thursday) my fingers are crossed that they actually keep their word this time.

PHEW! that's a lot of bad luck! All though I got very aggravated of the past week I have noticed that nothing has REALLY gotten to me. Anthony and I have remained happy the whole time. I am so thankful for Anthony he makes me so strong. I love him so so much. I don't think he will ever be able to grasp just how much he means to me.

Very Hard Financial Decisions

Lately I have been thinking about all the things I wish I could have... for Bear, for Anthony, and for myself. I am not materialistic but I do enjoy having things that I want (hey who doesn't?). While thinking about these things I wondered to myself "When will I be able to buy them?" So I decided to add up all of my family's finances and see how much money we would have left over each month for buying things that we want to have (I was hoping to buy one new thing a month). Before Anthony moved in I had about $1,000 left over after the bills were all paid. But at the time I also had roommates living with me taking a large amount of the rent over for me. I assumed that since my roommates left and they were paying me about $500 a month to stay with me that we would have approx. $500 left over. Then I subtracted $300 for food/gas and that would leave us with $200 a month for things that we wanted. Perfect right? WRONG!

Turns out I didn't take into account that Anthony comes with his own set of bills. After I added all of those in my once $500 was now down to a mere $115 and that is before food and gas, and car insurance (because he isn't sure the price of his car insurance). So, long story short we don't have enough money. I think we may be able to make it work but we will have to eat very cheap! And only buy the cheapest of things. And we won't be able to buy anything that is not an absolute necessity... ever. And when I have to take mandatory unpaid vacations from my job in Nov. and Dec.... well I have not idea what we will do then.

At this time Anthony is not working. We wanted him to stay home and care for Bear. We feel it is better for Bear. Now it is clear that Anthony needs to get a job. He is okay with this and has even started looking for one all ready but the problem is, if Anthony gets a job we will have to pay for daycare which will cost about $500 a month. So if Anthony can not get a job that is making at least $700 a month well there will be no point because he would just be going to work to pay for daycare.

Even if he got a job making some amount of money. Chances are we would have different working schedules (because he works in security), and we would never even see each other but for a few minutes a day. Thinking about that deeply depresses me. I love being around Anthony and I can not even bare to think of not seeing him but for a few hours. And for what? an extra $200 a month? I am not so sure it is worth it. I think that maybe we should just cut back and try hard to find another solution to this issue.

A long while ago I used to sell on Etsy. I had a shop that sold handmade crayons and soap. I was very good at what I did and I made a lot of money. I have been thinking about starting this up again but I am VERY reluctant and keep holding back. The reason being, the last time I quit was because I got much to overwhelmed with orders and was not able to fill them all. I was overloaded with stress and it put me in an overall bad mood. If I did start doing Etsy again I would have to fill orders when I come home from work. So basically I would wake up at 5 AM, go to work at 6:30 AM, get home at 4 PM, cook dinner/eat/clean up, and then at 6 PM I would have to start filling orders which can take HOURS! So when will I ever be able to spend time with my baby? Or Anthony? I will be basically working 24/7 with just a two hour break to cook dinner and eat. I want to do Etsy I really do but that seems like a too large of a sacrifice to make. The other thing with Etsy is you always have to have it on your mind, the creative process never ends! I remember when I was doing Etsy my mind would never rest it was in business mode all day everyday. This interfered with my bonding process with Seth. It was like I didn't have the time to bond with him. I feel so awful about that but my mind just would not knock it off, all I could think about was how to make my shop bigger and better. I am SO very fearful that this will happen with Bear as well.

The thing is, if I am going to start doing Etsy. I need to start now, while I have the money. In a few weeks Anthony is getting a settlement check from a car accident, and I am getting my tax return. Anthony will also soon be getting his tax return. To continue on with Etsy we will need a large sum of money to get it started. That sum of money we will have now. But will not come into any amount of money for anything until Jan of 2014 when our tax returns come next year. What a tough decision to make. 

So what am I to do? We surly wont make it if I don't do something. But what? I need to pray for clarity on this, I really do. And speaking of praying... I am wanting so badly to improve my relationship with God. If I am working 24/7 how will I be able to do that? How will I be able to give him my all? I wish there was another solution. Maybe I can think of something else.