WE GOT A NEW CAR!!!

We finally got a new car!!!!! Yay!!!!  Its been 11 yrs of holding onto the 2 cars that we had. We paid them off and saved so we could buy a house. We lived financially stable (for the most part) for a while, but that's all over with now. Ha Ha

Certain financial situations we deal with are about to end, which will give us some extra money each month. And, my husbands car was starting to show its age. Mine was/is too, but it only has 65,000 miles on it. Soooooo, we decided that we would get rid of hubby's car and get a new one, and he would start taking my Hyundai to & from work. (he only works about 4 miles away from home)

Now for the last year or so, it had gotten to the point where he was only driving his car to and from work anyway, and my car all other times. Either he would be out with us, or running an errand for me. And my Hyundai was starting to show its age, and it was making my anxiety about cars get really bad. Like I didn't even like going more then 10 minutes away in fear the car would break down or I would get a flat, while Brian was at work. Therefore, we have slowly been fixing the little things on my car because we ARE keeping it. But now, while Brian is at work, I will be driving the new one, for all of the kid running around. And he will be driving the new one, anywhere else he, or us, go.

I'm not going to lie, this is going to be an adjustment for me. Up until now, its always been his car/ my car. Now we are basically sharing 2 cars (I guess that's what most married couples do). I am going to have always re-adjust the seats now, and the trunk of my "old" car is now filled with his auto crap, that he apparently NEEDS for work. So I have to keep that in mind when taking the the old car now.

All in all, its really exciting. And I can't wait to not be secluding myself anymore and in constant worry if I do have to drive more then 10-15 minutes away. YAY!!!

Halloween Series #1

Hey all! Now I know a lot of you might be thinking "Halloween? Its only August?!?!" I know, but we decided to have a Halloween party this year and I am so excited about it. I am taking the time to slowly plan it out and gather all of the items that we need for it.

So I thought I would bring you all along on my adventure. I know that Halloween and Christmas are the 2 main holidays that people go crazy over. And hopefully my ideas will help you all with your holidays as well.

We live in a row home style house. So you walk in the front porch porch and you can walk a straight line all the way to the back.  So my thought is to try to make each room you enter, as you walk through the house, a different spooky theme.

Our enclosed front porch, where people walk in will be black shadows and orange lights. We also have a bride and groom skeleton statue that our kids are no longer afraid, that will greet guests.

The door that enters the actual house, will be fully covered so no one has any idea what to expect. They will enter the living room, full of spiders in all shapes and sizes, illuminated with black lights.  All furniture will be covered in white sheets to enhance the spooky-ness.

I plan on having a large curtain of some type in the archway that gives more separation to the LR and DR. In the DR there will be a spooky snack table, some type of pin the tail on the donkey game for kids, and a selfie station for...well...Selfies!  Ha Ha

Another drape of some sort will cover the kitchen doorway. The kitchen will have a vampire theme of black and red. More adult type food will be in the kitchen along with all type of non-alcoholic and alcoholic spooky punches for all to enjoy.

Enter through the kitchen to the back porch, where you will enter the black light room. Full with black lights, spooky glow in the dark masks covering the walls, and mystery bowls for the kids to see what intestines and things like that feel like.

Exit to the back yard for some apple bobbing.

If you happen to need to use the restroom, be careful not to touch any evidence throughout that murder scene set up.

I think my mind may have bitten off more then it can chew, but I am determined to make this awesome. I hope you enjoy following me along on my adventure.

I have a Pintrest board just for ideas for this party if you choose to follow me at:
http://www.pinterest.com/hjsmoons/halloween-party/

The mind trip that last minute plans do to me

I really hope I am not the only mom who does this but....when someone pops up last minute plans on me, my mind goes into a whirlwind I can't even explain. And due to this, I seem to always end up saying No, just to make thing easier.
I just got a text at 10:41am, and although the end result was me politely saying "No, but thanks for asking. Why don't we hang out tonight?", the mind trip I went through to get to that place went as such....

Incoming Text :
"I am heading to the beach with the kids. I know you didn't want me to take all of them alone, but can I take at least Madison?"

My mind goes:
OH, that would be OK. Madison would have fun and she is the older of the 3, I can trust her to listen and stay with the group.
But Madison is still sleeping.
Why is she sleeping? Did I give her meds last night? Was she really coughing too bad? Should she really go? I can't remember how much she was coughing.
Wait, when are they even going to GET there? Beach is over an hour away and its almost 11am.
 Ava is awake, should I offer her to go? No, that's not fair to Isabel and I will have to deal with the reprecutions all day.
Wait, Madison has plans with Daddy later. She has been asking him all week if they are still going. That might be a reason Madison would not want to go, she very attached to him now on his days off. But what is she DOES want to go to the beach? If she does, will he get upset?
Will he even have time to take her out this afternoon -- he is working on my car right now? That could take all day.
Stop, back to the question at hand. Do I really want to wake her right now? UGH what to do!!!
Forget it.

My Reply:
Sorry, Brian has plans with the girls for this afternoon already and she is still sleeping anyhow. But thanks for asking. If you are not out all day, we will be home tonight if you wanna stop by."

UGH -  if I could just get my new car, and not be paranoid about breaking down, I would just take a couple days off and take the kids on days trips. There is still time.

Fried Zucchini chips

Another Pintrest "tried it" recipe. But they were soooo good. Only thing I would change is to cut them a little thicker.
See I grew up with my mom making fried green tomatoes. And I hate tomatoes. But as long as they were green and cut really thin, I ate them. So I was thinking along the same lines this time. However, the actual veggie taste wasn't too bad, so they could have stood to be thicker. But that is another "to each his own" situation.

Let's start with the wash - 1 egg and probably about half that bottle of Italian dressing. Place sliced zucchini in the wash.

Placed the egg & dressing soaked zucchini slices in a bread crumb mixture of salt, Mrs Dash, and onion powder. (If you use onion salt, you might want to leave the actual salt out of the recipe). Of course you can change these ingredients to your liking as well.

Last, just fry 'em on up and eat!!

Seasonal transitioning with home decor

Hey all!  If you follow me, you will know that recently I have been into decorating my house, just a little, with some accents of the season/holiday.

In the Spring I hit Dollar Tree and got some bright floral and fake fruit to do a  little deocrating around the house for the season. Then summertime and the 4th of July hit, and we chnaged it up again. (both these blog posts linked below)  And now its August and the month is flying by fast. Before you know it, it will be September. To me, September means the beginning of Fall..my FAVE time of year.

So last night, I went to Dollar Tree to get some florals that I liked for August, but that could also transition over to the beginning of Fall. I didn't find a lot of extras that I liked right now, so I just got enough for the little arrangements I have shown below.


The vase I got at a demo yearssssss ago. I always loved it, but never really used it. And I thought it went well with the colors this time.

I decided to add a little pop of bright color, so it didn't look too fall-ish.

Here are the finished products. The smaller one is on top of the TV and the taller one ison the shelf over my desk.

*Spring Home decor:   http://bit.ly/springhomedecor


*4th of July home decor: http://bit.ly/4thofjulydecor

Back to School cheat list

Its that time of year where we start scrambling to get everything together, that our children need, to go back to school aka get out of our hair. He He

Some schools are courteous enough to send a list home with the report card, of what will be needed the following school year.  But that is not the case at all schools. For instance, my 5th grader might not get her list until we get the letter telling us who her teacher is....1-2 weeks before school starts.

However, I have learned that there are some staples, that are needed just about every year. And on top of that are all the essentials they need every year regardless of what grade they are in.

Therefore, I thought it would be helpful to make a generalized list of items/things to help us all get as much as we can, before the last minute rush. I personally try to collect all of these items throughout the entire summer. I check sales and when I see a really good deal, I just grab it up.

Mother's Guilt - summer edition

So, its already the beginning of August and my kids have not really done anything too "fun". Its pretty much been a summer of playing with neighborhood kids for a few hours at night or swimming at their cousins house a few nights a week. That's it!

I feel bad for this because my children see all these other kids taking fun vacations, and going down the shore, and we haven't been able to do that...for a few reasons.

1 - We live paycheck to paycheck. In order to have a vacation we would have to skip paying bills one month and...we lived like that for soooo long that I just can't bring myself to do it again. I now live by the motto, if i don't have the extra cash sitting in the bank now, we can't afford it.  So to make up for this, since we do have a little extra cash, I do try to treat the kids to ice cream a lot or go out to eat more then usual. But its still not a "vacation".

2 - We are very close to getting a new car, but the reason we don't have one yet, depends on a certain issue being resolved. Until that issue is resolved, we do NOT have the monthly funds for a car payment. So in the meantime, we have my current car. Which is not horrible...it runs...its slowly getting the little things on it fixed. However.... with all of the flat tires I have gotten in the last 6 mos, and air constantly leaking out of the brand new tires, that we had to patch, I am overly paranoid when I drive my car. It's a problem I have had for a while. But usually once a car starts getting old enough and having issues, that its making me nervous, we end up getting a new one. Well, its been 11 yrs now and for the last 5 yrs, I have pretty much not wanted to go more then 10 miles away.  So, this prevents me from taking days off and taking my kids to the shore or to a lake or on adventures. I have about 4 more weeks to get the new car, and take the kids to the lake for some fun. Fingers crossed it happens!!

3 - My husband has recently been diagnosed with MS. And his capabilities of walking any distance,and staying out of the heat, are pretty much not there. He can't be in the heat anymore then like 5 mins. And he really can't walk anymore then maybe 2 blocks away without starting to have trouble.  And its all new to him, so we is not willing to find alternate ways to get around, like motor scooters. he's not mentally at that acceptance point yet. So, we can't really take vacations or go to amusement parks, unless its without him, and that would just kill me if we had to leave him behind.

On top of all this, I work from home. A real job. I get paid hourly, so I need to be online and available and working from 9am-6pm. So, while I am working, my kids are pretty much in the house. We have a small yard that they don't like playing in. We live in a town where I can't just let them go outside, without my supervision. There are not many kids who live on our block anymore either.

I think back to when I was their age... I didn't get family vacation each summer either, but it didn't bother me. Why didn't I feel like I was missing out?  Oh wait, at that age, i lived in Florida.....where we hit the beach every weekend and had a pool to access any time and day we wanted. And, we lived in apartment complexes,,,where there were always kids around. I remember being outside for hours playing, even if it was by myself. (i played well alone as an only child)

These days......it just doesn't happen. We can't allow it to happen because of how cruel this world has gotten. And who takes the brunt...us parents from all the over protecting we feel we need to do. We are the ones who end up feeling guilty when we can't afford to entertain our children, and we can't allow them to explore the outside like we did....alone.

I promise......next year kids. I promise!