I'm still here

I know I've been a very bad blogger. I'm definitely not going to be on Santa's good list of bloggers this year. Only coal in the cyber stocking for me :( I apologize though. I have just been very busy trying to get ready for this craft fair while working two jobs. Believe it or not, I am *just* now getting over the problem I had with the cyst that took forever to heal. I seriously never thought it would finally close completely but this past week it did. I am going to get back into the doctor just to make sure it is all ok, but it feels 100% better so I'm optimistic.

I meant to get on yesterday, but I actually ended up out shopping with my friend Shannon. YES! I actually got out of this house for the third or fourth time this month can you believe it? I wore makeup and everything see

We had to go to hobby lobby to get some stuff so that I could finish a twilight calendar I've been working on. I'll post some pictures when I get it done...so far, I really love how it's turning out and I'm not even a big fan of twilight.

You can see a few other things I've been working on at my etsy shop. I haven't uploaded much because I want to take most of it with me to the craft fair. Even with all I've finished, I still won't have much to actually sell, but I'm going to have some examples of my work, so at least I'll get my name out there a bit.

I'm still working on my website, but feel free to take a look and let me know what you think.

Erik recently got another job so that is the BIG news at our house lately. I've been begging him to get a second job for a while, but for various reasons, it just kept getting put off. I had a mini nervous breakdown the day he was contacted about this most recent job. He hadn't been good about changing out the filters in our A/C so when it stopped working, we called the landlord to fix it. Landlord realized it wasn't working because of the clogged filters. Landlord sends us a bill for $125.00. I was going through quite a bit at work and when he came in to tell me about the bill we got, I told him that I was done. I can't handle shouldering a majority of our financial needs anymore. I was tired of never being able to save any money because I was the only one that ever had the money to pay for tanner's school clothes or hearing aid repairs, etc. I literally packed up shop in the middle of the day and crawled back into bed. The next day, he got this incredible new job working as a Deaf Support Specialist (lucky for him lol...I finally told him that if he didn't get it, he was going to have to flip burgers somewhere, find something!!) So far, he loves it. I can't wait until we have more money rolling in though.

It will be nice to not have to live paycheck to paycheck. Honestly... it was getting to the point where our paychecks (due to various things) weren't even enough to pay our bills. He had missed a bunch of work at his main job due to stuff going on with Tanner, me being sick, etc so we had at least two pay periods where he didn't really bring home anything. My job has slowed way down and since most of my pay is commission, it meant that my paychecks were almost half what they should have been. It has been a looooooooooooooooooooong time since we've really had something good happen for us I almost forgot what it was like to be optimistic lol. Now, I'm budgeting and trying to prioritize how we are going to get ourselves out of this financial mess we are currently in. Keep your fingers crossed for us :)

Tanner is doing SO well at school. He's enjoying himself, making new friends, loves his teachers. That is some pretty awesome news for us too considering how the year started off. We were able to cancel our contract with the lawyers (which they were nice enough to do for us) which saved us $750.00.

I haven't weighed myself, but I don't feel like I've gained. I probably haven't lost, but I'm definitely getting more active lately. It is just what most would consider ADL's, but for me, it is activity that I haven't incorporated into my routine for quite some time. Believe me, if you aren't used to standing on your feet for periods of time, a trip to the store is quite an outing for you. I'm also working on strengthening right now, doing squats a few times a day and other exercises to strengthen my legs. I'm working on standing for longer periods when I do stuff around the house (cooking, cleaning). If we can take care of a few things financially, we hope to take Tanner to Disneyland some time next year and if I can't go on the rides because of my weight, I want to at least be able to walk as much as I want without the problems I have to endure now. So, that is my motivation at the moment...long term that is. Right now, I'd like to just be able to take over other stuff Erik's been doing like grocery shopping. It's probably crazy, but I really miss going to the grocery store. I love to cook and I really miss not being able to pick out everything myself. I guess we'll see...I've said this (or something like it) before. I guess I just need to keep plugging away...maybe eventually I'll get my butt in gear and make some progress.

How is everyone else doing? I need to catch up on my blog reading, I'm way behind!