I haven’t really posted much, so let’s see if I can summarize the past few months.

I lost my main client at the end of 2009.  I found out in November that they wished to hire a larger consulting firm to manage them, so it left me in a scramble to decide whether to find new clients or find a “regular” job.  The thought of being unable to collect unemployment should I not be able to find other clients was terrifying, so I opted to look for a job.  Fortunately, I found one rather quickly (my client contract ended December 31, 2009 and I started my new job January 5, 2010).  I am now a Marketing Coordinator, and my new employer was so nice as to let me work 4 days in the office and 8 hours at home, so I work Monday through Thursday.  I’ve been working my home hours Monday through Thursday as well, so doing four ten hour days, and it’s going well.  I am really, really tired though, and it’s a huge adjustment for everyone, but I think most of all for myself and Calista.  She’s had me home for six years now (sad face goes here) and now she goes to a friend’s before and after school instead.  The boys are doing OK, but Ace has been a bit difficult as we get used to our new routine, and Skip had some complaints about me talking in the car (we are car-pooling), but we’re figuring it out.

The kids are all well, except, as I said, Ace is having the hardest time adjusting to our new life.  He’s been having a LOT of tantrums and being difficult in general, unfortunately.  He still goes to OT, and we are working on getting him through this and hopefully improving.

Ace and Nate haven’t been sleeping through the night, and that’s getting really old, really fast.  Nate likes to wake and scream and bang on his door to be let out.  The only “cure” is to go get him.  Sometimes he goes right back to sleep, and sometimes he comes into out bed.  What I wouldn’t give to sleep all the way through the night more than once or twice a month.

I’m having pain flare ups from the accident back in October 2008 now that I am working a desk job.  That pretty much sucks, but I can’t really afford to get it treated (yes, we have medical insurance, but co-pays and deductibles suck and no, we didn’t have PIP at the time, so it’s not covered through our car insurance).

Speaking of not being able to afford to get treated, this whole new job thing is scary because my income has pretty much stayed the same, but day care costs have gone up.  I don’t know how we are going to make ends meet, but having faith everything will work out somehow.  I’m doing quite a bit of sewing for hire that helps a bit, but we’ll see just how much it helps.

That’s pretty much it!

I am working on it.  I need to make time.  I lost my biggest client at the end of last year and decided to close my web and graphic design business.  I started working outside the home for the first time in almost six years last week. It’s been an adjustment, and we’re still adjusting.  I plan to make part of the adjustment finding time to blog again.  Stay tuned.

Ace can’t have dairy, as it upsets his tummy and gives him a bad diaper rash.  Therefore, he drinks rice milk.  And since he and Nate share everything, Nate drinks rice milk, too.  Between the two of them, they drink about $16 worth of rice milk a week.  I started wondering how hard it could possibly be to make rice milk, and set out on a quest to figure it out and hopefully cut the grocery budget back a bit in the process.

Well, I did it!  I tried several online recipes, then started combining and tweaking them to make my own.  I had posted one on FaceBook last week, and that one works well, but I found after a day or two of refrigeration, it was getting gritty.  So I have a new one to share, and this one doesn’t have the gritty problem that the first one did, though it does tend to clog their sippy cups (Take N Toss) a bit, but I’ll just get some different sippy cups to remedy that.  :)

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Last week when we arrived at Ace’s OT, we were saying “Hi” to the horses in the yard and Misty (the horse Ace rides when he goes solo) wasn’t there.  She’s usually out with a kid, so we said “Hi” to Willy and Sage and headed in.

When I got to the door, I saw a little collage of photos of Misty, and it said, “Misty Pony Girl” on it.  It was cute.

And then I noticed the dates.  July 31, 1990 – September 4, 2009.

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Fourteen years ago today, my childhood friend died from injuries sustained in an accident.  He was 16 years old and had been coming home from football practice with a friend.  He was the passenger and had his head resting slightly out the window to get some air, as he did not feel well.  As fate would have it, a groundhog ran in front of the car, the driver swerved to miss it and at that very moment, they were passing a large mailbox.  My friend’s head hit that mailbox and the resulting injuries proved fatal. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night after the kids went to bed, I found brownie mix in the cupboard, which solved the dilemma of making a treat for Calista to take to school.  I made those and did some Wii Fit while they were cooking.  Man, it’s hard to exercise with the smell of brownies baking!  Too bad that I didn’t cook them long enough so they were gooey in the middle (and not yummy brownie gooey, more like nasty uncooked gooey) so Skip had to take her to the grocery store this morning to pick up something and then take her to school.  I suck at cooking.

After the brownies were made, I researched replacement birthday gifts to fill in for the dolls I muddled ordering.  I found a few good Wii game recommendations, such as Animal Crossing City Folk, Dance Dance Revolution Disney Groove and Hanna Montana The Movie Game.  I figured I’d get one of those, but then I had the idea to get her an iPod nano instead.

She has a Fisher Price FP3 player, but it’s gotten old and shuts itself off randomly.  She can read now, so she could read the song titles on the iPod, and her music taste has matured past Disney Princess songs, so it seemed like a really good idea.  Until I realized a measly nano is $150!  DOH!  I responded to a few Craigslist ads with not much luck, so went back to the Wii game idea. Read the rest of this entry »