Hi!

Dude, I know. I haven't been posting. Here's what we've been up to:

A few weeks ago Paul's parents were here along with Paul's godmother and his godchild Paulie. We had great time going to flea markets, driving up to North Carolina to gamble at the Cherokee casino (doubled our allotted money, thank you!) and touring a cave with an underground lake (really neat, you float around in a boat and can trail your hands in the water and watch the shadowy fish make ripples around them). We also had tons of good meals and I got to watch Paul with Paulie which is adorable, albeit a little bittersweet for me.

I've been working at the preschool for the past 2 1/2 months and I really, REALLY enjoyed working with 'my babies'. Getting to see children crawl for the first time or take their first steps or what have you on a regular basis is major job satisfaction. But, driving just under an hour each way on the freeway every day so that my 'part-time' job became 9 1/2 hours out of the house every day was just too much. So, I enjoyed my job but continued to search for something better. Two weeks ago I got a job as an office manager for an apartment complex, its just a few minutes away and the pay is almost $2 more per hour. I miss my babies a lot but I can't argue with either the hours or the pay for this new job. (By the way, I just realized that because Paul and I both get paid every week and there are five or our pay days this month and because I didn't take a break between jobs and am still owed a paycheck from the preschool we will be getting ELEVEN paychecks this month. I just let out a little hysterical giggle when I realized that. Of course, there is such a huge shortfall every month between what we need and what we get that we still probably won't have enough money, but GEEZ, eleven paychecks in a month is pretty rockin'.)

I also went through our budget with a fine tooth comb again and realized that there are only three things that we can change. One is that we need to make more money which is a large part of why I changed jobs (isn't it sad that I get paid so much more for typing up invoices and spreadsheets than for caring for people's CHILDREN). Paul accepts as much overtime as is offered to him but can't do much more to earn more money since he is working at a job where he needs to bide his time in order to get promotions and raises. His job has the potential to be well-paying, he just has to hang on until time passes and other people leave. The next thing that our budget showed me was that the only non-necessity bills that we have every month are internet/cable and World of Warcraft. Now, basically these things are pretty much our entire entertainment budget and we're okay with that. I did cut back to basic cable to save $15/month, but other than that its pretty much non-negotiable. Lastly, we need to move to a cheaper place. This place is nice, but its bigger than we need, we have horrible neighbors, we can't get anything fixed and its just too expensive. So, we've been spending a lot of time checking out apartments and houses etc. to rent. This weekend we found one that we're hopeful about. Its a WEE tiny house with a big backyard and deck and general cuteness...and its $105 cheaper per month than this place plus so much smaller that our heating and air conditioning costs will surely be lower.

So, looking for a place to live, starting to clean and box things up, cutting back our already bare-bones spending, leaving a job and starting a new one, visiting relatives and the usual cooking and cleaning (bear in mind that cooking for the four of us is exhausting and time consuming because we all need special, homemade food that is acceptable for our various food related issues) etc. has just been taking up every minute of my time. Plus, I'm going through a period of insomnia again so when I am relaxing I'm sort of spaced out and staring vacantly at the ceiling.

I'm really going to try to update here more often, hopefully regularly again, and by the new year things should be back to normal again.

Whew! What's new with you?