It's Cold. I Feel Like Crap.

I'm sick of being cold.

(Disclaimer: I'm on the low end of a bipolar cycle, and also haven't eaten all day = in a crappy, i-hate-life mood)

I am cold every day. Not just put-on-some-slippers cold. But five layer tank top - shirt - long sleeved shirt - sweatshirt - hoodie - COLD.

We wood-heat only. AND, thanks to a wonderful, lovely, screw-you cold snap in late Nov, we used a LOT of wood. Too much. Much more than we estimated. So we're running low on wood, and rationing. So, cold.

But I am S.I.C.K. of being COLD.
I love winter. I do. I'm a winter gal. I have no problem being cold outside. I'll go take care of the goats in the 27 degree weather and not notice. But inside? Inside = warm, in my mind. And when inside = barely warmer than outside, my mind refuses to comprehend.

My kids are driving me loony. I counted up the days since I've been without them, and came up with New Years. Which doesn't seem that long, really, but then Ben wasn't feeling good, so the last 2 weeks I have had them 24/7. I have woken them up, taken care of them all day, taken care of them after Ben gets home (oh, and taking care of HIM too), put them to bed, gotten up with them 2-3 times per night.
Non. Stop.

And I am so sick of them. And that's a horrible thing to say, really it is. Because since being on the new meds, I've been able to 'enjoy' them again. Snuggle them, play with them, etc. But now? I'm just sick of them. I took off for 2 hours this morning to the local coffee shop to work on some Russian, and that was REALLY nice. And I'm sure a lot of you are going "wow, 2 hours, that rocks, I wish I could have that!" but 2 hours doesn't cut it for me. I'm more of a gone-all-day-be-home-for-dinner gal. I just need more than a few hours to 'reset'.

Screw this, I just put more wood on the fire. I'm COLD dude. We'll buy wood if we need to. It's still cheaper than electric heat.

Our money is out of control. Well, actually, we don't have any money, so I guess it doesn't matter. I confirmed with the insurance company that we do NOT want OUR car fixed (we looked, it'll be $400 to fix it, less if we can junkyard the parts, so screw the insurance's $1000 deductible). Hopefully the fact that we didn't use the collision part helps our rates stay down. I also found out we're a "platinum" member for being with them so long and they have "small accident forgiveness" which I THINK means less than $500 property damage, but it might be more, so we MIGHT get off with no rate increase. Or very little. So that's awesome.

However. We're still not making ends meet. Or really we're making SOME ends meet. Just not all of them.
Dear lord let our tax refund be more than 3k. Know how awesome that would be? FREAKING AWESOME.

Why do people not talk about money? I never understood that. Ask me, I'll tell you how much we make, how much we spend, how much debt we have. Of course I'll ask Ben FIRST before I tell you to make sure he's okay with it, but really, I, myself, have no problem with it. I'll tell you upfront what I make! Zero. Zip.

The guilt is back. I'm here sitting at home doing dishes while hubby's out there making, you know, money. And money is society. Money money money. You can't turn on the radio, TV, look at the newspaper, or visit a friend without money coming up. We are so focused on money as a society and I am trapped in it even more than I want to be.

I hate having debt. I hate it even more because I feel 90% responsible for it. First off I brought a fair amount into the marriage. I remember Ben wanted to wait to get married until I got all my debt paid off. That was almost 4 years ago. I STILL have some of that debt. Plus more. LOTS more. It makes me want to bang my head on the desk. I blame the bipolar. And that sounds like a cop-out but it's really not.

I was going to go on and on about the bipolar thing but I think I'll make that a separate post. Otherwise this post would be 19 pages long. Yes, 19. Exactly.

Thanks for reading.

Crafty Caterpillars

I remember making the egg carton caterpillars when I was a kid, so I figured the girls would like it too!

We started by donning our now-dry painted aprons. Then we got out the paint, pipe cleaners, beads, googly eyes, and egg carton.

The girls had a ton of fun painting.


Then I put Tamsyn down for a nap. This was a bit too hard for her. She painted but had no interest in the rest of it.

Morri and I glued on eyes, a bead nose, and sparkly pipe cleaner legs, mouth, and antennae. We stuck some beads on her 'pillar's antennae too.
The finished products:


Kudos!
Ket

Starting our Crafting Journey

More and more lately I've been looking into kids crafts, especially creative or logical thinking ones. I decided yesterday that the first step in this direction was getting the girls aprons! At first I wanted to sew them myself, but upon seeing the price of canvas (8.99/yard, seriously?), I decided to go with the cheapie premade ones ($4.50 for 2). Then we picked out some fabric paint!

What a blast! The girls really went for this. It's their first adventure in painting.

We started with putting a sheet on the floor. One I wouldn't mind ruining... it was FABRIC paint. Then we laid out our aprons, and pulled out some cupcake papers for paint holders.

Then we started! Morri, as per usual, went straight for the purple and pink. Tamsyn surprised me by getting really into the green. I made sure not to interfere (after showing Tams the initial put-paint-on-canvas excitement).




Man, they had a blast. It only lasted about half an hour, but it was fun!




And, of course, by the end Tamsyn was getting bored, so she started painting her hair... and stuck the brush in her mouth. I made sure to get non-toxic stuff, but it could NOT have tasted good...



So bath time!


And the finished masterpieces!
Morrigan:


Tamsyn: