No Jail Time Here

My husband spoke to the fire investigator yesterday. All weekend long he fretted over the fire at our rental house. He was so worried that the fire investigator was going to think he tried to set the house on fire. His fears were eased after speaking to the man and finding out the fire was just a small trashcan fire and the damage was minimal. My husband is always telling me not to get worked up over events until you know all the facts and here he was driving himself crazy thinking he was going to be in trouble for this. I hope he realizes now that some times it's not that easy to stop worrying about stuff.



Paige's team lost on Sunday. She pitched a really good game and the girls tried really hard, but as usual the coach moved our infielders around and so there were a lot of errors as the girls weren't comfortable in their positions. I did get a nice sunburn on my nose and forehead though!



Yesterday at my son's game, they announced a possible tournament for this coming weekend. Ugg. We also realized that next year my son will move up to the 8-9 year old team. There was an 8-9 yr old team playing on the next field next to us and boy did they look big! My son is very tiny for his age. So much so that we've had him to specialists to make sure there was no underlying problem. There is none, he's just growing slow. His bones are measuring that of a six year old and so he will have a growth spurt at some point in time. I don't mind it much except when it comes to sports. Baseball shouldn't be a big deal, but he has voiced his desire to play hockey. That's a physical sport. But he's out in the driveway after school in his roller blades hitting a puck around and just loving it. We have a local ice hockey rink and so Jeff is going to look into him joining.

I'm hoping to get some things done this week before my weekend. I have to get some ebay items mailed and more on to sell. Plus with school being done next week, I am trying to get all the uniforms washed, ironed, sorted for donation, and whatever is left to keep - put away. The great thing about summer is my laundry goes down tons!!

Slumlord Update

Well, whoever tried to burn down our rental property- as if we didn't know- didn't do a very good job at it. It is only a couple thousand in damage and shouldn't take long to get done. My husband said they must have tried to burn down our house with a sparkler. Haha. Not that I'm a pyromaniac or anything but I think I could do a better job than them. At least I would have doused the house with gas or some other kind of accelerant to get a good blaze. Oh well, we're trying to look on the bright side of this whole experience. We just want to get the place fixed again and rented soon.

Today started Paige's softball tournament. It's double elimination so it makes for a long day. Probably because our team is not very good so we played 2 games today. We lost our first game but it was close. Paige pitched all 6 innings and only walked 4 girls. She even had 2 double plays. We should have won, but our defense is lacking skills. They aren't sure what to do and sometimes just hold the ball and stand there. It's the first team many of the girls have ever played on so they will get better.

We won the second game however, and so we go on to the next round tomorrow. Paige didn't pitch this game because the team we played against is actually worse than us. We won 23-0. The coaches even held up the girls at 3rd base or it would have been higher.

Oh well, Pens are on in 30 minutes and I have to get my shower.
Have a great weekend!

Catching Up

Wednesday was a half day at work for me and so I rushed home to get as much done as possible before everyone came home from school. I was able to run into the local Aldi's and I can't say how much I love that store. They have been stocking so much more fun things including their new 4 pack probiotic yogurt. Years ago when they first came to our town the selection was very limited and I wasn't able to buy a lot of items but now I do all my shopping with them and supplement what they don't carry. Saves me a lot of money.



I also was able to get some recycling to the bins. We have curbside recycling but not for cardboard. Plus plastic bags do sometimes end up coming home from the kids or my husband so I do like to save them and drop them off at the local grocery stores pickup bin.



Then I almost forgot to watch Oprah! I was so busy cooking and getting some little organizing projects done and it wasn't till a little after 5pm that I remembered. It was really a great show and I may have to try the cinnamon chicken recipe. And the pizza...mmm!

Yesterday I was so tired after work that I slept most of the evening, ate, got the kids homework checked and then went right back to sleep. The weather has turned cold again- though no snow - and it was just nice to snuggle in bed with Peanut.

Today is payday for both me and Jeff and so we will have to sit down and review our debt plan. We put together an excel spreadsheet with the balances of any outstanding bills to pay off and estimated when they should be paid in full. So far we've been on goal and it's really nice when we can print out an updated sheet after a bill is paid off. We own some rental properties and the past few months we've had tenants not pay. One of which we may have to evict due to non-pay for several months with no communication. I don't want to do this but since they've ignored our attempts at contacting them I guess we have no choice. The loss of their rent forces us to use our own savings. That's ok once in a while but now it's become a pattern and I would rather sell the home than lose our money. So our debt reduction plan has hit some bumps here and there but we aren't too far off track. We set up our budget based on our salaries and only use the extra money from our rentals as bonuses toward repayment. Even if we didn't have the rentals, our budget would remain the same. We aren't as strict as we should be but then I don't think it would work for us. Check out some other great ideas from Pheobe's website.

I have been really good this week with cooking dinners and keeping the house clean. Even when I came home on Tuesday to find my father-in-law had come into town and was spending the night. Just a quick clean up around the house was all I needed to do. I haven't had any yelling matches with the kids so that is AWESOME! I am really learning to read my warning signs and halt them! I was able to take the dog for a walk twice this week due to warm weather so I think once the weather turns warm consistently this will be no problem. Still haven't worked my faith time in- plus we slept in on Sunday and missed church with the time change. I need to work this into a priority.

It's Friday the 13th -second in two months so looking forward to the fun today!