Tsurviving

Weathering The Storm

I've heard/read many stories about how inspiring it can be to survive a deadly natural disaster such as an avalanche, a tornado, an earthquake, or even a tsunami. You know the I-looked-death-in-the face-and-never-thought-I-would-make-it-out-alive types of stories, the kind you can read about in Reader's Digest, or watch on Discovery Channel's "I Shouldn't Be Alive". While these stories are entertaining, the media does a far better job of scaring the crap out of people with reports on natural disasters, than they do of providing hope with stories of people who have survived against the odds. Most people aren't very optimistic when when they turn on the news to hear that their 600 square mile island is about to be hit my a giant wave. People panic. People rushed out of their homes last Saturday at 0600, to wait in line for 2 hours at Wal-Mart so they could buy water and spam as I slept in, laughing at them in my sleep. I wouldn't say I was optimistic. I was more skeptical than anything. I didn't believe for a second that I had any reason to even get out of bed, while friends were headed for higher ground. Call me a bad mother, but I didn't feel there was a need to wake my children and head for the hills when the island tsunami experts were predicting a 2 meter wave. I didn't understand how 6 feet could frighten anyone, much less and entire island full of people. We are about 3000 ft from the water and we were not anywhere near the 'evacuation zones'. Most of the evacuation areas only extended about 50 feet inland. Anyway, I know I wasn't the only one laughing. I also know that I shouldn't have laughed at the people who thought they were just doing the right thing to protect themselves and their families. But, the real funny part is the people who made it sound like they barely survived by the skin on their teeth AFTER the whole thing (if you could call it a thing) was over. "Hawaii Dodged a Bullet" was even a headline in more than one news paper. Yes, we were lucky that there was nothing to worry about. Thank God for that. And, it is always better to err on the side of caution and prepare for the worst, but I don't think getting people on the mainland worried about their families and making the whole world turn their attention to Hawaii was really the right thing to do. Now, it is kind of embarrassing. I feel like Hawaii called 'wolf'. Anyway, I had been considering blogging about this all week, so I thought I'd just get my thoughts out there. I'm glad everyone is safe, and I'm sorry if you don't agree with my opinions about this matter.



After The Storm

My garage sale was postponed due to the hoopla, so I tried it on Sunday. It rained all day, but a few people still came. We made like $130. I'm going to try again tomorrow. I hope the weather is nice, because I want to take the kids to the beach tomorrow, too!


Sam's 4 month check up was on Monday. He weighed in at a healthy 16 pounds, 14 ounces, and measured 27 inches long. He's happy and healthy...and tough. The shots barely phased him. Here is a video of 4 month old Sam hanging out with his best buddy...the iPod bear.



Brad and I saw Shutter Island on Wednesday night. I liked the story, but there were like twenty blatant editing mistakes that made it really hard for me to enjoy. I am very critical of things like that because I believe that the people who get paid a bunch of money to edit huge movies should be able to do their jobs better than that!! Anyway, I want to watch it again before I cement my opinion about the ending.



I have some good news and some bad news about diapers. The bad news is that cloth diapering isn't working for a friend whom I tried to convert. This makes me sad because she really wanted to do it, but her kid just pees too much. The good news is that there is more good news than bad news! First, Blueberry had a sale on side snapping minkee diapers this week. These diapers are usually $25 each plus $6 more for the inserts that go with them. I got them, brand spanking new from the Swaddlebees website for $12 each...including inserts! They are super soft and come in very cute prints (see below, I ordered four of them). The other good diaper news is that Melynda's new neighbor is converted! A couple weeks ago I gave all of Jocelyn's diapers to the girl who moved in across the street from Melynda. She decided that she liked them, built up her own stash in a flash, and gave mine back to me tonight! I want to say that her son is 15 months, but I cannot remember for sure. Anyway, she wants to have more kids, so this was totally an awesome idea for her, and I feel so accomplished! :)




Forcasting

Next week will be my last week of sleeping in! My days of staying up until 0200, letting Jocelyn sleep until ten, and Sam sleep until noon, are numbered. I'm excited for this schedule change, however, because it means that I will get to spend my days with Trevor and Parker! I'm so grateful for this opportunity for Jocelyn and Sam to bond with their cousins...even if it means waking up at 0600 every day. Ugh. I'm sure it will grow on me.

I am about to get myself back on board for this half marathon training. The meeting I was supposed to go to last Saturday was canceled, and I cannot go to the one tomorrow morning because I'm not allowed to take the kids, and Brad goes to work at 0430, and who's going to come stay with the sleeping kids at 0600 on Saturday so I can drive across the island to walk? I promised myself that I would not run until at least the 15th of March. I want to make sure that I don't mess up my knee again before it is all the way better, but now I am getting antsy! I feel so fat. I think I'm fatter than I have ever been. I need to do something about it beside just talking about doing something about it. I'm going to walk at least three miles tomorrow night, and if my knee doesn't bother me at all, I might just jog a little. :)

Speaking of this half marathon, I also need to get on board with the fund raising! I thought it would be easier. Big thank yous to Cousin P and Aunt Marcia for their donations to the cause! What cause? I'll be running this half marathon with Team In Training as a fundraiser for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. My personal fund raising goal is $750, however, Brad will be running as well, so our fund raising efforts have been combined to set a Team Hayes goal of $1500! That's a lot! I think we can do it, though. I think I'm going to have a Pampered Chef Fundraiser show, in which 15% of the show total will go to LLS. If you are interested in ordering a few Pampered Chef items to support the cause, let me know and I will give you the link to do so. If you would like to donate directly to the LLS, the link is below! $50 down, $1450 to go!
Help Team Hayes fight blood cancers!

Brad and I finally got around to constructing a budget for ourselves. We've been talking about it for a long time. We weren't doing too badly before, but there is tons of room for improvement. Yeah, cloth diapering, breastfeeding and no cable save money, but even if there is money in the bank, more money in the bank is always a good thing, right? We tested out our budget estimates in February, and it's looking pretty good. We were pretty close to our $500/month on groceries estimate last month, but we want to try to cut that in half. We can't control how much or how little we spend on things like internet, car insurance or mortgage. So, we have decided to take control of our spending where we can. If we can stick to our plan, we should not only have all of our debt (not counting the mortgage) paid off by the end of the year, but we should be able to take a nice vacation for our 5th anniversary. We are going to try to set up meal plans. I think that will definitely help lower our grocery spending. We have never done this before. I usually just open the freezer and say, "What sounds good tonight, Honey? Ribs, pork chops, chicken?" We have already put off the meal planning for a while, but we hope to sit down this weekend and actually do it. Also, we usually don't make a list, and if we do, we always buy way more than what is on it. We are going to become better grocery list makers, and stick to the lists. Wish us luck!

So much for writing shorter blogs, huh? :)