I have a longing…

I will never ever try to deny I am a material girl.  I like stuff.  I always have.  I struggle with this.  Part of me actually desires to be a minimalist.  I’m torn.  :)

So now that I’ve made that clear, on to the next thing I deeply desire… the next thing I simply must have.  Who wants to tell Matt?

There’s a seller on Etsy who makes these gorgeous CLOTH cash envelope systems – wahoo!!  Cash envelopes made out of beautiful fabric??  Sign me up!!

Another view:

She also sells the patterns, but bah ha ha ha ha!  I’d rather buy one all made up.  The only problem with the wallet is it’s short 1-3 envelopes for my needs.  I may convo her and see if it’s possible to add one.  If not, I’m also kind of crazy about her loose envelopes and pouch:

In fact I can’t decide which I’d like better!  This one would be more customizable, and I like the idea of just having the envelopes I need in the pouch.  (Having said that, I’d have to remember to grab the money out of the “haircut” envelope if I left it at home.)

I could add my coupons to the pouch as well as my cell phone, keys and chapstick, I guess!  I would need to find some sort of gadget for my cards (license, debit, library, you know…) to slip in there as I wouldn’t want a wallet in addition to this.

Thanks for “listening” to me ramble a bit. 

You know I made my own envelopes (out of paper) a while back, and while they certainly serve my needs, they are suffering a little bit from use.  And my wallet is nowhere near as cute as these cloth things!

See?

Here are my envelopes:

If you look really really closely, can’t you see they’re getting worn out? 

It’s terrible, isn’t it?  Embarrassing really.  Somebody tell Matt.  :)

Television and Babysitting (but not at the same time)

Matt and I almost got Direct TV last week. Actually we signed up for it but changed our (my) mind before the installation guy came. We've been without cable for a few months now and it's really not horrible. I've always been a TV junkie though, so it's quite an adjustment for me. We have a converter box and an antenna in the living room that allows us to get most local channels. NBC comes in the best, and CBS and FOX are pretty good too. The spanish channels always come in crystal clear, but sadly it's pretty hard to watch PBS. The girls love videos though, and we have quite a stash of Disney flicks among other things.
The things I miss the very most about cable are channels like HGTV and TLC among others. I also really miss the DVR and watching my favorite shows whenever I want to! Fortunately my favorite programs are available from their network websites or Hulu the day after they air, so we can catch up then. It wasn't very enjoyable to watch them on my old computer, but I think the new one will have a nice bright clear screen for watching shows. We also are able to watch several TV shows and movies instantly through Netflix on the computer, so it's not like we're without media.
In fact, I've pretty much replaced my TV addiction for an internet addiction. :) I really enjoy reading blogs and Facebook, and I find myself sucked in far too many times a day. I have been doing more reading lately, and I'm hoping to do more when I get my Kindle. I'm hoping that will eventually cut down on the clutter around here as well.
Cable is so expensive in our area (maybe everywhere?), but Direct TV has a really good intro offer, and full price is even cheaper than cable as far as I can see. We talked about it and thought it would be worth the price and we would really enjoy it! I can't argue with that, but I started feeling buyer's remorse as soon as I signed up. I thought about it more and really found myself seeing things and thinking things that led me toward the decision to unsign up and be content with what we have! Not that I don't miss it. A lot. :)
For now we're going to save what we would have spent. It feels a lot better to have money in savings anyway. Although we're nowhere near our goal, we have a little breathing room... a very little. It felt really good to be able to buy a computer when mine died.

I'm not sure if I've actually mentioned this on the blog or not (or maybe I have a lot, but I just can't remember!), but I'm in the middle of a "career" change right now. :) I'd been working part time at the church up until James was born. Then we had a (really mutual) parting. It was their idea, but I think it was for the best, all around. So for the first time in all my havings of babies, I didn't have to go right back to work with them. I cannot tell you how delightful that's been! (Way better than cable :) ) And becuase of some nice people and circumstances, I've been able to keep the girls in MDO/preschool even though my income isn't coming in. Guess what I do on Tuesdays and Thursdays? I drop off the big girls, then James and I have 5 hours to ourselves! Talk about bonding!! I still feel a little guilty about it; I've always used that time for work! And in a way, I still do, though it's a different kind. I work on my parenting; I work on my house. It's nice.
I was on the lookout for some part time work as soon as I found out I wasn't continuing at the church. I wanted to be able to be with my kids at least most of the time. My schedule at the church was pretty ideal. I considered a few things, in no major hurry since I wouldn't want to do much before the new year. Then something fell into my lap. Well, first Matt actually got a little raise, which is amazing since they never give him raises! (That sounds wrong. His former boss never gave him a raise, but that wasn't his fault.) So with some budget cuts on our part and the little raise, we were okay for awhile! It feels good to know you're being watched out for, you know? These little things that happened really made me feel that leaving the church (as an employee) was the right thing to do! One thing I really want to be able to do though is keep the kids in the school up at church. They love it so much and I know it's good for them.
Back to the thing that fell into my lap: an old friend who moved back to Kingwood contacted me about watching her son while she works!! I am so excited about this. He was born in May, so he's in between my little ones, and I think this has the potential to be great! I know it will also be HARD WORK, but a different kind of hard than previous jobs. He's going to start next month. I won't have him every day or even the same days all the time. His mom is a PA downtown, and his dad is a student. I'm so excited to be able to help them (and me) out. I'm going to continue to put the girls in MDO/SLC this semester, and that will ease me in I think. Some days I'll just have the boys. Some days I'll have my three. Some days I'll have all four. :) We'll see what happens for the future. I'm excited to be able to save this money for when we need it. And as life happens, we will.

Clearly I needed to ramble. I haven't been writing much and I really wanted to get this on the ol' blog. In my head it was shorter. :)
The new computer will hopefully come in today. That combined with the girls going back to school this week should result in some blog posts with pictures!

It’s October!

It’s the month of Baby Brother’s birthday!  (Nobody better tell me he can wait until November, ‘kay?)  I’m excited he will have an October birthday.  I don’t know why, but September bugs me.  I can’t explain this, and I really love all my peeps who have September birthdays.  :)  And now I can recycle/cut up my September magazines and put the October ones in the baby box.

This isn’t quite my due date, but here’s the milk I bought today!  It’s getting close!!

The girls and I made a very quick stop at Kroger after a run to the bank this morning.  You can’t really tell, but they’d just finished eating little powdered donuts – love those samples!  :)

 

I have to do a little more testing, but I think the picture quality from my camera may have improved with the new battery I just got!  I’d been thinking about getting an additional battery for backup for awhile, but just hadn’t felt like spending the money.  I figured I could be responsible and keep it charged.  Well, in the last couple of weeks I realized the battery was actually failing.  It wouldn’t hold much of a charge anymore, sometimes it would take a few tries to turn on.  Yikes!  I need my camera for the new baby!!  So I found a battery for just about $14 on Amazon.  Have I mentioned I’m totally addicted to Amazon?  Anyway, I was a little worried it wouldn’t come before the baby, but it did!  I’m going to have to take some low-light pictures that always look awful and see if the new battery helps!  Wow, what a long paragraph about batteries.

Here’s my funny bank story of the day:  Every two weeks I go to the bank to make deposits and withdraw the next two weeks worth of envelope cash.  My system is to write a check to cash for the withdrawal (since my checks are free and I don’t have to fill anything out) and put a post-it on it of the bills I want.  Like this:

100 – I

50 – II

20 – III

10 – I

Or whatever the amount is.  It’s not rocket science or anything, but it usually works just fine and I think people get the tally mark thing.  Most people, anyway!  So today my post-it looked like the above, but this is what I actually got:

50 – II

20 – III

10 – I

1 -- (Okay, I don’t know how to make 100 tally marks on the computer but that’s what would be here.)

That’s not exactly what I wanted.  Oh well, easy enough to trade out.  And I did!

This morning my wonderful Joanna slept until 7:45!  Yay!  She possibly would have slept louder if her grumpy sister hadn’t need to scream and cry a lot this morning.  Natalie woke up at 6:30.  This is not good for her.  In fact yesterday her note from school said she tried to fall asleep at 12:30!  Makes sense if you’re up at 6 – ew!

So even though I am totally bushed after a week of being a wife, mom, bulletin printer, and incubator, I’m trying to get a lot done today!  I’m working through 6 loads of laundry.  All the hang dry stuff is out (and almost dry!)  and everything else is waiting in line for the dryer.  There will be lots of folding in the Pence house this evening!  I also managed a trip to the bank and the grocery store.  I really love having a morning to just do homemakery kinds of things.  We haven’t had one this week and I can feel it!  Sadly my back aches and my feet are swollen and it’s only 1:00!  I’m such a wimp, not to mention pretty out of shape.

Alright, long rambling post over with!

I quit the cable company.

I think it was in the spring that we downgraded from “expanded basic cable” (i.e. all the normal channels) to “basic cable” (channels 2-23).  At the time, our cost for basic was about $10 a month – not too bad.  It almost immediately went to $27.99 because of course I had some kind of limited time secret special rate.  So, $28 is a total rip off for the basic broadcast channels and like 25 Spanish channels.  Unless maybe you speak Spanish.  Which I don’t.  Anyway, so I’ve had it on my list to figure out how to use an antenna and a converter box to get the broadcast channels for free.  We really only watch PBS and the occasional other program when it comes to “live” TV.  So Monday we got on Amazon and Consumer Reports and ordered a converter box.  (In case you’ve been living under a rock, you have to have a converter box now because all TV is broadcast digitally and if your television is more than a couple of years old, it needs the box to convert the digital signal to analog.)  So the box came in today, and we actually own an indoor “rabbit ears” type antenna, so we gave it a shot!  It’s pretty amazing that it works.  The very best channel we get is NBC, but I can get just about everything else I want, as well: PBS, CBS, ABC, FOX.  It requires a little bit of moving the antenna around, and there are wires all over my living room, so the system’s not perfect.  :)  I think we should get a rooftop antenna, and that’ll probably give us more consistent service.  Baby steps.

So I went ahead and called Suddenlink to break up with them this evening.  We also have cable internet with them, which bundled with the cable, we pay $20 a month for.  $20 is really a good price (as far as I’m aware) for high speed internet.  The only other thing close I have found is this company called Clear Wireless that appears to offer high speed in our area for $30.  So anyway, I knew Suddenlink would want to charge me more $$ for just the internet, and I figured if it was more than $30, I’d check out this other company.  I’m just not ready to give up internet.  I’m truly addicted.  :)  Yup, they wanted to charge me more alright – TWICE as much!  What?!  So of course I said (repeatedly) things like, “Well let’s keep it for now, but I’m sure I’ll be calling you back to cancel that as well since I know there are some companies in our area that offer high speed internet for less money.”  After a few minutes, she offered me the internet for $20 a month!  Yay!  Now, for all I know (because I forgot to ask) it’s one of those secret limited time special rates, but I figure I’ll jump that hurdle when/if I get there!

So now we’re watching America’s Got Talent with a very clear picture, without the services of the cable company.  Feels good.  And it’s legal.  :)

I learned something today

Actually I learned a few somethings.

I was looking at my checking account online and discovered a recent charge from McAfee, a company I have not ordered from in a long time. I was pretty sure what it was, though. I had a free trial of McAfee virus protection way back in probably 2005 when I bought my little Dell laptop. Usually I am very smart about these things, but I know that was a very busy time in my life; I must have slipped up. They had my debit card number. They’d probably been charging me to auto-renew that product (which I haven’t used in easily FOUR years) every year and this was the first time I caught it. (stupid, stupid, stupid) I have to let those other years go as part of my money stupidity. But I made them take this charge off. And cancel the auto-renew. Since it appears they can charge my card with the WRONG name, WRONG billing address, and WRONG expiration date. Cool. It was pretty hard to even track down my account. Here’s the information they had on me:

Name: Jessica Cooksey

Address: 5309 Creek Shadows

Phone Number: 281-359-8365

Email address: jessica.cooksey@humble.k12.tx.us

Yup. I can safely put every one of those things on the blog because not one is accurate or applicable. Every single one of those things is almost FIVE YEARS OLD. FIVE. FIVE!!

As soon as they’ve refunded the money, I will have another little chat session with them and get them to lose my credit card number if not my whole account. I couldn’t do it myself. Unfortunately my chat session closed before I could save it or write anything down (loving this crooked company more and more all the time), so I’m not exactly expecting the refund to come easily or swiftly. I have hope though. I am in shock a little bit that they can have an incorrect name, billing address, and expiration date and still manage to use my card. I guess I need to set up a little chat with the bank too.