Let’s face it…the economy really stinks right now. I don’t know of anyone who isn’t feeling the effects of it. Even though the gas prices have gone down (for right now, at least), the prices of everything else are still climbing.

Nearly everyone is examining their spending habits and finding ways to spend less money. This might be a good thing for their pocket books, but it’s a bad thing for the businesses they would normally be spending their money at. If you’re one of those businesses, you’re probably really feeling the strain right now. We own a business, too, and I can’t say that we’re not feeling the effects of the economy. We’re not feeling it as much as most people, but we’ve lost some business since everyone’s trying to cut back as much as possible.

If you’re struggling to keep your doors open, maybe you should think about taking out business loans . It might be just what you need to get your business through this slump and coming out ahead on the other side.

Also, if you don’t accept credit cards, you might want to consider starting to. Since most people pay with credit now, you might be losing business to the competition who does accept credit cards.

Either way, Online Check is the place to go to help your business get through this economic slump.

Posted: December 30th, 2008 under Random Thoughts.
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Just wanted to update and let everyone know that we’re home safely! We had a really nice trip…

We left Wednesday afternoon at about 4 pm. That morning, my mom suggested we get a portable DVD player for Ava, so Chad bought one right before we left and that thing definitely paid itself off on this trip!! We got the kind that straps to the back of the headrest and has two screens (one for each kid), but plays the same movie. That thing helped us out so much. Anyway, the trip up was pretty rough….we were completely stopped for 2 hours outside Cedar Rapids because two semis going WESTBOUND (note that we were eastbound) crossed the center thingy (can’t remember what it’s called) and crashed and someone died. That happened at 8, we got there at 9:30 and traffic didn’t move until 11:30. We’re lucky we didn’t leave earlier and have to sit even longer!! After that, the trip was uneventful, but exhausting. We didn’t get to Chad’s parents’ house until 4 and we were so tired, but the kids weren’t. I only got to sleep 4 hours (none of it in the car, so by the time I got to sleep, I’d been awake for over 24 hours).

Anyway, on Thursday, some of the family watched Lord of the Rings, but it wasn’t the marathon event it has been in past years.

On Friday, Chad and I went up to Appleton with Kelley and Jason to Once Upon A Child. They were having a 50% off almost all of their winter items sale, so I got some awesome deals. I got Kelvin’s entire 6-9 month wardrobe and a few things for Ava for summer (I wish they had more cute things for kids Ava’s age…it all seems to go downhill after 24 months).

On Saturday morning, we left to stay with my grandparents. It was also my birthday. They really enjoyed seeing the kids again and spoiling them. LOL

On Sunday, we went down to see my parents and brothers and sisters. They had so much fun with the kids and Kelvin was very tolerant of being passed around.

We stayed with my grandparents again on Sunday night and left about 10 Monday morning. We made it home by 7:30 which was really nice since usually we get home so late that all we have time to do is go to bed. Being able to unpack some stuff and take showers made today go a lot smoother.

Today we did a ton of unpacking, loads and loads of laundry and the grocery shopping. To look at the house, though, you’d think we just sat around on our butts all day. It still looks like a tornado went through it. I’m going to have to get it cleaned up tomorrow though because we’re having company for New Year’s Eve (what was I thinking??? LOL). Luckily, they’ve already seen our whole house so we won’t have to give them a tour, which means I only have to get the downstairs presentable.

Oh and by the way, Kelvin’s urinalysis came back completely clear. I’m going to assume it’s the diapers even though Ava uses the same ones and they don’t stink when she pees in them. He was in disposables the entire time we were gone and they smelled fine…then I got him back into cloth and he started stinking every time he peed again. I’ve seen some odor-removing solutions especially for cloth diapers, so I’m going to have to look into those.

Posted: December 30th, 2008 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 4

I’ll admit to being fairly picky about what hair care products I use. I’ve tried the super-cheap stuff and it just doesn’t cut it…it leaves me hair feeling all coarse and yucky. So while I don’t use the stuff you can only find in salons, I do use the “good stuff” (as I call it) and apparently it pays off because my hair lady (what are we supposed to call them anyway?) always comments on how soft my hair is.

Now there’s a great place online where you can buy the “good stuff” at very affordable prices! Hello Gorgeous has everything…hair care products, nail care products, cosmetics, spa products, etc. They even have nioxin on sale right now. I don’t personally know anyone who is going through hair loss problems right now (except me, but that’s because of postpartum hormones), but if I did I would definitely recommend this product. Everyone deserves to have a full head of hair!! They have all the systems (one through eight) at substantially marked down prices! They also have Nioxin styling products, too.

If you’re tired of paying too much for the “good stuff”, make sure you check out this site. You’ll be glad you did!

Posted: December 30th, 2008 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 1

Sandra at Diary of A Stay-At-Home Mom posted this today and it looked like so much fun:

“With the New Year right around the corner, this is the perfect time for a peek through the past year of blogging. I would love for you to join in with me!

Post the first sentence of your first blog post of each month. You can also add a favorite picture from each month.”

I am ignoring the sponsored posts and only using my personal posts.

January:
“Ava’s crawling all over the place now! She does a funny little crawl with one leg bent behind her when she’s on hardwood, but when she’s on carpet, she knows how to crawl the normal way.”

February:
“Ava is finally sleeping! I think she was going through a growth spurt this last week…I’ve gotten so much stuff done with her sleeping so much.”

March:
“I almost decided not to post an update tonight, but then I realized I probably won’t have another chance before we leave for WI this week, so here I am.”

April:
“I had yet another complication this morning (actually the same one rearing its ugly head again). I woke up at 6:00 am to more bleeding. So I went in to the doctor’s office this morning and they did another ultrasound.”

May:
“Also, I had my 18-week OB appointment this week. Everything looked good and Baby’s heartbeat was 150.”

June:
“Ava went to her first birthday party (other than her own) this weekend!”

July:
“This is shaping up to be a pretty busy day! This morning, Ava and I had to do a little bit of grocery shopping…not our major grocery shopping, but getting ready, getting out of the house, shopping, and getting back home took pretty much all morning anyway.”

August:
“Oh boy. This has not been the greatest day today. We’re having more company this weekend, so I’ve been stressing out trying to get the house and food ready for that (which included a short but unpleasantly hot shopping trip).”

September:
“Chad says that this part of pregnancy is the part where I’m supposed to be so uncomfortable that I don’t even care about the pain of labor or whether I have everything ready…I’m just supposed to want to get this baby out!”

October:
“And today’s baby update is….that there is still no baby! I think I’m going to make it to my 40-week appointment on Friday…how depressing is that???”

November:
“Can anyone tell me exactly how an entire week’s worth of invoices could just get up and walk off?”

December:
“We got our little chunk over to the breastfeeding clinic today and he weighs 15 lbs, 9 oz.”

Posted: December 30th, 2008 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: none

I have to admit that I’ve never thought of eyeglasses as accessories that you change depending on your mood or outfit. To me, they’ve just been something that I had to wear (until I got contacts) and I picked out a pair at each eye appointment and tried to forget about them.

But Zenni Optical is changing the way people look at eyeglasses! They have the most affordable frames around, starting at only $8 so you can have a pair for every day of the week or even month if you want to! But their frames are not only affordable…they’re stylish, too! They have so many different styles, colors, and shapes to choose from.

Right now, they also have Holiday frames available. I was shocked when I visited that page. They have so many neat patterns! I’m not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the pair I have in this post have little snowflakes all over them (and you can choose red or white snowflakes). They also have frames with horse-drawn sleighs, snowmen and more! And like I said, they’re so reasonably priced that you can easily afford to have different pairs for each season! The only problem now is deciding which pair to wear first!

Posted: December 30th, 2008 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: none

For about the last week, Kelvin’s pee has been smelling HORRIBLE!! So bad that I think he pooped, but he didn’t. So I finally took him to the dr today…the dr thinks it could possibly be the Poly-Vi-Sol (vitamins) making it stink so bad, but just to be safe he wants to test his urine. He said he could either do a catheter or I could try to get him to pee in a bag. Well, I wasn’t going to subject him to a catheter if I didn’t have to, so he’s got a bag stuck to his little wee-wee right now and we’re waiting for him to pee. The nurse said it could take several tries because it’s really tricky, but I think I have it on pretty good and I’m really hoping it just takes one shot. I’ll keep you all updated on what we find out!

Update: OK, I now have the pee collected (and it was simple…I don’t know why the nurses told me it might be tricky). Now I just need to wait for Chad to come home and stay with the kids so I can take it to the lab.

Posted: December 22nd, 2008 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 8

Ugh, it’s so cold here!! It was so cold today that I didn’t go out to buy milk until Chad got home from work because I didn’t want to take the kids out. Unfortunately, tomorrow I may not be able to avoid it. I have quite a few errands to run (only Walmart involves getting out of the car, though) in order to get ready for our trip and I can’t postpone them past tomorrow. Plus, the kids and I have to stay home until the semi comes to deliver Chad’s route supplies. I’m thinking we might end up shopping in the late afternoon and having Chad come with us in order to get into the store faster.

Well, I’ve got tons of stuff to do….you should see my springpad notebook for this trip….it’s crazy how much stuff I have to do and remember! I’d better go tackle some of this stuff while the kids are sleeping!

Posted: December 21st, 2008 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 1

Until two minutes ago, I had no idea what a video card was. I was all set to write a post about taking videos on my digital camera. LOL Chad spent about two minutes explaining it to me and about all I was able to understand was that it has something to do with having nicer graphics on his computer and if he cranked up the graphics on his game but didn’t have a good video card, his guy would hop. Or something like that….

Posted: December 21st, 2008 under Random Thoughts.
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I honestly do not know what parents did before digital cameras became available! I can totally imagine me ending up with dozens of rolls of film sitting around that would need to be developed. Luckily, though, I live in the age of digital cameras and can easily upload and store all my pictures on my computer and share them online without having to print them to show them off! If you don’t have one, you need to get one!

Posted: December 21st, 2008 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: none

I am hoping that Motherhood Moments (the blog I co-write with my mom) can start coming back out of its vacation now that Kelvin is getting a little older. I haven’t talked to my mom about it yet, but I’m sure she’s up to the challenge, too. I have a brand new post up now and ideas for more after we get back from our vacation this week. So start checking back regularly!

Posted: December 20th, 2008 under Random Thoughts.
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