Simple Panache

a little breath of relief

Of course when you receive shocking news regarding your health, I think the first thing alot of us do, well speaking for myself here, is panic. I try not to, however sometimes ya know, it just kind of happens.

I sat in my shower and let the hot water run over me the other night and cried. Then, I got mad, mad at myself for letting fear and worry take over. So, at that moment I chose to not let that happen any longer, starting at that very moment.

Rob is doing great. His sugar levels are still a little elevated hovering around 180 or so, but hey you know what?! I will gladly take 180 over 600 any old day! His meds are working, his diet is changing and lots to get used to. We will get through this. I am so thankful it really is something manageable.

I am still trying to wrap my brain around this whole diabetes thing, but in time I will make peace with it. Will I ever be totally in control of him and what he does? No. That is silly. Will I continue to do whatever I can to help if he needs and love him and support him? Yes, indeed.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

I am planning a shop update towards the end of July! I am actually looking forward to getting back in touch with my creating again. Oh how I have missed it.

And just like that

Life can throw you a curve ball and leave you sitting there, scratching your head saying, WTF???

Rob has just recently been diagnosed with Diabetes. It is so weird typing that out and then going back and reading it.

I have had to really sit here and let that marinate my mind and settle somewhere deep inside as the reality of how life can just change and flip everything you once had upside down.

There is no cure for diabetes. That is what terrifies me the most.

There. Is. No. Cure.

I have had to sit and watch the man that I have loved for the last 20 years, try and take that devistating blow of new knowledge and watch him try and make sense of it all. Try and come to terms with it, freak out about it, then dig deep down deep inside himself, to try and come to terms with it all.

OUR lives will be forever changed. I say OUR because its not only him who is affected by this, it has now enveloped our entire family. Unfortunately, his body has the diabetes. However, WE really do have it together.

Meals, grocery shopping, family get togethers now all have a slightly different focus if there is food involved. And it seems like such a funny thing, FOOD. So what, right? Not when you have to monitor every freaking thing that goes into your mouth.

I refuse to let him go through this alone, so I am also monitoring everything I eat with him. I eat what he eats.

I am so utterly scared its not even funny.

Weekend plans

What plans do you have for the weekend?

I go to the eye Dr.Saturday. Just my regular visit, however I know my prescription has changed a bit. I am also getting contacts this time. Some days I get sooooo tired of glasses on my face. :/

We have had awesome thunderstorms that have been rolling in all day and lasting into the evening hours, which is way cool in my book. It gives us a little teeny break from the scorching heat!

A little bit of shopping :)

Just a tiny bit, really.

I believe I have expressed before the love that I have for Etsy.

I dont even have the appropriate words to describe the wonderful love I have for that wonderful webplace for the world wide crafters out there. I mean seriously, where else could you buy gorgeous hand-dyed yarn from Canada ASLOVELY as this. I love that green so much that I purchased two skeins of it and have been admiring its lovely goodness still sitting in my yarn stash. I have not decided what to do with it quite yet.  

Ok, enough gooshy stuff.

I have been drooling over these gorgeous  BOOKPLATES from TheBlackApple's gorgeous shop. I picked them up last night and have my favorite books that they will be placed in. Well, the top 15 favorites on my bookshelf. Did I mention my uber heart love for books?

Speaking of books, I also picked up yesterday  This book while on a little lunchtime shopping adventure at Barnes and Noble yesterday with a co-worker. (Yes, I know I was just there the day before, ahem!)

Thats all for today. We'll see what tomorrow brings. :)

I

I'm not that hard to please, really

I went to Barnes & Noble today during my lunch hour at work. My main goal was to pick up a few books for Gabriel for this year, since he has pretty much read his entire lot of books we own. The second item on my list was an venti iced caramel machiatto which really has nothing to do with this post. :)

While I was checking out the cashier asked me if I was an educator since I was buying a teachers planner. I told him that I am an educator for my soon to be 5th grade child. He looked at me and after the 10 second blank stare with alot of blinking on his part, I gave him a little more info by explaining that I homeschool my child.

After all the ooooooh's and oooook's and hahahahaha's he then proceeded to tell me that I can actually bring in "that thingy" is what he called it and I assumed he mean the affidavit to homeschool which he did.

He went on to tell me that I can get an educators discount! After all the ooooh m g's and ohhhhh my gosh, that is wayyyy cool's I just about wanted to reach over the counter and kiss him. Well, not really but I really wanted to like tell his Manager what a great job he did telling me to bring in "that thingy" for the educators discount.

In all seriousness, he was a super nice kid and I told him I would be back tomorrow with "that thingy" to get my card and maybe even buy him a coffee because you know, I am really not that hard to please.

To Swiffer or not to Swiffer, that is the ????

I threw away my mop and bought a Swiffer XLarge about a month ago and I LOVE it.

When I walked in the door with all my goodies from my shopping extravaganza that day at Walmart Rob saw the Swiffer and gruffed and puffed at it.

"You bought that!" he snarled.

"yes, I bought this!" I snarled back.

I must have been one of the last people on the planet to have one of these things, but I think its wonderful. Its much cleaner than a mop and I LOVE the wet wipes that are the Febreze Lavendar & Vanilla. Oh, heaven. It smells so clean and leaves a soft scent, not a sharp cleaning solution smell.

Just the other day I walked in on him, HIM using it in our bathroom. Our masterbathroom has a pretty large floor space and HE was using it! And, he was whistling a little tune. I walked out so he wouldnt see me witnessing the Swiffer love attraction.

Now, if I could only get a picture of him using it. ;)

This one or that one??

Ok, so I have been looking for some cute Mary Jane style shoes. Well, let me back up a little. I have been planning my Fall wardrobe. Yes, I know its still Summer and many of you that may be in the Northeast region of the US must think I have seriously injured myself in the form of a brain injury. No, I assure you that is not the case, I am just longing for this HOT miserable summer to be done with. Done, I say!

So, I am totally in love with orange shoes right now. I am knitting myself a super adorable burnt sienna colored scarf and when I saw these shoes, I gasped and choked a little.

oh dear internet friends, arent they adorable? They are at Zappos and are called Keen Callistoga in the Flamingo color.

Just envision these teamed up with some super cute jeans, maybe some striped socks, a white cotton shirt under a cordury jacket along with my super cute scarf!

I seriously need to move to a colder climate!

LOOK! at these!

oh so cute! Keen Zoe in Floral/Camelite. Oh,my.

Now, I have to make a decision. Which one? At about $96 dollars a pair, I am thinking that ONE pair will do just fine.

The Mary Janes are really pulling my heart strings. Oh curse you Zappo, curse your lovely shoe filled website! I heart thee!

Mom! Stop it!

We took the boys out for icecream last night. As we were sitting in the drive-thru waiting for our order, I happened to glance back at Gabriel sitting in the back seat, deep in thought as he was staring at the employees inside running around. He had the sweetest look on his face and I blurted out:

"What are you looking at my little curly haired muffin?!"

He then had a look of terror on his face and said:

"Moooommm! Ssshhhh!!!! Be quiet, dont say that to me here, you will embarass me!!!"

I immediately began to laugh, to the point of tears. This is the first time he has ever said anything to me like that and just his reaction was so cute and funny!

My baby is growing up.

I guess all the little nick names I have for him like, chocolate chip muffin man, my little fuzzy wubby dubby head, my little muffin man are going to have to be saved for inside only. Like deep inside a cave that has no sound outlet, whatsoever!

(my daughter and I started singing a little song to him when he was 1 about being the muffin man and that nickname just stuck, just in case you know.. you were wondering ...LOL)

Did someone say, treat???

::every little bit helps::

I dont even have to say it. The economy sucks right now. Pardon my choice of words, however this topic really has me heated lately.

How many of us live on a budget? I think alot of us do, even though we may not have on on a spreadsheet or some type of tracking system, we all budget some way or another.

Our household consists of two working parents. I would say we make a pretty average amount of money. We dont have extra money for lavish vacations or fancy weekly dinners. We do however live a fairly comfortable life. We live in a very nice suburban area, drive two cars, have 3 cell phones, cable tv, internet service (hey, alot of people consider those two things luxuries) we have enough money to cover our monthly expenses and have enough money for food and gas.

However with that being said, we feel the pinch right now. Things are tight-the #$@! rising cost of fuel, food expenses and higher utilities. It has me a little scared AND feeling highly frustrated.

Our incomes haven't increased, yet is seems everything around us has.

Things I have been paying more attention to lately to keep within our monthly budget:

:: Limit extra driving to save on gas::   

I think everyone has done this in some way or another. You would be surprised how much this adds up to your gas expense! Rob and I both currently spend around $130.00 average a week on gas JUST to get to work. I have tried to make this amount smaller, but that would mean having to move closer to our jobs, which would mean paying more for rent.

 

:: Eliminate fast food::   

This one can sometimes be a hard one. Rob and I both work and packing lunches every day can get well, boring and just tiring. Having to make lunches for both of us in the evening after a hard day at work after making dinner, doing homeschooling lessons, ect.. This small task can sometimes feel a tad overwhelming and just a little iritating. However, packing lunches saves on average $60 dollars a week if we both spend only 5 dollars a day. And I dont know about you, but five dollars doesn't buy much lately.

 

 :: Use weekly grocery ad's for weekly meal planning::

I have kind of always done this, but I have really been paying more attention to things on sale. Eating healthy has always been a little more expensive than not eating things that are the best for your body. Buying organic. Ha! I have had to really reconsider this because organic milk here is $6.99 a gallon compared to non-organic which averages around $3.00 a gallon. My boys WILL NOT drink Soy milk, so non-organic it is. I was at a local grocer just a couple days ago to pick up a cucumber for my salad. 1 cucumber, 1 organic cucumber was $1.99! I about died right there. So, what I have been doing is really utilizing the sale items for weekly grocery planning. We eat what is on sale. This hasn't been too bad, yet.

 

::eating what we have::

Have you ever realized that you buy what you really dont need? I have a pretty huge pantry. And it is stocked full most of the time. I read an article a couple weeks ago that talked about how consumers waste money on things that arent really needed and food was one of them. My first reaction to it was, oh yeah right! But then when I went to my pantry and really took a good inventory of what we had, then looked at my grocery list for the week, I realized that I too purchase unnecessary items that we could really go without if I used what I already have in my pantry or freezer or even just tweek a recipe a certain way to omit one item and replace it with something else. This is really easy to do if you make alot of casseroles and such. My only problem in eating what we have or using what we have is I hate to see my pantry inventory get low. The article suggested having food storage in case of emergencies, however for day to day eating, buy only the things you need for that week. THIS has been hard and I have yet to figure out if I can do this one.

 

I have found this topic floating around my brain quite a bit lately, this sticking to a budget with the current state of the economy. It seems like it would be easier and a little less stressful however I find it harder for some odd reason and it seems like it is so much more of a chore than usual.

What do you think?