Juliette and I, along with my family, headed for a quick weekend trip to Disney World this weekend. We went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, which is one of my favorite things to do at the parks.

Juliette had a blast, and was just tall enough to ride Splash Mountain and Big Thunder. Let me tell you, I was worried. Juliette's a small thing, and I think she is missing a fear factor. She's been asking to ride Splash and Big Thunder for over a year now. I was terrified she was getting over her head.

Haha, I was wrong. She wanted to ride up front on both of them, on her first ride. I didn't let her do it, for a number of reasons (again, terrified she didn't know what she was getting into) ... so I talked her out of it. Well, she is a thrill seeker. As soon as we got down the hill at Splash, she asked "Can we do that again!" On Big Thunder, she kept her hands in the air for most of the ride. She was laughing and yelling, she truely enjoyed herself.

We're going back to the parks in November for the Christmas party. I can't wait for her to get to ride her rides again.

Over the weekend, I spent $50 on food. This isn't "too bad" in Disney's perspective, but I am going to aim for a lot lower when we go at the end of October and again in November. We're going for Halloween, but just staying at the Fort, not going in the parks. I know I can do this cheap since we stay in my parents RV ... and I'm going to only be there for the afternoon/evening of Halloween. In November, when we're at the park, I am going to bring Julie's food. Sheesh, the kid just doesn't eat, and it's such a waste to throw away $6+ food per meal. At dinner, she ate two bites of her hamburger ... and none of her sides. For lunch the next day, she ate nothing of her own, but a couple of bites of my mom's sandwich. This child eats pratically nothing.

Over all, I spent $120 this weekend, $60 on my ticket (my parents bought Juliette's) $10 on misc. junk, and the $50 on food. The food also includes a little candy I bought the girls, and the lunch I bought Jordyn (my sister), Juliette and I on our way to Orlando. I don't think I did too badly on spending, since I could have spent a lot more on Disney junk I wanted .. but I just kept putting it back.

So, new month, new goals. I'm up late with no kid at home ... I'm starting the month off a little early (I have to pay my car insurance, and that's all for September.) I just realized how pretty lame I am right now ... no kid, work at 9am ... and I'm up working on my budget and goals. LOL ... I could be out, I don't know, acting like a 24 year old. Sigh, next time, maybe.


So, here are my October goals:
1. Stick to envelope plan
2. Complete budget folder
3. Get debt repayment plan complete
4. Stick to frugal shopping ways.
5. Pay an extra $50 to carpayment
6. Find an extra $100 for debt repayment
7. Save $500
8. Go through Juliette's clothes
9. Sell Juliette's old clothes
10. Complete Christmas list
11. Inventory 3t clothes
12. Inventory 4t clothes
13. Find cheap/free entertainment for Juliette
14. Look into 1/2 day daycare
15. Start vacation plan
16. Finish resume
17. Keep applying for jobs
18. Organize Juliette's toys.
19. Oil change

I don't think these are "too hard" ... and it's something I should be able to accomplish pretty quickly. Just gotta get to work.

Ok, a bit of a back story.

My parents asked me to come back home so I could pay off some major debt and go back to school. I figured I would be here for about a year ...

Well, last night, they dropped the bomb on me that they want us to stay the following year as well. They are going on a year long RV trip and were planning on moving to North Florida ... but with the housing market as it is, there is pretty much no way they will be able to sell their house.

So, I'm looking at two years living here. I have a whole household worth of stuff. Isn't it insane to pay for storage for two years on it?!

I'm thinking of either selling things like the dishes and sort on Craigslist, or just donating them to Goodwill. My furniture has a home at a friends house, so I don't have to worry about that. I'll have to buy new things when they come home, but at $120/month over the course of at least 24 months, we're talking $2880. I know I won't be able to replenish everything with that amount of money, but I needed new livingroom furniture anyways, and I could do probably get most of my household stuff for less than $2500.

So, am I wrong to just give my stuff away, or should I pay to put it in storage like my dad thinks?

Isn't it a tad bit frightening to watch the numerous companies that are filing for bankruptcy? I know as a server, it's pretty scary.

In our town, we lost Don Pablos, Roadhouse Grill, and Johnny Carinos, last year. Yeah, during the "boom". Oops.

Then, of course you've heard about Bennigan's and Steak n Ale. Yep, they're gone. Next door to where I work is a Ruby Tuesday, well, they've filed for bankruptcy as well. Then there is Shell's, which I believe is only in Florida, but they've filed for Chapter 11. Sam's Seltzer's closed here a couple of weeks ago.

Wouldn't you be scared if you were a server, and were watching all these places closed. We had one opening (my friend passing away) at CB ... and we had 25 applicants in ONE day.

Usually, when it gets into the slow season, people talk about leaving and looking for new restaurants. No one did that this year. Why? Well, it's pretty obvious ... it's just not the time to go. And if you did, what are your chances that you were hired to a place listed above ... and now you're unemployed. I had a few friends who worked in some of the above places ... and they just showed up to work and there was nothing. No last paycheck, no sorry ... just a closed door and bills to pay at home.

I'll be the first to admit, my income is DOWN ...I don't even want to look at the complete totals. It's been about cutting corners ... finding a way save ... taking Juliette out of daycare to try to save some money (luckily I have AMAZING parents) ... but who's to say we aren't next.

Not completely unlike the $20 challenge, but close.

My goal is to put aside $5 a shift for the remaining time I have left serving (hopefully not too much longer, I am DONE with this line of work, just looking for a new job.)

$5 a shift, is typically $25 a week, which is $100 a month. That'd be a nice savings for things like birthdays and Christmas. Since we're such a small family, I'd say we could do a couple of short trips to Disney on that amount of money as well.

It's worth a shot ... isn't it.

Update on Summer: My friends little girl had her breathing tube removed on Monday. She is now completely breathing on her own! She is still in a semi-induced coma. She has been "watching" SpongeBob, and even said "Sponge"! On Monday, when they removed the tube, they asked her how she was and she said "I'm cold." With the amount of damage/swelling that was on her brain, this is AMAZING news. We are thrilled and still hopeful of a full recovery. They are doing an MRI scan to make sure how her brain is healing, but since she is forming words, this is an amazing thing. Her legs are healing, but they are doing another xray on the shattered leg to make sure it is healing/pinned correctly.

We needed good news, this week we (my friends and I at work, we) knew three people who died. Yep, we hit our three. Sigh. Then, our coworker threatened to kill herself at work ... it has been a freakin crazy ass week. I'm looking forward to Disney next Friday!

Yeah, she's three. But seriously, it's starting to get a LITTLE old.

During our hiatus, we took two trips to the local ER. The first one, my daughter got cellulitis on her chest wall. If you've never had the joy of dealing with cellulitis, it looks like a spider bite (I think that's the best way to describe it). They don't know what she did, probably scratched at an ant bite or something, but needless to say, she got a VERY serious infection on her side. Because of this expierence at the ER, she is not willing to go to the doctors or anything of the sort, evening getting her to stand on the scale at home is just now starting to get easier, she associated standing on the scale with the ER.

Luckily, we caught the infection in the first day or so. All they had to do was poke a pretty good point into her side so that I was able to drain the puss out of her skin. YUCK! She was on a ten day antibiotic (which the ER doc prescribed to much of, luckily our regular doctor caught that). Luckily, again, my daughter was amazing during this whole ordeal. We're talking about 3-4 times a day of warm compresses and having her side mashed and pressed. Poor thing. Again, it is completely healed, and I am now one of those crazy moms who uses bandaids and neosporin (sp?) on anything and everything ... lol.

I should also mention that even though my dad retired earlier this summer from the fire department, he is currently working overnights at the local ER. Well, thank goodness for that. The other night after one hurricane day (we had like seven kids under the age of ten at our house because school was cancelled.) I looked up into Juliette's nose to see play-doh. Only, it was a neon green crayon. According to her, three of her friends were in her room and she put the crayon up her nose, and they laughed, so she kept it up there. And yep, it broke off and shoved the entire tip of a brand new crayon up at the top of her nose. Sheesh! Talk about peer pressure. This is nothing like Juliette would normally do ... but get a couple of three and four year olds in the same room, and who knows what they do. Sigh. Again, another trek in the ER where it took my dad, myself, and two nurses to hold her down. She was so angry with us. It took all of five minutes to get everything done (we were the only people in the ER at the time) ... but whew. The person who got the crayon said they had never seen one shoved so high up the nose cavitiy. Leave it to my daughter to do something like that ... lol.

So, luckily, those have been our only trips to the ER lately. Actually, at all. I figure, get them out of the way as early as possible. Of course, so far this week, she's completely busted her entire body running in front of the house in her cowboy boots. She skinned both knees, both hands and her face all up. Then, three days later, she completely ripped open her toe running around outside barefoot (see why your momma tells you to put on shoes?). Then tonight she busted her lip open.

She looked at me tonight and said "Am I ever gonna just stop bleeding?"

Only if we wrap the entire world up in bubble wrap baby.

Today has been a blissfully uneventful day.

Juliette is down for her nap, ahh, naptime. I love naptime. I am half tempted to join her myself, but there is much to do while she is asleep.

Today is our first no spender in awhile. It's a great feeling. I don't even think we're going to drive anywhere. Double yay!

I'm working on October's budget now ... and planning for the rest of the month. Spending should be way down, I'd like to pay off a bill or two extra in the next two months.

Needless to say, the past couple of days have gone by in a blur.

Sunday was the memorial service for my friend Jenny. I spent $60 trying to find a decent outfit, since all of my "business/casual" clothes are packed away. $60 bought me a nice outfit and a really cute pair of shoes. I bought something I can wear to upcoming job interviews, seeing as I am actively looking for new employment. Sunday was an extremely difficult day, after the services my friends and I had dinner at Cheddar's. I spent $20 which is pretty insane, but I bought a couple of drinks. It was great for all of us to get out together and laugh again, there needs to be more laughing going on.

I spent $20 on groceries last night. I bought stuff to make reuben sandwhiches tomorrow for lunch. YUM! I bought a couple of other things that I wanted, like veggies for the microwave for when I get out of work.

Today, I spent the day running errands and paid a bill for $150. It felt nice to get that off of my back. I also bought my daughter and my father a chocolate milkshake as a thankyou for running around with me, which cost me about $5. Dad bought lunch, which was awesome.

I still have 3/4 of a tank of gas, which is great, since most stations around here are out of gas. Isn't that insane!?!? Prices spiked over the weekend because of Ike, even though the our Gov said that our supply wouldn't be threatened with Ike in the Gulf. We leave for a (much needed) weekend at Disney on the 26th, so I am hoping that the stations get their supply soon and that prices go down to where they should be.

With all the spending done over the weekend, I am just going to sit tight for the next couple of days. We don't need anything, and I think we might venture out to a local park to blow off some steam. Juliette has been spending most of the time at the house this weekend, I was gone almost the whole weekend either working or at the memorial service. Luckily, I have two pretty amazing parents.

I'm just looking for things to get back to normal.

Seven years ago, I was a 17 year old in the beginning of my senior year. I thought I had the whole world in front of me, completely naive, with some pretty big dreams about how I would change the world.

Then 9/11 happened. It's the day that my generation will always remember where we were. Talking to teachers that day, they said we "needed" a day like this, a day where you knew the exact spot you were when you heard the news.

I was walking to homeroom ... and thought it was a joke. A freshman was getting yelled at by his teacher because he was changing the channel to the news. He said "No, seriously, a plane hit the Trade Center." Like his teacher, I had no idea how true and chilling those words would be. We stood staring at the tv, none of us taking our seats ... we all just stood there, and my awesome *complete stoner art teacher* who's homeroom I was in just stood completely shell shocked. You knew it was a big deal to see us all standing there.

I remember how all the teachers were told we were not allowed to be shown the news coverage. And how my psych teacher told them to screw off and showed it to us. I remember coming home and witnessing the biggest fight I had ever seen between my parents, my dad was from New York and a firefighter, he wanted to go and my mom didn't want him to. No one here remembers, but we got hit that weekend by a Tropical Storm ... so the fight I witnessed between my parents was null and void, my dad couldn't get clearance to leave because of the storm.

Looking back, I never thought I'd be here. If you would have told me how much life would have gone on in seven years ... I wouldn't have believed it. I LOVE being a mother, and am so proud of my daughter ... yet am still in awe that I am one. Is that silly? I don't know. How much life has changed in seven years.

Today, I am grieving again. I can't wrap my head around the fact that Jenny's gone. Stunned and silent is the best way to describe the feelings my friends and I are sharing.

An update on Summer for those that are curious: She had/has some major swelling on her brain. They drilled in her skull to help relieve some of the pressure. Both legs, hips and arms were broken in the crash. She has undergone numerous surgeries today. At 3pm, I found out she was going back into surgery because the swelling in her brain had gone down enough. They were inserting pins into her hips.

Tonight they announced that there was a beer in the cup holder of the car that hit Jenny. There was also an undetermined amount of beer cans in the passenger seat. They are awaiting a blood test to determine if she was drunk, but it's looking more and more like it was alcohol related. The woman who hit her is expected to make a full recovery.

Please, if you have babies, double check that their car seats are properly installed. Jenny and Summer were both buckled in, which is the only way Summer has made it that far.

http://pics.tampabay.com/?category=825

I don't want to depress anyone with these pictures, but when you look at them, you know how amazing it is that Summer has made it this far. Please pray for this little girl, she is simply an amazing little girl.

I lost an amazing person in my life today. She was my age, a single mom with a beautiful little girl. We worked together at the Barrel, and would often joke about how similar our lives were ... we were the same age, with little girls, and we fell in love with men who would turn out to be dead beat fathers. She and I both struggled, but it was great to have someone to vent to ... someone who actually understood where I was coming from.

Tonight, I picked up a shift for her, tomorrow would have been her 25th birthday. She was dating my ex, and on her way out to see him in St. Pete, when she was killed in a car accident. She was driving on the crosstown, and someone hit her head on going the wrong way. Her daughter, Summer, is in critical condition. The last we had heard, she was in surgery. They do no know if she is going to make it.

I can't help but wonder if all this wouldn't have happened if I hadn't agreed to work for her. I know it's not my fault, and I'm not even pretending that it is ... I know she would have either called out or someone would have worked for her tonight ... but it just hits me in the pit of my stomach that I should have been at home tonight, and she should have been at work, and none of this would have happened.

We found out at work tonight, a coworker called after she got the news from Jenny's boyfriend. Needless to say, we were all shook up. I think that's an understatement. Plates were dropped, orders weren't rang in ... there were a lot of tears. Life went on, but all any of us wanted to do was go home and hug our little ones ... and to find out how Summer was.

Just a couple of days ago, Jenny and I were making plans to take the girls to the park. We LOVE the tree park, and often took our girls there, but wanted to let them have a chance to play together. We knew they would get along, they both went to the same daycare ... but Jenny and I pulled them out to be able to spend more time with our girls. I'm just so incredibly at a loss for everything. I want to go back to Monday, and tell her I just can't make it in for her tonight, so that she would have been on the road later.

And then, the financial aspects of it. I know, if something would happen to me, that my parents would be there for Juliette. But, all I can think about is Summer literally being an orphan since Jenny took her away from her father. I know he wasn't a good dad, and I know that he had a lot of the same faults as James (my daughter's father) ... but I can't help but hope through this tragedy he can be there for Summer. He lives in a different state, so I don't even know if the family has called to tell him this happened. He hadn't talked to Jenny since she left almost 2 years ago. She just packed up her things, and left him. That takes courage.

I worry, since I don't have a legal will written, and I know I need life insurance. I know Jenny didn't have these things ... so I worry about what sort of lasting memorial Summer will have of her mother.

I lost a friend today, a courageous, loving, insightful friend. A daring mother, to a beautiful little girl. Hug your babies, and if they aren't there to hug ... call them on the phone.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=7e6f734c-8314-48db-8a59-ad175139e6d9
Her car was the green car. Seeing these pictures, I am praying that Summer is able to pull through.

http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=961DFA006308CB10699F85D29F8DDA87?contentId=7402031&version=20&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1
Same facts, just a wonderful picture of Jenny. This is a few years old, but that's Summer as a little one.

For a number of reasons, I have been MIA ...

So, I am working on getting back on track. Saving money, and hiding it so I am not tempted to spend. I have a lot to update, and am short on time, so I will do a better update later.

Hoping this is a start to getting back on track.