Weight loss goals....

I'm not one to usually talk about my weight loss, but I hit a big goal this week! I have finally lost 15 pounds! This took 14 months, and let me tell you it has been very frustrating. 14 months is a really long time to take off what I put on in 4 months! I know that the slower you lose it, the more apt you are to keep it off, but still its frustrating. I am finally back to the weight I was 18 mos ago. I probably would have hit this goal sooner but Thanksgiving thru New years set me back and I had to re-lose some weight I had all ready lost! I also don't consider myself to be on a diet, they just dont work for me. Sure I would lose a bunch of weight quickly, on some wacky diet, but then as soon as I would go off of it, the weight would all come back. So instead what works for me is that I have to follow a constant plan, of making good decisions every day. It has to be a way of life for me. I also do not deny myself anything, if I want a piece of cake I will eat a small piece. That satisfies the craving and I am good to go. I just eat sweets in small moderation. I also weigh myself daily to track weight loss, but also to keep an eye on any weight gain, so that I can more easily take off a couple of pounds that may have crept back on. Unfortunately when I put this weight on in 4 mos., it was when we were going thru the stress of trying to start a new business and the start of a business partnership going severely bad, so without realizing it, I ate more and was eating more bad things. When I had realized that I had put 15 pounds on, I was very upset with myself. None of my clothes fit and I refused to buy larger clothes! 18 months ago I was at a point where I needed to lose just 5 pounds and I am happy to say that is were I am at again today. I want to lose 5 more pounds. I think that will put me back into all of my old clothes comfortably and I will be happy. After the 5 lbs more I believe if anything all I will need to do is tone up. I know with the summer soon approaching that I will be getting plenty of exercise working the gardens. So I believe the toning up part and the next 5 pounds will come off fairly easy, as soon as it gets warm and we can be outside every day!!

No matter how slow your weight loss seems to be going, keep at it, you will be happier and healthier in the end!! There was many times over the last 14 months I just wanted to give up because the progress was so darn slow, but now that Im at my first goal, I realize it was worth the wait and Im re-energized to work on the next 5 lbs!

What did you want to be when you grew up???

My youngest daughter like alot of college seniors is trying to figure out what her career will be for the future. I don't know its so important to have a permanent answer right now, but at least a general goal or interest to work towards, that has lots of options. So many college students change their major anyway, as they learn and mature and start growing up and experiencing a different world outside of high school. But all of this got me to thinking , how many of us really end up doing, what we said we wanted to do when we were in elementary school and then as middle and high schoolers. Most of us went thru numerous career options before we even made it to our senior year of high school. I wanted to be a ballerina when I was really little, then that changed to a gymnast, and in high school I wanted to be a math teacher, to name a few. Instead I ended up in the banking world and worked my way up thru the ranks and took every class they offered to pay for and even became licensed in the finance world. Had I not been layed off I would probably have stayed in that world. It was the only career path , in my adult life that I have ever followed and all I ever knew. So I think we tend to stay in what is familiar and known, even if its wrong for us. I cant say I was happy there, or even satisfied with my career. I became easily bored and quickly outgrew each new job position I was promoted into. I was always looking for something more challenging, more fulfilling, that job that made you want to get up and go to work. Instead my career was more of a chore, an unpleasant chore, even though I was very good at all my job positions that I had in the financial world over the last 13 years. I hated going to sleep at night, knowing I would have to go to work when I woke up in the morning. All Thru the day I counted down the hours until it was time to go, the days never moved fast enough and that's just no way to live life.
So that's why I'm struggling now to figure out who I am now and what I want to be when I grew up.... Seems like it doesn't matter where we are at in life we are always learning and remaking ourselves. I would really like to find that something this time that makes me happy.

So how many of you actually ended up in the career path you originally chose??

Looking for the positives from the recession

Ok those of you that read my blog are probably beginning to think that bad luck just follows us around. We have had more than our fair share of problems lately. But I know there are alot of people out there who are struggling as much as we are and that there are also alot who are worse off than we are. So I decided to find a few positives out of all the changes that this recession has brought to our lives personally and financially.

The grocery bill has went down... that's a big yahoo! This isn't because we had to cut back on the amount of food we bought, but because now that I am at home, I have the time, to look thru all, of the ads and find the best deals and I am using coupons again. I know it wasn't an excuse before but when times were better financially and our lives were so hectic, I didn't have time to look at coupons or even the weekly grocery ad. when I had a few free minutes I would make a mad dash to the store and just buy what we needed. I didn't have time to go to 2-3 different stores getting the best bargain. I think we all in good times tend to take things a little too much for granted and it was all about speed and convenience before. Also since I'm at home I can actually cook a real meal every day and that saves us alot of money. The quick convenience meals at the store cost so much more than making it yourself. When I used to get home at 6:30/6:45pm at night , it was all about throwing something quick on the table.

Family time.... My youngest daughter will be graduating from High school this year, so its been very nice to be at home with her to spend more time with her before she goes off to college next year, too. Also she plays tennis and i will actually get to go to her home matches this year and actually watch her play!!! With getting home so late from work I always missed, all of my girls tennis matches. My oldest played soccer and her games were more in the evening, so I caught more of her games, but the younger 2 play tennis and their matches start almost immediately, after school and I couldnt ever get there in time. I have alwys felt bad about this, as I know I was missing out on so much and the girls have grown up so fast.

New hairstyle..... Yeah I know thats an off one to think about, but the recession and job loss made all of us cut back, on going, to get our hair done, as often as we used to. I used to go and get a haircut and color every 2 months, now I have had to space it out every 4 months. 4 months is a bit long and by the time I get there it is in desperate need of help. Luckily I wear my hair long so it tends to grow out more gracefully between cuts compared to someone who has a short do, that needs constant shaping, to stay looking good. I also am not afraid to trim my own hair, so that helps alot. I also started using a root touch up product, to stretch out the times between full color jobs. I had been wanting to grow my bangs out for a long time but you know how that goes, they would start to grow out just to that annoying stage and when I was going in to get my hair done, every 8 weeks i would just be frustrated enough with it, that I would just have my bangs trimmed short again. So waiting every 4 months has gained me bangs, that are now down past the end of my nose. Almost to the chin length that I went them to be. So I gained a new hairstyle and saved money as well.

Stay at home mom .... One surprise that came about and I know my better half is still reluctant to admit to it, because its hard for him to visualize that a one household income can run almost as well as a household with 2 incomes. Common sense would say 2 incomes have to be better, but now that I lost my job we are living off of one income and its surprising how much my income really isn't missed. By the time they took all of the taxes out of my check and the health insurance costs, and I paid for the parking garage and all of the extra gas, I was really bringing home next to nothing. Then since I have been off other things have been noticed like the grocery bill going down. I don't have to buy prepackaged convenience foods to take to work anymore or bottled water or juice to take to work. I don't have to invest in the business world attire, shoes , panty hose, etc that was required for work. My car is taking less oil changes since its not driving over a 100 miles a day. Which in turn saves on the wear and tear of the car and the tire replacement. Im not saying some extra income wouldn't hurt, and as you know I'm trying to work towards that goal, but if you really take a hard look at things it can be very surprising how little the second earner is really adding to the bottom line.

Cleaner and more organized home .... My house is always clean but as you know I now have more time to do more in depth cleaning and I have had time to get some much needed items done that I didn't have time for before, Like painting, and cleaning the carpets more often.The flower beds and gardens this summer will also benefit from more TLC this year.

I'm sure I could come up with more things to be positive about that this recession/downturn in our lives has caused but I think thats enough for now.

Changes....

So we have still been wading thru the mess of disentangling ourselves from our business partner and the business, that will take a while yet to finish resolving. In the meantime we have had to get on with life and pick up and start all over. I'm still trying to figure out my career moves but I would really like to get this Farmers market, produce, floral, crafts, and holiday Bazaar business up and running to the point where it can at least pay a chunk of the household bills and I can just stay home and work this business. I still believe the concept of the nursery we started can still work. So we are coming up with a new name and starting over. We wont have a greenhouse to work out of this year but plan on having one next year. So we start out slow this year and rebuild. We will only move as fast as customer demand will allow us to and as far as financial means will allow us. I plan on doing this all without any debt this time. We still are getting such positive feed back from customers and interest in buying products from us, that I really believe had this darn recession not hurt us so badly the last year and a half and the partnership either hadn't went bad or had never existed in the first place, that this 3rd year would have been a big turning point to the positive for the business. So I am reluctant to give up the idea yet. I just have to scale it way, way back and start over. So I have a few business name options floating around in my head and soon will have to decide for sure. I plan on working the farmers market 2 times a week from June 1 thru Oct 31 and then the holiday Bazaars start in October and run thru December so I believe I can get a very good running start on this new venture, by the end of the year. So the first business activity we have coming up is for Mothers day. So The last week of April I will be very busy getting my plants all prettied up to sell at one of our farmers market locations. So hopefully things will start to turn the corner for us.
We have decided tp put in 2 gardens this year back by the house. Last year it was behind the greenhouses, but we cant do that this year. One garden will be for Pumpkins, gourds, and long term viney growing items. The 2nd garden will be for tomatoes, beans, radishes, lettice, onions broccoli and cauliflower, beets, etc, etc. Now we just have to get the ground worked up and tilled. That will be the next project. I can work the garden once its prepared but until then I am kind of stuck until my better half finds some free time form his job to get the ground worked up.

Are you starting your garden yet or are you in the planning stages yet, like us??

The snow is going......

So the weather has been freaky to say the least, we had over an inch of rain on Sunday then 4 1/2 inches of snow fell Sunday night! Schools were delayed on Monday. Now just 2 days later and the temps are back in the 50's and the snow has melted off except for a few patches here and there. Please, please let it get warm and stay warm soon!

Still dealing with a sick family

Sorry I am still fighting my infection, (it is finally getting better though) and my youngest daughter called from school today and asked me to come and get her, because she wasn't feeling well. I'm afraid that she might be coming down with a sinus infection now. Its a good thing they only have half a day of school tomorrow and are off on Friday. She can get some extra rest and hopefully kick this thing before its gets any worse. And if she doesn't feel good tomorrow she would only miss a couple of hours, of school, since they get out before lunch. I love summer and really hate winter but the transition from Spring to summer here is hard on everyone. Alot of people end up sick this time of year.

Can I just please have a break????

I guess my plate was starting to get a little too organized and and on the way to being emptier of some of our problems that we have been battling. The plate has been overwhelming full for awhile now and it figures as soon as, we start to see an easing of problems and see that things are starting to move into a different direction, life decided I needed something else to worry about. I have battled with a blocked tear duct for a year and a half now, in my left eye, that likes to get infected off and on. But I had went 7 months with no problems, other than that eye waters a little more than normal. Then I get a sinus infection this week and the sinus infection drains down into this tear duct and infects it. Massive problem! I ended up with another very aggressive bacterial infection, in my sinus cavities, and tear ducts. So I'm not feeling so hot, very tired and run down. The eye is not a place you want an infection. I look like I was a boxer that lost his most recent bout. Ha Ha! So I will be hiding out at the house, as well until all of this swelling goes down! So the posts will be slim again for a bit while I try to get over this.They have me on high doses of antibiotics for at least the next 2-3 weeks and the Drs are talking surgery again, to go in and rebuild the tear duct, to give me better drainage, so that things don't get blocked and infected all the time. But I just cant do that right now since I have no Insurance! Hopefully we can get this infection cleared up and I can go another 7 mos without problems and maybe things will financially be better by then or we will have insurance. I just keep hoping it will just go away and not come back!!!!

Ahhhh how pretty! The first flowers of the season. We don't have any daffodils or crocuses or tulips blooming yet, bu they are breaking thru the ground, so it wont be long. These beauties I picked at my daughters college, 2 weeks ago. She goes to school 3 hours south of us and 3 hours south is all it takes to make a huge difference in the weather. It is several degrees warmer there all the time and they have alot less snow. The winters are alot milder! So they get to see springs beauty before we do. I picked a few of these daffodils to bring home to enjoy. They lasted almost 5 days.

April is financial aid package month

So here we go!! My youngest daughter has been accepted now by 6 colleges and the final choice will be hugely influenced by which school offers her the best financial aid pkg. April 1 is typically the start date of when most colleges start mailing out their offers. So in the next couple of weeks are mail box will start being flooded by mail from all of these schools and we should soon have a better picture of where she will end up going to school. I know she is excited and also worried, as shes pretty sure her first and maybe even her second picks aren't going to offer the best deal, they are private colleges and they typically just don't offer as much aid. But we sill soon know. are you waiting for financial aid packages in your homes as well??

Cobra update

Awhile back I wrote a post about Cobra coverage and I was excited that the administration had passed as part of the stimulus pkg, a deal where the govt would fund 65% of cobra payments for a 9 mos period. The hopes was to allow more unemployed families, the chance to afford the Cobra coverage and give families health insurance while they were looking for a new job and new health insurance coverage. I was really excited about it, as it sounded like it was going to be a big help to us. With us paying 35% of the cost our health insurance, this was going to be alot cheaper than what I was paying as an employee. I unfortunately worked for a company where the costs had been steadily rising for years and the company had been passing the extra costs off to the employees and the employer was paying for less and less, of the health care costs for us. I was paying almost $800.00 a month for medical, dental and vision care for the family. With the cobra plan and the 35% option for 9 months I am looking at $470.00. So sounded like something we couldn't pass up on. When I first talked to my previous employer, the plan had just passed into law and they didn't have all of the details yet. They now have more details and while this may still be a good deal for us, it will mean a huge outlay of money to get it started and I wonder if the govt thought of that when they put this into place. Most unemployed families are not going to have the money to get this plan rolling.





The plan started March 1, so I would get 9 mos of coverage at 35% thru the end of November. I was laid off in January and lost my health insurance coverage on 1-31-09. I had to till 4-1-09 to mail in my initial application requesting that I wanted to continue with the cobra coverage. I have till 5-13-09 to get the first payment premium paid. The first payment premium though covers all of the in between months. So I owe for Feb, March, April and May when the first payment goes in. I know Cobra is continuation of coverage but since we had only one small medical bill in February, at this time it seems crazy to go back and pay for months of coverage that have all ready passed and we have used nothing, but that's not the way cobra works.





So February would be calculated at the full premium price, march, April and May at the 35% cost. And so forth. Ok this is a better health insurance deal for us, but that's still a heck of alot of money to outlay at one time, when you are unemployed. Oh but wait, when I called in to ask a few final questions when I was mailing in my initial application to continue with Cobra, I was told some more happy news. I should have known there would be another speed bump to get over. Turns out since this is such a huge undertaking to get this plan implemented by Cobra, that the govt gave them several months to get the plan working. Which means they say they needed time to get their selves up and running with the new program. Hmmmm.... So what that means to me and everyone else, is this. If you are trying to get yourself onto this plan now, you are going to have to jump thru a few more hoops financially to get onto this plan, than say someone who gets laid off later, in this year. So Cobra tells me it will be June by the time they have a new system up and running and are able to bill people at the correct 35% rate. SO they are allowed to, by law, collect the normal full premium payments until that time. So I actually owe the full Cobra premium for the months of Feb, March, April, and May, when the first payment goes in. Then in June the system will be able to go back and calculate all of the money I have paid in and give me a 65% credit for the months of March, April and May, because I overpaid, which they will apply towards future monthly premiums or give you a refund if you decide to drop the coverage. So 4 mos at full cost is going to be over 5K!! to get started. While I realize that with all I will be overpaying upfront, that I will have enough in credit to pay for all of my insurance thru November, and I wont owe anything else until December, its the principal of the thing. Yes, in the end I will get the insurance for 9 mos at the 35% cost BUT at a large upfront cost. What unemployed family can afford 5k upfront? $470.00 a month is still alot when money is tight, but its sure a heck of alot more budgetable on a monthly basis.



Is this really what the govt was thinking when they started this plan??? Families that experieince lay offs after June and decide to get onto cobra will not have to go thru this mess, they will just auto start paying at the 35% rate, so thank goodness for that, but those of us now trying to get onto this and take advantage of this program are not being helped out financially at all!



I have no options, I either make the payment in May or I give up the Cobra option. So more thinking to be done. The application was sent in to at least keep the option open for us, so now I have until Mid May to decide, what to do.

Great deal!!!

I usually don't talk about my money saving ventures when I go grocery shopping, As I feel like an amateur compared to alot of you great deal finders and couponers! You guys are awesome and I have learned alot from you!! Anyway this deal I just had to mention though. My better half is a caffeine free Pepsi drinker. That is the only kind of pop he really drinks. In a pinch he will drink a sprite or a rootbeer but those are very few and far behind. Meijers had Pepsi product cubes ( 24pk) on sale for 2/10.00 this week plus I had 5-$1.00 off coupons ( I used 4). The deal only allowed 2 cubers per each purchase, so I had to use the self checkout lanes and ran 2 separate orders so that I could get 4 cubes of Pepsi. So after my coupons, my total was $8.00 for 2. That's like buying one getting one free at the normal price. You very rarely see pepsi on sale that cheap! I was very happy!

Sadness....

April usually brings to us a flurry of last minute craziness, non stop working around the clock and excitement, while we entered the last 2 weeks before the greenhouses would normally open for the season. But not this year.....

Unfortunately due to an insurmountable mountain of problems the greenhouses will not be opening this year. I have mentioned in several of my posts, that we have been struggling thru alot of problems and have had to make some very hard decisions that we haven't wanted to make. Alot of the decisions we had no say in and were forced to follow because of this darn partnership. If we had, had a crystal ball 2 years ago and had known that the business was being started right at the time, the recession was just getting ready to start, we never would have started it and had we also been able to look into that same crystal ball and seen into the future, to see all the problems that the greenhouses partner was going to bring to the table, we definitely never would have brought him into the equation. The business could have started without this partner, he wasn't needed financially and he was brought in for reasons that really seem dumb now, but that's that 20/20 hindsight thing and there is nothing we can do to change, what has all ready happened. Even if the partner had never existed would the business be opening today, I don't know, I have a feeling the economy , the recession, the credit crunch etc., probably still would have been too much, of a strain, on a brand new business. But we could have closed up shop and waited for the storm to pass and tried to restart after the recession was over. But with a partner involved, and when a partnership goes horribly wrong, just as in a marriage that fails and goes into divorce, there are no winners. Things get split up, dissolved, assets are lost, etc etc. To completely dissolve this partnership and all ties to each other, the business had to cease to exist. So we can no longer use the same business name and everything that was the business will no longer be there. Its been a very hard time for my better half and I, lot of heartache and pain. We had put so much of ourselves into that business, personally, emotionally and financially and its all gone. We cant help but feel we have wasted 2 years of our lives with this venture.

But I also strongly believe everything happens for a reason and even though I cant see any good reasons for what we have had to struggle thru, I know that there is a reason. Somehow this will make us stronger and better and we will find a better path us and our nursery/greenhouse business.

I had mentioned in one other post and will mention it again, if you go into business with anyone, think long and hard about it, make sure you know that partner inside and out. I don't care if they are your best friend, a family member, or just a business acquaintance. You don't want surprises after you have entered into the partnership and its too late to get out. Make sure that all partners have the same work ethics, and goals for the business. That both partners are committed 100%. Make sure you have an iron clad contract between the partners, detailing exactly what is expected from each side of the partnership,including work hours, and financial cash flow into the business by each partner, so that when one partner doesn't uphold their end of the bargain you have some type of legal recourse. It makes for a very bitter situation when one side of the equation is doing 95% of the work and has put all of the cash flow into the business and the other side is making excuses for why they arent following thru on what they promised to bring to the table. It wasn't supposed to be that way. We take all blame for bringing the partner into this mess and we have to deal with the consequences of that and the losses we have incurred because of a very, very bad business decision. But to be fair the business probably still would have suffered because it was too new,when the recession struck. So now we are left with cleaning up the mess.

Ok enough wallowing in the mud, we know what went wrong and now we have to fix it, and like all divorces extricating yourself from a partnership is a long and painful process. So it will be a while yet before we can officially say its over.

New game plan. Stay tuned. I will outline more over the next few days.

April at last!!!

We made it!! Another winter has come and gone. We are pretty much seeing temps in the 50's now, but mother nature still likes to remind us its not quite time yet for really warm weather. We are seeing alot of up and down temps and alots of windy and rainy days as well. But we all know it wont last too much longer and it wont be long now before we can put those winter coats way back in the back depths of our closets and forget all about them and move onto our spring jackets. Ahhhh flip flops and shorts cant be too far away now!!!!

Spring breaks are over

The last 2 weeks have been full of kids. The college freshman was home for 10 days and then as soon as she went back to college, the youngest daughter, in high school, was on spring break. So this has been the first week that things have started to settle back into a normal pattern, as normal as can be possible, for us at the time. It was very nice to spend time with the girls and try to forget about the trying times we have been going thru. The girls have all grown up so fast and its hard to believe that 2 of them will be in college next year! My oldest daughter gave us a surprise this week as well! She and her husband are coming home for a visit this summer! By the time she gets here it will have been 111 months since I last saw here. So we are all very excited about this!!!