Thursday, January 31, 2013

Forgiveness

Came across this quote, don't know who said it but so true:

"Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness but because you deserve peace"

This has really been on my mind the last few months or so.

I am the type of person who loves to love and I love easily and freely. I also can normally forgive easily but when I am really hurt its close to impossible.

When it comes to my father I truly feel betrayed and hurt beyond believe. I have now come to the conclusion that he will never understand or do the things that I need him to do in order for me to be able to have a relationship with him.

Bentley started asking questions as to who my father was, where he lived, what his name was. This made me start thinking if I wanted Bentley growing up not knowing who my father was and having questions. I don't believe that would be the right thing to do. See my grandfather was just like my father and I wasn't kept from him and guess what, I grew up not really liking my grandfather. Not because of things I heard because I never heard anything negative about him until later on in life but because he was not a very nice person and I knew that at a very young age. So true colors come out and Bentley can make his own decision whether or not he wants a relationship with his grandfather. I won't say anything negative about it to Bentley but I also won't allow him to see him without me or my mother there. She knows if something happened to Bentley under her watch I would be completely done with her.

So one day I got the courage to go to my moms house while my dad was there. I am glad I did.

I went in there thinking I did nothing wrong, he did. I have nothing to be ashamed of but he does. I now know what he is capable of and I no longer fear him. So I walked in there and you could tell he felt super uncomfortable. He didn't say anything to me and left pretty quickly.

Since then I have actually said hello.

I know that I will never have a close relationship with him because he is not willing to acknowledge anything but at least I can be in the same room as him.

He actually treats Bentley really sweetly so of course that tugs at my heart.

Ever since just kinda giving up on getting what I wanted a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders when it comes to that.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Pure love

I am certain that I get to see Christ pure love for us all through my child.

(yes, I am about to brag)

This little guy is full of love. Ask anyone who knows him and they will 100% agree with me. He cannot go a day without hugging people or without telling anyone and everyone again that he loves them. He does not care whether they are family or not, whether he knows the person, whether they are pink, yellow, white or black. He just loves to love. Oh and the older you are the more he will show it.  I am told on a daily basis at least 20 times but I am sure its more times if I actually counted how many times he says it.

My sister recently got married to a gentleman who has 2 little children from a previous marriage. Bentley had only seen them maybe 2-3 times before my sister got married. Right after the wedding we went out to lunch with everyone and  my son immediately started calling the kids his cousins while giving them hugs and kisses non stop.

Such pure love from my child towards others. I know I am not that great of a mother but when I see that pure love in my child I kinda have a happy moment inside my head cause I guess I am not as bad as I feel most days.


Monday, January 28, 2013

How I save at Walmart

I have started price matching at Walmart.

I have known about this for quite some time as my mother-in-law used to do it when she lived in Utah but I have never had the guts to do it myself. I was either too embarrassed or didn't have "enough" time.

Funny how not having a job and being poor will motivate you to do many things. Food shopping has always been something that I just came to the conclusion it would always cost us at least $100 a weeks or more and that was without buying all the produce I wanted.

Once we got back from California I started to think I needed to look into couponing but I just cannot get it down plus most of the coupons I find are for things we really do not buy or eat. We also decided that we both needed to loose some weight as this whole closing the store down thing really was not healthy for us. I gained about 10 pounds and so did Jon. I only really want to loose 10-15 pounds but Jon wants to loose about 70 pounds.

While on weight watchers you really have to eat a lot of vegetables and fruit, it's the only way to survive. The first shopping trip I made was just for a few items and it was over $50 I was highly disappointed. That same day I went and got our mail for the first time EVER since we have been married. That's a whole other post, let me just say my poor husband truly married someone with a lot of issues. Since I got the mail I saw that we get the ad's, Jon just normally throws them out. I went through them and I was shocked at what I was missing.

That first week I bought 8lbs of pork chops, 8lbs of drumsticks and most of the fruit for the week for less than $20. I was totally shocked at what I could do with price matching. Now that I am in my third week of doing this I have a system down and can I say that for the first time ever I actually look forward to getting the mail just so I can check what the specials are for that week.

I am seriously now spending $60 or less a week on all of our groceries. That really includes tons of fruits and vegetables, our meat and everything else we would need for the week. I have noticed since I started doing this I am barely buying pre-packaged things. Most of the items I buy are fresh which is always a good thing.

This is how I plan out my shopping. I write everything out so
as I am checking out at the register  I don't have to go thru the ads.
I put down where it's from in case I am ever asked to s the ad so I know
which one to pull out.

I bought  all of this for less than $60 when before this would have cost
me between $80-100.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Working out

I have been trying to run 5 days a week.

Probably the hardest thing on the planet. I hate working out but as I get older I really need to get some type of cardio all year round. During the summer I love biking but I can't do that during the winter so running it is since I cannot afford to go to a zumba class and can't do it at home without getting the cops called on.

When I get up I know I will need to go run but it's only for 20 minutes. They are the worse 20 minutes of my day but I can see improvement which is awesome. I just do it cause afterwards I feel pretty amazing like I am on top of the world.

Most of the time I go by myself. Bentley will ask where I am going and he normally doesn't ask to come but some days he will say "mama I wanna come running with you" which I am all about the most active this kid is the better.

When we got there he was dead serious and asked me to turn the treadmill on for him which I did at a very slow speed, I think the lowest it went. He wasn't happy cause he really wanted to run not walk. What a funny kid but he really walked the whole time I ran. Let's see if he will join me some more times.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Slime

Now that I am not working my days seem to last FOREVER. Honestly I feel like they will never end.

With flu season in full force out here the last thing I want to do is go out and get sick so most of the time we just spend our day inside our house. Only so much you can do with you toys before you get bored. 

The other day I had done everything possible to entertain Bentley and I was completely wasted. Had no more energy left in me. I had seen a recipe on Pinterest to make slime so I thought this was the time to pull this out. 

All it takes is equal parts elmer's glue, water and liquid starch plus a little bit of food coloring. You mix the glue and water first, then the food coloring, then the liquid starch and voila! You've got yourself some slime. Its like magic and its wonderful. 

It kept Bentley entertained for hours. That says something cause nothing really does that. 

It's really wonderful until it gets everywhere. So make sure you keep an eye on where its going cause let me tell you once it's on carpet you can forget about getting that stuff off of it. Trust me I've got a huge mess underneath a chair. All I say is thank you apartment living and knowing we will never get our deposit back.


Thursday, January 24, 2013

What we are up to

Well I am truly trying to enjoy being home with my boy.

He is so happy to have me at home with him all day every day. Not sure it's a great thing since if I find a job and start working we will have a hard time separating. Any time I go to pee and he doesn't see me he just about looses it. Kinda weird if you ask me but considering that last month before the store closed down I was gone form morning to night so that must have been traumatizing to him. At first he would ask me "mama you go to work today? How about tomorrow?" poor kid.

I feel super lazy and clearly have way too much time on my hands. There is only so much cleaning I am willing to do in a day so the rest of my day is taken up by play dates, art projects, cooking and trying to keep from going crazy being stuck indoors all day every day since the weather has been freezing, like in the teens freezing. Yeah not my type of weather but the snow looks pretty.

I was wanting snow so bad cause I figured we would go and play in it but we only have done that one day and then Bentley said the snow is not much fun since it freezes you. I have asked him over and over again if he wants to go outside and play in it and then he says no and comes up with a game that can be played indoors.

This week I decided we would not be stuck at home even if I didn't have the car I would figure something out and so far so good. Monday we took the train into SLC and hung out all day at City Creek, I was able to do some shopping for Bentley and got some pretty amazing deals, even though the cashier thought I was cheap because I made sure she gave me the right price for every item since she was trying to screw me over.

Got all of that for $10
Tuesday I had to get my food shopping done so most of the day was boring. At 5pm I decided we needed to do something to make the day fun for Bentley so I took him to the roller skating rink. We had an absolute blast. He tried the roller skates first and was just all over the floor from falling and it was miserable even if we held his hands. So we switched it for a razor scooter and he had fun with that for a while but kept on falling since it was his first time on it and eventually got frustrated and threw it. He really is my child. As I sat there watching what was unfolding I remember being a kid and feeling that frustrated if I couldn't get something down.

Bentley with his skates on and of course his Spiderman
glasses 

Now with the scooter, he really did amazing for his first time 
Wednesday hung out with my brother and had a pretty amazing breakfast and lunch, since my life now revolves around cooking healthy. I have never taken Bentley sledding since that last 2 years it has barely snowed here in Utah so this year was the year to do since who know where we will be at next year. So I took my little guy to a hill and off we went. I was scared to say the least but Bentley had a blast and we didn't fall off the sled so that was good. However after a few times of going down the sled broke half way down the hill which was really scary. Bentley was kind of bummed so we started playing tag and running all around the snow then we started throwing snow at each other. We also tried to build a snowman but to be honest I am not sure how anyone does it out here cause this snow is like powder and does not stick together. By then my toes were completely frozen since I have no snow boots and just use my rain boots.


All in all we have been having some fun time except for today. Last night it rained and then froze over so any plans we had for today were cancelled. Boring! I had a girls night out planned and that had to be cancelled I was so bummed but oh well. I made up for it by eating an ice cream bar which I had enough points left over for. Skinny Cow is pretty yummy for when you are craving something sweet.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

I pray

One of the things I love doing is helping the needy or less fortunate.

We all go through hard times and I know that when I am down I have been very blessed to have people around me or strangers who I am sure have listened to the spirit and helped me out. Those moments have truly been sweet mercies for my family and I.

I normally pray that I can go about my day in such a way that I can listen to the spirit and know when I need to help people in need. Don't get me wrong more days my life is so crazy or I am just not in tune with the spirit so I am sure I am missing a bunch of opportunities to help people out but when I am in tune with the spirit and I listen to it, it's always an amazing experience.

Every time I go to Salt Lake and take public transportation I try to be really in tune with who I should help since there is always someone asking for help.

The first experience we had was an older lady who looked like she could have been homeless gets on the trolley and right away she could not take her eyes off of Bentley. She then pulled a cracker out of one of her bags and gave it to Bentley. I told her thank you as did Bentley too and she told us how she cannot see her grandkids so she loves giving things to children she sees as it reminds her of her own grandchildren. Broke my heart. Such a sweet lady. Jon wanted to give her some money but at the same time we were sure if she was homeless and did't want to offend. Next time we should give even if someone isn't.

Then on our way back to catch the train a lady came up to me and asked me for $2 to get a cheeseburger she said. I had some left over Cheesecake Factory and had the feeling that I needed to give her that instead. So I grabbed my two bags of left over food and handed it to her. She was so grateful and then went up to go sit with her friend again and I could see her showing her friend that it was Cheesecake Factory and then she said "I have always heard this place is good but I have never been there" she was so excited. She kept on asking me if I was sure she could have that. I totally put a smile on my face to see that I could make someone so happy with such a small action.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Tennessee, baby!

We found out where we will be heading to this summer with Vivint.


Tennessee it is!

Crazy, we were not expecting that. We had heard either Fort Worth, TX or Atlanta, GA so when I heard Tennessee I didn't even know what to think. The more I think about it the more excited I get. I hear it is beautiful out there and Jon and I were hoping for the south so we got our wish. 

I will be 12 hours away from home (Philly) and 10 hours away from Disney World. I had to check those 2 places as they are places we would love to go visit but who knows. We will see how Jon does this summer, fingers crossed. 

I will be working this summer too as the office assistant and I am so excited. I am glad I will have a job to keep me busy. The nice thing is I get to bring Bentley along with me and they are totally fine with that. 

So...TENNESSEE...HERE...WE...COME!!!

My dream car

For the weekend I got to drive my cousins car while they drove mine on a business trip.

I think I got the better end of this deal.

From the time I was a little girl living in Costa Rica I always thought of how cool it would be to drive and Land Rover. Once I got a little bit older and Range Rovers became my dream car that I would probably never get to sit in, let alone drive.

So when my cousin asked if he could borrow my car since it gets better gas mileage, I jumped right on it.

Heck yeah!!

I can now cross that off my bucket list of thing to do before I die.

Only problem is, I am now more in love than ever with this car. It has all the bell and whistles and you feel like you are on top of the world and pretty bad ass. So crazy that a car can do that but so true.