All About Kimberly

Sailing Along the Life of Single Parenthood

Monthly Archives: June 2009

Junk Mail Folder – Oops!

I have to confess. I haven’t cleaned out my junk mail folder in over a month!  I use gmail for my email, but I download it through Outlook.  This means that anything that Google stops in the junk folder doesn’t make it to my Outlook inbox.  I usually login to webmail and sort through it, but I seem to have gotten out of the habit!  So if you’ve emailed me lately, and I didn’t reply, maybe it was because I just discovered your email!  I’m so sorry.  Because there was definitely a lot of valid personal emails and some requested “advertisement” emails and review emails (like diet pill reviews and News Alerts).

On a positive note though, I’ve lost 6 pounds in the last 2 weeks, Becka’s finished her 2 weeks of training on the job and was an “official” employee yesterday.

Vacation Planning

I left this one off my list, but sometime in this busy summer, there has to be a vacation, but with things so busy, I’ve decided that it might be a little costlier, but I think we are all going to have our own vacations. (Nope, no Orlando vacations this year as we are planning on TWO Disney cruises next year). I will be going to Chicago for BlogHer. Cameron’s class went to Moody Gardens for a few hours for their field trip this year and she loved it and wants to go back, so I think when she and I both have 2 to 3 consecutive days off, I’ll load up her and we’ll do a quick Galveston trip, and Becka wants to go to A & M Corpus so I want to take her to Corpus to vacation and see the campus (and visit with them to know deadlines and tips).  With her work schedule, this one may not happen until school starts.  But add planning vacations around our schedules and making them work to our busy summer schedule. :)

Working Hard – All of Us

So summer is officially in full swing around here and life is super busy – this goes against the laws of nature around here – being a teacher, I’m off with the girls and June and July are supposed to be our lazy months! But not this year! Everyone is so busy.

I’m working two jobs, trying to do lesson plans for my new teaching assignment next year,  exericising,and summer house cleaning. Becka’s working and taking 11 college hours this summer, and Cameron is taking dance and twirling lessons along with participating in the library’s summer reading program. The only lesson I didn’t sign her up for was piano. I thought about trying to convince her how fun it would be to learn to play piano, but I decided life was just too busy.

So what’s suffering? My blogging and my rewards programs.  I have decided that I have to find a way to squeeze in just a little more.  I’m not sure where, but I miss everyone in my forums and here on my blog. I miss reading your blogs, and I miss earning some money over at my reward site.  So….after I have Dish Network installed today (DirecTV and I had it out after being a 10 year customer), I’m going to be around here slowly getting back into my online life!  I’ve got a few things I’d like to post about (I still keep a list even if I don’t come around much) so I may be posting random posts, playing catchup, off and on today!

Becka Got Her Job TOO!

Just wanted to take a minute to touch base. It’s storming here and so my Internet is coming and going, but Becka’s interview went great (apparently) as she is now employed! She texted me to let me know they hired her at the end of the interview. That will make summer even busier as we only have one vehicle but it will be worth it for her to have a job. I’m hoping it works out for the best for her. I’ll be sharing more soon about her new job. But wanted to come and share now.

I Got A JOB!

You probably didn’t even know I was looking, right? Well I wasn’t really actively, but I was hoping to find a way to make a little extra money this summer as I took a paycut when I changed jobs and got a new teenage daughter in that same summer.  We manage, but sometimes it’s tight.  My dad finally agreed today to let me work for him baling hay this summer. I’ve been trying to convince him for months, but he didn’t think I could handle the heat and dirt.  I finally convinced him to let me start. My brother gets to finish the current job and then I get to take over the next one. :)  I know, I know…I sound crazy…happy to be out baling hay when I have a college degree? I’m not overly excited about the heat and dirt, but I figure it’ll be good for my tan and the money will definitly be good for the budget!  On top of that, Becka has an interview tomorrow so we both may have jobs!  That will be even better.

I really think that Daddy thinks I’ll do it for a day or two and then wuss out so I’m determined to stick with it even if it is awful – just to prove him wrong.

I had planned to join the gym and get on top of my fitness – this might mess up that plan and I’ll have to come up with another fitness plan as I’ll be working too many hours I think to be at the gym during their hours, but I’m going to start by getting up around daylight each morning (starting in the morning) and walking to the highway and back.  That’s about a mile and a half.  I’m going to start with just doing it once and timing myself and working on doing it faster and faster, but eventually hope to up it to two laps each morning.  I’ve been looking at exercise videos and looking for some combination I’ll like that I could do in the evenings as well as mixing in the WiiFit.

I’ve got to do some shopping though as my summer and clothing attire don’t really lend themselves to manual labor. I’ve been looking for some type of women’s shoes that I can wear that will be safe, but that I can deal with too. If it was up to Daddy, I’d be in jeans and boots, but that’s not happening. I have to admit that I’m not looking forward to the tan lines (especially the shoe/sock line).  I may have to go just put my feet in the tanning bed…lol

I also plan to get back into my surveys, reward programs, and blogging so I’m going to sit down tomorrow and work out a daily schedule that will give me a designated time for exercise, surveys, reward sites, forums that I love, and blogging as well as working on school stuff for next year – WOW?!?  Isn’t this supposed to be my time off.  Oh well…It’s ok. I still think it will be a great summer!