I swear, if we have one more issue with money this summer I’m just going to scream. I was sitting here yesterday, chatting with my friend Mary & thought I’d better make sure that my records were still matching the bank’s record & I found out that our checking account was empty, and all of our money was sitting in savings & unavailable to us. I freaked out, since what was in savings initially was part of the car payment that’s due next week & I knew there was no way we could come up with that money and buy groceries when the next payday came around, not and pay all of the bills, too. Troy was still sleeping, since he’s on night shift right now, and I didn’t want to wake him up, so I sat here patiently waiting for him to get up. Of course, he freaked even worse & headed for the bank.

It turned out that I got garnished over a judgment from a  credit card, and because Troy & I have a joint account, they took what was in there. We had to sell some things, like Troy’s .22 pistol & Rhi’s scooter, but we’ll be able to replace the money that was lost. Troy got an account that I’m not attached to, because he has to have one to get paid & we weren’t going to risk losing his pay (and yes, we talked to a lawyer before he did it), so we should be okay as far as that goes. We don’t have to try to find motorcycle covers that’ll fit the scooter anymore, at any rate. We are seriously considering filing bankruptcy, though, there’s just been too much for us since November & every new thing takes a little bit more out of what we have left every month to actually live on. I’m not sure how much more we can handle, honestly.

I woke up this morning at 4:30 or so, stressed out, with a stomach ache, worried about the next one to come along & how much more money we’d end up losing. I’m not great at handling stress, especially not over a long period of time, I just hope it’s all over soon.

Faire starts two weeks from today & I just don’t feel like any of us are truly ready for it. So many things have been left undone & so many still need to be finished. I’m so very stressed out about it all right now, but in my heart, I know things will work out in the end, they always do. We don’t have very many vendors this year, and that kind of upsets me, but I don’t know, maybe that will be a good thing for those of us who are vending.. less competition, more customers, who knows? At any rate, my products are pretty much ready to go, I do have a few things left to do, like slice some soap & make some more runes, but for the most part, I’m finished.

I noticed the other day that my “friend” who moved here last year, caused so much havoc in our group & then acted like it was all her husband’s fault & then moved back to North Carolina has deleted her account from MySpace. Of course, she found out that Dawn wasn’t answering her texts or phonecalls anymore, too, so she probably figured out that she wasn’t really wanting to be her friend anymore, either. I don’t know how anyone could want to, honestly, there was so much drama when she was here, that magically stopped when she left. She always claimed it was all of us, but we never had any before they got here, and we have none now that she’s gone, so that tells mr it was her. At any rate, she’s pregnant & due in November, I hope she has Blue Cross North Carolina, or something comparable to cover all f her costs, because I doubt her husband will have a job for much longer.

Well, I’d better get back to rune-making, if I want to have any time at all to myself before faire!

I was sitting here, watching TV, texting with Rhi & it suddenly hit me that it’s been almost a year since my grandma died. I remember last 4th of July, my folks had all of us over for a barbecue & we kept trying to avoid my grandma. I feel badly about it in retrospect, but at the time, no one knew what else to do. She’d grab you & not let you leave until she’d had her conversation with you, and most of the time, she didn’t know who anyone was & we didn’t know what she was talking about to us, either. She did always know who I was, but at times, she thought I was two people with the same name (it gets confusing & it’s because she thought my dad was two people, one was my mom’s husband, the other was her boyfriend). It was hard to talk to her because she didn’t wear her hearing aids & couldn’t hear you, then she’d ask questions that I never knew how to answer.

Once she was sitting in there talking to my grandpa (who died of mesothelioma in 1971), but no one was in there. She was being so hateful that I was happy she didn’t think one of us was him, but it made me very sad at the same time, to know that their marriage wasn’t as great as I always believed it was. I found pictures after she passed, where she was so young & happy, right after they started dating & that just doesn’t jibe with the woman I knew, who rarely laughed or seemed that happy. I have wondered ever since then what happened to change her & why she kept it all inside & didn’t tell anyone or try to make it better.

I loved my grandma, but we rarely saw eye to eye & even more rare was when I felt like she really even liked me. I have missed her, but then again, I’ve been missing her since she started showing signs of Alzheimer’s & it gradually began to steal her personality. We are finally almost through with all of the “firsts” and the next year should be easier for all of us, I hope it will be, at least for my mom. She’s had so much guilt over not being sale to do more for her, I hope she can start to heal soon.

We’re going camping again this weekend, but we’re going up on the mountain this time & not down south. I keep watching the weather report, hoping that it isn’t going to rain this weekend, but there isn’t any guarantees about that. It is supposed to be cloudy & fairly cool all weekend, which I’m totally okay with, I just don’t want to be wet & miserable all the time we’re gone. It makes starting a fire a little hard, too, and we kind of need that to cook on & stuff. At any rate, Dawn & I went & bought the rest of the stuff we’ll need to take with us earlier today, now all I need to do is get everything packed up tomorrow. I need to have Troy get his stuff out for me tonight, so I know what he’s taking with him.

In a little while I’m going back to the bedroom & finish working on bag tags & packaging, since faire is way too close for me not to be working on all of this. Time passes so quickly these days that it sometimes feels like we were changing diapers last month & that next year we’ll be searching for the best Medicare supplement, I know it doesn’t go THAT fast, but it sure seems like it.

It’s also  seems like we may never get summer weather again. It’s been 70 or lower for over a week & gray all the time, if it isn’t raining, it’s trying to & the cold wind blows all the time, too. Dawn & I have been wearing sweats & jackets to walk in lately, because we never know what the weather is going to do while we’re out there. It’s almost halfway through June, we need warm weather already! I’d be okay with it being a little cooler for faire, but not the rain like we had last year, when it does that the heavy winds come & people lose their booths & inventory, which is never a good thing. I lost a lot of stuff last year & ended one evening in tears of frustration. I don’t want to do that again.

It looks like things in our local economy may be starting to look up a bit. I’ve noticed several new restaurants either being built or opening up. Those that have recently opened seem to always have customers, which is a very good thing, I know that for us, at least, we don’t go out to eat when money is tight.

We had friends that had been laid off right after Christmas, but they all seem to have their jobs back now & are working steadily again. I just hope the upward trend around here continues & things can start to get back to normal again.

Up the street from here, someone bought a tract of land & it looks like they’re starting to erect one of those steel buildings that you see everywhere, so I’m wondering what that’s going to be. There are also two buildings going up on Main Street, that are round & joined together, they look kind of like big hogans, but that doesn’t make any sense, so I’m anxious to find out more about that, too.

I sometimes think you notice changes like these when you live in small towns, or at least, I do. I’m always excited to see new businesses appear, and always wish them the best. More opportunities to shop here in town are always welcome & I will always look forward to their arrival.

We were recently given an opportunity to review an awesome product & exercise program. A few weeks ago, I received a package from KettleWorx, which included a 10 pound Kettlebell, and a box of DVDs, which contained their 6 week body transformation workout. The program consists of 3 20-minute workouts a week, one each of core, cardio & resistance.

Three weeks or so ago, Troy & I started the program & I’ll have to be honest here & say that it was a bit too challenging for me & I wasn’t able to make it all the way through the first core workout, but Troy finished it. I just think that my current level of fitness isn’t quite up to par for the series and although I tried to keep up with each workout, I wasn’t able to. Troy has been very faithful to the program & gotten to the point where he looks forward to challenging himself with it each time. This is what he has to say to about KettleWorx:

The Kettleworx system of workouts is an effective way of doing everything the product says. It really does begin to transform your body and give you more energy. A lot of people will say that any form of exercise will do this, why does this work any better than any of the rest?

My answer to that is simply Ryan Shanahan.

Ryan is the trainer/developer of the Kettleworx system, the guy on the videos, and the guy that could become annoying like any trainer does. The difference is that wasn’t my experience. Yes, the guy is in phenomenal shape. He’s got a pretty good resume of fitness related activities, but when you look at him, he looks like a regular guy, like somebody you’d hang out with OUTSIDE the gym. His motivational/instructional stuff doesn’t aggravate me to the point of shutting off the DVD. Yes, after 3 weeks it is repetitious, but what wouldn’t be? I enjoy Ryan and look forward to the workouts.

The results have been everything advertised I lost inches on the waist, love handles going away, and overall fitness level improved. It is not a miracle cure, it is intensive exercise, it will challenge you, you will sweat, and you will work. Some of the exercises seem like they don’t do anything, DON’T let that fool you, you feel it, sometimes (at least in my case) ten minutes later, but you feel it.

Kettleworx is fun, intensive, interactive, and it works. You will be challenged, but the results are real, and worth it.

All in all, it has had a positive affect on both of us, because even though I wasn’t able to continue the program, I did start walking every day & have worked my way up to 2 miles a day (and yes, I walk every day) and am getting faster every time, too. I think as an individual, you have to find the type of exercise that you love & I’ve never been fond of weights or the type of exercise you find on most DVDs, but I do enjoy my walk a lot & would miss doing it if I couldn’t anymore.

Things around here seem to be mellowing out, finally. We had a big mess going on last week, but our credit union helped us get out of that, so we feel better about it in retrospect. I think we both learned some things & Rhi learned how to spot a scam before she gets involved in one.

I made some decisions about my spiritual life & made the changes that needed to occur. We decided that one of the groups we were involved with wasn’t meeting our needs anymore, and all it was doing was taking up time that none of us could afford to give to them, so we stopped going. We have Saturday nights free again, for the first time in over a year, and it’s so nice to be able to make plans, like camping trips & not feel like we’re letting anyone down.

I’m still way behind in getting things done for faire, but I’m trying & plan to finish up a bunch of stuff this week. Troy needs to contact the lady who’s guild is sewing things for us before we run out of time on that, so I’ll remind him to do that as soon as I’m done here & he takes a break from Rock Band.

Erin’s gone, so it’s very quiet here now. He’s headed to the 2009 Rainbow Gathering, but planned to stop & see Garrett until the seed camps have been established so he knows where he going. He got a ride to Grand Junction last night, but was going to have to hitchhike the rest of the way to Pueblo, so I am a little worried about him, but I also know that my worry isn’t going to stop him & that it shouldn’t.

Rhi is in the process of signing up for the Utah National Guard, which we’re both pretty happy about. I think it will be a good fit for her & hope she’ll decide to just go regular Army after she finishes basic training. It’s a job, at least & she can start to become self-sufficient, have insurance & a life of her own. I really do think she’ll like it.

There are still nights when I wish we had a home alarm system, but it’s getting better here in the trailer park. The hellions seem to have mellowed out a little bit, at any rate. We’re waiting for kittens to be born, just bought tires for my car & wish the rain would stop, so all in all, it’s been a mellow few days & we needed them!

I sometimes feel like I’m a gadget addict. I love all of the nifty, new tech things out there. It doesn’t really seem to matter to me whether I have any use for them, or not, I usually want most of them, at least for a little bit. Strangely enough, I don’t really own very many of them, probably because it’s hard for me to spend money on myself, at least in bigger amounts. I have an Nintendo DS, with a few games (and yes, there are many I wish I had, even one that has it’s own gadgets that come with it), a digital camera (a point & shoot) and a Flip video camera, and other than the computers, that’s about it for my personal gadgets.

When gps systems came out & more & more people started getting them, I wanted one. I don’t need one, I live in a town of less that 50,000 people that it’s almost impossible to get lost in & when we go anywhere it’s to places where we know exactly where we’re going before we ever leave (I’m a control freak when it comes to that & always have a map), but I still wanted one.

I had to have an mp3 player when I got a car that had a jack for one. So I spent part of my Christmas money for it & then my car killed it. I’m thankful I didn’t buy an iPod, but I really didn’t need an mp3 player, especially since I only listen to music in the car & have CDs for that anyway. I could see it if I worked out of the house & wanted music then, or if I did my walks alone, but since those things aren’t true, I guess I can live without one.

There are a lot of things I’d love to have, but until (and unless) we get a lot more financially stable, I don’t see me getting them. I’m pretty sure I’m going to survive, at least until the next, best thing comes along!