With the current state of our economy, I do realize that my dream of opening a bakery simply isn’t possible. And after speaking with a few friends who know a bit about the bakery business, finding a baking job in the area is going to be nearly impossible as well.

One of my friends told me that I might want to check into the various options of opening a local franchise of a bakery in the area, but that’s not what I “want” to do…LOL! What I want to do is open a bakery that sells home made baked goods that appeal to us on a daily basis. I don’t want to get into decorated cakes or fancy types of things, I want to bake the types of breads, rolls and cookies that people eat with dinner or use for school and work lunches. If your budget is tight, like most peoples are these days, you’re going to buy what you need before you buy what you want!

So, maybe my dream won’t happen today, or even tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on it either! If we give up on our dreams, we give up on a life that we want, and I refuse to do that!

I’m sure that when I say our finances are in a precarious situation, you all are going to nod your heads in agreement with me! It’s so sad to see just how bad the economy is in the US right now! The National unemployment rate is currently sitting around 5.7%, Ohio’s unemplyment rate is sitting around 7.2% and the unemployment rate for my local area is sitting around 7.5%. In other words, finding a job is nearly an impossible task right now, no matter where you live!

I swear I think I put out nearly 50 job applications and resumes over the summer and out of those, only one called me and if they’d have taken the time to read my application completely, they’d have had the information they were looking for and wouldn’t have called me in the first place. It’s not like I’m a “high risk” hire, for the most part I’m very healthy and passing a pre hire employment screening would be a walk in the park because I don’t drink or do drugs and the only legal problems I’ve had in my lifetime were almost 30 years ago.

I think one of the things that keeps people from considering me for a job is that over the past 15 or so years my employment record is somewhat sporadic because I’ve mostly been a stay at home mom and housewife with a few jobs tossed in here and there. Fortunately I’ve been able to work many of the tasks that I do here at home into my resume because let me tell you, trying to take care of a home, pay the bills and feed a family on our income is a job that a CEO from any Fortune 500 company would have a difficult time doing!

So I’m trying to stay hopeful that someone will call offering me a job soon! And since summer is over and kids are going back to school there are might be some job openings that weren’t available when I put my applications and resumes out this summer!

While I realize we’re at the tail end of auditions for season 8, I figured I’d better get in here and post about the last few auditions that are left.

Tomorrow, Friday August 8th, we have the Kansas City, MO auditions. They started passing out wristbands for this audition yesterday, so I’m not sure if there are any wristbands left, but it’s worth a try if you’re in the area!

On Wednesday, August 13th, we have the Jacksonville, FL auditions. They will start handing out wristbands for that audition on Monday, August 11th at 8:00 AM. This audution is held at the Veterans Memorial Arena on Randolph Ave.

And on Tuesday, August 19th we have the East Rutherford, NJ auditions, the final audition location for season 8. They will start handing out wristbands for this audition on Sunday, August 17th at 8:00 AM. This audition is being held at The Izod Center on State Route 120.

It’s so exciting to think that we’re just a mere 5 months away from season 8! I hope that it’s another wonderful season that will bring us many excellent contestants! I’m also looking forward to the auditions for season 9! Why, you ask? Because my son turns 16 in January, and I’ve been told by MANY people that if I don’t take him to at least one audition after he turns 16, I’m dumb. While I’m not one to sit back and say someone can sing if they can’t, I’ll be the first to admit that my son has an AMAZING singing voice and I do truly feel that he’d stand a halfway decent chance of at least making it to Hollywood week! Beyond that, I honestly don’t know!

So, if you have gone to any of the auditions, or plan on going to any of the last three, stop by and tell me how it went, if you can! I’m really looking forward to January!

I love my dogs, I really do, but my puppy has been getting on my last nerve lately! I understand that she’s the “baby” of the pack, so she probably thinks she has to prove herself to the other three, but some of the things Sage is doing are driving me up a wall!

For instance, we’ll be sitting down relaxing, minding our own business. When we are doing this, the dogs are usually just laying down relaxing as well. Out of the middle of nowhere, Sage will get up and start running through the house like a hyperactive child. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’ll just stop running, usually ending up right near me, and just start barking to beat all get outs. Her bark is so shrill, it sometimes gives me an immediate headache! UGH!!

And then there is the house breaking situation. I don’t know what’s going on, one day she’ll do perfect, not having a single accident in the house, the next day, we’ll do everything the same way we did the day before, and she’ll come inside after being let out, and just squat and pee. While I’m VERY fortunate to have no carpet in the house at all, making accidents easy to clean up, I’ve been very tempted to find out if there are some sort of disposable diapers for puppies! I now keep a clean bucket of mop water made up on a daily basis for cleaning and disinfecting puppy puddles! That’s the main reason I’m happy we don’t have carpet in the house!

I love Sage, I really do, but UGH, this has GOT to stop!!

My husband is one of those guys that just does not like change. I don’t care if it’s a change in something with his food , his clothes or the house, he doesn’t like it, PERIOD! The other day we were “gifted” with a new to us couch, something that we desperately needed out here in the family room. My husband loves his recliner, but for an after work or weekend nap, he prefers to lay down, something that can’t be done in a recliner.

He brought the couch in and it was WAY longer than what we had room for in the spot I wanted to put it, so much so that in order for me to get to or from my computer, I had to move the couch, which was a MAJOR pain! So my goal today was to move the furniture in the family room around until I got everything to a point that nothing had to be moved for people to be able to get to what they wanted/needed to get to. I’m very happy to say that I was 100% successful, but good grief, did it take forever!

I was hoping just the make some small adjustments with the other furniture in the room, but I ended up having to move EVERYTHING from both desks to the entertainment center. And since the desks had to be moved, that also meant that all of the USB and HDMI cables had to be moved too, which meant a trip down into the dark, cob web covered crawl space. YUCK! But I’m really happy with how the room turned out, and I think my hubby will be too. I just hope he’s not too mad at me for moving all of his stuff around…LOL! I guess he’ll either move it back or get over it, won’t he?

After having four weeks of nearly stress free living, we’ve had a pretty stressful few days since getting the kids home. While I, of all people, totally understand the extra added expense of having kids in the house, apparently other people don’t. Kids eat, especially teens, and many are known for eating their parents out of house and home. They’re also known to eat up snack type foods well before they will eat “good” food, I honestly don’t think I have known a teen that didn’t do this!

For the almost 24 hours that we were at my step daughters house before heading home with the kids, we were bombarded almost non stop about all of the extra added expenses that came up while the kids were staying with her. We were told that they stopped keeping snack foods in the house because of the fact that the kids were eating them. We were told that the reason the electric bill was over $100 more than normal was because of the kids staying with her. We were even bombarded about the cost of all the different things that were done with the kids specifically in mind.

We sent out a nice chunk of change to help with the kids expenses, but rather than use that for said expenses most of it was given to the kids to spend during shopping trips and other outings. While I think it’s great, I’d have preferred that they used it to cover expenses rather than being made to feel that I now should give them even more money to cover expenses that they feel happened specifically because of the kids. I also don’t appreciate the fact that my kids are now being accused of taking a MASSIVE amount of quarters, so many that it would have been extremely obvious that they had them on their person. And the “evidence” that has been given to me makes no sense! I was sent pictures of empty quarter wrappers that, upon inspection, have obviously never been used to hold coins.

The extreme stress that we went through the other night, as well as the non stop phone calls, emails and text messages got me so stressed out that I now have a big fat cold sore on my lip. I don’t get them often, and when I do it’s because of stress. The kids are dumbfounded and don’t even know how to feel about all of this. If I even remotely thought they had played any part in the missing coins I’d be on them like flies on poo! But their reactions when I made them look me in the face when asking them about this tell me they had nothing to do with it.

I want my stress free life back! I could understand and deal with it if the stress were from my two kids, but amazingly, they’ve actually been very well behaved since they’ve been home! Honestly, I’m ready to hire a private jet charter and run away to some secluded island to get away from everyone…LOL! Just me on a beach with a cool drink and a good book sounds like a little slice of Heaven right now! Just as long as it’s not too hot!

You know, I’m sitting here right now going WTF!?!?! My step daughter told me one of the things the kids did while they were out there that drove her up a damn wall was tattling on each other, especially over completely STUPID things! So as I’m sitting here going through the stuff on my desk, trying to clean it off, my cell phone rings with a text message from my step daughter. She’s telling me in the text message to go to MySpace and look at my son’s status message ASAP!

What she didn’t know is that I was already there and had read the words that she was pointing out to me. As a parent, I do keep a good eye on my children, ESPECIALLY while they are online! Yes, I can understand why she messaged me, but frankly, I’m offended! I know what her stance about my son and the lifestyle choice that he has made is, she has made that VERY clear on more than one occasion! I don’t expect her to jump for joy, but I also didn’t expect her to basically turn her back on her little brother because of it! I also didn’t expect her to turn around and do the one thing she bitched so much about the kids doing while they were out there! I realize she’s trying to draw her “line in the sand”, but she’s either going to have to move her line back a little bit or risk losing any relationship with her brother, and possibly other members of this family!

We made the trek out to Baltimore VERY early Saturday morning, leaving home around 3 AM and getting out there shortly after 11 AM. It was a fantastic drive out, but I think that was mostly because we left in the middle of the night! There was almost no traffic for most of the first half of the drive and fairly light traffic until we got into the Baltimore area. Let me tell you, Baltimore drivers are CRAZY people! LOL

We spent the rest of Saturday in Baltimore and had a WONDERFUL dinner with the kids older sister and her boyfriend! We had decided, before we went out, that rather than going out to dinner, we were going to make dinner and had a fantastic taco dinner! We spent the evening chilling out and talking about how things went while she had the kids and talking to the kids about the problems that had happened while they were out there.

We hoped to get up around 4 or so Sunday morning to get things packed and head home, but we didn’t end up waking up until almost 7 AM…LOL! I guess we needed the extra sleep, huh? We finally hit the road shortly after 9 AM and the trip home went fairly well too! It was warmer, but not bad enough that we ever “had” to turn the A/C on in the van, and we ended up making it home in just under 9 hours.

My daughter had us all cracking up the last half hour or so of the trip! She had really missed her dog and when we passed the sign that let us know that we had actually entered the county that we live in, she teared up. With the announcement of each passing exit on the turnpike that got us closer to our exit, she would cry a little harder and when we made it to our exit, she was crying almost uncontrollably! I knew the dogs were going to be as excited about seeing both kids as Kryssy was about seeing her dog, so we came up with a “plan”.

When we got home, the kids were going to stay in the van while my husband and I let the dogs out of the house. Then, once the dogs were actually out, the kids were going to open the van door and some see their “puppies”. It was so cute, and if I’d have been halfway smart, I’d have had my camera on and ready! Kryssy couldn’t stop crying, no matter what happened! And the dogs were just as excited about seeing the kids!

We had a pretty nice evening, no major problems or arguments came up and my daughter wouldn’t leave me alone until I let her show me EVERYTHING she bought during her shopping trips in Baltimore…LOL! I have to admit, she picked up some really cute clothes that will work nicely for school. And although she’s never been one to wear religious jewelry, she did find an absolutely gorgeous beaded cross necklace with matching earrings!

It’s nice to have the kids back home again, I’m just hoping that we can break some of the bad habits that we had gotten into and start being a little more caring and accepting of each other, and a little less argumentative!

WOW, it’s so hard to believe how quickly this past month has gone by! It seems like it’s only been a few days since we took the kids out to their sisters to spend a month with her! But alas, it’s almost time to hit the road and bring them back home.

I weighed the thought of flying them home rather than driving out there to get them. You see, besides the fuel for this trip, I also have a couple of other expenses! I have a couple of repairs on my van that HAVE to be done which are going to cost about $150 if I have them done at a shop, and I also have to get my expired plates renewed. So between those costs and the cost of gas, it actually would have cost less to have flown them home. But neither one of them have ever flown before and my daughter went into a complete panic when I even mentioned it to her! And since it’s obvious I can’t trust their older sister to give them their medication, putting them on a plane for the first time without medication is NOT a very good thought!

Besides the above mentioned things, my son insisted that he pack his clothing and other items in a plastic tote because he didn’t want to borrow the Johnston and Murphy luggage my mom was willing to let him use….LOL! He’s a stubborn child and when he gets an idea in his head it almost takes an act of God or something to get him to change his mind. His older sister did offer the use of one of her suitcases if we chose the option of flying them home though, all I would have had to have done was ship it back out to her after the kids got home.

But, we’re going to drive it! Depending on how long the meeting my husband has to go to tomorrow, he’s going to make the necessary repairs on my van. Normally he gets paid on Thursday’s, but because they had a mandatory work meeting today, they held paychecks so that everyone would show up for the meeting, then they’ll get them after it’s over. It stinks, but we’ll deal with it, it just means doing the work on my van at the last possible moment, so we’re hoping for no unexpected problems because the parts store closes at 6!

More than once, it has been suggested to me that I should take vitamins. You see, I don’t eat like a “normal” person does. For starters I don’t eat any beef or pork at all, and I only eat chicken if I cook it myself. My meals consist mostly of vegetables, pastas and cheese, with fish and other types of seafood thrown in sporadically. For snacks, I pretty much stick with things like popcorn, tortillas and fruits/veggies.

So, to say the least, for a woman my age I do not get anywhere near the correct amount of vitamins and nutrients. A few weeks ago I seen a link on a website offering a free sample of Nature Made Vitamins and decided that I’d send for it and give them a try. I opted for the ssample of Multi for Her, my 14 day vitamin sample came in the mail last Thursday and I started taking them on Friday, which would make today my 7th day taking them.

The first thing that I’ve noticed is that I definitely have more energy than I normally have! Even on nights where I’ve gotten little sleep, I still feel more energized than I have prior to taking the vitamins. I also feel a little less sore in my knees and hips, but I’m not sure if that is vitamin related or not.

I think the thing that I like about the Nature Made vitamins is that they are readily available at several local grocery and drug stores and Nature Made also offers what they call a Wellness Rewards Advisor. What this is is a program that allows you to earn free products from the vast variety of products that Nature Made offers. You get points for each Nature Made product you purchase, new members receive $5 for every 500 points, but after you’ve been with the Wellness Rewards Advisor you can actually jump up to $7 for every 500 points. The only requirement is that you register at least one new product every 30 days.

I like their prices too! From what I could find online, I can get a 90 day supply of the Multi for Her for $9.99, which is a very nice price, and something I can definitely afford! I also like the fact that they have a Multi for Him and both of those Multi’s have +50 formula’s as well, cuz ya know hubby is only 2 years away from there and I’m not too far behind him! They also offer vitamins that would work well for the kids too.

The only thing I “don’t” like about them is the fact that their website seems to have loading problems. Depending on which browser I use the main page will load anywhere from fairly well, to not at all. When I do get the main page to finally load I’ll be able to go to a couple of different pages on the site, then it sits and “hangs” until I get a “page cannot load” page. I’ve tried accessing their site with Internet Explorer, Mozilla FireFox and Safari and have experienced the same problem with all 3 browsers. But, I still feel that their products are worth the investment and I look forward to giving you more updates about how they are working for me!