I'm just a little black raincloud

I totally forgot to mention this in the last blog - Romelie has finally discovered the television. I don't see this as being a horrible thing, though it does mean we actually need to start setting down "TV time" rules, which is new. Romelie enjoys Elmo, Spongebob (who she calls Bob-Bob), and Dora (which she watches at daycare). But her absolute favorite thing in the world is "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh." It's the Disney film from about 30 years ago. We have it on VHS, and she watches about an hour of it every single day. Of course, the movie is only about 90 minutes long, which means we watch most of the film...every single day. Romelie has not gotten even a little bit sick of it yet. She still laughs at the same parts (especially when the bee is laughing at Pooh), bounces during the Tigger song, says "mess" when Owl's house falls over, and gets mad when Pooh has been off-screen for too long. She's even started to sing along with the Winnie the Pooh theme song (she sings "Pooh" and "Bear" at the appropriate times). We've tried to put other videos in, but she just says "Pooh" over and over again until you put on Winnie the Pooh. Luckily it's a good movie - better than the crappy Toddler Tunes CD she's addicted to and won't let us remove from the CD player.

So this is a little more personal than I generally care to share, but it's in the forefront of my brain right now - I'm having mild financial woes. Blame what you will, but I miscalculated my finances horribly this month and somehow overdrafted - a lot. Add to that the fact that, in my head, I had, like, a thousand dollars in my checking account (I seriously thought the bank had screwed up - couldn't believe it was all me), and it made for a very sad Wednesday. Thankfully, my wonderful husband helped bail me out before I could incur more overdraft charges, and the bank was willing to make some of them go away. So while my account is currently in the black - which is good - I am financially woeful at the moment. While I choose to blame this on my unexpected $1000 medical bill (see blog entry from 6/22), it doesn't change my situation.

Now, this is not a request for help...Chason has already done so, and as a team we're in excellent shape. But as an individual contributor to our household expenses, I feel like I'm doing some serious mismanagement here. So I'm finally going to set myself a budget. I've read that the best way to do that is to track all of your expenses for a month, then figure out where you can cut back. So Chason and I are both planning on doing that next month, and then we'll see where we need to go from there. I'll also have money coming in from volleyball (though I had planned to set that aside to pay for last year's taxes and prepare for any shortages for 2009), I still have my part-time job at the church, and I've just asked to line judge for the home Varsity games (I usually attend most of them anyways...this way I'd get paid for it). Plus I'm very into couponing and free crap lately. So no need for help or even concern; I'm just sharing what's going on in my life.

BUT...speaking of free crap...I'm going to do a little pitch here. Up until now, I have never used my blog for anything other than sharing stories, pictures, and information about our family with the rest of our family and friends. However, this seems like an easy way to share something cool with all of you that would help both you and me get free stuff. It's called "Swagbucks." Basically, it's a search engine (powered by Google and Ask.com). So if you needed to do an internet search, rather than going to yahoo.com or google.com or whatever, you'd go to swagbucks.com (or you can download a toolbar and use that to search...that's what I do...anyway...). The difference is, when you search on swagbucks, you periodically get awarded a "swagbuck." They come in different denominations (usually it's $1-5 swagbucks), and then you can redeem your swagbucks for different items. They have tons of crap available (mostly literally - comic books and baseball cards and music t-shirts and other weird junk), but the best things are the gift cards. I prefer the amazon.com gift cards because they're the best value: 45 swagbucks = a $5 gift card.

If you sign up on their website, you can start earning swagbucks for yourself right away (I usually earn at least a buck a day just doing my regular searches), but if you refer to ME when you register, then I earn swagbucks, too!! See why the shameless promotion of swagbucks.com? Seriously, I have one swagbucks friend right now (yay Crystal!) and her searches have earned me 28 swagbucks. Just think if everyone who reads this blog (all...12 of you?) starts searching using swagbucks.com. Everyone wins...especially me!!

Here's the link:



Please note that in order for me to actually receive swagbucks, you need to (A) use the referral link above, and (B) actually search using swagbucks. It's the only search engine I use these days, and it works great, otherwise I wouldn't waste your time. However, if you find it's not for you, no worries!

Okay, I'm done shamelessly involving all of you all in my quest for free crap that I didn't earn. And I don't even have any new pictures to appease you for putting up with my rambling. I will instead paint a picture for you: it's bedtime. Romelie has already watched Winnie the Pooh, splashed around outside in her pool, eaten dinner, splashed around inside in the bath, put her jammies on, and brushed her teeth (which means she chewed on the toothbrush while I reminded her for the thousandth time that she needs to open her mouth in order for me to actually brush her teeth). She's said "night night" to Dad, given him a kiss, and said "Ah lub youra" (her response to his "I love you"). I bring her into her darkened nursery. I turn on her sound machine and recite her bedtime book "Everyone's Sleepy" by heart. I lay her in her crib, hand her Tigger and Pooh, cover her with a blanket, and pull her little musical toy to lull her to sleep. "Goodnight, Romelie. Sleep tight. I love you." She holds up Tigger and Pooh for me to kiss, then puckers up. I lean over, trying not to fall in, and give her a bedtime smooch. "Night night, Romelie."

"Night night, mama."

That's what she did last night. Best moment ever.