Saturday, February 09, 2008

Purging of sorts...

I am 21 wks...and I'm not sure whether or not it is due to my desire to "nest" (don't actually know when that starts or if it's a real thing) or what have you, but I have been going through the entire house, purging it of anything and everything we don't need or use. We got rid of a couch we hated and a couple bags of clothes...then I did another search, as I cleaned, and I found three more bags of clothes, purses, shoes, baby clothes, etc... to get rid of. I figured that since I am having a boy, I should go through all of Aloria's old clothes and figure out what I actually want to keep and what I can re-buy at a thrift store :-) The Fashion Junkie rocks! One of those bags of clothes, I was happy to be able to give to Rhonda for Katie to use someday. It will be fun to see those memories on her.

The only bad part about purging, is that it usually is accompanied with "re-'s"...whether that be re-decorating (which I actually love doing), re-organizing, re-putting things back after you've torn them from there storage hide aways. So needless to say, my house was a bit messier then when I started for a while, but I'm finally catching up to my mess. I was going to donate everything to Goodwill, but our church sent out an email saying that the youth were having a big yard sale to raise money for a trip or something. Too bad we already got rid of the couch...but I'll give them the rest of my findings, just as soon as I'm done. Hopefully, that will be done today.

As for an update on Aaron's job situation...we have decided to take unemployment for the time being. It doesn't pay much, but after crunching the numbers, it pays more then a part time job...so we'll go with that. ...and maybe we might even get a check someday from them. They've sent back the forms to Aaron twice now. The process takes 3-5 weeks, and I'm not sure if that includes all of the time it takes to needlessly correspond with the because they are so unorganized, or if that is after we send in the paperwork to their "satisfactory." Bleh! Oh well, we'll make it through February with or without them...I won't stress until March. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, maybe not even then. Not because I won't need to, but because all of this non stressing has been so much...well, nonstressful. Letting the Lord handle what He handles best (the care of His people) has given me a peace I can't understand. "A peace that passes all understanding," you might say :-)

...and wise or not, we've had money put aside for insulating our attic...and even though we're tighter now then before, we went ahead and used it for that. It really was important! The highest we've been able to keep our thermostat has been 65...we walk around in sweaters and still fork out money to pay our $220 something electric bill. That's right...seem absurd? That's because it is. We only have around 800 sq ft to heat, but it seems we don't have much, if any, insulation in our walls, and only old single pane glass windows...and no insulation in the attic where, according to Aaron when he was up there, it is warmer then the house because that's where all our heat likes to go. So yeah!!! We now have cellulose insulation in our attic! Aaron put plastic on the window and raised the thermostat because now our heat stays where it is supposed to (Aloria's room is no longer the coldest room in the house...poor kid)...aaaand I have been enjoying a warm house all morning long! The only thing that will now make me happier is to see our next bill go down down down down.

2 comments:

Emily said...

I'm glad to hear that you guys are hanging in there! My parents insulated their attic a few months ago and their gas bill (their house is twice the size of ours) was less than ours! I couldn't believe it. I'm thinking maybe that's something we should consider doing, too.

Justin Bodeutsch said...

that is nuts, i cant stand being cold in my own house! our new place stays much warmer and the heat barely even needs to be on, very nice compared to our huge place before. i am sorry about that huge bill, that is very expensive and you certainly dont have extra for that...
i remember unemployment being really slow over here too. government workers are slow! well anything to do with the government seems to take forever, but they do take care of us so i guess we cant complain too much.