Update...

so, it's been a while.  4 years, 4 months, and 3 days to be exact.  a lot has changed in that time. moving, lost jobs, and more importantly, a lost marriage.

it started in 2015.  my husband told me he was addicted to pain killers.  wait, what?  my brain went numb, i couldn't hear anything, there was a constant hum in my ears while he's telling me this.  of course, my ever optimistic mind, we'll get you the help you need.  nope.  every time i had him close to the door to take him, he would chicken out, and so would i.  i ended up becoming an enabler.  if you can handle it, and be good about it, then you don't have to go.  then comes the gambling.  are you kidding me, right now?  i go to the bank one day, to get some money for gas and groceries; what do you mean we're over drawn?  seriously?  they tell me, that my paycheck, that was deposited the night before, was gone, plus some.  what?  i asked where the card was used, Isle of Capri casino, ma'am. you're joking, right? all $500 something is gone, PLUS more?  yes ma'am.  OK.  i went and got a loan, so we could get groceries.  the following week comes...same damn thing.  i try to get him off the bank account, to no avail.  he has to be there.  i lost it...week after week after week.  this goes on for 6 months.  then we finally get our tax refund, in February, I'm able to get the kid's valentine's presents, and get their stuff for their parties, and a little fabric for my self to make some dresses for the girl.  then out of no where, he disappears, for 2 days, can't get a hold of him, we have one vehicle, and he's got it, and no one has seen him.  seriously?  i look at the bank account, all $8000, gone.  where you ask...Isle of Capri casino.  you've got to be effing kidding me.  I've officially lost my mind.  he comes home, like nothing is wrong, and i don't say a word.  i completely ignore him for DAYS.  now this isn't the first time, something like this has happened.  the previous year, i had gotten us all caught up on bills, and then there was nothing left to do what we had wanted to do, my fault completely.  a few years back, when he was gone all the time, i had gotten our finances all screwed up doing everything myself, so bad that we had to file bankruptcy.  we've had our share of financial trouble for some time, but always made it out alive.  i didn't think we'd make it out this time.  we did, but not after having to loan after loan after loan, but by then we were in so deep, there was no coming back, bankruptcy it is! it saved our house, for a while, he quit gambling, even banned himself from the casino for 5 years. things are really starting to look up.  i get another bank account, I'm paying our bills, on time!  yay! pat on the back...then it starts all over...my debit card is missing, he's figured out the pin, and i can't find him, until i call my bank, and they tell me the last place it was used was...you guessed it, Isle of Capri.  i literally couldn't stand, and said the words file fraud charges on my behalf.  she said we can't do that, since he had the pin number...what?  I've lost it, I've literally lost my damn mind.  i go home, he's higher than kite, and he's lost all of our money, again.  does he care?  nope.  a few more weeks go by, there's no money to pay anything, the power goes out.  wonderful...here we are the end of summer in swampeast Missouri, it's still 100 degrees outside in September, and we have no electricity.  move everyone's beds downstairs, and we camp out.  he falls asleep on the couch, and doesn't wake up for 3 days...fun times.  me and the kids read to each other, talk, and play games.  they actually enjoyed doing this.  they helped me make Crisco candles, which by the way, are amazing...try it one day.  they helped with the dogs, giving them cool baths to keep them from over heating, cleaning up and decorating the basement (we had to do something to keep ourselves busy), we painted pictures, and played on the pool table.  we went to the park everyday to play, they were enjoying just spending time with me.  ME, just me.  hes still sleeping...on the 5th day, i was done, and so were the kids.  i got up the courage to call my mom.  not to ask her to help me get the power back on, but to come and take me and the kids away.  I'd had enough.  he'd become violent, to me and the kids, just plain rage full.  i was done.  she and my brother came the very next day and we left with the clothes on our backs.

so here we are, 6 months later, living with my mom.  i got an ex-parte order on my husband, because once he woke up and figured out we were gone, i didn't know how he would react.  I've filed for divorce, and we go to court in April.  he hasn't seen the kids since thanksgiving, because of choices he has made, and the people that he keeps around him.  in the process of losing my marriage, i have found happiness.  finally, happiness.  strength.  courage.  PEACE.  but out of all of this, i have found my children.  i am closer to them than i have ever been.  and I'm at peace with the decision that i made because of that.

Noah is doing well in school, FINALLY.  he's making friends, and constantly playing his video games, and is all around, a happy kid.

Bella, is amazing.  she's learning to read, and is getting better everyday, she's great at math!  thank God, cause that is not my strength.  she is happy, wonderful, STRONG, and resilient.  she puts a smile on my face daily.

i found a quote on Pinterest, of course.  that changed the way i looked at my life after all of this.

"when God shows you it's time to let 

someone go, and you refuse to,

He will allow that person to 

hurt you to the point you have

no choice but to let go."

THIS.  So this was His plan.  WOW.  it literally took me leaving, to see what his plan was.  this was his plan all along.  to make me see the problem, to make me understand that my marriage was beyond repair, and that THAT WAS OK with Him.   

I know, sometimes it's hard to see what you don't want to see.  but that's ok!  God will make sure that you see it one day, he will always make sure that the plan he has for you, works out.  it may take you a while, but you will see it, maybe in the depths of darkness, you will see it. 

hopefully, i can keep this up.  I've found that writing is helping me get through this.  I've joined Quora, which is so amazing!  you answer questions, with your knowledge, and understanding of life, and it helps people.  even just reading answers to questions has helped me!  I've answered several questions, but the one that has the most views was "What have you given up for your son or daughter?"  you can probably guess my answer...

so until next time, remember, God has a plan for you...don't worry about it, it will all work out one day.

A Part of my Heart...My Otis

Otis.  The first love of our lives, ever.  He's our first born.  He's our white boxer. 
10 years ago, during one of the worst times in my life, I got a phone call at work from Kevin's cousin who had been taking care of our dog, Fatman, who was deathly ill from heartworms.  She told me that it was time. So I gave her the go ahead.  That evening I got a call from her again, which I thought was weird.  So I answered the phone and she said we just got a litter of boxer puppies and there are 2 white ones, do you want one?  I immediately told her yes and you have to keep it a secret. We decided we weren't going to tell Kevin.  13 weeks later she pulls in our driveway, and Kevin looked out the window and of course asked why she had just driven down here 2 hours when it was already so late in the afternoon. I said I have no idea...she got out and this little white wrinkly thing was wiggling around in her arms.   Kevin looked at me and said "what in the hell is that?"  And I told him, I don't know, why don't you go find out. He looked at me and took off running out the door.  And that was it, our hearts melted and we were changed...forever. We were officially, A Boxer Family, and never looked back.

We never looked back,  until this June, 10 years later.  When we took him in for what we thought was a regular check up.  And then Kevin calls me at work, and I can't understand a word he's saying to me.  He's crying so hard that he had to pull over the car and catch his breath.  I haven't heard him cry like that since Noah was born.  So finally I could make out a couple of words that are coming from each sob.  "Otis...cancer."
My heart stopped.  I couldn't hear anything.  My head was spinning.

Our AMAZING vet told us that he had stage 4 lymphoma.  With chemo it could get rid of it and he could go into remission or not.  And without the chemo, we had probably 2 months before he was gone.  We decided no chemo.  I saw what it did to my dad, and I wasn't having it.  We put him on prednisone to help shrink the tumors.  They literally went from half dollar size to pea size in days!  His attitude completely changed, he was happy, playing, eating! 
Then about 2 and a half months down the road, it all changed.  He stopped eating, playing he just stopped.  Otis went from 75 pounds to around 49 pounds.  The prednisone had stopped working.  It didn't even make him hungry anymore. 
It was time.  So a little over 3 months from when we got the diagnosis, we had to help him cross the Rainbow Bridge.  It was most definitely one of the hardest days we've been through in probably the 17 years we've been together.

We know he's in the best place and will be waiting there for us all wiggly and excited...lets just hope he doesn't pee every where when we get there!
So after you read this, go hug your fur babes.  And cherish the short amount of time you have on earth with them.

Trying not to lose it...

So in the midst of both of us being unemployed, the start of school, and everyday life, we have stumbled into a stress that neither one of us ever saw coming. 

Our oldest is scared to go to school.  I know, you're like, What?  Scared to go to school?  Yes, I know, he's 8 years old and in the 3 rd grade.  Yes, I know that this doesn't sound anything like the kid rockin' out in the middle of the Christmas program every year.  Yes, I know it doesn't sound like the kid that got a standing ovation at the talent show for busting some awesome moves to the song "Dynamite".  I know, that this is not the fun loving, ball of energy that we've raised, there is something wrong, and I don't know what it is.  And quite frankly its pissing me off that I don't know how to fix it. 

Noah - doing his favorite thing ever - DANCING - for no reason other than there is music playing somewhere!

This year at school if you miss 16 days over the year, you have to repeat the grade you're in.  I am trying really hard to make it so he won't have to do that.  We're knocking on the 3rd week of school's door...and he's only been there 3 full days!  It started on the 3rd day, Monday.  He had a belly ache.  No fever, just a belly ache.  I sent him on his way.  An hour later, the nurse is calling me.   I told her "lets wait and see how he does after lunch" and proceeded to call the school counselor.  We figured out that it all started when my husband lost his job on November.  It was eye opening to finally figure out what was causing this, but he still wouldn't tell us why he was SCARED to go. 

When Kevin lost his job, mind you, that for the last 10 years he was gone.  And I don't mean just gone to work Monday through Friday 8 -5.  He was literally not even in the state of Missouri.  He would have to work out of town for days, weeks,  and sometimes months at a time.  We got used to it.  We had a routine, we were OK.  Then it all stopped.  It took some adjusting, but we finally got through it.  Then all of a sudden, Noah would "feel sick" before school.  OK.  He'll just stay home and get better.  Then it was twice a week...3 times a week...every Monday, every Tuesday.  What is going on?   I was the only one working in my office at the time, I didn't have time to fight with him everyday. If he wasn't going to get up,  well then whatever...goodbye!  Yes its completely my fault for all of the school he missed in the second grade.  I'm not going to lie, I let him skip school.  I didn't know there was some sort of underlying issue.

My mother in law came up to talk to him and see if he would tell her anything at all.  Come to find out he was scared to tell us thinking it would upset us.  He's scared to go because he thinks something will happen to him at school or on the bus, or something will happen to us and no one will be able to get to him and he won't know what to do.

When school shootings or horrible tornadoes happen, I never know what I'm supposed to do.  Am I supposed to talk to him about it? Am I supposed to ignore it?  Am I not supposed to have the TV on at all?  Or the radio?  What about the 9/11 memorials that will be broad casted in September, are those okay?  What about the books that he wants to read...the "I Survived" books, are those appropriate?  I don't want to shelter him, but I don't want him to be scared.  I'll be honest, when the Connecticut shooting happened in December, the first thing I did, besides bawling my eyes out, was hug my kids tighter than I've ever hugged them before.  I'm sure a lot of parents did that.  When the Oklahoma tornado happened this year and all those babies passed in the school, I cried, I hugged my kids tight and prayed that neither one of those things ever happens to either one of my babies.  Just like a million other parents, I'm sure.

Noah on his first day of school.

So as we go to doctors, and counselors,  and talk to his friend's moms, maybe start going church, have a schedule, have a go to school prize chart, I ask, are you paying attention to what your kids see, hear, and soak up like a sponge?  I know that I will be more active in that for sure.  I know I can't keep him from everything.  I know that, I don't even know if that's the right thing to do.  But I can promise that we will do whatever it takes to figure this out and help him through it. 

Maybe his teacher was right when she said: "God had you lose your job for a reason and this was it.  To make sure that you saw what was going on with your son, and to be able and available to fix it."  I know I'm not happy that I lost my job, but if this was the reason, then so be it, but as soon as he's better...please give me a job!  I guess there's really nothing left to say but...Really?  This is your plan?

Can we just get through the toddler years...PLEASE?

My daughter is 3.  She doesn't want to have anything to do with potty training.  She still takes a binky.  She still takes...a bottle to go to bed.  *GASP*

Look, I told her that the binky fairy was going to come.  She screamed, "No", and told me that "Tinker Bell can not come take her "beebees" to give to other babies because she needs them!"  I know that what I'm doing, by not taking these things away, is wrong, but she's my baby.  There isn't going to be any more babies after her.  And to be quite honest, it really is cute when she sucks on her beebee.  UGH!  There I go again...it's cute.  But, it's not, it really is disgusting if you think about it.  I could be stunting her speech patterns, jacking up her already jacked up teeth (which I secretly love because she got my dad's teeth).  I just don't have the heart to take them away, or the patience to hear her scream for her baba, and beebee. I'm at a crossroads with this.  I hate all of it, it really does drive me up the wall, and to be honest, I don't know how to do it.  Do I do it all at the same time?  Do I do it one week at a time?  Or over the next few months?  I figured that when I lost my job, "great!  now I can work on these things with her", yeah, that went out the window the first week...I don't know where to start!

Seriously...how cute is that?

I figured when I told her about the binky fairy it would be really exciting.  I told her that Tinker Bell needs her to hang her binkies from the trees in the front yard, because she can't come in the house because the dogs might scare her.  After Tink and her friends come get the binkies they will leave her a new fairy baby.  She really liked that idea, but then the thought of not having her binkies anymore ran through her little mind and she...wait for it...wait for it...PANICKED!  Now, anytime that I say anything about the binky fairy, she throws her sweet little hands over her mouth protecting her precious binky.  

Come on now!  Seriously?  I've tried having her hand it to me when she wakes up in the mornings  - um, no. I've tried the "bedtime only" thing - oh, hell, no!  I've made her throw the broken ones away, and she takes it over to the shoe basket and says "okay mommy, i put it in trash".  Yeah honey, that's not the trash.  I have even cut the tips off of broken ones in front of her - you would have thought that I stabbed her in the eye with a stick.  What are these things, baby crack?  She literally hoards them like a squirrel hoards nuts for winter, but then can't remember where she put them.  Whoever invented these things, was laughing all the way to the bank! 

I do have moments where i see the clouds clearing; when she hands it to me and says "here go mommy, I have it later".  Maybe one day she will just drop all of this stuff, on her own, but I'm not holding my breath. At this point, I'll be happy if she doesn't go to kindergarten with the disgusting, vile thing!

2 easy-peasy chicken recipes!

I am a chicken eater!  I don't really like much "meat-meat" unless it's a steak or something grilled.  My constant "go-to" recipe is Chicken and Noodles with mashed taters.  I make it at least once a week in the winter and once a month in the summer.  I grew up eating this, and it was always my favorite!  The second recipe today is Chicken Enchiladas.  It's also a "go-to" because, hello...it's simple!  I bought 1 whole chicken at the store for both of these recipes, and you could always get more than 2 dinners out of a whole chicken depending on how many pounds it is.  This one was 5 pounds.  So, I boiled the chicken with a few carrots, celery leaves and a couple of stalks, and half of an onion until it basically fell apart.  Save the broth for the Chicken and Noodles.  Dump the veggies, and debone the chicken until you can't get anymore meat off the bone.  Separate so you have at least a pound for each recipe.  Any left over - hell - save it for something else!  The more dinners you can use it in, the cheaper each one becomes!

I do all my grocery shopping at Aldi and Food Giant here in good ole Cape Girardeau.  Aldi because everything is so cheap and still a great quality!  Food Giant because, please...it's close to my house and I really like the people that work there!  Here's my shopping list for these 2 recipes.

• whole chicken
• wide egg noodles
• potatoes
• enchilada sauce (2 cans)
• sour cream
• cheese (i used the block cheese to help save money, but you can also use shredded cheese)
• burrito size tortillas

For the Chicken and Noodles total price for the entire meal was $4.21!  Can you believe that?  $4.21!!! That equals out to $1.05 for each serving (4 people)!  Pretty hard to beat!

For the Enchiladas the total price for the entire meal was $8.65.  Which equals out to $2.16 for each serving. Not as cheap as the other, but still pretty cheap!

Okay, here are the recipes, with pictures for you viewing pleasure!

Chicken & Noodles (comfort food for sure!)


1 lb. shredded chicken
leftover chicken broth from boiling the chicken
1 package wide egg noodles
about 2 lbs. potatoes

Make sure you cook the potatoes before the noodles, or you will have cold noodles and hot potatoes.  Boil cut up potatoes, drain, mash to your liking.
You may need to add a little water to the broth depending on how much it boiled down when cooking the chicken.  Bring broth and water mixture to a boil.  Add egg noodles, lower the temp to medium or it will boil over.  Cook noodles until they are done, add shredded chicken, and heat through.
DONE!  Fast and easy, especially if you cooked the chicken the day before!
Plop some taters on a plate or in a bowl, put a little dent in them, top with noodles.  Now if you're like me, you want juice...if you're like my kids and my husband, no juice; add however much juice you want or don't want.  Salt and pepper to taste...YUMMO, ENJOY!

Chicken Enchiladas


1-2 lbs. shredded chicken
1 can enchilada sauce
1/4 c. sour cream

6-8 tortillas
1 can enchilada sauce
shredded cheese
sour cream

Heat to boiling the shredded chicken with 1 of the cans of enchilada sauce and 1/4 cup sour cream in at least a 10 inch skillet.  Spray a 9x13 cake pan with non-stick cooking spray.  Lay out a tortilla, put a large spoonful of the chicken mixture in the tortilla, roll up and place in pan with seam side down.  Continue until the pan is full.  Cover with the 2nd can of enchilada sauce.  Place in a 350 degree oven and bake until bubbly.  Top with shredded cheese and place back in oven until slightly melted.  Once you get one enchilada on your plate, top with sour cream and ENJOY!

Now, I didn't say these were the healthiest of recipes, but they sure are tasty!  You will have leftovers so if you don't want a lot of leftovers, make these for when you have company coming.  They will think that you slaved all day long, when you really didn't!

Frugal Friday!

A friend of mine posted on Facebook today that she wants to start saving money at all costs.  It put this little idea in my head to make Fridays "Frugal Friday".  So I immediately went to my Pinterest page which you can find here, and opened my Financial Organizing board and my Cleaning, Organizing and Decluttering board.  There's all kinds of tips that I've collected over the last year of doing one of my favorite things ever...PINNING!  I love finding and pinning all kinds of things that have to do with saving money, but that doesn't mean that I've implemented these tips in my life...YET!  I've only made one batch of laundry soap, but I've got plans to make this other stuff too.  I'll provide all the links to the original websites so the folks that worked so hard to make these things, get all the credit!

Homemade Laundry Detergent, there's all kinds.  I made the No-Grate recipe - you can find that recipe here.  One Good Thing by Jillee is an amazing blog!  She's got all kinds of tips on homemade cleaning supplies, tons of them actually!

Anyone that is a mom knows how important it is to keep everything germ free, but Clorox Anywhere Spray is soooo expensive!  Guess what I found?  A link to make homemade Clorox Anywhere Spray!  You can find that here.

I also think one of the best ways to help save is to make the things that you would use everyday, like body wash, shaving gel, shampoo, conditioner, and deodorant.  I found a bunch of recipes on Pinterest for all of that stuff too!  Wow!  It's amazing what you can find on there!  

Body Wash - this is the greatest thing ever!  You literally turn a $1 bar of soap into 48 ounces of body wash. You can't get much better than that!  This link comes to you from Discount Queens.  

Shaving Gel - seriously, I haven't used shaving gel since I had kids, but I'm so tired of wasting my hair conditioner to shave my legs.  So I set out to find a recipe for that too!  This one is from Ashley's Homemade Adventures.  I'm sure you could use any type of ingredients, even cheap stuff from the dollar store.

Shampoo and conditioner - Everything that I found was called "No-Poo".  It has no soap, so it doesn't bubble up, but apparently it really cleans your hair and scalp to make for extremely healthy hair!  Here is what found from Kale to the Queen.  

Deodorant - now I'm not real sure if this is something that i would actually try or not, but I've thought about it.  Frugal G33k made some very valid points as to why you should use homemade deodorant, the store bought stuff is riddled with aluminum, which is so not good for you!  You can find the link to her recipe here.  

In the process of writing this post, I decided to move over some pins to a new board called "Frugal Friday Blog Post Pins".  If y'all have any pins that you want to share, let me know and I can add you to the board and we can all just share away!  I would also love your feedback on this post too!  Any other tips, things you have tried or if you have recipes of your own - leave them in the comments!  This post was so fun! We'll have to do this every Friday!  

My kiddies...continued

So today I was going to give you guys a couple of recipes, but everybody changed their minds on what they wanted for dinner, so I'll save that for tomorrow.

Instead of food, I'll introduce you all to Bella, my littlest princess.  I think she's really starting to believe that she is a princess, because if you ask her what her name is, she proudly announces, "princess".  And let me tell you, if you tell her no, she gets really mad!

February 2010

Isabella Cady-Fay (I'll give you the rundown on her name in a minute) is the biggest spitfire our family has right now.  She's 3 going on 16!  She's amazing, and perfect, and beautiful!  Unlike Noah, she doesn't have an amazing story as to how she came to be.  She was born full term, everything completely normal, just like any other baby.  I, on the other hand, didn't think everything would be okay during my pregnancy.  I was freaking out until after the 29 week mark.  Each time I went to the doctor, she would tell me - "Hello! Remember, I'm the doctor - let me worry about it!  You just chill and grow a baby!"  So I was like - OK - let's grow a baby!  And all worry went out of my mind.

December 2011

On February 19, 2010 - my little Pickle came into our lives!  Isabella Cady-Fay was 7 pounds and 19 inches long.  COMPLETELY normal!  What the hell do i do with a normal baby?  You mean to tell me that she's not going to be stuck in her room for months at a time, attached to all kinds of wires?  She's going to have energy, and want to do things?  Now what?  I think it was one of the first times I felt like a "normal" family, whatever that is!

So i promised I would elaborate on her beautiful name.  We'll start with her middle names.  Cady is my maiden name - i always said that if I ever had a girl - her middle name would be Cady.  LOVE IT!  And that way, I still feel connected to my dad's side of the family that I grew up with.  Fay comes from Kevin's grandma.  She would have loved Bella.  Bella was the first girl on Kevin's Dad's side of the family in 30 some odd years, and she would have fallen in love with her!  OK - Isabella.  Isabella comes from, what else...Twilight.  I fell in love with the name as soon as i started reading the first book.  I also told myself that by the time she goes to kindergarten, there will be all kinds of "Bellas", "Alices", and "Rosalies".  So i came up with a plan, if anybody asks me where i got her name it would be - Queen Isabella of Spain.  Sounds good, right?  LOL!

November 2012

So that's my sweet princess.  A spitfire, a girly girl, a tomboy.  All of me wrapped up in a cute little ball. Here's to hoping that the spitfire is gone by the time we reach 13!  

So I hope that you enjoyed learning about my little family!  Tomorrow I'll be bringing you some recipes - cheap to make - but not cheap on taste!  YUMMO!  I can't wait!  Until tomorrow...