Penny Pinching Mom

I Need an Outer Banks Vacation

As my regular readers know, I haven’t been on a vacation in some time. In fact, the closest things my family has ever had to a vacation were a day trip to Tweetsie Railroad and a few weekend camping trips. I think it’s about time we had one. My family needs to have some fun together, and I need to celebrate my recovery from depression. And while the North Carolina mountains are absolutely gorgeous, everybody needs a change of scenery from time to time.

Fortunately for us, we wouldn’t have to go too far to have a great vacation. From what I’ve heard, the Outer Banks are an awesome place to vacation, and they’re within reasonable driving distance for us. While perusing Outer Banks vacation options, I ran across some very nice Duck vacation rentals from Carolina Designs Realty. Check out this amazing house in the Seahawk subdivision!

It’s plenty roomy, with two master bedrooms with king beds, a queen bed, two twin beds and a pyramid bunk. That means that not only could Hubby, Pumpkin and I go, but we could bring along some friends to enjoy our vacation with. And we’d barely even have to leave the house to have a great time! Its amenities include a private pool, hot tub, game room, grill, cable TV and stereo system. Of course no trip to the beach would be complete without visiting the actual beach, and that would be no problem since it’s only a short walk away.

Here are a couple more photos of some of my favorite features.

This house has plenty of things for both kids and adults to do. Maybe, hopefully, one of these days we can plan a trip there.

Curse You, Fake Sugar!

Today Hubby, Pumpkin and I took a trip down the mountain. It wasn’t going to be an all-day trip, but it would be a good little ride. So when we stopped in town for gas, Hubby asked me to go in and get us some drinks.

Pumpkin and I went in. She had to have a Dr. Pepper slushie, and Hubby requested a Mountain Dew in a glass bottle. Since I can’t have soda, I made a beeline for the juice cooler. A new kind of Snapple caught my eye, and I picked it up to take a closer look. It was noni berry juice, and although I have never eaten a noni berry, it looked pretty appealing. So I decided to give it a try and took it up to the register.

I got in the truck, opened it up, and took a drink. Overall it tasted good, but there was something a little off about it. And right away I knew what that something was. I immediately looked at the ingredients to confirm my theory, and sure enough, it contained aspartame.

You’re probably thinking, “What’s wrong with that?” Well, the fact is, the taste of any kind of fake sugar makes me cringe. I just can’t stand the stuff. And besides, I’ve read a lot of stuff about aspartame and other non-caloric sweeteners that are pretty scary. Scary enough to make me want to stay as far away from them as possible, even if I could stand the taste of them.

Sure, such sweeteners can help you lower the number you see when you step on the scales, and heaven knows I could use some help with that. But I refuse to ingest them on a regular basis, and try to avoid them altogether.

In this case, I actually drank about half of the Snapple, because other than the aspartame, it tasted great. But I won’t be buying that kind again, and if I want to try any other new flavor, I’ll be sure to check the label before I buy.

To Vacation or Not to Vacation?

I believe I’ve mentioned many times on this blog how much I would like to take a vacation. Scratch that – how much I desperately need a vacation. Well, Hubby informed me yesterday that we might be going to the beach. Yet I had a strong urge to say no, and I still haven’t ruled out the possibility.

He said we wouldn’t need much money, that most of the expenses would be taken care of. So why am I not jumping for joy? A couple of reasons:

1. The people who would be covering the expenses are some of the people that I would like to go on vacation to get away from. In fact, I think I can safely say that I would rather clean toilets for a week straight than spend a few days with them. Seriously.
2. The beach would be very, very crowded this time of year. Crowds don’t really bother me much, but Hubby absolutely hates them. He can’t stand being around a whole lot of people, and he doesn’t have the patience to wait in line for anything. So the way I see it, the whole ordeal would require me to do a lot of hand-holding and listen to an insane amount of bitching and moaning.

I don’t know if he’ll talk me into going or not. As much as I would love to take a vacation, I just don’t see the whole thing as being very relaxing. By the time we got back, all of our nerves would probably be worn to a frazzle.

Are We Insured or Not?

Last month, a lady from the Work First office called and asked me some questions so she could decide how to proceed regarding my family’s Medicaid. She said I would be hearing from either her office or the Medicaid office. Well, it’s been nearly a month now, and I haven’t heard from either one.

I believe our Work First Medicaid ran out at the end of last month. I’ll have to look at my card and see. But I’m hoping that we at least get to keep it until Pumpkin and I go to the appointments we have this month. I may call the doctor’s office and get them to check their system and see if it’s still active, or call the Medicaid office and ask them what’s going on. I’d probably have better luck with the doctor’s office.

I’m glad I don’t have to buy some expensive prescription eczema treatment or something, because there’s no way we could afford that right now without insurance. And if we don’t have Medicaid, I’ll have to see if the doctor can either give me some samples (which I’m sure he will if he has them) or point me in the right direction for assistance. He’s really good about stuff like that, so if there’s any way he can help I have no doubts that he will. The biggest problem will be paying for the doctor visits without insurance if we don’t have it. He’ll probably give us a discount, which will help, but it’s still going to be tough to come up with even a lower amount.

All we can do is hold on and see what happens right now. I hate the feeling that gives me.

Breakouts Are a Bummer

I’ve been dealing with breakouts since I was a teenager. But that doesn’t mean they don’t still drive me nuts. I hate looking in the mirror and seeing a big red bump on my face or neck. I have a bad habit of picking at them too, as much as I try not to. And, as we all know, that just makes things worse.

I need to buy some more acne wash of some kind. Right now, I’m just using Dial soap. It does a surprisingly decent job since it’s antibacterial, but soap clogs your pores, and that’s not a good thing. I’d love to try something all natural like Pronexin and see if it works for me.

Just from reading about it, it looks like pretty good stuff. I have used tea tree oil on some of my worst zits with success, and that’s one of its main ingredients. Maybe when we have the money I’ll give it a try.

Noise in My Head

I’ve been trying to get caught up on the small amount of work that I have lined up and find more work to do. Our finances need serious help, and it’s up to me to try to get more money coming in. But I’ve been having a lot of trouble concentrating, and that has made things difficult.

I sit down to write, and then I think, “Hey, why don’t I play a game of online sudoku before I get started?” And that’s always a bad idea, because I’m terrible at it due to the whole lack of concentration thing, and it takes me forever to solve a puzzle. And when I do, I want to do another one to see if I can do better.

I think one of the reasons I like playing is because it keeps the noise out of my head. If I’m not doing something that requires me to at least attempt to concentrate on a very specific task (as opposed to being creative, as I must when I write), I have random thoughts flying around in there constantly. Like my long-deceased grandmother’s phone number, what I’d like to eat for dinner, whether I should be doing housework instead of sitting in front of the computer not getting anything done, which are the best slimming pills, and on and on and on.

I had hoped that the new medication the doctor put me on would help, but it doesn’t appear to be doing anything in that regard. I guess I’ll have to talk to him about it when I go back to see him next month. Something’s gotta give.

Allergies Bite

I’ve had trouble out of my sinuses since I was a kid. They’re much improved since I had surgery on them, but they still act up fairly often. They’ve been particularly bad since the pollen started flying around, and all the dust that’s trapped in our ancient carpet can’t be helping.

Nobody in my family has ever had allergy tests, but I think we’ve all got them. All three of us have been contending with stuffy noses and such lately. I’d like to do some stuff around the house that would help, but it’s just not in the cards right now.

Since both of my vacuum cleaners are all but dead, I can’t keep the dust down to the level I’d like to. I really need to see how much it would cost to get the old Rainbow fixed, because it’s great at getting the dust out of the house. That’s because it sucks it into water, keeping it from escaping back into the air.

I’d also like to get some allergy bedding. Just about every morning I wake up with a stuffy nose, and Pumpkin often gets up with a sore throat and cough. I’m sure it has a lot to do with our old mattresses and pillows.

I really should invest in some of this stuff, because it would probably save us a lot of trips to the doctor. Those stuffy noses have a way of turning into sinus infections, and sometimes it takes two or three rounds of antibiotics to get rid of them. So in the long run, it would definitely be worthwhile to spend some money on prevention.

What to Buy the Dad Who Has Everything

Father’s Day is coming up. Sadly, I no longer have my own dad around to shop for. But when he was with us, I always thought long and hard about what to get him. He was one of those guys who already had pretty much everything he cared about having. And he was quite picky about clothes and such. I remember one year taking a chance and buying him a nice western shirt. I figured he would hate it, but his eyes lit up when he opened it. And he actually wore it, so he had to have truly liked it.

Now that he’s gone, I know what the perfect gift for my dad would be: a homemade cheesecake. He always loved my cheesecakes. But now I’ve got another picky guy to shop for: Hubby.

I know that Hubby would like to have more tools. But he already has pretty much all the basics, and power tools won’t fit into the budget this year. So I’ll have to think a little harder about what to get him.

When you’re short on gift ideas for Mother’s Day, there are always flowers and candy. Of course you could consider some plants and flowers for Dad. Most florists have plenty of items that aren’t really feminine-looking. Like small bonsai trees. I doubt I’ll be going that route with Hubby, but it’s an idea for those who are shopping for dads that have a green thumb.

I don’t know what I’ll end up buying or doing for Hubby. But I’ve got to make Father’s Day special for him. He pampered me on Mother’s Day, after all. Besides, he’s a really awesome dad, and he deserves it.

Cooking Out

For the past two evenings, we’ve had company for dinner. And both times, we’ve cooked out. Last night we had hamburgers and hot dogs. Tonight we had barbequed pork chops. Hubby made them, and they were absolutely delicious.

Tonight we had Hubby’s brother, two of Hubby’s friends and one of the friends’ girlfriend as guests. The girlfriend didn’t eat a bite. She must have either been too shy to eat in front of us or taking some serious appetite suppressants, because the scent of those pork chops cooking was absolutely irresistible! The boys sure did go to town on them, though.

Pumpkin is complaining about eating grilled food for the past two days. But Hubby and I would both grill out every day when it’s warm out if we could. We use charcoal because we both prefer the flavor it gives the food over that of a propane grill. In fact, we’ve been offered a couple of propane grills for free, but Hubby turned them down.

Anybody know some good, simple grilling recipes that they’d like to share? Now that Hubby has become a little more adventurous in his eating, I’d like to find some new stuff to try!

A Late Mother’s Day Gift

Well, I finally got my mom something for Mother’s Day. I had planned on waiting until I got ready to go visit her again, but she called me the other day asking if I could order her some carpet shampoo. The first thing I did was look on Amazon, because I had some gift certificates built up there and could go ahead and order it if they had it instead of waiting on her to send me money. And lo and behold, I found some that she wanted.

Then I got to thinking that I should order something else to bring the order total up to $25 so she could get free super saver shipping. I couldn’t find anything that I needed in the right price range. But then it dawned on me to find something for Mom and have it sent to her along with the carpet cleaner. So I started searching.

It took me a while to make up my mind. I thought about sending her some wrinkle cream, but I didn’t know what kind she liked (and didn’t want her to feel like I was trying to tell her she was old). I finally decided on a microwave pasta cooker. I figured that would be something she could use, because it makes it easy to cook one or two servings at a time and is quicker than boiling it on the stovetop.

She doesn’t know it will be included in the package. I hope she likes it. If not, I’ll be glad to take it off her hands.