Prioritizing

Ever make a Wordle before?  It's a great website where you can just type in a bunch of words (or cut and paste text from another source) and it creates these word art pictures.  I've used it while teaching before but never for myself, but today just felt like a good day to start.  I'm overwhelmed with all that I need to do and having an incredibly difficult time prioritizing.

If I lived in a vacuum (or was able to locate life's remote control so I could just hit <PAUSE> for a little bit) I would devote all my time to finishing the @#$% coursework I need to finish in order to reactivate my teaching certificate.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a moment and read all about it.  Right now.  No, I'm serious.  I'll wait.









All done?

Good!

Okay, so now you know I still need to complete eighty continuing education hours in order to be able to teach and/or substitute in a public school once again.  And in case you're curious, this is directly from the PA Department of Education Website:

 

What must educators do to remain in compliance with Act 48?

Educators must maintain their certificates as active

by earning six collegiate credits

or six PDE-approved in-service credits

or 180 continuing education hours

or any combination of the above every five calendar years. 

NOTE: Each collegiate credit is equal to 30 continuing education hours.

I guess the good news is that I have already completed one hundred CEUs (Continuing Education Units or Hours) and am one third of the way through a course worth thirty CEUs.  Plus the courses I have found are free, on-line, and self-paced, so I can squeeze them in whenever I can.  The bad news is everything is so friggin' time consuming!

Which brings me back to the title of this post.  If I did live in a vacuum and could just hunker down and finish the remaining eighty CEUs in order to reactivate my teaching certification, I would be able to substitute a couple times a week, bringing in an extra six hundred plus a month, give or take, which would make an enormous difference in our lives right now.

HOWEVER . . . I don't live in a vacuum, and even though I know completing the coursework to reactivate my certification would solve so many of our problems, I have to continue dealing with every other aspect of our lives at the same time.  And there is a lot of other "stuff" to have to deal with.

And so it comes down to prioritizing, a task that apparently I suck at.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the basic concept.  I need to list everything I have to do and then determine what is the most important, then the second most important, and so on, and tackle the most important things on the list first, gradually moving down the list.  And in theory, that works and sounds pretty simple. 


But in reality life has all kinds of lists, and there are high priority items on all of them.  So how do you determine which items need to be dealt with now and which ones can be put off until later? Or should I really just be looking into figuring out a way to combine all my lists together and somehow prioritize all the different tasks on that master list?


Just so I'm clear, here are my various life To Do lists:

1. Reactivate my teaching certificate
2. Maintain "order" in the house by cleaning on a regular basis and decluttering/organizing the crap that seems to overflow from every room in our house
3. Figure out to feed everyone relatively healthy that everyone will eat and still stick to our extremely tight budget
4. Get out of debt while still paying all our other bills on time AND buying groceries so everyone can eat at least three times a day
5. Lose forty pounds
6. Make sure each of the three kids' academic and social-emotional needs are being met both at home and at school, both during the school year AND during the summer
7. Teach at my part-time position

I could literally spend all day simply working on one or two tasks on ANY of these lists.  And notice I did not include anything about developing and/or maintaining any personal relationships, even though this is an area of my life that is severely lacking. 

The problem is clearly that each of those seven To Do lists is vitally important and none of them can be ignored.  And when I spend time focusing on any one of them, I neglect the rest, resulting in total disaster.  I am sure there is a way to maintain balance and figure out a way to accomplish it all, but I simply do not see it.  So what do I do?

My favorite way to escape my life


Clearly I have too much on my plate.  If a friend was telling me all this, I would tell them they were trying to do too much and to give themselves a break.  And while I understand that, it doesn't really seem an option.

I mean, let's say I focus primarily on reactivating my certification.  As things stand right now, we are just squeaking by living paycheck to paycheck.  Our credit cards are pretty much maxed out, both of our credit scores totally suck, our debt is monumental, and we have gone through any emergency savings we ever amassed.  I need to continually seek out ways to save money, get financial assistance, and/or bring in more money.  And I cannot do that if I am only working on completing my online courses!

And let's say I focus on figuring out ways to make sure we CAN pay all our bills each month with a little extra towards paying down our debt?  Then I don't have enough time to keep up with all the work that has to be done around the house and things get out-of-control pretty quickly.

So let's say I focus on maintaining the house AND making sure we still have enough money to keep the lights on?  Then making sure all three kids' needs are being met at school and at home goes out the window.  We are still struggling to find the right medication to treat Twin A's ADHD to help him focus in class and not do things like, I don't know, getting up in the middle of direct instruction to initiate a conversation with another student.  And he still is having many, many, many meltdowns both at school and at home about any little thing - it is pretty hard to anticipate what will set him off.  And I also have two other kids who have their own struggles and problems!

To say I'm overwhelmed is an understatement.

To say I need a friggin' break doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.


And what do I end up doing for a good portion of the day today? 

Do I clean?

Cook?

Figure out a grocery list that will take advantage of the store sales and my coupons?

Work on my courses?

Work on my budget once again?

Spend another day doing research into various options for the kids to do this summer?



NO.





I choose to blog about it all instead.


Sigh.

Miss Mommy the Firefighter

I am so busy putting out fires all the time.  I fear if I stop even for a moment the whole thing might just burst into flames.  That would be bad.  So I keep on dealing with the emergency issues that arise regularly and continue to try to get on top of it all. 

Maybe I need some kind of fire retardant spray to simply mist over the house, the family, the bank account, and whatever else I'm missing to allow me to get out of this position, figure out a way to keep it all under control and maybe even (gasp!) improve things just a little.

I feel as if I cannot focus on any one thing for any length of time because it ultimately results in me unintentionally letting something else slide.  I might spend a good chunk of the day looking through store circulars and coupons in order to create a grocery list that might fit with our extremely tight budget only to get comments from DH (who IS appreciative of the hard work I put into creating said list) about how The Princess is down to her last pair of clean pants and could I PLEASE do her laundry tomorrow.  Or spend a lot of time trying to revise our basic behavior modification for the kids to attempt to improve life at home only to find out that I somehow missed paying a credit card bill (even though I thought I had everything automated).

Here are the issues:

• Money is so extremely tight, but those darn kids still want to eat on a regular basis!  Don't worry, I'm kidding, I feed the kids, but it really is tough figuring out HOW to buy all those groceries and still pay the mortgage. 

I thought I had a solution with refinancing the house, but after paying almost $500 for the appraisal, the underwriter had a problem with the fact that no one can find the permit from when we converted our garage into a playroom way back in 2004 when I was 700 months pregnant with The Princess) and things ended up taking much longer than expected.  Ultimately the company is still willing to work with us, but since the bank that currently holds our mortgage is now going to take about three to four weeks to do whatever it is on their end that they do to basically sign the mortgage over to the new company, they want an additional $700+ to lock in the rate they promised us.  "But don't worry - you can just turn that over and include it with the rest of the loan."  Uh...no, I don't think so.  As it stands, the house was appraised lower than we expected, which increased how much we were going to be borrowing, and now this?

The biggest problem is that apparently both of our credit scores are very low right now.  This sucks!  I think the most important thing at this point is to work towards increasing our scores by making sure EVERY bill gets paid on time and do everything we can to pay down our debt.  Of course, when we're scrambling just to make sure the electric bill can get paid this month, it's a little hard to find any extra money to put towards our debt, let alone towards rebuilding our emergency fund.

If you want to read more about the scintillating tale of how I'm trying to get rid of our debt and not starve to death, check out my new blog!

• Trying to meet each of the three kids' needs feels like it is getting harder every week.  The Princess goes back and forth between being responsible and downright likeable to whining and doing every attention-seeking negative behavior in the world.  Twin B is so sensitive and so needy and wants to tell me stories all the time but it takes him so incredibly long to relay even just one story I feel like I'm losing my mind.  And then there's Twin A.  His ADHD and Asperger's have collided to create the perfect storm of neediness that is challenging the fact that I ever described myself as a patient person.

• I need to lose weight - forty pounds, to be exact.

If you want to read all about my exciting journey (I figure if I describe it as "exciting" maybe I'll actually begin to believe it) to lose weight and get in shape, check out my new blog!

Yes, that was TWO plugs for my other blog.  Do you have a problem with that?

• This new computer SUCKS!  It is soooo slow and freezes up all the time, making everything I do all day online take even longer than it should, and yet I have no money for a better one.

• I need to complete eighty more Continuing Education Hours in order to reactivate my teaching certificate and even begin to sub again, let alone potentially get a full-time teaching job again.  And between trying to figure out how to continue paying the mortgage each month, making sure each kid is functioning appropriately both at home and at school, determining the best buys at the grocery stores so we can actually eat, making food that everyone will eat - especially Twin A whose current ADHD meds kill his appetite, trying to make time to go to the gym on a regular basis, ensuring everyone has clean underwear and socks to wear, making sure every bill has been paid without causing us to bounce any checks, I have not found enough time to complete the on-line self-paced courses I need to complete to make that happen. 

And that's about all the time I have to share for now.  The kids will be walking through the door in twenty minutes, and I still have to unload and reload the dishwasher, season the chicken and chop up the potatoes and celery and put them all in the oven, fold the load of laundry that just finished drying plus switch the wet load into the dryer and put a new load into the washer, and clean off the table on which they will do their homework and try to think of a healthy snack for them all to eat since they will undoubtably be "starving." 

And I never made it to the gym again.

   

Making Up for my Neglect

I have neglected you, oh blog of mine, and I'm sorry. 

Life got crazy (what else is new?) and I stopped checking in.

Bad writer, bad!

To make up for it, I have started a brand new blog all about my journey this year to lose the weight and lose the debt:  Losing It.  I know, I know, the title is not that exciting or original, but it's kind of funny considering I'm trying to do this without "losing it" if you know what I mean.

So go, check it out.  Right now.  And leave me a comment or two.  I need the motivation. 

And trust me, I know the new blog in no way makes up for the past six weeks of neglect.  I will try to do that with a brand new non-weight loss related post by the end of the day.  Promise.

Ha, Ha, Ha

Oy.

Man plans, God laughs.  This really has been my motto for a while now, and I just have to remember it.

*  I committed to participate in NaBloPoMo - writing a new post every single day for the entire month.  I was actually pretty excited about this idea, both to give me a good incentive to push myself with my writing and because potentially it was a good way to increase my blog's audience from the hundreds two of you who are reading it right now to maybe thousands five or more.

And then God laughed, and my computer got some horrible virus that even the Tech Guys at Staples called a "Bad Virus."  To remove the virus and install better virus protection will come to almost the same amount I paid for the laptop a number of years ago, so it really didn't seem financially responsible.  I am, however, paying around $70 for them to hopefully save my files and pictures that I saved on the computer.  Bottom line, I was without a computer for just about two full days.  Oh well, I'll try NaBloPoMo again next month.

*  I have been recovering from this stupid pneumonia for a while now - almost four weeks.  I have been doing everything I am supposed to do: took every single one of my antibiotics (even the long blue one that always began disolving on my tongue causing me to gag no matter how I tried to swallow it), rested for the length of time the doctors said I should and then some, stayed out of work for the length of time the doctors said I should.  I was given permission to ease back into the gym starting this past Monday, as long as I reduced the intensity level and time of my workouts.

And then God laughed.  I tried a Yoga class on Wednesday figuring this would be a good thing - deep breathing, slow movements.  Yeah, right.  Right from the start I discovered I needed to modify almost every movement to make it easier for me.  Okay, I could do that.  But after about fifteen minutes, my chest started hurting.  Not because of my heart (though I did picture having to call 911 to be driven to the ER so they could hook me up to all those machines and make sure I wasn't having a heart attack) but because of my lungs.  I stopped, put my shoes back, and left.

*  I went grocery shopping yesterday, after taking a lot of time the night before to match up all my coupons to what was on sale, my mini-attempt at extreme couponing.

And then God laughed and made sure I realized by the huge wave of fatigue that hit me while in the checkout line that I was not ready to do grocery shopping yet.

I think I need to stop making my plans public because I have so much I need to do.  I'm going to attempt to do it all (paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, and replan for a birthday party I'm performing at tomorrow since I had saved the hours of planning I already had completed on my old computer) while sitting on my couch today in order to rest my lungs some more.

If the couch breaks, then I know God just has a sick sense of humor.   

An Important Reminder

I have been at the computer all day yesterday and all morning working on ways to solve or at least alleviate this major financial crisis in which we find ourselves.  Every idea I come up with turns out to take four times longer than I expect.  After working so hard for all that time, all I have managed to do is:

1)  Reduce the APR of one of the three credit cards (29% to 12% for the next year!)

2)  Complete the on-line application for state assistance

3)  Gather almost all of the paperwork I will need to submit to the county office to verify the information I submitted in the application

I got the dreaded phone call around 11:00; the school nurse called to let me know the Princess wouldn't stop coughing.  Yay.  I took her right to the doctor where she was given a breathing treatment in addition to a serious talking to about not allowing the cat in her bedroom - ever.  Woo hoo.  Tonight should be fun.  But you and Daddy get to share a room and Twin A and Twin B get to share a room and now I don't get to share a room with ANYone!!!!  This should be an easy bedtime.

When I got home from the doctor's office, I checked in with my friends' on Facebook.  The first thing I saw was the sign I put up top.  Things are pretty overwhelming right now, what with the lots of bills to pay and the not a lot of income to pay it with plus needing to take Twin A to the cardiac specialist tomorrow morning.  I think I needed to remember that even though it doesn't feel like it now, everything is happening the way it is meant to happen.  I need to take a breath, let it out, and remind myself that this too shall pass.

Sigh.

A New Day - A New Outlook

Don't get me wrong - I'm still stressed.

Last night after I wrote my post, I hunted down the Halloween candy DH had bought and hid from all of us - and I don't even like that kind of candy!

I am a pragmatic person.  Things ARE overwhelming and feel completely out-of-control right now, and I'm sure something else will go wrong at some point today (call from the school nurse? a leak in the upstairs bathroom coming through the kitchen ceiling - again? a termite infestation?) but I have to focus on what has to be dealt with right now and see what I can do.

The biggest most pressing problem right now is the finances.  The district that DH works for is currently under contract negotiations.  The teachers have been working without a contract since the beginning of the year.  For some bizarre reason, that translates into NO tuition reimbursement, NO salary bumps after completing any continuing education courses, and NO regular cost of living increase in salaries.  And no, even once the contract is signed, nothing will be retroactive.  I know.  It doesn't make any sense to me either. 

Ignoring the slight salary increase that we were counting on, the worst part is DH is currently in a Master's program and is completing one course each semester.  The course he is in now ends on Thursday, and due to no tuition reimbursement from the district, he will be taking a break from the program until a contract is signed.  The worst part right now is that the two thousand dollar tuition for the course he is just finishing now has to be paid.  We were counting on getting some/all of that reimbursed from the district.  Now we have to figure out how to pull $2000 out of the air.

Our fridge is on its last legs.  My extremely generous in-laws have offered to buy us a new fridge as an early Christmas/Chanukkah gift for the two of us.  What a relief to not have to worry about figuring out how to pay for that!  There is stress still involved with finding a fridge that fits our small space and the other features I want (Energy Star Qualified and french doors), but at least the money aspect of that is not a concern.

I work best with clear goals, so I'm going to make a TO DO list of what I need to do to try to improve our current financial situation:

1.  Contact the bank that holds our Home Equity Line of Credit - maybe we can take more money from that to pay DH's tuition and my hospital bill without affecting how much we're paying each month too much.
Not going to happen - already borrowed the maximum amount we could borrow.

2.  Finish completing the on-line application for state assistance.  I have no idea if we will qualify for anything, and I really never thought I would need to do this, but it's there for a reason and it sure would help.  If nothing else, both boys qualify for Medical Assistance due to their autism diagnosis, and that is actually not income dependent.  If I can get that set up quickly enough, that should cover medical expenses for any procedures related to this new cardiac stuff.  Wonder if it would also cover copays for Twin B's therapist?  Hmmm....
Completed!  "Only" took about four hours altogether.  Of course, then it gave me a list of literally twenty different documents I need to find, make copies of, and then deliver tot he county office.

3. Call each of the three credit cards we own (two are maxed out and the other is $500 from its limit) and ask for a lower interest rate.  I heard that if you ask for this and ask for that person's manager (I think) when they tell you they can't do that, it could happen.  I figure it can't hurt!
It took forever, but I managed to do this for one, reducing it from 29% to 12%, after I requested help due to financial hardships.  This rate will be good for one year, and I can't use the card for that year (fine with me), but at least it will help in paying it off!  Still haven't managed to do this for the other two cards - yet.

4.  Figure out a new way to pay for oil and my gym membership (I know, it seems like a splurge, but I really need to lose weight - I'm actually considered obese at this point - and I will be reimbursed $150 if I go at least one hundred eighty days in the course of the year.  Talk about incentive!) since they were on a credit card that is now maxed out.
No time for this.

5.  I reduced what we pay for car insurance and home owner's insurance.  Next I'm going after life insurance, oil, and electric.
No time for this.


I now have four and a half hours before the kids get home.  There's only five things on my to do list - should be no problem.  Right?  Right?!!  Or maybe not.

STRESS

Stress is:

• Trying to figure out how to pay for this month's expenses when it is apparent there will not be enough money to cover it all
• Waiting until Friday to get Twin A seen by a specialist for his newly diagnosed cardiac problem when the doctors all stressed that he should be seen ASAP
• Knowing that Twin A will probably require a cardiac ablation, which sounds really scary
• Realizing that Twin B, whose EKG did not pick up any problems, might also have the same cardiac issue that his twin does - and we started him on the stimulant medication to treat his ADD, the same stimulant medication that Twin A's doctor stressed that we absolutely should NOT put him back on due to this condition
• Receiving confirmation from my doctor that I have been having Premature Ventricular Contractions (meaning that I keep getting an extra really forceful heartbeat every once in a while) and the medication for it may cause fatigue - not good for someone who already suffers from constant fatigue due to Narcolepsy
• Still not being able to figure out the best treatment for my Narcolepsy, but knowing that I have to try taking Xyrem once again to help me get more restorative sleep each night, even though it keeps causing severe headaches that should get better after a week - hopefully
• Slowly, oh so slowly, recovering from pneumonia
• Listening to my refrigerator as it goes through its death throes
• Knowing that I need to complete a number of on-line courses in order to make my teaching certification active again but not being able to make completing those courses a priority due to my own health, the boys' health, and our finances
• Needing to get the house back on track after being out of it for so long from the pneumonia, but the recovery from that pneumonia taking so long that I'm not able to do too much on the house each day
• Arguing with DH that opening a fourth credit card because the other three are maxed out is NOT the solution, but also not being able to propose an alternative to cover my unexpected hospital expenses, the cost of his tuition that won't be reimbursed since he is working without a contract, and the upcoming expenses we will be incurring with Twin A's (and possibly Twin B's) potential procedure
• Seeing no other alternative but to apply for state assistance to hopefully qualify for help, and hoping against hope that we actually qualify for free school lunches and food stamps
• Beginning to fill out the on-line forms to apply for that assistance and realizing it is going to take a lot of time to finish them

I don't have any cute clip-art to insert here, and am too stressed to include any links.
I'm usually an extremely optimistic person, trying to look at the positive side of things.  I'm sure there is a positive side to all of this, but I can't find it right now.  I am going to bed and hopefully will be able to see things better in the morning.

Our Black Hole

Seeing as the health of my family is finally on an upswing yet we are still stuck at home, I have had time to go through the pernicious pile of papers (like the alliteration?) and try to streamline all the bills so they are being paid automatically in order to avoid late fees due to forgetting to pay a bill due to the general craziness and chaos that seems to permeate my family.  Because I work best when I can see the "big picture," I created a spreadsheet of every bill or debt source, the total amount due, what we pay monthly, when it is due, and how it is being paid.  In doing so, I discovered some rather nauseating news.

We have lived in our house since 1998.  We paid $xxxx when we bought the house.  Our current balance on our mortgage is . . . . $xxxx.  Note how similar those x's look?  That's because they are the exact same amount!  Yes, we have been making monthly payments on our mortgage every month for the last thirteen years and we have absolutely NOTHING to show for it!  "How does that happen, Miss Mommy?" you may ask, "How could you possibly owe the same amount that you borrowed thirteen years ago if you've been making payments all that time?"

A very good question.  You see, every so often we begin to get a little overwhelmed with debt.  It's not like we're going out buying cars and other fancy stuff (Puff the Magic Dragon reference - anyone get it?).  We use the credit cards in emergencies.  And a little bit here and there.  All with the intention of paying them off each month.  But then DH goes back to school, which ultimately will result in a significant pay bump for him.  So we put the tuition on the credit card.  Cha-Ching!  We decide to let the kids have their birthday party together at Chuck E. Cheese's.  We insist that all three have a combined party and limit the number of guests big time, but still - Cha-Ching!  Hmmm...money is pretty tight this month but we don't have any milk or bread.  Cha-Ching!  It all adds up.  So we refinance our mortgage, borrowing against our equity, adding in enough to pay off our credit cards.  And that's good - for awhile.  And then the cycle begins again.  So we refinance again.

This is very depressing.

I can understand why my parents often referred to their debt as "the black hole" - you keep throwing money at it and it doesn't seem to change.

And once again we're swimming in debt.  I refuse to refinance again.  Just can't do it.

But . . . I just discovered that the bank that holds our mortgage is offering  a Home Equity Loan with no application fees or additional costs for a fixed term APR of 4.24%, which is less than the rates of our credit cards.

Can you guess what I just did?

When It Rains . . .

It's certainly pouring around here!

Yesterday my purse was stolen.  It contained my keys, my wallet (with debit card, credit cards, and my checkbook), several gift cards, and my flash drive which was filled with pictures of my family and my preschoolers (organized by name to be used as documentation for conferences), all my lesson plans from this year and the last three years for Hebrew School, Religious School, and Preschool (including plans for the rest of this year for both Hebrew and Religious School), and years of research into activities for a large variety of preschool related themes.  Yay.

When I got back home, I proceded to begin the process of calling the bank and all my credit cards to report the theft.  The bank told me that the thief had already attempted to withdrawl $1500 from my bank account but was denied.  I guess the joke was on him - we are broke!  We don't have that kind of money!  Because he has both my debit card and my checkbook we had to freeze my account and open a new one.  The fraud department from the bank will take care of transfer all money AND direct deposits/automated payments to the new account.  I also put a fraud alert on my credit through the three credit reporting companies, plus printed out a credit report so I could verify which credit cards might have been in my wallet.  I don't have that many, but I just needed to check what might have been in there.

Since the thief had my house keys AND my licence, I also had to find a locksmith to come and change the locks to the front and back door.  Of course it was only when the locksmith arrived that I realized I had no way of paying him since my credit cards were all reported stolen (DH's cards are all on the same account as mine) and we had no access to our checking account until everything was straightened out.  And since it cost THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS, we didn't have cash around the house to cover it.  We eventually determined that the fraud department at the bank would allow one or two checks to be paid out of the bank account as long as we call and let them know all the details. 

I then had to research how to get a replacement driver's licence, which ultimately involved driving out to an auto tag place to get a temporary licence and to send away for a new one.  While sitting in the long line of traffic caused by a major car accident in the middle of the road, I tried to take deep breaths and focus on the fact that at least my car is not hurt and neither am I.

All that required me to be on the phone, on the computer, or in the car for approximately seven hours straight.

Last night as I was getting ready for bed, my sister called.  She and her husband had been talking and pointed out to me that this guy has my car keys AND knows where I live.  I should get my car rekeyed.  Great.  Just great.

After work today I started making phone calls and discovered that it would cost over sixteen HUNDRED dollars to rekey all the locks in the car.  I checked; insurance does not cover that cost.  However, the car IS covered in case of theft, so . . . I think we're going to just take our chances.

As if that wasn't enough, today DH emails me to let me know that his school district had somehow been overpaying him since September and he now has to begin paying them back by deducting a certain amount from his paychecks for the rest of the school year.  Yeah, because we make so much money as it is.

Anyone got an extra umbrella or two?