Working and kids, cats and chickens...which came first?

For most of us working came before pets, children or farm animals.  Now having all four things to manage each day I have found one small slip up and the rest of entities suffer.... If I leave the house and trust my to do list to my own memory.... watch out because half of what I set out to do will not get done. Add a kid or two to that and only one out of five things will get done. Case in point I left for town today to pick up the youngest grandchild so her mom could go to work.  As I left our house I went over my mental list...

Pick up Grandkid
Pay electric bill
pay house phone bill
stop at general store before leaving our "town" and purchase 0.50 Dr. Pepper
take my new bank card and activate it at the bank ATM
Pay my Target credit card at the store
pick up one of their toilet tissue specials (buy two angel soft 36 roll packs for 14.99 and get a $10 Target gift card)
check to see if they had a child size umbrella for the five year old to use to and from the bus
swing by the Bx and pay my DPP card
and last but not least pick up some fresh parmesan cheese to make Alfredo sauce.

Now on returning to the house I did two of those things, paid Target bill and picked up the kid.  also forgot to get gas and the trip odometer is at 532 miles. We have a small gas station out here where I can get enough to get to the nearest air force base or to a loaf and jug so that is not a big issue but I did not get the card activated so I will have to scrounge up a little cash.  And the trip to get toilet tissue was just to take advantage of the sale we have enough to make it to the next pay day. Also we have a supply of cloth wipes for those really lean times

 

 

 

Here is a picture of the cloth wipes we keep on hand. This particular set is actually a gift for one of my older kids, she is on her own and having extra wipes can make that itty bitty paycheck go a lot further!

 

Now back to the subject line of this post... Working outside the home is currently a necessity so the challenge is balancing kids and animals along with trying to save money and pay off debt.  The chickens are a hobby sort of but I really relax when I go to gather eggs or feed them... so maybe it could count as therapy? I should deduct the cost of feed from my HSA.... maybe not.

 

Today I managed to make homemade shout from a recipe I saw on the blog One good thing by Jillee you can google "one good thing" and get to the recipe too! Sorry I did not take pictures but she did so go there and see if it something you would like to try!  I will let you know how well it works...

Now off to make another batch of spaghetti letters as the kids devoured what I had made last post!