Had a Rough Time of it This Past Week

Looking at the calendar and we've been here in California for almost a month now.  There have been a crazy rush of emotions hitting me from all sorts of directions lately.  You can definitely say I've had a rough time of it this past week.

Let's start with the fact that we made a decision to sell or give away most EVERYTHING that we owned in Georgia before making the move.  We decided it would be cheaper to just start over brand new in California.  The initial cost of driving across country and getting into our home here in California still cost well over $3,000.  Two weeks after moving in we had to come up with our first month's rent, another $2,000.  So just on those two things alone we have had to fork over well over $5,000 in two weeks' time.  Now let's add in the fact that we had to buy a new bed shortly after our arrival because sleeping on an air mattress SUUUCKS!!!  Also within our first few days in our new apartment, we had to buy plates, bowls, cups, silverware, food, and a few other little things you just NEED for general survival.  Needless to say, now, like right now, we have NO MONEY!!  lol.  Okay, well, we have VERY LITTLE anyway.

Now let's throw in a little bit of some other stuff... shall we?  Because, well, that's just not enough yet.

Both of our vehicles did rather well on their cross-country treks.  My car really surprised us with it being 12 years old.  Unfortunately, though, we did put 2500+ miles on our vehicles.  We began each journey (yea, we made this cross-country trip twice!) by giving each vehicle an oil change and all that.  Since arriving in California, my car has received another oil change and has been given a clean bill of health.  My husband's truck, however, still needs work.  It needs new tires, brake work, and an oil change.  We don't have the money for any of that right now.  So for the time being Ron is using my car whenever he has to go to work as much as possible.  Thankfully his job usually allows him to work from home so it's not that big of a deal but there are a few issues... (coming up).

We started attending a church in our area because we both really wanted to meet people.  I definitely needed to start meeting some people.  Pembroke, GA had me feeling like a hermit.  I also desperately wanted to get back into going to church on a regular basis.  Not going was sucking the spiritual life right out of me.  I absolutely need my time with God and others who believe.  Ron's main objective is to meet other people who can give him opportunities for fun things to do.  This is causing quite a bit of tension in me right now.  We've been going to service for three weeks now.  We started attending a small group/study group for the past three weeks also.  We got our two children involved with going to their middle-school service on Sundays and mid-week group on Wednesdays.  I'm really enjoying everything this church has to offer.  And then I have Ron making little comments about what the people of this church are not "handing over to him".  I don't use people.  If these people that we are getting to know feel it in their heart to help us in any way or if we get super friendly with them and they offer to take us somewhere or whatever "friends" do, that's wonderful.  If they don't, that's totally fine, too.  That's not what we're supposed to be going there for.  We're supposed to be going there for fellowship and learning about God and the lessons in the Bible.  I hate when someone is "using" someone else.  That's aggravating.  It's especially aggravating and unsettling to me when that someone is my husband.  The worst part is I'm not sure how to vocalize to him what I'm feeling so it just sits on my chest.

Now for the other "little" things.  I started working at Target a week after we got here.  I like the job but the entrepreneur side of me loves to work on other things on the side.  My constant problem with anything I ever want to build up is money.  Always.  Every time I ever start to get anything feeling or looking successful, I have to let it go because there's not enough money to build it up.  And it continues.  I'm attempting to build up an Amazon business but I don't have the money to buy merchandise to send in to Amazon FBA.  This is especially frustrating since it's the holiday season and it would be an excellent time to get that moving forward.  But in the meantime I've been messing around with a few other little things.  I signed up for some survey sites (that drive me batty but you do earn a little cash doing them).  I signed up for a site that let's you advertise on your car and earn a little cash and I signed up to be a mystery shopper.  My problem with both of these has been money and the fact that Ron is needing my car.  He doesn't want me to put advertising on my car since he has to use it for his job (which occasionally involves meeting other important people).  I can't always count on having the car at my disposal in case he needs it so I can't always commit to a mystery shop.  And then most mystery shops require you to buy something first and get reimbursed later.  Well, I don't have the money to buy the burger or whatever.  I've also been in the need of a printer to print out forms for the mystery shopping and I don't have that either.  SIGH!!  Yea, so that's what I'm facing.

So I'm in a slump.  I'm hoping here in the next couple months everything will work itself out.  We'll finally have some extra money.  I'm starting to get a lot more hours at Target with the shopping season fast approaching.  That'll make for some nice checks in the near future.  Yea, it's just going to take a little time.

Hope your week is going better than mine!!!

Almost Three Weeks

We've been in Roseville, California for close to three weeks now.

I will definitely say that our move out West has been a mostly gratifying experience.  I miss my adult children and grandson back on the east coast tremendously, and I miss all of my friends in Pembroke.  Some days when the grounds crew is outside working with their hand tools I miss the quiet of our home back in Pembroke.  Sometimes I miss just being able to let my dogs out in the yard without a leash, especially now that it's been cooling off outside.  On the overall, though, I think we've made a pretty good decision.  We just have to get over a few bumps in the road.

My husband, Ron, was out of work for a couple months before we made this move out here.  This put a little bit of a pinch on our finances.  In addition to that, we made TWO cross-country trips in the process of getting him started with his new job and then finally moving our family out here.  To top it off, moving into our new home here came with a pretty hefty security deposit, not to mention all the immediate expenses we had to worry about.

We made a decision to sell or give away everything we owned in Pembroke before moving to California.  Our motto was, "If it didn't fit into the back of the pick-up truck, it wasn't going".  We decided it seemed more economical to do this.  But now that we're in California we are having to start over, pretty much from scratch.  We've already had to buy new dishes and silverware, new pots and pans, and we bought ourselves a new mattress and box-spring.  Needless to say we have a long way to go to a fully furnished home.  Our kids, for the time being, are sleeping on "blow-up" mattresses.  Our living room is still as bare as the day we moved in, no TV or couch, and no dining room table.  The kids have to stand at the counter to eat a meal.  It's slightly pathetic.  Being as this is the time of year when three of our children have birthdays and Christmas right around the corner, it may take us some time to get those other things we want, but we'll get there... a little bit at at time.

So let's get to the enjoyable parts of our "newbie" status here in the area. We didn't waste any time getting into the swing of things out here.  We started attending Bayside (Granite Bay Campus) Church and joined a small group.  Our kids started going to the middle school ministry group.  The friends we are meeting are great and we're already learning about fun activities and even volunteer opportunities for us to get involved in.
Being brand new in the area right around Halloween, we had NO IDEA where our kids could do their trick-or-treating.  Thankfully, Bayside holds an annual truck-or-treat event at the nearby mall.  There must have been well over 100 cars, "cutsied" up for the event.  Our kids came away with nearly 10 lbs of candy (no joke) and had plenty enough fun to satisfy their greedy side.

I found a wonderful homeschooling group in the area.  We have met up with them a couple of times already and have had a wonderful time!!  I'm filling in my calendar with seemingly "fun-to-be-had" adventures and learning experiences for us to participate in.
One week after our arrival I had a new job at Target as part of their seasonal flow team.  My second day on the job resulted in me being "recognized" by my trainer (which is sort of like a public pat on the back) and by the third day I had been introduced to four different departments and asked to stay longer to help out because "I was already catching on and would be a big help".  Yay me.  lol.  As a side "hobby of sorts" I have been working on becoming a mystery shopper for the area.  I've signed up with several companies and taken a few certification tests.  I have one assignment already to check on a local fast-food restaurant.  We'll see how that all goes.

So yea, there you have it!  Have a wonderful day everyone!

Starting Out

It's been nudging at me for some time about starting a new blog.  I've attempted to host blogs in the past but I usually end up getting bored with them and before long, it's either forgotten or deleted.  But I've been contemplating this again for some time; however, I wanted to make sure it would be something that would keep me wanting to return.

After a great deal of reflection and prayer, I decided today was the day to begin anew.  This time my blog was going to be a little bit different.  Everything out there on blogging tells you all this nonsense about finding a niche and keeping up that niche and how to get tons of visitors, and yada, yada, yada....  That's probably why I get frustrated and bored.  I JUST want a platform where I can share what's on my mind today.  Simple as that.

Many years ago (like way back in my junior high and high school days), I used to journal ALL THE TIME.  I didn't go anywhere without my little journal book.  I used to LOVE to write about what I did with my friends, the silly dreams I had, and my newest crushes.  As I got older, and especially after I had children, taking time out of my day to write just, well, I just didn't have time for it.  Now that my children are older and I have more time on my hands again, writing with an actual pen and paper just seems like another chore to me.  Typing, on the other hand, is easy.  Mostly, it doesn't bother my aging fingers and hands as much.  lol.

By the way, my name is Jeannette.  I am 40+ years old.  I am a mother of four children; Jacob, Corissa, Kyle, and Cheyenne.  I am also a grandmother to one grandson, Parker.  I am married to a pretty wonderful man.  His name is Ron.  We have three Chihuahua/Pomeranian mix dogs named Mouse, Cupcake, and Boo.  HALF of my family just moved from Pembroke, Georgia to Roseville, California because my husband got a new job out here.  My adult children, Jacob and Corissa, and my grandson, Parker, are still living back on the east coast.

I am a Christian and God is very important to me.  I started off my early years being raised Catholic.  Somewhere in my teens I realized that wasn't quite the belief system I wanted to continue and so somewhere in my 20's I "ran away" from the Catholic Church and turned towards a more "spiritual" way of understanding.  To this day I still classify myself as being a Gnostic Christian.  I believe in the teachings of Jesus and I believe in finding the Truth about God, Jesus, our purpose here in the physical, etc.  I enjoy reading bits and pieces of the Bible but I have never been able to put my complete faith in it.  As so many have said, I agree that the Bible has a great deal of Truth in it but it was also written by men who had an agenda that sometimes had nothing to do with God.

What is my blog going to be about?  Whatever I feel like writing about, pretty much.   Simple, simple, simple.  Some of the things you can probably expect... stuff on cooking, crochet, other crafts, homeschooling ideas and experiences, our new life here in California, some past experiences and hopefully new experiences on some of our travels and day to day adventures, depression and anxiety, working from home or finding independent money-making opportunities, selling online, keeping a clean house, couponing, and a little bit of whatever makes for a normal life.

Okay, so I think that's a good start.  Time to get this blog publishes and up and running.  More to come very soon!!!