long long long day..

I'm simply going to give a reading, clean for 30 min, wash my uniform and go to bed.

Reading:

8704-8661 = 1792 wph..wow that's a lot higher! We haven't even been home nor running anything. time to investigate.

On a terrible note...I found out that my deep freezer had been unplugged for some time. everything on top was thawed...thankfully it still had a layer of ice, although squishy...I can now still use it. We went to the goodwill in Ill today, I got some beautiful summer skirts, gonna steal the pattern and make me some more. Then we went to RK and bought strawberries, potatoe starts, blueberries, grapes, pulley for the windmill, I think that's all but not sure. Then we went to Kroger, AutoZone, Walmart and home. What a run for our money. I really miss my SUV.

Okay, gonna go clean for 30 and go to bed.

Night,
Me.

What the what???

8690 - 8661 = 1208...that's awesome.

The memorial of Jesus Christ was amazing..as always. As brought out in Luke 22:19 this is what we are to celebrate.

While this was a wonderful event the news that I heard afterwards was depressing.

All well, life goes on huh? I'm going to bed.

Night.

BTW....

Panels are here, Houston, we have solar panels...well at least they are still in the box. I plan on cleaning the rest of the house (as much as I can do) which will give Duck more time to complete this weeks homework and get started on putting them together. Tomorrow night is the Memorial of Jesus Christ's Death. We will be attending this most wonderful event!

Night...

Long day.......

Well it's almost 9, feel like 7, but Duck has been gone for a while. I need to ask him to help me bring in all the plants since it is going to freeze tonight. I also want to cover the kale. I brought in a bunch of the jars that are still loitering my front porch to be cleaned, some are in the dishwasher now and the other are soaking in the sink. Nothing like cleaning out years old dead spiders to creep someone out. The last of our blankets are either in the washer, on the line or in the dryer. At least I have enough to keep us warm tonight. I will make the beds in a bit and get the laundry put away. I'm still suppose to peel and cook the potatoes tonight. I ordered some coupons off ebay today to take advantage of some of the deal this week.

I guess I'll take the reading since we have shut off the water heater and I only am going to do one more load of clothes before bed. I'm going to go ahead and empty/reload the dishwasher with the dishes that are left, mostly canning jars, I have several the need to be sanatized.

So without further ado....the reading for the few hours today...this is really really going to hurt...

8661-8612 = 4083 wph...

That's rough....

Well at least my dishes are clean, clothes are clean and we are clean.

toddles!

missed a day....

Today's reading will be high so I am going to read it now and then again later.

8612-8575 = 973 ...now that's what I'm talking about!!!! And that is not running on an solar or wind. The K1 heater seems to really be doing the job. Even though it took 25 dollars to fill it up it has lasted for what 4 or 5 days. It will make it through today and more than likely one more night if needbe. I'm thankful to see the temps starting to rise. The is good for starting the garden outside now. I need to weather the plants a bit and then get them into the ground. I will also transplant the lettuce plants, when we looked at them today they are getting really really big. Duck also got the wire rack set up last night. We will finish hanging the lights and get it ready for the hydroponics setup.

I'm doing a bunch of laundry today so I need to get to it. I'm thinking that if it gets over 50 or so I may hang the clothes out. Duck will install the stove after I get the area all cleaned out which will only take a few minutes. I'm going to pull out he bread maker and make some banana bread, and I'll do potatoe soup on the electric skillet. I have about 15 loads of laundry (we are doing all the covers, sheets and pillows since we've all been so sick. I also have to do a few loads of dishes and then I will be bringing in the the canning jars. Okay, well time to get to it. I'll do a reading tonight to see how bad it gets.
toodles..

Katy

Today was fiercesome...

It is amazing how one mistake can set a 2 hour rollercoast ride off track. When one person decides NOT to stay in their freaking position as they should it hurts everyone. One person trying to stock set us back pending more than 4 at one point. Then we had another who was certainly not living up to potential. Why do we want such people to continue to work. If they don't like thier job and they are not going to do a good job, why don't they try to find one that they do like. Life is too short to work at a place that drives your blood pressure up and makes you unhappy. Leave....I say all this and my BP was way up there today. There is nothing worse than seeing a coworker who you are moderately close with struggle so much and not be able to do anything to help. It was like she was drowning and I couldn't even throw her a life perserver. If I had things to do over, I would. It was so hard today because of 2 people.

Today's reading is 8575 - 8548 = 1227..that's more like it!!! yehaaaaaa. 1787 monthly.

Well I'm really excited to report that my lettuce is coming along really really well. I checked on of the pots upstairs and sure enough it was really coming up as it is in the peat pot shoe boxes down stairs.

Well it's time for bed, I have to be up really really really early to go to work and it isn't going to be a fun day. I hate being at work 3 times on Sundays, but it has to happen. I'm really tired, my uniform is in the washer.

I really miss my kiddos...I can't wait for Mon, two day with my family is so close yet feels like soooo far away!
Night
Katy

Menu time...

We are having to go to a menu that envitably we will not follow. But we really need to work on it. We are now living on one income and let me tell you, it isn't much. With savings and my check we will do good to cover our basic bills.

8548 - 8407 = 41 or 1413 wph. bringing monthly to 1846 wph.

Thur L - Grilled Cheese
4-1 D - Speghetti

Fri L - PB & J
4-2 D - HH, Veg, Pot

Sat L - Ramen, Fruit
4-3 D - Beefstew

Sun L - Coney Dogs
4-4 D - HH, Veg, Pot

Mon B - Pancakes
4-5 L - Mac & Cheese
D - Stir Fry

Tue B - Oatmeal
4-6 L - Soup
D - Ckn dump, pot

Wed L - Ravoli/Sandwich
4-7 D - HH, Veg, Pot

Thur L - Grilled Cheese & Fruit
4-8 D - Slsbury stk, veg, pot

Fri L - Sandw. or PB&J
4-9 D - HH, Veg, Pot

Sat L - Ramen, Fruit
4-10 D - Chkn, Veg, pot

Sun L - Coney Dog
4-11 D - HH, Veg, POt

Mon B - Pancakes
4-12 L - Mac & Cheese
D - Chicken Mush

Tue B - Oatmeal
4-13 L - Soup
D - Pizza

Wed L - Ravoli/Sand
4-14 D - HH, Veg, Pot

I alloted weekly 5 for breakfasts during the week, poptarts, cereal, waffles or toast. I'm going to use what I have in the deep freezer first.

I am also so happy to report that the lettuce has come up and the cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli is coming up. I've made lettuce beds out of older mini totes. We are not putting the lettuce in the garden so we can use the room for more tomatoes and beans. I want to can 50 or 60 pints of salsa this year...perhaps I wil do it by the quart instead since we do eat it a lot. I'm so looking forward to the garden florishing this year.

The house is staying nice and warm, infact I think that it is time to turn the K1 heater off. It's time for bed anyway.
3 for chicken nuggets and 5 for small pizza. bringing the montly total to 264.06

Well I need to run, it's late.

Long day...

Not a whole lot to say, It has been a long cold, rainy day. Energy reading for the day is:

8507 - 8476 = 1550, that's excellent! If we can keep this up maybe we can get down to the 1650 for the month. Current running mo. total is. 1833...not sure if it is possible.

It is very cold, yucky and windy outside. I hope that Duck brings in the heater soon.

Well it's off to meeting tonight....
toodles.

okay day!

On my way to work I was started to the point of physically shaking. I was stopping at the light, it only takes a bit to turn green since it is that early in the morning. When I saw something out of the corner of my eye, someone was within feet of my car door. At 3:50 am, who in the heck is walking on the highway. I left early because we were dead. When I came home I slept for about 3 or 4 hours. I was very very tired as I am now. I need to do my bible reading this evening or tomorrow if I leave early. We cleaned up the rest of the garden and now are ready to till. We even cleaned up the back patio, swept it off, moved things around and picked up the old pots. I've decided that I will NOT be putting the lettuce in the garden. I've got the cutest little pots for them.

8476 - 8436 = 1429 wph. Wohooo! YIPEEEEEE> good job us..that is really good. I'm sure it won't last, but let's see.

We'll I'm exhausted, night!

The day is beautiful...

Smiley is laying beside me fighting sleep, he is so tired he couldn't walk straight outside. Sunshine built a brickman (yah know a man made bricks not snow). I think that the cops stood us up. They still haven't showed. Duck is missing yet another day of school, he is still hacking up a storm and has little voice. *GRIN FROM EAR TO EAR* Okay it isn't that great he is cranky. I hand tilled about 1/6 of the garden today. We are still going to have to get a tiller since we are tilling new soil this year. The boys kept pick up the wiggles (worms) and putting them into the compost bin.

I think that todays reading is going to blow us out of the water. I'm not sure that we can recover it this month. So far in 18 hour it is 8436 from 8402 which is 2125 per hour, I haven't ran but on load of laundry and no dishes. It was really cold last night inside house. We ran the space heaters all day and night and all morning. I don't think that the one in our room shut off, I'm pretty sure it has a broke temp thingy. We need to replace it this year. Duck also left the water heater on all night.

The lettuce, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower are peaking their heads out. I'm so very excited!!!

Okay gotta run...

what a day...

Okay so the sheriff should be here in the morning, we are still in aw over the fact that something that pathetic was stolen.

Todays reading is:

8402-8334 - still really high.. 2833 wph. monthly running total is 1919 kwh. We really need to bring this down, we were avg. around 1666. The heaters have been on a lot today, it was in the 40's all day and rainy. We ran the dryer a bit to keep it warmer. I'm really thinking that the K1 idea may work as long as Sunshine's asthma can take it. This month it is just going to have to be high. Until the weather breaks and I can hang laundry outside and not run the heaters.

Well I'm heading off to bed, I'm going to be up early cleaning so the boys can not follow me around messing it up.

One would never believe .....

So I read in the paper last week that there has been a lot of theft going on around my town. I'm not sure if I blogged about it or not, but low and behold...today we had to call the police dept. It appears that we were victims of the thief. Right when Duck found the motivation to put my wire shelf up so I could bring my plants in we realize that the wire shelf is gone. Okay, so I know what you are thinking...don't worry it went through my mind too. Who is their right mind...or left for that matter, would steal a wire rack? We bought it at the hardware store and paid about $60.00. We looked all around the entire house and garage for over an hour. So I decided that since they said there was a lot of unclaimed property, I'd call and just ask, even though it sounded absurd. So when I talked to the sheriff they said they'd have to call me back. So they finally called me back after the officer working on the case found my wire rack. Can you believe it? They stole my wire rack....hum what is this world coming to. So as I type this I wonder if my blue tooth hands free set is still in the truck along with the mp3 player that had all of our songs on it and the inverter to make it play on the radio in the car. Come to think about it the power converter should also be out there. So Duck has gone out to look so we can contact the police in the event that we are missing this stuff. I can't belive this...we felt like we lived in a close community, but had no idea that we were victims until it was time to finish the project. Duck said that it was all out there, they must have stole the rack probably thinking that they were getting something different.

Okay it's off to fold more clothes we are rearranging rooms until Duck needs to take a nap, he's lost his voice and is fizzling out pretty quick.

toodles..

Oh my!

So it has been a long day for being so short! Sunshine cried out in his sleep I bet every half hour or so. I finally woke him up and asked him if he was okay, he said, I fine mommy and went back to sleep only to keep it up. He had a breathing treatment before bed and did fine for most of today, he needs to take another one.

Today it was 61 deg in the main part of the house...burrrrrr. I turned on both space heaters and the dryer this morning, it quickly got up to 70 and I shut the all off. We are going to get K1 tomorrow incase we need it later this week. We also drained the water heater to see if it had crud in it. I'm fustrated that we didn't use the water instead of letting it run down the drain, but with how our hook up is, we had no pressure to make it go upstairs...therefore no choice. While it was slowly draining we went into the hardware store to pick up the shower surrond we saw on sale. While it wasn't what we wanted, it was the right price and only needs to last 2 years. We are going to put an actual shower in when Smiley gets older. I really want the one with the seat, but we can always buy a seat if we need to. I enjoy sitting while trying to shave my legs...when I actually get the privacy and time to shave. While there we did pick up a watt meter, plumbing for the sink that is leaking, a chop saw for the energy project wiring for the electric stove. We were looking at a convection oven, but it just didn't make sense, the oven will be up this week. I couldn't believe how much wire was, it is stupid. We also bought a motion sensor switch for the boys room, so tomorrow we will be rearranging again. I think that when Duck goes to school I will work on the boys room.

We are pretty sure that there is no money unemployment for Duck therefore we will be living off my wages alone. Time to get back up to 40. We have worked out some things to help us including the food aspect of growing our own, possibly buying a pig when we save or half a cow. For those who are sitting there with a puzzled, bewildered look on their face, we would buy them from the butcher already taken care of. We just need another deep freezer and have no budget for it. Something else that we will have to save for.

Today's reading is 8334-8280 = 2250! Wow that's still really high, but it can't be worse than having the gas heater on. We didn't get the solar heaters done this season, I'm hope to add those to our list for this summer...the list is getting so long. Duck will more than likely not be able to be finished with school this winter, more than likely next spring.

Well I've gotta go back to work....
toodles

today.

8280-8229 = 2125 wph. YIKES. that is getting bad. Monthly total so far 8280-7803 = 1807 wph. That is really high, but considering the fact that we are using the space heater a LOT, especially since we are all sick, I guess that isn't bad. We did just get a notice from the elect. company about a rise in our energy bills. That stinks..

We also paid for our hotel room for the convention. I'm feeling a lot better than I did at 5am. I thought I was going to be sick. That seems to be going around work also. I hope to find a rid tomorrow. We are putting up the entertainment center to move the TV, we will move the old TV upstairs, the TV in our room to the boys room and the TV in the boys room to the garage to be given away.

I want to put up the rack upstairs for the plants today. This way we can up the new plants on them and get them going well again.

Gotta run, need to get some things done. We are also looking at bringing in the keroscene heater for the next couple of nights.

Indiana Labor Law...

Are employers required to provide breaks to employees?
Indiana state law does not generally require employers to provide rest breaks, meal breaks, or breaks for other purposes to adult employees. Minor employees (under 18 years of age) who work six or more hours in a shift must be given one or two breaks totaling at least 30 minutes. These breaks may be taken at any point during the minor's shift. Indiana Administrative Code 610 IAC 10-3-1 requires break logs to be maintained by the employer to document all breaks provided to minor employees.

Certain other categories of workers, such as airline pilots, truck drivers, and workers covered by a union collective bargaining agreement may be entitled to mandatory breaks under other applicable regulations or by contract. Check with the appropriate regulatory agency or with your union representative.

http://www.in.gov/dol/2345.htm#B4 <----website it came from..



Question: When must breaks and meal periods be given?

Answer: The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require breaks or meal periods be given to workers. Some states may have requirements for breaks or meal periods. If you work in a state which does not require breaks or meal periods, these benefits are a matter of agreement between the employer and the employee (or the employee's representative).


http://webapps.dol.gov/dolfaq/go-dol-faq.asp?faqid=317 <-Department of Labor webiste

I'm so sick of people talking out of their ears...when they have no idea what they are talking about. We are only required by law to give meal breaks to those who are minor....and there goes the smoke breaks...they aren't required by law. Now if they want to move to a state that allows it they can find those facts on the DOL.gov website.

I love it when I'm right, while that doesn't happen often, I'm right about this!

Me.

It's Friday...

Today I should be happier. I have the next 4 days off. I planned on going to the assembly but we are all sick with that stupid cold/virus thing. The boys are still really congested. Sunshine is now running a fever, he woke up yesterday crying for a treatment, he was having troubles breathing. 8229 in 47 hours makes it 1382 wph. That's awsome! I've gotta get ready for work, I certainly hope that when I come back after my 4 days off that everyone is healthy. This is not fun, all 4 of us are sick. I've slept for about 12 hours straight and still feel like I could sleep another 8.

On a side note we found an amazing deal on a tv last night. We weren't going to buy one, but this was worth it. Now we will have to find an entertainment center for it.

Well just got home from work and I need to look up some things. There are those who think they deserve more legally than they do...or at least the last I looked.

I also found something out that was interesting. The first admendment is regarding the government. No one can say something that is against the government that implies injury, but as far as freedom of speech, that doesn't apply someone is say on a job. They can be told not to speak about certian topics, or a certain way. One of the other mgrs is taking a political science class and this was covered in the past week.

So I'll print off what I can find.

toodles..Katy

Didn't take the reading last night...

So here it is 36 hours later.

8164 today 8095 last time. 1917, that wasn't as bad as I thought. I thought it was going to be much higher. I did 2 loads of laundry, 2 loads of dishes, ran the space heaters and hot water heater. Today we plugged in the solar/wind backup, we'll see how long it lasts, and how much it will help us.

Gotta run, I want to take a nap before I have to go back to work.

long day...lots of energy. :(

Daily reading was 8095 YIKES Oh my, that is really not good.

70kwh 2917 wph.....oh my, oh my, oh my.

We had a mgr meeting today, this next week is going to be interesting. Today the store was late getting opened, the mgr was really really late. I really wish the openers would have called me.

Okay, I need to go to bed, it's late.

night...

Third time is the charm...

That is how many times I clocked in and out at work today...I certainly hope that this isn't every Sunday...Although I really enjoy being able to go to the meeting here in town and would do what I can do to make that happen. I'm really pleased with the meeting today, Br. S did a wonderful job!

I'm feeling very under the weather. I picked up some more cough drops, vit C drops and some cough drops for the baby. There isn't any cold medicine that I can give him, he is either underweight (which is what our doc said is most important), under age or both. So for now it will be breathing treatments, motrin/tyl. switch, vit C and rest. Speaking of rest...time for bed.

Night!

Yet another long day....

So I opened this morning. NO one called me to tell me that I didn't have a prep person, D said that she didn't have my number nor access. To top it all off, another mgr changed thier schedule totally screwing me. The deal is simple, if I get to leave for my meeting, I can come back and help during truck. If I don't I have to drive nearly an hour away and can't come back for truck. I thank B and D for helping me make it to my meeting...I only wish that other mgrs would help out.

I'm getting sick, my throat hurts, my chest hurts and I am exhausted. After tomorrow I will have worked 46 hours this week...not my idea of fun. While we need the money but don't I really would rather not work that much, it makes for little time for my faith and my children. The baby is still sick, he is cought, well both of them are. We started breathing treatments to help break up the stuff in their lungs. One is crashed out and the other seems as if he is going to. I took a few hour nap today, thankfully! The time change has screwed everybody up in one way or the other...mine is sleep.

I'm really really really sad about my plants, it has now been determined that it was the children who used scissors to cut the plants for some unknown reason. They are nearly a total loss and I will have to start over tomorrow. I will use the peat pots again since the germination time is nill.

We have decided that as long as I use the gym, I can sign up. This will be a month to month thing. As long as I still go, I can keep paying the dues.

Daily reading is 8025.. That's 41 kwh or 1708 wph. better!!!! It was cold today so the heater was running and the dryer a bit. It is vital to keeping the usage down by turning off the water heater off...

Well I must go, I need to go back to work in about an hour...not sure how long I will be there.