Friday, January 30, 2009

Good News!

Phil got a memo today from the new CEO of Qore, and it sounds like Nashville jobs are safe! They laid off about 30 people this week (per previous post) and they're restructuring some upper management. They're also conducting reductions in six other offices, but Nashville dodged the bullet! Plus, the company is no longer matching 401k's and sick days don't carry over... and they took away one a year from 6 to 5.

I bet it really helped that Nashville got that large job up in Clarksville that Phil is going to work at soon. Speaking of which, he was told he'd go late next week or early the following week to Clarksville. Yay job security for 8 weeks... I hope!

I feel so relieved. I hope this economy starts to pick up so that there are no more reductions... layoffs. Its rather stressful and I'm not a fan of it all. The economists are predicting it will pick up soon... but they've said that for a while. I don't think anyone really knows.

For reference to below:
Dave Ramsey's Baby steps

I'm thinking that we might need to put a little more into our emergency fund. I don't know. The plan is to have $1000 bucks in it and pay off all of our debt, and then fully fund it, but all the job cuts are really starting to worry me, but then if nothing happens, there's wasted money we could have used to pay off our debt, which would save us more money from interest etc. Its just hard to make the call. I think that we should probably stick to the plan and work on the debt. We have a long road ahead of us but it'll feel really good to pay it off. Each check we send for over the amount feels great! I hope that Phil gets some sort of per diem on this Clarksville job because he won't be getting mileage or anything and thats the money we use to go towards our debt! I can't wait until step 3b, saving for and buying a house!! Yay!

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Right now, I'm hoping and praying

So at about 4 today, one of Phil's coworkers came into his office, well cubicle, and told him that corporate had just visited their Birmingham, AL offices, and fired (or laid off, we're not sure) all but 4 people. There were about 30 people in the Birmingham office. To make matters worse, they're coming to Nashville tomorrow. No one knows why... so it might not be related, but either way its really nerveracking! Hopefully with the large job that their branch just got (in Clarksville), they'll be ok, but Phil's the lowest in the office and has dodged two firings/layoffs, so we assume he'd be next to go.

If he loses it, I don't know what we'll do. We hardly have any savings because we're working on paying off our debt, and we have A LOT of bills.... student loans suck. I'm sure we'll get through somehow, but lets hope we just don't have to get to it!

About the Clarksville job... Yesterday, Phil was told that he and his coworker, were to commute together (daily I'd assume) and they'd have vehicles for them there. There was also going to be a trailer for them for when its cold/windy/raining/etc. Just to keep them out of the elements I guess. Otherwise, he hasn't heard anything. Hopefully tomorrow... assuming he has his job!!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

I finally get to meet some people!

I finally changed my drivers license... now it says Anna Kauzlarich :) Yay! I actually did it last week. I went one day and forgot my birth certificate, so I had to go another day. Let me tell you, the DMV is the one thing that I miss about Rolla. You just walk right in and right up to the counter. Here, I had to wait in line, just to get a number... then I had to wait about an hour to get my drivers license. Thankfully Charlotte was a doll and wonderfully behaved. She had a lot of fun watching all the people. Now I'm slowly getting everything changed, its a lot of stuff! I think the bank/pay pal are on the top of the to do list now. Those are always fun!

I joined this site meetup.com and its a social networking site with the idea that you actually meet in person. So, I'm in a new mom's group, a board game group, and a book club. I can't go to the next book club meeting because I don't want to buy the book and the library has a long wait on it, 15 people for 8 books, so I'm hoping I can do the next, and start from there (It was an Obama book). I'm also going to go to the mom's group for the first time, yay! They're meeting for a mom and baby brunch in a couple Saturday's at the Rainforest Cafe. I'm excited to finally meet some more people. And as far as the board game group.... we don't know Phil's schedule so once we figure that out, I can figure some more stuff out. I'm really excited to get to meet some people.

Oh and I signed up for a Baby & Me story time at the branch near us. Its something that you have to sign up for and there was a long waiting list, until the one that starts the beginning of March. Its a 6 week session and for 15 babies and their caregivers. They can be up to 24 months old. Hopefully I'll meet some people, if not Charlotte and I will have something fun to do Thursday mornings :).

I'm excited that I finally get to meet some people, hopefully like me! I'm thinking I'll probably give the MOPS people from around here a call and see how that goes. Then I think Charlotte and I will be super busy learning and playing, and I'll get some new friends. I have a few, but its hard to meet people with a new baby and no job! Plus its really starting to get to me. Its time to have a life again.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Nothing out of the ordinary :)

Well no new news about Phil going to Clarksville, I'll post as soon as we get some. He was out of the office all day today in Dickson, TN so he didn't have a chance to talk to anyone about it. He's has to go to Dickson again tomorrow, but hopefully he won't be there all day. We're thinking he'll be able to come home at night every night... someone to keep my feet warm at night :).

Charlotte is learning to move more and more. She is rolling and scootching everywhere. Not crawling yet but working on pushing herself up and she tries too! She's one determined little baby.

I got to go to lunch with a friend today. That was really nice. We went to the Savannah Tea House, it was yummmmy! It was nice to catch up too. Afterwards, I went to Target to get Charlotte a few more binkies (I hope she is off of those soon!) and it turns out they were having a huge sale! Yay clearance. So I got Charlotte some jeans for next winter and a couple shirts. Plus, a bunch of other random stuff. Some Boppy pillow covers (green) and some stuff for Charlotte now, pajamas, etc. All like 75% off!!! I also went to Kohls a few days ago and bought A LOT of clearance stuff. Mostly 80% off. I got a lot of great brands for super cheap. So, I think her fall/winter wardrobe is just about finished for next year, yay!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Clarksville

So we found out today that Phil has to go to Clarksville for 8 weeks. His company scored a job for a new factory or something that they are building there and they have to send an engineer, so he's going. Its about an hour away, so not horribly far, but he doesn't have any details on the hours, if he's commuting, or if he's staying there. He also doesn't know if it will be 5, 6, or 7 days a week and how many hours a day.

Lets hope its not horrible. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm going to feel a lot like a single mom during these 8 weeks, and I'm NOT looking forward to it. I guess I'll just have to take it one day at a time and hope for the best. Maybe I'll take a trip home or to a friend for a week. I'm sure Char and I can haul our butts somewhere. Or maybe Phil won't have horrible hours, that would be nice!

Well, here's for the best. More details later (Thursday or Friday probably).

Thursday, January 15, 2009

This Week

Its been a busy few days and weekend. I've had a mystery shops for four straight days... until yesterday and today. And a cranky baby who is not on a very good schedule (we're working on that though).

I spent Saturday night in the kitchen steaming everything we had in sight for baby food. I made Charlotte sweet potatoes, pears, broccoli, green beans, cauliflower, and peas. I tried to make potatoes, but those didn't turn out too well. If you blend them too long, they turn into wallpaper paste, it was really gross.

I'm finally not sick anymore! I have been fighting this cold thing for the past week, and I felt much better a couple days ago. At last, I can sleep on just one pillow now too instead of my mound of pillows which kept me from sleeping well. I think I've also dodged the dreaded rash I sometimes get. I got it really bad a few years ago, and figured it was because of the change of the seasons (I've only gotten it in March/October), but its always kind of coincided with a cold... this time, its not changing seasons and I kind of got it. Thanks to a night of Benadryl and plenty of rest, it didn't get horrible, yay!

Phil and I finished watching The Office: Season 2 last night. We've been having The Office marathons every night before bed. We plan on watching one, maybe two and end up with four or five. Its so addicting and funny. Last night we climbed in bed right after Charlotte went to bed and watched like 6 or 7. Finished the season and started on Season 3, yay! Here's to Pam and Jim!

Charlotte is learning and growing so much everyday. Sometimes when I show her something, she'll do the same. It is really fun to watch her learn. She's also eating more and more solids. She'll eat a piece of toast for breakfast or dinner, and she just loves graham crackers!

Its freezing cold here today! The low tonight is 5 degrees, I think and it just doesn't get into single digits here. It did in January 2004, then again December 2008 and now tonight... thats it! Brrrr! I think we need to move further south! Florida anyone?

So, since Phil and I got married, we can add the maternity coverage to my insurance plan. Its either now or never, so we have to, but its so expensive! I use Blue Cross Blue Shield because its still cheaper to use that than pay for it through Phil's work. Unfortunately, this insurance is another $130/month, when I only pay $212/month! I guess we better hurry up and have more babies so we don't have to pay it forever! I really wish we had a health care system like in Canada. I would much rather pay higher taxes and wait in line, than deal with insurance companies, copays, finding a doctor in my plan, etc. etc. etc.

Friday, January 9, 2009

New Slideshow!

I just added a new slide show to the blog. You have to click on it to make it big though (its too small just on the main page). From there, you can also click on "slide show" to view it as a slide show. Its on the top left of the page.

I decided to make it because 2008 has been a crazy, busy year for me. A lot of positive things have happened in my life and I wanted to make sure I remembered it. Plus, a year this crazy deserves something!

As always, I welcome any comments!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

True Love for a Lifetime?


I often wonder if love can really last a lifetime. I don't mean loving someone as a friend, but romantic love, the kind where your heart still skips a beat, at least sometimes. Most studies show that romantic love can only last 10 years, and that the first stages of romantic love are gone by 15 months. After that, are we all doomed unless we find someone new? A new study shows that about 10 percent of couples keep that "new love" feeling for their entire lifetime.

Does that study mean that only one out of 10 of us are in our ideal relationship? I truly believe that their are soul mates out there for everyone, but how are we supposed to find him? Personally, I don't think that dating for 10 years to figure out if we're still going to feel that real, true love for the rest of our lives is the answer. I mean what if after 10 years, we decide that that special love is gone? Then we'd have to find another person and try for another 10 years. Most of us would never get married to anyone, let alone our one true love at that rate.

But, there is hope. Scientists have began researching the "chemical reactions" that create love. Yes, you heard me right, love may just be a (complex) chemical reaction. One scientist, Larry Young, even says that the chemical oxytocin "could be used in conjunction with marital therapies to bring back that spark." And... if they know the right chemical reaction, couldn't they just test us and see if we're meant to be? Or better yet, I'm sure they could just take our DNA or something and figure out who we should marry when we're born... then we'd be back to arranged marriages. However, the scary thing is that scientists just might be able to develop aphrodisiacs, don't let those get in the wrong hands!

I truly hope that I've found the love of my life... but I guess in another 8 1/2 years we'll find out if all romance is gone or if we're in love for the rest of our lives. And whats the worst case scenario? I get spend the rest of my life with my best friend or undergo some new therapy and take some chemicals, and we'll be back at square one, head over heels for another 10 years.

For more information visit:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/04/true.love.found/index.html?iref=newssearch
and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7815095.stm

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

And now there's a movie...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/07/campbell.brown.porn.bailout/index.html

"It's time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America"

The News is Making Me Laugh Again... and all I can say is Wow!

However, there are a few good quotes in this one... I won't post them but I'm sure you can figure them out :).

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/07/porn-industry-seeks-federal-bailout/#more-34724

A Little of This and a Little of That

So, Charlotte had her 6 month appointment today and she's 16 pounds and 26 inches long! She went up a few lines on the growth chart so that's really good. She's also in the 51st percentile for weight and 61st for length. She's got a big head though in the 85th percentile :) Guess she's going to be smart... haha!

Dad came down yesterday for a conference in Nashville on evangelism. He's staying here until Friday so its nice to see him. He got in late after the service last night so he didn't get to see Charlotte, but we're planning on going out to lunch today with him, and probably dinner tomorrow night. The conference is at the Opryland hotel here... which I've been told is huge! And by the looks of it, it is. Someday we'd like to go walk around it, its supposed to be just gorgeous and they have all kinds of things to do there.

Phil and I have been sick the past few days. Thankfully, Charlotte has been very healthy! I'm not looking forward to when she is really sick for the first time. A sick baby will be no fun. She got her flu shot today though, so I'm really hoping she doesn't get it this year.

Time Magazine (online) has recently put out an article about the Yellowstone caldera/super volcano and how there has been a large rise in earthquakes, which could (probably not) spawn an eruption of the super volcano... which would be 1,000 times more violent than Mount St. Helens. I've done two projects on this and think its really interesting, but also kinda freaky at the same time. Its overdue, and who knows if it will blow again, but the last time it did only about 10% of the world population survived... granted that was over 600,000 years ago, I still think we'd have a huge wipeout of the world population. On a positive note, it has gotten me back in touch with one of my friends from Rolla and we've since been exchanging emails :). Below is a link to the article I recently saw.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1869313,00.html

Well, off to lunch with Dad. I hope I didn't bore you all too much!

Monday, January 5, 2009

And We're Back to Our Normal Lives

I've experimented with posting a few pictures, so lets hope they turned out!

The past few days haven't been very exciting around here. Yesterday was a few mystery shops, which just seemed to take over the entire day. On top of that we had to return Phil's tux (which was way out of the way) and the shops were no where near that. But, on a positive note, I got a new pair of jeans at Gap Outlet for a super good price and I got a cute sweater too. Plus we got free dinner and free lunch! However, it is nice to have our normal life back. Everything got so crazy during the wedding and Charlotte is finally settling down.

A couple days ago we bought a deep freeze! We were getting really sick of balancing everything in our freezer (it doesn't have a shelf and about 1/2 of the freezer is taken up by an ice maker). We got an amazing deal! We found a 7 sq. ft. freezer by GE for $205. So its about 1/2 the size of a normal one, but we don't need a huge one. Now I can stock up on things when they are on sale! So our laundry room is even more crowded... but its worth it. Thanks to Christmas money and a little saving, we got it! Here's a picture of it below :).


Charlotte has learned a new "trick." She can hold on to the side of the couch and stand all by herself! And she can do this for minutes... not just 10 seconds. She's also sitting more reliably, but I don't think she likes it. Its pretty obvious that she topples herself over on purpose. We just let her do it since its on carpet and she doesn't mind. She has a doctors appointment on Wednesday! I can't wait to see how much she's grown. The next one after that is at 9 months, so they're beginning to get further apart. She's growing up so quickly! Here's a picture I took of her yesterday:


For those of you who didn't know, Phil and I are doing the "Dave Ramsey Plan." We took the class this fall and have started budgeting! We just paid for our wedding... in cash... so that was awesome! And we haven't used a credit card since before Charlotte was born. Now we're ready to pay off Phil's first student loan for $1500... even before it started accumulating interest! We're both super excited about it, because we can officially start our "debt snowball." We started to do the "debt snowball" first instead of a honeymoon. We both decided we would feel bad going on a trip with loans to pay off... hopefully in a few years we can take an awesome honeymoon and then a great family vacation!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Instructions on posting a comment...

For those of you interested in making a comment on any of the entries, do the following.

1. Click on "Comments." It may say "0 Comments," "1 Comment," or even more.

2. You will get a box to type your comment in. Below that box, it says "Comment as." Click that and a drop-down menu will appear.

3. Since most of you don't have an account, you can then click on "Name/Url" or "Anonymous."

4. For name, you just have to put your name, you don't need a URL.

5. Type your comment.

6. Click on "Post Comment."

7. You will then be prompted to enter a code, to make sure you aren't scamming me. Do this and press "enter" or "ok" or whatever it is.

8. Taadaa! You're comment will be posted... Congratulations!

2009 New Years Resolutions

Since doing this blog is one of my New Year Resolutions, I thought I'd fill you in on the rest of them. It seems like a long list, but I think that they're ones I'll actually accomplish.

Number One-Blog/Journal at least once a week. I want to write here at least once a week. I think I'll start something private too because writing has always been therapeutic for me, but I have yet to begin.

Number Two-Brush my teeth well. I know it sounds silly, but I have fallen into the habit of brushing my teeth once a day for about 30 seconds. I've decided I'm going to actually spend the time, twice a day, to brush them for about 2 minutes. So far, so good. I actually started this one in December. Who knows, next year I'll start flossing!

Number Three-Exercise at least 3 times a week. I got a Wii Fit for Christmas (YAY!) and I'm hoping to use it for at least 1/2 hour three times a week. I really need to work off this baby fat, and sitting around, doing nothing isn't helping. Since Christmas, so far so good. I've lost about a pound too... we'll see what it says tonight. The program allows you to set goals, so right now its set at 22 pounds in 6 months, a little extreme I think, but I'll adjust it as time goes by. Once it gets a little nicer outside we're going to have family walks/outings so that Charlotte can grow up seeing exercise as an everday thing. Right now she just loves to watch us exercise on the Wii... apparantly we exercise funny :-)... the lunges are the best!

Number Four-PORTION SIZES! Phil and I eat pretty well, but we eat WAY WAY WAY to much! So, I've started cooking for two, or if I do cook more (for leftovers), I make sure we have leftovers. We kind of started this one before the New Year too, but not seriously. I mean we had a wedding and all with a buffet I wanted to enjoy! I've been doing a little reading on the subject and definitly need to do more. I think I'm going to invest in a couple healthy eating cookbooks.

Well, I'm off to exercise, its Saturday night and I've only worked out twice this week, tsk tsk...

Anna

Friday, January 2, 2009

Happy New Years!

Happy New Years everyone! I hope you all enjoyed ringing in the New Year and I hope that 2009 is a great year for all!

I have made a New Year Resolution to blog at least once a week so that our families and friends can keep up with what is going on in the Kauzlarich household. I also think it'll be something great to look back on in years to come.

So, for those of you who didn't know, Phil and I tied the knot on New Years Eve at 11am at Dearly Beloveds Wedding Chapel in Nashville, TN. We had a small wedding with a lunch to follow at Ellendales Restaurant. We are expecting to have a reception for all of our family and friends in St. Louis on May 23, 2009 (pending reservation of the reception hall and DJ). Email me if you want a link to some pictures and I'll send them your way. I'll also post the professional pictures once we get them.

The wedding was a beautiful ceremony, we arrived 15 minutes to the start and got dressed. The processional began and the mothers walked down the aisle with Lori holding baby Charlotte. They were followed by the bridesmaids, Heather Payton and Natalie Lassinger. The doors closed, and were then opened to Dad and myself walking down the aisle to my handsome groom, Phillip. Tavis Bryant and Wes Bevans stood by him as groomsmen. We were married by a Catholic Bishop named Jack. Natalie sang "Feels Like Home" by Chantal Kreviazuk. For anyone interested, you can hear the song here. Phil and I walked down the aisle with Charlotte and then stayed for pictures. We were sent off in our limo walking through our friends and family throwing rose petals on us. We finished by eating at Ellendales in our own private room and then heading home for a few presents.

That evening, we had our family and friends over for a New Years Eve party. We ate, played pictionary, visited with everyone and rang in the New Year with Champagne. Charlotte even stayed up for the New Year.

Since, we've been relaxing and getting Charlotte back into her routine. Phil took today (Friday) off from work, so he got a five day weekend. I'm starting back up on Mystery Shops today as I've found the beginning of the month is always busier. I've had a nice break for a week or so though.

Happy New Years!

Anna (Kauzlarich!!)