Our family was so excited to take a trip to Utah this summer. It’ was definitely a loooooong drive- at least 20 hours each way- but so worth it!! We drove our Yukon. It’s a 2004, so before leaving we got a complete tune up. The brakes were fine so we weren’t in need of a brake job. Thankfully it is easy to find a Dallas auto repair shop thanks to sites like repairpal.com.  It’s so important to make sure the car is in great “shape” before taking a long trip. W had the belts changed and spark plugs, etc… to make sure it was ready to go. I love my Yukon and I am so thankful to have that much room for our big family. And it has so much power- kinda like an Chevrolet Silverado.  I LOOOOOVE having that power. I love to merge on the highway and leave slow cars in the dust. haha Driving 20+ hours doesn’t sound 1/2 bad with my car.

Please view my disclosure.

Have you heard of Local.com? It is a local search engine.  It’s a hybrid of the following sites – Citysearch.com, Yelp.com, Yellowpages.com, Superages.com. Local.com offers the convenience of viewing the content from all these sites that I listed (Citysearch.com, Yelp.com, Yellowpages.com, Superages.com) with just one stop.

If you are trying to find accurate driving directions, business contact information and hours, as well as reviews from mulitple sites , Local.com has it. It’s pretty much a 1 stop shop for finding local businesses and services. Users can also write their own reviews and contribute. I like the fact that users can write their reviews because I know it’s an honest opinion- not a sales ploy.

So about 2 weeks ago I was on my way to Dallas when my Yukon started making this funky noise. It sounded like something just grinding as I drove. Not good. We went to get whatever it was fixed. Honestly I can’t even remember what it was exactly, other than something was wobbly, it was a good thing I got home ok and it cost $500 to fix. Yuck. We were saving money to get a tune up before we go to Utah this summer. I guess we better start saving again. lol

Thankfully we knew a great, honest repair shop here in town because we take our cars there when it’s time for an oil change. But sometimes that is not the case. That’s why repairpal.com is a great site. That site gives you independent and unbiased repair estimates, user ratings and reviews, plus advice you can’t get anywhere else. Say your Acura Integra starts giving you trouble while you’re traveling thru Houston. Houston is ginormous. How are you going to know a place you can trust to take your car? Not all repair shops are equal. You can go to RepairPal.com and look for a Houston Auto Repair and even search your make of car for familiar problems. You can find a shop, with real customer ratings and reviews. It’s not paid advertising, just honest opinions from people who have been in your position. You can even get an estimate of what your repair should cost so a repair shop can’t try to screw you. Awesome! And once you’ve experienced a repair shop you can rate them on RepairPal.com as well. It’s a definite win-win!!

Please view my disclosure.

My outlook on life has changed dramatically in the last few months. 2009 really sucked eggs- BIG TIME.  Most of y’all know that my husband and I were served papers from both of our exes. And these were major court papers. The lame thing about this is that you can’t just ignore it. You are forced to answer by hiring a lawyer. If you don’t then the courts assume you agree with everything in the papers and file in the petitioner’s favor. We, obviously, couldn’t let that happen. So, 2009 was spent figuring out how to pay retainer fees and making payments with money we don’t have.

During this time we seriously talked about renting our home out. We even went as far as to look for apartments for rent in our area. We were going to move our family of 7 into a 3 bedroom apartment. How is that fair? Man, it put me in a bad mood for the entire year! Moving is such a pain anyway, with finding the right place, packing, changing schools, church schedules, moving away from friends. You have to check out neighborhoods, school districts, etc… There’s so much to think about. I know I always looked online to read reviews about different apartment complexes, areas of a city, etc… I hate moving with a passion. I don’t like living in apartments with children. I’ve lived in my fair share of apartments. I had one downstairs neighbor that would ram her ceiling with a broom everytime my 3 year old ran thru the living room. Really?? You live in an apartment, there’s gonna be some noise! Another time my husband and  I had just been married, so the family below us had newlyweds above them… Yeah… Sorry about that ~j.  Moving on… I don’t like moving. I am thankful for sites like Move.com to help make the moving experience easier…

The thought of renting out our home to a family and moving just so we could pay for lawyers was so frustrating to me. It’s still frustrating, but we decided we aren’t going to lose our home and let all this affect the lives of our children. I’ve decided to not let the choices and actions of selfish people affect ME. The last 10 years of my life I’ve been doing that. I’m done. I choose to be happy. I choose to see the silver lining. I mean, honestly, all this court crap has made my kiddos cling to me more. They know that I’m fighting for what THEY want. They love me more for that. Sei and I have grown closer too. We’ve been in and out of court with exes for our entire marriage. It’s draining emotionally and financially, but we have that awesome of a relationship where we absolutely DO NOT allow it to mess that up. Another thing that has surprisingly changed my attitude is Mary Kay. I am stoked to be a beauty consultant. Getting to go to weekly meetings with awesome women, dressing up (which I thought I’d hate!!), having parties getting to meet new people, etc… has changed me in so many ways in just a few short months. It’s been rad.

You know how people will say they are “so thankful” for their trials? Well, maybe one day I’ll be to that point, but right now I’m not. I’m not thankful for all this at all. It makes me mad. But these trials have made me stronger. They’ve helped me grab a hold of my attitude and adjust it. I still don’t know why Sei and I felt so strongly to move to Texas. I really don’t. But… we’re here. And I’m not going thru the nonsense of moving again, so we might as well make the best of it, right?

I heart my family.

Please view my disclosure.

Over the years we’ve had a few cars. Most of them started out as what we thought was “great” and ended up as “ghetto.” Thankfully we have 2 really reliable cars right now that we hope will be with us for years and years. One way we are helping make this a reality is by having a regular tune up on each car.  We’ll be making a very long trip this summer in our Yukon, so a tune up is essential!! Another thing we do is make sure we get an oil change when needed. This is such a simple thing to have done, but some people never do it. That can ruin the engine.

Finding the right auto repair shop can be hard. You don’t know their specialties or reviews. But now there’s Repairpal.com Let’s say you need Houston auto repair. You just go to Repairpal.com and type in your zip code.  You’ll be given a list of shops in your area with reviews as well. Not only that- if you are trying to find info about a particular car- like an Acura Integra- you can find reviews and  information from other owners right there on Repairpal.com. It’s an awesome site.

Please view my disclosure.

I am lame. Here it is less than 10 days before Christmas and I haven’t finished my shopping. I didn’t do the whole Black Friday thing and now as I scramble around trying to find gifts I am thinking maybe I should have!! Did you go out shopping early after Thanksgiving? I went to Costco with my sister, for milk…

I while ago I made a photo book for a good friend for her wedding day, kind of like a pre- Wedding album. It was pretty freakin’ awesome if I do say so myself. I think photobooks are the easier way to go when it comes to keeping your photos. The photo albums I have all the pictures are falling out of and I’m definitely NOT a scrapbooker so that’s out.

One online photo book company is Photoproductions.com. They are the first (and still only) company in the UK to produce premium photobooks direct to the public, without them having to go through a photographer who will increase the cost. They also provide the easiest, most user friendly website of anyone producing these premium albums. And they provide full online proofing of the Photobook designs once completed.

You can do so much more that wedding albums. I keep telling myself I’m going to make a photo book every year… And I’m telling myself again because these things are awesome!!

We currently have cable thru our phone company. My parents, on the other hand, have DirectTV. I’ve never had Direct TV so in order to learn more I visit Blogtelevision.com.  You can learn more and order straight from their website.  You can check out current offers, learn more about HD tv, and things like the NFL Sunday Ticket- which I know my boys would LOVE. It’s a great explanatory site. I learned more about the DVR- which now I can’t imagine NOT having. I also was able to look thru the different programming packages to find the best fit.

If you have more questions about Directv you can also call their toll free number. It’s definitely a convenient site to have to answer questions and order the great service for your tv viewing.

Sleep with a cop. haha I do 3-4 nites a week, but the other nites he’s out protecting and serving others. That’s when I am extra thankful for our Home Security system. It gives me some peace of mind knowing that if that alarm goes off ADT has my back. ADT offers home security monitoring in almost all 50 states. The other day Livie set off our panic alarm with our keychain remote. ADT called immediately and were sending the cops because Sei couldn’t remember our password. I LOVE that!!! That’s great customer service.

I highly recommend looking into Home Security Systems for your home. They aren’t expensive and so worth it. Cops can’t be every where, every minute. A home security system  could save your life.

Idk if I can say I’m a quitter, but I worked so hard on my medical transcriptionist course until the summer. Then I had 11 kids here on a daily basis and it made it impossible for my brain to do. And ever since then I have had the hardest time getting motivated. I have until Feb. 15 to finish before I have to pay for an extension. I just feel like I have sooo much going on and my brain is having a hard time concentrating on any one thing. I’m an independent distributor for Advocare. I’m an independent beauty consultant for Mary Kay- which I’m really enjoying. I babysit. I email lawyers back and forth everyday. And I never miss a kiddo’s game! So…  yeah, for right now I don’t see any type of healthcare jobs, including transcribing, in my future. I feel lame for quitting, but I’m spreading  myself too thin. I just wish there was a way to get the money I paid for the course back. That’d be nice to have that money to put towards the stack of lawyer bills we’ve collected…. But anyway… I just made this decision. I mean, I can always pay to extend it, but right time, THIS time in my life, it’s just not gonna work- which sucks because I was excited.  But, I’ve gotta do what I feel is right, right?