MarksvilleandMe

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Full of energy on New Years Eve

So thankful for the energy I have today. Been taking advantage of it while it lasts. With Fibromyalgia you just never know when you will both be pain free and have energy. It just does not happen that often.

So far today we have gotten the Christmas tree is down, decorations are packed away, the laundry has been washing, the rest of the clothes have been being sorted and folded as they come out of the washer, the living room is back to normal, dishes have been washed, downstairs has been vacuumed, cleaned the downstairs bathroom, went through the sock drawer, bathing suit drawer. Dennis, cleaned up down in the basement, pepperoni has been in the crock pot all day for subs, and I am still going strong.

Dennise, Deanna, and Dorothy have even helped out a little here and there. Waiting right now for the laundry to be done so I can change it out then mop the bathroom floor. Not sure what I will do next maybe vacuum upstairs, clean the upstairs bathroom and put away our clothes. Plenty of more hours until the New Year is here might as well use up all of the energy I had left over from this year. No sense in wasting it all.

Who knows I might even be able to get a few more blogs up before the end of 2013. So excited to see what the New Year has in store for our family. If you stick around I am sure you will catch a glimpse through my blogs, not only on this page but any of the above pages which you are all welcome to visit anytime you would like. Ok break over, not back to work.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

New Years Plans 2013 reviewed.

Since the original site I used to blog at is having technical difficulties I thought I would share here how our family has done with the plans we had for 2013.

In red will be the updates. I will up date any total on the 31st.

Originally written by me on January 01, 2013 09:05 AM EST on Gather.com

First day of the New Year and I am just sitting down to write our goals out for the New Year, which is alright because I have been thinking of them, just haven't sat down to write them. So here I am.

This year we will continue to pay down out debt, we made a huge dent last year and we are nearing the top of the mountain. We are starting the year with 2.00 in the bank, 0 in savings, unless you count our container of change, but then again Dennis is unemployed at the moment so the only income we have is the money I make from doing child care, which doesn't cover much. He is yet to get a payment from Unemployment but talking to others they haven't had one yet either. When Dennis does go back to work they were already told there would be another lay off in the summer but that is subject to change depending on how many orders they get for the machines to run.

My husband did return to work but it was short lived because he was injured at work when he fell on February 12th, 2013. He had a total quad tear. He is currently still considered 50% disabled and has so many restrictions he will be lucky if he ever finds another job, but it doesn't stop him from trying. While out on Workmans comp which he still receives along with he was laid off so now that he is not a 100% disabled he is able to collect unemployment as well. Also because of the kind of job he had he was offered 20,000 dollars to return to college. We don't get the cash or course but it is in an account to pay for college for him for up to 2 1/2 years which is awesome if you ask me and when the spring semester starts he will be in the computer security/ forensics field, which is right back where he started almost 20 years ago when he entered college.

We finished one bill and are well on our way to paying yet another one off which should happen sometime in 2014. Yippee.

I do child care only a few hours a week as well as a merchandising job I picked up when my husband was injured that I can work around my Fibromyalgia that I was diagnosed with around the same time my husband was injured. When it rains it pours in our lives. Currently I have a lawyer working on a Disability claim for myself.

Amount in Bank 83.11 Amount in Savings 0.00

With those warnings we will be very careful with our money, to make sure we can make it through the next layoff when it comes, God willing anyways. We look forward to the taxes coming in this year. As most of you know almost all of the taxes went on fixing up our van last year, so we weren't able to add a second vehicle. So if all goes well we will this year. There are other things we need like a Refrigerator, and Stove. What our landlord put in here is junk, and I don't know if I want to trust that he would get something of better quality so we might just go ahead and buy our own which we will know are of good quality and then have his men come and get the set that is here out. I could think of lots of other things we would like to have but those will be our main focus this year.

We didn't add another vehicle since we were not driving as much because of my husband injury, but we did get the Refrigerator and Stove. The taxes were used wisely to pay off bills, and get things we needed for the house, which came in handy when insurance checks were late.

I did really good last year with making money online, I was keeping track on my computer trying to reach 1000.00 but not sure if I made it because in June and then again a few months later my computer crashed so I lost all of the information. This year I will keep a hard copy, which I had last year and then Dennis thought I should keep the information on my computer. We see how that ended. Keeping hard copies are still good to do, you just never know when something like that will happen.

I lost my information again this year a few times but got smart back tracked and was able to keep records of most of it. Pretty sure I got most of anyways. My goal was a $1000 my grand total so far has been $1545.41. Not sure if I will make my goal bigger then I made or just round it to $1500 for next year.

We only have one Huge milestone this year which will be Dennise's Sweet Sixteen, other then that just regular Birthdays, Holidays, and School Functions. We will have to save for School supplies for the 2013-2014 school year as well as Christmas for next year, but if I do as well as I did last year with earning I can put a big dent in the shopping again.

We did well with everything except Dennise's Sweet Sixteen instead she will be having a Sensational Seventeen Party in 2014.

I have been working on getting down to 350 lbs so that I can start to use the Tred Mill I would like for my Birthday. Samantha said she would help pay for it so that she has something to run on, since she hasn't really been able to because of her work schedule, and of course it would be good for Dennise as well. I am sure even Dennis, and Deanna might use it too, so it would really be a gift for everyone. The gift of health is one of the best gifts we can receive.

I did get my Tred Mill, but I have not been on it nearly as much as I should have but hope to change that in the New Year. When I have my Fibromyalgia medicine I do find but with lots of insurance change overs we have found some will pay, some won't, and I went about 5 months out of the year with none because we didn't have insurance at all. My lowest weight of the year was 360!

We have all been talking and would like to see if we can do the family dinner night once a month that would include my mother-in-law, father-in-law, and maybe even my husband's sister and her kids if they would like to come, and sometimes even Buke and Taylor when they can make it over.

With everything that has gone on this did not happen at all. Maybe we can try for this again in the New Year.

One of the projects our family is working on is going to be playing different games and reviewing them online for everyone. You can see one of our video reviews on my youtube channel MarksvilleandMe. Make sure to subscribe if you would like to keep up with our family over there. I am not sure all games will have a video but there will be blogs done as well. Still working on setting that up over at blogspot, so stay tuned, I will post here when it is up and going.

This is still in the works. I didn't forget just have been busy with everything else that goes on in our daily lives.

Funny thing is now Deanna wants to do reviews. She did one yesterday which I hope to get up later today at Youtube, and maybe even a blog up. Speaking of blogs I use Gather as a Blog site, but would like to do more over on my other blogs. I did get a few more followers last year, but my main base is here. I thank everyone here who has also taken an interest in my posts on other sites, and have befriended me on Facebook.

I have continued to get a fan base but so far I only have 11 followers here. Would like to see that number grow. I did work a lot over on my blogs here which I think have gone well.

God was very good to us last year, I think that this is more then enough to work on in the next year and will try to keep you all posted on how we do with it all at the end of the year. Happy New Year everyone!

Again God has blessed us and I did come back to post how we did so I got this one done too.

Did you make any goals for this year? How did they turn out?

Friday, December 27, 2013

MarksvilleandMe Purex FELS-NAPTHA Review and Giveaway

Can you believe it?

FELS-NAPTHA has been around since 1894. That in itself tells me that this product has staying power. Oddly with over 23 years of parenting I have never tried this product so I was really glad to be picked to review it for my readers.

This is the product as I received it.

The inside looks packaged well.

My literature on what I am to do with the product I am to review.

As you can see I will be having a giveaway for some free product coupons so make sure you enter below.

This is what it looked like before I opened it.

As you can see even though it was shipped well it didn't make the trip well. I do have to say it smells awesome and the bits and pieces that fell off became my first in laundry booster trial.

The directions on the bar state that for Laundry Booster

1. Grate 1/16 of a bar into washer with detergent.

2. Wash as normal.

When all was said and done seemed to work as well as another product I have been using, so I will be using this more often now that I know how well it works. Still need to try it on my whites for the full test here in Marksville.

You can also use it as a Stain Pre-treater by

1. Wetting stain,, then rubbing with bar.

2. Waiting one minute and washing as normal.

Don't quote me but I think you also use this as an ingredient to make your own washing detergent as well, which is another thing I would love to try and do and see if the savings are really there or not, but until then lets get on with the giveaway.

There will be two winners. Each winner will recieve 1 Free Purex Fels-Naptha Laundry Bar coupon with a Maximum value of $1.75.

Open to USA residents only age 18 and over.

As always MarksvilleandMe wishes everyone who enters Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Disclosure
Being a part of Purex insiders I was provided a full size product of Purex FELS-NAPTHA Laundry Bar in exchange for a product review. With that being said every review I do is done in my own words and also from my own or my families experience with reviewed product.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Back To Blocks Giveaway! (Now Over)

Welcome to the Back To Blocks Giveaway!

Sponsored By: Back To Blocks

Hosted By: Mami's 3 Little Monkeys

Back To Blocks is a family owned and operated business located in Kaysville, Utah. The wooden building blocks are handcrafted. Back To Blocks feels as though many children are not developing their natural creativity, due to the increasing world of technology. Back To Blocks is committed to providing a safe, durable, natural and quality product. Their blocks are made from natural hardwood, have no paints, dyes or stains and they use a popular, beautiful hardwood that comes naturally in a variety of color variations. Their products have been safety tested, read more about this here.

Read Mami's 3 Little Monkeys review here.

One lucky reader will win a 48 count bucket of natural wooden blocks!

Open to US residents

Ends January 2nd at 11:59pm CST

Enter through the Giveaway Tools entry form below for your chance to win.

Winning entry will be verified, winner will be notified via email and will have 48hrs to respond or a new winner will be chosen.

Good Luck!

I remember the first set of blocks my son received as a gift. The blocks and box were all hand crafted by my husband. My son just celebrated his 23rd Birthday on December 13th, and the blocks are still around. They have gone through all of my kids 6 in all, our foster children, and all of my child care kids, which is a truck load of children. They were always one of the favorite toys of the kids to play with. Even though I have more girls then boys and we love the dolls, I think hand crafted items are just about the best made products out there.

MarksvilleandMe would like to wish everyone who enters Good Luck!

Entry -Form

Disclosure: MarksvilleandMe was not compensated for this post nor is this blog responsible for the fulfillment/shipment of the prize. If you have any questions please contact Sarh at mamis3littlemonkeys@yahoo.com