April 9th, 2010

Today has been crazy so far. I can't trust the weather so the kids have been inside. There's only so much that can keep 4 active kids entertained for hours on end. Joe's at work and won't be home until shortly before 7. So, while I am trying to do training online for my job placing foreign exchange students with host families, I'm also trying to keep the kids busy, oh and laundry and dishes and all those other household chores that have to get done.

I hate, HATE using the TV or video games as a babysitter for my kids. Honestly though, there are times when it just has to happen. I'm not talking about hours at a time. But, when all I need is a half hour to get some phone calls made, or send a couple e-mails, or start dinner I'll turn on Nick Jr for the girls and let Aiden and Alayna play Wii. And honestly, it barely lasts a full half hour. Oh the craziness that is my life.

Thankfully the girls napped a bit while Aiden and Alayna were gone this afternoon. Aiden had the end of the season party with his football team at a bowling alley, and Joe's dad took Alayna bowling at the same time. Amazingly in that time I was able to return a call to the US Census Bureau about an 8 week position as an "Enumerator", basically going around to people in the area who didn't fill out their census and getting the questions answered for the government. I was also able to send about 10-15 cold e-mails to churches in the area asking for potential host families. Hopefully that gets me some type of response.

I'm excited about the Census position. Hopefully we can make it work. Joe was out of work for 4 months, and there just wasn't enough money coming in to meet all the bills going out. With the Census position we would be able to catch up completely on our bills and even put some money into savings, YAY! We haven't been able to do that in a while. The only problem is Joe works an hour from home and we only have 1 car. I've already figured out the daycare issue, now we just need to figure out the transportation issue. There's a guy Joe works with that lives not too far from us, I'm hoping that I'll be able to drop Joe off with him to carpool. We can pitch some money in for gas, and I'll still have our van during the day.

I got about half done of what I needed to get done today. Thankfully tomorrow is a Sunday and Joe's off. After church we can catch up on housework (specifically laundry and dishes, LOL) before we have to head out to take Alayna back to see her mom.