Friend Makin' Monday

I saw this over at Third Time's a Charm and thought this would be a fun thing to do!

This originates from Amber  and is a type of 20 questions thing!

Sounds fun....right???

Well here are the questions and my answers.  This will give you a bit of a glimpse of my OCD tendencies and how we do things in our home!  

1. Do you cook every night?

Pretty much.  We have not been going out to eat much at all, so we are kind of forced to cook in order to feed our hungry, growing children (and ourselves of course).  Hubs and I tend to share the cooking duties, so it is nice that I am not the only one cooking meals for all of us!

2. What kind of laundry detergent do you use & why?

We use Gain.  We use it because of my super-sensitive skin that tends to break out into a rash when we try other detergents (or sometimes for no reason at all).  I hate not being able to get just whatever kind of detergent or dryer sheets we want, and forget about fabric softener....that stuff makes me break out no matter the brand! 

3. Do you do laundry every day or loads at a time?

It sure seems like I do laundry every day, but I tend to leave most of it until the weekend and just do loads (MOUNTAINS) of laundry then.  Sometimes it all gets done, sometimes not.

4. How often do you eat out per week?

Lately, z-e-r-o.  We have been BROKE lately and just cannot afford to take 5 of us out to eat.  But we are going to go out on Saturday night.  We are taking my mom out to eat at Red Lobster for her birthday on Saturday.

5. Where do you usually eat out?

The kids love Chili's, Applebee's, IHOP (where all the one-legged waitresses work), and the all-you-can-eat Chinese joint we have around here.  Usually we go where the kids vote to go (when we go out).  Most of the time we opt for the all-you-can-eat joints because out two oldest children can EAT! 

6. What is your favorite retail store?

Hmmm....we usually go to WalMart, simply because it is cheap and when you are on a budget...that is the way to go!  I lurve (not a typo) Target and find that our budget does not, so I have been avoiding that store like the plague simply because I cannot seem to get out of that store for less than $50 (or $100....that sounds more like it).  That store is like crack!  You can't just go in for one thing, because you will come out with about 10.

7. What’s your favorite thing to drink?

Pepsi is my drink of choice, although I need to cut back and start drinking some good old H2O, since we are trying to get pregnant.  I need to cut my caffeine intake WAAAAYYYY down so there will be no harmful effects on the baby (which I am going to be positive about and say is already there).  This is going to be hard to do, and I am sure there will be some missing heads (from me biting them off), but I know it will be worth it.

8. Do you take vitamins?

Yeppers I do.  I was taking a prenatal vitamin but have had to discontinue those due to some not-so-pleasant gastrointestinal problems they were causing.  Right now I am taking a folic acid supplement and kiddie vitamins in place of the prenatal vitamin.

9. What percentage of the household chores do you do?

I would say about 50%.  You wondering how I do that??  See the next question. *giggling maniacally* 

10. Do your children do chores? (Or will they, did they, etc).

Yes. They. Do.  The children do dishes, take out trash, feed the dog, clean their rooms, put up their clean laundry, and clean their bathroom.  The teenager helps his dad with the lawn, since he is now old enough to operate a lawn mower.

11. Do you go to church?

I do not.  I am a spiritual person, but not a church person.  We believe in God and his glorious, divine creation and know that Jesus is our Lord and Saviour, but we do not attend church.  

12. Do you have a housework schedule?

Pretty much.  Dishes every other day, trash almost every day, dog being fed everyday, laundry in the hamper every day, and the rest is done on a need basis (when it needs it, it gets cleaned).

13. Do you keep a working budget?

We HAVE to or we get into deep doo-doo.  We have been on a VERY strict budget for a few months now and we are hoping (with the addition of a size-able deposit I just made from my left-over financial aid) that we will be able to relax a little on it now.

14. What do you do at night as a family?

Homework with kids (for them and me), make and eat dinner, watch some of our favorite shows or a movie, kids get bathed and in bed, and hubs and I have some quiet time to do what we need to do.

15. How do you prepare yourself for a new week?

I go over what we have coming up for the week and make whatever lists I need to to keep track of it all (I'm all about the lists, baby).

16. What do your mornings look like?

Depends on if I am working or not and if I have class.  

If I am working, I get a call at the butt-crack of dawn; get up; get showered, dressed, and primped; get my lunch together; fill out my work sheet; load up all my teacher goodies in the van; and head to whatever school I'm working at.  

If I have class I get up, get showered, get dressed, grab my book bag, and head out the door to the college.  

If I do not have class or work, I sleep until I wake up naturally, mess around on the computer for a few hours, get a shower, and by the time I am dressed it is usually lunch time.

17. What time do you get up in the mornings?

see above.  depends.  for class it is 8 am.  for work it is 6 am.  for a free day it is anywhere from 8 am to 10 am.

18. What time do you go to bed at night?

late. very. very. late. usually around midnight or later.  I am a night owl, so is the hubs.  Not a good thing when you have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn.

19. How do you manage all of the paperwork that floods into your household? (bills, school work, magazines, ads, etc)

ok. bills go into our bill notebook. my school work has a shelf all to itself on the bookshelf, magazines also have a shelf on a bookshelf, ads go straight to the garbage, kids papers have a place of their own, and all the rest get filed away in their appropriate file folders.

20. How do you keep your household organized? (calendars, charts, etc.)

This is where my OCD tendencies come into play.  

I have iCal on my computer that has color-coded calendars for the different things in our life.  My work has one, my school has one, and each child has one.  

For my school work each semester I print off a paper that has all my classes listed, which week it is for, and has space to put in assignments for each class each week.  

We have a whiteboard that is divided up into squares that has chores listed, days of the week and spaces to put which child does which chore on which day.  

I also have a pad on the refrigerator that has a space for each child with days of the week to keep track of their activities.  

I also have a day planner that I fill in.  

I hate missing things, being late, or forgetting that I had something to do.  I like to know what is coming up before it gets there and getting things thrown at me last minute is the equivalent of fingernails on a chalk board for me.  I tend to get a little pissy when we are running late and I am the person that is A-L-W-A-Y-S early.  If I am late it is someone else's fault and I can guarantee that my blood pressure is through the roof in those instances.

Well, that is it for me!  Make sure and head over to see  Amber  to check out everyone else's answers!