Now that Christmas has come and gone, I am relieved, as usual. There is so much stress for me around Christmas time that I am glad it only comes once a year. Especially this year with the economy the way it is. I can't say exactly how much it is we spend each year on presents for the kids, but I can say we easily spent over $1000 this year on all 5 kids. Don't get me wrong - I love seeing them happy and ripping open their gifts. Nothing makes me happier than be able to shop for them and give them the things they have been dying to get.

The thing that stresses me out is not having the money to buy them much. Well, we really don't have the money to buy them anything and we end up going totally broke. Now our rent money is nowhere in sight and the 1st is around the corner. Since the housing market has gone all to hell, my husband, who works in construction putting street lights in new housing developments, has had less and less work. So he has now been sitting home without work for over a week. It really sucks.

So I have continued to keep looking for a work at home job. I don't know if you can imagine how much it would cost to put 5 kids in daycare - or even 4 if we let the 13 year old stay at home alone (nothing spells disaster like that). I pray and hold faith in my heart that something good will happen for us. I believe that things are meant to be and I know that whatever is meant for me will happen. In the meantime I have been plugging away at working on an information website about cloth diapers, in hopes that I can someday build it up enough to earn money through Google Adsense and other ads. Trying to get visitors to a website is the hardest part. I have had to teach myself how to create the whole website, learn some html, and create a header and learn how to publish it, but getting people to the site has by far been the hardest part!

So I cross my fingers and hope for a better new year. Happy New Year's to you and your families!