About Me

Me, 20 pounds ago!

I'm a working mom of four boys, ranging in age from 1 to 21. I am also a network administrator at a healthcare company here in the Midwest. Life is always interesting and sometimes downright challenging!

I love to cook, garden, decorate, and otherwise tinker with anything and everything. If I can't fix it, my husband usually can. I also love learning, reading, doing and then telling everyone about it (a typical ENFP personality type!) I'm always experimenting. I can't help it, that's how I'm wired!

I'm a reformed shopaholic who has pinched pennies for years, sometimes out of necessity, and sometimes out of choice. I can't stand paying full price but want the best quality of everything. Who doesn't? I got really good at it, and my tightwad success story was even featured in Amy Dacyczyn's long defunct newsletter, The Tightwad Gazette.

Eventually I built a website based on my experiences with frugal living into a nationally recognized ezine and community (long before blogging was popular!) I enjoyed teaching people how to live better for less, but the administrative side of it really burnt me out and affected my marriage and family life. In an effort to save my marriage, I retired from online life. Unfortunately, that didn't help. My former husband just found something else to complain about!

Note: I am slowing putting my old articles back online here: http://frugal-moms.net

Needless to say, that marriage ended after 17 tumultuous years. Most of that time, I'd been a stay at home mom. I found myself having to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, and at the age of 37, started a career as an IT professional. A couple of years later, I met my current husband. After getting engaged, we were shocked to discover we were expecting...at the age of 40! Life has been quite an adventure since that little guy rocked our world (as well as his big brothers' world!)

Brian and I, married last year

Being strapped for time, money, energy and everything else has been a challenge. We have our good days and bad days, but we somehow get through them all. Along the way, I've had to come up with new ways to do things and make things work (I was at home with all my other children, so working with a baby is a new challenge too!)

Currently I'm on a quest to recover from my last pregnancy and lose 55 pounds. It's frustrating to STILL be in maternity clothes a whole year after the baby was born. I also haven't slept through the night in that time. My little guy seems to have some issues of his own. So I'm trying out the Paleo\Primal Lifestyle for myself and hoping that will also have a positive affect on baby and the rest of the family. I have already seen some positive changes in my own body. I'm feeling great and have lost almost 10 pounds. 45 more to go! Phew! (I have the ticker down below for the latest weight loss success.)

I'm hoping that this blog will reflect some of my experiences along the way and share ideas and inspiration with others, like my old site did. I've really missed doing that online! I've learned a lot about myself through the years, and the biggest thing is to keep it simple. Blogging seems like a great way to do that. So I offer you my thoughts, experiences, recipes, tips and whatever else I come across in my day to day life as I sort it out myself.

Baby Nick, Connor and I at Starved Rock Park this year