My Two Cents

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Benefits of Unemployment
Trina9:42 AM 0 comments

One of the few luxuries of being unemployed is that you don't have to barter and beg for time off. This little luxury allowed Mr. Almeda to channel his energies into projects that otherwise never would have been done. Our front porch and our back deck received pressure washing for the first time since we bought the house. He even repainted. Then, in the yard, he tackled a few of the ugly/dying/Trina-hates-them shrubs and cleaned things up a bit. Oh, and he also applied for citizenship in October, which he finally gained in May.

And while all of that is just so fun and exciting, nothing beats our family vacation.

We. Went. To. Disney. World.

DISNEY WORLD!! WE WENT TO DISNEY WORLD!!

For six days, we reveled in the magic and delight that is Disney...and it was the BEST TRIP EVER.

Rather than give a minute-by-minute account of our adventure, I figure I'll offer some reflections (in case we ever go back, which we will, by golly, we will):

Packing Clothes

It's really effing hot. Pack accordingly, you idiot. Jeans are not a good idea. Wear shorts and capris, light tops (to make sweat stains less obvious), and comfortable underwear/bras. And good socks.

Don't overpack the clothes. Repeat outfits. Do laundry at the resort and save yourself the weight of all that crap. Plus, you know you're going to buy something while you're there. Save room for it.

Pack your most comfortable shoes (2 pairs). No one cares if they match. Mismatched shoes are far more acceptable than grumpy faces twisted in pain from your broken feet.

Pack flip flops for the resort pool. Comfy ones.

Accessories are annoying when you're exhausted at the end of the day. Just pack a hat and sunglasses. No need for jewelry beyond the wedding bands and sports watches. Plus, sweat and fine jewelry don't generally get along well.

Other Packing Tips

The stroller was a HUGE lifesaver for our five year old who NEVER uses a stroller otherwise. We wrapped the handle bar with a crazy printed scarf, and had no trouble locating it when we retrieved it from each ride. It was also a great way to tote the luggage to and from the hotel room.

If your stroller doesn't come with a strap, spend the $10 at Babies R Us and buy one. Best $10 we've ever spent.

Use a backpack to carry stuff through the park. Have a small cooler to keep in the stroller for water bottles.

Stuff I'm glad we packed:

Disney clothes we bought prior to the vacation, stuffed Minnie/Mickey dolls, the full Princess dress/tiara/shoes, and Disney light up toys (got them all on Black Friday at the Disney Store)

Baby powder (I was 7 months pregnant, which meant my thighs rubbed together. I also sweat a lot...everywhere. The baby powder saved lives, I tell you.)

Laptop (for adjusting our touring plans, NOT for work or even Facebook)

Phone battery extenders (to take into the park for when we took too many pictures and killed our batteries)

Cash, for tips and to limit our spending on souveniers. I actually calculated out how much tip for each restaurant based on 18% of their highest priced items and had them separated and labeled. That way, if service was sub-par, we could nip a couple dollars to leave for the hotel cleaning staff. Otherwise, it allowed us to just slap our tip on the table and head out the door. Our total budget for goodies was $100 per adult, $75 for the kiddo, which ended up being more than enough.

Tide Pods, a roll of quarters, and dryer sheets.

Lots of make up. I did go heavy on the make up every day after the first day when I realized how awful the sun washed out my face in our pictures. In fact, in all the pictures of our first day, I had no eyebrows (and we all know how eyebrows are kinda important for appearances). I filled in my eyebrows with extra dark shadow for the rest of the trip. I felt a little stupid and clownish leaving the hotel room each morning, but man, I looked fantastic in the pictures! And you know, that's all that really matters.

The F-You attitude. I'm normally very accommodating and polite to others. But when I've been camped out for a parade for two hours and you try to squeeze in right next to me practically in my lap and blocking my child's view 15 minutes before the parade starts without so much as acknowledging me...I'm going to burp in your face, fart, and lean on you to get you to move. (I did do this...the leaning, not the flatulance and belching...and it did work, though it took a LOT longer than I thought it would.)

The Food

Do the regular dining plan. Look things up ahead of time and know what the most expensive things are on the menu. Order those things.

Do breakfast reservations before the park opens, particularly in Magic Kingdom. You can get in about 30ish minutes before anyone else and just think about the picture opportunities with no photobombers! We did Cinderella's Royal Table, which wasn't bad, but definitely was NOT worth two table service credits. Next time, I think we'll do the one that was with the Pooh characters (Crystal Palace, I think?). The Tusker House breakfast in Animal Kingdom was also awesome.

Character meals are a FANTASTIC way to get the autographs and not wait in those ridiculous lines. Yes, the meal lasts about an hour, but in that hour, you get to eat till you blow up and you get 4-5 autographs knocked out. I saw the lines for autographs. Nuts. Completely nuts.

Do lunch at the hotel with your rest/pool break, or if you're anything like us, do snacks when you start to get hungry and plan on an early dinner in the park. Our typical schedule had us eating breakfast around 8-8:30, doing rides and whatnot till noonish, heading back to the hotel for swim/rest, dinner at the park around 4:30, then doing whatever we wanted till bedtime.

Best table service dinners that we tried: Akershus Banquet in Epcot, and Be Our Guest in Magic Kingdom...both had impressively good food and excellent service.

Best quick service lunch/dinners: Cosmic Rays in Magic Kingdom, Columbia House in Magic Kingdom. Huge portions, great food!

Worst eating experience: Landscape Flavors (quick service "restaurant" at Art of Animation resort). Huge disappointment. The staff was clearly irritated with each other and guests who didn't understand the ordering process, and the food looked and tasted like it had been out for way too long. Think high school cafeteria food.

Entertainment (for a family with a 5 year old and a pregnant lady)

Epcot: do the ride in Mexico. Visit China, Germany, and Japan. The other countries didn't have much to offer. Mulan photobombed one of our pictures in China, but we didn't know she was ever there till we checked our camera later. The Illuminations show was nice, but not really worth staying up so late for. We didn't get to try anything in the front of the park because we got there too late. Next time, we will get there a little earlier.

Animal Kingdom: the Lion King festival was incredible (it also helped that Fallon got to be a part of the show). She also really enjoyed the Boneyard playground. The "It's Tough to Be a Bug" 3-D show was good too. Best rides were the Safari ride, Kali River Rapids, and the TriceraTop Spin. Jammin Jungle Parade was definitely worth sticking around for as well.

Hollywood Studios: The Disney Jr. show was totally lame in my opinion, but Fallon ate it up like nobody's business. The stunt show (with the cars and motorcycles) was definitely worth watching. Toy Story Mania and Star Tours were the favorite rides. Fantasmic wound up being cancelled that night so we didn't get to see it.

Magic Kingdom: The evening parade followed by the castle projection show and the fireworks...totally worth it. The street dance party parade was also great as it allowed the kids to interact with the characters. Mickey's "Dreams Come True" show in front of the castle is a must-see, as well as Mickey's Philharmagic 3-D theater show (great for when you need to get out of the sun). Fallon's favorite rides: Winnie the Pooh, It's a Small World, Little Mermaid, Dumbo, Aladdin's Magic Carpet, Buzz Lightyear, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion.

And I think that's about it! I cannot wait till we get to go again!

My Own Success
Trina11:36 AM 0 comments

Mr. Almeda hasn't been the only one to re-enter the classroom. In May of 2012, I decided to further my own education and pursue a Specialist in Education degree. The Specialist degree is one specific to the field of education, in which the candidate takes doctoral classes, but stops short of the competencies exam and dissertation required of the doctorate degree. It's generally a two-year ordeal. And...in my position...comes with a nice little raise. So now you know why I did it.

I must say that I definitely recommend Liberty University for it's online program. I was able to take all my classes online so that I could complete my assignments on my own schedule in my pajamas and never had to set foot on campus. It is a faith-based university, which I appreciated, as I had to link all of my assignments to biblical principles. Not only did I get to learn a thing or two about the process of education, I was able to establish a greater understanding of the text that establishes the foundation of my beliefs.

Anyhow, for the past year, I have been a pregnant wife and mother, working 50-60 hours a week as a teacher and athletic trainer, and taking twice the recommended number of classes toward the degree so that I could complete the program within just one year and hopefully save a few dollars by doing so. Insert pat on the back here.

The day before Mother's Day 2013, I graduated with "Highest Distinction." Which means, I finished with a 4.0 GPA.

So there it is. Proof that I truly AM perfect. Insert cha-ching move here.

Back with a vengeance
Trina8:13 PM 0 comments

So...it's been a year. A helluva year, so I have a good excuse (or a few good ones) to pardon my hiatus here.

Let's go with one at a time, and I'll try to keep them somewhat chronological to help things from getting too confusing. I will throw out a spoiler though...I'm still married to Mr. Almeda, I still live in the same house, drive the same car, work in the same school, and am very, very rich in blessings.

At the end of May 2012, Mr. Almeda took a leap of faith and turned in his resignation to his long-time employer to accept a new position that promised higher pay and a more family-friendly work schedule. It was a tough decision for him, and it required months of study to pass the licensing exam to enter the field of insurance sales. His new boss promised to guide him through the process and essentially hand him the formula for success, so the job was clearly a no-brainer.

June was a little rough. Mr. Almeda had to quickly realize that sales and customer service are very different fields, and require very different approaches. However, being the fast learner that he is, Mr. Almeda turned it around in July and exceeded his sales goals earning praise from his coworkers and his boss. Excitement abounded in the office and with us at home. He had found his new calling; he was going to make things happen!

And then the new boss handed Mr. Almeda a letter, didn't say a word, and promptly left the office. It was a notice of termination with no reason offered except that Georgia is a right to work state and that Mr. Almeda was no longer employed.

We reeled. We cussed. We panicked. We cussed some more. I read the entire Georgia Code (ok, not really, but almost) looking for a way to get that evil man back and ruin his life for ruining ours (the likely profits weren't worth the efforts...so we didn't pursue that route). What were we going to do? Neither Mr. Almeda or I had ever been "unemployed" before. We had bills to pay, and even with two incomes, we were having difficulty making ends meet. How would we survive on just one income alone?

I admit that those first few months were terrifying. I was able to pay the bills, but our savings account was quickly depleting as we kept receiving the mortgage, utility bills, and other debts staking claims to my hard-earned paychecks (apparently, bills don't stop when you lose a significant chunk of your income). I didn't know for how long we would be able to continue paying the bills, or what the consequences would be when the money ran out.

And this is where I have to thank my parents, my friends, and of course, the good Lord above for getting us through (so far). When we weren't receiving solid advice, we were receiving assistance in the form of low-cost babysitting, representation, food, and sometimes, just that reliable shoulder to cry on when we fell into hopelessness. After job searching for a few months, it became clear that Mr. Almeda was not going to be able to secure a similar position for the income he needed to generate in order to adequately contribute to our family's finances.

Mr. Almeda was going to need a slightler higher income than before because a few months after his being laid off, we learned that a new addition would be joining the Almeda household (more on that tidbit later). He needed a degree to make that happen.

So this past summer, after almost 15 years since graduating high school, Mr. Almeda enrolled in Chattahoochee Technical College to pursue a degree in the field of Health Sciences. And the good news...he earned a solid 4.0 in his first semester. I think I see some hope on the horizon.

Happy Independence Day!
Trina5:41 PM 1 comments

This year, we decided to switch it up a little and attend a different parade in the morning. So, we met back up with the Burk family on Wednesday morning and rolled into downtown Woodstock ready for the parade.

Of course, we staked out our territory early, so we had plenty of time to play around and wonder if the parade was ever actually going to start.

[If you click on the pictures, you can see them fullscreen]

Two beautiful girls

Where's the parade??

The Almedas

I couldn't decide which one was better.

Heather and her Lily-bug

The lovely Burk family

But start it did! And we found out some very interesting trivia: Marietta does not allow candy to be thrown for some lame-o liability reasons. Woodstock says, bring on the lawsuits, come get your candy kiddos!

Is that the parade?!

Here they come!

Happy 4th of July!

My patriotic princess

Uncle Sam

There were lots of unicycles in this parade

The smart floats handed out popsicles!

Speed racers!

Heading home!

Candy!

After the parade, we headed home for some fireworks preparations. Mr. Almeda headed to the store for some extra boxes of sparklers (those things never seem to last long enough!) and I whipped up some salsa and rice krispie treats that I shaped into stars for a festive touch to take to the party hosted by our friends, the Flanagans.

As dark fell, we took the kids and walked just down the street to a better viewing spot for the fireworks and watched a fabulous show.