Thursday, January 1, 2009

new years update

now that i'm somewhat rested and not so angry, i'll elaborate on our new years gone bad. we had a sitter for the first time and planned to have a wonderful date. dinner, a movie, lots of time without kids! we've had a gift card to a really nice restaurant 40 mins from our house for several months. we'd been saving it for a special occasion. it was a restaurant we'd never been to that was out of our normal price range. so the first glitch in our plans was that the restaurant only had a reservation for 8:30 which meant a movie was out. there was not a single theater in the area that had a movie time that would work for that. so we decided to go to a nearby mall, about twenty minutes away, and just walk around and look at stuff. so as we're getting ready to head out of town, themr asks if i'm sure that mall is open. i call and they are not. so now we have two hours to kill. we ended up stopping at a friend's party which was fun. we head to the restaurant, arrive, and realize this place is alot nicer than we thought. everyone there is dressed very nice and we have on jeans and sweatshirts! the menu is much more expensive than anywhere we go but that's ok since we have a $75 gift card. we order steak and crab legs and dig in! the bill comes and we produce the gift card. a few minutes later the manager shows up and tells us that the gift card is no good. he informs us that the restaurant used to be a part of a chain that has gone bankrupt so gift cards are no longer good. now for many families, finding out you have to pay for a $70 meal wouldn't be a huge deal, but for us, that was our grocery money for this week. my husband argued with the guy to no avail. we had to pay for it. in my mind i'm trying not cry as i wonder how we will buy food this week. we couldn't believe this was happening. for one, we never would have gone so far away for dinner in the first place if we hadn't had a gift card. secondly, we never would have gone to such an expensive place. the whole reason we went there was because it was the only way we could afford a date. so we ended up spending our weekly grocery budget to pay for dinner. i was so upset. as i start the first day of the new year, i am trying to focus on all the good and not how i will feed the family this week. there is literally no more money. that was it. but i'm sure something will come up, i just don't know what. as i said yesterday, i'm going to take this as a sign that this will be a good year, since it started out so bad! keep your fingers crossed :)

16 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh my gosh. This made me so sad. I feel frustrated for you. I am going to pray that God provides in an amazing way for you this week. I wish I could help but I just looked at my own bank account and I feel sick... Money, Money, Money...We need some!

themrs said...

thank you for your prayers! i really appreciate it! i know we'll be ok, the Lord has provided for us this far i know He won't leave us now! i hope you are provided for also, i know you will be!

Susan said...

Oh I feel sooo terrible for you! I can't believe that they didn't have a sign posted somewhere about not taking those gift cards anymore!!

I KNOW how you feel though! I think the only way we make it through each month is on a whim and a prayer! I don't know how or why but God always seems to help us make it through. I will pray that he does the same for you!

Samantha@IW said...

Hello-
I'm a fellow gdnnop poster and I enjoy your posts. I saw your post in the recipe topic and maybe I'm being paranoid and this is absolutley none of my business but, maybe you should remove the link to the recipe that contains your name and copy and paste the recipe instead. There are clearly a lot of nuts (you know who I mean) in our blogging circle. I know that one in particular has vindicitivley sought out and tried to post personal information (name/address/phone) belonging to a poster who is also in our "circle" online. Its probably highly unlikely that would happen again, but who knows with these people? Anyway, it concerned me a little bit so I just wanted to put that out there. Have a great night =)

themrs said...

thanks for the tip! how do i remove a comment? do i just ask the mods to do it?

Samantha@IW said...

Me again... I hadnt read your post when I comented before. I'm so sorry that happened to you, they should have honored it anyway. Money is such a stresser, it can be overwhelming at times. I'm not sure how but I know God will provide for you. You are in my prayers- I know its hard but try not to worry.

Samantha@IW said...

If you go back to your post you should see a trash can icon- click it and poof, it will be deleted!

themrs said...

thanks so much for the tip, i took care of it. so hopefully no one will be googling me now:) they wouldn't find much of interest, i lead a pretty tame life! but i've seen how some people can really go after those they don't agree with and quite honestly i don't have the patience for that. i have a real life (shocking, huh?) by the way, i was able to buy groceries today:) long story but it's all good. the little people won't be starving this week!

Samantha@IW said...

That's wonderful! I know you must be relieved to say the least. Hopefully this week will be a great one and make up for a rough couple of days =) Your children are beautiful and so is your blog- mine is a basic BORING template. I have Blog envy lol.

themrs said...

thank you :) i think things will be better soon. i actually got my blog layout by googling "free blogger layouts". i picked the one i liked and then edited the HTML code. the only downside is that you have reload all your pics, etc. if you ever decide to try it i'll give you my email and walk you through it. it was alot easier than i thought it would be. as far as the beautiful kids, what can i say, i made those myself! well, i had a little help from God and themr.....

Anonymous said...

I am so sorry Abby. I had NO clue that they were going on when they gave those to us in May this year.

themrs said...

girl- don't apologize! it's not your fault in any way! i wasnt planning to tell you about it because i didn't want you to feel responsible. it was just bad luck
:( you giving that to us was so sweet. it meant so much to me that you thought of us and wanted to bless us. that alone is a blessing! i forgot you read my blog LOL. lets do coffee soon, i miss you :)

Samantha@IW said...

If your offer still stands...... please HELP me lol! I cant figure out how to upload my new blogger template...... I keep getting an error message, the tag is closed so I'm not sure what the problem is. So frustrating. Grrr.

themrs said...

samantha- send me your email address ( i won't post the comment) and i'll give you instructions! my husband has to leave in a bit for work and he'll have the computer so it may be this evening before i can send it.

themrs said...

sam- email has been sent! let me know how it works out. i'll be checking your blog later to see your new fabulous layout:)

Musings from Me said...

That is so disappointing. Who would have thought that the gift card would not be valid. I worry about all the stores that might close this year. Here's to a great 2009 for you and your family!