It Never Hurts to Ask

Bargaining gives me a high. Like seriously, every time I manage to bargain with someone for a lower price or a better deal or heck, even a raise, I feel like I'm on cloud nine. All I want to do is go around telling everyone about it. So I figured, now that I have a blog, why not write about it and share my successes with all of you? ;)

My latest success is with our Comcast bill. When we first moved into our apartment back in July of last year, we decided that we wanted (needed:P) to get internet. We asked a few of our friends about who they used for internet and found out that Comcast was the #1 answer. Actually, we didn't know of anyone in our complex who was using a different company. So Comcast it was.

Joel-Michael went in to set up our account and he came back with the modem and all the necessary items along with the current promotional deal of $50.72/month, including taxes. We figured it wasn't that bad. After all, people had told us that we couldn't get AT & T out here so this was our option. So we've had this internet for the past year. Overall, we don't have too many complaints. It's only gone out a few times and usually by reseting the modem we can get it to work again. Plus, when we first got it, both of us were working so $50/month wasn't too bad for something we needed.

About a month or two ago, we got a promotional offer in the mail from AT & T for internet. This deal was for $30/month for our internet. Unfortunately, it wasn't unlimited internet but when we looked up how much we use each month, it was fairly close to what they offered (plus, if we went over the limit, the extra amount it would cost would have made our bill the same as the one at Comcast). But we didn't think we could get AT & T at our apartment, so Mickey called and confirmed that we actually would be able to. That's where the story gets good.

I realized I left out a small (crucial) detail. Sometime around when we received this promotional offer, Joel-Michael got a call from Comcast letting us know that our promotional time was up and our bill would be going up to the standard $80/month starting in August.

While we may have felt rich last year and $50 wasn't a big deal, $80 was definitely not going to fit into our budget now - especially since Joel-Michael is the only one working now. Besides, after seeing the AT & T deal, I was determined that we could use it to convince Comcast to give us a better deal.

This brings me to tonight. I finally found some time to call Comcast to see if they could give us a better deal than what we had had in the first place. Once I got to speak with a representative, I explained to him that our promotional period had just ended and our bill went up. I said that we could not afford to pay $80/month and I wanted to see what they could offer me.


He puts me on hold while he looks up the current promotions and then comes back on:

man - "Well, we're not offering the promotion you had before, but I can offer you one for $44/month plus the $10 modem charge." AKA $54/month - AKA not good enough. lol.

me - "Well, to be honest, we got an offer from AT & T in the mail for $30/month for our internet and I was hoping for something a little closer to that. We would prefer to stay with Comcast but we will switch if you can't offer us something similiar."

man - "Let me see......How about if I wave the $10 charge so you'll only be paying $44/month?"

me - "Is that the best you can do?"

man - "yes, for now it is."

me - "Okay well is there someone else there that I can speak with who might be able to give me a better deal?"

man - "yes, let me check."

long-ish wait....

man - "Okay I can offer you $39.99/month. How does that sound? I can have you talk with _____ (I can't remember who he mentioned) but they will just tell you that they can do $39.95/month but that it will be a slower internet and not unlimited."

pause

me - "Okay, so you can offer me $39.99/month for what I currently have now?"

man - "yes."

me - "Okay I'll take it. Thank you!"


Moral of the story? -- It never hurts to ask.

I mean, really, it doesn't. The "worst" thing that could have happened is that we inconveniently would have had to switch to AT & T in order to save money. Regardless, we were not going to be paying the $80/month to any company. And the way I see it, even though we only saved about $10/month ($10. 73 to be exact ;)), this adds up to over $120/year. It pays for our Netflix which is about $10/month. It's a win-win situation!

I have managed to get lots of things through bargaining.....I got some clothes from Macy's discounted  due to pointing out a stain on an item my friend was planning to buy; I have gotten a $0.75 raise at work by talking with my boss; I paid less money for items I purchased while in Europe; and the list goes on. I first started practicing my bargaining skills after listening to Dave Ramsey. On one of his CD's he talks a lot about bargaining and it has some great tips :) Check out this link here for more info.

Dave Ramsey

My only thoughts now? -- What's the next thing I can negotiate a lower price for! :)

It's the Little Things

It's the little things in life that make you excited once you have a baby. And also the weird things. Like the fact that I now get excited over the fact that Monica pooped. I mean, really, poop? Lol. Or the fact that I tell her she's such a good girl whenever she burps after eating. Obviously these things are important in the life of a new baby, but when you really think about them, it does sound a little funny to get excited about them. :P

Since having a baby, I have realized that I have to take each day and appreciate the little bits of progress that we make. Things like sleep - it's amazing how much of a difference sleeping for 4 hour chunks vs. 3 hour chunks makes. The fact that Monica has finally learned to sleep on her own rather than on top of me (well, not entirely, but more often than not) makes it easier for me to sleep at night.

This morning was the first morning that when she woke up around 9:30am to eat, I actually stayed awake and didn't try to get her to go back to sleep right away, even though I wanted to very much! We're working on trying to help her learn to wake up, eat, stay awake for a little while, and THEN go back to sleep. At least during the daylight hours. At night, yes please go back to sleep right after eating! But during the day, I don't want her to think that in order to fall asleep she needs to eat. If she thinks that, then no one else will be able to help her fall asleep and that would make things a lot harder.

But over the past 2 weeks, her schedule of feedings has varied, although there is normally a feeding that will start around 7, 8 or 9ish in the morning. Usually I feed her and then try to push for one more cycle of "night sleep" AKA fall asleep right after eating so we can still pretend it's night time and I can sleep just one more chunk of time before starting the day. But today was different. Today I stayed up with her when she got up at 9:30. I made myself tea, got a muffin, and we hung out together after she ate. ;) I also was able to read my daily bible verse on my phone. (The Bible App is great for this!).

As much as I wanted to sleep more, it was nice to feel like I was making progress with getting into more normal hours of waking up in the morning. Granted, it took a month to get this far, but that's why I have learned to appreciate the small things more because it's not easy when you're a first time mom to accomplish these things. Honestly, there have been lots of days when I wonder how my mom and other moms I know have done it. Usually I wonder how they do it with other small children running around! But I guess that's all part of the graces God gives us when we become parents. Still....it's definitely not easy!

Also, the fact that I am writing this right now is encouraging to me. Maybe I will actually be able to stay more consistent with my writing! :) (We can hope at least....) I tried to lay Monica down a little while ago but she didn't seem to want to sleep on her own for now so I put her in the baby carrier I have, which makes doing random tasks a little easier.

Not my best picture...but you know ;)

That's all I have for now :)

One Month

One month. My sweet little baby girl, Monica Joan, is one month old - I can't believe how fast time flew! It's currently 11:30pm right now and one month ago at this exact time, I came out of the bedroom and told Joel-Michael that my contractions weren't going away this time and "hey, maybe we should start timing these - they're starting to get more intense!"

She was so so tiny when she was born. Even though I have 5 younger brothers and JM has 11 siblings, we still felt like we weren't entirely sure what we were doing when we brought her home. I was nervous about making sure I held her head correctly; I was worried about not tearing my stitches; and I definitely wasn't sure how breastfeeding would go!

Monica Joan Recznik - 8lb, 3oz; 20inches

First Family Picture!

Week 1 was definitely the hardest. We were exhausted; I had been through a lot physically; and my pregnancy/just-had-a-baby hormones were in full-swing. Our families were gone on our annual joint family vacation so I spent most of that first week calling my mom at least once a day and feeling happy by the end but also emotional. Breastfeeding was hard; I had to supplement off and on that first week and the physical exhaustion made it SO much harder to want to keep doing it, but I am definitely glad we persevered because it's going much better now! Monica slept 1-2 hours at a time, which made me feel like quite a zombie!

Week 1

Week 2 was hard, but definitely better. We finally had family we could rely on to come and help us. I started driving a little. Nursing improved and there was less supplementing going on. The sleeping times increased to 2 hours more consistently; occasionally 3 hours at a time if we were lucky. There were slightly less pregnancy hormones affecting me (or at least, I was emotional/crying a little less often). And I finally started to feel a little more normal physically.

Week 2

Week 3 brought even better sleeping habits for little Monica. She slept 2-3 hours at a time at night. Her daylight sleeping was a little more like the 1-2 hours of sleep, but overall she was pretty happy and definitely nursed much better. We didn't have to supplement at all during this week :)

Week 3

Week 4 was the BEST week so far - and I feel very sure that I will keep saying that about each week as they come along. This week she slept 2 1/2-3 hours at night, sometimes 3 1/2. Nursing was fantastic - we worked a lot on trying to feed her during the day and then have her stay awake for a little while before sleeping again so she doesn't associate sleeping with eating and thus never fall asleep without nursing. It has had mixed results. This was the first week where I realized that I felt tired, but not overwhelmed. It was a nice realization.

Week 4

But today, one month later, was great. Last night she slept for a 4 1/2 hour chunk of time and then 3 hours, then 2 1/2, and she slept multiple times during the day for longer chunks than she has ever done before! It was a nice one-month present ;)

One Month

I know this post is a little scattered and not incredibly interesting content-wise, but I figured you would enjoy the pictures and this is the first time I have actually had time to sit down and actually write a blog post! I am hoping to continue to write more - I still need to actually write about her birth :) But until I find more time to do so, I hope you enjoy this post :)

Family Photo Session!

Sometimes I Forget....

Sometimes I forget.... that God can do crazy things for me. Even more than that, sometimes I forget that he can work fast. AND that having other people praying for a situation makes a big difference. Let me explain....

I have been seeing an excellent OBGYN doctor for the past several months and while I like her, after a lot of research and discussions with people and thinking, I decided I wanted to look more into going to a midwife center. Before anyone freaks out, I am not planning to have this baby at home. Lol. In fact I definitely do not want to do a home birth. It's just not my thing and I know I would be way too nervous to do that.

My thought process about switching will have to be covered in another post since there's a LOT I could say on the subject, but it's not the focus of this post. However, for clarification, the midwife birth center is a center in Pittsburgh, PA, where they have trained Midwife Nurses and RN's whom you see throughout your pregnancy and then you deliver your baby in one of their birth suites on site. 

Back to my main story. I started the process of trying to switch to the midwife center about a month ago, and since that time, I have had to get my records of care from my doctor, call the insurance company to figure out what was covered, and finally visit the midwife center to make sure I still wanted to switch after all the craziness! lol.

I had been praying about switching the whole time because I didn't really start looking into them until I was about 25 weeks pregnant and Theresa, the lady whom I've been talking with, said it's trickier to transfer in after 20 weeks. So I was already worried it might not be possible in the end. I was waiting for her to send us the estimated bill, hoping that God would make it very clear that we should switch or that we should stay where we were.

So after lots of emails and phone calls, last week, we received an email which laid out what our bill would be for going to the center. $5700 - due by week 32 of pregnancy - which is in 2 WEEKS! Yeah.....needless to say, I was not happy - and I was definitely not clear on whether or not we should switch! Honestly, I felt overwhelmed about what to do next and did NOT feel like calling any more people!

However, after calling the insurance company myself this time, I got some more clarification on what they would cover, and they assured me the midwife center was included in our plan (Theresa had told me our insurance said they would not recognize part of the bill, but they told me they would). Then I called Theresa back and explained that I did not have 5K sitting around somewhere for this bill and I told her exactly what the insurance told me - which was that they would cover a LOT more of this expense than her estimated bill showed.

Right after calling Theresa, I posted a prayer request in a group I'm part of. Within 20ish minutes, I had received an updated estimated bill from Theresa, and the amount we owed had dropped from $5700 to $1400 - which is obviously much more do-able!

That made my decision MUCH easier, and it was really awesome to see how quickly God worked. I simply needed to continue to pursue this and not give up, but having lots of extra prayers was also key.

I guess I just needed this reminder in my life that God can do all things - we just need to ask and then trust his plan (haha the hardest part, right? ;) )

I saw this online and was reminded of how important this is!

Fat Tuesday is for Pregnant Women....

I have decided that out of all the Lents and Fat Tuesdays I have experienced, this Fat Tuesday is sure to be the best. Why, you ask? Well because pregnant women crave various foods and Fat Tuesday is the perfect excuse to eat what I wanted anyway!

Take today for example. I was craving brownies. Joel-Michael and I had already decided to get ice cream for this evening to celebrate. So I thought, ice cream AND brownies? Why the heck not! Hence I now have an entire pan of brownies that I have to exercise self-control over so I do not eat the entire pan ALONE. Poor Mickey. He may never even know I made the brownies...other than the lingering smell in the apartment. I suppose that might give it away.....

These are not actually the ones I made, but I'm too lazy to take a picture :P

But continuing onto what comes after Fat Tuesday - LENT. As many of you know from reading my previous blogs or simply from talking to me, I have never liked Lent. I'm not really sure that anyone particularly loves it, but some people seem to hate it less than me. Okay okay, hating Lent is not ideal and it really has gotten better for me over the past several years, but that doesn't mean I'm at the point of totally appreciating it. But I'm working on it.

I still have no idea what I am actually doing for Lent. haha maybe this year I should figure out a plan for next year so I'll actually be ready on time! Needless to say, I am always a little behind on the whole "give something up" or "do something extra" thing. Like Ash Wednesday comes and I say to myself, "hmm, maybe I should pick something to do!" But don't worry; I should have a plan of some sort in place by Sunday....hopefully anyways :P

My sister-in-law, who coincidentally happens to have the same name as me - and I mean the EXACT same name - had a great suggestion for Lent. (side note, we had different last names until I got married but now they're legally the exact same....guess Marie was a popular middle name to go with Bernadette at the time ;) But we have lots of fun with it.)

Because I know you wanted to see a picture of us together :) 

Anyway, back to her suggestion. One year for Lent, she chose a different thing for each day of the week. For example, no coffee on Mondays, scripture reading on tuesdays, daily mass on Wednesdays, no dessert on Thursdays, etc. You get the idea. I thought it was a great idea because sometimes the idea of giving up dessert or coffee or facebook for ALL of Lent can be overwhelming; not to mention the fact that saying you'll read a chapter in the Bible every day along with journaling can be downright unrealistic. I'm not trying to be wimpy, just practical. I would rather strive for something realistic that I can achieve and feel proud of by the end of Lent rather than something that will leave me beating myself up and/or complaining constantly.

That being said, I am going to try to brainstorm some ideas of what I would like to do/how I will implement this for myself. She also shared a really great link with 100 ideas of what to do for Lent that was really helpful for trying to come up with ideas.

If you're like me, don't stress. Lent will start tomorrow whether you're ready or not, but it's really okay if you still need a few days to really figure out what you're supposed to do during it. Until then, Brownies and Ice Cream, here I come! (.....I may try exercising for Lent to redeem myself from this splurge lol)

~Bernadette

Housework

I wish I could say I had a more interesting title than "housework" but I don't. The fact is, housework can be boring, tiring, and seem overwhelming more often than not. Sometimes it's fun - organizing that closet to be more efficient, or making the kitchen dirty-dish-free. But usually I put it off.

Today, however, was (is) my day to catch up on things. I had a four day weekend which has been wonderful. I was able to take the first 2 days of it to relax with my husband and avoid most household chores. Yesterday I dedicated to shopping for food which we were in short supply of. But today I decided to tackle cleaning dishes and scrubbing the bathroom (which desperately needed some help!)

Whenever I have a day off from work I do my best to sleep in a little. It's not that I don't like sleeping in, but my husband insists that I try to sleep more since I'm pregnant and I need my "baby sleep." He's right of course, but I'm pretty stubborn. Still, I do my best to sleep in a little longer than just 8am ;)

Once I get up though, I usually feel pretty lazy. So I'll make some breakfast and watch a TV show on netflix....okay usually at least 2 episodes. By that point it's probably 10:30 or 11am. I still don't feel like doing much but I know that once I shower I'll be ready to take on the world. It's weird how something like taking a shower and actually getting dressed can help!

After showering, I make a list of my projects and time frame for the day. I never ever get as much done as I write down, but I know I'll forget something if I don't write it down. So I resolve to just get as much done as I can and not worry too much about the rest. I have a great husband who tells me to relax on my day off and doesn't expect me to revamp the entire house during this time. haha but I still like to do something productive. And I know he appreciates a clean living space.

By the time the afternoon hits, my resolve is nearly gone. But that's okay. At least I know I've accomplished some tasks. Today I managed to clean the bathroom, wash and put away the dishes and also bake some easy muffins for breakfast tomorrow. Oh, and I also found some new recipes to try so I'm excited for dinner!

Creamy ranch and cheese baked chicken with homemade sweet potato fries....we'll see how they turn out!

But I guess that's all for now. I'm not really sure if today's post had a point other than the fact that I need to write more here! :P But hey, I said I wasn't great at this from the beginning!

Skipping Intros

It seems like every time I try to write on a blog consistently, I fail. Maybe I'm not meant to be a "mommy blogger." Maybe I'm too lazy to write frequently. Or maybe I set my expectations too high and fall short every time. I'm thinking it's that last reason. But making time to write on my blog(s) would also be good.

Yes, blog(s) is plural. I've probably started somewhere between 7 and 10 blogs. How many do I write consistently for? Just 1. Well, hopefully now 2. lol. If you've read any other posts by me, it's likely been on my "venting" / "speaking the truth" blog, which is more commonly known as "I will not be silent."

Of course, when I say consistently, you have to understand that to me this just means that I have written more than 5ish posts before giving up on my other blogs. Maybe it was the title. Maybe I didn't think I had enough to say. I've never had that problem with my "truth" blog. I use it infrequently, but I do use it. Whenever something in the world makes me mad, I use this blog. It's great. I can speak truth while also venting and getting out some frustration. Do other people read it? I have no idea.

Will people even read this? I have no idea. Honestly, I think people are probably sick of my starting blogs, posting the link and then giving up. I can't blame them. But maybe this one will be better. I have a good feeling about this one.......famous last words ;) We'll see.

I decided to skip the intro post though. You know, the one where the blogger introduces themselves and tries to get you to like them. But every time I've tried to do that on my previous blogs, I always feel like I can never get to the point where I can just write. I'm always spending my blog posts writing about my past, rather than what's going on now!

Don't get me wrong; I'll make sure you learn about me, but it'll be in increments. One thing I know about me and writing/blogging thus far, I write better when it's more of a stream of consciousness (is that even how it's spelled?). I prefer to just write and worry about editing later.....or sometimes I leave the editing out entirely. The main point is that I write the best whenever I feel motivated. Sitting around trying to come up with a blog post does NOT equal a good post.

So if you're still up for reading and learning more about me, then buckle up because it's gonna be a crazy adventure. I like roller coasters, so I'm pretty sure this blog will seem like we're on one. Crazy twists and turns and the occasional scream as we try to navigate through this life, er blog. well, both really.

But just so you don't leave feeling like you know nothing about me, my name is Bernadette (Scott) Recznik. I put my maiden name in parenthesis because I have a sister-in-law with the same first, middle, and now last name as me. In person it's easy to tell us apart, but sometimes social media things can confuse people who know us.

Speaking of maiden names, I just got married on July 4th of this year and it was the most AMAZING and PERFCT wedding I could have ever imagined. And I married the most incredible man in the world. We invited over 600 people and still managed to have a decent budget with no loans and no kidnapping for ransoms. ;) that was a joke....about the kidnapping and loans, I mean. We really did have a big wedding for a relatively small price.

Because there are girls reading this post and I know we all love pictures, here's one for now until I can get my life together in order to actually sort through them all!

Okay okay I'm done for now. But just so you know, sometimes I get really motivated and feel like writing multiple posts in a day. So that could totally happen in the future....fyi.

Talk to you soon!

~Bernadette