Feature Friday

I always seem to have wishlists and shopping carts of items that I like but didn't have the money to pull the trigger on. Often times it can be really fun to go back and scroll through my amazon wishlist (I have stuff on there from 2006!) and rediscover a good find I had back in the day. Couple this with the fact that Hubs has told me he wants an ongoing list to pull from and I've decided to start posting my favorites on my blog.

My first feature is actually of set of items and I originally saw them sold at my favorite store, Anthropologie! I love books and last year, Penguin has started releasing Penguin Classics in gorgeous cloth-bound collector's editions.

Cranford (Penguin Classics)

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Penguin Classics)

Emma (Penguin Classics)

Great Expectations (Penguin Classics)

Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics)


Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Classics)

The Odyssey (Penguin Classics)


Sense and Sensibility (Penguin Classics)

Treasure Island (Penguin Classics)

Wuthering Heights (Penguin Classics)

Anthropologie sells these books for $20 but I've discovered that amazon sells them for $13.60 with no tax and free shipping! Some of my favorite classics are going to be released later this year in the fall, Oliver Twist & Little Women among others! From what I can tell, it looks like 10 of these penguin classics will be released each year. I would really like to collect all of them. These would make such great small gifts (hint hint hubby!) and they have been keeping permanent residence in my shopping cart for awhile now.

I've been trying to track down Madame Bovary, Crime and Punishment and the three volume series of Arabian Nights. It seems they aren't available in the US but are available in Canada & the UK. Any chance I have readers from there that would be willing to ship them over to me? I would happily pay the cost!




Reading has always been a passion of mine and one day Hubs and I both hope to build a house that we can have a library dedicated to comfy leather couches and chairs and wall-to-wall bookcases filled with our favorites. Hopefully I won't have to wait until then to add these to my collection! I have the perfect spot all picked out for them...maybe I can get on a book plan and get one a week! :) What's your favorite that they've released so far? I'm torn between the Jane Austen classics, Pride & Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility & Emma.

Have a wonderful and relaxing holiday weekend everyone! I'm hoping for a productive Saturday so that Hubs and I can enjoy a relaxing barbeque picnic and fireworks Sunday and Monday!

A little help?

Today is the first day since last weekend I haven't felt like death. Thank goodness because I feel like I've gotten nothing done all week and with the holiday next week, deadlines at work have been looming over my head. I've been so tired these last four days though that it was all I could do to keep my eyes open!

A few of you have asked for house pictures and I promise I'm working on them, the camera is still missing in action though and I haven't had the energy to dig around and try to find it. Plus, it doesn't help that the house isn't done so part of me doesn't want to photograph the mess. Of course, I realize that the house will most likely not ever be 100% done so I think I just need to get over this issue. I will try to take some shots for you guys over the long weekend!

In the meantime, I'm hoping you guys can help me out. I've been thinking about throwing some kind of combined birthday party for hubs + house-warming party and I want to do something outdoors. Luckily, hubs is getting a grill for part of his birthday presents so we'll have something to cook on. I want to spruce up the outdoors a bit, particularly the porch/deck/entrance way area before we have people over. I hope to clean up and stain the wood but I was thinking it would be nice to add some hanging flower baskets and lanterns. That's the part where you guys come in. 3-4 years ago I saw these lanterns at Anthropologie and fell in love:




My favorite are the ones on the bottom right. Of course I didn't buy them at the time as I was broke and had absolutely no use for them. I would love to find some sort of similar style to hang on the porch but so far I've had no luck tracking anything down. Anyone have any ideas or seen anything similar in their browsing and shopping?

Contentment

Wedded Wednesday is a collaboration
of married bloggers sharing their inspirations,
anecdotes, struggles and thoughts regarding
the amazing union of two separate people, as one.
Check out the other Wedded Wednesday bloggers at Marital-Bless

This week I encourage you all to find a place of contentment in your relationship/marriage. It's so easy to always be looking towards the next big step/milestone. When we get a house, when we have kids, when we have money, when our debt is paid off, when school is done, when we have the right jobs, etc... It's easy to get stuck in this mental trap and often results on missing out on the day-to-day joys in life and in our relationships.

With all of the constant craziness that seems to take over our lives, it can be so easy to get caught up in it all and just hang on, wishing for it all to be over. This is definitely something that Hubs and I often feel convicted of. We try to make a concerted effort to take the time and enjoy the moment. Put a plan in place for what we want to achieve in the future and then only focus on the here and now. What steps need to be completed for today-tomorrow is another day. We are planners and tend to get stuck in the constant tweaking and adjusting and watching....sometimes you just have to put it all aside and live!

What do you find contentment in?

Fitness Recs?

Prior to feeling all sickly and gross, I had been working on tackling fitness once again. A few serious injuries in high school and college have sidelined me for long enough that it's always quite the process to try and get back in shape. A completely blown out knee and a year+ of physical therapy had me hobbling much through high school and a broken back (due to non-tended-to icy stairs on campus) in college which made it painful to even wear a coat meant that running and physical activity were way out of the question. Upon graduating undergrad and slowly working my way back into fitness, I started working full time while finishing my graduate work, studying for the CPA exam and planning a move and wedding. Somewhere in there my body decided to absolute crash and start an all out internal war. To this day, doctors don't know what was wrong with me but it basically hurt to live. Running was out of the question.

Over the last year and a half my body has done an absolute amazing 180 and I've been blessed to regain my health. It's definitely something I will never take for granted! I was preparing to run the first of several 5ks last fall when I came down with Swine Flu, it was frustrating to deal with yet another set-back but I wasn't even in walking condition let alone running. Full recovery took about a month and at that point there weren't too many races left to run. 3-4+ feet of snow kept me busy during the winter and the majority of my exercise came from shoveling snow DAILY, playing DDR (fun cardio workout) and a bit of yoga.

Just as spring came, we moved and have been working on settling in for the last month and half-as you can see, it's always been something and it's felt like one step forward, two steps back a lot of the time. I started running again over the weekend and it was every bit as wonderful and horrible as I remembered. We have a "course" of hills and woods on our property that I'm guessing is about 1/2-2/3 miles long, I've always figured-if I can run several miles on this than 5 & 10ks should not be a problem. We live about 5 miles from one of the most challenging cross country courses in the country to give you an idea of the kind of terrain I'm working with here.

I've found that my body isn't as out of shape as I thought. I think my heart has taken the most brutal beating out of any of my muscles over the years and it currently is about the size of a pea (I kid...sort of). In fact after gasping running/jogging/walking several miles, I wasn't even sore the next day, this was particularly devastating as that's my favorite part of the workout!

Prior to moving out into the middle of no-where we used to go ice-skate a couple of times a week and rock climb. Unfortunately we were able to do it for free where we used to live and it costs $$$ and is quite the commute from where we live now. I would love to hear about all of your fitness routines. We don't live anywhere close to a gym so fitness classes aren't an option right now. My workout's consist of outdoor runs, weights & yoga. I have the shred dvd as well but have yet to try it out. Any exercise tips or fitness plans you recommend? I know a decent amount of you are hard-core about working out and I'm counting on you all for advice!

Minor Detour...

I intended to write a follow-up budget post related to some of my past money posts today but nausea, lightheaded/dizziness, and a few other symptoms coupled with co-workers remarks as to the cause of my green face has left me googling pregnancy symptoms every hour...not to say that I don't know many of the typical pregnancy symptoms already but still, the question seems to hang out there! It's a question that only time will tell I guess.

Anyway, my thoughts will be plaguing me for awhile until I know for sure but in the meantime, it's hard to focus on say...anything else in life...until I know! But I'm going to try.

I saw this picture on a blog this morning (sorry, I've already forgotten who's) and promptly swooned! Rumor has it it's coming soon to an anthropologie near you!



It's so pretty, I'm sure it cost a pretty pretty penny though!

Annnnnnnd, we're back to the thought of pregnancy again. I'm sorry, like I said, it's hard to think of any thing else right now. Hypothetically speaking, if I were to be pregnant, I would need some fun way to tell Hubs and the family... I would LOVE to hear your thoughts or ideas on how to share the news to one's spouse, parents and family. Anything creative you have ever done or heard of being done? Even if this were to be a false alarm, I know some require advance planning unless you can keep the secret for a bit once you find out (which I could never do as I'm HORRIBLE about keeping fun surprises a secret when they have anything to do with myself)! Annnnd go!

Free Chick-fil-a!

Sorry for all the posts today guys but Chick-Fil-A is running a limited time promotion and I wanted to share it with all my Chick-fil-a lovers out there!

Go to this site and select your location, date and time you want your sandwhich and you'll get a free coupon emailed to you for their brand new spicy chicken sandwhich yet to be released! The "reservations" (aka coupon) are limited for each location though and once they're gone, they're gone so definitely check it out right away if you're interested! I already got mine!

Joyfolie giveaway!

Jess of Joyfolie (formerly miajoie) is having a wonderful giveaway on her new blog to celebrate and get the word out of her new brand name. Her products are absolute works of art (and very tough to get) so I encourage you all to enter!

Money Freeze Update

Seeing as we are a bit more than half way though our month-long spend freeze, I thought I'd give an update! So far it's been going pretty well, we initially gave ourselves a $100 spending limit on groceries for the month. Out of that $100, we've spent $63.66, so far looking pretty good!

One eye-opening experience was the amount we spend on transportation. When we cleared out all the other clutter hitting our credit cards and gas was the only thing hitting each week, it becomes painfully obvious how much you're spending on your commute. On the bright side though, it gives a very clear picture how much to budget for. I had yet to update our transportation budget since Hub's car died and we started carpooling together, this has been just the kick in the pants that I needed!

Other than that, overall I'm pretty pleased so far. I forgot to make an exception for hockey registration fees & skate sharpening but that was an expected expense that we knew that we would have. We also spent 5.49 for a gift but that's it!

I'm still working at weeding out all our returns. Slowly but surely they are getting done. I still have a pile of returns for anthropologie, zappos, dsw, bed bath and beyond and home depot. One downside I guess you could say to credit cards is that you're a lot more willing to try things out since you don't technically have to pay the balance for a month. For example, when trying to find blinds for our bathroom, I ordered three from home depot even though we only needed one. It was tough to get an idea of which one would work from the pictures online, they weren't available in stores and I only wanted to pay shipping once.

This all works all fine and dandy but then that means once you do pick out what you want, the others have to get back to the store in a timely manner. Same for all my other returns. When you're not paying out the cash just yet I find I'm a lot more willing to give things a test run. Now, don't get me wrong, Hubs and my agreement has always been we will only carry credit cards if the balance is paid in full each month but, you still have plenty of wiggle room in that month or so time period before you have to pay down the balance....plenty of time to make returns! I find this to ring especially true with clothing. I can have a difficult time deciding whether or not something will work with my wardrobe until I get it home and play with it and my closet a bit. Plus it can be so difficult to tell in the lousy lighting in some of the dressing rooms!

Anyone else out there know what I mean or am I the oddball out in this case?

Vulnerability & Respect

Wedded Wednesday is a collaboration
of married bloggers sharing their inspirations,
anecdotes, struggles and thoughts regarding
the amazing union of two separate people, as one.
Check out the other Wedded Wednesday bloggers at Marital-Bless

Vulnerability is a necessity in a growing relationship. Without opening yourself up to someone else, you don't allow their love inside. If you don't allow their love-then the relationship can only go so far before it will stalemate.

Vulnerability carries with it the power to hurt and be hurt. Making yourself vulnerable reveals your biggest insecurities, dark secrets, bad habits and faults. It can be easy to slip into a pattern of lashing out in frustration and anger, particularly when you've made a commitment till death do you part. You know the other person is not going anywhere so it can be too easy to indulge one's pride and lash out at others to make them feel the same hurt you are feeling.

As a woman, my deepest desire is to feel loved by husband. But my husband's deepest desire is to feel respected. There is nothing worse I can do to him then disrespecting him and cutting him down with my words when we fight and yet, it's all too easy to fall into that trap. I kick myself every time after the fact and sadly the repair work takes far far longer than it did for the words to slip out of my mouth. When I choose to disrespect my husband, I essentially am cutting him off at the knees and making myself quite an unlovable person in the process...but I guarantee the whole argument started over some sort of miscommunication & not feeling loved. Isn't it interesting how it's so cyclical in a relationship? He desires one thing and I desire another-if he isn't feeling what he desires, it makes it much more difficult for him to provide what I desire and vice versa. And yet, if no one steps up, you can whirl around in that vicious cycle forever!

I'm currently reading Power of a Woman's Words in an effort to squelch my quick comebacks and snappy replies and learn to be a little more respectful and loving in my replies in the "heat of the moment". Anyone else read this book?

Grocery Spend

I've received a lot of comments and emails since posting my last spending freeze post, I'd say half of them at least must have been related to the cost of groceries and could I explain how we only spend $100 a month on groceries. I think my post might have been a bit misleading (unintentionally!), but I think that will make more sense after you see how we spend.

Every 3-4 months, Hubs and I head over to the Commissary with a military friend and stock up on pantry staples and basics. Most baking items, canned goods, salad dressings, pasta, freezer items, cereals & paper goods come from there. Generally we spend around $200 for this and I try to buy enough of all of these items to last us 3-4 months so that there is very minimal replenishing in between.

The majority of our produce that we eat in larger quantities (lettuce, carrots, apples, oranges, potatoes, onions, tomatoes) comes from the wholesale produce docks. The produce that we don't eat/need as much of (aka, that we couldn't go through a case fast enough to have the cost outweigh the waste) is purchased from a variety of places. I think that produce and meat are often the places that people have a tough time affording while on a budget. When I was growing up, my parent's ran a produce market for a number of years which helped me to learn how to recognize quality and the true cost for an the item vs. the outrageous mark-up at the grocery store. To that end, I think once you gain a general sense of what a good price is for an item, you start to gather your arsenal of go-tos. For example, I always go to Trade Joes for bananas, at .19 a banana, that's the cheapest I can get them anywhere. I watch for certain sale prices on items like peppers, broccoli and asparagus and don't buy them unless they go below that price. Otherwise, I have a local produce market open year round that has much better prices than the grocery stores unless the grocery store is having a super sale. In the summer, cheap produce is always easier to find with the endless farmer's markets and produce stands on the side of the road or there's always your own garden if you have the space.

For other items, like yogurt, eggs, meat...I don't buy them unless they are on super sale and then I stock up. For example, this week one of our local grocery stores had eggs for .79 a dozen so I picked up a couple months worth. We try to only buy yogurt on sale (which it usually goes on sale once every 4-5 weeks) and then when it does go on sale, we'll buy at least a month's worth. Meat is the same way (though I should point out we only eat chicken/turkey and seafood), last night ground turkey was on sale for buy one get one free so I bought about 10 packs and threw them in the freezer.

For bread and all things carb related, we hit up a local bread outlet and generally pay about .50 a loaf/pack of english muffins/sub rolls. We'll stock up for this every couple of months and freeze the excess. Health food related stuff (rice milk, tofu, tvp, nuts) we either buy from Trader Joes or through a local food co-op that delivers in our area. We try to stay away from processed snack food for the most part but we both have our weaknesses, ranch wheat thins for me (but only purchased when they are buy one get one free and then I stock up for months), pretzels for Hub (purchased by the case from Snyders over in PA) and blue corn tortilla chips for both of us(cheapest place I've found is Trader Joes).

So that's sort of the breakdown of where stuff comes from, I know it's kind of hodge-podge and all over the place but for the most part we grocery shop at one location every 1-2 weeks with the rest of the trips kind of thrown in at random when we are close by (I work right near the bread outlet, a trader joes and the produce docks so it's easy for me to stop in on my lunch break). Also, while I know it seems like we buy a lot of items in bulk or by the case I don't want you to think we have excessive storage space and that's what makes it feasible for us. We don't have a large pantry in our house (actually we have no pantry in the kitchen-instead we have a storage cabinet in the office) but I installed a few storage cabinets and a freezer chest in an all-purpose room we built off the laundry room to store the excess. When we're done moving, I'll try to take pictures for you all so you can see the space we have to work with. The $100ish amount that we spend each month covers our grocery store trips, trader joes & the produce markets. It doesn't include the cost of the 3-4 month stock up (about $50ish a month). So it looks like we spend about $150 a month on groceries.

It took me a little while to figure out where all the stuff was coming from and breaking down the cost so I've decided that I am going to track all of our grocery spending for a month or two and see how close we are to what I think we spend (aka, what I could track via our credit cards). I know we spend waaaay less than the amount we had originally budgeted ($400 a month) so I admit I never really worried about what we were spending it actuality as long as it was under. We eat breakfast at home, pack lunches 5 days a week for work, don't drink coffee and most dinner's are home-cooked meals (we eat out maybe 1-2 times a month and the cost isn't usually over $30 bucks for our meal-what can I say we like cheap places) I was thinking that maybe I would post our weekly menus for breakfast, lunch and dinner along with the total grocery spend for a month or so on the blog if you all are interested. I think it would be interesting to see how close we are and where it all goes... What do you all think? Any suggestions?

Moving Day

It was a very busy weekend for us this weekend! We started off Friday night hanging with a couple's group that had us out past midnight (sooo late for us old fogies!), thankfully it was like five minutes from our house though so at least it wasn't our normal crazy long commute home!

Saturday marked kitchen move-in day! We had an extremely busy week last week working on the house and with a lot of hard work the kitchen and laundry room were completed (minus kitchen upper cabinets that won't be going in for several months)!! It was incredibly fun to get out all the boxes of wedding gifts and unpack it all and find new homes for everything...for the first six or seven hours and then...it quickly became apparent that we have way too much crap wonderful things for the kitchen to fit it all in the house! I have nooooo idea how we have accumulated so much stuff but I'm pretty convinced we own the entire pampered chef catalog...more accurate I believe is that we own two of the entire pampered chef catalog...apparently that was a very popular wedding registry (and then some-I am positive that I didn't register for more than half of this stuff)! Also, we have tupperware coming out of our ears, enough china to eat off a different plate/pattern every day for weeks (maybe even months), etc.

At first (read first several hours) I was pleased and pretty darn proud of how finished our kitchen was going to be, thinking "oh wow, cool look at this allcladlecreusetwilliamsonomagadgetinsertexpensiveitemhere we have" ahahaha, but boy was that bubble deflated after a couple of hours. I was all happy that we could replace a lot of the junk we had from college and broke-graduate status. But then, it sort of became overwhelming! I don't like clutter and excessive amounts of "stuff". Regardless of how quality or helpful or expensive an item is/was, I find myself struggling to appreciate it while feeling suffocated by all the other stuff. Picture me, surrounded by boxes and piles and packing supplies and peanuts flying through the air, in tears because I have no idea what to do with all this stuff and how did this happen and why God, why me, how you could you do this to me!?! (you could probably say I was just a bit overtired from all the moving and unpacking and perhaps just a slight bit over dramatic at the time)



In reality, I know how it happens...it's called "out-of-sight-out-of-mind". We had all these gifts coming in and they were opened, thank you's were written and then the gift was shuttled off to storage. Before last weekend, I had never had the chance to get everything all out at once and see what we had. Neither hubs nor I had much of an idea of the sheer volume of what all we owned. When I look at all the money we've had to spend on other things we needed for the house when we moved in like blinds, bathroom hardware, curtains, sheets, rugs, etc...I'm kind of bummed we didn't exchange more of the kitchen gifts for giftcards so that we wouldn't have had to spend so much money on the things we needed and have massive moving boxes of kitchen stuff that will have to go back to storage (!!!) because we have no room for it.

Just to give you an idea guys, we have 5 le creuset salt and pepper shaker sets! Three red, one white and one kiwi. But those aren't the only salt and pepper shakers we have, oh no, it actually gets worse. We have a set from anthro, grinders from william sonoma, grinders from crate and barrel, set that matches our china...I know there's at least one or two more in there too...who needs 10+ salt and pepper shakers? Also, how did I not notice when I was opening gifts that maybe I'd already opened that gift already? You would have thought when I was opening the presents maybe I would have gotten de-ja-vu? If not after the second set then maybe, just maybe I would after I'd opened the fourth set? I'm going to label it wedding dementia and just move on.

Or how about the ramekins...we have no less than 40 ramekins, apparently I will be throwing a lot of parties that I need 40+ ramekins for, also-they are all random. Some colored, some clear, some ruffly, some tall and narrow, some short and wide...I have no idea what I'm going to do with them all yet.

Somehow or another we also ended up with two le creuset oversized utensil holders, which I should point out that I was in heaven when we first got them, they were/are so beauuuutiful! Somehow in only a year and a halfs time I ended up on the opposite end of the spectrum ranting over the situation to Hubs about how were we going to decide which one to keep and it would be like us choosing one aunt over another until he pointed out that we have triple or quadruple of every cooking utensil that exists out there and will actually need both oversized crocks to contain the utensils. yeahhh..... good point. *sigh*

So yes, that was the majority of our day Saturday. I'm over the top excited to be getting a kitchen and being able to have my/our own space to cook in, just a wee bit overwhelmed by the quantity.

Financial Communication

Wedded Wednesday is a collaboration
of married bloggers sharing their inspirations,
anecdotes, struggles and thoughts regarding
the amazing union of two separate people, as one.
Check out the other Wedded Wednesday bloggers at Marital-Bless

As I wrote about previously, Hubs and I are doing a money-freeze this month. It so happens to coincide with a financial study we are doing with several other young couples, so how opportune when the article below showed up in my inbox from Crown Financial ministries!?! Hubs and I had plenty of education about financial matters related to businesses and being single, but not so much on the intricacies of financial matters specifically in marriage. I had a good giggle over the first couple of paragraphs...some of it sounded rather similar to Hubs and I!


"My wife Linda and I have been married for almost 30 years. What I have discovered is some of the toughest discussions with my wife have been regarding money. When we were first married, I was a little tight; cheap is the word she uses. In fact, she would say that I was so tight, I could squeeze a buffalo nickel until the buffalo would sit down.

On the other hand, she was much more of a spender. I learned very early that the hardest thing for us to do was communicate about money. We were perfectly matched because we were totally opposite...I learned early in our marriage that Linda and I are different. I go to bed early and wake up early. She goes to bed late and wakes up late. I get lost easily; she has a great sense of direction. Of course, I never ask for directions. She likes to go to a party; I would rather stay home. Larry Burkett has always said, “If both husband and wife are identical, one of them is not necessary.”

Unfortunately, learning how to balance this relationship is very difficult. What I see is usually one personality will try to dominate the other. Often it is the husband who dominates and makes all the decisions, leaving the wife to clear up the mess because he is not organized or astute with numbers. This can be reversed, of course, but it produces the same problem each time-one spouse trying to keep the finances organized and the other creating problems.

The lack of training in such a fundamental area of finance is bad enough, but combined with little or no communication, it can be disastrous. Learning how to communicate the natural balance of two personalities will often keep them out of financial trouble. Most women have a decided fear of being in debt and will normally exercise restraint. If they find themselves in financial trouble, they will quickly seek help and do what is necessary to correct the situation.

Almost always it is the wife who is seeking the instruction of a counselor to avoid financial problems. The men on the other hand are different. The majority of serious debts are the results of either the husband’s spending (large purchase), his indifference, or both. He almost never is looking to seek help concerning finances. How do we turn this around?..."

See here for the rest of the article. I thought the last couple paragraphs above were interesting and I'm not sure if I totally agree! I know a lot of women who are much more free with their use of credit cards and spending then many men I know and they certainly don't worry about whether or not they have the money in the bank to cover their credit card habits. I also know a lot of women who are pretty much clueless when it comes to their finances...they are perfectly content to let their husbands or significant others mess with all the numbers and pay the bills etc. Which is fine, except for the fact that if you don't know what the budget is, how can you make sure you're sticking to it?

How much knowledge would you all say you have over the joint finances? Or did you choose to keep the finances separate and maintain his and her accounts?

Spend Fast #2

Hubs and I made a commitment at the beginning of the year to try and commit to four monthly spending fasts over the course of the year. May marks the second attempt at a spending fast, February being our first. I'll admit that this one has been harder right off the bat, there were so many items that were necessity for the house that we have even pushed the spending fast back so that it started today instead of on Saturday.



May is also a big month for birthdays in my family so I had to get all that shopping out of the way early (and let's not forget Mother's Day!). It seems kind of silly to cram all the spending into a couple of days so that you can not spend for a month but I found we ended up spending far less money in total doing it this way in February.

This time around we've had to make a few exceptions of items to be excluded from the money freeze and they include:

Groceries (but no more than $100 for the whole month, I haven't had a chance to fully stock the kitchen/pantries with the move and we would literally starve if I included this in the freeze)
Shelf for the bathroom (I was supposed to order this weeks ago but haven't had the chance to measure for it yet)
Plane tickets for vacation in June/July that we have been unable to buy due to husband's work being stupid
Birthday presents for Hubs
-Transportation costs

Other than that our goal is to spend $0 on everything else. My hope this month is actually to make money. I have a whole pile of returns that needs to be done and so I'm making it my goal to get every single return done this month.

We are currently doing a money study with one of our small groups right now and I always find it interesting to hear about the different approaches that people have to money and budgeting. I've done a lot of counseling over the years on money, budgeting/spending/saving and so I've really enjoyed the discussions we've had in the group. My hope one day is to become a full-time volunteer with financial counseling because I see so many people that don't have a good understanding of their finances. I think it can be very hard to gain a good understanding if you were raised in a family where money wasn't discussed or if you didn't have role models in your life setting a good example and teaching fiscal responsibility!

Do you all enjoy running figures in your head and keeping track of it all or do you wish that someone would just step in and do it all for you? I know there are a lot Dave Ramsey fans out there (which is definitely an excellent read), I also highly highly recommend the book "the money map" for those who are interested.

On Our Own

Wedded Wednesday is a collaboration
of married bloggers sharing their inspirations,
anecdotes, struggles and thoughts regarding
the amazing union of two separate people, as one.
Check out the other Wedded Wednesday bloggers at Marital-Bless

Since moving into our own house these past few weeks and working to get settled, married life has taken a pleasant turn. Now, don't get me wrong, marriage was lovely before we moved but this, this is freedom! There aren't many words to describe how it feels. It's basically bringing the magicalness of going on a vacation together, just the two of us, and somehow bringing it home!

We've had so much more time together on our own, it's been nice to work together prettifying and organizing. There is certainly something to be said for teamwork. Having more space and not living practically on top of each other has been a relaxing change of pace. Being able to find things when they're needed instead of two months after the fact has also eliminated a lot of stress. I feel like I've stepped into a new role as a wife and it feels so much more real than when we were first married. It took more than a year for it to sink in that I was actually married and that life might actually change a little bit and be different. Now, however, instead of feeling stressed out by the change, we are definitely embracing it. This new "honeymoon" phase that we are enjoying (finally-only two years into the marriage!) has somehow made all the other craziness that is going on in life so much more bearable (cars needing replacing, jobs needing replacing etc.)!

For all of you who got to experience the honeymoon phase right off the bat, how long did it last for you? I'm curious how long or short-lived it will be?

Tuesday Tidbits

So much has been going on lately that I feel like any post I write is going to be all over the board and as scattered as my brain.

I am officially allergic to work, my upper lip decided to start swelling out of control randomly this morning and I have a Angelie Jolie look going on...soooo not as attractive as it sounds (I will save you the trauma of photographic evidence). Anti-histamines are not working fast enough!

This weekend was incredibly productive, three pieces of furniture built, lots of clutter thrown out and recycled (we had a mount everest pile of recycling Sunday night-I should have taken a picture as it more than filled a 15 passenger van), food safely stored into tupperware, the office has started to become organized, the dvds were organized and stored, kitchen cabinets were scrubbed out so they can be installed, the house experienced it's first deep cleaning since we moved in and tons of errands were run. The weekend flew by but I felt very accomplished at the end of it all.

We are experiencing a heat wave with temps in the 90s and awful humidity...where did my gorgeous spring go?

Anthropologie is having a MASSIVE sale today and nearly everything that I bought over the last couple of months is going on sale. With my price adjustments I will be gaining several hundred dollars-needless to say I had to pick up a few more *extra* items and the rest of the money will be going towards the house. I encourage you all to check it out! Those two dresses I wore for the modeling shoot are both on sale! Here are some of the little extras I picked up:





P.S. speaking of anthropologie, check out this great giveaway over at Infinite Whimsy, she features wonderful OOTD posts that are filled with beautiful Anthropologie clothes!

Speaking of the modeling shoot, we just got another batch of photos in and they are breath taking...I would post more here but maybe you'll have seen enough photos of me and hubs already??? :)

Lastly, we have been stocking up lately on Disney Treasure DVDs. After going to Disney World (one day those recaps will get posted), Hubs and I feel in love with all the old cartoons. We were looking around and discovered that Disney released limited edition sets of the old cartoons so whenever I find one for a good price used, I've been buying them. Some of them go for $100-$150 a piece but if you keep an eye you can find them for $10-$20! These will have to tide us over until Disney World next year (oh did I tell you that we loved it so much we're making it an annual tradition?)