Lets talk.

Hey. How are you? I haven't talked to you in a while. Sorry about it. Sometimes I just hit a dry spell and I really don't have much to say. Also, sometimes I feel like life gets a bit monotonous, boring and very repetitive.

But things are good. You know, can't complain. Everyone is healthy, and happy and we are gainfully employed and have had no critical emergencies. So yes.  I guess sometimes its just hard to feel fulfilled you know? Motherhood, its rough. I've read a couple of articles and blog posts that articulate my feelings much more accurately than I ever can, but its rough. Somedays how I WISH I could just go to work, do my time, clock out and go home and be done with my job. Get a paycheck, leave work at work...

I mean. Really. *sigh*

I'm starting to sound depressed and pathetic aren't I? I'm neither depressed nor am I pathetic (at least I say I'm not) so don't worry.

So what have I been doing you ask? Well. I've been playing with my cute boy and slowly working up the energy to clean out what used to be my sewing room and convert it into a bedroom. I've sold or got rid of piles and piles of clothes, furniture, random home decor and fabric. Oh the fabric. Its disgusting. I have so much *hoarder* and its like no matter how much I use or sell or throw away, I have more than I know what to do with. In fact, I found a pile of minky fabric laying around and I had enough to make not one, not two but THREE receiving blankets using said minky and other fabric from my stash (some of which I didn't even know I had) for baby purple. Ridiculous.

I've also been working on finishing projects. You know, cause I have a serious problem with that. So, I FINALLY painted the baseboards in my hallway (10 months later) and I got down to some nitty gritty finishing in my kitchen. It is seriously SO close to being done. I think we only need about two more pieces of trim and a couple coats of paint and we can check that sucker off the list.

I have projects I want to complete piling up in my mind so here's a little brain dump of what I want to get done:

• install outlets in the laundry closet turned sewing nook so I can, you know, sew in there.
• get carpet secured in the hallway and install transitions
• paint (?) or whitewash (?) the fireplace and trim it out so its lovely (anyone have experience with this?)
• remove the built in cabinet in the former sewing room and patch the wall if necessary for baby
• buy Liam a mattress for his big boy bed and transfer crib to baby purple's room
• paint the ceiling in the first bathroom
• paint the outside trim so our house doesn't look so shabby
• paint the garage door
• contain rock pile in the back yard and make a raised flower bed.
• install closet organizer in our closet so its a more functional space.
• new windows erywhere
• new gutters
• paint the master bedroom

I'm sure there are LOTS more things I want to do, and this list doesn't even start to cover the basement projects downstairs (lets just say there are drop down ceilings that have got to go and a fully wood paneled bathroom the looks like it belongs in a cabin somewhere). Obviously, some of those projects will have to wait a while so we can have money, and others need to wait until next spring. Some will clearly be getting done faster (hello, baby is coming in february) than others. So I guess we'll just see where we get. I know windows are quite a ways off considering we had to buy a new furnace before winter so that took up our big money spend for the year. But I'm totally not complaining about that, I mean as much fun as it was to wake up to a house that was 55 degrees because the furnace wasn't working, I much prefer my house to be in the 70's when we wake up. So much nicer. So, so nice. 

Also, we are still working on paying off our debt and even though it will take us longer than we were hoping to pay off our car, it will be paid off at least a year ahead of schedule so virtual bum pat for us there. We have shifter our focus from paying off the debts we have (while maintaing our zero balance on credit cards) to saving as much as we can so we don't have emergencies pop up that we have no savings to cover. It really makes things much less stressful knowing we have that cushion.

And we've jumped back on the dieting state of being. I know, I know I'm pregnant. But look. I gained 40 pounds with Liam. 40. Want to know how much of that I lost? 20. rocking. And then I gained a little on top of that. Which was depressing. So, I've pretty much been trying SO hard to gain as little weight as possible this pregnancy. It hard, and it would be so much easier to just give in to my wants and make a whole pan of brownies and just eat it. But I would be stuck trying to lose that weight until the next time I get pregnant so no thank you. I'm almost 24 weeks and have gained under 10 pounds still. I really really don't want to gain more than 10. I won't cry over it if I do, but 10 sounds pretty ideal. Also, husband would like to lose weight so we're in this together. Being healthy and stuff. 

Anyway, there you have a look into my scrambled thoughts. 

Until next time

This one's for Laura

I heard ya girl.

I'm only too happy to help you kill time while you're working ;)


For the rest of ya'll who are a little lost on that one, I'm terribly sorry I've been a little absent on thee 'ol blog lately.

I don't really have any good excuses except that I didn't really have much to report.

I mean I guess that isn't true, but sometimes daily life seems a little mundane and I don't really want to rehash it out in writing. Know what I mean?

I suppose I'll start by telling you that we are still chugging away on our debt payoff. In fact today I added up the numbers, just for fun, and I was shocked. Shocked I tell you. Want to know the current payoff number? okay. I'll tell you.

$10,316.07

TEN THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED SIXTEEN DOLLARS AND SEVEN CENTS.

WHAT THE FREAK!!!!!?????


I can't even believe it.

Seriously. I'll break it down for you. Keep in mind, these totals are from our initial amounts in February.

We owe Darrell's dad money for fronting us the money for our down payment so we've payed him back $2,672.21
We payed off two different credit cards totaling $3,607.33 and $1,011.84
We've payed down my student loan $195.90
We've payed $2,003.79 on our car loan (which we're planning on having payed off hopefully by December at the latest, 1.5 years early!!!)
and finally we've paid $825.00 in principle off our home loan since we refinanced and started repaying that in May

$10,316.07

Does that seem crazy to anyone else? seriously. I can't believe it.

And the craziest thing of all is that I've been stuck in this "pay the small debts off first" mode of thinking that suddenly we're almost out of small debts to pay. I didn't think we would ever even get to that point. Blows my mind I tell you.

So that was definitely motivation for us to keep on going. I mean, at this rate (assuming we don't accrue any other debt for anything ever, which in all honesty is not really possible considering we desperately need a new furnace, ours kept our house at a consistent 65 degrees last winter, and we're going to need a new car sooner than later and there will probably be unexpected things that come up) we would be completely debt free aside from our house in 3 years.

Have I talked this to death yet? Sorry, I'm just proud of us because we only earnestly started trying to get rid of the debt in February and I really didn't think we would have made that much progress so quickly.

In other news, I keep finding odd projects around the house to start (still suuuper bad at finishing them) and Liam keeps me on my toes, and I love him for it. He's just such a little bug that you can't help but love him!

Anyway, that's all for now! I'll try to update a little more on the regular ;)

Its hip to be debt free!

Are you sick of hearing about my debt payoff yet? Well, I hope not cause I'm not done. Turns out other people aren't done either.
There is a serious problem in our society, people spend money they don't have (I'm no exception, improving daily but sill struggle) and its bad. I mean, what happens when the lenders want it back?
More debt?

Done with that. Vicious cycle and it really has got to stop!

Anyway, I was interviewed twice by someone writing a story about this very thing! She heard about me from someone who reads this ol' blog (thanks Nicole!) and I just got to read the article today! Here is the link!

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one paying debt off and that other people find it a serious struggle to accomplish!

Now get out there and do some good!

Update: 4 months later

Oh hey.

I thought I'd just give a little update to y'all about our "battle of the bulge 2013", you know, since I proclaimed this year as such and all...

Well, the diet stopped. Shocker right? I mean we were pretty faithful for about two months but its hard living real life on such a restrictive diet. So just know, our eating habits have drastically changed, but the weight loss has stalled out temporarily.

However, we're still chugging away at our debt and it feels good to see those numbers going down! Since our payoff announcement began, we've successfully eliminated a little over $6300 dollars of debt!! We have maintained a zero balance on all credit cards and the car loan is making steady progress on vanishing! I would ultimately like to see that sucker disappear much sooner but I'm comfortable with it being paid off in 6 months.

I don't have much else to report on that front but I'll let ya know if something miraculous happens ;)

Week ? Check in

I know. I've been doing terrible at checking in. But guess what? I haven't been terrible at sticking to my goals.

Oh no. We've been rocking them actually.

Still (slowly) losing weight.

AND

Today. Today we effectively eliminated our credit card debt. SAY WHAT?!?!??!

Yes.

Today I pushed "send" for the last time.

I made the final payment on our final credit card.

That makes our total debt payoff $4619.17 since February 18!!!!!

Guys.

That means our car is going to be paid off in 6 months.

I feel awesome.

Its fantastic.

Sometimes we go to Las Vegas

The person who said "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" was a big fat liar. They must be delusional, or anorexic or both and probably not skinny.

Seriously.

I'm sitting here eating my 5-day-late St. Patricks Day meal of corned beef and cabbage (no red potatoes, thanks for asking) and I keep wishing that it was that delicious pizza I ate earlier this week with reckless abandon. And then the Shamrock Shake I had later that evening. Or any one of the awesome diet-unapproved meals I had while taking the mini-vacation with husband.

It was divine.

And let me tell you about our little trip south to Sin City.

It was also divine.

We caught a concert (quite possibly the most amazing one I've been to yet...), toured Hoover Dam (with plenty dam jokes flying), walked and walked until we thought our legs and feet would fall off, relaxed by the pool, had fun laughing at the plentiful drunks walking the streets with us on St. Patricks Day, slept in, stayed up late and ate whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted.

And I remembered why I like being with Darrell.

Don't get me wrong, I always love that man of mine but being able to spend almost four days together with no kid, no responsibilities and no time frame was awesome. I remembered dating him and laughing with him. I always love him, but I remembered why I like him too. And it was nice.

If I could get my pictures to load to my computer I'd post them cause I look cute because I even got ready everyday of our trip. Showered, hair fixed AND makeup. I'm usually pretty good at getting 2 out of the 3 on a daily basis but on our trip I hit ALL three everyday!

So here's to the diet that we jumped right back into.

And to paying off debt.

And living beautiful lives together!

Check in: Week 3

I am writing this post today from the midst of a level one disaster kitchen.

Fact.

I'll tell ya why in a minute.

So we have successfully completed three weeks of the "Battle of the Bulge 2013" over here and it is going quite well.

We have gotten rid of a total 19.6 lbs of chub and $287.40 of debt which brings the debt payoff total to $778.40!!

I'm pretty pleased about it all really. I think that after this week we will have paid off the last of one credit card and we will have started making headway on the next! That is pretty exciting news for me!

Upsides:

We got our dishwasher and its lovely (or it would be if it were hooked up)
I have lost almost 10 lbs
Husband has lost 10 straight up! (I like when we lose at the same rate, though I know that pretty soon here he will probably keep losing and mine will... taper off somewhat. Darn men. Lucky sons...)
I have finished sanding all my cabinet doors
Its pretty much warm enough that Liam and I can walk to the park
I've really started branching out on recipes and have discovered a few DELICIOUS ones that are diet approved :)

Downsides:

Not having a car really doesn't get easier
The dishwasher isn't hooked up and I cant use the sink otherwise water starts spilling all over the place



So the upsides obviously outweigh the bad this week and thats good. This week wasn't nearly as hard as last week was. Hopefully things continue to go smoothly next week!

So back to the disaster. We got our dishwasher and husband thought that we had everything we needed to hook it up. We do have all the parts we need but because of where we need to put our dishwasher, none of the hookups are long enough. So basically the hot water is disconnected and if I run the cold water in the sink, water starts pouring out from under the dishwasher (that isn't hooked up but is put in its proper location). Also, my cabinets currently have no doors or drawer fronts. They are all either in the garage or in the laundry room. So that just adds to the overall look of disorder and confusion. (Anyone else imagine Sir. Topham Hat saying "you've cause confusion and delay"? Just me?)

Anyway, now that I'm almost 10 down, I think I can start looking towards making a plan of how much I actually want to lose. And how ambitious I think I should be. Am I going for my first year of college skinny (probably the smallest I have ever been) or more like the day I got married skinny (which was also pretty small but about 15 pounds heavier than the first year of college). I dunno. I don't think I'm going to worry about it too much. Yet. But its on my mind.

How did your week go? Any accomplishments you're proud of?

Check in : Week 2

Here we are again! Battle of the Bulge 2013 is still going on over here...

Upsides:

We paid off $155 of debt
We got our fridge fixed for realsies
We found a dishwasher for pretty cheap (and we didn't have to use a credit card to buy it)
Its finally getting warm so Liam and I are going to start exploring the public transit options for getting around
We found a long lost gift card to Lowes! $125 dollars baby!

Downsides:

We lost a total of 0 pounds over here
BUT
We didn't gain any, so win(?)
I get cabin fever not being able to leave


This week was hard. We didn't completely stray from our diet plan but we had alot of hang-ups. We have recommitted to following the plan and hopefully we will see some results next week.  I've had some health concerns so I went to the doctor and had some blood tests done and luckily those all came back normal, so thats a good thing for sure!

While I was in college, I had some really super awesome roommates. One of them had (and still does) a serious love for Diet Coke... come to think of it, I think almost all my roommates did (and probably still do). Well, we didn't really drink alot of soda in my house growing up so I had no preferences either way, until my first year of school. I developed a love for the Diet Coke. I don't have any false assumptions that is in anyway good for me. I just like it. I like how it tastes, and I pretty easily form an addiction to the caffeine that is a bear to get over. Well, its just not good for me and I think that this week I will work on quitting the Diet Coke. It'll probably be good for me. We'll see.

Now the debt diet part of our week. Darrell got his yearly bonus this week, so we made some extra purchases that we have been putting off. We got a new computer (the day it arrived our old laptop had a crash of epic proportions, I'm surprised it turned back on) and we bought a new dishwasher (unexpected but I'm glad it happened when it did), tires for our car (which as we've learned is a VERY expensive one to maintain) as well as a new pair of pants for me. I'm a pant snob, and I usually spend a little bit of money on them BUT I only own one pair at a time pretty much so when they wear our, I have to get new ones and my old ones wore out this week. The good thing is, we didn't have to go into any debt to make any of these purchases! And when I say that we paid off $155 dollars, that is in addition to our regular monthly payments. We have two credit cards we are working on getting rid of as well as a car loan, a student loan, a loan from Darrells dad and our mortgage. Our number one priorities are the two credit cards (one of which will be gone after I get paid for piano lessons this month!) and the car loan. We think we can get rid of those in 7-8 months. I I really hope so, cause then we can hopefully look at buying another car.

On the horizons for this week:

I just finished filling the gouges in my cabinets with wood filler, so sanding the kitchen cabinet doors and frames (this'll get its own post later this week)
installing the new dishwasher
getting new tires on the car
keep working on potty training liam
take down the changing table in his room

Things are looking good!

What are your goals for the year, month, week, today?


Want to know what "Battle of the Bulge 2013" is? Read here: We're going on a diet

Check in: 1 week later

Here I am again. One week into "battle of the bulge 2013".

It went well! Really, quite well. We are a collective 14 pounds lighter and $336 less in debt. I'm going to chalk it up as a win.

Downsides:

The dishwasher started leaking all over... looks like we need a new one.

or a bigger sink... (cause i have a little baby sink... two bowls and BAM it looks like its overflowing. seriously.)

I really miss eating popcorn.
And cookies.


And having a car...

Upsides:

Liam is well on his way to being potty trained.
I checked off about a billion things from my list like:
Getting darrell enrolled in next quarter
Selling our car
selling the tires that we bought a month ago for said car
calling and having fridge repair guy (which now he needs to come back cause the fridge is doing the same thing again)
submitted all paperwork to loan underwriter (it took like 15 minutes, what is my problem?)
finished my kindle cover
almost finished the embroidery for my christmas quilt
took down and put away half the christmas lights outside
finished installing the outlets in our kitchen from re-doing the kitchen backsplash

And lots more, but I can't really think of them right now


I get really excited when I look like 9 months down the road and we'll have a big bulk of our debt out of the way. Like really? I can't wait to not have a stupid car payment. That will really be fantastic.

I wonder if the weather on the upward swing (excpet for the "snow" storm we're supposed to get tomorrow) for the next 10 days will help ease my cabin fever. Its just been so darn cold that I can't got anywhere with the babe. I live fairly close to plenty of things. The library is like a mile away. It takes maybe a half an hour to walk there, but there has been either snow everywhere of your nose hairs start freezing when you walk outside its so cold. There is also a dollar store a mile and a half away and if I'm feeling really ambitious I can walk to the shopping center about 3 miles away. That might be less fun than I think since I don't really want to spend money. Though, since walking will be my only form of transportation for awhile that will probably aid in my weight loss goals. Hmmm guess its not so bad.

Oh and since we've been confined together, it has been confirmed that Liam like husband much more than he likes me.

Yesterday he sat himself down in the hall (in the dark, in front of the garage door) and when I asked him what he was doing he just looked at me, patted the ground and said "daddy." And he stayed there for like 20 minutes.

sheesh.

Want to know what "Battle of the Bulge 2013" is? Read here: We're going on a diet