Long Time- No See!

I must be the world's worst blogger!  Life gets in the way and this is what is dropped!

Hmm- so what has changed recently?  Alot!

First, I finally got my tonsils removed and I am on the last dregs of medical leave recovering from that.  It honestly was not as bad as I had been led to believe it would be.  Sure there was pain- but NOTHING compared to the agony of the last strep infection I had.  The doctor said it was a "very good thing" that I had my tonsils removed as they were "completly colonized by bacteria." Yuck.  So long tonsils.  You are not missed!  My voice has finally returned to normal.  For a long time it felt like I was talking through goop in the back of my throat. 

One interesting thing that has happened as a direct result of surgery- my taste buds have changed!! For the most part things are okay and pretty normal.  But I can no longer handle food colorings, preservatives and other such chemicals in my food.  I can taste them.   They taste like battery acid coading my tongue and sometimes if it is bad enough- it makes my mouth feel numb.  No thank you.  Recovery Jello was just not worth it!

Another good thing has happened since the recovery- I have lost 9 pounds so far in about 3 weeks.  I am hoping this is the start of a weightloss snow ball.  I am really ready to be rid of my extra baggage.  I want to lose between 40-50 pounds.  50 pounds would bring me back to my highschool "fighting" (soccer playing) weight so I know that might be a bit harder to achieve, but I am shooting for losing weight before a couple of weddings we are going to be attending this fall!  So I really need to stay ontop of myself and watch what I eat before then.  I am also going to be increasing my activity level and trying to really push myself when I want to sit on the couch and veg.

Another change that we have gone through is moving our horse from our old boarding facility to a new one.  The new one is about 25 miles away which is the only negative.  However the positives by far outweigh that one draw back.  She now has a two acre pasture all to herself with a fresh mountain stream running through it.  We have 20,000 acres to ride in and the barn manager is awesome.  Her previous barn did not have much in the way of riding trails during 75% of the year and by the time you could use the islands in the middle of the river to ride on, it was hunting season and the owner invited a lot of people to hunt over there.  No thanks!  I would prefer that my horse doesn't get shot!  Plus I just had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach which I listened to this time.  Last time I did not listen to it, Tala had to spend almost a week at the equine hospital with life threatening pneumonia.  Anyway- about a week after I moved Tala up to the new barn, we started getting torrential rains.  We have had intense flooding through  the entire region- including her old barn!

Life has been chugging along.  Nora has completed her first year of preschool.  We are now entering into summer session as of Monday and it looks to be a great line up!  The kids are even going to build their own homemade rocket!  Yes I said a rocket!  They are all going to be buying a rocket kit and launching the rockets at school.  I didn't get to do that until High School!! 

My graduation from college should be December 2012.  I will be graduating with my degree in Business Management- Accounting.  Then I will most likely be taking classes for another semester which is "CPA Prep"  Eeek.  Yes!  I am going to sit for the CPA exam and am completely terrified.  All I have ever heard is how hard they are!  But once I can become a licensed CPA things will be looking a lot better for us.

We have been really working hard on getting back on track financially and have been making some pretty good progress this year.  DH's student loans are compltely paid.  And we are going to be tackling my debt sometime soon.  We are going to need to get a new or very gently used car or something sometime soon.  We need more fuel economy.  I budget $100 every two weeks for the two vehicles and soon I am going to have to increase that if something doesn't give.  I think I am just being stubborn because I don't want to adjust the budget but really if I am being honest I need to budget more like $150 every two weeks for gas.  If we could get a car that only needed one fill up a month then we would have paid for the increase in insurance and some of the car payment right there.

So overall the family is doing good.  We are on the path to a healthier lifestyle since I can't tolerate processed food- not that we ate much of it anyway- and will be working towards becoming 100% organic as quickly as possible.  I am networking with local food sources to try to get as much of our food as locally as possible- including meat and eggs.  It's amazing the resources that you unconver once you start digging!

Spring and New Beginnings

Spring is finally trying to arrive in Eastern Montana.  I am so grateful.  We have a couple more days of predicted snow still in the forecast, but it is the type of snow that falls and melts away in a couple of days.  It has been a long, cold winter with bitter windchills and very dark days.  I am looking forward to growing a vegetable garden and spring sunshine.

I stayed home from work today with a nasty chest cold.  I am in training for a new (to me) division at work so I feel very bad about missing some of this valuable training time but I also don't want to spread my germs around too much either.  But I think I am on the mend.  I just need a few days of rest for this to be all behind me.

There is a lot of worry in the world right now and it is so easy to get wrapped up in what could be or what might be.  Oddly, I find myself in a very peaceful place.  I feel God is providing in our life.  I am going back to full time at work which will really help out our family finances, and we are getting our debt paid off slowly but surely.  We are trying to both fix the past and prepare for the future.

Nora has grown up so much!  We are preparing for her 4th birthday!  I can hardly believe it!  She is learning so much at her Preschool and I am so proud of her.

More Later!  I have laundry to do!

SweetTarts taste like Halloween  J

 

You win some, you lose some.

 

We had ALMOST gotten rid of all our revolving debt.  Then our tire shredded on the interstate and I had to advance ourselves some money.  Luckily we have those resources- even if they do cost high interest.  I am sooo ready to be out of this mess so we can start a savings account.  However over all we have done pretty well in reducing our revolving debt.  This setback has only set us back by 2 weeks.  Roughly $700 of Revolving debt should be resolved our next paycheck and the remaining $1-200 will be resolved first of August.  Phew and good riddance!!

 

Yesterday I spent $140 on groceries for 2 weeks.  That included laundry supplies, hygiene supplies, a swimming pool for Nora and groceries.  I always smile a bit when we can get away with such a “cheap” amount for groceries.  I am looking forward to being able to increase our variety of fruits and veggies more in a couple weeks, but $125ish per week has been doing well for us. 

 

Nora is really growing up.  Her vocabulary is increasing every day, and we are trying really hard to not fall into the pattern of understanding what she wants so not making her fully vocalize.

 

We spent the 4^th of July weekend in Wyoming with my parents and the Cousins.  It was SO much fun.  It was great seeing Nora play with her cousins and really enjoy their company.  The next “big” purchase I want to make is a bike for Nora.  She wants one so bad.  What do you think?  A bike or a Tryke?  Nora finally mastered the forward pedaling on the tryke.  I think that is pretty good since she has only ridden it about 2 or 3 times!  But she is already asking for a bike.  And she LOVES riding on the child seat of my bike.  So I am thinking we might skip the Tryke stage.  Or maybe we will buy both if I can find a good deal at a thrift shop!

 

I wish I could get about a week off of work.  I got so much done around the yard yesterday.  I watered, weed whacked, mowed, worked in the garden, got Nora’s pool set up and wanted to get even more done.  I need to buy some better tools next pay day to trim the trees in our yard.  Some of them are getting flat out of control.    I love the shade they provide, but we need to be able to drive our cars under them and mow around them.  I also need some tar or something to see off the sucker branch forming areas. 

 

The good news is that the garden is doing great.  The carrots are growing long and straight, the tomatoes are coming along, and we have apples all over the tree.  I am going to try to put in a fall garden since I didn’t get as much variety as I wanted planted this Spring.  Our local Extension Agency lists each month things you should do in your yard per the growth stage and what you can plant.  I am going to try to get back in “tune” with their schedule.

 

http://www.co.yellowstone.mt.gov/extension/horticulture/grapevine.asp#july

 

Budget Win

I budgeted $150 for Groceries and the total bill came to $96.00!  And I only cut a few things from the list because I realized we had alternatives at home (like brown rice in our cupboard instead of buying a bag of white rice). 

Unfortunately, Doug has come down with this Flu so I might have to spend some of the savings on buying "sick food" but that's okay!  I am thrilled that I got 99% of our groceries for considerably under budget!

Economic Check In

So we just got our first Paycheck of the month.

So far we have paid an extra $550 in debt, not including what Doug paid since he has his set up to come out before his paycheck gets direct deposited.  I know he makes a bit more money than I do since he has been their longer so I know it had to be around $300 that was paid.  So roughly $850 in debt payment right off the bat.

We had an eating out night at Outback so that was approx $50, had car maint that was $35, Rent at $725 this month, Cable at $125, Electricity at $100.  I still need to pay some bills but we are on track so far for the month (mostly).  

We also have a LOT of left over food from the past few weeks of buying so I am writing my shopping list around reducing what is in the house.  I want to set up a better food rotation system.  I love having food in the house but not if we end up complaining that there is "nothing" to eat when there is a bag of brown rice, frozen meat and veggies, flour, budget mix, milk etc.  Just because Doug doesn't like the brown rice as much doesn't mean it doesn't need to get used up.

I also am looking into maybe moving my shopping day to Sundays so I can take advantage of Sunday coupons.  Or maybe I will reserve $2 to buy the Sunday flier the week I go shopping.  Not quite sure yet.

I haven’t done an update in a while.

 

So far my weight loss is about 6 lbs.  Yes I have been cheating.  But at the same time I feel good that the weight loss will stay off.  Even with my cheating I am still losing and it is not coming back!  Yay!  Each morning it’s exciting to see if I get to update my weight ticker.  It’s really interesting to see what your body does and how much energy you burn during sleeping!

 

It has been incredibly rainy this year.  The river is flooding and I hope it doesn’t rise much further or I might need to find a new temporary home for Tala until the flood waters recede.  Tala is looking great though.  Her three year old year is agreeing with her.  She really is starting to look more like a grown up horse instead of a baby.  I don’t always see it since I am around her a lot, but when I look at her pictures from last year, I can see big changes.  She’s beautiful and such a sweet horse.  It’s going to be an awesome summer with her! :D

 

Nora is growing and we are having lots of conversations about not cutting her hair.  She has mutilated her hair so badly at this point *sigh*.   Oh well.  Hair grows.  Her latest thing is that when she enters a room she’ll take a little jump, do a rock star stance and yell “Rock and Roll!” and then proceed to play air guitar!  It’s hilarious!

 

The garden is loving this weather.  Lots of rain seems to be just the thing.  I am looking forward to some sun so the tomatoes can really take off.  I want garden fresh tomatoes!!!  I also need to replant some radishes and really work hard on some weeding.  It’s starting to look like jungle out there!