Fall Changes

Ah, life. I feel like I'm so busy all the time, but when I look back and try to write about what's been going on that's had me so busy, I come up empty-handed. What have I been doing with myself?? I've come to the conclusion that just life in general is busy and crazy. Even when I don't have events going on. And that's okay. Its my life, and I love it. ( :

Not all the time, of course. Well, maybe I shouldn't say that, exactly. Its not that I have true moments when I just hate my life. Hate certain situations, yes. Either way you look at it, I'm not happy-go-lucky all the time. My glass is not always half full.

I'm on the quest to find a new blog to follow. I know, I know, I need another blog to read like I need another hole in my head. But this blog I'm looking for will be different. All of the blogs I follow are written by stay-at-home-moms. And I love that. For them. I'm truly happy that these women can be with their kids every day. And I love that they have enough time to blog so people like me can read and learn from them.

But its hard to relate to SAHMs. And I feel like maybe they can't really relate to women like me, who have to work full-time and still figure out how to manage a family. I would love to be able to stay home with my daughter (and any future kids we may be blessed with), and I would love to eventually homeschool her, but right now that's not a possibility. No, I'm not giving up my dream of doing just that. Maybe one day it'll happen. But its time to stop daydreaming and start living in the here and now.

I'll still follow my beloved blogs by the SAHMs - they are good inspiration for me, and I truly love reading their stuff. I just want to find a good blogger who is a working mama. There's got to be some of us out there, right? Or are we all just too busy to do it all and blog about it? Cause I know that's my problem. I struggle with keeping up with all my normal, every day stuff - throwing a blog into the mix is almost impossible. Which is why this baby doesn't get updated daily. Or even weekly sometimes.

I want to read about someone else who is struggling like I am. Struggling with having to be away from home 50+ hours a week and not having enough time after work to get things done that need to be done. Struggling with the fact that I leave my child every day to be raised by someone else. Struggling with the fact that I miss out on so many moments with her, and that I missed so many of her firsts. Struggling with coming home and trying to be the wife God has called me to be, and the mother He has called me to be, all while being exhausted from working all day. Struggling to cook good meals for my family when I am home just a few waking hours every day. Struggling with wanting to spend time with my daughter after work, but needing to wash clothes and cook supper, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I know SAHMs struggle, too. I know they're busy. I know that. I know when you're home all day with a toddler or a baby its hard to get stuff done, and I know how an entire day can go by without you realizing it. But its still a different struggle. Cause us working moms have to deal with all that, plus our mommy-guilt over not being with our kids all day. At least, I do. Every day, it kills me to leave C with her grandma. Even though I know my MIL is doing an excellent job with her, and C is shaping up to be a nicely mannered girl.

So when I get home at 5:45 with her, I want to just drop everything and play with her, make memories with her, do stuff with her. Instead, I have time to take just a few minutes to talk with her, maybe read a quick story, then I have to rush around and start supper, do laundry, what have you. Otherwise, I'll spend my entire Saturday doing nothing but cleaning. As it is, I spend at least 1-2 hours on Saturdays just cleaning. And I feel guilty for doing that, cause Saturdays are supposed to be our days together. Guilt is so powerful.

Sure, C helps me around the house. She likes to "help" in the kitchen when I cook - but not all the time. She likes to help get clothes out of the dryer, or put them in. She likes to help hang wet clothes on the drying rack. She likes to "sweep" with her little broom while I sweep the house. So we're spending time together, and I have to remind myself that that's what's important. It doesn't really matter what we're doing. And I know that having her help me do housework is good for her.

But some nights I lay her in her bed and think wow, we didn't do anything fun tonight. We just worked. And it makes me sad.


So, I'm gonna make a few changes in my life. (Again. I feel like I am constantly doing that! But I guess that's good, cause it means I am constantly trying to improve myself, right?) Three weeks ago, my iPhone was stolen. (Yeah, that was a fun day.) Since then, my boss hasn't given me a new one. At first, I was pretty bummed, and couldn't wait for a new phone. Now, though, I kind of like it. I didn't realize how attached I was to that thing. I still have my other cell phone, so I've gone back to using it. I can talk and text on it, and that's it. Sometimes it would be nice to have a smart phone (like when I need directions!), but for the most part, I don't need it. Its been nice to be "unplugged" a bit. I don't have my phone attached to my hand at all times anymore, so I'm not constantly checking facebook and my email. Or taking random pictures. I have, however, taken way more "real" photos with my nice camera.

However, I still have the iPad. Its big and bulky and heavy, and I don't like using it, but its easier than my laptop, so I do use it quite a bit now. I don't use it to check email and facebook as much as I was with the phone, but I still do it more than necessary. So I'm gonna put a stop to that. Starting tonight. Tonight, I will not touch the iPad until I'm rocking C to sleep. Instead of taking a few minutes after supper (and before bath time) to scroll through facebook, I'm gonna play with my daughter. I'm gonna squeeze in as much time with her as possible. When she's asleep and I lay her down, I'm gonna put the iPad away for the night. If I don't go right to bed, I'm gonna talk to my husband. Instead of ignoring him like its so easy for me to do.

And tomorrow morning when I'm eating my breakfast, instead of opening up the iPad and checking facebook and Instagram, I'm gonna do a Bible study. It just hit me earlier today that during breakfast is the perfect time for me to do Bible study. I always eat alone, since DH is gone by then and C's not up yet, but every morning I eat and stare at the iPad. I attempt to do Bible study at night, after C is asleep, but I'm normally too exhausted to do it then, and some nights I don't even lay her down until 11 or after, then I need to get to sleep myself. So breakfast and Bible study it is. I'm kinda excited to start tomorrow. And I wish I had thought of this sooner!

What else? Well, I'm finally gonna make a budget. I've been talking about it for a year almost, and its time to get serious. That's my plan tonight, actually. I want to sit down with DH and get him to help me. I want to be smarter with my money. Even if I'm never able to be a SAHM, I need to do this. And if I'm ever gonna be able to be a SAHM, I need to do this. No matter how you look at it, I need to do this!

Starting this week, I'm also gonna get back into meal planning. I haven't done it for several months, and supper time has been so stressful. This time, though, I want to do it a little differently. I want to meal plan and shop accordingly. The last time I did meal planning, I just planned meals based on what we had already. Which was fine, and its a good way to go through your pantry/freezer/frigde. I'll be doing that again, and then when its time to buy groceries, I want to shop with a plan of what we'll be cooking. Eventually, I want to try once a month shopping, but at first I think weekly or hopefully bi-weekly shopping will do. We need to cut out these little quick grocery store trips. And I want to cut out all this eating out we've been doing lately. (Well, its only once a week or so, but it adds up!)

The last change I want to make is to employ a home management schedule. I started one a while back and stuck to it for a while, but for whatever reason I just abandoned it. I need to go back and think on that, figure out what went wrong so I don't make the same mistakes this time around. My house cleaning goal is to do a little bit every day, so that I can have the weekends to have fun. A little cleaning on Saturdays is okay, but I don't want to be doing heavy cleaning every Saturday. Plus, more often than not, I end up gone for at least part of the day on Saturdays, so my house needs to be in order prior to that.

In reality, I end up just doing the bare minimum during the week (keeping the kitchen clean, washing clothes, sweeping - which is a daily task for me), and on Saturday mornings I find myself having to vacuum, dust, clean the bathrooms, etc. Luckily, it doesn't take me all day since I live in a small house. But I feel like I could be using my time better during the week.

No, I don't have a lot of time between the time I get home from work and the time I put C to bed, and I want to spend as much time with her as possible, but I also want to spend as much time with her on Saturdays as possible. If that means sacrificing just a few more minutes with her each night to do something quick (like wiping down the bathrooms so they don't need to be scrubbed on the weekend), then so be it. More likely, it'll mean "sacrificing" a few minutes on facebook each evening. I can do that. I'm already halfway there, since I don't have the easy temptation of the iPhone to deal with anymore. I can do it!

Okay, normally when I write things down and blog about it, I do it. Hopefully that'll be the case this time. This blog will hold me accountable, like it has for so many other things before. Wish me luck! Oh, and if you know of any bloggers who are in my situation, please share! Cause I truly want to read about other women like me! ( :

Budgeting: Step 1

This weekend I did a TON of reading online about budgeting and living frugally. This is not a new area of research for me, but one that I have read about for quite some time now. This time I was lucky enough to stumble upon some new websites that were extremely helpful.

Some time after the birth of my child I realized that what I'd been doing wasn't exactly working. I never gave much thought to how my hard-earned money was being spent. I paid my half of the bills and had plenty left to do whatever I wanted (within reason). I had the opportunity to come to this realization much sooner than C's birth, but I was stubborn (stupid). The year before she was born, I lost my job. I hated my job, but it paid very well, so I was devastated. I knew the company was making a lot of cuts due to the state of the economy, and I knew I was one of the last ones hired in my division, but I had the mentality that "it can't happen to me." What a dumb way to think!!

I was so unprepared for unemployment. Thankfully, my husband had (has) a good-paying job, and his salary combined with my measly unemployment "paycheck" allowed us to be able to pay the bills with no problems. We were also fortunate that I was in grad school at the time, which meant all my student loans were on deferment. Looking back, I can see how blessed we really were at that time, but of course I didn't see it then.

I had no savings, nothing to fall back on. It took me five long months to find a job. During that time, I worked my Mary Kay business some kinda hard. That's when I discovered that direct sales is really not for me. I barely made any money at all with Mary Kay in those five months. Which is kind of hard to believe, because Mary Kay products kind of sell themselves!

When I finally found a full-time job again, I was so relieved. The money wasn't nearly as good as my last job, but at least I had a steady paycheck again. I had plans to start saving a little out of each paycheck. I planned to start paying on my student loans as soon as possible, and pay more than the minimum amount each month so I'd get them paid off quicker. I wanted to be smarter about my money, because now I knew what it was like to not know if I'd have enough. (Well, sort of. Of course I always had my husband to support me, so I never really did without anything at all. But I always try to think what if he lost his job??)

Well, of course, life happened and my plans didn't exactly go like I'd expected. Books for grad school were crazy expensive, as was tuition (and I wasn't willing to take out any more loans). Then I got pregnant (sort of planned - we thought it would take much longer than it did haha!), and what little money I had managed to save went to her crib and my coinsurance for OB visits.

So yeah, I was still unprepared for life.

During my pregnancy, I tried really hard to be money conscious. I'm not one to spend a bunch of money on random things. I don't get my nails done or my hair colored. I don't have to wear the latest fashions. I did have to spend quite a bit of money on maternity clothes, but I got pretty big and my regular clothes wouldn't even come close to fitting, so that was a necessity. Anyway, DH and I have never even went on expensive dates. We've always preferred to stay home and cook a nice meal and watch a movie. So our entertainment expense has always been fairly low. But somehow, regardless of all that, my money has still managed to dwindle away every paycheck.

After C was born, I became painfully aware again at how much I was spending. I had a 6 week maternity leave (that I stretched to 7), but it was unpaid. Thankfully, we were given enough diapers and wipes are our baby showers that I didn't have to buy any of that until C was almost 4 months old (and then I switched to cloth diapers which saved us a ton of money). But I was shocked at how quickly I needed to buy stuff for her. Looking back, a lot of it wasn't really necessities. Yes, she needed clothes, but she didn't need 18 outfits in every size, or a different dress to wear every Sunday so she never wore the same one twice. Granted, most of that stuff was given to us. But I was so irresponsible with some of the money. I naturally had to take back a lot of stuff from the showers, but instead of saving the gift cards for the returns for later on, I immediately bought new stuff that I liked for C. What a waste. I think the smartest thing I bought with gift cards was my breast pump. Everything else really wasn't a necessity. The point is, had I been smarter about the money, we could have had a nice stash of gift cards to stretch out for probably a few years.

But you live and learn, right?

So I had this realization about my spending habits. Then I began to be aware of the concept of living frugally/naturally/whatever you want to call it. That's when I delved into the world of cloth diapers, and everything kind of spiraled from there. I realized that a lot of this natural stuff was not only better for us, but it was cheaper, too.

C was exclusively breasted until she was 9 months old. I introduced her to solids at 6 months, and she ate a few bites here and there from 6 months to 9 months, but she wasn't that into it and I wasn't in a hurry. From 9 months to 12 months, she was still mostly breastfed. Then, just before 12 months she decided she didn't like breastmilk anymore unless it was straight from the breast. At that time we just put her on all solids, though she still breastfed when I was with her (and she still does at 25 months!). But all that breastfeeding saved us a ton of money. Plus, when I did start her on "solids," I made them myself. We never bought a single jar of baby food.

Between breastfeeding, making my own baby food, and cloth diapering, I was patting myself on the back for saving us so much money. And those were all great things to do, but I wish now I had done more. But I can't go back, all I can do is go forward and learn from my past mistakes and shortcomings.

Now, I am even more contentious about where my money goes. I thought I had a pretty good handle on it. I do a ton of stuff to save us money, but I am realizing how much more I still could be doing.

Yesterday I sat down to start making my budget. It was a slap in the face for me. I should have quite a bit of money just left over every pay check, and for some reason I don't. Like I said, I don't spend money on hair, nails, clothes, going out to eat or to the movies, etc., so I have to figure out where its all going.

I don't know how long this process will take, when I'll get to the point where I have a workable budget and know where every penny of my money is going. But at least I've completed the first step in the process: admitting I have a problem. Clearly, I am not good with money. If I was, my student loans would be much closer to being paid off than they are, and I'd have more money in savings than I do. And I wouldn't be counting on my tax refund to help out. So, I have a problem. Now I have to work towards fixing the problem and making sure it doesn't happen again!

I have a sort-of list in my head on what things need to happen. I am not willing to go to the extreme to get out of debt. I was reading yesterday about a woman who fed her children dandelions from the yard in order to save money. I'm not down with that. But there are things I can do without being so extreme that will still make a difference. Pray for me as I figure all this out!!  ( :