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what we splurge on

As we are working on our family budget and getting serious about paying off debt and saving money, I thought it would be worthwhile to examine what we want to include that might be considered a splurge. These are things that we could cut out if needed but at this point in time are still important enough to us to account for. Here is what I came up with:

1. Air conditioning. We live in Houston and it is H-O-T. I can’t sleep well at night unless the house is cool, and David can’t be in the house at all if it’s too hot. We definitely keep it cooler than many people would but it’s huge for our quality of life.

2. Daycare activities. We pay a little extra each month for Meredith (and Liam, when he gets to be old enough) to do the “extra” activities at daycare. When Meredith was younger it was a weekly music class, and now she is doing Phonics. I personally don’t care if she learns her letters in preschool or not, but she really enjoys it and she definitely is learning.

3. Family outings. We’re talking small stuff like frozen yogurt, rides on the mall carousel, and the movies (with Meredith or date nights). These kinds of things aren’t necessary but they are so fun for us that it’s worth it, although we have cut down on the frequency.

4. Clothing basics. I don’t do much clothes shopping, but when I buy something for me it’s going to be good quality and versatile and preferably ethically made. I rarely (almost never) buy new clothes for the kids – we do hand-me-downs from friends & family as well as thrift stores when needed – but I do buy them new high-quality shoes. They wear pretty much the same shoes until they are worn out so it’s a good investment.

5. Gifts. Our extended family still does gift exchanges for birthdays and although we don’t go insane with the spending, we do still spend more than is probably necessary.

Other than that we really try to cut out all extra spending, although it’s a work in progress! What does your family splurge on, and where do you save?

June 24, 2015
around here // father’s day weekend

How was your Father’s Day weekend? Ours was incredibly full and busy – but so fun.

At the end of last week, Liam got sick with fever again. Poor guy seriously catches every little whiff of a virus. He still has congestion and low-grade temperature, but with the real fever behind him we’re just going on with life.

On Saturday, after chores and errands (and while David was at work), my good friend Lauren came over to help me declutter and reorganize the kitchen. I wanted to start there since I spend so much time in it, and I figured I’d get the most bang for my buck. Lauren was a big help in providing feedback, and keeping the kids distracted. I have a bunch of stuff to get rid of now, and I’m loving the extra space in my cabinets.

David and I had planned a date for Saturday night, but he decided what he really wanted to do was take Meredith to see Inside Out, so the three of us went. I tell you, they should shorten previews for kids’ movies because it didn’t start until 45 minutes later and 20 minutes into the movie Meredith had no more attention to give. We had to leave and I was so bummed not to be able to finish it! We rarely get to see movies, not to mention the waste of money. I guess that’s life with a preschooler, and we can’t even blame her.

Father’s Day was packed with seeing both of our families. I whipped up cute little cards for the grandpas using chipboard, stamps, the Instax, and washi tape. I ate my weight in barbecue, watched some Women’s World Cup, the kids played in the kiddie pool, and my mother-in-law busted out this amazing kids’ activity that I highly recommend. All you need to do is plan ahead a little bit, gather some bins, little toys, food coloring, salt, medicine syringes, and spoons and you’ll have the littles (ours were ages 1-6) occupied for at least an hour.

This week I’m intent on getting back to the gym, finishing my book club audiobook, and completing a Project Life spread using the app. I’d love to hear about your weekend and what your goals are for this week!

June 22, 2015
more podcast love

My love affair with podcasts continues! They are having their moment, and more and more awesome ones are beginning all the time. As I continue to listen and try new ones, my tastes have evolved and refined. I have discovered the style of podcast that I love the most, and I’m calling it Friends Chatting With Structure. Let’s analyze.

Friends Chatting: I like it when the hosts of the show know each other and are just talking about a topic, rather than having one host who does interviews with someone new each show. There is also the more professional style podcast, like Serial, or a storytelling style, like This American Life. Those are great too, but I still love Friends Chatting best because it draws me in and makes me feel like I’m friends with them too, which is nice when most of my life involves work or kids and I don’t get to connect with my friends that much. And I like my podcasts to be lighthearted.

With Structure: Okay, so the friends need to be talking ABOUT something. It could be that the whole show is focused around one thing, like books or parenting or whatever, or just that they have different segments of the show that guide their discussion. That way things don’t get overly rambly (although I don’t mind a good ramble sometimes).

With that in mind, here are my current absolute favorite podcasts, the ones I look forward to every time a new episode is published, the ones that I will put my audiobook on hold for!

1. Mom Jeans & Dad Jokes

I am sooo excited to share this one with you! My friend Indiana Adams and her husband Chris just launched it this week. Indiana is incredibly funny, charismatic, and when you’re around her she makes you feel special and like you just want to keep hanging out with her forever. And Chris is the perfect match for her; together they are hilarious. They are the parents of three kids under 4, and they talk about parenthood, pop culture, current events, and other stuff. It’s family friendly, lighthearted, and just all around awesome. And bonus, there is a blog to go along with it, which is why they call it a blogcast (totally a word). The blog will have shownotes and funny conversations about daily life. Seriously…you’re going to want to check it out and subscribe.

2. Sorta Awesome

Other than MJDJ (above), this is my most recent obsession. Hosted by Megan Tietz, formerly of the blog Sorta Crunchy, with a few rotating co-hosts who are all equally cool and interesting. Each episode they share their “awesome of the week” and do a Q&A session which brings up all sorts of topics. One of the best parts of this is that there is also a Facebook group to go along with it where you can share your “awesome of the week” or chat more about the topics on the show.

3. Joy the Baker

A longtime favorite of mine that I’ve mentioned before, but it’s still one of the best. Two hilarious friends chatting about all sorts of things. I only wish they recorded more often!

4. Books on the Nightstand

This is still my favorite podcast about books. The hosts are sales reps for Random House so they have a bit of an insider view. Every episode they have an audiobook of the week, talk about one particular subject relating to books & reading, and then they each share a book recommendation. They have a really active group on Goodreads as well.

5. Happier with Gretchen Rubin

I’m a huge fan of Gretchen Rubin and I’m so interested in her research and theories on happiness and habits. In this podcast she and her sister Elizabeth Craft share a “try this at home” tip, chat about a topic regarding happiness or habits, answer a listener question, and give their own happiness gold stars and demerits. The dynamic between the two sisters is so great; Gretchen is super strict with herself but Elizabeth is a bit more relatable. They both have a good sense of humor and are understanding of the other; they obviously know each other very well. I always come away from listening to this with ideas to try.

6. Spawned

This is another new funny parenting show hosted by the ladies behind Cool Mom Picks. They talk about a subject and share a pick of the week. It’s just light and funny and interesting, plus the episodes are pretty short which I like for something like this.

So, do you listen to any podcasts that fall into the genre Friends Chatting With Structure that you think I should check out? Please share!

p.s. – more podcast favorites here and here!

June 19, 2015
project life : april 2 & how i’m using the app
In the middle of April I decided to change my whole approach to Project Life. In order to save time, I decided to start using the app. It’s a hybrid approach, because I do a little bit of work ahead of time on my computer, and I also add finishing touches once the page is printed.

Let me show you my first spread using the app, and then I’ll explain the process.

I’m doing kind of a monthly grouping with my spreads, but I still like to do “week in review” cards and work on things every two weeks. Because each month doesn’t have exactly four weeks, by this point in April I needed to include three weekly updates.

Here I wanted to document getting our kittens, my nephew’s birthday party, knitting my first ball of yarn, and a random cute pic of Liam.

Here’s a close-up of what the text looks like. Very readable. And I added that little label on top of the print, so overall the style is consistent with my previous spreads.

On this side I wanted to write more about taking Liam to the ENT and the stressful season of life it was for me. Then there are more kid and craft pics – nothing new there!

One of my favorite things about using the Project Life app is to easily be able to include digital journaling cards. All you have to do is save them in Dropbox and you can access them easily. That’s also how I got my “week in review” cards into the spread. First I edited them in Photoshop Elements, then just saved and uploaded to Dropbox. Easy.

You can probably figure out my process just from looking at the finished product here, but it just goes like this:
- Edit any journaling cards I need and upload to Dropbox
- Create spread in app
- Order prints
- Add any journaling (I use this pen) or physical embellishments like labels
- Slip into page protector
It’s awesome! The quality of the prints is amazing. It’s fast. It’s easy. It’s versatile. In fact, I don’t know if I even want to go back to doing it the old way. Of course, I lose that “hands on” crafting time, but I do other scrapbooking projects that give me my fix, and now I have more time to do other things.

A few notes:

1. Shipping on prints directly from the app is $5 flat. That’s ridiculous when you just want two 12×12 prints at $1.99 each, so I waited until I had two months’ worth. Obviously it’s a better deal the more you order.

2. If you order a 12×12 print and then cut the photos down to fit in traditional pockets, they will be too small.

3. You can add journaling from the app as well, but I like the look of handwriting.

And that’s it! I have some more spreads to share with you to get caught up in the next few weeks.

p.s. – a detailed overview of the Project Life app
June 17, 2015
life with kids & kittens
Well, we are about two months into life with the kittens and I’m here with a progress report! I had never owned a cat before, so I have learned a LOT.

First of all: we love them. Well, David is indifferent, but I myself really enjoy their happy furry presence, especially on the rare occasions when I’m home alone. They are often the first thing Meredith talks about when she wakes up or comes home. They are an endless source of delight for Liam.

Kittens & Kids

One reason we opted for kittens was because they wouldn’t be afraid of kids and they’d get used to life with them. Well, they are getting exposure for sure! I have been able to teach Meredith the right way to hold them, and she almost always makes sure to support their bodies from underneath now. She still has a tendency to squeeze them or just hold them tight when they obviously want to go play. She has gotten scratched more than a few times that way (and ringworm developed on one of the scratches), and sometimes she cries but most of the time it doesn’t bother her much. I do trim their nails every couple of weeks.

I have to keep a closer eye on Liam or he will completely torment them. He just loves to pick them up by whatever he can grab. I am trying to show him how to be gentle and I do let him hold them if I place them in his arms the correct way. Sometimes I find random things in the litter box and he also loves to play in their food & water bowls which is super annoying. If he is showing interest in that I place a stool over them so that the cats can crawl under to get at the bowls, but Liam can’t really get through.

Cost

Let’s talk about how much they cost. We had their adoption fee waived, but I was prepared to spend a little money up front for supplies. I’d say we spent about $150-200 on that, including:
- two litter boxes + scooper + liners
- litter
- food (dry + canned)
- four bowls: 2 small for canned food, 2 large for dry food & water
- one small scratching post
- wand toy
- collars (although they are too big still)
The adoption included the kittens’ neutering, initial vaccine, and a free vet visit. One thing I hadn’t counted on, though, was that I’d have to pay for the rest of their vaccines since they were so young. We went back to the shelter for those; it was cheaper than the vet but we paid for it by way of waiting TWO HOURS to be seen. They each needed three vaccines on two separate occasions (three weeks apart) and so each visit cost me total $115. So that’s an additional $230.

So far on an ongoing basis I am spending about $60-70 on food and litter every 3-4 weeks. I personally feel like this is too much and need to do some research on how to get it down. I was surprised that a large bag of litter only lasts a few weeks. They also really need another scratching post or tree or something. But anyway, as you can see these cats aren’t cheap.

Training

For about a month we had issues with the cats pooping outside of the litter boxes. I knew they were litter-trained because they used the boxes most often, and it was in random places and it was both of them. We kept them enclosed in a small room for awhile, used Cat Attract litter, and cleaned/deodorized the soiled spots thoroughly. For awhile it kept happening, and then slowly it just stopped. So my philosophy of “ignore it and it will go away” worked in this case. :)

As the kittens grew they began getting more adventurous and mischievous. When they were tiny they couldn’t make it onto the counters, for example, but now they can. Currently we are still having problems with them getting on counters and tables – even trying to eat our food – so I keep a spray bottle handy. Hoping to train that out of them.

Care

Let’s be honest, most of the care for the kittens falls to me. As Meredith gets older I will definitely have her take some responsibility, but she’s not there yet.

Since they are still growing we keep dry food out for them at all times, and I feed them each 1/4 can of wet food every morning and evening. I clean their litter daily (usually right after work) and fully change it once a week. As I mentioned, I trim their nails every couple of weeks. That’s about all the care they need on a regular basis!

Other Thoughts
- I had to start closing the door to our bedroom every night because they loved to pounce all over us when we were trying to go to sleep and they wake up way too early. I do miss out on kitten cuddles when they finally settle down, but right now I just need to sleep.
- After having dogs all my life I can say that cats are definitely more low-maintenance. It’s nice not to have to let them outside to go to the bathroom and I know we can be gone all day without stress because they self-entertain (and especially with two of them, they stay very happy). We could even leave town for a few days and they’d be fine, I think.
- They became friends right away and they LOVE to play together and cuddle together.
- It’s weird to not know where they are at all times, because they like to hide. I know most of their favorite spots by now, though. They even crawl up into our sofa and recliner from underneath.
- We are still getting used to the fact that we can’t leave any outside doors open at all.
Overall, we really love our kittens. They bring us joy and add a little more fun to our lives. I don’t regret adopting them at all, but I do wish I had been a little more informed about the cost; I would have been a bit more prepared in that area!
June 15, 2015