Hiya, Pal! Now go to sleep.

Apparently I am insane and don't value sleep. This did make Greg do a huge "d'awwwww" so it's worth it.

One thing to check off of the giant Disney-crafting list.

We are printing this off and tucking it into a roadtrip bag with a few toys we have picked up on clearance over the last few months, a few portable art supplies, and snacks. Hopefully it will keep him entertained for a bit and will be a fun memory to look back on.

The flip side

I was leaving the Dollar Tree today when a "NO KROG!!" battle-cry sounded from the carseat in the back.

"Sorry, buddy-we need to go to Kroger to get groceries for dinner. Da is at work. We don't have a choice."

"NO...KROG! Go HOME!"

My gut sinks. I know this is going to be bad. I check my face for scratch marks. Who the hell knew that a bribe balloon could be used as a weapon? I fielded several stares in the store as I frantically picked up the items we needed while my 2 year old beat the shit out of my face with a balloon.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" proclaims the Mickey Mylar. Cooper's birthday was in June.

I thought I would be clever in Kroger and use a threatening tactic once reasoning, ignoring the bad behaviors, and praising the good behaviors didn't work.

"Hey Coop?" I asked as I got him out of the car. "You have to behave in Kroger, or else Mickey balloon will fly away."

Of course the threat didn't work. He made it well known that he was not happy to be grocery shopping. We walked out of Kroger. Cooper clutched a vial of sprinkles (which I didn't plan on buying) victoriously in his little fist, and grabbed his Mickey balloon (which didn't fly away after all) as soon as we got in the car.

As I was climbing into the car I saw a frazzled looking mom of a kid roughly the same age as Cooper trying to reason with her daughter who clearly held the same feelings on Kroger. At least I wasn't alone.

Greg got home from work, looked at the balloon and asked "Happy Birthday?" I nodded solemnly and said "yes, please wish our son's tantrum a very happy birthday."

There are days when I lose several of the toddler battle-of-wills. This was one of them. I think what's ultimately important is still finding the humor in it. Plus, these sprinkles are damn delicious.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Greg's new schedule started today! There are not enough exclamation points for this. In terms of schedules, his old one could have been worse but it was not a good fit for our family.

He used to work Mon, Tue, Friday, and Saturday from 9AM-8PM. His commute takes between 30-40 minutes, so without stopping for anything he typically got home a little shy of 9PM.  Cooper's bedtime is around 7:30 so this meant that 4 days a week he barely spent time with Cooper.

This also equated to me spending 4 nights a week making 2 dinners and cramming in all of the kid-care by myself in a very hectic post-work small time block. By the time Greg and I sat down for dinner it was already 9:30.

Weekends have also been pretty uneventful for the duration of his last schedule. He was only able to go on a full weekend camping trip once last year. The rest of the trips I took with my parents. We only went to the drive-in once or twice. I stopped going to the farmer's market because Cooper was so active that it was  impossible to juggle him while trying to shop. Those places aren't always the stroller-friendliest. It also made me realize how many family events take place on Saturdays instead of Sundays.

His new schedule is much better. Sun-Thur from 9:30AM-6:30PM. He will be home every night for dinner! We can try the whole "eating at the dinner table" thing. We can have nightly story times again. I already set up a category in our budget for camping because we are planning on doing much more camping this year. I will greatly miss our lazy Sundays together, but the extra family time is going to be great.

Cooper and I had a conversation with short phrases (most of which are lost in translation but enough leftovers to pick up on) during the drive home from work. It's our routine now. We use the 30 minute drive to bargain, edit, and finalize our plans for when we get home.

Popcorn was the snack we settled on, "Baby Genius" the show he would be allowed to watch while I cooked his dinner, and "play with coins" (his faux cash register) the toy he wanted to play with.

After arriving home I got him out of the car and accidentally bumped his head. He rubbed his head and said "Ma drive da's car...Coop bump head!" He walked alongside me up the stairs, counting each one out loud as I held his hand. It was pitch black outside with the exception of his light-up shoes casting strobe lights up the stairs.

During dinner, he fed himself mac and cheese (the height of toddlerhood culinary endeavors) with a fork. I almost burst into tears. It was an imperfect, yet very determined bite.

Parenthood feels so very...right at the moment. I love our little family, and everything feels as it was meant to be. We are far from perfect. There are so many aspects of parenthood that make me feel inadequate. That is why I take these moments-the garishly lit up stairs from Cooper's cheap shoes, the bathroom acoustics of his rendition of "Farmer in the Dell," his little hand clutching the fork and the way he threw the fork up in victory-and store them away as the things that matter most. 

It happened.

It happened. I was leaving dinner with Greg this evening (hooray for Christmas gift cards and date night!) when I looked up and thought, "that fence would make a really cool cemetery fence-I wonder if I could build that."

I guess it's good I didn't sell/donate all of the Halloween decorations. 

YNAB

I drank the YNAB koolaid. I have read several tutorials, browsed the forums, and feel like I'm starting to "get it." I was flabbergasted at first. My initial reaction was, what do you mean I don't budget for the month with the money I'm going to have? I can only budget the money that is currently in the account?

After reading through some of the information it started to click. You don't budget ahead with money that's not there because it is not guaranteed. By budgeting what you have, you're protecting yourself from overdraft.

Another thing that really stuck with me is the importance of establishing a rainy day fund. We have such terrible credit card debt that my initial reaction is always "ATTACK THE DEBT!" After reading up on it, it became abundantly clear how important it is to have funds set aside for both planned events (property taxes, insurance, etc.)  as well as unplanned (house repairs, etc.) That way we won't be reaching for our credit cards and dig ourselves deeper into debt. This feels like one of those moments that's so obvious but we have inadvertently handled the wrong way our entire adult lives.

Greg and I have a scary, long road ahead of us in terms of achieving financial stability. I know it will be a long road and we won't reach a "buffer" for quite some time, but for the first time in several years I feel like it's doable. I really feel like this is going to change our relationship with money. Hooray!

Debt vs. wanderlust

I have encountered a fair share of financial crises this year. The hard part to swallow is that most of these situations would have been avoided completely or handled with much less panic if Greg and I didn't have such horrendous spending habits.

Neither of us make a lot of money, but we both work full time. We have a small, modest house which means a very reasonable mortgage payment. Our mortgage payment is actually less than the current rent rate of our first (500 sq. ft., one bedroom) apartment. Small house + central air/heat equal pretty modest utility bills. Cooper has family daycare, so that is a huge expense saved. We don't have cable, we have basic internet, and we downgraded our phones to pay-as-you-go phones several months ago.

My point is-the reason we are so over our heads with our finances isn't because of necessities. It's from making terrible decisions. It is from spending too much money on dining out, on buying unnecessary things, and taking too many damn trips to Target.

Have I mentioned that we don't even have a budget set up? At nearly-30, that is incredibly embarrassing. I bit the bullet and bought YNAB (You Need a Budget) last week. It felt a bit wrong spending $ on something that helps with saving money, but at 75% off with great reviews, it seemed worth it.

So far it has been great. I am working on finalizing the budget and Greg and I are going to have weekly "meetings" about our budget, where we go over our receipts/spending habits, etc. Is this what being an adult feels like?

Okay, one problem with all of this. Before we got serious about the budget, we started planning a trip to Walt Disney World. As in, we put deposits down, asked (and received) Disney gift cards for Christmas, etc. The trip is almost paid for and the gift cards are non-refundable, so we are going to go ahead with the trip. I am going to try to spend as little as possible while we are there.

Ways we have saved/are planning to save on the trip to Disney:
*Cooper's park admission is free because he will be under 3.
*We are bringing his stroller so we won't have to pay to rent one.
*We are driving instead of flying.
*We are getting a huge corporate discount on a rental car through Greg's work.
*I have saved up enough Swagbucks to redeem gas gift cards to help pay for the gas.
*We are staying in a cabin at Disney's Fort Wilderness. Their cabins include a full kitchen. I am making freezer breakfast burritos, english muffin sandwiches, and pancakes to freeze (brought down in a cooler) for easy, cheap breakfasts so we don't have to eat breakfast in the park. I am also bringing a crockpot to throw dinner in before we leave for the parks in the morning. It will be ready when we get back that night. You are allowed to bring snacks in the park so we will be bringing those as well. Ideally, we will only need to eat 1 meal/day in the parks.
*I am making our own t-shirts for the trip so I won't be tempted to buy Cooper clothes while we are there. I have bought a few shirts for $1.50 on clearance and have all the other materials on-hand to make his shirts.
*We will bring our own alcohol for the cabin. I doubt we will end up drinking much (Disney is seriously exhausting) but if the mood strikes, we will have drinks at the cabin instead of paying a ton in the parks.

Hopefully all of the above will help cut down on vacation costs. Greg and I agreed that this will be the last big vacation until our financial situation is more stable.  Being a grownup is hard, isn't it?

I can't do it.

I can't do it. I really can't do it. I am unable to maintain a blog that focuses on one thing. My brain has such manic, obsessive tendencies that make blogging about one specialty impossible.

Remember that time I had a food blog? After several months I realized that the ONLY time I cooked/baked was for the blog. That wasn't going to work out in the long run.

The same applies here. In case it's not abundantly clear yet, I love Halloween. However, to say I had Halloween burnout this year is an understatement. My Halloween decorations (which are typically taken care of in the way one would take care of a treasured family heirloom) were taken down, and literally thrown into piles that were 4-5 ft high in places. They were left out on my back patio from 11/1-the last week of December. Burnout. Too much.

We won't even get into the depressing amount of weight I have gained over the last 3 months after doing great with health & fitness for 6 months. Burnout!

So, this will just be my "life" blog, as cheesy as that sounds. Crafting, vacation planning, Halloween, DIY projects around the house, the ongoing saga of my attempt to overhaul the health & fitness part of my life, and hell-maybe even a recipe or two will make an appearance. I am going to leave the name because I will always be a crazy Halloween lady. Also, I am too lazy to change everything over to a new blog.