JK

Am I the only one with a regular technology conundrum?  I rarely use our laptop and almost NEVER use our desktop computer now that the trifecta of motherhood, i-devices, and the absence of sitting in an office are in my life.  It's amusing to me how many hours of my life USED to be spent in front of a computer screen compared with my present reality.  (This amusement is solely rooted in how I have lived two opposite lives, by the way, and not in any judgment towards those who spend their days at a desk.  Shoutout to myself circa 2005-2011!)

I live my entire life through my (now seemingly ancient) iPhone 4, and the two of us get along fine thankyouverymuch.  

Until I want to post on this blog.  All of my pictures are housed on the phone, but it takes a lot of thumb-power to type up a post on the Blogger app, not to mention my particular blog's quirky posting properties when pictures are involved.  (HTML editing is required on this thing any time I include a picture for some wonky reason.  Does this happen to anyone else??)

So, here we are.  I'm speed-typing along on our 9-year-old laptop and producing this photo-less post.  

So anyways, did you know I'm a preschool teacher now?  

It's a pretty sweet gig for a part-time job, although it IS a job.  I tried to trick myself into sliding into it last spring...you know, just do this little thing in the mornings for some extra money and it's only 8a-noon and I'll hardly notice the change, no big deal.  It'll just be stay-at-home-mom-life-as-usual with this little daily morning errand. 

Except it didn't really work like that.  Any scenario that requires me leaving my house with my child at 7:40am is going to be "noticed."  But we adjusted, and Rhet loves going to her new school (right down the hall from me!), and we love our new friends (grown-up and not), and it's a pretty good job as far as jobs go.

Rhet started Junior Kindergarten two weeks ago.  I really wish they didn't have to call it such a grown-up name.  "They" technically includes ME, because I am a teacher's aid in the other Jr K class.  I just think about it as JK, so it feels like "Just-Kidding-Kindergarten."  ;)  Little Girl is pretty much Big Girl now, and she cuts and glues and paints all on her own.  Four years old is really such a fun age to buddy around with.  We've fallen into a rhythm where we do our work/school in the morning, get our nap on after returning home, and then do a little play/craft time before it's time to start dinner.  

August has decided to finally gives us some summer weather, and I have to be honest in saying that I'm glad it happened after we went back to school.  Instead of figuring out something to do outside of our 900-sq-ft house that doesn't include melting, we spend our mornings in a centrally air-conditioned building.  So, thanks for that August.  

Gazelles

A year ago, we put our noses to the grindstone and started trying to be grown-ups about our money.  It was not the funnest thing I've done, but as I've established in other posts, sometimes the "not funnest things" have ended up being some of the best things ever.  (See: full marathon training, adoption process, etc.)

I thought I'd give you a "One Year Later" update on our Total Money Makeover journey.  

If you want me to tell you that we've already paid off all of our debt and we're millionaires, then I need to apologize for disappointing you.  

But I'm excited and really proud of the progress we've made so far!  In one year, we saved up our initial Emergency Fund, established (and stuck to) a regular budget, paid off THREE of our five credit cards, and had the funds to pay cash for a couple of expensive (beyond budgeted) emergencies.  Not too shabby!  

Dave talks in his book about "gazelle intensity"--it originates from the verse in Proverbs 6:4-5 that talks about "deliver[ing] yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter."  We joke around in our house about being gazelles, and Dave's whole mantra about "live like no one else so you can live like no one else."  We're not going for millionaire status here...we're just trying to get out from under the weight of debt so we can stop paying for yesterday's purchases.  Blech.  I HATE debt!  

Here are some ways we've made it this far:

(A lot of these were covered in last year's post, but there are a few newbies...)

USE A BUDGET
The biggest change is that first the first time in our (at that time) 7-year-old marriage, we created a real "on paper" budget.  We used these free pdf's from Dave Ramsey's website.  We still use the "Monthly Cash Flow" pdf on our iPad to plan how we'll spend the next paycheck.  Doing a monthly budget was too overwhelming for me with bills due all month long and money coming in every other week.  Instead, we created (and still stick to) a budget for each pay period.  Every single cent of each paycheck is accounted for in its own budget.  It takes time and energy and sometimes even emotion, but it has just plain WORKED.

USE CASH ONLY
I know.  It's a pain.  But nothing else works as well!!  Some people call this "the envelope system."  We originally used bank envelopes for each of our categories, but we now use a small plastic filing envelope (like the kind that holds coupons).

Here is specifically how we do our budget on the cash system: After we create the budget (at this point, I reuse old budgets and tweak them for the next two weeks' plans), I highlight the line items that we will take out in cash.  There are a few things we don't use cash for: bills, gas, and occasionally gifts (if they need to be purchased online).  Then, I go through each line item and mark on an index card how many $20 bills, $10 bills, & $5 bills I need.  I double-check the total of cash I need with the bills totaled up.  I head to the bank ON PAYDAY (waiting longer than that gets me in trouble with overspending on my debit card and having to re-work my budget!), and I take the cash out.  I also take out half of our rent in cash on the pay periods we're not paying rent--I have to get it out of the account or it may make us feel like we have lots of leftover money that we can spend!  I put each amount into the different file slot in my plastic folder, and I only spend money from this folder unless I'm paying for gas on my debit card.

Here's the thing: I figured out a way to do this without taking cash out of the bank.  I had an app all set up on my phone last summer, and it simulated the envelope system and synced Nick's and my phones.  In theory, it should work just as well.  But they have done studies that PROVE that your brain actually FEELS PAIN when you have to spend cash over swiping your debit card.  It's just true at our house--using cash only saves us money!

MAKE MORE OR SAVE MORE
Ok, so say you made your budget, and you're all depressed because you can't afford your life.  The truth for all of is: if you are spending more than you make (or paying for previous times when you spent more than you made), you either have to make cuts or make more money.  I'm not judging what you spend money on (and thanks for not judging me), and we all differ in which we'd more readily rather do--make cuts or make more money.  I stayed home with our 3-yr-old this year...it's something I'm good at, and I like to do it (well, you know...), and we found a way to make that work.  That's not for everyone.  I am more apt to FIRST make cuts before I look for ways to make more money.  Here are some suggestions for cuts:

via

1. NEGOTIATE THE NON-NEGOTIABLE BILLS

You have to have electricity, gas, & water.  You you have to have insurance.  (And so on.)  Those are non-negotiable bills (you're going to have to pay them every month) that can potentially be negotiated.  Here's what we did that might work for you...

• We bundled our MLGW (utilities) bill into a "budget saver" option.  Instead of guessing what the bill would be each month (and waiting to see whether we saved or not), we had MLGW start charging us an average of our 12 months total.  It didn't really save us money, but it helped us budget for the bill in a more efficient way.

• We called our auto/renter's insurance provider and asked for how we could get our bill to the lowest possible amount.  We raised some deductibles, looked at the annual mileage on each car & the primary drivers, dropped certain coverages that we could cover with our Emergency Fund if need be, and we ended up with a good chunk sliced off of our bill!

2. MAKE CUTS TO NEGOTIABLE (WANTS) BILLS

• Cable TV: don't do it!  We have an HD "smart" TV hooked up to an HD antenna.  YES, it gives us trouble sometimes (more often in the winter??  I have no idea why??), but IT IS FREE.  (We do splurge for a "grandfathered" TiVo account--$8/month finds and records everything we want to watch on network television.)

• Internet: We looked for lots of ways around this one.  It still was most cost effective for our electronic needs for us to have broadband cable internet, so we called our provider and switched to the lowest speed (they warned us it might not stream Netflix on our TV, but it works just fine!) and negotiated the lowest price they could give us before we quit.  Make sure you get transferred to the "solutions" team representative when you're talking to your provider.  We pay $19.95/mo for internet, and we use it like crazy.

• Mobile Phones: Oh y'all, this was a tough one that I wrestled with.  We do not have a "home" landline--we have always just had mobile phones.  When I was looking at our largest bills, our AT&T bill was competing with the other big boys.  We both have iPhone 4's...we love them...they are extensions of who we are blah blah blah.  My contract with AT&T had run out, but Nick's had not.  I realized that this was something I could sacrifice for a teensy bit of time to save us some money we needed to get our debt snowball rolling.  I looked into all different kinds of plans and all different kinds of phones.  The most cost effective solution for me ended up being to KEEP MY iPHONE!  [insert hallelujah chorus]  In the bare minimum months, I had AT&T "unlock" my phone (making it possible to use it with other carriers), and then I terminated my service with them.  I used the wifi at home and in public hotspots to surf the web, check email, pull up maps, etc.  I also used wifi to make phone calls via the Skype app on my iPhone.  Now, I'm not a big phone talker, and I did pull back even more during this period of time, but it totally worked.  Read last year's blog for how I did it.  Once we paid of a couple of credit cards, I purchased a TMobile SIM card and bought a handful of minutes $10 at a time.  Recently, I made a jump back into the world of cell phone plans with Walmart's Family Mobile plan.  Nick's contract with AT&T finally ran out, and so we picked up a family plan with Family Mobile---$39.88 for unlimited EVERYTHING (minutes, texts, data) for the first line and $34.88 for additional lines.  $75 for both of us vs $80 for just him on AT&T!  WIN!

3. STOP SPENDING TOO MUCH ON FOOD

We love food and we love eating out, so this was a tough but obvious one for us.  In the leanest months, we were spending $20 every two weeks on eating out and $100 every two weeks on groceries!  It can be done!  We are now up to $80/two weeks on restaurants (including dates) and $120/two weeks on groceries.  Rhet is eating full portion sizes at this point, and we still have leftovers for Nick's lunches--I cook about 4-5 meals per week and we snack on leftovers/extra lunch/snack items or eat out for the other days.

You may be in awe that I could shop for our family of 3 (plus one big dog--he eats too!) for $50/week or maybe that sounds normal or expensive to you.  It was a challenge for me, but it was not extremely difficult either.  We made it happen by shopping at Aldi (HUGE savings, people!), cooking & eating at home even when we didn't feel like it, cutting almost all meat & diary from most meals (more big savings with a side of health benefits), and trying to keep things simple (I usually just make one thing--no multiple dishes/courses on our table).

In the beginning, we cut things down to the bare bones.  But then we got our tax check, which gave us a good catapult into the next phase, and at various points further down this road, we've increased the budget for specific line items (cell phones, for example) or added new line items (Parents' Day Out for this school year).  As we got a little breathing room back into the budget, we gave ourselves permission to budget for for things we never had money to do before, like regular dates and baby-sitting and even a gym membership for a little while (we had to give it up once we started paying for PDO).  Before we started this whole crazy thing, we always worried about money because we always ran out of money before we got paid again--and anything remotely resembling an emergency had us scrambling for a new line of credit.  A year later, we not only have money to cover must-haves and emergencies (like that surprise $900 headlight repair in the fall!), but we can also afford a few "wants!"  We still have some major work to do, but paying off a small amount of debt has already given us a taste of the financial freedom we'll have one day!  Hooray for hard work!

Spring Cleaning Shortcuts

Some people clean their houses when they give the first whiff of spring.  I just clean my blog.  Potatoes, po-tah-toes.

Speaking of cleaning...it's not my favorite, but I do have a few tricks up my sleeve:

1. BORAX
After a bout of trial & error with my top-loading washer smelling like mildew, I finally mastered the art of laundry with my old friend.  Fortunately and unfortunately, I upgraded to a front-loader a couple years later.  I did a lot of research ahead of time to make sure I didn't end up with another stinky washer--I had read that front-loaders had an even tougher time in the mildew department.  Thanks to Borax, I haven't had any trouble!  I put 1/4 cup of this stuff in the detergent tray when I wash every load (or 1/2 cup for whites or towels).  It keeps my laundry white & bright, and I've read it prevents mildew.  (My other trick is that I keep the washer door cracked open at all times, unless I'm washing laundry of course.)  Borax has a gajillion other uses--I sprinkle it on an extra-dirty bathtub on occasion and use water to make a paste to scrub away grime.

2. MRS. MEYERS CLEAN DAY ALL PURPOSE CLEANER (LAVENDER)
I love the Basil scent in this line of cleaners, but the Lavender was all I could find when I was out looking for something with which to mop my floors.  I begrudgingly brought it home and immediately changed my opinion on Lavender--it is a bright and clean smell that I absolutely love on my floors.  The cleaner can be used for all kinds of other cleaning tasks, and I consider it my own personal reward for cleaning my house.

3. DAWN ORIGINAL DISH SOAP + WHITE VINEGAR
This was a Pinterest trick I saw one day for cleaning a bathtub, and lo & behold, it works!  Use equal parts dish soap to white vinegar.  (I use 1/2 cup of each, usually.)  Heat vinegar in a microwave safe container (I use my measuring cup) for 1 minute, then mix with the dish soap.  The Pinterest page I read said to put in a spray bottle, but as soon as it cools, the solution will clog the spray nozzle...Instead, I just drizzle it straight on the tub.  This solution will shine your bathtub hardware to brand-new status (which is saying something for my tub!).  On an extra icky tub, I use the Borax paste, rinse, and then finish with a scrub with this solution.

4. SPRAY BOTTLE FILLED WITH WATER
Yes, it is my secret weapon, but not for what you might think.  With a small helper-girl around when I'm trying to clean, I find that a spray bottle filled with plain water with a rag gives her a task that buys me a good 15-30 minutes of time!  I usually have to redirect her to various places that need sprayed, but our favorite spots are: the front door, the baseboards, the front of my kitchen appliances, and the doorknobs.  It's just plain old H2O, so it's not going to hurt her or anything she sprays, but water actually cleans things a little, too!  (We also play dueling vacuums with her cordless $25 Aldi purchase and my big momma Dyson.)

Now that I've blogged all about it, I'd better take my own advice and get to work!

Pulling Teeth

Luckily, we are not at the literal "pulling teeth" stage of parenthood, which is most likely my most dreaded stage.  (Ick.)

Pulling teeth is more about having one billion trillion things to get out of my brain & onto a webpage, and then when the actual moment comes for writing...nothing...

So, this post is going to be more like going for a run after taking an entire season off.  Here I am, all huffing & puffing for writing material.  Feeling all clumsy & non-creative.  But I know it will come back to me with some practice.

Is it even possible to post on this blog without a picture of my child?  A picture of anything??

{Huff, puff} Whew!  How long do I have left?  One legitimate paragraph of material?  Let's do this! {Huff, puff}

Wait, I need to take a walking break.

Ok, after a whole weekend of "walking break," here's what I'm chewing on today: "The joy of the Lord is my strength."  (Good ole Nehemiah 8:10)

There are days, weeks even, at our house when I am gritting my teeth, just trying to make it to bedtime.  Life with a three-and-five-twelfths-year-old is an interesting mix of surprising camaraderie and straight up nails-on-chalkboard testing of boundaries.  It's the latter part that has me putting my head down with a grimace, evoking phrases from my little darling such as, "Mommy, your eyebrows look so mad!"

Today, as my little terrorist cherub ;) cued the dramatics regarding our weekly ritual of hair time, I whimsically looked her in the eye and said, "You will not steal my joy today.  Mommy is soooo strong in the joy of the Lord!"  While this did cause a brief hesitation upon pondering the meaning of what I said, it really had no bearing upon her behavior.  She went right on back to pitching a fit about not wanting her hair conditioned.

But, MY behavior...well, so far, it's made all the difference.  (Rats!  I surely just jinxed myself, seeing as it's only 2pm!)

I am SO EASILY influenced by my preschooler's moods & behavior, as if it is a reflection on my success and worse, a thermostat for my own emotions.  At the end of those exhausting, teeth-gritting days, I long for...creativity...celebration...joy.  (Particularly because I want to actually "enjoy" this stay-at-home-mom gig for which we're making some significant sacrifices.  What's the point of slashing budgets & doing without when it's all agony & misery, right?)  And I was mulling this over this morning, when God reminded me of Nehemiah 8:10.  I often feel so worn out in this season of life, and then guilty because I feel worn out.  I need STRENGTH.  I need JOY.  What good news that God's joy IS my strength!

The practical application is that this is the mantra that washed over me when my heart's thermometer was rising ever-so-high at various points today.  Rhet's pushing and testing and learning processes don't have to jerk me around today.  I am strong enough in God's joy to keep my sense of humor and wit--to find a calm & creative way to give do-overs.  I feel my eyes softening, my jaw loosening, my shoulders relaxing as I am reminded that having a 3-yr-old in my house IS NOT A CRISIS!  And the very person with potential for stealing my joy also has a potential for sharing it.  

How Does Your Garden Grow?

In honor of the EIGHTH anniversary of this blog, I am resolving to pick it back up and dust it off.  For real.

On one hand, I find it impossible to believe that there are nearly a decade of posts on this site.  My blog is mere days away from being a gangly, sweaty/stinky, front-teeth-missing, carefree eight-year-old!  How did she get so old??!  

On the other hand, I just went back and read my first two posts from May of 2005 in which I sound like a b.a.b.y.  Ahhh, the perspective of passage of time. 

Speaking of the passage of time, I have a tough time blogging about it lately because it seems to be happening at warp speed at my house.  Somehow I was sitting at Rhet's 3rd birthday dinner (which seems like yesterday, but was actually a couple of months ago in February) and burst into tears watching her birthday video with the realization that she is...GROWING UP!  In theory, I have no problem with Rhet growing up...I resist the "stay little" mantra of pop-motherhood...I want to cherish my child in all seasons of her life, and I want to look forward to the new joys of the next stage.  But...

But...these people are not messing with us when they say the time flies by.  They are not exaggerating by any means when they say "the days are long, but the years are short."  Boy, does it, and man oh man, are they.  

Rhet came home on the day she turned 17 months old.  It wasn't even two years ago, and somehow she's already 3, and I've been catapulted into the world of preschool registration and swimming lessons and "whywhywhywhywhy" slash "Rhet do that Rhet-self!"  The rapid change that occurs between 1.5 & 3 years old is breathtaking.  Literally.  

So that's what I've been doing...trying to catch my breath after finally packing away the tiny 18-24 month-sized dresses and bloomers and coaxing myself into deciding whether or not Rhet will do preschool/PDO next year.  

I'm trying to give myself grace with the whole parenting-learning-cuve, but preschool world requires a whole new skill set than was required of me in toddlerhood.  Planning things 6-9 months in advance.  Extracurricular options.  Some translation skills still required, but beyond that, knowledge regarding the answers to any number of "why" questions from personal to extraneous in subject.  The struggle of child with parent (me!) for autonomy and independence: this main theme running through my college major (Human Development & Family Studies) has officially happened to ME.  I don't know why, but I did not prepare for this new stage.  It snuck up on me.  I read a couple shelves of books on adoption, attachment, transracial adoption, international adoption, "What to Expect the First Year," "What to Expect the Toddler Years," but now?  Now I am scrambling like that HDFS college kid pulling an all-nighter, only it doesn't go down on paper anymore--it goes down in real life!

When Rhet was 1 and then 2, she was developmentally catching up.  She was a happy kid.  And I was a happy parent.  I was happy to let her explore and try things on her own.  For awhile, she was still so much like a baby to me--because she was "newborn" into my family, I guess.  Toddlerhood clung to her for awhile.  But it was like someone flipped the Preschooler switch about 6 months ago, and for some reason, I am morphing into control freak parent.  The stakes are higher, and she is aware of her behavior, and she is pushing, pushing, pushing.  Something about that just makes me pull, pull, pull back.  It's like a law of motherhood gravity.

I'm reading a really good book this week: Tim Keller's "Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work."  I wasn't sure if I'd connect with this book because my "work" is unpaid, untimed...essentially unmeasured.  I've been (naively) surprised how much I identify with the struggle of being a stay-at-home mom--I told Nick the first year that I felt like a huge cliche.  I am careful in the words I choose when discussing work with Rhet.  ("Daddy goes to work at his office.  Mommy works at home." Or, "Daddy's job is to help people at the hospital.  Mommy's job is to take care of you.")  I feel justifiably (though predictably) defensive of my right to call what I do "work."  

Luckily, Tim Keller calls my stay-at-home parenting work, and he writes that God acknowledges it as my work, too.  

I'm only about a third of the way in, but I've been struck in the first portion of the book of the mention of "work as cultivation."  Keller writes, 

"If we are to be God's image-bearers with regard to creation, then we will carry on his pattern of work.  His world is not hostile, so that it needs to be beaten down like an enemy.  Rather, its potential is undeveloped, so it needs to be cultivated like a garden... We are to be gardeners who take an active stance toward their charge.  They do not leave the land as it is.  They rearrange it in order to make it most fruitful, to draw the potentialities for growth and development out of the soil.  They dig up the ground and rearrange it with a goal in mind: to rearrange the raw material of the garden so that it produces food, flowers, and beauty.  And that is the pattern for all work... It is rearranging the raw material of God's creation in such a way that it helps the world in general, and people in particular, thrive and flourish."

This blessed me.  It was just what I needed to hear this week in the push, push, push, pull, pull, pull rhythm we've fallen into in my house.  I have this desire to tap into my former (perceived) Zen toddlerhood mommyness that seemed so much more joy-filled and patient.  This is how:

via

I am a gardener.  I am not a sculpter.  (GOD is a sculpter.  But I am not God, and that is a different analogy.)  I am not pushing around a piece of clay, reshaping it into what I want it to be...master of the finished product.  No, I am a gardener in God's garden with God's seed.  There are many elements out of my control.  If I TRY to control them, I will only frustrate myself.  My job as the gardener is to make sure my seedling is planted in good soil.  I can weed around her.  I can add more water if needed, or move her to a sunnier spot.  I can provide for her needs, but I can not make her grow.  I can not determine what kind of plant she is.  I can not control her.  My job is to help her "thrive and flourish."  I think I can attempt that.  And I'm pretty sure it won't be accomplished by pull, pull, pulling...

There is a song by Christy Nockels (2nd shoutout this year--thanks for the good music, Christy!) that was in Rhet's annual birthday video this year, and it was what was playing when I burst into tears at her party...

Sometimes it's hard to grow when everybody's watching
To have your heart pruned by the One who knows best
Although I'm bare and cold, I know my season's coming
And I will spring up in...in this faithfulness 

With my roots deep in you
I will grow the branch that bears the fruit
And though I'm small I still will be standing in the storm
Cause I am planted by the river
By your streams of living water
And I'll grow up strong and beautiful...all for your splendor, Lord

Nockel's song is taken from some favorite verses of mine--one in Psalm 1 that talks about a blessed person meditating on God's law being like a "tree that is planted by streams of water."  The other verse (below) is framed on our living room mantel.  After taking Rhet to Auburn for the last rolling of the Toomer's oaks a couple weeks ago (they were removed three days later due to being poisoned at the roots by an uncharacteristically mean rival fan), these verses have taken on new meaning.  What a sacred role I have, cultivating the soil of young roots...

They will be called oaks of righteousness,
A planting of the Lord
for the display of His splendor.
{Isaiah 61:3}

Dave Ramsey Koolaid

Ok, we drank the koolaid.

For Christmas, I gave Nick a "marriage book club."  He and I both really enjoy reading.  We are also both hopeless TV junkies tired at the end of the day, and we usually end up chilling on the couch.  I proposed that we each read one book at the same time per month and then discuss what we think about it...AKA, the marriage book club.

The first book for January was Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover," which seemed appropriate given our annual interest in getting fit & getting financially back on track each January.

Oh boy, it messed with me.

I know money is a personal matter for everyone, but I have a feeling we're not the only ones who feel like we run out of money before we run out of month.  We tried setting up a specific budget a long time ago, back when I was a church secretary and Nick was a full-time student--our bills took up 90-something percent of our income!  We tabled the issue, and never picked it back up.

A year and a half ago, when we decided I would stay home with Rhet, we knew things would be tight financially, but we never examined it down to the dollar.

After reading this book, we finally got real with how much debt really have and what we're going to have to do to get rid of it.  I feel so liberated!  Even though we're still on the very first "step," it feels good to have a plan and to finally have the ability to tell our money where to go.

Dave repeats himself a lot, and one of his big things is working toward financial goals (paying off debt, particularly) with "gazelle-like intensity."  I respond well to goal-setting and motivational speeches, so Dave naturally struck a chord with me.

Here are a few things we've done to fine extra room in our budget--some of them may sound crazy to you, but remember--we're working with gazelle-like intensity over here!

1. Look at every single bill you pay and figure out how to make it lower.
This may seem like a "duh" statement, but in the past we've just paid what the paper told us we owed and didn't take them to think any more about it.

• We switched our electricity/gas/water bill to "Budget Billing."  This is an option in which they average out your bills from the past year so you pay the same amount every month.  Much easier to plan around.  (Don't worry--they reconfigure your savings/extra every year and make adjustments.)

• We switched our cable broadband internet to the slowest speed (AKA cheapest per month cost) and signed up for a 6-month promotion to get the bill even lower for a bit.  $20/month!  (Because of the amount of budget cuts/changes we've made that in turn have us relying on cable internet, we couldn't slash this anymore than what we did.  Dial-up just wasn't going to cut it for now.)

• We called our car/renters' insurance agent and asked what we could do to get our bill as low as it could go.  This meant raising some deductibles (Dave has emergency savings in his plan, so that would cover things) and reevaluating the way we use our vehicles.  In all, we shaved $60/month off of our bill!

• We don't get cable TV.  We use an HD antenna with our smart TV, and we we do pay for (an ancient, grandfathered) TiVo subscription at a low cost.  We quit our Hulu subscription (which we had in case one of our channels got iffy for whatever reason in the middle of recording Downton Abbey), knowing we could watch a show on the computer or iPad if we missed it on TV.  We subscribe to Spotify Premium for $10/month instead of purchasing music.  We have considered dropping our Netflix subscription, but we're holding onto it for the time being we're using it often.

• I made a commitment to slash our eating out (a HUGE weakness) to $20/pay-period and reeeeeally trying to cook on the cheap ($100/pay-period).  Check out how that's going over on Frugal Foodie!

• Here is the craziest one that is also saving a bunch of money: I quit my cell phone service.  We both have iPhones that we used with AT&T.  I was off-contract, and when I started looking into it, I realized I could definitely lower my bill.  (Nick still has about 9 months left on his contract--we are budgeting for buying him off of it because the money we save will pay for the cost of the buy-out almost immediately!)  There are several ways I could have gone with this, and I will probably modify what I've done later once we have eased off our gazelle-like intensity :) but for now, this is what I do:

• Before I cancelled my service with AT&T, I "ported" my number to Google Voice (for $20).  This allowed me to keep my phone number that everyone knows, no matter what I decided to do for my phone service.

• Also before canceling my service, I made sure to request my iPhone to be unlocked, so I could use it with another carrier in the future.

• I purchased a SkypeIn phone number.  As a trial, I purchased mine for $18 for 3 months, but you can also pay $60 for the whole year.  This gave me a phone number to use as a forwarding number with Google Voice.  (When people call the phone number they know as "mine," Google Voice will accept the call and forward it to my new Skype number.)

• I also purchased SkypeOut Credit as a trial.  (If I end up spending more than $2.99/month, then I'm just going to get a SkypeOut subscription that allows me unlimited calling minutes for that total per month.)

• So here is how using my phone works:
• I make outgoing phone calls using the Skype app (which is set up to show my known Google Voice number for caller ID) on my iPhone over wifi.
• I receiving incoming calls through the Skype app on my iPhone over wifi (which are forwarded from Google Voice).
• I text my friends with iPhones through the normal texting app on my iPhone with iMessage over wifi.  If I'm texting with an iPhoneless friend, I use Google Voice, which uses my Skype credit.
• The good part: I get to use my oh-so-useful and beloved iPhone for about $2.99/month (after the initial $38 start-up cost) on the same phone number that everyone knows...this saves us about $60-80 per month!  The bad part: If I am not on a wifi network, I can't use my phone...AKA: I am living life in 1992.  As a stay-at-home mom, I am often...well, staying at home.  Duh.  And if I'm out and about and need to use my phone, there are places with wifi I can go to.  I approached all the "what if's" with a "this is a temporary super-cheap solution...in an emergency, I can rely on the kindness of strangers and provision from God" attitude.

• Once Nick is able to switch is network, we'll probably get him a prepaid plan & simcard from a much cheaper competitor and he'll limit his data as much as possible.

You guys, it feels SO GREAT to have the money that we need to save and to pay off debt instead of despairing that it disappeared every month.  Sure, it's kind of painful to make cuts that are really inconvenient and not fun.  But the payoff is literally worth it.  Hope I inspired you to find some "extra money" in your budget, too!

Who I Am

Last weekend, I went with some friends to Lake Lanier (just outside of Atlanta) to attend the Created for Care retreat for adoptive moms.  It was great to have multiple DAYS let me brain off-duty, to relax & laugh, and to intentionally think about what God has done and what He is doing in my life.

19 months ago, I became the primary caregiver of one of my favorite little people in the whole world.  She turns 3 at the end of this month, and there hasn't been much time or energy within my daily life to tell the Lord anything other than, "Help!" with an occasional, "Thanks!"

Last weekend, I pictured myself joyfully roadtripping with friends and ending up in this incredibly restful spot and being completely at peace.  The end result was the opposite for me...instead of being at peace, I felt incredibly self-conscious, restless, weary, and anxious.  REALLY anxious.  "Gosh, people must think I am SUCH a weirdo," I thought as I burst into tears constantly when interacting with friends (& strangers!) that first night.  "I should have gotten my hair cut, I wish I felt cuter in my clothes right now, I should have seen a dermatologist about this bump on my nose months ago..." were the petty, superficial thoughts of my mind & heart.

The longer I sat through worship, through keynote speakers, through sessions, I just kept finding more and more layers of anxiety in my heart.  "Am I a good mother?  Am I a good wife?  What can I do with these feelings of daily failure?  I don't even feel like I know who I am anymore!"

I heard and saw women living out deep, abiding faith in the Lord.  And I felt so puny & worried & faithless standing among them.  I am worried about what people think about me.  Even more, I am worried about what God thinks about me.  I sense God's unbelievable grace poured out for my undeserving self, but I think I just tend to stay there...the actions of my daily life still so legalistic--I work out of a desire to make God proud of me.  To make Him glad He loves me.  To make his sacrifice "worth it."

In her song "Be Loved," Christy Nockels sings:

"have you ever let yourself be loved by the One who made you?
have you ever told your soul to believe that His heart is on your side?"

I don't know that I have.  At least, I don't right now.  I have no problem with gratitude for a God who would save "a wretch like me."  I find myself pretty wretched.  I put pressure on myself and I think the worst about myself.  I know what I'm "really" like.

But do I believe God loves me BECAUSE of who he made me to be and not just in spite of it?  Do I believe He's proud of me?  I mostly think he beholds me with a roll of his eyes, thinking what a crazy mess I am.  I connect with verses like 2 Corinthians 12:9--His power is made perfect in my jacked-up-ness.  I imagine He gets jazzed about how awesome He is going to look through my super-messed-up self.  I just sit in that perspective and speak it over myself.

I've realized the Lord wants to speak a new truth over me.  A truth that could set me free from my fear...of what others think about me...of how I feel about success and failure...of how I approach my responsibility to His kingdom and the people around me.

Just like any other major life change, motherhood has messed with the deepest part of me.  I was worried that I was starting to lose joy in my day-to-day mothering, I was worried about my increasingly frumpy SAHM appearance, in my sense of being "less cool," in my inability to keep my life "together" for more than two days in a row...I didn't realize it went this deep...into the deepest part of my identity.  This is more than not making time to go running or getting up early so I start my day with make-up on.  This is about WHO I AM.  Who HE says I am.

I am afraid of what He thinks about me.  Of what others would think about me if they really knew me.  And fear is never from the Lord.

Ode to the 'Hood

We're coming up on 10 months with the Little Miss at home in our lives.  In some ways, I can't remember when it began, and in other ways, I feel like I'm still begging forgiveness and grace for my "new mommy-ness."

{For example, please forgive the measly handful of posts I've offered up this past year, bloggie friends!}

New mommy-ness in adoption world is quite strange--in many ways, I should have a 9-turning-10-month-old.  Instead, I feel like I'm tricked into believing I've been doing this a lot longer than I really have...!

Grace, grace, grace.  It is a wonderful thing.

Even though we are several months from "a year" of parenting, next week marks the first day we met our beautiful little then-baby.  And something about Mother's Day has me feeling an annual-ness about this point in time.

I have struggled with Mother's Day in the past...
For some reason, I thought I had blogged a ton about it.  But lo and behold, this is the only blurb in part of a post in which I mention any type of issue with the holiday.

I was never quite sure "when" to celebrate Mother's Day.  We were in-process for several years, and I likened it be being pregnant...but...it was not the same.  Last year, I had "a child," but I still hadn't met her yet, and I certainly wasn't caring for her full-time.  I so badly wanted to celebrate.  (Do I raise my hand in worship service for "who is the newest mother??")

 And as is true in adoption-world, my Mother's Day will always be shared with other women on the other side of the world.  I did not become a mother on my own--it was another woman who birthed the child I now raise.  My daughter was someone else's daughter first.  And there were precious women who selflessly filled in the gap when Rhet needed food, clothing, shelter, and arms to hold her.  I recognize all of those women as mothers in Rhet's life--women who nurtured and cared for her before I could.

I do not feel threatened by this.  I feel humbled.  You are kidding yourself if you think you've done this whole motherhood thing on your own, no matter who you are or how you became a mom.

In the spirit of my annual-ish pondering over the past year (and in light of the most recent holiday), this post is an ode to Motherhood.

Motherhood, you have kicked my butt.
I thought you would come naturally.  And in many ways, you have.  But every day, you push me to my limit so that I have to cry "mercy" and run to the Holy Spirit for help.  (That's not such a bad thing.)

Motherhood, you may not have stretched out my belly, but you have stretched out my heart.
My capacity to love (my family, others, unselfishly) is growing, growing, growing.

Motherhood, you have hidden me under your wings this year.
I feel like I am just now emerging from this transition, like that 10-month-old I "should" have, who would be standing up on wobbly feet.  I am that wobby-feet-kid-mom.  I feel ready to try new things again...like having a social life...pursuing hobbies...being a good friend...ok, maybe just being A friend... ;)

I have a lot of mom-guilt that this has been such a big transition for me.  I wish I was cooler and way more breezy and go-with-the-flowish and oh, it was nothing-y.  But this was a big life-change.  A big budget-change.  A big marriage-change.  A big time management-change.  Motherhood, you are a guilt-magnet, but I know you do not intend to be so.  You are just trying to teach me that I'm not all that.  Which is okay.

Motherhood, I love you.  You bring little hands holding my bigger hands.  You bring little squeezes around my neck and little lips smooching my cheeks.  You bring giggles and gorgeous smiles for sometimes no reason at all.  Motherhood, sometimes you irritate the crap out of me.  You bring little elbows and knees out of nowhere, jabbing me in the most vulnerable places.  You bring tantrums and time outs.  You bring stains on every single piece of clothing ever to be worn by anyone.  I love you and I dislike you, Motherhood, but mostly I love you.

But you are not my idol.  You are part of me, Motherhood, but you are not all of me.  But you are gracious like that.  You let me be bigger and wider and reach farther than you--you want me to grow beyond you.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you who are part of the 'Hood.
And Happy Mother's Day to all of you who carry a mother's heart in one way or another--you may not get your maple donut with bacon crumbled on top or your handwritten card, but you deserve a thousand thank you's for the ways you bless God's children.

Never Say Never: The g Edition

There are things in life about which you think, "That's a nice idea, and I'd like to do that, but it's never gonna happen."

My list of such things starts like:
- Running a sub-9-minute mile (I'm slow as molasses)
- Going on a ski trip (Bad knees, low funds, I'd rather be at the beach)
- Home-schooling my children (I had to take the same math class three times in college)
- Bathing my dogs and clipping their nails...any time, ever (I'm a wimp and they are wimps...bad combo)
(Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...)

I could probably tackle each of those things on the above list.  But I just find that my willpower and energy doesn't take me far enough.  At least for the time being...

To "g" or not to "g"...

At one point in life, cloth-diapering would have been on that list.
But somehow, I am doing it this year, and kind of loving it...

Here's the backstory:
I am a lover of all things Method brand.  (Here's proof.)  Many moons ago, they wrote about the creation of a new hybrid cloth diaper called gDiapers.  (A hybrid cloth diaper being one that can contain either a cloth insert or a biodegradable disposable insert.)  These little guys were not only adorable, but eco-friendly and easy on the wallet.  (After initial purchase.)

Then the rush of adoption paperwork came along and I thought to myself, "Nope.  Never gonna happen.  I'll try it with the next kid, but there's no way I have time to figure this out on top of everything else we have going on."  

Then, the wait.  I'm not sure if you remember, but I had a little bit of time to plan for Rhet's arrival.  ;)

I read everything on their website.  Then I read reviews and links.  And I start thinking, "Ok, this might be doable.  I think I can figure this out."

The receiving of the g's

We registered for the products we needed to get started and received them from generous friends and family at our baby showers.  My goal was not to 100% eliminate use of disposable diapers.  My goal was to save money.  (Sorry, Earth, helping you out was just an added bonus for now.)

Also, I did not research other brands or other kinds of CD's (cloth diapers).  Let me tell you, people are fiercely loyal to their CD brands.  Good gracious.  But I just did not have the energy to sift through all of it.  I liked what I knew about the first brand I looked into, so we just went for it.

Obviously, our four weeks spent in Ethiopia were not focused much on saving money.  We went the easy route whenever we could, which meant packing a suitcase full of Pampers.  (Seriously, a whole suitcase.)

When we returned and got over most of the jetlag, I gave the cloth diapering a whirl.  (By then, I felt like superwoman, so it was small potatoes!)

I have to admit, the whole thing can seem intimidating and gross and too labor-intensive, but I have actually found it to be amazingly easy!  Yes, it's a little extra work.  But the extra dollars I save are worth it to me.

I feel the need to insert a disclaimer at this time:
We are all different.  Our children are all different.  What works for me may not work for you.  We live different lifestyles, have different washing machines that use different water types, and our little kiddos' bums have different sensitivities.  If you find this post informative and motivating, SUPER.  But whatever you take away, PLEASE don't let it be guilt that you are not doing enough or not doing it right.  I detest MommyGuilt (which is an entire post for another time), and I am not intending to dish it out here.  I am a stay-at-home momma, which means I have a little extra time (that's relative) and a deficit of cash--FOR ME, cloth diapering has been awesome for us.

Here's how gDiapering works in the Rhet Faris world:

PART A: STORAGE OF CLEAN G'S
I store Rhet's g's in the top two drawers of her dresser.

g Setup

The composition of a gDiaper includes three parts:
(1) the gPant--the soft, cotton, outer pant that velcros in the back
(2) the gLiner--the breathable, but waterproof(ish) liner that snaps inside the gPant
(3) the gCloth/gDisposable--we mostly use cloth, which is microfiber on top and hemp on bottom, and it is stuffed inside the gLiner
Whenever possible, I try to pre-assemple the gDiapers for quick changes.  But often (including today), the gPants are stuffed into the left drawer and the gLiners and gCloths are stuffed into the right drawer.

PART B: USE
I need to confess to you that I am a cheater.  I have not always been a cheater, but my child is just kind of awesome.  One day, a couple months after arriving home, Rhet was in the bathtub and almost...well, you know.  So I whisked her out of the tub and put her on the toilet, pretty much as a reflex.  Not only did she take care of business, she has continued to request to sit on the potty to #2 ever since.

PRE-cheating...I really loved gDiapers' paper liners that come in a little square box--I stored them with the other supplies.  They are really thin and lay right over the top of the gCloth.  When the diaper is dirty, everything slides right into the toilet.  (I'm sorry, I know that's gross but this is the gross part of the run-down.  And ultimately, using the paper liners is LESS gross, because you make the grossness go away.)  Yes, grossness got on the cloth, too.  It just washed right out so it never concerned me much.

And now...well, yes.  I'm a cheater and I only have to wash wet cloth diapers.

Our wetbag is right by the door (and entrance to the bathroom)

PART C: STORAGE OF DIRTY G'S
When I change a gDiaper at home, I most often dump the insert into a wetbag that zips at the top.  It is cloth on the outside and waterproof on the inside.  It is Leslie's Boutique brand and it does an amazing job of keeping in the stink.  I do not rinse my diapers, wet or dirty.

If the diaper has gotten wet/dirty on the liner and/or the outer pant, I unsnap the liner and close the velcro all the way over and throw everything into the wetbag.

When we're out and about when Rhet is wearing cloth diapers, I keep a spare in a quart-sized zip-top plastic bag.  I switch it out with the dirty after it's changed (trying to remember to unsnap the liner and fasten the velcro on the outer pant), and dump it in the wetbag when I get home.

We own:
- 6 gPants (most often they can be reused before washing)
- A bunch of gLiners (too many, really--usually if the liner is wet/dirty, I just wash the pants too...we have all the liners that came with the gPants and then I think I purchased an extra package of gLiners)
- 24 gCloths
(I rarely use the disposable inserts.  They are handy, but I end up using disposable diapers altogether when we go out for long periods of time.  Also, we use disposable diapers at night--I spare no expense when it comes to getting my child to sleep the maximum amount of time possible!)

(We brought Rhet home when she was about 17 months old, so keep in mind a younger child would use more diapers per day.)

PART D: CLEANING
This is the part that most often keeps people from trying CD'ing (too gross/too much work) or drives people to quit CD'ing (can't figure out the right soap, right balance of soap, what type of water they have, how to work with their washer, how to keep diapers from smelling or staining, etc etc).

I had the sheer luck of doing what worked perfectly for us the first time.  In fact, I changed soaps later on, and it ended up messing everything up--I had to strip the diapers of the new soap and go back to my old brand.  I would say this is the most time-consuming part of CD'ing--not the actual cleaning but FIGURING OUT how to clean them so that everything works right.  You have to figure out what temperature you water should be and how much soap is just enough.  You want to make sure your soap is not too strong (irritation) but not too weak (staining).  You have to figure out whether you need to soak your diapers and for how long.  You don't want any soap residue left in your diapers, so you have to figure out how many extra cycles to rinse.

I will put a plug in for my favorite soap: Rockin' Green.  Again, I found a recommendation for it on gDiapers site (among a few other soaps), and after reading the extensive FAQ's on their website, I decided to give them a whirl.  Their customer service is wonderful, and the soap has never done me wrong.

So here is how I clean my diapers  (it may work for you, it may not):
Again, I do not rinse the diapers before storing them in the wetbag.  (I try to touch them as little as possible, actually.  Icky.)  I wait until the wetbag gets full, which takes 2-4 days, depending on how often I've been "supplementing" with disposable diapers.

1. I dump the contents of the wetbag into the washer and then toss the wetbag in too.

2. Depending on how stinky the diapers are, sometimes I give them a good soak.  In the old days, I would soak them in my Classic Rock soap for an hour or so with hot water.  These days, the diapers usually have an ammonia smell if they've been in the bag long enough (particularly because there are only wet diapers in there), so my usually method is to dump them in, fill up with hot water, and add some Funk Rock for about an hour.

3. Then I run the contents through the rinse cycle.  (I have a super simple/cheap washer & dryer, so I just turn the dial to the end to force it into the rinse cycle.)  If the diapers are not extra-stinky, I start with this step, filling with hot water for the rinse.

4. After rinsing, I start the wash cycle over again (with hot water) and add my Classic Rock soap.  I let the washer run through the whole cycle.

5. After the complete cycle has finished, I force one rinse cycle with cold water again.  The end.

6. DO NOT WASH OR DRY YOUR CLOTH DIAPERS WITH FABRIC SOFTENER.  (It will royally mess them up--it basically keeps them from absorbing anything.)  I throw everything into the dryer (sans liners, which I lay out on top of the dryer) WITHOUT any type of dryer sheet (I use the Bounce dryer bar right now, so I slide it out of the dryer when I'm washing CD's and towels) and I run a regular drying cycle.  I used to hang the gPants to dry (to preserve their bright colors and extend their life), but then I got lazy and ended up preferring the way the drying them makes them softer.

So that's it.  I attribute our success with CD'ing to finding a great brand (gDiapers), finding a great soap (Rockin' Green), making sure that I use the minimum amount of soap needed specially created for the type of water we have, making sure I rinsing/pre-rinsing enough to help with odors and residue.

(Also, make sure to clean out your washer regularly as well!)

gDiapers comes in various sizes.  Rhet was a "medium" when she first came home, and she has since graduated to a "large," where she will most likely stay until she doesn't need them anymore.

Although the supplies are a big investment (and it does MAJOR help to add them in your registry!), disposable diapers are so stinkin' expensive.  Pun intended.  Hope I helped you do a little homework to take the plunge and save yourself some long-term expenses!