Budgeting

I don't know how many of you make a budget each month for your spending, but M and I do. We started shortly after we got married and changed our method a bit once we took a Dave Ramsey class offered through our church in Austin. (My brother calls us Dave Ramsey disciples although we do not follow all of Dave's suggestions. I do have to give Dave some credit though. He helped M and I get completely out of debt twice and has helped shape our views on spending. I hope that we are now better stewards of what God has entrusted us.) After the course, we started having a zero budget each month. This means that every penny of our paychecks and bills is accounted for in our budget and the budget has $0 left over at the end of each month. This lets you know where all your money is going - even savings.

Budgeting is very interesting. I work with budgets at work as most accountants do. At work, it is not always a big deal if someone does not stay within his or her budget. But that is a different story on our personal budget. After all, it is OUR money we are talking about. Well, I have had a hard time this year with my grocery budget. I know I should be able to stay below the budget we have set, especially since there are only two of us in the house (three if you count Max). I feel like I need to change my entire strategy for grocery shopping. Do you have any suggestions for saving money in this area?

What a good boy!

I am so proud of Max. He did exceptionally well on our out-of-state visit. I was really worried about it and lost some sleep over it both before our trip and on our first night in Texas. Thankfully, the weather was sunny and in the high 40s and 50s during most of our trip. He was a real trooper. He was excited to see everyone – and my nephews wanted to play with him which was fun. He has never jumped up on us so it is nice that he can say hi to people without jumping up on them. My family sure appreciated that. Here are some more fun facts about Max.

• He likes carrots and peanut butter – not together (although I am sure he would love that, too). That is the only people food we have given him other than the giblets from our Thanksgiving turkey. He wasn’t sure about those but eventually ended up eating them. I have to say they looked disgusting to me.
• He does not chew his food. As far as I can tell, he just swallows it. I don’t know how he does that.
• He snores. He doesn’t snore every time he is asleep. It is not terribly loud so I think it’s cute. If it kept me awake however, it would stop being cute.
• His name is still only Max. We are still trying to think of a good, upstanding name for his registration. We have had him for a couple of months now and have not come up with anything to put with Max yet. If you have any suggestions, we would love to hear them.
• He got Christmas presents from M’s sister’s son and her dog. He really liked both. One is a candy cane full of treats. The other is a stuffed duck that really sounds like a duck. It is cute and as soon as we opened it for him, he ran around the house with it. He likes stuffed toys, but so far they don’t last long before the stuffing starts being taken out of them.
• We learned over Christmas that Max enjoys digging through and eating horse poop. That’s right. What else can I say about that (isn’t that disgusting)?
• He is a pretty good traveler (at least by car). This was his first time to leave the city – he even crossed two state lines. He mostly napped in the back seat as we drove.
• He likes the bed…of course, who wouldn’t? It’s big, soft, and warm. After getting home from our trip, I felt like Max needed to be spoiled a bit. He did so good, and I wanted to make sure he knows he is loved. So for the past couple of nights he has slept up on the bed. Tonight it is time to go back to the crate. We all sleep much better when he’s in there.

Baby it's cold outside!

The temperature has not been above 30 degrees since we got home on Tuesday. M used to tease me all the time about the very small range of temperatures that is comfortable to me...and it's true. I don't like to be cold or hot...maybe Colorado isn't the best place for me to live. The ideal temperature for me is somewhere between 65 and 80 degrees. Even though I really like to experience all 4 seasons in the same year and I like to wear both winter and summer clothing, I do not like the cold. I like to see the snow and know that it is cold from inside my warm house. I don't like to get out in it...and my car agrees. It makes quite a ruckus in this cold weather. It is sunny today which is a huge improvement...even though the temperature right now is 9 degrees. It doesn't look like it's going to get much warmer over the next 10 days, but it is supposed to be sunny. It is amazing what a difference the sun makes. That is true in our lives as well...the Son makes a huge difference, all the difference in the world. Today I am thankful for the Son in my life and pray that others see the difference He has made.

Merry Christmas!!

I made it!!!

My goal was to be at my personal goal weight by December 31. Today I officially made it! I weighed in at my WW meeting for the first time as a lifetime member. I just knew I was going to gain weight over the last week because I ate a little bit of the treats I made for my co-workers, finished off the bag of Hershey's kisses, and did not watch what I ate as closely as I know I should. I was shocked to stand on the scale today and lose 2.8 pounds. All I can say is that it must be the walking/jogging I've been doing with Max. I have been moving more than I was. My leader did not seem very happy with my weight loss and told me not to lose any more. I seriously didn't lose on purpose this week. It will make the next couple of weeks interesting. I believe I will now let myself have some delicious pie over Christmas.

Christmas Goodies

One of my favorite things as a kid was helping my mom make yummy goodies at Christmas time. By helping, I probably mean eating the goodies. I watched her, but I'm not sure how much help I actually was. So now, that is what I want to do at Christmas time. M and I do not need to eat all these goodies so I decided to take them to my team at work. I had a good time making everything and hopefully they will have a good time eating it all. I made peanut butter cookies with kisses on top, chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate no bake cookies, tiger butter, and peanut butter fudge. There were a couple of other things I wanted to make, but I ran out of time. This is what everything looked like. It's really amazing how much people enjoy homemade gifts.

Sleeping Beauty

Isn't he sweet? If you are sitting still and Max is ready to take a nap, he wants to lay right next to you or on you. Here is taking a nap with his head on M's leg. The other day I was sitting on the floor to play with him while I was talking on the phone. He jumped up on the couch behind me, put his head on my shoulder, and went to sleep. It was very sweet - but his head did get rather heavy on my shoulder. Max was 16 weeks old on Friday. He will be 4 months old on Christmas Eve. Here are some pictures I took yesterday. He is still growing a lot and enjoying chewing on things - like the rocks he is laying on in our backyard. He was the top student in class this week...there were only 3 puppies, but he did very well. We still have a lot of work to do on some things, but he is doing well in general. He really enjoys chasing and retrieving a tennis ball. He is very good at bringing it back to you if he is interested in it, but he needs to work on leaving it with you. He pretty much likes to play with anything as long as you play with him. He likes loads of attention.