The internet at home was not working for 2 evenings. It was a bummer but we survived.
I am excited that this is a long weekend. We have Labor Day on Monday so no work for me. Wooohoo. I get to spend an extra day with my husband.
One of our neighbors is having an estate sale. I bought a huge beautiful Venetian mirror for $160. It’s huge. And very, very pretty. I plan on displaying it in the entrance hallway. Today we went to the estate sale again and wanted to get a lovely vintage sofa but we decided to wait tomorrow morning when they open at 8 to see if it’s still there. They will be offering 50% off tomorrow.
Today my husband and I had dinner at Sweet Tomatoes. It was pleasant as always. After that we went to Ross. Then we went to the mall to return something at Belk. We ended our trip by going to Babies R Us. We just looked around. I saw the baby bedroom set that I like. I sure hope to purchase them one day. We both were surprised by the price of some of those things they sell. Well, I guess this is why we need to start saving agressively!!!
Now I am at home. Relaxing. I am getting tired and ready for bed. I bought a beatiful bedding set at Ross. It was only $24.99. Can you believe it??? I love it. I’ll wash them tomorrow so I can use it for the weekend.
Ok. Time to sleep.
I just ate dinner. My husband is riding his bike again tonight. I told him to be careful because it looks like it might rain soon. Tropical storm Fay is coming our way now—it’s going to be come category 1 hurricane they said.
I am at home enjoying my quiet evening. I cooked dinner for my husband. I made him Mushroom Beef with 3 different sides: corn, steamed green beans, and garlic roasted potatoes. I had left over from last night (which is still enough for one more lunch and dinner for me). I don’t know what we will be eating tomorrow evening. I have a pound of ground beef and about 2 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breasts for my husband. I have been wanting to make a white bean and tuna salad for myself so I might make that tomorrow evening for my dinner. As for my husband, I need to make him something light. Maybe he wants to eat Grilled Chicken salad.
Found a dog. He was hanging out in my front porch.
I called my animal rescue club and we’ll be taking the dog to the vet tomorrow morning. Someone is going to pick him up from my house. We have to keep the dog in a crate in the back porch since we have 6 dogs in our house right now. The dog is in a bad condition. His long furs are all matted. It looks like he has a skin problem. Poor puppy. He is a medium-sized dog. Anyways. I am sure he will find a new home soon.
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I am tired.
I did make a cake tonight. Pineapple cake. It’s supposed to have coconut flakes in it but I don’t have any. The cake is done. I cannot wait to taste it. I am going to bring a big slice to work tomorrow to eat as dessert. Yum.
Ok time to rest.
Today was great. We went to church at 10AM. Then my husband drove me to Walgreens to pick up my prescription (for vertigo–I had vertigo on Friday morning – afternoon). Then we did laundry. We were done doing laundry close to 1.30PM. I made an appointment to do an activity with my little sister at 2PM; we were going to the roller skate place together. My husband decided that he wanted to come. So all three of us went.
We arrived at my little sister’s house at 2PM. Since we hadn’t had breakfast/lunch we decided to get something to eat first. We went to Bob Evans ($30–including tips). Then off we went to the roller skate place. It cost $18 for all three of us to go. We were there for about an hour and a half. It was fun. My little sister fell down 7 times. I didn’t fall down but I didn’t too well. I know how to roller skate but last time I skate was when I was 15 maybe. We had so much fun!!!!
We dropped off my little sister back at her house close to 5PM. Then my husband took me grocery shopping. We spent $85. This is grocery for a week. Kind of on the expensive side. We bought lots of fresh produce and fruits. We’re eating healthy, remember! I could have bought less expensive fruits I guess. But I love Pluots and they had them for $2.49/lb so I bought 2. They were huge though. Then I bought about almost 2 lbs of plums 9$1.69/lb). Cauliflower was on sale 2 for $4 so I bought 1. I grabbed 2 containers of grape tomatoes for $5. A 5-lb bag of red potatoes was $2.99. Dannon yogurt was on sale $.25 each so we bought 12 of them. My husband bought a box of granola cereals to go with his yogurts. Eggs were not on sale but I need them so I bought one (12) for $2.49. I saw a 2-lb container of ripe strawberries for $4.99 so I got one. We actually ate it for dessert after dinner tonight and they were so sweet. I packed some for my husband’s lunch dessert tomorrow. We got some bananas too. The rest are a bag of frozen peas, tortillas to make quesadillas, ground beef, pork steaks, chicken breast fillets (meats are for my husband), one box of stuffing mix, 2 packets of sauce mixes, 2 jars of pasta sauce, fresh green beans, and 6 gallons of water.
For dinner tonight, I made myself cheese quesadillas. For my husband I made him egg noodles topped with meat sauce. Same menu for lunch tomorrow.
Tomorrow for dinner, depending on what my husband wants, I plan to make him pork chop dinner with sides of roasted garlic potatoes and sautee green beans or chicken quesadilla with side of sautee green beans and spinach. Ok I just asked my husband and he wants the pork chop dinner. I am going to make white beans and tuna salad. I can probably eat that with left over egg noodles I made tonight. I can have the same sides my husband has for dinner since I usually make them vegetarian.
Anyways. This is my Sunday. I had a busy Sunday but it was fun. Before I go to bed, I am going to make a list of what needs to be bought to prepare for the baby’s arrival.
My husband really wants a baby. There is no way stopping him now.
I am kind of in the middle. I do want a baby but if I can wait, I’d do it later. I am 30 years old. My husband is 28.
I thought we were going to wait until we pay off our CC debts and completely finish our house. But I guess this will take us a while. I am hoping to have the baby in 2010. That would be the ideal situation. This will give us more than $5000 in our HSA account. And if we save my bonuses (2009 + 2010), we should have about $20,000. Not to mention if we save 2008 + 2009 my husband’s part time job income. We should get about another $10,000 for those 2 years.
If we are trying this year, we’ll have the baby in 2009. This means, less money saved. If we start early 2009, baby will arrive in late 2009. This equals $10,000 (my bonus) + $5000 (my husband’s part time job) = $15,000 saved possibly by the end of the year. If we start in mid 2009 and baby born in 2010, that would be perfect. Or at least better timing.
I know for a while I thought I wanted the baby more than anything but now I feel I am going backward. I am just very nervous. I am nervous about our money not being enough before the baby is born. Just today, I talked to one of my coworkers who has 2 kids under 4. She said she pays $320 a week for daycare for her 2 babies. I was like WHOAAAAA. That’s like our mortgage payment!!!!!!!!!! holly cow.
Today, I did ask my HR about the company’s maternity leave policy. I am not sure when my husband wants to start the baby. He does not say. He keeps on mentioning the baby. I hope he is just going through a phase. I’ll see if he still wants it by the end of the month because I don’t mind if we don’t have one at all.
Tonight, we are going to sit down and look at our budget and talk about everything else.
Will write again tomorrow.
My husband is having baby fever. He wants a baby. When I asked him if he wanted to have a baby he answered my question with another question: do you want to have a baby?
I think he does want one now.
We have been talking about it for the last few days and we decided that it is time for us to prepare for a baby. I am thinking, we can start next year after we get everything in order. I am going to see my doctor in 2 months and I am going to tell her about our plan so she can help us prepare for the baby.
I am a bit nervous to be honest. I know my husband and I have been talking about having a baby–in general– since years ago but we never really quite sure when to start. Just few days ago we thought ok this is the time to prepare for one.
Plans? Well. First, we need to finish the house as much as possible. Then we need to save money. I figure if we really really, really try, we can save $10,000 – 12,000 a year. This coming September or October, my husband is going to start his part-time job and usually he brings in $500 – 600 a month. So that is extra that we can save for the baby. This part-time job lasts until about February..March.. April I think…Next March 2009 I should be getting my bonus from work ( at least $10,000 cash take-home). And we will be visiting my families in my home country and from what my mom said, she and dad are going to give me a nice chunk of money. Part of me wants to really keep all the money for “just in case” especially now we are thinking of having a baby. I mean, that is HUGE commitment. I don’t want to pop one out just for fun. My husband and I will have to be responsible for it–emotionally, physically, and financially. I want to have a fun and relax pregnancy time. I don’t want to stress out about anything.
Anyways. Tonight we painted the family room. I picked the color. I wanted it to be a neutral color. I picked this color from Benjamin Moore: Oak Ridge. It turned out it’s quite greeeeeeeeeeen!!!!!!!!!! Oh well. We bought 2 gallons too!!!! It’s going to have some left over. But I am sure we can use it for other rooms in the house. I am think I want to paint the guest room/future baby room light beige. Something neutral. Or Ivory. I love blue and I wish I could paint the whole house blue. We already painted the living and master bedroom light grey blue—SOOOO pretty btw!!!! Love them.
I figure we won’t be able to finish the house 100% before the baby is born so we’ll do as much as we can with the money we have. We need to paint the dining room, the hallway, and the guest room. Oh and the bathroom. My husband is redoing the kitchen right now and it should be finished before the end of the year. The powder room downstairs will need to be finished this year as well as the dining room (this is minimal). Everything else just needs a new coat of fresh paints. I am thinking we should be done with the basics by Summer 2009. This will give us enough time to work on the house. Other than that, I just need to buy few pieces of furnitures and home decors that I can always find along the way—easy and fun stuff.
I am excited. I hope my husband is as excited as I am.
I watched Julia Child cooking the first time almost 8 years ago on Food Network TV. She was a guest chef for one of the TV shows. Growing up outside the country, I didn’t get to watch her original TV shows (well, it was released long time ago anyways).
Today, I have the chance to watch one of her DVD’s. It’s black and white. So clearly, it’s got quite old shows. I own and have read Julia Child’s cooking books before so I was quite excited prior to watching the DVD. The first recipe she made was French Crepes, which I happen to love. To my surprise, she used so much butter, sugar, and liquors for the recipe. Butter for the crepes batter, butter for the almond butter spread, butter for when you’re baking the crepes in the oven, and more butter to bath the crepes in right before you eat them. Oh and she also drenched the crepes in liquors. Oh my. I think I had a heart attack just watching her making the crepes. Don’t get me wrong I think Julia Child is a very good cook and chef but that one particular crepes recipe sounds too outdated. I make my own crepes and I use way less butter and sugar than her recipe. And since I don’t drink (alcoholic beverages), I tend to avoid use of any liquors in my recipes. Anyway. I am sure her crepes would taste good but I doubt I would make her recipe though.
I have to admit that I learned valuable new cooking tips and tricks from Julia Child.
Though I love Martha Stewart dearly, I cannot stop to wonder what our future generations would think of Martha Stewart’s cookings….
