reviewing and renewing.

In my last post I mentioned that I have recently been setting some new goals... mostly due to the fact that I have achieved quite a few my old goals that I set a year ago. Since almost a year has indeed passed since I set those goals I thought now would be a good time to do a little reviewing and renewing as well as some setting of new self-improvement goals for the next year or so.

Reviewing

Here's a little checklist of how I did with the aforementioned goals... I didn't post about all of the completed goals but feel free to follow the links on the ones that I did write about to read more if your interested.

1. Run the Dances with Dirt Devil's Lake Half Marathon: CHECK!
2. Practice eucharisteo: not so check... I will give myself some credit and say I did a better job of more often pointing out the small things that I am grateful for. But... I never quite made the habit of writing these things down. I want to literally have a list going that just follows me around the house and gets bigger and bigger and bigger. I want to head the teachings of the prophet Alma taught in Alma 7:23... "always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive."
3. Personalize our home: CHECK! I have had a lot of fun with this one! I'm still working on a few things here and there but so far everything is coming together quite nicely.
4. Read a book a month: CHECK! 
5. Read and learn from the Ensign every month: check! My favorite part about this one is that my sister (serving a mission in San Diego for the LDS church) does the same so we can share what we've learned with each other in our weekly emails.
6. Get back to my pre-pregnancy weight: super CHECK! woohoo!
7. Be someone's exercise and wellness coach: no check. :( This one is hard to do because how do you ask someone if they want help with their get-healthy goals? You can't just say, "Hey I've noticed that you're a little overweight... can I help?" So pretty much I'm waiting for you to come to me...
8. Play a piano solo in sacrament meeting: almost check. (: I played the congregational hymns a few weeks back and it went better than terrible so that's something, right? I also told our music lady that I'd play a piece in April for Easter... yeah I better get practicing for that.
9. Make a quilt: almost check again! For Christmas my MIL gave me a gift card to our little village's quilting shop and Todd gave me a Jo-Ann's gift card... now I just need to use them before we move!
10. "Re-tile" our kitchen table: CHECK! (:

Renewing

Since I've just about completed most of these goals I obviously need to come up with some new ones to keep me busy and moving me upward and onward. Character-improving/talent building goals that I am adding to the queue include:

1. Really practice eucharisteo.
2. For reals be someone's exercise and wellness coach. 
3. Put a "singing resume" together and convince some one to let me give them voice lessons. I've taken voice lessons and I've been singing for quite a while... why not share what I know? I'm all about sharing knowledge.
4. Read more books than last year. (>14) I've had a slow start to this one, it's March and I haven't finished a single book yet!
5. Get a college-student friendly budget down to a tee (or close to a tee) before starting school again in the fall. 
6. Be a better person. I want to be able to look back in a year and feel like I've really served and loved my family, friends, and come closer to my Savior.
7. Be a homemaker and keep the home clean and full of love.
8. Complete the value of virtue in the Young Women's program. I had my medallion and was long out of high school when the new value was added to the program... which means I'm behind and should probably forfeit my medallion until I finish the projects for virtue haha.
9. Get my pHd in Relief Society again. I loved this program that my old ward put together. It had so many great uplifting activities for nearly all aspects of life.
10. 
    

Well, there we go! I'd like to add a couple more but for now I'll just grow as much as I can with these. Really I'm pretty excited... I love reflecting and looking forward with determination to become better. Whether that's a whole-new-person-better or I-finally-stopped-biting-my-nails-better... it's all a step in a positive direction, right? (:

What do you think? How are your goals going? Have your New Year's goals lasted??

penny pinching.

Recently one of our good college friends, Autumn, wrote a post on her blog, stay gold autumn, about budgeting. It included her and husbands short and long term goals for their new home and other areas of their lives as well as how they are going to complete these goals while staying on a budget. I really like this idea of prioritizing your goals based off of what your budget will allow. I especially appreciated her post because recently I have also been setting some new goals as well as giving our budget a little more attention than normal. I just haven't combined the two like Autumn has. Why the sudden bonus attention to our budget? Well, you see when we leave for school at the end of July we wont have an income. Matter of fact Todd had to sign a contract saying he wouldn't work during his first two semesters of his masters... that's how busy they are going to keep him! But we'll still need to like... live and stuff. Since we are living now I thought that we could start practicing doing so cheaply so that when living cheaply becomes vital (aka zero income time) we'll actually have an idea of what kind of budget system works for us. And ideally we'll stick to that budget and stay debt free throughout Todd's MBA career. That's the goal part. (:

And because I love getting ideas from you and I want to share the pros and cons of different method's that we test out I thought I'd write about the process on here. I also think I'll feel more accountable this way. Plus being able to compare your budgeting system and such to others is always helpful. Anyhow...

This process is going to be tricky to say the least, but luckily there are a lot of resources out there to help us save every single penny that we can. Really though, there are a lot of resources and I have been scoring the internet for every budgeting/money saving tip to ever exist in order to find the ones that agree with my personality.

So where do we begin? Well, trial and error I suppose! Hopefully there aren't too many errors haha. The nice part is that we already are budgeters... it's the following-the-budget-to-a-tee part that gets us. Another bonus is that many of our expenses are fixed. This means that we'll be all set with those as long as we remember to pay the ones that aren't set up for a direct online payment. And (knock on wood) I'm pretty good about remembering. Mostly because I have a reoccurring event on my calendar that reminds me each month. It's great. Outside of those fixed payments... ya know, rent is always $715 and car insurance is always $96 and sheesh there are just so many things to pay for these days! Good heavens I sound like a grown up... ya anyway outside of those fixed payments we personally have five main categories where our money is spent... utilities, gas, groceries, entertainment, and gifts. These are the five that we are going to give the most attention to since we have the most control over how much is spent in those areas.

Utilities... they're kind of a fixed payment because you just have to pay the bill. Yes you can turn down the heat and keep the lights off and wash your laundry with cold water but other than those little things there isn't much you can do, you just have to pay it, whatever it is. High in the winter, low in the summer. You just pay it.

Gas is a tricky one for us. We drive a lot of miles... mostly because we shop in town (anywhere from 15-30 minute drive) and our church congregation's boundaries are pretty big. I think the farthest member lives 40 minutes away from us. It also doesn't help that one of my bestest buds moved from just up the street to a beautiful home 25 minutes away. That'll definitely add some miles because I can't just not go hang out! Come on!

Groceries. This is a huge one. I'll save it for last. So next, entertainment. All of the entertainment that we indulge in is redbox, going out to eat, and attending sporting events. Luckily for us, my mother ever so graciously gave Todd and I a redbox gift card for Christmas so we can take that completely out of our budget for a couple years. As for eating out and going to sporting events BYU and Giants games... it doesn't happen a whole ton but it's still an expense that we have complete control over so it will get some attention.

Gifts... I love to give gifts. I'm not the best at doing so cheaply but I am getting better. And there are only going to be more and more people that we love and want to give to so we need to get better at setting aside money for these occasions.

Okay so back to groceries. I love going grocery shopping guys. Some people dig doing laundry, some are dish washing pros... I am a grocery shopper. Maybe because I minored in nutrition so being around all of the food and comparing and picking the cheapest, healthiest options is a way for me to use my education. Maybe because I just like spending money and doing so on stuff we actually need is awesome. I don't know... but I enjoy it quite a lot. I also love to bake and cook. I love trying new recipes and sometimes if I am feeling a little bold I just make stuff up to some extent. Unfortunately this means that I buy lots of ingredients that I don't necessarily need to splurge on. Like poppy seeds. Definitely bought those last week for a fruit salad of all things. Probably the silliest purchase I have ever made in my entire life. I'll have to make some copy cat Winco poppy seed muffins to make up for it. Yum... oh my heck that sounds so divine right now...

K I'm back... I had to go look up recipes for poppy seed anything on Mel's blog. She's got poppy seed bread, bundt cake, and cookies. I think we all know what I'll be eating for dessert tonight! (all three of course!)

a 9-month old Peter helping me shop at Costco

Anyway, grocery shopping really is going to be the biggest challenge for obvious reasons.

Alright, let the journey begin! Five months until game time and endless budgeting ideas to try out. To save myself from failing too many times I am going to start with "the best" out there... the envelope system. Wish me luck and stay tuned for an update on how things are going... the pros, the cons, and the etc. of this famous budgeting technique.

p.s. I want to hear about your ideas too! so lay 'em on me!

last chance adventures.

Twenty-thirteen sure did deliver last year! We got to do so many great things with so many wonderful people that we love. And in a place that we have grown to love a ton. It was just so awesome. We're sad to leave this fun little place but before the tears flow we still have five more months to go on all sorts of adventures! Here are some of our want-to-do's before we pack up and head back west...

1. participate in Death by Chocolate IX.
2. go camping in Door County.
3. romantically eat some Italian food at Sole Sapori.
4. find out what the heck is up with Spring Garden... and sit outside whilst doing it.
5. attend the Chicago temple at least six five four three two one more times. 
6. make a quilt with the Happy-Bee-Quilting lady.
7. get out on the waters of Wisconsin. (Duck Dash!)
8. get a bag of Dr. Pepper belly flops at the Jelly Belly factory south of Milwaukee.
9. Visit the Henry Vilas Zoo again.
10. buy (try) some awesome cheese at the Dane County farmer's market.
11. finally go to Wednesday Night Live at Grundahl Park. Still kicking myself for not taking advantage of this the last two summers.
12. watch the Giants play the White Sox in June.
13. spend a Saturday at Governor Dodge.

Other non-Midwest specific adventures that spark my interest include the following...

1. eat a tostada to calm my nerves. (carne asada)
2. have an applesauce making/canning party with the mommas.
3. get lost in a corn maze.
4. check out the fall leaves via horseback.
5. move back to Utah for school.
6. visit Todd's extended family in California.
7. pay a visit to the Art City donut truck.
8. hike Buffalo Peak.

Did I miss anything?? Ya know... that one thing that you've done out here in the Midwest that you thought was so much fun that you just keep going back again and again. Yes, that thing. We want to know what it is so we too can join you in the fun before we peace out.