Thank You Soldiers

Our family attends Real Life Ministries in Post Falls (an awesome church by the way). I attended (for the first time today) Rewired, a women's ministry event. It was absolutely wonderful. Today's guest speaker was Cathy Queen (I think I've spelled it right). She is a missionary to Iraq, Northern Iraq. One thing she said rang prominently with me and she's absolutely right.

She said that CNN (and typical other media) refuse to inform American society exactly how much better life is now for Iraqis. DAILY she meets people that are profuse in their thanks for their freedom. DAILY she's asked by Kurds to tell American's thank you. DAILY. American's do not hear any of this and our soldiers certainly do not hear it enough.

Thank you.

The Money Fast and waiting

The event that we were going to budget into our month was in fact a movie that is coming out: Hairspray. Being diehard 'show' fans, we very much were looking forward to seeing this movie. Thing is, while we want to see it on the 'big screen' we are also very committed to changing ourselves.

We have mutually decided that we will wait until it comes out on DVD and we can netflix it. That's a big one for us, especially DH. Not so much for other people, but it is for DH. An artist, a stage fan, a movie buff.

We have decided to wait until DVD because if we just wait to go to the movies until after our 'fast', we have changed nothing, only delayed the spending. The entire point of this exercise was to change our habits, not delay them.

The Biggest Loser

Now, I don't watch live TV and I've never seen an episode of TBL. But, friends of mine on a private forum I frequent are doing a 'Biggest Loser' competition and I just enrolled myself!

Yikesoid.

I need a kick in the pants to get back to working out like I used to and to eating healthy like I used to. Notice the operative words used to???

Yowza.

Well, the compeition officially starts July 6th and runs through August 29th. While I won't be sharing specific daily details here, I will do a weekly update (or try to anyway) about my progress. My goal is to utilize this competition to give myself that kick in the pants back into a healthy lifestyle.

Here's to health!

The Money Fast and traveling

Knowing that we will be on a money fast beginning July 1st is NOT a reason to spend lots of money before, or wait to spend it all after. The point is to truly 'do without' during this time frame and not 'make up for it' at any other time.

With that said, we would dearly love to take a weekend trip and visit friends of ours in the Portland area. While conversing via IM with my friend, we were trying to be creative about this whole trip and do it without spending any money other than gas.

We have pets and traditionally we would hire a pet sitter. Together we came up with the idea that I can ask our neighbors if they would take care of the cats in exchange for a visit to Silverwood (we have season passes that allow us to bring in additional people each day at no cost). Cha Ching. That's a great idea. I'll talk with the neighbors this weekend and see what they say. We still need to take our dog with us but that is an acceptable option as we are driving.

Now, for the sleeping arrangements - we'll just stay with our friends, that is out of the way.

Food is pretty easy, we are taking a cooler of food and eating what we normally eat.

Sight-Seeing is different. We are going to do free things while there. Something I did as a kid and absolutely loved (and still remember doing) is visiting the Tillamook Cheese Factory and taking a full tour. Believe it or not, it's free!

Then of course there is the ocean. I think these 2 things will encompass the entire day on Saturday. We'll tour the cheese factory, eat lunch and then spend the afternoon looking at starfish and all kinds of sea creatures at the shore.

Best of all, we will get to see our friends new little baby and visit with them.

Now, what weekend is the best one??? That is still being decided.

The Money Fast

I've been thinking and well, we've decided to go on a 'money fast'.

For us this means that we will not spend any money for 30 days. We are making only the following exceptions:

1) There is an event we want to do as a family that is in the middle of July. We will pay for entrance to this event only and have pulled the cash aside ahead of time.

2) We are not counting gas in this as we are planning on doing free things that involve driving.

3) Groceries will be purchased in advance, in bulk, and a nominal allowance will be available (in cash) for weekly fresh items. I am toying with the amount. I don't think that $10 is enough for our weekly fresh items, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

We are doing this for some specific reasons.

1) We are too dependant on money. When we want to do something, we aren't necessarily creative in our thinking on how to do that thing without spending money

2) It's good for our souls. We want our focus on life to move away from things (we don't really focus too much, but we want it to be ever farther away from things).

3) It's good for our budget. Everyone needs a re-evaluation every so often to be reminded what needs really are and to reshape your budget.

4) It stretches our creativity. This pretty much speaks for itself. It gets us out of the rut of 'traditional' society.

It is my hope that I will be able to share, on a daily basis, what we've done, accomplished, failed at, vented about, etc. through this process.

It's about time, isn't it?

Well, I have this blog that I have just not been keeping up with. Is that the story of life or what? I do maintain our business blog almost daily (it is business after all).

With that said, here's a quick update, my sister had her baby on 6/15 at 8:49pm. A baby girl, Alexa. Alexa was 2 weeks early and weighed in at 8lbs 6.8oz and was 20.5" long. The MD induced due to Alexa's size (she's a solid sized baby now, just think what 2 more weeks would have brought forth?!)

On the same note, my dear friend Jacque had her baby, Izaak, 6/16 at 8:??pm. He was 4 days early and weighed in at 8lbs and was 21" long.

I recently found out that an old high school chum (Carla) had a baby on 6/20, a little girl named Angelina.

I wondered if it was baby week?!