Week in Review - 1/8 - 1/14

Carla's Low Spend Challenge I have spent 65% of our monthly budget and we are 48% through the month.  I filled my car with gas and had a big grocery shop because I filled my pizza with frozen pizzas.  They were $4.50 each at Albertsons, so I bought eight of them.  I also spent $35 on really warm clothing for the babies so that I can take them out in the stroller when it is chilly; I did buy them secondhand, which saved me $45 over buying these at LL Bean.  They might not have been quite necessary, but our daily walk in the stroller is sometimes all that saves my sanity, and I did not want to interrupt it for the cold weather that we're expected to have between now and the end of the month.

The refrigerator (Confession, this post is so late because I spent the evening cleaning it in between tending babies so I would not have to post the before pic alone)

Before:

After:

Hopefully this will help with the challenge by allowing us to see the food we have before it spoils.  (Although we were doing pretty good; aside from one meal I only threw away expired condiments.)

This week it is time to clean out the pantry.  I've been afraid to even look in there, because I'm afraid I'll be so grossed out that I'll have to throw everything away.  But it has my bread maker in it, and all my flour.  So my goal for next week is to show you a picture of the loaf of bread I baked using the ingredients in my cleaned and organized pantry.

10 Pound Challenge
I joined the 10-pound Challenge hosted by Newlyweds on a Budget. Lose 10 pounds in 12 weeks, win $$$. Are you in?
Weigh in is tomorrow; I'm expecting to weigh 200 lbs +/- 5 lbs.  It's a bit depressing; I haven't weighed this much since I graduated from law school in 2003.  (Note: If you are a stress eater, law school is not a good place to lose weight).  Mostly it depresses me because it is the visible sign of how out of shape I am.  But I have been this overweight and out of shape before and gotten healthy, and I can do it again.  I can't bring myself to feel too bad about the process of it; Monkey and Football are totally worth it.

2012 Goals

I am on Exodus Chapter 20 in the The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (still free, as of this writing).  The Proverbs 31 emails have begun arriving, and they are pretty good; I have trouble really meditating on them, but they are providing a daily routine.  I need to get a prayer routine going as well, and then I'll be golden.  Also, I made it to church this morning!  The sermon was on the miracle of overcoming lifelong prejudices (the text was John 1:43-51).  Our pastor grew up in rural Oklahoma during the depression, so he had a lot to offer on the difficulties of overcoming your ingrained notions of how the world is.

I worked out 5 times this week again, and never made it to the gym.  Mostly, I pushed the babies in their stroller around the farm.  (My parents got a BOB Revolution Stroller for going around the farm and it is awesome.)  I never seem to have the time to make it to the gym, though.  This week I helped my Dad choose a fabric sample for his new house on Tuesday, I went to my friend's granddaughter's funeral on Friday, and I watched the Saints on Saturday.  I am not sure what happened on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and the gym is closed on Sunday.  This week, I am going to make my three times, at least, though.

The money remains on autopilot.  I need to sell some stuff, and put in for some insurance reimbursement for some doctor's visits, and then I think I can make it through the month.  But I have to find the time to get stuff listed, and it hasn't happened for me yet.  To be honest, I'd rather have a cleaner house than have a bit more money at the end of the month, since I can always sell stuff later if Mr. Goat's job ends abruptly.

No shooting for me this week either.  But it is going to happen one afternoon this week.  Maybe I'll post some pictures of my groups so that we can all have a good laugh; I think a lot of the reason I'm reluctant to do this is that I know how awful my shooting is going to be.  I could have kept in practice by dry firing during pregnancy, but I didn't, and now I need to re-learn those skills all over again.  Hopefully it's like a bicycle, and it won't take me too long to pick up where I left off.

I did not accomplish as much this week as I had hoped, and the death of my friend's granddaughter really threw me for a loop for a couple of days.  This next week should be tough, but doable.  What's on your to-do list this week?