Journey: Finances

Quitting my job was a HUGE step of faith.  I was a well paid nanny.  We knew it would be a sacrifice.  We knew it would be tough.  We knew that Michael would probably have to get a second job.  We also knew that it would be worth it.  Not just for my own sanity and emotional well being, but for Olivia.  It would not be fair for her to have to be sitting at Tae Kwon Do three times a week, gymnastics another day, soccer another day, and hours in the car to and from school and to the activities.  While the job looked good on paper, it was quickly becoming a huge burden.

Well, I quit in August.  We were doing alright at first, but slowly things became tighter and tighter.  Michael began looking for a second job, but things weren't really working out.  He is at his day job for 9 hours (hour lunch), and then with travel time, it was hard to find a second job that would work.  Plus, he wasn't looking forward to being away from Olivia and I, so he was sort of dragging his feet.

That brings us to the last two or three months. Desperate times called for desperate measure and he was applying for everything.  I would look online and send him jobs that I thought would work.  He was even applying at fast food.  Not necessarily something that excited him at the age of 35.

While I was looking for jobs for him, I randomly came across a post for an A/G church in our area looking for childcare help.  The hours were really minimal and most of them worked around Michael's schedule.  I also knew there would be no problem bringing Olivia with me if I needed to.  I didn't really want to work, but watching a group of kids at a church a few hours a week can hardly be considered work.  So I applied.  I have a degree in education from an A/G college, and I taught at an A/G affiliated Christian school for 6 years, so I was pretty sure it was a sure thing.

I had a phone interview with one lady and then had to go in for a meeting with the children's pastor last Wednesday.  I was suppose to meet a friend for coffee after the interview, but she had to cancel.  So in my head I was planning on going to Target afterwards.  There were a few health and beauty items I needed, and wandering around Target for an hour by myself sounded delightful.  Then at dinner Michael asked if I could go to the store.  I told him I was already planning on going to Target.  He asked if I could go to Kroger instead.  We had a little bit left on a gift card and he wanted me to pick up a few things for him.  I said that was fine.

So after wandering Kroger for an hour and picking up my stuff, I checked out and got ready to leave.  Unfortunately, our Kroger closes one of the exits at 9 and makes everyone go out the main door.  I looked at my phone and it was 9:03.  I had to walk across the freezing cold parking lot (and yes, it was in the low 30's!) because I had missed using the side exit by 3 minutes.  As I was walking out the main entrance, I saw a sign that said now hiring.  I sort of stored it in my mind to mention to Michael.  Then as I got closer, I saw that there was a sheet attached.  They were having a job fair the very next day!  I took a picture and sent the details to Michael.

The next day, he went to the job fair on his lunch break.  He got hired on the spot!  The day before we were both feeling really low as we were talking about a few things.  Michael said, "If it's true that God doesn't give you more than you can handle, then He needs to show up immediately, because I think we are both at our breaking points".  And don't you know.... He did!

The pay isn't great, but it's a union job so there are guaranteed raises every six months.  After 90 days, Michael can get insurance for himself for $5 a week.  He currently pays about $120 a month through his work just for him, and it isn't even great insurance.  That will be a great savings!  After a year, he can get family insurance for $12 a week.  You don't even want to know what we pay for private insurance for Olivia and myself and it isn't great either!  We will get 15% off of our cell phone bill.  There are all sorts of other benefits as well.  He has to work a minimum of 15 hours a week, but can pick up more if he wants.  He will be working in the health and nutrition section. Yep, where we frequent for Olivia's milk, yogurt, and snacks. :)

He was actually offered a job at a fast food place earlier in the week, and then they changed their mind.  (It is a really weird situation that we have yet to figure out).  It would have paid more, but he didn't have a peace about it.  He has a complete peace about working at Kroger.  The lady that interviewed him said that a lot of people work there as a second job.  They put in the minimum 15 hours a week just for the insurance and benefits.  This will likely be Michael until his company grows big enough to offer great insurance.  Who knows when that will be.

SO in a matter of a week, both Michael and I found a way to bring in some more money.  The crazy thing is, the lady that posted the childcare job posted one of the times wrong.  The actual hours of one of the shifts overlapped with my MOPS time.  I am not working those hours, and they were fine with it.  But had she posted the right day, I probably wouldn't have even applied.  See God at work there too?  Plus, all the craziness that lead me to Kroger the night before their job fair?  Yeah, that's a little bit more than a coincidence in my book.

It was just the miracle we needed and at just the right time.  Michael and I both feel a huge weight lifted off of our shoulders.  We feel a peace about both of the job situations.  We are excited to get things rolling and to be able to sit down and work out a budget.

God is good.

Journey

When all these thoughts were jumbling around in my head about what I wanted to work on for this year, I knew I needed to write them down.  It was a nagging feeling that weighed on me until a few days before the New Year I finally grabbed a small notebook.  Writing things down helps to keep us accountable.  Even if it's just to ourselves. This notebook has now become my prayer journal and where I write down things I'm thankful for (more about that in another post).  So I review it every time I do my quiet time.  It's a good reminder of what I'm working on, and how I'm doing along the way.

There are six areas that I am focusing on in this journey.  They are most likely the same areas that everyone focuses on for at New Years.  But I'm not really doing it as a New Years resolution.  It just happened to fall around the beginning of the year.  This journey is definitely not something I'm trying to check off of a list.  It's more of a deal with God--for lack of a better word.  I'm giving Him this year, and hoping and praying with everything in me that He shows up and He shows up BIG.  Our faith has seriously been shaken over the past year or two, for various personal reasons, and we are waving the white flag of surrender.  As desperate as it sounds, this is sort of my hail Mary.

The six catagories that I am focusing on are: my spirtitual life, health, personal growth, finances, being a mom, and our marriage.  Under each area there are three to six specific things that I am either praying about, trying to change, or working on in some way.  To be quite honest, the only one of those that I feel I actually have a handle on is being a mom.  As she grows the challenges will change though.

We are three weeks in, and things are going alright.  Last week was a rough week and threw me off my game in a few areas, but I am jumping back in the saddle again today. :)

I just wanted to give a base point of where I am starting in my journey, so that when other posts come about, the background has already been given.  There are certainly things that I will not be sharing on my blog for the whole wide world to read, but I'm going to try to stay accountable and share the things that I am able to.

Come back tomorrow for some exciting news about one of the six areas.  (NO, I'm not pregnant.)

Pumpkin Oatmeal Squares

It's no secret that Olivia eats pretty clean.  We aren't in denial that this will always be the case.  Nor do we believe that by eating this way she will never have a single health issue or she'll become some beauty pageant queen... or any other theory one might want to pin on us.  Our reasons are simple.  She came out as a clean slate, and we'd like to keep her that way for as long as possible.

It's also no secret that America has some serious issues with food and weight (present party included) and kids are no longer immune to these issues.  Let's add in the fact that she doesn't have the skinny gene (hello 50 pounds that need to go!) AND all of the gross, nasty, disgusting hormones and junk that are put into food these days (um, girls should not be getting boobs and a period at the age of 9--why do you think this is happening?  Check your milk!)...and our point is pretty much made for itself.

Unfortunately, sometimes we all just want to be lazy.  Or have a quick fix.  There is a long list of things that she has never had and we hope to keep it that way.  However, she does have a processed food now and then.  But even in those choices, we try to be wise.  It makes it pretty easy when she can't have dairy or soy.  Read a label sometime.  They have to state in big bold black letters any allergens.  Check out some of your favorite boxed food and snacks and if it doesn't have dairy it will surely have soy.  If not both.  While I believe that she's probably grown out of most of her issues, this is just a good "excuse" to keep her away from the junk.

One quick thing we like to have is a snack bar.  She eats multiple fruits and/or vegetables at all 3 of her meals, so we like for snack to be something different.  Personally, I prefer it to be in the grain family since I sometimes lack in that area.  We also want something that can travel and be eaten on the go.  She was loving the Ella's Kitchen nibbly fingers.  The ingredients are pretty straight forward.  The problem is they are so small and expensive.  We also tried Lara Bars.  These are also pretty clean and have a good amount of protein for her.  Unfortunately, she got burned out on them.

It's so frustrating that the healthier you get, the more expensive the item is.  I'm not willing to spend over a dollar on each snack bar.  I am trying to save money, not spend it like crazy. That sent me on a search for a snack bar that I could make.  I didn't dig too deep.  I went right to a friend's pinterest page.  I knew she'd have something pinned for her toddler that I could use.  Sure enough, I found a recipe for these pumpkin oatmeal squares.  I figured it was worth a try.

Some notes about the recipe:

*I used old fashion oats because it's what I had

*I usually don't have vanilla almond milk, but we had a few travel boxes of milk left from our trip.  Olivia doesn't like them, so this was a good opportunity to use them up. I will just use regular almond milk next time.  I'm sure cow's milk would work, but since the author was trying for it to be "dairy free" she went the almond milk route.

*3 eggs produce 1/2 cup egg whites :)

*I did not buy stevia, so I just used some pure maple syrup as the sweetener.  Next time I think I'm going to try honey or agave nectar (both I have)

*I used up some cranberries I had, and then measured the rest with raisins.
* I didn't have a square pan (mine shattered a few months ago), so I used a smaller pan. It looks like a 9 x 12 in this picture, but it's not.  I'm not sure it's size.

 Olivia loved them.  In fact, she asked for more and ate 2 bars.
I tried a small piece myself.  They were alright.  The cranberries helped give them a kick.  Other than that, there weren't many strong flavors.  Of course, that sometimes happens when you are going for "healthy".

I'm going to keep looking for yummy, healthy, budget friendly snack recipes to make.  In the meantime, I would make these for O again.

Watercolors

We finally picked Olivia up some watercolors last week. We've already used them twice.  This seems to be one of her favorite type of art project so far.

I said, "You did it!".  So after every stroke she kept saying, "I did it!"

Then she decided it was time to paint her fingers.

She started painting Mickey's finger and then said, "I'm one!"
I thought that was a pretty smart connection.  This is the picture from my phone.  I had to take a picture and send it to Michael.

Even though the paint usually ended up outside of the lines, she always started in the lines of a picture.  There were no random stray toddler-paint-all-over-the-place mess.

That, coupled with only putting stickers in empty white spaces instead of on top of each other....and lining up the items from the sensory box all around her in a straight line... makes me pretty confident that she is going to be a visual/spatial learner.

Her masterpiece

Library Envy

Can I tell you how much I miss the library Little Man and I went to in Ohio?  I loved it. LOVE.  I wrote about it here.  It just had a really cool children's department.  Story time was in a castle. The walls were lined with murals and there were life sized characters that you could climb on touch.  There was a tree house with all sorts of puppets and stuffed animals to play with.  There were felt boards, those big boxes with the beads on top and activities on the sides, coloring pages, computers for listening, and on and on we go.

That brings us to our Texas story times.  They are not in a castle.  They are in rooms with 4 white walls. Ugh.  We've been to two different libraries already.  But if you have been reading for awhile, you know that my theory is that sometimes you have to library shop.  The closest isn't always necessarily the best.  So this last week, I decided to visit the "big" library in our town.  We went for the music class.

Olivia is always a little timid at first.

She was sitting in my lap, not shaking her bells, and trying to figure out if she liked the guy singing and playing his guitar.

Once they started singing some songs she knew...

"Dancing"

After a few songs she got really comfortable

After the music class, we checked out the children's area.
They did have one of those big activity boxes...

 and a few puzzles.  That was it for the fun part of it.

3 libraries and none come even close.  I guess I'm just going to have to lower my library expectations. :)

What a cute little parrot!

Three things happen when Olivia's vocabulary is mentioned.

1. We get a side eye, or an "oh really?" look of disbelief.  We are judged as over exaggerators.

2. We get, "Yes, she is a little parrot.  She certainly knows how to mimic, doesn't she?!"

3. We (or mostly I) get a comment about how I must just sit and drill her all day long. These are mostly from the people who can clearly see that she DOES have a huge vocabulary for an 18 month old.   For example, a friend called yesterday and said, "What are you guys up to over there?  Teaching Olivia how to write in complete sentences?!"

Truth be told, I'm only mildly bothered by these statements.  Number one bothers me, because I hate when others make their kids out to be "geniuses" and to imply I am being untruthful annoys me.  Number two doesn't really bother me.  It just makes me think the person is ignorant.  Number three both amuses me and slightly irritates me both at the same time.  But that's life.  We are a society full of insecure judgers. (Myself included--working on it!)

I thought about these things this morning as I was sitting in Olivia's room.  She does not like to get out of bed right away.  On the other hand, she doesn't like to just be left in there alone.  So the last few mornings, Michael and I have been just hanging out in her room having our morning coffee.  Olivia then proceeds to talk our ear off.  First, she likes to name everything in the room that she can see. Then she just sits and plays or drinks her milk or jibber jabbers about random things.

This morning's interaction went something like this....

O: "Oh Boppa! Oh Mama!"  (we responded with our good morning greetings to her)

O: "Oh bird. A pig. A flower. Elmo. A sheep. A elephant. A blanket. A pillow. Bible! A book. A owl." (we just repeat what she says or say, "Yes, a bird")

Her little ocean thing on her crib is out of batteries (hello, those guys are expensive!).  So every morning (and after nap too) she says, "It work" and then "batteries" because we have told her enough that it needs batteries.

She kept saying "off".  I asked if she wanted her sleep sack off.  I got it unzipped and then she changed her mind by plopping down on the bed. She says "plop" when she plops to the ground now.  Then as she sat there, she peeked through the slats at Michael (who was sitting on the ground) and said, "I see you Boppa!".  He said, "I see you squiggle bug."  Then she looked at me.  "I see you Mama!"  I said, "I see you!"

Then she stood up and said, "Up. Up."  This is just a trick.  She asks to get out of her crib, but doesn't really want to.  I got up from the chair and asked if she wanted out.  She then plopped down on the crib again and laughed and said, "No".  She thinks she's funny.

I sat back down.  She said, "Milk" and then took a drink from her sippy.  I asked, "What am I drinking?" and she said, "Coffee".

Michael started playing music on her toy house.  She kept asking for "more" and saying "house".

Michael left then to finish getting ready for work.  He always blows his nose.  She says, "Nose!" every time.  Then she heard him brushing his teeth and said, "brush". Then she started saying, "Where he go?" and I said "He's in the bathroom".  She said, "You hear me?  You hear me?"  Michael yelled down the hall, "I hear you squiggle bug".  Then as she was sitting there she looked down at her open sleep sack and said, "Toes".

Next was some more talk about her milk.  She then picked up her stuffed dog and said, "Doggie. Ruff Ruff Ruff".  She gave it a hug and said "snuggle snuggle".  When she sat back up, she sat on Violet's foot and it started playing a song.  She said, "Oh. What's that?"  I told her it was Violet and that we needed to take the Christmas music off.  Then she started talking in all sorts of jibberish that I have no idea what it means.

Michael walked back in the room and she said, "There he is!"

That was all in the span of about fifteen to twenty minutes.  At least what I can remember anyway. Yeah....... I think she's a good mimicker.  How about you? :)

Check that off the list...

Last Sunday we did a family grocery shopping trip.  First of all, I (we) hate grocery shopping on a Sunday afternoon. Everyone and their mother is out!  But sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.  Second, family trips are rare.  It's either just Olivia and I, or I try to go at night to make things easier.

This time around, we were greeted by a fun little surprise in the parking lot.  Ok.  Not so little...

The Oscar Mayer Weinermobile was at our store!!!

So, Olivia can officially say she's seen it.  Nevermind that she's never had a hot dog in her life.

Oh, the fun didn't stop there!  Once we got inside, she rode in a big girl cart for the first time.

 Please excuse the blur... If Michael stopped moving, then she got upset.  But moving objects and picture taking on my phone don't mix.  So, you get what you get.

Such a big girl!

At one point she turned around and she realized that she could look out the back of the cart and see who was pushing.  All of the sudden we hear, "I see you Boppa!"  Both Michael and I just started laughing.  It's no wonder people think she's 2!

Oh, and by the way... that thing is a beast to steer.  Definitely NOT for Sunday afternoon shopping with mass amounts of people!