Dust to Dust

   It is Lent as of yesterday, and that is always the time I start thinking too hard about life and the way I live. I was stressing out a lot about money a couple weeks ago after we did our taxes and found out that Michael was not getting enough withheld, so we barely got any money back this time compared to the $1,640 we got back last year ~ Wooo!!  

  Due to the talk about needing more money withheld, I redid our budget (for after I am done with materbity leave and Chip is in daycare) and I guess a low-ball number for how much Michael might start making, I quickly panicked seeing that the Income number was $55 lower than the Bills number.  Michael remained very calm and told me there was no way the updated tax form would withhold an extra $260 out of his paychecks like I had estimated. He told me to stop worrying about things so far in advance (even though he know that is hard for me because I like having answers and planning everything out way in advance) and to just take one day at a time like he does. Right now everything is fine and we can pay all of our bills on time, put good chunks of money into savings every month, and keep going out to eat every week. Although I made a lyric painting over the summer of a Justin Beiber song with the chorus words: We could be starving, we could be homeless, we could be broke, as long as you love me. I feel like I need to change that saying to add security with "As long as you love me, and we have at least $20,000 in savings!" It's great to think about love really being all I need, and sometimes it does feel that way, but other times it's hard not to think how money (and time) kind of controls everything we do.

   I took these two pictures while I was walking around that day, trying to be thankful that we have very nice living conditions. Often during a slump of thoughts -wondering why God let me have such an amazing life that I still often complain about -sometimes I complain about having too much and I go into a small donation spiral (this occurred after looking at the pictures in Kisses From Katie and I slapped myself in the face for having any kind of ungrateful thoughts and all that unnecessary worry), which I guess is fine because that helps the people who really need it - I try to be more thankful with what I have, including the super simple things like hot water.. I'm just going to end this part of the post here because I feel like it's too negative, but wanted to get my thoughts out.. 

 22 week baby bump shown below!

^^ This picture was taken last Sunday (February 26th) before Michael left to go to VAMP and finish any last minute things before the new class started on Monday. That was a good day because my mom and Aunt Paula came down to visit. We went out to lunch at Yellow Dog Eats (oh man, that orzo was so good!!), went for a short walk doing three loops around our neighborhood, then I took them over to VAMP so they could see Michael and what he and Brian have been working on. We drove to Downtown Disney at sunset and walked around looking for places to eat until we decided to go to TGI Fridays.