Giving Thanks Again

   Here are a couple Thanksgiving-ish photos, but not from the holiday. I didn't want to put these on Emma's blog since they were from before I even got pregnant with her.
   First, at a museum in Ohio in August 2015, with my cousin Jessica and her three kids (Jordyn, James, and Jeremy). Since then she has had two more boys: Jackson and Joshua. Second photo, with my brother Zach and his daughter Peyton, looking at a turkey at Dudley Farms, July 2016.

One main thing I am thankful for right now is how well my marriage to Michael has been going the past few weeks. I truly think it has to do with how I have stopped caring about losing weight again and enjoying all of the filling foods and pies of the holiday season! Maybe I will expand on this more later, but don't want to spend more time blogging than I need to.

Note to self: gather pictures from previous Thanksgivings growing up (from my mom's scrapbooks). And then post them here later! :)

Minimal Bests

   I've been wanting to update this blog for a while because, even though I talk way more about being healthy than I actually do to follow my words and advice to others, I didn't like that the first photo I saw when I opened my blog each time was a big box of donuts! But this post is about minimalism and giving a lot of stuff away. I loved watching "How to Live Mortgage Free", a British show on Netflix, about people who live in boats or tiny houses, or built a tiny house themselves, or one family owned a duplex and paid off their mortgage in 7 years by living very frugally the last three years. However they did make at least 3x more than we do and maybe their mortgage was lower than ours. A lot of the people who were living in the boats were single or retired or the ones building the tiny houses on trailers and out of shipping containers were younger and did not have any kids.
    Michael and I really dream a lot about moving to Georgia. There are a handful of reasons for this, and I told him that I would love to move in the next 10 or 15 years, but after talking to co-workers and my dad about retirement and pension plans, I feel like we're going to be "stuck" in Florida for the next 30 years! Maybe we can really scrimp our money, while also paying our bills on time, putting a little extra towards our mortgage each month, adding to our savings accounts, and increasing our retirement funds. Then each year, we'll be able to take a week long cabin trip -always to somewhere different in the US, until we can finally move out of state when we retire. The picture of the super cute tiny cabin below is from Washington (via Pinterest), and I'd really like to visit Ashville, NC. I think I made that an idea for the year 2022, for my 35th birthday, but it's always nicer to go in the Fall when the weather is cooler and we can hike longer without getting sweaty from the summer heat!

   A month or two ago I started weeding out Emma's little clothes that don't fit anymore, my own clothes that I rarely ever wear, and also got rid of a lot of scrapbook paper. I tend to get those big 36 page packs, with 12 different designs and 3 of each page, but sometimes only like half of the pages. So I ripped up what I knew I wouldn't care to use. It seemed wasteful, but I've never seen Goodwill selling scrapbook paper, so I don't think they would be able to sell it either - especially since everything I had would be small cut out pieces or random 12x12 sheets. I mailed some of my stickers to my friend's son. I still have a TON of scrapbook supplies, but maybe got rid of 30%.

   I told Michael that I feel really good about getting rid of a lot of stuff. Today I pulled down a bunch of old mugs and water bottles that haven't been used in a long time- or ones we forgot I had. I was happy that Michael said I could get rid of about 20 pieces. Some I just tossed because they had been used often in the past and were stained brown from coffee, but I'll wrap up the ceramic mugs in paper towels and put them in a donation bag. On Monday, I also gave away three more grocery bags full of clothes. Those bags are not pictured.
   I also started reading "Everything That Remains" by Joshua Fields Millburn, one of the founders of The Minimalists, but am slowing down on that since I'm sort of binge-watching a Canadian comedy called Workin' Moms on Netflix this week. (I'm off this week so I can spend a couple extra days with Emma! I need to be editing the book I'm writing about her NICU year too.) So I've only gotten to page 74 of 203 in "Everything That Remains" and that library book is due next week. I'll try to renew it so I have longer to finish reading it, but if someone else has the book on hold after me, then I'll have to return it sooner.
   This photo below does not look minimal at all and is almost embarrassing, but luckily I did toss a few more items after taking this photo. I got rid of two small Bath and Body Works travel size lotions, because, although they smell good, my nose and allergies are a lot more sensitive than they used to be, so the Tahiti Island Dream gives me a headache now and the Velvet Sugar makes me sneeze. I also tossed two bottles of curling mouse- which I probably got from Mia when she moved to Colorado- but her hair is naturally curly. Mine is not, and I am perfectly fine with it being straight and air-drying 99% of the time. So why would I need those products?

    Next, shown below, I took pictures of all of the make up I am keeping, although I rarely wear it. The items by the bag are what I keep in there and the other items are less used, or haven't been used at all, but I don't want to get rid of them because of the variety of pretty colors that I might want to use one day.. They don't take up much space.. I never wear make up to work because I'm not trying to impress anyone with my looks there. Sometimes I will wear eyeliner, but I haven't done that for work in a while. Some of the stuff I decided to keep -like a Mary Kay mascara I got in 2011! is probably super expired and will give me an eye infection- needs to be tossed anyway. And I also don't think I've worn mascara since I started wearing glasses full time.. five years ago!! Yeah, I'm throwing it in the trash right now... done! :)

 ^^ The inside of the Classic 10 tin. I can't remember if I got this from Mia too or if it was from Michael's beauty make up stash. He prefers to stick just with special FX make up, so he gives me his left over beauty make up once in a while, but recently donated a bunch of supplies to the make up school where he works, which I thought was a great idea! Way better than tossing it. This eyeshadow pallet might be from Mia since Michael always buys the expensive Urban Decay pallets from Sephora or Ulta. But who knows, maybe I got it myself from Ross years ago.
   Lastly I went through my jewelry tonight. I had a big bag of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings stashed in the back of the closet for the past three years. I don't think I had worn any of that jewelry since before we moved into our house in May 2016! I should have just thrown the while bag into the Goodwill pile, but of course wanted to go through everything and did save a few pieces. The first photo is what I am keeping and the second photo is what I am giving away:

   Now for some super cute "baby" photos of Emma, who will be 2 years and 2 months old as of Monday, August 12th. She is a great minimalist and requires very little- from her personality. She does have a lot of needs due to medical issues, but she can't help that. She is sooo great at occupying her time and laughing at nothing. Her favorite "toys" are all the medical pieces attached to her and she loves to put them in her mouth, which is fine and safe for her.

A week and a half ago Emma kicked her legs enough that the momentum scooted her body off the soft changing mat and onto the hardwood floor, where she prefers to lay. She kicked her away over to the wall and proceeded to play and be entertained with the curtains for at least 45 minutes! She pulled the curtains up and down, then back and forth with her hands, then moved her legs so she could hold the curtain between her feet and kicked her legs back and forth. Happy as can be. Sometimes when I send the pictures like this to our parents they ask why I don't put her back on the soft changing mat. "What for? She's so happy right now! And if I move her back, she'll eventually kick her way to the wall again." I've done that experiment enough times to prove that Emma does what makes her happy. And that makes us happy too. :)

    A random picture on my Instagram page I found. ^^ I like this minimal water color I did of me, Sharanya, and Mia back in 2015. I forgot about it.  I did delete my apps a few weeks ago (just the apps from my phone- I did not delete the actual accounts) and I have been proud of my very minimal usage. I got on Facebook for about 3 minutes last week to upload a super exciting video of Emma (picking up small toys while sitting up, which she had never done before) and yesterday I used my mom's phone to see the pictures Mia had posted on Instagram recently since her older brother had visited over the weekend. However, even though I'm not scrolling through those apps all the time now, I have been using Pinterest every day, creating various new secret boards. Pinterest has 0% drama attached though, which is calming.

   Here's another picture of Sasha- to remember that she's still kickin'! She'll be 12 years old in a couple weeks, but still has the energy of a 2-year old dog, although she does look tired in this photo. She also is very low maintence and can be happy doing very little. We do open the sliding door for her probably 30 times a day so she can run outside and then relax inside when she gets hot. And it is bothersome when a friend comes over and she barks and barks so loudly, or when she growls at Emma.. But for the other 80% of the time she's a really good dog.
    Lastly, so I can get this posted and go to bed.. Here are some minimal photos from Monday and Tuesday when I spent the night at a condo in St. Augustine with my parents. I was roginally planning to share a bed with my niece, Peyton, but was told she's a night kicker, and when my dad said the couch pulled out into a bed, I decided to sleep there instead. I didn't bring much with me- although I still seemed like a lot when I had to take everything out of my canvas bag to find my phone at the bottom- and even forgot to bring an outfit for the second day, so I just wore the shirt from Monday and then my pajama pants on the drive home since my shorts were wet after we went to the beach. I loved how when I took my shower, all I needed was a bar of soap and an almost empty mini shampoo bottle. The drawer photo was from the night before we left the Ronald McDonald House in Michigan and flew back to Orlando. I was surprised how much bathroom stuff we "needed" and accrued during our 2 1/2 month stay while Emma was in the PICU there from December 2017-February 2018. I told Michael that I wish the drawer always looked like that. The small red pills were also for allergies.

Good night ~ Have a great day and don't spend any money this week! ;)

Budget on the Border

   Over the long weekend that I worked recently, one lady on our shift brought in donuts- I ate three!! A couple weeks ago, after Michael and I took Emma to The Cheesecake Factory for our anniversary, the same lady from work got everyone ice cream sundaes with nuts (because she was so stressed after thinking her house had been broken in to during our shift! Luckily it turns out it was most likely that her daughter just forgot to close the door all the way when she left for school). I have learned recently that I like small peanuts in my ice cream. On Saturday a couple deputies came by and brought a few boxes of donuts and gallon bags full of plain bagels. I took two donuts and two bagels since I knew Michael had cream cheese at home. The next morning there were still two gallon bags of bagels on the table, with six bagels each inside. I know the supervisors have a bad habit of throwing out food before it's all gone, so I took a whole bag and two more glazed donuts! And sure enough, an hour later, the rest of the food had been thrown out. I should have taken both bags.

   We both had Monday off (Memorial Day), so I suggested using one of our restaurant gift cards to go on a family lunch date. We had never been to On The Border before, which was included in the Chili's gift card, so we agreed to try it. I went to their website a few days before and signed up for the emails so we could get either free queso or free sopapillas. I checked my email Monday morning and got another coupon from the restaurant for $10 off $35, which seemed like an amazing deal considering we would be taking the $20 gift card with us.
   The service was very slow, which was pretty disappointing considering there only about six other families there and the restaurant was small. Also our pet peeve occurred right at the beginning ~ when you walk in and have to wait by the front door for over 3 minutes before any employee even acknowledges your existence. How hard is it for anyone to say, "We'll be right with you" even if it isn't their specific job. Is customer service not part of the job?! Our waitress was nice, but rarely came by until the very end when she was attentive. Another couple that came in right after us had a different waitress and they finished their meal and left before we were even done with the appetizer.
   I was doing the math as we were deciding what we wanted to order to make sure we would reach the $35 for the coupon. We got a bowl of queso with the add ins. It was extra yummy with the ground beef, sour cream, and guacamole! We weren't allowed to use both coupons, but got sopapillas anyway because the waitress said our total was only $32, so she added the dessert on. I ate half of one there and Michael ate the rest of them that night (empty pastries with cinnamon sugar and chocolate dipping sauce). It was great getting all of that food for $9 plus tip, but we probably won't be going back.

Emma unsure about holding a chip before she dropped it on the ground.

   The other night Michael wasn't able to fall sleep and told me he has been getting headaches more often since I put us back on a budget this month and all his meals have gone back to being either boxed pasta or fast food. I actually think the same thing has been happening to me, but I call them "sugar headaches" and try to balance them out with Naked green Kale Blazer juices! They really do make me feel better and healthier. I asked Michael how much he thought he spends on food when he is eating healthy, like he was January through April. And did I mention that he even completed 14 days of the 30 Day Shred? I was so proud of him! He estimated his groceries to cost about $500 per month, just for himself!! Yikes!! I am a little interested to have him go back to eating healthy and keep track of receipts and what actually goes towards groceries and not other items, like toiletries and air filters, or stuff for Emma that I ask him to pick up while at Target. But, let's be realistic, I would do his receipt tracking for him. However, I think it will be easier to see how I do with "Healthy on a Budget", which officially starts tomorrow (June 1st). Today is my stomach shrinking day, eating less and drinking a lot more water. I am all out of ice cream and Reeses candy, but do have two frozen pizzas right now. That is fine, I will just make sure to ration each slice instead of eating one pizza per day. I am planning to not go over $200 dollars in June for myself, which equals $50 per week. I think going to the store less often may help me spend less money? I'll see if Michael can do the same for $300 per week, including any fast food.
   I went to Walmart on Sunday night after work and got seven items for $19.49, which now doesn't sound like that great of a deal. Is it just me or does everything seem more expensive when you're on a budget? Two Great Value frozen pizzas, $2.24 each // Two pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, $3.84 each // Great Value cream cheese for the five bagels I had left, $2.36 // Great Value parmesan cheese to shake on to the pizzas (which I almost didn't buy), $2.67 // and Great Value kiwi strawberry drink mix because I have one almost every day, $1.74 for a pack of ten. I have also been wanting to try Xyzal allergy meds since the Allegra doesn't seem to work that well, but it was $18 for 35 tablets. No thank you, I'll keep sneezing for free!

A super cute baby (who is turning 2 in less than 2 weeks!) & my beautiful Mother's Day tulips.

  I am trying to make this my new motto. It is such a good one and very true! Everything we complain about is something someone else wishes they had. If I complain about Michael- someone else wishes they were married, if we complain about work- someone else is struggling to find a job, etc. We have it so good, I think we just complain because we like to hear ourselves talk. If I complain about us not having enough in savings- there are many people out there who literally live paycheck to paycheck and have never been able to save any money and/or are in so much debt. It's worse when there are people who have so much less than we do, but they are so happy and thank God for every little thing! But that's the way it always should be! :)
   Sometimes it also takes me to be really dramatic to think of how good we have it. Either picturing bad scenarios or remembering how the doctor thought Emma would die at birth either because her body wouldn't be able to breathe on it's own or that she would have the very fatal type of dwarfism and die within a few days. Well now she is turning two years old in less than two weeks and she is doing so great considering everything she has been through! We watched Birdbox on Netflix Monday night. Oh my goodness, that was a dramatic movie and I'm so glad it wasn't real. But even stuff like that, "Wow, I am glad that is not something we never to deal with in our life. Never being able to go outside unless you're wearing a blindfold!?" (Not going to say why due to spoilers, even thought the movie came out in October I think.) I already trip enough on sidewalk cracks when I'm walking and texting at the same time.
   Michael has been going through the garage and getting rid of really old mold making supplies for his special fx make ups. He said it is stuff he bought, probably during Full Sail, so it would definitely be no good, plus he doesn't have plans to use it. In the pile was a box of diapers that he thought we wouldn't use. They are ones that are too big for her (she's been in size 1 since before she came home from the NICU over a year ago- she's got a little tushy!) or they are not the right type/ ones we tried on her in the past and they gave her a diaper rash, but it felt wasteful to throw the rest away so we've held on to them for a year. I figured that if we just use one "diaper rash" (Huggies Snug & Dry) diaper per day, it wouldn't be against her skin long enough to cause a problem, plus we coat on her Z-Guard cream, and she would wear her regular Huggies Lil' Snugglers diapers for the other 20 hours.

Holding the diapy! :)

    I actually just looked and both of these ^^ are Size 1 Huggies Little Snugglers so I don't why they look and fit different. We don't have the box anymore, just the bag that was inside. The inside part against her skin looks the same too, but the ones on the right fit looser around the thighs, so we just have to make sure to make the straps tighter so nothing leaks out the side (aka poop)! I'm not sure how long it will be until she switches to size 2 diapers. I thought she would be in them already since it says 1's only go up to 14 pounds and Emma is close to 17 pounds now! Not a big deal. I even think the smaller the diaper, the less each one costs, so we'll keep her in 1's as long as we can. :)
   I'm not sure if I accidentally bought the wrong ones or maybe I got the size 2's from a co-worker whose daughter grew out of them too quickly. Either way, I'm glad we have extras. Diapers are pretty expensive. We get ours from Amazon ~ a box of 198 for $50. That probably lasts us about a month, but we got a bunch for Christmas from our parents (plus Water Wipes) and will hopefully get more diapers for her birthday too! It's not as fun of a gift for others to give, but we love receiving them!
   As for other gifts, since my birthday is the day before Emma's (I'll be 32 this year, but still like to think that I look about 27 years old), Michael asked what kind of stuff for my birthday. Last year I only asked for one thing, so I only got one thing. (Complete series of the Parks & Recreative show on DVD. A very good purchase, although now a little unnecessary as we have Netflix again.) He doesn't like to be "fun" when I ask him to get me other stuff I think I would like because apparently we have played the "which one do you think I would like the best" (for necklaces or shirts or scrapbook stickers, etc) and he always picks the one I like the least. Haha! So he needs me to be specific. One thing I put on the list for this year was a notebook or photo album to put all my mini Polaroids in. He said it was hard to find online because he knew I would want something that I could write stuff underneath or add stickers. I pulled out other polaroid albums that I have made myself and discovered that one notebook was still half empty, so I filled it up to date the other night. It will look nicer after I add the cute holiday appropriate stickers.

   Since I'm trying to do the "smaller stomach" plan today, I will probably be blogging a lot because that passes the time quickly, plus I still haven't written about the walks I went on with Sasha when we were on the cabin trip in March. I only wrote about all the medical stuff on Emma's blog, and everything we did with her and Michael's mom that week.  I also have not written about when Michael's older brother and his wife met Emma for the very first time last month. I definitely want to add a post about that, as well as other baby progress updates before her birthday, since I'll have tons of pictures there and don't like getting too far behind or then blogging seems like a chore.

Pre-Pantry Diet List

   I also would call this the Hurricane Diet since the reason we have so much in the pantry is because of stocking up on foods that don't require electricity incase our power went out during/after a hurricane. But Orlando was soooo lucky to miss the last one, or at least our part of town. So I wanted to make a list of everything I have in the pantry and the freezer before starting the Healthy on a Budget post in a week or so (whenever all the pizza and ice cream is gone, although if you ask my brother, he considers pizza to be healthy, which is definitely fair for him to say since he also lost 15-20 pounds while he was in college the same time I was at Full Sail, and he owes it all to his "pizza diet" and walking around campus to all his classes).
   Starting with the Freezer- Southwest Quinoa, two different brands of salmon, green beans, those pasta with veggies skillet bag meals, a couple frozen meals with chicken and veggies (but I may end up eating those over my 3-day work weekend starting tomorrow), Organic Pesto Tortellini from Trader Joes, frozen bananas that I chopped up for smoothies, Lean Jimmy Dean sausage and egg biscuits, bag of couscous and spinach.
   Fridge- maple apple chicken sausage (good until Emma's birthday!) that I haven't opened yet because I was getting tired of eating eggs for breakfast, but that does sound good again now. Two lemons to cut up into a water bottle, most of those little gala apples I got from Save A Lot, cottage cheese (nope! nevermind that smells sour... trash!) and cilantro avocado dressing that is good until July, so I should probably make a couple more salads. We have a jar of pickles.. I wonder what else those would be good on besides hamburgers?
   Pantry- lots of granola bars from Dollar Tree, peanut butter crackers, Great Grains cereal, Blueberry (the Belvita knock offs, also from Dollar Tree!), guacamole chips, two big containers of V8, Carnation instant breakfast which would make a good ice cream replacement, four boxes of oatmeal! A bunch of mini bags of kettle corn, prunes and dates, Triscuts, regular butter crackers, two cans of lentil vegetable soup, at least six cans of beans (white and BBQ), tomato soup, peanut and pretzel trail mix, healthy almond bars, two jars of spaghetti sauce to go with the five boxes of various dry pastas, four boxes of rice, four other "fancy" boxes of dry pasta where it is suggested to add chicken, 12oz can of tuna, five cans of green beans... and I guess Michael has already eaten all of the hurricane rice, which is fine!
   So yeah, I definitely should not need to spend more than maybe $30 in June on groceries for myself, on things like eggs, milk, lettuce.. We will be buying food for Emma's birthday party in two weeks and we are expecting there to be maybe 15 people there! Hopefully we will have lots of left overs for the few days after that too.

  I have been using the shower in our bathroom since Christmas probably, because I didn't want to have to clean two showers. Also because the guest bathroom, where I keep most of my products, doesn't have a shower liner in it and lately the shower head can't be turned to face down- it keeps popping over so it is putting all the water against the tile wall. But tonight after my walk I thought I would try it out and maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It wasn't! I did have to put a towel down on the ground and my shower was faster than usual, which is another plus. When washing the right side of my body I had to keep my hand up and hold the shower head so it was sending the water where I needed it, but washing my left side against the wall was fine. I think I'll keep using that shower instead! It made me really thankful for all that we have, while Kate Davis (young woman from a rich family who now lives in Uganda and is raising her 14 adopted daughters and two biological sons) was once living in a house that was the size of a bathroom!

   Michael made dinner for our anniversary and it was really nice. He had flowers set out on the table and I wondered when and how he got those if he hadn't been able to leave the house all day with Emma since I had been at work. He picked them from the front yard!! I loved that and they were so pretty so he kept them on the table for a few more days. I used to say that flowers were a waste of money because they just wilt and die in a few days, but now I really like having flowers in the house for special occasions. We definitely don't bring flowers home every time we go to Publix, although I have been wanting to have some sunflowers in a vase lately. They are so bright and sunny looking!

I love this cute little set up with the skinny barn doors, wreath and window that Michael made/put together!!!

Another Free Thing!

   I think we officially started our budget on Friday. I was going to try for No Spending on Food in May, but that fell through as of yesterday when I wanted to check out the Save-A-Lot store closer to work. I did a bunch of math to figure out if the 24 pack of toilet paper, which was on the sale that ended last night, was cheaper than buying six of the 4 packs for 89 cents, also factoring in the total number of square feet. Turns out it was exactly the same price per option, down to the penny! I got the big pack so I would have less to carry. Save-A-Lot and Aldi are both able to give lower prices because they exclude the use of bags. Well, Save-A-Lot will let you buy bags, but usually I just bring a big cloth bag, however, I forgot to bring one for this trip. And right now I will put two in my car for next time because I know if I don't do it now, I will forget again later! (I only had one Ronald McDonald bag available- which we also got for free in Michigan! The other reusable bags from Walmart are full of Christmas decorations.)

   Since I didn't have any bags for the grocery store yesterday, I saw that a girl at work had an empty Publix bag from her lunch purchase, and she let me have that before our shift ended. I used that to hold the smaller items and just figured I'd put the bigger stuff straight into the car. But then a wonderfully kind woman who was bagging her groceries off to the side next to me, handed me an extra paper bag that she had and didn't need. I thanked her twice and she wished me a good day! I like how such a small gesture like that can make a big difference, especially when we're on a budget. Everything seems an extra generous blessing and my heart melts for the kindness of society.

   I've been keeping track of the free food I have been able to get at work recently, but I do not rely on it and still pack a full lunch box. I tend to pack more food than I end up eating at work since I stay busier and am not sitting around watching Netflix like I do on most of my days off. Anyway, two of the ladies at work are currently on a low-carb diet, which is putting me on a high-carb diet (ha!) since they have been fine donating their sides of yummy bread to me! Since last week I have been given parts of three big veggie and cheese omelets, Cuban bread, two slices of toast from Zaxby's, two pickle spears, and a Hawaiian roll. Yesterday Alex gave me more than half of her pineapple pastry and another lady from work ordered pizza for our shift, so I had two slices of that. There is a diabetic woman on our shift who has to eat a banana each day, but doesn't like bananas that much, so she always gives me the other half! I laughed yesterday saying, "This is the healthiest thing I have eaten all day!", but also had some of a green fruit juice that I got from Trader Joe's before the budget started.

   One thing I like better about Save-A-Lot is that you can use the carts like normal. At Aldi you have to "rent" the carts for a quarter, even though it gives you the quarter back at the end. I've been confused about how that works or sometimes I don't remember to bring a cloth bag and a quarter, so I only get enough groceries that I can carry. Aldi is closer to our house and more "on the way" while I'm driving home. Save-A-Lot was about 10 minutes out of the way, but I hadn't shopped there since I still lived at home. I do like that their set up is like a regular grocery store with signs saying what is in each aisle, although Aldi has non-grocery items for sale as well.
    I once saw a Publix receipt vs a Walmart receipt, where the person bought all the same stuff (25 name brand items), and it showed that the Walmart was $27 cheaper! Even my friend Lindsey bought groceries at Walmart for the first time two or three years ago and texted me about how surprised she was with the price difference. However, if Publix has something BOGO, then that is usually a better deal. Unfortunately, I feel like sometimes Michael and I end up buying BOGO stuff that we don't really need, just "because it's a great deal", like Ben & Jerry's ice cream. For two of those yesterday I still paid $5.19 (the expensive regular price of one), but if I was on an extreme budget, I would stick to the Dollar Tree pints, or not buy ice cream at all, especially if I was also trying to make better food choices. I feel like I need to go on some of these budget challenges, just to write about them. Plus it would not hurt my body to stop eating ice cream for a few weeks and drink more water instead! Even if I just do it for my best friend, Alana, who is always so sweet to read every blog post! ;)
  At Save-A-Lot I spent $21.02 on the 24 pack of toilet paper, a bag of 14 small red gala apples, three mix-in yogurts, two cheapy frozen pizzas, a bigger chicken/rice/beans frozen meal, a half gallon of ice cream, and two double packs of baby foods for Emma. Even that still seems expensive.. Maybe I left something out? I already threw away the receipt though. On my way home Michael asked me to stop and get him some fried chicken from Publix. As I walked in I flipped through the weekly ad and what was in the BOGO sale? What else than Ben & Jerry's ice cream. I only got two because Aldi has really good brownie and cookie dough pint and I'd rather get that flavor there for half the price! Plus again, I need to not get so much ice cream anymore (for a while- you know, once all the current stuff is gone)..
  Other free things- since CVS linked all of our medicine purchases to our rewards cards, we sometimes get those "cash coupons" for a few dollars. I was so excited to get one the other day for $10! I always walk around the store, like a little kid who saved up their allowance, but since I'm not in a healthy mode and I saw that Easter candy was on sale, I used half of the cash credit for that and also bought a toothbrush! I do often get tooth brushes from Dollar Tree (they even have double packs!), but there was nothing else I saw that I wanted to spend the cash credit on and didn't want to get ten dollars worth of Easter themed candy. I have a little more self control than that, ha! Although, I was wondering what I would have bought instead of candy if I was in health mode. Last time I bought pump soap because we needed more and another time I used the cash coupon to buy fancy sounding face wash because I didn't want to try it for the full price.

  I also have $23 in free frozen yogurt Groupons that my mom gave me about a year and a half ago. By now they are definitely expired, however, as it states on the paper, "the amount paid for this voucher never expires".
   Another free thing I was so happy to receive (via email) was that our Happily/ Date Box subscription extended as an anniversary gift from Michael's older brother and his wife! I don't know if she knew that I "invested" (Michael's favorite word) in a 3-month subscription so we could have dates at home, which area arranged by a company and then mailed to us once a month. So now we have a 6 month subscription. We loved the first one (making ice cream from scratch and a game called, "I Bet I Know You Better"), and we have had the second one delivered to us, but we haven't done it yet. That one is about plants that comes with the little buckets to hand and herb seeds to watch grow over the weeks. I had plants at one point in our first official apartment together, and I am loving my mom's strawberry and blackberry plants, which makes me want to grow some of our own in the back yard! She said she got the blackberry plant on clearance two years ago and recently it has started growing the fruit. Our yard has a lot more dirt than soil, but our flowers have been growing like crazy since they were planted last summer!

   Another cool thing, that is not so much about budgets, but is a cool story ~ About 14 years ago, I made a friend in a group on MySpace. As MySpace's popularity fizzled out, we became penpals instead, writing to each other probably 10x per year, then a little less as we started having kids and getting busier with our lives. We always stayed in touch through Facebook and Instagram, and texted often the past couple of years. As we live so far apart (she lives in Wisconsin), we were finally able to meet last weekend because she brought her older daughter, Nova, to Orlando so they could go to Disney! Originally I was thinking it was 12 years ago, but because of the detail of starting to use Facebook in 2006 instead of MySpace, Jenn and I had to become friends at least a year before that. She was so sweet and paid for our breakfast too, so I paid the tip with cash. It was so crazy to finally meet a really good friend I have had for so long. Nova carried around her bag of goodies ~ leaves, rocks, and acorns that she found while walking around outside. The little cow I'm holding is a Wisconsin souvenir that sweet Nova picked out for Emma.

   Just a few more notes before ending this post ~ I do really want to do the "Healthy on a Budget, 2019 Version" compared to the last one that was almost 3 years ago, back in Fall 2016 when I was trying to distract myself with fun stuff because I was getting so stressed out about not being pregnant again yet after my miscarriage, even though I was following my ovulation apps and we were doing it on the "right" (highest chance) days. Plus I need to get back to eating better. I made a really great "Soul Cycle vs Sugar Cycle" list that I taped to the pantry door, about all the pros of eating well and the cons of not eating well. But lately, after getting tired of the salads that were my favorite for a couple months, the only thing in my brain is, "Pizza and ice cream are so yummy!" But my birthday is in less than 3 weeks now (20 days til I'm 32!) and just over 3 weeks until Emma's 2nd birthday party, and I want to look "slim and trim" for all the pictures. My dad told me one day that I looked that way ~ around my 23rd birthday I think when Michael, Alana and I met some other friends (Mia, Sharanya, Tonia, Travis, and Sarah) at a lake in Gainesville. I believe I was 110 pounds then ~ June 2010 during Full Sail, but got back down to 105 by the of end July when we went tubing for Tonia's birthday. But I don't want to go into too much detail about that or I will feel the need to post pictures from those days... too late! ;)

   Last few pictures: I have had those carrots and the hummus so long I should probably throw them out, but they miiight still be good and I want to eat up everything we have. The little container is leftover toppings from Taco Bell nachos. I warmed it up and scooped it onto the greenest lettuce leaves. It was actually really good and I will probably make my own (refried beans, beef, and cheese- tomatoes and sour cream optional, but it had that in there too so it was extra creamy)! The pizza below is my current favorite one from Publix: Organic Roasted Vegetables by Monteli, and I added extra parmesan cheese that we had. I'll use left over parmesan packets from Olive Garden for the other two pizzas I got on sale recently. Also shown is one of the pickle spears that I got from a girl at work last week. I ate it on Monday. Pickles are good!

   I love how little Sasha asks for by using her eyes. She just wants to play outside in the backyard (and then be inside for 3 minutes, and then go outside again for 10 minutes) and she loves laying under blankets. She has been so good about not getting on the bed like she used to, now that we have the new mattress and clean bedsheets. I put a blanket on the floor by my side of the bed and she lays on that in the mornings that I'm home. & Emma shines so bright that even the sun has to wear sunglasses! :D