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.