Right Here, Right Now

♪♫  Can you imagine what would happen if we could have any dream.
I wish this moment was ours to own it and that it would never leave.

Right here, right now I'm looking at you and my heart loves the view,

cause you mean everything, oohh!  ♪♫

~ High School Musical 3

  Yesterday Alana and I hung out to make sure we met my resolution of hanging out at least once a month (I still feel bad about how I went 8+ months without seeing her in 2015 since we only live about 45 minutes apart!) and also to celebrate her birthday which was this past Saturday. I definitely agreed when she suggested that we have a photo shoot and I like having pictures of me with all my friends while I'm pregnant. Her husband, Cody, did a super great job with all of the pictures! I kept the 50mm lens on and adjusted the low f-stop and lighting, then he willingly snapped away, excited when I gave him permission with "creative freedom".

We always tend to take a few "romantic" pictures when we are together. It's just the Ashley Tisdale/Vanessa Hudgens way of doing things that started our best-friendship! :D

  I also like this newer version of the same song title: Thank you to Jacquie for recommending this artist to me. I like him a lot and his second album comes out on Friday! The chorus really helps me shift my focus back from worrying about the future money. I should probably keep this song on repeat all day, every day! Or at least when Michael tells me that our credit card bill is somehow $150 higher than I had written in my budget notes.. Ha!

 ♪♫  I won't fear tomorrow’s unknown cause I know that it's all out of my control.

Step by step, one day at a time. I know whatever comes my way I’ll be fine.
So I’m living in the moment and never looking back,
cause I know that this too shall come to pass.
I don't need anything more than right here, right now.  ♪♫

~ Matty Mullins

 Happy 31st birthday, best friend!! 

  I was excited to tell her that Michael said he will drive up for my baby shower on Saturday. Then she asked if he would be able to give her a ride up for the few hours (since I'm going up Friday morning and coming back Saturday night). I was instantly double excited since she originally told me she had other plans and wouldn't be able to attend. Woooo hoooo!!!

 ^^ I like how big "Emma" looks in these pictures. I guess she wanted to make sure she was in the pictures too. We are 29 weeks and 1 day here while she is estimated at 17 inches and almost three pounds (I'm 127 now). Also I just called the doctor's office about my glucose tolerance results since nobody called me yesterday.. but I passed the test! They said my results were "normal". It's great to know that my body handles all the sugar perfectly! But I'm still looking forward to going back to the healthy routine that I followed in August 2014 where I was eating so healthy without any extra sugars that just one cookie gave me a headache! And my body looked super fit because I was running/ power walking a lot then.

 ^^ I loved seeing these laughing candids too. Cody did such a great job with the pictures! He mentioned to both of us about how much he likes taking pictures with nice cameras, and said he took most of the pictures when he and Alana went to Europe four years ago for their Honeymoon. He said he might be able to attend the baby shower as well, and I definitely let him know that he could borrow our Canon to take all the pictures he wants! I wish I had gotten a picture of him taking pictures because really he got to into it, with his baseball cap on backward and doing "lunge poses" to get better angles.

   After the photoshoot, we talked inside for a bit and looked at the mini Polaroids that Cody also took. Once we had cooled down, Alana and I changed clothes and went on a walk around the lake near her house. It's our "go to" route. We made it a total of 3.6 miles, and probably would have gone further but I was getting a mix of hungry, hot and shaky, so we turned around at the bridge. I am so excited to have her be a part of my baby shower on Saturday!!

Simply Emmykins

   Thursday was my first doctor appointment without Michael being there, but it actually made me feel more adult- although I'd still be nervous to fly anywhere myself. I had to take the glucose tolerance test by drinking the 10oz bottle of flat orange soda with 50 grams of sugar within three minutes, then wait an hour for the nurse to draw my blood. They said it takes 48 hours to get the results back, so they'll call me on Monday. I'm hoping my body is great at processing sugar, since I assume if it wasn't I'd be 200 pounds by now with all the donuts I've eaten- especially this past month. But now I'm extra motivated to eat less junk and go on more/ longer walks, especially with all the "premier" pictures I want to take after the baby shower next Saturday! 

   Also while at the doctor they did another sonogram and her heartbeat was excited at 164 BPM. I noticed that the technician (I had Kristen again) typed "BREECH" at the beginning and although she didn't say anything about it, I thought that word meant something bad, so I asked. She said it just means Emma was bottom down which was fine at me being 28 weeks and 4 days. My doctor said it's not an issue unless she's still breeched at 36 and 37 weeks, then they would schedule a C-section at 39 weeks. She gave me business cards for pediatricians in our area that we will need to call or meet with at some point in the next 11 weeks. I only had to wait in the lobby for about ten minutes until my glucose hour was up and the nurse drew my blood. She also gave me a shot in the upper arm for whooping cough and a Rhogam shot in the butt for my negative blood type. "The best part about being shot in the buttocks is the ice cream." ~ Forrest Gump

   I found a new blog that I like of a girl, Taralynn in North Carolina, who documents all of her runs and the healthy foods she eats. She has some similar humor that I like and when she put a workspace together in her bedroom, she got the same Target desk that I have in my scrapbook room and the chair she picked is the same ones we have in our dining room! Right before I found her blog on Thursday evening I went for a really good two mile walk and took these pictures on my phone:

   I was excited that when I went to take the Appalachian Trail rocks out of my fannypack I found $5 in one of the pockets. Score! I also found $26 in my "diaper bag" a couple days ago, both which was cash left over from our mountain trip. I used some of that to buy eight dollars worth of baby shower decorations at Dollar Tree and then stopped by Walmart for eggs, lettuce, yogurt, bread and milk ($9.60 total). I paid a bunch just with coins at the self checkout until I felt like I had been standing there too long, waiting for each penny to process as paid. The milk was four dollars! Sheesh! I was bragging about how I'll never go back to Publix (we've been almost always going there for groceries since we moved into our house because its closer) but I don't think their milk is four dollars or I would have complained about that recently. I'll have to check when I go on Monday. I like their little hummus containers and can never find any at Walmart. Plus Walmart doesn't have a nice Deli like Publix does. The Deli makes me feel fancy and I usually only buy whatever is on sale. I'll just have to prioritize and divide my shopping again to stick to our budget. Michael says he will stick with Publix because he hates waiting in the lines at Walmart. 

   I keep feeling the need to rephrase my "what it feels like to be pregnant" comment from last month, for my own memory. The "post Olive Garden binge" feeling has really only happened maybe 3 times, one of those times being when I wrote about it and took the picture through the window reflection. Most of the time (for me) being pregnant doesn't really feel like anything except the smaller kicks feel like a little spasm, like when I get an involuntary twitch under my eye. Last night I was looking at how big my bump is getting and it didn't feel stretched or heavy. Maybe because it's growing slow enough most of the time that I don't notice or feel it happening. Michael texted me again today (when we got to the Convention Center with his friends) saying how great of a wife I am and how much he loves me, Emma, and Sasha. I told him that sometimes I still get the excited "Oh my gosh! We're going to have a baby!" feelings. We're so lucky though and I can't wait to hold and hug her for the first time and see what she really looks like on the second or third day. I think I might call her Emmy.

 ^^ Here are a couple pictures I was sent of Michael and Brian as Edrio and Benthic at the Star Wars convention today with their friends, Saida and Angela! Michael is the cute one on the left without the extra jacket. He asked if I would take some Canon pictures of them later on when they dress up again since I had to work this weekend. I sure will!!

Going Green

   Last week my dad sent me an email with a link of three Meadowbrook Church sermons that I needed to listen to called "Going Green". I assumed that they would be about money, and they were. I loved them! Although I can easily (and basically unnecessarily) get stressed about money, it's one of my favorite topics to talk about. Sometimes I try to have a conversation with Michael about money - like how I'm excited to show him the budget break down and charts I made yesterday to explain how we will be able to save $4,500 by mid July if we don't spend more than we really have to! Which we will then have to use to pay the hospital "out of pocket" for Emma being born, but it's better to have that much extra money than taking that same amount out of what we have in the Baby Fund right now. But all of that can be confusing to him (too many numbers and arrows), plus he likes not having to worry about how we're doing on money since he knows I handle it very well - most of the time.

   They were offering a Dave Ramsey: Financial Peace seminar at work about a year and a half ago. I don't remember why I didn't go to the class, but one of my friends did and he told me what he learned in each class. The first thing he told me was how terrible everyone (except him) was at spending money and how the small class together totaled around $20,000 in debt. I would have gasped and yelled at everyone in the room if I had been there. I like to say/ think/ know that I have never been in "real" debt. They say house, car, and student loan debt don't count because it's something you "have to" buy and most people are actively paying off the amount owed each month. But that $20,000 was just "coffee and clothes, vacations and going out to eat" debt. How does that happen?! I would think that a rational person would say "Hey, I don't have money for this right now so I guess peanut butter and jelly sandwiches will have to do me for the rest of the week". It stresses me out just thinking about it, so I'm really glad I didn't go to the classes. I'd be like "Daaaang! I was stressed about only having $20,000 in savings! I can see I'm not needed here!" and then walk out.

   Now I keep trying to find some super good blogs that talk about money and budgeting, preferably by someone in their 20's. But the ones I am finding are "too professional" or their budget is way higher than the "pinching pennies" kind that I like. For example, I don't like people talking about how they got such a great deal on clothes because they were 80% off, "which makes the top/boots/skirt only $63". That does not sound like a super great deal to me. 80% off should make the piece about four dollars! I guess that's why I'm a big fan of Plato's Closet (for buying, not selling). Here is the best post I have read today about saving money and sticking to a low monthly budget. Did you click on the link? That's right, it's my own post. And it's a wonderful one!

   I was able to get some similar deals recently, scoring free food at work since it's Telecommunicator Week so they had ice cream sundaes for us on Monday and hamburgers/ hot dogs with mac & cheese, baked beans, salad, and cookies yesterday. Except instead of having $93 left to spend on groceries this month like I mentioned in the post from October we are kind of in "the negative" right now. Or the mode that I like to call The Pantry Diet. Hence wanting to boost up our savings while we have the chance. After Emma is born we may not be able to put money into savings for the next five years until she is out of daycare! But who knows, maybe I'm just over reacting? One kind of major thing that is not budgeted in Our Goal to $4,500 is all of the baby stuff we will need to buy. Like absolutely need. We'll see what we get at the baby shower next weekend. I'm already okay with leaving Emma's bedroom pretty plain just because it means not spending money. And obviously she won't care!

Free scrapbook garland that I made a couple weeks ago!

Although it's not really money related, I have been doing well with sticking to my minimal clothing range.

  This post doesn't have the ability to be as sunny and fun loving as "the best post" that I liked above, since I don't have any recent food or exercising pictures to post. The only note I have is that to help my chicken nuggets last longer, I cooked less and added a side of corn, then drank half of a V8 for added nutrients. I also went for a 2 mile walk since after our lack of TV last week, I'm trying not to watch very much. I'm hoping that I can write a lot more posts similar to it in the next few weeks, and also between July and December when we get a hang of the new budgets - some of which I can't even plan ahead for since I'm not sure how much I'll be making using half paid vacation time/ half FMLA during maternity leave, or how tight we will really be once I go back to work at the end of September when we start paying for daycare and I have an extra medical deduction for adding Emma onto my insurance. We still have to get her enrolled in daycare soon, which costs a decent chunk of money for the registration fee! That's one reason our grocery money is kind of non-existent right now. Eh, we'll be fiiiiiine. =)

  Above and below are some pictures of Michael and Brian working on their Benthic and Edrio costumes today after they got off from work at VAMP. (I used the 50mm lens again for these with a low f-stop and the baby room pictures.) The Star Wars convention is this Saturday and they have seriously been putting their all into this, especially this week. Working every spare minute they have, staying up past midnight just to wake up five hours later to go back to work. I already asked Michael if he would be sleeping away all of Sunday.

They seriously watch Rogue One every day!

Helton Creek Falls

   These pictures were taken on the Canon using the 50mm lens. This is probably the lens I would want Michael using when he takes pictures of me in the hospital when Emma is born. There are so many beautiful examples on Pinterest, especially ones in black and white. Look out for ours in about three months! ;) The first few photos below were taken by myself on the little path behind our cabin and the rest were taken at the end of our "neighborhood", at Helton Creek Falls:

  I really liked the simplicity of our living situation last week while we were in staying in North Georgia. The lack of cell phone service gave us extra time to sit and talk or work on small projects and read. Even when we ate, we reused the same two dishes -Michael used a plate and I used a bowl- and a few pieces of silverware. At home the dishes seem to pile up and sit in the sink or dishwasher, but at the cabin, we quickly rinsed or washed each item right after it was used so it would be ready again a few hours later. Michael didn't even watch TV until the last night while I finished my book by Naya Rivera and started another one ~ "Anchored" by Kayla Aimee.