Making Progress

Well first off, let me say thank you to all of our friends and family that wrote us heartfelt comments after my last post. I have to say I was really surprised by the honesty that came from all of you guys...not that I mean you aren't honest, but everyone came back baring their dirty laundry as well...it just really made me feel like we're all in this together. I know we aren't alone in our situation but sometimes this desperation just feels so lonely. Last Sunday I heard a class on the book of Romans at church and one verse just kept sticking out to me..."For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate" Romans 7:15. I keep hearing this in my head and this is what is making us make a change.

After I posted that blog, I just felt such a renewed sense of obligation and energy to do good things with our money. Mike and I sat down last week and had a great heart to heart about where we are and where we want to be...and what we need to do, what changes we need to make, to really make that happen. As long as we are on 1 income things are not going to be rosy so to speak, but we can do waaaay better than we are doing....and we are determined to do it. We have made a new budget, went and did good grocery shopping, made a menu for every night of dinner, limited ourselves to one time out to eat a weekend...wether it be Saturday or Sunday...and a budget for Mike to eat out for lunch during the week that has great possibilities to leave him with some fun money if he wants it that way. I think we've got a good shot this time...we are very determined. We are taking this one day at a time...our money diet...if you look too far ahead in the future its easy to make mistakes daily, just like any diet, so we're taking one day at a time and trying to keep eachother on the right track. Like I said, its been a week, I know not very long, but we're really determined this time and I think we came very close to hitting rock bottom, so the only way is up, right?

Some of you may or may not know that we listed our condo for sale a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, in line with our money woes, our condo was just costing us way too much to keep. It was a good decision when we made it almost 5 years ago but we were both working at the time and had no kids...obviously lots has changed since then. So we are forcing ourselves to list it as a short sale and deal with the consequences. If we are able to sell it, it could save us almost $800 a month...and boy do we need it! Our renters have been wonderful and ideally they would just buy it from us but they aren't in the position to do so. They really want to stay and were hoping whoever bought it would let them continue to rent from them, but we haven't been so lucky yet. Our renters have worked really hard to keep our place clean and neat and we've had some good lookers since our realtor lowered the price, but no big hits yet. We do have one offer pending but we haven't made our decision yet. We are really praying about this one and hoping we are making the right decisions. We would appreciate your prayers also.

As for our little munchkins all is well. Ava is as crazy as ever and living life on the edge. She has no fear, climbs whatever she can, and tries to kill herself daily with her daredevil antics. We'd love to enroll her in some gymnastics or tumbling class but with our limited resources we haven't made the jump yet...hopefully in a few months. She is a babbling little girl, saying mama, Jess, J (for uncle J), dada (sometimes even daddy), va (which is van), tweet tweet (for birdies), cheese (just started tonite for taking pictures), and communicates in all other ways like nodding no when she doesn't want what you have, waving to you to come over if she wants you and whatever else she has to do to get what she wants. She is quite the girl, but is also such a ham and loves to be sweet and give lots of love. Here's a recent pic of our little handful...

Moving on to our Van Man. He is doing great. He has 2 weeks left of school for this school year and then we are out for the summer. What a difference a year makes. He is making great strides at school and I'm so proud. Just today at church he proceeded to write on a piece of paper, all by himself, his name, mom, dad, and ava....at 3 years old!!! I'm speechless. This little boy has quite the streak of independence wanting to do everything for himself, including getting himself dressed completely (shoes, socks, underwear, shirts, shorts, etc) and undressed, going the bathroom, getting his own food out of the refridgerator, etc etc. I love the independence but I could go without the daily power struggle...I will conquer though. He has become a real sports nut lately and loves to play baseball in the backyard where we pitch to him, he hits and then runs our bases. He also loves to play soccer and catch. This will be another one that if we get all of our "resources" in order, we will hopefully be able to enroll him in tball or soccer through our city. Sorry I don't have another recent shot but here he is at Jess and Danny's rehearsal...showing his "guns" (as daddy says).

Well your prayers are working and we are making great strides towards peace. Thank you for your thoughts and of course I love to hear from you all. Hopefully I will be back soon...with more good news and steps in the right direction.

Love,
me