Week 39 of 52 - Has it Really Been TWENTY years?

Just one photo this week, and I didn’t take it.

I attended my high school reunion this weekend and what a treat.

For anyone who makes excuses for why they don’t want to go back, wow, what a loss.  You missed meeting and reconnecting with some amazing folks, significant others, and beautiful children of all ages.

We…

• Celebrated the military service of two.
• Remembered one who has passed through our lives and on to eternity.
• Cheered for those who changed the most and changed the least. 
• Yelled for those who drove and flew for hours to be there.
• Applauded a classmate who has written a children’s book soon to be released nationwide. 
• Shared laughter, conversations, and fun that will carry us for at least another five years.

I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Week 38 of 52 – Adjustable Waistbands and Adjusting to Reality.

This week marks my twentieth year high school reunion.   I’ve looked forward to the event, even assisted with the planning.  

Then yesterday it  happened – I realized that in five days, I would be seeing people I hadn’t seen in twenty years and I had NOTHING. TO. WEAR.  Yes, I was shouting.

For months, ok over a year now, I’ve been residing in this narrow post-baby corner of my wardrobe.  Holding out hope I would pop down to my preferred size any day now.  I don’t diet so I knew it would take longer to reach my goal and I’d been pretty OK with that – until now.

It’s as if I was suddenly transformed to that worried freshman where I thought everyone was looking at me.  And really critiquing what I wore.

Panic was followed by anger – my husband was the unfortunate target.  His crime? Being silent after my lament of weight gain and lack of fashion choices.  My accusation?  “MEN, you just don’t understand, you wear your hidden adjustable waistbands and don’t have to give a darn if you gain weight.”  His defense?  “I knew nothing I would say would be the right thing to say.”

Once I calmed down, we strategized a bit:

Financially - Similar to the grocery budget, we can only cut the clothing budget so much.  We probably shouldn't have cut this category as much as we did while getting out of debt so now we will have to increase it to make up the difference.  I consignment and thrift shop for the boys but hadn’t done it lately for myself, so I need to make some time.

Rationally – Truly, has my wardrobe worn to rags overnight?  No.  Does absolutely nothing fit?  No.  Does everything need replacing today? No.   

Relationally – Walt talked me off my ledge, and I apologized for my undeserved outburst.  He even offered to give me part of his hunting and fishing fund for clothes.  I refused, but he still earned points.

At the end of the day, the reason for wardrobe woes is a beautiful little boy we were told we couldn’t have.  So Give Thanks and Get a Grip I Must. 

And as Walt said, remember it’s a season.  In his words, “I’ve accepted the reality that I will be fat for six to nine more months (his estimation of when Samuel will sleep consistently through the night), and until then, I’m going to say to heck with it and stretch my elastic waist bands to their capacity.”  Men...

For my 52-week photography project, I present an injured child. 

George is now healing from his first bloody skinned knee.  Now before you judge me ;-), I promise I'd first held him and dried up his tears.   Once he was calm, I said, let's take a picture of your skinned knee.  He agreed and when I pulled out the camera, the waterworks began, he cried all over again.

Week 37 of 52 - Budging the Grocery Budget...or not.

I’ve heard of a person’s body weight reaching a ‘set point’ where it’s hard to get the pounds to budge. But for us, our grocery and household envelope has also hit a set point.

We have one envelope for all of our household items – groceries, paper products, cleaning products, bath/grooming items, and baby supplies.

When we first began our budget, Walt wanted to separate these into 5 different envelopes, while I preferred the one-envelope approach as I knew who would get the dreadful task of breaking down a Kroger bill into 5 parts. When we met with the financial coach, I had my one-envelope defense prepared, and thankfully he recommended one envelope before I could clear my throat. Since we were chatting via conference call with the coach, only Walt could see my one-envelope victory dance.

So we’ve managed to meet the financial coach’s budget recommendation for that envelope. To do this, we use coupons, shop sales, plan meals, and use Amazon mom for diaper discounts. But try as we might, we weren't able to spend less than his recommendation. Then last month, we had almost $200 left in our grocery budget, so I thought I’d finally broken a record! I excitedly moved some over to savings, and covered a few other expenses.

Before I could revel in my accomplishment, the September grocery budget exploded – day diapers, night diapers, 932 tubes of diaper cream (or at least it seemed), good coupon stock-ups, and a few unexpected grocery trips. Suddenly, we are only 10 days into the month with $75 left for the rest of the month. So most likely, exactly what I “saved” last month will go back into this month’s grocery budget.

Lesson learned for us – our grocery dollars can’t be liquidated for other goals. If we spend less one month, we will undoubtedly make up the difference the next. I may never embrace my body’s natural set point, but I’m at making peace with the grocery set point… at least until the little guy is out of diapers.


We've been embracing the wonderful weather lately. On the cool days, we've played outside...

On the rainy days, we watched it rain and raced our trucks around...and eventually went to the Chickfila playground to burn the energy of cooped-up little boys.

Week 36 of 52: More Harley Fun!

More shots of my friend Mel, her husband Fred, and their fabulous Harleys.

Week 35 of 52 - Living Vicariously

I had the opportunity to photograph my friend Mel and her husband Fred today.  They are Harley riders and I enjoyed capturing them doing what they love.

As for me, I followed behind them in the Rav4 and pretended I was cruising behind on my Heritage Softail.  Yep, it was quite a stretch for a '99 Toyota with 2 car seats in the back.