it's been a while

I think that is the story with my last few posts...however...I actually have been away for quite some time now from writing...but I want to get back to it. We have had many life changes over the past few months. The biggest of which is that Matt and I are expecting a baby girl in May. We are both so completely overjoyed at this new phase in our lives. With the news of a baby, I have been thinking even more about simplifying our lives and trying to get out of debt...

Debt...it is the neverending battle with us. For Christmas I bought Matt the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. There seem to be a lot of good ideas in the book. See the problem is not that I don't know money, I do, I'm an accountant. The problem is that it seems like we never. have. enough. I think most people must feel this way right now. The economy doesn't seem to be doing that well, yet people continue to buy on credit all things they do not need. And it seems that as soon as you think you are pulling ahead, something comes up to drag you down. For us, our biggest issue are those pesky student loans. Not just the federal loans either...no...we had to take out personal loans in order to fund our wonderful private college education. I'm not sure if I had it to do over what I would do. I am happy with the education that I received, and believe that I would probably be a lot worse off had I not gotten that education, at the same time I think...if I had only gone to the state university...oh how my life would be different :-) Oh well, we have to get past it, which we are now trying to do.

I think that budgeting, simplifying, eating locally, our Christian values, it is all intertwined. When we are doing what God wants of us, we tend to have less stress and fewer problems. It is the trusting that God will lead us in the right direction that has been very trying. We are getting there though. We recently started attending a new church, and it looks like a place where we could definitely get involved and grow our faith. That is something I am very excited about. I wanted to find a church that would have people our age, young married couples, especially now that we have our little one on the way.

Another step Matt and I have taken is to register for a share in a CSA this summer. I think that having a baby in the beginning of May, and then being able to eat the wonderful bounty of a garden throughout the 21 weeks will be amazing. I'm hoping it allows us the opportunity to preserve food for the winter when the little one will be starting solids. It is an organic farm, and that is what I would like our baby girl to get used to right off. Fresh, organic food. I plan to make my own baby food. It seems like an easy enough task. I'm not fond of all the processing that goes into baby food these days.

Because of the combination of having the baby and getting the CSA, we have decided to put off the "real" garden this year. I am going to do my container gardening again though. I had a huge amount of success with it last year. Plus, I would never get enough tomatoes in a CSA :-) I'm hoping that this fall we will be able to prepare a place in our yard for the garden so that it is ready for planting next spring. In the meantime, I will most likely do tomatoes, cukes, sweet peppers, jalapeno peppers, and lettuce, plus cilantro and basil. Seems like a lot for container gardening, but with the deck and stairs leading to the 2nd floor of our house it really isn't a big deal. Plus, the fact that all I have to do is water the plants once or twice a day...yeah...that is the big selling point :-)

In other news, with all the rate cuts recently, we are going to try and refinance our house. Hopefully it will save us some money. We are also trying to get the upstairs of the house finished before the baby comes. But, that doesn't look like it will actually happen, so in the meantime, the baby will be in a makeshift baby room in the dining room. Does that make me a bad mother? Nah, I think she will be happy as a clam in the dining room :-)

OK, that is the brief update on the last few months of my life. I'm not sure I actually have any readers anymore, but that's ok. There is a lot to look forward to in the coming months. I'm hoping that I can start writing again more frequently...we'll see :-)