39

Today is my 39th birthday.

This morning I was booted from the house so my kids could “surprise” me with baking me a birthday cake. Surprise is in quotes because I’m the one that set out the cake box and frosting a few days ago. I also made sure to leave 3 eggs in the fridge. 🙂

While they baked a cake, made cards, and wrapped gifts, I wondered around my favorite thrift stores.

Between Veteran’s Day sales (50% entire store) and price tag color mark down (one store had 3 colors at 75% off) I found some fantastic deals.

I found a couple of my brand, my size jeans.

I also found some wonderful old books. (Such as a lovely 2 volume set of “The Outline of History” by H. G. Wells. I’m aware some of its content is not congruent with a Biblical Worldview but I’m still interested in reading the books.)

I think we are ending the day with my choice of dinner (wings?), cake & cards. I love celebrating my birthday and being that I almost didn’t live through my first day, I’ll never be ashamed of my age.

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These days

It’s been a while since my last post so I thought I’d do an update on what we are doing these days.

*We started preschool last week. By pre-school, I mean me take 30 mins – an hour, about 3 days a week to do some intentional play, reading, and crafts. Now that E will be two next week, both boys get to participate. Mostly this has resulted in E throwing fits when I put the colors away because he wants to keep going. 

*Z and I started “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons”. He’s really interested in reading. I’ve modified the lessons a little and told him we will do 10, and then he can decide if he wants to keep going. A lot of research shows it’s most helpful to many kids to not start formal, structured learning until they are 6 or 7. Generally, I agree with this research, which is why “pre-school” is pretty casual in our house and I’m not pushing the reading lessons all that hard (thus the letting him decide if we go past 10). [He won’t start kinder until fall of 2019. We have tons of time.]

*Baby girl is set to arrive in 8 weeks.

*We moved E into a big boy bed on Z’s room. So that is a new challenge.

*This summer has been tight between work slowing down and OB bills, but we have hopefully made it past the most difficult period. Work is picking back up and my OB pre-pay plan has likely been met.

*With the help of some birthday money gifts from family, daddy built the summer birthday boys a sandbox. We’ve been having fun with that. (Sand everywhere! Hose downs before coming back in the house.) 

*As we approach being in our new house for almost a year, we’ve finally gotten around to selling some things. Vases, chairs, shelves, dishes, and such. Stuff we didn’t have time to sell before we moved last year. That’s been both a challenge (taking pictures, writing up descriptions, determining prices, and posting online) and a relief (cleaning up clutter, making space, and having a little extra cash).

Where are we now

WOW! Did I really go an entire month without posting!?!

In 8 years of blogging that has only happened a few times.

I guess after doing 22 “by the numbers” and not having much to report – I took a little break.

As far as our emergency fund goes, it’s about the same – 50% done.

We did have our foundation fixed which cost 3,700 so – that was money that DIDN’T make it into the emergency fund (but it also didn’t create more debt since we cash-flowed it).

Other than that November was crazy busy!

*Z had 2 doctor’s appointments and I had one.
*We went to the Bush Library Museum & the Perot Museum
*My Parents came for Thanksgiving.
*I made my first Thanksgiving Dinner
*My brother and his family moved back to Texas
*We helped them get some painting done
*I had a birthday and we had our third anniversary.

What a great (and exhausting!) month it was.

11-11-11

Today is my Birthday!

And we are eating wings tonight – followed by “all you can bowl” for $10.

(wow… I wonder why they didn’t charge $11)

 

November

I love November – only 12 days until my birthday (11-11-11).

We might go see J. Edgar. We are definatley going out to eat wings and go bowling.

Then, only 9 days after that, we are celebrating our first anniversary.

And there is also Thankgiving.

Plus, there is a change in the weather. It’s even finally getting cooler here. 🙂

I LOVE November.

10! Can you believe it?

10 days to go!

and today is 11/10

I have a dentist appointment today. 🙂 ‘perfectly timed’ even though I had no clue 6 months ago when I scheduled the appointment.

(oh yeah, and tomorrow, I turn 30)

it is coming

17 Days!  still a lot of details to be done.

Like – uhm – apply for a marriage license… kind of important 🙂

and before even that, it’s only 8 days until my birthday. 30th birthday at that.

I also have a couple bridal showers and a bachlorette party coming up in the next 2 weeks. Those will be fun!

Did you vote yesterday? I didn’t – but what I did do was vote in early voting last week.

Thats all.  my brain is pretty cluttered, so not a lot of fancy words or writing falling out onto the blog right now.

An Update – Penny Style

So… It’s been a while since I gave a “Pennies for Debra” update.

Turns out, having a birthday is very helpful.  I had family, a roomie, and a co-worker all contribute pennies in honor of my birthday.  I fact, over 1,200 came a direct result of my birthday.

The new count is pretty high…

5035!

That’s right, “Pennies for Debra” has crossed the 5,000 mark! (that’s $50 for anyone not wanting to do the math).

Thanks for all the Contributions!  Helping one penny at a time to find new purpose and a new home.

b-day party extravaganza

I think I am finally getting into a little of a rhythm with the entire issue of having a social life.  In just two days alone (yesterday and today) I am attending 3 birthday parties.

It’s wonderful to finally feel like I am growing in my network of friends – and a large part of this is due to my increased involvement at church.

I should also add, in full disclosure, one of the birthday parties was for my soon to be 6 year old niece. 🙂

Also, Aug. 1 – today marks my 1st day of med. ins. coverage for my heart since end of Jan 2008. PTL I made it 18 months without a major incident

I still love November

Thursday already?

So it’s been a busy, but good week.

On Saturday, I got to celebrate my birthday with my family. Seriously, there is nothing that makes you feel young like celebrating your birthday with a 3 and 5 year old.

On Sunday afternoon, I headed back up to play Settlers of Catan.

On Monday, I got a new couch! Someone at work was giving away a sleeper sofa so I really lucked out.

Yesterday, I bought a new vacuum. I purchased one at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago, but it was not cutting it and I really needed to vacuum, so I got a new one.

Tonight I am heading out to see my niece in her thanksgiving school program.

And to top off the week, tomorrow I have friends from work coming over to eat pizza and play Settlers. -the reason for needing to vacuum 🙂

Busy, but good.

Blowing out a candle on my b-day cupcake with the “Birthday Princess” hat.