rant...

Begin rant.

It's hard to stay positive when your husband stresses about money. First we bought our plane tickets, which put us back to the beginning of step 2. then we had a flat tire, which we had to pay for out of our 'emergency fund'. Doing so brought us back to step one, although we should be able to pay it back today. Then we realized that in order to keep our dogs in the kennel while we're gone, it will cost us about 500$ plus the cost for the vaccines. Elijah's not sure where the money is going to come from. I think as long as we stick to our budget this month, it's do-able. On top of all of that, we had a very heavy rain storm last night, and we discovered that a good number of our windows leak...badly. So now he's stressing about how much it will be to replace all the windows next year, when we had only planned on replacing the bay window and the sliding door to the deck. Not that he's had a chance to see why the water is coming in or how much it will cost. It could be an easy fix, or it could set our financial goals back ALOT. Instead of saving for a van once we're out of debt, we'd be saving for new windows. To add more to the pot, Katie hasn't been going to sleep well lately, which means we have no couple time. Cold lake decided that it wanted to be humid this year, so it's really hot in our house. AND I have a cold AGAIN. Having a cold that keeps you up half the night coughing sucks, especially when you can't take meds for it. Okay.

End rant

On a good note, Elijah should be let off early today :) and it's a long weekend. We're going to the cabins with Nick, Josee and their little girl Laurence. They're french, but seem like the kind of people that are content just hanging out  and playing cards and stuff. It should be a fun, relaxing weekend. We went there last summer shortly after Katie was born with some other friends, which was pretty fun :) So I'm looking forward to going there again.

on an awesome note, I passed my french level 5 with a 87% overall ( the highest mark was 88%). Level 6, the last level, starts in September and should end a few weeks before baby number 2 is due. After that, I might try for my grade 12 french, which I never did. Just to say that i did it.

OH and Karen and Paul had a baby girl yesterday! Her name is Nora and she is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I couldn't be happier for them.

ramblings

Don't read this as a complaint. We found it to be quite humorous,

Yesterday we booked our flights home, more or less maxing out our credit card, which should have been paid off by now. then we get in the car and drop off the canoe we had been borrowing. On our way there, we had been talking about how good we were doing with our money, even though we're a little farther behind then what we expected. On our way back into town, one of our rear tires blew. Now, where the hell are we supposed to get the money for new tires, when we just spend every last penny on flights home and pay day is still four days away. Elijah was clearly frustrated so I just popped the trunk and started emptying it to get the spare out. He emerged eventually :) and put the donut on the car. By the time we got to Walmart, I was really hungry and needed to eat something. We checked the price on tires, picked up a can of tomatoes, grabbed a few burgers form mcdonalds ( clearly a healthy choice for a pregnant lady) and were on our way. Halfway through our trip, we were discussing whether we should wait until thursday to get it fixed, or do it tomorrow. While weighing the pro's and con's, Elijah starts laughing as he realizes, we have 1000$ tucked away as an emergency fund for things like this while we work at paying off our debt. So, we decided that we would get two new tires today after my doctor's appointment, pay back our emergency fund on thursday and buy two more tires when we get home in august.

Later last night, we decided to go for a walk, because katie clearly was not tired. We had planned on taking the dogs with us, however they decided to act up, and so we left them. Turns out i had a few dollars in the stroller, so we went to walmart and bought jujubes, which we decided against buying earlier, so that I could get right away. When we got back home, the kitchen was destroyed. Have I mentioned just how much I love my dogs? Included in the eaten list was my diaper bag, 1 lb of raw ground beef, which we were planning on using for dinner, a few containers and some garbage. We were very pleased with our dogs...Still in an oddly good mood though. Katie went to sleep easily, although she woke twice to feed instead of the one feed at 3am she had been doing lately. I lay awake coughing most of the night and had finally stopped when she wanted to feed a second time, so Elijah fed her for me. Katie woke around 630 as usual, and Elijah brought her to me with a bottle. She didn't have much before snuggling back down to sleep until 8, which i was very grateful for. Thank goodness for small blessings and good attitudes.

Healthy homemade french fries

I am a salt lover. My cravings seem to either get slightly worse while pregnant, or I just have an excuse to eat whatever I want. What ever the reason is, today I really want a salty snack. Most people would just say " hunny I have a craving for chips" and out their spouse would go to the nearest variety store to buy their pregnant wife chips. Us on the other hand, we are on a budget. We don't have any money left for food or snacks until pay day, so I'm going to be awesome and do the next best thing: Make homemade french fries! This recipe in particular is one that I absolutely love. It does take awhile to make, hence why i'm starting at 1030 am, but they're so worth it! I can add as much salt as I desire to mine and Elijah's, while I keep Katie's salt free. Mmmmm I can't wait for lunch, I've been craving a basket of fries with salt and vinegar on half and ketchup on the rest.

http://zestycook.com/healthy-homemade-french-fries/

The past 24 hours

What a fantastic couple of days I've had. Last night we went fishing! Elijah and i both brought in a fish, although we had no idea if they were 63 cm or not, so we released them. Katie absolutely loved being in the canoe, up until her bed time when she started to get a little bit fussy. I think the fish freaked her out at first, when they were flopping around in the canoe. I figured it would be difficult to take a trip like that with an almost one year old, but it was actually fun! Once asleep in her bed, Katie slept well. She woke twice for a bottle, and stayed dry until the morning. She decided that she wanted to play around in our room while I was still asleep...in the dirty clothes pile of all things! I woke up to her talking to herself with different clothes over her head and around her neck. Maybe she was trying to dress herself? I'll never know. She must have peed while playing, because it seemed like a fresh pee when I took her diaper off. Since she hadn't had a bottle in a couple of hours, Katie actually ate breakfast this morning. Shortly after 8, we went for a walk to Walmart to buy more milk for Katie. My little girl absolutely loves being outside. anytime she's driving me nuts, we just have to go outside and do something. We returned home around 9 with Katie fast asleep and in a dry diaper. I put her on the couch for a nap and decided that we should go to the provincial park She slept until I had everything packed and ready except for the bike and trailer. This was a blessing, as it would have taken me twice as long with her awake. We left at 10, biked 45 minutes to the park, put on sunscreen and her swim suit and played at the beach for a hour. ( Katie's diaper was still dry when we got the the park) We both had fun and Elijah came to pick us up around 1215. We figured out how to put the bike rack on the car, which turned out to be pretty simple, and we were on our way. Kay was asleep by the time we got home, and so is now sleeping on the couch again. ( hopefully in a dry diaper ) After she wakes, i think we'll have lunch and then go for another walk to No Frills to pick up a flyer. Hopefully french class is fun, as we only have two classes remaining and we've already written our final exam.

On another note, now that we know how to hook up the bike rack, depending on when we have to return the canoe and on the weather. We will either be attempting a day trip to a lake, or to a section of  the iron horse trail and bike and explore for the day. Who knows, maybe we'll do both!

Oh, and the Krafchek's leave tomorrow :( makes me wish we were posted to Borden also.

We were bad

This is also a response to your last comment Karen

We didn't use our savings account money, but we won't be putting too much extra money onto the credit card this month. In fact, we'll be adding a little bit to our debt by flying home. What we did do, was use money that was meant to help pay off debt, and we bought two new bikes and a bike trailer. The total on our receipt said 650$. Our total savings, 680$. anyways. I hope we use them alot this summer :)

Also, we seem to have acquired a bit of extra cash, which is enough to buy a bike rack for the car, as well as a fishing license for me :)

On top of that, a friend is lending us his canoe for the week. So with hopes that it doesn't rain all week, we'll get to test out what it's like owning a canoe. We'll get to see if we really will use one if we are to buy one next year.

Overall it's looking to be a great outdoors summer full of camping, biking, hiking, fishing and canoeing.

One thousand dollars

One thousand dollars, not that much money right? No, not really, but it is alot to have sitting around when you're still six months away from paying off all of your debt. Baby step one, put 1000$ aside as an emergency fund until all debt it payed off. We cheated once and bought a couch with it, but payed it back within a week or two. That did however set us back a bit. Elijah's credit card still isn't paid off, as we had planned to do already. If we had waited to buy new furniture, it would have been payed off. The salesman at the brick had told us that the couch wasn't going to stay at that price past Wednesday, if i remember correctly, he said it would increase by 500$ ...it went up by 50$. What a piss off. Especially now that there's so many things I would LOVE to buy, that we could have with 1000$. For example, Canadian Tire is having a HUGE sale on bikes right now, and neither of us has a bike. For 600$, we could have bought two bikes and a bike trailer, savings of  500-550$. now THAT'S a deal. Another example. We would love to buy a canoe and accessories. At the end of the season they usually have big sales, where we could have bought a canoe, life jackets, paddles and other odds and ends for probably around 700$.  Instead, now we're struggling to pay off debt and buy plane tickets to go home at the end of next month.

Quiet your mind- Zac Brown Band

I hear the waves
Sun beatin' down on my shoulders
It's a near-perfect day
Wishin' I wouldn't get any older
They say that it's gone 'fore you know it now

Quiet your mind
Soak it all in
It's a game you can't win
Enjoy the ride

I feel the change
Goin' on all around me
It's strange
How I'm taken and guided
Where I end up right I'm needed to be

Quiet your mind
Soak it all in
It's a game you can't win
Enjoy the ride

At the end of the water
A red sun is risin'
And the stars are all goin' away
And if you're too busy talkin'
You're not busy listenin'
To hear what the land has to say

Quiet your mind

I hear the waves
Sun beatin' down on my shoulders
It's a near-perfect day
Wishin' I wouldn't get any older
They say that it's gone 'fore you know it and
Soak it all in
It's a game you can't win
Enjoy the ride

Hawk crash weekend

So a hawk crashed on Friday, and Elijah was called out to guard the crash site, which axed our plans for the weekend. Despite him not being around much, it turned out to be a pretty good weekend.

I bought Katie a pool Saturday morning

Katie sporting Daddy's gear

Having fun on the rocking horse my dad and brother made

Today

Katie and I painted today. I made her some toddler paint, which is basically coloured paper mache glue. Set her on a drop sheet outside with paper, and let her play. She was more interested in painting the drop sheet and eating the paper than anything, but it was fun. Out of 10 pieces of paper, only two were still intact. Only one remains now, as the stupid beasts that I call China and Jojo ate the one I posted on the fridge while I was out. I'm pretty upset about that. The other one dried funny and is very warped and not flat.

French class tonight was good, as usual. I learned something tonight. Something I wish i had known a LONG time ago. It's one of those little things that if my teachers had been nice when i asked for help, instead of just telling me i should know it already, or that if i didn't know basic stuff like that maybe i shouldn't be taking french...maybe I would have done alot better in my courses, and maybe i would have enjoyed being there. Anyways that little thing, is when do you add e (feminine), s(plural) or es( feminine plural) to the end of a verb. The answer.... When ever the verb is conjugated with the auxiliary etre. Now, why couldn't someone have taken 5 seconds out of there day and told me that when it mattered? Maybe i would have passed french class...

Pulled pork

Tonight's dinner was supposed to be a pork roast, but we decided to skip that and just make pulled pork sandwiches. They are a super easy things to do with you pork leftover. just separate the pork with a fork, then throw it in a frying pan with brown sugar, a sweet  bbq sauce and one with a bite to it. We use Diana sauce and something called smokin' habenero ( perhaps presidents choice?) Use your own discretion when adding flavours, and make sure to taste test :) The brown sugar sort of caramelizes it and makes it less runny. once it's heated all the way through, and you're pleased with the flavour,  slop some on a bun, or over mashed potatoes. DELICIOUS! Makes as much as you have pork leftover. Freezes well too.