Day Two

I had so much planned that I was going to do today. I didn't really get anything done. Since it's Martin Luther King's Birthday I had today off. I was going to finish report cards, reorganizing our bedroom and clean the house. Ummm, okay maybe it was a little much for one day.

I woke up to my 3 year old running around downstairs.....that's right folks. She got out of bed and was running in circles downstairs. I came out of my bedroom door at the top of the steps and she was starting to walk up, tears streaming down her face. I asked her what was the matter. She crawled up the stairs crying and said..."I thought you and daddy left me. You weren't downstairs, and you didn't read me a book last night." Bless her heart! My heart ached for her. I asked if she checked in our bedroom first and she said no because I was downstairs when she went to sleep. Oh my. What could I say. I just hugged her and told her we would never leave her alone. She asked me if I promised and you know I did. I even pinkie swore. :)

On a positive note: We have reached Day 4 with no pee peeing in our big girl bed!!!!! YAY! I'm so proud of her. I can't believe changing rooms and beds has made such a difference. It's as if it was just the motivation she needed to wake herself up when she needed to go potty.

Later on, my hubby and I went grocery shopping. We had to stay within 75 bucks on our groceries. You know what, we did it! We have budgeted out all of our money for groceries, gas, "blow money," bills, and savings. For the first time in 5 years we have actually managed to stick to the budget. We have put money away for summer cash, and for our daughter's college fund. I am so proud of my husband and me.

At the same time, it has been very hard. We have limited ourselves to $25 a month in blow money. We were spending almost $1000 dollars of our income on blow money about a month ago. We weren't saving anything and we were only paying minimum payments on everything. Now we are saving our $500 a month so I don't have to work during the summer and we aren't relying on a tax refund to cover our bills. We also managed to put $100 in our daughters college savings this month, and set aside $900 for an emergency fund. I wish we could manage to do that every month but this month my husband got paid his bonus money from work which made a huge difference.

My husband, who used to be the spender, is doing better at this than I am. It's frustrating. I wish I had more strength. I want to pay off our debt so much faster than what we will be able to pay them. I know we are getting there, but I want to be there now!!!! I know it took us some time to accumulate the debt, but it feels like it is taking so much longer to shake ourselves from under it.

In regards to the teaching side of things. I need to get my report cards finished....or started. I guess I have to start them to finish them. I have such a bad habit of procrastinating. I have been doing so great at staying on top of my work. I can only hope I stay motivated enough to keep it going. It seems to come in swings. I do really good at things for a while and then I slow done, just before I stop completely. I get so behind that picking it back up to finish seems like an impossible task. Until I am finally feeling pressure from so many directions that I explode into a frenzy of work and finish the job. Then I think, I'll do better next time, knowing that's not true. What causes people to be like this. I wish I could tell you. I've heard all the theories; fear of failing, laziness, lack of skill, etc. I just procrastinate. No reason, no rhyme.

Here's to no more procrastination. To anyone reading this....wish me luck.