Chit-Chat

There's no real focus to this post, so I'll just make it a spin-off of the blog world's "Five on Friday" and go with a "Six on Saturday"!

1) Chris and I started listening to some borrowed Dave Ramsey CDs and reading the book, Financial Peace Revisited. WOW. I have so many things swimming through my head right now about how to set ourselves up for, well, financial peace. When my car's air conditioning unexpectedly broke (well, was it supposed to expectedly break??), it kind of lit a fire under me as far as getting serious about budgeting. Yes, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit it, but we have never been budget followers. We only owe on our house and one car, but the Dave Ramsey stuff has convicted me--we are getting very serious about saving, budgeting, and paying off the car ASAP. As much as I love a bargain, I can't believe it's taken me this long to realize how much money we could be saving if we planned ahead to pay cash for things like cars, and if we invested our money in higher-yield accounts rather than just dumping any leftovers into our regular savings account. Anyway, if you haven't jumped on the Dave Ramsey bandwagon, I recommend it!

2) Speaking of my car's air conditioning compressor, we worked a sort-of deal with the dealership to get it all replaced for around $875. THEN we got a follow-up call from Honda America, and we were kind of griping to them about how the compressor shouldn't have broken, and they asked if we were requesting a reimbursement. Um... sure, yes, that's exactly where we were going with this... so they asked how much we would accept (weird question!) and so on, and after some back-and-forth, they agreed to reimburse us for half the cost, even though it was not under warranty! Yay, HONDA!!!

3) Mother's Day was a really great day. Chris and Dad were both asked to speak at church about young mothers and empty-nest mothers, respectively. They did a fantastic job, mixing some humor with some insight, compliments and a take-away lesson. We then went to Palio's Pizza for a quiet lunch with my mom and Jamie and Drew, since Jimmy and Courtney and Stephanie and Michael were out of town!

4) I am now a Lifetime Member of Weight Watchers! This means that I made my goal weight and maintained it for six weeks, so now I no longer pay for my membership as long as I stay within two pounds of my goal and weigh in once a month. Sounds easy, but ever since I reached my goal weight, I have struggled with the temptation to go back to some of my bad habits. It's like something switched in my mind and I decided it was okay to have dessert twice a day again, now that I lost the weight! Ack! So I'm still struggling with balancing healthy eating with the occasional indulgence.

5) Next week is Noah's last week of preschool, and on Tuesday he "graduates." What?!? Yep, Noah starts Kindergarten in the fall, so this is our last summer before we are really in for the duration. Here's this year's school picture! I bought the digital image, so I can have any size printed. Just let me know if you want me to order any for you!

6) We are looking forward to our upcoming annual church camping trip, and we have a record number of people signed up. So exciting! Immediately after the trip, Noah begins swimming lessons. A week and a half after lessons, he is enrolled for three days of summer zoo camp at the Fort Worth Zoo, and then we leave the next day for our road trip to Vicksburg, MS; Gulf Shores, AL; and New Orleans, LA! We come back just in time for VBS at church, followed by the 4th of July (one of my fave holidays) and two scheduled camping trips, one in July and one in August. This is going to be a fantastic summer!