dunno where that came from... couldn't think of any other title.
Today I slept in until 10:30. It felt good. We went to the Fall Festival at my son's school and it was a neat little event. I was expecting something more but I don't know why. The kids liked it and the weather was good. My daughter thought the "Hay Ride" with one barrel of hay was spectacular. She was so excited that me and her dad laughed. I think she just liked the fact that she got to ride with just her brother on a big ole wagon without mom and dad. She just kept hollering- I Did It! I Did It!

So far so good without any sweetened drinks. I haven't had any since Wednesday now. I had to force myself to make my Crystal Light today at home. I don't think that I miss sweet tea - which is what we drink at home- but it was just convenient because dear hubby makes it all the time. SO I had to make a separate pitcher for my crystal light.

I feel better today about my lifestyle change. I still feel like I am not doing something right but I am just trying to go with the flow right now. I feel like I need to eat this certain way in order to lose weight. But today I just ate when I was hungry and tried to be sensible about it. I had a hotdog at the festival and a piece of cake. I felt a bit of guilt about it but then I just tried to put it out my mind. I didn't even finish the cake bc it wasn't good. I need to go add up my calories and see what I have done. Usually my weekends aren't too bad since I tend to just be laying around the house.

Today I accomplished a lot financially wise. Using the Dave Ramsey budgeting system is such a plus and very (eye opening). I finally see that financially we do make some seriously decent money. It just was being managed very badly. I have a few excess bills right now and I am trying to look at the bigger picture for paying them off. Me and DH talked today and agreed that we are just going to focus on one bill at a time and pay extra on it until its all paid off and then start on the next one. Its the exact same thing that Dave Ramsey says to do but for some reason things have to really be drilled in my head before I believe it. Today I mainly organized the remainder of my bills for the month. I accepted the fact that my budget spreadsheet is a tool/guide and not an absolute "end all". I use to be afraid to budget because seeing what needed to be done on paper was scary. Dave Ramsey's cd addressed that and really helped me begin a new process. I am glad he is a Christian because his perspective touches on so many aspects of the bible. My biggest obstacle in life is "fear". So anyhooo... I was at the computer pretty much all day determining my payment history on accounts, figuring out exactly what i was paying for- I even got a credit on one of my bills for $30! Sprint- HA- you have to watch them and if something looks weird- call'em... they couldn't figure out how my husband managed to have over 380 text messages this month. I told them- he would have had to text at least 15 messages per day EVERY SINGLE DAY. for the past year he has used less than 100 text messages- who the heck was he texting that much??? so I told them that I needed them to tell me how they figured that out- they couldn't so they gave me a credit for the over charges and stated there were some issues with the system. so how many other people were over charged??? I talked to hubby and told him that we really need to get our household bills up to date instead of always trialing one month behind... it gives them the opportunity to overbill us because we can't really figure our bill out due to it having past bill amounts included. So .... today that's what I did... figured all my household bills out to see what was what. We agreed that instead of paying extra on all of them simultaneously that we would take one and catch it up with extra payments and then focus on the next. Did I already say that I have a tendency to repeat myself- in writing and in conversation.

I need to listen to Dave's cd one more time. Because I kept forgetting the steps and feeling like I am doing something wrong. But he said the first step before you can even set up an emergency fund is to get everything current. So that's what I am working on now.

the only other thing I need to work on is realizing that everything takes time. weight loss as well as changing my financial destiny. I need to break everything up into parts and set a time frame on it but realize that everything is going to take some time. Financially I just need to make a game plan for exactly how long it will take to get everything up to date... I am only one month behind on each bill and we have about 4-5 major bills so my next step is just to determine how much extra I need to pay on each one (one at a time that is) to bring it back current. I am putting myself on a three year game plan- starting from today to get things back in place. I will be 34 in three years so not too bad. At least I won't be turning 40 still in debt and not having a clue what to do to get it together. One major thing I am doing that is going to be so great- Not applying for anymore credit. As of this month, two years from now I shouldn't have anymore inquires on my credit report to bring my score down.

Okay, I am rambling... but I feel like i am doing so well in this one particular area of my life. It just feels good to write about it.