Last Tuesday after writing the Potty Time post Little E decided that she did not want to use the potty anymore.  She started being very resistant and instead of turning it into a control issue or having her end up with a UTI or constipation I decided to take a little break.

A couple of times she woke up from her nap and asked to use the potty and did.  But that was pretty much it this week.  She is my headstrong girl and this could really turn ugly if I try and force her or let her know that this is something I really really really want her to do!

We will try again soon and at least she now knows more about what going on the potty is all about.   I am hoping in a couple of weeks she will be ready to be a “big girl.”

I can’t leave you without letting you in on a great poop story that happened today.  If you are squeamish not a mom you might not want to read.

So my friend came by today with her parents who are visiting from Indiana.  We went to lunch and when we got back to the house Eva was having a great time playing in her bedroom with my friends Dad. (She thinks every man over the age of 50 is her papa).

Well it was brought to my attention that she had a poopy diaper so I go in her room to change it when she plop’s down on the floor tears her diaper off and poop goes flying everywhere!  With my friend (who doesn’t have kids yet), her mom, and her dad all standing right there!!!  All I could do is say “Oh my God”a million times while picking up poop and placing it back in the diaper.  One of the best parts of being a mom is being able to share these embarrassing poop stories!

To join in Potty Time Tuesday fun click the link!

Sundays are for sipping coffee, cutting coupons, and CBS Morning News.
Sundays are for hanging out in our pajamas until noon, reading the paper, making banana pancakes.
Sundays are for being lazy but also for tying up loose ends.
Sundays are for the daddy to change the poopy diapers.
Sundays are for two year olds to spend hours playing with the change jar.
Sundays are for doing what you love with the ones you love.

Photo Credit: Flickr

Little E and I made our weekly walk to Barnes and Noble today where we read many Dr. Seuss books which is why I am now channeling him. I am cherishing these walks right now because I know it is not long before it is just too dang hot.
Is anyone else having the most amazing butterfly season or is it just my area? I have never seen so many butterflies flying about in my life. There were a few trees I walked by with literally about 30 butterflies fluttering around
If you can’t tell I LOVE butterflies, Eva’s room is covered in them, and I was delighted to be walking amongst these beauties today. Every bush or tree we would walk by they would flutter out all at once and dance around us. I love how two will fly together and chase each other through the wind.
I think they really are God’s perfect creature.

*Photo Credit: Flickr

To make myself feel better, and since I love to plan, I wrote down some things we can do this summer so we can still get out of the house and give our daughter fun experiences while still sticking to our budget.

1. We have a pool that I am sure will get a lot of use this summer plus there is a community pool when we want something a little bigger – FREE

2. A short drive away is Tempe Town Lake and the beach park which has a little water play area for little kids and it is FREE!

3. Continue going to story time at Barnes and Noble and the local Library- FREE

4. Shamrock Farms is a local dairy that does farm tours. Adults – $9 Children – $6

5. We can drive to the many mountain ranges that are only 1-2 hours away to escape the Phoenix heat for a day. FREE except for gas and food.

6. Harkins Theater (which is 2 minutes away) has a summer movie program. $7 for 10 movies

7. Since we just bought Disneyland annual passes a couple weeks ago and since my in laws live about 20 minutes from Disney we can drive out to California and stay with them a couple of times this summer. If gas prices stay low it will cost us about $40 in gas and food for the whole weekend will be about $100.

**

Here is the plain and awful truth. Since I stopped working in October our savings has dwindled and dwindled until this past week when it was completely gone. DH doesn’t get paid until next Tuesday and we have about $160 to our name right now.   So you can imagine my despair when I received a reminder e-mail that one of our credit card payments is due this Saturday and the minimum payment is $250.

Luckily DD was sleeping so that I could fret and despair by myself for a couple of hours while I stared at our bank account balance and tried to figure out how we are going to make this work. I finally came to the conclusion that we either need to get all of our credit cards paid off PRONTO or I need to go back to work. Dh and I both don’t want that because we feel it is best for little E to have a consistent caregiver and that person is ME.

So we came up with an eight month plan where we spend absolutely no money except for what is necessary to live on and we put all our money towards our credit cards. If we can do this we will have them paid off in November of this year. That’s not so bad right?

In order to find out how long it will take to pay off our cards I found this website that calculates it all for you.
Then I printed out our budget and crossed out everything that could be spared and reduced the rest to the bare minimum. This is what it ended up looking like.

-Of course we have all our mandatory bills like our mortgage, second mortgage, hoa, auto insurance, and utilities.
-No more gym
-No more chiropractor/massages
-No hair cuts, for me anyway (I know…YIKES)
-Deferring our student loans
-Grocery’s $300
-Gas $175
-Entertainment/Dining out $80
-Clothing $30
-Household $30

This basically means that I cannot buy ANYTHING that I don’t need. It also means that we can’t take any big summer vacations or go to an expensive restaurant. But if it is only for eight months I can live with it. If there is something that we really really want to do, like see Wicked for our anniversary, or take Eva to Disney on Ice like I was really wanting to do then we might have to cut back on some other areas as well. Like getting rid of cable or cutting back on our cell phone use.

I’m hoping and praying that by the end of this experience I am a better person and I will be able to live with less for the rest of my life. At least I know I will have less stress in my life.

I’m already so proud that we walked to the grocery store last night and only spent $25 for the whole week!

Oh and I was very relieved when I called the credit card company and they told me they would give us a one time reprieve on our payment this month. Meaning we don’t have to pay them anything until next month and we will not be punished at all! That was a relief.

Tomorrow I will share my list of things I figured out we can do for free or practically free this summer so we aren’t completely stuck in the house.

*photo credit: flickr