Goals – Laundry and Dishes

Life Update: Baby # 2?

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Hello everyone and welcome to another post!

Today we will be talking about the birds and the bees.

Just kidding, but I thought I’d pop on here and talk about Mike and I’s thoughts about expanding our family with a little bundle of joy.

As you may already know last May I found out I was pregnant and 4 months later in August I lost the baby. I think we will always call that baby Baby # 1.

I was told by my OB that we should wait a minimum of 3 mensural periods before trying to conceive Baby # 2 so my body would be healthy enough to support a pregnancy to full term. In other words I needed to allow my body enough time to replenish my blood supply because at a birth of any kind there is a lot of blood loss; and I needed to lose a little weight because I gained some while I was expecting.

Anyway, enough of all that TMI.

I am pleased to announce that we are expecting a new addition to our family… In 2021.

Hooray!

Obviously, 2019 will be dedicated to getting healthy and debt reduction. I have sort of been on a health journey since October of last year, and it was part of my New Years resolutions to continue that journey so I can have a healthy life, pregnancies, and babies. And of course we sort of acquired some debt when we bought the house. We also have some left over baby bills that we have to pay. Who knew being pregnant would be so expensive? Anyway once that is all under control, we will be saving money for our next project.

2020 will be dedicated to Mike studying like a madman for his PE exam and renovating the house because the previous homeowners sort of gave up half way. We have to take down three giant dead Chinese Elm trees, add in flooring to both bathrooms, put trim all around the house, add thresholds to most doorways, finish the garage (there are no inside walls), and paint. When that is all under control we will finally be able to start saving up for baby expenses.

2021 will be dedicated to starting our family.

Of course things don’t always go according to plan and we could end up with tons of kids (which we would totally love and cherish with all our hearts ❤️) before we are financially stable again and have a nice renovated house, but we definitely will not be actively trying to conceive any time soon.

If you want to read more about my pregnancy and miscarriage, you can do so here: Pregnancy & Miscarriage

Thanks For Joining me Today!

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2019 Renovations and Other Homeowner Things: Part 1 [Feat. Mike]

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People of the wife’s blog,

I have some juicy updates on the house and renovations.

When we purchased our house in October, we knew a renovation had been started and not finished. However, we were not given the full story.

I asked around and the story behind it is that the homeowner passed away and the house sat vacant for a few months. Then the homeowner’s grand-daughter needed a place to stay so she started renting the house from her dad and two aunts. Later they decided to renovate the house to sell later. About a year before we looked at the house, the grand-daughter decided to move west and nobody thought anything of it. Until January when a pipe burst in the living room, so they repaired the damage and decided they just wanted out of the house. One sister wanted out so bad she made the other two siblings buy her out.

That is the story of why we have new flooring downstairs.

Now on our end.

Man do I not make enough money. With the house, credit card and Jeep payments I’m carrying around a lot of debt. But I was a good boy and built excellent credit in college by having the good fortune of paid internships and a strong cattle market. So I have decent interest rates and doable payments. Again, I was a good boy and landed a sweet job in a high-demand field in the sweet state of Montana – albeit at the lower end of the salary my friends have gotten, but that is neither here nor there. So after tax, health care, and pension my income is enough for bills, food, gas, Sunday breakfast and work snacks.

My hope was that my tax refund would cover my credit card debt with the leftover money going toward renovating the house, but life doesn’t always go the way you want. My grandparent’s house had a medium sized fire and while nobody was hurt the roof is pretty bad, so a good chunk of any tax money I get back will probably go to help them out. So for now it looks like any major renovations or hobby projects will have to wait. Unless of course I get a lot of overtime this year.

Anyway, this concludes my 2019 Home Renovations Report.

Mike

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2019 Goals #NewYearNewMe

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Hello Everyone!

I know I’m probably going to sound like everyone else in this post, but I want to go into 2019 with a goal oriented mindset.

I don’t know if I believe in the concept of New Year resolutions because it seems like when I make one, I spend the first two weeks of January being my best self and the rest of the year being my regular, pre-resolution self.

So this year I decided to just go into the new year with a positive mindset and a few goals.

I actually started this list before my first wedding anniversary because I wanted to be my best self so I could be the best wife to Mike. So some of these things will just be carryover goals from my post October Goals that I already have been working on.

Personal Goals

Run a 5K. I gained a lot of weight this year from living in a town without a gym, from being pregnant, from extreme sadness after I lost the baby and was eating my feelings, and of course from the holidays. So I made a goal in October to do 3 home workouts a week and go to the gym twice a week to run. So far I have been doing ok with this one.

Practice mindful eating more. I want to be more healthy in general so eating more fruits and vegetables has definitely been a goal of mine since October. I also really want to only eat when I actually am hungry instead of when I’m bored or procrastinating chores.

Get a job. I job-hunted on and off throughout 2018 but I moved 3 times, was pregnant, had a miscarriage, went to Tennessee, and went to Alaska so I hardly had any time to focus on the job hunt. To be honest I don’t actually need to work because my husband makes enough that I can stay home if I wanted. I actually did want to stay home in the beginning because I wanted to have kids right away. Anyway its been a year, I don’t have kids, I’m bored, and I can work so I might as well so that we can have a little extra money for savings.

Financial Goals

Save $40 each month. I chose $40 in October because its only $20 a paycheck. The reason I’m saving is because we spent all our savings on medical bills from my pregnancy and on buying a house. So if we were to have an emergency, we probably wouldn’t have enough money to get through it.

Blog Goals

500 followers. I have never had a goal for growing my blog before. When I started writing, it was mostly as a mental health outlet, and to share with my family what Mike and I were doing in Montana. I have always considered my blogging experience a success since day one because I thought if one person followed me and liked any of my posts, I was all set. I’m actually very happy with my little blog, but I do eventually want to be a stay at home mom so I may as well work on growing my blog now so that maybe one day I can have a supplemental income from my writing. I want to invest in my blog by having better content, making better videos, taking more pictures, and actually posting things on social media because I still plan on only posting a new blog once a week.

So thanks for joining me today! And thanks so much to everyone who has liked, commented, or followed me this year, it honestly makes my days so much brighter!

2019 – Here I come!

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October Goals Response

Hello everyone!

First, I would like to give a huge shout out to all of my followers and to everyone who has liked or commented on my blog. This past week I got a notification that Laundry and Dishes has officially gotten 500 likes and 200 followers! So thank you all so much!

Since it is now November, I decided to check in with myself to see if I accomplished anything on my list of goals from October.

Last month I made a list of things I hoped to accomplish in October. And today I will be revisiting that list to see if I actually did anything. If you’re interested you can check out October Goals here.

Here is how October went for me:

Blog Goals

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One of my goals was to do a recipe review because I had been putting it off for a really long time. I ended up reviewing an amazing recipe for Brocoli Beef.

My next goal was to post new content every week and I did it even though this whole month I have been struggling to find enough creative inspiration to sit down and write.

My next two goals were to be more creative and get better at photography. I’m not sure if I’m any better either of those two things but in at least one of my posts I had two pictures instead of one so I’m going to go ahead and say that I sort of am more creative and sort of am better at adding more photos to my posts.

Personal Goals

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I also had four personal goals and I only did one thing on my list. I completely moved into our house and completely unpacked everything. It actually doesn’t look to shabey in here if I do say so myself. If you guys are interested in a home tour let me know in the comments and I will see what I can do.

My next goals were productivity, gyming it up and getting a pet. I was sort of more productive than I have been in recent months but I still had some days where I barely had any motivation to do anything. Some days I still have a cloud of sadness around my heart from losing the baby which makes it hard for me to want to do anything besides stay in bed and sleep all day. I think I have been struggling with some sadness and maybe even a little depression since August. But I am starting to be better and most days are good now which is such a relief.

As for working out, I was really good about it at the start of the month for like a week. But going to the gym has always been such a boring experience for me and I hate it so I stopped and started doing home workouts. I still hate those but at least I’m not bored anymore.

We still haven’t picked out our pet from the shelter because everything is on hold for hunting season. I also am a bridesmaid in a wedding in Tennessee in a few weeks and then Mike and I are going on vacation to celebrate our first wedding anniversary! So maybe we will get a puppy or kitten as an anniversary present to ourselves in December.

Financial Goals

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My only financial goal was to save $50 and I did it! I am so happy and thrilled that I was able to in spite of moving, mortgage payments, and buying a lot of things for the house that we needed but didn’t already have.

So overall all for the month of October, I think that I was about 50/50 split on being goal oriented and just having good intentions for my life. I have to say that I am ok with that because I don’t think that people can do everything they set out to do in a set timeline because sometimes life just happens.

So thanks for joining me today! I hope you liked this post and I will see you all next time!

* All photos in this post are from the Free WordPress Library

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October Goals

Hello everyone! I know I have missed a week or two of posting new content because I have been frantically packing up our apartment so we can move into our new home. Anyway, I thought I would begin the month with a goal oriented mindset. So here are my goals for October.

Blog Goals

Do at least one recipe review
Be more creative with my writing
Become a better photographer and add more photos to my posts
Post new content each week

Personal Goals

Be completely unpacked and moved into our new home
Be more organized and productive
Work out 3-ish times a week
Adopt a pet from the shelter

Financial Goals

Save at least $50 each month

* Photo from Free WordPress Library