MONEY

Today I watched the final episode of Oprah's Debt Diet.  After each of the first 4 episodes, it ended with me getting sort-of excited about getting out of debt.  Today, I am a GAZELLE (read Dave Ramsey's book, Total Money Makeover).  Even though it feels so daunting to look at the spreadsheet I have of our debt because of the extent of it, I know that one day we'll be done with it all!  I have completed our first zero-based budget, where I have assigned every dollar we have coming in this coming month to how it is going to be spent. I've always known that we live paycheck-to-paycheck, something we'll be done doing eventually, and that our budget is very tight, but without this specific budget, I was always just HOPING that at the end of the month we'd still have enough money.  Now I know that for July we should have approximately $130 extra.  Before this new budgeting technique, I never would have imagine we'd have that amount left-over.  What a huge snowball that will go far, very fast!

I'm also trying to add to our income a little bit at a time.  For example, I just recently sold a few books on cash4books.net.  Not much $ there, but today they bought a book that they didn't buy yesterday. Always trying to get rid of more of our stuff.  I've been completing surveys online at opinionoutpost.com.  Just today I requested my check of $12. I received a $10 rebate check from Kraft Foods.  I will receive a $5 rebate and $15 in giftcards to Rite-Aid.  Now to make craigslist my friend and get rid of everything we don't need. 

Slowly but surely this will all add up.

I am also going to re-read

to further intensify my heart for getting out of debt!

Pictureless Post

Updates on The Bailey's

• MaryBeth LOVES spending her days with Lilli, who can finally army crawl good enough to get wherever she wants. If you hold her fingers to support her, she's an excellent walker.
• Marcel LOVES working at the Boys & Girls Club in Kuna. It's a lot different than the other 4 summers he has worked at a club, but he's still enjoying spending time with the kids.
• MaryBeth is just about finished with her first official week of training for a half-marathon. The training schedule will have her ready to race on or after September 4th, just in time for her 25th birthday, which is what motivated her to run a half-marathon in the first place
• Marcel is just about finished with his first year of graduate school. He is currently taking 3 classes (2 online only, and 1 on the Thursday night class session) so that they have the month of August off. When they start up again in September it's just 2 months before starting student teaching
• MaryBeth is still spending her free time couponing! She is loving how far she can stretch her small budget by matching sale prices with coupons.
• Marcel is still spending his free time at church. He recently auditioned to play drums and guitar on the worship team. He played drums in the Wednesday night service, which they use as practice before playing on a Sunday service. He'll slowly start playing the guitar, but the more he plays on the worship team, the fewer Sundays he has to run the sound board, which he has been doing great on. What it must be like to be so talented that people fight over where to use you!
• They are both getting very excited for th Bailey Reunion in Puyallup, Washington in July. It's just a weekend trip, but we're staying an extra day to make it down to Oregon to see some old friends. After the reunion, Snoh is coming to spend about 3 weeks with them. They plan to spend a day at the water park (because Snoh tells them everytime they talk that he's finally tall enough for the big rides), swim in Wende Lady's pool, play in the big sandbox, and other fun things to be determined!

Dress-Up

Every Friday, the Boys & Girls Club of Ada County (Marcel's place of employment for the summer) has a themed dress-up day. Marcel is super excited about all of them. The only rule I've given him is that he can't buy anything for his costumes, because his job cannot be costing us money, it has to be earning us money!

As of now, there are have been 2 days. I don't have words for the photos, I think they say plenty enough on their own!

NERDS
(there may have been a more PC term!)


BLUE

The blue snuggie-turned-cape is hiding the fact that the shirt you see is a tank-top and he was wearing a blue shirt with sleeves underneath that

I'm Left Handed & Running

It's true. I've been left-handed my whole life. Even to the dismay of my preschool teacher who tried to force me into being right-handed because, as she told my mom, "being left-handed is from the devil." I rarely think about this fact. It doesn't affect my daily life. To others I may do things weird, but their way is weird to me. The main time I do think about this is when eating out, because the seating always causes bumping elbows if I'm not seated in a good spot.

Well, today I discovered another way that being a lefty affects my life. Marcel bought me a really nice running shirt that has a pocket on the sleeve to carry an ipod. In the back of this pocket is a small hole for the headphone cord. I have struggled every time I've worn this shirt to get the headphones through the hole. I've usually ended up taking the shirt off, putting the cord in and then putting the shirt back on. Today I realized my big problem: it is on the LEFT sleeve which requires that I use my right hand for this task.

I'm learning that I'm not as ambidextrous as I maybe have thought :)

More about running...
Since Emily and I ran our 5K on April 10th, I hadn't ran until May 25th, when I went to my second doctor appointment about my knee pain. Turns out my knee is very strong, meaning all my ligaments and such. The doctor thinks that my muscles just aren't strong enough to help support it. So I'm doing quadriceps strengthening exercises, bought insoles to help with shock absorption, purchased new shoes mainly because they were needed knee pain or not, taking a prescription ibuprofen twice a day to help with pain and the slight swelling I still have since my knee started hurting April 8th. Things are going okay. I'm still running, but my knee is still hurting. I have a knee brace from my knee surgery 7 years ago (it makes me feel so old to say it was that long ago) that helped my knee 2 days after injury (I use that word in the wrong way, because I didn't get hurt, my knee just started hurting) complete a 5K but I'm on strict doctor's orders not to use it because if my knee gets used to having it for extra support I'll probably always need it. I really want to register for a half-marathon, I'm thinking September or October, so that I have a reason to run, some extra motivation, which I think I'm going to need for training outdoors in the summer weather. I'd rather run in the rain than sun! However, I am going to wait to register until I go back to the doctor for my follow-up on June 23rd. Last time she did talk about physical therapy but she said with the internet I should be able to find plenty of exercises to do without having to pay a lot of money for a PT. She also said I may have to have a knee strap to place under my knee cap. Now that I write that out, I'm confused, because if I can't wear my brace due to potential dependence would the band work the same. I'm not even 25, I don't want my body depended on something artifical already. All I know is that I'm trying to be healthy, trying to treat my body right and I want to run without pain. Hope I see some positive changes soon!

My Trip To Walgreens

I had a good shopping week at Walgreens. My favorite part was that all of this was just 1 transaction. I wasn't going to get the Aquafresh because the printable coupon was out of prints so it was still just going to be $0.99 each, but when my transaction went negative, I needed to add something and at least the toothpaste was something we'll use!

I don't remember how much I had in RR to start with, but my total before tax was just $0.06, with tax $1.21! Now I have $9.50 in RR for next week.

Don't think Marcel has noticed the candy in our pantry. He'll be so happy when it shows up in his lunch he takes to work!

was also wondering if anyone has tried this jello?
I always use it as a filler but have yet to make any of it! Hope it's good :)

The Yard

Monday we were busy most of the day due to more anniversary celebrations. We came home, relaxed a bit and then Marcel took a nap. When he woke up, he headed straight outside for some "man" time and fixed our barbecue grill. He's more than excited to be able to start grilling things, but we're still without propane--to be fixed shortly! He has been spending so much time in our yard and talks just about everyday what he needs to do to help it get more green. I was watching him out the kitchen window while I was doing the dishes and couldn't help to think how awesome he is!

When dinner was ready, I opened the back door to let him know and found him on the phone but still working on the yard. I thought he looked like he needed his picture taken :)

We always talk about not having to do specific "gender" roles, like me doing the cooking and cleaning and him taking out the trash, etc, but I'll gladly do the girl work if it means that he has the responsibility of the yard!

One Year

Marcel and I were so lucky to have had a 3 day weekend to celebrate our first anniversary. It was very eventful! Here are the highlights :)

Saturday, May 29th

• Most of the day spent packing and loading a U-Haul for my sister--a sad part of the weekend but we're very happy for her and this new change
• Going shopping for new running shoes and having Marcel so insistent on the splurge of our budget to support my dream of finishing a half-marathon
• Buying new drinking glasses so that we can be done with our college hand-me-downs
• Using a coupon at the liquor store--2 bottles for the price of 1 plus a penny!

Sunday, May 30rd The Big Day

• Waking up at 7am to find Marcel out of bed and making me cinnamon rolls
  
  all that was left when I remembered to take a picture
• Exchanging gifts--we didn't buy each other gifts so that we'd be able to do the fun stuff, so we each created a "Top 10" list of our first year. They both turned out really well and I'm excited to have something tangible to put into our scrapbook. Plus, I discovered that the "traditional" gift for a first anniversary is paper so we followed suit!
• Church at 9:30am; good sermon, great worship and time spent at the altar receiving prayer over our marriage. I'm so lucky to have such a strong spiritual leader as my husband!
off to church we go
• Arcade games at Wahooz and winning some pretty sweet prizes
  
  our awesome prizes with leftover tokens
• Sex and the City 2 at the downtown Boise theater
don't know what happened with the lights, but I kinda like it. We also have a really dark picture but at least this one you can see our faces
• Delicious drinks & appetizers in the Gamekeeper Lounge
• 
  
  Gross dinner at Papa Joe's that ended up with Marcel ordering a 4-shot coffee drink at 8:30pm. Even with mediocre food, the atmosphere was really nice
  our desserts: the cheesecake I turned into ice-cream trying to just eat the fruit out of it
  
• 35 bites of our wedding cake--Marcel wanted to be done after 1 or 2 bites but I told him that we had to eat a bite for each year we wanted to spend together. Once we got to 35 we were feeling a sugar high and decided we'd have no choice but to have a vow renewal ceremony and freeze another cake and use that cake to get more years :)
  
  don't mind the picture of me, we didn't get around to the cake until about 11pm
  35 bites later
• Spending the night in an awesome hotel room
  
  headed back to change before dinner
  
  the AWESOME coupons that came with our room
  
  our view

Monday, May 31st

• Breakfast at the hotel = best french toast nearly ever, especially in Marcel's opinion
  
  
• Swimming at 8am in the outdoor pool with very grey skies

• 2 craft stores because my husband loves me that much & now I FINALLY have 12x12 paper to make our wedding album)
• Lunch at Chili's for $1, thanks to courtesy money from my cousin and a leftover giftcard
• New running jacket so we could go-kart, only the rain prevented that activity

Overall, we had an absolutely great weekend. I could not have asked for a better anniversary to go right along with not being able to ask for a better first year as Mrs. Marcel Bailey! Year #2 has started off wonderfully and is going to be filled with many exciting things like: a Bailey family reunion, Snoh staying with us for a few weeks, my 25th birthday, and Marcel's student teaching and graduation (graduation may technically be in year 3, the date hasn't been announced yet). I'm so lucky to have married the man I did! Here's to many more happy year and happy anniversary celebrations!!