This was amazingly good, for being so healthy. Crockpot chicken salsa and broccoli before hitting the gym on a Friday night. (New obsession).
While Greg was golfing in Leavenworth on Sunday, I spent much of the day tending to these meatballs and spaghetti sauce. The sauce was a recipe we learned how to make in our cooking class at The Pantry, and it turned out so, so good.
Since I had a meatball craving, I used the rotisserie chicken I had purchased to make butter chicken and had it with salad and mashed sweet potatoes instead.
Blue Apron meal - chicken Milanese with salad. This one was, (as Ben likes to describe any food he doesn't want to eat) "not my favorite".
But THIS Blue Apron dish, cod & miso soba noodles with cherry tomatoes and eggplant, WAS. Loved it.
Thursday: On Thursday night I'm on baby Raleigh duty (YAY!!!) and Ben has swim lessons, so I think it will be a take out kind of evening for the Ingles.
Photos from school. This first one in particular kills me:
This is the little girl I often see him running away with after I drop him off.
I LOVE that they took pics during nap time:
New helmet and training wheels for the hand-me-down bike from Laryd. The bike isn't the easiest thing to ride - in fact, I think we have identified what we need to get Ben for his birthday this year. A new bike with training wheels.
Getting cozy in the window seat.
Our new President at work brought his portable BBQ to the office and made us all lunch one day - so nice!
Rachel had us all over for a BBQ (and delicious sangria) and it was so much fun!
Kylie, Erica and Becca:
Maureen, me and Layne:
Rachel!
Ben joined us :)
It always makes me laugh how hard he will sleep sometimes. I'm such a creeper.
Do you see this pull up? It is one of the last 10 pull ups we have and I'm NOT buying anymore. Big things happening over here! Instead, I ordered an extra pair of sheets and a plastic mattress protector to get us through the transition :)
Is the heat wave over? I hope so! This was one of the last (mega) hot days - enjoying a Popsicle (and Ben's expressions) on the deck:
Trying to hold him like a baby. He is getting way too big.
Snuggles. He fell asleep on me a few minutes after I took this (at 8:05 pm - so rare) and Greg and I were finally able to watch some True Detective.
Friday night was 'zaw pizza and butter lettuce/pistachio salad with Kristin and Craig!
Saturday night was the XO dinner at Rachel's house: chicken skewers, beet salad, Chinese chop salad and Caprese salad (made with peaches - my new favorite)!
Sunday was grilled Tandoori chicken, mashed sweet potatoes and spinach salad with goat cheese, walnuts and a Dijon vinaigrette.
This creamy chicken and kale soup was okay - very healthy, but just okay. I really did like the technique of making this soup "creamy", which was blending olive oil, chopped onion and chicken stock. I think I will use this base for other soups in the future - perhaps a take on Italian Wedding Soup.
On Tuesday we had the most delicious dinner (and relaxing evening) with Denali, Kyle and Oliver! They made 5-spice pork kabobs and rice, and for dessert: Donut shortcake. Denali works for Top Pot - and not only did she come up with this amazing dessert, she sent us home with a box of donuts. !!!!!!!!!!!
Flank and salad:
Mixed up the meal plan and made this Feta + Basil Lentil salad on Thursday. So good! This gal's cookbook is going on my wish list.
Tonight we are having the salsa chicken (and a big, fat Margarita - FRIDAY)!
So, money. It can be an awkward thing to talk about with others - let alone blog about! To be honest, I wasn't sure if I was going to write this post. But I feel compelled to share what I have learned over the past several months simply because I feel so much more INSPIRED than I ever have before. I know that I personally would have loved to learn more about what others are doing in their households simply because it may have changed some of my habits much earlier.
It's no secret to anyone that really knows me, but I am a person that knows what I want and when I want it, it's VERY hard for me to be patient and wait for it. This can be good in many ways, but when it came to spending money, it was not always the greatest for our monthly budget.
Going along with this, Greg and I have very different spending habits - which I have to admit, has always been the #1 thing we have argued about.
Greg = Frugal Me = Spender
We have always had kind of a "loose" plan about what was coming in and what was going out, but we I never felt compelled to stick to it. I think the main problem was that we never had a goal we were trying to achieve.
After running through the numbers of what I personally had spent over a given month, I was a little shocked (and embarrassed) at how quickly all those candles, make up, beauty services (hair cut, color, manicures, eyebrows), clothes, iTunes purchases, books and household items I "needed" added up. Combine that with how freely we spend money at the grocery store, (and, ahem, Total Wine and More....) it felt like a lot of money was being thrown away without considering what else we could have been doing with it. Earlier this year, Callie turned me on to The Dave Ramsey Show Podcast - and I've gotten quite obsessed. I've read 3 of his books already AND I listen to his podcast daily. His principles of money (getting out of debt, saving, paying cash for everything, investing) have kind of taken over my life - in a good way!
If you are a person that struggles with budgeting, over-spending, or just not having clear enough goals to inspire you - I highly recommend you download this Podcast to find a little motivation:
For us, this was always kind of tricky. Using the spreadsheet we had put together wasn't tracking the actual transactions as well as I would like (or in real time). There are also bills and expenses that do not occur every month, so that always kind of threw me off. Additionally, Greg being in sales means he has varying income, which made it hard to plan what we were taking in each month. I have used Mint a lot in the past, but the budgets/targets and the way the transactions rolled in never lined up the way I wanted them to.
SO, when EveryDollarwas released (almost a week after I started listening to the Dave Ramsey podcast) I jumped on board and Greg and I have used it every month (and every day) since:
The idea of this is that you sit down each month, before the month begins, plug in your expected income, and then assign every single dollar a name. You allocate specific amounts for groceries, utilities, gas, retirement, savings, going out to eat, etc etc etc. If you have something specific coming up (for example, travel to an out of town wedding, a birthday gift to buy, a specific item you want to purchase, etc), you work it into that month's budget. I tend to round up in my budgets - for example, if we tend to spend about $250 in gas each month (damn you Kent commute), I will round up to $275. Then anything
left over can be allocated towards a specific goal you might have. That
might be paying off debt, or saving for a vacation, etc. Anything we don't spend in each category at the end of the month goes towards savings or something specific we are working towards.
We now (happily) have specific monthly savings goals for:
Vacations (saving ahead for next year's vacation so it will be paid for before we go, which is something we plan to continue to do - vacations to look forward to make hard days at work so much more manageable).
Car/Home Repairs (for the inevitable oil changes, maintenance, repairs that come up throughout the year, vs being "surprised" and pissed off each time something occurs).
Christmas (saving monthly for December vs. feeling broke every January).
Emergency Savings
I cannot even explain how tremendously helpful this has been for us. I am sure so many people are using this system, but if you are struggling and looking for something to help you, try this. It's free!
Okay, moving on to slightly less nerdy topics:
THIS SOAP.
I learned about this soap a couple weeks ago from a mother of a teenage boy. She was saying how it gets all of the grass and dirt stains out of her son's white baseball pants, and how it also can remove grease stains. She SWORE by it. It's about $1.50 at the grocery store in the laundry detergent aisle. I immediately went and bought some and removed about 95% of the stains that were all over a white hoodie of Ben's that I had assumed was ruined. GO GET THIS SOAP.
My friend Jamie has been using this app for a few years now. I finally got around to doing it this year. It's so fun to look back on (Ben loves it) and I hope I can continue to do it forever :)
Having just joined the gym, my workout clothes are in need of a major update. I have seen this company's commercials (Kate Hudson is the co-founder) the other day while scrolling through Facebook saw a link to join and get your first outfit for 50% off (which ends up coming to $25-$30 for a FULL outfit and free shipping). Budget friendly ;)
I didn't realize that it was a monthly membership thing - where each month they will send you an outfit for $49 - but it's similar to Blue Apron in that you can cancel or just skip a month anytime you want.
I
definitely took advantage of the first outfit (arrives this weekend -
stay tuned) and will see if I like it enough to continue. (No, I will
not be buying myself a new $50 outfit every month, but maybe
occasionally if something is cute enough).
Just For Men Beard & Moustache (for eyebrows):
My hairdresser turned me on to this tip a couple weeks ago. I was in getting my hair and eyebrows done. I was contemplating getting my eyebrows tinted. It costs a little more, but honestly doesn't last very long - and once the color has worn off I'm back to filling in my brows with a pencil. She stopped me and told me to instead, buy a kit of Just for Men for $7 (vs. my $18 eyebrow pencil) and it will last me YEARS. Mind = blown - and I like the outcome much better than any of my previous alternatives.
