Today, we’re spending the day cleaning…we’re having a Sunday School fellowship tomorrow afternoon, and I wanted to be able to have people over without being entirely ashamed of how cluttered we’ve let our house become. Niecy Nash would have yelled at us about our “foolishness” had she wandered into our home. We’ve made a lot of good progress, and we just broke for lunch, so I figured I’d post a quick update.

It was a SUPER BUSY week…Monday wasn’t all that relaxing because we had so much shopping to do while I was off…the knitting group met Tuesday night, we had our “wrap party” for the musical Wednesday night, and an ornament exchange on Thursday night. Last night was our first chance to relax, and it was nice to get to do so with James and Shannon (as it always is). We lost a shingle off the roof in the windstorm yesterday, so Joey and his dad had to climb onto the roof in the dark and replace it. How fun….but they were able to get it fixed.

I have a sad confession to make that will probably shock those of you who know me very well…..Joey and I have gotten too lax on our frugality. Yes, I know, it’s horrible and unimaginable that I, the person who would sit in the house and shiver last year so that we didn’t have to turn on the heat, have allowed us to get lax about our spending and now we’re having to back up and take a hard look at how we’re wasting our money. January is apt to bring a whole new set of seriously frugal challenges as we need to get back in the mindset of saving as much money as possible. Joey’s got some ideas that, should they come to fruition, would potentially allow us to get our Hyundai paid off this year (which would mean no more car payments!!). Since we’ve got to deal with tuition for both of us now, it would be helpful to go ahead and get the car paid off.

So, you’ll be getting some of the “frugal challenge” posts again….stories of our cooking from scratch, saving on water, power, and gas, repurposing, reusing, recycling, donating, buying from thrift stores (I have kept my word and not bought any new clothes since I decided to take that challenge in April). And, I’m going to try to use up the yarn stash that I’ve got rather than constantly buying new (even when you’re buying the nicer acrylics, you’re still racking up some sizeable debt).

Along the same token, we’re going to work toward a much more healthy lifestyle….we have been very regular at going to the gym, except for the past two weeks that I’ve been sick and busy. We’re going to get back to the gym this week and I’m going to do more cooking rather than buying processed convenience foods.

I was so ashamed when Joey mentioned that we’d been letting things slide and eating away at our cushion, especially with gas prices going down and our gas card dropping by $100 per month or so. But, I think I’ve gotten myself back together and I’m ready to start pinching those pennies again and SAVING some DOUGH!!

But now, back to cleaning;)…