It's Christmas season! We have a pretty decent stack of holiday books. I pulled them all out of the storage room the Sunday after Thanksgiving. They found a new home in the bin where we usually keep library books. It's been a good week of reading - new books and new subject matter are fun - and I'm looking forward to more of it throughout the month.
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This week is Brian's last week of coaching basketball. He coaches middle school so it's only a six week season. I am thankful that he doesn't coach high school sports with longer seasons. From my point of view, it means long days alone with kids, which sometimes feel interminable. (Single parents, you have my utmost respect.) From his point of view, it means days when he sometimes only sees the kids for an hour or in the morning and doesn't get home until after they are in bed.
Also, I'm proud of myself for asking for help, this year - something I haven't done in the past. We went to watch one game and are going to watch another tonight. For both of these occasions, we brought/are bringing a niece with us to play the role of friend and helper. Also, on several of the other nights my nieces and/or sister-in-law visited us in the evenings to help break up our time and help me get everyone in bed.
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I invited one of my sisters-in-law to do One Little Word with me in 2017. Even though we will have different words, I think it will provide an opportunity for us to connect with each other in a new way and also offer some accountability to each other to keep working toward our goals and within our intentions.
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We are going to make it through the holiday season on budget.
It seems to be the same story every year: when I start shopping, I think I've saved way more than we need and will be able to finish shopping with money left in the account. By the time I'm done shopping (and buying holiday-related things like the Christmas tree and our holiday card), we're scraping the bottom of the barrel.
But I don't feel bad about using the money, because that's what it is for. We are pretty (maybe very) conservative with buying stuff for ourselves and our kids through most of the year. But, we save money in our Christmas fund with the intention of spoiling ourselves and our family and friends over the holidays.
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I introduced the kids to a bit of punk-flavored music via Hoops and Yoyo. It makes me happy. And, I'm happy to have a new CD playing in the van after months and months of listening to the same thing.
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I've been using Walmart Grocery Pick Up for the past several weeks. It is fabulous. Like really, really fabulous. I've used it for small grocery trips (their minimum order is $30) and for a few big trips. So far, I've been ordering and setting up the pick-up through their online portal and then using the app to check-in when I'm headed to the store. They have designated pick up parking spaces and bring the groceries out to you when you arrive.
I placed an order last night and scheduled the pick up for 8-9am, this morning. I dropped off one of my nieces at school at 7:45, "checked in" via the app, drove to the store, had the groceries loaded into the car, stopped by home to drop the groceries off and put the cold stuff in the fridge, drove another niece to school and was home by 8:30. In my book, this is just-all around super.
If you haven't tried it yet, I recommend! And this referral link will get you $10 off your first order. It also gives me $10 off my next order.
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That's (a bit of) what's going on around here. I'm off to check on the craziness going on in the next room. Happy Monday!
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