Well now, a lot has been happening in my life lately. Hence the lack of posts. My apologies dear reader. So here’s the run down of what has been happening since the first of the year.
January- My dogs remain adorable AF. My pitbull mix Scout celebrated his 3rd birthday in January and he and Julius took this cutie picture with me. Note their uncontainable excitement. I spent most of January exhausted and crazy busy at work since I got a new work role added on top of my regular assignments and I am trying to push to get a raise. Phew! Our spending has been out of whack through most of 2015 and by January we had caught up halfway. So we are only one paycheck behind since we budget a month ahead. I was also busy mystery shopping a lot to cover expenses from Scout’s super bad ear infection (poor guy) and to try to catch back up on our budget.
February– Well, the cat finally got out of the bag (not that I support animal cruelty and do not support cats in bags, for the record)….I am pregnant! 🙂 My husband and I announced to all our family and friends (and officially on Facebook, of course!), that we are expecting our first baby in August 2016. We are so excited! I have been busy with reading baby books, planning a baby budget (which I am weirdly excited about despite how nervous I am about our level of broke-ness), trying to nap, grateful that I am no longer nauseous all day, and visiting day care centers to find a safe and happy place for our little bub when I go back to work after maternity leave. My husband and I discussed the possibility of him becoming a stay-at-home-dad but ultimately decided that since he will be entering his senior year (yayyyyy!!!!! hard work is paying off!!!) that it is best for him to stick it out and finish out his classes. We will figure out the budget. We always do.
March- Another month, another dog photo. Yes, I love my dogs so much. I assume that the love I have for them is similar to the love I will have for our actual offspring, right? 🙂 Scout celebrated his second adopt-iversary with us earlier this month. That’s the photo the shelter took on the day we adopted him and of course we had brought Julius along to size him up. So that is our first family photo as a four-some. I wished Scout a happy adopt-iversary and he yawned then went back to napping on the couch. Seems about right.
I have been busy at work trying to push for that raise which will hopefully happen around May. We are banking on the raise to help cover baby costs, especially daycare. We found a good daycare for $600 a month that meets our criteria and seems pretty reputable, safe, and is near my work and our home. We could go cheaper but that is the low end of curriculum based child care centers in our area and I’m not comfortable leaving our infant at an in-home daycare since they are harder to vet. One benefit of having a lot of projects at work is that I am able to work some extra hours to get comp time which I can save for upcoming travel and maternity leave, since I don’t have any paid maternity leave and instead have to use a combination of sick leave, annual leave, and unpaid leave. My work is flexible and amazing and is happy about my pregnancy. They have given me no push back on my planning to take my full 12 weeks of FMLA leave, which I am grateful for.
My husband is on spring break and after we went back and forth on it due to cost concerns, he went off to spend a few days with friends in Florida to soak up some much needed bro time and hang out on the beach. The whole trip should cost around $200 so that’s some cash well spent for relaxation and recharging.
We are scheduled to find out the sex of our baby soon at the 20 week sonogram and we are on pins and needles. My husband is already sure he knows what it is so we will find out if he is right!
Since we are nearing the halfway point in the pregnancy I am starting to get list-crazy. We have a lot to do to get ready for this little bub to arrive so I am trying to be productive and run down the list of items we have to do, at least until I get tuckered out and need a three hour nap, which happened last weekend. Oh well. I’m busy growing a baby so that’s a great excuse to nap, right? Overall I have been feeling good and have been trying to get back into a pregnancy-safe workout routine. Exercising fell off like a ski jump in my first trimester because I felt so crappy and nauseous all the time. Now I feel good and am back at running and weight training. And I just want to eat sushi all day every day. Ugh….I never wanted raw fish so much until it becomes a taboo food! Luckily there are some cooked options available to me which I have been enjoying as my budget will allow. At least ice cream is cheap 🙂
And so despite my constant worrying about the baby (oh man, I read way too much scary stuff on the internet) and about our budget, I am trying to remember to enjoy this ride because it’s happening and I might as well let it be an awesome ride.
