Taxes, Heel Spurs and Prunes

I'm ready for my tax return to hit my bank account already.  It's already spent, so it's not like I'm going to have all this extra money just lying around, but I'd like to go ahead and DO what I need to do with it!

I wish that was my tax return.

I'm also ready for a couple of environmental work projects to fall into my lap.  The sooner they do, the sooner I can work towards paying off that school loan!

We leave for New Orleans in two days, and my half marathon is in four days!  I'm excited, even though it might end up being a personal bust.  But in the end, who cares?  We're going to New Orleans!  It's vacation time!!

A bonus is that the temps are predicted to be in the upper 60s / lower 70s the entire time we're there.  BUT there's a 50% chance of thunderstorms for race day!  So I may be running in the rain.  I'm perfectly fine with that.  Let's just all cross our fingers that the race isn't cancelled for worse weather!

What I haven't planned for is the baby in the rain.  We're planning on taking the umbrella stroller instead of the travel stroller to save both space and weight, but it doesn't have a canopy so therefore we can't toss a rain cover on it.  It's only predicted to rain on Sunday at this point, though, so hopefully we'll luck out.  And if not, Delano with be spending a lot of time in the wrap while I carry an umbrella!

OR I could get a rain cover like this one.....hahahahaha!!  (Is she wearing a pleated skirt?)

On a "bummer" note, after this race, I need to go see a podiatrist about my left foot.  I think I may have Plantar Fasciitis.  It currently hurts my left foot when I wear shoes.  The only shoes that don't hurt at the moment are my flip flops.  I don't know if it's the lack of arch support/pressure or lack of compression around my foot or both, but my flip flops are the comfy choice.  They're just not ideal in cold weather (I'm not THAT granola).  I also bought three pair of flats today (Dillard's is having a shoe clearance sale and I had a gift card!), so I'm hoping those will be just as painless as the flops.

 

Let's hope I don't also have a heel spur, but I definitely might.

But I think I may also have tendonitis along the outside of my left foot, either related to the peroneus tertius or peroneus brevis, or both.  About where they meet is where it hurts.

So BOOOO.  This not only means a (likely) expensive trip to the podiatrist, but also that I shouldn't sign up for any more runs until I hear what the doctor has to say.  Even though it doesn't hurt when I run unless I just happen to be slamming down on my heel repeatedly, which isn't often since I trained myself to be mostly a toe striker.  It really hurts the most when I walk or stand for long periods.  Then I catch myself changing the way I walk to favor my foot, which is probably hurting other parts of my body!

Delano turned 6 months old this past Saturday!!  My baby's growin' up!

My little cutie.

As of yesterday (Tuesday), Delano hadn't pooped since last Thursday.  I started to worry so I looked it up.....totally normal for babies to go days without pooping.  But yesterday I went ahead and bought some prunes from Earth Fare and made him some delicious baby food to try to help him out.  Let's just say that cleared the chute.  He's had two massive poops today already.  Thank goodness.  I was wondering where he was storing all his food between last Thursday and this morning!

I also put Delano to bed last night without swaddling him first, since he's been twisting towards his side in his sleep while swaddled.  He woke up about 30 minutes after being put down (which is normal), and I had to help him get back to sleep.  But the next two times he woke up during the night, he actually managed to put himself back to sleep!  The third time, somewhere in the dark-thirty AM, I had to give him his pacifier to get him to go back to sleep, but then he slept until 9:00.  I call that a success!

It's Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

What the hell is John Cena doing on this image?  Not that I don't like me some John Cena, but this is silly.

Lucas is out of town for work today, so we had a nice Valentine's Day dinner last night at Porter's Steakhouse.  We started with a wine and cheese plate, Lucas had Surf n' Turf, I had a spicy seafood plate and Delano brown-bagged some apples and a bottle of breastmilk.  It was yummy. 

Do you ever have any of those moments where you feel like your brain became pure mush and just stopped working?  It happens to me ALL the time.  For example, the other night, in the middle of the night, my throat was a bit scratchy from who-knows-what.  So I popped in a throat lozenge that I had sitting on my nightstand (for just this occasion).  I fell asleep with the lozenge in my cheek, which is typical.  Not the safest thing in the world, but I feel like EVERYBODY does it.  I know I've been doing it since I was little.  Not a just-opened-full-size lozenge (that's probably quite dangerous), but after it's been sucked on for awhile and is down to a thin sliver.  Like it's going to keep on "working" after I fall asleep, even though it usually just ends up glued to the inside of my cheek. ANYWAY.  This particular night, when I woke up a few hours later, I had a total brain fart as to what was in my mouth.  So I spit it out.  And I don't mean that I spit it into my hand, or even into the floor.  I turned my head to the right and just spit it out.  Into the bed.  And directly into my hair.  It took all of about five seconds for me to fully wake up and realize what I had done.  So I spent the next couple of minutes digging through my hair in the dark attempting to located the sliver of throat lozenge.  I did, but not before I ended up with a gross sticky spot in my hair that a brush wouldn't even pass through.

Nice going, April.  But stories like that tend to include me a LOT lately.  The only reason the milk jug didn't go into the cupboard a few weeks ago is because I couldn't get it to fit.  And Delano almost wore a onesie snapped OVER his pants even more recently, and it took me more than a minute to figure out why his outfit looked weird. And those are only a couple of incidences.  There are loads more.

I can't chalk it up to being overtired, because I'd just be making excuses.  I'm not tired.  Just DUMBER.

So you're saying there's a chance.....

I feel like I should have some "mom" stuff to talk about, because I haven't had any major mom blogs in a while.  But there just haven't been any big revelations lately.

In my cloth diaper world, not much is new.  I haven't bought any new ones lately to show off, though I am buying a diaper cover and a pocket diaper from my friend Leza here in the next day or two, as she is selling off her stash.  Other than that....well.....Delano was leaking through his "nighttime diapers" (his Happy Heinys) at least once - sometimes twice - a night for several nights in a row, which would of course wake him up.  His diapers were never heavy and full, so I guessed that it was time they needed to be stripped.  I spent all day Monday stripping them, so hopefully they're good to go now.  In the meantime, I've been sending him to bed in these Dream Eze diapers I bought from a lady on Lookout Mountain right after he was born, and they have been amazing. 

 

They're super thick and super absorbent, But you can't use them without a cover (like the babies in the above pic), because there's nothing waterproof about them.  But luckily I hung onto a few waterproof diaper covers that were included in a lot of diapers that I bought and they work PERFECTLY over the Dream Eze diapers.  Delano has had ZERO leaks the past week in these.  So A+, Dream Eze.  But I'm also hoping that the diapers I spent all of Monday stripping (aka rinsing over and over again in hot water) will go back to being amazing as well.  Delano goes 12 hours at night without a diaper change, so what he wears needs to work!

I managed to get almost all of my pocket diapers and All-In-One diapers stuffed, folded and ready to go before the baby got bored and fussy!

As you notice in the above photo, there are no gdiapers.  Well, technically, the red thing along the top is a gdiaper cover that's a size small and too small for Delano.  So there IS a gdiaper in the photo.  But I meant that there weren't any gdiapers currently being used and washed.  That's because Delano, due to his shape and size, is right smack inbetween the size small and size medium gdiaper.  The small is too small, so it leaks......but the medium is too big, so it leaks.  It's such a shame, because I have some CUTE medium gdiaper covers waiting for him!!

I've shown this one before, but he has two of these.

He also has this Earth Day one.

And this g camper one....

And this g university one....

And this gallant stripes one.

And he has some solid color ones, too.  Navy blue, aqua blue, yellow, black, green, etc.  And I actually have a bag of about fifteen more gdiaper covers that need the velcro strips redone.  Once I sew on new velcro, I can sell those extra covers and make some money back (to make up for all those cute design covers I bought).  But once Delano can fit nicely into the mediums, we'll be circulating those through the stash as well.  I'm a huge fan of gdiapers.

What else is mom-discussion-worthy?  Hmm.......well, I had two friends recently ask me about car seat checks.  For those who have never looked into it, car seat checks are FREE and totally worth it.  Even if your baby is already a toddler.  Before Delano was born, I went to a car seat check downtown and basically learned the following:

Your car seat (or car seat base) is supposed to be locked into your back seat so tight that it leaves a permanent indention in the seat.

Ok, they don't actually say that.  But that's basically what happens.  The car seat check guy literally crawled into my back seat to weigh down the seat and strap it in as tight as possible.  And he showed me how he was doing it for future reference.  It was a great eye opener, because I had no idea it was supposed to be that tight.  Here's a video showing a car seat installation, if you're interested.

Car seat check point.

P.S.  If your car seat is expired (they all have expiration dates on them....another thing I learned at my car seat check), they may offer to replace it for free.  This is an awesome service, BUT they may want to replace your seat with a convertible seat if they don't have any infant seats.  A pro to a convertible seat is that it grows with your child and so you may never need another car seat until your kid is old/big enough for a booster seat.  A con is that it doesn't have the removable infant carrier, which is a big plus for smaller babies. 

The convertible car seat can face both rear and front, for newborns to toddlers.  Just no infant carrier.  The one they might offer you probably won't be as fancy as this one.

P.P.S.  I don't think the car seat people can MAKE you replace an outdated car seat.  I think they are just required by law to "highly recommend" it.  So if you go for a car seat check and want to keep your current (expired) car seat, just say that you understand the risks but really want to keep the infant carrier for now.  You just want to make sure it's installed safely.

For those who want to participate in a free car seat check,  here's a link for upcoming area checks.  Another link is this one, which may have sooner events.  A few other contacts you can call to find out if there's anything sooner (or works better time-wise for you) are:

Safe and Sound/TC Children's Hospital
910 Blackford St.
Chattanooga, TN 37403
Phone: 423-778-6691  
Contact: Becky Campbell

Hamilton County Health Department
921 East Third St.
Chattanooga, TN 37403
Phone: 423-209-8204  
Contact: Christy Smith 

Safe Journey / Hamilton Co. Sheriff's Office
8395 Hickory Valley Rd
Chattanooga, TN 37416
Phone: 423-893-3503 x 247  
Contact: Becky Campbell


Tennessee Highway Patrol
4120 Cummings Hwy.
Chattanooga, TN 37419
Phone: 423-643-6898  
Contact: Jeffrey Mosley 

Of course, I can always have Lucas put your seat (or seat base) in for you.  We're not certified experts by any means, but he's pretty good at doing it (and quite strong), so all you have to do is ask!

What else is mom-discussion-worthy?  Consignment sales!!!  YAY CONSIGNMENT SALES I'M SO EXCITED!!!

I LOVE consignment sales.  First of all, I'm all about reusing and recycling, which makes me super pro-consignment.  Second of all, you can find just about anything you want for super cheap, from baby socks to bathtubs to nursery decor to bouncy seats to maternity clothes to breast pumps.  And third of all, if you thought things were cheap during the week, just wait until the last day where most of the items left are 50% off!!!  

There are several consignment sales coming up back-to-back here in Chattanooga for the Spring.  They include (links with dates):

Sweet WeePeets
Chattanooga Moms of Multiples
Jack and Jill
Just Between Friends
Duck Duck Goose 

P.S.  Sweet WeePeets starts this Saturday!

P.P.S.  The primo days for consignment sales are the first and last days.  On these days there's usually a line to get in.  However, with JBF (Just Between Friends), Wednesday is also a good day, since they restock a lot of stuff on Tuesday evening.  And if you can consign your own stuff or volunteer your time, you can usually shop before the sale is open to the public, putting you even more ahead of the game.  Some sales even give expecting mothers the chance to shop before the public if you register in time!

P.P.P.S.  Find out what determines that items will be 50% off on the last day.  Not everyone who consigns their stuff wants it to drop down to 50% off on the last day.  Different sales have different ways of marking their items.  For example, at the JBF sale, any item with a star on the tag will be 50% off on the last day, if it hasn't sold by then.  Anything without a star will not be discounted on the last day.  I mention this because it may determine what you decide to buy -- if you decide whether to go ahead and buy something right away or if you decide to risk it and see if it will still be around on the 50% off day.  

P.P.P.P.S.  Prepare to be spoiled after shopping consignment.  After that, everything else just seems expensive.  "That shirt's $5?  Rubbish!!"

Well, that may also be true.

Delano turns six months old in two days.  SIX MONTHS!!!  That's half a year.  Halfway to a whole year old.  CRAZY.  Man, time flies.

Delano just a couple of days old.

Delano two weeks ago!

Budgets.....Gross.

As I sat down to feed the baby and write this blog post, I realized I left the bouncy seat turned on in the other room.  I was wondering why it sounded like there was a howler monkey in my kitchen.

Budgets are stupid.  Okay, okay.....I don't actually think they're stupid.  I know they're necessary for about 99% of the population.  I just don't like them, simply because I wish I had an endless supply of money to do whatever I want with.  But who doesn't??

 

I don't have 28 reasons, but a girl named Anna does.  She recommends a Spending Fast instead in this link here.  I haven't read into it yet, but I plan on reading about her ideas and what she has to say.  I actually think a friend of mine may have cleared some of her debt through a spending fast.....I'll have to look into it and see if I like it better than a "budget".

But for now, we'll talk about my yucky stinky budget. 

As of right now, I have three main debts.  The largest debt is my student loan, which I've been paying on since 2006.  And what stinks is that after all these years of making student loan payments, I've hardly put a dent in the original loan amount.  I think I've paid about 20% of it off, maybe a little more.  IN SEVEN YEARS.  And it's not even an obscene loan amount, but it's enough that I still can't write Sallie Mae a check to pay it off.  But my student loan has also always been on the backburner of my debts over the years because the interest rate is so low.  But now it's time to make it a frontrunner and pay it off so that I can stop paying pointless interest.  If I had known THEN what I know NOW, I wouldn't have accepted the full amount of the loan.  I only had to borrow for my last three semesters, but I borrowed the entire amount offered, which was above the cost of the tuition alone.  Of course at the time, I needed the extra money to pay bills.  But if I hadn't taken it all, my school loans would probably be paid off by now.  Hindsight is 20/20, isn't it?

For some reason I don't think that's what she was really thinking.

My second largest debt at the moment is to my one and only credit card.  This debt isn't NEARLY as big as my school loan debt and it tends to vary from month to month depending on what I buy and if I've worked any environmental projects lately (and therefore can pay a bigger chunk of it off with an upcoming paycheck).  Sometimes I can pay it off completely and sometimes it's a little "racked up" with charges that take longer to pay off (like right now).  But I use this credit card a lot.  So much, in fact, that in the past year I've been able to pick up $300 in Target gift cards from my reward points.  This card is my lifeline.  It not only buys me things I want, but also makes it possible to pay for unexpected expenses, like taking a cat with a surprise bladder infection to the vet.

I used to have a bunch of credit cards, and I was AWFUL with them.  I would use one to pay the other, would transfer money back and forth during "0% interest rate" promos, and the credit card companies just kept upping my credit limits because they knew I would spend.  It was out of control.  Then to top it off I was laid off from my job and things really got stressful.  But several years ago I finally got those organized, paid off and eliminated.  Lucas helped me fix that mess.  He is insanely responsible with money (not at all frugal, just crazy responsible), so I basically handed my mess to him and whimpered, "Help!".  And he did.

Me about 4 years ago.  Totally stressed and in over my head.

Me now......relaxed.....ok so that is one WEIRD picture choice.....

My third debt is one that was unplanned:  Massai's emergency stay at R.I.V.E.R.  A portion of that bill went onto the ole' credit card (hence why I owe more on it than usual), but the majority of it had to be set up on a payment plan directly through R.I.V.E.R. itself.  Because that dog was EXPENSIVE!  The good thing about this bill is that there's no interest on it, but I still don't want to be paying it for the next 12 months.  So this one has got to go ASAP.

Beat up doggy.

So those are my three debts.  That doesn't include my monthly expenses, like auto insurance, gas, groceries and whatever else I might be forgetting.  But in order to pay these three off, I need a plan.  I've already outlined what I owe, what I pay, what I spend and what I have coming in on an Excel spreadsheet.  But it's still not a plan.  Just an outline of what exists.  A plan would include putting an exact amount on what I'm allowed to spend for fun (as well as on gas and groceries) and decide what order I'm going to pay things off in.  I know how to make it happen - I've already had the "lesson" - I just need to do it. 

I just don't wanna (insert toddler whine).

Love it.

But on the flip side, you know how GOOD it will feel to pay that school loan off???  I wish I could just send them a big fat check and be done with it.  DONE.  Too bad I don't have a big fat check to send them.  Then I could be all like, HERE BITCHES. STOP RAPING ME OF MY MONEY.  I think I inadvertently signed up for a mortgage plan with that one.  A mortgage plan that likes putting your money towards the interest.

I guess I should be grateful that I only have those three debts to pay (and I am - trust me).  I have friends with much more on their plate, from ginormous med school loans to multiple car payments to hospital bills and everything else in between.  I have friends who would love nothing more than to stay home with their babies, but have no choice but to work in order to get the bills paid.  I am a VERY lucky woman in that I am able to stay at home and do exactly what I've ALWAYS wanted to do since I was little, which was be a mom.

I'm home for all of these moments.  And I mean ALL OF THEM.  As in, I can't get jack crap done because this child wants to be right HERE all the time.  Lay him down for his nap?  In your dreams.  Clean the house while he sleeps?  Riiiiiiight.  Do anything at all without him needing to be attached to my hip?  Hahaha....you're funny.

On a random note....I bought O"Fallon Cherry Chocolate Beer at Earth Fare the other day.  In my mind, I was buying a delicious dark, stout beer with hints of cherry and chocolate flavors.  I should have known that I was buying a chocolate-covered cherry in a bottle.  It tastes just like the candy.  So if you're obsessed with chocolate-covered cherries, you'll love this beer.  If you're expecting a rich, creamy, slightly-flavor-hinted stout, you're going to be disappointed, though you'll probably still like the beer okay enough to drink it.  Like me.

I guess that wraps up my talk about budgets, even though I didn't really talk about budgets.  I basically just told you that I owe money and that I needed to do something about it.  Ah well.  I'll get it figured out. 

Know what's depressing?  Tax season.  I plugged in my W2s and was getting back around $2400.....then I plugged in my miscellaneous independent contracting wages and watched that total plummet to $62.  It felt like I was in Vegas - was way up one second, and then way down the next.  Bummer.  But I still have a lot to do regarding my taxes, so hopefully that little number will creep back up.  And if not, then $62 will buy the three of us a nice dinner!

Really???

I haven't written any baby blog updates lately.....no discussions about diapers (what?!?!), or breastfeeding, or sleep patterns, or milestones.....I'll get back to that soon!  Maybe tomorrow.  :)  Until then, just enjoy pictures of my spawn:

It's a hard-knock life.

The boys!

Snow and Stinkers

Our dogs have never been allowed on the furniture.  With that being said......

Stinkers.

While I was keeping Massai separated from the other three after his attack (still not certain by who, or what, or why), Massai was kept upstairs while Piper, Ollie and Daisy were kept downstairs.  Ollie and Piper apparently took this "alone time" to mean the couch was theirs for the taking.

Daisy still has never gotten on the furniture.  But she DID make a disgusting mess this morning.  See, Daisy is a chewer.  Not the type to steal from the closet or chew on the furniture or anything like that, but the type to chew anything plastic if left alone with it without supervision.  And she's strong, too.....she's completely annihilated dog toys that were supposed to non-tear-uppable!  Anyway, to make a gross story super short.....she chewed the plastic cap off of a glass jar that contained a dead baby shark in formaldehyde (a weird souvenir from a beach trip when I was little).  So I woke up to that mess this morning.  GROSS.

I don't know who this guy is but this is his "gross face".  I dig it.  I couldn't have said it better.

So it snowed here the other day.  Big, fat, slow, beautiful flakes.  It accumulated immediately.

Part of the front yard.

Part of the back yard.

A view from the deck.

It stopped after about 20 minutes, and then was completely melted after about an hour.  So there you have it - the Blizzard of 2013!  Lucas never saw any of it....he was on the road coming back from Charlotte, NC when it all went down.

So my half marathon is in 2 1/2 weeks!  Am I ready for it?  I don't know.  I'm excited for it.  But I haven't been running anywhere near the distance I should be for training purposes.  And when I say "nowhere near", I mean NOWHERE NEAR.  My runs have typically been between 1-3 miles long.  Those are NOT the miles of a half marathoner.  I will say that yesterday I ran 4 miles uninterrupted on the treadmill while Lucas watched the baby, and that after about 3 1/2 miles is when I got in my groove and felt like I could keep going.  But at that point I needed to get dinner ready!  My hope is that even if I don't get a single long run in before the race, that I'll hit my sweet spot during the race and still do pretty well.  We'll just have to see!

If I do pretty well during the Rock N Roll half marathon, I plan to sign up for the Berry Half Marathon in Rome, Georgia on March 23rd.  It will be my first half in Georgia, and my 8th half in my 6th state!  The race is supposed to be a gorgeous course.  I've never been to Berry College, but pictures of the campus are pretty!

I have also decided to do the County Music Half Marathon in Nashville on April 27th, which is also part of the Rock N Roll series.  I've already booked my pet sitter for that weekend and have got the grandparents (and Lucas of course) to entertain the baby.  I just need to register!

 
This is as far as I've gotten regarding half marathon plans.  There will be more, as well as some fun 5ks and what not inbetween.  Lots of good times to be had.

This blog mentions nothing about the baby.  Insanity, right??  Well, I'll leave you with a couple of pictures and promise to talk about the baby and baby things in the next blog!  :)