November Goals Update

Study Italian at least 3 days a week:  I have been really slacking until yesterday. I downloaded Rosetta Stone onto my new laptop. I did a lot of practice yesterday but that doesn't make up for it, so FAIL. Maybe I will do better next month!

Walk Kawi a lot more I have been walking Kawi more, but not as much as I used to. We're pup-sitting for our neighbors and that keeps me walking more now as well. So I'm going to say PASS, but I'm going to try to walk more next month.

Study one chapter of Pre-cal a week: Just... FAIL. Hahaha

Finish the two books I got from the library: This did not happen. FAIL. But I did re-check them out yesterday and I need to read them to complete an essay this week, so I better hop to it!

Spend under $100 for Thanksgiving: This worked out really well. Our family that came down gave us money to put toward Thanksgiving, so including that, yes, we spent under $100 for Thanksgiving! PASS!

Eat more veggies, less sugar: FAIL. Why are sweets so tempting?! I'm going to try harder next month. Our family brought down some Gertrude Hawks peanut-butter smidgens, and if you don't know, these are the BEST treats EVER! I would highly suggest them! But, becareful. They are addicting! 



Click the link below if you want to find out
just how amazing these are!

                                                           The Best Chocolate Ever  

Read my bible and pray more: Pass and Fail. I've  been reading my bible more than I normally do, but I want to read it a lot more and I want to pray more.

Weekly Check-up

Mmm, pumpkin cheesecake
(This is not a picture of my pumpkin cheesecake, but looks really yummy too!)

Making Sense of Cents, one of the blogs I follow, has a weekly money check-up. Here's mine!

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was groceries for Thanksgiving!

2. Today I am thankful for family and the wonderful Thanksgiving dinner we had and pumpkin cheesecake. Plus! The fun trip I'm taking tomorrow with Jessica.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was spend a day doing nothing but hanging out with my husband, watching a NCIS marathon and playing with our dog outside.

4. I will consider this week a success if I complete 5 more Italian lessons.

5.  My favorite Christmas song/album  "How many kings" by Downhere

Financial Goals for 2012

DailyWorth, one of the personal finance e-mails I receive daily, mentioned recently about setting up three personal finance goals for 2012. (Part three- Next-Steps-for-a-Richer-New-Year) I have a few, but below I placed my top three. If you are interested in getting DailyWorth e-mails, click on the link and sign-up! I'm really glad I did.

Here are my top three 2012 financial goals:

1) Pay off my credit card. I don't have a lot to owe on it, but I want to see how well I can do without using my credit card, and those pesky interest charges.

2) Make a good dent on my furniture loan. Or pay it off completely. I really want to pay off our furniture. I want to be able to look at it and say, "YES! I own it!"

3) Start a vacation fund. There are so many places I want to travel to. Our trips we plan to take soon are one to two trips to Seattle to see my family this year, and a trip to Italy for the honeymoon we've yet to take, lol. We're hoping to take it at the beginning of 2013. So we better start saving now!


Have you started thinking about your 2012 Personal Finance Goals?

Thoughts



I really like the idea of the wall,
The blue paint and fishing net

Hey all :)
  I have been browzing the web a little bit, and I saw this photo. Our guest bedroom is ocean themed, but the walls are bare. We won't be painting in the house we're in, because we're moving in a couple of weeks and so I'm really focusing on what we could do in our house we're moving in to. I was also thinking that it may be a bit costly to do all the walls this way, so I was thinking of doing the bottom half a tan color with the fishing net (attached some sea-shells randomly on the net, add a chair rail, and paint the top half of the wall blue.

I really like painted walls. They just make the house a home. It is the finishing piece that ties everything together and makes it cozy. We live in base-housing at the moment and though I like this house, I really miss color on the walls. The colors just bring it all together. When I was growing up, my mother always had a least a few rooms painted and those rooms just always felt cozier. 



The master bedroom is going to be a deeper green color. Green is so calming and the darker color, with some heavy duty curtains, should make for a sounder sleep! Right now we don't have any curtains on our bedroom windows, we just never got around to buying any. When the sun comes up, our room get very bright with the white walls, so it will be a nice change. 

Another idea I have for the master is this:  



I like the canopy idea. It's elegant.
 I would not do it in these colors though.

I would have to figure out a way to make this work for our king-sized bed though. I don't think I would do it exactly like this one, but I like the canopy idea. This one is elegant and not kiddy looking. (Ignore the teddy-bear on the bed hahaha)

Above the headboard, within the canopy, on the wall I want to have a vinyl decal like one of these:

 

I want to create a space that is relaxing and cozy for me and my husband to sleep and spend our time alone. A room that is just ours.


To offset the darkness of the darker paint and black furniture we have, I figured rough-nickel plated hardware and lamps would be great. I really want this chandelier but I know that wouldn't be for a while though. :)

Pretty chandelier

These are just some ideas I have. We plan to live at our next house for at least 5 years, so I want to really make it into our home :) We didn't do much with the house we live in now because we knew we were going to be moving in about a year when we moved in.




What are some home-improvement/interior design ideas you have had?

Happy Thanksgiving!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

What I am thankful for:

 Our Mighty Father in heaven

 my husband and our families

friends

our fuzzy pets

clean, running water

hot showers and hot chocolate on these cold days

a sturdy roof over our heads

our health

our freedoms

the opportunity  to buy and get food easily

the opportunity to get education 

the medical advances of today

these are just a few, what are you thankful for?

What's new!

Hey everyone! How have you been?


I've been really busy recently. I work full-time now. I'm currently working as a finance manager for a local furniture company. I really like my job! Woo-hoo! It pays pretty well and I like the work. The only thing I don't like about it is the hours sometimes, but it's okay. The evenings I have to work a little later, my husband comes to eat dinner with me up at my office, so that makes up for it :) I'm hoping that when we move I will be able to find a job similar to this one. :) I'm already searching for some in the area we're moving to.


I have been working on my Italian  :) The language is so beautiful! (Haha, La bella lingua) I'm trying to keep myself motivated enough to keep on my studies, because once I start to slack on them, I forget a lot and have to re-learn a good bit of it. I used to chat to some of my friends who are Italian, which really helped me develop a good accent, learn correct grammar, and so-on. But we all have been really busy recently, me with work and them with school. So, hopefully we will be able to catch up again soon! I am also trying to implement translating three Italian news articles a day, or atleast one, haha. This is so I can practice grammar and of course, to learn new words.

Kobe and Kawi sitting for a treat.

This was bizarre to see them BOTH sitting and calm!

Our neighbors are out of town and we're watching their pups. There is never a dull moment! They have a puppy who is a month younger than Kawi and around the same size, a little bit bigger in fact. His name is Kobe. Kawi and Kobe play non-stop! They have so much fun! They will play, play, play...drink some water, rest, then PLAY, play, play again! Hahhaa.  Their little dog, Isaac is so sweet. He likes to cuddle and to be held, he doesn't like playing with the big dogs much, but he loves the cats. And surprisingly, the cats like him too! It's really sweet to watch them. 




I am on Day 21 of my Facebook Detox! I hardly ever think about it now, unless someone brings it up, or asks what day I'm on. lol!  I've found so much more time in the day without it. Life has been less stressful and those who really want to talk to me hit me up on my phone, so these past 21 days have really been a success :) Only a few more to go. I've been thinking about it to, that, when I do complete this challenge, I probably still won't log on too often, just because it is a big time-waster. I like to know what my friends are up to and what-not, but I could just txt or call them too! lol! :) 


Other than all that, my husband and I are really well :) We're excited his family is coming down for Thanksgiving! It's going to be a great time :) I'm really excited to cook,eat lots of yummy food, and spend time with family :) I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! :)  

HAVE A GREAT THANKSGIVING! 

Baby Shower Cakes!

Hey everyone! Both baby showers went great this weekend :) 


Here are photos of both of the cakes :)

Congrats to Jared & Lauren with baby Ryder! :)

Baby Ryder's cake!

Congrats to Ryan & Melissa with baby Peyton! 

Baby Peyton's cake!

Congrats to all of you with your baby boys! Both of your showers were amazing! Thank you for letting me be a part of them! :) I hope you all enjoyed the cakes!!! :)

I hope everyone had a great weekend!