My dear friend suggested a group of us embark on a journey this year to develop new habits.  But not your ordinary run-of-the-mill habits.  Stay tuned for the following months, but this month it is 21 days of self care complete with blogged experiences.  This is a very loose interpretation of what this might look like.

I heard a quote this morning that is summing up what this month looks like for me:

“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” ~Vincent Van Gogh

What self-care means to me this month is getting the junk out of my head.  The voices say the following statements and I am choosing to look at them and see perhaps if I can become a painter.

1. I am undisciplined enough to stick with a budget

2. I am undisciplined enough to intentionally decide what I put into my mouth

3. I am undisciplined enough to attend to my spiritual life

In addition to typical self-care exercises I will be participating in this month (massage, hair done, date night, etc)  I will be saying to myself: I can stick to a budget for 21 days, I can do a food log for 21 days, & I can do a study for 21 days.  I did an experiment yesterday.  All of the above takes approximately 30 mins a day.  30 minutes a day in exchange for the amount of junk and baggage to be out of my head is astounding.  I will let you know how it goes.  As a side note I have lots of support in all three of these, Jon, Melana, & my neighborhood girls.  I have found that it is rawther dangerous and prone to failure to embark on these adventures without close intentional support.  So thanks all.

I gave up shopping for lent.  This seems funny, until you consider Jon gave up hot sauce.  And our girls gave up cardboard boxes.  The impetus behind giving up shopping came from a couple of different directions.  One is that shopping is a form of therapy for me.  Since I am working on Weight Watchers pretty hard core to drop the remainder of my baby weight from Mercy & Z, I no longer can use food as a source of solace.  And exercise has never been an escape for me, and giving up exercise would be like Lucy giving up bananas (she doesn’t eat them anyway).  Shopping became the sand paper that made my life feel a little smoother.

So shopping it is.  Simplicity, organization, budgeting, sustainability. Unknowingly I am addressing all of this in my life.  It’s funny when one asks for the core issue, how sometimes it is actually revealed.  Shopping for me is shiny, happy, invigorating, a competition, a game.  Target is my drug, deals are my pride.

So I stopped it.  I stopped dreaming “researching” for the next greatest deal.  What I didn’t expect was the big void of space in my head, the massive amount of time I had left over.  I was too busy and overwhelmed, and discovered some of it was from “trying to save money” by finding deals.  I am a very frugal shopper, but like I said before, deals are like liquid ecstasy to me.

So it is done for at least 40 days.  Have I said how much I love the season of lent.  It is by far my favorite time of the year.  Creating voids in my life that can be filled up with Christ and the sacrifice he made for me, and my family, and our world.  My sacrifice, if you can even call it that, feels divinely inspired.

So it has been a week & 1/2 of no shopping, no on-line window shopping, no dreaming about what I want.  I have found myself kind of looking around at various times with nothing to do.  Wait, check that, plenty to do, but nothing that I really want to do.  So it is reading the daily emails from The Journey, thanks Michael, and letting myself be kind of at loose ends.  Sitting in that void and getting familiar with it, letting the echoes be loud and uncomfortable.

Admit you have a problem…

I started going to a budgeting class. Now I just have to keep going to a budgeting class. Also enlisted husband to go to class with me. You would think we could both make it at some point in time.

Anyway, will keep you posted on how it is all going. Have to do the worksheets. The book we are using is fabulous  The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness.  I swear, awareness is half the battle.

I alerted everyone I was hand-making most of my Christmas gifts this year. Then I went off in search of fun, reasonable projects that wouldn’t break the bank or my time.  I found a plethora of ideas, and the following are some of my favorites.

1.  Pipe Cleaner Garland, inspired by tord boontje’s until dawn curtain.  Absolutely beautiful, and I would actually hang this in my home.  And done very reasonably!!  Thank you Design Sponge for this gorgeous idea.  NOTE:  I found a bag of 350 white pipe cleaners at hobby lobby.

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Last week, somehow I managed to save 80% off of clearance items at Old Navy.  First off they were 50% off and then I used my gapCard and got an additional 30% off.  Am living vicariously through my girls, got them both skinny jeans, wishing I could wear them.  Have to remember that 34 lb goal.  Coming soon… Juli in skinny jeans…

Anyway 2nd sale sent over by my best friend Regina of the divine Recherche Photography.  Thank you Reg for introducing me to Real Baby Boulder.  Summer Clothing 75% off Tomorrow.

And while you are in Boulder, seriously might want to consider stopping at Tee & Cakes.  By far my most, absolutely favorite place to get cupcakes.  It will make you very happy.  Oooo… this needs to go on my self care list.  Along with ordering stationary from Alli at Bird Dog Press. But that will get a post all to itself.  Christmas cards coming soon.

Inspired by my dear friend Sarah who was trying to strategize on how to use her free birthday treats today, and realizing my birthday is next week, I decided to see if I could have a free birthday day.  With lots of treats.  As I mentioned before, coffee is one of my favorites.  So that being said Caribou Coffee, if you sign up, will send over an email with a coupon for a free birthday treat.  I think Qdoba will do the same.

And here we go with my some of my favorites:

1. BD’s Mongolian Barbeque – Free birthday meal – Join their online club

2. Baskin Robbins – Free ice cream  - Join their online club

3. Benihana’s – Free birthday meal – Join the chef’s table

4. Cold Stone Creamery – Free creation – Join the birthday club

5. Noodle’s & Co – Free meal – Join Noodlegrams

Plenty more on http://www.freebirthdaytreats.com/adults.aspx

In the interest of sustainability and simplicity this post is on the dreaded task of raking leaves.  Sometimes it seems silly to me that we rake at all, but then I remember all of the hard work we put into our lawn and encouraging grass to grow from the morass that was our yard when we moved in to our lovely house.  So then I think perhaps this idea has merit.

Since I have been on this sustainability, & simplicity kick I love finding/hearing about ideas that make my life easier, serve multiple purposes, and save me money, so I can get those boots I have been after.

“Improve your soil by raking less”  is the article that Jay sent over of Jay and Regina.  Am so excited to try this idea out this weekend.  Do you have any other fall lawn-care maintenance tips to share?

November is a month of beginnings for us this year. Which is weird, usually November is the beginning of the end.

My resolutions this month.

1. Start budgeting
2. Cook once this month for the rest of the month
3. Shop once this month for the rest of the month

So I started this journey, and am bound and determined to make this work. But a bit of planning error happened with this as I attempted it after traveling for 10 days. And Halloween.

So this is how I recommend not doing this, although the individual parts of the plan were sound, the overall execution was in fact, not.

Initially I intended on shopping on Saturday, prepping in the evening and cooking on Sunday. B/c of halloween, just getting back from traveling and Jon’s unusually fully client load on Saturday, shopping and prep didn’t happen on Saturday. So I took full advantage of daylight savings time, got up early and went shopping on Sunday morning, then went to church, then took my girls over to get their pictures in their costumes and pick up our freezer, sent Jon out to finish up some of the shopping, got the 11 month old down for a nap, and then proceeded to start prep and cooking. SO NOT A GOOD PLAN!!!!

And all would have worked out wonderfully if my stupid back wouldn’t have started killing me around 7pm.

Anyway, Jon completely picked up the slack and knocked out quite a few meals for us.

All in all, the meals look delish, the girls were drooling over the pumpkin pie, I was drooling over the pumpkin coffee cake, and I would like to say thank you to Once a Month Mom for the fab, no thinking cooking for once a month.

The nice thing about this menu, is that she thought ahead for the holidays.  My pies are done, I have a couple of cheese balls, side dishes to bring to dinners, brunch type stuff for Thanksgiving morning, and all for about $150 per family.  It was a little more this month as I got started up.  The other COMPLETELY fabulous note about this system is that she puts everything together for me.  Shopping list, podcast, instructions for day of, recipes.  I literally didn’t think about it.

And the other note is that on the recipes she mentions medium size apples or onions or potatoes.  I didn’t realize that everything in the grocery store is super sized, so I ended up with quite a bit extra of certain things.  But I would say success overall.  Having the first meal tonight.  Meat pie…  yum.

1. Cook once a month.

2. Keep track of our budget every month.  And come in below it.

3. Grocery shop once a month.

4. Blog at least 2x’s a week

5. Lose the rest of my baby weight. 34 lbs.

coming out of nursing-muddled-mind I finally have enough were-with-all to realize I have no idea what I am doing.  and I also have no idea how we have been making it, meals, clothes, being married, all of it.  2 adults, 3 kids, 1 dog, 1 borrowed cat.  phd-process-husband, mostly working a lot of the time mom.  very limited money.  yet day after day somehow…

anyway, (btw, i hate to capitalize, and for this post, am enjoying the hyphen, and generally i don’t care about grammar or correct punctuation) i have been inspired lately in the realm of simplicity, sustainability, & overall make more space and leave money for doing things we love: relaxing, traveling, skiing, dancing, gardening, pontificating.  to that end, i am going to overhaul our life.  budgeting, cooking once a month, attempting to shop once a month, finding deals, etc.  now that i think about it, this all sounds a little bridget jones to me.  and yes, i know there are a million and one blogs like this out there,  so am just throwing my hat into the arena, assuming mine will be the best.  joking.  generally.  but i have been told, expect the highest and best outcome.  so there it is.

for real, i think this is my version of confession.  and you all, my friends, are my priests.  welcome to my blog “julZ iNk on…” cooking, budgeting, shopping, living, simplicity, kids, wife-ing, music, tv, movies, sci-fi, and absolutely no politics.