Tuesday, November 27, 2012

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The Murphy Family Christmas card has been ordered, can't wait to send out our first family card! Here's the picture we used, watch your mailboxes :)

A WEEK OF VACATION?

Murph and I had some time off to burn so we decided to take the 3 days before Thanksgiving off and get ourselves in a full week of "vacation". Here's a breakdown of what went down.

Saturday - Painting. We decided to paint the entire first floor of Hawthorn Drive. The front room went pretty quick earlier in the week leaving us with the kitchen, family room and 1st floor bath. For 10 hours on Saturday we painted, and painted, and painted. By the end of the day we primed all of our crazy red walls and randomly painted brown trim and took care of the kitchen ceiling. That's right the ceilings were part of the plan. We were shot and things were looking, well a mess.

Sunday - Painting. After 7:45a church and a little breakfast action at Cozy Cafe we made our 3rd or 4th trip to Menards in a week. I really think this is my new favorite store. Ridic I know, but I actually look forward to trips there haha! We took to painting again. Our goal was to completely finish our family room and put life back together a bit. We made goal and the fireplace mantle as well as the bathroom cabinet and trim got 3 coats of creamy white paint. We saw progress but were still surrounded by disaster.

Monday - Errands and Painting. Meeting with an accountant, name changes on land and car properties, a visit with baby Rylie and back to the grind we went. The goal, finish the kitchen and bathroom and get this place clean! Mission, pretty much accomplished :)

Tuesday - We attacked a week's worth of laundry, picked up downstairs a bit more, packed and then scrubbed our massive kitchen/bathroom linoleum. Oh, it was nasty. We both despise this shitty flooring even more than before and I think it motivated us to get our debt paid down so we can celebrate with a little wood floor instillation project in our future. We loaded up the car and headed with WillyDog to LC. There we got my parent's new computer unpacked and began the 3 day printer/email/file move debacle.

Wednesday - LC shopping, a lot of yard work for the parents, a wax job on the car, and 5 hours trying to get the printer we picked up for the parents to pick up a wireless signal. Unsuccessful result.

Thursday - 17 people Thanksgiving celebration. WillyDog stopped eating, barfed, and I the ever eager housewife attempted to take care of the mess, only to have Murph step in after he heard me dry heaving. Um, how am I going to have kids? That night we worked again on the computer, this time taking several hours to figure out how to move Mom's emails to the new computer from the old one with internet speed similar to dial up. The printer got boxed up as I scoffed at the "easy wireless setup" text on the box.

Friday - We said our goodbyes packed up WillyDog again and headed to C-Town. We watched the Hawks lose, and celebrated Murph's little bro turning 21 with a dinner on the town.

Saturday - C-Town shopping with my MIL and an 88th Birthday celebration for Grams with all of Murph's cousins and their kiddos. Pots of soup and copious amounts of dessert were consumed by all, especially the kiddos. Christmas card photos were attempted and one fussy dog did not want to cooperate.

Sunday - Back to Clive we go. WillyDog is a wreck. He's still not really eating at this point and cried the entire way home. Murph and I contemplate leaving him on the side of the road because his high pitched cries are so annoying but opt to keep him instead ;) We haul the Christmas decorations upstairs and I excitedly decorate Hawthorn Drive for our first Christmas as a married couple. WillyDog has passed out from the week and slept the majority of the day, he's seriously like a drunk when's he's that tired Murph and I laugh continually at his grunts and groans.

It was a crazy week! And after we finally sat down on Sunday night we realized we were shot and there was little vacationing that took place. But I wouldn't have had it any other way. There I sat with my wonderful little family of 3 in awe of the love and blessings we were a part of in the last week. We are making this house a home and have 2 other places to call home too, we are truly blessed beyond measure. Thanks were given for jobs and friends and each other and needless to say we slept good Sunday night. Monday night I was greeted with my normal bouncy pup so clearly vacation was rough on him too ;)

Thursday, November 15, 2012

GRADUATES!

Well after 9 weeks of 90 minute classes Murph and I are graduates! That's right we are done with Financial Peace class and are living on a budget. Wow, that's something I never thought I would be able to do! Our $99 investment is something I am certain will be worth so much more than we paid for it and I am actually not hating our budget as much as I thought I would hehe.

Over the course of 9 weeks we covered everything from creating our budget, to dumping our debt (mortgage included), to retirement, to estate planning and even college planning for those little nuggets we hope to have one day. It was a ton of AMAZING information for us and best of all we have our financial goals aligned.

I highly recommend the Financial Peace program and our church will be offering 5 classes of it this fall (Fri-Tues nights) too. The main reason Murph and I did this was not only to become confident in paying off our debt (hopefully it will all be gone in under 7 years eek!) but so that one day we will be able to give abundantly, how exciting! I also look forward to paying cash for our future car purchases and maybe even that dream home I've got my heart set on building ;)

Anyway this program is for everyone! Married, single, young and old, doesn't matter where you are in life check it out and if you want to take the class holler this way you won't regret it!