Money Saving Ideas

Neil and I want very badly in the next 4-5 years to be able to have enough to put a down payment on our first home. So with this newfound motivation I've been doing some deep thinking on how to reduce costs at the homestead. We've been blessed to be house sitting instead of renting so beyond the typical house utilities our expenses are pretty much just utilities and food. Also, Neil works at Google so a lot of his daily food costs (lunch and dinner if he's working late) are paid for by the company which has an awesome cafeteria for its employees. But I'm at home with Lanalou and that means I have to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at home. Generally what happens since I'm always always running in 5 directions at once is that I eat a yogurt, a quick sandwich, or whatever is leftover from the dinner the previous day. We make our own bread and that has been really really great, but the yeast costs a lot for a 4 oz container, 8.50 or more at Safeway. I found out that Costco sells a 2lb package of yeast for $3.90 so I had my neighbor pick one up for me. The cost of yeast was the majority of the cost of breadmaking so that was a GREAT find.

The new idea I have is to make my own yogurt. I spend a LOT of money on yogurt. I LOVE Brown Cow Yogurt, the chocolate kind. It's full fat not low fat or non-fat and it is by far the yummiest stuff I've ever had as far as yogurt is concerned. So. If I could find a way to make my own substitute I'd save a lot of money. I've gone online to find some instructions on how to do it. I'd like to go get a candy thermometer in order to be precise on the temperatures for the milk and then I'm going to give it a go this weekend.

Well for all of you that come online to check on Lana status. I don't want to turn you away disappointed here's our Lana pic for the week. This is how Lana helps me to sort our Junk Mail for the Recycling Bin.

Lillian's visit Jan 17-Jan 22

My great friend Lillian came to visit this past week. She was taking a pit stop visiting with me on her way to Hawaii. I know, poor girl! Lana had a great time with Lil too. This is Lillian and Lana at the beach in Santa Cruz. They were having a great time chasing the waves.

Lana also has really mastered crawling now... this was recorded while President Obama made his inaugural address!!

Lana explains what's for lunch

ATTACK of the BABY

Disclaimer: This is a wild baby, do not approach her too capriciously. I made that mistake the other day...
Innocent she appears... (best if read in a Yoda voice).
Suddenly, I was pounced upon!!! (Yes, I have fuzzy pink PJs)
The baby moved in...
And then the horrible end!!!

Valiant attempts of a Mom to have time to herself!

This morning Lana and I went to the YMCA (where I have a gym membership). I wanted to do a cycling class from 9-10am. So I came early per the instructions on the schedule, which said that you need to check-in half an hour early to the class in order to get a number which serves as a pass to get you into the class. The staff told me that they do this with classes that are high demand. I should have just kept Lana out of the day care until the class started but silly me I thought, Hey, I'll just stick her in early and then go get her after the class (that would have been a total of 90 minutes). She's done that before so it's not completely ridiculous of me to think that this was possible. Unfortunately I didn't take into account other children. Lana is very keen on watching other kids. The only other kid in the care center when I dropped her off was a little girl who was screaming her head off because she didn't want her mom to leave. I stayed for about 10 minutes to see how Lana would react to this kid's tantrum; she seemed fine with it. Frankly she seemed more than fine with it she seemed oblivious to it as she was fully consumed with playing on an Exersaucer. So off I went. About 10 minutes into my cycling class in came the care worker. Poor thing, I thought my kid's giving her problems. Now she has two screaming children. So I hopped off my exercise bike and went back into the care center, quieted Lana down and then left again to go see if I could get any more time in my class.

As an aside I didn't want to just call it quits at this point because I figured it was a bad association for Lana. She cries her head off and mom comes and she gets to leave. I want this care center thing to work because it gives me some GOOD time away from Lana. I get to exercise and clear my head... This will work I tell you because I will MAKE it work, so help me God!

Anyways, I did get another 15 minutes in the class which was nice. Then in came the care worker again. Ok, I figured I'd have to leave this time. I was right. Oh well, better luck next time.

I just hope she's not learning to scream for mom at this gym. That is not a lesson I want her to learn.

Pillow pets, bubbles and peas! Oh my!

Lana and I went to Goodwill today and scored on two great pillowpets (a bunny rabbit and an elephant). They washed up in the washing machine and dryer and came out smelling like a million bucks. Obviously Lana likes them, I think they remind her of Norma (the cat) who she mistreats horribly. Norma just takes it too! [I'm SORRY Norma!!] I figure these can be stand-in Normas and I won't be guilty of cat-abuse.
This is Lana (ohmygosh, she looks like a maniac!) in the bathtub. You have NOT seen this child happy until you've seen her in the bathtub.
Here's Lana modeling the latest in baby facial products: mixed veggies.

New Year and Resolution

Hi Everybody!

While I know that people DO read and view our blog it is a hard thing to keep up the blog on a regular basis because I don't SEE when people read and view our blog... I know, I know I should just be able to DO it and not do it in order to get recognition for doing it, but there it is. But regardless, there it is. However, I am going to TRY to post something once a week from here on out. I will post on the same day every week, Friday. Starting TODAY!

This last week we spent with Grandma and Grandpa Ahlsten. It was a BIG week for Lana. She started off the week doing horizontal pull ups (as her means of locomotion) and ended the week crawling PERFECTLY. PHENOMENAL child that she is :). Also, she started off this week --shrieking-- that was the favored means of expression. NOW she's realized she can turn her face PURPLE if she clenches her tummy, her hands, her mouth... this is all for FUN mind you and not because she's constipated which was what all of us originally thought was happening... But, monitoring the southern region proved that constipation was NOT the case, nor was there any good reason for straining to be needed to produce what we found in diapers daily :). I know TOO MUCH INFORMATION.

Anyways, she's been the star of the week and the month and the year. I'm sure she'll continue to be next year...but I'll also try and blog about other observations, thoughts and reflections throughout the year.

Here's hoping that I'll see 53 posts by the close of 2009!