My Dave Ramsey Stroller

The deeper I get into Mommyhood, the more I am amazed by all the baby "stuff". As a mom, everywhere I go "stuff" is shoved in my face and I am told that I "have to have" this or that or I risk not being a good mom, or at the very least, not a very cool one. And at times I buy into it. I decide I really should get something so I can be "cool". Then I look at the price tag.

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!

You want how much for that?! My kid's happy with rocks and sticks, for crying out loud!

When Mika was first born, Zarik and I took a class called Financial Peace University taught by Dave Ramsey. It's an awesome class that really shows you what you need to do to take control of your money and your life. It was a complete blessing for Zarik and I as he had just gone from working pretty much the max hours he could as a First Officer, to being a Captain on reserve. If we hadn't sat down to look at what we made vs. what we spent, we would have gone from only having car debt and student loans to adding a LOT of credit card debt to our lives. It was definately a God thing that Dave came into our lives at that time.

Since that time we've been trecking along on our Debt Snowball. We had lost sight for a bit, and were eating steak and lobster rather than rice and beans, but once I told Zarik he could NOT have a big screen TV until we'd paid off his dad (our last debt besides the house), we got gazelle intense again!

Just like Zarik and his TV, I get tempted too. Zarik has been encouraging me to work out with my stroller workout group. The only problem: I now need a double jogging stroller. So I started researching. It was hard, man.

Think of it in terms of cars:

This is what I dream of:



This we could afford with a reasonable car loan:



However, this is what we actually own - our "Dave Ramsey" Car we bought for $3000:



I quickly realized that it was much the same with strollers.

This is what I dream about:



This is what I found that we could technically afford:



But after doing the budget for the month and thinking about "WWDD" (What Would Dave Do), this is what I bought today for $30:



I've gotta say, I'm feeling pretty proud of my stroller and can't wait for people to give it weird looks so I can tell them it's my "Dave Ramsey Stroller"!

WWYD?

Since becoming pregnant with Mika, I have been trying to find more natural ways to clean my house. Cheap natural ways to clean my house. For example, I bought a big jug of Simple Green something like two years ago, and it's still half full. (Now, as a disclaimer, I don't use it for everything around the house, and probably don't clean near as often as I should, so it probably won't last you something like 3-4 years)

As the hospitality director of my MOPS group, I have been given the task of taking the white tablecloths home and bleaching them. Well, I don't like bleach. I really don't want it around my family. Especially since my family (specifically Zarik and Urijah) have sensitive respiratory systems and Chlorine Bleach is a respiratory irritant. So now what? I start googling bleach alternatives, of course. (I love google, don't you? Even googled sycamore tree after watching Pocahontas and neither Zarik or I knew exactly what a sycamore tree actually was)

Anyways.

Now I have already washed the tablecloths with 1/2 cup of vinegar, and most of the coffee stains came out! Now I have just a little juice stain and stubborn coffee stain left. Now I come to a crossroads. Passionate Homemaking has some GREAT ideas, and after googling "homemade oxyclean" (again - I ♥ google!) I now have to decide to use the homemade oxyclean, or lemon juice and cream of tarter.

Decisions, decisions. I'll let you know what I decide.

Night Night, Baby, Night Night

Zarik's li'l Mini-Me is getting so big!! He's officially 7 months old now!



I still carry him in his sling and beco most of the time, but when Mika decides to walk, sometimes I'll give myself a break and pop him into the stroller.

As much as we like to get out and walk, we haven't been able to much lately. Urijah had another bout of bronchiolitis. The pediatrician we saw when I took him back in echoed our normal pediatrician that this is probably caused by RSV. She said that unfortunately because of that, most likely every time in the next year or so that Urijah gets sick he'll relapse into the hacking, wheezing baby boy we've come to know. We have his (late) 6 month appointment in two weeks here, so I'm going to talk to the pediatrician about what we can do to prevent it from getting too bad.

Urijah's been sleeping a lot because of being sick. Twice in the last 3 days I've set him down to play only to find him like this 10 minutes later:



Rest well, baby boy!