What is Happening?

I am in disbelief, denial, protestation... whatever you want to call it- I am it.

Where did this white fluffy horrid stuff come from?

I can't believe that just a week or two ago I was walking my dog in flip flops. (I was in flip flops... not my dog)

And now there is almost a foot of snow on the ground?

Someone is playing a belated and cruel April Fools joke on us all!

Speaking of dogs... my poor pup is not feeling well lately. I blame it on the Easter weekend. All the candy he probably picked up off the floor of my dad's house. Doesn't help that my more than adorable nephew insists on feeding him bananas, potatoes, really whatever he has in his hand.

I think he is teething too (my puppy... not my nephew, although it could probably go either way). He spent a good 20 minutes gnawing on Jason's fingers last night until J couldn't take the agony any longer. He also spent most of the day chewing intently on his bone and rope. Poor baby! He still has a few puppy teeth... maybe they will fall out soon.

In the meantime, can you give a dog Orajel? I'm sure they make some sort of puppy Orajel. But I don't think that will fit into my puppy budget.

Speaking of budgets... we now have one. For FHE last night we read a talk about managing family finances and then proceeded to discuss our family finances. EEK! Scary topic... for us. Which is probably why it has taken us almost two years to establish a family budget.

J and I have never been really great with money. Pre-marriage we were both relying on the hope that our spouse would have the money savvy that we each lacked. Well... we found each other and decided to marry in spite of it. So we are learning together and trying to figure out the best system for us.

I think we may have stumbled onto something that will work. While blog surfing one day, I found a website called mint.com. It basically gives you a place to see all of your accounts, loans, really everything to do with finances in one spot. It also allows you to create a budget and alerts you when you have exceeded your budget.

After about 2 hours of working on the website last night, we are finally feeling in control of our finances and excited to embark on our new plan. We make enough money to pay for all that we need and even some that we want. But until now, we just didn't know where it was going. And that's scary. And frustrating. And in the back of my mind, I knew that if we continued to live like that, we would never (no matter how much money we have) be in control of our finances.

Now, I'm not blaming this on our parents, because we are completely accountable for our decisions. However, when I'm a mom one glorious day and J is a dad one glorious day we will definitely include our children in some of our family finances or at the very least teach them about managing finances. We still don't have any clue how our parents manage their money. I guess back in the day (wink) it just wasn't something you talked about in FHE.

Postscript: Baseball season started on Sunday. Which meant sitting for FOUR hours watching Red Sox vs. Yankees (at least we were in good company). Then last night falling asleep to Angels vs. Twins. Thank heaven for DVR. That is definitely a financial NEED. Nicole NEEDS it from April-October to be sane.