Girl time!

Last night, Tad went to see a friend in Madison and Coen went on his annual trip with Tad's parents.  They like to take him on some kind of adventure. This year they went hiking in the Devil's Lake area.

So it was just Lucy and me at home.  We put on dresses and had a girls night out!  First we drove to the east side and went to Alterra for coffee.  (and juice for Lucy). Then the two of us went to play at the park.  I even indulged her and went down the double slide with her, holding hands.  Finally, we went out to a fancy party.  My friend Laura, who works at Mandel Group in Milwaukee, asked me to come to the grand opening event of a new luxury high rise apartment building.

Lucy and I ate free appetizers, drank free beverages, listened to a band, and walked around touring the units in the buildings.  In one apartment, Lucy was reclining on a couch with designer pillows all around her, a panoramic view of Milwaukee behind her.  She yelled out, "I LOVE this party!" and all the building managers there to answer questions laughed.

Lucy loved going up and down in the elevators and I loved seeing these nice places and the view of my city from up above.  The sun was shining and the lake was so blue and sparkly.  There were sailboats on the water, and you could see all the people walking around.  It really made me appreciate my city.  Sometimes driving around, you stop looking for beauty, things begin to look drab.  But up there, wow, Milwaukee's cool.

This morning I am sitting next to Lucy drinking coffee while she watches Sesame Street.  Later this morning, she and I will go for a bike ride with our friends Jen and August.  It's fun having girl time!

Troubles at Washington Park

So we went to the Washington Park concert and Brew City Bruisers event. We roller skated, we made roller skate crafts, we ate free hot dogs and watermelon and cookies, we hung out with friends and family. We had a great time.

Until.

Coen rode a borrowed scooter, down an enormous hill that he was told NOT to ride anything down.  Tad and I both saw him from our spot on the blanket, way up on that hill. He was going impossibly fast. We both knew he was going to fall. And he did.  Big time.  Tad and I ran to him.  A nice man picked Coen up.  After he fell, he popped right up, all bloody and screaming.  Tad took Coen and all of us went down by the Urban Ecology Center where some nice staff tried to clean and bandage him up.  Then we took him to the ER.

It was a long night, but Coen's fine. No broken bones, no concussion.  Just a jammed pinkie, a bruise and deep wound on his chin.  Some road rash and cuts and bumps and scrapes. But he's fine. And he's learned a very valuable lesson.

Plus no scooter for the rest of the week.

Coen's worst injury--his chin.

At about 10:00 p.m., all fixed up, the kids got giddy. Coen is reminding Lucy of all the blood.

A bandaged and cleaned up boy.

Washington Park tonight!!

Tonight, my family will go to Washington Park to hear live music and eat a picnic dinner on the hill.  But tonight is going to be even more exciting than usual!  It's the annual Brew City Bruisers (Rolly Derby!) appreciation picnic!  I'll be there with my family as will many others from our school, our neighborhood and our community at large!  There will be roller skating, canoe rides, fishing, face painting, arts and crafts, food and live MUSIC!!!  And all of it is FREE!!  I am really looking forward to it.  Aah, summer in Milwaukee, how I love you.

A thank you blog

Many people helped my family this year.  Many.  I am going to try my best to make a list of those people for whom I am very thankful....

• For my parents and Tad's parents who said they would help and support us no matter what and did and continue to do so... 
• For the vacations, the babysitting, the dinners, the lunches and the breakfasts, the purchases of childrens' shoes, extra household items, and fixing things at our house...and on and on and on...
• For my sister, who brought over dinner, invited us for dinner and took me out to dinner...
• For my colleague Matthew who anonymously donated gift cards which enabled me and my family to go out to dinner and me to go out with my girlfriends
• Speaking of anonymous...for the anonymous 16 who gifted us the most creative, generous, kind and FUN twelve days of Christmas my family has ever experienced.
• For my cousin Susie, who, when she heard of our situation gave us a very generous gift to help us out.
• For my friends Laura and Nick who gave us a large supply of frozen meats that we could use for meals for weeks and weeks.
• For my neighbors  who are part of the most wonderful neighborhood any one's ever lived in.  They gave us support. Listened to me complain. Share meals with us. And helped us with our children.
• For my coworker Stephanie who EVERY time time she broughtfood for a meeting, gave me the leftovers along with other generosities here and there.
• For my other coworkers who shared with me, and asked me how things were going over the year.
• For my friends who have listened to me worry, reassured me, and been there in general

And for anyone else I forgot, I am SO thankful. I vow now and hereafter to pay it forward as we prepaer (in just two paycheck's time :)) to become a two-income family again.

I am so grateful for the help we received. And for the kindness.

THANK YOU.

You spend what you got!

So one thing I definitely learned over the course of this year is that you need a lot less than you think you do.  Or I needed a lot less than I think I did...or thought I did.. Well, you know what I'm getting at.

When Tad and I first made the decision about this, I remember going into work in tears, talking to my coworkers about how afraid I was and that I didn't know if we could subsist on my income alone...

Now I see that we could.  And it was a nice year.  We only went to three concerts.  All of which were this summer (not paying for any daycare freed things up!) and two of which were the Flaming Lips. (In case you're curious)  We only went out to dinner on other people's kindness, mostly.  We didn't really shop at all.  But it didn't matter. We still had fun. And we still were happy.

I went through my checkbook last August and looked through it for extraneous purchases, trying to see if we really could make ends meet and guess what.  Last June--June 2010, we spent $1,000 on things we didn't actually need: concerts, shopping, movies, restaurants and the like.  Geeez! 

So, yes. I have learned that we can be happy on whatever we have to be happy on. AND that we tend to spend what we have... SO...this year of not spending, we more often than not, were a bit ahead at the end of the month. Whereas last year, when we weren't overly concerned about money, we spent every penny and were often charging groceries come the last week before payday. 

So, like I said, this year, we will try to continue living simpler. Maybe we'll even be able to save enough to take the trip to Estonia next summer I've been dreaming about taking both my kids on!

The end of the road

Well, dear readers, we are coming to the end of our year of living simpler.  Now, I will tell you this. I intend to continue living simpler, but come early September, we will again be a two-paycheck family. 

Unless something fascinating comes up, I intend to focus the rest of this month's blog on lessons learned, gratitude and things of that nature. 

I do not intend to stop blogging--no sir! I am just going to come up with a new blog ideas.  Some thoughts: Something funny every day...this would be a blog about how something amusing happens every single day. I think it owuld be fun and would challenge me to LOOK for these things. Before I had a family and a very responsible grown-up job, a LOT of funny things happened to me.  Well, at least I noticed them.  I got bopped on the head by strangers, stuck up on top of a cooler without a ladder, blown backwards by a out of control carbonation machine, I fell down all the time and I did wierd things.  Do things like that still happen to me? Sure. But I think I notice them less, and get more serious than I want to.  So that is an idea. What do you think, readers?

At any rate...I am pretty proud of us. We did it. We made it through a year with one income, a little help from the great state of Wisconsin and a lot of help, love and support from family, friends and collegues. 

More on that later.  Have a lovely day!

Door county vacation

Last week, Tad, the kids and I piled in the car and followed my parents (in their car) for a Door County vacation.  On the way,we stopped in Sturgeon Bay and went to "The Farm" where the kids got to feed baby goats with bottles and throw feed to the chickens and cows and mother goats.  They got to check out real farm equipment and sit on a tractor.  The highlight was a huge cow who opened her mouth wide for you to throw corn kernels in.  Coen did so quite deftly and then showed his sister, who proceeded to whip corn kernels into the poor thing's mouth, overhand.  We went to the beach after the farm and then to dinner at Julie's in Fish Creek.  Finally we ended up in Ephraim (stopping first at Wilson's Ice Cream--re-named Cookie Doug's my by father and husband who were amused at the near-missing letter 'h' in said flavor.) 

The place we stayed at was called "The Windmill" and was a lovely four-bedroom cottage a little out of the way.  Day two was overcast and sprinking so we went to the Egg Harbor YMCA and did a little swimming and playing indoors in the water.  We had a lovely lunch in Egg Harbor and then Tad and I took the kids Go-Karting.  Or riding in "go-cars" as Lucy said.  They both LOVED it.  That nigt my wonderful parents allowed Tad and I a date night. We mini-golfed at Pirate's Adventure Cove.  We walked around and climbed the tower in Peninsula State Park. We dined at The Cookery in Fish Creek and finished it off with ice cream at Wilson's. 

Day 3, we rented bikes and biked 10 miles through Peninsula State Park.  Coen made it the whole way!  We went to the beach there after and enjoyed the sun and the water and a couple icee's at the snack bar.  That night we ordered pizza from Wild Tomato Wood Fired Pizza in Fish Creek and picked up pies from Sweetie Pie's in Egg Harbor for dessert.  After dinner my dad made a nice big fire and we roasted marshmallows and ate s'mores. After the kids went to bed, Tad and I stayed up, talking and laughing with my parents.

The final day, we all got up and packed and left our lovely little Windmill Cottage.  We spent that last day at the beach in Egg Harbor (the best beach in the whole of the county, if you want my opinion).  We built sand castles and swam and ate lunch.  The way home, the kids concocted some game with their stuffed animals, leaving Tad and I to talk and listen to music.  The whole trip was really great.  It was fun to be with my parents. The weather was mostly wonderful. And we got to do pretty much all there is to do in Door County for a group of 6 with two little kids.  Now, I'm off to eat some of my chocolate covered door county sun dried cherries.