Unfrugal Misty strikes again!! And the Lord provides!

Wow, this has been an interesting week. This is also a super long post, but please read through the end!! Let me back track to the end of last week. You know from my previous posts that we had essentially put in a dog run on the side of our house. It has been working out GREAT for us. Less mess (mud/dirt) by the back door, less poop in the back yard, no dogs running through our new gardens, etc. However, it was NOT working out great for Riley. Did you know you could stress a dog out? Yeah, me neither (well, actually I did because Gweny stresses every time we move). I could tell because a few days after we made them start going outside over there, the diarrhea began. Over night. In the House. On my TILE. Yeah, if that wasn't bad ENOUGH, last Friday he decided to leave me a gift ON MY BED. Y.U.C.K. You've never seen someone gag so much as I was trying to clean that up. I got as much as I could off, sprayed spray and wash, vacuumed it a little, then headed to the dry cleaners. I was proud of myself for doing that, because my first instinct was to throw it away. I got it back today and it looks good as new. Thank God, because if it didn't, it would be in the trash! :)

So anyways, we thought he'd grow out of it. But alas, not the case. Monday morning, after taking him out and cleaning up the poop on the tile, I was trying to look at his behind when he came in to see if there were any remnants. He put his tail between his legs and sat down so I couldn't see. That's when I saw the blood on my tile. GREAT. How much is this going to cost? So, we hurried and got everyone in the car. We dropped Cara off a preschool and Riley at the vet. They finally called around 1 and said he had colitis, an inflammation of the intestines. Which is dogs is usually caused by bacteria (they ruled this out since he was just in for his yearly check up and shots) or stress. Funny conversation:

Vet: "Has Riley been stressed out lately"
Me: "Actualy yes, we put in a gate so he has less yard space, and I think it freaked him out."
Vet: "Yeah, that would probably do it."
Me: "Do you realize we're talking about a dog??!!?!"

Anyways, $150 later, we had a dog with shots and pills to take for a WEEK. Great, but not too bad. So, I go to pick Cara up and she is FREAKING out. She never does this at school. They said she wouldn't potty all day and she's been saying it hurts, and they ask what, and she holds her crotch. So, we go straight to Dr. Lentsch's office. She's crying and wants me to hold her (and carry in a 20 pound infant in the car seat because I knew I'd have to deal with her), so yea for 60 pounds, at least I got in a short workout. They call us back and she's freaking and starts doing the potty dance. The nurse gives me a cup and a wipe and sends us on our way. I can barely get her pants down before she starts going, so she didn't get wiped. But we did catch lots of pee in her cup. Helen checks her all out, goes and checks the results of the urine culture, and says she has the beginning of a UTI. She gets a prescription for an antibiotic (the one that I thought sent us to the emergency room last month....but thankfully she has had no reaction to so far after 3 doses) and is happy as a clam after she peed. I just have to brag for a minute. The next day I picked her up from preschool (where she peed twice like a champ thanks to some cranberry juice) and we were in the minivan driving home. She has been speaking in sentences for awhile, but I'm just amazed at her memory these days. She says, "Mommy, do we have to go see Dr. Lentsch (she pronounced it like lunch) and go pee pee in the potty in the white cup to make me feel better." "Haha, no sweetie, we don't today, she made you feel better yesterday." "Yeah Mommy, Dr. Lentsch made me feel better yesterday, we don't have to go see her today." Not that big of a deal, but I'm surprised she had time to remember what color the cup was. Oh, and hilarious side note, as soon as she peed in it and we were wiping it off and washing our hands, she says, "Yucky yucky, we don't want to drink that." Yes baby, Thank God you know that! :)

So, Sunday night I had menu planned in what feels like forever. I was trying to stretch our dollar and use up what we had on hand. I always ask Eric what he wants for dinner when I'm planning, and for months it's been Mac and Cheese. Seriously? For dinner? So, this Monday I obliged and found Pioneer Woman's Mac N Cheese recipe. Wow. I'm sorry to say it Mom, but this mac n cheese was the best I've ever tasted!!! I still love my mom's recipe, but this was WOW. Totally unhealthy, but awesome!! I did use partial whole wheat macaroni, but still, I don't want to calculate the points, or total calories, or fat content. I just want to enjoy a night of homemade yummy deliciousness for dinner. Wow. Sorry, mouth still watering as I had leftovers for lunch today.

The reason I was trying to stretch our dollar is that I had quite a few things left I needed to buy for my friend Valerie and my first attempt at Once a Month Cooking, which we are doing tomorrow!! Eric is taking the day off (well, only in the sense he won't be at the school) and watching the 4 monsters as Val and I try to make 10 lunches, 15 dinners, and I think as many breakfasts. Luke will be home at noon for some relief, but by then it'll be almost naptime!! So, I was pretty proud of myself as I only overspent our grocery budget this month by $50, however, I have a stocked pantry, freezer, and will have over half our meals prepared for the month of May. Can I get down to my $150 budget goal for that month? It depends if I do the freezer cooking again and how much more I'd have to get for it. But I am hopeful!! I'm sure I'll post pictures, if I remember my camera, of our cooking day.

Ok, so onto the chronicles of Unfrugal Misty. I don't really count the dog incident, because it could not have been avoided. However, the money did still come out of the budget (from a different category, more on that later). So Wednesday morning. Playgroup zoo trip. Carpooling with Val. Kids dressed, me dressed, Micah nursed, lunches packed, dog pilled, 4 grocery bags loaded in the car to take to Vals, stroller and extra car seat loaded. Reverse, hit garage door button (uh oh), BAM!!!! AAAAAGGH!! (Me) "Mommy, what was DAT!!!!???! (Cara OVER and OVER). Yep, garage door crashed and shattered our back windshield. I calmly dialed Val, asked her to come pick me up. Left the kids in the car so I wouldn't have to worry about Cara walking in glass. Unloaded everything. Swept up the glass. Vacuumed car set and stroller so I wouldn't have Cara sitting in glass at the zoo/in the car. Telling Cara repeatedly Mommy's ok. As she recalls, "Mommy, the garage door came down and BANG the new car's window bye bye!!" Thanks honey. Val gets there, load everything, hit the button and hear the excrutiating sound of the garage door coming down filled with glass. YEA! Valerie couldn't believe how calm I was all day. I was in my head going "Ok, so $500? $1,000?? And we just built up our emergency fund again, great!" But I had a great time at the zoo with our playgroup. On the way home I kinda started freaking out about how much it would be. Got home, put Cara down for a nap, emailed, read facebook, tried to put off calling for an estimate. Can you believe I didn't take any pictures??? I called Christian Brothers here in Katy for people to call, they are so NICE! Called two people, and got someone to come to MY HOUSE here THIS MORNING to install and CLEAN THE MESS for only $150!! Hallelujia, Praise God!! I mentioned previously how 3 of my tax clients overpaid. Did I mention it was by $280? Do you see how that is almost exactly enough to cover my windshield and the vet bill???? God is so good. If only we hadn't had that ($20) celebratory dinner at Spring Creek BBQ. We'd be right on track.

For those of you that are wondering, ok, you're $50 over budget on groceries, how are you making this work. Well, we are in saving mode. Yes, we still owe on the minivan, and the plan was to have that paid off in July (only 14 payments!) by using Dave Ramsey's debt snowball (well, that's our only debt, so we went from building our emergency fund, to focusing on that). However, when Cara had her hospital stay, I knew that would change. So far we have received no bills, but have seen all but one (the big one) EOB on our aetna navigator, which totals around $1,600. We are still waiting for the EOB from the downtown hospital that was the overnight stay. Yes, the $1,600 only includes the 3 hour ER stay, the hospital ride, some x-rays, etc in Katy. Some was covered by our health fund, then the rest 'helped us' reach our deductible, so the nice thing is we'll only owe 25% of Aetna's rate on the 'big bill.' All this to tell you we are taking all our extra funds for the months coming (plus March and April) and putting it in savings to pay off the health bills as soon as we get them. Which means, yes, I overspent, and that'll be just $50 less that goes in savings. But hopefully it'll help me spend less on groceries next month and have even more to save. Man, I wish I'd know when these bills are coming. My friend's daughter had hernia surgery last November at Katy Hermann, and she didn't get a bill until March. If that's the norm, then we wouldn't get one until August, which would be right around when I'm getting my $1,500 online offer check!! :) But since I don't know, I want to save the money right NOW! UGH.

Anyways, so that's a lengthy update. Still praying for Stellan and the Johnsons. Also praying I get Micah on a more predictable schedule. He's eating like a CHAMP. So far he's had sweet potatoes, bananas, avocado and plums. I've got pears I need to puree next, and then we start (on Saturday when he reaches 6 months) our 'Super Porridge!" Ok, that's all for now :) I have lots of cute videos of Cara saying her new bible verse, will post once I get them on my computer.