He did it!

Praise God, my husband got a job! We are SO thankful for this opportunity and it seems like it will be the perfect thing for him. As of Monday, he started a job as a computer programmer for connectthink. They specialize in making apps for iPhones and iPads. He is really excited to learn how to do this because he is such a creative person, as well as a technical one.

Thank you all for the prayers!

Blessings and an Update

Blessings:
The blessings in life have become my focal point recently. I find myself thankful for so many things that I took for granted before... buying whatever kind of food we wanted, being able to buy new clothes if we needed them, going out to eat when we wanted, renting movies if we had a night at home, etc. Now I am thankful for things that are much smaller than that! I am thankful for family and friends looking out for our well-being during this hardship, for my son not being picky about what he eats (and eating whatever we already have on hand!), for people being willing to pass along my husband's resume and help us look for jobs, for already have planned a garage sale for this weekend when God knew we would need extra money, and for the kind anonymous person who gave us a gift card to Kroger. Thank you Jesus for these little things!

We were able to make over $175 this weekend with our garage sale. Most of that went into our bank account. A few dollars went to dinner with friends at our local festival that happens ever June. We are thankful for that small reprieve of "whatever-is-in-the-pantry" dinners! We had 6 different families in our garage sale and the turn-out was amazing! The weather was beautiful and we all sold lots of stuff. Here are a few pictures of all the junk we had.

Update:
My husband had 5 interviews last week for 3 different jobs and has 2 interviews this coming week as follow-ups. We are hoping to get at least 1 job offer this week! He used some of his remaining vacation days last week  to do those interviews and to work for a friend on some car stuff. Now, he is officially unemployed, but we aren't panicking (yet!). Continued prayers are appreciated that the right job will come along quickly.

Our No Spend Month is going pretty well! Last week we spent a total of $51.63 out of our $200. This went to groceries and gas. Thanks to the anonymous person that gave us the gift card to Kroger, we were able to buy all our fruits, veggies, and essentials (including trash bags and contact solution) for the week without touching what is left of our $200! Again, we are so grateful!

Bathroom Remodel

Our bathroom was completely outdated. When we first bought the house, it looked like this:

Purple wallpaper, tile with flowers on it, gold fixtures, carpet in the bathroom, oak colored cabinetry, cream and rose colored marble counters. Bleh. Not my style. And the shower was just as wonderful.

We tore all the wallpaper off and painted before we moved in, but didn't have much time or money to do anything else to it. But at the beginning of this year, our shower started to leak. So we decided to use our tax return to fix the whole bathroom since we needed to fix the shower anyways. Behold our amazing new bathroom (and the process of getting there)!

Demolition to the floor and wall tile.

Our new shower base.

Creating our built-in shower. 

Cement board for the shower tile.

Shower tile going in!

Pretty :)

We put bead board on the walls.

Floor tile and new wall color.

All done! (We still have to decorate a little bit)

We love, love, love the way it turned out! 

I painted our existing vanity and we got a new granite top, faucet, and knobs for it.

We still have to hang stuff back up and get a few more small things, like a toilet paper holder and towel bars, but it is functional and beautiful!

hardships and frugality.

This week has been rough, to be honest. We found out on Tuesday that my husband is part of a reduction plan the company he works for is doing and will be losing his job next week. We never thought we would ever have to worry about this and all the stuff that goes with it. We've spent the last 2 days updating his resume, sending it out, looking for jobs online, contacting people we know who have contacts that they can send it to, looking into insurance, severance package stuff, unemployment, etc. There is a lot of information to deal with that I never knew about!

We spent a good deal of time on Tuesday in complete shock, then the realization kicked in that we were going to have to become even more frugal than we are now. A few weeks ago I found a blog via Pinterest that tells how their family does a "No Spend Month" and I thought it would be a fun challenge. We are starting our first No Spend Month today, not because we necessarily want to, but because we have to.

My husband's last full paycheck came in today. We went to the bank and took out $200 to live on for the month (excluding our mortgage, utility bills and any medical expenses that might come up). This will include anything we need for the house, cars, food, gas, toiletries, stuff for Luke (including formula, diapers, and wipes), clothes, etc. It's going to be a challenge for sure, but we know we can do it because it's temporary. At least that's what we're praying. And we can for sure feel the prayers of our friends and family! The peace God has given us is incredible.

Anyway, I will let you know how the month progresses!


P.S. I just want you to see how cute my little man is and how big he is getting!

Our family at a wedding last weekend.

Blowing raspberries while I was feeding him yogurt

Happiest in the morning