To Everything There is a season!

As many of you know I lost my wonderful bakery job that I had taken late last year when the bakery decided to close I chose not to be angry at God for seemingly giving me my dream job and then taking it away. I walked right into another bakery job but the hours were demanding and I was working 50-60 hours a week when I was only supposed to be part time. Mr. A and I regrouped and prayed a lot I left that bakery job and chose to return to work full time.  I have now been at my new job for nearly two weeks. It was a hard decision that came with a lot of tears but we are blessed with a wonderful day care and I am holding on to the fact that it’s not forever. I can do anything for a little while even if it means leaving my precious girl at Daycare for 8 hours a day. She is happy and enjoys her time at “school” I am confident that our financial picture will improve with the added income and we can build to our savings and in a few years  probably when we’re ready for baby #2 I can be a full time stay at home mama. I was unhappy at first but Mr. A and I both feel this is what is absolutely best for our family.

I know some may disagree and that’s ok all families have to make choices based on what is best for their family at that point in time and we did that. It goes without saying that our new dynamic change has required some changes in the A household I thought organization with a child was important before but now with both of us out of the house 90% of the time it’s imperative! 

We must keep our home in working order through a serious of checklists in order for our limited family time to be maximized enjoying our time together instead of dealing with a messy home or staying home because we’ve exhausted our budget eating out. 

Our budget got tightened even though technically there is more income as we have several big house projects we are saving for. We chose to start a program called emeals we paid a set fee of 35.00 and for six months we get our menus planned for us as well as a complete shopping list based on what sales are at the store. Thanks @LeahMarie for introducing us to the concept not all of the meals are amazing but they are all fairly simple and if we don’t like a certain meal we might just replace it with a convenience meal such as soup or chili in the winter and grilled hamburgers or salads in the spring and summer. It’s been very helpful to us since we started the program in January and has become invaluable for helping us prepare a shopping list each week since now I get up early and go shopping on Saturday mornings for the week ahead. We also created a chore chart based on doing a few chores an evening so we don’t have to spend our entire day Saturday cleaning. We’re looking forward to having quality family time on Saturdays going to the zoo, the park, and eventually the swimming pool and soaking up our sweet girl’s smiles ;)

We’ve never really been this structured with our cleaning schedule or our meals although I have aspired to be. Truth is I’m a closet slob my living areas may look neat and tidy but that’s only because I cleaned like mad before anyone comes over. I hope this structure will help us to become a neater family. We’re doing well so far with our daily tasks and we’re taking it one day at a time but we have discovered that this system is much better than the alternative when we both have full time jobs. So I’m no domestic diva but I’d like to be and I hope maybe these baby steps will get me there.

So that's what's been up with the A Family lately!