April, oh my!

What a crazy month it's been so far. Work, work, work, & more work. I recently took over my peer's role, in addition to my own. Now, when I started back in November, my job was definitely scoped at a full position. So, adding in my peer's work (and, he left things in quite a state) has been. . . interesting! My role is now global (over 200 countries), so I'm learning way more than I ever wanted to know about the rest of the world. :-)

Life updates
Over the weekend, my wonderful nephew came to stay with us for a few nights. He's been asking to have a cooking day with me for about a year, and we finally made it happen. We had an awesome cooking day, and made:

• Three dozen muffins
• Three loaves of bread
• Four pizza crusts
• Six dozen taquitos (half chicken, half beef)
• 6 batches of applesauce
• A batch of granola bars
• A batch of protein bars

He was a rock star helper, and my kitchen has never been so busy. (Or, so messy :-)). My mom chauffeured my nephew, so when she went home, she took my boys with her for a few days for their  spring break.

And, for the first time ever (literally), M & I were at our own home without the kids. It was such a strange feeling! We went out for dinner on Sunday, I did my long run without guilt or time pressure. I got up in the mornings & worked out before work, we met for happy hour on Monday. We got rid of furniture we didn't need, M organized part of the garage (it's a huge project). . . It was nuts! I forgot what that kind of flexibility feels like. M left for a work trip on Tuesday, so I was definitely missing everyone by the time I picked up my cutie pies yesterday. They had a fabulous time with my parents - swimming, bike riding, having "urban adventures" in downtown Portland.

Fitness updates:
My running has seriously fallen to the wayside over the past few weeks with work, and just thinking of my half marathon & how ill prepared I am stresses me out! I need to kick the running into high gear & commit to complete the rest of my training plan. My next half marathon is in four short weeks!

My eating was also all over the map this week, with lots of meals out, & wine. It was fabulous, but time to get the calories back under control, and get some extra strength and stretching workouts in. Both make me feel great, but it's hard to make time for it all. ;-)

Financial updates:
I definitely feel like we've been spending too much - multiple meals out, and because I wasn't cooking, I didn't have leftovers for lunch. Which means I ate at the work cafeteria. We wisely cancelled our cleaning lady this week, since we had no kids to mess up the house :-), so we considered that our "date night" money.

We also didn't go grocery shopping last week. I don't think that's EVER happened before! And, I received our Costco rebate today - it's for $275, and our membership fee is $110. So, that's $165 to apply straight toward the grocery budget this month. Yeah! After the crazy baking fest, I need to stock up on quite a bit.

I also need to register for summer camps, and already spent $750 enrolling the boys in a couple of camps. Getting all of the summer logistics ironed out is always a treat.

Oh, & I had my first eBay drama-fest. I sold a pair of like new shoes. They only went for $.99, but not a big deal. Win some/lose some. I put them in the mail & kept my receipt. The buyer never got them, and when we looked up the shipping info, it looked like it was sent to the wrong address. I apologize, send her a photo of my receipt (which showed the correct mailing info) & she refused to believe I shipped the shoes. Kept emailing me, accusing me of all kinds of interesting scams. I offered the refund, she keeps insisting that I still have the shoes. On & on it goes. Yesterday, I get a claim letter from the post office, with half of the box (empty) clearly showing that I mailed the item & the price I paid for postage. The shoes were lost/stolen in transit, & I can get my money back. I emailed my buyer with photos of all of this, & offered a refund . . . crickets. No reply, no apology. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, vindication you are so sweet! It made me feel so terrible that she thought I was ripping her off. :-(

And, questions for you! How is your April going? My parents are taking the kids to Disneyland in June for five days. If you were us, what would you do with the time?

1) Spend it at the house putting things in order & doing those deep cleaning & organizing & painting projects you never have time for?
2) Going to the beach house for a few days (we could work from home part of the time to minimize the amount of vacation days we'd need)
3) Go somewhere fun. This totally violates our "no travel" policy for the year, but it sure is tempting. ;-)