Thursday, April 30, 2009

Making the Best of It

It's been an stressful week. Life in my world is a little upside down right now. While so much is still the same - my job, great kids, wonderful husband, same address, same cars, same clothes (you get the idea)... so much has changed.

The recession has hit our house in a big way. My husband, the main bread-winner in the house, has been asked to take a leave of absence from work. This is good and bad. Good because we still have benefits. Bad because we don't have his income. This is when an emergency fund comes in handy. And thankfully, we have one. I'm not sure how long we'll have to tap into it, but I'm fairly certain that we can get by fairly well for a while with the right lifestyle changes.

It's going to be an interesting journey. I've already been deluged with a wide range of emotions - anger, fear, encouragement, hope, thankfulness, uncertainty, bewilderment and sadness, just to name a few. But I keep reminding myself that God is in control and he wants me to turn to him. He desires to show me his love, kindness, goodness and caring. He is my heavenly Father and he will take care of me.

It's not going to be easy, but neither is it overwhelming. I have so much to be thankful for and I need to constantly keep reminding myself of that. Yes - sometimes it's difficult to keep the focus positive, especially when I'm in a state of mild panic. But my thoughts are within my control and they may need to be whipped into shape occasionally. That's doable. Not easy nor fun, but doable...and necessary. Here's to making the best of it. Life that is.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

A Change of Focus

Okay, so I dropped the ball with 28 days of being thankful. It's not that I haven't been thinking about it. That project just sort of dropped down on my list when it got more difficult. I plan to revisit the idea in the near future. I'm going to read the book in it's entirety first and then come back to the implementation phase later.

For now my focus has shifted to couponing - in a big way. I've been reading blogs, clipping coupons, filing coupons, watching YouTube videos on how to make a coupon notebook, filling out rebate forms, matching coupons with sales and shopping for the best deals out there. Whew! It makes my tired just writing all that down. Imagine how exhausted I am when I actually do all that. It's all for a good cause - to stretch the grocery dollars a little further. You see, since my husband took a pay cut and the industry he's in is struggling to get work it seems wise to brush up on the skills needed to pinch those pennies. So I'm back at it.

Couponing is no longer optional. But I don't want to spend more time doing it than I need to, so I'm on a quest for the most time efficient way to get the job done. More to come in the days ahead.