a failure & a funny

so.

first the failure...

a couple weeks ago i wrote about the challenge jeremy and i have taken on, trying to spend just 175 dollars each week to buy groceries, gas, and extras. we were doing just fine with the challenge until i decided to write about it. all that murphy's law mumbo jumbo bit me in the arse.

last week we managed to spend $100+ more than our budget allowed.

it started off innocently enough. jeremy suggested i actually fill up my gas tank completely instead of just putting in the amount of gas i could pay for with cash. that was $60+ on the american express. then our next door neighbor's father died and i felt i should to take them a meal. i had to go to the grocery store to buy a few extra ingredients and aluminum foil pans (so they didn't have the extra chore of returning my baking dish). i did not feel bad about those extra expenses. but then it became really easy to add on a few other unnecessary items, which i did feel bad about.

to cap off the week we ordered pizza, an oh-so-delicious splurge. our family meals are not easy - i'm gluten free so that's always an extra $5 for a gf crust, harrison hates sauce so he gets a pizza with no sauce because if we ordered a half sauce/half not a tiny bit of sauce might cross over the median and infiltrate his side of the pie, graham likes plain cheese or pepperoni, and jeremy wants all the toppings...so all those hard to please palettes (mine included) add up to more dollars.

here's what i learned: once you use the credit card it is much easier to turn to the credit card again. once you buy one unnecessary item it is much easier to justify "just one more" unnecessary item.

the good thing, though, is that we pay off our credit card every single month, never carrying a balance. AND i believe tomorrow (the first of october) we'll actually be able to see how much we were able to set aside to put toward paying down my student loan. can't wait to find out and share with you - because even with one week of "failure" that will be a big success!

we started afresh this week. i took out cash and went grocery shopping yesterday morning. i still have money in my wallet to pay for gas but i'd bet my bottom dollar (haha) that i won't have anything leftover after that. 

now on to the funny...  (WARNING! GRAPHIC IMAGES!)

we went to the zoo on sunday, a lovely (free to us because we have a membership) family outing on a beautiful afternoon. the boys had been asking us to go for weeks and weeks. they were really excited to see all the animals.

we were watching the elephant demonstration when harrison asked mommy, what's that long thing hanging down from him? i thought that's his trunk, silly boy but then the elephant began to turn around and i realized oh dear, my son is not silly at all and that's definitely not a trunk.

as it turns out the animals, one in particular, were really excited to see us too.

my son spent the rest of our zoo tour approaching each new exhibit with loud comments about i want to see his penis! and an elephant's penis is bigger than a hippo's penis!

my other son was fascinated with all the animal dung, wildly talking about wow that one dropped a huge bomb! and elephant's have the biggest bombs of all! and look there's a huge turd floating in the water!

jeremy laughed. i sighed. we looked at each other and said BOYS.

and then i longed to take out my dang credit card and buy a manicure and pedicure and facial and all the girly things! next month you just might find me lying face down on a massage table muttering thank you to the denver zoo and bodie the elephant for helping me justify some extra expenditures.