21 Days - Day 5

This post is going to be short and sweet because I'm exhausted and have 18 minutes left from my day's allotment.

I spent the morning browsing dealerships online, in search of the perfect replacement vehicle for us... and then this evening searching for the best insurance deal for our brand new to us 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan!

Somehow between my beloved Trailblazer breaking down and realizing how impractical getting a kid to the rear seat in a third row SUV would be, I became a mini van mom.  I know, I'm shocked too!  Its silver, it has less than 30,000 miles, it has the remainder of a factory warranty, seats 7 comfortably and gets great safety ratings.  It doesn't have all wheel drive or four wheel drive, and its still a mini van.  But its new, its safe, its reliable and it fits our family and then some.  I'm a happy (and did I mention exhausted?) girl! 

Today's reading describes me perfectly.  I have such a bad habit of thinking... ok, I've already dropped the ball concerning "xyz" so instead of focusing on how to recover, I fall to the "screw it" mentality and dig my hole even deeper.  I realize that I need to change that kind of thinking and behavior.  I need to accept that I will stumble along the way, but focus on getting up and back on track with minimal damage.  In light of our recent purchase, I desperately need to keep this in mind when it comes to our future financial choices whether they are big or small and not get sucked in to the "well... we're already over our budget by $50 so why not just blow it completely at this point" thought process.  Positive choices and movement in the right direction is better any day than going backwards.  The small choices will start to add up.  We can do this!  

I've already experienced obstacles in trying to limit my internet time, but the best thing I have been able to do is to acknowledge what has caused the problem and do my best to get back on track.  Focusing on one change at a time allows me to do that much better than the countless number of times in the past I have set out to change everything all at once, and it feels great!

-{ Today I am thankful that the wonderful man in my life was able to take a vacation day at work and spend the day doing all that spontaneously having to buy a new car requires.  He did good and I'm so proud of him for how he is able to support our family }-