In light of the possible identification of our children, Tadd and I got super motivated, super fast. This afternoon we successfully completed and dropped off our home study paperwork. People, can I get a "Woot Woot"??  We have the Ethiopian dossier still to complete. More papers to notarize and forms to fill out. A lot of the paper is similar to what we needed for the home study, so keep your fingers crossed that we will fly through it.


We are six days into our project: Buy Nothing January. I read this in some money magazine. To balance out after spending so much for December holidays, the article advised buying nothing but essentials in January. That means toilet paper is ok, but Starbucks is not. I figured this would be great on so many levels. 1) Give our accounts a breather from Christmas  2) Remind myself how much money I spend on useless crap   3) Cut back spending habits for when children come and we can't afford anything ever again 4) Shed some pounds because I will be forced to eat at home instead of chowing down on Mickey D's and previously mentioned Starbucks.


We were doing great, but we broke the rules today. We went out to dinner with the fabulous MJ after picking her up from the airport. She was starving and we haven't seen her in almost 2 weeks so we had sushi. And guess what? Project: Buy Nothing January might be starting to work. I turned down a more expensive roll for a cheaper (and tasty) substitute! We shared all the rolls to reduce costs! We ordered soda and had wine back at MJ's house instead of a table of saketinis! And the reward was fabulous company at a cheaper cost. Plus, the added bonus of meeting a nice neighbor of MJ's that I might try to work with in the future on offering classes for actors.


I'm not saying that Buy Nothing January is a miracle or anything, but I'm pretty stoked about it so far. Plus it helps me from going crazy with buying all the baby stuff I see. But when February 1 comes around, watch out, because I am going to the mall!!