Category Archives: Just Life

Posts about the good normal everyday life stuff: eating out, family outings, coloring, just living life and loving it.

Whirlyball is Awesome

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What’s whirlyball, you ask? Pure awesomeness, we say. Also “a competitive mix of lacrosse, basketball, and bumpercars.” If that doesn’t sound exciting, we don’t know what does. And the great company Josh is interning for hosted an intern activity (and Paige was invited) at Whirlyball Dallas, where we learned and played this awesome sport. If raw skill, hand-eye coordination, pride, strength, and agility are for you – well, this game sure isn’t. But it’s a whole lot of fun to play, if you’re okay looking like a dork sometimes. ;-) We highly recommend it.

The Challenge

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THE CHALLENGE: We came, we saw, we conquered. Okay, so our challenge was maybe not quite so daring and dangerous, but it was tough at times, and worth it. What was it? To not spend any money on discretionary items in the month of May.

It started as we were talking one night in April about money and budgeting and life. We have a budget that we stick to pretty well, and we’re pretty happy with our spending and saving habits. Still, we were starting to wonder if we were distinguishing enough between needs and wants and if there’s any room for improvement. So the challenge was Josh’s idea. Why not go a whole month and focus just on our needs? Then afterwards we could evaluate the difference it made and see where we might want to change.

So it was a good experience. Yes, hard at times. No fast food, no eating out, nothing “extra”, not even any candy or ice cream during weekly shopping trips (wait…okay, maybe we got one quart of ice cream). We were very careful to spend money only on things we had to. And it was a very good experience and taught us a lot.

First, we learned that it really is important to evaluate our spending decisions. In May, whenever we looked at something extra we wanted to buy, the answer was just “no”, so it was easy. The Challenge made it easy to tell the difference between wants and needs because we had already decided. Now we can try to make our future budgeting decisions wiser by saying “no” more often.

And second, The Challenge put us in a mindset – the “oh yeah, we’re not rich yet” mindset. We’ve been very blessed lately, it’s true, but we’re still young and saving up for so many important events in the future. It was nice (and good) to remind ourselves, “wait, we’re still college students.” I think that’s something we’ll remember now as we make decisions on what to buy.

And there’s been the benefits, too – saving extra money, coming in way under budget, knowing that we’ve been smart.

So now May has come and gone, and (though we’re excited we can eat out occasionally again), I think we’re a little wiser for it. We’re going to try to make that “oh yeah, we’re not rich yet” mindset more of the standard, and spending extra money more the exception.

What do you do to make sure you live within your means? Do you have any tips about budgeting or spending decisions?

Updates, in Pictures

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Time for an update from the Lymans, huh? Then feast your eyes and read on…

Well, first, lately it seems like we’ve had a lot of bad weather. It was kind of a mild “blah” winter, so in my opinion Mother Nature looked around and said, “What! Halfway into March?! I’ve gotta meet quota!” Hence the random, last-minute snow storms lately. In an attempt to speed the good weather along, I tried to make it feel welcome:

…and whether it helped or not, warm weather is here! I’m sure we’ll still have some crazy snow storm before long, but for now, we’re enjoying the warm weather. We’ve got a bumper crop of basil and cilantro (round three, and we have yet to kill a plant! Go us! I’ll add that it’s definitely the most either of us has ever grown).

The tulips have also fully blossomed outside our house, as of this weekend (no, we didn’t plant those at all, so we can’t take credit, though I did weed the flower bed on Saturday).

It’s now warm enough for Josh to ride the scooter to school again…

…and the weather was so nice today, we went for a nice long walk and afterwards enjoyed our first Otter Pops of the season.

In other news, after more than one trip to Home Depot and a lot of do-it-yourselfness, we installed a new, bigger mailbox that we’re very excited about. It’s even got a flag.

We also got a new TV. Well, new for us, old for a friend. Aren’t friends the best?

Our new TV will come in handy as we continue to enjoy Netflix. Yep, we’re hooked. This week’s movie? Mulan, special edition. Yeah, life is good.

And finally, we’ve been enjoying some delicious brownies that Mom sent (thank you, Mom!)…

…as a congratulations to Josh because–this is good–he won a scholarship! But it’s not just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill, we’ll-give-you-some-free-money scholarship. No, this is a special recognition, admired-by-your-peers-and-professors, we’ll-give-you-a-plaque-and-a-new-embroidered-bag scholarship (with some free money, too). We’re all super proud of Josh, and frankly not surprised, because this scholarship was based on helping others. And who does that better than Josh? :-)

So that’s all for us…now we’re just looking forward to this weekend, when Paige will walk the stage for graduation, the awesome Lyman family and the awesome Ellsworth parents will all be in town, and we’ll party and celebrate. Let the good times roll!