Dream big. Like this paper bag. Inspirational, really.
Category Archives: Other
Want Games to Play?
A lot of you might know this, but I (Paige) love games. Board games and card games, yes, but mostly the ones you play at family reunions, EFY, youth activities, and with big groups of friends. Those games. I’ve kept a list of ones I like through the years, and recently I thought it might be fun to start a blog, just as a way to list and organize all these great games I love. You can check it out here: thegamegal.com. It’s a fun project, and though I don’t promise to update it regularly (it’ll probably more likely be in spurts here and there), feel free to check it out, especially if you want some fun games to play!
Josh: Okay everyone, so really, you should check it out because not only is it a great repository of some way fun games, but Paige also does unique, hand-drawn illustrations for each an every post! It’s just as worth it to check it out for her fun and cute artwork as it is for the games, so go go go!
The Game Gal
The Challenge
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?
Kitchen Table + Mini Boats = $1,000,000
Do you ever hear about an invention or design or product so random, yet so cool, it just makes you happy to be part of the incredibly creative human race? Josh and I had one of those moments last week.
On Sunday we had some couples from our ward over for dinner; the menu consisted of baked potatoes, salad, and rolls. As we struggled to pass all the dishes, platters, and bowls around the table, I brought up the lazy susan that sits on the table in my parents house, the one I grew up with. (If you don’t know what a lazy susan is, follow the link and learn real quick.) Then one guy told us all about a table he had seen in the Philippines – a kind of different spin on a lazy susan, if you will (ha, no pun intended!). He described it as a big regular square dinner table, but with a big hole cut out of the middle and filled with a container of water. You could then place all the dishes in the water, and if someone opposite the table needed the rolls? Why, just shove them across and they’d float on over!
Awesome, huh? We all thought it was pretty cool. (So cool that I’m writing this blog post now). And I wanted to include a picture, but I couldn’t find one online (how would you Google for that, anyway? “Kitchen table water center”? Nope. “Kitchen table pass dishes water”? Nope. If you have any suggestions, let me know). Anyway, since I couldn’t find a picture, I drew one up real quick, for visual learners like me (and for you, Mom, because I know how much you love diagrams).
So here’s an isometric view:
And even an arial view:
So we hope you enjoy this awesome invention as much as we did. Whoever thought of it is a genius. Maybe we’ll even own one some day. If we do, I think we should fill the container with goldfish…um, maybe. But I could see some definite potential disasters if you combine a kitchen table filled with water and a family of kids.