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I’m quite a bit tardy with a status update, since I skipped the last one in favor of posts for Nora’s birthday. I figured you wouldn’t mind. Now, though, it’s time for a little accountability.

As a reminder, here are the Housewife Challenges so far:

Get (and keep) the grocery bill under budget [read original post]
Keep a clean house [read original post]
Become a yoga master [read original post]
Use the sewing machine [read original post]
Practice patience [read original post]

The biggest update is on the grocery budget. Remember how I said that we were going to eventually re-examine it? Well, that happened and the new budget is is now $70 per week. We’ve added $20 (hooray for babysitting!) to the weekly amount, and now I’m having no problem staying under budget. Of course, it’s easy to do that when you just make the budget bigger. I’m still a little bit in shock that we have to spend so much each week, but the extra budget is becoming more and more important as I implement housewife challenge #6…which you will have to wait to read about until later this week.

I know, I’m lame, but I’m hoping the suspense will keep you coming back for more. Here’s a little hint:On other fronts, I’ve also been doing pretty well. I’ve gotten into a good routine of getting up in the morning and clean, clean, cleaning so that we can start the day with a neat house. One of the nice things about a small house is that it only takes about 1-2 hours to clean the whole thing (depending upon how self-sufficient Nora is being). Of course, one of that bad things about having a small house is it only takes about 20 minutes for the whole thing to get messy when you have one of these:Go figure. There’s always something it seems, but little by little I’ve been able to work out a pretty good system for getting stuff done (and redone). It seems like the bad/messy house disaster days are further and further apart — at least I think so; I haven’t asked Chris…

I also had some time this week to make a box for storing diapers under Nora’s dresser, which was one of our perpetually messy spots. I kept saying to myself that I was going to get some sort of storage container for under there to contain the mess, but then I realized there was no need to buy one when I could just be crafty. I took that box from my mom and step-dad (which is a double thickness of cardboard, so very sturdy), cut it to size, and covered it in fabric that Laura gave me when she came out to visit. It was quick, easy and fun. And not quite a sewing project, but close enough!

As far as yoga, I’ve been doing it at least twice a week — go me! Although I’m on a small hiatus from my videos since Nora put the cord to my MacBook in her mouth and ruined it. Also, I’m anticipating maybe not doing it this week, since my grandmother (Nora’s great-grandmother) is out here visiting. She came in last night and is staying until next Saturday. The last time she saw Nora, Nora was barely a personand we were in California – she met us out there in Delano, for my first Bard business trip. How long ago that feels now!