So while on maternity leave there's certain things I promised myself I'd accomplish. I had hopes of becoming a bonafide cook and being able to make a few scrumptious dinners for my family. So far the only thing I can make well EVERY time without fail is lasagna. Suppose it's good that I can make ONE delicious meal, but it's a little discouraging that I'm not the super chef I expected after 6 weeks at this. Ohhhh well, I guess it's going to take some time!

Anyone have some SIMPLE delicious recipes for me to try???

Not actually the mortgage, but the escrow that we pay monthly with our mortgage payment is going up. Turns out that when we refinanced last year, normally some of the taxes for the first year are included in the closing costs. Evidently something was left out so we are 900 short! So now our mortgage payments are going to increase in 2011 unless we can come up with that money. Since I'm still out on maternity leave I don't feel like parting with that money from savings for the time being, so we'll just pay it out every month instead and they'll reevaluate in 2012. Bummer!

Otherwise, things are going well. Baby girl is getting bigger and bigger by the day. She's probably at 11lbs by now and nearly 7 weeks old. It's going too fast!

Besides the mortgage debacle, finances are on track. We saved quite a bit on Christmas by buying from my mom's "store" for some family members and so I'm able to earmark the leftover for oil. Past years we always kept the temp around 66 in the house and me and T worked full time so we'd keep it lower during the day and our bill was never much. Now that I'm home all day and keeping the house at 70 with a newborn, I'm sure this years bills will be through the roof and we'll need that extra money!

Still on maternity leave and loving every minute of it! Baby girl is fussy today but I finally put her down and now have a moment to myself. The christmas tree is up and thankfully I don't have to do lights because it's got fiber optics already in it which saves me some time. I havent started on ornaments but hopefully I do some of that before T comes home so I've got some progress to show him.

I've updated my sidebar to show my goals for 2011. Half of the year is a wash since I'll only be working part-time and we'll use that money to keep afloat until I go back full-time. Once I'm back fully in July, our money will be going to my student loan. I'm hoping to have a 15k balance before the end of the year. The following year we'll hit it hard and be able to have it almost totally gone which is exciting! Ok, back to laundry.

Almost forgot. Here's the picture of my girl!