Pregnant?

If I didn't know better (and I hope I do), I'd swear I was pregnant. Even though Ada is 3 months old, I still feel like I'm in nesting mode. I'm obsessing over what we eat, clean with, how we spend our money and how clean my home is...it's really strange.

During my pregnancy with Ada, I obsessed over going 'greener and cleaner' in our house. I read articles and books on how harmful many of our common household items were and made a commitment to making my house and the products we use safer for us and my children to come into contact with. I realized that just because an item is on a store shelf doesn't guarantee that it is safe for you to use. Yeah, I was turning into a hippy.

But my hippy phase didn't end with Ada's arrival; instead, it just keeps going full steam ahead. Of course, discovering that my mozzarella cheese contains talc doesn't bring back my faith in food (I'm not making things up...it was right there in the ingredients) and learning that my mascara contains carcinogens doesn't help matters either.

Since Ada's arrival, I've also gone budget crazy. Everyday at 11am, my household shuts down and I turn on the TV to watch 'Til Debt Do Us Part'. I'm so completely and pathetically hooked on this show. I want Gail Vaz-Oxlade to come to my house and get us going on a better budget. I want to do her weekly challenges!

Even though Nialle and I usually live within our means, I'd like to live below our means so that we can put aside more money for savings, holidays or a new house. I've started reading Your Money or Your Life and it has me thinking about we can relate to money differently. It has me wondering how I can resist the urge to be such a consumer. It's an interesting time in history, what with the financial crisis in the States - everyone seems to be talking about budgeting now. What that means for me is that there's lots of inspiration and ideas online about how to cut costs at home. I'm hoping that in the next few months or so, we can start setting aside more money for retirement or even *fingers crossed* a trip to Europe!

I've also gone cleaning crazy. I started following flylady's zone cleaning and am working on decluttering and cleaning my home. I have a binder with the list of cleaning chores that I complete each week and where I now keep all of my household information such as ongoing grocery lists and other miscellaneous items I need. I'm so organized and so, so nerdy.

I'm a wee bit embarrassed at how nutty I've gone for all these things. Some of them even seem a to sit on the outside fringes of sanity. But, honestly, I hope I'm not going through a phase, because I'm actually having a good time trying all of these new things!