An Angel...and Sugar-Free Headaches

This will be two parts -- absolutely not related at all. Just two things on my mind at the moment!

1) An "Angel" -- As many of you know, I stay at home with the boys. I do work at a Mother's Day Out program ten hours a week, but for minimal pay. So, the huge majority of our income comes from my husband...on a state employee's salary. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm so thankful he has this job. He is good at it, and it fits him to a tee. I mean, he gets to shoot guns and study bullets all day. Maybe not always exciting...but it's a puzzle...and he likes puzzles. Anyways, I'm chasing rabbits. What I'm getting at is, we are on a very tight budget. We don't have a lot of wiggle room, and especially now that we are buying a house soon and trying to save money for a new (and bigger) car. One thing about us -- we WILL pay cash for a car. No debt for us...other than a house, that is. So, we made it to February 28 with some money left over for the month. Yea! Then noticed that Noah's rash on his arms was getting worse. Hmmm...better go to the doctor. So, February 29 and a doctor's copay and off to buy expensive lotions and cleansers for Noah. Boo...not so much money after all. Off we go to Walmart. I'm looking in the lotion aisle, and Tristan sees a bottle of bubble bath that resembles a car. He wants to play with it, so I let him while we finish shopping. As we get in line to pay, I remember that he has it and put it aside, not intending to get it. Of course, Tristan gets a little upset that I took his "car" away. Well, the lady behind me gets the "car" and comes up to me and asks how much the car is. I tell her that it isn't necessary to do this for us. She said that when she was a stay-at-home mom, money was tight, but now that her kids are grown, she can't do this for her kids anymore, and she has a full-time job now, so she would really like to. So, the car rang up to $4.00, and she digs in her purse and pulls out a $20 and gives it to me and tells me to "keep it". I just about cried. Not that $20 is all that much money but that someone would do that for me. I came home and told Nate and said that someday, I want to be that person. She was my "angel", and I can't wait to be an "angel" to someone else.

2) Sugar-Free Headaches -- Anyone that really knows me knows that I LOVE sweets. It comes from my family. Both sides. We always have desserts...and more desserts. Lately, with Valentine's and special lunches at work and random this' and that's, I've been eating A LOT of sweets. So, lent came around, and I thought, this would be a good time to make a change, at least for a time. I decided to exclude sugar for the 40 days of lent. The only exception (other than fruit, because really, you don't give up fruit) is sweetener in my coffee...because I need my coffee. We don't keep a lot of sweets in our house anyways, so it's been fairly easy so far. Now, we go to see family next week, so that will be the real challenge! Anyways, the past several days, I've been getting these HORRIBLE headaches. Couldn't figure out what was causing them. Then I put the two and two together. My body is going through withdrawals because it is so used to having a diet with sugar! It struck me how addicted our body can get to certain things. Crazy, huh? Now, after the forty days, I'll gladly have a piece of pie or some ice cream, but hopefully I'll have better moderation of it, knowing the pain my head went through to get off of it!