Well, I was on a good streak there for awhile where I was checking off 100% of my monthly goals… but not this month. I’m not sure if my apparent response – to double my usual number of goals for September — is the correct one, but I’m going for it! Lots to do, and one of my favorite months to do it in! The view from one of our favorite running routes! Revisiting my goals for August: Frame and hang our two new pieces from Framed & Matted Love them! More about this soon but you can see one here. Finally paint the tray I primed about a year ago (No progress here… moving to September) Make progress on goal no. 37 Made progress here, including a new storage solution and some weeding out! Post an updated house tour here after our tour appears on Southern Weddings (Not yet – have to finish photographing a few of our less-finished spaces. Moving this to September!) Do some sort of exercise every single day this month (I probably missed about 10 days. While working out 2/3 of the days in a month is good, it’s also my norm, so I didn’t really get at the heart of this goal!) September goals: — Paint my tray — Post an updated house tour — Start a registry for Baby Thomas — Run my first ever 5k!! — Make nursery plans so that we are ready to paint when my parents come in October — Celebrate our third anniversary! — Volunteer and shop at my church’s awesome kids consignment sale (if you are local and want to go, here is the info!) — Finish organizing our upstairs closets — Visit my younger sister in Nashville! Figure out how we are going to eat twenty

Friends, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on my last post!! It meant so much to me, and I loved reading all of your comments. I will be back with more about how we shared the news with our families soon, but first I wanted to turn to a different subject: our car fund! I mentioned it briefly in last year’s big paying off debt post, but since it has been our biggest financial goal for 2015, I figured it was time to write about it! In my debt post, I mentioned that we were planning to pay off our two car loans in mid-2014. We did (hooray!). For a little back story, we purchased both of our cars in 2011. Both of the loans were about the same – about $250 each per month at about 2.5% interest. Though I generally try to avoid debt whenever possible, I am grateful that loans exist and that we were able to get them to help us secure reliable cars. After tackling our other financial goals throughout our first few years on our own (I talk about them more here, but they went in the general order of emergency fund –> wedding –> house down payment –> student loans), it was pretty quick work to finish off our car loans. And even though, as I said, I am so grateful that car loans exist and that we were able to get them the first time around, John and I are committed to never taking one out again. We believe this is possible, and I believe the same is totally within your reach, too!! Establishing a car fund is what I would call a “second level” financial goal. Since it’s a saving goal rather than a paying off debt goal, it