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Archive for July, 2007

Just a Slow Day in the Country

July 8th, 2007 at 10:22 pm

Today is shaping up to be a no spend day. So was yesterday. The kids were begging to go out to eat or to go down to the gas station for junk food, but I have held firm. We just don't need to make any trips when we will be going to town tomorrow, and they don't need junk food anyway. They just want it.

I wrote 12 pages yesterday, so I am quite proud of myself. Getting back into the flow of things again was not as hard as I expected once that pesky writer's block broke.

I received the final final bill for my surgery and I owe $1097 for my portion. The last so-called final bill was off by $10. Not in my favor. Ah, well. Life goes on and I go with it, so I'll deal. As ever.

I had to harvest more broccoli this morning and pick more strawberries. The garden is going like gangbusters and the zucchini, cucumbers and squash are still in the flowering stage, so I imagine in a couple more weeks they will take off like crazy. Hopefully they will wait until we get back from our vacation.

We are trying to decide what we will do on the island. Butchart Gardens of course, with the fireworks and light show, and we plan on going to The Center of the Universe, but after that, it's pretty much open. There is a Native American exhibit that we wanted to see last time we were there.

I'd like to go inside the parliament building as it was closed last time we went for Canada Day. And I'd like to go whale watching and take the carriage ride through downtown Victoria. We took the carriage ride through old Victoria last time we went.

The kids want to see the Undersea Garden again, which is amazing. It's built right on the floor of the bay and you can look right into the underwater habitat. It also has stuff like in an aquarium. And maybe we'll go see Miniature World and the Butterfly Garden again. We have seven days up there and some things only take half days. But we don't want to run every single day. We'd like to just hang by the pool a couple times.

At least lodging isn't costing us anything. We're going through my parents' travel program. They had a bunch of points about to expire so they booked a condo for us to use. It has a full kitchen, so we will be taking some food across the border with us. I still have to check on exactly what can cross the border. But we know where the organic grocer is up there and there's always the QFC if we need it.

Aside from the Undersea Garden, when I ask my kids what they want to do up there they say they want to go to the Spaghetti Factory! And the ice cream place with 97 flavors. DH is just as bad, he wants to go back to "that little Italian place" and the ABC breakfast restuarant. Which we will, but of all the things they remember, they remember the restaurants the most vividly.

I guess I shouldn't throw stones. When I went to Disneyland last I was looking forward to the Blue Bayou restaurant an awful lot. Big Grin Just have to remember this isn't a food vacation. We're only planning on one meal out a day anyway, since we can cook breakfast and one other meal at the condo, except the day we go to the one restaurant.

Not much going on today. Laundry and dishes and minor house pick up to do. And a nice day to hang clothes on the line. The weather report for this week scares me. It's going to be back in the mid to high 80's and one day at 90. Well, that will dry a lot of clothes, won't it?

Good things in the Mail

July 7th, 2007 at 11:40 pm

Two good things came in today's mail. One, I got excused from Jury Duty, thank goodness, so now I can set up swim lessons for the kids. Really did not want to serve a fifth time!

Two, the Circuit City rebate came, so that $150 will go into the EF, which will bring that account to $751.05. Yay! It's a growing. That's just $248.95 from my $1000 goal.

Survey Check

July 7th, 2007 at 09:08 pm

A $5 survey check came in the mail yesterday. It will go to my EF fund at ING as soon as I deposit it on Monday. This will bring my EF account to $601.05.

The Best Financial Advice Ever

July 6th, 2007 at 11:46 pm

Read this article today:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/TheBestFinancialAdviceEver.aspx

I thought it was interesting enough and good enough advice to pass along. Let me know what you think of it.

Writer's Block Over

July 6th, 2007 at 09:18 pm

I've had writer's block since the end of April. I really hit a wall with it, but last night it finally ended and I wrote five pages. It probably would have been more but it was late and I needed to go to sleep. But I've got lots of ideas now and I'm sure I can get another ten pages at least today.

Of course, I have to do yard work and harvest some food from the garden and add some compost around the cucumber vines and the kohlrabi and take the kids to the pool for an hour at least, so I probably won't get to it until after supper or possibly after the kids go to bed tonight. But at least I feel like I'll finish this book before the end of the year. Which is my goal.

Today is a much more manageable 75 degrees. Still a little hotter than I like but soooooo much better than yesterday's temp. The house is nice and cool from the fan's running all night and early morning. And I don't have to use the oven, so it won't get hot from that.

We aren't going anywhere today so it will be a no spend day. I do need to schedule some electronic payments to be made for next week, but I count those as made on the day they go through.

Shoot, I know there was something else I wanted to blog about today. Phooey. Well, it'll come to me eventually.

Beat the Heat and Still Eat

July 6th, 2007 at 05:31 am

Okay, so as I was complaining about earlier this evening, it is freakishly hot right now. So I've dusted of ye olde crockpots and borrowed one from Mom. That gives me three to work with. I have my three prong indoor/outdoor extension cord hooked into an outdoor outlet and I have the three crockpots lined up on my porch.

In crockpot number one we have potroast with potatoes, carrots, turnips, hubbard squash and parsnips. Out of this will come the regular potroast dinner, beef sandwiches, fajitas, and beef hash.

In crockpot number two we have two whole chickens with water, onions, garlic, carrots, parsley, and celery (including tops), salt and pepper, to make a nice stock that will be soup and the chicken will be used for quesadillas, sandwiches, enchiladas, tacos, a bit back into the soup, and added later in the week to a crockpot cacciatore.

And in crockpot number three we have beef ribs and barbecue sauce. No magic extra meals from this, but it will be a great melt in your mouth lunch tomorrow.

When the house is cool enough, at eleven or so tonight, I will cook up enough broccoli and cauliflower to use as sides for the week and roast some asparagus and some bell peppers. I'll also cook up some of my homemade sausage patties, so they will just have to be nuked in the mornings. I've done 3 pounds of salmon on the barbecue grill. Everything is going to be packages up into divided trays and meal-sized servings. Anything more than three days worth will be frozen and thawed as needed.

After tonight, I shall not have to cook again during this heat wave other than to nuke stuff, except breakfast time when I may do eggs, and a lot of breakfast is nuked anywho. So I will be a happy camper and will not have to heat the house up with the stove, a very important thing when you have no AC and only fans and the shade of trees to keep you cool.

That ING Thing

July 6th, 2007 at 05:15 am

Today was my weekly transfer of $10 to my ING savings account. That brings the new total in my Emergency Fund to $596.05. $1000 does not seem so far away anymore. My long-term goal for now is the have $5000 in that account. Although maybe I should call that my short-term long-term goal. Because my long-term long-term goal is to have six months of living expenses and that's oh, way off, and $30,000.

For now I just hope to hit $1500 by the end of the year. I think we can do that. $250 will come from the weekly ten, so that leaves just an additional $650 to come up with. We have another $150 rebate coming, so that will make it $500 to come up with. Which is about $84 a month to come up with. I usually make $30 a month at the least on surveys, so that leaves $54 a month to save.

Well, that puts things in perspective. I sure can save an additional $54 a month, no problem. I'm glad I took the time to figure this out.

Ridiculously Hot Day

July 6th, 2007 at 04:35 am

Is anyone else melting? I cannot believe how hot it was today. It got up to 85. Now I know some of you from southern climes might scoff at 85, but 85 in western WA is like 115 in Nevada. Trust me, I've been there when it's 115, I know of which I speak. It's so humid today it feels like being slapped with a hot wet towel when you step outside.

I have a friend from Puerto Rico who came to visit a couple years ago. She thought I was kidding about our pesky little 85 degrees. By the time she was to go home she said she'd much rather deal with the heat in PR, than the heat in the Pacific North West.

So anyway, I've been uncomfortable most of the afternoon. It gets really cool at night, so last night I had a fan in every window and the house was actually cold in the morning, but not unpleasantly so. I kept all the blinds and curtains closed through the day. The house stayed pleasant until about two, which was when I headed in to pick up my kids in my nice, air-conditioned car.

I went to Costco first and bought protein, beef and fish and chicken, and also kosher all beef hotdogs, some Progresso chicken soup and shampoo, allergey pills, lens cleaners and a few other items I can't think of. Oh, and a fast and easy Chinese cookbook. I wanted to buy the other Chinese cookbook they had but it was coffee table sized. Not the size to put on a coffee table, but the size of a coffee table. Big Grin I still might get it in the next pay cycle but it was awfully heavy and I'll have to think about it. It's not going to be an easy one to just whip out and use, but it had some lovely photographs. Spent exactly $127.00 at Costco. It always weirds me out when it comes out to a perfect whole number like that.

So, then I picked up the kids and we came home to a house that was now blazing hot. The outside temp was down to 70 by the time I got home around 6:30. They went down the road to play after helping me put away the groceries. I got the window fans going on the shady side of the house and opened the curtains, then turned the fans around on the sunny side of the house to pull the hot air out of the house and expel it outside, which also helps draw it in from the cool side.

The front road strips of grass were in shade so I went ahead and mowed them. It's been four or five weeks, I think since they've been done. I didn't feel too bad about it since no one else had been mowing their lawns either. Bet they will be now! Anywho, then I did the inside of the horseshoe flowerbed, which was in shade by then. I dumped the grass bag into the compost 3 times and it was stuffed full. To put this in perspective, a normal mow of those three areas will fill the bag once. I hacked down some burdock, too. Stupid stuff will take over if you let it.

I set the sprinklers in the garden to go for two hours. They'll go off at 9:20. It won't be dark until 10:20 and with this heat the plants will be dry by then.

Tomorrow I have to pick strawberries, harvest broccoli and check on the zucchini and squash plants. You should see my bush cherries. They are loaded. They won't be ready until they turn black though, probably another 3 to 4 weeks. They are bright red right now. The raspberries are just starting to turn slightly pink.

I also need to mow around the propane tank and maybe some of the back yard, and weed eat the parts in the front that are not accessible to the mower. I'm also going to cut back the clematis that has finished blooming. It's way overgrown but had too many pretty flowers on it to trim it sooner. It's supposed to be partly cloudy but still pretty hot tomorrow.

We'll probably spend an hour down at the pool as well. I want to set up our quick set pool but I have to mow the lawn in the back first though.

I Don't Get How they Get Away with It

July 5th, 2007 at 02:14 am

Last night when I dropped my DH off at the airport, I drove by the cheap gas station, an ARCO. I didn't need gas, but as usual I noted the price of gas there. It was at $2.75. Then after dropping off my kids, I saw a different gas station, a Chevron that was selling gas at $3.21 a gallon. Same grade. Same town. I expect to see a 20 cent gas difference between Arco and everyone else, as they have a local refinery here.

Now I know Chevron has the highest gas around, with Exxon and Shell running a close second, but a difference of 46 cents a gallon is ridiculous. Even the Valero out here in the county is only at $3.05, and county stations are often quite a bit higher than town ones.

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that this Chevron is price gouging. It is right off the freeway, with a back route from the McDonald's parking lot into its lot as well, and easy to get in and out of from the street, but no way is the convenience factor worth 46 cents a gallon.

Even other Chevron's in town are in the mid to low teens. This one actually went up two cents from last weekend whilst everyone else's prices dropped. No excuse for this. It's on the corner of Iowa and King in Bellingham, in case there's anyone local reading this. They certainly won't get my business. I'm surprised they are getting anyone's.

Mortgage Update

July 4th, 2007 at 06:57 am

My last mortgage payment was finally posted to my account and the new balance is $33,804.16. It is so nice to have gotten under $34,000! I like it when those numbers roll down.

DH recently went to Zillo and said they are listing our house as worth $137,000. To put this in perspective we bought the house in 1998 for $69,000. That's just $1000 short of having doubled in price. And this is just a country house. The city houses have tripled. It seems so crazy to me.

16 Favorite Money Rules of Thumb

July 3rd, 2007 at 06:52 am

I know I've been on hyper post tonight, but just one more from me and then I'll shut up until tomorrow. I read this article online today.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/Advice/16FavoriteMoneyRulesOfThumb.aspx

It was very good and well worth the read and I did learn something new from her. I'm not sure I agree with it but I follow her reasoning.

She says to pay off the cards that are maxed out first, not the one with the highest interest or the one with the lowest amount on it. She says this because having cards maxed to the limit is worse for your credit report than the ones that have plenty of room left on them.

I suppose if you are trying to improve your credit report that might be the way to go, but if the object is getting out of debt period, I'd go another way, myself.

I am curious as to what others think on this.

Finished the Fireworks

July 3rd, 2007 at 06:30 am

Just came back inside after shooting off our fireworks. We definitely got our money's worth with what we spent. I'm just going to list here what I want to get again next year so I'll remember what was good.

Rustler (fountain)****
Purple Rain (fountain)****
Kahuna's Revenge (fountain)*****
Deep Purple (20 shooter)*****

I'm happy we did it. I got my taste of the 4th and now I can happily ignore it that night while Mom takes the kids to the big crowded show and I chill out on my own at home. I hate crowds. The only place I will put up with crowds is at Disneyland and even then it has to be the off season.

Stats Stuff

July 3rd, 2007 at 05:40 am

As most of you know I am a blog stats junkie, totally a silly thing but I love watching the stats. Yesterday I hit an all-time high of 1118 pages viewed. About 2 weeks ago I had my highest ever number of unique visitors in a day of 208, but the pages viewed that day was only half of what it was yesterday when I had 148 unique visitors. And for the month of June I had the highest number of hits ever with 18,713. It came closest to that back in March at 17,911. I had a bit of a drop off when I went on vacation at the end of April and then it slowly built back up again. I think I may have lost a few people when I didn't post that vacation week. Which may happen again the end of this month when we go to the island for eight days. Oh, well, I guess they come back eventually.

EF Officially over $500 and Fireworks

July 3rd, 2007 at 05:32 am

I deposited the money and sent it off to ING so the EF has officially met my goal of hitting $500 this month.

We stopped at the fireworks booth for Lion's Club charity and bought $80 worth of fireworks to let off tonight. Usually we spend closer to $150 to $200 so this is pretty good.

DH leaves for Alaska tomorrow, so this is the only way we have of doing fireworks as a family. He hasn't been home on the 4th in the last two years either, always leaves a day or two before it. Next year he should be home for it, I think and then will go to one of the big shows.

We have the sprinkler on soaking the area we will be letting them off on. We don't have much, mostly fountains and parachutes and sparklers. We have too many trees here for anything that goes airborn. I'm going to miss the artillary shells. Normally we would go out to my sister's house and combine our stuff, but since she moved at the end of last summer we can't do that this year.

Still we have Kahuna's Revenge and purple fountains that we get every year, and two other fountains, not quite as big as Kahuna but pretty close. And we all love the fountains anyway. Plus the climbing Panda that Tobias likes. And pop-its and those little bottles full of confetti. Way tamed down but it should still be fun.

Rebate!

July 2nd, 2007 at 11:05 pm

I received my $150 rebate for my new laptop today from Office Depot. That money will be deposited today with the survey check and the rolled coin. I will send it off to ING as well. That will raise the total in my EF to $586.05. So I've met my July goal of hitting $500 in the EF. So I am going to make a new goal of hitting $650 by the end of July.

Of course, DH has a $150 rebate coming from Circuit City for his laptop. His rebate has been processed so that should be showing up soon, too. But I will adjust my goals accordingly. The real goal is to add $25 in addition to the normal $40 I put in each month. I want to reach that on top of what rebate money I put in.

Freebies in the Mail

July 2nd, 2007 at 10:56 pm

Today I received a free Gillete Venus Breeze razor in the mail from Vocalpoint. It came with 6 $4 off coupons for the razor. I don't know if anyone else does Vocalpoint here, but the point of it is to use the product and talk about it to your friends and family and give away the coupons so other people can buy the product at a good discount. I had been wanting to get this razor at the store, but I held off thinking it was too expensive. Now I'm glad I did because free is always the best point.

I also got a "sample" side dish from Knorr in the mail today. It's actually a full-size package of chicken flavored rice and veggies. It says it makes 2 servings. This one I got through A Freebie Empire, which one of the newbies to the blogs wrote about last month. Can't remember which one, but thanks to whoever it was.

Called for Jury Duty

July 2nd, 2007 at 06:56 am

I swear I am the only person I know who has ever been called for Jury Duty more than once. And I only know 2 people besides me who have been called once. I've been summoned 8 times in the last 12 years and I am so sick of it. I've even thought of unregistering to vote just so they leave me alone, but I can't stomach that.

This time around I am going to try to get excused. I haven't always tried, but 4 times I have. Once when I had severe pneumonia, once when I was 8.5 months pregnant with my first child, and once when I was due to deliver my second child. In fact he was born on the day I would have had to report for my first day of JD. I had doctor's notes for all of those. The fourth time I was homeschooling my kids with my DH out of state and they let me out.

Anyway, I decided to go ahead and plead financial hardship, because I can't afford to put my kids in some form of childcare, and I can't afford the gas to drive 55 miles a day, and my DH will be working in Alaska so there is no other parent to take care of the children. My relatives that might be able to help are in a different direction than the courthouse, so I'd be driving 110 miles a day to do this. Or else hoping my mother would take the kids for nearly two full weeks, rather unlikely.

You know, I really wouldn't mind serving again, because its is enjoyable, but it is just so hard to get everything in place to do it. And come on, I think I've done my duty four times!

I am hoping that since there has been a court case in my family since the last time I was called, I have been the victim of a crime, and I now have a close family friend who is a cop (came back from Iraq, went through the police academy and has been a cop a few months now), I'd be seen as far too biased as well.

Once my kids are grown, I think I'd love to do it again, though. Of course, they'll probably not send me a summons by then.

Rolled Coin and Survey Check

July 2nd, 2007 at 02:30 am

I received a survey check in the mail yesterday and I rolled up the coin in my coin jar today. I had:

$10.00 quarters
$10.00 dimes
$ 4.00 nickles
$ 1.50 pennies
-------
$25.50 total rolled coin
$10.00 check from NFO MySurvey
-------
$35.50 total to be deposited
$ 1.05 interest
-------
$36.55

So when that has all gone through my EF will then have a total of $436.05.

And there is the $700 from my vacation fund in there at the moment as well, all interest generated going to the EF. $500 here I come. I am hoping to hit that this month. There will be the four weekly deposits of $10.00, so I only have to come up with $23.95 to hit that goal.

If my other survey checks come this month or I get some Pinecone surveys to do I should hit that. If not, I'll try to squeeze it out of some other place in the budget.


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