This is what my family wants for Christmas. They want to get a Wii. Now I am not intrinsically opposed to getting this gaming system, I just kinda think with the fact that we've got the NES, the Super NES, the original Sega, the Nintendo 64 and the Nintendo Game Cube, plus various handheld games that the kids have gotten used over the years, why do we really need another gaming system?

But they all really want it and they all really wanted it last year, too, when it was new. There are used ones available. I won't buy one new, that's for sure. But really, why is this next generation so much better than the last? I don't get it. And won't they just put out some new system next year?

I told DH that the first thing we ought to do if he wants it that badly is to start calling pawn shops. The way people have been hit so badly in the wallet this year, it stands to reason that there are some overconsumers that had to pawn one of these babies. Last time he looked he found a purple game cube for $30 there, but I said we did not need a second one. Our main city has an inordinate amount (to me) of pawn shops, so if we can find one there, then I think I can definitely go for it.

DH is trying to tempt me with the idea of getting the Wii Fit. Well, it does look tempting, but I don't want to pay full price for it, either. I don't play video games myself. I used to, oh, back with Super NES but when it went 3-D with the 64 it made me dizzy and I quit. But using it as a work out system, I might be tempted back.

Christmas was going to be pretty tame this year since we are going to Disneyland end of February. We were planning on used video games from the used game stores and used books from the second hand bookstore for the kids. They aren't terribly picky as long as they get to play or read stuff they like. I'm kind of annoyed that DH is going back on that, when we said Disney meant a tamer Christmas. Just because he got a raise since we made that decision.

I don't know. Maybe I just need to loosen up. Or maybe he needs to remember we still have a lot of debt to pay off. I think if we can't find one in a pawn shop, I still don't want to pay $300 for a used one of a website. It won't hurt to wait another year for the used market on these things to drop some more. Well, it won't hurt me anyway. Probably just annoy me when they all whine.

I just bought 2 pairs of earrings from Pretty Cheap Jewelry for Rose. She will get them for Christmas, though she won't be able to wear them until the end of February because the holes need to heal up and not be stressed for six months.

I am putting the confirmation number here: 03N72243HG661693K because its a place I can't lose it. And actually I may end up only giving Rose one pair because I really liked the other one myself! I guess it can be part of my Christmas present from DH! All told I spent $17.50. Not bad at all.

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.

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.

Today has been a pretty long day. I had to take DH to the airport today so he could fly back to Alaska. He left early as he is covering a few days for his alternate so she can go on vacation with her husband for a little more than 2 weeks. He'll be a couple days late coming home, too. It'll mean extra money in his paychecks, which I'll probably use to rebuild the Emergency Fund, which got pretty decimated.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home as I had some rebate coupons that expire on the 27th. One was $4 off any purchase of $5 or more and the other was $2 off any purchase from the meat department. Total spent was $29.16. I went a bit over my grocery budget. My normal grocery budget is $250 and I was trying to make it be $200 for a four week period. I think I've gone over by about $20, I'll check on it later. I did buy some staples this month that needed replacing and that may be why I couldn't quite do it. I'll try again next cycle. The next four week pay cycle starts on the 26th, so I'll be able to use up the rest of my rebate coupons then, unless I have to buy milk between now and then.

I did put $250 aside for groceries regardless, so I'm not taking money from elsewhere. It just may end up that I can't get it under $200 with so many organic purchases. If so, so be it.

We had to be very careful when we left the Fred Meyer parking lot. A couple of cars weren't and they were slipping and sliding around on the ice. One did spin. It reminded me of a figure-skating spin. Fortunately they were perfectly clear when it happened and finally pulled out okay. Its okay to laugh since no one got hurt. Just because the main roads are clear and bare, people assume that parking lots are just as safe to drive on, despite the layer of thick ice. I don't get folks sometimes.

I will only be driving to town once this week, and once halfway in to the game on Saturday, and maybe to Curves, which is 12 miles from my house, 3X per week. So I may possibly be able to knock down my gas budget anyhow, even if I can't do the grocery one. We'll see.

It was bright and sunny today and got up to 30 degrees F, which was better than yesterdays 20 (-7 to the Celsius people). The combination padlock on our shed is frozen and won't turn so we couldn't bring in the ornament boxes to take down the tree before DH left. It is supposed to get up to 40 sometime this week so hopefully I can get it open then. I'd like to get that tree down. Soon.

No more fruit flies! We managed to kill the buggers off without using bug bombs. It took a week, but with fly strips, scrubbing down the kitchen, putting all food in sealed containers or Ziploc baggies, and DH vacuuming up stray ones, our kitchen is now fruit fly free. Try saying that 5 times fast.

We decided not to chance anything tonight by cooking in the kitchen so we grabbed fast food. Not healthy either physically or financially, but that's the choice we made. We just did fast food drive thru after going to the chiropractor and making our milk run to town, then back to the school just in time for Rose's basketball practice.

I made bread last night in the bread machine and I shouldn't have to make any now until Sunday. Tomorrow we shall cook again. It's spaghetti and meatballs night, with salad and fruit (either apples, blueberries, cherries or pineapple as that is what we have on hand). I need to make up a new week's worth of menues as I misplaced the other ones I'd done. Oh, to be organized.

We did do some cleaning in the laundry room, the bit that still hadn't been done yet. There's a little bit left but its almost done, will probably be done before we go to bed tonight. Which will be really nice. Hopefully tomorrow we can work on taking down the Christmas tree or at least getting the ornaments and lights off. I want it done before DH leaves for Alaska on Sunday. I want my living room back before he goes and the tree itself is to heavy for me to haul out to the shed for storage (its fake).

One of these days I will be organized! And I believe that slightly more than I believe my neighbor will ever pay me back the $11.55 he owes me. Anyone have a bridge for sale?

I am mass producing lasagnas today, it is a long and exhausting process making these babies from scratch, but I'd rather do several in a day than one at a time anyway, since it pretty much involves getting every pot and pan in the house dirty, not to mention the food processor and the salad shooter, a couple cutting boards and a chef's knife.

But it is coming along and it is sauce time so the house is about to smell very, very good. In the midst of thawing and cooking hamburger, boiling whole wheat noodles, shredding cheese, chopping onions and garlic, digging around in the cupboard to find the big bulk containers of basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, sea salt and green, white, and black peppercorns, draining diced tomatoes, making sure there is enough butter to grease all the pans with (hey, this is not low-fat lasagna, after all, even if I am using leanest hamburger and skim mozzarella), I also had to make peanutbutter cookies for Santa Claus.

I did make the peanutbutter cookies a little healthier by using extra virgin olive oil instead of vegetable oil, whole wheat flour instead of white flour, and an omega-3 organic egg. At least they are higher in protein than most cookies. I had one with my balanced dinner and they taste much better than regular peanutbutter cookies so I'm happy. I probably won't eat anymore of them, though.

Well, my break is over. DH has processed more onions for the second batch of sauce. He is crying. Literally, from the onions, so I best go help him out.

By the way my blood pressure is down to 120/80 and I am feeling a lot better today.

Things I have done that needed doing:

Cancelled (again) AutoVantage
Cancelled (again) Tickle.com
Cancelled (again) Preferred Home Network
Cancelled Onlingo
Cancelled Video Professor

I don't know if I will get any money back from the companies that I had already cancelled months ago and they failed to stop charging my credit card or not, but I did lodge complaints about AutoVantage and PHN, with BBB. They were very rude to me on the phone about it, even though I had confirmation numbers and names of people I had spoken too. Tickle was very nice to me and promised they would look into it and refund any money that was due back. Notice how they didn't get reported to the BBB. If any of them try to charge me again we'll go the route of disputing with the credit card and seeing if we can't block charges from those companies.

I finished knitting one hat for Dad and worked some more on Rose's scarf.

I went to the bookstore and bought my Christmas presents from Mom which I will give her tomorrow to wrap and give back to me on Christmas Eve. It seems silly to do it that way and a waste of wrapping paper, but its what she wants to do, so okay. The books I got were by David Bach, both that I have read before and wanted my own copies of, The Automatic Millionaire and Smart Couples Finish Rich. I had $3.65 left over out of the money she gave me for my present. I think I may break my no sugar rule and get a gelato for myself with it! But not until I'm alone after the kids have gone back to school and DH is up in Alaska again.

Today was the day of the automatic deposit of $10 to savings so I sent that off to ING.

I went to Costco and got all the fixings for my Christmas Lasagnas, except noodles, they didn't have there and I forgot to get them when we were at Fred Meyer later so I'll have to get them tomorrow. We have to go back to town tomorrow because our front door knob will not open from the inside anymore. It just stopped working and DH is unable to fix it with his usual tinkering. We could just go out the back door but its not in the best location what with all the extension cords for the Christmas lights. It's also quite a ways from the alarm system, which gives you 30 seconds to get out the door before it goes off. Which is fine if it is just you and not two little kids you are trying to rush out the door. So we will be buying a door knob and lasagna noodles.

I picked up a copy of The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto at the library today. Reading it on the net was just getting to my eyes and really, I just prefer reading books on the printed page.

My day in a nutshell.

Finally! We put up our Christmas tree today. I don't think I've ever had to wait this long before to have one in the house. We still haven't decorated it yet, the kids are watching Ant Bully and DH is watching with them and I'm not going to be the one to go drag the ornaments out of the shed in the dark. So maybe it won't get done until tomorrow. That's fine with me. Just putting it together was exhausting.

It was a no spend day today which I am glad of, being as its the first one in a good while, what with all the Christmas shopping and eating out twice. My package from Amazon came today so that takes care of my mother. I still need to get the gift certificates from McD's for my nephews and finish knitting Dad's hats, but then I'm done on gifts. I think.

I haven't done any PTR's since DH came home, we have just been too busy. I might get a chance to do one tonight, who knows though.

Tomorrow the kids are going to spend the day at MIL's house along with SIL's two daughters and DH and I will finally get some alone time. Looking forward to that. We are going to go see a movie, the new Cameron Diaz/Kate Winslett one. I've read mixed reviews but I still want to see it. It's been so long since I've seen a movie in the theater. The Lake House and X-Men 3 were the last ones we saw. We will go at matinee time as it is much cheaper then, although not nearly as cheap as it used to be. We never buy from the concession stand, we just make sure we are not hungry when we go to the movie. Movie popcorn never tastes as good as it smells anyway.

I think that about covers it.

Not too much to report on today. I did finally get my antibiotics so maybe I can put this sinus infection to rest. That would be good. Prescription cost $25.

I also spent $23.17 at the grocery store buying organic meat.

DH took the kids to the Santa Train. I decided that I would just make myself sicker if I went, so I didn't. They had a good time, and had a great photo taken with Santa.

I did drive down Starry Road tonight to see some of the lights. They have some amazing houses out that way, storybook beautiful, so I at least saw a little without being exposed to the cold air.

DH found my notebook tonight of all the trial offer membership numbers and when stuff was cancelled, confirmation numbers and the name of the person I spoke to. Now I can go to town on the companies that did not cancel my memberships when they said they would and have continued to charge me. And I will take no prisoners.

Lisa in WA

Rose's games went pretty well today. They didn't win either one, the first
one was hard as the other team had 3 girls who were taller than Rose by a
head or more and she's the tallest player on her team. And there was a lot
of fouling going on that wasn't called.

The other team would hook their feet around in front of our players ankles and trip them. It looked like a move that they were taught to do, when you have four out of five players doing it consistently, it is not an accident and it isn't just one person playing poorly. That's bad coaching and bad reffing to allow it. I've seen similar things in soccer and it can really cause injuries. In fact it did here, one of the girls had to leave the court and sit out for about 15 minutes it hurt her ankle so much. At least the refs were calling on the double dribbling and traveling the other team did. So the end score was 22-12.

The second game went a lot better, they only had one girl who was a head taller than Rose, and a few of similar heights to our girls. It was a tight game, well played, although one of our girls suddenly got really scared of shooting. She is a good shooter but it's like she's afraid of missing so instead of taking shots when she's in a great place with no guards on her, she'll pass it to someone, and not usually to someone who is open. She could have scored half a dozen times, but its like her confidence
went away. Still, our team did great and the score ended up being 32-26,
only a six point spread.

Afterwards, the kids went with MIL and FIL down to Stanwood for the Christmas thingy at some campground, like a Christmas Fair with tons of lights and stuff to do, so DH and I got a lot of time to ourselves. We went out for RM dinner to our favorite Mexican place. I'm sure its not hydrogenated fat free, but I gave in as DH really wanted to
go there. We ate way too much food! But only spent $24.14 plus $5 tip.

DH and I went shopping and got gifts taken care of for FIL, MIL, both young nieces, and the yarn for me to make Dad two hats. I'll have to knit in overdrive but since I can do a hat in 3 hours it should be no problem.

I also bought the throwaway containers to make the 2 lasagnas that are BIL and FIL's requested Christmas presents. And two more because both sets of parents (mine and DH's) have requested my lasagna at their Christmas get togethers. At least its easy to mass produce! I still have to buy the ingredients, though. I make them in the throwaways or it can be months before I see my glass cookware again.

Then at home I ordered Mom's present to be delivered by Wednesday, and 2 CD's that I wanted for DH to give me. That just leaves me with the McD gift certificates for 3 of my nephews (I quit giving to nieces and nephews after their senior year of high school). Now I just have to go with DH to buy his weight bench and I am done!

So obviously it was a very busy and very productive day. Tomorrow will be
productive too, but for less happy reasons, we are CLEANING the house.
Yuck. Deep cleaning. But then we will finally put our tree up. Yeah, don't have it up yet. But you should see the outside of the house. In fact, you probably can from googlespace, LOL. It's a tad decorated with the lights. Oh and MIL and FIL gave us two more yard decorations, like we needed more lights! DH will put them up tomorrow, though.

Oh, and we bought gas today on the Costco cash card.

Today, well technically yesterday as its after midnight, was a no spend day. We didn't go anywhere so that makes it pretty easy to achieve.

I cashed out a PTR today, $5 from TinklyCash. They generally have 24 hour payout, but after that last time with the owner gone on a trip it took a couple weeks, so who knows?

I was able to put up a few more light displays, a nutcracker and a penguin on tree stumps in the garden, and the seal that spins a package on its nose I decided to try to put up on top of the arbor. It was a little difficult to hoist it up there, but I got it up there and cabled it to the arbor and it looks great. I like having...I guess I'd call it texture in my display. So stuff isn't all just flat and at one height.

I'll have to wait until DH comes home to do the train. It is just too heavy for me to lift with one hand and where it goes, I have to climb a ladder to get it up there. Fortunately he will flies home on Wednesday morning.

I wanted to go out to eat today but told myself no and we had a smorgasboard of leftovers. They need to be eaten and money certainly didn't need to be spent. I really didn't want to cook and I think that is why I was wanting to go out, but I really only had to warm stuff up in the micro so its not like I had to cook.

I am planning on going to town tomorrow as soon as the kids get on the school bus. I have a few groceries I want to pick up and I need to deposit a check that came in the mail yesterday. Depending on my energy levels I may pick up the gifts for MIL and FIL and my mother. I hope to be back home in time for lunch. If I eat a good breakfast before I leave I don't think I will be tempted to go out for lunch, but if I leave the house without eating, which I am prone to do, I will have no resistance at all. Now is not the time to be wasting money. Especially with a fridge full of homecooked leftovers.

I guess I've gotten out of the habit of keeping a running total on savings since I started diverting some of the money that was going there to paying off debt. But I did do a tally today and the grand total of all my savings accounts is now at $1600.98.

I am so anxious for January to get here. I am so anxious about what DH's raise will be so I can plan out the year. That is just about driving me crazy, not knowing yet. It is supposed to be substantial this year. Supposed to be. I hope so. Last year's raise was more than eaten up by the insurance rates going up. And they are going up again this year by $6 a week. Not nearly as bad as last year's increase which was about $150 a month if I recall correctly. It might have been more.

Gas and propane costs are out of control here. It really doesn't help that our gas tax is 30.1 cents per gallon. I think I may order a cord of super dry firewood to help with the less seasoned stuff that does not want to burn. Almost all the snow has melted off the wood pile and it has thawed out enough to break it apart again, but it still is quite damp from the soaking it took back during the bad rain/windstorm where we lost power.

I have added more Christmas lights. I ran green twinkle lights around the picket fence that goes around the garden and did the arbor in red LED lights. They don't appear to have green LED lights yet, or at least don't have them in our area. Over the last couple days I also did one tree in pinkish purple lights and one tree in amber yellow lights.

I stil have a ways to go. I have to do 4 windows, put up the penguin, the nutcracker, the seal that spins a Christmas present on its nose, the lollipops, a star, the rope light train and the blowup Santa Train. I'm getting there, though. The place where the rope light train goes has almost melted down enough that the snow won't be in the way anymore.

I'm hoping to get some done tomorrow. Rose woke up feeling great today (hooray for zithromax!) so we will be going to her basketball game, or rather games (2) tomorrow. They are back to back, thank goodness so it doesn't mean going to the high school twice in one day. I dislike that the 5th/6th grade teams play at the high school. The 3rd/4th play at the elementary which is where they all practice and it is closer. It's driving 10 miles instead of 1.2 miles one way. But the gym is nicer and the bleachers are better, so there is a bright side.

Today was payday so I will do a seperate entry on bills paid today, later. Otherwise, I think that is it for today.

Three more things for the list.

10. DH and I got a little ornament of two foxes snuggled in a snow-covered log that says Our First Christmas Together the first Christmas we started dating (we were engaged by then). Every year we hang it on the tree together and then kiss and listen to the kids go ewwww. It used to be the first ornament on the tree before we had kids old enough to be too impatient to wait, so we just do it now when we come to it in the box of ornaments.

11. We have an ornament we buy each year from Hallmark, in the Puppy Love collection. We have collected them from the start, which was the year after Our First Christmas Together.

12. Each one in our family has a giant bulb that I have used gold glitter glue to write their names on. I've had to replace a couple over the years, DH's has been broken twice and Rose's once. We each hang our name ornament as a ritual at the end of decorating the tree.

Today was a very lazy day for me. I read a little, did dishes, and cooked a bit. Spent $10.60 on food, so an almost no spend day. Yesterday was a no spend day.

The $3 from Paypal was deposited today so that will go to the CC payoff account.

Tomorrow I am going to go to town and try to get the rest of my Christmas shopping done. I know what I am getting for FIL and MIL, I have one neice left to shop for but I'm pretty sure I know what I am getting there, also. The nephews just get a $5 gift certificate for McD's, so I need to pick up 3 of those. I don't buy for my sister or her husband we just do the kids 18 and under.

I need to pick up the ingredients for making lasagna pretty soon. I am making two pans for SIL and BIL to have as their present, they love it so much. Then I have to make a pan for Christmas Even and a pan for Christmas Day.

Plus I need to knit 6 square potholders and finish Rose's scarf. That shouldn't take too long, I just need to find the time to do it. If I hadn't been so lazy today I probably could have finished the scarf.

Okay, so Ray asked, and I'm still awake, so I'll put down ours.

1. The James Street Estates--this is an upscale manufactured home park in Bellingham where nearly every single house is done up in lights, standees, and blowups. It is amazing. Every year we drive through it at least twice, once as soon as DH is home to do it and once on Christmas Eve night. It's set up with blinking arrows that show which way to go to control the traffic.

2. The Santa Train--in Birch Bay there is a miniature golf/go cart track/miniature train place that they do up completely in lights, tens of thousands of lights and everything decorated. It is not too expensive and the cost of the ticket comes with hot chocolate and cookies. After riding the train you get out at Santa's house and go in and see him. You can also get your photo taken with him. The mall Santa pales in comparison to this for my kids--and me and DH, too.

3. The Lasanga--Every year for Christmas I make two big lazangas, one to take to my mother's house on Christmas Eve night and one to take to MIL's house on Christmas Day. I'm not allowed to not make it anymore.

4. Christmas Eve morning--We read the Christmas story from the Bible and then the kids open their stockings and we then do presents and they have plenty of time to play before we must pack up to go to my Mom's house in the evening.

5. Hatchery Road--Another massive light display, with several blow ups. They have trees that are several stories high that they have lit, I don't know how, maybe with a cherry picker. This is a side jaunt from the highway and the road leads back to the highway as well. We drive down this road on the way home every time we see it lit.

6. Every other year we get a real tree. We go to Peterson's Christmas Tree Farm and they have hot apple cider and hot chocolate. We get to wander the grounds and pick out a tree, cut it down and haul it back ourselves.

7. On the year we don't have a real tree we put up a seven foot tall artificial white tree that is decorated completely in silver, white, crystal and blue. On the year we get a real tree, its everything goes on the ornaments and either tree we string popcorn for it. After we take the tree down we hang the popcorn strings outside for the birds to eat. One year we had both the artificial tree and a four foot tall real tree that the kids decorated all by themselves and we may do that again this year.

8. Totally go crazy decorating the outside of the house with lights. We didn't when I was a kid and it was something I swore I'd always do for my kids when we had a house. Although I think I do a lot of it for me, too.

9. Put up a Christmas village inside the house, along with a Nativity and some Christmas snow globes.

I spent a couple of hours putting up part of the outdoor display. I got the two rope light standing panda bears up, the 7 foot tall green and red rope light tree which will flash in alternating red and green at various speeds, or stay solid, up, got the 2 penguins riding on a sled rope light up and hung the blue snowflake ropelight from the honeysuckle trellis. I cabled those together and locked the cable around one of the big cedar trees.

Then I had to wrestle with the deer. One of them has a broken antler so I tied it in place with a couple pieces of clothesline. I have two deer that move their heads, one up and down and the other side to side with it lowered as if grazing and then a baby one stands between them and doesn't do anything. I finally got them all assembled and set up and cabled them together and locked them around a 12 inch diameter fir tree.

I had wanted to get more done, but I had to spend some time unburying extension cords, some of which had frozen to the ground, and then untwisting them not only from around each other but from themeselves. I ended up breaking a prong off one of the three head extension cords, was not happy about it, though it might still work with non-heavy duty lights. I'll wait until DH can look at it, he's handy with electricity and has the knowledge. Anyway, I ran out of sunlight.

I hope to get the trains up, the blue tree up, the bush blankets and tree blankets up, the red and white lollipops and silver star up, do the garden arbor (now that the snow has melted off), run lights along the picket fence and put icicles on the shed, during the next week. We'll see if the weather holds.

...what I want for Christmas. Well, my in-laws, really. I really hate that question sometimes. There isn't really anything that I truly want that I would feel comfortable asking someone else to get for me.

Like the $780 knife set that I want "someday"
Or a new car

But as for things, I just don't need things. I'd ask for money but I know that they don't want to give me money, they want something they can charge and not really worry about paying for RIGHT NOW. And that's a whole other reason why I don't want to answer that question.

I do not need more stuff to clutter the house with. I do not need another stuffed penguin or figurine (despite my collection, I am much more selective on what I choose to add to it then anyone else is). I do not need another candle holder. I don't need clothes and don't like other people picking them out when I do.

Really, the only thing I want is cash to put into savings or to pay debt down with. I wonder if I could get them to put money on a Costco cash card that I could use for gas, or a grocery store gift certificate. I doubt they would think those are "real" presents. But that is what I want. If they don't want to give me what I want then why do the keep asking me what I want?