I made my coin jar deposit at CU#2 into the safety net portion of the Emergency Fund. The exchange rate was excellent as between my $41 in American and $20 in Canadian, I had a deposit of $60.62. That's almost at par! Anyway that brings the safety net up to $307.03. I also transferred $100 to ING into the Emergency Fund there so my total EF between the two is now $1545.51, so I have hit my goal of $1500 in the EF by the end of August, and a whole month early. My next goal is to hit $2000.

I also paid bills today for the rest of the month. There is nothing else due between now and the 1st.

$__33.08 (4 prescriptions, medical)
$__90.00 (physical therapy, medical)
$___9.38 (walk in clinic, medical)
$_100.00 Cash Out
$__44.89 (phone, old house)
$__37.68 (garbage, new house)
$_125.00 (laptop, 18 months same as cash)
$__65.56 (internet)
$_100.00 Emergency Fund
$1000.00 Holding Tank for Medical
$_757.82 Car payment with an extra $250 to principal)
$_500.00 Holding Tank First week of August bills
------------
$2863.41

The remaining amount of this paycheck will be spent on our road trip for hotels and food and $100 to clothes and toiletries. $1000 of next week's paycheck will be set aside for medical and $200 for groceries.

I'm really starting to feel like we are getting ahead of the game, paying bills early and setting aside money for future expenses. We are still a bit paycheck to paycheck, but I think we're pulling ahead now by a couple of weeks worth of expenses.

The plumbing in my mother's house decided to blow up last night. And Mom being Mom (i.e. cheapest woman on the planet at the moment) didn't want to pay for it to be fixed. It would be one thing if the money wasn't there, but the money is there and I'm sorry, but seriously, we need to be able to flush the toilet (and use the dishwasher and wash clothes), so yeah, things do need to drain out through the pipes. We did eventually convince her to get someone out.

Turns out the problem is between the house and the road. So someone else (i.e. someone cheaper) is coming out tomorrow to locate exactly where and then dig and fix (hopefully.)

At least DH, DD, DS and I can go to the health club to shower. And I have lots of paper plates, cups, bowls, and plasticware. And we can go wash clothes at DH's parents' house if it comes down to it. So we are putting as little impact on the pipes as possible.

Not much to report today. I spent $2 to rent two movies out of one of those vending machine boxes in the grocery store that rent movies. Tron Legacy and Skyline. Watched the first one with the kids and will watch the second one on my own (not sure that it won't have too much violence or swearing for them to see it).

We went to the health club and swam today. The pool was very crowded, surprisingly. A lot of really little kids, but it did thin out enough by 4:30 for me to get fifteen laps in. DS swam alongside me and managed to do thirteen laps. He's a good little swimmer.

I also spent $15 on paper plates, bowls, plasticware and plastic cups. The basement flooded and the hot water tank for the end of the house with the dishwasher in it had the pilot light put out by the water. Until it goes down it can't be relit. It'll probably take a couple days to pump it all out, and since I am not wanting to wash dishes by hand in my end of the house I decided to waste the $15.

So all in all, $17 spent today, none of it what I would call necessary spending, but it will make my life easier.

I went up to Walgreen's after school with DD to see if they had that Organix Renpure shampoo that some of you were talking about that was buy one, get one with a rebate attached. My daughter was out of shampoo and she can't use mine because it is for oily hair only (and I'm very possessive of it, because it is super hard to find unless I order it online and incur shipping costs). Her dad's shampoo is too harsh for her hair and smells very masculine, and her brother's special chemical free, fragrant free, allergen free stuff is too expensive for anyone else to use.

She's good about using whatever I buy, but it has to be available. Usually I just get the 99 cent bottle of VO5 in strawberry, but this works, too. Two bottles of shampoo for the eventual cost of just a stamp, envelope, and sales tax sounds good to me.

I ended up spending a total of $38.12 there, $6.99 of which will be reimbursed. They had the VO5 conditioner on for 79 cents on sale in Freesia, which she likes the smell of. Also got cheap hairspray, a package of headbands for DD because her head is too big for the ones she's had for years, 100 count Excedrin PM, and a thing of Vick's Sinex because I ran out. That nasal spray is expensive and I never see coupons for it. The register printed out a coupon for a free bottle of Afrin nasal spray or up to $7 off, so I will use that the next time I go. I prefer Sinex, but Afrin is one of the few other types that works on me.

I set up a spreadsheet when we got home to track rebates and filled out the form and got it ready in an envelope to send off tomorrow. Rebating only works if you remember to do it! I'm not sure that I'll get into it too much, but doing it once in a while when I find out about it and it takes no effort on my part, then I will.

DD and I also had a talk about why we are pinching so tight right now in some areas, like eating out, so we can finish getting out of debt and save up for a new house. I find it helps to talk to her periodically about it, because sometimes she forgets and thinks she can't have anything she wants so doesn't ask for it at all. She does get what I think is a quite adequate allowance of $10 a week so she has plenty of her own spending money. She does a lot for it, including making dinner a couple nights a week on her own, and helps me almost every other night unless she has a ton of homework.

And if she babysits her brother for any serious length of time (more than an hour) she gets paid for that, too. There was nothing my sisters resented more when I was growing up than being forced to babysit me for free when they could have been babysitting the neighbor kids for a profit. It isn't much, just $3 an hour, and it's pretty rare, maybe once a month that it happens.

I found a recipe online today for pita bread. I looked through several until I found one that looked easy and still made pockets. Most of the easy ones were flat and didn't puff. It is more simple than making English muffins which I've done before. We're getting bored with buns all the time for sandwiches so I thought I'd change it up. It'll be cheaper than the bun recipe to make, even accounting for the fact that it only makes 8 servings, so I'd have to make two batches in a week. If it works well I will post the recipe.

I called the old homeowner's association to make sure that they received the dues since they still haven't cashed the check we left on 1/31 or sent out a receipt. The girl at the desk said that yes, they'd received it, so now I just have to wait for them to deposit it.

I paid the mortgage payment today of $386.14.

The propane bill for the old house came today and ouch. It was just over $400. This is the first fill up we've done since July. I'm going out to the house Sunday to finish packing up the laundry room and the one kitchen cupboard, maybe finish the living room, and put out the rubbish bin. We've been keeping the temp at 60 so the pipes don't freeze, but it's been around 45 outside for the past month, with no snow since mid-January, so I am going to drop it down to 50. The house is pretty energy efficient and the thermostat may not even kick on unless it drops below freezing outside. Come the end of March we can turn it off altogether.

I haven't been setting money aside for propane but that will change with the next paycycle. I'll start putting aside $80 a month. We may not need to use it but at least it will be set aside. I used to do that, budget for bills that weren't monthly, but I got out of the habit. I've set up a new spreadsheet for the budget that goes into effect on the 18th. It has categories for these non-monthly payments.

Okay, now food today:

Breakfast:
Eggs (free from chickens)
Hashbrowns ($1)
Milk ($1.50)
Total: $2.50)

Lunch:
2 kids
Orangic deli meat sandwiches on homemade buns ($3.25)
orange (.50)
apple (.50)
baggies of plain potato chips (.50)
water

Me
Leftover bowl of TJ's chicken noodle soup (free)
Chicken leg (.50)
salad (.25)
water
Total: $5.50

Dinner:
Homemade pizza:
dough ($1)
cheese ($2)
sauce (leftover from homemade spaghetti sauce, so free)
herbs (.25)
2 ounces pepperoni (.75)
2 ounces salami (.75)
4 ounces ground beef with sausage seasoning (.60)
1/4 chopped yellow onion (.15)
Homemade breadsticks:
Dough ($1)
Parmesan cheese (.25)
Can of Pineapple ($1)
Can of green beans ($1)
Milk ($1.50)
Total: $10.25

There will be an extra ball of dough for a future pizza out of this as well as leftover pizza and breadsticks so that will make a future meal or two this week, especially with DH gone and not eating it. With that in mind the $10.25 is not as expensive as it first appears.

Total $18.25 for the day, so under the goal of $20 a day.

The wind is blowing like crazy today so I made sure we had our flashlights located and found a supply of fresh batteries I knew we had in case of power failure tonight. We've also got those rechargable things that plug into outlets and when it gets dark or there is a power failure they come on, so we are set.

Added $1.91 in coins to the change jar.

...but since I'm trying to make daily blogging a habit again, here I am.

I paid out $46.27 for perscriptions today. Two generics and one pricey brand name that is unfortunately the only med that works for me. At least the insurance with DH's new job is good. The pricey one is $40. The other two were cheaper than our insurance so bought those outright.

I also paid $5.99 for milk while I was there because we are supposed to get socked with a snowstorm overnight and if we do I didn't want to run out of the one thing I can't make from scratch in a pinch. (No, I won't drink dried milk, I've tried it every way they've suggested to make it taste better, but just ew). Part of me hopes it snows so bad the schools shut down. The other part of me doesn't want to be stuck in the house with the kids all day and really wants what is currently on the ground to melt instead and for winter to be a distant memory.

I know I've been AWOL for the last two weeks but our house was broken into twice and we've been dealing with a lot of stuff because of it. The first time they jimmied a window open it happened to be the one that was wired to the alarm system. It was originally the nursery and the only bedroom that the door wasn't covered by the motion sensor. The alarm went off and it was enough to scare them away. The police found the window raised two inches.

We came out and saw that nothing that was still in the house had been touched so we figured that was that. We made triple sure all the windows were locked and the deadbolts were drawn and came back home. That was a Friday afternoon. That Sunday morning at six a.m. we got another call that our alarm was going off so we let my mother know what was going on so we could leave the kids and we went out there.

Another window was open two inches, but the weird thing was that the screen was in place. So somehow they were jimmying the lock again and it was for sure that we hadn't accidentally left one unlocked. This time, though nothing was stolen, they ripped both the alarm box and the alarm code panel off the wall. The back door deadbolt was not in place. So we figure they came in, ripped the alarm off with the hope of coming back later and it no longer working, and stealing. Then they ran through the house and out the back door leaving the dead bolt open. Then they came back and put the screen in place.

Well, this time Chris and I put screws in all the window frames to prevent the windows from being raised at all. Chris, being an electrical engineer was able to rewire both the alarm box and the alarm code panel and put them back into place and we tested them to be sure they were working again and they were. We spent the next week packing boxes and moving them to storage. It's ridiculous how much still needs to be done there, but at least there have been no more alarms going off and no more breaking in, though they may have attemtped it. The sheriff's deputy was able to get one really nice fingerprint off the window, but nothing has come of it so far and nothing probably will.

I don't actually feel violated, probably because nothing was stolen and we weren't living there at the time and all of the stuff that's really worth anything except the piano was moved before any of this happened. And the piano we never paid any money for, it was a family hand me down and really, who's going to try to walk off with a piano? Yeah, it would be sad if it were vandalized, but in the end we can get a good used piano for $500 out of the want ads. No one is playing right now anyway. We are going to have it moved the next time Chris comes home though.

Mostly I feel like all of the money we've paid to the security company over the years hasn't been wasted, because even if there was nothing to steal, there still could have been an opportunity for vandalism and I do not want to have to clean up after that. It's no fun. I've seen what some of the homeowners out there have gone through when they've gone on vacation and had no security system and come back to shaving gel and silly string and spray paint on the walls inside their homes.

In other news, my emergency fund made a whopping forty-eight cents in interest last month. We got $800 more than we were expecting back on our tax return. Something about not making over $150,000 so we got a stimulus thingy or something. I had no idea they were doing that this year. Before when it's happened it hasn't been part of the return it was a seperate check sent at a different time.

I decided to put $1000.00 of the return into the EF and $1000.00 of it away for summer camp. Both kids want to go for at least a week this summer and with the extra money we can actually swing two weeks for both of them, plus some day camp for my son. That brings the EF to $1,520.64.

$1000.00 has been set aside for moving expenses and house repairs and the last $1000.00 I haven't done anything with yet, but half of it will go to pay for half year property taxes and the other half will go into the safety net short term savings.

I hate having such big returns, we could really use that money throughout the year, but because of how Chris works we can't. He works two weeks on, two weeks off, but they tax his paychecks as if he were bringing one home of equal amount each week, instead of two weeks pay covering four weeks. Or now that he's switching to 3 on, 3 off for the spring/summer, it'll be 3 weeks pay covering 6 weeks. It sucks and it's stupid, but there is nothing we can do about it. Every year we check the tax law to see if anything has changed so that won't happen, but the answer is always no.

I haven't been using much cash for the past three weeks so I haven't bothered to empty out my purse in that amount of time. I did tonight and was pleasantly surprised to find $6.16 in coins. No wonder it was feeling heavy.

$73.32 starting balance
+ 6.16 amount added
-------
$79.48 ending balance

I really need to take that in soon. I keep procrastinating it.

We got an "extra" paycheck this month. We get two a year, where it just happens to fall in such a way that no bills have to paid out of it. That money will go into short term savings for the adjustment period into the 3 on, 3 off changeover, just in case. If the adjustment goes smoothly and we don't use it, after a couple of months I'll move that money into the EF. If it doesn't, and it usually doesn't, we'll end up using it. I'm better prepared for it this year though, so I'm hoping we won't need it. And that about wraps things up.

We lost power again last night again during a windstorm. Fortunately it was only for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, it didn't really affect us and we didn't lose any food because of it.

We've started using the wood stove for heat now anyway and will be for the rest of the year and through spring of next year, so we had heat. It'll be nice not to have a heating bill. All that work we did the summer of '07 will finally pay off. It's nice dry wood now and it heats very well compared to some we've had in the past.

I cleaned out my coin compartment in my purse today and had five ones so I added $7.12 to my coin jar.

$11.14 starting balance
$07.12 added
-------
$18.26 new balance

Not bad for only one week into October. All coin jar money goes towards vacation. DH says he put some money in there too, so the amount is a bit higher, but I don't want to dump and count it out. He doesn't think it was more than fifty cents.

Well, I say big storm. Not exactly a hurricane or the like, but relatively big for our area. It was enough to knock power out through much of NW Washingtion, us included. It went out at about five, just when I was in the middle of cooking a lasagna. It went into the fridge with a bag of ice from the freezer so it didn't heat it up too badly in there.

First thing we did was clean off the woodstove and the surrounding area while it was still light. It's kind of been used as a catch all for the summer. It only took about 20 minutes to get it cleared and to empty the ash from last year. DH was supposed to have done that before we shut it down for the summer, but he forgot. Apparently.

Anyway, we didn't end up needing to use the woodstove because the temperature outside didn't drop below 58 degrees. But it's cleared now, so the few nights when it's dropped down to the 30's and 40's and I've had to use the propane will be a thing of the past. We intend to use the wood stove for the rest of the fall/winter/spring. We have all the free wood we cut up and chopped from the summer of '07 and it is bone dry now. So no more heating bills after the next propane bill comes due. It's got maybe 3 weeks of sporadic use on it.

We did end up going out for dinner in a little town down the mountain about fifteen minutes drive away, where they still had power. The place we wanted to go was packed so badly people were eating outside under the awning, in the rain. No thank you.

We ended up at a smaller family style restaurant that is tucked away from the main strip. It was good food and everybody cleared their plates, but the cost was still higher than I like to pay on a meal out for four. With tip it came to $63. Won't be doing that again for a while, but it was great service and delicious.

If we'd had the makings for anything that wasn't raw or didn't need to be heated up, we'd have done that instead. We were even out of peanut butter and bread, but I go shopping today to remedy that. We've been eating out of our cupboards for three months while we use up stuff that's been there for ages. Empty cupboards just happened to coincide with power failure. *sighs*

We had power back before we went to bed when they'd been anticipating not having it back until today some time. Not too bad, considering.

It snowed about 2 inches today. This is on top of the foot that is already on the ground. It was a real pain because last night was garbage night, so although it was really easy to get the can out to the end of the drive, getting back in when the path was covered with 2 inches of snow was not a lot of fun. At least the recycle bins were easy as I don't have to drag them through the snow.

It also meant that school was delayed for 2 hours. I am starting to think I live in an area of whimps. I mean, come on, I get closing down for lots of snow and/or if it is really cold, but it was 32 today, as opposed to the 20 its been so, what are they thinking? The highway is still bare and they weren't operating on snow routes so what gives?

I swear my kids haven't had more than five full days of school since mid-November, either they close down completely or they open late, or if there is a good day its a holiday. They're going to end up going to school until July to make up all the missed time at this rate!

It started to thaw a bit around four and rained just long enough to get the roads slick and then the temp dropped to 32 again and it is snowing, kind of, again. So that is the makings for black ice fun. Probably another late day tomorrow. I swear my daughter put in more hours when we were homeschooling than she does right now.

It totally messed up my plans for the day of going to Curves and driving to the little bank branch nearby and paying my credit card bill. I will go tomorrow. I don't like going to Curves in the afternoon as there are always too many people there then. I did shovel out my driveway again, so I got some exercise, and I walked on my treadmill for 20 minutes. I'll probably have to shovel again tomorrow.

If I can't get out tomorrow I will pay the CC on line but since I am paying out of two different checking accounts it is easier to do it in person.

I really don't like El Nino years. It is great for the southeast coast as the El Nino weather systems tend to rip apart hurricanes before they make landfall, and nice for the mid-west as they get milder winters, and easier on the east coast, too. But the west coast and the rockies get socked by very cold winters. Oh, I knew it was coming. You don't have a summer as ridiculously hot as ours was this year without it being followed by a bad winter with lots of snow and windstorms. And we are supposed to have an early spring and another hot summer. It can't come soon enough for me.

Still, I'd rather get socked with cold and snow here (as long as we have power and heat) than have the southeast endure those mind-shockingly horrific hurricanes. Just wish there was a happy medium when I'm up to my knees in ice.

Yeah, right. So far we have one foot of snow, but it was supposed to be not as bad as last time. Silly meterologists, predicting the weather is not for mere mortal men.

We did not end up going to the meeting tonight, the roads are like glass. Did they reschedule the meeting? No. Did I write a disgruntled email to the school district superintendant? Yes. I shouldn't have to risk my life on the roads to meet their stupid state law standards.

As of 4 p.m. six school buses had slid off the road, 2 semi-trucks had jack-knifed and several cars were in ditches county-wide. But no, we aren't going to reschedule. I don't think they actually want parents to attend. Hence them not even sending the information notice home until last night. Not the brightest people in the world, those who run our school district. Scary thought, isn't it?

Today ended up being a no spend day as we weren't about to go out on the roads just for one item at the grocery store.

Dinner was a smorgasboard of leftovers for everyone but me. There wasn't enough for me, so I had whole wheat pancakes, ham, some cherries, and a salad. Weird, I know, but I do try to balance my meals.

Our neighbor had the nerve to ask us if he could borrow money again. He still owes us $11.55 that he has said at least 3 times he will pay back on "payday" but whenever payday came he never did.

Even if we had the money we wouldn't loan it to him. When DH said we had no cash on hand (well, except $7 or so in the change jar and we need to save that for milk in case we can't get to town we can use it at the gas station) he had the nerve to ask for us to write out a check to the store for him. Yeah, right. I don't give my mother a blank check for anything, let alone some guy with a history like his. I don't believe some people.

DH just went down to the gas station and filled one of our gas cans for $12.50 so we have it on hand for the generator. We have already had one brief power failure today and winds are expected to be nastier tonight, plus there is a very good chance of heavy snow if the temperatures plummet. Nothing like the 2 feet we got last time, but several inches.

I hope it doesn't hit us, but at least we have a back-up energy and heat supply. That generator may not turn out to be just an expensive piece of porch equipment after all. Though I am still feeling the pinch of buying the thing!

Rose's basketball practice was upped to 3 hours tonight. I hope the power does not go out at the school, though there are emergency lights I don't know if there are any in the gymnasium. I don't like these 3 hour practices. Especially on nights they assign math homework.

Dinner tonight is my lower carb version of Chile Verde.

Ingredients:

1/4 lb sugar-free bacon, crumbled
1 lb boneless pork roast, cubed
1.5 cups chopped scallions
1 T minced garlic
4 oz green chile peppers, diced (fresh or canned)
1.5 T jalapeno peppers, diced (fresh or canned
2 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

In large skillet, fry bacon crispy. Set aside. Start browning pork in bacon fat. Add bacon crumbled. When pork is browned, add scallions and garlic.* Saute until tender. Add remaining ingredients and stir. Simmer for 30 min. Turn up heat to medium for 15 min to thicken. If you want to add some thickener like corn starch or flour you can, but I don't.

*Optional: if desired, julienne chop a green bell pepper and add with scallions and garlic to stretch meal further. Serves 4 without bell pepper, 6 with.

Can serve by itself or with 100% whole wheat tortillas, veggie wraps, etc. Added cheese or sour cream also optional.

Recipe responds well to doubling, tripling or quadrupling for the freezer.

We're about to get hit by another storm tomorrow. They're talking 100 mile per hour winds. It's already dumping huge amounts of very cold rain, the back half of our driveway is a little lake. We need to regravel next summer so it doesn't get so bad.

DH and I spent the day looking at generators and finally decided on one. He's gone back to town to pick it up while I do Mom duty with Rose at basketball practice. He took Tobias with him.

The generator we decided on costs $779, is water and rust proof, and will run for 10 hours on one tank of gas. I belive it is a 2 gallon tank. They had the sign up that says if you apply for the Home Depot card you get 10% off, so DH decided to do that. We won't use it though except for this and will pay it off immediately. It should cover a little more than the sales tax. Our sales tax is 8.4%. WA state has the highest sales tax in the nation, I think, and our county has one of the highest in the state.

This is a really big purchase and I was planning on making it, just not this soon. With the extra paycheck we have the money to do it, and I do not want to lose another $500 worth of food because I can't run my fridge and freezer. On the drive home I started having a really bad feeling that we needed to go back and buy it today and not wait until tomorrow. I've learned to go with those feelings and so has DH. DH called a bit ago and he got the last one there, so I'm glad I sent him back.

I'm not sure on the grand total yet but I'll edit this to add it in when he gets home.

Edited to add:

DH made it home safely! The rain is getting torrential. He decided not to apply for the Home Depot credit card as he thought it would be too easy for him to use it! So no 10% discount but no future temptation to use a credit card either, so maybe we still save in the end. The total cost of the generator with tax came to $844.

Okay, I'm being a little hokey with that title. First issue, the power, is back on. In fact it woke me up and I can't get back to sleep so I decided to come here and write a bit.

Second issue, one. Or rather ones. I have decided to not just save my coins, but to throw in any one dollar bills I get. I've seen a couple people here doing it and well, I decided to jump off that bridge because Tina did it first. No, I've been thinking about it for awhile. Resisting it really. But I keep circling back around to the idea. So I decided to go for it.

So tonight when I emptied the coins out of my purse I also took out the ones. I had $6 in ones. So into the change jar they go. My change jar is an old Miracle Whip jar, by the way. It serves its purpose well. I used to keep it in a Litehouse 1000 Island dressing bottle but at one point there was too much change in it and the bottom of the jar came off with the weight when I picked it up. Miracle Whip seems a bit sturdier so far.

I have not been getting the rush I was getting before when everything extra was going into building up savings. Sending extra off to the credit cards just does not give me that same thrill. So, I think that I will go back to putting all my little bits and pieces into savings and take the bigger hunks that I have carved out of the budget, like the money we used to pay for cable, and use that for the extra on the credit cards. Otherwise I just lose the motivation, I think.

But I am also going to work hard to keep all expenses down so I can still send extra to the cards. I think that is a good trade off. I can still see my savings grow to a level I feel safer at. Right now the level I want to reach is $2000. Beyond that, $4000 or one month's pay. I just feel the need to have that for peace of mind. I mean sure, six month's living expenses would be grand (majorly grand, like 24 grand), but that could take ages. So one month's pay is the long term goal for now and half that is the short term goal. I am $399.02 away from the short term goal.

My $5 cashout from TinklyCash arrived at paypal today (24 hours, yay!) and so I transferred that to my CU and when it shows up I will send it off to ING along with the next $10 weekly deposit. It should show up the same day so that will make it pretty easy to do all at once.

All right, I'm getting sleepy again, so that's enough for now.

I am getting very annoyed with Puget Sound Energy. This is the 3rd power failure in less than a month's time. Okay, I know there is a big windstorm (again), but I didn't even see any trucks in our area working to get stuff up and running again and this was 3 hours after it had gone out. You would think the portion that has a school on it would be considered a priority, but no, it's not.

It's been out for several hours and if they don't get it back on tonight, I'm going to end up losing food again. I think I'm going to insist that they knock some off my power bill as they've cost me an awful lot of money in ruined food with their slow (lack of) service.

I did spend just under $15 on taking the kids out to dinner. I am just getting so tired of this. I also didn't do any of the other things I had planned to do because I didn't want to get stuck on the wrong side of a downed tree from the school.

Kind of a slow day today.

Had the auto deposit of $10 to savings.

Cashed out $3 at ReadRevenue.

Discovered all of my five gallon water jugs that I keep on the porch had burst out the bottoms, so that's four @ $7 each. $28 down the drain and they just delivered Monday of last week, so I have just under one bottle's worth to get me through 3 weeks. Very frustrating.

I've been keeping them on my porch for 3 years and this didn't happen 2 years ago when the weather dropped to 9 degrees, so I didn't really think about it when it dropped to 8. They were fine even this morning, but now that it has warmed up to 39 degrees they exploded. Big sigh. I know that this can happen, but since it hadn't under similar situations in the past, didn't do anything. Plus they weigh 40 pounds so if I don't have to lift them, I don't.

The good news is that it didn't snow more than one inch today and then it warmed up. Things are starting to melt. I hope this is a warming trend that will continue. Still no school tomorrow, even though the roads are pretty good, mostly bare on the highway. Still people don't know how to drive on the ice. They don't slow down for the bad patches, just assume they're as good as the bare ones. Saw a nasty accident tonight, truck was off the road on its side down in a ravine. Emergency vehicles were just responding so I didn't stop.

I went in to Mom's today to do some laundry and the kids finagled an overnight invitation, so I'm kid free, which after being cooped up with them with no school all week, and too cold to play outside the last few days, I am sorely in need of. I love my kids a lot, I do, but right now they are just getting on my last nerve and on each others.

Tomorrow is payday and I know I am not officially through the no eating out 2 weeks, but I don't care. that was more about being lazy and not cooking. I'm taking myself out to lunch tomorrow and I'm going to enjoy it. This is about nurturing my spirit before I turn into a raving nutter.

I'm currently taking a break from the book I was reading, too much gratuitous swearing and that grates after awhile, I can handle it if it has a point, but when they use it as an adjective the same way you might use really or very, it is so not necessary to the plot.

So now I am reading the 23rd annual collection of The Year's Best Science Fiction. So far I have read The Little Goddess by Ian McDonald, bizarre but good, The Calorie Man by Paolo Bacigalupi, a future we might actually be seeing some day if we're not careful and not a good one, and Beyond the Aquila Rift by Alastair Reynolds, kind of interesting plot twist near the end but mostly...eh.

It warmed up today to 26 degrees F, still below freezing but a lot more bearable and easier to keep the house warm at a lower temperature. Tomorrow it is supposed to be 32 degrees. It is also supposed to snow. Guess how happy I am to hear that? I just got dug out, for goodness sake.

It has been 8 days since my kids last went to school. Crazy. At this rate we'll be making up snow days until July. Which will give me a lot of time to work in my garden without the constant "Mom can I's" that I always get the minute I walk outside the front door.

I got a call from the library's automated system this morning to tell me each of my kids have an overdue item. The library isn't even open because of the storm! Like it would matter if I could turn it in they wouldn't be able to check it through. Stupid computers.

The school website hasn't yet posted whether there will be school tomorrow or not, but I am doubtful. The roads are still pretty icy and since 95 percent of our school district is bused, and because it is still so cold out for kids to be waiting for the bus, I somehow don't think it will happen. Yet, I hold out hope.

I did make the kids clean up the living room today. They have been camped in it for a few days and I was just sick of the mess. Now I'm on here mostly avoiding doing another load of dishes and finishing cleaning out the freezer now that I have an empty trash can again. Or almost empty. Paper plates are starting to look very appealing right now. Seems like these kids do nothing but eat when they are home.

At least today is a no spend day. I see a lot of those in my future, but hope I can at least get to town on Friday to pay the mortgage. I suppose I could do it over the phone since my CU that gets the paychecks direct deposited holds the mortgage, but I'd also like to deposit all that rolled coin and the survey check I have burning a hole in my purse. And maybe dump the kids with my mom for a couple of hours so I can just recharge my batteries. I need some me time, seriously badly.

I also need to go to Costco to get toilet paper, lettuce, meat and Omega 3 organic eggs. I'm on my last carton of eggs though it has 14 in it (out of 18). We usually go through 4 a day when DH isn't home, so that puts us out on Saturday, or not enough for everyone to have them on Sunday. I also need to get some more of those nitrate/nitrite free, sulfite/sulfate free, sugar free sausages. And some organic milk. I really don't care for this other stuff, although the kids like it.

I am trying to keep my chin up right now but I feel very whiney. At least tomorrow is the $10 deposit to savings, so my savings will go up.

Edited to add:

And they just posted school closures for tomorrow on the school's website. Darn it!

Okay, I have to admit it. My furnace is currently set on 74 degrees. And I don't even feel guilty because 4 hours on 70 did NOT get the house warm. Did I mention that almost all of the wood has frozen into a big lump that is refusing to yield any real useable bits? Anyway, after a half an hour at 74 the house is finally warm, so I will go turn it back down to 70.

It is, as my title states, currently 8 degrees outside, for our non-American friends that is way below freezing, which is 32. It was warmer during the day, 14, but the sun was out so it felt warmer and the wind wasn't blowing and that helps.

The three of us managed to clear the snow off the car, dig it out and shovel a path from the back of the car to the end of the driveway. I tried to open the doors on the drivers side. The door has a keypad, which unlocks the doors and the trunk. Well, it unlocked every door but the driver door which was frozen. I couldn't get the back door to open, so I went to the other side of the car which is more sheltered and under the tree. That one I managed to get open, then crawled through, unlocked the driver door and pretty much kicked it open, or at least pushed really hard with both feet. Turned it on and got it defrosting and popped the trunk and yay! had a can of deicer, so did both the front and back windows on the driver's side. The kids had to crawl through to the back from the front but managed okay.

So we ended up going to town and getting milk after all. I had to get regular milk because they were out of organic in the gallon size. Now I have enough of a problem paying the price for a gallon of organic milk, I am NOT going to pay a buck less than that for a half gallon, that's for sure. But I got 2 regular gallons for $3.96 so not bad. Picked up a few other items.

At least by the time we got to town the doors had thawed out and everything opened properly. We probably could have waited the storm out but quite frankly if we hadn't had a change of scenery I think we all would have gone nuts. No school again today and none scheduled for tomorrow.

The roads are a little scary, mostly ice, but I have years of experience driving on ice. And at 20 to 35 mph depending on conditions, there's not much I can't handle. Steered out of one skid just fine, which surprisingly happened when I was only going 14 mph. Some people were crazy and trying to pass, thinking what? that the speed limit is 55 so they're going to try to go it, and let's just say there were a lot of cars off the road. Though I do have to say when we got to the bare patches it was annoying that no one sped up on those sections. But oh, well.

On the way home, we were less than a mile from home when we had to stop and wait for an accident to be cleared. Had to wait about half a Hilary Duff Christmas CD before we could continue on. I think that's about 20 minutes, for those of you without kids.

But we got home safely and soundly and I have enough milk and other things that I shouldn't need to go out again for anything. That doesn't mean I won't. We may go to Mom's tomorrow to do laundry and give me a break from the incessant "I wanna play in the snow," which ain't gonna happen in the teens and lower, babies. At least Grandma has TV. Yes, I will deaden their minds for a day every so often if it means I get a bit of peace. LOL I want school back in session!

This one only lasted a couple hours, thank goodness. When the power did come back on though it was 30 seconds on and 30 seconds off over and over again for about 15 to 20 minutes. Very frustrating when its lunch time and you are trying to microwave something that normally takes 2 minutes, but every time the power surges, you have to reprogram the cooker.

Oh, well, its been on now steady for a half an hour so I have high hopes that it will stay on now. It seems a tiny bit warmer today, the sun is out anyway. I haven't gone out to check for sure but since the garbage can is facing a different direction than it was last night, I think the trucks made it in alright. I didn't hear them though, they usually wake me up with their noisy disiel engines, even if its just for a few seconds. I suppose I will have to haul it back to the house soon and see if there was mail and paper delivery today.

Today will be another no spend day as I still don't feel like digging out the driveway just to get milk. I'm hoping it starts melting soon. It looks a lot more compact this morning, so maybe it did melt a bit.

School and sports activities were cancelled again today. I've done two loads of laundry and am working on a third. Have clothes hanging from one shower pole on hangers and on one drying rack. I have another drying rack and another shower pole to go, so should get through 4 loads of laundry today, I think. Not letting the kids go out today frees up a drying rack from their outdoor gear.

I am getting that dryer fixed though, or possibly getting a new one, not this payday but the next one. I am tired of not having it when it would have been easier to use it to dry the kids's jackets, gloves and boot liners. Those don't tend to dry out overnight on the racks. I will still use my drying racks a lot but I want the option of using my dryer.

The cheapest dryer I've seen is just under $200, so about $220 with tax. It is $70 just for the service call to my area and then it depends on how much it will cost to fix it. If it is cheaper just to get a new one, I probably will. I just don't like that idea, I try to reuse, reduce, recycle as much as I can. Still, if its going to cost me twice as much to fix it as to replace it, I can't financially justify just fixing it. It's a bit of a conundrum.

Well, I decided not to chance it and dug out the garbage can and a path from it to the end of the driveway. I left it in the middle of the driveway mostly because I have no way of telling where the edges are, but they will be able to access it easy enough from the truck. If the truck comes. Please let the truck come. It was so cold shoveling that it took my lungs about 2 hours to feel normal again afterwards. They felt cold on the inside.

I have decided that I don't care how badly my kids whine and beg tomorrow they are staying inside. It is just too cold. They had really red patches on their exposed bits of skin and I'm worried about them getting frostbite now. It's 25 degrees on the porch thermometer, but the wind goes right through you, I'm sure the wind chill is bringing it down closer to zero.

We are out of milk so I may try to dig out the car from the end of the driveway to the road. The road is plowed. It's still ice, but its sanded and all I have to do is get out of the development and turn onto the highway. It's plowed down to bare road. Just not sure if I want to really do that or not. It's so cold. But there doesn't seem like there will be a break in the forecast, fortunately no snow tomorrow, just cold again.

We haven't been eating all that great today. Nachos for breakfast (but hey, organic ones!), pancakes for lunch (multi-grain! with real organic maple syrup!), tv dinners for dinner (not a single redeeming quality). Not much in the way of protein, especially quality protein. Air popped popcorn for snack with too much butter. Ugh. But my energy levels are tanked. Do you ever notice how when you are trying to stay warm you sleep more? Is that where my energy levels went? Of course, it could be just a carb coma from all the junk I'm eating.

And the freezer under the fridge is getting cleaned out. I found a box of shrimp scampi so that will probably be lunch tomorrow and another day.

I wonder if I could get the kids to drink powdered milk. They drink non-fat anyway. Hmm. I so don't want to dig the car out, can you tell?

The snow finally stopped sometime last night or early this morning at 2 feet deep. The wind is just starting to pick up. We are pretty sheltered here between two foothills, but my mother says the rest of the county is getting socked.

There was no mail delivery or paper delivery. I started getting paper delivery again last month after I ran out of my stock pile when we started using the wood stove. I do read it first though. I called the Herald and they didn't even put out a paper for today, no one could get in to deliver it anyway.

I tried to call the garbage people to see if there would be pick-up tomorrow or not. No answer, but I called right before 4 and they close at 4, so now I don't know if I missed them or they couldn't get in. I really need to put my garbage out but if they aren't coming, I really don't want to shovel a path to do so. Why did the freezer have to break down last week of all weeks? Oh, well, at least the stuff is frozen solid outside and doesn't stink.

Today is a no spend day, obviously. I will probably try to get out tomorrow to get milk, as we are low, but we'll see.

...or what happens when the power goes out and you can't see where you are walking.

48 hours without power is about 40 hours more than I can handle. 40 hours without a phone line really drove me nuts. Not being able to access this site or the internet? 3 hours of that was about enough. 2 days with the school closed due to a power failure, no ability to watch movies, use the computer, use the game cube, and reading by candlelight in the evenings made for 2 stir-crazy children and 2 just plain crazy parents.

But thank heavens it is back on now. Phone came back first, then power. We ended up spending an unbudgeted $100 on food, some eating out and some to restock the fridge. We had to throw away much of what was in the fridge, managed to save some apples and oranges and some veggies, but tossed out all the meats and salad dressings, cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, the pre-chopped veggies had turned brown, and some of the condiments.

I had moved some stuff to a cooler, milk, eggs, butter, turkey and ham (the organic nitrate/nitrite free stuff for sandwiches), mayonnaise, jelly and peanutbutter. And it was still cold and good, so we didn't lose it all. Just some.

We had quite an adventure yesterday morning with the kids getting trapped at the school, a tree down across the road halfway between the school and our house, a tree down further down the road in the other direction, a tree down across the exit, but not the entrance driveway to our development. We called the school, they were keeping the kids at school until the roads were cleared even though there was no power.

So we decided to walk down to the school, which is 1.2 miles one way. We told the school we were coming and to tell our kids. It was raining pretty hard and the wind was whipping pretty good, but we wanted our kids home with us and the fireman said it could be several hours before they cleared the road in either direction. So we walked and the one tree was really big and had brought down the messanger cable as well as the power line, and the cable line. When they did end up cutting the tree up, they accidently brought down the phone line as well.

There was a safe place to get around the downed line on a side road that came out again further down the highway. So we finally made it to the school after about twenty minutes of fast walking. So we go to find our kids. "Oh, that bus decided to go on a reverse route and try to deliver as many kids as they could. But they'll bring back the ones who they can't deliver." They couldn't tell us that on the phone? So now we are at the school with the possibility that our kids could be at home, or they could be brought back to the school. You could say I was one p.o.'d parent.

We couldn't get ahold of the bus driver on his radio as he had turned it off, due to too much chatter on it. Argh! So we told the school that if they kids did come back to hold them there and we would come back when the road was clear. Then we walked back home. Just as we were passing the tree, they finally got it cleared (several hours, my eye!), so we got to walk the highway with a ton of cars zipping by to make up for having to wait in a really long line for so long. Fun.

Got home to a note on the door that the kids had gone to the neighbor's house, like we figured they would, so it all turned out okay, but the kids told me that the bus was driven over some downed wires and he had squeezed it through under some wires that were angled down across the road and went around a tree. That I am not happy about. The kids safety should come first, so I am calling the bus garage tomorrow to complain now that we have phones again and school and buses should be running tomorrow.

School conferences were supposed to be this week but obviously they were cancelled. I hope we can reschedule for tomorrow as DH flies out on Monday and he really wanted to go. He almost always misses them and this one just coincided with his being home for a change. Also basketball practice was cancelled, too.

So anyway that has been my last two days in a nutshell. A very large, very full nutshell.

Oh, and today was the automatic deposit to savings of $10 so I will send that off to ING tomorrow. I'm not sure where my total is at right now and I'm too tired to look it up.

I decided to be a Looky Lou today after first checking the Public Works webpage and the WA DOT webpage for road closures. Just four miles up the highway its closed for the foreseeable future. But I didn't go that way. The river is still high but after it flooded last night it is back down to reasonable levels. There is a lot of standing water. It is amusing, in a sad sort of way, to see ducks floating in a vineyard or a hay field.

The shoreline is back on the river though I don't imagine we'll be seeing any sandbars or island for a good long while. A lot of trees are washed up on the shore line, I imagine there's going to be a lot of wood for the taking next summer. Got to check into getting a permit for that.

We could still see more flooding when the next storm moves in tonight, but I hope the worst of it is over. I am perfectly safe at my house, at least I don't have to worry on that score. There was actually a small break in the light rain today and I saw this strange bright yellow object up in the sky. I'm not sure what it was and it went away again after about 30 minutes.

Fortunately we didn't lose power last night, didn't even need to light a candle, that's always good.

Well, I wasn't kidding about the weather making up for the fact that it hadn't rained all summer. The formerly 6 foot wide, 3 inch deep river is currently at 11 feet deep and at least 60 feet wide. It's about 3 feet below the road, or was at 4:00. There are no sand bars, no shorelines visible, the water is brown and full of trees and branches and will flood the road by morning. This is just the portion 3 miles from my house, and is only the North Fork of the river.

It has already shut down SR9 at Acme. The kids from Glacier couldn't come to school today because the buses couldn't get through the water. I had to pick my kids up at school as one of the buses broke down so they took the kids from that route and used our bus to take them home and then were taking ours home late.

We had to go to town, went into the chiropractor, stopped at the store to stock up on milk and ice for the next storm coming in tonight. When we crossed the bridge at Nugent's corner, which is after the North and South Forks have joined together it was only 4 feet below the top of the levy, which is still several feet below the bridge, but they were evacuating houses along the river. It was so fast, the rapids were huge, again swirling masses of muddy water, tree wreckage, no shoreline, no sand bars, just devastating to see it.

I got back home just as soon as I could. I was so nervous but everyone was on their best driving behavior, no one was tailgating, probably because their wiper speed did not go that fast. I was afraid the road would go before I got home or a tree would come down, the wind was so bad today. I lost several branches on the big cedar tree and lots on the giant firs and pines this morning. Nothing came down on wires, thank the good Lord. Stuff came close. We did have a brief power failure this morning, lots of folks did have trees across their driveways and there was so much tree wreckage that had been cleared from the roads.

I bought enough perishable groceries to be able to stay put all week if I need to, even though the worst of the storm should pass by tomorrow night. It's been 3 years, I think since the last flood and its right around the same time that floods occur here, so things are back on target with the weather, anyway.

I hope it all calms down because my mother is going to take the kids Wednesday after school, and then I will pick them up on Friday, that will give me some time to not be locked up with cabin fever with my youngsters. They so need a change of scenery. I so need for them to have a change of scenery. LOL

Received $15 check from ACOP in the mail today for the product trial I did for them last month. Received a $104 insurance refund check in the mail for DH's vision appointment. He had the appointment last summer, didn't send the stuff in, didn't send the stuff in, didn't send the stuff in even though it was all ready to go, finally I took it, put it in an envelope, addressed it and mailed it two weeks ago, and what do you know, here it is. So that will be a total of $119 added to savings when I can get to the bank.

The Schwan's guy just stopped by with my order and he's afraid he can't get home. They've evacuated a large part of Everson, closed Hannegan and Hamilton, they've closed HWY 542, the part 3 miles from my house that was at 3 feet below the road at 4:00, they've closed South Pass so you can't get through Nooksack, down to Sumas, but he might be able to cut around the other pass to get to Sumas that way. Man, I hope this clears up by Wednesday. Yuck. And I'm really glad I got milk and got home when I did.

Now to just cross my fingers that the power does not go out, though I've located all lanterns, flashlights, batteries, candles, lighter, the radio and have a supply of wood in the house. We have 3 5 gallon bottles of water. I've got the cooler and the bag of ice in the freezer just in case, so we are set. We should not flood here, we are well above the creek and well above the river, but we could easily get cut off.