Today was one of those days where you have a million things to accomplish and are lucky if you even accomplish one. I guess I count myself fortunate that I actually accomplished three things. Even if one of those things was simply emptying the dishwasher. Hey, it was on the list.

We also mostly finished up in Rose's room and took a bunch more stuff to storage as FIL was kind enough to bring his truck out and run DH in with the load. I've been buried in laundry from Rose's room. I don't even know what was dirty and what was clean and never put away. But she knows if I find one thing on the floor its confiscated. She has a her own laundry hamper and a closet she can easily hang things up in, plus a dresser with easy slide drawers. NO excuses whatsoever. If its on the floor it is gone!

I think its going to take me a couple of days to get caught up on laundry, sort out what is too small and needs to be handed down to her older cousin, who she is a head taller than, and what needs to be put away properly. Sigh. I swear I had just done this six months ago and it was nowhere near as bad. How one kid could be so messy is beyond me. I did take away her guitar for a month because I found it out of its case and on the floor.

I don't get where the messy gene is coming from. Even Tobias keeps his room neat most of the time and he's only seven. I think she has a packrat tendancy, maybe got that from MIL and FIL. I dunno.

Aside from that I did manage to get 2 book pages written today and will work on it some more tonight and 3 the day before. I also read book 2 of the Withern Rise trilogy, "Small Eternities" by Michael Lawrence and started the 3rd one, "The Underwood See." I liked the first book and so far the third book more than the second, the second was more of a bridge piece. Necessary, but the less exciting part of the story. Very interested to see how it will turn out.

Didn't really do anything in the financial arena other than balance the checkbook and it actually balanced, always a good. Okay, I guess I did get more than three things accomplished today. But the list still doesn't seem any shorter.

Spent some time online going over stuff with my friend I will be meeting in California at month's end. We are plotting our vacation to waste the least amount of time possible.

I guess that's about it, then.

Okay, so $15 co-pay for the doctor and my blood pressure is down to 114/80, so he decided to reduce my dosage from 40 MG to 20 MG, but make it one with a diuretic because I still seem to be swelling up way too much. And he gave me six weeks worth of samples. And a flu shot. My doctor gives flu shots in the spring and then again in the fall. He says they only really last 6 months without the booster. And he gives them in 2 doses, so I will get the booster dose in 2 weeks when I go back for the blood pressure check. He is good about combining appointments so that I don't have to make a seperate visit for every little thing.

He also sent me to the vampires, I mean the phlebotomist, for a blood draw to see if my throid might be underachieving. We do the test every couple of years because every single female in my family has an underactive thyroid. I have always been borderline normal. So that was another $15 co-pay.

I couldn't find any tops I liked or the CD I wanted so I decided to go to the bookstore. Like I'd find tops or CDs there, right? $61.82 later I decided I really should stay out of bookstores. I forget after about six months go by. But I'll have plenty of reading material to read on the plane for my trip. And at least I paid for them in cash.

So one of the new books I started reading today. I'm already 9 chapters in. Which isn't as much as it seems because the chapters are short and I'm only on page 49. So far so good, but a little weird. "It's called The Wave by Walter Mosley and I found it in the sci-fi section but it seems more like a supernatural fantasy to me. Maybe it was mishelved, or maybe because it didn't have a unicorn, a dragon or a vampire on the cover they assumed it was sci-fi.

Tomorrow I go in for another kidney test. I hope this will be the end of it. My kidneys haven't bothered me at all in two weeks, so I think it was just a long-term infection or I'd still be in pain. But everyone just wants to be sure. At least there are no tumors this time, so big yay in that department.

My goal for the month of April and these last few days of March is to get myself completely healthy for my vacation. I've done Disney sick and no thanks on that score. It ruins half the fun. So, I have to make sure I take my vitamins, do my one hour on the treadmill every other day and try to drag my sorry self back in to Curves. I always feel better when I exercise but its the starting it up again that is so hard to do. It also means not staying up past midnight writing, which is pretty hard sometimes when I get in the groove.

Today is a gorgeous sunny day. The creeks flooded 2 days ago after the deluge and there is still standing water everywhere. The main creeks is five feet across and normally it is down at least a foot from the bridge that goes over it. Now it is running with maybe an inch or two between the top of the water and the bottom of the bridge. And on either side of the creek there is water for a good 50 yards. I have never seen the creek flood this badly before, usually its maybe 20 feet on either side.

There is one house a mile down the road that has its driveway underwater and huge ponds on either side. Now the front part of their property tends to fill up but again, I have never seen it this bad. There were geese in it! Not just ducks. Really weird to see.

As far as I know, the river did not flood this time. Of course it may have further down up by Ferndale or Lynden when all the branches and tributaries have joined up on the last leg out to the bay. I know they were on flood watch. But I didn't see anything about it in the paper, so it may have just been the huge amount of runoff from the foothills as the snow melted and the rain hit hard.

I guess that about covers it for today. Or at least for this afternoon.

Well, today was Tobais' first day of T-ball practice and he did pretty good. I'm not sure the coach knows what he is doing, he's never coached before, but he seems to have a good raport with the kids, which is really the most important thing.

T had a good time and his little friend from down the road is on his team so he's happy about that. Of course, that means he has a bit of a penchant for goofing off. I think he's going to be the class clown type.

Spent a little money today at the convenience store, got some soup and some diet lemon/lime soda for Rose. I think she may have strep throat. Its got that smell to it, so I think we'll be going to the doctor tomorrow, which will be a $15 co-pay. She's had a fever for two days and can barely talk. She's going to miss her singing concert this week, which is too bad as we were both really looking forward to it.

I've been getting a ton of writing done. I've hit my goal for the year of 365 pages so I've stopped counting pages. It really helped me to get in the habit of writing daily. Now if I skip a day it seems wrong.

DH emailed me today and they're putting up the JVA at work this week for the new position. Which means they've got funding, so it should just be a matter of waiting a little bit longer now. I hope so. I've spent the last six months doing nothing but waiting or so it seems. I'm so tired of that.

I missed a couple of days of blogging but I have a good excuse, honest! In the past 3 days I have driven my husband to the airport, had my son turn seven and celebrate at two sets of grandparents' houses, took cupcakes to school, and a family only (the four of us) birthday dinner out at Billy McHale's restaurant.

I don't have any idea if Billy's is a chain or not. I know of two in Washington state. It is a wonderfully charming place. Full of old things, old signs, weird things, very retro. Like on one wall it has a sign for Glass Bottom Boat rides, an antique telephone, a two-handled lumberjack saw, and gas pump from the 1940's, an advertisement for canned meat, 10 cents a can, old neon gas station signs (of the eat here and get gas variety). It's just very unique and has a certain ambiance you can't get anywhere else. It sounds like it could be tacky, but its not.

Our table had a red light over it (there's a different colored bulb at each table, five or six different colors). But the piece de resistance is an elevated train that you can have Happy Birthday or Anniversary written on cardboard along with the person's name(s) and attatched to the flatbed cars and then it runs around the restaurant. Tobias was in heaven! He's beyond train happy. Plus he got a free dessert and the staff sang to him.

And if that wasn't enough to keep me busy, I went on a writing jag. I wrote 72 pages in three nights. I had insomnia on one of them and I got in that mode where the story starts writing itself. A lot of it, most of it actually is for the second book, not the first one, but I've got a lot of stuff thought out now and can go back to the first one. I am very happy with myself right now.

DH and I also went and tried out laptops. Well, I tried them out and he watched me. I typed on every single one they had on display at Best Buy. It was weird how different keyboards can feel when you are typing 70 words per minute. I settled on the one I liked the best, which turned out to be a $649 Toshiba, not top of the line, but Toshiba's a work horse. And the keyboard felt right to me. So I wrote down all the information and I'm going to save my plasma money for a new laptop when I get back from vacation.

The Toshiba laptop I have now is still functional but it is old. Its a Tecra 8000. It is very heavy, and I got it off e-bay for $150, but then had to spend another $150 because it didn't have a legitimate copy of Windows on it. It had been part of a network, so network software had been used. Not something that was revealed by the seller. But anyway, I've had it almost a year and its okay, but I don't like the size of the keys, they are a little small for my fingers, so cause some stumbling around. I also don't like the placement of the shift key next to the delete key, cause guess which one I hit too often?

I really like the layout of the other keyboard, the keys are a bit bigger and there is no awkwardness at all. DH is all for it. And he'll take over the one I'm using now, because his is really old, running Windows 95. Mine is Windows XP but only cause we upgraded it when we bought the legitimate software. So it isn't as ancient, but...the battery holds no charge and you can't get replacement ones and I would take my computer everywhere to write if I had a functional battery.

Half a dozen places around here offer free wireless access, and we're in the boonies.

Anywho, we made a decision about renting a storage facility for at least six months. We have way too much stuff in the house to ever get it organized so we are going to rent a 10X10 unit and use it to sort in and store until we know what we are getting rid of and what we are keeping. I am so sick of an overstuffed house, I want it to be clean and organized, which is hard when you are tripping over toys all the time. Left over from the affluenza days.

My niece gave me some clothes for Rose to try. She has to upgrade now that she is a teacher so a lot of stuff gets handed down. Rose is allergic to wool and in this bag were 3 wool sweaters that are part cashmere or part angora, one is Gap and the other two are Ralph Lauren. She said she didn't care what I did with them if they didn't fit Rose, so I am going to put them on e-bay. They are lighterweight sweaters, more spring sweaters than a winter ones and are in very good condition. There are also some pants that are cut too low for Rose and some jeans that I may put on e-bay as well.

I think that about covers what I have been doing. Oh, and in my spare(?) time, I am reading Command Decision by Elizabeth Moon (latest in Vatta's War series, excellent military sci-fi) and watching season 5 of 24.

So, I picked up DH yesterday at the airport. It was early release day at school so I took the kids and then we went out to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant. Which turned out to be quite expensive for the four of us, but gave everyone 2 meals worth of food. $45 for the meal, $9 for the tip. We tend to go here once a month on the day DH arrives home. Usually it doesn't coincide with early release so it is just the two us and comes to around $25 plus $5 tip. Big difference.

I am hoping this will be the only time we eat out for the rest of this paycycle. We really don't budget more than $60 a month for eating out. Probably shouldn't budget that much either, its not like its healthy.

Ah, well, can't change it now. So DH is home, which means I didn't get any writing done last night, but I did get two pages done before I went to pick him up. I don't know if I'll get anything done to night at all. I think DH is going to read the first 8 chapters tonight.

He is a very good sounding board for me, helps me when I get blocked and knows when I'm using filler. Doesn't happen often that I use filler, but it does tend to crop up when I'm just putting in chair time and not really in the flow of writing. Actually, I shouldn't call it chair time as I do my writing on my laptop, sitting on my bed, which is more comfortable for my posture than the computer chair and the PC keyboard.

I have been reading a writing book right now also. I'm not sure I agree with some of the things advised in it, as it was written in the early 1990's and I've seen plenty of good books out there since then that do the opposite of what they are advising here.

I think it best to probably go with my instincts on this, at least at this point in time. I know when my stuff isn't working, I know when its garbage, I know when its passable, and I know when its good. Which is a big reason why I have not attempted to try to publish the last book I wrote. I am not happy with parts of it and I figure working on this and letting the old stuff just kind of roam around in the back of my head for awhile may bring me around again to where I can fix the other book. We'll see, I suppose.

We had a gorgeous sunny day today. Almost all of the snow has melted, it is down to maybe 1 inch to 1/2 inch in places. It would have been a great day for hanging laundry if I hadn't already spread it over the drying racks to dry inside last night. Oh, well.

Today was a no spend day. I did a load of dishes and vacuumed the living room. Then I wrote for 6 pages.

I wrote 8 pages last night and 2 the night before, if I remember correctly. It might have been 3. I need to go back and count everything up again, I've lost track. I think its in the 170's. I now have 8 chapters written in order and then a ton of out of order "scenes" that will get worked in as I go. Some of the "scenes" are 1 or 2 pages and some are closer to 10. I never could completely write something in order, always get flash forwards, as I call them.

The more I write, the more I am thinking this may need to break down into four books, one per year that covers the story. Otherwise its going to be way too long. I don't want to be Harry Turtledove or J.K. Rowling and cause carpal tunnel syndrome to my readers from holding heavy books if my books ever do end up getting published.

Still no news on the PTR payments. I think I am going to quit them all. Now that I am writing so much I'd rather use that time on it. Much more productive and a possible much larger payoff in the end.

It snowed most of last night, then when the sun came up it started melting right away. It got up to 51 degrees and now as the sun is heading down it is raining ice, so I am sure as soon as the temp drops in the dark it will snow again all night, and melt again all day tomorrow. We are left with a crusty 2 inches at the moment.

I picked up the kids and the laundry from Mom's. She was so great to do it all. Well, not all, I've been doing the towels at home and hanging them on the drying racks. I do look forward to my new dryer when I get around to being able to get it. I will still line dry and rack dry to a certain extent even after. But I want the option of using my dryer in a case where someone's coat gets soaked but not dirty or same with shoes.

I am feeling a little better, I got some serious sleep Friday, didn't do that great last night, but Friday helped so much it didn't matter too much. I made the kids clean up the living room, they had trashed it royally before going to Mom's for the weekend, so I saved it for them to clean! Hey, they need to earn their allowances.

I am almost caught up on dishes. I have half a load in the sink still, and am currently washing a load and did another one this morning. I really let that slide while sick, only washing when we ran out of something. I did rinse everything so it didn't stink or mold, though. So it was mostly a question of just running everything through.

I have picked up one less than frugal habit this last year. I buy the jumbo aluminum foil from Costco and I use it to line my baking sheets. Then I don't have to clean my baking sheets. It is a bit wasteful environmentally but saves me time and I'm not trying to scrub burnt on cheese or sauce or whatever off the sheets. The foil does not end up being recycleable as it is not cleanable.

The kids have gone off down the road to play with some other kids so I am going to do some writing. I did 3 pages this morning before I picked up the kids. I'm really in the zone now. That puts me at 158. Go me!

It was a no spend day. I didn't leave the house. I wrote 30 pages. Talked to DH on the phone for an hour. Got some rather good salary news but until it is signed on the dotted line I won't really allow myself to believe it.

If, if, if everything that he is currently being told is true, we aren't going to have to worry about money the same way again.

Obviously we will have to worry about it to some extent as in, where does this go and what to do with that. But...our debt problems will begin to vanish rapidly and we'll be out of credit card debt faster than I'd ever dreamed.

Oh, I want to shout it from the rooftops, but I'm afraid that if I do, it will disappear. So I am being quietly optimistic without 100% believability. It is the same company after all is said and done.

I woke up to six inches of snow this morning after two gloriously beautiful days of 50 degree weather. Waiting for the bus this morning made us all look like we'd been frosted it was coming down so hard, those ginormous fluffy flakes the size of a quarter if you know the type. It was beautiful but I thought we were done. I guess I can thank my lucky stars that we didn't get feet like other people across the country have had to deal with.

It started melting around noon, dropping huge loads onto the roof from the cedar trees. It was down to about 3 inches when I left to take the kids in to spend the weekend with my parents and my sister's youngest boy. (And if you heard a shout of joy around 6:00 PST tonight, that would have been me leaving my parent's house free and clear.

I love my children dearly but I was very much ready to love them at someone else's house for a bit. Two weeks of the flu with cranky kids followed by a 4 day holiday weekend and me not getting enough sleep the last two nights, does not make for good family harmony. If I had to hear "She's on my couch cushion!" "No, he's on my couch cushion!" one more time I think I may have gone mental. Especially since the middle couch cushion between them is supposed to remain empty to prevent such arguments from happening in the first place, but someone always wants to put their feet up.

I don't have to pick them up until Sunday noontime so I will have lots of time to write tomorrow. That I am looking forward to. I did some serious pondering on the drive home and figured some more stuff out plotwise, so I am quite happy with it.

I did my shopping after letting the kids off, major monthly grocery shop plus a WalMart shop as I needed OTC meds, including the type you have to sign in blood for at the pharmacy (Sudafed, Children's Motrin Cold) to replace what was used up during the flu. I also got motor oil, goldfish crackers, nasal spray, a new drying rack, and a new George grill. Kind of an eclectic lot. But I didn't have any impulse buys at WalMart and I can't often say that. I will need to do a Freddy's run for organic milk when I pick up the kids but then we should be set for a fair bit.

I wrote 3 pages last night, which puts me at 125, just over 1/3 of the way to my yearly goal. Yay, me.

I also bought some food from the Schwan's guy today and used $20 for gas.

My George Foreman grill died an early death about 10 days ago. I use this thing constantly and hadn't even had this upgrade for a year. Something shorted out while I was cooking, I think there was a power surge. I checked the fuse box but it was fine, I tried other outlets, but no go. It is officially dead.

I think this is what has been leading me to not cook, well aside from the flu, because it makes it so much easier to make meat quickly. Not having one is causing me to spend money on less healthy convenience foods.

Well, tomorrow is payday and I think I am going to buy a new one. I probably could have with the amounts I've spent on convenience this week. At least there will be 2.5 hours of overtime on this check, which should cover it. I'm just glad they are not as expensive as they used to be.

I spent $11.64 buying a family size can of beef stew, a family size can of chicken noodle soup, and a normal size can of chili. From the gas station. I definitely need my grill back. I'm too lazy or too tired to cook consistently without it, even though I know how quite well.

I wrote 12 pages last night, which puts me at 121. Two pages to go to be 1/3 of the way to my goal of 365 pages written this year. I'm doing pretty good, writing every day at this point, when the most I was hoping for when I set this goal was a couple of hours a week.

In the past I always just wrote when the mood hit me, it was more of a hobby, just something I did. I'm trying to treat it more like a part time job. I still enjoy it of course, but I'm making sure I put the time in and I think that is really important to achieving my ends.

Working on this book is giving me ideas about the one that I finished a year or two ago but was unhappy about something and unable to figure it out at the time. I think when I finish this one, I can go back to the other one and fix it. Because I'm putting the time in daily, making the habit become second nature, it is so much easier to see gaps and fix them.

Boomeyer asked what it was about and all I can say at this point is that its a coming of age story that follows the lives of 4 girls keenly affected by the death of one of their friends and how it shapes the people they become over the next four years.

Both kids seem better today. Tobias woke up feeling pretty good, even ate a little something and was not running a fever so he decided to go to school with the injunction to call me to come get him if he started feeling poorly. Rose seems 100% now, so that is nice.

It's a gorgeous day here today. It's only 42 but the sun is out and its very clear. Both google weather and msn weather say it was supposed to snow. It did yesterday but it was too wet and did not stick except on the shoulders of the foothills. And there are no clouds in the sky, just a very pretty shade of winter blue. I thought about hanging laundry out, but I wasn't sure if it would dry with it being this cold and no wind. It tends to dry faster in the house unless its at least 55 degrees outside.

I spent a little money today at the gas station. Got a large pepperoni pizza and a bag of chips. So totally not a necessary purchase, but I'm still in a very anti-cooking mood right now. I think a couple more good nights of sleeping will help with that immensely.

I wrote 2 pages last night. That puts me to 108, I think. I'll have to go back and check. 14 more pages to go and I am 1/3 of the way to my goal.

I've been working my way through the commentaries of the second season of the new Doctor Who while doing my PTR emails. Lots of interesting info and it gives me something to listen to while I do the mind-numbing pointing and clicking. Last night I was able to cash out $5 with a new one and $3 with an old one. So I should see that show up in my paypal account on Friday at the latest. I'm very close to cashing out on another $5 one and another $3 one. I still have never heard back from ReadRevenue about that lost payment 1/13/07. It's probably a lost cause. I did send them another email about it last night.

I paid my car insurance online today, 3 months @ $185.50. $5 of which was because I split it in two payments instead of paying it in full in December.

DH ordered a pair of size 16W shoes online and spent $40 plus shipping. He put it on the credit card so we will add that amount to our regular payment. DH has a very hard time finding shoes that fit his foot and neither one of us can stand the service at the local Foot Locker. Which is really too bad. The local Lady Foot Locker has excellent service and the guys need to take a lesson from them. And I've told management so after the last time.

Okay, I think that covers all the spending for today.

We went and got take out tonight and spent $13.86 for the three of us. Tobias threw up in the car on the way home. Fortunately I had an empty 22 ounce cup to hand back to him in time, so it didn't get all over the car or him. I hope it was just car sickness. He does get it sometimes. He seems fine now. Well, I suppose I will send him to school tomorrow and if he gets sick there I will just go and get him. He's not running a fever.

Today was the last day of the mini-winter break. It would have been all week but they are making up snow days W-F this week. Rose is completely over the flu and Tobias is over the worst of it, just a little sniffly still. I will be happy to see them back in school. Rose missed all last week and Tobias missed Thursday and Friday. They both are anxious to go back and the advice nurse I talked to today said they could as long as there was no fever or coughing.

As for goals, well, I wrote one page last night, didn't work on anything else, though. Oh, well, I am 4 days off caffeine, so I guess that was one of my goals, too, to get off the soda completely. Don't drink coffee.

Wrote 3 pages last night, I believe that puts me at 106 for the year. The little book is coming along just fine, I'm on the seventh chapter now. I'm really going to do this.

Yes, all right, I'm being a tad bit pompous with the title, I admit it. But, it has definitely been that kind of day. I am now up to 97 pages, although about ten of those were just dreaming...or plotting...or character development...or bits of dialogue or "scenes." Still that leaves me with 87 good pages and lots of ideas. Got to the point where the story was writing itself for a bit. Always love that place. I really am going to DO THIS this year.

And DH and I talked on the phone and he was called into the office of the head dude and he started talking salaries...still don't know if I believe "them" but they are talking a $14K raise with the new position, 10 hour days $450 a day, and that's starting wage. That would give us an additional almost $900 per 4 week period, net. Oh, what I couldn't do with $900 a month extra.

Yes, the dreaming has started, though I still don't believe "them" yet. I don't trust them not to pull the rug out. Even if they are training DH already. Even if...

No pre-spending of course, but dreams...financing a new to us car and still having $400 to $500 to pay down debt and build up an emergency fund every 4 weeks. Or saving half to pay for a car in cash or mostly in cash up to when the current 15 year old jobby goes belly-up and adding $100 a month to the EF and still paying down debt.

But there is no official start date yet. Still saying late March to late April, so...well, I suppose living in suspense is something I've grown rather accustomed to...

Speaking of which I got the results of my CT scan and I am off to see a specialist sometime in the not to distant future and I don't wanna. I still think old doc is overreacting. The scan was clean, so why? Because old doc is paranoid of missing something?

Oh, I know, the last thing I need is another tumor damaging my kidney, but it didn't show up, for pete's sake. Sometimes symptoms are there for completely different reasons. Like a UTI for example. Sorry if TMI. Perfectly natural explanation. It does not mean there is another carcinoid tumor lurking...Plus, they have always been benign when they were there and the only one that really did serious damage was the one that grew through my appendix. Sigh.

But I'll go anyway. I just don't wanna. Medical is expensive. And it doesn't feel the same as the other times. And I don't want another slice and dice session. They better give DH this promotion like they promised. One month of the raise should cover the medical costs incurred between now and April. Fun.

Oh, did I mention both kids now have the flu? The real flu, not the stomach virus thing often mistaken for the flu by folks that don't know what the influenza virus actually entails. Thank goodness its not the stomach thing. I'm not sure I could cope with it coming out both ends of both kids when I still am not 100% on top of fever, chills, bone aches, headaches, respiratory gunky stuff, coughing and sore throat. Rose is on her way back up and Tobias is holding his own and doesn't seem to be getting it as badly as Rose did, but that's par for the course. T has a much stronger immune system than R and always has.

I am glad it is a 3 day weekend so I don't have to fight with T again about staying home from school. This thing is contagious!

Rose has been sick the past two days and has not gone to school. I had to drop her off with my mother this morning so I could go to my first cranial sacral therapy session. I have to admit while I was lying there it felt a bit like voodoo magic and I kept thinking, well, this won't accomplish much. But surprisingly it made me feel better somewhat. Not a huge transformation but a noticeable improvement. Enough for me to go back for an additional 5 appointments and allow it a real go.

My birthday present had arrived by the time I got back, the new Doctor Who: The Complete Second Series. I've spent a few hours watching the first disc and doing all the commentaries while I did my PTR's, and watching the extras on the first disc. Now I've started episode 3 on the second disc.

It is really very good. I wasn't sure what to expect. I never am when they change out the lead. For those of you who don't know, the main role is set up in such a way that if the doctor "dies" his body regenerates and looks completely different, but he is still the same character with a few different personality quirks. This is a very clever way of replacing an actor who leaves the role, without ending the show.

They are on the 10th lead now and there have been close to 30 seasons, I believe. They brought it back in 2005 after being off the air for several years and they modernized it. But at its heart it is very similar, but I've found it even better. Sort of like the difference between the high camp of the original Battlestar Galactica and the high drama of the new one.

So I have adapted to this new doctor, though I adored the one from the first new season. He was Christopher Eccelstein who is currently reoccuring on the tv show heroes as the invisible guy. But I took quite well to the new one, David Tennant, even though I've only ever seen him in one of the Harry Potter movies and he was playing a bad guy.

Definitely worth the one day shipping.

Anywho, Tobias came home froms school cranky and flushed and warm to the touch and he took a two hour nap (no, he does not do this) so doctor Mom is diagnosing him with Rose's cold. He may stay home tomorrow.

I wrote 6 pages last night, which puts me up to 52, I think. I think I'll work another hour on it tonight.

Today was a no spend day. I had enough pennies to do a roll, so I did that.

I still have not been paid by ReadRevenue one month after cashing out (its supposed to take no more than 72 hours) so I have decided to quit them. They have failed to respond to any of my 5 emails. They were so good in the past about paying, but I can't waste my time on them if they aren't going to pay out anymore.

Oh, wait, it wasn't a no spend day. I wrote a $20 check to fund my son's hot lunch account at school. I forgot.

I went into my blog settings and updated my age and changed the color of the header, which I like to do every few months. Change the color that is, not the age, LOL.

My birthday was kind of a non-event, but that's okay. I ordered my present and it should arrive tomorrow. I sprang for the one day shipping. I figured that was my reward for doing nothing about me today.

The kids want a cake, but I'll wait until the day after Valentine's day and get a marked down cake or cupcakes. That's what I usually do if I don't feel like baking.

I drove DH to the airport and he's on his way back to Alaska. He is going to have to start attending an early morning meeting every day. It's 30 minutes of overtime every day for 14 days, so neither one of us is complaining. This is in preparation for the promtion, so it looks like its for real or they would not have him attending these meetings.

I am going to go see the cranial sacral therapy guy tomorrow. I hope this is a step towards wellness.

I wrote four more pages last night, which puts me up to 46 and I am going to write for at least an hour tonight before going to sleep. That goal is really moving right along for me now. I just wish I had more time, but I'll have all school hours on Wednesday and I have a lot figured out now so I may get a couple of good chapters out. Here's hoping.

I guess that is about it for today. Not, too exciting, at the moment.

DH and I did some more organizing in the kitchen today. Mostly it was just moving things around to more convenient locations. This is the first real overhaul that we've done in there since moving in here in 1998. I'm happier with where stuff is now, though we are not done. We spent several hours on it, though.

I did do a little writing, wrote three more pages so I am up to 42 so far this year. That averages out to a page a day for 2007.

We didn't spend any money today and aside from a few PTR's, I didn't do anything to make money, either.

I feel much better today, it is amazing what a decent amount of sleep can do for your attitude and your whole general outlook on life.

It's been a busy morning. We mailed off the boots from our second auction, picked up the kids from an overnight with their grandma, and picked up some medication.

Our total in paypal after fees was $9.86, which I transferred to the CU this morning.

I'm going to try to get the dance shoes listed this weekend so we can get moving on those. I have 8 pairs of ballet shoes and 5 pairs of taps and a bunch of mismatched shoes so I know there are some more around the house somewhere. Probably in Rose's room. I also found a pair of those Fisher Price skates that you put on over your kid's tennis shoes. Might be able to get a few dollars for those on e-bay. I'll have to check and see if those sell or not. Otherwise they'll go in the garage sale pile.

We need to get the outdoor play equipment cleaned up and listed on Craig's list. We managed to get the freezer off the porch last night and aired it out over night. DH is going to Kaboom it (multi-purpose cleaner) and then we may bleach clean it as well. Then we will list it on Craig's list for $50.

It is a 33 year old Montgomery Ward freezer. It has some cosmetic damage, but still works great. It's a bit of an energy hog, our power bill dropped $10 a month since we unplugged it. But for someone who doesn't have one, $50 will still be a good bargain for them, I think.

We also have a big old chest freezer that we bought at a garage sale 7 years ago that I think we can get $100 for. It's been outside so its dirty on the outside, but we can put that in our ad. DH might try to Kaboom it, too. If we can only get $50 for it, that would still be fine.

I'm looking around trying to figure out other things that we don't need that we can sell. I want to declutter this house and make as much off it as I can. It is giving me the feeling much like I had when I first started adding money to the EF last year. Finding more and more ways to do it so I can build savings up again. I feel so much more secure having money I can draw on in need.

Oh, I read over the pages I wrote on my night of sleep deprivation and they are good, I'm starting to think I do my best writing when I'm sleep deprived. It used to be when I was on a sugar high, but without much sugar these days I don't get that anymore. I wrote 3 more pages last night before I went to sleep so I am up to 39 pages for the year. Only 326 more to go to reach my goal.

I used DH as a sounding board last night and he can often make suggestions to get me around a block on a throughline, or send me off in a new direction with some random comment. I was having difficulty with the development of a certain character and now I've got her all figured out. She was not a character I could just leave out, she was too important to the plot, I knew who she was and where she needed to end up but not how to get her there and now I do. So yay for me and DH, too. Big breakthrough. Next week when the kids are in school I should really be able to start pounding out some pages.

Mom talked to me last night and she is going to pay for me to go to carnio-sacral therapy for six weeks. Her idea, and she says it has helped her a lot. I'm hoping it will help with some of the ongoing health issues in my life. I'm willing to try anything at this point, nothing has worked in the standard medical field. As much as I love my doctor and think he is a great man, I have mostly given up on Mainstream Medical. I have no faith in the AMA. I know there are good individual doctors out there who want to heal, but I've come to the conclusion that for the most part they want to medicate you, not heal you. Medication keeps you coming back, healing you keeps you and your dollars away.

I'm jaded here, I know, but I've been in the medical system since I was twelve years old and I ended up diagnosing myself with my original condition based on my own research and than forcing the doctor I was seeing at the time to test me for it and I was right. I have had to be forcibly proactive with my health for all of my adult life, to keep insisting that there was more going on than they believed and I have always been right to keep pushing even when called a hypochondriac to my face. So you can understand why I am jaded here.

Okay, this entry started about something and totally turned into something else about 3 times along the way. Oh, well, that's me when I get going. It's time to leave for basketball so I'll wrap it up for now.

I had to go down to the DMV today to renew my driver's license. It was $25 for a five year license. Ouch. Last time I had to buy one it was only $16. The wait was forever and those employees had their heads in the clouds, couldn't care less that they had a mile long line of people, they were going to take their own sweet time.

Anyway, I did that while DH took the Blazer to Les Schwab and got the flat tire fixed. It was only a patch, so it was free, thank goodness.

We also spent $25.37 on lunch out and $5 tip at our favorite Mexican restaurant. And $20 for gas.

There were some more purchases made tonight but I have to get the receipts from DH. He took the kids to buy birthday presents for the boy/girl twins who have a party tomorrow. And he picked up a new belt and some deodorant. I have enough female deoderant samples that I shant need to buy it for at least a year.

It's been a long day, I did not sleep last night more than 3 hours and I have been little miss Judy Attitudy all day long, but only in my own head. I look forward to waking up tomorrow refreshed and back to my old positive nature, even if it means hitting the Excedrin PM. I certainly have the headache to go with the need to sleep.

So no midnight or after entries from me tonight. Oh, on the bright side of the no sleep thing, I did manage to write 10 pages last night, so I did get something out of it. I'm still too sleep deprived to know whether they are any good or not yet, though. I'll read them through tomorrow. But that is 36 pages for the year, now I just need to multiply that by 10 to reach my 2007 goal.

It is my birthday on Monday. I will be 37. I like my birthday as I share it with Abraham Lincoln. I don't remember much about seven but the years I turned 17 and 27 have been incredibly good years in my life so I have high hopes that my luck will follow through on this.

I don't much believe in numerology or anything, but I do have to think that the years that have a seven in my age also coincide with having a seven in that year, as 2007 does, and with seven also being a sacred number to God, well, there's got to be some real goodness in all that, right? I was also born in a year with a seven, 1970. So I kind of have a thing about it. Maybe I generate my own luck through my belief. I wouldn't put it past me.

Sleep deprived ramblings, good thing its free cause you get what you pay for. Night folks.

Yesterday was game day and as usual, Rose's team got trounced. It just is hard to get any rebounds when 4 out 5 players on the opposing team are a head taller than the tallest player on your team.

I emailed the head coach last night and I told him that next year they need to divide the teams up more evenly between ages and grades and experience and lack of experience and height because when you have one team from your school that is beating everyone by 30 points or more and the other one has barely managed to win 1 game all season, there is a huge inequality and it makes the losing team very dispirited every week. I don't know if he will do anything about it, but I'll be a big pain about it at the start of next season to at least be heard on the issue.

Rose got fouled on badly and got pushed into another player who's elbow went right into her temple. She was hurting too bad to even take her free throws and she's good at those, almost always makes them in practice. Another girl got slammed in the face and her tooth cut through her lip and was bleeding. She couldn't take her free throws either but also had to have a sub. Same person fouled them both. She got pulled two fouls later, thank goodness.

We packed our own snacks yesterday so no money was spent at the vending machines. The kids left the game with my parents and I came home to rest. Which I did do some, but then I got to writing and 26 pages later it was 3 a.m. That's really good for my health. But when stuff starts writing itself, I tend to go with it, because you never know when the muse is going to leave.

I made a promise to myself that I was going to write 365 pages this year, whether it was good or not, the habit needs to be gotten back into. And blogging doesn't count! And neither do outlines. That doesn't mean I have to write a page a day, I just need to hit my page count by year's end.

I went back and read the stuff over this afternoon and corrected all the typos and grammatical errors that weren't intentional, and I was really pleased with it, as sometimes middle of the night writing turns out to be less coherent than other times. In any case, its going in the "write" direction. Sorry, couldn't resist the pun.

Today I went in and picked up my kids and got gas. I used $30 of my gas money. It was down to $2.55 a gallon. I didn't go to Costco where it might have been cheaper because I can't find my Costco card and I didn't really want to go all the way across town, either. My card expires at the end of this month anyway and I'm not sure I will renew it. It's a hard decision, especially since they raised the fee.

Mom got me some eggs from the organic egg farm when she went out to get some for herself, so I have four dozen fresh eggs in my fridge. She cleaned them out between us. So that cost $6.

I got really fed up with a rude person today, and kind of let them have it in my own understated way. I always try to be polite, even when what I really want to do is be less than polite, to put it politely. Some folks are clueless and no matter what you do or say, they shall remain clueless. But such is life when you are dealing with people who don't have an ounce of common sense or consideration for others.

I'm going to try to see the doctor tomorrow if I can drag myself out of bed. Or more accurately not fall back into bed once I get the kids off to school. Or at least make an appointment for Tuesday if necessary. I am tired of being tired and not well.

I did a survey this morning and have a $5 check coming from Your2Cents. I also took a prequalifying survey for ACOP but I don't know if I'll get it as they asked about what type of TV service we have and we don't, so that's probably a no. I didn't make the one with the product trial I wanted as it was supposed to have started the 24th. Oh, well, these things are hit and miss. I've gotten two offers this month from Vindale but I just don't know if I want to do those anymore.

I'm still waiting on ReadRevenue to pay out from the 1/13 cash out. I'm not sure what is wrong but I heard from another one of the PTR places that they were having problems connecting with paypal due to an earthquake and dislocated cables, and since both are Asian Island based that's probably what the deal is. So it will most likely get straightened out eventually.

No, not money. Nor political parties. Nope, its January and my daydreams turn to garden thoughts. I can't plant until late April, or mid-April if I use cloches, but my first seed catalog came in the mail and I'm off and running...at least in my head.

I've actually convinced DH to help me this year (so less of the grocery budget goes towards produce and more towards steak!) and the kids know it is going to be part of their responsibility as well. Tobias likes doing stuff in the garden, Rose, not so much. But they both like eating garden produce, so they'll both help this year.

Here are some of my gardening goals for this year:

Plant enough green beans to at least can a six month supply. Some things won't grow in my garden but green beans are prolific. I usually plant one 8 by 4 foot garden bed with pole beans on 8 teepees. Which is great for getting through the summer and having about 2 gallons left over 2 freeze. But I want more than that, and we eat a lot of green beans.

Transplant our two blueberry bushes and our Saskatoon bush out of the yard and into the garden proper where they will get adequate light and nutrients from the soil.

Dig up the asparagus crowns and put them on Freecycle. They grow fine, but I'm the only one who eats them and so much ends up getting wasted. Better to give them to someone else and use the valuable space for something else.

Convince myself not to plant a lot of corn, or possibly any corn. There are a lot of farms that grow corn here and they sell it for 10/$1.00. When you can get 100 ears for $10 to freeze, corn is not a good use of garden space. No matter how good it tastes 10 minutes from picked to cooked.

Do plant potatoes. They taste better than anything out of the stores and haven't been as cheap in the last couple of years, and they grow well in my garden.

Skip the tomatoes. They hate me, they will not grow for me, it doesn't matter how I treat them, they absolutely will not make it. No convincing myself that this year will be different. 7 years and its never different. Ditto bell peppers. Just give it up.

Plant thornless blackberries in quantity. Transplant thornless raspberries to a better location but not too near the blackberries, I don't want to end up with crossbred berries. Transplant strawberries to a better location. That portion of the garden will probably end up raspberries on one end, then blueberries, then strawberries, then blackberries across the shorter side of the garden rectangle. The transplants will grow anywhere in the garden, but they are in the way of how the new layout will go. This will be their permanent home, though.

Plant leaf lettuces only, head lettuce will be consumed by slugs, not me. Mix in spinach, radish, garlic bulbs and scallions. Do not try to grow onions, just use the scallions and deal with the fact that regular onions won't grow from sets in my garden, even if I plant them in the fall.

Plant 2 beds with broccoli, cauliflower, purple cabbage and kohlrabi, all plants from the same family.

Increase the herb bed, replace the tricolor sage that was destroyed by over enthusiastic pruning by children.

Plant 3 zucchini plants (not more!) and try planting cucumbers one more year, with an eye towards giving them up next time. Do not put the beds near each other. Think about squash if there is room.

Plant a second cherry tree to help fertilize the so-called self-fertilizing cherry tree we already have.

That's all I can think of now.

One thing that I really need to get better at is balancing my checkbook. I tend to go for days with a general idea of where I am in the checking account, but I don't actually sit down and do the actual math. This makes it really easy to burn through money that probably should have been spent on other things or put into savings.

So I'd really like to break that bad habit. I need to try to keep it up to date and balanced daily, and if not daily then every other day. I also need to enter it into some kind of tracking software at least once a week.

Tracking software goes hand in hand with another thing I'd like to begin. I want to start tracking all expenses. Ultimately I'd like to do it all year, every year, but I think for now I'd like to do it starting with January and try it for a month and then re-evaluate after I get through the month. I'd like to keep a little notebook in my purse so I can write down everything and then transfer it over into a spreadsheet or something like that.

If I can manage to keep a spending journal and balance my checkbook daily, I think the miscellaneous money that gets frittered away would stop frittering and things would be easier for us.

I've been thinking a lot lately about things I can do to stay the course, or improve it. Some may call them goals or resolutions or steps and put them along with the new year, but I don't. Because I don't really like anything that starts with the new year or in any way smacks of a promise to do something better or different in the coming year, because take a wild guess what happens when I do do that? Anyone? Yeah, I don't do them.

So these are just things that I'd like to learn to do so that things go better for me as I go.

I'd like to keep my grocery budget to $200 a month, or rather $200 every 4 weeks. We have four people in this house. DH, who can usually eat a horse and drink a cow in one week's time. But he is only home 12 days out of every 28, and he is fed by work when he is up there. Me, and I eat maybe 2200 calories a day but I exercise vigorously five days a week and on my off days tend to only eat 1800 calories. My daughter, who has 1.5 hour basketball practice 3 nights a week and 2 1 hour long games on Saturdays, who tends to eat 2000 calories on work out days and 1400 on non-workout days. And my son, who is currently going through a growth spurt and eating about 1200 to 1400 calories a day depending on physical activity.

I think we should easily be able to stay within this amount if we completely stop buying convenience foods and eating out. I am wanting to eliminate all not from scratch foods anyway, as they have so many unhealthy ingredients. This should leave us with about $100 for meat protein, $30 for dairy and $70 for 100% whole wheat bread items, fresh fruits and vegetables each period.

We eat a lot of protein due to postprandial hyperinsulinemia (all of us have it except the youngest one and we feed him the same as us as he is showing signs of it, just hasn't been tested) and we don't like vegetarian meat substitues or beans of the non-string or green variety. Cutting back on protein is not an option for us to save money.

I think $100 a month should be adequate. We can usually get 10 pounds of hamburger @ $1.48 per pound, 10 pounds of chicken hindquarters @ $0.39 to $0.59 per pound, whole chickens at $0.59 per pound, beef roasts @ $2.49 per pound, tuna fish $0.99 (label must read tuna, water or tuna, olive oil, salt is okay--no autolyzed vegetable broth or any other additives), turkey legs or necks for $.0.69 per pound. We get 4 18 packs of organic omega-3 eggs a month at $2.19 per pack. If there is a good sale I will buy salmon or other seafood like shrimp or crab, but that is rare. All meat must be free of added ingredients, like a "10% solution added to enchance flavors," non-genetically modified, wild caught and not farmed in the case of seafood, no growth hormones, and free range. We prefer grass-fed and kosher, but sometimes there is a limit to what we can expect from our local grocery stores and most organic meat is out of our price range.

The most expensive thing is the sliced sandwich meats from Applegate Farms that have no additives, preservatives or in the case of ham has not been cured. The kids take that for lunches. Once it is opened it must be used within 4 days. I really need to divide these packages up and freeze the excess because the kids won't go through a whole one in a week's time. And also the organic milk is very pricey, too. DH drinks regular milk but the rest of us drink organic. DH can go through one gallon in 2 to 3 days by himself while we go through 1 in about 5 days. I can get coupons from Organic Valley dairy and I use my reward coupons from Fred Meyer as well.

I also need to start making my own bread products again. I have the bread machine, the ingredients and the recipes, but I never quite get around to it. I need to get around to it. Bread is pretty much my last convenience product but since we buy organic bread and 100% whole wheat bread, it is pricey. I can do this. I just have to want to.

This is all doable. It just needs to be done-able. Okay, making up words now. But I think my point is clear here. Just do it. I'll very grudgingly let this be categorized under goals, but I consider it more of a plan.

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.

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.

3rd Entry for today.

No, these are not my deepest, darkest secrets, I'm just planning my day tomorrow. I am going to tackle, oh, horror or horrors, my bedroom closet. It has grown to quite fearful proportions and is threatening to take over that entire side of the room. So I am going to take everything out of it tomorrow, except the clothes that are hanging up and put it all in the living room and then tackle one box at a time. My goal is to get through the whole thing.

I've got bags of outgrown children's clothes that need to be sorted and readied for freecycle, old maternity clothes (youngest will be seven come March) yarn, craft supplies, pillow stuffing, batting, and several miscellaneous boxes of stuff. Papers that need to be shredded, magazines that need to be recycled, papers that need to be filed, newspapers that need to go in the box by the fireplace, wrapping paper, ribbons, bows, gift bags, and junk. I swear, it is all breeding. I hope I can get it sorted, trashed, organized, recycled, given away or whatever all in one day. It sure would be nice.

What has this to do with finances? Well, getting the old statements and bills filed or shredded will help in organizing the finances. And spending the day at home cleaning means I won't be out spending money. Other than that, not much. LOL

I finally made it to town and deposited money to savings and today was also the auto deposit so:

$10.00 auto deposit
$10.00 cash
$ 2.50 rolled coin
$ 5.00 surveyspot check
$36.50 refund for x-ray

Total depsoit: $64.00
New balance in savings: $1299.01

I have blown past my goal of saving $250 by the end of November by $49.01 already. I wonder if its possible for me to double my goal and save a total of $500 by the end of November instead? I'd have to come up with $200.99. I'll have $105 more just through normal savings next month. No wait, there are 5 Thursdays next month so that's five auto deposits, which is $50 plus the $65 we used to pay for cable, which is $115, so I'd only have to scrape up $85.99.

Of course, this is beyond the $1000 I will save next month because DH is working an extra week. I'm still waiting on a check from ACOP for $15 and I think I've got another one coming from another survey company, still. Hmm. I can definitely count on the ACOP, it should show up any day now, so that's just $70.99 to come up with. That is totally doable.

So come the end of November I should have a total $2500 in savings! Woohoo! With our tax refund and DH's bonus plus what I am regularly able to save $7800 by the end of April. With our trade-in we should easily be able to purchase a good used car with that. Especially if the one we want is still sitting on the lot by then. It'll have been there for at least 8 months at that point. I'm sure they'll want to move it.

Although, if we can save that much in one year, maybe we ought to try to hold out another year and double that amount and get a two year old car instead of a five year old one. I don't know. Still, the older car would mean I could start putting my savings skills to work again sooner and start paying down debt with a vengeance. I'll have to really think about that. Our car is 14 years old and still runs okay most of the time. The SUV is 10 years old and would be the trade-in for obvious gas guzzling reasons.

Too much to decide on today, but for now I think I'll stick with the first goal of buying a five year old car and we can decide for sure in April when we have the money in the bank.

Okay, let's get the savings update out of the way. Yesterday was the auto-transfer of $10 to savings. The CU also put in their teeny tiny amount of dividends for the interest of $0.43. Total in this savings account is now $1116.43. That 43 cents is probably going to drive me crazy for a bit until I can add 57 cents to make it even again. I hate odd money amounts, I will always even it up when I can.

I received a check from NFO surveys of $10 yesterday and along with $25.50 in rolled coin, deposited it today into CU#2. Bringing the total in that account to $118.58. Oh, I don't think I mentioned that I had gotten a $70 medical refund last week to start this account.

So total savings right now is $1235.01. I also have an additional $10 that I will deposit on Monday. With that deposit I will only need $5 more to hit my goal of adding $250 to savings by the end of November. I'll meet that next Thursday with the auto deposit! I'll have saved $250 in one month instead of two.

Now I just need to get on the ball and open an ING account. Anyone have a referral they can send me? Baselle, do you have any? That would be appropriate since it was reading her blog that got me started on the whole ING thing.

Anyway, since it was payday I paid the last two bills that needed paying for this pay cycle, more to MBNA MC and my life insurance.

Then I went shopping. I spent $12.08 at the organic food store for 2 packages of organic 100% whole wheat tortillas, 6 pluots, and a jar of Spectrum mayonaise with omega-3 and flax seed oil.

Then I went to the farm stand and paid $5.97 for one large white onion, 6 ears of corn, 6 bananas, a big bunch of red flame grapes and two yellow summer squash.

From there I went to WalMart and spent $14.46 for a white twin sheet, package of 40 bandages with a free Neosporin sample, and a bottle of Ultrafine Mist Vick's nasal spray. Had to go to the pharmacy and pay $7.33 for a 48 pack of Sudafed and while there got a free sample of Pepcid AC.

Then I went over to Costco and bought 2 chuck roasts and a package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, 2 18 packs of brown Omega-3 organic eggs, and a container of Electrasol dishwashing tablets. I also added $80 to my cash card while I was at the check out for their gas station (which I didn't fill up today). Total was $139.08. We will fill up tomorrow after the soccer game. I really don't like to do it there so if DH is home, I'll wait until he can unless I am running on fumes.

Then it was to the Franz bakery outlet store where I got $9 worth of 100% whole wheat flour bread and from the free rack a package of eight 100% whole wheat hamburger buns. Of course, there's no way to coupon with this sort of shopping, but that's the trade off for healthier eating. I did get a milk coupon from Organic Valley though, so I am happy about that and will use it the next time I get milk.

I have started reading the Schwarzbein Principle which I think will go hand in hand with my husband's Ultra Metabolism book, only geared more for women. It's interesting so far.

I'm not sure if I ever said, I finished the book on CD "Start Late, Finish Rich," by David Bach. Really interesting, has some good ideas, but the more of his stuff I read the less I feel like we started late. We have a good chunk in the 401K and have a lot of equity in our house, almost 2/3 of its value is paid for. I have put "The Automatic Millionaire: Real Estate" on hold. I've read or listened to everything else the library has by this author and have really enjoyed it. He gives a lot of solid information in a simple, understandable way. I highly recommend his books.

Food today:

Breakfast:
Cascadia Farms Organic O's cereal
organic milk
organic omega-3 eggs
organic apple

Lunch:
carrots
pineapple
wild salmon patty (made with scallions, organic omega-3 egg, garlic, and real parmesan)
salad with grapeseed oil
water

Dinner:
chuck roast
corn
potatoes
banana
green beans
organic milk

And that's all she wrote.

The auto deposit was today so savings is up by $10 more, bringing it to a total of $917. I have already hit my goal of $100 saved this month and gone over by $7. Woohoo! I'll have two more of those deposits this month and $3 from the PTR I cashed out. Hmm...if I can squeeze out $20 more somewhere I'll hit $150 this month. Well, we'll see. And my goal of $1000 total is getting so close I can taste it.

I hit my August savings goal of $800, actually went a bit past it. I had the auto deposit of $10 today but also went down and added in $17.15 bringing me to a grand total of $810. Just $190 to go to hit the big $1000 mark.

My goal for the month of September will to be to bank at least $100. I think I can do it. I think I can do better than do it, as I have the set $10 per week and I am supposed to be putting in the old cable payment of $65 each month now, though that went into new tires this month. With that though, that's $105 and I'll make a few bucks with PTR's so it shouldn't be a problem. If I could push hard enough, I might make the whole $190 bit I'm not sure I want to push that hard and with soccer I will have to spend more on gas. I don't want to cut to the bone.

We'll see. I have to wait on what the new payment will be on the consolidated credit card before I can finalize the new budget.