Added 70 cents to the change jar today. I spent $4.31, but they gave me back the extra penny's worth, since they were low on pennies.

I plan to spend $10 at the cherry stand this afternoon, maybe more if they have any Raniers.

I'll have a $15 co-pay for my doctor's appointment today. It's just a blood pressure check. I'll also get written prescriptions to send into the mail order place for the two new meds he put me on 3 months ago, one for thyroid and one was a lower dose bp med. It's too expensive month to month to keep doing it that way now that I know they work.

No eating out today and I don't think there will be anything else to buy, either.

I almost had scary neighbors again. Or a scary neighbor. I hate that the house next door is a rental. There's only four rentals in the entire development and why does one have to be next door to me? I wish the owner would just sell it.

Anyway, after Tobias got on the bus to summer school today I ran into board president of the development and he told me that the house next door had almost been rented to a guy who had said he had one misdemeanor for pot possession ten years ago.

Well, fortunately the owner of the rental ran a background check because he had that misdemeanor all right, ten years ago. Of course, he had failed to mention the ten felony counts of manufacturing crack and meth that he'd gotten in the years since then. Or that he was currently using, which is why he was thrown out of his last home. So why is this guy not in prison? I thought we were tough on drug offenders?

This isn't even that kind of neighborhood. The puppy mill out of that house was bad enough. And they were really creepy. This guy would have given me nightmares and made me fear having my kids out in the yard. It's such a nice house. Why does it attract the freaks?

Okay, anyway this afternoon we went to town to see the chiropractor. Then I picked up organic milk and tortilla chips (2 1 pound bags for $3) at the grocery store and cherries at the gas station. No, that's not as odd as it sounds. They have various cherry stands around town and this one is at the gas station near the grocery store. I spent $8.65 for the groceries and $10 for 8 pounds of bing cherries. That works out to $1.25 a pound, way better than anywhere else.

We also had dinner at McDonalds which came to $12.17, and stayed in the lovely air-conditioned playland for an hour.

The temperature was 86 today. There was a breeze but it was still pretty stifling. We stopped by Mom's for an hour before heading home with a bag full of snow peas and kohlrabi. I've been watering since we got home. The ground has gotten really dry really fast and the flowerbeds and the garden really needed it. I am tempted to leave the garden on all night, but if I do it when I get up at 7:45 to get T ready for school I can let it go until 11:00. The question is will I remember to do that in my sleep deprived state? I don't know. My timers only work for 2.5 hours so if it needs longer I either set it and forget it or go out in the pitch dark and I don't wanna.

I added $2.55 to the coin jar today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, what a storm we had today. Gorgeous and loud and it even took the power out for a minute. Not long enough to be inconvenient, just long enough to have to reset the clocks on the stove and the microwave.

Spent $12 today on groceries. And generally spent the day totally vegging, reading stuff on line, watching The Sound of Drums. Completely taking the day off.

Tomorrow on the other hand is supposed to be beautiful and so that means yard work. A lot of yard work. Definitely will make up for the lazy day today.

Yesterday was payday. Bills paid were:

$820.00 to BoA Visa
$372.00 to Water/Sewer
$ 88.90 to Citi MC
$ 34.00 to Security system
$ 93.00 to Puget Sound Energy
$ 30.57 to Life Insurance
$ 60.00 to Medical
$100.00 to Gas Card
$ 76.83 to Costco groceries and toilitries
$105.89 to Haggen groceries
$ 72.00 to Cell phone

So quite a bit of money out yesterday. Water/sewer is 6 months. They've switched over to a new computer system and have their elbows up their noses when it comes to billing. Fortunately I've just been keeping the money in account until they got around to billing. It's supposed to be $104 every two months.

Next week will be a rather large payout as well, as propane goes out, garbage, medical and house mortgages go out, homeowner's association dues, car insurance and $200 to Comcast for hooking up the new digital phone, putting in a new cable system for the internet and moving an existing cable to a new location for the telly.

I'm still not a huge fan of having cable telly again. But I absolutely adore cable internet. Makes me happy. I also like having caller ID for the first time. It's not an extra with the new system, it comes standard. I ignore call waiting. I think its rude and always have and I will not use it. Well, unless its DH. That could be an emergency. So I would then. Just have to figure out how.

The PC went belly up this week. I'm not sure if I said that before or not. When DH comes home he will do some tinkering and if that doesn't work we will take it in to 3-D, the local computer fixer people and see if anything can be done. We'll at least retrieve the photos off the hard drive. Then we will be looking at saving up for a little Compaq desktop. Doesn't have to be anything grand or expensive.

Oh, gas prices have dropped again, here. I filled up at Costco yesterday at $2.99 a gallon. It didn't even cost $45 for just under 15 gallons. Last time it was $52! So that's nice. It's also nice to still have over $50 on the gas card.

I need to remember to call and make an appointment to have the steering fluid flushed in the car. It's in serious need and I will try to schedule for next Friday as I will be in town doing all the banking for next payday then. I have a couple more repairs to schedule as well. It seems it's always something, but I suppose when your car is 15 years old, you do what needs doing to keep it on the road. The repairs still aren't more than half a car payment averaged throughout the year, so I think we're still doing good there.

Not much else going on. Oh, I was able to watch Doctor Who Utopia today. Took a good bit of hunting to find a working download, but I finally did. It only aired on Friday in the UK. It'll start airing in the states on July 6. Not sure when the DVD will be out, but definitely not until after it finishes its run on Scifi channel. I'll need to start saving up for that, too.

I found out Torchwood starts airing on BBCAmerica in September. Not sure if SciFi will do the spinoff or not. Well, I've watched them all online anyway. No info on when the DVD of that comes out either, but it'll probably be just as pricey as DW, so I should probably just double the amount I'm putting away for DW.

I think that's about it then, for today. No money spent at all today.

Well, so far so good. I have managed to use up two boxes of fish, one filets and one sticks and one box of chicken nuggets from the freezer. They were all taking up a lot of space and were only partial boxes. Now lest you think my shopping habits have been really bad, these were all homemade versions of fast food items that were in big Tupperware freezer containers.

I have also managed to use up half a head of cabbage close to the edge and a head of lettuce rapidly approaching the point of no return. I didn't make it to the farm today to buy the strawberries but I will have to buy milk and bread tomorrow so will buy the flat of berries then. I think I have enough eggs to make it to next Friday as well without buying anymore from the farm.

Oh, wait, you know I am getting lazy again and forgetting. I am going to start a loaf of bread going in the bread machine tomorrow before I head to town. I don't need to buy bread, I have just gotten into that mindset again.

I will be helping my mother out a bit. She still has walking pnuemonia and needs me to go grocery shopping for her, otherwise I wouldn't be going to town. And since I will be in town I will gas up at Costco, pick up my refill on my thyroid medication, and purchase my monthly CD. No not that kind of CD, I wish! That would be my monthly music CD. Rose has put in a request for something by Rihanna, so I'll get the one with Unfaithful on it. That song is so pretty even if it is pretty sad. I think it has S.O.S on it, too, which is quite upbeat.

I don't care that much this month, but next month, July's purchase will be one I've been waiting for, the new Kelly Clarkson. Yes, I am hopelessly a pop junkie. But I watched her new single Never Again on youtube and she is just getting better and better. The trick is going to be waiting until July 1st when she comes out the last week of June. But my limit is one CD a month., so I'll do it. That's my piddly small allowance, but its what I want and does not take up a ton of room so that's okay.

I just finished my fill-in purchasing at the grocery store and I am now going on a two week challenge to eat from my pantry, freezer and fridge. I am only allowed to buy milk, bread, and fresh fruit and veggies, but only if I run out of all fresh fruits and all veggies, not just because the ones in the bin don't look enticing at the moment.

I have several cans of pineapple and peaches so I'm going to try to just keep the fruit purchase to fresh berries which go on sale at the local farm on Thursday, which I set aside money for today. That fruit purchase will get me through the next two weeks as I will buy and process a full flat of strawberries for $13.

I have plenty of cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus, summer squash, zucchini, red cabbage, kohlrabi and green beans, so veggies should not even be an issue. Bread and milk I just don't have enough space to purchase ahead of time, really.

There's lots of chicken, fish, and beef in the freezer and plenty of eggs in the fridge. My main goal is to fight against buying stuff in the grocery store just because it "looks good", because that way lies certain grocery budget destruction. This I know. And it is what I am fighting against.

I spent $6.46 to buy more electrolyte solution and a gallon of milk. Still feeling a little disconnected. Rose did decide to share her virus. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately considering what she's been going through, mine is at the throwing up end of things. I hate not keeping my food down. Right now I'm sipping on organic chicken boullion. After what happened to breakfast this morning, this seems like my best option for lunch.

Well, I have to say being sick like this definitely reconnects me to my life. Ugh.

Did you ever have one of those days where you're walking around kind of outside of yourself? Like you are observing your life from a distance and though you are aware of it, you're just not really there in the moment. Today was like that, definitely a little left of center. I suppose I'm still reacting to that car accident behind the house. Maybe its a protective thing, so I don't really have to think about what I saw. Which is fine until night time when there is nothing left to distract me and it is all I can focus on.

DH flies home Wednesday and that will help so much. He is my rock. I think I've been left with this overwhelming sense of helplessness. To not be able to help someone that way, I don't even think I've come to terms with that. I just keep pushing it out of my mind, like stuffing things into the closet that you don't want to deal with until much later, if ever.

It is hard for me to focus on the financial right now. I had food delivered today, $70 worth of frozen cod and salmon from a frozen food wholesaler. It should last a good while. And I spent $2 on 64 ounces of an electrolyte solution for Rose. She's got a nasty stomach/intestinal virus and was getting pretty dehydrated. This is the same one Tobias had about 2 weeks ago. At least all the symptoms are the same. Let's just hope the sweethearts have not passed it along to me. That's the last thing I want to deal with right now.

I miss my sense of optimism. It got hit with a sharp knock this weekend and doesn't seem to want to come visiting.

Had a bit of a creepy morning when my old neighbor who had been evicted from his home two months ago came by. I figured he must have worked stuff out with his landlord. He wanted to use my phone and I was not about to let him into my home. Both of the cordless phones were charging and no way was I letting him in to use the corded phone. That guy just creeps me out. Then he wanted to borrow gas and I said I didn't have any. Like I would loan him anything ever again. He still owes me $11.55 from over a year ago.

Today after school I got a knock on the door. It was the Sherrif's department asking me if I'd seen my neighbor today. Apparently he didn't work stuff out with his landlord and was not supposed to be back on the property next door. He asked me some questions. I didn't know much, like I said the guy gives me the creeps so I try to avoid him like the plague. They had 3 police cars and 3 officers there for a half an hour. I don't know if the neighbor ever came home though or not.

You'd think having this stuff going on would have actually engaged me in my life today but it didn't really. I was still outside myself. I'm getting to know most of the sherrif's department this year. That's got to come in handy at some point.

I hope I can shake all this off soon and get back my positive happy outlook. I miss it, but at the moment I don't quite know where I put it. Somewhere outside the bubble.

Maybe tomorrow will be a nice normal day. I'm tired of the drama. I'd like to be bored instead, thank you.

Well, today was payday and a lot of money went out today, but bills must be paid and life rolls on.

$1300.00 to Bank of America CC (they own my life)
$ 42.00 to 3 month newspaper subscription
$ 42.01 to phone bill
$ 64.54 to cell phone bill
$ 233.40 to Costco
$ 63.27 WalMart
$ 17.46 Haggen
---------
$1762.78 Total spent

$100 of the Costco money went on the cash card to use for buying gas so that is not really as horrible as it seems. I stocked up a lot of canned goods I am low on and cheeses, part of which I froze.

WalMart was relatively healthy snack foods for the kids, medicine, a reinforced set of garden gloves that will allow me to pull out the trailing sticker plant that is invading my yard from the neighbor's house (their motto: yard, what yard?) a small handheld ratchet pruner and the bigger one you need for pruning limbs on trees and one music CD I had planned for.

I usually get one music CD a month, if I get more in a month its because I lose my discipline and impulse buy more. I did that two months ago, so I am trying to keep a leash on it, even though there are two more CD's I want to get. They'll just have to wait their turns. Music has a relatively important place in my life, having learned to play violin, viola, flute, and piano in my lifetime and having sung in Concert Choir in high school. Music is just that important to me.

Another payday gone and another paycheck spent. Next week is mortgage and more CC payments. Lovely. Ah, well, life goes on.

I had to sit through another t-ball game tonight. We are so doing soccer next year. The entire team had a very bad case of being little boys. Chelsea was absent, so I can say that. I didn't think they were ever going to settle down and pay attention to the game, and I was right, they didn't. Oh, well, just three more to go and then the season is over.

I went to the grocery store and spent $40 on food. Well, mostly on food. I bought a five ounce tin of Hungarian paprika for $7.79. That's technically a spice. And then the $3.99 for the infotainment magazine wasn't technically food, either. But the rest of it was.

I am going to go to Costco tomorrow if I feel well enough to do it. I am out of some staples. Well, not staples in the traditional sense, because its ravioli, chili, and kosher beef hot dogs, but those are things that are eaten all the time here, so I call them staples. I want to get strawberries and maybe some other fruit if it looks good. And I need to fill up the gas tank. I may just wait until Friday, though. We'll see.

My kids are still fighting over stupid stuff and I am ready to send them to boarding school. No, not really. I don't think. They are normally such good kids. In fact, the school librarian was just talking about them the other day and said they were two of the nicest kids she's ever met and she thinks they are just wonderful. I wonder what she would think if she could see the little hellions right now? Though maybe they are so good with her because she controls the books.

Today was just an average day and it almost seems silly to blog about it. Maybe I'm going through a faze? I dunno.

Anyway, I went to the massage therapist today as my hip went all wonky earlier this week. It helped a lot. That was $50.

Went to Costco and spent $126.00, though $100 of that went onto the cash card to be used as gas. Gas is up to $3.05 at Costco and well over $3.25 at most other stations. Again we are the highest gas in the state of Washington. Sucks to be us if we want to drive right now. Otherwise I just bought kosher beef hotdogs and chicken pot pies. Oh, and I picked up the new Hillary Duff CD/DVD Dignity for Rose but that was with her allowance, so it doesn't count into my spending.

I set aside $60 to go into the vacation fund but did not have the time to deposit it today.

My parkhopper ticket for Disneyland arrived today. Hard to believe that in 9 more days I will be hitting that park with a very good friend that I have not seen since 2003 and without the kids! Oh, we will take them in another year or two, I suppose, but the little one is still too afraid of many carnival rides and I don't want to waste a trip not being able to go on things because of that.

Then after that is the conference for my illness, so all told I will be away from home for 8 days. DH will be on his own with the kids, scary. Well, not really, he's a good hands on dad, but he might find it scary. At least they will be in school on five of those days.

I haven't decided yet on whether I will take my computer with me or not. Doubt I'd blog much anyway, I'll be exhausted from all the walking around and having fun.

I'm working on a trip budget and am going to do my best to stay within it or even under it. Still a work in progress, though.

Well, I'm off to do my monthly Costco run. Not that much that I need there today, fluorescent light bulbs, sirloin patties for making hamburgers, and chicken pot pies because I've been promising the kids. Some lettuce, some fruit, and maybe some seafood if it looks good toay. I also need to put money on the gas card, so I probably will hit over $100 there. But definitely not for food.

I'll also make a brief run to Haggen to see if they have any kohlrabi in. I think it might be between seasons.

I'd like to make a stop at Lowe's to see what kind of veggie starts they have, maybe WalMart for the same reason. Depends on how crazy I want to make myself today. If Haggen has enough of what I want in their garden shop, then I might not bother with the other two places.

I'll try not to go hog wild and I won't be eating out today.

I wrote three more pages today. Really didn't want to stop but this is the last day I have to go shopping without the kids.

Bills paid today:

$ 400.00 House Mortgage ($375.86 + $23.14 extra to principle payment)
$ 130.00 Chiro Family Plan
$ 100.00 Bank of America MC
$ 320.48 Propane (6 months)
$ 37.36 Garbage (2 months)
$ 50.00 Costco Membership Renewal
$ 50.00 Costco Gas Card Loaded
$ 154.63 Costco groceries, Kleenex and Charmin
$ 20.00 Rose's monthly allowance
$ 15.00 Tobias' monthly allowance
$ 15.00 Doctor bill
$ 100.00 Citi MC
-----------------
$1392.47 Total Bills Paid

I am also setting aside $500 to be used along with some money from next week's check to pay BoA Visa, and took out $100 cash for miscellaneous expenses.

Isn't that just the way? My membership expired yesterday and today I find the card. Well, we do plan on renewing tomorrow anyway, we did make the decision to do that, just never got around to it. We decided between the gas, sea food, produce, toilet paper, Kleenex tissues, butter, cheese and kosher beef hotdogs that the membership did end up paying for itself.

Tomorrow is payday so we will go then. Just getting the basics though. Go in with a list and no huge overspend.

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.

DH and I dropped the kids at MIL's house tonight (a rarity) and went to Costco and then to Fred Meyer.

At Costco we bought:

Mega Pack of Charmin
2 packages of kosher beef hotdogs
2 8 packs of ravioli

We spent $50.38.

Then we went to Fred Meyer and bought:

chicken legs
2 packages organic uncured sliced ham
grapes
1 gallon 2% milk
1 package beef steaks
1 torch lamp to replace a broken one

We spent $61.88 there.

We did a lot of looking around there. I wasn't thrilled with the lamp we picked out but it was the only one we could use a fluorescent light bulb in and was $35, on special for 25% off that price. It fit our needs best and doesn't clash with our furnishings, so that is what we bought. I like a couple of more expensive ones because they were pretty instead of utilitarian, but I did not like them 55% more than the one we bought and since that was the price difference, I'll deal. It's not like it is ugly, it just isn't pretty.

We looked at the furniture, too. We only have a three person couch right now. We used to have a rocker/recliner and an overstuffed arm chair but they were falling apart, so we put them out in the shed until we had a chance to repair them and there was a gap somewhere that prevented the shed from being airtight, so the furniture upholstry molded.

They have a very nice red leather arm chair that reclines for $400. It is smaller and fits the length of my legs perfectly. I like it a lot. Do I like it $400 worth, though? I don't think so. Maybe if it went on a really good sale. If money were no object, I would think it was the perfect chair for me.

We wandered back into garden and looked at the patio furniture and the lawn furniture and we saw a really, really nice lounger for $100. It was very comfortable and very well made and the pillow that came with it had speakers in it that you could plug a personal music player into. We are seriously considering getting it for the 4th person's seating in the living room. But I think first I am just going to try to find something on freecycle.

Either that or use my blood money to buy the $400 chair. Oh, that is what I am calling the money for plasma donation, blood money. I just like the way it sounds kind of sinister. Yes, I am a silly girl, you should know that by now. Blood money to buy a red chair, that seems appropriate, don't you think?

At the grocery store. Rose's games, which were so ridiculous I am not even going to list scores, but every single girl on that court today had fumble fingers, both sides, both teams. It was like the ball was magnetically opposed to going through the basket. Like bouncing off the inside rim and back out again. And the dropped passes...well, it was entertaining.

Anyway, so shopping.

1 package pork chops, originally at $5.38, marked down to $4.05, stickered with an additional $1 off coupon to $3.05
2nd package pork chops, from $5.57 to $4.57 with additional $1 coupon to $3.57

5 pounds of beef shoulder steak for $10.07
2 pounds beef stew meat @ $4.66, marked down to $3.66, with $1 coupon to $2.66
2nd package beef stew meat @ $4.78,makred down to $3.78, with $1 coupon to $2.78

one 5 pound whole all natural local chicken @ $5.25, marked down to $3.25, with $1 coupon to $2.25

Pretty darn good for 16 pounds of protein. It averages out to $1.52 per pound.

1. Go to the doctor.
2. Possibly go to the pharmacy depending on what news I get at the doctor.
3. Stop by Michael's and get their monthly calendar as I am interested in taking a jewelry making class. If I like it I may consider trying to make some stuff for profit.
4. Go to Costco. I decided to bite the bullet and keep the Costco membership, but I am going to have to get a new card because my lost one is just not turning up.
5. Deposit my $8 check from ACOP into my vacation fund at the credit union.
6. Pick up organic milk and some organic lunch meat for school lunches.

So it will definitely be a spend day, no way around that today.

I'm torn about dinner tonight. I know I could just make something simple like spaghetti and meatballs, something that I don't have to babysit if I put the meatballs in the micro. But I am still so tired and even that sounds like a huge production.

I have to go buy milk anyway so I'm trying to talk myself down from getting a pizza while I'm out. It's only $6 for a large pepperoni, but then again, its $6 that really does not need to be spent. The problem with being sick is that my resistance to spending money goes way down. There is just so much ease, or at least there is a perceived ease to getting take out.

If I didn't need milk, I wouldn't even drive down to the store as it requires more effort than I really feel like putting out there. Oh, I'm alert enough, its not like it would be dangerous for me to drive the 1.2 miles to get there, but I'm just really lethargic. Haven't done my treadmill since last Wednesday.

I do have a doctor's appointment for tomorrow. I'm kind of glad I couldn't get in today, so I could get some more sleep while the kids were at school.

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.

Today, well technically yesterday, was payday. It was such a relief to finally have money again. I really hate paycheck to paycheck and I swear some day I will be free of that leash. It may take 10 years but I will be free of it!

I am so exhausted all the time right now. I wish I knew what was wrong with my system. Is it possible to get mono more than once in your life? Because I had that in 8th grade and that is the closest thing to how I feel right now. All I want to do is sleep. After the kids went to school today I went back to sleep and did not get up again until it was time to go out and meet the school bus. This was on top of a full night's sleep.

The kids wanted to go out and play and since it was sunny and reasonably warm out at 47 degrees I let them go until 5, which is when it gets on towards dark. So while they were gone I managed to pull myself together long enough to check online to see what the amount of the direct deposit was and to write out some bills.

$42.92--Homeowner's Insurance
$41.73--Phone
$70.94--Cell Phone
$93.74--Citi MC
$93.00--Puget Sound Energy
$35.00--MB Youth Baseball--T-ball (Tobias)
$45.00--MB Youth Softball--Fastpitch (Rose)
$100.00-Cash out for gas
$312.00-MBNA MC

I still have to pay the house mortgage ($400), the 1/2 year dues for the homeowner's association ($125), set aside money for 1/2 the water bill due at Feb's end ($56), 1/2 for garbage ($25), put aside $50 for propane (still haven't been billed yet) and $100 for property tax savings out of this check.

Mortgage and Homeowner's dues are due on the 1st. I would have paid the mortgage today but we didn't make it into town before the CU closed. The drive-thru is open until 7 but they won't take mortgage payments, so I just could get the cash out for gas. And there is no one in the office on Fridays to accept the dues, either. So I will do those most likely on Monday.

Oh, I went to two grocery stores and spent $37.16 at one and $86.44 at the other one. I did make one wasteful food purchase. They had Marie Calendar TV dinners on sale 4/$10 so I bought four spaghetti dinners. To me, that is the ultimate in wasteful food spending because it is the absolute easiest, cheapest meal to make from scratch. But I am sick and I wanted my comfort sghetti, so I did it.

Usually when I buy something from Marie Calendar it is just something I don't normally make myself or if I do, it involves a tremendous amount of effort, like pot pies or beef stew. And if I hadn't been limited by the amount of freezer space I knew I had left, I might have bought more. I guess I need to add don't go food shopping sick to the list of don't go food shopping hungry or with the children. I did all three tonight. My bad.

My oh-so-wonderful mother is going to take the kids home with her after Rose's basketball games to spend the night. I love my Mommy. She took one look at me tonight and offered. I am very glad because I am just not operating on all 8 cylinders. Actually I'm not sure I'm operating on all of 1 cylinder at the moment. Took my temperature: 100.5. Oh, joy. I hope this isn't the start of walking pnuemonia, come to think of it. That I don't want to deal with. At all.

I haven't updated my spending journal since Thursday, I think. I was so gung-ho on this when I started and now I'm kind of...eh. That's partly because I really don't like what the spending journal is revealing about my own personal habits. Which is that I am weird about food.

I will often buy food I don't need, even though there is plenty of food in the house because I am stressing over something. I'm not talking junk food or dumb purchases, either. Just...quantity. Like I'm afraid there won't be enough in the house or something.

This is particularly difficult now as we are no longer using the full size upright freezer. I am confined to a half size cubic chest freezer and the freezer that comes with our fridge, which is quite large for its size. I think it may be bigger on the inside than the outside, very tardis-like.

Well, I've managed to curtail the freezer spending, but seem to be trying to make up for it with pantry items. What is up with that? I did not grow up poor. Even the year my dad was on strike from the mill (he went to work pumping gas and my mom, a retired teacher, substitute taught nearly every day that year), we always had adequate food. We were never deprived. So where is this coming from?

Oh, I have issues with food. I'm a recovered bulimic, 11.5 years free of the disease, which conincides with my getting married and moving out of my parent's house. But its never been over not having enough. It was always over being in control of my life, or not being in control of it. I'm starting to wonder if my need to have such great quantities of food in the house is my way of dealing with how out of control I feel the debt situation is and the whole life on hold will he/won't he get a raise issue with DH.

And as issues go, well, I'd rather be buying too much food than ever go back down the road to an eating disorder. But when we are trying to cut back on our grocery budget and save some money here, it is very counter-productive to be coming up on this sort of thing.

I'm hoping putting it out here in black and white, may help me to recognize what I am doing and find a less destructive thing to do.

My last straw with myself was tonight when I emptied my change jar and went down to the convenience store and got a 16 inch pepperoni pizza for $6.49 when I could have very easily made something healthy at home, or even a homemade pizza of better quality for less money with what I had in the house. It went over from healthy food buying to junky food buying. Uh-uh.

This has to stop. No more money is to be spent on food between now and January 26th, unless it is for milk or for the kids for making cold lunches at school. No more mindless buying. I must be mindful in my buying.

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

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

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

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

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

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

$1121.81 YTD spending
8.97 grocery spending
15.36 fast food
+ 1.29 sales tax on fast food
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$1147.43 New total YTD Spending

____________________________


$180.30 Month to date grocery spending
+ 8.97 1 gallon organic milk and 2 gallons regular 2% milk
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$189.27 MTD Grocery spending
_____________________________

$10.73 Left in the grocery budget

I don't know about you but spending my morning upside down in a chair while a nice lady pokes my gums with sharp sticks is not my idea of a fun time. I'm not afraid of the dentist or anything, I just find clinging to the arms of the chair for dear life so you don't slide headfirst onto the floor to be sort of uncomfortable. And I'm not a great fan of the suction thingy either. That goes back to when I was little and you used to spit the flouride into a suction device that grabbed onto my chin one time and left it a big purple bruise. Now they use a little vacuum tube, but still I get tense when I hear the noise.

DH went to the big library to poke around while I was at the dentist. Afterwards we took the long way home so we could stop by a farm in Lynden that sells fresh brown organic eggs. We got 2 dozen jumbo eggs for $3.60. Some of them are huge double yolkers, I'm sure. I usually eat 2 eggs for breakfast but with some of these babies I'll be having just one.

We are spending the afternoon cleaning in T's room, excpet Rose, who has algebra homework. I don't think I care for algebra and geometry to be taught in the 5th grade. The basics sure, but this is getting complicated for a ten-year-old.

Aside from the eggs we spent no money today, so it is a low spend day.

My 4 week grocery budget is $200. 173.10 is how much I have spent on groceries so far. I have $26.10 left from which I will only need to buy milk and eggs. I have everything else I need for the month. I think this is going to work. Previously my grocery budget has been between $250 and $300 per 4 week pay cycle, so this is quite a cut for us. But with the right planning and the right management of leftovers, I think we will be just fine on this new budget.

Grocery shopping:

@ Haggen

$10.89 2.73 lb uncured organic half ham
$ 5.49 1 pk Isernios Italian chicken sausage
$ 3.19 1 pk 100% whole wheat hoagies
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$19.57

@ Terra Organica

$11.58 2 packages organic additive and presevative free roasted turkey slices

@ Cost Cutter

$11.99 for 12.11 pounds chicken legs
$ 8.99 for 8 bottle case of apple juice
$ 5.99 for 12 can case of tomato sauce
$ 5.99 for 12 can case of green beans
-------
$32.96

@ Costco

$13.45 6 lb bag of preformed Sirloin patties
$ 9.99 3 lb box of bing cherries
$ 8.99 4 lbs kosher beef hotdogs
$ 5.99 1 pint of blueberries
$ 5.99 4 pack (non-cubed) butter
$ 7.99 3 pound box of fresh cut pineapple
-------
$52.40

$116.51 Total grocery spending for the day

Non-grocery spending:

@ Costco

$50.00 to cash card for gas

Dinner out

@ Rount Table Pizza

$23.76 meal
$ 2.21 sales tax
-------
$25.97 total cost of meal

--------------------
$116.51 groceries
$ 50.00 gas card
$ 25.97 eating out
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$192.48 Total spending for day