I spent a nice leisurely morning on the internet and bought presents for both of my children and my husband. I did well and stayed within our Christmas budget. While I was at it, I ordered two things for my birthday in February that had no chance of shipping in time for Christmas. DH has one thing he wants to get at a local gaming shop in town so he will go down there and pick that up in person when he gets back, but for immediate family, I'm done. We also have his parents done. Since I don't exchange with any of my birth family (a decision made long ago), I only need to buy stuff for destitute SIL and her two children.

I know that the youngest wants a Green Day CD, but not which one. The oldest wants everything that is expensive (like an I-pod), but doesn't mind used. Normally I just buy her jewelry. Once DH is home we may scour the pawn shops in the hopes of finding an inexpensive used ipod that works. These girls won't get much this Christmas as their mom is barely making it and their dad just had those heart attacks and can't work again until some time in January. So not only no income from Dad, but no child support from the dad this month, which makes things even tighter on the mom.

I am wondering if maybe we should go a little expensive for the girls this year. It's not like we couldn't swing a couple of dream gifts for them. I know younger neice would like a used DSi. Normally we only spend about $25 to $30 each on them, but considering it is such a bad year for them and we are in such a good place...I don't know. I'll have to talk to DH about it and then talk to SIL about it, because I don't want to damage her pride. Yet, she was willing to take money from us when we offered it, so maybe she would be okay about it.

I'd also like to get another $100 to SIL next payday to help with her bills. As for a gift for her, I don't know. I'd really like to get her something helpful, but all I can think of that is helpful is more money or grocery store gift cards. Maybe a Target or WalMart gift card (since both of them are now remodeled to be grocerers as well). That way if she needs something specific, like an appliance, she can pick one out and if not, she can still use it to buy groceries, toiletries, or needed clothing.

DS came into my room a minute ago and said, "Mommy, what's my Christmas budget this year?" I so love the fact that my kids know we set a Christmas budget, and other types of budgets, and want to work with us to stay within that budget. When I told him the amount he frowned for a moment and then his face lit up and he said, "I think I can get what I want if we buy it used!" I also love the fact that my kids don't think it's a bad thing if their Christmas gifts are used. In the past this was more because it meant they could get more stuff, but nowadays it means they can get better stuff that is still of high quality.

So many parents hide the facts of budgeting from their kids and I worry about what that means when these kids become adults and try to stand on their own two feet, but have no idea about bills, or living within their means, or what credit cards can do to your available income. Every day, in so many different ways, I teach my kids these things. We don't hide the truth of our money situation from them. It's surprising how much this cuts down on the "I wannas."

DS saves up his allowance and his can money (he collects aluminum cans from the neighbors for recycling) for things for long periods of time. It took him 9 months to save up for his 3DS and he treats it like it is priceless because he had to work so hard to get it. Before that he saved up for five months to buy a used DSI from a pawn shop. Right now he is anxious to turn in his cans, but he knows he will get a better price if he waits until he has 50 pounds. DS has learned the value of waiting and I used to think he was the most impatient person in the world.

DD is learning these things more slowly. She tends to want to spend her money faster, but she works very hard and at least understands the concepts of saving and budgeting for bigger expenses. And the great thing is she seldom asks for things anymore, figuring out how to spend her allowance and baby-sitting money to get what she wants faster (usually by buying used or bartering with friends). I overheard her explaining budgeting to one of her friends who had never even heard of the concept at age 15. Wow.

...what are you going to do with your Thanksgiving leftovers? I've got plans in place for pot pies, soup, noodles, enchiladas and quesadillas, as well as a few TV dinners with leftovers as is.

Found out today that DH's sister is in a precarious financial position. Worse than we'd ever thought. And this week is a breaking point. Her work isn't depositing her paycheck until Monday because the bank is closed on Friday. Her mortgage company took the payment out early because the bank is closed on Friday. Unfortunately she wasn't prepared for that and her account is $90 short, and now she has an overdraft fee as well. And she simply can't afford it.

This is yet another thing in our lives that points to the importance of having an emergency fund. We are going to give her some money so she can get through this and then we are going to try to give her $100 a month in grocery store gift cards. DH is also going to take her to fill up her gas tank. It'll make some things tighter for us, but she'll at least be able to feed her kids.

...to spend one $40 gift card? Seriously, DH and I picked up the organic free range turkey today at Safeway and we got an 18 pounder. It was marked as $37.21 and the milk we got was $3.09. So we whip out that gift card and then hand over our store card and...$9 off! So, yeah, we still have $9 and some change left on the gift card. Neither one of us wanted to try to use it up today. I did look around while we were there for anything else, because we just rarely drive out there, but I was not going to pay $7 for 10 pounds of potatoes (can you say price gouging?) or any of the other ridiculous produce prices there. Especially when we stopped at a different store on the way home and they had 15 pound bags of potatoes for $3. Seriously, these things are supposed to go on sale for the holidays, Safeway. Get with the program. And also another reason why I rarely shop there aside from the distance, it is just far, far, far too expensive.

So today we are going out to eat mid-way between lunch and dinner, since the restaurant we want to go to is slowest at that time. This is the only meal out we are planning for during the next two weeks. I figure with Thanksgiving next week there will be plenty of leftovers. I have a bunch of divided containers that will be perfect for freezer TV dinners of leftover turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, and stuffing. Then just pop one out, cook it, add a salad or other green veggie, and you're set for a future dinner.

With the leftover turkey I will also make turkey enchiladas, turkey pot pies, and turkey vegetable noodle soup, some to be frozen, some to be eaten. I will make quesadillas at least one night.

DH's work gave him a $40 gift card to Safeway for Thanksgiving so our turkey will be free. I am going to get the biggest organic free range one I can find for that amount. I don't generally like going to Safeway as it is a 30 minute drive away. I am hoping to have enough leftover for two bags of Great Horn Valley bread for my simple stuffing. If not, I'll make a couple loaves of homemade bread myself on Tuesday. I just have to download the manual to the bread machine my mother gave me when mine went kaput.

DH's family should provide the potatoes, sweet potatoes, milk, butter, pumpkin bread, pies, salad, green vegetable, and not green vegetable (probably corn). I will make one chocolate pie myself so my son can have something he's not allergic, too. I just need to find the right kind of graham crackers for the crust and TJ's chocolate pudding mix. There will probably also be apple (he's allergic to apples), pumpkin (he's allergic to cloves), and lemon meringue (usually a store bought one so usually has yellow #5). I may try my hand at a key-lime this year if I find the right kind of graham crackers.

In the mail yesterday I got a Christmas catalog. No, that is not the shocking part. I get them every year at about this time, though I've never ordered from this one. It was a catalog for The Swiss Colony and I have been pre-approved for get this: $1000. Now I don't know about you, but to me a $1000 credit limit for chocolates, cheese, nuts, and meat type products means that there are people out there that actually spend that much money on this sort of thing. Ouch.

Even though consumable Christmas gifts kind of seems like a nice idea when you don't need any more stuff, my in-laws have made it clear they'd rather I make them a couple of my lasagnas for their freezer and some homemade fudge or cookies, then ever buy one of these types of packages, because my stuff tastes better to them.

The fact that they offer $1000 of credit to people who have a great credit score but that don't actually make an income of their own, well, that is kind of scary to me. It never comes in DH's name, who actually makes the income. This is probably part of why America is in such a mess right now. Anyway, I did look through the catalog, because it is very pretty and shiny, but then it ended up where it always does, the recycle bin. We don't need that kind of additive/preservative, nitrate/nitrite, fake foods in our lives.

Thought I'd take a look at my total credit card debt, as I haven't in a few months. There were some charges made last month (more than I knew about) and things went up that should have gone down. I suppose you can only control the spending of another person to a certain extent. Even when you are on the same page most of the time about getting out of debt, there are unplanned splurges that happen. I would rather they not go on a credit card, or worse yet multiple credit cards that I had paid off, but again...there is only so much one spouse can do.

There is also a plane ticket to Portland and a plane ticket to San Francisco that DH had to get. He had to go through Portland on the way up to work and he'll have to go down to San Francisco briefly on the way home. That's an additional $500 or so.

Anyway...

$21,013.23 BoA VISA
$01,655.18 BoA MC1
$00,183.91 BoA MC2
---------------
$22,852.32 Total CC debt

I think my plan of attack on Friday (after making the car payment and the few small incidental payments that are due at that time) will be to pay off MC2, make a small payment to MC1 and throw as much as possible at the VISA. Interest rates have changed recently and now the VISA has the highest one while the MC's have both actually gone down. So I will throw all extra money at the VISA. It's the one closest to its limit so paying it down will have more of an effect on our credit rating for the short term.

Unfortunately this puts us into next year for the final CC debt payoff. I am a little frustrated by that, but I always knew it was a possibility with all the medical expenses this year. I can pay off somewhere around $1800 on the VISA on the 16th and then throw at least an additional $1500 at it the next week.

DH says they usually get fairly large bonuses at his new company at year's end. He didn't get one last year because he'd only been there three months. It would be nice if we got one, and would help immensely on the debt payoff, but I'm not going to count on it. I don't know. Bonuses at the other company were only around $800. Supposedly at the new company they are closer to $10,000. I have a hard time believing that, though. I know he's in a big money industry, but that just seems ridiculous to me.

There should be an additional $1200 in this pay cycle since DH has hit the SS cap with wages. If so, I'd like to put most of it in the holding tank for upcoming medical expenses. Then it can be transferred to the HSA when it comes time to pay the bills. Normally I set aside $500 a month for medical, so together that would be $1700. All of my Virginia Mason bills to date have come to $1750 and I won't have to have more radiological tests with this next surgery so $1700 should cover it. Then the November pay cycle I will put $1700 in to medical to go for next year's deductible and then I think it will be safe to go back to just $500 a month. That would have the money set aside for the $2500 deductible covered by the end of January. Next year shouldn't be too bad for medical, but I'd at least like to have the deductible covered.

The extra $1200 in December will go partly to Christmas and partly to debt. I am hoping to buy a few things over the next couple of months for Christmas presents so I don't need to use too much of that money for Christmas. Sheesh, I can't believe I'm thinking about Christmas when it's been 80 degrees out all week.

I will be glad when this next week passes and I can start making forward progress again.

I did the major Costco run and now my pantry and toiletries are fully stocked again. I should be able to go a month without going there again, and then only for toilet paper and lemons (we go through a lot of these to make DS's lemonade). It is nice to see the shelves full. The only thing I did not get was potatoes because they only had the 20 pound bags and they looked like they were starting to sprout. We might be at the point where we can start digging up potatoes, but I still have 1/3 of a 5 pound bag left and several packets of organic potato flakes so it's not the end of the world and I can pick some up (hopefully on sale) at one of the grocery stores soon. I did impulse buy a package of English cucumbers ($3.39), but everything else I bought was on my list.

I also paid bills today. The majority went to BoA. We used our MC on vacation and to pay for the Inn at Virginia Mason which is why I'm listing it again when it was paid off before. This doesn't pay it off, but I will be putting more on it next Friday with that as my intention. I will also be putting more on the VISA.

$1862.10 BoA VISA
$_500.00 BoA MC
$_757.82 BoA car payment ($250 extra to principal)
$__10.56 Medical
$__43.70 Garbage (old house)
$__65.56 Internet
$__44.89 Phone (old house)
---------------
$3284.33

I spent the rest of the grocery budget and close to $100 for toiletries and the megapack of paper towels (18 rolls, I think).

I decided to keep the $40 I still had in my wallet from last pay period and not get anymore cash out for this week and see if I can get by on it.

I did roll a thing of pennies and I had $25 in ones and two fives that I'd squirreled away in the coin jar so I went to CU#2 and added $25.50 to the safety net portion of the EF. That brings the safety net to $389.03 and the total EF to $1884.96. That leaves me $115.04 to scrounge up by month's end to hit my goal of $2000 in the EF.

My first goal for the safety net (which is my easily accessible portion of the EF) is to hit $500 and my second goal is to hit $1000. I figure I probably would not have an emergency bigger than that, and if I did that would give me the time for the transfer from ING back to a local account. I don't have four wheel drive anymore so if I blow a tire I'd only have to replace one, not all four. That was my biggest foreseeable expense before we got this vehicle.

Oh, I bought a Christmas present for DS while I was at Costco today. It seems too early to be buying presents, I usually don't start until October, but this was a good price and something he has wanted for months so I was happy to see it and it can sit in my closet for the next four months. I really should finish knitting his scarf as well.

...and waiting for the painkillers to kick in, I did a minor bit of money housekeeping. The checkbook is now completely balanced to the penny. It helps to have been away from it for a week and to have had everything clear in that amount of time. It was off by just under $4 and I easily found the mistake this time (not in our favor).

I cleaned out my purse of all change and added $2.91 to the coin jar. I set aside all of our receipts from the trip to go over tomorrow and see how much the final damage is, though I don't think we spent over $1000 all told and most of that was for food and lodging. Only filled the gas tank 3 times and one of those time was considered a regular fill up for the rest of the month so came out of regular gas money, not trip gas money.

I still need to go through DH's wallet and collect his spare change and his loose bills. He took all my loose bills when I went into the hospital and I didn't get them back. I think there is around $20 there which will go into the coin jar.

Friday was payday. It was shorter than usual by about $200. I think they may be reallocating how they take out medical. Chris got his check stub in the mail so he is going to go over it with the other ones for the month and see if he can catch what is going on.

Anyway, I set aside $700 into temporary savings at CU#1, $350.29 of which is to pay for the bills that come due August 1 through 4, our next payday being the 5th. The rest is for medical savings. Then I have $200 for groceries until the 5th and DH is getting his $100 allowance for the next six weeks.

I also set up the August Budget template. I am going to have to split the Amex bill this month and pay $350 when it is due on the 4th (minimum payment is $61) and the rest of it on the 5th as it has a bit of extra vacation spending. The $350 will cover the part that is affected by interest, the rest would be on the next billing cycle anyway so will not have interest charged on it by not paying it before the 5th, but I like to start the month with it totally paid off and so that no interest accrues on that card.

Well, seems like the meds are starting to kick in so I'm off the try to get some more sleep. Hopefully everything all came out coherently. It is sometimes hard to tell when I am this zoned out.

Days alone are few and far between when you are a stay at home mother and school is out for the summer, but today I am having one and I am loving every minute of it. My queasy stomach seems to have settled down for the most part and it's a gorgeous, sunny but nicely breezy day.

One of my five nephews turned 17 today and so my mother took my kids down south to see him. His two older brothers are also there (one lives in Arizona, the other has been off with the Job Core), and of course the youngest is there, too, as well as a couple of my brother-in-laws nieces. It is a full house and so I elected to stay home. It's hard for me to travel too much these days, and certainly not in a vehicle as uncomfortable as my mother's car, and when I do, I usually need ice for my leg and to be able to elevate it for a few hours once we reach our destination and that is not really an option at my sister's house.

I have spent most of the day alternating between writing and reading Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (which has been amazing so far). YA fiction is one of my guilty pleasures and this one is a definite winner. I'm going to have my daughter read it when I am done.

I did send along $20 in case they stopped for food along the way. That probably breaks my no eating out challenge, but I don't like my mom spending her own money on the kids when she's on a fixed income. She may do it anyway and I could very well end up with that $20 back.

I bought fireworks today. I went slightly over budget at $104, but got a lot of the buy one get one free types to take advantage. I need to buy a new long lighter as well.

I had a serious craving for barbecued chicken wings and I debated Little Caesar's or Boston's but I really didn't want to go out or spend the money and I had some frozen chicken wings sections in the freezer and a nice sweet barbecue sauce in the fridge. So I thawed out six wing parts while I looked up recipes on line to find out how long to deep fry them for because I didn't want to bake them for an hour.

I made up a coating of cornmeal, sweet Hungarian paprika, sea salt, fresh ground pepper, and oregano and very lightly breaded the wings by shaking them in a Ziploc baggy and then deep fried them 12 minutes, turning every 3 minutes. It was about an inch of canola oil on medium high heat. Then I took them out and coated all but one of them with my barbecue sauce, as I wanted to see how it tasted plain as well (yum).

They tasted very good, but I think I need to knock the cook time down to ten minutes on the flat pieces with two bones. The pieces that look like little chicken legs were fine. I will definitely make these again, especially seeing as it was a ten pound bag of chicken wings. I will try to be more patient and bake them in the oven as it is much healthier.

Not much to blog about yesterday so I didn't. First day I missed in a long time. DH went out to the house with his dad to work on the shower stall. He ended up having to come back into town for parts and then go back out again, so he used 4 gallons of gas instead of 2. That'll throw things off a little bit. Glad we aren't making a trip to Seattle this month after all.

DD went to a birthday party. I gave her a twenty so she could buy a present and the change she brought back was $3.25, all in quarters, so it went into the change jar.

The people that fixed the plumbing on Friday came back to take away the broken up blacktop from the part of the driveway they dug up to get to the pipes. The backhoe is still here and will likely remain here until Monday.

My mother decided not to repave that part of the driveway and brought some good dirt/compost in and is going to plant potatoes there. The sewer and gas pipes are eight feet down so the plants shouldn't interfere with them like the honeysuckle roots did. 3 feet of pipe was just jamemed with honeysuckle roots almost in a solid mass.

I'm not crazy about the idea of her planting veggies there because the part of the ground where the overflow pipe comes out spewed sewer water for three days. That can't be healthy. Hopefully she'll just avoid that area, since they actually dug up thirty feet and there is plenty of ground that didn't get contaminated.

As for today my daughter is making the entire dinner. I said I didn't want to do anything, didn't want to be involved in making an elaborate meal and was happy with spaghetti, but she wanted to do something so I told her to go ahead.

We had a turkey at Christmas that we didn't use. We had ended up celebrating Thanksgiving a couple weeks late since DH was in Alaska on the actual holiday, and so nobody was in the mood for making another turkey so soon. So it sat in the freezer since Christmas, but it looked good when we thawed it out this week. So basically we are having Christmas dinner for Easter. She gets to turn it in as a missed lab in her home ec class, too.

I didn't see a price on the turkey so I can't really do a breakdown, but I'm sure it was close to $30 since it was a free range organic bird. Only a 12 pounder, though. And we'll be eating off it all week so that definitely brings the price down on everything.

So I just read another blog urging me not to forget to buy stuff for Valentine's Day for my sweetie and my first thought was, "Umm...no." In my mind, this holiday is just a major waste of money, not just that of the lovebirds but of all the companies who are advertising. It goes into high gear right now. And I don't say this as someone who is down on love, but as someone who has been firmly in a committed relationship for twenty years.

I don't feel like I have to prove my love by buying overpriced waxy chocolates, overpriced out of season roses, eight dollar fancy singing cards encrusted with enough glitter to keep a classroom of six year olds supplied for a year, or expensive gadgets, nor do I expect $1000 jewel encrusted bracelets or necklaces and cutesy stuffed animals in return.

DH will get a free e-card. I will get one from him. We will try to out cute each other and be the sappiest. Since he will be away that day we will talk on the phone. If he were home we'd probably shunt the kids off somewhere and have a cozy dinner at home that we prepare together, followed by a snuggle in front of a romantic DVD.

The best way I've ever found of telling someone you love them isn't buying them something, it's saying the words, "I love you," and showing it in your daily behavior. What more do you really need?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Things I have done that needed doing:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My day in a nutshell.

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

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

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

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

I think that about covers it.

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

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

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

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

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

Lisa in WA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three more things for the list.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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