Good-bye 2006, Hello 2007.

Somewhere in the neighborhood people are letting off fireworks. I hope all the little cats and dogs are safely tucked away and alseep tonight and not going crazy from fright at all the noise. No howling yet.

The first way I saved money in 2007 was not buying fireworks to light off! Course, I won't be that frugal in July.

When I first came on the boards and started blogging here, I felt like I was drowning. With a debt load rapidly approaching $250,000 I could not see a way out. Not a way that didn't involve bankruptcy anyway. But then one night I was suffering with a horrible bout of food poisoning following my neice's wedding and I was googling money and debt reduction and savings and I stumbled across this site.

And I started to read the blogs. And read, and read, and read, between runs to the bathroom. Not like I could sleep with those stomach cramps. I think I read blogs for 16 hours straight until I finally fell asleep exhausted and woke up thinking there was a way. I continued reading for about 5 days and then I started my own blog. And something miraculous happened.

I was drowning. But the people here threw me a life jacket. And then...then they taught me how to swim. And how to climb up onto the dock and walk away from the edge. Oh, I'm a far cry from the shore yet. But I'll get there. I know I will. Because I have you guys, you are my lifeline, you gave me back hope, you have been there since my very first blog entry and those who joined later as well, with welcoming arms and helpful advice and encouragement when I needed it and even when I didn't. So thank you to everyone. I can't even express what this place means to me or what it has done for me. But I am grateful every single day that I found it that day back in April. And that I found all of you.

I decided to quit putting my head in the sand and hoping I wouldn't have to tap savings to make up for the generator money and sit down and crunch the numbers. So I did. And there is no way around using the money in savings. There just isn't.

So I will be left with $600 in savings. I'm a little bummed, but you know what? That means I still have $600 in savings, which is $490 more than I had when I started this blog and $600 more than I started 2006 with. My glass is still half full.

I probably won't be able to throw too much at savings until March. I've got homeowner's dues to pay of $125 at the end of this month, the second half of my 6 months car insurance to pay of $180.50 by February 22, and then I still owe $200 on homeowner's insurance between now and July and Property tax comes due April 30th for the half year of just under $400.

Medical is caught up for the year and hopefully no one gets sick between now and April as our per person deductible is $250 or $750 per family. I will have some dental to pay I think as I have a January appointment. I should be getting a check from the orthodontist in the next couple of weeks. They are usually around $250. Probably use half of that to pay the dues and the other half plus $30.50 to pay the rest of the car insurance.

I am dreading the propane bill. That may wipe out the rest of my savings account. Now that I am well and my wood pile is thawed out, I really need to go back to using the woodstove again. 2 months on propane heat, oh, I don't even want to know.

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.

I haven't been blogging much these last two days. I got distracted by reading the online edition of An Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto. It is fascinating. I suppose that's what I get for clicking on one of Perky's links. I know better than to do that when I'm supposed to be busy doing other stuff, but do I ever learn? At the rate I'm going its going to take quite some time to get through it, but I've read something of his before and really liked what he had to say and how he said it, so I'm sure I'll wade through it. I'm learning a lot of stuff I never learned in school and probably the reasons why I never learned it in school.

Anyway, on to financial stuff. Christmas is sure a spendy season. It is very easy to think about raiding the savings acoount! Not good. So far we've resisted it but the temptation is very real.

DH did spend $40 today on getting his hair cut, his beard trimmed, Tobias' hair cut and buying the shampoo and conditioner they talked him into at the salon. Sigh. The shampoo is expensive and totally unnecessary, but well, DH likes it better than other stuff we have on hand and when he gets that way, which is rarely, I just roll with it.

We spent most of the day at my mother's house doing laundry and had to make an emergency trip to the orthodontist when Rose's wire came loose. It's to be expected when she's lost 3 teeth in 4 weeks time. She was supposed to have an appointment tomorrow, but the Dr. just fit her in today so now hopefully I can get in and go to my doctor about this pernicious sinus infection/cold/bronchitis whatever the heck illness I have. Not to mention I think my blood pressure meds aren't working anymore either, so will have him check my BP while I am there also.

That's about it from my little corner of the universe.

Today is a no spend day. I got a call this morning reminding me of a follow-up physical therapy appointment for tomorrow, so I decided to try to do my shopping before the 1:15 appointment instead of maing an extra trip to town. I have to go in again on Friday so if I don't get it all done before the appointment, that is okay.

I put up some more Christmas lights today and did some basic housekeeping chores. I've been thinking a lot about goals for next year, but until I know what DH's raise is going to be, which I won't know unitl January, I'm kind of unable to plan well. I don't like that. Still there is no help for it.

The most frugal thing I did today was cook a potroast and chicken at the same time in the oven. I have enough meat for the rest of the week and will just have to add veggies and potatoes each day. I have enough leftover veggies and potatoes from today that I won't have to make any tomorrow. And plenty of chicken gravy. I will save the beef drippings to make beef gravy later this week.

I think I'll go ahead and cook up all the chicken sausage tonight so that I can just reheat it in the microwave for breakfasts through the week. I like the whole reheat and eat thing. It makes my life much easier and I tend to waste less food that way.

I've almost got the freezer completely cleaned out. Garbage went out this morning so I have an empty can again. I have one full shelf of stuff to throw out still and one partial shelf where everything is frozen to it. I'll probably have to turn the freezer off and pull it out in the morning. I need to turn it off to get all the ice out anyway, then wash it down and unplug it.

I think I can switch with Mom as soon as DH comes home and we will have the smaller one that is actually ours and she can have her old pain in the butt bigger one with a door that doesn't latch right ancient ugly freezer back.

I'm not sure if I will use the one I am getting back from her or not. The half size chest freezer and the one in our fridge seems to be doing the job fine now that we are not buying processed foods. TV dinners, 3 kinds of ice cream, frozen pizza and other easy boxed fast food takes up a lot more room then meat, chicken, fish, vegetables and fruit. But I might be able to sell it. Or maybe we will keep it outside by the shed and use it for over flow or if we get a quarter of a beef or something. I'm not sure yet.

I wonder if our electric bill will go down once we get rid of the one freezer and don't plug in another? Well, this won't be the month to tell with the Christmas lights and all.

Kind of a slow day today.

Had the auto deposit of $10 to savings.

Cashed out $3 at ReadRevenue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, my gosh, we are at 18 inches of snow now and there is absolutely no sign of stopping! I wonder if the airplanes are going to freeze to the runway again like they did the one year we had the huge storm. The photos were gorgeous but scary. If this keeps up, we may end up with 2 feet by morning. I do hope it stops soon. I really don't feel like hauling out a metal ladder and shoveling snow off my roof so it doesn't collapse. If it stops short of 3 feet deep then I probably won't have to, but seriously, it is showing no sign of stopping. I bet Mt. Baker Ski Resort is through the roof happy.

The birdbath looks like a giant wedding cake. I can't even see Queen Frog (garden ornament) anymore and its not like she's small. The arbor just looks like one very tall white structure (its cedar colored), the tree stumps are buried, and the neighbor's yellow van is completely white.

The trees are so weighted down with snow that branches that are normally 12 feet off the ground are brushing the top of my car (about 5 feet tall) and there's not a bit of green to be seen on the evergreens. I'd take photos but the digital batteries are not in the charger or in the camera, so that's not going to happen. Just look at Contrary1's picture and then imagine 8 trees about that size in a circle and way more snow.

I'm pretty sure there won't be school tomorrow but you never know. We deal with snow all the time here, maybe not this much every year, so we may just have late arrival with limited bus schedules. I hope there is school. My kids are itching to go back after the long weekend. I guess I'll call the weather line in the morning and find out.

Or maybe cooking during the storm.

2nd entry today.

There is a foot of snow outside and no sign of it stopping anytime soon. The kids are having a blast, though I do keep making them come inside to get warm.

So far this morning I have turkey noodle soup cooking, finished making the TexMex Turkey and Rice and decided to make some Turkey Cacciatore while I was at it. I will have some nice freezer meals for the chest freezer.

I'm going to have to dread the storm and bring in some firewood, which means I'll have to kick Rose out of my snow boots. She's not going to like that, but I'll do it the next time she comes in to get warm. I have to set up the drying racks, they've managed to soak their scarves and their coats are going to need time in front of the fire as well.

They haven't plowed our road yet, though I'm sure the highway is in good shape. It usually is if you can get to it. I'm glad I have nowhere to go. This will really help with my no eating out for 2 weeks goal. It'll help a lot with no spend days, too!

I do hope the school buses can get through tomorrow. It's going to be a long day otherwise.

Wow, I just checked my blog statistics and I've hit the big 50K. Can't believe that, its just been a little over 7 months since I started this little thing. Weirder still to think how many people are actually reading it. Weird, but definitely cool.

So I divided my number of hits 50,216 by my number of entries 290 and the result was 173. Now I know there probably aren't actually 173 people reading each entry, some of those are bound to be people checking back to read comments, and you know, me checking back to read and answer comments, but still, probably 100 people are out there reading what I write. Wow. Little old me. It's nice to know someone is listening.

Today was a no spend day. That's easy when nothing is open!

My thanksgiving went well. I got to sleep in and not cook anything. For some reason when I got to Mom's they didn't want me coughing all over the food, so I guess that is one thing this never-ending cold has got going for it.

I came home with a ton of leftovers and without my children, who are going to stay until Saturday and then my mother will actually drive them home, which almost never happens.

I made up all of my divided microwave dishes into TV dinners and froze them. I had ten in all and still had leftovers. Mom also sent home the carcass with me and I threw that in the freezer. I'll make stock when I'm feeling better. I'll end up with an awful lot of food, none of which I paid for.

I tried cranberry something or other, jelly maybe? for the first time and sweet potatoes for the first time. My sister made them. The one I like. The other sister didn't show. She's not much on family, even her own. Usually my nice sister doesn't come to Mom's for Thanksgiving, they do their own thing, but they moved this year and I think they were all missing us, plus her kitchen is tiny now. I liked the sweet potatoes, though I think she put too much brown sugar in them and the cranberry stuff was too sweet, I don't really care for the flavor of cranberries in juice so I wasn't surprised that I didn't really like that stuff. But I'm glad I tried it.

It was a nice visit, but I am glad to be back home. I think I will sleep for the next 24 hours or so and see if I can't beat this thing. After I get caught up on the blogs, of course.

Entry 5. I know, I know. But this is too funny not to share.

The neighbor's dogs have been barking for about 2 hours straight. These dogs drive me crazy because they are so loud. When DH and I were putting a tarp on the shed to cover where the shingles ripped off in the wind storm the other day we couldn't even hold a conversation standing five feet from each other because of those ^%$&*!@% dogs, let alone when we were on opposite sides of the shed. Every time I go outside I get yapped at. Doesn't matter that I'm in my yard minding my own business. Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap.

This is the neighbor that has 11 dogs and puppies. Not 11 dogs including the puppies, but 11 not counting them. They have their front porch penned off so that you can't get to their front door and their are dogs on the porch anyway. The back door is blocked by dogs, too. So you can't really go over there and complain about the noise without getting jumped by the dogs. These are big dogs, labs and rotties and shepherd cross of some sort.

Sometimes they let one of them run loose and it charges me. I've just about had it with the dogs and have thought about calling SPC on them, they can be fined for allowing the dogs to run loose. And they can be fined by our homeowner's association, too for letting them run loose, especially after one of them tore another dog apart that was being walked on a leash by a little girl.

Anyway, a couple of minutes ago I heard this really, really loud obnoxious noise, so I went outside and there were six families from the neighboring houses standing there holding a boom box and blasting it at top volume in front of the neighbor's house. I went out to see what was going on and the song they were playing was "Who Let the Dog's Out." That was enough to bring the neighbor out of the house and people were finally able to talk to him. I just sat on the porch and laughed quietly with tears streaming down my face. I sure hope he finally gets the point.

No, this isn't an entry about being ripped off, its an entry about ripping something off. Or rather something I want to rip off. That would be my ugly front porch. Some days I just want to tear it off the house and truck it to the dump. It's not very big for one thing and it isn't all that safe. I mean it is structurally sound but it is easy to miss a step and slip down the stairs a bit.

I know once we paint it it will start to look better, but I also don't want to pain it because we do have plans to replace it in about 2 years. What I really want is a set of steps leading down to a deck near the ground. Well, what I really want is an elevated deck but that requires a building permit and submission of plans and extra paperwork I'd rather avoid. If the deck is less than 18 inches off the ground we don't have to do that stuff.

The deck kit we want costs under $1000 currently and DH and I know we can install it ourselves. We put together the play structure fairly easily and discovered we have quite a bit of competence in this area. By the time we are ready to put this deck on the house we will have built the elevated tree house play structure as well. It's sitting in the shed waiting to be built.

I don't know why the porch is bugging me so much today, it comes and goes. It's just kind of an irritant in the background much of the time. Today it is a big one.

Well, today was the day I took DH to the airport. I had to take $40 out of the CU to give him for his travel money. He spends $15 on the way up, about $10 for little things at the commissary during his work hitch, then $15 on the way home. He has gotten this down quite a bit from when he was just using the credit card and buying a lot more junk along the way.

Since we made the decision not to use the card for anything but airfare and hotel it is making a difference. We are able to pay off each month's charges on that card, plus a little extra so that card is slowly going down each month. For so long we were so close to the limit on it, it is so nice to have breathing room.

We ate out again tonight and spent $40 plus $8 tip. I hate that. We were so strapped for time it just was the easiest thing to do. Well, from today on for at least two weeks, I don't care how easy it is, no more eating out! I've got plenty of good food in the house and I will cook and that is that.

DH is gone for 3 weeks this time, so I will have to make sure I don't fall back on eating out out of boredom or loneliness. This really is my bugabear. Not that I am really ever lonely with the kids but its not the same thing as having your spouse home every night.

Tomorrow is the last day of school until Monday so I will take full advantage of having the house to myself. I still need to call my mother and make plans on what days she wants the kids. And hope she hasn't changed her mind. I am still sick, kind of holding my own, not getting better or worse, not really, though some days I think I am getting better only to turn around the next day and feel yucky again. I probably ought to get in to see the doc soon, but he is so hard to get into during the holidays.

Hey, does anyone know if its possible to set the all entries page to ignore a blog so it doesn't show up? I've got one that keeps bogging down my computer with its huge number of graphs and charts. My poor 56K can't handle it. It'd be one thing if it was once or twice a day but when he dumps ten in a row on a page, my computer just about grinds to a halt.

Okay, here's mine.

1. I have a penguin collection that includes 60 unique items.
2. I love science fiction, particularly military science fiction ala Elizabeth Moon, or sciency science fiction ala Greg Bear, but my favorite author is fantasy writer Anne McCaffrey. Aside from Anne I don’t care much for fantasy.
3. I write teenage romance novels as a hobby.
4. I wrote my first “book” in 3rd grade.
5. I have never won a contest, but every contest I have entered my daughter in, she has won.
6. I hate professional sports, but love watching K-12 soccer, basketball, volleyball, and football. I will watch the Olympic sports of ice skating, gymnastics, swimming, diving, snowcross and stunt skiing.
7. My favorite television show ever was Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
8. I cannot follow a recipe as written unless I’m baking cookies.
9. I have every movie Arnold Shwarzenegger has ever made except Predator. My favorite movie of all time is The Terminator. I was sad to see him become a politician as I figured it would mean his acting days were over. His real acting days, I mean.
10. I have kept a diary in one form or another since the 3rd grade and I still have them all.
11. I am madly, deeply, passionately in love with my husband, who is the only man I have ever slept with. We did not live together before we got married and we had a 4 and 1/2 year engagement, even though we knew we wanted to get married within one week of starting to date. We have been together for 16 years, married for 11.
12. Before I had children I had an IQ of 158. After I had children, I had an IQ of 144.
13. I like to make up words and break the rules of English.
14. I lost my winter trimester of my freshman year of high school due to illness, except for my English class, in which I got the highest A of the class despite only attending class 25 days that term.
15. I made up my lost credits by taking junior achievement after school as a sophomore and attending the vocational school for one summer between sophomore and junior years, so I could graduate with my class.
16. I did not understand algebra until college. I didn’t have a good math teacher until college.
17. As a child I had a photographic memory just like my dad and my son. A head injury sustained at 13 caused me to lose this ability. I can still memorize relatively easily but can’t glance at a page and remember it like before.
18. My husband is a Republican, my parents are Democrats, and I am an Independent. Holidays can be quite interesting.
19. I have 2 older sisters. I don’t like one of them.
20. I love science, especially geology. Glacial geology was my favorite of all the geology classes I took in college. Political Science was my favorite class period.
21. I love watching forensic crime solving shows on TV. Real ones, not fictionalized ones, well, except for Bones. Can’t do this any more as we no longer get cable. It is probably the only thing I miss.
22. I want Sami and Lucas to live happily ever after even though I haven’t watched Days of Our Lives in years. I still keep up in one of the digest mags.
23. I taught my husband how to cook when we were dating. He cooks almost as well as I do now.
24. I was 20 years old before I had any kind of real ethnic food for the first time. Taco Time doesn’t count.
25. I worked my way through college flipping burgers.
26. My first job was picking strawberries at age 4, before they changed the labor laws. I also picked raspberries and blueberries every summer. The first thing I bought with my berry money was a Snoopy wristwatch. It was powder blue. The last year I picked berries was 15. I paid for a trip to a week long Christian youth conference in Colorado, including airfare, with my earnings that year. I did go back and sort raspberries the summer I was 19.
27. My parents do not call me by the name they gave me. They use a nickname of my middle name.
28. I freaked out when I saw a movie with a character that had the same last name as my very rare maiden name. Fortunately I was watching it on DVD at home.
29. I am addicted to books on tape and listen to them every night at bedtime.
30. I still call music CD’s albums, even though I haven’t bought an actual record album since 1988. I still call recording something on DVD taping it. I still call typing a number into a touchtone phone dialing.
31. My cell phone only makes phone calls. It does not take pictures, email, play games, text message, or play MPG files. My cell phone company cannot believe that I like it that way.
32. I still have a few boxes that I haven’t unpacked since we moved into our house over 8 years ago.
33. Instruments I have played in my lifetime are violin, organ, flute, viola, and piano. I taught myself piano 2 years ago, though I am still learning. We own a violin, viola, 2 guitars, electronic keyboard, recorder, song flute, bagpipe practice horn (can’t remember the name, but it doesn’t have the bags or anything, it is DH’s) and a piano (that I got for free, it’s a 1917 Cable-Nelson Upright Grand piano).
34. I participated in an orchestra for 8 years and Concert Choir for 3 years.
35. I had P.E. waived from the 8th grade on so I could take more music classes.
36. I think people should have to take an intelligence test to have children, own a pet, or drive a car. If you don’t have common sense then you shouldn’t be allowed to do any of them.
37. I love puns and make them all the time without intending to.
38. My kids think I am hilarious. This is not quite the same thing as thinking I am funny.
39. I was not allowed to talk on the phone with boys until I was 16. Or to date until I was 16. I did both anyway.
40. In middle school I spent every Friday night at a roller skating rink that had been converted from an old armory for the army. To this day I cannot hear Tainted Love, Angel’s on the Centerfold, Somebody’s Watching Me, I Love Rock and Roll or Jack and Diane without flashing back to the skating rink.
41. When I am particularly unsettled I go to the water. Either to a waterfall, my first choice, a stream or river, or a lake. It always calms me down.
42. My favorite fruit is nectarine, with bing cherry running a close second. My favorite vegetable is kohlrabi.
43. All of my K-12 teachers were afraid of my mother.
44. I prefer cheap milk chocolate over the expensive “good” stuff.
45. I have a different tablecloth for each season of the year.
46. My computer desktop currently has a picture of yellow tulips against a blue sky.
47. My best friend growing up turned out to be a jerk. It was really too bad as she had tons of talent and unlimited potential.
48. I have not had a pet since my cat died 10 years ago. She was the most beautiful Calico Tabby cross I have ever seen and her name was Honi, pronounced like honey.
49. I painted my house dark forest green with brown trim.
50. My favorite color flowers to plant are the blues and the oranges, but not together.

I felt so crummy this morning that after I got the kids on the bus I went back to bed and slept until 1:00. I feel kind of guilty for not getting stuff done but if you can't rest when you are sick, when can you? So just had to let it go.

DH told me that we will be getting an extra $142 for working this extra weeklong shift, to cover the cost of changing his ticket. Normally we have to eat that, but not this time. I am glad. I can add it to the credit card paydown account when it comes.

Entry 4.

I think I have been spending way too much time on the blogs and boards today. I did get some stuff accomplished in the laundry room today but it didn't get finished. I don't think it really even got halfway done.

I keep thinking I've shaken off this cold, I start to feel better and then the next day or two, bleah. I started coughing about 4 hours ago and its definitely in the bronchials now. Tobias is still not better either. He is almost never sick and this has just dragged on and on with him. He spent most of the day just laying on the couch watching his sister play video games, which is very unlike him. And his cheeks are bright red and he is running a fever again.

I did manage to get a load of dishes done, and do three loads of laundry. Two loads of towels are on the drying racks and one load of clothes is hanging (on hangers) from the shower rod to dry. I took 6 surveys, or tried to, only qualified for 2 of them, and did some PTR's. But mostly I just got lazy and didn't do much of anything that I had planned. Didn't even start the turkey stock going like I planned, so hopefully tomorrow I will get to that.

At least there was no temptation to go out and spend money. Even if we didn't feel yucky, it is pouring rain again. We may have flooding again soon. I am just so grateful the flood plain is 3 miles away from where I live. Not that I'd have bought property by a river in the first place.

Today was a lazy day because tomorrow will not be. I sat on my butt and watched Batman Begins and worked on knitting a scarf. Movie was really good, I liked it. I haven't seen Christian Bale since he was a boy in the musical Newsies, he sure did grow up the right way. LOL

I'm reading an anthology of SF short stories right now. Today I finished Combat Shopping by Elizabeth Moon. Very different from a lot of her stuff, but interesting. Also read Incarnation Day by Walter Jon Williams. Made me think. But in a good way.

I drove the kids to my mother, they will spend the first two days of their vacation with her. I went to Target and purchased a few things, I bought a blue velvet stocking with a rhinestone L on it. Now everyone has a personalized stocking in my house. I also bought a box of 2 peacock Christmas ornaments for our tree. Very pretty and unique looking. I found a ladybug ornament and a ladybug CD case for my niece who collects ladybugs to give to for Christmas. I'm still looking for something for the other neice who collects elephants. I may have to go back to the Asian store to find elephants this year. Spent $33.65.

Gave into cravings and bought a Big Grab bag of Cheetos for $1.07. I've been wanting them for a week, so I decided it wasn't going to go away and it was just better to get them. So I got them. And I haven't even eaten them yet 3 hours later. Because I finally forgot I wanted them!

Suncoast has not responded to my email, not even with a computer generated "we have received your email and someone will get to it soon," email. I have little faith I will hear from them at all. Really bad customer service.

I stepped on Thomas the Tank Engine and split my heel this morning. It is to one side so I can walk without limping but I can't put full pressure to the outside of my foot. Each step stings and I went through three band-aids before the bleeding stopped. One little boy just about found himself out of a train collection.

I forgot to do this after making the mortgage payment so I'll do it now.

Ending Balance is now at $35,724.84. I have 10 years, 5 months + $21.05 worth of payments left to make. Obviously this will be paid off faster than that as I always pay extra on the principal, even if it is only $24.14 extra each month consistently, sometimes anywhere from $50 to $100 extra, depending on finances at the time.

That puts us on a path to have our mortgage paid of by 2017 if I were to never make another extra payment. I would like to see it paid off by 2012, as Rose starts college in 2014 and Tobias in 2018. If DH gets the promised raise in January, we ought to be able to abolish our credit card debt by 2010 or 2011. If he gets the promised promtion in 18 months with even bigger raise, I have no doubt we will reach all of our goals by those dates. But life is funny and a promise is not money in the bank.