I hate nights where I have insomnia. Or at least "not tired enough to fall asleep until it's really late-ia." We spent a good portion of today out at the house determining what we wanted to keep and what was going to be hauled to the dump of the stuff in the yard and shed. We locked up what we are going to keep and everything left is going to be junked. It's probably 4 pick up loads worth of stuff that will never be usable, like the 2 extremely heavy bags of solid concrete that got rained on. They used to be powder. Or the patio table umbrella that somehow managed to grow an entire layer of something green and fuzzy.

We ended up basically keeping very little. I'm not sure how we ever accumulated so much useless stuff. Having lived in 1000 square feet for the last two and a half years has given me a lot of irritation at our formerly cluttered life. And I am not looking forward to going through the stuff in storage, though that will be our next step, because the smaller the unit we can get into the less we will have to pay.

The guy who wants our car is going to put in $1000 worth of labor in fixing up the old house for it. We will buy the primer, but they have a bunch of leftover paint from other jobs that their boss just gives away after a house is done and that will be free. They already have all the equipment. They will tape and mud and fix some small holes (nail holes, when we changed out the thermostat and put it at the other end of the house) and paint the inside and when that is done we will have the carpets cleaned. The one guy says he has seen carpets in worse shape than ours come back great with professional cleaning so we're hoping we won't have to replace the rugs.

They are also going to take all of the junk we sorted out today to the dump and get the yard ready for sale. He's got a guy who wants to tear down the carport, which is falling down, for free, so he can have the wood. He'll also take all of the greenhouse demolition wood and the broken fencing away.

They want to paint the outside of the house, too, again with free paint from other jobs and they will spray it as they have that equipment.

The other guy is getting estimates on the broken window pane repair and on how much it will cost to replace the four doors and one door frame that need replacing. And also where we can get replacement sliding doors for the closets and how much.

And they want to do all the yard work needed to fix it up. They know we can't pay a lot because of my son's medical bills right now, but it sounds like as long as we pay for the supplies they can't provide, any additional labor costs can wait until the house is sold. I know the head guy is doing this because he really likes my mother, but I don't want to get too far beholden on a house we may not make much from at all.

I really would like to get moving on this and get it on the market, but I want to pay as we go, too, which may not be possible at a quick rate. But I think just getting the house painted is a step in the right direction.

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As for steps in a different direction, two of the houses that we have had our eyes on for a while both had substantial price drops. The one house, which is pretty much perfect except for the location (which is not a bad location, it's in our chosen school district, it just is not where exactly I want to be) dropped it's price today to $200,000. Which would be a really nice mortgage to have for a house with it's square footage and yard. The only thing I don't like is that I have noticed the neighbors are creeping their stuff.

They are parking one of their brokendown cars partially on that property and their junk is also creeping over. The house has been empty for a while and I don't really want to have neighbors who start taking over bits and pieces when you aren't looking. Plus there was so much clutter in their garage and the yard seemed trashed. All the other yards in the area seem fine, but I don't want bad neighbors. I've had them once and I will not knowingly buy a home next to them.

The other one which is a block outside our desired neighborhood and is only outside it because it is across from the freeway and the noise is loud, was $330,000 when it was taken off the market after a year several months ago, and it came back on the market at $300,000. It is a perfect house for us in a better area. Handicapped accessible, handicapped bathroom shower, a large yard for gardening, a big garage/shop. You can't really hear the freeway from the back yard and it's pretty quiet from inside the house, but it is very loud in the front. All of the bedrooms are in the back though and we've lived with road noise when we lived in the country next to a highway. But I still think it's going to drop more.

If our house had sold and we had the downpayment in hand we'd make an offer. It would be closer to $225,000 to start with, going up to $250,000. I can't say with the road noise it is ever going to sell for more than $275,000. Considering how long they've been trying to unload it, it's just been vastly overpriced. It's also on a dead end, not easy to give directions to, and behind a crematorium/funeral home so it can't sell like the same house picked up and moved to another location and they have to accept that. Once they do I think the price will fall again. When it does, I hope we can take advantage of it.

I told DH today though that I really want to have at least $30,000 in the emergency fund before we start saving for a downpayment. I don't want to go without it.

He said there might be a possibility of him working an extra week. They had fired two people in documentation (they were alternates) and have not rehired replacements even though it's been months and he's sort of been doing both his regular job and the job of the person who is gone. And the second job is falling behind because he has his hands full with his own job. So he may see an extra week of work. Which financially would be great. It would give us enough to pay off the last $1500 of DS's medical bills and still leave us with some money for the house renovations. But I remember how hard 3 weeks on were on everyone including him. And that was 3 on/3 off, not 3 on/1 off. Yes, the money might be nice, but we would muddle by without it to the new year when everything will get easy again. At least I hope so.

I added $8.02 to the coin jar today. It's ultimate destination is the freezer fund.

I think the freezer under our fridge is either going out or either needs new...um...weather stripping. I forget the actual word for it, but the rubber that helps make it seal. Is that a gasket or something else? Anyway, lately whenever I open that up it's like being greeted with a little bit of snow.

It doesn't seem to be harming the food any, but I'm not sure if that is a repair you can make yourself or if you need to hire someone to come do it. I don't even remember where we bought the fridge. I'm thinking a local, family-owned place in Lynden, who does do house calls way, way, way faster than Sears, and I'm pretty sure I was boycotting Sears appliances by that time anyway because of getting repair people out to fix their stuff taking so long.

I think I'm going to stop putting money into the vacation fund starting next month and take that $100 a month and put it into the Freezer Fund instead. I have enough in the vacation fund now to pay for our planned trips to the science center, to the zoo, and to the county fair. I'm also going to stop contributing to the Mac Book fund for right now. DD knows that she won't be getting it until senior year anyway, so there will be enough time to make up for that.

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Went swimming again yesterday with the kids. Did 26 laps, or half a mile again. A little sore but not after last time. My clothes are getting pretty loose. I have some smaller shirts that I am going to have to break out soon because the formerly tight shirts are starting to swim on me. I don't want to buy new summer stuff, though. It'll be fall soon and I have some fall clothes that are smaller and will fit. Will probably have to buy 2 pairs of jeans though. All of my old Disneyland shirts are fitting now, no more snugness at all. I love that, because I had a lot of t-shirt souvenirs. And it means I shouldn't have to buy new shirts for a while. Maybe a nice blouse I can wear for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but not much else.

Yesterday the kids and I went to look at an open house. It is about four blocks from my mother's house. It is 1611 square feet and a very nice house. 3 bedroom, 1.5 baths. It has a very large concrete pad patio in the back yard. I mean it is big enough to set up one of those giant swimming pools like they sell in Costco, a barbecue, a picnic table, and still have room on it. The back yard otherwise was a small strip of grass, about ten feet wide, a small storage shed and a line of scraggly cedar trees against the back fence. The grass strip got a lot of sun, though so would be a good spot for a vegetable garden.

The front yard was bigger and could easily accommodate blueberry bushes and an Itlalian prune tree and the empty front flowerbeds could accommodate strawberry plants. There is also a strip down the side of the house that could be a garden area as well.

The house is in an ideal neighborhood for us. It is in the right school districts. And it is going for $224,900 which is at the low end of our price range and we could actually make the payments right now before we sell the other house. It is a two or three block walk to the grocery store.

It has been completely remodeled, but was built in 1920 and has a lot of that old house charm, but with new windows, siding and roof. I did notice a week spot in the walk in closet upstairs. I noticed it because I walked across it, but other than that I did not notice anything wrong with the house. It was very clean and did not smell of animals despite having had a cat there formerly (it was in the online photos, but the house is empty now). The carpet was very comfortable to walk on in bare feet.

It had a nice kitchen for cooking, and neither stove or the dishwasher were next to the fridge (bad to have heat users next to a cold maker for electricity costs). Not as big as I'd like for storage space, but the laundry room was so large you could put a king size bed in it and still have space for the washer/dryer and a path to walk. So I think shelving in there would expand the pantry just fine and there is space for a chest freezer. We would have to keep our table pushed against the kitchen wall when we weren't using it or find a smaller table at Goodwill or something. There is no seperate dining area.

I don't know. I'm waffling because it doesn't have a garage. DH has always wanted shop space. Yet at the same time a garage makes things cost $40,000 more. There is not enough space to build a garage one day , either.

The master bedroom was as big as the one I am in now. The whole house felt very airy and open. Maybe that is because we are used to living in 1000 square feet right now. All things being equal, I think I could be happy there. I'd certainly be happy with a lower mortgage.

There is another house I want to look at, too. We've driven by it before but never seen the inside. It is $209,000, has more space, and a bigger yard with raised beds and room to build a shop. It also has an unfinished basement. It is in the right school districts, but is not as ideally located. Well, it is walking distance to the mall, but not really to any grocery store. And it's about 2 miles from my Mom's house so not really walking distance for the kids. Not that two miles is too far, but part of the walk would be on a busy five lane road.

It has hardwood floors and a bigger kitchen plus dining room. The only thing I would worry about is the basement flooding. It is very wet here nine months out of the year and basements in older homes flood a lot because inadequate drainage was put in when they were built. I grew up having to turn on the sump pump every time it rained too hard and that is not something we want to deal with at all. So I want to look at it for water damage.

The best choice is to just keep saving our money and work on getting our house on the market and not move forward too quickly, especially with DS's new medical expenses. But it is nice to know that there are options out there that we can afford right now if we needed to. I just don't think I'm quite ready to get serious. But it is nice to look.

I think I was out from 11:30 to 2:30 today. It was hot, the car gets even hotter, and I forgot to take a water bottle with me. Plus I kept forgetting to put up my sunshade whenever I parked.

I did my big run to the Food Co-op. I got my freshly ground peanut butter so I will make peanut butter cookies tomorrow. I didn't get the Camano Island eggs this time. Instead I got some from Misty Meadows, which is an even more local farm (same county).

http://www.mistymeadowsfarm.com/eggs.html. They do have a few stores in the greater Seattle area that they provide eggs for. I will report in on them when I have eaten some tomorrow. They are more expensive than the Camano Island eggs, but I figure our new hens will be laying in about four to six weeks and that's not too long to pay a little more for eggs if they are as good as everyone raves about.

Of course I got several other items, including Muir Glen Chicken Noodle soup. This is the only chicken noodle soup DS will eat other than homemade or Campbell's (which has so much stuff in it that I don't want him having/and or he is allergic to). now when he is sick he can have that if I don't have enough stuff on hand to make stock.

Speaking of stock I have been keeping two bags in the freezer lately. One is of chicken bones that I have picked the meat from and one is of things like onion and garlic skins, onion tops, carrot peels, celery leaves, etc. From what I have been reading there is actually a lot of flavor in those things that you would normally discard and you can use them to make your stock instead of using actual vegetables that you then throw away. We shall see. If it doesn't have the flavor it should I will just throw in the appropriate vegetables. Either way what is left after cooking will either go on the compost or to the chickens.

Another thing that I read is that you need the bones of four or five chickens (or at least two turkeys) to make really good stock. There just isn't enough there on one chicken carcass to get the really good meaty flavor. I've always had to highly season my stock in the past and think this might be the reason why. So I am saving all of the bones from the chicken I make. Well, not what we eat directly off of, but whatever is left over and I pick all the meat off.

I also read that for really good beef stock you need at least five pounds of beef bones and you need to roast them first. Well, I guess I knew that they should be roasted, but not that you needed that many to make a good stock. I am really learning a lot from some of these books I got from the library.

I am thinking about possibly making some homemade soap. When we get our beef, I am going to ask for some of the suet (the fat around the kidneys) for making tallow. I mean, I am paying for the whole thing (or half of the thing) so that should include the suet as well. You can get the organ meats if you ask for them, so I imagine the suet shouldn't be too hard for them to throw in. If not, oh well. You can make soap from vegetable oils instead of animal fat, so that is another course I could take. I have reserved the book Smart Soapmaking at the library and it should be arriving at my branch early next week.

I am also hoping that Joel Salatin's book Folks, This Ain't Normal will come in soon. I am third on the hold list, the library has 5 copies, and three of them are overdue. The other two are due on the 21st and 22nd. I hate it when people keep books out past their due date, especially new books that they know other people are waiting to read. Joel is a big advocate of pasture raised, humanely raised, organic livestock. He is the guy that the author of Omnivore's Dilemma visited and he runs Polyface Farms, which is featured in the documentary Food, Inc.

One of the chickens (Queen) dug up some of the plants in the vegetable garden. Fortunately I saw them and got them back into the ground in time. I then mulched around all the plants with straw, hoping that if we hide the dirt it won't tempt them to scratch in it so much. I also put up some white wire fencing from the old house to hopefully mark it as off limits. They could go through it though, so I am also going to get some rodent wire mesh and some zip ties and attach it to the fencing. A determined chicken could fly over it, but would probably have a hard time getting back out and would think twice before doing it again. Hopefully that won't cost too much.



The chicken was very indignant when I told her off and picked her up and stuck her back in the fenced area. She wouldn't even look at me. But then later when she got out again and I was sitting on the porch swing (which is not on the porch) she came over and snuggled my feet, so I think she's forgiven me.

We have a credit monitoring service we use. We've had too many instances of medical bills going to the wrong address or otherwise going astray in the past several years to not keep a sharp eye on things. And now especially while we are preparing to buy a house in the next year or so, it feels worthwhile for us to have it for that extra piece of mind. I don't want to walk in there when it's time to go for a mortgage loan and have them say there is something we didn't know about that will prevent us from getting one. Maybe I'm a little paranoid, but it's worth it for my piece of mind.

Regardless, our credit score just took a major jump up to 790 from 777 as the credit bureau finally caught up to where we're actually at (well, not quite, it's still reporting higher amounts in 3 categories than we actually have, but it's a lot closer now). I'm sure this has to do with our debt to income ratio now being below 45% by about 2%.

I think this is the first time it's ever been above 780 before, though for most of my adult married life it's been at least 750 or above, even during the worst debt load. I am hopeful that when we pay off the BoA VISA I might actually see it jump to 800. I'd love to have it be in the 800's when we are ready to get a new house and mortgage.

This being sustainable, humanely raised, pasture-raised, organic chicken. I had the first chicken we bought from the ranch yesterday and I was underwhelmed. It was good enough, but not spectacular. And it was kind of small. I do have two more to eat and I will prepare them differently, probably frying and rotisserie style. I don't really think it's the fact that I roasted it though. I didn't find their eggs to be all that great either. Maybe that's because I've eaten eggs from our chickens for so long, but the Camano Island eggs are as good as, if not better than, the eggs our chickens lay (when they aren't hiding them) and are far superior to the ranch eggs.

The ranch eggs tasted pretty much the same way as the ones from the store that are cage free, but not pasture-raised. I find this odd because these are definitely pasture-raised eggs, I saw them out in the pasture, but they are supplemented with grain (not soy, not corn) and maybe it's too much of that and not enough of the other? So maybe that's why the chicken isn't as good as I expected it to be based on the incredible flavor of the pork and the beef I've bought from them.

There are a lot more places that pasture-raise chickens as opposed to beef or pork in my county, so I will look for some chickens closer to home. One place I want to check out in person is the In Pastures Green farm in Ferndale. They follow all of the methods I most want in my food and they are about a ten minute drive away. And they are also substantially less per pound, $4.10 as opposed to $5.95. Also their chickens tend to be 4 to 5 pounds as opposed to the 3 to 3.5 pound average at the other place, so one bird will go a lot further, providing 3 to 4 meals instead of 2.

Based on their website and pictures, I think they actually come the closest to raising the chickens exactly like in the book I read, even having gone to train with the same person the author visited in The Omnivore's Dilemma. They also process right there on the farm. They have farm hours tomorrow so I think if the weather isn't too nasty (it's been raining for days), I'll pack up the kids and we'll go see. I really like visiting the places where we get our food from.

They do have ducks, too, so they may have duck eggs, but as of the last update about the ducks, they hadn't started laying, but the date on that was a while ago. I would love to get my hands on some more duck eggs between now and when ours start laying. The Food Co-op hasn't had them again on the more recent trips I've made and I used the last one on Tuesday. They are the best for baking cookies and rolls. Probably cakes, too, but I haven't tried that.

Two of our ducks seem to have paired up so we are pretty sure we have at least one female and will have some eggs eventually. I am hoping the non-paired two are both female as well.

They do require a $10 deposit per chicken if you are going to order them, which helps prevent no-shows. (They slaughter 3 times a year, it looks like). Which is about half the price per bird. So the overall cost seems like it would be $205 for ten 5 lb chickens. Again, it seems pricey compared to conventional chicken, but if you have ten birds and can get 4 meals from each bird, you've got a per meal cost of $5.12 for protein (based on a family of 4 to 5). Even if you could only get 3 meals from each chicken it would still work out to $6.83 per meal. That's pretty good for this type of meat.

I am thinking, also, that since they have you picking up the chickens on slaughter day, that means they don't freeze them, which means I could bring them home and cut up most of them and repackage them so that I could have all legs, all thighs, all breast, all backs, wings, and necks in their own packages if I wanted to. It'd be a bit of work, but I think worthwhile.

And I don't have to order 10. I could start with less. I'll have to think on it.

I emptied out my purse and found $10.28 in ones and change to add to the coin jar. I am still debating on whether or not to send $100 to the emergency fund like I normally do every 4 weeks to build it back up again or send that $100 to the credit card. The whole point of taking the EF down to $1000 was to pay off the card sooner, but that habit is so ingrained in me now it's hard not to do it. I suppose I could use it as "save up for my new chest freezer" money, that could double as EF money in a true emergency.

What with all the last minute bumps in the road my dream of having the credit card paid off by the end of June seems unliklely. 2 crowns to pay for for DH and likely one root canal and a possible crown for me. Ugh. And I just can't put it off any longer because it hurts too much now. We shouldn't have to charge anything, but we will have to take the extra payoff money to take care of our teeth. *sighs*

I am still pretty sure we will get the credit card paid off this year though. We will be trying hard. If nothing else, part of the Christmas bonus will do it.

Well, I've gotten a lot done anyway. The kitchen continues to become better organized and it is so much easier to find things now. So far today I have made a batch of peanut butter cookies, a batch of cornbread blueberry muffins, a batch of hamburger and hot dog buns, and I have dough mixing in the bread machine right now for two loaves of bread. I will take it out and bake it in the oven.

Since I don't have a manual for this bread machine I am too chicken to make it in the bread machine without knowing the capacity. I have tried looking it up online but the model number doesn't seem to be available. I found one close that at least taught me how to operate Mom's machine. Besides, it is a round bucket and round bread is just weird for sandwiches and doesn't fit in sandwich baggies or square reusable containers, and there is always that hole in the bottom when you make bread machine bread from where the paddle is.

Anyway, I think making my own baked goods again is going to save me money. It certainly did before I'd gotten so lazy about it, and the kind of bread DS can eat costs $4 a loaf. Making it costs maybe 50 cents for two loaves. A bag of the additive free hamburger buns is $2.39. Ditto the hot dog buns. So this batch of both kinds of buns is 70 cents.

The seven cornbread blueberry muffins came to 79 cents. That is because I cheat and use Jiffy cornbread muffin mix (it doesn't have the stuff in it DS is allergic to) and then throw in a couple handfuls of frozen blueberries. We picked the blueberries from our own bushes last summer so those are free. It might be even cheaper if I made it from scratch, but I've never calculated it so I am not sure.

And the batch of peanut butter cookies...well that is a bit more expensive because I used a cup of all natural organic peanut butter, $3, a duck egg, $0.71, and a cup of sugar, $0.10. Still, $3.81 for a batch is less. Considering that a container of 12 peanut butter cookies from the grocery store bakery is $3.99 and I got 14 larger cookies (honestly it could be 2 dozen if I made them smaller like the grocery store ones) with what I made, I come out ahead. And there is no comparison in the flavor. Plus you only need to eat one, there is not that drive to eat several like you get buying processed cookies. And when I run out of the duck eggs I will start using the Camano Island pasture raised chicken eggs, which come out to 33 cents each or a free one from our own chickens (when there is one that wasn't eaten for breakfast). So then it will either be $3.43 or $3.10.

Other than that, the organic, pasture-raised beef roast is in the crockpot and will be done in an hour and we will be having corn on the cob, organic broccoli/cauliflower, and a choice of one of the baked goods I made today. Plus, I am having a nectarine, which always makes me happy.

I am feeling much more myself again today if you hadn't noticed! Now I just need to sit down and figure out my meal plan for the week. I feel like I am better on track again, which is a good feeling.

I still need to finish off the budget. I may do that tomorrow. And then send off a few bills, too.

I deposited my coin jar money into the safety net bank account. I added $61.55. This brought the total there to $1052.43. The grand total of the EF is now at $1097.53. It is weird building it back up again from a small amount, but worth it.

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I did a screener survey for ACOP today and got 25 points for 5 minutes. It was a qualifier for a 15 minute video watch and I tend to get those, so hopefully I'll hear later this week that I did. It's a 400 point survey with a 400 point follow up. It's a penny a point so that's a total of $8.00 which is a good one.

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I mostly stuck to my meal plan, but a small deviation was necessary. We had bacon cheeseburgers but not fried potatoes. Yesterday when I told DD to boil six potatoes I did not remember to tell her to take half of them out before mashing to save for tonight for frying. Leftover mashed potatoes just didn't seem to go with burgers so we will have them with our potroast on Sunday. I ended up making fresh corn on the cob instead. And also I had a bit of a craving so I made the easiest peanut butter cookies I have ever made. 3 ingredients (no flour) and about 3 minutes of hands on time. And they were delicious (or at least my cookie was).

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I paid $2000 to the Bank of America VISA and paid the car payment. I have a few other bills to do so I can mail them out tomorrow, but I am feeling like I've been put through the ringer today. I did do a bit of grocery shopping, but nothing to justify the way that I feel. It might be allergies partly as I am very stuffy. I remembered to take my bags into the two stores I visited today, so only one plastic bag came home with me and that was the produce bag wrapped around the green onions.

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I wish I could find local organic milk in glass bottles. We do have a dairy that does milk in returnable glass bottles, but they are not organic and they do add the vitamin D to all their milk but whole milk and along with that vitamin D is the stuff used to suspend it in the milk that my son is allergic to. The kids only like non-fat milk and though I like the taste of whole, I can't handle that much lactose on a consistent basis. I will continue to look though. I know that milk jugs can be recycled, but I'd still rather have it in glass. One, things just taste better in glass, and two, I'd rather have a reusable container to return than recycle a container that cannot be reused. I will keep looking. With all the dairy farms in this county there must be someone who does.

I have to consider the sourdough starter a complete failure. Oh, I know that it could have succeeded quite well, it was getting frothy and bubbly and I was going to make sourdough bread today, but when I pulled back the towel I found a Miller moth drowning in it. I do not know how this happened as there were no gaps between the bowl and the towel for it get through, but there it was. Clearly I couldn't use it. I don't know if I have the patience to start it over again at the moment.

We are having quite a persistent problem with these little moths getting in the house right now. Short of never going outside again, I'm not sure what I can do about it. Actually I'm not even sure that would work as it's possible they are just hatching out since there have been so many over the last six weeks or so. All of the screens are tightly in the windows so they have to be coming in the doors with us.

I will probably attempt it again at some point, but right now I am feeling very "sit there like a lumpish" and this despite having actually made hamburger and hot dog buns with yeast today. And cleaning the sink. And doing laundry. I wish I knew why I felt so lumpish. My cold seems to be gone, but I just feel really tired. And I slept well last night, though maybe one night of good sleep after several nights of nowhere near enough doesn't count for much.

I am in the middle of reading An Unending Meal, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but the author's prose is putting me off a bit. It's subtitle is Cooking with Economy and Grace, but I'm not finding much in the way of economy. Well, she is keen on using it up and making do with all parts of each food, so I guess that part is economical, but it is not economical food. She goes for the expensive range of things. And I shouldn't mind that so much as I am all for the grass fed, free range, organic foods, but...I don't know. It's not what I think of when I hear the word economy. This could be a me thing.

But the cooking with grace part...I guess it's coming off more as being full of airs and graces than it is being graceful. More purple prose than anything else. Maybe I am just more accustomed to a more down homey style and straightforwardness in my cook books. I will continue on through it, but I really wish that this is one book I had not purchased but had gotten at the library. I had really high hopes for it and the reviews just raved about her writing style, but all it really does is rub me the wrong way. Not to say that the recipes don't look excellent, they do, it's just that so much of the book is in the delivery and I guess I just prefer UPS or FED EX to the hand delivered courier.

So today was a major day for Open Houses for my city. They were doing a thing of some sort. Anyway, we looked at a lot of houses, and it served to reassure me that there are a lot of houses out there that would be right for us, which means when we are really ready there will still be a lot of houses that are right for us. Although almost perfect house is still almost perfect. It was really nice to see it, I really liked it, it had some problems, mostly fixing the paint would fix, but it was nice. But there were a lot of people looking at it and I did not feel bad about that or territorial or anything, so I think I am well over my irrational urges to buy right now.

We did see an absolutely gorgeous house about 3 blocks from my mom's house, too. It was truly exquisite decorating. It was like walking into a piece of art. But a comfortable, liveable piece of art. The fixtures and the floors and the wall paper and the way the walls were painted, it just was such a feast for the eyes, but not in a way you'd ever get tired of. The landscaping was incredible. You could just really tell that the people who owned it adored their home and had put a lot of effort into making it so beautiful.

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What was really funny was I ran into a man that I have not seen since high school (although we were friendly in middle school we had no classes together in high school so it felt more like not having seen him since middle school). He was friends with the realtor showing one of the houses and was waiting for him to finish up. It was so strange, because I almost never run into people like that. DH always does, but almost everyone I knew back then took off for Seattle or Oregon or California. But it was nice once we figured out how we knew each other. 24 years changes you a lot.

The had free Subway sandwiches at the last place we looked at, so I split half a six inch sub with my son and DH had one, so that took care of a late lunch. We were starving by then. I really liked the realtor who was friends with the guy I knew from school. He wasn't pushy but he was interested in helping us when we were ready. He was younger, maybe 30, but he felt honest and I got a good vibe off of him. We might decide to use him.

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The bathroom remodel is almost done. They've put in the vanity cabinet (but not the sink) and the toilet is in. The final coat of paint is on. The sink still needs to go into the vanity. The mirror needs to be put on the wall. The glass door needs to be installed on the tub/shower, the showerhead needs to be put up, and the shelving needs to be put up. We may actually have our bathroom back by mid-week. I hope so. I am tired of not having one. Of course we may have to wait for all the caulking and stuff to finish drying so it may be the weekend before we can use it, but I will just be so glad to not have the workmen in the house.

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The chicks and ducks are now allowed to go outside after they made a great escape yesterday. They tore the mesh netting free so they could get to the layer mash on the other side of the coop and then came outside after they had eaten it all, so Mom decided today to just let them go out now. They are loving it and the weather is nice so they are happy. They are big enough. They are mostly all flopped together in a heap under one of the blueberry bushes but they adventure out a couple at a time. Totally adorable.

I am really liking having the whole week's menues planned out. Today since I knew I was roasting a chicken, I made sure I started thawing it out in the microwave at 3:15. It was a big chicken, 5.14 pounds and is one of the chickens we got for free last Thanksgiving when DH's work gave us that Safeway gift card. Which reminds me, there is still $9 and change on the card. Need to use that.

Anyway, I got it mostly thawed by 3:45 and then put it in a cold water bath to finish the thawing process because the inside was still a little frozen and I couldn't get out the neck and giblets. They had finished defrosting by 4:15 and they came out easily. Then DS and I rubbed the chicken down with extra virgin olive oil and massaged in basil, oregano, fresh ground sea salt and fresh ground black pepper. It went into the oven to roast side by side with the turkey legs.

We did up nine potatoes (the eight I bought and the one left over) for baking and they are in there, too so we can make efficient use of the oven and the gas used to heat it. The weather has turned quite warm so heating up the house less often is a good thing. We will have the four smaller ones tonight and the other five will go into the baked potato soup I make on Tuesday.

After everything was in the oven I went ahead and cut up two heads of broccoli and one head of cauliflower, which I will start the water boiling for fifteen minutes before the food is due to come out of the oven. There is enough there to serve them for 3 meals, though DD will probably filch some to take in her school lunch as she likes to eat it cold, but cooked. It is nice to have everything going and not have to worry about it again for another hour.

I know I'll have a bunch more prep to do tonight. I'll have to pick off all the chicken that is left on the carcass so I can make stock with the carcass and have meat for enchiladas tomorrow. I will also save some for quesadillas as DS likes to have that as a snack after school. I will also pick all the turkey meat off the bones and throw those bones in the crockpot with the turkey carcass. Doesn't matter to me if the stock is chicken/turkey, it all pretty much tastes the same. I'll also have to peel and cut up two carrots, an onion, two stalks of celery and all the celery leaves to throw in the stock with salt, pepper, and garlic. I was tempted to buy leeks yesterday but it was $2.49 for 3 and I thought that was too expensive and I could make do with the onion.

I never got around to roasting the chiles or making the chili. I decided I would have too much food on hand these next few days if I made it. So I will wait until Wednesday or Thursday to make it as the whole idea of meal planning was to not waste food and money, but to have plenty of good, natural, home-cooked food on hand so I'm not tempted to swing through the drive-thru after school.

That will give me a few days with the chicken noodle soup and the baked potato soup without adding in the chili to the mix. The chile peppers will keep up to a week and I was careful to pick out the best ones with shiny skin and no wrinkling so they are very fresh. I will keep an eye on them and roast them if they start to wrinkle before I am ready to make the chili. DH comes home Wednesday so then having some extra food around, it will not be in as much danger of not getting eaten.

I think I will make a lasagna during the first week of May. It's been a long time since I've made one and it'll be a nice change. I have noodles, organic diced tomatoes, organic tomato sauce, organic tomato paste, herbs, and plenty of cheese on hand so all I'd have to buy is the hamburger and onions. I think I will double the amount of onions and diced tomatoes I normally put in so I can lower the amount of ground beef. I usually use 3 pounds of ground beef to one 9x13 pan of lasagna and I'd like to see if I can get by with 2 pounds as I'll be buying the more expensive grass fed beef. A lasagna usually feeds us for 2 dinners, plus a couple of lunches for DH. Plus I always have sauce leftover when I make it so I can freeze some for some hearty spaghetti later in the month.

I am having far too much fun planning this out, but it sure is taking a lot of the stress out of what I'm going to cook and knowing how much money I can save while still eating organic as much as we can.

Oh, I have enough leftover taco meat from lunch for me to eat a taco with my chicken noodle soup tomorrow. Leftover management...who knew I'd get such a kick out of it this time around?

Hard to believe it's been six years since I started this blog, but it has been. Six years ago, I don't think I ever thought I'd get here, almost out of credit card debt and making tons of progress on everything else.

I remember when I started this road, people told me I should just declare bankruptcy and walk away from our debt. That's never something that I wanted to do, but always something I was afraid I would have to do. Fortunately we never did. Instead we put our heads down and worked hard and sacrificed a lot and through a series of raises and job promotions and changing companies for DH, we have made it a long way from those first few tentative steps.

I remember trying to find $10 a week to save for a baby EF and how hard it was. Now I regularly send $100 a month to the EF and whatever else I can scrape up. I remember trying to scrape up minimum payments and wondering how we'd ever have extra to send to one card so we could make a little progress. I remember how discouraged I was whenever I had another surgery and we had to put yet another medical debt on the credit cards.

There are days I wanted to give up, but we stubbornly pressed on and here we are coming out the other side and almost there. I have learned a lot on this journey, but the biggest thing I've come away with is that you can move a mountain even if the only tool you have is a spoon. You just keep at it and keep at it and eventually that mountain is no longer in front of you, it's behind you and you've done it. Our mountain is now a hill and we've upgraded to a shovel and that hill is getting smaller and smaller every month. And pretty soon the going will be flat and level and hopefully we'll never have a debt mountain to move again.

Yesterday I did another 25 point screener survey and then qualified so got to take the 300 point survey which is worth $3. (Each point is a penny, you can cash out when you have 1000 points or $10 in your account). It was an okay survey. I had to watch a vid and then give my opinions on it. I worked on a scarf I'm knitting while I watched it. This puts my account over $11 for the month of March, but since it takes points two weeks to hit the account, I won't be able to cash out until April 3rd. I hope I qualified for the one where they are sending me something. If it hasn't arrived by March 25 I'll know I didn't.

I need to cash out my first GC at Swagbucks but for some reason I am being lazy about it. I'm kind of lethargic this week, trying to recover from a virus and I went off caffeine cold turkey yesterday as it is messing me up. It is exhausting as my body tries to straighten itself out and all I want to do is sleep.

DD is down with the virus DS had last week. She is a lot easier to be around when she is sick as she just lays in bed and is undemanding.

DS has tae kwon do tonight and I am hoping I can talk my mom into taking him. Those benches are really hard on my back. But if not I may just sit out in the car the whole time. It's far more comfortable than those hard bench seats.

I got DS's next set of testing papers at class on Monday. Testing is on 4/12 so I will need to have the $35 fee in about a week before that. He will be testing for his purple belt. He's two months behind where he should be because he's been so ill he has missed so many classes.

I need to remember to take my finished library books with me tonight. The library is nearby and I'd like to get them turned in as they are due soon. I could just renew them online if I don't make it by the due date, but I'd rather have them out from underfoot.

Today was my seventeenth wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe so many years have gone by. DH and I don't really do anniversary presents. If he happens to be home we might go out for dinner and I think we got each other gifts on year 10 and will likely do so on year 20, etc., but we really tend to err on the frugal side. We always figure being married to each other is gift enough!

So, I had to get a new driver's license this year. DMV is still the oh-so-enjoyable experience it ever has been. $25 for that and now they make you take your glasses off to have your photo taken. Something to do with facial recognition software. If I had known that I would have at least put concealer on under my eyes. Glasses really hide the dark circles. Still this picture is 50 times better than the last one.

While at the DMV I suddenly realized that DD turned 15 and a half on the tenth, which means she can now test for her learner's permit. Oh, my is that going to be an interesting experience. She downloaded the .pdf file for the book and has been studying it all weekend.

So the time has come to start saving up for a brake job for the Crown Victoria. We've just been letting it set, because we rarely need two cars, but it needs $800 worth of work. We figure she can use it when she gets her license to drive herself to school and back. We haven't wanted to sell it since there are a few rare occasions when it is nice to have it and we knew there'd soon be another driver in the household.

It's also probably better to learn to drive in it before she learns to drive the van. It's a nice, safe car that is easy to drive and easier to park than the van. Once she has experience with it, we will let her learn to use the van. So we decided we'd take the money for the brake job either from the inheritance or the tax return, whatever comes in first. That and her driver's ed class will be the only non-debt repayment that we've allowed for out of either of those sources of money.

$800 seems a relative bargain to get our 20 year old (in otherwise excellent shape) car drivable again.

As for me, I turned 42 today and it has been a great day. My husband bought me a lovely glass rose tea light candle holder (and some books off half.com that should be here sometime soon) as well as the talking scale I wanted (but that he opened last week, forgetting it was my gift). DD made me a calighraphy water color of a sea horse. And my mother and son deep-cleaned the living room so DH could bring the treadmill in from the garage so I can walk on days the weather is cruddy.

The grocery store bakery happened to have a set of white cupcakes with white frosting that they hadn't gotten around to putting sprinkles on so we got that for my cake. And we're having my favorite tacos for dinner (that I didn't have to cook).

Last night was great, too. DH and I went to Outback for a pre-Birthday dinner. I had $42.05 worth of gift cards. Dinner cost $47.55 and we left a $10 tip because the kid was amazing. I had Kookabura wings (mild), celery with bleu cheese, a side of mixed vegetables (they have the best mixed veggies!), a bowl of baked potato soup (I meant to get a cup but said bowl, so DH and I split it instead) and a glass of Strawberry Lemonade. Oh, and maybe 1/3 of the rye bread. Delicious. I brought home half the Kookaburra wings and celery with their scrumptious blue cheese, which I will use up on extra celery I have here.

I've been walking around in a fog for the last few days. A few nights of insomnia will do that to you. I finally slept last night and have my head on straight again to think about finances. It's not like I was going out and spending or anything, I just wasn't focusing enough to write too much.

My birthday present came and my husband, forgetting that it was my birthday present, opened it and started using it before I even had the chance to see it. Now I won't have anything to open on my birthday. I was more than a little annoyed with him. Okay, he would have had to set it up for me anyway, but I could have at least opened the box.

In the old, old, old days I would have used this as an excuse to go out and buy myself something else. I am glad I don't have that mindset anymore, but the thought did cross my mind. What's up with that?

MIL agreed to watch DS and DD will be going to a birthday party so that DH and I can go out to eat for my birthday. Well, the day before my birthday, as I want to spend the actual day with the kids, too. We will be going to Burlington. Maybe I'll have us stop by Krispy Kreme while we are there. That's a rare treat. Just a doughnut though, not a dozen! Don't need them in the house.

I need to make a bill paying post and update a few other things, too, when I get the chance.

As I often do on Saturdays, I spent a good portion of the day looking for frugal blogs to read. And I keep running up against things that seem frugal until you actually read the blogs. Like people who are only spending $50 a week on their groceries, but then when you actually read it, it's $50 per person in their household (less for non-teenage eaters, though my eleven-year-old frequently out eats me on a daily basis and has done for a couple of years so I don't consider that very realistic). Well, if I go based on their numbers, I'd be spending $180 to $200 a week on groceries or about $750 to $800 a month for a family of four. And this is supposed to be frugal? In what universe?

I easily keep my grocery budget to $600 a month and if I wanted to give up meat, which I don't, I'd probably drop off another $150. If I wanted to buy cheap processed foods, which I don't, I could probably drop it another $100. But I like my meat and my healthy, unprocessed foods, so $600 it is.

I guess I just don't get why these people seem to think they are doing something spectacular. They aren't. Maybe amongst their friends and families, if they are spending $1000 on groceries beforehand, but in the real world? No.

Now if they were feeding a family of four decently for $50 a week total, that would be something spectacular. That would be something I would love to read. Wish I could find something like that.

I keep telling myself life goes on and I have to go with it. And that I can't let the finances slide just because I'm stuck in this feeling of unreality. So I balanced the checkbook. I have $34 left until Friday, which is payday. I made it without spending even half of the money that I saved for the four weeks no paycheck period.

I emptied my coin purse into the coin jar. It had $1.54. I haven't done too much shopping lately, first because of being snowed in for a week and then just being generally lethargic and not wanting to go out anymore than necessary.

The gas tank on the van is still almost full and we've got what we need in groceries to get through the week. And part of next week because I bought a lot of oranges and apples and carrots and celery. I did not like going down to empty on my produce during the snow. I may have canned pineapple and pears, but believe me, there is only so much of that you can take.

There are no bills coming due until the first of the month and those are on autopay, so I don't have to worry about anything until the 3rd. That gives me a bit more time of walking around in this fog without worrying I'm going to miss paying something.

DH will be home in another week and that will help me settle and start feeling normal again.

A foot of snow melted overnight. It's hard to believe it could be gone so fast. There has been some flooding, but surprisingly nothing major. There are a few wet basements being pumped out and some creeks that went over their banks, but the rivers seem to be holding it in.

I never thought 45 degrees F would feel warm! But it does. I hope this is the last of the winter stuff. I could easily go without anymore snow this year.

Of course, my biggest impulse right now is to go and get takeout after more or less being trapped for so many days. I'm not going to, but why is that my biggest impulse? Why is my head screaming pizza, or burgers, or Mexican food? I've gone longer than a week without getting takeout before. Why is it such a big deal to me now? I don't think I'll ever understand how my mind works.

Anyway, we are having breakfast for dinner. Pancakes and and ham, with green beans on the side. Fast and easy and no need to spend money at all.

The snow is great for my finances. It's really hard to spend money if you can't even get out of the driveway! Not impossible, of course, there is always the internet, but I am well-disciplined when it comes to internet shopping and never shop just to shop.

I am so sick of the snow already and there is just no sign of it stopping. Last night they said we were supposed to get 15 more inches and it is well on it's way there.

There probably will be no school at all this week. This is the second snow day, and it's been really nice to lounge around in pajamas all week and not even worry about getting up, shoveling off the car, clearing the driveway and trying to drive on snow with ice underneath it.

Speaking of pajamas, I am so glad I made the investment in three pairs of full length PJs. They have made such a difference this winter in helping me to stay warm without having to turn the bedroom space heater on much.

I probably won't get to have any physical therapy this week. I've already had one session cancelled and I doubt very much that my next scheduled one will happen since the weather has only gotten worse. In fact, I may cancel it if they don't.

I did slack off on my exercises on Monday, but I did them all yesterday and then I went on the internet and found a couple of stretches for the psoas muscle, because I have suspected for a few weeks that it might be part of the problem. There were two I could do that didn't involve getting on the floor or on my knee. After I did them, I felt so much better! I've been in misery for weeks and these simple stretches relieved so much pain. All I can say is God bless the people who put stuff up on youtube and here's hoping SOPA and PIPA don't pass on the 24th and censor the heck out of it.

I have to say this is quite a relief as even though the kids are on the upswing, an extra day to rest before going back to school is a good thing, as neither of them is 100% over the virus. No longer contagious, but still feeling kind of run down. And snuggling back under the covers was a great feeling. I'm just so glad DH got out last night, because the overnight snow fall was pretty serious. I hope I can still make it to physical therapy, but that is going to depend on the roads they plow.

I finally got the checkbook up to date and balanced. I entered about half of it into my budget spreadsheet last night and will do the other half today and then hopefully update my blog with the numbers as well. I've just been so out of it this past week. Thankfully I have no more bills to pay, though I should have another prescription to pick up, since it wasn't there last night. I have one left of it, so hopefully the doctor will renew it. I'm not sure why he didn't when he renewed the other one and they work together. I certainly don't want to try to go without it. At least it is a cheap generic.

Other than that it should be a no spend day. Oh, DH filled up the vehicle yesterday, but never gave me the gas receipt so I'll have to wait on recording that until I hear from him again. He usually calls or texts when he arrives safely on the North Slope.

I haven't been posting as much as usual as almost everyone here at Casa LuckyRobin is bedridden and SA ate my posting attempt yesterday. DS started it with the worst cold I've seen in a long time. The poor thing has the horrible red patch you get under your nose when all you are doing is blowing constantly. His cheeks are bright red from being flushed. He's got a nasty cough and a raspy voice, but according to the doctor it is "just" a cold.

Then Mom caught it. Then I caught it, though not as badly as DS or maybe it's because I'm willing to take cough syrup and he's not. DD claims she has it, too, but no fever, no cough, no dead zombie eyes and no snot, so I don't think so. And she wanted to go to school, while the rest of us resent having to crawl out of bed long enough to even use the bathroom.

Then this morning DH decides to hurl all his food. Twice. Not the same thing as what DS and I have, thank goodness. He has a few days to get better before he has to be on a plane headed back up to work. He tends to bounce back fast so I hope he does.

I am so exhausted, despite sleeping about 14 hours of the last 24. It's enervating. I have physical therapy tomorrow, so hopefully I will feel strong enough to go. It's not until 11:15 so at least I'll be able to sleep in.

I have done some financial stuff in the last few days, but I'll combine it with the stuff I have to do either later today or tomorrow.

Oh, and added 38 cents to the coin jar.

So DH whined and wheedled (actually not that bad, I'm exaggerating) until he talked me into letting him buy The Hunger Games trilogy in hard back. I am very adverse to buying things that take up space right now and I would have been perfectly content to wait for them from the library and buy them later when they were all out in paperback and we had a new house with space for them. But he had got the first book on Playaway and he absolutely thought he was going to die if he could not immediately read the second book the minute he finished it.

He spent $65 on the set. Ouch, hard backs are expensive. But honestly I don't really begrudge this. We are both supposed to get $100 spending money every six weeks anyway, but we've just been kind of lax about actually taking that much. Too focused on debt reduction most of the time. But he pointed out that all four of us would read the trilogy and likely reread it in the future, so I decided I would clear some of my meager shelf space for them.

I have some magazines that I am only keeping for the recipes so I will copy them into a Word file and then take the magazines down to the library and drop them in the free magazine bins in the basement. That should clear enough shelf space to give the books a home.

My copy that I put on hold of the first book just came in to the library. I was 148 on the list when I signed up. I will still get it because DD has already absconded with the first boughten book. She loved the same author's Gregor the Overlander books.

I finally finished reading The Silent Girl by Tess Gerritsen. I had it on hold for 3 months before it became available. It was pretty good. A little less suspenseful than her previous Rizzoli and Isles books, but full of interesting Chinese folklore about the Monkey King. I also noticed a lot less swearing (thankfully) in it than is the norm for her books. It was weird going back to a book after having watched the first two seasons of the TV series, where the characters all have the same names but many aspects of them are vastly different.

Now I'm back to reading Elizabeth Moon again. I've started the second Esmay Suiza book. I find I'm doing a lot more reading these days than I used to, but since it's all from the library it's free entertainment.

So DH's grandparents' house will be closing at the end of the month. The buyers ended up getting the in-laws to come down to $172,000. I'm not sure what the realtor's commission is, but I ran the numbers with both 5 and 6% which seems to be standard around here. That means DH's 5% inheritance should come out to right around $8000 give or take a couple hundred. That will take a big bite out of what's left on the credit card.

The exercise challenge is going well. I've done 20 minutes twice a day for the past two days and then physical therapy today was 45 minutes. So that's six popcorn kernals. Yeah, I ran out of pennies so I switched to popcorn kernals. But they represent dollars anyway.

I really need to get a handle on my food again. I've been eating more carbs than I want to be because they are easy and I hurt and I'm tired and I'm sick again or possibly still. I've been getting really dizzy for the past two weeks. At first I thought it was just a side effect of the muscle relaxant, but I think it's actually the sinus stuff. DS is sick again, too, poor baby.

I transferred $1000 from ING to my regular checking account today. That along with what is left in the checking account should cover everything between now and the next time DH gets paid which will be on the 27th.

I think that is it for today.

I got a prescription for sinus infection/bronchitis. It cost $26.20.

Today I decided to tackle my mending pile. So far I have sewn up a pocket that had ripped in one pair of sweatpants, closed the holes in two fuzzy slipper socks, sewed the underarm seam back up on one of DH's t-shirts and am trying to locate the right size button for DD's jeans. She somehow managed to lose the button, and it's one of those big, flat round ones. Time to go hunting through grandma's button box. If that doesn't work I'll try a trip to JoAnn's but I'd sure prefer to not have to buy one. Still, a few dollars to save a good pair of jeans is not too high a price.

I like the idea of restoring the usability of things with just a little bit of effort on my part. What do you do when you rip your clothes or lose buttons? Fix it, find someone else to fix it for you, or throw it out?

First off a Merry Christmas to all my celebrating SA friends and a lovely 25th of December to the rest of you.

I think we had the best Christmas ever with the in-laws this year. We went there yesterday and it was just so wonderful. It was the first Christmas without yelling. Usually SIL and ex-BIL or ex-BIL and eldest neice or SIL and eldest neice would get into and pretty much ruin the day for everyone else. SIL's boyfriend is a very nice man. I hope they make it work.

This is our fourth Christmas post ex-BIL and the first Christmas the SIL and neice did not have a big blow up. There were a couple of potential blow outs that could have happened, but either my daughter or I recognized the signs and acted accordingly.

Youngest neice was teasing eldest neice about being held back a year and not being as smart as her and I jumped in and put a stop to that. The year before eldest neice was held back was the toughest of her life with the divorce and being severely bullied at school. Youngest neice hadn't known about the bullying (she was too young then) and it made an abrupt about face in her behavior. Other than that everyone was happy. It was so nice.

Christmas at home has been nice, too. And the list of loot makes me quite happy, too, because no money was wasted this year on things people had no use for or didn't want.

I personally walked away with a new crockpot to replace the one that cooks everything on high regardless of the low setting, an LED candle, a music CD I wanted, an Alaskan Ulu knife (should make chopping onions so much easier) and a Belgian waffle maker. Then in my non-practical presents (that I still wanted) I got series six of the new Doctor Who and two collectible action figures (yes, I'm a nerd). I got Amy Pond and the Eleventh Doctor in his cowboy hat. They still haven't made a Rory doll, but if they ever do, I want one.

The kids were all happy with what they got, though a couple things haven't arrived in the mail yet. DH was happy to, though again, he is waiting on one thing that had to be special ordered. But we are all so happy that there was no fighting this year, we could have received no gifts and it wouldn't have mattered. It was just a good family time. And that's the best present of all.

I found a quarter this morning and added it to the coin jar.

I checked my interest at ING for the month so far and based on that I should earn $5 in interest. Maybe a bit more as I intend to send some money there on Friday and on the 23rd as well. Won't be to much more, though.

Has anyone heard from ThriftyRay lately? Feels like it's been a while and she was really sad last time she posted.

I had my first physical therapy appointment with the new place on Monday. It went well. We will be doing pool therapy for the next 3 sessions, then after that we'll be back on dry land again. I like the therapist. He's an older man, probably in his mid to late 60's. His hair is pure white. It's the color I want my hair to be when I am a little old lady.

I added $4.78 to the coin jar today. Things are moving along nicely for my December/end of the year goal.

Also, we finished the movie on time so $1 instead of $2. Silly thing to be happy about, but, yeah, I'm a goof, so I am. Cute family movie, too. The Zookeeper, if anyone is interested, and rather a minimal amount of bathroom humor for an Adam Sandler production (he's not in it, though, it stars the guy from that mall cop movie).

We got an hour of free music today. DS's friend (the girl he went to the dance with) had a recital at the library so we went to that. I finally got to meet her and her mother. They seem like good people. Never thought I'd meet anyone who had a higher energy level than DS, though, but A does. That should prove interesting.

...or near hit if you want to be technically accurate, since it nearly hit our wallet, or actually missed it, not nearly missed it, but if you go by how people actually use the phrase... It's a lot like thaw and dethaw. People mean thaw, but when they say dethaw it would actually mean to freeze. But I digress.

We rented a movie from one of those boxes at the store for $1 and DH couldn't find it today. Turns out he left it in the shopping cart last night and the employees set it aside so when he called it was there. Yay. That could have been a $25 mistake, which is the replacement value of the DVD. Or what they charge anyway. In reality it'd cost more like $15, but whatever. Point is we didn't have to pay it and if it isn't too long a movie we might even get it watched before 7. Still if we have to pay $2, it isn't $25.