Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I'm not going to. I'm posting on here for accountability. Instead I will make whole wheat spaghetti with homemade sauce and garlic cheese meatballs and have that with a nice green leaf and purple cabbage salad and some of the berries I bought yesterday at Costco. It will taste better than eating out, it will be better for me, it will cost less and I won't waste gas going to a restaurant.

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

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

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

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

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

The ReadRevenue money showed up in Paypal last night. They are getting fast. I used to have to wait 3 days until it showed up at Paypal, the last two times have been within 24 hours. I went ahead and transferred that to CU#3.

This is, I think, my 5th entry today, do go and read my SheRa post if you must pick and choose, it has a lot to say in a spending way.

I read on someone's blog that ING has gone up to 4.5%, cool. I went to check my account and I have earned 98 cents for the month of November, bringing the total in that account up to $276.38. I have earned a total of $1.38 in interest beyond the $25 bonus, since I opened the account in October.

I did notice a few people asking around for referrals to ING in some of the blogs. I have some, so if you want to leave a reply to this entry I can send you out one. I only ask that you are serious about opening the account as I don't want to waste them.

I have been lax about transferring money from my CU to ING, I kept planning on it, but never did, so tonight I got on the ball and transferred $250 on over. Procrastination loses me interest, so I really need to stay on top of that whole thing.

I think I will be setting up an ING account for DH next payday so I can get the $10 referral for me and the $25 for signing up into his account. Right now we want to keep a certain amount of cash in the brick and mortar CU so I haven't done it yet.

I think some of savings may have to go into a car repair. My goal is to not let savings dip below $1000, though. There's a cable or bunch of wires that are hanging down under the front dash and I keep bumping them with my foot when I brake, so whatever is going on with that needs to be fixed and then the check engine light is on, though I think it may just like to be on. They couldn't find a reason for it at Midas last time I had it in for brake pads, but I'll check with the dealership when I get the wires put back where they are supposed to go.

Did my big Costco run today. I went in with a list, I came out with 3 items that were not on my list. Sigh. We go in with such big expectations sometimes. But the three things I did buy that were not on the list were okay.

Blackberries
Blueberries
A Duracel charger pack with 6 rechargeable batteries ($30)

The fruit was a complete and total impulse buy. It looked very, very good and I rarely buy Costco fruit but these just jumped into my cart of their own accord, so what can you do?

The charger pack was so I could have my own charger that DH doesn't know where its at so that he can't put it somewhere that I can't find it. Oh, he claims its in the room with the books, but um...can't prove it by me. This way I'll also have a set of rechargeables for the digital camera and a set for each of the childrens' Christmas presents charged and ready to go. I was planning on this purchase anyway, just not today.

I put $40 on the gas card while I was there. But I spent more than I planned and this is the first time I've gone over $100 (not counting the gas) in months. I had to buy Ziploc baggies and T.P. though and that does get pricey. It should last quite awhile, though. I also bought slipper socks, 10 pounds of chicken and 10 pounds of beef, pot pies, eggs, cheese, lettuce and yogurt. I am restocking a bit after the loss of the big freezer last week. So I guess the higher amount is to be expected. Didn't over do it because everything must fit into the half size chest freezer. Ended up with a total bill of $187.33 (including the $40 onto the gas card). I would have made it under $100 without the impulse buys and before the cost of gas. So I still feel I did okay.

Anyway, at check out I asked for boxes and they packed the one ridiculously full. It had all 20 pounds of meat in it, plus 4 pounds of cheese and the package of pot pies. We're coming up on 35 pounds of food. I just looked at the guy and I said in a good-natured tone, "Tell me something. Do I look like SheRa: Princess of Power to you?"

He gave me a blank look and I said, "It's too heavy, I can't lift that into my car."

Then he laughed, I guess he finally got it, said "Oh, nope, not really, I'll repack it." He didn't look older than me, he should have grown up with the same cartoons, should have been a little faster on the uptake. But oh, well. He did repack it so I could then lift it easier. At least, I didn't have to rescue my Omega-3 eggs from this one.

After that I got gas. The machine kept shutting off, even though I know it should have gone to 15.5 gallons as I had just over 2 gallons in the tank and its an 18 gallon tank. That gas gauge is computerized so I don't have to guess. I finally gave up at 12 point something gallons, so not a full tank but close enough to end up with 15 gallons in there. Spent just over $30 and have enough left on the card for another full fill up.

I spent $15 (including tip) for lunch at the Mexican place, had beef fajitas without the tortillas, about half a cup of the rice, no beans (they gave me lettuce instead), lettuce, and some chips and salsa. Ended up bringing half of it home for a whole other meal.

Deposited $15.50 in rolled coin at the bank with the CC payoff account, but forgot to deposit the $5 check from Your2Cents.

Went to Haggen and bought bananas, organic milk, shrimp, hamburger, Isernio's mild Italian chicken sausage (Fern, they have a website if you were interested in these nitrate/nitrite free and sulfate/sulfite free suasages, www.isernio.com, its a Seattle based company), 100% apple juice, 100% whole wheat hamburger and hotdog buns, a magazine for me and some Ocean nasal spray for Rose. Spent $73.29 there.

Then I went and picked up the kids and came home. The roads were really good. The highway is completely bare and the main roads in town were a lot better. Mom's street is still bad and my own street is still bad, but things are melting and it got up to a balmy 41 degrees F today, so all's good here on the weather front.

More people have put up Christmas lights now that they don't have to freeze to do it. We even had two new houses on our street put up lights so the kids were excited. I suppose I'll have to go work on finishing our display. For normal people, we'd be done with what is already up, but we aren't normal people. We get our address submitted to the paper of lights to go see in the county, though after last year I may request they not print it since we had $90 worth of lights stolen. We budget twice as much for electricity for the month of December. You can see where I'm going with this. I'm not much of an indoor decorator, though we do put up a tree and a little village, but we all love the outdoor Christmas stuff and the neighborhood kids adore it. One kid asked at Halloween when we were going to set it up.

I think I've covered everything for the day now.

Today is payday. So far I have paid:

$1000 Medical Mortgage
$400 House Mortgage

I'm on my way to Costco to pick up a few things and to get gas, so I will update with the rest of my spending tonight. I don't reckon there will be too much as I only need a few things. I have gotten better and better about not buying extra "stuff" at Costco just because it is there, but going in with a list and sticking with what I need instead. It used to be I couldn't leave Costco without spending at least $100 in groceries and maybe a book or movie. Now if I spend $100 there it is because I am putting money on my gas card.

Just posted and then went to the main page and hey, I'm the most active blogger! Ooo. Probably the only time I've ever been in first place. And the only one to post so far today, being a night owl and all. And of course, it won't last, but if we can't take joy in the utter inanities of life, then why have a sense of humor at all? It cheered me up anyway. I know I've been whining a lot this last week, so I will try to put a more positive spin on this, the first day of December.

And shh...don't tell anyone, but things are looking up for DH at work. Can't go into it until January but cross your fingers and send good vibes our way that something very good may be in store, soon.

Did a $3 survey today. Can't get the money until I build up to $5 in the account though. I dislike that, but its one of the better sites for payout, so can't begrude it too much.

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.

It warmed up today to 26 degrees F, still below freezing but a lot more bearable and easier to keep the house warm at a lower temperature. Tomorrow it is supposed to be 32 degrees. It is also supposed to snow. Guess how happy I am to hear that? I just got dug out, for goodness sake.

It has been 8 days since my kids last went to school. Crazy. At this rate we'll be making up snow days until July. Which will give me a lot of time to work in my garden without the constant "Mom can I's" that I always get the minute I walk outside the front door.

I got a call from the library's automated system this morning to tell me each of my kids have an overdue item. The library isn't even open because of the storm! Like it would matter if I could turn it in they wouldn't be able to check it through. Stupid computers.

The school website hasn't yet posted whether there will be school tomorrow or not, but I am doubtful. The roads are still pretty icy and since 95 percent of our school district is bused, and because it is still so cold out for kids to be waiting for the bus, I somehow don't think it will happen. Yet, I hold out hope.

I did make the kids clean up the living room today. They have been camped in it for a few days and I was just sick of the mess. Now I'm on here mostly avoiding doing another load of dishes and finishing cleaning out the freezer now that I have an empty trash can again. Or almost empty. Paper plates are starting to look very appealing right now. Seems like these kids do nothing but eat when they are home.

At least today is a no spend day. I see a lot of those in my future, but hope I can at least get to town on Friday to pay the mortgage. I suppose I could do it over the phone since my CU that gets the paychecks direct deposited holds the mortgage, but I'd also like to deposit all that rolled coin and the survey check I have burning a hole in my purse. And maybe dump the kids with my mom for a couple of hours so I can just recharge my batteries. I need some me time, seriously badly.

I also need to go to Costco to get toilet paper, lettuce, meat and Omega 3 organic eggs. I'm on my last carton of eggs though it has 14 in it (out of 18). We usually go through 4 a day when DH isn't home, so that puts us out on Saturday, or not enough for everyone to have them on Sunday. I also need to get some more of those nitrate/nitrite free, sulfite/sulfate free, sugar free sausages. And some organic milk. I really don't care for this other stuff, although the kids like it.

I am trying to keep my chin up right now but I feel very whiney. At least tomorrow is the $10 deposit to savings, so my savings will go up.

Edited to add:

And they just posted school closures for tomorrow on the school's website. Darn it!

Okay, I have to admit it. My furnace is currently set on 74 degrees. And I don't even feel guilty because 4 hours on 70 did NOT get the house warm. Did I mention that almost all of the wood has frozen into a big lump that is refusing to yield any real useable bits? Anyway, after a half an hour at 74 the house is finally warm, so I will go turn it back down to 70.

It is, as my title states, currently 8 degrees outside, for our non-American friends that is way below freezing, which is 32. It was warmer during the day, 14, but the sun was out so it felt warmer and the wind wasn't blowing and that helps.

The three of us managed to clear the snow off the car, dig it out and shovel a path from the back of the car to the end of the driveway. I tried to open the doors on the drivers side. The door has a keypad, which unlocks the doors and the trunk. Well, it unlocked every door but the driver door which was frozen. I couldn't get the back door to open, so I went to the other side of the car which is more sheltered and under the tree. That one I managed to get open, then crawled through, unlocked the driver door and pretty much kicked it open, or at least pushed really hard with both feet. Turned it on and got it defrosting and popped the trunk and yay! had a can of deicer, so did both the front and back windows on the driver's side. The kids had to crawl through to the back from the front but managed okay.

So we ended up going to town and getting milk after all. I had to get regular milk because they were out of organic in the gallon size. Now I have enough of a problem paying the price for a gallon of organic milk, I am NOT going to pay a buck less than that for a half gallon, that's for sure. But I got 2 regular gallons for $3.96 so not bad. Picked up a few other items.

At least by the time we got to town the doors had thawed out and everything opened properly. We probably could have waited the storm out but quite frankly if we hadn't had a change of scenery I think we all would have gone nuts. No school again today and none scheduled for tomorrow.

The roads are a little scary, mostly ice, but I have years of experience driving on ice. And at 20 to 35 mph depending on conditions, there's not much I can't handle. Steered out of one skid just fine, which surprisingly happened when I was only going 14 mph. Some people were crazy and trying to pass, thinking what? that the speed limit is 55 so they're going to try to go it, and let's just say there were a lot of cars off the road. Though I do have to say when we got to the bare patches it was annoying that no one sped up on those sections. But oh, well.

On the way home, we were less than a mile from home when we had to stop and wait for an accident to be cleared. Had to wait about half a Hilary Duff Christmas CD before we could continue on. I think that's about 20 minutes, for those of you without kids.

But we got home safely and soundly and I have enough milk and other things that I shouldn't need to go out again for anything. That doesn't mean I won't. We may go to Mom's tomorrow to do laundry and give me a break from the incessant "I wanna play in the snow," which ain't gonna happen in the teens and lower, babies. At least Grandma has TV. Yes, I will deaden their minds for a day every so often if it means I get a bit of peace. LOL I want school back in session!

This one only lasted a couple hours, thank goodness. When the power did come back on though it was 30 seconds on and 30 seconds off over and over again for about 15 to 20 minutes. Very frustrating when its lunch time and you are trying to microwave something that normally takes 2 minutes, but every time the power surges, you have to reprogram the cooker.

Oh, well, its been on now steady for a half an hour so I have high hopes that it will stay on now. It seems a tiny bit warmer today, the sun is out anyway. I haven't gone out to check for sure but since the garbage can is facing a different direction than it was last night, I think the trucks made it in alright. I didn't hear them though, they usually wake me up with their noisy disiel engines, even if its just for a few seconds. I suppose I will have to haul it back to the house soon and see if there was mail and paper delivery today.

Today will be another no spend day as I still don't feel like digging out the driveway just to get milk. I'm hoping it starts melting soon. It looks a lot more compact this morning, so maybe it did melt a bit.

School and sports activities were cancelled again today. I've done two loads of laundry and am working on a third. Have clothes hanging from one shower pole on hangers and on one drying rack. I have another drying rack and another shower pole to go, so should get through 4 loads of laundry today, I think. Not letting the kids go out today frees up a drying rack from their outdoor gear.

I am getting that dryer fixed though, or possibly getting a new one, not this payday but the next one. I am tired of not having it when it would have been easier to use it to dry the kids's jackets, gloves and boot liners. Those don't tend to dry out overnight on the racks. I will still use my drying racks a lot but I want the option of using my dryer.

The cheapest dryer I've seen is just under $200, so about $220 with tax. It is $70 just for the service call to my area and then it depends on how much it will cost to fix it. If it is cheaper just to get a new one, I probably will. I just don't like that idea, I try to reuse, reduce, recycle as much as I can. Still, if its going to cost me twice as much to fix it as to replace it, I can't financially justify just fixing it. It's a bit of a conundrum.

Well, I decided not to chance it and dug out the garbage can and a path from it to the end of the driveway. I left it in the middle of the driveway mostly because I have no way of telling where the edges are, but they will be able to access it easy enough from the truck. If the truck comes. Please let the truck come. It was so cold shoveling that it took my lungs about 2 hours to feel normal again afterwards. They felt cold on the inside.

I have decided that I don't care how badly my kids whine and beg tomorrow they are staying inside. It is just too cold. They had really red patches on their exposed bits of skin and I'm worried about them getting frostbite now. It's 25 degrees on the porch thermometer, but the wind goes right through you, I'm sure the wind chill is bringing it down closer to zero.

We are out of milk so I may try to dig out the car from the end of the driveway to the road. The road is plowed. It's still ice, but its sanded and all I have to do is get out of the development and turn onto the highway. It's plowed down to bare road. Just not sure if I want to really do that or not. It's so cold. But there doesn't seem like there will be a break in the forecast, fortunately no snow tomorrow, just cold again.

We haven't been eating all that great today. Nachos for breakfast (but hey, organic ones!), pancakes for lunch (multi-grain! with real organic maple syrup!), tv dinners for dinner (not a single redeeming quality). Not much in the way of protein, especially quality protein. Air popped popcorn for snack with too much butter. Ugh. But my energy levels are tanked. Do you ever notice how when you are trying to stay warm you sleep more? Is that where my energy levels went? Of course, it could be just a carb coma from all the junk I'm eating.

And the freezer under the fridge is getting cleaned out. I found a box of shrimp scampi so that will probably be lunch tomorrow and another day.

I wonder if I could get the kids to drink powdered milk. They drink non-fat anyway. Hmm. I so don't want to dig the car out, can you tell?

The snow finally stopped sometime last night or early this morning at 2 feet deep. The wind is just starting to pick up. We are pretty sheltered here between two foothills, but my mother says the rest of the county is getting socked.

There was no mail delivery or paper delivery. I started getting paper delivery again last month after I ran out of my stock pile when we started using the wood stove. I do read it first though. I called the Herald and they didn't even put out a paper for today, no one could get in to deliver it anyway.

I tried to call the garbage people to see if there would be pick-up tomorrow or not. No answer, but I called right before 4 and they close at 4, so now I don't know if I missed them or they couldn't get in. I really need to put my garbage out but if they aren't coming, I really don't want to shovel a path to do so. Why did the freezer have to break down last week of all weeks? Oh, well, at least the stuff is frozen solid outside and doesn't stink.

Today is a no spend day, obviously. I will probably try to get out tomorrow to get milk, as we are low, but we'll see.

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.

3rd entry today.

Today I went ahead and activated my Citi MC that has been sitting in the credit card box since February and transferred the 22% MBNA mastercard balance onto it. It is now at 6.99% until March of 2008.

Another thing I will have to do is call up Auto Advantage, Preferred Home Network, Bargain Auto Network and a couple of others that I did as trial offers months ago and cancelled, mind you within the 30 day trial periods, so I never should have been charged more than $1 for any of these things. Well, they've been charging the card. I thought DH was watching that one and he thought I was and we didn't catch it. Well, I'm going to get on the phone tomorrow and raise high holy hell with these folks. Just as soon as I find my notebook with the confirmation numbers and names of the people I talked to when I cancelled.

DH is also taking care of disputing the charges. As soon as we are credited back with all that they owe us than that MBNA card will be cancelled.

I guess I won't be doing business with TriAlegant ever again. Their the parent company that is currently ripping me off by not following through on cancelling all those things. Very irritating.

I also have a few other things to cancel that need cancelling, so have to get my papers together for those as well.

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.

Received the transfer from paypal for ReadRevenue on Friday, $3 and will transfer that to the payoff account next time I go to town.

The auto transfer to savings of $10 happened on Friday as well, since banks were closed Thursday. I will be sending that off to ING.

The owner of TinklyCash must have finally gotten back from his trip as that $5 showed up in paypal yesterday so I transferred that to my CU. It will go to the payoff account, too.

I should have enough to cash out at ReadRevenue again in 2 days and DaysLook in 4 days ($5) if they keep up the same level of emails that they are currently sending.

TinklyCash stopped sending more than 2 out a day and so did CashOrigin, so hopefully those will reset soon. I do them when I'm watching a movie or even reading a book, I know PTRs can be so mindless, otherwise. I just wish I could figure out a way to knit and do PTR's at the same time, while watching a movie. Now that would be efficient use of my time.

It's snowing hard and fast here tonight. That doesn't always mean anything here on how deep it will get. We've been known to get 3 feet overnight or 2 inches. Usually somewhere in between. We had about a half inch when I got up this morning and an inch by 2 p.m. and then it stopped. Started up again a half an hour ago and its already added an inch.

I decided to go in and pick up my kids instead of having my mother bring them home. I really needed to go grocery shopping. I went to Fred Meyer so I could also pick up waterproof gloves for the kids and look at the boots. They had a good price on the boots so I got Tobias a new pair. His old ones are too small, they were too small by the end of last winter. Rose can wear mine until I get a chance to take her to try things on. Her feet are shaped in such a way that I can't just pick her size and they'll fit. I found good gloves for them, too.

I stocked up on apples, oranges, and bananas. They had braeburns on sale for 88 cents a pound. I wanted the more expensive honeycrisp but couldn't justify the $1.99/lb price and braeburns are good. Organic bananas were 79 cents a pound while the regular ones were 99 cents, weird. The oranges were a little more than I like to pay but I didn't want to go to another grocer and I knew they were still cheaper than at the organic foods store.

I bought some root vegetables, parsnips, turnips, rutabagas, carrots, sweet potatos and will be roasting them probably tomorrow. I have only had sweet potatoes once before but I think its going to be fine. Have some acorn squash I can add to it.

I picked up the organic deli meat without nitrates/nitrites and sulfates/sulfites for school lunches and some organic 100% whole wheat bread and same type of hamburger buns and organic non-fat milk. They had bagged broccoli/cauliflower cut up for $1.25 for a one pound bag that they were clearancing, I got two. Looked at the chicken but the stuff they had on special was from Cincinatti and I prefer to get my chicken locally. Usually they have local stuff on sale but I think they are still trying to move a lot of holiday stuff out.

After FM I went to Terra Organica, the organic foods store and picked up a couple packages of organic 100% whole wheat tortillas, 2 packages of organic multi-grain pancake mix, and some free range organic chicken broth.

Then I went and got my kids and Mom sent me home with a couple of uncooked sweet potatoes that sister had left behind and the rest of the 100% whole wheat rolls from Thanksgiving.

I'll need to go meat shopping I think sometime next week. I really need to see what I have in my half size chest freezer, which I think is just turkey legs and necks (no thank you anytime soon), a 4 pack package of bacon (and not the good kind, I mean it tastes good, but its full on nasties) and 4 pounds of hamburger. I think there might be some steaks and a whole chicken in the freezer that is in my fridge. Maybe I should concentrate on getting that used up first and then worry about meat shopping later on.

When we got home the kids played in the snow for a half an hour and then I made them dinner, turkey and cheese quesadillas and leftover potatoes and gravy. I'm going to throw the turkey carcass in the crockpot tonight with water, salt, celery, carrot, onion, garlic and dried parsley if I can find it. I usually use fresh parsley when making stock but didn't think about it when I was shopping and don't have any now. Then I'll make turkey noodle soup tomorrow with the result. I'll make whole wheat egg noodles with my pasta maker or see if I can't find where the whole wheat spaghetti noodles got to. I'll freeze part of this.

I think I'll make up TexMex turkey and rice tomorrow, also. I have a really easy recipe. Cook rice, dump leftover shredded turkey on top, cover with two jars of medium salsa (organic, preferrably), stir, heat, stir again. Voila. Sometimes I'll throw in extra diced tomatoes, drained if I have a can. I prefer to use brown rice but it works with white minute rice, too,and is faster. Usually I make it with leftover chicken but since I have all the leftover turkey, that's where it goes. I'll freeze up some of these in meal sized portions, too.

Just checked the google weather report for my little town and its supposed to snow all day tomorrow. Really, really glad I got groceries today.

I am feeling better again. I got quite a lot of extra sleep while the kids were at my mother's and I am hopeful I am on the upswing, but I did feel a bit dizzy today while shopping and I still have a cough. If the roads are not too bad I will try to see the doctor though on Tuesday. I want to make sure I don't have bronchitis or the start of walking pneumnonia. He's usually slammed the first day back after a long holiday so I don't even want to try for Monday.

I finished reading the book Odyssey by Jack McDevitt. Hard sci-fi/excellent. Watched the movie Someone Like You. Funny, sad and sweet romance and Hugh Jackman is always good whether he's a romantic lead as in this or Wolverine from X-Men. And pretty to look at. LOL

Yep, you got that right, revisited. I cannot believe this happened again. DH is the culprit, he was the last person in there on Monday. Of course with the holidays and everything, I didn't even go into the laundry room until today and guess what? The freezer door was wide open. We lost everything. This makes me so mad (not at DH, just that it happened) as the stuff actually made it through the power failure and there had to be over $500 worth of frozen food in there, maybe $600.

I filled up the garbage can, though I haven't hopped inside and done the garbage dance yet to smoosh it down and fit more in. I still could probably fill the can again. This means an extra can has to be put out this month. At least. Which means an extra pickup charge on the garbage bill. I'd gotten down to putting a can out every 3 weeks instead of every 2 and now I'll have to put out at least 2 in a row. Sigh.

I'm ready to get rid of this freezer. The door doesn't always fasten right. It belongs to my mother and it is older than I am. She wants it back and is going to give us our freezer back. We traded a couple years ago because she wanted to downsize and had a chest freezer as backup. Well, the chest freezer died, so we figured we'd trade back. Not sure I want any upright again at this point. But I certainly don't want the old menace, so as soon as I can get it all cleaned out she can have it.

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.

Gosh, this is entry 4 for today, already. Some days I guess I have a lot to write about

I received a $5 survey check in the mail today from Your2Cents. That will go into the credit card payoff account.

I also rolled coin today so I have a total of $15.50 of rolled coin to deposit.

I saw the most interesting toy at the store. It is called Pig E. Bank and is an interactive purple piggy bank. It isn't even that expensive, but it teaches you about saving money and stuff. It comes with some toy money, also but its a real piggy bank. It was less than $10. This might be a real teaching tool for someone who wants their kids to start saving money.

Well, Yummy's Kmart rant reminded me that I haven't updated on the Suncoast rant so here goes. Five days after I emailed them I got a nice form letter that basically said "Your correspondence is very important to us and will be answered in the order of which it was received. If you want to speak to an actual human good luck, because we don't actually have any here, though you may be able to coax out a customer non-service troll if you hop up your front steps on one leg backwards while whistling Dixie and rotating a hula hoop around your hips. You must submit the digital recording of this via our email which we probably still won't answer." Or something to that effect and meaning, but not quite in those words. 2 weeks from the date of the complaint and nothing further has been received from them.

I sent off the payment to my MBNA master card of $1200. This should bring the balance down to right around $5300. I am hoping to have this paid off by the end of April. It has the highest interest rate and lowest balance. I like it when it matches up that way, as it means I can get rid of the smallest balance first without feeling like I should be paying the higher rate cards first. It seems more motivational to know I can pay this off in a few months than it does to think of how much longer it would take to pay off one of the higher balance cards.

I need to find out about transferring the balance to a lower rate card. Originally the interest on this one was 6.9 percent for the last year, but now its jumped up to 22% and that is not acceptable to me. Maybe it won't matter that much if I can't if I can pay it off in 5 months, but it is the principle of the thing.

I have insomnia and so am up late reading blogs and thought to check with paypal since it is officially tomorrow and yes, the money did come through from ReadRevenue, so I transferred that to the CU. Probably won't see it until Monday because of the holiday. Anyway, when it comes in it will be added to the account we are using for paying off MC card 2. I know $3 won't make much of a difference but its something.

Still waiting for the owner of TinklyCash to get back from his business trip. I've moved up the waiting list to only being second in line so obviously some stuff has been processed as I was 8th before. That'll be $5 more to the credit card if it ever shows up. I'm already halfway to another payout with them, if I ever get this one. He's supposed to be back the 25th, but who knows?

I know they pay out, they have before it is just annoying having to wait so long, they ought to have a backup system.

Dayslook has started sending me emails again, so I guess they've got the kinks worked out. Or judging from their new website page, maybe they added kinks. I'm pretty sure I won't stick with them once I hit payout. Some of their content has gotten a bit...ahem...adult in theme. But I have enough money in that account to not want to just abandon it. I can put up with it for a little while.

CashOrigin seems to have shut itself off again after a five day run of emails. Sigh. They have more problems, or at least I have more problems getting consistent email flow with them.

Okay, I am starting to bore myself, so I'll just send this off now and try again to sleep.

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.