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

I helped DH hang twinkle icicle lights on the house today. We put the new LED ones on the front peak that faces the road. Then we put the non LED ones along the length of the house that is technically the front of the house, though it sits sideways on the property, around the porch and then we still have to do one more string to finish the last length, but we ran out of light. We won't have them on this soon but DH leaves for Alaska tomorrow night and won't be back until the 12th or 13th. I can do everything else myself, but not the gutters. Well, I could, but I really don't want to.

We also got all the Christmas stuff down from the 2nd floor of the shed so I can set everything up easily at my leisure.

We did go to town again today and get some more gutter clips and some cable, 2 50 foot lengths and 2 25 foot lengths and we will run these through our standing displays and lock them around the huge cedar trees. We were robbed last Christmas, someone took $90 worth of our lights right off our apple tree. We caught them in the act, but they took off and had already gotten most of the stuff off the tree. We managed to save two. They were those big ball lights they had at Lowe's a few years ago that had fifty lights each and were in really unique jewel tone colors and they don't carry them anymore. I was really mad I couldn't replace them, but in retrospect they were huge energy hogs no matter how pretty they were.

We also ate dinner out, an unplanned spend. Hopefully that is the last of those for awhile.

We've been Christmas shopping the last couple of days and have paid for everything with cash this year. I think this is the first year in ages that we haven't used a credit card at all.

The kids are all taken care of, they were easy though. They only wanted two things each and those things happened to cost the limit of what they will get. So they each got a Nintendo Gameboy DS, one black and one white, the game Dogs--Dalmation version for Rose, and the game Mario Vs Donkey Kong 2 for Tobias. They will get stockings and nothing else this year. I did get the game systems on sale so I was really happy about that. They may go on a better sale the Friday after Thanksgiving, but I don't shop then, and its done and out of the way now.

We found the weight bench DH wants and its within the budgeted amount so I'm happy there, too. We haven't bought it yet.

I also found the gifts for MIL and FIL, but not bought, and the neice I haven't bought for yet. I am making up 2 batches of lasagna and freezing them for our gift to SIL and BIL. That just leaves my parents and 3 nephews. My sisters and I don't exchange, we just do the kids under 18. I am making my dad some knitted hats. I am not sure what I will do for my mother yet. Maybe a blanket if I have time. Or some knitted slippers or socks. I found directions for making them with the knitting looms online, so I think I will at least try that.

Oh, we also went to Lady Foot Locker and bought basketball shoes for Rose and a new jacket. It's down and very warm. She finally outgrew the jacket we bought for her four years ago (we bought it big). We got the jacket for 1/2 price and a free bag of athletic socks ($9.99), since they had a buy one get one half price on anything at the store.

I just have to rave about how wonderful the service was that we got at that store. The girl worked with us for probably 30 minutes, making sure everything fit right and finding what we needed. I told her how much I appreciated her taking the time and that I was really impressed with the service. You just don't get that in shoe stores anymore. I mean the men's Foot Locker was, "Here's the shoe, try it on and I'll get back to you." I think it is very important to say thank you for good customer service.

We bought 5 packages of LED Christmas Lights at Target to start replacing some of our other ones. The energy savings should be pretty good. I am going to replace them all over the next few years, I think. They are a little more pricey than the other kind but they are supposed to last longer, too. We also bought a swag light, a green one with a red bow in the middle. I have been wanting one for a few years.

Anyway, so a lot of money spent these last two days but everything on or under budget so I am happy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I went Christmas Looking today. This is a lot like Christmas Shopping, only without the actual bying of anything. I did a fair bit of Christmas Looking at Barnes and Noble and have a very good list of items that I think will do very nicely as presents. There was a series of drawing books that I would really like to get for my daughter. She's very artsy crafty, loves to draw and paint, and has some good instincts that I think these books would help channel along.

Found a doorstop..er, coffee table book, on castles that DH would drool over if he'd been there with me. He loves this sort of thing, it has pictures and architectural interest with both the insides and outsides and the art and interior design and the surrounding countryside. It is a real work of art.

Found a book on crocheting that I want so will give the name of that to Mom when she asks me what I want.

I looked at "stuff" at Costco while I was there to buy eggs, nuts, and cucumbers. There wasn't really much that caught me eye in the Christmas decorations. I have learned not to use exposed bulbs or holographic thingies with exposed bulbs in open areas or the rain just shorts them out within a day or two, so that cuts out a lot. I tend to stick with rope light structures mostly now.

I looked at "stuff" at Rite Aid, but they don't have more than half their display up yet, and none of their standee stuff at all. Rite Aid had the church I want the last two years, I am hoping they have it this year. I want to use it as a train station for our rope light train, as it looks like an old-fashioned train station as well as a church.

I looked at "stuff" at Fred Meyer, didn't like anything there, either. Sigh. Picked up organic nitrate/nitrite free lunch meat for the kids' lunches next week while I was there. Got myself some more Vick's Sinex nasal mist (a full $1.20 cheaper than anywhere else) and then signed over my first born at the pharmacy so I could get liquid Children's Motrin Cold medicine (in grape). It has sudafed in it so of course its behind the counter now, too.

Can I just say that I hate having to go to the pharmacy for over the counter cold medicine. It is so stupid. The meth heads are going to get their supply regardless, all they are doing is annoying the crap out of the rest of us with sickness. I mean the last thing I want to do is stand in another line after standing in the first line, to even find out if they have it in grape, because heaven forbid I come home with berry flavored, or bubble gum flavored, or horror of horrors, cherry. Then I have to fill out all my information in their little book, because they are too lazy to do it themselves (like at WalMart who enters it into the computer once so then all they have to do in future is put your license number into the computer and its all there), so that if I buy more than my allotted (sp?) amount of cold medicine they can hunt me down and search my cupboards for incriminating amounts of ibuprofen cold, sudafed, and dimetapp. Hmm, she has adult formula, junior strength formula, and children's formula! She's trying to buy them all at once. Over limit! Over limit! What does that mean? She must be a drug addict!

Or maybe she has a small child, a medium child, and an adult and they are all freaking sick right now. Geesh. Heaven forbid you try to stockpile medicine for the winter! Because it would be so much fun to run out in the middle of a cold and drag a whiney, feverish, germ-spewing youngster through the six inches of standing water and the torrential downpour to get another bottle. And after all that crap of being told they have Children's Motrin Cold, in grape, which is what I specifically ask for each time I ask, they hand me Children's Ibuprofen Cold, Kroger brand. "What the heck is this?" "Oh, its our generic store brand. And look, its in grape, just like you wanted." "No. I wanted Children's Motrin Cold." "Oh, we don't have that." ARGHHHHHH. Bought it anyway, but I tell you, as much as I normally love shopping at Fred Meyer, I will not be back for a loooooooong time.

I'm just glad the kids were with my mother. I had a hard enough time navigating today without them. Did buy a few more groceries as Haggen. Enough so I wouldn't have to buy any more this week.

After I got the kids on the bus this morning, I wanted in the absolute worst way to drive the five minutes down the highway to this really terrific diner in Maple Falls. I had such a hankering for their home fries and pancakes this morning. And they make everything from scratch there, so I don't even have to worry about nasties in the food, except maybe nitrates in sausage or bacon.

But pancakes there are definitely not made with whole wheat flour and I don't know what kind of oil they use to cook the home fries and as I am trying to avoid transfats, well that wouldn't do at all.

But how hard could it be to make home fries? I mean, all it is is diced potatoes, bell pepper and onion. So I made them myself in olive oil, along with some nice nitrate/nitrite free, sulphate/sulfite free, sugar free all natural sausage and throughly enjoyed my homemade "diner" style breakfast. Didn't even miss the pancake that I had wanted earlier. Also saved myself about $10 including tip. They aren't horribly expensive there and I would have had a full breakfast if I had gone, rather than two items and the portions would have been a lot larger, too.

It was nice to not spend the money and stick to my new dietary habits.

I did, however spend some money tonight. We went to the chiropractor and then to Kmart to buy gloves and hats for the kids and gloves for me. The kids have scarves, but gloves and hats always seem to get lost or outgrown really fast. My gloves get lost because I let the kids wear them when they lose theirs.

I'm going to get some chenille yarn next payday and knit myself a hat and scarf to match my new jacket I bought a few weeks back. I'm not a great knitter but I can do hats and scarves that look good. I just can't do anything else. I'm starting to think the jacket may not be warm enough after all. It was 25 degrees this morning waiting for the school bus. But its hard to find anything really, really warm that isn't made of wool or lined with down. I'm not a masochist, I like to breathe and I can't do that with wool or down, so no go.

Oh, when we were at Kmart I looked at all the Christmas stuff. I love penguins, in fact I've collected penguins for 16 years and they had some really cute ones. But there is something that really, really annoys me to no end about Christmas and penguins. Penguins do not exist at the North Pole. They are native to Antarctica, as in the South Pole. And penguins and polar bears do not exist together as polar bears are native to the upper wilds of Canada and Alaska. And yet every year, there they are, cavorting together. Sigh. Just a really big pet peeve. Silly, I know, but it bugs me.

Nothing really jumped out at me to add to my collection of lights for our huge light display. Nothing I've seen at WalMart yet has impressed me either. Or Costco. I know its still early yet. I will be putting aside an extra hundred dollars to pay for the bump in our electric bill that we get after the holiday, due to all the lights. But it is a big deal for us and we wouldn't give it up, the kids just adore it and so does the neighborhood. I wish I'd bought the rope light nativity they had 3 years ago.

Oh, I should probably budget another $100 to buy cable to run through all the standees and hook around the trees so people can't steal from us this year. They didn't get much last year because DH surprised them in the act, but I'm not going to lose something we've paid hard-earned money for again. We also bought motion detectors last year so we will have to get those installed around the most expensive things.

Okay, this is more of a ramble than anything to do with finances so I think I'll wrap it up. Oh, I was able to cash out at TinklyCash this morning. $5 on its way to paypal. Oh, also wrote a check for $10 to fund Matt's hot lunch account at school. Which reminds me, I need to order checks.

Ran down to the convenience store today to buy a gallon of milk @ $2.49 and a newspaper @ 50 cents. I wanted to get a 99 cent big grab bag of Cheetos, but that is a big "NO" and still related to my sugar binge on Saturday. I didn't really want them want them, wasn't really hungry, I just kind of was having my head turned by them.

I decided not to go to town today. I didn't sleep too well last night. Well, I slept well between 1:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. and then again between 6:30 and 7:40, but you can see why its not really well with that kind of pattern. I went to bed at eleven, too so I don't know why the tossing and turning.

I might go tomorrow, but the kids have 1:00 early release so I would have to leave as soon as they got on the bus to get everything done and be back on time. I need to do the bank run and I need to pick up three t-shirts and a witch hat. Rose is converting her Princess Gueniverre costume into a witch costume for Halloween. I may also get a piece of fabric that has glittery spiderwebs on it to use as a shawl for her. I need to get on the ball and finish Tobias' ghost costume, also, but have everything for that. Just need to do it.

It is cold here today. It is very windy but I can't hang clothes outside due to intermittent sprinkles. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny again, and hopefully the wind will stay! Lately its been dead still on sunny days.

I have a nice fire going and am finally feeling it at my end of the house after several hours. I wish the wood stove was in the middle of the house and not at the far end from where I like to spend all my time and not to mention, sleep.

FIL says he has two more pickup loads of wood to bring out so it is possible I won't have to buy any. I'll have to see what it is and whether it is really as dry as he claims it is. It often isn't. May still buy wood anyway and let it sit in the shed for next winter. We'll see.

Okay, let's get the savings update out of the way. Yesterday was the auto-transfer of $10 to savings. The CU also put in their teeny tiny amount of dividends for the interest of $0.43. Total in this savings account is now $1116.43. That 43 cents is probably going to drive me crazy for a bit until I can add 57 cents to make it even again. I hate odd money amounts, I will always even it up when I can.

I received a check from NFO surveys of $10 yesterday and along with $25.50 in rolled coin, deposited it today into CU#2. Bringing the total in that account to $118.58. Oh, I don't think I mentioned that I had gotten a $70 medical refund last week to start this account.

So total savings right now is $1235.01. I also have an additional $10 that I will deposit on Monday. With that deposit I will only need $5 more to hit my goal of adding $250 to savings by the end of November. I'll meet that next Thursday with the auto deposit! I'll have saved $250 in one month instead of two.

Now I just need to get on the ball and open an ING account. Anyone have a referral they can send me? Baselle, do you have any? That would be appropriate since it was reading her blog that got me started on the whole ING thing.

Anyway, since it was payday I paid the last two bills that needed paying for this pay cycle, more to MBNA MC and my life insurance.

Then I went shopping. I spent $12.08 at the organic food store for 2 packages of organic 100% whole wheat tortillas, 6 pluots, and a jar of Spectrum mayonaise with omega-3 and flax seed oil.

Then I went to the farm stand and paid $5.97 for one large white onion, 6 ears of corn, 6 bananas, a big bunch of red flame grapes and two yellow summer squash.

From there I went to WalMart and spent $14.46 for a white twin sheet, package of 40 bandages with a free Neosporin sample, and a bottle of Ultrafine Mist Vick's nasal spray. Had to go to the pharmacy and pay $7.33 for a 48 pack of Sudafed and while there got a free sample of Pepcid AC.

Then I went over to Costco and bought 2 chuck roasts and a package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, 2 18 packs of brown Omega-3 organic eggs, and a container of Electrasol dishwashing tablets. I also added $80 to my cash card while I was at the check out for their gas station (which I didn't fill up today). Total was $139.08. We will fill up tomorrow after the soccer game. I really don't like to do it there so if DH is home, I'll wait until he can unless I am running on fumes.

Then it was to the Franz bakery outlet store where I got $9 worth of 100% whole wheat flour bread and from the free rack a package of eight 100% whole wheat hamburger buns. Of course, there's no way to coupon with this sort of shopping, but that's the trade off for healthier eating. I did get a milk coupon from Organic Valley though, so I am happy about that and will use it the next time I get milk.

I have started reading the Schwarzbein Principle which I think will go hand in hand with my husband's Ultra Metabolism book, only geared more for women. It's interesting so far.

I'm not sure if I ever said, I finished the book on CD "Start Late, Finish Rich," by David Bach. Really interesting, has some good ideas, but the more of his stuff I read the less I feel like we started late. We have a good chunk in the 401K and have a lot of equity in our house, almost 2/3 of its value is paid for. I have put "The Automatic Millionaire: Real Estate" on hold. I've read or listened to everything else the library has by this author and have really enjoyed it. He gives a lot of solid information in a simple, understandable way. I highly recommend his books.

Food today:

Breakfast:
Cascadia Farms Organic O's cereal
organic milk
organic omega-3 eggs
organic apple

Lunch:
carrots
pineapple
wild salmon patty (made with scallions, organic omega-3 egg, garlic, and real parmesan)
salad with grapeseed oil
water

Dinner:
chuck roast
corn
potatoes
banana
green beans
organic milk

And that's all she wrote.

Both kids were home sick today. We went into my mother's house to be sick there for the day. The kids were happy to camp out in front of satellite TV. I did go out for a couple of hours, Mom was happy to watch them and give me a break.

I went to Walmart to buy cheap chicken soup, real sudafed (only have to sign over your first born to purchase it there, not also and arm and leg), grass seed to reseed the lawn where the pool was, a small space heater (my room is furthest away from the wood stove and also is on the windiest, coldest side of the house so there are some nights during winter when I need it) since the old one died last winter. Oh, also got a little decorative scarecrow that I attatched to my front door for fall decoration.

I like to change my front door with the seasons, so this little 89 cent scarecrow was a cheap way to do it. I also have a red bell wreath for winter time, a pretty rainbow pastel colored bow for spring and crossed American flags summer. Fall was the only season I didn't have anything for and seeing that silly thing grinning at me did wonders for my spirit when I put it up tonight.

I also looked through the Christmas stuff. They have a revolving light lighthouse and a revolving train train station that I want to get for my Christmas village set. But I refuse to buy them in September. The lighthouse will actually go with the stuff I already have as its mostly a fishing village. I buy one thing a year, generally, so probably will not get the train station unless I get it as a gift for my train crazy son for Christmas.

Afterwards at my mother's we finally had a chance to look through all her end of life paperwork. I am durable power of attorney in both health and finances and have copies of the medical directives on both parents. She gave me a copy of the list of assets, banks and bank accounts, the lawyer's address and phone number, and showed me where she is keeping the will as I will be executor. The lawyer also has a copy in her office. We discussed what to do if she goes before dad, who to call to get him set up in a local nursing home, the name and number of his neurologist, and both of their wishes regarding disposal of remains (cremation, scatter ashes, no funerals).

She also has explained how the mortgage debt will be settled if she goes first, if dad goes first, or if they go together. And I will have custodial access to a money account to pay for all the expenses that may come up before the will can be carried out. So that won't have to come out of pocket and be reimbursed by the estate upon distribution. That is also a relief.

I have been after my mother for five years to get this stuff taken care of and am so glad she has everything in order now. It is one less worry for me to have everything clearly spelled out. I watched her go through not having any of this stuff taken care of with Grandma and her Alzheimer's disease and I did not want to be doing that myself one day.

Now I just need to do all the will stuff for DH and myself.

I finally hung curtains and a valance in the kitchen today. It is so nice to be able to walk in there in my nightgown and not worry about the neighbors. They are very pretty, white with cherries embroidered on them in blue and a little eyelet lace.

My kitchen looks so nice now, between the pretty pine table and chairs, the new curtains and the matching dishes. Never thought I'd get to this point. Next project in there is to change the surface of the counters and backsplash. We will be using linoleum tiles to cover the surface in a pretty blue print that just happens to match the color of the cherries on the curtains.

So what does my kitchen have to do with saving money? Well, the nicer it looks the more time I want to spend in it cooking and if I am cooking we are not eating out, hence we are saving money. Always a good thing.

Money from ReadRevenue showed up at paypal today so I transferred that to my CU, should show up by Friday.

That about sums it up. Did bits around the yard today. Wiped down the inside of the pool and then the outside of the pool and folded it up and put it away for the summer. This is the first time we've managed to do that before the end of October so I'm proud of us.

We laid out tarps over the old greenhouse foundation so that by next spring all the weeds and stuff will be dead without us using poison to do it. It's also cheaper than buying poison to do it.

Stacked wood and covered it with tarps, though I still need to do some more rearranging and bring wood up onto the porch. So far we haven't had a fire at night yet but the days are getting cooler and I don't imagine it will be too much longer.

The dryer is completely dead now, not just halfway dead. I think it is repairable but I'm not sure I'll bother. It still heats up but the drum doesn't turn. I had used it a bit too much this month because of the rain combined with the laziness and the kidney infection. We had a nice couple of days so I've had stuff out on the line as well as some stuff in the house on the drying racks.

I just need to get caught up during the warm spell so that when it gets rainy again it won't be hard to dry everything in the house. I may buy another drying rack or two to increase my capacity. Of course, once we start using the wood stove stuff will dry within a few hours since the racks are in the same room. So maybe I should try to hold off on that purchase.

Rose stayed home sick from school today. She caught a cold from her best friend who was out Friday (and today). She was in total whine mode. I know she is sick and miserable but she is also ten and can be sick and miserable without being a whiny PITB. Of course, I have not got a great amount of tolerance because she has oh so kindly shared her cold with me and I'm already on antibiotics for the kidney infection, so didn't really need another thing on top of that.

Tobias seems like he is getting stuffy and he felt warm tonight so it is just possible that he will be down by Wednesday if I am any judge. Well, I'll save on gas this week by not having to go to soccer practice with sick kids and I don't have to go to the open house at the school tomorrow which is worse every year with the boring. I think they devise ways to make it more tedious each year.

I was supposed to schedule an oil change for the car this week but that may get pushed to next week. I'm not driving that car until I can take it in. Fortunately, I don't need to.

I drove DH to the airport tonight and he is safely off to work. Filled up with gas at Costco for $2.57 a gallon. Oh, I bought a coat from Land's End online tonight and ordered a new knob for my dishwasher ($28 for a one ounce piece of plastic?). I had to use the credit card but will make an online payment to the card tomorrow in the amount of the two purchases. I really wish these online companies would allow you to make check payments online. So few do.

I really had a hard time buying that coat. I haven't got one anymore, the one I've used for the past ten years just fell to pieces the last time I washed it and I've been using DH's extra coat (work gives him a coat every year) when I've needed one but it is really too large to be comfortable. It is hard for me to find warm enough coats (we live in the mountains) that don't contain down or wool. I am allergic to both, so when I finally found one after searching about 18 different sites, I was thrilled. Wasn't happy about the price of $89.90, but since everything comparable I looked at was $149 or upwards, I guess it it okay. Shipping was $8.95, and there was a bit of tax, came to total of $106 something. I really like the colors, too, imperial blue and deep navy (is there a non-deep navy?). And since I will probably have it for another ten years, that works out to just over $10 a year, so that isn't too bad.

I wasn't too thrilled on the $28 for the dishwasher knob, either. I've been using pliers to turn it on. That's easy as it starts when you get it to the right place. Problem is, I don't know when the knob gets to the dry cycle so I can turn the machine off. And I'm not sure where off is. So it has to run all the way. Now we don't do heat cycle at all, but still, it runs for about fifteen minutes after the wash/rinse is complete and that wastes electricity, so we bought the knob.

I'm tired so I'll end my whine now. Kudos to those of you who waded all the way through it.

I am so irritated with myself. I managed to spill an entire glass of water on my alarm clock. Of course, I killed it. Tomorrow is the first day of school for the kids so now I have to drive all the way to town and back ($9 of gas or so), buy a new clock ($10 to $20). Now most of the time I use cups with lids because I am a big klutz, but they were all in the wash and I figured I could be careful. Nope. Can't. Sigh.

There are other alarm clocks in the house but none of them function except as clocks anymore. I called my mother to see if she has an extra one, nope. Neither does MIL. Or SIL. My sister is down in Mt. Lake Terrace now or I'd ask her. So not much choice in the matter. Darn it and double darn it. Sigh.

Could I not have waited one more day to spill on my alarm clock? I have to go to town for a follow-up doctor's appointment on my kidney infection tomorrow so I could have combined trips. Sigh.

Okay, okay, no point crying over spilt water. What is done is done and now I must go make a purchase. Grumble, grumble, grumble. It wouldn't do to sleep through the first few hours of school, now would it? LOL

Today saw the $25 Shell gas card from MyPoints arrive in my mailbox. The $3 ReadRevenue transfer from payapl to my CU showed up today so I moved that to savings, bringing the total in there to $813.

I did not get over to the other CU to open the CD, probably won't until Wednesday. I had to go finish getting school supplies, and stuff for school lunches, and then I had to get the kids new soccer gear, Rose needed socks and shin guards and Tobias needed bigger cleats. They both had their first practices today. Unfortunately, after next Tuesday their schedules will divirge, which means we will be at the practice fields four days a week and the game field once a week. Yuck, ugh, and blech. Their first game isn't until the 9th.

I stopped by the school and got their class lists. Tobias is happy because his best little girl friend is in his class and so is the female half of the new set of twins who moved in down the block. And two boys and two other girls from his kindergarten class are in his first grade class also.

Rose is really thrilled because two of the girls she really likes and has been friends with since kindergarten are in her new class. I'm thrilled, too. These girls come from good families with similar values, don't swear or smoke (the parents), and have the same sort of background as we do. I much prefer her being with these girls than one of the others who wasn't the best influence and had a totally disagreeable personality, at least around me. She's not in the class.

It's an advanced class of grade 5, they will be mixed in with some kids from grade 6 for reading, writing, science, computers and math, but have music, art, p.e., and history at grade level. This could be quite a challenge for Rose, because even though she is very smart, she is also lazy about school. I hope it challenges her in a good way. She gets frustrated fast when she doesn't "feel like" learning. But she also got frustrated fast being bored with being ahead of the rest of grade 4 last year and having to wait for the others to catch up.

I am really looking forward to Tuesday. I don't know which of us is the most excited. LOL

Our freezer quit working in a quite spectacular fashion. Combine this with the door being left open a couple inches and it was not a pretty site that greeted me. Since it is older than I am by a few years, I guess I'm surprised it lasted this long.

There is no fix to it, it won't turn on anymore and there were sparks involved and a rather obnoxious noise when it quit. So we had a nice 2 inch layer of water/ice cream/stickiness of unknown origin to deal with on the laundry room floor. Okay, well it is mostly cleaned up now, though there is still a high level of stickiness. But I am soaking that up with wet towels and hopefully by morning it will just wipe up. One can hope.

We probably lost about $300 worth of food since we had a lot of beef, chicken, and fish and shellfish in it. Very little was salvageable. Pretty much just the butter and some bricks of cheese and frozen berries that were in the back behind everything else and were still frozen solid.

Well, today was payday and we did have the $65 that we normally used for the cable bill when we still had cable that was going to go into savings and I was ahead on the house insurance payment, so the extra money I was sending there I combined with the old cable money and we bought a half size chest freezer at Sears for $189 with tax. At least the door to this one can't be left open. Well, it could, but people would notice.

Fortunately it only took the freezer 4 hours to get cold. We did a big Costco run today, $145, and were able to cage freezer space from a neighbor until it was cold, but we would have just used our ice chests if we couldn't have.

Obviously savings did not get as big a boost today as planned, but I did put in the $50 I owed it, so it is now at $779.85, so I have passed my goal of $750 and am on my way to my next goal of $1000. Just $221.15 to go. I'm a little irritated when I think it should be $844.85, but for the freezer debacle and then I'd only have $155.15 to go. I need to look on the bright side and consider that at least I had the money available to replace the freezer without putting it on a credit card. That is always a blessing.

This purachase wouldn't be quite so bad if it wasn't for the fact that DH's birthday is on the 30th and he wants a weight bench. Well, that will have to wait until next month. My mother's birthday is on the 28th and I have to figure out what I will do for that. I have to drive DH to the airport that same day. My sister and her family will be at my mom's for dinner so we will make it back in time to go there, also.

Today I also stopped at a farm stand and spent $10 on fresh fruit and some sweet corn.

Bills paid were the power bill, internet bill, propane tank rental bill, and phone bill. I also have to pay the mortgage out of this paycheck and the medical mortgage, but haven't made it into those banks yet. Will probably do so on Monday.

Also spent $55 to get a new tire for my ten-speed and had them put it on the wheel. It is made for bumpy roads or it would have been $15 cheaper for the tire. We have very bumpy roads out here, so felt the expense was justified. DH will put the wheel back on my bike in the morning and he has already put on the new, cushy gel seat and then he has to put the new pedals on his bike and we need to finish teaching Tobias how to ride without the training wheels, he's about five minutes from it so should be good by the end of the day tomorrow. Then we can start riding again, this time as a family.

Samples in the mail today were Degree anti-perspirant, biore face wash (2) and pore strip (1), and miessences body wash. I just sent for that last one this week, so it came super fast.

Paid fines at the library today (not my fines, DH, the kids, which is DH's responsibility as well, and one lost book of T's) and picked up my hold, which is a book on CD as the library didn't have the book at all. It is The Automatic Millionaire. Should be interesting.

I have to write a balance transfer check out and mail it off tomorrow. It will pay off the Chase card and then everything will be combined onto the other card, so we will be down to just two credit cards with balances on them. This one is at 6.99% until April. Two payments will be a lot easier to manage and keep track of.

I think that pretty much covers everything that we did today.

Did okay on grocery shopping. Some stuff was on sale, mostly all of it. Had coupons for ketchup and it was on sale, so ended up getting two 36 ounce bottles of Heinz for $1.75 each. There are only 3 things in this world that I have brand loyalty, too. Heinz ketchup, Miracle Whip salad dressing, and French's mustard. Well, the last one is DH, who barely eats mustard but must have that brand for when he makes deviled eggs. But I now have a good stash of the brandies to hold us off for awhile and can go back to my no name store brand stuff for everything else.

Spent a few cents under $100 for 2 weeks worth of groceries. Was restocking some staples on sale or would have only spent $70. Haven't made it to Costco yet this paycycle and hoping to avoid it until the September paycycle begins.

Also went to WalMart to buy a birthday present for my neice's party today. While there I picked up the cheap meds, vitamin C, nasal spray, Rolaids. I was given a free sample of Oxy Clear acne wash or something like that. Well, maybe Rose can use it in a few years but so far puberty has brought no zits. Spent less than $30 total there.

DH and I drove down to Burlington today to do some shopping. Well, we did a lot of looking, but not much buying. We spent a little over $5 at the Target there, but we might as well have just gone to the one in Bellingham. It has a better selection.

We visited one of the hardware stores they don't have in our county but it was so poorly laid out, badly lit, dirty, and smelled like kitty litter that I didn't want to buy anything there, let alone stay in the store.

We looked in one of the stores at the outlet mall, the kitchen one, but they did not have the hard anodized cookware that I want. At all. Even Target has it. Just not in anything bigger than 10 inches and I need a 12 inch pan. I do not want to buy the entire set at Costco just to get the one pan that I need.

DH and I went to Outback for dinner. I had an appetizer for my entree, kukkaburra wings with celery and bleu cheese dressing and a baked potato on the side. Oh, and the rye bread they serve. I still have five kukkaburra wings so they will be for tomorrow's lunch.

The girl gave me an extra loaf of the rye bread to take home free and also a big tub of their bleu cheese dressing. Also free. I normally hate bleu cheese, but this is the only place I really like it. They make it from scratch. I asked, as I was hoping to get the brand name so I could buy it and she said she'd just get me a big old tub of it. It's at least a 4 ounce container. Might even be 6.

So, I'll be eating a lot of celery to use it up over the next little while.

So we spent $39.35 for dinner and an $8 tip. DH had no leftovers.

Oh, and because we had too, according to DH, we bought a dozen doughnuts at Krispy Kreme. So not a needed expense at all, but I give once in awhile, otherwise it is just discouraging to always, always scrimp. And it was all planned before we went, anyway. It was not an unplanned expense.

My daughter's birthday is coming up and I did not see anything in the store for her at all. She'll be ten and that is an awkward stage to buy for. I'm thinking about a used Game Cube from Game Stop. A couple of books. And maybe some clothes that will double as school clothes. Not too crazy about the looks of the clothes right now. Kinda raggy ratty. This is a fashion?

She wants to get her ears pierced but I said she has to wait until she turns 12 for that. She only wants them now because her cousin got hers done when she turned ten. Most of her friends had them done as babies, but I have always been of the firm opinion that my daughter's body belongs to my daughter and I didn't feel I had the right to put holes in it without her consent. Just my opinion, I know other people do it all the time.

She can have the holes when she can take care of them well on her own. I'm not dealing with infected ears. Hence age 12. And hope she doesn't wear me down.

Filled up the gas tank in Sedro-Wooley on the way home. $2.95 a gallon. Saw one place that had $2.94 but DH didn't want to go across all the traffic he would have had to go across to get there. The best price in my county is $2.99, which is why I saved our fill up for today. It's always a bit cheaper just across the county line.

Yesterday DH and I had some time off from the kids who went to swim at my mother's house. We went to LensCrafters to buy safety glasses. DH needs them for work when he is in the oil well houses or walking down construction wiring or for when he walks the pipeline.

Anyway, work will reimburse him 100% on safety glasses, but we still have to buy them first and then submit the receipts.

Well, we found an attratctive pair of safety glasses right off the bat. That never happens, by the way. They were $100 for the frames, good for safety glasses with permanent side shields. The lenses, because they are perscription safety glasses, came to almost $200, so $300 something with tax. Ouch.

Then the lady says, "But we have 90 days same as cash, interest free." Well, after a bit of back and forth, we decided to do that. So he will submit the reimbursement paperwork when he goes back up and starts work on Tuesday. It takes about 4 weeks max for reimbursement. They will auto deposit it. So we end up not having to come up with the money out of pocket at all. And it will have 6 weeks or so to sit in our savings account and earn interest, too.

We cut through Penney's to get there so went back out that way. As we were going through linen we found the perfect towels on sale. I have been looking for a bright, lime green for awhile. They have had this kind of almost right color in several stores, but it was more muted and towards the ugly. This green was perfect to go with the turquoise towels in our redecorated bathroom. I have been waiting a long time to find them. It makes the bathroom so much brighter and perkier. Very tropical. I was so done with burgundy and forest green.

The towels happened to be on sale, also. So we got 8 large bath towels, 4 hand towels, and 8 wash clothes for $68. So now our whole bathroom matches for the first time in our marriage. We are weeding out all the other weird towels we have acquired since our wedding eleven years ago and they will be pool towels until they finish wearing out.

The kids have purple and yellow towels in their bathroom (their two favorite colors) and it goes suprisingly well. We did those back when we got the turquoise ones for our bathroom.

It seems like such a little thing, but it makes me happy to have matching towels of some quality.

You know, the schools here have only been out for 24 days. My first flyer for back to school specials came in the mail today. WalMart. I wonder why the do that so soon? It seems crazy to me, because school doesn't start back up again here until September 5 (I think) and August would certainly be soon enough. I suppose since I am going to WalMart anyway, I'll look the stuff over. It's hard to find what I need if I wait too long. What I need being a yellow folder, yellow three ring binder, yellow pencil box, and hopefully a new yellow backpack to replace the one that was murdered by the car door and pulled along the highway without my son apparently noticing. I wasn't on that side of the car or I would have noticed. It was in shreds when we stopped 35 minutes later. It took me forever to find a yellow backpack last year. And why aren't any other colors acceptable to my six year old son? Sigh.

At least with Rose, I can go pink or purple or even green (although lime or neon only). Yellow is hard. But that's Tobias for you. Fixates and doesn't deviate.

I really need to go through the kids' clothes, weed out what no longer fits and what has stains on it that can become play clothes instead of school clothes and then whatever is left make an inventory of the garment type and the colors, so I can buy compatible colors so they can all mix and match. My daughter has been the same size for 3 years except that she keeps growing taller, so needs longer and longer clothes. Tobais was a size 4 at the start of kindergarten and he's just starting to outgrow his 6's. We got a couple of hand me down jeans that were never worn in size 7, so that's a good starting place for him.

I think I will start cashing out G.C.'s for Target or WalMart or Kmart when I do MyPoints now, instead of gas cards. It's going to be pricey. But not as pricey as last year. Maybe half the cost. Rose has a birthday coming up so I'll nose it around that clothes will make good presents. She has far too many toys, though books or video games are okay. But mostly clothes from us. And the dreaded slumber party. Well, she'll get plenty of loot from that.

I guess I'm using the blog today to order my thoughts and strategize my plan.

I just realized I have been blogging for just over 3 months now. Where did the time go and how did my attitude towards finances alter so much?

Okay, this is another store I have a very hard time getting out of without spending over a $100 and I need to go there tomorrow to get PH chemicals for the pool. Without getting sidetracked by the gardening stuff. Without getting sidetracked by the CD's and DVD's. Without going anywhere else in the store except the back to get new shoes for my son. His feet just keep growing. Well, he can now tie his shoes so we can have a little more selection than just whatever has Velcro fasteners on them.

So, pool chemicals and shoes. It shouldn't be that hard, so why do I have a feeling it will be?

Today we had a car appointment to see why the check engine light never went off after our last repair and also why the cruise control stopped working at the same time. And to get the wiper blades replaced, which technically we could have done ourselves but its a big hassle for me and DH doesn't like to do it as he always manages to crack a fingernail or pinch a finger or cut himself when he does it.

We only ended up having to pay for the wiper blades because the reason the cruise control wasn't working was because they had forgotten to tighten something and they couldn't see any reason for the engine light to come on. They took it for a drive and it didn't come on for them. They said it was safe to drive now.

So we spent $25.99 there. While we were waiting we ate lunch out, which is something we weren't going to do, but did anyway. We went down the highway and across at the big light to Shari's and I haven't eaten there in maybe 10 years because it always used to reek of smoke the minute you opened the door. My allergies couldn't handle that so I didn't go. Well, the anti-smoking law passed and at the first of the year you could not smoke in any restaurant or bar, so we decided to go there, and well, I didn't miss anything by not going there so long. The food was unremarkable. Spent $30.89 for food and left a seven dollar tip, because the service was very good despite the food.

Then we walked back across the highway and down to the Barnes and Noble and spent an hour there. I picked out some work books for Rose. Her teacher said she should practice her cursive and her printing over the summer because she can be very sloppy when she doesn't try. And then picked up some math practice books on her weak areas which are place values and division. Also got multiplication and division flash cards.

For Tobias we got some early reader, very simple books and some printing practice, then some number games and puzzles, too. These were planned purchases out of what was left in my homeschool money envelope that turned up last night. I had misplaced it quite awhile ago and it had $100 left in it from a year ago when we last were homeschooling. We spent $108.39. Sales tax put us just over.

We then went to Exxon to use the last of my Exxon gas cards only the machine said it was accepted but then after we put the gas in, it said it wasn't. So the clerk came out and tried to get them to work and they wouldn't. Well, we'd already put one card's worth in the tank, which was $10 so we had to pay that in cash. I was miffed because we never would have gotten gas there without the card because it was $3.09 a gallon at Exxon and the Arco across the way was $2.99 a gallon so we would have gone there without the card. In fact we did go there and put the last $13 of cash I had in the tank.

Then we went to MIL's where the kids were playing in the pool, looked at the new sauna and hot tub that they'd put in and chatted for awhile. Then home. Well, we drove by a fruit stand selling cherries for a dollar a basket and I scrambled to count my change, but only had 92 cents, so we couldn't stop. They sell the best cherries there.

We also stopped at the IGA and I bought a few things. I got 4 chicken hindquarters (which equals 8 pieces), a bunch of scallions, 2 pounds of shredded cheese and 18 hormone free, antibiotic free, free-range chicken eggs for $10.69, but minus ten cents for using my proud card, so only $10.59. Everything but the scallions was on sale, and the scallions were only 69 cents.

So we spent a good bit today, but it was $200 less than we expected, because we figured the car would be a lot more. But since the problem was their error, it wasn't. However, the check engine light did come back on again, so grr, argh.

Yesterday we went on our big run for the month. We plot out each store we need to visit and then the shortest drive distance to get to them and drive it in order. We started at Haggen grocery store because we had bought stamps there earlier in the week but hadn't been given them, so took the receipt in and got them. We also bought a watermelon and 10 bottles of soda for a 7-Up promotion. It had 10 2 liter bottles for $10, with a $10 rebate. Flavors allowed included A&W root beer and cream soda, orange crush, and a couple of the new flavored 7-Ups. We hardly buy pop anymore, but for this we'll end up having only paid the 8.4% sales tax. And it should last all summer.

After that we went across the street to Wells Fargo and paid the Medical Mortgage $1000 and then on to our main CU to get money for gas. We then went to Sprawl-Mart (WalMart)to get water socks for Rose (will her feet ever stop growing? She's just gone to a nine and she's only nine! Also got Sudafed at their pharmacy after signing in blood and taking a retinal scan to prove my identity. Okay, I'm only slightly exaggerating, I only had to show photo I.D. and sign electronically. While we were there we picked up nasal spray and eye drops that are safe for contacts (DH just got them.) And we bought 2 gallons bubble soap because it allows the kids endless entertainment. All purchases planned and no extra items snuck into the cart when I wasn't looking.

Then we went to Costco, which is across the highway from Sprawl-Mart and I am very happy that we only picked up what we planned on there, also. Kleenex brand tissues, Charmin brand toilet paper, the big bag of chopped romaine lettuce, and 2 pounds of King crab legs. Then we walked to the other end of the parking lot to Bed, Bath & Beyond and used my $20 in g.c.'s from a trial offer plus spent an additional $23 to get a good digital food scale. It goes up to ten pounds, and it is what I will use to weigh my e-bay packages. Since most of what I will be sending is going to be used dance shoes and leotards from the past seven years, that should be a good limit.

Then we took the jog over to the cheap Arco and filled the tank. $45 almost but it's gone down to $3.05. I forgot to buy Costco cash at Costco or we would have got it there four cents cheaper. Then to Fred Meyer for organic milk on sale and the cheap 2% for DH on sale. They had an unadvertised sale on turkey legs at .79/lb so we got some of that and some .88/lb chicken thighs and legs. Then we walked next door to Baskin Robbins. I had coupons for buy one get one free kids cones for the kids, but payed full price for mine and DH. This is a rare thing, we do not go there often and it was also planned, not impulse.

All in all it was a very good shopping trip and the kids were good. By plotting out our course ahead of time we were able to spend the least amount of gas getting places and we didn't back track at all.