So it is official, DH is working 28 days straight, then will come home for a week and then he may have to work an extra week again after that. But the two extra weeks are guaranteed now. So I won't see him until the 27th, when normally he would have been home today.

That will give us an extra $5250 net this month. I am planning on spending in this order:

$5250
- 700 car repair
-----
$4550
- 302 2 new twin mattresses for the kids
-----
$4248
- 400 new car music system
-----
$3848 to remaining credit card debt

I don't think it is going to cost $400 for the music system, though. The simple CD player/radio I want is around $100. I am allowing $300 for installation fee, but I don't think its anywhere near that. But whatever is left will go to the EF.

DH may very well get 2 or 3 more extra weeks between now and Christmas. There is a huge backlog of work due to the first guy quitting. So he is doing his own regular two weeks in the field engineer position and then in his extra weeks he is either training or helping with the backlog in his old position, but at his new rate of pay. Works for me. Especially if it means this card might be paid off by year's end and not with next years tax return. Sure would love that.

Today I spent $5.82 and added $4.18 to the coin jar.

$12.69 Old Balance
+ 4.18 Added in
-------
$16.87 New Balance

I forgot to mention on Saturday or Friday, I don't remember which, the fire department was doing its Pass the Boot fund raising effort. Pass the Boot is when they come to one of the busiest intersections in town and while the light is red they walk around with a fireman's boot. If you want to donate you just put your window down and call them over. Then whatever money you want to donate you put in the boot.

They also have a firetruck and a "triage" set up in the Walgreen's parking lot off the intersection and you can talk to them and ask them questions about firefighting and basic first aid.

Anyway, so I donated $5 to that and forgot to list it in my spending journal.

I spent $15.49 at the grocery store today. I used the self-check and I think it would have been faster to just go to the express lane. Looking up produce is a pain as you have to go through all the touch screens. Everything is in alphabetical order and so of course nectarines were on page 10 and plums were on page 12. No shortcuts, no clicking on the letter it starts with. And once I entered in the nectarines, I had to start all over again with the plums. Some stores you can just enter in the number of the produce and it is much faster. So I guess I'll stick to using the self check at Fred Meyer because it has nice shortcuts, and avoid it at this grocery store.

My third entry for today.

I stopped at Freddy's today to get organic milk and use my coupon. So I got another gallon of organic milk for $3.58 a gallon. And guess what printed out at the cash register? Yet another coupon for $3.00 off 2 half gallons of Organic Valley milk.

They also had turkey legs on sale for 79 cents per pound so I got two packages. I ended up with 9 very large turkey legs. My daughter is an extreme turkey lover so this works out well. It's been a while since I've seen them for 79 cents a pound. They are usually 99 cents a pound now.

I also took Rose for a haircut today. We had the girl wash it, too, which I usually don't do, but Rose's ears still hurt from being pierced and she bumps them so much when she washes it herself, we decided it would be worth the $3 extra to have someone else do it for her. So it ended up costing $16. Now that she is eleven she no longer qualifies for the children's haircut, even though all they did was give her bangs, trim the ends and put a little layering around the face. Took all of ten minutes, if that to do the actual cut. It wasn't some fancy adult style or anything. Of course, I forgot my $2 off coupon for them, too.

Five more days until school starts and it can come none too soon for me. The kids were picking at each other for most of the day. But they managed to finagle a two night stay at the lovely Casa Grandma so I get some time to destress.

I think I might go to a matinee movie tomorrow if Hairspray is still here. It is tonight, but they change out on Friday mornings and I have a feeling it will be gone. That's okay if it is, I'll just stay home and watch a movie I taped instead. As long as I get to unwind. Then I'm going to get started on The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald. Starts out set on the Australian planet Kookaburra. Should be interesting. Plus its military sci-fi, which I love. Looks like she may be as good as Elizabeth Moon at that if it is even possible.

My day was long. We did clothes shopping for Tobias, and Rose got a pair of dress shoes, so we are now all finished with back to school shopping. Great big Hooray! Spent $137, $14.08 was for Rose's shoes. Didn't have to spend nearly as much on T for school clothes as I did for Rose.

My massage therapist called in sick today so I did not get my appointment. I was not very happy but since quite frankly I believe she caught the cold from me in the first place, I guess I can't complain. That real nasty one I caught in Victoria. Hopefully I can get in before school starts, because that is eight days away, but who knows with Mom's schedule if she can watch the kids right now. And
DH leaves tomorrow so I have to have someone.

I've been going to the chiropractor 3 times per week since my hip went wonky and it doesn't seem to help for more than a couple of hours. Now the other hip is starting to hurt, maybe overcompensating. Oh, well. I did spend a lot of time walking around today, so that may be part of it.

The kids started back at tae kwon do today. They have been out of it for almost a year and a half. They seemed to do okay. Rose got right back in the swing of things and Tobias started over at the
beginning, since he's now in the older class. Since he was only in the Little Tiger class before he only ever learned the kicks and punches and basic hand techniques, how to say yes, sir, no, sir, and not any of the poomses or older skill level things. They gave us free uniforms, too, which I wasn't expecting. It was nice since they cost $50 and they've both outgrown their old ones, but Tobias hasn't grown into the one Rose started with yet.

We also spent a couple of hours out at DH's Mom's house. His great granddad was over, too and his sister and her girls. We did a birthday cake for DH with our meal from Wendy's.

Yeah, bad habits rearing their ugly heads. The frosty has corn syrup in it. Not high fructose but still corn syrup and that was enough to set off my system, so no, won't be doing that again.

DH's birthday isn't until the 30th but since he leaves tomorrow we celebrated it early. I gave him the DVD's Blood and Chocolate and the latest James Bond movie. That's what he wanted.

And we also stopped by Mom's and I sat in the massage chair for 15 minutes and then she ran one of those hand held massage thingies that does the kneading motions over my sore lower back and hips for 30
minutes, which gave me some relief. I am so tired of hurting but I don't want to be taking pain pills. I had to do that in the beginning of this and it threw me for a loop. Or it made me loopy, not quite sure. Maybe both. Generic percocet will do that.

I am glad to be home now and about to go to sleep on my wonderful new bed.

After my 1.5 hour physical therapy appointment this morning ($75) we went south to Mt. Vernon to buy new steel-toed work boots for DH. He has, as I've mentioned in the past, a size 16 foot, which means pretty much you take what you can get when you can find it.

The Redwings in Mt. Vernon happened to have two pairs (we called first) in size 16 and held them for us. One pair cost $160 and the other pair cost $203. Guess which one fit right? $203. Well, on the bright side, work reimburses up to $160 for these boots, since they are a job requirement. So it was only $43 out of pocket, plus tax, in the long run. We also bought a $7 jar of leather conditioner. DH has extended the wear on his boots for ages just by treating them regularly.

Then we took the kids to the Royal Fork (buffet) for an early dinner. They were still on the lunch menu when we paid but before we finished they were on the dinner menu so we got some of each. The cost for the four of us was $31.30, which was the lunch price. Way cheaper than the OCB in town, even with the cost of the gas to drive 25 miles down the freeway. Then we swung through Krispy Kremes and picked up a dozen glazed. Don't remember the price on that, it was $7 something, I think. We were all too full to eat any so they went in the trunk and we will each have one tomorrow.

All in all an expensive day. I've told DH no more eating out this hitch. We've already done it far too much.

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

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

We went to Butchart Gardens yesterday and boy was it ever expensive. In the long-run I think it was worth it, but man! All money is in Canadian dollars.

$ 56.00 Entry fee for 2 adults, 2 children
$ 49.77 Lunch
$ 15.74 Dessert
$ 58.16 Souveniers
$ 23.73 CD of music group playing at the gardens
$ 7.50 3 hot chocolates
--------
$210.90

We had lunch at the Blue Poppy Restaurant. It was not as expensive as the other on grounds restaurant and it had food the kids would actually eat.

DH and I had the best fish and chips I have ever tasted. Rose had a pasta dish with those swirly shaped noodles and marinara sauce and foccacia bread and Tobias had a cheese quesadilla (freshly made tortilla) and fries and some of the foccacia bread. Everyone tasted everyone else's food and it was all good.

Then we decided to have dessert. Tobias had a very chocolately cookie, DH had mango cheesecake and Rose and I had chocolate mousse. The mousse was very good, and extremely rich. If it hadn't had whipped cream to cut the richness I never would have made it to the bottom. Very yummy. A little expensive for the amount, though.

The fireworks were pretty good but it would have been better if there had been some wind. The smoke was very thick and just stayed there so after awhile you couldn't see all of the fireworks.

Oh, and it rained. It poured. Imagine sitting on a wet blanket on saturated grass and no sign of the rain stopping. That was us. I woke up with a nasty cold this morning. Throat on fire and enough phlegm being produced for the population of a small island. Fever, too. Lovely. Just once I would like to be well for my entire vacation. Ah, well. It was a good day overall, but I don't think we'll go back there again in future. We've been twice now and though this is the first time we've seen the fireworks, we don't need to do it again.

You can't leave on fireworks day and get readmitted so there was a lot of boredom after we'd seen everything. Plus, I didn't want to pay dinner prices to eat a second meal there.

For dinner we ordered pizza from a place that delivers 24 hours after we got back to the condo. It was okay, but I wouldn't order it again. I wish we hadn't gotten so much. We ordered 2 large pizzas, cheesy bread and tzatziki with pita bread. Never order when you are that hungry should be my motto. It came to $43.63.

So:
$210.90
+ 43.63
--------
$254.53 Total spent 7/21
$400.04 Total spent 7/20
--------
$654.57 Total Vacation Spending

I'm glad I brought an extra $300 with me. I'm almost to the amount I had originally budgeted. Nothing else will be nearly as expensive as Butchart and we have a lot of coupons.

I did get some Blue Poppy seeds. I have been wanting to grow blue poppies for a long time but have never found the seeds before and I wasn't about to pay the $15 per plant from a mail order company, when mail order plants don't always survive. And even if they say 100% guaraneteed I have found it difficult to get either a refund or a new plant from mail order companies. I will have to declare them at the border but I bought less than $10 worth so no big deal.

We made it safely to Victoria and for 10 days worth of internet access it costs $15.95 Canadian. Not bad. It's $4.95 if you do it day by day, so even though we'll only have it for 7 days, it is much cheaper this way.

So expenses so far in Canadian Dollars:

$ 78.03 Ferry Crossing
$ 23.99 Breakfast
$ 1.29 extra milk
$ 56.07 Lunch (on the Ferry, ouch!)
$ 23.54 Dinner
$ 1.39 extra burger
$199.78 Food from Costco for the week
$ 15.95 Internet Fee
--------
$400.04

I ended up bringing $1000.00 in Canadian money instead of $700. Part of the extra came out of the grocery budget. From tomorrow on we will be eating two meals at the condo and only one meal out, so daily expenses should drop quite a bit after today.

Tomorrow we are going to Butchart Gardens and the fireworks show. They have coupons in the lobby for dollars off or percentages off tickets for various attractions. I can't remember if Butchart is one of them or not, but several of the other places we planned to go this week do have them.

Well, I better get to sleep. It is almost 1 a.m.

As much as it pained me to do it, I transferred the $700 of vacation money out of ING and back to my CU. It will arrive on Thursday and we leave on Friday so that works out well. I left it in until the last possible minute so that I could earn as much interest as possible on it.

I spent $60 on prescriptions today and $22 on pizza dinner for the three of us. I'm trying not to cook too much before we leave as the fridge is pretty empty and I don't want to fill it with leftovers we won't eat before we leave.

I've got to get caught up on laundry so I can start packing for everyone. Why is it the mom/wife always ends up doing all the packing? How come everyone else seems to get all clueless when it comes time to nicely roll up their clothes and stick them in a suitcase but instead fill them up with dolls or trains?

Oh, well, I'll survive. I always do.

I transferred the weekly $10 to ING this morning, bringing the total in the EF to $760.51. I peaked at how much interest I have earned so far this month and it was at $1.46.

I read this article and thought it was interesting, though not really something I didn't already know, it validated what I did know and echoed my experience here at savingadvice.com:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/HowToSaveTwoHundredThousandInSixMonths.aspx


Added 37 cents to the change jar today.
Spent $10 on gas and $12.63 on dinner for me and the two kids.

Yesterday the temperature here got to 105 by five o'clock. It took until 3 a.m. just to get my room cooled off enough to sleep. Fortunately today it was "only" 82 at its worst and there was a nice breeze. Still have a hot house but not a baking hot house.

The kids are spending the night with my mother and I will pick them up tomorrow at four. Tomorrow is also payday so there will be a good bit of money going out to credit card debt.

I am currently watching 3 different shows on the internet that I either missed when we didn't have cable or are from the U.K. One is Kyle XY which can be watched directly from the network website, one is The 4400 which I am watching season 3 of off of youtube and the third is a supernatural one called HEX which is very, very weird and dark, and definately British.

I finished watching Mansfield Park last week and loved it. Of course, it's Billie Piper so what's not to love? Watched the British miniseries of Casanova and Blackpool, both with David Tennant, again what's not to love? Okay, they were both a bit weird and they allow far more things on their television shows than we do even on HBO it seems.

I'm looking forward to watching The Ruby in the Smoke when I get through the current ones. And yes, I am watching a lot of tv but it has been far too hot to do anything else! In a week I probably will go for two weeks without watching any because we will be on vacation and then I'll be reading Harry Potter which always takes me at least a week.

I think that covers everything.

From 7/11:

Spent $10.55

Also added 45 cents to the change jar.

I almost had scary neighbors again. Or a scary neighbor. I hate that the house next door is a rental. There's only four rentals in the entire development and why does one have to be next door to me? I wish the owner would just sell it.

Anyway, after Tobias got on the bus to summer school today I ran into board president of the development and he told me that the house next door had almost been rented to a guy who had said he had one misdemeanor for pot possession ten years ago.

Well, fortunately the owner of the rental ran a background check because he had that misdemeanor all right, ten years ago. Of course, he had failed to mention the ten felony counts of manufacturing crack and meth that he'd gotten in the years since then. Or that he was currently using, which is why he was thrown out of his last home. So why is this guy not in prison? I thought we were tough on drug offenders?

This isn't even that kind of neighborhood. The puppy mill out of that house was bad enough. And they were really creepy. This guy would have given me nightmares and made me fear having my kids out in the yard. It's such a nice house. Why does it attract the freaks?

Okay, anyway this afternoon we went to town to see the chiropractor. Then I picked up organic milk and tortilla chips (2 1 pound bags for $3) at the grocery store and cherries at the gas station. No, that's not as odd as it sounds. They have various cherry stands around town and this one is at the gas station near the grocery store. I spent $8.65 for the groceries and $10 for 8 pounds of bing cherries. That works out to $1.25 a pound, way better than anywhere else.

We also had dinner at McDonalds which came to $12.17, and stayed in the lovely air-conditioned playland for an hour.

The temperature was 86 today. There was a breeze but it was still pretty stifling. We stopped by Mom's for an hour before heading home with a bag full of snow peas and kohlrabi. I've been watering since we got home. The ground has gotten really dry really fast and the flowerbeds and the garden really needed it. I am tempted to leave the garden on all night, but if I do it when I get up at 7:45 to get T ready for school I can let it go until 11:00. The question is will I remember to do that in my sleep deprived state? I don't know. My timers only work for 2.5 hours so if it needs longer I either set it and forget it or go out in the pitch dark and I don't wanna.

I added $2.55 to the coin jar today.

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

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

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

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

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

I am finally getting around to posting the bills I paid from last week's paycheck.

$910.37 Medical Mortgage
$400.00 House Mortgage
$282.22 Propane
$201.89 Comcast (installation charges on top of cable/phone/internet)
$ 44.58 Garbage (2 months)
$ 71.36 Cell phone
$ 84.00 Herald
$445.00 MBNA MC#1
$110.00 Power
$ 50.00 Physical Therapy
$185.50 Car insurance (3 months)

A fair chunk of change going out, there. Tomorrow is payday again, but not like this one. This is the big one for the month and has a full seven days of wages on it. Tomorrow's pay usually only has one and a half days on it. This time it will be two and a half days on it with the new schedule change, and it will be like that from now on. The first payday will have 4.5 days on it instead of 5.5 days, so the difference is at both ends of the cycle. Then we have one week where he doesn't get paid at all, out of every four.

I'm glad the vacation money is taken care of now. And the association dues, which I thought were due at the end of June are actually due at the end of July, so that makes me happy.

Oh, what a storm we had today. Gorgeous and loud and it even took the power out for a minute. Not long enough to be inconvenient, just long enough to have to reset the clocks on the stove and the microwave.

Spent $12 today on groceries. And generally spent the day totally vegging, reading stuff on line, watching The Sound of Drums. Completely taking the day off.

Tomorrow on the other hand is supposed to be beautiful and so that means yard work. A lot of yard work. Definitely will make up for the lazy day today.

We spent a lot of money today. Well, for us its a lot of money. We bought a new desktop computer with flat panel monitor for $745. We'll get back a rebate of $150 on the computer and $50 on the monitor. So all told it will come out to $545.

There was no real fix to the old one. We could have replaced the power supply thingy that was fried and the motherboard that went with it for about half the cost we paid for the new one. We decided we'd just rather put that money into a new one instead. But the hard drive is okay and DH will be able to hook it up to the new one so we can retrieve all of our photos and the few documents and spreadsheets that were stored there.

I have been looking for awhile but was hoping to put it off longer, but then the PC went belly up and it really couldn't be postponed too much longer. And DH really wanted to just go ahead and get a new one and not try to fix or replace bits anymore on the old one.

So I decided not to stress about it and I'm happy with the result and so is DH and so will the kids be when we pick them up tomorrow night from my mother's house.

I got the final bill (at least I hope it is the final bill) from my surgery in May and I owe $1187.60 now that insurance has paid its portion. I'll call them on Monday and see if I can set up a payment plan of $200 a month. Or even $250. I wish it didn't have to be so darn expensive to have medically necessary services in this country. But that's another rant for a different day.

DH and I are going down to Burlington tomorrow to buy shoes for Mr. Bigfoot. He's a size 16 and it is hard to find them in our county, but there is an outlet mall that has a Van's store in Burlington that carries 16's.

We are also going to see a movie (Silver Surfer) and have a little date. We only see 2 to 3 movies a year in the theater, ususally some kind of sci-fi thing because they're always better on the big screen. Our other two movies this year will be Transformers and Harry Potter. DH really wants to see Transformers on the big screen. I wasn't that keen on it until I saw Josh Duhamel was in it, then I was okay. I did watch the cartoon as a child, but still...

But I really like Josh Duhamel. I was in the audience of a talk show when he visited the PNW a few years ago, back when he was still on All My Children, which I didn't watch, but I was really impressed with his manners and how respectful he was to the hosts and to the fans afterwards. So I followed his career after that and its nice to see him in a big movie. Plus, eye candy.

On the gardening front, I've got two heads of broccoli that are close to ready to harvest. I can't wait. There's nothing like going from garden to pot to table in less than an hour.

Today was payday, but I'm not going to get around to doing bills until Sunday I don't think. And that's about it from my little corner of the universe.

Yesterday was payday. Bills paid were:

$820.00 to BoA Visa
$372.00 to Water/Sewer
$ 88.90 to Citi MC
$ 34.00 to Security system
$ 93.00 to Puget Sound Energy
$ 30.57 to Life Insurance
$ 60.00 to Medical
$100.00 to Gas Card
$ 76.83 to Costco groceries and toilitries
$105.89 to Haggen groceries
$ 72.00 to Cell phone

So quite a bit of money out yesterday. Water/sewer is 6 months. They've switched over to a new computer system and have their elbows up their noses when it comes to billing. Fortunately I've just been keeping the money in account until they got around to billing. It's supposed to be $104 every two months.

Next week will be a rather large payout as well, as propane goes out, garbage, medical and house mortgages go out, homeowner's association dues, car insurance and $200 to Comcast for hooking up the new digital phone, putting in a new cable system for the internet and moving an existing cable to a new location for the telly.

I'm still not a huge fan of having cable telly again. But I absolutely adore cable internet. Makes me happy. I also like having caller ID for the first time. It's not an extra with the new system, it comes standard. I ignore call waiting. I think its rude and always have and I will not use it. Well, unless its DH. That could be an emergency. So I would then. Just have to figure out how.

The PC went belly up this week. I'm not sure if I said that before or not. When DH comes home he will do some tinkering and if that doesn't work we will take it in to 3-D, the local computer fixer people and see if anything can be done. We'll at least retrieve the photos off the hard drive. Then we will be looking at saving up for a little Compaq desktop. Doesn't have to be anything grand or expensive.

Oh, gas prices have dropped again, here. I filled up at Costco yesterday at $2.99 a gallon. It didn't even cost $45 for just under 15 gallons. Last time it was $52! So that's nice. It's also nice to still have over $50 on the gas card.

I need to remember to call and make an appointment to have the steering fluid flushed in the car. It's in serious need and I will try to schedule for next Friday as I will be in town doing all the banking for next payday then. I have a couple more repairs to schedule as well. It seems it's always something, but I suppose when your car is 15 years old, you do what needs doing to keep it on the road. The repairs still aren't more than half a car payment averaged throughout the year, so I think we're still doing good there.

Not much else going on. Oh, I was able to watch Doctor Who Utopia today. Took a good bit of hunting to find a working download, but I finally did. It only aired on Friday in the UK. It'll start airing in the states on July 6. Not sure when the DVD will be out, but definitely not until after it finishes its run on Scifi channel. I'll need to start saving up for that, too.

I found out Torchwood starts airing on BBCAmerica in September. Not sure if SciFi will do the spinoff or not. Well, I've watched them all online anyway. No info on when the DVD of that comes out either, but it'll probably be just as pricey as DW, so I should probably just double the amount I'm putting away for DW.

I think that's about it then, for today. No money spent at all today.

...is weeds, weeds, weeds, everywhere. But that's okay because when I open them they are gone. Well, mostly. I spent 4 hours yesterday and 6 hours today weeding and weeding and weeding some more. It reminds me of when I was a kid and picked berries in the summer, 8 to 10 hours a day, six days a week. At night when I'd close my eyes that's all I would see.

My garden looks like a garden again. I probably should have taken a before photo, its hard to believe it is the same place. I let most of my garden lay fallow last year. Pretty much everything but the permanent crops of berries, asparagus and herbs. Oh, I had a pot of peas and one of beans and one of tomatoes, but the raised beds didn't get used. So they went to the weeds and the pathways after summer ended went to the weeds.

Now I've pretty much got it all reclaimed and partially planted. I thought I'd list what I have so far.

6 broccoli plants
6 cauliflower plants
6 red cabbage plants
24 kohlrabi plants
10 potato volunteers
7 cucumber plants (one didn't make it before planting
1 large zucchini plant
5 green leaf lettuces (one got eaten up by slugs)
8 yellow crookneck squash
1 hanging basket full of peas
1 Tigerella Heirloom tomato plant in blossom
10 garlic bulbs

permanent plants
asparagus
strawberries
blackberries
blueberries
raspberries
bush cherries
Saskatoons (berries)
apple tree
3 pear trees (one immature)
1 dwarf cherry tree
various herbs

What I still need to plant from seed:
green beans
radishes

Once I get those in I'll look around for space to see if I want to plant anymore.

I also planted wave petunias in alternating red and white down the driveway flowerbed and some bright yellow (not orangey) marigolds in a mass planting with red salvias on other side. The lilies there are getting ready to bloom and they will be deep orange and then towards the end of summer the bright orange Japanese lanterns will bloom. There is some red dianthus that is blooming right now, and the roses have tons of tight flower heads on them. There's also some hot pink something or other I did not plant there, but they migrated from across the yard.

Then I put some hot pink and some magenta wave petunias in the front whiskey barrel that has daffodils in the early spring, pulled the daffs frist and stuck the bulbs in some good compost in a different pot. The front whiskey barrel goes with the roadside flowerbed which is predominately pinks, whites, purples and blues. That bed is starting to bloom. Well the bachelor buttons have been out for a bit and the blue geranium has as well. The hot pink roses are blooming and the white goosenecks, daisies, and something else blue is blooming. Tons more to come in a couple weeks though. That flowerbed is 32 feet long and 4 feet wide.

I need to do the shade bed still. It is still weedy and the ornamental grass is doing a runner and needs to be set back. The hostas all came up beautifully this year but something ate the cyclamen. I have another hosta to plant there and I think that will make five varieties now. It also has some creeping red sedum and some violets. And lots of dandelions, unfortunately. Well, that bed is only eight feet long and one foot wide so it shouldn't take more than an hour to do, if that.

The peonies that belonged to DH's G'Ma are opening. My G'Ma's should open in another week or so. I still have to weed the horseshoe flowerbed, which is 16 feet on one side, 32 feet on one side and 16 feet on the other side. Only one foot wide though, so I might get through that with about four hours of work. Then the caladiums and coleus will need to go in the one stretch of 16 feet of bed. Everything else there is perrenial.

It's a lot of work and I hope the weather holds. I should think of mowing the lawn at some point but since it is already six to twelve inches shorter than anyone else in the neighborhood's at the moment I can let it go a bit longer. It's only been a week.

I got a lot accomplished and a lot of my stress dissolved. It's like I can stick my hands in the dirt and feel the stress just flowing out of me. It is very peaceful.

I did spend some money today. I got a garden hose and two new sprinklers and I got lunch from the Polynesian takeout place, Black Pepper Chicken (has celery and bokchoy in it). It came to less than $4 for the lunch. I can't remember on the hose and sprinklers, $25 or thereabouts.

A bit of money out this weekend. On Friday we had the oil change for 47.56, plus a few other minor maintenance jobbies thrown in. Got an estimate on what needs to be done before we go to Victoria at the end of July and it will cost $246 or so. Oh, joy.

I had a P.T. appointment for my shoulder and that was $50 out of pocket with another appointment scheduled for next Wednesday.

And the jamboree for the t-ball season was also Friday, and it went pretty well. Tobias started batting left 3 games ago and he could really whack it out of there. We never thought to check him for batting left. Rose bats better left, too, but it just never occurred. Neither child has a dominant left hand, they both write naturally with their right hands, but my dad's a lefty and I do a ton of stuff with my left hand even though I write with my right. I always have done so much with the left. I always thought it was my strings training that made it so dextrous, but its genetic as well.

Yesterday was more cleaning and organizing and sorting and storing and on and on ad infinitum. Or so it seems. You can definitely tell stuff is gone now. Whole rooms look almost sparse and I am liking it. The recycle guys are going to love us come Tuesday morning.

Today has been yard work on top of yard work on top of yard work and it isn't done. So I suppose I should get back off the computer and back to work.

So, I was supposed to have a dentist's appointment on Tuesday but they cancelled it. Only they didn't call to cancel it until after I'd already left for town. Ten dollars down the drain in gas. Never let them give you an appointment following a major spring holiday or long weekend. Apparently there are a lot of idiots out there who lose teeth on long weekends and must come in for emergency repairs. I wasn't happy but I made the best of it and did some grocery shopping since I was in town and without DH and the kids who tend to make the spending go up.

When I got home the cable people had finished and gone and we now have cable internet, TV again, and a digital phone with free long distance, all for the cost of the internet and digital phone. I like cable internet. I'm going to come down firmly on the side of saying that. 56K is becoming a fading memory.

Of course, I wasted a ton of time on Tuesday afternoon and evening and yesterday, finding places online to watch the first seven episodes plus the Christmas special of series 3 of Doctor Who, which doesn't start airing in America until July and hasn't even finished airing in the UK yet. That was fun. Also found the first episode of Torchwood, which is definitely not for children! Even if it is a Doctor Who spin-off. I am impatiently waiting for the next episode of DW to go up as it aired last week. My little obsession.

But hey, I wasn't out spending money. Anywho, today was my rescheduled dentist appointment was today. My jaw still aches. Top eight words I do not want to hear from my dentist. Go on now, take a guess. Okay, I'll tell you. "I think we can do this without anesthetic." Oh, really? Do I get an opinion on that?

Turns out I didn't need it, though so that is less money out. I had ground down the area around a couple of fillings and they had to build it up and sand and resurface and fix a small chip. But still, not words I ever like to hear. I don't like going to the dentist, it always makes me quite tense. And my jaw just aches from being open for two hours. But it could be worse. It could always be worse.

After the dentist I stopped at WalMart to get engine oil and some more Rubbermaid bins to put more stuff in to take to storage so spent about $40.

Tomorrow will be a spend day as well. We are getting the oil changed in the Crown Vic and then I will be seeing the P.T. for my shoulder, which got wrenched. Old injuries reasserting themselves. I dislike when that happens. But its not horrible and Ibuprofen cuts it down to bearable levels.

It has been wicked hot here this week. To make up for it, they claim it will rain all next week. I'm not against that at this point. But I'm not sure I believe it, either. I'd like some days were it just sits at 70 with a light breeze so I can get the yard and garden back in order. Here's hoping.

I sent the $10 weekly deposit off to ING today, making the amount in there a whopping $72.58. Well, slow and steady.

All right, I better go and fold the mountain of clean laundry I've been ignoring since coming home.

Did you ever have one of those days where you're walking around kind of outside of yourself? Like you are observing your life from a distance and though you are aware of it, you're just not really there in the moment. Today was like that, definitely a little left of center. I suppose I'm still reacting to that car accident behind the house. Maybe its a protective thing, so I don't really have to think about what I saw. Which is fine until night time when there is nothing left to distract me and it is all I can focus on.

DH flies home Wednesday and that will help so much. He is my rock. I think I've been left with this overwhelming sense of helplessness. To not be able to help someone that way, I don't even think I've come to terms with that. I just keep pushing it out of my mind, like stuffing things into the closet that you don't want to deal with until much later, if ever.

It is hard for me to focus on the financial right now. I had food delivered today, $70 worth of frozen cod and salmon from a frozen food wholesaler. It should last a good while. And I spent $2 on 64 ounces of an electrolyte solution for Rose. She's got a nasty stomach/intestinal virus and was getting pretty dehydrated. This is the same one Tobias had about 2 weeks ago. At least all the symptoms are the same. Let's just hope the sweethearts have not passed it along to me. That's the last thing I want to deal with right now.

I miss my sense of optimism. It got hit with a sharp knock this weekend and doesn't seem to want to come visiting.

Had a bit of a creepy morning when my old neighbor who had been evicted from his home two months ago came by. I figured he must have worked stuff out with his landlord. He wanted to use my phone and I was not about to let him into my home. Both of the cordless phones were charging and no way was I letting him in to use the corded phone. That guy just creeps me out. Then he wanted to borrow gas and I said I didn't have any. Like I would loan him anything ever again. He still owes me $11.55 from over a year ago.

Today after school I got a knock on the door. It was the Sherrif's department asking me if I'd seen my neighbor today. Apparently he didn't work stuff out with his landlord and was not supposed to be back on the property next door. He asked me some questions. I didn't know much, like I said the guy gives me the creeps so I try to avoid him like the plague. They had 3 police cars and 3 officers there for a half an hour. I don't know if the neighbor ever came home though or not.

You'd think having this stuff going on would have actually engaged me in my life today but it didn't really. I was still outside myself. I'm getting to know most of the sherrif's department this year. That's got to come in handy at some point.

I hope I can shake all this off soon and get back my positive happy outlook. I miss it, but at the moment I don't quite know where I put it. Somewhere outside the bubble.

Maybe tomorrow will be a nice normal day. I'm tired of the drama. I'd like to be bored instead, thank you.

I've been kind of a space cadet the last little while. Watching someone die can do that to you.

I broke my laptop screen the night of the car accident. Cracked it so only 1/3 of the screen is normal and the other part is all swirly. DH is going to see about finding another old Tecra screen online with a non-functioning hard-drive, to cannibalize. When he gets home he can hook it up to the PC monitor and we can grab all the stuff off of it that I should have been backing up but wasn't because I misplaced my flash drive. Sigh. Then DH will take it over as his computer.

I finally got a new laptop on Saturday. I'd been waiting and waiting and waiting for a really good sale. Well, they had one last week, and I had the money set aside for it, so breaking the screen was the impetus for me to decide that I just wasn't going to get a better deal than $449 for a Toshiba. Now, a Compaq, I could have gotten for around $419 but it just looked so flimsy in comparison. Of course, there was tax and I have to send for the $150 rebate, so out of pocket was more, but I had out of pocket set aside as I said, so all is well.

The rebate will pay for the $150 software Office 2007 that they are no longer putting on new computers except a 30 day free trial. It's a bit of a pain in the butt actually, more bells and whistles in Word than I care to deal with, but got it figured out after about ten minutes. I have to have Word for my books. Works doesn't come close to cutting it.

I am going to spend some time in the tutorial I think, seeing if I can reset the defaults. There was a way on Word 2000, so I am sure it exists.

I'm learning my way around Vista as well. So far, don't care for the new mail program all that much. It works, and the autojunk feature is nice, but I miss Outlook. Oh, well, this too shall pass.

I'm going to have to uninstall McAfee. I hate it already. I don't want to install Norton, I don't think. It used to slow down everything so darn much on the old laptop. Of course, it was a two hamster drive (Rafaela and Eduardo), with Norton making it act like a one hamster drive. This new computer seems to have at least ten hamsters powering it, so maybe I could get by on five. Anybody have any ideas on a really good anti-virus program that is not boggy and isn't terribly expensive? Though I'll settle for not boggy.

Not really much else going on here. Tobias was out playing all day with friends and Rose had an upset stomach so we vegged on the couch all afternoon and evening watching Dr. Who. She still hasn't seen all of series 2, so we got through a fair bit more of that. They are supposed to start showing series 3 in July so I did want her to get through it but she won't watch it by herself, and as it was, was clutching my hand through a lot of it. She loves it though. Same as I did with the original stuff when I was a kid. Only this is better in so many ways.

Anyway, today was a no spend day. Tomorrow probably won't be.

Well, today was payday and a lot of money went out today, but bills must be paid and life rolls on.

$1300.00 to Bank of America CC (they own my life)
$ 42.00 to 3 month newspaper subscription
$ 42.01 to phone bill
$ 64.54 to cell phone bill
$ 233.40 to Costco
$ 63.27 WalMart
$ 17.46 Haggen
---------
$1762.78 Total spent

$100 of the Costco money went on the cash card to use for buying gas so that is not really as horrible as it seems. I stocked up a lot of canned goods I am low on and cheeses, part of which I froze.

WalMart was relatively healthy snack foods for the kids, medicine, a reinforced set of garden gloves that will allow me to pull out the trailing sticker plant that is invading my yard from the neighbor's house (their motto: yard, what yard?) a small handheld ratchet pruner and the bigger one you need for pruning limbs on trees and one music CD I had planned for.

I usually get one music CD a month, if I get more in a month its because I lose my discipline and impulse buy more. I did that two months ago, so I am trying to keep a leash on it, even though there are two more CD's I want to get. They'll just have to wait their turns. Music has a relatively important place in my life, having learned to play violin, viola, flute, and piano in my lifetime and having sung in Concert Choir in high school. Music is just that important to me.

Another payday gone and another paycheck spent. Next week is mortgage and more CC payments. Lovely. Ah, well, life goes on.

I forgot to add in to one the last posts how much I spent at the convenience store today. It was $4.15. I haven't been that good at keeping track of the little things this month.

I had to sit through another t-ball game tonight. We are so doing soccer next year. The entire team had a very bad case of being little boys. Chelsea was absent, so I can say that. I didn't think they were ever going to settle down and pay attention to the game, and I was right, they didn't. Oh, well, just three more to go and then the season is over.

I went to the grocery store and spent $40 on food. Well, mostly on food. I bought a five ounce tin of Hungarian paprika for $7.79. That's technically a spice. And then the $3.99 for the infotainment magazine wasn't technically food, either. But the rest of it was.

I am going to go to Costco tomorrow if I feel well enough to do it. I am out of some staples. Well, not staples in the traditional sense, because its ravioli, chili, and kosher beef hot dogs, but those are things that are eaten all the time here, so I call them staples. I want to get strawberries and maybe some other fruit if it looks good. And I need to fill up the gas tank. I may just wait until Friday, though. We'll see.

My kids are still fighting over stupid stuff and I am ready to send them to boarding school. No, not really. I don't think. They are normally such good kids. In fact, the school librarian was just talking about them the other day and said they were two of the nicest kids she's ever met and she thinks they are just wonderful. I wonder what she would think if she could see the little hellions right now? Though maybe they are so good with her because she controls the books.

My surgery this morning went really well. I'm not in any pain and its been six hours since I took pain meds, so yay! I like this minimally invasive stuff soooooo much better than the "gut you like a fish and then staplegun you shut" type of surgery.

I can't drive until tomorrow but I should be able to resume most normal activities by Sunday, like cooking, dishes, laundry, and even pulling weeds if I get motivated. But only easy to pull weeds. Anything tougher than a dandelion can stay in, like burdock root. No lawn mowing or weed whacking though. Which is why I got that done the last three days. I should be able to do those by next weekend, though.

I did get my red cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli planted in the brassica bed (which I rotate each year) and my French Crisp leaf lettuce planted in a ten gallon tub yesterday afternoon. I still have peas, kohlrabi, summer squash and green beans to plant. I need to find some cucumber starts and some well grown tomato plants. Though I don't know why I bother with tomatoes...they are cheap here and don't like mountain growing seasons.

My asparagus is showing, the most advanced is about 4 inches above the surface so should be ready to cut by Monday or Tuesday. My cherry bushes have bloomed, my strawberries are just starting to flower and I've got a bunch of new raspberry canes coming up where I transplanted them to last year. Also, I have a bunch in the original position that I think I will try to move to the better location. If they do, its no big deal as the other ones are thriving and will take over the new area soon enough.

Today is a spend day. I had to get a broad spectrum antibiotic, $10, that should have been called in last night with the pain pills but wasn't. Last night's med was also $10, plus I had to renew my potassium prescription at $10, too. Glad it wasn't $40 like my BP med earlier this week!

Oh, the doc was able to do the surgery with a sedative and local anesthetic instead of putting me under general anesthetic. I was still asleep. I don't like not being under local if I'm awake, but thankfully I was out cold. That will be much cheaper, not only in the cost of the drug but in the cost of the time the anesthesiologist had to sit with me. Not as long in the recovery area either as I woke up much faster.

That about wraps it up for me for today.

So I'm sitting here with this empty little box that needs to be filled with typewritten letters and I think I've forgotten how to blog. I take a week off and suddenly I'm at a loss for words. Well, writing that is at least a start.

I had a fabulous time on my vacation and the really great thing is that I spent less than I budgeted for it. My roommate for the trip is an excellent deal finder and was finding cut rates right up until about a couple days before I left. So four days in the suite at the one hotel came to $249 for my half and three days in the second hotel came to $149, also for a suite.

Airplane tickets were free of course, through DH's miles, and since I was in first class there was a free meal on the plane on the way there. It was a good one, so I ate it and only had to buy dinner the first night.

It was $189 for the five day park hopper for Disneyland and California Adventure and I spent $48 for four hours at the Glen Ivy Spa and $29.95 to go on the Queen Mary with the historical tour, the World War II tour, and the ghosts and legends tour, which were all guided tours. So that comes to $664.95.

I came back home with $150 on souveniers for me, my kids, and my DH. I spent about $300 on food and bottled water. That puts me at a total of $1114. I came home with $286 and various amounts of coin.

So that $286 becomes the seed money for our new vacation fund. We are going to Victoria, B.C. Canada at the end of July. We are staying in my parent's travel company's condo up there as my folks needed to use their points or lose them, they reserved it for us. They have given points to both my sisters and my niece and figured it was our turn this year. They are joining us for two days, but its a three bedroom condo with a pullout couch so it should accommadate everyone just fine.

So anyway, that part will be free and we will just need to save the money for the ferry ride there and back, for food (which will partly come from the grocery budget for that month anyway, one meal out a day for each of us, and admissions into places we want to visit, like Butchart Gardens, The Butterfly Garden, and The Center of the Universe. I'm thinking we can probably get away with around $700 since we can bring a lot of our own food over the border. I will have to get a list on what is currently allowed and what isn't, aside from apples which I don't think have been allowed in my lifetime.

Hmm...guess I haven't forgotten how to blog after all.

Today was kind of crazy, but it was the last banking day before my trip. I leave Sunday. So today I paid:

$335.29 Property Tax half year
$910.37 Medical Mortgage
$400.00 House Mortgage
$100.52 Citi Master Card
$400.00 BOA Master Card

And I got $1000 in traveler's checks and $70 in cash. I will be taking along a roll of quarters and a roll of pennies from my change jar. My cheapy souveniers are those flattened pennies you get with a design etched onto them. They have quite a few scattered about Disneyland and I try to get different ones each time I go. I have quite the collection.

I am going to try to keep my expenses down to $1400. I am allowing $330 to go on credit card but that will be paid off once the bill comes in. There are some places that will not take traveler's checks even though they are supposed to. I don't know why but they don't. Fortunately the park does and the hotels do. I am hoping not to use the CC at all. With splitting so many costs with my friend it is possible to achieve this. Probable is another story.

I also got out $100 for DH to use the week I am gone. He shouldn't need to use it all but I'm not counting on there being any when I get back. It should cover the two fast food meals a week for t-ball nights, adding money to their lunch accounts and replacement of milk, bread, eggs, etc. if needed. I tried to shop ahead so they won't have to buy much of anything.

Then we got our wifi network system and DH is going to try to get that installed and up and running tomorrow. Lots of money out but all of it planned and saved for so I don't feel bad about it. Maybe a little.

DH's check was supposed to have his raise on it but guess what? It was on the paper statement but not on the electronic deposit. What the H E DOUBLE HOCKEYSTICKS good does that do us, I ask you? Anyway, the extra will be added to next week's paycheck, which means a smaller tax bite out of it since next week's is the two day check. I am so over this company. REALLY BIG SIGH.

So that's me today. I'll try to do one more blog tomorrow before I pack. We'll see. If not, I'll blog you when I get back.