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

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

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

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

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

Rose's games went pretty well today. They didn't win either one, the first
one was hard as the other team had 3 girls who were taller than Rose by a
head or more and she's the tallest player on her team. And there was a lot
of fouling going on that wasn't called.

The other team would hook their feet around in front of our players ankles and trip them. It looked like a move that they were taught to do, when you have four out of five players doing it consistently, it is not an accident and it isn't just one person playing poorly. That's bad coaching and bad reffing to allow it. I've seen similar things in soccer and it can really cause injuries. In fact it did here, one of the girls had to leave the court and sit out for about 15 minutes it hurt her ankle so much. At least the refs were calling on the double dribbling and traveling the other team did. So the end score was 22-12.

The second game went a lot better, they only had one girl who was a head taller than Rose, and a few of similar heights to our girls. It was a tight game, well played, although one of our girls suddenly got really scared of shooting. She is a good shooter but it's like she's afraid of missing so instead of taking shots when she's in a great place with no guards on her, she'll pass it to someone, and not usually to someone who is open. She could have scored half a dozen times, but its like her confidence
went away. Still, our team did great and the score ended up being 32-26,
only a six point spread.

Afterwards, the kids went with MIL and FIL down to Stanwood for the Christmas thingy at some campground, like a Christmas Fair with tons of lights and stuff to do, so DH and I got a lot of time to ourselves. We went out for RM dinner to our favorite Mexican place. I'm sure its not hydrogenated fat free, but I gave in as DH really wanted to
go there. We ate way too much food! But only spent $24.14 plus $5 tip.

DH and I went shopping and got gifts taken care of for FIL, MIL, both young nieces, and the yarn for me to make Dad two hats. I'll have to knit in overdrive but since I can do a hat in 3 hours it should be no problem.

I also bought the throwaway containers to make the 2 lasagnas that are BIL and FIL's requested Christmas presents. And two more because both sets of parents (mine and DH's) have requested my lasagna at their Christmas get togethers. At least its easy to mass produce! I still have to buy the ingredients, though. I make them in the throwaways or it can be months before I see my glass cookware again.

Then at home I ordered Mom's present to be delivered by Wednesday, and 2 CD's that I wanted for DH to give me. That just leaves me with the McD gift certificates for 3 of my nephews (I quit giving to nieces and nephews after their senior year of high school). Now I just have to go with DH to buy his weight bench and I am done!

So obviously it was a very busy and very productive day. Tomorrow will be
productive too, but for less happy reasons, we are CLEANING the house.
Yuck. Deep cleaning. But then we will finally put our tree up. Yeah, don't have it up yet. But you should see the outside of the house. In fact, you probably can from googlespace, LOL. It's a tad decorated with the lights. Oh and MIL and FIL gave us two more yard decorations, like we needed more lights! DH will put them up tomorrow, though.

Oh, and we bought gas today on the Costco cash card.

We're about to get hit by another storm tomorrow. They're talking 100 mile per hour winds. It's already dumping huge amounts of very cold rain, the back half of our driveway is a little lake. We need to regravel next summer so it doesn't get so bad.

DH and I spent the day looking at generators and finally decided on one. He's gone back to town to pick it up while I do Mom duty with Rose at basketball practice. He took Tobias with him.

The generator we decided on costs $779, is water and rust proof, and will run for 10 hours on one tank of gas. I belive it is a 2 gallon tank. They had the sign up that says if you apply for the Home Depot card you get 10% off, so DH decided to do that. We won't use it though except for this and will pay it off immediately. It should cover a little more than the sales tax. Our sales tax is 8.4%. WA state has the highest sales tax in the nation, I think, and our county has one of the highest in the state.

This is a really big purchase and I was planning on making it, just not this soon. With the extra paycheck we have the money to do it, and I do not want to lose another $500 worth of food because I can't run my fridge and freezer. On the drive home I started having a really bad feeling that we needed to go back and buy it today and not wait until tomorrow. I've learned to go with those feelings and so has DH. DH called a bit ago and he got the last one there, so I'm glad I sent him back.

I'm not sure on the grand total yet but I'll edit this to add it in when he gets home.

Edited to add:

DH made it home safely! The rain is getting torrential. He decided not to apply for the Home Depot credit card as he thought it would be too easy for him to use it! So no 10% discount but no future temptation to use a credit card either, so maybe we still save in the end. The total cost of the generator with tax came to $844.

I picked up DH today and we went out to lunch at Black Angus. We spent $36.39 including the tip. It was very good and it was nice to chat over a relaxing meal.

We had conferences this afternoon (finally!) and both kids are doing well, except Rose in spelling, which is laziness, the teacher agrees with me on that.

Both kids are good kids, helpful, kind, leaders, that try to make sure no one is left out. They are friends with everyone, but have a good circle of closer friends, also. I like hearing that about them.

Not much of an update tonight. DH is giving me sad puppy dog eyes so I best go attend to him.

And not a minute too soon. 23 days is an awfully long time. I do miss him so much on these really long shifts. The money is good, though, that helps some to compensate.

I spent $14.07 today on dinner. I woke up with a barking cough so decided maybe I shouldn't get my germs in the kids' food. So they had both breakfast and lunch at school today and then boughten dinner. Which reminds, I wrote a $20 check to fund T's lunch account.

I'm not sure what I'll do about breakfast tomorrow as it is Cook's Choice, which means they don't list what it actually is. Drives me crazy when they do that. But hot lunch tomorrow is something both kids will eat and then DH can cook dinner.

I am having a devil of a time getting through to my doctor. Half the time they forget to turn the answering machine off and its not one you can leave messages on, either. Since he is semi-retired, he only works 3.5 days a week. And the other doctor that I go to is a specialist, not for general sickness, so she can't help here. Maybe I'll just go to the clinic. I hate doing that, though.

I am getting very annoyed with Puget Sound Energy. This is the 3rd power failure in less than a month's time. Okay, I know there is a big windstorm (again), but I didn't even see any trucks in our area working to get stuff up and running again and this was 3 hours after it had gone out. You would think the portion that has a school on it would be considered a priority, but no, it's not.

It's been out for several hours and if they don't get it back on tonight, I'm going to end up losing food again. I think I'm going to insist that they knock some off my power bill as they've cost me an awful lot of money in ruined food with their slow (lack of) service.

I did spend just under $15 on taking the kids out to dinner. I am just getting so tired of this. I also didn't do any of the other things I had planned to do because I didn't want to get stuck on the wrong side of a downed tree from the school.

Now onto less of the boring in this, my third entry of the day...

I spent a good 3.5 hours at the high school today watching Rose play basketball. After today she will only have one game a week until week 6, 7, 8. It should have been two games back to back, one scheduled at 1:30 and the next at 2:30 but one of the refs never showed and since there were supposed to be two games on at a time that didn't work out very well. So the 2:30 game didn't start until 3:00.

The first game was so-so. We lost 16 to 6. It took our girls awhile to get into the groove, but they finally did in the last quarter. The second game was much better, the girls got their rhythm down and had a great passing game and we won 28 to 18. Rose made 2 baskets. She's never made a basket in a game before so we were all really excited. This is only her second year playing. I was a little worried as she missed two practices this week due to the barfing thing. But she's got her groove on.

Most of the other baskets were made by one player. The girl who used to bully Rose made one basket off a pass from Rose, and she and Rose were passing back and forth and acting like real teammates. They even smiled at each other. I am so glad that whole thing seems to be in the past now. Rose's skill level has come way up since last year, but she spent a lot of time this summer shooting hoops, so she's much better at that.

I did spend money today, since it took us so long at the high school. I spent $2.95 at the vending machine for pretzles and peanuts for Tobias and Rose. Afterwards we stopped at the Casino store and got sub sandwich kid meals, so spent $8.65 there, then we stopped at the convenience store closer to home and I got a few things and paid $8.88.

Most of the evening was spent being a slacker. Okay, I did PTR's while I watched a Buffy dvd. Did do some cooking, well, really just some warming up of leftovers and a load of dishes and a load of laundry. Okay, not that much of a slacker, just I have so much else I could be doing, but I am really uncomfortable with moving around much after sitting on those gym bleachers as long as I did. And why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?

$50 for Physical Therapy appointment.
$15 co-pay to take Rose to the doctor.
$10 perscription of Flonase.
$10 perscription of generic Zithromax.
$23 at KFC.

No shopping after all today, and ended up taking Rose to the doctor. She has a sinus infection. Plus something else. She managed to take her medication, then 3 hours later she threw up. Sigh. I hope it was down long enough to enter her system. Obviously she missed basketball practice today.

I was going to try to go to the doctor myself tomorrow as I think I also have a sinus infection, now I will most likely just stay home with Rose. Maybe he will call me in something without my having to see him. He does that sometimes just because I know the symptoms so well. Or maybe Rose will be okay enough for me to drag her with me.

I so do not have the energy for a sick child right now. But if it has to be one of them, Rose is the better patient. She'll stay in bed and rest. Tobias just gets hyper most of the time when he is sick.

The school rescheduled conferences again for next week, on Wednesday and DH flies in next Wednesday morning so it looks liike he'll get to go after all. Of course, I'm thinking the school setting a schedule for them again is just them asking for another natural disaster or weather incident. We will see.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...or what happens when the power goes out and you can't see where you are walking.

48 hours without power is about 40 hours more than I can handle. 40 hours without a phone line really drove me nuts. Not being able to access this site or the internet? 3 hours of that was about enough. 2 days with the school closed due to a power failure, no ability to watch movies, use the computer, use the game cube, and reading by candlelight in the evenings made for 2 stir-crazy children and 2 just plain crazy parents.

But thank heavens it is back on now. Phone came back first, then power. We ended up spending an unbudgeted $100 on food, some eating out and some to restock the fridge. We had to throw away much of what was in the fridge, managed to save some apples and oranges and some veggies, but tossed out all the meats and salad dressings, cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, the pre-chopped veggies had turned brown, and some of the condiments.

I had moved some stuff to a cooler, milk, eggs, butter, turkey and ham (the organic nitrate/nitrite free stuff for sandwiches), mayonnaise, jelly and peanutbutter. And it was still cold and good, so we didn't lose it all. Just some.

We had quite an adventure yesterday morning with the kids getting trapped at the school, a tree down across the road halfway between the school and our house, a tree down further down the road in the other direction, a tree down across the exit, but not the entrance driveway to our development. We called the school, they were keeping the kids at school until the roads were cleared even though there was no power.

So we decided to walk down to the school, which is 1.2 miles one way. We told the school we were coming and to tell our kids. It was raining pretty hard and the wind was whipping pretty good, but we wanted our kids home with us and the fireman said it could be several hours before they cleared the road in either direction. So we walked and the one tree was really big and had brought down the messanger cable as well as the power line, and the cable line. When they did end up cutting the tree up, they accidently brought down the phone line as well.

There was a safe place to get around the downed line on a side road that came out again further down the highway. So we finally made it to the school after about twenty minutes of fast walking. So we go to find our kids. "Oh, that bus decided to go on a reverse route and try to deliver as many kids as they could. But they'll bring back the ones who they can't deliver." They couldn't tell us that on the phone? So now we are at the school with the possibility that our kids could be at home, or they could be brought back to the school. You could say I was one p.o.'d parent.

We couldn't get ahold of the bus driver on his radio as he had turned it off, due to too much chatter on it. Argh! So we told the school that if they kids did come back to hold them there and we would come back when the road was clear. Then we walked back home. Just as we were passing the tree, they finally got it cleared (several hours, my eye!), so we got to walk the highway with a ton of cars zipping by to make up for having to wait in a really long line for so long. Fun.

Got home to a note on the door that the kids had gone to the neighbor's house, like we figured they would, so it all turned out okay, but the kids told me that the bus was driven over some downed wires and he had squeezed it through under some wires that were angled down across the road and went around a tree. That I am not happy about. The kids safety should come first, so I am calling the bus garage tomorrow to complain now that we have phones again and school and buses should be running tomorrow.

School conferences were supposed to be this week but obviously they were cancelled. I hope we can reschedule for tomorrow as DH flies out on Monday and he really wanted to go. He almost always misses them and this one just coincided with his being home for a change. Also basketball practice was cancelled, too.

So anyway that has been my last two days in a nutshell. A very large, very full nutshell.

Oh, and today was the automatic deposit to savings of $10 so I will send that off to ING tomorrow. I'm not sure where my total is at right now and I'm too tired to look it up.

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.

Paid $29.59 for 3000 mile service/oil change today and $10.37 for two big container of egg drop soup. Also spent $13.58 at the grocery store for organic milk, all natural sausages and an Archie digest comic for Rose.

Entry # 5 today.

I can't for the life of me remember to post everything in one post today, I keep forgetting little things that I want to say.

Anywho...I spent $1.79 on a half gallon of milk today at the convenience store. I decided to skip going to town today as I was able to make an appointment for an oil change for tomorrow, so decided I can save the gas and go to the grocery tomorrow. I'll have to fill up tomorrow, but I still have $40 on my Costco cash card, so I can go to their gas station. Payday is Friday and I am so looking forward to it. Then I'll do my real shopping and go to the bookstore Friday. I should be able to get buy until the following payday before filling up again. We don't drive near as much now that soccer is over.

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.

Rose had to go to the orthodontist today. They took out her U wire and replaced it with a W wire. This one is pushing a bit more than the last one did and is really bugging her. Not as much as the first appliance that took up the entire roof of her mouth, though.

That's two visits this month, so there should be a nice sized rebate coming from the doc's soon once they run through the insurance. For those new to my blog, we paid the entire amount in advance last year and then 6 months later our health insurance upgraded and gave us both orthodontics and vision that we didn't have previously. So the doc runs it through the insurance and then we get cut a check.

Didn't do much else. Oh, spent $9.98 for 2 gallons of organic milk.

As for the new eating update:

Breakfast:
Omega 3 organic eggs
100% whole wheat toast
organic banana
2 stalks of celery
organic milk

Lunch:
100% whole wheat bread sandwich with organic peanut butter and organic jelly
organic milk

Dinner:
Tacos made with either organic 100% whole wheat soft tortillas or organic corn taco shells
organic lettuce
organic cheese
hamburger
taco seasoning without trans-fats or hydrogentated fats
nectarines
organic milk

I have $2 to add to the $30 I will be depositing in savings tomorrow. With the auto deposit, that's a total of $42 going in tomorrow.

Oh, I almost forgot, I wrote a check to the chiropractic yesterday for $175. This covers three visits per week for the 4 of us, though we seldom go more than twice a week. That still works out to 9 visits a month X 4 people, so 36 visits, averages to $4.86 per person per visit. Not too bad. If we went through insurance we'd have to pay $15 co-pay for each of us, plus 20%. DH and I both have mild scoliosis and have both visited a chiro since we were young teens. Our kids have always gone. No one wants to end up with the hump DH's grandma had or the one his mother is starting to develop.

I guess that is all for today.

Deposited $10 automatically into savings today, bringing the total to $1106. $19 more and I am halfway to my two month goal of adding $250 by the end of November. Forgot again to bring the rolled coin with to deposit, but we didn't end up going to that side of town today anyway.

We went grocery shopping (DH came home from Alaska yesterday) today. First we went to the farm stand and for $17.55 we bought:

8 kohlrabi
10 nectarines
4 Italian plums
1 head of iceberg lettuce
6 ears of corn
1 package of fajita seasoning dry rub mix (no fillers, just spices)
16 ounce bag of sunflower seeds, shelled (no artificial ingredients, just seeds, canola oil and salt)
1 white onion
1 head of garlic
1 gallon of 2% milk

Then we went to Haggen and bought:

1 gallon organic non-fat milk @ $5.69
1 2.28 lb butternut squash @ $2.03
1 1.85 lb acorn squash @ $1.65
1.7 lb baby red potatoes @ $1.68
5.2 lb value pack beef chuck potroast @ $10.69
1 package of bendy straws @ $0.99
magazine @ $3.50

For a total of $26.61 spent there. The $3.50 magazine was an unnecessary expense, so I will be adding $3.50 to my savings next time I do go to the bank, well actuallly round it up to $4 as I don't like an uneven total, I like whole numbers. The bendy straws are for the sake of everyone's sanity around here. We'll just leave it at that.

We are switching our family diet over to whole foods and made from scratch foods completely now. DH is finally on board this train and I think it is best for us all. It'll improve our health and lower our food bill. I think I can keep us to $50 a week for groceries doing this. Possibly less on the 2 weeks out of every 4 that DH is living at work.

With this new method of eating, I'm going to just throw the daily menu into the blog.

Breakfast:
100% whole wheat toast made with honey
soft-boiled Omega-3 organic egg
milk

Lunch:
freshly juiced apple juice
cucumber slices
chicken on salad
plain yogurt with blueberries stirred in

Dinner:
beef potroast
corn on the cob
potatoes with gravy
broccoli
cauliflower
nectarine
milk

It seems a lot written out, but everything is also portion controlled. Rose in particular can overeat to excess even with her high activity level, so I figure if I'm dishing up everyone's plate ahead of time, she can't complain too much if the portions all look the same. DH will just add in more food for himself later on if he needs it.

I think this will save on our food bill quite a bit. We've been spending about $300 a month and eating way too much junk, so I hope it works like I think it will. I just have to plan ahead more, as it requires a lot more cooking and prep work than boxed pizzas and taquitos. I am pretty sure I can do it, I just hope DH continues to back me up on it.

As planned, I deposited the $65 that used to pay the cable bill into savings. I forgot the $16 in rolled coin at home so I decided to just deposit $16 anyway into that account, and then decided to add an extra $5 in as well, for a total deposit of $86, bringing the total in savings to $1096.

Bills paid today:
House mortgage: $374.86 plus an additional $24.14 to principal, total payment of $400
Property taxes: $364.69
School fees: $40 to the lunch program for both kids (really need to cut this out when I am well again) and $6.90 to the book program for Tobias
Water Delivery: $66.57 for 2 months water delivery (this is a necessary expense for us as our local water district has e.coli in the water too many times a year for us to feel safe drinking it)
Basketball fee: $25
Groceries: $46.96
Gas money: $80
Misc.: $24 (will be used at soccer game tomorrow and for a meal for 3 of us)

I have $375 left which will go towards the medical mortgage next payday, along with the $625 from that week's pay

DH will be working 3 weeks instead of 2 in December and will be home for Christmas, leaving back for work on the 26th. So that will be an extra $1950 or so that can go straight to savings. And there should be an extra thousand to $1950 in November when DH will get an extra pay period (he gets 2 extra checks a year depending on how the calandar falls. Combine that with the five extra days he is working for his alternate next year and our tax return and we should just be able to swing a new (to us) car.

I have my eye on a vehicle that has been sitting on the lot for a bit. If it is still there when we are ready to buy and if it is mechanically sound, we should be able to drive a good bargain for it. I know it may be gone by then but its already sat on the lot for 3 months and if its still there come April, I think they'll be dying to get rid of it. I'll definitely run the VIN first though. If not, well, we've waited this long, we can wait longer if need be.

Or to those of you who aren't sick...a cold in the nose, well in the whole sinusy section of the face. Rose has successfully passed it onto me, oh, joy. I am actually functioning pretty well, though as I went back to sleep after the kidlets got on the school bus, and didn't wake up again until 12:39. My taste buds are off, so food doesn't taste that good, I hate that.

I had enough points to cash out at NFO MySurvey today, so will be receiving a $10 check from them within 3 to 6 weeks.

Today was the auto deposit of $10 into savings, bringing the total of that savings account up to $1010. I rolled coin today and will be depositing that money tomorrow, $16, bringing savings to $1026, and then also depositing the $65 that used to go for cable, bringing the total to $1091.

I am awaiting account verification from paypal off a new account and as soon as that is received and activated, I will have $70 more to add into savings. This account is going to be used for selling on ebay and half once we are set up.

I have started reading Tax Loopholes for Ebay Sellers. I haven't gotten very far yet, but from reading the index I think it will cover all the information I need to know for how to set up an ebay business and how to handle taxes. It isn't about avoiding taxes, really, just how not to pay more than you have to and how to pay them and that kind of info. I think it will offer a lot of insight into this next phase of our adventure to make more money so we can use it to get out of debt and start saving more money. Plus declutter.

I bought this book about six months ago, just before I joined this site. I think I would buy it now anyway, because I will be referring to it often. It looks to be an excellent resource. Most of the time I check stuff out now, but I think buying the stuff you will really use can be an acceptable purchase when trying to avoid unnecssary ones.

Today I paid the water/sewer bill for 4 months (new system switch over, I just wanted to be ahead) of $256 and the power bill of $93. I also had lunch out (unnecessary expense, but I felt unable to cook and I really didn't want to) which came to $12.25 plus a $3.00 tip. I know that's over 20% but this is the usual girl, she never screws up anything, she's working her way through college, and as a former restaurant employee I believe in tipping well for good service. Not that I'm justifying, just explaining.

Dinner was much cheaper, just a can of chicken and stars ($1.09 at Kmart, cheapest I've found it here) and a glass of Pepsi (about .30). The caffeine helps with the sinus headache. I probably should have done this for lunch, too since I really am trying to cut way back on eating out. Maybe I'll have to do what Amber does and every time I eat out, put an equal amount of money into savings. That would pinch but might help me to alter my behavior.

Tonight I wrote out a check for basketball. It is only $25 this year instead of $30 as the sponsors are kicking in more. That was nice. Now I just have to remember to mail it tomorrow.

I got two samples in the mail today. Degree clear from Degree itself, and Olay Definity from WalMart. The Olay sample was really tiny, just like the one from Target. I've come to expect much more from the WalMart samples so I was really disappointed in the size. On the bright side, between the two of them there should just be enough to use on my whole face.

Today I received the Titanium Quattro razor and a sample of Advil PM from WalMart.

I spent $15 as a co-pay for Rose's doctor's visit and $10 for an antibiotic.

Not much else today.

So, I'm at Costco and this couple gets behind me in line at the checker and they are seriously crowding me. Not just invading my space bubble, but pushing their cart into my back. I had to ask them twice to stop shoving it into me. The third time I just sort of leaned back and gave the cart a little shove. I heard a little yelp. That stopped that, but...as I'm unloading my cart they are grumbling at me taking so long. I only had 8 things in my cart and I had to wait for counter space to put stuff up.

Anyway, I get my cart cleared and I go to push it into the cart aisle and the woman has walked around me to stand in the cart aisle and is putting stuff down on the counter. When she finally moves I push my cart where it goes and turn to walk into the customer aisle to pay and they've shoved their cart right up against the end of the counter. So I try to walk around them and they manage to block the customer aisle. I am biting my tongue pretty hard at this point.

I say excuse me and they just look at me blankly. I let out an exasperated sigh of noise and say, "I don't care how much of a hurry you are in to get out of here, if you don't let me get back ahead of you to where my groceries are, you are going to be waiting an awful lot longer." I said it politely, when what I really wanted to say is 1. not appropriate for a family forum and 2. not words I say out loud or usually even in my head.

Finally one of the employee's physically escorted the couple out of the way. And they had the nerve to bellyache the entire time as if they thought I had cut in line in front of them. I so wanted to give them a piece of my mind or say one of the lovely, bitingly sarcastic remarks I had going on in my head. But I didn't. I held my tongue.

These people really should have known how to behave, they had to be a good 20 years older than I am, but they were behaving as if they were (well, I was going to say teenagers, but I've seen better behaved teenagers) raised in a zoo. They were just flat out rude. But I calmed myself down by imagining dumping a bucket of ice cold water over their heads. And when I was done I smiled at them and with as much saccharine as possible told them to have a nice day now. I thought the lady was going to blow a gasket as I casually sauntered away.

Anyway, I spent $31 there on groceries and loaded $50 onto my gas card, then went and got gas at their station. It is at $2.55 a gallon now, spent $32. Other expenses today $6 for 4 hot chocolates at the soccer game but my mother will reimburse me $3 of that. I also spent $6.70 at Arby's for lunch.

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.

Not too much excitement today. The autotdeposit was today so savings is $10 richer, putting me at $947.

We loaded $100 onto our Costco cash card and then used it to put $30.19 worth of gas into the car 2 today @ $2.58 a gallon, 4 cents less than a few days ago. It is weird seeing the gas tank on F, or even on the right side of the halfway point, really.

I had a doctor's appointment this morning, so $15 co-pay and $10 perscription. My kidney infection came back or else its a new one, so I'll be on antibiotics 3X a day for the next 14 days. Oh, joy. Big old capsules, too. Bought organic milk at the store my pharmacy is in so $5.29 for that.

I pulled all the meat off the rest of the turkey bones and seperated it into packages and froze it. I then threw all the bones and skin into the crockpot with 6 quarts of water, a head of crushed garlic, a chopped onion and salt and pepper and am making broth. I will have it going all night and it should be good and rich in the morning when I'll pour it through a seive and then I will make turkey noodle soup to have with supper tomorrow.

I am really into having soup right now. It is very comforting The weather turned on us this last week or so, went from mid to high 70's to wet, rainy, mid 50's to low 60's, and one night got down to 33! Yikes. It hasn't been that cold again, but we really have to drain the pool tomorrow before it happens again.

As for the soup, twice this week we've had homemade chicken noodle at dinner and tonight we had golden potato (DH's great grandmother's recipe), very rich and good, very satisfying and I notice it cuts my appetite for the heavier protein that follows. I still eat the same large amount of veggies as usual, though. But they are cheaper than protein, usually.

I may make a nice onion soup, possibly French onion, but I really don't know if I have the patience to be finicky. I like the ease of crockpot soup. It allows for a large degree of laziness. Which the lousy weather is encouraging. Just want to curl up with a good book under the covers. The current good book I am reading is "Smart Couples Finish Rich," by David Bach. It is very good and I am learning a lot. I had no idea the limits on spousal IRA's for a non-working spouse (when the working spouse has a 401K) had risen so much. Last time I checked, it was a lot lower. This book was written in 2001 and it was $2000 then, so it might be more now, even.

I will have to look into that. I'm not sure when I might be able to fund one, but I want something in my name for my own personal security. My DH is a solid man who I don't think would ever leave me for any reason and seems to think the sun rises and sets on me for some reason and I see no reason I would ever leave him, he is kind, good and a wonderful spouse and father and I kind of think the sun rises and sets on him also. But I still want something in my name. Security is my biggest issue. I want it no matter what else happens. The idea feels right.

Not much else today. Oh, DH took Tobias to soccer and they are having team pictures so that was $8. School photos were yesterday and today so that was $16 for both kids. We only get the 8X10 and scan it to make copies on the school ones, and the 5X7 team photo with the individual shot in the same photo for sports photos. Rose will have her team photo tomorrow, another $8. I wish these weren't all in the same week, but I guess this is a good week for it if it has to be all at once.

Okay, I think that's it then for today. Got in a very talky mood, I guess.

Today was the day of the auto transfer of $10 to savings, bringing the total in that account to $820.

On Tuesday I wrote a check for $20 to fund Tobias's hot lunch account at school. Turns out he had $10 left over from last year, so he should be good for awhile. I didn' need to fund Rose's account yet, she had quite a bit left over from last year.

Yesterday I paid $50 at the physical therapist. Part of that will be reimbursed by insurance, but if I pay up front it is only $50, and if I let it go through insurance first than it costs $70.

I also spent $3.25 for a double cheese burger, small fry and small Coke at McDonalds for lunch. I always eat like a crazy person after seeing the physical therapist, so I thought I did a good job restraining myself. And everything was off the dollar menu. If I had waited and drove the 45 minutes home and then made lunch, I'm sure I would have eaten more than $3.25 worth of food. I don't know what it is about it that makes me so hungry, the muscles demanding a protein infusion, maybe? I don' know. All in all, it was successful, I think.

Tomorrow is payday and I am going to put an extra $200 on the Bank of America card. Usually I pay $800 for it but with holiday pay from Monday being on the next payday's check, I can take the extra $200 out of this one to add there. I also have to pay the house mortgage (its been sitting in my purse for 2 weeks and is due on the 11th, should have done it sooner but keep forgetting).

DH and I are looking at cars. Well, looking on the internet right now, but at the local dealerships. I'm not sure we can swing the Prius at this point but I think we can handle a Hyundai Elantra or Sonata. They get 32 MPG/26MPG and 30 MPG/24 MPG respectively for automatic transmission and they are much lower priced and highly rated than comporable cars in their class. Since we do most of our driving on the highway the mileage would be towards the higher number. But even getting 24 in city traffic sounds mighty good compared to what the other cars do now.

FIL has an Elantra and he and MIL love it. I've ridden in it and it rides well. When DH comes home we are going to borrow it and take it for a good long drive to see how it feels on the highway. The dealership probably wouldn't let us take it long enough to get a feel for a 25 mile commute, so we can circumvent that this way.

We are looking at either a 2004 or 2005 Elantra or a 2005 Sonata (first year issued). The purchase is still slated for next April. The 2007's are coming out so we figure next spring some good vehicles will be coming up, either off lease or as trade-ins that are 2 years old. We have the patience to wait. I also need to find out if they 5 year roadside assistance that comes with the purchase of a new Hyundai is transferable to a new owner. I sure hope so. It would be nice to have.

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

Today I cashed out 3700 points at MyPoints to get a $25 Shell gas card. I got a sample in the mail of Aquafresh Extreme Clean toothpaste with a $1 off coupon. This is the first toothpaste sample I've received despite signing up for at least a dozen. I think I signed up for this one back in the beginning of May. I've done a few PTR's and 3 surveys.

The kids are out in the yard with 3 of the neighborhood kids and I don't have to start dinner yet, since I only have to warm it up, so time to settle down with my laptop and read a few blogs and then if there is time, a chapter of the fiction book I'm currently reading.

After the kids go to bed tonight, I will do some more PTR's while I listen to the 2nd CD of The Automatic Millionaire and at least one side of one tape of Damia.

Okay, so it has been a pretty boring day and I just can't make it interesting. Oh, I'm waiting to hear back on a massage appointment because my hip is tweaked again, so that will be money out this week if I can get in.

And DH made it safely up to work. And the guy who has the position that they were hiring an alternate for before that DH applied for but didn't get the position, well that original guy has injured himself and now his slot may be vacant. He was close to retirement so he may not come back, hasn't made the decision yet, but there is a possibility that they may put DH in that slot. I am not getting my hopes up this time, though. If it happens it happens, and I'll be happy if it does, extremely happy. But no chickens in that basket.

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.

Oh, that does sound melodramatic, doesn't it? Well, its not all that drama laden, but sometimes those titles are a bit hard to come up with.

Anyway, ride bracelets were more expensive this year. $20 each, so $40 total for 2 kids. Each kid got a $12 souvinier each.

Foods purchased:
2 kids cones with hard packed ice cream made on site--$5.00
2 adult cones, same--$6.00
2 rainbow snocones--$3.50
2 single flavor snocones--2.50
1 corn dog--$2.00
1 plateful of spatezle, hungarian goulash, carmlized onions and sour kraut--$9.00
large Pepsi--$4.00
3 20 ounce bottles of soda (grape, root beer, Pepsi)--$6.00
1 deluxe funnel cake with powdered sugar, about 2 cups of sugared strawberries and about a cup of whipped cream on top--$7.50
1 bag of cotton candy--$2.00

Total spent on fair food: $45.50. It looks awful but when you consider that is about how much it costs us as a family of four to eat out in a Mexican restaurant with tip, it doesn't seem quite so bad.

We did leave the fair grounds at 7 p.m. and walk the 8 blocks to McDonalds and had double cheese burgers and dollar fries there with waters. Then walked back. We spent about $10 there.

DH lost the reciept for the adult tickets we bought so I'm not sure on that. All in all we spent the $100 planned for the fair.

The ten bucks at McD's came out of the gas money, but I will replace it out of the grocery budget.

Oh, yeah, I did make a purchase of $4.50 to buy a bottle of organic honey mustard (they had samples, DH liked it and he doesn't like mustard usually) that was really good. But I took that out of the gas money, too but will replace it from my grocery budget.

Other loot we came home with for free:
several penicils
2 rulers
2 frisbees
2 can holders
1 yoyo
1 mini flashlight
1 glasses clip for clipping glasses to a sunvisor
a dozen stickers
2 Canadian maple leaf lapel pins from the Canadian border guard booth
2 coloring books
1 highlighter pen
1 antenna ball
1 jar opener that will also work as a coaster in a pinch from the US Customs/Border booth
2 buttons
several recipe pamphlets

I think there is more stuff, but the kids absconded with some of it before I woke up this morning and I didn't really get to go through it all

I'm glad the fair only comes once a year, though. I think we walked about 7 miles if I go based on what it said on Rose's pedometer. It was really hot, so I was glad there were several places we could find shade. Still got overheated though and I don't like that. I spent some time just sitting in the shade while DH herded the kids through the animal barns. That helped. Took me a few hours after the sun went down to completely recover. Feel okay today, just really sore from all the walking and I have a blister between two toes. Not too bad though.

I feel it was a succesful day and the kids know there won't be any more eating out this month and well into next month.