Sunday, March 30, 2008

March recap

1. Budget our money better.
We are keeping up with our bills pretty well, we did have an unplanned car repair this month that threw things out of whack, but not so bad. Thanks to my working for the Easter store at least!

2. Pay down our debt.
We made our $120 loan payment, I'm not sure if we used the other $80 for debt or if it went to Easter baskets. I think that it might have gotten spent on something other than debt, given that I wasn't around much in March!

3. Use savings, rebates & misc found money to fund our emergency fund.
The kids received money from a trust started by their Great Grandparents, apparently the account had stopped earning interest so hubby's parents decided to distribute the money. We will be funding their 529s & their mutual fund accounts with it. Since I was busy for most of the month I didn't really shop much or plan my shopping trips. We mostly went for convenient food & the basics. I don't think we spent as much as usual on stuff, but thanks to my previous months shopping we didn't run out of anything important. Now I can get back to my coupons & CVS trips!

4. Blog daily. I really do need anywhere web access!!!

5. Work on one DIY project everyday.
Sure, I've been struggling just to catch up the laundry! But I have been busy this week clearing out the stuff, so we can do the next project!

6. Do better at cards to friends & family.
Why am I even bothering!!!

7. Focus on MYO (make your own) mixes and grocery items.
I just put together a corn bread mix & have 2 loaves of bread dough in the freezer. I think I missed being in the kitchen, scary.

8. Eliminate more clutter.
I have been decluttering the last couple days. I am still having a hard time with the "letting things go" the "I might need this someday" is winning. But not for long. It is just so overwhelming to have things & you don't know why, so out they are going. Hopefully I will be able to make a dent in this by the end of spring. After all it didn't show up overnight, so I don't expect it to be gone in a poof. It would be nice though!

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Easter is over!

Hope everyone had a fantastic holiday weekend!

The store has been taken down & emptied, whew! Three weeks & 3 pallets of chocolate later, I think I have finally recovered. I feel almost human again. It really is a fun thing to do & being only 3 weeks it's only a small part of my year, but it seems to take over!!!

After working 23 hours in 2 days I was pretty beat on Sunday, but we managed to make both families dinners. The Easter bunny brought lots of chocolate, I figure that has to be better than the nasty "all sugar" candy right???

Now I am off to clean my house, because it was bad enough before I started the 3 weeks, now it's REALLY bad! Everything is behind. All I wanted was a little acknowledgment for what I do on a regular basis, you know the gross stuff, like the toilet & shower & cleaning the toothpaste off the sink & 3 loads of laundry a day & that the dirty clothes don't take them selves to the laundry room... but NOOOO. Of course not, sigh. I will update our goals some time this week, right now I need to plow a path to the laundry room!!!

Sunday, March 23, 2008

New Look

BTW.... the new look is thanks to Split Decisionz, thanks for the great code!!!

Friday, March 14, 2008

Easter is coming

I know it's early and there are so many other things going on to distract us (St. Patty's Day, the Spitzer scandal, elections, etc). I only have had to embrace the reality because I am surrounded by giant chocolate bunnies for 6 hours a day, EVERY DAY!

I am currently waiting for the washer to finish running so I can jump in the shower & start getting ready for today's retail experience! I guess I figured we'd survive the 3 short weeks I work unscathed, boy was I wrong. The goal now is to not run out of clothing before Easter & maybe find the furniture. Apparently the kids have taken over & the toys have made their way into EVERY corner of the house. I have done my best to find at least one corner today!!! Under the love seat was just scary... I swear it was empty just a week ago. Sigh, it will take me at least a week of constant cleaning to "catch" us up to where we were before I started at the store!

Just more proof that messing with the routine is very bad, but I think we'll survive!

Friday, March 7, 2008

The Ultimate Blog Party is HERE!!!

Party time!!! Wish I could party more, but I started working at an "ONLY" Easter candy store, so we are B-U-S-Y right now.

If this is your first time here, Welcome! If you've been here before, Howdy!

I have been blogging for over a year now, I'm not the best at it, but hey it's a learning process! I have other blogs, so posting to all of them is challenging & sometimes I just go on a posting binge!!!

I'll leave you with the hamburger recipe I made for dinner tonight, it was delish!

1 pound of ground beef (I used the 73/27 stuff)
1 egg
1 handful of oats (rolled)
2 T flax seed
2 handfuls of finely chopped fresh spinach leaves
1 dash of minced garlic

Mix all ingredients together, form patties & cook as you normally would a hamburger (I cooked them until the internal temp was 145 degrees in a grill pan, blizzard conditions so no grill!) I had provolone on mine & it was so moist & yummy I just had to write down what I did!!!

And welcome to my crazy life.

Easter candy has begun, so if I don't post it's only because I am no where near a computer... I just knew I'd regret not buying an iphone!!!

Brief update on life... It's snowing here, yuck. We had a wonderful spring like day then ice now snow. I really wish this global warming would start soon. At this rate we'll have to break out the Christmas outfits for Easter!!! Hubby just had to hammer the ice off our back steps, I should have thought of that at the store 2 days ago, it would have been faster than the shovel!

We fixed our leaky pipes, and that's about it, we still haven't gotten to installing the new hot water heater. My hours are just too crazy now, but I do enjoy getting out of the house! And being in a room filled to the gills with chocolate isn't sooooo bad, it's just hard to keep from eating it ALL!!!

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Sometimes I just want to ask...

What does the world have against us??? We received our tax refund & made several much needed purchases (and some not so needed, but nothing over the top obnoxious). SO what happens Friday??? I am in the kitchen one minute all is well, I grab the remote to turn on some cleaning music & then I hear it. WATER??? Nothing was running, so I go investigate only to find a leaking pipe in the laundry room. Of course, I should have known. We had just gotten the dryer moved in all happy next to the washer & bam we have to move everything out to fix the pipe. The lines froze overnight in the cold & I didn't run the washer just the dryer so it thawed the joint & made a leak, oops am I bad???

So after hauling out all the laundry products on my newly well placed shelf, the shelf & the dryer... Hubby cut out the bad joint and we headed to town for some fittings. While it was all apart we insulated the pipes & filled the wall with more insulation. For anyone who doesn't know our house is 141 years old, so it has issues, BIG ones. Like big gaping holes in the walls that just suck cold air into the house. The laundry room was an addition over a crawl space so the plumbing is all run above the floor & outside of the walls. The dryer vent hole (not cut by us) was HUGE and in the same location as the pipes. Of course we also wrapped the heat exchanger over the furnace which has been effective in lowering the temperature of the basement, maybe we need to rethink that one!!!! My dryer vent is very effective at pulling in air so the metal vent laying on top of the copper lines just wasn't a good plan. Sorry to all the experts but hey, live & learn!

It just figures that the one thing we didn't buy in our Home improvement shopping spree was a soldering kit, so we had to borrow my Dad's. OF course it never dawned on me that we should have just called a plumber. If hubby wasn't capable of piecing in some copper my Dad can. It is nice to have handy people in the family.

But while we were at the store we also bought a new hot water heater, electric to replace the 2 that heat our upstairs water. The apartment's gas hot water heater appears to be one of the first tank heaters ever invented and is very scary when it fires up. I'll be glad to get rid of it. I am impressed at how long it has lasted, usually 10-12 years on a water heater is tops, but this baby is O-L-D! And it will also supply hot water to the front bathroom, which will be part of the Master Bedroom soon.

Looks like we'll be making a scrap yard run sometime in the spring!!!