DH bought me roses for valentine's day.

2 Bengal Tiger roses, a Belinda's Dream and a Cherokee Rose.

Plants obviously.

I am so shocked. I had a bengal tiger, but we didn't get it planted (we did, but we potted it to move with us) and it dried out in the container. This is a beautiful rose. We had a belinda's dream in OKC, this is a great rose, pink and fragrant and resistant to black spot, etc. I don't know much about the Cherokee rose, but being from Oklahoma, we naturally have a soft spot for anything "cherokee".

We're now planning where we will plant these new roses. I can't wait. The Cherokee is a climber/rambler, so it needs a trellis or fence, but I don't trust the neighbors on one side not to spray and we don't have a fence line on the other side (our carport takes up the lot from the house to the alley).

This is the first time DH has ever bought me roses for valentine's day. So this is a major milestone.

My main boss is on vacation this week and the other boss was in court. I keep a running spreadsheet showing what I've done and what needs to be done, with dates (most are arbitrary) to be done by. I completed all my tasks through today and made it most of the way through my in box. It felt so good to be able to tell the attorney "yes, I've taken care of that" for once.

Tonight was family fun night. We learned dominoes (yes, I know, funny that I didn't know how to play, but I'm the baby of the family so when everyone played no one wanted to take the time to go over the rules with me). My 5yo is still a little young for the points idea, but the 7yo is catching on fast. We partnered, me and 5yo against dh and 7yo. We lost. Considering dh has been playing for years and had 2 sets of eyes to search for point opportunities, it's not a major surprise.

Tomorrow is the lunch meeting at work. I still don't know exactly what we're having for lunch, but it's free and I'm not used to eating lunch at work anyway. I'll be fine. If nothing else, I'll love the salad and breadsticks (I hate Olive Garden spaghetti, it's soooo overcooked and mushy). I'm sure none of it will be truly South beach friendly, but my pants were loose today! And I plan to cheat with a soda anyway.

I've almost got the taxes done. I'm still waiting on 1099INTs from several credit unions. So far we have to pay around $400 (we were expecting $1000, so that's not too bad).

I almost bought a soda today. I even went to the car for change and brought it in. I was saved from myself by a long call with a client.

Then I thought how stupid it was - my boss will buy us all lunch on thursday, so I'll probably want a soda then. I really want to limit my soda consumption to one/week (or less), so I'd rather have the soda with lunch.

I've been using fitday.com to track my eating. It has a feature to check your vitamin and mineral intake. I looked over it and realized that my iron intake has been very low. Which could explain my tiredness. So, I had dh buy me some iron supplements and we'll see if that helps. Maybe it will help with the headache too?

We have 2 cards that pay cash back - Discover and Citibank Dividend.

I realized that my special 5% had posted, so I had $40 to apply to my balance.

Then dh got something in the mail today. Turned out he had requested his dividend check from citibank - $83.16.

We have cut our spending way back, but we maximize our cashback and dividends by making sure to take advantage of any special deals (the 5% cashback deals on discover, etc).

In other news, I purposefully did not take cash with me today and I'm glad I didn't. I was tempted by the chocolate bars that a client brought in to sell for charity, but I didn't have any cash so I couldn't buy any.

DH is not on board with the paper making. At all.

His idea is to grow salad greens for sale at the new farmers' market. This could work, it only meets once/month (I really have to contact the market manager and discuss that). We do live in a very hot area which is bad for salad greens (they bolt and get bitter) but if I plant them the week before and harvest them small, they should be sweet and good.

I already have the seed. It's old, but it should still sprout (just not at as high a percentage as it would have).

So, my job for the week is to contact the market manager to find out her guidelines for getting in, the costs, and the rules. I've been meaning to call her anyway, I opened and managed a market a few years ago and while I don't consider myself an expert, I do have some experience that I could pass on.

Then, I get to figure out where to plant it and figure out how much time it takes to get a marketable crop.

I'm still working on the mystery shopping, but so far there hasn't been a good opportunity.

Today is our first no car day of February (dh had to work yesterday).

Our goal is 5/month. I don't know how much gas this is saving (yet), but I do know we are getting more exercise (we still go to the stores on weekends, but now we walk).

Today, we stayed home because the kids are still not 100% but they have to go to school tomorrow. We had chicken and leftover veggies for me and dh, ds2 had leftover pizza and ds1 had refried beans and chips (I make the beans in large batches and some go in the freezer while the others are left for us to eat during the week).

DH cooked the oats for the week. We are almost set for food for the week - beans and chicken for suppers (we'll stretch them with veggies and other ingredients). Oats for breakfast. DH also made a bunch of french toast for the freezer for the kids (they love french toast).

My family is back. Poor guys are still sick. DH had to take them to the doctor in Tulsa. Thank goodness we have BC/BS and had an in network doctor there. It was $50 in copay for each, then $26 for the meds for them. Poor guys. We've been really lucky though, this is only their 3-4 sick visit to the doctor in their lives.

DH's dad gave him $100 to help pay for the gas to get to the funeral. It doesn't pay for all the gas, but it was unexpected and helpful.

The family is still recovering from the death. I think we're the least touched by it. DH's grandmother wasn't that nice to us, we were never more than acquaintances to her (this goes back to the way she treated FIL, dh was just a byproduct of that). We've been asked if we would like anything of hers (and in the same breath told not to expect anything).

I don't know, I think I might feel a little hypocritical taking anything from them. But, I guess it would be nice for my boys to have something of hers. They weren't old enough to realize that she shunned them in favor of the other great grandkids (that and we limited their contact to a certain extent).

I would love to participate in the $20 challenge, but I'm having a hard time coming up with something to do.

Yesterday when I was at the library I checked out their book sale. They have a lot of books that were donated and are in great shape (no writing, etc). I wrote down ISBNs on about 7. I tried to choose a mix: textbooks, new bestsellers, "classic" authors, etc. Ebookdrop was not accepting any of them and half.com had 2 dozen listings and none of them for the amount it would cost.

So I'm thinking books are not the way to go, at least here.

I live in an area where services are cheap, cheap, cheap, so that's not an option.

We have local flea markets where they bring things from across the border, so handknit items won't sell for enough to even pay for the fiber.

I'm stymied. I'd like to participate but every thing I think of turns out to be impractical.

One idea I am considering is recycling junk mail into plantable cards (homemade paper with flower seeds added). Since the cards are made to be planted, you don't have to worry about acid-free, etc. I can get access to scrap paper, already shredded, at work. But, I'm not sure if I can buy the equipment for papermaking for $20. The seeds also aren't an issue. Seeds are really cheap and I have access to tons of free seeds.

I need to talk to a couple of people in town, I have a friend with a booth at "Market Days" and I know the owner of a gift shop. I'll speak to them to see if this is something they'd be willing to carry for me. Then I need to figure out how we can get the equipment for papermaking. I have an old blender that I can use for the slurry, it's the vats and screens I'd need to get.

Another idea I had was to start mystery shopping again. I've been looking at my sites and so far they haven't had any shops that would be worthwhile. One shop requires a minimum $75 purchase (which you can return, but I find that returns take so long that I end up making about 50 cents/hour). The others are 30 miles away and with gas being what it is, the fee would barely cover the gas.

I took my car in for its oil change today. I go with a local guy I can trust to do good work and to check all my levels. He also replaced my burnt out brake light - $36.

Then they gave me the bad news. My car will not pass inspection without some emissions work. There are several leaks along the bottom. He told me the muffler shop I should take it to (they don't do muffler work there). He says it should be under $100 and realistically more like $25-40. So, that's somewhat of a relief. I actually expected it to need some work there, they told me it barely passed inspection last year.

When I got there, I realized I could see the library across the town lake (water treatment lake, not very large at all). When they said it would take 45 minutes or so, I decided to walk to the library (I had my books in the car). Good idea, EXCEPT, I was wearing my calf high, 3" heel, boots. The library was probably a good half mile away (longer because instead of going the short way, I accidentally went the long way). I now have a blister on my big toe, but it's not some place that really gets pressure when I walk in normal shoes (I think the socks must have bunched up between the pad of my toe and the ball of my foot, because that's where the blister is).

And did I mention it was HOT today? 80s. And I was dressed for work in a cold office. So much fun. But now I have books to read and life is good.

Between moving and the holidays, I lost track of our spending, etc.

This could be disastrous, but for once we've been doing pretty well. Our spending was actually under control last month (even with purchasing plane tickets and new blinds for the new house).

So, I deposited checks today and realized that we are holding way too much in checking (no interest) and not enough in savings (low interest). So I just remedied that.

I got notice that there will be an estate auction this month, so I'm going to hold off sending extra money to debt until I see what they are selling. We need some chairs - we have a futon and an office chair and that's it. So, we'll see if there is anything suitable that doesn't get out of hand. The best part, if the auction is at the home of the estate, it is within walking distance.