Cercis' Journal

Argggh, I'm sick-ish. I have a sore throat, slight fever and a sore back. I've tried some of the home remedies but what has always worked best for a sore throat for me is a soda. I think it's the sodium and fizzy (I think the fizzy overstimulates the nerve endings and then it just feels like it doesn't hurt as much - but it's just a theory).

So, I spent 65 cents on a can of Dr Pepper. And I did feel better for 4 hours. Until I picked up my kids and had to start raising my voice to be heard over their bickering. It might be psychosomatic, but hey, whatever works. Too bad it was so expensive though.

DH has to work late tonight so me and the boys will do a pickup meal. I have some pizza leftover from their treat which will be great for them. For myself, I'll probably have refried beans with chili and cheese.

Confession - DH does almost all the cooking. I rarely, if ever cook. I hate to cook. Except, I don't mind making beans and baked goods. It works well for us, he likes to cook, he's good at it and he likes the things I make in bulk to use as ingredients for meals.

Frivolous spending - $0.65

I live somewhere where it gets really, really hot in the summer. So hot, you think you will melt if you even so much as turn on the stove. So, we do a lot of cooking for our freezer in the winter.

I've found that cooking a big pot of beans to make into refried beans can easily raise the temp of an 800sqft home by 5 degrees, and the moisture added means it holds onto that heat longer. Dried beans are cheap, the electricity (or gas) to cook them isn't that expensive and cooked beans freeze extremely well (they can get mushy).

Just remember, it's best to add salt after you thaw your food. Salt taste can intensify upon thawing. This goes for all herbs and spices in a way. They all change intensity, some lose intensity so much taht you wonder why you even wasted your time and money and some increase intensity so much you can't stand it. So, I generally keep the seasoning bland and add it when it thaws.

DH grills as much meat as his grill will hold (which is quite a bit), then he slices and dices for use in later meals (fajitas, stir fry, barbecue, etc). Cooked meat holds quite well in the freezer, especially if you will be adding more seasoning later.

Bread and other baked goods tend to hold well too. I haven't baked bread in a while, I need to find a really good source of whole grain flour and a good recipe for whole grain bread - but once I do that, I plan to start baking again. Days when I cook beans would be perfect for bread baking - the extra heat and humidity will really jumpstart the yeast.

We walked to the grocery store today (I'm loving this being close enough to walk). It was cool-ish today, 56F, but when you start walking, you really get warmed up.

I'm out of steel cut oats and the grocery store doesn't carry them. They have all the rolled oats you could ever want - but no steel cut oats. It's so frustrating.

But we got bananas, milk and veggies for the week. We threw in a treat for the kids (cheap, store-brand pizza which was on sale) and then walked on home. We have meat stocked from buying beef and lamb from my in laws. We also buy free-range chicken when we find it on sale (but they're starting to raise chicken, so maybe we'll be able to get that from them soon, no more lamb for now though).

DH has an evening meeting in the city with the health food store, so he'll buy me some bulk oats. I'll also have him stop and get me some more yogurt for the smoothies I've been having.

We had a date set up with a family to go to the cheap movie. The movie is about 1/2 mile from our house, so we walk (I mean, it takes 10 minutes door-to-door, we couldn't get in the car, drive, park, etc in that time). We get there and the other family isn't there (I'm not sure what that was about) but we were going to see the movie anyway. Turns out the theatre was closed - they had no power. I called the other family to tell them not to bother coming and it didn't really sound like they were coming at all.

Oh well, we came home, made fake milkshakes for the kids (we passed a McD's and were going to buy them cones, but the machine was being cleaned) using yogurt, milk, chocolate ovaltine and ice and watched "Around the World in 80 Days".

I'm supposed to call her tomorrow to set up another movie, but I think I'll wait for her call.

I belong to a credit union in Oklahoma. We haven't really been able to use it for several years now (because we don't live in the same city) but we maintain a small-ish savings account there, accounts for our boys and my IRA (paying a whopping 2.5%). This year they had a great year and paid a bonus dividend. Because the dividend is taxable, the bonus on my IRA was paid into my account tied to the IRA (I had to open a separate account just for me). That account had the $25 I was required to deposit to open the account. I opened the account in July and I ended 2005 with $12.50 in dividends. So, that little $25 account now has $37.50. LOL.

I need to talk to my bosses about what paperwork I need to do to open an account in their profit sharing plan. From what I understand it performs very well. They buy real estate notes (for a substantial discount), collect on them (at 10-13% interest) and if they default, I foreclose on them. Since we do all the work in the office, we don't lose much. We have no attorney's fees - it costs the $9 for certified mail, $2 to post the notice of sale and $65 to record the deed and affidavit - so less than $100. We then have a real estate developer who sells the property for us for a discount on his attorney fees (he carries notes and we do the closings and foreclosures for him). So, the profit sharing plan is generally paying out at 7-8% or more (they do have some administrative costs). I haven't been there long enough to get a match, but in April, I'll start getting a match.

I love my job, my bosses are great. My co-workers complain all the time about how cheap they are, etc. They have no idea how great they have it. Having worked places where the bosses seemed to think their job was to reduce you to tears and destroy any self-esteem you have, I almost cry when they praise me. They trust my judgment and turn me loose all the time. "We need such-and-such, bring me a draft when you're done". They just assume I can draft the document and be right. And I surprise myself by what I can do. It gives me great satisfaction.

I've always hated oatmeal. I thought it was disgusting, all gooey and yucky. I loved oatmeal cookies (without raisins or nutmeg please), but oatmeal itself - YUCK.

I've discovered steel-cut oats. They aren't as cheap as rolled oats, but they are soooo good. They have a nice chewy, nutty texture and flavor. Not gooey at all. A new frugal breakfast.

They take longer to cook (20 minutes or more) but they store very well in the fridge. So you cook a big pot at night, put them in a container and stick them in the fridge. In the morning, get up, dish out your bowl and heat it up in the microwave. And if you do it right, you can make 3 days' worth at a time.

Now I just need to figure out which fruit to add. I have frozen strawberries and blueberries. Both are very large, so they'd be an overpowering flavor. I want something with a simple flavor, apples would be nice, but I don't want to take the time to cut them up every morning.

We've been doing really well with our diet. I cooked a big pot of beans for refried beans tonight. Beans are high in protein, high in fiber, high in folate and low in fat (especially the way I cook them - I don't add fat or meat). When mashed into refried beans they freeze well.

I've found that if I cook beans on a cold day, my whole house is nice and toasty warm. The added hot steam makes such a huge difference - you have the heat from the steam. Plus, adding moisture to air allows it to hold heat better.

Our grapefruit tree produces the most amazing grapefruit. This helps with the diet and the pocketbook - even though grapefruit are cheap here. It seems like you see citrus stands everywhere this time of year. Last year I experimented and found that you can freeze orange slices and they taste great later. They make a great treat for those hot summer days, or you can use them in smoothies.

We've been doing great with exercise too, but I woke up with a major crick in my neck this morning, so I can't hardly move my head today. I need to exercise, but I want to cry every time I move. I even took an aleve at work today and it did nothing.

JCPenney's clearance was a discount from the sales price and the way they ring it up makes it somewhat confusing. It rings up the regular price, then the sales discount, THEN the clearance discount and it does it with lots of starts and stops. So it won't move and then suddenly it prints 5-6 items at a time. We finished the clothes shopping before I went to the shoes and while I was trying on shoes,dh was looking over the receipt and noticed we hadn't gotten the clearance discount on one item. That ended up being $6.49. So we trotted over to the customer service desk and got our money back.

Then, we went grocery shopping. DH picked up some hotdogs on sale but they didn't ring up on sale. We called it and waited while they did a price check and fixed the price (unfortunately, our grocery store doesn't have a policy like some stores - where if it rings up wrong it's either free or discounted).

So, DH saved us almost $10 yesterday.

I don't remember if I posted this here or not. But last week we walked to the library (1 mile there) and found out they were closed "until further notice" for electrical work. I finally called and found out they opened right after we were there (you'd think they could have dated the sign so we'd know if it was a new sign). So, when dh got off work, we walked to the library and I got new books!!!! I'm so excited, new books.

We lost power last night, right after I posted. It was off for 3 hours. I was starting to worry about the food in the fridge, we had just gone grocery shopping and I didn't want to lose that food/money. But, I got to take a bath by candlelight (it wasn't an electrical storm, just wind) and then read by candlelight. It was pretty nice, but I don't think it's something I feel the need to repeat. Burning a compact fluorescent is probably cheaper than candles (even though we buy the xmas ones on clearance).

JCPenney's is having a clearance sale today. While the prices aren't as cheap as I could have gotten at the thrift store, the clothes fit and are today's style. I got 3 pairs of slacks, some new boots and another dressy-ish shoes.

We bought the boys pants and long-sleeved shirts for next year.

So, I've spent all my xmas money. But I'm so excited, this is the first time in years I have clothes that look like they're from this decade.

We're doing really well in our other goals, though. We haven't eaten out at all and we have had 4 no car days so far. We've been walking to the grocery store a lot, though, so our grocery bill is probably pretty high. I need to gather receipts and add them up, but I'm still not organized from moving.

It wasn't a bad spending day, but it wasn't the most frugal. My kids have a friend at school they both love. I get along well with his mom and dh gets along well with the dad. So they were begging to do something together, but our house is so not ready for guests yet. So, I suggested the movie theatre. It's $1.50 for a ticket and (I thought) you can get a "movie meal" (small popcorn, soda and candy) for $2.75. No, turns out, the movie meal is $4!!! For next to no food. But, I had promised the kids, so we spent more on the snack than the tickets.

We saw Zathura. I thought it would be silly, but it was actually pretty good. Very touching. AND, we walked to the theatre (it's a 7 minute walk, it probably would have taken that long to get in the car, get the kids buckled, drive there, find a parking space, etc).

I changed my withholding at work, so my paycheck went down. We're going to owe pretty big this year, I just hope not so much that we have to pay a penalty. DH had his withholding set to the level of me not having a job and I set mine following the guidelines of us both having a job, so too little was withheld. When we get our w-2s I'll check to see if we'll be close with the new withholding and adjust accordingly.

I'm still on my diet, but I moved to phase II so I can now have fruit!!! Fruit, glorious fruit. DH is so amazingly sweet, he makes me a fruit smoothie every morning. I really need to figure out something special I can do just for him. I used to bake for him, but this diet doesn't really allow for most baked goods (when we move to phase III, I'll figure out how to make him whole wheat pizza crust, etc.

I got nothing accomplished today. Well that's not entirely true, I did get our cable bill paid and set up to draft automatically and I changed my address with my credit card.

But, I've got clothes in the washer that have been there forever, so now I need to rewash them (soured - it's hot here). I'm just hoping that it will be warmer tomorrow morning because I can't for the life of me find any of DS1's pants or my slacks and this morning it was COLD (44F).

I've been keeping track of the money I bring in at work (for the firm). Does anyone have an idea what percentage of my income I should be bringing in? Like if I make $2k/month should I bring in $6k, $10k, more, less, some number in between? I want to have an idea if I'm profitable for them and to what extent so when I've been there a year I can successfully negotiate for a raise.

Speaking of work, my boss will be gone tomorrow mid morning and won't come back until Monday. I'm looking forward to actually getting some work done without him coming to me every few minutes to ask if I've remembered to do x, y or z (things that need to be done, but aren't as pressing as other things) and to tell me to repriortize everything.

I didn't want to eat all day long, I wasn't hungry at all. So I started forcing myself to eat so I could at least hit 1200 calories today and now I'm starving. But nothing sounds good at all. Except chocolate, toast and jam, etc. All things not allowed on my diet.

We walked to the grocery store today. I think it's a mile round trip. Not a long walk, so I'm not going to get my hour of exercise today. I just can't bring myself to do yoga or dance right now.

DH bought me 4 new pairs of yoga pants today. I got some for xmas (2 pair) and I've been washing them so that I could wear them every day (after I change from work). I love these pants. They're long enough to actually reach my feet and they cling without looking clingy - no panty lines. He also bought a bunch of veggies. We just walked to the grocery for milk, cream cheese and yogurt. I'm so ready for phase II and some smoothies for breakfast. I may just scream if I have to eat any more eggs for breakfast.

DH didn't change the address with his work to get his check to our new address. And, with one thing and another, I didn't get the forward order in early enough for the move, so we've not gotten any forwarded mail. Which includes his check. We've been lucky, none of the bills have been due yet, we got some xmas money and I have a paycheck, but we were getting a little worried - if that were lost, we would be fine, but things would be a little bit harder than they needed to be.

But, it came today.

I'm so glad 1) we no longer live paycheck to paycheck and 2) it finally came!

We immediately walked to the bank to put it in the account and get the address changed there. All the way, the kids whined about being tired, etc. But when we walked back, we walked back a different way and came back by the park. Guess who had plenty of energy to run and play tag, etc? You guessed it. I had enough energy to get on the swing for about 5 minutes and then my hands started hurting.

DH found wood blinds at linens 'n things for $15. Ones just like we wanted. Unfortunately, they only had enough to cover one window, not the 2 we have. He went ahead and bought what they had in the hopes that we can eventually find ones that match. I've got emails out to family members asking them to check their local stores (what family lives near a store). We'll see.

Major accomplishment for today. I finished the shelf paper in most of the cabinets (there is one that is a good 3 feet back beyond the door and that will just have to wait to be papered), so DH unpacked and set up the kitchen. There are a ton of cabinets in this kitchen. I went through 3.5 rolls of contact paper and I patchworked to use the odd shaped pieces.

After we were mostly done, we decided to walk to the library. Preliminary map results showed that it was 2 miles, but when we were walking, we realized we could cut across a parking lot and then walk down an alley and then we saw that the dead end street we were going past had a sidewalk that went right to the library's back parking lot. Woo-hoo. I checked it out on google earth and it ended up being only a mile away. But, bummer, the library is closed until further notice for electrical repairs. So, I don't know what I'm going to do for reading material, I guess I'll make dh unpack the books next. Of course, we have no shelves to unpack them to, so we'll be spending money to buy them (I'd thought about having some built to exactly fit the space, but we can't find anyone who is willing to take on such a small project).

We walked back and decided to go into big lots since it was right there (and the cheap movie theatre is right there too, something fun and easy we can do as a family and walk to it). I was going to use my coupon for a free pound of cat food (do you know how hard it is to find a 1lb bag of cat food?) but they don't take coupons, so we just got some hot sauce for dh and walked back home.

It was just a little over 2 miles total (since we walked back a slightly longer way) and we were gone for about 1.5 hours - 30 minutes was shopping. Good exercise day.

When we got home, dh fixed the grill (we bought it knowing that one of the legs needed to be welded, but have used JBweld on it when it breaks) and then grilled some wonderful fajita meat. Oh, it was soooo good. We haven't grilled in a year (when we moved down here, the rental house didn't have a covered area for grilling) and this was great. He also grilled some peppers and onions. We didn't say a word, we were too busy eating. I told him "my tongue is trying to convince my stomach that it can hold more".

Well, we didn't run any errands, but we did walk to the furthest park. And it was so not worth it. I mean the walk was worth it, but the park was lame. Only one swing and a play area for litle kids. We walked around some more and found 3 more swings, 1 by itself and then we found 2 together.

We walked back a different way to figure out what is within walking distance. In addition to the grocery and KMart, we have sonic, pizza hut and a gas station.

We think we're going to try the library tomorrow. I'm not sure how that will work, we don't have locks for the bike, so we'll have to walk. Carrying 10 books. 2 miles. Each way. With 2 kids. That might be a bit of fun.

Thanks for the suggestion for the diet, but I'm doing south beach which doesn't allow fruit during the first phase. All the veggies I want, but no fruit. Unfortunately, I don't like most veggies so I'm forcing myself during this first phase. I remember last time we did this (2.25 years ago) after the first phase, apples were so sweet they actually made me sick to my stomach. Milk chocolate was gross, but semi-sweet chocolate was still the food of the gods.

Okay, so not really. It did get down into the 40s this morning/last night, but by afternoon it was up to 70s.

Tomorrow we plan a no car day. We want to bike to the library (assuming DH did buy the cable locks and I don't see that on the receipts, so I'm betting he didn't). If we don't do that, we will bike to the nature park and ride the trails. Maybe even walk to the city park which is a little over a mile away.

We'll also need to do some grocery shopping, so we'll walk up to the store. I'd like a whole no car weekend, but we'll see how that goes.

I've stuck to my diet for 5 days now. I'm jonesing for some sugar and chocolate in a major way. But the idea is to try to break my body of its dependency on those chemicals. It's sooo hard. I don't do artificial sweeteners, so I've had nothing sweet, at all. Today they had cookies and candy for three kings' day, and they were right there where I had to walk past them. I didn't get a whole lot of work accomplished today because I was spending so much effort resisting.

Today the kids and I walked to the park. I'm trying to kickstart my exercise and walking is one way to do it. Unfortunately, it only takes 5 minutes to walk to the park. So while the kids ran and played, I walked around picking up trash (community service right?) and that took all of 5 minutes. So then I sat and weeded the play area for about 30 minutes (more community service, every weed I pull out is a little less toxic weed killer they have to use).

It was flat warm here today. Over 80. So, I made the kids wear their hats (new for xmas from grandma) and took water. I found a screwdriver on the way there (and stuck it in my backpack, leading dh to ask me why I was carrying a screwdriver - "feeling unsafe?"). I picked it up figuring you can't have too many screwdrivers.

DH realized that when he was unloading the truck last week he took the wheelbarrow off and left it in the alleyway. It wasn't there when I got home, so between about 10:30 and 3:00 (daylight) someone made off with the wheelbarrow. Now, they could have thought it was a get rid of item, but since we are moving, I suspect it was more of a "I'm going to get it before they change their mind or realize" thing. So, so far we've lost a dryer and a wheelbarrow. So frustrating. And we moved into what is supposed to be a good neighborhood.

We now live right at a half a mile from the grocery store and kmart (and the grocery store is a good one with decent prices). So today, we realized that we had no idea where our sauerkraut is (gotta have sauerkraut on New Year's) and that we would eat what we had even if we bought new) plus we were out of milk, bananas and cold cuts, so we decided to walk to the store.

We took some water, our wallets and our plastic totebags (bought in Mexico for $1). We made a stop at kmart because DS2's sandals wouldn't stay strapped and it was driving him nuts and he needed new sandals anyway (first new sandals we've bought him since last year). Then on to the grocery store. Knowing that we would have to carry it all back with us made us a little more careful with what we bought. We got our milk, our cold cuts, some lettuce, sauerkraut and bananas. We looked at a few more items, but the sale items aren't things we use, so we checked out.

I'd call it a success. None of us are sore (we had several car-less days on the island over the holiday and those meant walking several miles) and the kids only whined a little bit. Next time we might build in a little more time and go to the park that's just past the stores.

I always forget how hard it is to paint.

We started with the kitchen. Since we couldn't live with yellow cabinets (I think I could have lived with yellow, just not this particular yellow), we had to change colors. We have these accent tiles in the counter, so they limited our choices somewhat. Green it was. The green wasn't my first choice, but it's nice enough. I'll need to paint the doors and drawer facing tomorrow and then do some touch up and it's done.

We also let the boys pick out the color for their room. Stupid home depot and their disney display. They had to have a disney color. Of course, it was only about $3 more for the gallon, but still. They chose "Buzz Blaster Blue". It's a slightly darker color blue than I would have liked, but, they love it, so ...

Every time we move we buy painting supplies. We have a painting toolkit put together so carefully, but we can never find it when we're in the process of moving. So we always have to buy new rollers, etc. We can usually find the smaller tool box, so we do at least have a few things, an edger, etc. but not the bigger things - the trays, the rollers, etc. I suspect that our roller and tray got thrown away, my dad painted the kitchen of the last house right before it went on the market and he hates to clean out the equipment, he reasons it's so cheap, you might as well buy new each time.

So, we spent $108 at home depot today. 3 gallons of paint, painting supplies and a pry bar to pull out the nails. Since I'm not feeling 100% we stopped and had breakfast buffet first. $17! Wow! Who knew a buffet could cost so much? I think next time I'll order off the menu. I barely ate 3 teeny pancakes, half a biscuit and a few potatoes pieces.

The house is coming together nicely. Tomorrow I'll pick up the kids, come home get us all a snack, change to painting clothes and go back to work on the kitchen and the kids' room. I need to discuss with DH what he wants to do - bring us supper or have us come home to have supper with him.

I've mentioned several times that we needed to buy an air filter for our new house to filter out the cat allergens.

DH bought a box fan ($10) and an A/C filter ($3) and then bungee'd them together. So for $13, we have an air filter which we can use later in the year as a regular fan. I noticed it was already working fairly well, the filter was beginning to collect the dust.

I managed to wash the window sills and get all the black cat oils off of them. Then I took the blades off one of the ceiling fans and really scrubbed them down. My mom told me that trick and I have to agree, it's the best way to get them really clean.

DH (still sick) took the cabinet doors off and sanded the cabinet frames. They're painted, but the chipped and the color isn't that great. I prefer wood cabinets, but I'll live with these until we have the money saved to redo the whole kitchen. We're going to paint them green, which sort of matches the tiles.

I made the kids dust and scrub. Of course, they could just play if they'd stay out of my way. I only gave them tasks when they were silly enough to come bug me.

It's interesting. That house is larger and has all tile floors and it's been empty for several days. But it stays warmer than this house. No heater over there, but I'd guess it's a good 5 degrees warmer than this house which has had a heater running.

It's supposed to warm up again on Tuesday. I guess we'll figure out if it gets too hot then.

I went to check on our new house and do some work on it. I went out on to the carport and realized I smelled gas. Okay, it's been cold here, so people are turning on their gas heaters, right? I go back inside and there is no smell in there, so no biggie, right?

I needed some hot water and couldn't get it to work, so I go check the water heater, which is in a storage room off the carport. I opened the door and the gas smell was strong. First I thought the pilot had gone out and so I left the door open to air out (the room is vented, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been).

I didn't think much of it, my mom and dad's water heater pilot goes out all the time and there's a gas smell then. Then I looked in again and realized something was missing. My gas dryer. The one I just paid $75 for. Sigh.

So, I look around and realize the thieves just cut the gas line. They did attempt to turn the gas off, but the people who installed it installed the gas line with a water line cutoff valve. So, while it would have cut off water, it couldn't completely cut off the gas. So we've had a gas leak, probably since Tuesday night. Good thing that room is vented.

I called the police, who were nice but realistic. I know I won't get it back, but we need the police report and the police presence to make sure if it is a neighborhood thief we are prepared to take action. The police promised to step up patrols in our neighborhood.

Then I called a plumber. 5:00 on a Friday. Amazingly enough I found one, he came right out, fixed it right up, lit the pilot on the water heater and only charged $48. Wow!

So, there's almost $125 I won't get back.

I am going to talk to the inspector though. He should have noticed the cutoff valves were wrong, we could have had an explosion. I'm also going to talk to him about not noticing that that room didn't lock. If we had known the lock was broken, we could have been prepared to replace the lock, or at least put on a padlock and hasp. Those are things I expect him to notice and report, especially considering the things he did notice.

Well to add to the whole house thing, now DH has flu and I'm not feeling the best. And it's cold here. Earlier this week it was 90s and now it's 35 and not supposed to warm up for days.

This is DH's first sick day since he started a year ago, so he's good. I plan to get as much done as possible tomorrow at work so if I need to, I can go home sick.

The one good thing about dh being sick is that he makes the bed nice and toasty warm. We got home, got the boys settled watching tv in our room, crawled into bed and promptly fell asleep, I had just meant to read, but it was the first time I'd been warm all day. The boys got up at some point and made corndogs for themselves and came back to watch tv. I woke up just in time to get them ready for bed. Well, at least they made themselves supper (I did make the younger boy some eggs, the older boy had a peanut butter sandwich).

We decided to turn the heat on. We wouldn't ordinarily have done it but with dh fighting off flu and who knows what the kids and I are exposed to, we decided a house in the low 60s might be a bit too cool for such a sudden drop.

We started the day with plans to go clean our new house. But then I got home and realized it was the first day we didn't have a visitor in a week. It was our first day in a week to just hang out and be lazy as a family. So we took advantage of it. Tomorrow we'll go clean. DH spent $32 on cleaning items for the house.

Tomorrow is supposed to be cold for here. In the 30s and 40s. We fought the AC all week this week. It was set at 84 and it kept trying to come on. And now, less than 2 days later, it's going to be in the 30s. Oh yeah, we'll freeze tomorrow. I made sure I could find coats for the kids and I. DH is on his own.

And we plan to go clean that house. Ohhh boy. I have one pair of sweats and one sweat shirt. We don't really want to turn on the heat until we've gotten a chance to have the ducts cleaned (did I mention that they previous owners had 6 cats?). I think I'll talk DH into taking our space heater over there. I've already talked to him about buying an air filter to work on cleaning the dander from the air. When I take down those drapes the fur and dander are going to fill the air. I've been thinking I should go over there with the boys in the afternoon and do that before DH goes over there (he's allergic to cats).

We still like the house. The old owners are out and we can start cleaning tomorrow and then get ready to paint.

The tree in the backyard is a grapefruit. I think it might even be a Rio Red. Yummy! My favorite kind of grapefruit. And it is covered in them. We'll have enough that we won't have to buy any more grapefruits this season.

Tonight was FIL's last day here, so we took him out to eat. The food was okay, not great, and the service sucked. I swear everytime we go there we are not going back. This time I think I may be able to get DH to agree with me (he wanted to go there).

Then we took FIL over to show him our new house. We got there right before they pulled out. I did decide to buy the gas dryer, that way we don't have to pay an electrician to come run an electrical line right away. We paid for the dryer and then walked around with them and made sure they got everything. Found one item they forgot and gave it to them. She left the drapes, including the ones she'd said she was going to take. She had 6 cats, so every single drape will have to be cleaned, and we may still end up needing to donate them.

1 Earnest money - $850

2 Closing costs - $6,029.08

3 Water hookup - $30.00

4 Electric hookup - $27.00

5 Gas hookup - $15

Grand total - $6,951.08

Not included - any moving fees (don't have them yet), deposits on utilities ($100), cable connection (dh will have to have his cable).

I won't include the utility deposits because we will eventually get them back.

Almost $7,000 and we aren't even in the house yet. I still need to call her to tell her we will buy the dryer. That way we don't have to pay an electrician to come out and wire the laundry for an electric dryer right away. We'll have to have a plumber out for the copper pipes into the water heater soon (I'd prefer to go ahead and do a tankless while we're at it, but I'll to see what I can get DH to agree to).

Then, we'll have to paint at least one room. We'll need rugs (this is all tile, remember) and dh has fallen in love with these bamboo rugs he found online.

So by the time we're in? $8,000 - that's 10 months of rent. Which, you know, doesn't sound all that bad, 10 months of rent versus a home I can do what I want to and build equity in? Works for me.

I'm watching TV.

I just heard an advertisement "do you want to make some extra money?" "Do you want to do something different with your evenings?" "Do you want to have fun and make new friends?"

Sounds like a great job, right?

It's an ad for a bingo parlor. They start with making extra money. Very, very, very few people end up making extra money at bingo. Most people are happy when they break even. Bingo parlors are just like casinos, they make money on every transaction. If they sell 50 cards, the pot will generally be less than $45. That's on average. Bingo parlors have expenses they have to meet - payroll, rent, supplies, etc. They will make up some of that in concessions and marker sales, but not enough.

If you enjoy gambling (and I'll admit, I find roulette fun) then it's an entertainment expense, which varies. When I play roulette (which has been over 10 years ago) I decide on my limit - usually $10. I play until that $10 is gone or for 3 hours, if after 3 hours, I'm up or have money left, good for me. But the next day, I stay with that $10, not more because I won the night before. It's entertainment money. I also take them up on any freebies they want to offer me - free drinks? Great, bring me a dr pepper (I'll drink every 3rd offered drink).

Now, do some people win at gambling? Of course. But most will end up losing all that they win.

Today we went to the beach. It was a little cool, but we hunted for shells and the kids played in the surf. I found some cool shells.

The plan for the shells is to make jewelry out of them when DH's family comes for christmas. There'll be 2 teenage girls, my 2 boys, my MIL, stepFIL, DH's aunt, uncle and grandparents. Most of the shells have a hole at the top that is perfect for stringing cord through. We'll hunt more while they're here too because I don't have quite enough for some good necklaces.

The day started at noon. We picked up FIL and my boys at the hotel (he had them spend the night with him, giving us a rare night alone). Then we drove to the beach. On the way we pointed out local landmarks and stopped at our favorite seafood place. The place where we can get all you can eat fish for $7. FIL paid (I predict our eating out budget will be lower this month). It was a nice meal. We ate on the deck and watched the pelicans and seagulls.

Then we went to the beach. We walked awhile, talked and visited. The boys made sand sculptures (we don't have buckets for sandcastles).

Then on the way home, I fell asleep with the youngest boy. DH stopped at some local fruit stands looking for avocados, but they were all sold out. He finally bought some grapefruit and meyer lemons. He makes lemonade out of the meyer lemons. I've been told it's a very subtle flavor, but dh never makes lemonades strong enough for me, so I haven't tried it.

We came home, watched some tv, DS1 and I built with legos again. I'm thinking it was past time for the legos. I'll have to keep an eye out for sales on legos. We ate leftovers for supper, leftover pizza and leftover enchiladas (FIL and I had pizza, dh and DS2 had enchiladas, ds1 had bean burritos).

It was such a relaxed, yet fun day. I need to find out what DH spent on the citrus, but that's the only money we spent today (FIL wouldn't even let us pick up the tip).

C

So FIL got here Thursday.

Thursday evening we went to eat at one of our favorite restaurants and used a restaurant.com certificate. We went during happy hour so the men could have a $1.00 margarita (and it was huge!). FIL paid, so I'm not sure how much it was, but the certificate covered $25 of it, so I'm sure it wasn't that bad.

Last night we went to a seafood restaurant that has a great special. Then, for entertainment, we went to the christmas parade. It had 100 floats. There were tons of people. I had no idea there were that many people in the whole area. I mean, in my hometown, you marched in the parade and then went to stand on the sidewalk to watch the people who watched you (okay it wasn't that bad, but close). Here, which is considered a small town for Texas, people were lined up 10 deep down the parade route. It was warm, I felt sorry for the guys dressed up as teddy bears, I've been in one of those costumes and it was hot in the 35F temp, I can't imagine what it was like at 70-80F.

Today, the guys all got up early drove to the "big city" for barbacoa. They had planned to go to the zoo, but the kids didn't want to go, but instead wanted to go to the park near the zoo. It is a cool park, I will say that. I stayed home and got some much needed rest.

When they came home, DS1 and I went to a bday party at the bowling alley. It's so hard to get used to "manana" here. We showed up 5 minutes late and were the first there. The dad was freaking out (which is strange, he's from here, he should be used to it), I reminded him about manana and told him by 1:30 they'd all be there, and lo and behold, I was right - by 1:30 the joint was hopping. I pulled a gift from the gift stash, which needs some serious refilling. I have lots of stuff for little girls, nothing for little boys. I used the last gift today and it was a huge gift. I had no wrapping paper for it, so I split 2 paper bags and used those. DS managed to beg a dollar from me for the games while we were waiting for everyone to get there.

After the party, we had pizza at home. DH bought 2 pizzas from Sam's. They were good. Then we watched christmas shows on tv and played with legos (FIL bought us 3 tubs of 1,000 piece legos). I helped them sort by color and then DS1 built some animals. He had me work with him on the more complicated animals, but mainly I just walked him through figuring out which piece to use. This is the first time we've had the small legos, so this is a new experience for us.

Tomorrow we plan to go to the beach. We'll have all you can eat seafood there after we've played in the surf for a while and worked up our appetites. I'm not sure what FIL will do for a bathing suit. It was so cold at home, he forgot to grab shorts or a swimsuit. Silly guy.

He'll be here until Wednesday. The old owners of our house are supposed to be moving out then. We hope to be able to show FIL the house before he has to leave.

Here it is almost December (or I guess we've rolled on into December now) and my lawn needed cut again. I realized dh wasn't going to do it, so I took a guy up on his offer. My spanish sucks. I have got to learn spanish. But he did the whole lawn and weedeated and all for $30. Pretty high, but much less than what I've been quoted. And now we won't have to mow again until we move out. Yay!

All the laundry is done. All the dishes are done. The house sparkles. Fresh tablecloth on the table. Pretty candle as a centerpiece. All ready for FIL to come.

We're trying to think of fun, frugal things to do with FIL. We'll definitely go over into Mexico. I know he doesn't like border towns that much, he much prefers the Yucatan penisula, but he'll deal in order to get the foods he likes. We found a taco dealer in Mexico who is devine. Yummy tacos and cheap.

He's staying for a week. I'm not sure we can fill a week, especially since both of us have to work. But we'll muddle through and I'll report back on frugal things we found to do, along with a cost.