I got into ABQ yesterday around 10 am and then after picking up my car ($24 parking for 6 days) I headed over to Costco. On the way I filled up my tank at $2.99/gal ($30.xx).

I spent around 2 hours in Costco. I picked up kitty litter, oatmeal, Amy's soups, Lentils, toilet paper, dishwasher pacs, brownie bites (cheaper than Walmarts), hummus, vegge patties, bananas, grape leaves, various veggies, cooking spray and a pair of gloves you can wear and still use your smartphone. All told .. $172. Ouch. The money comes from a variety of accounts though - groceries, household, Kari, and fun money.

Then I headed to Walmart (right next door to Costco )At Walmart I picked up floor mats for my car, a steering wheel cover, chair back massager (on sale), a dash mount for my phone (which I think I might return because I don't think it's gonna work), hand warmer (gift for next year - on sale), vegge corn dogs, various frozen meals, bread, a baking dish, cat food, OJ, some junkfood, sparkling cider (for NYE), auxiliary cable, etc. I can't find my receipt right now (must be in car) but I think it was around $130. Again, the spending will come from various categories - Kari, Fun Money, Groceries, Gifts, Car, etc.

**The groceries I picked up should give me a pretty good stash for a couple months. So I'm hoping that I can keep my grocery spending in January and February to $50 each or less. We'll see.

I received $250 in cash for birthday/Christmas money, so I used some of that to buy some things I'd been wanting (baking dish, aux cable, floor mats, massager, etc.) I also used some of it to do some major stocking up on food goods.

Kari definitely was glad for me to be home. She pretty much has not left my side since I got back.

In the mail I had the $1k check from the car dealership, which I photo deposited this morning. It won't be available until around the 7th. Once it's available, I'll send most of it to my car loan.

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I've been thinking about the advice I received on my last couple posts. I don't think I'd feel good about moving anywhere else as long as I still have debt. Plus I really would like to stick it out with the current group. So ... I think I'm going to give myself one more school year here. It would give me 3 years of experience, put me in a debt free situation again as well as give me time to build up a moving fund, and hopefully in 18 months or so I'll be on a more even emotional footing as well.

This coming ten days (including today) my goal is to focus on cleaning and decluttering my house/laundry/dishes/cooking ahead, (2 days worth of focused time), spend 2 focused days working on electives, spend 1 focused day working on final project, 2 focused days on work/school, and 3 days of just relaxation.

Next week I need to get Kari's nails clipped (sorely overdue!!), return the outfit I didn't wear, contact BofA about dad's estate, and possibly return the dash mount device.

Today I went over to teh PO to pick up my mail since I'll be heading out as soon as I can get packed and awake in the morning.

In the mail I had a birthday card from my aunt with a nice check in it, and a birthday gift from my mom/soon to be stepdad (book from Amazon.)

Tonight we had our Christmas program, an dit went pretty well I think. I made a video of it at the request of one of our staff members - although I don't know how good it is - there were multiple times where people walked in front of me, as well as just STOOD directly in the line of sight ... plus a portion where the people standing next to me started talking loudly about homework ... Should be an interesting video.

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Yesterday we had a snow day, which was really nice. I didn't get even half of the things done that I should've (like packing ...) but I did get some schoolwork done which was good.

I also received an interesting phone call (which actually relates to a piece of mail I received today which I didn't mention earlier.) The person who sold me my car called and asked me if I remembered how much I'd written my check for and how much I'd paid on my credit card. I told him the numbers, and he told me that they matched their accounting. However, the number I was given a loan for was $1k off! (This is because both the car salesman and I thought I was only charging $2k on my credit card, but the finance lady actually made a $3k charge.)

What this means is that instead of my loan being for $4,497 like I thought, it is actually for $5,497. I hadn't actually seen the full numbers/set up *until today* when I received my first loan statement from my credit union! I'm glad I got the call first, otherwise I might have freaked out a bit.

Car guy is going to send me a check for the overage amount.

I will put $650 of it straight towards the loan, and keep the remainder to pay Bofa if I have to (dad's estate stuff ... I used some of the money I inherited from his estate for the car down payment, so I'm not really using my own money to pay for the Bofa thing if I end up really having to do so.)If I end up not having to pay Bofa, then that money will also go directly to the car loan without hitting Go.


So, that is around 3 1/2 months of payments. Which will be quite helpful in my goal of paying off the loan in 12 months or less. (36 months term total) (My tax refund as well as 3 extra paycheck months will also be quite helpful.)

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I was buying some books for the library today on Amazon (using gift card money only!!) when I found out that my cash back rewards from my car purchase had posted. It showed I have a reward of over $75 available. Sweet. Guess what I'm going to do with that money? (No, it won't be spent on books for the library ... though I admit I was severely tempted ...)

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I am not really looking forward to either the drive to ABQ tomorrow, or to the flight tomorrow night. However, I am looking forward to eating at IHOP (only in ABQ not in either G town) and doing some shopping at the Schol Warehouse. I will *not* go over $125 in books (~$50 Schol Dollars, $50 approved purchase order + $25 coupon on $100 purchase.)

I'm also thinking that I might spend a little bit of my birthday money at Wal-mart and pick up floor mats for my car, and maybe one of those chair back massager units before they're stored away for another year. Something practical and something luxurious. Perfect combo I think.

So .. I'm 37 now. I had way too much time to think yesterday since I'd done all my running around on Friday. (which turned out to be a very good thing because the weather was quite bad yesterday afternoon/evening.)

I was thinking about whether or not I'm really happy with my life as it is. And if not, what, if anything, can I do to change it? Most of the time I like my job and am happy to be doing something that helps others. But then I wonder if this is something I can realistically *do* long term financially wise. I make less than 50% of what I'd make just about anywhere else at a public or private school with my degree. And sometimes the attitudes I get from certain kids make me wonder if by everything they're given, and everything that's done for them .. if we're not creating entitled monsters instead of actually helping them/giving them a step up.

And then I was thinking about how I've put myself into this isolated nowhere land where I am a minority among minorities (SDA white woman amongst a group of Catholic white teachers.) It in a sense is the ultimate isolation. It is in a sense a way of me saying that I've totally given up on ever NOT being alone. Sure, it's *possible* I could meet someone while on vacation somewhere, or someone passing through, but realistically it's not very *probable.*

And then I was thinking about the 6 month class I'm taking and about half-way through with and how much I'm really hating it. How much I wish I could just quit and be done with it. But I've already spent $3750 of my AmCorp money, plus another $150 or so on textbooks. I've made a big deal about it with my family. How could I quit it? (No refunds are available at this point.) If I felt like I was actually learning something useful and new it might be different ... but so much of it is a rehash (99+%) of things I already know how to do, or trying to BS my way through "discussion" questions about things I don't care about. I wonder how much of this has to do with how I'm dealing with my dad's death. Everything seems harder this year.

And then there's the whole situation with my mom and my brother. It is killing me. I feel like I'm on tenterhooks. Anytime I mention anything about mom to my brother, he then doesn't talk to me for a week or more. I told my mom that the best thing to do with him was to NOT bother him - to give him space. What does her fiance do? Call him and start crying and begging him to forgive and let go/make peace/come to the wedding. Boy was that NOT a smart thing to do. I want to tell my brother to think about how he's behaving and compare it to how our youngest uncle behaved towards our dad ... but then I'm afraid he'd be mad at me and cut ME off too...

I realized something else yesterday .. I have lots of "FB and internet friends" acquaintances and people I knew in other places .. but not really any real life true friends anymore. 3 of the people I at one time considered to be my *best* friends in real life didn't even acknowledge my birthday. Of course one of them I haven't had even a phone conversation with in years, a second one I've had no contact with at all since June (and that was a single text message with the previous contact at Thanksgiving a year ago), and the third one we've had hit and miss FB conversations. Seriously, if I were to somehow by some miracle meet someone tomorrow and get married soon after ... I really don't know who I'd ask to be part of my wedding. At one time I knew *exactly* who I'd want. I think I'd probably just elope to avoid the whole drama of how my dad's side of the family feels about my mom. (not that it is something I really need to even think about ...)

I wish I knew how I could actually change things. I wish I wasn't scared to death that if I went anywhere else I'd be totally exposed as not knowing what the heck I'm doing as a librarian and not lasting long anywhere else. I don't know that going anywhere else would really help that much anyway .. because like is said .. wherever you go, there you are. (Part of this too I think is the panic I feel at being in debt once again with very little cash reserves, so if I were to lose my job again ... )

I've thought about seeing if I could get some therapy or something .. but then I've tried that before off and on with no results. I had one person tell me I was a bigot because I wasn't wanting to date people outside of my faith (after telling her that I *had* done that with abysmal results.) I had another one that devolved into a book discussion - of a book which I had big problems with because of how the author dismissed God ( and the therapist dismissed my concerns). Then I also think of all the therapy that my mom has had through the years, and well, I don't see that it's done her much good. (Plus I don't really want to spend the money on it - seems like it is better to put money towards the car loan!)

I know I need to figure out something. I've been starting to cry at the stupidest things and stupidest times. Like last week when I got the email about the assignment I didn't know about being due that day - I was bawling as I wrote the professor about it. The assignment itself was ridiculously easy. But it wasn't about the assignment. This was in the library, just minutes before my 3 year olds were coming.

I wish I knew how my life had ended up like this. I thought I was being accepted here, but now, lately, I'm wondering if it's more of a tolerance. If people feel about me the way I know they feel about one of the other people here. Barely tolerate her. There is this one teacher who I thought liked me, who'd made many positive comments to me ... but I'm not sure now if she was being serious or being exaggerating (not quite the term I'm trying to convey... but can't think of how to describe it) What made me think this? Right before the Halloween festival she made a comment out of the blue in front of a large group of staff regarding the fact that I wouldn't be at the festival due to my religious convictions, and that she'd like to take off early herself for a Saturday afternoon mass. (Why she posed the question to me/the group instead of just the principal??) Then there's the many comments while getting ready for the Christmas dinner last year and this year where she singled me out to say how hard I'm working ... when everyone else was working just as hard. Maybe the word I'm looking for is sarcastic?? Up til she made that remark about the Halloween Festival, I thought it was strange how she was making those comments, but didn't really think much of it. Now though, I wonder. (I checked with my co-worker AL to see if she heard the festival comment the same way I had, and she agreed with me that it was weird.)

I just wish I could figure out how to make things better. This is not anywhere near what I'd imagined my life would be like at 37. Single, childless, pretty much alone in the world. (Yes, I do have family. But I have to watch what I say now to both sides. Mom - because I don't want to say things to her that my brother should relay himself. Brother/dad's family - because they have strong feelings against Mom.)

So .. I'm 37 now. I had way too much time to think yesterday since I'd done all my running around on Friday. (which turned out to be a very good thing because the weather was quite bad yesterday afternoon/evening.)

I was thinking about whether or not I'm really happy with my life as it is. And if not, what, if anything, can I do to change it? Most of the time I like my job and am happy to be doing something that helps others. But then I wonder if this is something I can realistically *do* long term financially wise. I make less than 50% of what I'd make just about anywhere else at a public or private school with my degree. And sometimes the attitudes I get from certain kids make me wonder if by everything they're given, and everything that's done for them .. if we're not creating entitled monsters instead of actually helping them/giving them a step up.

And then I was thinking about how I've put myself into this isolated nowhere land where I am a minority among minorities (SDA white woman amongst a group of Catholic white teachers.) It in a sense is the ultimate isolation. It is in a sense a way of me saying that I've totally given up on ever NOT being alone. Sure, it's *possible* I could meet someone while on vacation somewhere, or someone passing through, but realistically it's not very *probable.*

And then I was thinking about the 6 month class I'm taking and about half-way through with and how much I'm really hating it. How much I wish I could just quit and be done with it. But I've already spent $3750 of my AmCorp money, plus another $150 or so on textbooks. I've made a big deal about it with my family. How could I quit it? (No refunds are available at this point.) If I felt like I was actually learning something useful and new it might be different ... but so much of it is a rehash (99+%) of things I already know how to do, or trying to BS my way through "discussion" questions about things I don't care about. I wonder how much of this has to do with how I'm dealing with my dad's death. Everything seems harder this year.

And then there's the whole situation with my mom and my brother. It is killing me. I feel like I'm on tenterhooks. Anytime I mention anything about mom to my brother, he then doesn't talk to me for a week or more. I told my mom that the best thing to do with him was to NOT bother him - to give him space. What does her fiance do? Call him and start crying and begging him to forgive and let go/make peace/come to the wedding. Boy was that NOT a smart thing to do. I want to tell my brother to think about how he's behaving and compare it to how our youngest uncle behaved towards our dad ... but then I'm afraid he'd be mad at me and cut ME off too...

I realized something else yesterday .. I have lots of "FB and internet friends" acquaintances and people I knew in other places .. but not really any real life true friends anymore. 3 of the people I at one time considered to be my *best* friends in real life didn't even acknowledge my birthday. Of course one of them I haven't had even a phone conversation with in years, a second one I've had no contact with at all since June (and that was a single text message with the previous contact at Thanksgiving a year ago), and the third one we've had hit and miss FB conversations. Seriously, if I were to somehow by some miracle meet someone tomorrow and get married soon after ... I really don't know who I'd ask to be part of my wedding. At one time I knew *exactly* who I'd want. I think I'd probably just elope to avoid the whole drama of how my dad's side of the family feels about my mom. (not that it is something I really need to even think about ...)

I wish I knew how I could actually change things. I wish I wasn't scared to death that if I went anywhere else I'd be totally exposed as not knowing what the heck I'm doing as a librarian and not lasting long anywhere else. I don't know that going anywhere else would really help that much anyway .. because like is said .. wherever you go, there you are. (Part of this too I think is the panic I feel at being in debt once again with very little cash reserves, so if I were to lose my job again ... )

I've thought about seeing if I could get some therapy or something .. but then I've tried that before off and on with no results. I had one person tell me I was a bigot because I wasn't wanting to date people outside of my faith (after telling her that I *had* done that with abysmal results.) I had another one that devolved into a book discussion - of a book which I had big problems with because of how the author dismissed God ( and the therapist dismissed my concerns). Then I also think of all the therapy that my mom has had through the years, and well, I don't see that it's done her much good. (Plus I don't really want to spend the money on it - seems like it is better to put money towards the car loan!)

I know I need to figure out something. I've been starting to cry at the stupidest things and stupidest times. Like last week when I got the email about the assignment I didn't know about being due that day - I was bawling as I wrote the professor about it. The assignment itself was ridiculously easy. But it wasn't about the assignment. This was in the library, just minutes before my 3 year olds were coming.

I wish I knew how my life had ended up like this. I thought I was being accepted here, but now, lately, I'm wondering if it's more of a tolerance. If people feel about me the way I know they feel about one of the other people here. Barely tolerate her. There is this one teacher who I thought liked me, who'd made many positive comments to me ... but I'm not sure now if she was being serious or being exaggerating (not quite the term I'm trying to convey... but can't think of how to describe it) What made me think this? Right before the Halloween festival she made a comment out of the blue in front of a large group of staff regarding the fact that I wouldn't be at the festival due to my religious convictions, and that she'd like to take off early herself for a Saturday afternoon mass. (Why she posed the question to me/the group instead of just the principal??) Then there's the many comments while getting ready for the Christmas dinner last year and this year where she singled me out to say how hard I'm working ... when everyone else was working just as hard. Maybe the word I'm looking for is sarcastic?? Up til she made that remark about the Halloween Festival, I thought it was strange how she was making those comments, but didn't really think much of it. Now though, I wonder. (I checked with my co-worker AL to see if she heard the festival comment the same way I had, and she agreed with me that it was weird.)

I just wish I could figure out how to make things better. This is not anywhere near what I'd imagined my life would be like at 37. Single, childless, pretty much alone in the world. (Yes, I do have family. But I have to watch what I say now to both sides. Mom - because I don't want to say things to her that my brother should relay himself. Brother/dad's family - because they have strong feelings against Mom.)

So this morning I received two phone calls - one at 6 a.m. and one at 7:15 a.m. The first one confirmed what I already suspected - a two-hour delay. The second surprised me with -- Snow Day! Looking outside I saw maybe two inches at the most of snow on the ground - even though the forecast was calling for snow throughout the day.

I debated for a few minutes whether I should use this as an opportunity to sleep in a bit and do some housework/school work, or get all the stuff done that I was going to attempt to do after sunset tomorrow. It wasn't a difficult choice - especially when a co-worker agreed to go with me.

We started off by making our first foray ever into the local mall. I was actually quite surprised by the variety of shops in the mall. We checked both JCP and Beall's for an appropriate dress (royal blue for mom's wedding) and found absolutely nothing. Before leaving the mall though, I checked around to see if someone could put a new battery in my dad's train watch for me. The jeweler at JCP did it - $10.xx So now I have a working watch again.

My co-worker reminded me of the Cato's near Wal-Mart, so we went there to see what we could find. No dresses, but did find a very pretty blouse/tank combo and skirt in something pretty close to royal blue. $58.xx I sent a picture of it to my mom, and she liked it. I plan to look for alternatives when I get to ABQ next Friday, but at least I have something on hand in case nothing turns up there. (If I do find something, then I can return this outfit here.)

Next we went to the bowling alley. My friend had never been bowling before. I love to bowl, but am not very good at it. Unfortunately, the bowling alley was not open.

So we decided to go eat lunch. This was my first time eating at a sit down restaurant since this past summer, so that was very nice. I got a veggie burger w/swiss cheese and mushrooms, sweet potato fries, and a slice of cheesecake. Mmmm mmmm! The waitress put my friend and I's bills together for whatever reason - my friend already gave me $7 towards it, and will give me another $5 on Monday. Our total bill was $32.xx + a $5.67 tip. (I didn't ask my friend to pay tax or tip.) (This came out of my Fun Money budget and is my pre-birthday treat to myself.)

Next we headed to Wal-mart. My friend did her shopping for her students Christmas presents (using money donated for that purpose) and I did my grocery shopping. My first real grocery shop for December. I bought a few special things to celebrate my real birthday tomorrow. Sparkling grape juice and Russel's French Chocolate Mints. The total was around $40 - but included cat litter which had a $1.50 coupon on it. I need to crunch the numbers to figure out what the actual grocery cost was.

On the way back we saw gas for $2.98/gallon. I had filled up on Wednesday for $3.19/gallon. If I'd realized the huge price difference, I would have only gotten a couple gallons. Oh well.

We were planning on doing our walk tonight after getting everything put away, but the wind had gotten super bitter cold. So I'm hoping that tomorrow will be MUCH warmer. If not, I'll still have to walk in it in order to complete my pact for the week.

One thing I did not get taken care of today due to being out all day was calling my car loan credit union to figure out how to set up an account. I guess I will have to try them in the morning. (If they're open.)

When I checked my mail I had an envelope from my grandma - forwarding a piece of my dad's mail. I was kind of surprised I didn't have any birthday cards. When I saw the one from my grandma, that's what I thought it was. I think part of me was kind of expecting to see one from my dad... even though I *know* that won't happen.

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Throughout the day I kept getting alerts on my phone telling me the latest updates on the school shootings. I usually have my volume off, but had it turned on last night so I could hear when the phone rang for bad weather news. It just got worse and worse as the day wore on.

My heart is so heavy for the families who lost their little ones today, and for the families who lost a brother, sister, mother, father ... It is just totally senseless.

Today I filled my car up with gas for the second time since I bought it over Thanksgiving break. It was a little bit over 10 gallons and cost about $32. When I entered the information into gas Cubby I found out that my MPG was a bit over 33! Of coarse, when I told this to our nurse here she told me "You're going to cry. My car I regularly get 50+ miles per gallon." Oh well, I'm still very happy with my car.

I had to stop and buy some bananas again tonight. But I managed to get out of the small mom and pop store with only spending $3.86. So not as bad as it could've been.

I got my license plate in the mail today. So now I guess I have to go and find some bolts so that I can put the license plate on my car. The school nurse suggested I go to Napa and ask them if they have bolts. So I may just ask them if they'll put them on for me.

I still have not received my final account number for my credit union account where my car loan is. And I need that so I can set my account yet so I can make my first car payment ! I must give them a call tomorrow and figure out what's going on. I really don't want to have to worry about this when I go on vacation.

I'm doing really well was spending this month. I guess I needed the motivation of a real car loan to get me to finally stop doing all the extraneous spending. I just hope that I can keep up with that motivation.

So Saturday was the Christmas Dinner/give away. We had a record number of people show up - 1,123. Last year we had under 900. We'd planned enough food for 1,000. The ones after the first 1k got mashed potatoes, stuffing and cookies - the turkey was gone.

Santa's workshop was a different place than last year. I don't know if there were less kids, or if it was the new way they were having people come through. (Had to eat first, do your shopping, and then send your kid(s) through.) Due to the oversize crowd, we stayed open until 2 pm instead of 1 pm.

Although I was very tired and it was *very* cold, I went for my 30 minute walk. My legs were practically frozen solid by the time I got back.

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Saturday evening I made brownies, and on Sunday I made Cottage Cheese Roast and Corn Pudding.

I didn't spend any money since Friday that I remember.

Sunday afternoon it snowed - about two inches here. Very cold, but still had to do my 30 minute walk. Brrr!!

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Today was very busy at school, but the kids were well behaved. That was good because I wasn't feeling very good.

After school we didn't have a faculty meeting (well, we stood out in freezing air and talked for about 6 minutes ..)

I did my 30 minute walk (I couldn't log in to GymPact last night to change my Pact to 3x a week, so I'm still at 4x. Ugh. More snowy walks in my future.)

Then I got on my computer while I ate supper and read and surfed, etc. I was thinking about heading to bed and finishing TOUCH (last two episodes) when I got an email from my professor saying something about doing evaluations for the last two synchchronous sessions. That's when it hit me! Today we were having our first Monday session!! And I was nearly 90 minutes late!!! UGH! So I signed in and was there for the last hour. I was kind of lost at first, but then she gave us the assignment to create a google site, and that was easy. I hope the session goes online soon so I can see what I missed. I can't believe I did this.

I'm really wishing that I had NOT signed up for this thing. Too late now to cry over spilled milk, though.

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I found out that I am officially going to be going to the AmCor conference in February. Leave on a Friday and return on a Tuesday. Some people here are telling me that I need to get a passport to fly after Jan 15 since I have a NM driver's license. I've done some research on it, and can't seem to find a definitive answer. I'd really hate to get a passport if I don't need one... although I might need it in 8 years for my dream cruise, and a passport is good for 10 years if I remember right.

*The deal with the license is that NM gives out dl's to legal and illegal residents with no differentiation on it. So the Real ID law says NM has to shape up its act. Since it isn't likely to happen before Jan 15, that means possibly that a NM dl won't be enough id to get through airport security.

This whole thing seems totally bizarre to me which is why I'm trying to see if I can get confirmation that I'll really need one. The sooner the better for getting a passport, since it could take up to 6 weeks (unless I pay an extra $60 to expedite..)

**sorry for typos - cat is in front of screen and keeps returning every time I move her off

So Wednesday I chose the books I wanted out of the two boxes of librarian candy that came shortly before Thanksgiving break and added them to our collection. 28 books for approximately $500. Gulp.

I showed my 5th graders the stack of books and told them that they cost about $500 and that the money for them came from the book fair. They were duly impressed. The main books that were competed for (had to choose numbers between 1 and 25) were the two cookbooks, the origami books, and the drawing books.

I think I've done my duty adding to our non-fiction collection and updating the average age for this year. With the bit of money left I'm going to work on adding more graphic novels (which the kids *really* go for) and other good fiction. I still will add more non-fiction as kids or teachers express interest - just won't be so focused on it.

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Yesterday I was showing my second grade group how to do various things in PowerPoint. I was using the Smartboard (touchscreen) to show them how to do different things. At one point as I was looking around the room to see if the kids were following/understanding, I noticed one of the new boys touching his screen in the same spot he was supposed to click. I quietly went over and told him that they didn't have touchscreens, but that he had to use the mouse. It was just so cute and sweet.

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Yesterday and today most of the staff at our school worked on setting up for the Christmas Dinner. Today we had teacher inservice in the morning (which included a presentation on suicide prevention - white youth led in % of attempted/completed suicide per year, while Native American youth came in a close second! Sad.) The afternoon was working on setup. In Santa's workshop we have 3 huge boxes full of beanie babies. It was really cute/funny - one of the beanie babies had a sign "Prom of 1988" or something like that. The 5th grade teacher assistant jokingly asked the 5th grade teacher when his prom was - and then when he saw the year, he said that he hadn't even been born then! Yikes, that sure made me feel old! (It was funny how into beanie babies two of the teachers seemed to be - they were making a game out of seeing how many of them they could correctly name - and were getting LOTS right.)

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So, it looks like I might be making a trip out to the D.C. area President's Day weekend. All expenses paid. It is for the Ameri Corp program. Since this is my second year in the program, it is also my last chance to go. I wasn't planning on going due to my class I'm taking, but my principal talked to me today and sounded like she *really* wanted me to go. She told me that she thought I'd "be a really good representative for our school." So, I guess I'm going - will just have to make sure to find time to work on my class work while I'm there!

I also will have to see if a good friend of mine from high-school who lives near there can come see me. I haven't seen her since ... 1994? Yikes.

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I'll also have an overnight trip into ABQ in March for that same seminar on good children's books I went to last year (only for 2013 books.) That will also be all expenses paid.

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I talked to my mom tonight and it sounds like I'm going to have some crazy days when I get to TX. For the wedding I'll be getting a mani/pedi, haircut/highlights and my makeup done. (I don't even own hardly any makeup anymore since I rarely wear lipstick and even more rarely mascara ... so for formal pics, I guess I should go for having my makeup done.) Then Saturday late afternoon my soon to be stepdad is taking me and the other out of town guests out to Olive Garden. (Yum!!!) Sunday will be the whirlwind of getting ready for the wedding. Then Monday I'll be taking one of the guests to the airport and returning a bunch of rentals ... and hopefully have time to work on classwork (if I can get an extended deadline for the previous week's work.)

I'm thinking of going to ABQ as soon as the Christmas program is over and staying in a hotel -- that would get me in to ABQ around 9:30 p.m. Then the next morning I would need to find my dress and if time, stop at the Schol Book Warehouse (Winter Sale - have about $60 in Schol dollars to spend.) That way I'd also be able to park my car at the hotel while I'm in TX for just $15. If I can't find a suitable dress here in big G next weekend, then I'll probably have to go this route. If I can, then I'll just go in the morning and hit the warehouse sale before my flight. (and then also need to check to see if I could still park my car at that hotel ...)

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I stopped by the local mom and pop store this afternoon to pick up bananas and bread. If it was just bananas I needed, I would have made myself wait. But I needed bread to make my lunches for the next week ... I managed to get out for less than $15! I bought bananas, bread, two brownie mixes, 3 orange juice bottles (the 15oz kind - biggest they have), and a few other junky food stuff which will count towards my fun money. They didn't have egg salad sandwiches, otherwise I would have spent a good bit more.

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I finally got the paperwork from the place that owns my car loan today. In it, it says that you can have a deductible of $1k on comprehensive/collision. So I called my car insurance and changed my deductibles, thus saving me $30/6 months. I have to wait for the letter with my customer number before I can set up my online account with the credit union. I understand why they do it that way, but it is annoying. (I wanted to get it done and setup!!)

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It's supposed to get really chilly here the next couple nights ... lows of 5 degrees or less. Brrr!!! But no snow in the forecast for the near future.

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I finally watched my training video for the evaluating breakout session proposals this afternoon. It isn't too hard, and I'm looking forward to seeing what topics might possibly be included at the 2013 librarian conference.

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I received a $5 AGC from Swagbucks yesterday. So right now have about $60. I'm really going to try not to spend it for awhile. We have lots of new books in the library, so the money can just rest for awhile.

I got several loads of laundry washed, hung/dried AND put away (that doesn't always happen right away.) I also did several loads of dishes. Then I went and swept most of the house (still need to do some pre-work in the office before I can sweep in there.) Kari was getting anxious because most of the times I've gotten on a sweeping kick, it's been right before I leave her for a few days (or months...)
I don't remember if I mentioned this or not, but I got "paid" for my first week of the GymPact app. $2.30 for 5 workouts. Not bad. I also found out that the My Weight app can connect with the Achieve Mint app and the Achieve Mint app connects to RunKeeper. (All free!) The long and short of it -- every day I enter my weight, I earn 40 points on Achieve Mint. Every time I do an activity tracked by RunKeeper, I also earn a varying amount of points. These points can eventually be traded in for Visa gift cards. So I'm kind of double dipping with RunKeeper. (Plus it will motivate me to do more than my 4x a week pact I have with GymPact. I can and should do more - but wanted to give myself some flexibility.)

So far 1 non-spending day in December (today.) I'm debating on getting the bananas. It is hard for me to go in there and *just* get bananas. It probably wouldn't kill me to go without bananas for a couple weeks (til the 15th when I'll next go into town.) I have apples and oranges I need to eat .. so I could still have fruit ... just not bananas. It probably would end up saving me $20 to not step foot in there between now and my next grocery store run. Yep. I think I'll do without the bananas.

I have a bit of a dilemma with my 6 month course vs work. We have our Christmas program on Wednesday, December 19. I have a 2 1/2 hour synchronous session scheduled for Wednesday, December 19. If I miss the synchronous session, I will have my grade docked. If I miss the performance ... well, I'll be missing the performance of my kids and I more than likely will be assigned some kind of job to do since I don't have one particular class I'm in charge of. In other words, it would probably be bad mojo with my principal and co-workers. I'm going to talk with my principal as soon as she gets back (her dad died on Monday.) Maybe there's a way to change the date - I'd thought it was going to be on the 20th until I saw the calendar from the mission office.
Always something.

I was debating about what I was going to do with my Kinders this week - then I got an email from a librarian blog I'm subscribed to. I'm going to read them a non-fiction book about weather (which they're studying in Kinder class), have them draw a picture of something they found interesting, and then write their interesting fact on a sticky note. They'll then copy it onto their drawing. I'll then scan the pictures and upload them into this digital story website, and next week have them record themselves "reading" their writing. Woot! Woot! That takes care of two weeks, and then it can be Christmas theme all the way! (Kinder is the hardest to plan for sometimes.)

I need to call the dealership where I bought my car tomorrow. I haven't received any information about my loan or the CU that took it yet. I'd really like to have that all set up - the sooner the better.

Before I left for church this morning I decided to go through the mail I'd picked up yesterday. One of the items was from the Loma Linda Uni Hospital talking about how to handle the holidays after a loved one dying. They've sent a number of things in the past 5 months.

Then after church today our head elder came up to me and asked me, "How'd it go car shopping with your dad last week?" In my head a ton of answers surfaced, but I calmed myself by reminding myself that 1. the fact my dad died in June is most important to me - so people on the periphery are less likely to remember that fact, and 2. I'd told him that my family had vetoed my plan to buy a cheap car, so he may have interpreted "family" as "dad" (which definitely would've been the case if he'd still been alive.

I didn't want to embarrass him because there were other people around, but I also wasn't sure if I should clear it up. In the end the only answer I could come up with was, "No, a co-worker came with me last week to car shop." Then he asked what kind of car I got, etc.

I got out of there as soon as I could.

Then I turned my car stereo on. The first song that came on (the Christian radio station) was "One Last Christmas." I had never heard it before and don't know who the artist was, but the combination of all the above ... and I just lost it.

I've already been dreading my birthday coming up here knowing there'll not be any silly cards with my dad's messy scrawl or his phone call with his signature "singing". Last week when I was car shopping I felt like my dad was with me in a sense - I wore his train watch. I know if he'd been alive that he would've made every effort to have come help me with it. That's just who he was. Monday I went to put on the train watch and realized the battery was dead. Then the whole thing with my brother getting sick this week ...

You think you're dealing with things ok and it's not hurting as badly. Then stuff like this happens. I'm ok really, just feeling sad right now.

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On a different note ...

I took my wallet out of my purse this past week to help me avoid spending temptations. It worked quite well - no spending the whole week (Saturday - Friday.) Today I had to pick up my prescription from Walgreens and planned to pick up a few groceries. When I got to Walgreen's I realized that I'd forgotten to put my wallet back in my purse! I had my debit card from BofA with me that I'd never used, so thought I'd try that. When I went to the counter, I found out that I had somehow or another signed up fro something called "express pay" and they had my CC info on file. I'm not really sure I like that, but it worked out for today.

I'll go to the mom and pop store tonight and pick up bananas and maybe some brownie mix. That'll be enough to make it through the next week and *really* force me to use my food stock.

Next weekend is our Christmas Dinner here. So I probably won't be able to make it to town at all next weekend. I have the feeling my grocery spending is going to be really low this month.

Thursday morning I woke up for some reason around 3 am. For some reason I decided to take a look at my phone - I guess to see what time it was. What I saw was that I had two text messages from my brother. I opened them up to see what he had to say.

They weren't actually from my brother, but from his landlord/good friend. He was telling me that he'd taken my brother into the emergency room for food poisoning. I texted him back asking if there was any news (the text was about 20 minutes old) and an interminible 30 minutes later got the text telling me he was ok - htat he'd gotten fluids and meds to stop the vomiting and was being made to walk around.

About an hour later I got a text from my brother telling me he was out and had orders to stay home from owrk for 3 days and NO WORKING OUT for 3 days. He was really bummed about that.

So I checked on him throughout the day Thursday, and he sounded like he was doing okay. I checked on him a couple times today, and he sounded like he was doing okay .. until the last time I checked on him. He said he was feeling worse - worse than yesterday and that he was talking to his landlord. I texted back if he was thinking he needed to see the doctor again .. and have not received a reply yet.

I'd tried calling our Aunt yesterday morning to let her know what was going on, but got her voicemail. I didn't realize that she doesn't check her voicemail. So I called her again a little bit ago, and then called her landline and finally got in touch with her. She's going to try to get in touch with him (or his landlord) and then decide what to do. So I bet she's going to go up there to stay with him, or maybe bring him to her house.

Ugh! I wish I wasn't so far away! I'm just SO very thankful for his landlord/friend. An ambulance had been called for him, but when they got there he told him he was fine. His landlord stayed - and that's when he got much worse and so took him to the ER.

Update (while I was finishing the above section)- Aunt got in touch with him. Said he sounded okay and for us to not worry. She told him if he got sick like that again, to call her and she'd meet him at the ER. Hopefully he'd actually do that. (she's an R.N.)

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Wednesday night I talked to my mom. She wants me to be an usherette in her wedding. I really, really don't want to - mostly because I don't like the idea of being an usherette. But I guess I'll do it - it sounds like it is really important to her.

She also asked me to make a list of 6 things I'd like for birthday/Christmas - even though I'd told her that the ticket there and back was more than enough and that I'd not have much money to do gifts. So am trying to think of things to put on there ... gift cards, haircut/highlights, warm socks... ummm...??? Money towards a remote car starter?? Money for car floor mats?? Auxiliary cable (to plug my phone into car stereo)?

She's having a lot of medical problems right now - stemming from the gastric bypass she had in 95? I think. She had a colonoscopy today to see if they could figure out what is going on. I don't know if staying obese for that amount of time would have had the same effect on her health or not. All I know is that I'd rather do it naturally - even if it takes forever.

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I got my first earnings from GymPact - $2.30 for 5 days.

I also found out that the My Weight app ties into another pay for success/tracking app called Acheive Mint. And that app ties into RunKeeper (which ties into GymPact.)

So I now have my walks recorded with RunKeeper earning me points/money in two different places.

Not bad if I do say so myself.

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I am looking at a $50/month plan with Tmobile where I'll be able to keep my phone - just switch sim cards. Unlimited data/voice/text. That would save me around $24/month. I looked at the $30/month plan as well, but that only has 100 voice minutes which wouldn't be enough.

I need to go in to Walmart and check more into the plan(s). (That's where they're offered.)

This would at least be a way to save a little on my cell phone until Ting can do iPhones.

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I signed up with PenFed for an account and their CC. The one I signed up for has no annual fee and 5% back on gas purchases. So this is the one I'll use when Chase and Discover don't have their gas deals.

I thought about signing up for Southwest Airlines card. But I just don't know if I could do $1000 in 3 months (to get the $800 in airfare.) If I'd known that I was about to buy a car, I could have gotten it early enough, and then easily done it. Oh well, such is life.

Thursday morning I woke up for some reason around 3 am. For some reason I decided to take a look at my phone - I guess to see what time it was. What I saw was that I had two text messages from my brother. I opened them up to see what he had to say.

They weren't actually from my brother, but from his landlord/good friend. He was telling me that he'd taken my brother into the emergency room for food poisoning. I texted him back asking if there was any news (the text was about 20 minutes old) and an interminable 30 minutes later got the text telling me he was ok - that he'd gotten fluids and meds to stop the vomiting and was being made to walk around.

About an hour later I got a text from my brother telling me he was out and had orders to stay home from work for 3 days and NO WORKING OUT for 3 days. He was really bummed about that.

So I checked on him throughout the day Thursday, and he sounded like he was doing okay. I checked on him a couple times today, and he sounded like he was doing okay .. until the last time I checked on him. He said he was feeling worse - worse than yesterday and that he was talking to his landlord. I texted back if he was thinking he needed to see the doctor again .. and have not received a reply yet.

I'd tried calling our Aunt yesterday morning to let her know what was going on, but got her voicemail. I didn't realize that she doesn't check her voicemail. So I called her again a little bit ago, and then called her landline and finally got in touch with her. She's going to try to get in touch with him (or his landlord) and then decide what to do. So I bet she's going to go up there to stay with him, or maybe bring him to her house.

Ugh! I wish I wasn't so far away! I'm just SO very thankful for his landlord/friend. An ambulance had been called for him, but when they got there he told him he was fine. His landlord stayed - and that's when he got much worse and so took him to the ER.

Update (while I was finishing the above section)- Aunt got in touch with him. Said he sounded okay and for us to not worry. She told him if he got sick like that again, to call her and she'd meet him at the ER. Hopefully he'd actually do that. (she's an R.N.)

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Wednesday night I talked to my mom. She wants me to be an usherette in her wedding. I really, really don't want to - mostly because I don't like the idea of being an usherette. But I guess I'll do it - it sounds like it is really important to her.

She also asked me to make a list of 6 things I'd like for birthday/Christmas - even though I'd told her that the ticket there and back was more than enough and that I'd not have much money to do gifts. So am trying to think of things to put on there ... gift cards, haircut/highlights, warm socks... ummm...??? Money towards a remote car starter?? Money for car floor mats?? Auxiliary cable (to plug my phone into car stereo)?

She's having a lot of medical problems right now - stemming from the gastric bypass she had in 95? I think. She had a colonoscopy today to see if they could figure out what is going on. I don't know if staying obese for that amount of time would have had the same effect on her health or not. All I know is that I'd rather do it naturally - even if it takes forever.

---
I got my first earnings from GymPact - $2.30 for 5 days.

I also found out that the My Weight app ties into another pay for success/tracking app called Acheive Mint. And that app ties into RunKeeper (which ties into GymPact.)

So I now have my walks recorded with RunKeeper earning me points/money in two different places.

Not bad if I do say so myself.

---
I am looking at a $50/month plan with Tmobile where I'll be able to keep my phone - just switch sim cards. Unlimited data/voice/text. That would save me around $24/month. I looked at the $30/month plan as well, but that only has 100 voice minutes which wouldn't be enough.

I need to go in to Walmart and check more into the plan(s). (That's where they're offered.)

This would at least be a way to save a little on my cell phone until Ting can do iPhones.

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I signed up with PenFed for an account and their CC. The one I signed up for has no annual fee and 5% back on gas purchases. So this is the one I'll use when Chase and Discover don't have their gas deals.

I thought about signing up for Southwest Airlines card. But I just don't know if I could do $1000 in 3 months (to get the $800 in airfare.) If I'd known that I was about to buy a car, I could have gotten it early enough, and then easily done it. Oh well, such is life.

So ... November was a spendy month. The largest expense of course was the purchase of my new to me car + associated expenses. (Car, extra gas expenses, Carfax purchases, and $8 of Fun Money towards treating friend to drink during road trip)

Although the groceries did end up going over the $100 goal mark, it was definitely MUCH better. I think in December I will be able to stay well *under* the goal mark.

Tithe and Offering were higher this month due to a 3rd paycheck, although I did take a portion of that back towards gas money due to taking care of the pastor's dogs. (Although considering that they lent me their car during that time period ... I'm not sure whether I should give that back or not. I did overfill their gas before returning their car (had just at 1/2 gallon when I got it - returned it with a bit more than 1/2 gallon.)

This month due to the car purchase, I had a negative savings rate. But that will change in December.

I had several sources of extra income this month. Sold my Honda - $200, 2 $5 AGCs from Swagbucks, 1 $5 AGC from Irazoo, $50 AGC from MyPoints, $30 babysitting money, $44.46 from Credit Card Rewards. Probably a few things I'm forgetting too.


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I upped my Fun Money spending amount for December due to my birthday coming up and not knowing what I'll need while back in TX over the holidays. (What with my mom getting married and all.)

You might notice that some categories have red balances in them. For all but one of them I just had the amount withdrawn from the available to budget amount for December, and one (Fun Money) I had subtracted from that category balance.

I did some major playing around with the numbers to find the extra $1000 I ended up putting down on my car that I hadn't meant to do. But, I was able to make it work AND still pay a $200 first payment (whenever I get the payment info set up!)

I've agreed to be an usherette at my mom's wedding which means I have to buy a new dress in the color of the bridesmaids dresses. Luckily it's a color I like, but I'm really not sure when or where I'll be able to find one!! (She has said she'll pay for it for me - but it's still a matter of finding one!)

A few months ago I opened up a new Citi card in order to take advantage of the Netflix free for a year promo. This made it so I had two Citi cards (I'd opened the first one a few years ago while in graduate school for some offer I can't remember now.)

So in an effort to reduce the number of open credit cards, I decided that I should go ahead and close that one. (Especially since I signed up for a PenFed credit card last night .... 5% gas.)

When I called about transferring my Thank You points to my new card and closing the old one, I was told that the points could not be transferred. So I had enough points for a $5 Starbucks card which did not excite me at all ... so the customer service agent added enough points for me to get a $10 gift card - Amazon unfortunately wasn't one of the choices, so I got a Macy's card which I'll probably give to my mom.

After that was taken care of, I was sent to the account specialist. I explained that I wanted to close my card and just stay with my new one. Short story -- I was offered 3,000 TYpoints if I spend $300 in the next 3 months. $300 in 3 months is something I could do - even if I take gas and groceries out of the equation. Maybe pay my car insurance and some other things that don't qualify for any of the 2 pts or 5% deals.

Now I guess I'll have to actually put the card back in my wallet!

I've come to the realization that I may have been losing out on cash back rewards by using my MyPoints credit card. For some reason the "2 pts per dollar" translated into my head into "2%." But ... it's not. The least expensive $50 gift card is 6,250 points. So at 2 pts per dollar (assuming that you only earned points through the CC) it would take $3,125 in gas and grocery purchases. 1% of that would be $31.25. 2% would be $62.50. So for the least expensive card, it is about 1.5%. But for the card I get, which is 7,600 points it works out to this: You'd need to spend $3,800.00 on groceries and gas. 1% of that would be $38.00. 2% would be $76.00. So the 2 pts per dollar works out to be about 1.3%.

Hmm... ok. If I'm doing the math right, it isn't actually too bad. Especially since they count Super Walmart as a grocery store, and most other cards don't.

Probably the smartest thing to do is try to spend pretty low during the times that none of the credit cards have the 5% cash back on groceries, and then during the months they have it, use that time to stock up on staples. (Now if I could just get myself to spend UNDER my grocery budget until a 5% promotion period happens ...) But then you also have to figure out if the extra 3.7% cash back is more than the extra you're spending in a normal non-Walmart grocery store. Need a price book for that.

I'm wondering though if I could find a better credit card for gas purchases though? (with no annual fee - I just don't spend enough on either gas or groceries to ever make an annual fee work out to my advantage.)

Well, anyway, just thinking here.

So last night I was taking a look at all my CCs and bank balances as I updated YNAB 4 when I noticed a pending charge on my Discover Card ...

I was expecting a $2k pending charge for the car, but it showed $3k!! What?

I looked through my purse and found my receipt from the auto dealership, and sure enough, it was for $3k, not 2k. After realizing this, I checked the numbers and realized that neither I nor the co-owner/salesman had noticed this during the transaction. The car loan is for the correct amount (I double checked!)

I'd been told that they could only take up to $2k on a credit card, so I based my check amount + cash amount off of a total down payment of $6k - 2k on the card.

Now though, it appears my total down payment was $7k! It's okay, I can manage to scrounge up that extra $1k before the CC bill hits, I'm just having to do a bit of whack a mole (emptying out various rainy day funds) to do so.

So my gift fund is zeroed out. I took 50% of my medical fund (enough left for my monthly prescription next month.) I hit up Kari's fund (her shots can wait til January ..) I reduced my next Roth contribution to the minimum, and eliminated my EF contribution for December. I also decided to reduce my first payment from $200 to $160, and took money from a couple other rainy funds.. All that plus cleaning out the last little bit of money in the source I didn't want to touch, will pay off the entire $3k on the CC. Whooh! I still have a small EF so if anything were to happen, I'd still be ok.

(I was thinking I might have to dip a bit into my ROTH to do this, but thankfully was able to do it without dipping into anything already put in to it!)

I guess I should have double checked the numbers!!

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In an effort to rebuild my cash reserves as fast as possible ... anyone think that I could get $75 for my Asus EE PC netbook? I bought it for $300 in 2008 I think. It still works perfectly, just the software is kind of out of date. (It would include a carrying case, mini mouse, and protective sleeve.) Or would that be way more than what it's worth now? (There isn't a Craigslist for our area .. not unless the person was willing to drive 50+ miles to meet me halfway somewhere ...)

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Btw - drove my car to church yesterday. LOVE IT!

Yep, although my preference on a Black Friday is to be snug and warm at home, today I braved the shopping frenzy and headed out to the big ABQ.

My co-worker NC and I left shortly after 8 and arrived at our destination a bit after 10.


What was our destination?


A car dealership!

Yep, I bought a car today. Gulp.

I test drove and looked at two - a 2011 Nissan Versa ($10,900, 35k miles) and a 2010 Toyota Yaris (47k miles, same price.)

When it came down to it, I managed to force myself to ask - 10,500 including tax, license, etc? When told nope - not even 10,900 including those ... my friend and I actually walked off the property. Nobody followed us or tried to stop us.

We went to a Jack in the Box a few streets down and had a drink. 30 minutes later we went back, and I bought the .... Yaris!

The big differences between it and the Versa: power windows, power locks, keyless entry, nicer radio/stereo, more get up and go, and THE most important of all ... it is Blue!

I put down $6,000. $2k on my credit card (offering 2% cash back for Black Friday spending), $285 cash (from sale of Honda, babysitting money, etc.), and the rest in a check.

The remainder is being financed at 1.99% for 36 months with no early payment penalties. After signing the paperwork, the co-owner/salesman said that it was the lowest finance charge he'd ever seen ($170 something.) I told him that I don't plan on paying most of it (the finance charge.)

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So now that I have replaced my car, I need to do three things:

1. Pay back the loan
2. Save money for car repairs/next car
3. Get aggressive with saving for EF

My monthly payment is $154 something. I plan to pay $200/month on normal months. Months where I have a big boost in income (3 paychecks, tax refund) half that big boost will go towards the loan. I think I should have it paid off in 18 months or less.

I plan on putting the next $100/mo in the car repair/replace fund. This is a 3 year old car. I have to be ready and prepared for any maintenance items that might come along sooner than later.

The remainder of my savings quotient will go towards the EF, as well as 1/2 of any big income boost months.

This is the plan until I have the loan paid off. After that, I have an idea of what my plan will be.

A few days ago my pastor asked me if I'd watch their dogs and cat again while they go on their trip to see family. I reluctantly said yes - reluctantly not because I didn't want to help them out, but because it is a 20 minute one-way drive.

So today I went out there to get the house key and to make sure the animals remembered me. On my way though I had several cars honking at me. Then I noticed in my side view mirror that smoke was pouring out from behind my car. I pulled into a different lane to see if it was really smoke, or if it was dirt. I also adjusted my side mirror to see if I could see anything. Nope, it was smoke.

I got to my exit and pulled off. While crossing over the bridge, my engine started billowing smoke. Huge plumes of smoke. I immediately pulled over and stopped the car, grabbed my purse and keys and jumped out. (I was slightly afraid the engine was going to explode or burst into flames or something.

When nothing happened after a few minutes I called my brother and told him what happened. He told me he thought it sounded like a cracked radiator and/or blown head gasket. He ran it by our Uncle who knows a thing or two about cars, and he agreed.

Some of you know the saga I've had with my car over the time I've blogged here. You know how many times I have resisted the idea of saying goodbye to it and getting something else. I've kept saying - just a little while longer. It's still a good car. But today ... was the final straw. I thought about putting in another $1k worth of work into a car that probably isn't even worth that much. I thought about having my dragged to the nearest Honda dealer (near Albuquerque) and then having to deal with it from far away. I decided enough.

I decided to send my car to car heaven. The junkyard. Maybe I could have sold it to some young kid who could have rebuilt the engine and shined it up for a little more than the junkyard gave me ($200) but I really don't have the energy for that. I need to keep my focus on school and finding my "new" car.



The head elder of my church was out on his copier run (he fixes copiers) and did a little leg work to find out a junkyard that would take my car. He also is going to work on finding a car in the area for my price range ($5k or less.) My pastor picked me up from the junkyard and helped me get everything out of it. He and his wife then let me borrow their second car until Sunday so I don't have to rent a car yet. (I've also been asked if I'd be interested in being an assistant treasurer for the church ... I said yes, as long as it wasn't *every* Sabbath.)

I bought this car brand new - less than 50 miles on it in June, 1997 in California. It's final mileage was 146,497. So many memories - especially memories involving my dad.

So now the search is on for a good condition, good gas mileage, small 4-door car in the $5k range or under. Wish me luck.

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In other news ... A few weeks ago I applied to be a reviewer for the American Association of School Librarians 16th program. Today I got an email telling me I'd been accepted! What it involves is looking at proposals for programs / breakout sessions for the 16th program and deciding whether they are a good fit or not. It isn't a paid job, but it sure will look good on my resume - especially if they think I do a good job and reinvite me the next time!

This afternoon my two colleagues and I set off on our mostly daily walk. One colleague brings along her dog Zoie (a huge dog, maybe a bull mastif?? but super super super docile and sweet.) We also had another neighborhood dog named Sky tagging along with us.

Sky is what caused our walk to be eventful. She is a good, sweet dog who had puppies in Septmeber. Her puppies are now all gone - either died, given away or humane society. She's gotten really friendly with us because JB who has the dog Zoie feeds her sometimes.

Usually she doesn't follow us out of the trailer park, but today she did. While we were walking along on the road that is just outside of the park, another stray dog came along the road - it looked like a German Shepherd. It was pretty harmless by itself - rubbed noses with Zoie. But then another dog came along - and Sky got separated from us. I was having a BAD feeling in the pit of my stomach ... with good reason apparently because soon we heard the high pitched whine of a dog in trouble.

NC and I both picked up sticks and ran toward the 3 dogs. Both of our sticks broke quickly - so I started stomping and yelling like a banshee. It worked. The two strange dogs ran off, and Sky came slinking back to us. I was glad she realized that I wasn't yelling at her.

We continued on our walk, and came across some more stray dogs. All of us yelled and shooed them away. One kept following us from a distance, but finally gave up (after I gave another banshee performance.)

I really like Sky - she is a sweet dog and I feel bad for her - even though she has a home of sorts, she's not really taken care of that well. But we really can't have her following us like this - who knows if our scare tactics will continue to work.

Ugh.

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I spent the majority of the day today working on a new website for our media center. This was after watching a ton of profesional dev webinars, including a couple on making websites with google sites. I hadn't realized that I could get Google sites to do the kind of navigation I wanted, otherwise I would've started with it a couple years ago. Oh well. I have the basics up, and now just need to slowly add the content.

*This was of course done instead of the housework, working on coursework, or working on electives ... I did get my dishes washed though. So that was something.

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I did also make brownies and bake up my sweet potatoes tonight. This necessitated a run into the local mom and pop store for eggs. I was going to get cottage cheese too for my CC Roast, but not at $2.51 for 8 oz!!! (when I needed 32 oz.)

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I saw this posted on FB the other night and thought some of you might be interested:

Friday afternoon my 4th grade girls were speedy woodpeckers in getting their books checked out, so we had about 10 minutes left before time to go home. So I decided to let the girls look through one of my librarian candy boxes and see which books they thought were good choices. They picked out around 10 - some of them were ones I had planned on choosing, and some weren't. So it was interesting to say the least. (I did explain to them that I wouldn't be able to get ALL of them. One of them asked me how much the books cost, and I told them - anywhere between $17 and $30. They gasped. )

Yesterday I made it to church on time (almost didn't because Kari fell asleep on my lap and I hated to wake her...) I actually stayed for potluck - mostly because I needed directions to the church members house I'm going to on Thanksgiving. We had a yummy sweet potatoes dish AND stuffing AND green cabbage ... some of my favorite foods.

I was thinking about going to a movie in town either today or tomorrow, but neither of the ones I was interested in are playing here (Lincoln and Alex Cross.) So I'm going to content myself with Netflix (currently watching My Boys ... 3 episodes in and not too sure if I like it or not.)

Today I also worked on my long term project for my class (6 month cohort) where I'm going to make videos showing how to create different Scratch projects and then put them all on a website which I'll then have to promote to various educators. (I wonder ... could I propose it as a webinar on Simple K 12 too? That might be kind of fun. )

I also downloaded the apps GymPact and RunKeeper. GymPact is an app where you make a commitment for how often you're going to work out during a weeks time period, and then you make a bet/stake for each workout (from $5 to $50.) If you fulfill your commitment, you get PAID (up to $3.50/week.) However, if you don't fulfill your commitment/pact, YOU pay whatever stake you made.

It is only available for the iPhone currently, and you have to use RunKeeper for tracking your workouts. Workouts must either be in a verifiable gym (not home gym) or be outside trackable by GPS and last at least 30 minutes/2 mph. If anyone decides they want to try this out, you can get a beginning $5 (and I'll get $5 too) by using my referral code: pecdelaura

I used it for the first time today, and it seemed really easy to use.

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Since I realized that I won't be doing a movie this week, I decided to use some of my fun money for eating out -- i.e a sub from Blimpies tonight. Sunday and Monday they have my sub for $5 / foot long. It makes two meals for me.

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I'm making microwave peanut butter fudge for Thanksgiving. It is a recipe that our first grade teacher here made for our Halloween get together and then shared with all of us. I'm thinking that I'll make half the batch just plain peanut butter, and then the other half I'll add chocolate syrup to and maybe some pecans or walnuts. (the second half won't go to the dinner ...)

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I cashed out my My Points today - I debated for over an hour between a $50 AGC or a Walmart card. The Walmart card would have been 100 points more than the AGC, but it also would have ended up not being spent on books for the library - and that's kind of what I have committed my My Points and Swagbucks AGCs to ... to help reduce my real dollars being spent on library books.

Today as I was going into the computer lab, I for some reason or another looked down at my shoes. When I did this, I noticed that the sole on one shoe was cracked. I was really hoping to make this pair of shoes last two seasons (winter) but I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that or not. I have another pair of shoes for work which I got from the Christmas Dinner thing last year which I haven't worn yet, so at least I won't have to go through the hassle of shoe shopping. That is something I truly dislike - almost as much as swimsuit shopping.

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On the advice of one of my co-workers, I bought some Rain-x de-icer last week. I've now used it twice. It works *great* at quickly melting the ice. However, both days it almost immediately refroze ... while I was on the road to work. The first day I had sprayed some windshield wiper fluid to clean the windshield, which I thought was maybe what made it freeze over. But it did it again today, albeit not so badly. I ended up driving about 3/4 mile with my window rolled down and my head stuck out trying to see. Not fun (nor very safe, I know!)

Tomorrow I need to make sure I get out early enough to do the deicing several times and see if that works better. (Or just scrape it normally!)

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This afternoon I stopped by the doctor's clinic and paid my balance. I had put it off for a while for no real reason, just hadn't gotten it done. $38.xx

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Yesterday a box of books came from one of the companies which lets librarians "preview" them, then send back any you don't want. I was expecting this box. My heart sank as I looked through the books, because I found *many* that would thrill my kids AND fit into my goal of upgrading the non-fiction. Of course the cost of the many would be upwards of $1k due to library binding.

Then this afternoon just as I was about to head out to the busses, EM brought by another box. This one also was from a preview company, but not one I was expecting. I also looked through it, and found many books I'd really like for our library.

Since I have nowhere near the approximately $2k to get all the books in the two boxes (plus it would leave me with NOTHING for anything else, except my pocketbook) I have decided to give myself a budget of $300 between the two boxes - concentrating on books which fit in the sections that desperately need updating.

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Today was our 2nd of 3 paydays for this month. It's hard to believe that half the month is already over. I know I lamented in an earlier post that I didn't think I was going to make the $100 grocery budget and so upped it a good bit. I still don't think I will make the $100 limit, but I don't think I'll go over it by too much. Especially if I can talk myself out of making stops for "just" a sandwich like I did today. Other than paying for my doctor ofice balance and a $5 donation at a bake sale last week, I have not spent anything since my last grocery shopping trip.

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Next week I'll have the whole week off. I want to do some casseroles that I can freeze into individual servings, do some cleaning and decluttering in my office, get a lot done on my elective classes, spend a day in the library and take in a movie (probably Alex Cross - love the book series!)

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Kari (my cat) is sitting in front of my monitor right now and refusing to be moved. So I guess that is my signal to finish up at the computer.

Before I go though, can anyone explain to me how to set a programmable thermostat? Thanks

This morning I woke up to the first snow of the season. It is still snowing right now - I expect we'll have 4 inches or so by the time it's done.

I went to big G yesterday afternoon to do my grocery shopping. The store (Walmart) was really crowded - I expect partly due to the impending storm, as well as possibly getting ready for Thanksgiving. One thing I don't mind about stores putting out holiday stuff early ... Terry's Chocolate Oranges! Yahoo! I treated myself to one.

After spending nearly $60 on grocery only stuff yesterday, I think I've decided that a budget of $100/month just is not going to cut it. It is just stressing me out to have that budget and then not meet it. So, I think I'm going to make it $175/mo and then try to keep it well below that. If I do, then it'll go to savings. If not, then no big deal.

I bought some de-icer yesterday at Walmart. If I wanted to go anywhere today, I could test it out and see if it really works. One of my co-workers swears by it. I'll wait til I really *have* to go somewhere though.

The storm hitting the West Coast is called Brutus. I texted my brother about it, and he laughed. Why? Our family had two dogs named Brutus - Brutus 1 and Brutus 2. Both of them were really great dogs.

I am glad for this long weekend. This past week at work wasn't a bad one, it just felt *really* long. I had a surprise visit by my principal on Tuesday morning when I had my 7th grade boys. Thankfully they were on good behavior! This was the initial observation visit. The next official one will be arranged. I plan on asking for her to come observe me with the 4th grade girls. She'll see plenty of interaction with that group.

We had several different groups of donors come by the school this week, dropping off boxes of donated books. It kept my assistant busy going through the boxes and seeing which ones were worth keeping. One of the donors asked me what books I would really like, and I told him *current* non-fiction. In the boxes of books there were two non-fiction books - one from 1958! and one from 1988. Ummmmm....

I want to let you know about a great tv show I ran across this past week on Netflix streaming. Warning - it is very saccharine and heartfelt - may be nauseating to some. 18 to Life - about two 18 year old next door neighbor kids who get married. There are only 24 episodes (2 seasons) but every 24 minute episode left me with a smile at the end.

My big bad spending categories - groceries and "Fun Money" i.e. eating out. Can't believe I spent this much on food this month. Maybe $30 of it was for the book fair treats, cupcakes for Halloween Festival, and candy for trick or treating .. the rest .. no justification. It's like I see that I'm trying to keep under $100 in groceries and my inner self goes NO WAY.

I have about $60 in cash right now, and will be getting another $30 or so tonight from a babysitting job. I'm going to use that money this month for cash. 2% back on my card isn't worth spending 2x my budget. Maybe I can actually keep in budget this month. (I will say that most of the groceries from my last shopping trip will keep me for a good week or more from now. Still though~!)

(Professional spending was also up there - that included books I bought at the bookfair, the iPad cover, and some books I bought on Amazon for the library.)

The bright side is that even with the overspending in some categories, I was still able to send $286 to my car savings account (about 22% of my net income.)

I would have made it with just one fill up if I hadn't had to run into big G on Tuesday to return some videos to the G-M District Library. They HAD to have them back to send out Wednesday morning. When I got to big G, I was running on fumes, so had to get gas and decided to just fill up ($3.45/gall) because it was a pretty good price comparatively.



In November I will get 3 paychecks. I budgeted the one I got on Thursday for November, and the other two will be for December. I was thinking about making a trip to ABQ during Thanksgiving break, but I think I won't do that. I will probably do a movie and go out to eat during that week though, but I do have fun money available for it.

I need to buy textbooks for my 3 electives, so I will have to take that out of the $1000 I have budgeted towards my car replacement category. Hopefully they won't cost too much, and hopefully I'll eventually be able to sell them again for close to the amount I pay. Then those funds would go back into the car category.

**I know I said I didn't want to talk about October's spending ... but I decided I needed to post it publicly. Otherwise I haven't really acknowledged the problem.

*I can't remember if I mentioned it or not. But I decided to cancel Ting for now. I just could not deal with the Android after having an iPhone for over 3 years. If they ever support the iPhone, then I'll be more than happy to switch over. Until then, I guess I'll pay the premium to keep my same plan. (I have looked and looked to see if there is anything else out there that would be cheaper AND assure me of not getting cut off if one month I use more data than usual. I've not seen anything in my area which gives me enough assurance to quit my grandfathered unlimited plan.)

First of all, I'm not going to even attempt to figure out my October spending figures. Let's just say I overspent in several categories. Sometime this weekend I'll work on catching up my October data, and decide my November budget.

Halloween was fun. I dressed up as a black-eyed P, and only had two mid-school boys be able to figure it out without me doing a lot of prompting. I saw a post on FB for another costume idea - plain white tshirt with the 404 Error Not Found message written on it.

Halloween night I went to the annual faculty get together. We all pool our candy together and take turns handing it out. Our trick or treater turnout was lower than usual - only about 450 this year compared to 540 last year. We were thinking it might have been due to it being a Wednesday night - church night for many.

Okay, now to tell you about Thursday.

Thursday was my first technology club meetings with the 5th/6th and 7th/8th groups after school. My 5th/6th group had 13 kids, and my other group had 6 kids. I introduced Scratch to them - a simple computer programming language. I had planned on showing them four different projects made by other people to help them see the possibilities - but the site just would not come up. I was getting very frustrated, because not an hour earlier, the site had worked perfectly fine.

So, I finish with the second group (both groups really took to the program and came up with some cool programs in just 25 minutes or so of fiddling) and go over to the gym. When I get there I find out that the phone service (including cell) is out - which explained why the site wouldn't pull up. At first we thought it was just our area, but then several parents coming from big G to pick up their kids let us know that it was more widespread. Cell, internet, and cable all were completely out.

I got home and was at a loss as what to do. My usual routine involves the internet, and sometimes texting. Neither of which I could do. I also had received an email earlier that day telling me that a new module had been opened on our class site. I couldn't do anything like that.

So ... I played around in Scratch for an hour or so. Then I decided to try and see if the Smartboard software I'd downloaded on Sunday would let me do anything with it. It would - so I explored it, and created a lesson with 4 different activities.

It was only a bit after 9 at this point. So .. I turned on the radio to one of the only stations here - Navajo nation country radio - and scared poor Kari to death with my umm.... dancing...

I waited to see if there'd be any news reports telling what had happened, and didn't hear any (unless they said it in Navajo...) Finally, around 9:30 I noticed that I had bars on my phone, and about ten minutes later, internet was back. Whoooh!

I can be very thankful that I at least had electricity and water!

-- Today I found out that some punks decided to dig up the fiber optic cable coming out of ABQ towards the AZ border to see if there was any copper in it to steal. There wasn't any of course, but thanks to their efforts, two entire counties in NM were without cell/internet/cable service for nearly 7 hours!

(I do realize that going without these service for just 7 hours is *nothing* compared to what people have been dealing with after Sandy. It's just that this brought home to me just HOW reliant I/we are on these technologies - and how easily they can be thrown off.)

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I was going to go into town today and do some grocery shopping, but then I realized that it wasn't really necessary after my last shopping run + I was thinking that it might be a bit crazy with it being the beginning of the month AND no shopping possible yesterday afternoon.

Well the school site finally started working again late this afternoon. I was thankful to see that the one assignment I thought was due this coming Tuesday is actually not due til NEXT Tuesday. I may actually be able to go to the faculty Halloween get together on Wednesday after all.

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I didn't get too much really accomplished today - between trying to download Smartboard software to my computer, playing with Scratch, and trying to work on school stuff ...

I did get a load of dishes done though. That's good.

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I got an email this evening from ING. It's subject line was "Earn $350 when you Rollover your Old 401K" When I saw that, I went, "Woo Hoo!" This is a good reason as ever to roll over that 403(b) from my previous life as a parochial teacher. ( But then I opened the email and saw it was only for 401's or other IRA's of $50k or more. I wish!!

Maybe they'll have some kind of deal for a 403(b) of less than half that value? I should check and see.

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I really don't feel ready for tomorrow. I hope it goes well ... (And I hope that everyone in the path of Sandy fares well .. no matter how tomorrow goes, my day will probably be better than some in her path -- all a matter of perspective, right?)

Today was my long day with the book fair - open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:10 p.m. (had someone come in at 4:50.) We're at about $1900 now, so I don't think we are going to make our $3k goal - just so we hit the 2k mark (otherwise have to take all profit as Schol Dollars. ugh.)

I had my journalism class again today. We went over the digital camera agreement and picked out the yearbook cover. I liked all the 4 designs which were picked after the first vote, and the one which was ultimately agreed upon is different (and definitely shows that the majority of my class is male ...)

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When I got home tonight I had an email from Amer Corp telling me my Award payment status had changed. Once I finally managed to login (forgot password) I found out that my payment request had been denied by the university. Reason? I am not enrolled as a student there. I really hope this doesn't mess up my enrollment in the course I'm in. Seriously annoyed.

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Tonight I helped a coworker set up and activate her new iPhone (4S.) Her son had bought it for her so they could FaceTime each other.

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Tomorrow is the 2% cash back for Discover. I'm probably going to buy some stuff from the bookfair (beyond the Schl Dollars) - but not *too* much!!!! Groceries are already 2% on my Mypoints card ..

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I have to make a video for my class by Saturday night. It has to be teaching some concept or another. I've been drawing a blank as to what to do. It needs to be something I could easily do in 3 to 4 minutes or less - and be interesting. It has to somehow incorporate learning theories ..(multiple intelligence, behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism) I asked some of the teachers here if they had any concepts they were working on next week - not much in the way of ideas, although one did mention they were teaching 3 by 2 multiplication - not sure how to do an interesting video on that though. I keep hoping the perfect idea will hit me.

I wonder .. Inexpensive Halloween outfits - a How-To .. would that work? I could show how I made my static cling outfit, and then maybe show black-eyed P, and the one using binoculars (can't remember right now what one that was.) Not really sure if that fits the criteria though.

Today was day 3 of our bookfair. Monday was preview day, Tuesday was our p/t conferences and first day of sales, and then today. So far we've sold almost $1500, which is half of our $3000 goal. I had great student helpers yesterday - one in particular amazed me with how on the ball he was.

Today I had my first journalism class - I wasn't really planning on having them ... but since there is no study hall yet, they were sent to me. So ... I winged it. Luckily I had already thought through most of what I wanted to say to them for the first class, but still wasn't totally prepared. Oh well. They all do seem excited and ready to go. I emphasized to them that it really was up to them how many newspaper issues we put out (i.e. how well they do at getting articles done on time for the paper!)

I had some time on my hands today waiting for people to come by and buy things, so I decided to list some books on ebay. I made 3 listings, and ... 1 item already sold!! It's a book for $2.50 + shipping. So I need to find a good envelope to ship it in, and then get it in the mail on Friday (or I might be able to do it tomorrow.) The other two items are actually multiple copies of two books I'd bought for summer school which never got used.

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Funny - tonight I finally got my webcam to work with my computer and was all set ready to go for my weekly online class session ... and there was no class tonight! Oy vey.

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I spent some money the last few days. Food, small items to make change for the bookfair, books (only $25 worth so far .. controlling myself sort of ...), and today ordered a protective cover for my iPad. I still need to order my textbooks for my electives - just haven't had the stomach to price them out yet.

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I need to get my # rolled over to my Ting phone soon, or else I'll be into a new billing period. That would be annoying. (I meant ported .. the word just was escaping me.)

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Hard to believe it is almost the end of October already. This year is just flying by.

This afternoon I had the 8th graders, the 7th grade teacher and her assistant, and my assistant all help me get the book fair set up. I was a bit on the frazzled side (at one point I was told to take a breath by the 7th grade teacher ), but it all worked out nicely. In fact, it is completely ready for Monday morning. Last year I had to still come back and spend a couple hours finishing up. Maybe every year it'll get just that much better.

There are some really good books, and some repeats from last year. I know quite a few of my younger kids are excited about Doom, and I had a few snickers from my older girls about Between Shades of Gray (Omw that they even know about that *other* book ..yikes!)

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I found out the kids in my journalism class. 3 of them picked me as their first choice, and the other two picked me as their third choice. One of the ones who picked me as a first choice ... I was totally shocked on. This kid gives me such attitude in class. I plan on making it clear to the entire group that giving me attitude AND being part of the journalism group WILL NOT mix!! Two strikes and they are out. At least 4 of the 5 I think are good to very good writers, so I think our newspaper will do better this year. 1 of the kids came up to me with an idea for a comic strip - Yay! I told him to work on it and bring it with him to our first meeting. I was hoping last year to include a comic strip, but none of the kids took me up on it.

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Payday was yesterday. My total amount is finally starting to look like a nice number - consistently getting higher in ING. Now if only my stocks would do the same ... ugh.

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I got my $5 AGC from Swagbucks last night, and then promptly spent it plus some. I really want to do this fiction/non-fiction lesson based on the naked mole rat (this year I'll do it with 1-3, then will have to figure something else out for 2nd/3rd next year.) After the gift card, the *two* books I bought were $25!! OUCH! I rarely ever spend that much on two books - but the one non-fiction book alone was $19 something and there was nothing else less. I justified it by reminding myself that I'll use it for a total of 6 lessons (3 grades times 2 class periods ..) plus of course I can use it in later years for other first grade classes... Plus, I didn't buy the stuffed naked mole rat for $9 which I *really, really* wanted to get to go along with the lesson ... so I wasn't *totally* bad.

I really need to figure out how to use purchase orders with Amazon so I can get stuff for the library with library money!! (I kind of know how to do this, but am not totally sure. So for the last order my principal paid with the school credit card, which is linked to her name/account. She does not like this fact, so does not want to use the card anymore. So I'm kind of in between a rock and a hard place ...)

Monday at school went relatively well for a Monday. Even the group I have to pump myself up about (PMA PMA PMA!) was pretty manageable.

Then I got home and found out that the new module for my online course had opened up. Oy vey! There are probably a good 5 hours worth of articles we have to read and respond/reflect on, plus the ever so dreaded group project. The group project requires FOUR members - there is a total of SIX students. Yeah, um... how's that gonna work??

Not to mention that the completed project is due by Saturday night, and we are just now forming groups... This IS NOT how I like to work. Not at all.

Give me all my assignments for the class and the due dates. Then I can work on them at my own pace when I have the most junkets of time. Not like this!

Yesterday I had tons of time in which I could've completed all the readings and the reflections. But since I had no access to them nor any idea what they were, I instead spent a lot of time watching "Make It or Break It" on Hulu (free version.)

The really "good" news is that from what I can tell, there are a lot of group projects throughout the course. Oh joy.

I have all the articles open in another window, but just getting through the "interactive text" put my brain to mush after a long day. So, I'll read the articles tomorrow. I really hope this isn't going to be as bad as I think it is....

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I stopped and got a sub tonight. My first one since August. The lady there remembered me and my sandwich. $5.33 (footlong - two meals)

Saturday night I managed to snag another AGC from Swagbucks - by using my Android phone to "watch" videos while reading MMM blogs.

Thanks to someone mentioning Google's Navigation app for the Android phone, I looked into it. It does have the voiced turn by turn directions - which is a big plus for this directionally challenged human.

Also, something which didn't occur to me until tonight - the Android OS allows me to view Swagbucks TV on my phone. I'd only do it over a WiFi connection because it would be pointless to do so over a data connection (since I pay for the data!)

Now I just need to figure out how to get Google Voice set up on my phone, and Groove IP, and my phone bill starting in November will be extremely less.

Even less if I can convince 1 person a month to convert over ...

(Unfortunately, most of the people closest to me are iPhone'rs and that would probably be a huge deal breaker for them. I totally understand, and wait with great anticipation for Ting to add the iPhone to their line up - especially a BYOD lineup!!)