Keeping It Frugal

Today we had our dioceasan (sp?) teacher inservice. It started with a Bishop's Mass, and then we had 5 hours of whole group lectures and lunch. Ugh. I liked it much better the way they did it last year - gave everyone the chance to choose from 5 different topics.

One of the presenters was in dire need of someone to teach him how to create a PP presentation ... It started out really good with humor, etc., but the quality of the slides lost most of the audience (at least the crowd from our school!)

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After the in-service the two teachers I rode up with dropped me off at Walmart while they went to get a manicure and pedicure. Walmart was out of bananas!!! Arghh! I got all my shopping done and then preceded to stand in line for 15 minutes. While in line I was greeted (from another line) by one of my students (pre-k I think) and saw another family that I think I recognized from the school. Then a boy behind me pointed out that there was a live grasshopper on my bag of frozen blueberries!! I tried to get it off with my CC, but only succeeded in putting it on the conveyer belt. The boy who'd pointed it out saved the day by picking it up with his hands.

After I was done ($55!! I bought more frozen goods than normal - will have to watch my next two grocery trips!!) I sat down on a bench in the lobby to wait.
While waiting, 7 of our staff at different times either exited or entered. During that time I happened to glance up and meet the eyes of an African American man. He apparently took this as some kind of invitation to come talk ... He said to me, "Girl! Your legs are so white they're bright! You must not get outside at all." I at first just kind of sat there with my mouth hanging open, then told him that I do get outside plenty, thanks. Thankfully he left right after that.

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I talked to my brother tonight. He's planning on doing a half-ironman on July 5. That is/was dad's birthday, so I think that's pretty cool he can do it on that same day. I think I'll try to plan my time out in CA at that same time - maybe see if there is a *much* less intense race I could participate in that same day.

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I've decided that I'm going to upgrade to the 4S instead of the 5. This way I'll have a major upgrade to my current phone, but only be out $100. The 4S will be able to utilize all the most interesting new features of ios6. Then I can use the remainder of the money for accessories for the new phone and my iPad (when I get it.) Whatever is left can be put toward whatever the next technology item is I want later.
(This way I also won't have to buy a new car charger to accommodate the iPhone5 charge port.)

One way or the other, I'll probably wait til October to do the upgrade.

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I finally heard back from the AmCorp lady at the 6 month program. She gave me the info I needed - I'll probably work on it on Sunday. So it looks like this may be a go after all.

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One of the things I bought today were these frozen stuffed shells. By the time I got them home, they were not even close to frozen anymore (15 minutes in line to pay, 40 minutes waiting for my ride, 45 minutes before we finally got back ...) So I decided to go ahead and cook them. You had to cook them in sauce of course ... they didn't mention that sauce *wasn't included.* So the package was already open. I remembered I had a can of diced tomatoes in my cupboard - got out my fantastic wonderful loveable Ninja blender (can you tell how much I *love* this??) and poured the can of tomatoes and a little milk and garlic salt in. Blended and poured on top of the shells. Microwaved for 15 minutes at half power, and Va-voom! Supper. MMMMMM!!!

These shells weren't very expensive, and were quite good. I'm thinking that the next time I have to take something to a potluck meal, that this might be a darn easy and fairly inexpensive way to go.

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I received the AGC I cashed out for less than a week ago today. SBs is getting pretty good turnaround time with the gift cards!

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Almost forgot --- my latest obsession on Netflix --- Ocean Girl. I'm a bit more than half-way through Season 3 (of 4 seasons.) It's good, very family friendly, light Sci-Fi. (With Aussie accents )

Well... at least the history books at our school.

Our principal flew out to CA last night on standby to attend to her daughter who is giving birth to twins. So the de facto teacher/vice principal was in charge today.

We had a visiting Sister of Notre Dame who was to lead a meeting with Am Corp members this afternoon.

The buses were late today due to rain. (It rained ALL night last night, and 90% of the day today.)

About 11 am while I was helping a couple of 4th grade girls pick out new books, and preparing for my 5th grade First Read Group, an announcement came over the phone/intercom system (which can only be heard if it is fairly quiet in the room) stating that we were to evacuate and everyone head to the gym.

This was not a scheduled evacuation drill.

I had enough presence of mind to grab the green emergency folder, but didn't bring anything else. Remember, it was raining.

I got my assistant (who being in the other room/section of the library had not heard the announcement.) Told the two girls to leave their books and come with me. As we reached the gym I heard several staff talking and found out that the evacuation was not a drill - it was real. There was a major gas leak near the public elementary school -- which is right next door to us.

Once everyone was in the gym, it was announced what had happened and that we were all getting on the buses (what we've practiced before.) So we all got on the buses. Just as the last few kids had been loaded and accounted for, we found out that the leak had been rendered safe. However, since we were already on the buses, we went ahead and finished the routine so it could count as a drill.

We arrived back at the school about 11:40. I quickly finished my prep for my first reads group, then helped the two 4th graders finish their selections, and headed to the cafe where I picked up my 5th graders. The group went really well -- ALL of the 5th graders had signed up for the group. I only took 5 though (will repeat throughout the year, so others will have a chance.)

About 20 minutes before my last class of the day (5th grade of course ) one of the maintenance men mentioned seeing some people with video cameras/news people by the office. We'd been warned that a particular news agency would be coming looking for dirt (we were told what they were looking for, and that it was unfounded, but to not make any comments because really it has NOTHING to do with us at the school. Which it really doesn't.) So, it wasn't unexpected, it was just that it happened on the same day as the evacuation ...

As I was finishing my prep for the 5th graders, I got a call from the teacher/vp. She asked me if I could figure out something to do with my group in their classroom instead of having them come to the library. (Attempting to minimize student exposure to the camera crew.) I didn't have to think very long before deciding to take "Because of Mr. Terupt" to read to them. I read about 40 pages of it before it was time for them to get ready to go home. I had an enthralled audience - several of who voiced great disappointment when I had to stop.

*The camera crew was gone by the time the kids went home. Hopefully they won't be back tomorrow.

Then of course we had the Am Corp meeting. And yes, it still was raining.

As our teacher/vp said as the buses headed out this afternoon, "I hope tomorrow is a really boring day!"

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In other news ... I am reading the reviews of the new iPhone. I am tempted, very tempted. My brother has already said that he'll be ordering it on Friday. I have the money set aside for it (for a long time now ...) Maybe I'll wait til January. The cost wouldn't go down, but there would be more choices/range$$ of accessories available for it. If I do go for it, it will probably be at least 3 years before I decide to upgrade again. 3 years ago I was more than happy with my bare bones flip phone. Now ... I just don't think I could ever go back.

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Today was also my first day with the 3 year olds. So adorable. So still definitely learning how to behave in school. I'm getting them two weeks earlier than I did last year, which is okay with me.
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I bought my ticket for Christmas. SW was $50 cheaper than any other deal I could find. Then if you add in the free baggage, it actually makes it $75 - $100 cheaper. If my soon to be new step-dad wasn't paying for it though, it still would've been completely out of my vacation budget. If I can find someone to drive me there, and to pick me up, that would be a good cost saver as well (even if I filled up their gas tank .. still cheaper than paying for parking AND my gas.)

My grandma's not too happy with my decision to be there for the wedding. She feels like by my being there, I am endorsing the marriage. I feel like my being there is showing my mom support - plus, how could I say that I'll come for a visit (pd by you) - but not til after the wedding? Arghh. Family drama - so can do without it!

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I still haven't heard from the registration person for the 6 month long program I want to do. I'd emailed her back and told her that I didn't receive an award certificate (am corp) but just would need to have their info to authorize a payment. I don't know how much longer I should wait to hear back - the program starts at the beginning of October.

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I got a call this evening from the person representing 403(b) accounts for the teachers/pastors, etc. from my church. He just asked me some questions and we talked a bit. He suggested that I roll over my 403(b) into an IRA. There would be a $13/yr admin fee that I don't currently have, but the IRA would be an annuity and offer me 40 more mutual fund options than I currently have. (My churches investment options are very conservative to put it mildly.) I was somewhat interested in the idea, but decided to leave it alone for now.

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No eating out -- 10/12 days (got an egg salad sandwich from local store tonight... too tired to even think about what to make...)

This past week went pretty well. Mainly I think because I decided to make all my lesson plans NOT internet focused. I am also finally starting to feel better - I think it was allergies that felled me, because they are still bothering me, just not so bad.

The past 4 nights I've gone on a walk with several+ teachers/staff from our school. My moderate walking pace is much faster than theirs ... Tonight I did a GPS of it to see how long it actually was - 2 miles. Not bad really.

I'm planning on starting back with my regular routine at the school gym on Monday. Although I'll probably limit it to very fast walking for the first week.

Oh ... I am less than 1 lb away from the 20's. I'm trying to decide what I'd like to do to reward myself for losing 20lbs .. at least after I get into the 20's and stay there for at least two weeks... I'd been thinking of doing a pedi/mani, but I have the feeling that sandal season is going to be over sooner than later here. So, maybe just a manicure. Or maybe go see a movie. I feel like I should do *something* nice, because the last time I saw the 20's was ... ummmm 2007??

But ... I've also been reading a lot of Mr. Money Mustache this weekend. His posts got me thinking ... Is it frivolous to spend $9 - 15 on a treat just for losing (and keeping off) 20 lbs? Would it be better to add that same amount to my Roth account or perhaps to my car replacement savings???

I'm also reconsidering getting the iPhone5 when it comes out. I have the money already saved and set aside for it (since last year!!) But... would I be just as well off going with the 4 which will likely be free (only 8gb, but if I only put the apps I *really* use on it ...) That way I'd still be upgrading to a newer phone (and maybe my brother would give me his phone's case with the stand, since he's planning on getting the 5) but not be out any money.

I'm also rethinking my position on wanting a brand new car to replace my Honda. I did some forecasting, and by December, 2013 I *might* have around $9k saved, not including EF or Dads money (and not counting whatever I get in tax refund for '12.) I'd really rather not use Dads money if I don't absolutely have to, and my other big goal is to get my EF up to snuff. (Especially considering the fact that if the sewer system here fails, I will not only be out of a job due to the school closing, but I will also be out of a home. This is thanks to the hail storm / flood we had here about a month ago. It is a *very* old and fragile lift/sewer system being kept together by Macguyveristic tactics.)

So.. I'm thinking of when it gets closer to the time I want to definitely replace my car, I'll start looking to see what I can find within 200 miles for $8k or less. Then pick the best of the lot (newest, least miles, most amenities.) That would leave me with money to add into the EF, and my insurance wouldn't go up so much as with a brand new car.

The car thing is still far away, so I may change my mind a dozen times between now and then.

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I wasn't planning on going anywhere until summer time - both to refund my vacation budget and because of the 6 month course I'm (hopefully) going to be taking. However, when I told my mom that she spoke to her bf, and he offered to pay for my ticket to TX. Mom also said she'd make sure I had a computer/time/space to do whatever school work I needed to while there. So ... I agreed and told her dates/times I could come. .... Then I got a text from her bf asking if he could call me. When he did, he told me he's planning on asking her the big question on her birthday (18th) and wants to do the deed on the afternoon of the day I planned to fly in. Could I please come earlier? So, I'll be getting in Friday night instead of Saturday afternoon.

All I'll say is I hope it lasts. One more thing... he wants to have the ceremony in my very favorite place in the DFW metroplex - the same place I had always had in mind for if I ever got married. Kind of bittersweet. (The Botanical Gardens - many, many good memories there.)

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My yard had gotten really, really, really, really bad. There were so many weeds you almost could not see any empty space - anywhere. I'd been trying to find someone to do something with it since last spring. Finally someone suggested to me that I ask one of our maintenance guys at the school -- I did. He and his children came over this afternoon and did a MAJOR cleanup job. I had told him $40 for the job, but when I realized that the job was much bigger than I'd figured, I decided to give him $60. (I would have done $50, but I only had 20s.) Now that I have someone I know can do a good job, I'll have it done more often (2 - 3x a year should suffice) and can pay less (since the job won't be so huge.) He's also fixing my screen door which has been broken (the screen part) since I moved in here.

I would do this myself (take care of the yard) but I have NO equipment and my allergies are atrocious (allergic to tumbleweeds, etc. big time - would probably be out sick for a week if I attempted it.)

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I went to the dentist on Thursday and had a filling done. $85 instead of the $98 first quoted me. It turned out that it wasn't a cavity, but a filling that had fallen out. So that made it a pretty fast drill and fill.

I'll be going back for the other tooth on the 20th. (Directly opposite the tooth I just had filled!)

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I've been watching Elephant Princess on Netflix this past week (partly why I haven't blogged this week ) The first season was really good, and I got addicted a little bit. The second season I don't like so much, but in my usual way, I have a hard time stopping once I'm into a show. I love the Aussie accents of the actors.

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I'm waiting to hear back from the person in charge of registration for the 6 month cohort on how to register and how to pay with my Education credit money. She had told me to send her my award certificate and the name of the person to contact ... but they didn't send me an award certificate - only a link to my account showing my Ed credit (and a link on that page to request funds payment.) I really hope this all works out. If the sewer goes bust, I may really need the extra certification this program offers (to secure a new job somewhere ...)

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I ordered a bunch of books for the library (using library budget money - not mine!!) on Friday. Most of them will arrive by Tuesday. I'm excited to catalog them and get them out to the kids. (greek mythology books, Lizzie McGuire (had a kid asking for those), gymnastics (many girls requested), several new graphic novels, etc.)

On Wednesday I had my first meeting of First Reads Group with 7th/8th. It was a bit of a circus. In the end, I had 1 7th and 1 8th grader attend. They both chose two books. (First Reads Group is where the kids meet with me at lunch time and get the chance to be the first person at school to read new library books. If they give the book(s) their seal of approval, then they will have a name label saying "First Read by.....") This coming Wednesday I'm going to have the 6th graders meet with me (up to 5 of them.)

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Last night I was on Swagbucks and got the popup for the 2 SB videos. I started on them around 9:30 p.m., and it kept going until 12:37 p.m.!! I caught up on the SA blogs while playing the videos ... Overall I think I earned around 120 SBs from them!!

I have enough to cash out for a $5 AGC.

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Eating Out Challenge:

7/8 days I did great. The day I went to the dentist, I did stop and get a milkshake at McDonald's because I was really hungry (hadn't had a great lunch) and my mouth was numb.

I'm going to plan better for my next appointment so I won't be so hungry.

August Spending:



Overspending:

Groceries - This really wasn't too far off the budgeted amount, and considering that it encompassed 5 grocery weeks, I'm actually okay with this amount of spending. In September, I should be able to keep it within the budgeted amount. (I'd really like to keep it to under $120/month, but I'm trying to be realistic.)

Fun Money - This mostly is getting subs at Blimpies, and a couple of egg salad sandwiches. What put it over was the balance of paying for the book tape (after using Amazon gift cards.) In September I plan to NOT do Blimpies or the occasional egg salad from the store, as I am participating in the No Eating Out Challenge. So ... hopefully I'll have a nice cushion in this fund for November and December.

Fuel: Had to do an extra fill up due to a lot of extra driving to take care of the pastor's family's animals. I *might* have been able to make it home on what was left in the tank on Friday, but I decided to not take my chances.

Within category amounts:

Car Replacement - I had some maintenance work done on my car which should hopefully help it last another year.

Professional - I purchased a subscription to an online lesson plan book which meets my needs beautifully. I also bought some organizational baskets which I'm going to use in the library.

Medical - Pd for monthly prescription and for a balance owed from a previous visit (after insurance paid.)

Savings - I did put $50 into my EF, but the car replacement account money was used for maintenance costs (plus some.)

September Budget:


Medical - I will have a minimum $100 outlay in this category for a filling, plus my normal prescription. I have enough to cover both.

Fuel - My August overspend is forwarded into September. So I actually have a category balance of $80 for September.

ROTH - I am increasing my ROTH contribution to $150 (from $100.) I do not have a 401k plan available to me.

**Technology -- If I go with the 6 month cohort/18 credit plan and receive the iPad, I am considering holding off on replacing my phone. One of the big reasons I would like to replace my phone is to have the video calling capability. With the iPad, I'd have that - so it would make it a lot easier to wait longer. I would however need to get a protective case for the iPad, etc., which would not be covered with my AmCorps money (as far as I know.) So I may use some of the money I've saved for the iPhone5 to purchase those accessories.

This week wasn't that great of a one for me. The internet at school was still being persnickety and I got only maybe 40% of what I'd planned to do with the kids done. Then Wednesday I started feeling sick - scratchy throat and body aches - by Thursday morning I realized I had to take the day off. I'm still not feeling too great, but did manage to do school today. So thankful for the long weekend!

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I was frustrated that things didn't work out for me to start the Graduate Academic Certificate this semester that I wanted to do. However, it may turn out to be a good thing. I have found a 6-month online program through Fresno Pacific University where you are able to earn 18 credits for a total cost of about $3750. For one of the classes you are required to have either an iPad or and Android tablet (included in the cost.) I checked, and the costs would be covered by my Americ*orps money. This would leave me with approximately $7500 left (after this coming year's stipend) to pursue other continuing ed courses.

This 6 month program would start in October and finish in March - I'd have to work through all the holidays. But in the end, I'd have 18 credits and one or two technology certificates. These certificates *could* qualify me to teach online classes. If I did this, then I think I probably would need to forego any holiday traveling this year.

I think I still would go for the GAC I was looking at doing at my alma mater, but I would put it off til next school year. My AmCorps stipends wouldn't fully cover the GAC after paying for this 18 credit course, but it would cover enough that I could save up for the rest by the time I'd need it.

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I also looked into the possibility of getting a second Masters in technology. The program I looked at however told me the cost for an out of state person would be $11k for 9 semester credits. The MA is 31 credits. As helpful as I think that might be in the long run, I can't see putting that much money out for a second Master's - especially since my stipends would only pay for the first 9 credits!!

If I stay here, then no matter what kind of extra certificates I get or degrees, my pay will remain the same (+1% raise every year...) However, the technology 6 month course could give me the possibility of making extra income by teaching a course per semester online. I have my Master's, and if I had the extra certification, that might be enough to be noticed by one of those programs.

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So... what do y'all think? Should I do the 6 month consortium (and get the iPad?) Or, should I wait til next semester and see if my alma mater has it's act together on the GAC program I wanted to start? The out of pocket difference I think would be around $4k if I did *both* the 6 month/18 credit consortium and then did the GAC program.

One way or the other, I *do* need to get some continuing education credits soon. I have 4 years left on my certificate before needing to renew it.

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I'm looking forward to 3 days off. I hate to say it, but I'm not enjoying my job as much this year so far as I did last year. Mostly due to internet frustrations I think.

Question - If a kid complains that there aren't any books to check out, and then later complains that computer class is boring (6th grade girl), would it be a totally inappropriate response to say - "Ok, you don't have to check out any books or do the computer class activities - go back to your classroom and I'm sure your teacher can find work for you to do." --- I'm sure the child in question is mostly saying this to try to get under my skin .. I'd kind of like to call her on it (i.e. call her bluff, if that's what it is.) I'd check with her teacher first of course, and make sure that whatever she did when she went back to the classroom was as boring as all get out - to get the point across. I'm just not sure if I'm letting this comment get to me more so than usual because of how completely frustrated I am with the internet at school right now, or if this is something I should really call this child on. (Today I essentially pretended I didn't hear it.)

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Bought groceries, gas and stopped at Sonic today. Also stopped at Walgreens to get my prescription which I called in last night - only to be told that they were out of stock and had no record of me calling in!!!!! So they transferred my prescription to Walmart where I picked it up (and finally returned the car charger!)

This was a long week for me. Tuesday and Thursday night we had parent meetings starting at 6 and not finishing til 8. Then I also was driving 20 miles one way to take care of my pastor's dog/cat. It was also my first week back with a full load of classes. Other than Monday's classes, most of the rest of the week's groups were fine ... just kept me on my toes!

I *loved* seeing my baskets of new/newish books nearly completely decimated by Friday, although I kind of felt bad for the 4th graders who were my very last group Friday afternoon. There were slim pickings in the new book baskets. I also *loved* how excited my 5th graders were at being able to checkout 3 books. Both groups had their 3 books picked out and checked out in record breaking time.

The internet was being all wonky this week, so when I had my first intensive keyboarding class on Wednesday with the 3rd graders, I had to use Word and dictation. That was ... interesting. On Thursday I did the same with my 4th graders, but the internet was working - so we used Typing Club. Unfortunately all the web browsing history on all the computers had been cleared over the summer, so the teacher assistant and I ran around the room helping 21 4th graders get to the media center website, and then to the TC site. About 15 of them managed to actually get logged on, and one completed the first lesson, before it was time to run to lunch. Chaos!

Today I spent a few hours at school, and managed to figure out a way to save a shortcut to both the media center website and the TC website in a way that it won't be lost as soon as a person logs off the computer. Hallelujah! I also figured out that I could download/save an internet safety game for my 7th/8th graders in that same server/folder, and not have to download it on 15 different computers.

When I got home from school/taking care of the animals, I made my breakfast and lunch for the whole school week. Go me! All I'll have to do for my breakfasts is to add the Rice Dream the night before - hopefully I can manage to remember to do that!

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I got a call from the pastor today telling me they'd be home tomorrow!!!! Yay!!! It's funny, I was talking to my grandma yesterday and mentioned about taking care of the animals. She asked me if they were paying me anything, and I told her that I didn't think so or expect anything. I also told her how far their place was from me ... she told me that I should take the extra gas money out of my tithe for next month!! What was so funny about that was that I'd been thinking along the same lines, and wishing that I could ask my dad for his opinion on it. I'm taking my grandma suggesting it out of the blue like that, as kind of a backwards nod from my dad. (maybe I'm rationalizing a bit here, but I like to think of it that way ...)

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I've overspent my grocery budget a bit this month. Once I manage to remember to take back the car charger to WM and get the money back, I can move that money into the grocery budget, and it will balance out fine. Actually, I have a few dollars left, but there is still one more grocery shopping day this month ... will just need spinach and bananas probably though.

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I had $35.xx in Discover rewards after this last statement posted. So ... I spent it on Amazon. :shrug: I bought the new Dork Diary 4, another book (can't remember right now) and pre-ordered DD5 and Wimpy Kid 7. I bought two of each. We have 2-3 each of the others, and they are currently ALL checked out.

I moved all the books that were similar to Wimpy Kid on a shelf under the Dear America journals. Two or three of the Dear America journals got checked out this week too!! (last year we had some Royal Diaries get checked out - but that was by a teacher.) I also had quite a few more of the Juvenile fiction books get checked out than normal - so I think moving all the Wimpy Kid like books where I did was a great move.

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I got a notice on Friday that my Hulu Plus subscription would be going off hold today (Sunday.) So since I hadn't included it in my August budget, and didn't have any Fun Money left for August, I went to go cancel it. Guess what? They offered me a free month!!! Seeeee-weeeet!! So I'll probably cancel it before they charge me at the end of September, then start it up again in October. (Anyone know when DWTS starts?? That's mainly what I'll use Hulu+ for.)

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Like I made my breakfast/lunches ahead of time for the week, I'd like to see if I could make the most time consuming portion of my dinners ahead of time ...
baked sweet potatoes! Prep time isn't long of course, but baking time is 2 hours!!

What I'd like to be able to do is bake 5 of them at one time, and then put 4 in the fridge. Then I would microwave them each day to warm up. Anyone know what the best way would be to do this? Should I take them out the foil wrap when in the fridge? i.e. What is the best way to avoid growing bacteria??

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My car is troubling me. I don't know if it is my imagination or not, but ever since I had the timing belt/driveshaft changed out, it doesn't seem to have as much get up and go. I especially notice this on hills ... I do most of my long distance driving on the freeway where the limit is 75 and the real speed is 80 - 85. There've been a number of times this week where I entered the freeway going 55 with my RPMs passing 4 ... and it took me a good two or more minutes to get up to speed (75+). I don't remember it doing this before .. it never has been great on hills, but I just don't remember having to rev it so hard to get up to speed.

Any ideas?

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I cashed out for a $5 AGC on SBs last night. I'm also getting pretty close to cashing out on irazoo.

Wow... I had my new K, 3rd, 8th and 4th grade Monday classes today. Wow. The good news is I remembered a lot more names of the non-K students than I thought I would. The not so good news is that other than the 4th graders, ALL the other classes were majorly squirrely. My 8th graders this year sure are not last years 8th graders .. that was such an awesome class. I don't think we'll get as much accomplished this year ... hopefully they'll prove me wrong.

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I had a dentist appointment today for cleaning and x-rays. Overall it was a good report considering I hadn't been to one in over 18 months ... two cavaties, one of which wasn't a surprise. It'll cost $98 to fill one -- $50 deductibile plus 20% of the cost. Ouch. I'll have the money in my medical fund by the appointment though.

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My brother did fan freaking tastic with his triathalon yesterday!! 2hrs 28 minutes!!! His personal best in all 3 events.

I ended up not doing any exercise this weekend (other than running around in Walmart ..). I hope I can get back into my routine tomorrow.

This is going to be a week of long days. Tomorrow I start feeding/watering my pastor's family's dogs/cat. They live about 20 minutes from me, but I'm the closest person they felt comfortable asking.

Tomorrow night is also the mid-school parent meeting which I'm expected to be at. That means I need to leave school no later than 4:30 to take care of the Pastor's animals, get back by 5:45 to eat dinner, and then make it to the meeting.

Thursday is the elementary parent meeting. That starts at 6:00. So ... I'll need to be back here no later than 5:20.

The pastor and his family *should* be back by Sunday if they have enough gas money to get back. If they don't, then they won't be back til the 30th. It baffles me as to why they are taking a trip when they aren't sure they have enough money to return until the next payday ... but they must have their reasons.

I don't mind taking care of the animals ... but I do worry about how much this is going to cost me in gas mileage. 40 minutes roundtrip for 6 - 10 days ...Friday and Saturday I can make it part of my normal run to big G, but otherwise it's just a lot of extra miles.

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Today was a no spender. I need to go put my lunch and breakfast together for tomorrow and head to bed so I'll actually get UP when the alarm goes off. Here's to hoping that 3 days off running will result in increased running power...

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I found out tonight that the dad of a really good childhood friend of mine died last night. I don't remember him at all, though I know I knew him because I was over at her house as much as she was at mine. He died in his sleep.

Yesterday afternoon I noticed that my cat Kari's perch which hangs from the door and that she LOVES to sleep in the top section of, had started separating. There was one large hole, and another smaller one. I was worried that she might fall through the larger hole while sleeping, or the remainder would tear out.

I checked the weight limit, and it was 20lbs. Kari is roughly 9lbs. Someone on FB suggested that I could use fishing line to reinforce/fix it.

Today though I decided to take it with me to church, and stop by WM afterwards and see if the customer service could do anything for me - seeing as though I no longer had the receipt. That's what I did. The CS person told me that if I could find one in stock, that I could exchange my old one for a new one. There was one in stock! Yay!

Kari is sleeping right now in the top section. This one actually appears to better made than the other one. The top section seems to have some kind of reinforcement --- I wonder if they had the same problem I had with the other one, and so made this fix to newer versions?? Oh well, Kari is happy and safe, and I am happy, and no money was spent for either!

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Yesterday I was talking with the preschool director who is the person I share my assistants time with each week. (She is split - 20 hrs with me, 15 hours with the pre-school.) The ps director told me that my assistant had told her that "all she's doing is putting stickers on books," and that I'd been doing it too. Oh brother! I thought I'd explained to her WHY I was having her do that - putting spine labels on books and taping them. If she truly doesn't get it yet, she will be very happy for it once it's time to start re-shelving books!! I don't know if she thinks I'm just creating things for her to do, or what. But I hope she realizes eventually that these are all things that will help the library run more efficiently and having her do some of the more time consuming/tedious work, frees me to put together some more fun activities, etc. I warned her at the beginning that a lot of what I might ask her to do will be time consuming/tedious, but are things that *must* be done one way or the other - either by me or by someone else. Exactly why I desperately needed a second person!!

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I didn't get to do my grocery shopping Friday afternoon before the small group meeting like I'd wanted to do. (Speaking of which, I think I probably won't continue to go to the small group. Last night's was made up of 3 married couples and me... plus I didn't get home til nearly 11pm!)

So, I did my grocery shopping today. Normally I would *never* grocery shop on Sabbath, but I was out of a number of items and did not relish the thought of trying to fit in a two-hour trip on Sunday plus doing all the finishing touches to prepare for my first day of classes on Monday!

Of course, as luck would have it, I ran into 3 of my students there. :roll eyes: They were so happy to see me, it was cute. I just hope that my principal doesn't wonder why I was out shopping when everyone else was at the school taking a required CPR class. (I'm going to take it on my own, because I am required to recertify, but I'd begged out of it due to Saturday being my church day.)

I spent approximately $40 - a bag of apples (looked better than the loose apples!), spinach, baby carrots, bananas, Fiber One brownies, Kashi Cereal, Kashi frozen meal, Amy's frozen meal, Stouffer's Spinach souflee, a candybar (my one real treat for the week), sweet potatoes, a bag of frozen raspberries (for smoothies), etc.

Of course, I again forgot to get more cat treats. I also forgot to get Rice Dream - but I do have one more container of that left which should be enough for this week. I think seeing the students threw me off track a bit.

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I took today off from exercise - boy does it feel good! Tomorrow I plan to do an hour run, both in commiseration with my brother (who'll be doing his first tri-athalon) and because I'll be skipping my morning run on Monday due to a dentist appt.

I stepped on my scale this a.m. ... 236.8! Down 13.2 lbs since June. I know I have a tape measure around here somewhere. I really need to take some measurements soon so I can see the inches+ the lbs.

Speaking of my brother's tri-athalon tomorrow - I found out today that our Aunt is traveling from San Jose to the town where it's being held to cheer him on. I'm so glad he'll have family there to support him. If I had the newer iPhone, and the new operating system was out, then my brother and I could Face Time each other (the new operating system is supposed to let you do FT over 3g!!)

I hope the September 15 rumors are true ... even so, I probably won't get it (iPhone5) til January - give it a bit of time for all the kinks to work out.

Today was our first day back to school. It was really cool seeing how much some of the kids had grown over the summer. It was also strange having so many new teache3rs - when I got to the cafe, all the teachers had taken over the middle table. That's the table that the assistants always sat at last year, while the teachers mainly sat at the back table. Oh well, change is good right?

I didn't have any classes today, and won't until Monday due to it being half-days this whole week. I am LOVING having an assistant! She finished a project for me this am (and ran out of book tape), and then we worked together on a couple of big projects I'd been wanting to get done, but just had seemed like too much for one person. Between the two of us, we got them finished in about two and a half hours! Of course, a couple hours after I'd finished up a few odds and ends (mainly getting all the donated books and book sets looking neat and organized in the library classroom until I can get to them) I got a phone call telling me that they had FIVE boxes of donated books in the teachers lounge for me. I wanted to cry. I had just had nearly 20 boxes of books that I'd weeded from the library shelves and donated books taken to storage, and the remainder of donated books in somewhat of a neat and organized state ... I was just picturing more of what I'd gotten in a donated box the day before ... no book less than 20 years old, and a sticky messy erasable writing pad/abc practice thing. I looked through one of the boxes, and it looks like there are a few usable items, and a good number of duplicates. Sigh... I'll find room for them somewhere ... (until I can go through them and see what is really usable.)

In the afternoon I was by myself (my assistant went to help in the preschool like we'd arranged.) I did some more cleaning/organizing in the classroom and sent out an email with some CCSS Math links to all the teachers (I'd watched a prof. dev. webinar on Common Core Math and tech, so passed on some ideas.)

Tomorrow I'll only have the morning to get much done - thankfully I'll have my assistant for that. In the afternoon we have an in-service with the mission. Fun, fun.

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This morning I did 30 minutes on my elliptical - I wanted to change up my routine a bit. It was every bit as difficult to do 30 minutes on it, as it is to run 45 minutes in the gym. Weird.

Drum roll .... I think I'm solidly in the 230s ... in fact this a.m. I clocked in at 238.4! It's been a LONG time since I've seen that number. Last summer I hit 239 a couple of times (when I was having those bouts of nausea, etc.) but this is coming about from solid work and about 75% better eating habits.

I really need to add in strength training. I enjoy lifting weights, so I don't know why I haven't gotten the motivation to add it back in just yet. Just gotta do it, I guess.

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August NSD's = 7/15

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I almost forgot! I did an experiment last night with my oatmeal. Usually I put a bowl of oatmeal with water/milk and a little brown sugar in the fridge to soak overnight (so I don't have to microwave it.) Last night I decided to add in ground flaxseed, probably a couple tbsps (didn't measure.)

So ... this morning after my workout and shower I went to go eat and got my oatmeal and sat down at the table. Blech!! Double Blech!! The oatmeal looked and tasted like paste! I think it would've been ok if I'd added the flaxseed to it *after* it was soaked, and just a little bit of it sprinkled on or something. I ended up eating a tbsp of peanut butter so I would have something in my system besides just a banana.

I managed to get myself out of bed when my alarm went off this am at 5:40 .. just barely. Judging from what time I was ultimately ready though, it doesn't look like 5:40 is going to cut it. So ... tomorrow I'm going to do 5:40 again, but then Wednesday I'll try 5:25.

When I did my run today I interspersed with about 6 one-minute full out runs. I was zonkered and ended up ending early - only did 36 minutes instead of 45 total (although partly that was due to um... extra stops from nature ...) I'm going to set up my app to do a more balanced interval setup - with jogging, walking and a few full out runs.

I've gotta do something to get the scale moving. It's starting to go the wrong way again.

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After getting up so early this morning (and having very little sleep) staying at school today til 4 was almost torture. I needed to stay longer, but oh well, I guess.

I am worried that I may be having to fight for my assistant's time ... she is supposed to be dividing her time between me and the pre-school. Today she was about to go to the library to keep working on a project, when the PK director told her that there were two "urgent" items waiting for her. This was at lunch (after having been in meetings all morning) and I didn't see her the rest of the afternoon. Ergh!!

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One good thing .. I actually ate some of my spinach for lunch today!! I took it plus almonds and carrot shreds and cut up oranges in a baggie. We had taco salads for lunch - so I just used the shell for a bowl (since they didn't have any bowls out.)

I also talked to the PE teacher about using the boxing dummy thing and gloves - he told me he has one pair that he borrowed from the guidance counselor ... so I need to check with her I guess to see if I can use them. How much would boxing gloves cost I wonder?? I just think boxing would be a great way to let out stress, not to mention something different than running.

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I did spend money today. On the library. We are just about completely out of book tape and have a ton more books to go (re doing labels, etc. which need to be covered with tape.) I used the $26.xx gift card credit I had on Amazon, plus $12.xx of my own real money to buy 6 rolls. (I checked at another site, and to get 4 rolls +shipping it would have been roughly the same amount.) I'm not sure what budget category I'm going to take that out of ..maybe the fun money to make it really hurt so I won't procrastinate on ordering stuff like this again...

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Tomorrow I'm supposed to show the other teachers my planbook. Last year I used a template I created in Excel, but this year I am using a website (plan book . com) I've got all my classes set up and the first week's lesson plans created.

Ok, I better go so I can get my stuff ready for tomorrow and hopefully get a somewhat decent nights sleep.

Yesterday I ended up not going into town/church, but spent the day resting and reading. Today I also slept in and didn't do the running I'd planned on doing, but I did get into school and worked for about 4 hours. I guess I was just feeling really, really lazy.

Tonight I'm going to make sure I have everything ready for the morning - because my alarm is going off at 5:40 a.m. and I *will* get up!! I need to be exercised, showered, and breakfasted and at the school by 8:30 a.m. Really though, I need to see if I can do all that by 7:30, or else that means I'll have to get up earlier than 5:40 a.m. from Wednesday forward ...ugh, ugh, ugh.

I spent some of my fun money today - got a footlong Blimpie, soda and candy bar. ~$9.xx The lady making my Blimpie said she'd never made just a veggie and cheese Blimpie - and it tasted like it too. Oh well, maybe remembering that it wasn't all that great will help me resist the urge to treat myself again next time. (I hadn't had a soda in nearly a month... not sure why I decided I wanted one today.)

I'm feeling frustrated by how excruciatingly slow my weight loss has been. But I have to be honest and admit that I haven't been anywhere close to perfect with my eating. I've been *a lot* better than in the past, AND have done a lot more exercise in the last 3 months than I did in the previous 12 months ... but there still is a lot of room for improvement.

I hope I'm not being pessimistic, but I don't think that any of the new teachers this year are going to be ones I connect with very much. They seem to have joined together due to the commonality of being new.

I'm thinking of asking the PE teacher if he'd be willing to show me how to set up the boxing equipment and how to use it. I need to have other workouts besides just running and elliptical, both to keep it interesting and to keep my body guessing.

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I got a check from my grandma on Friday reimbursing me for half of the headstone. She and my dad are going to be sharing the same grave-site. My aunt really feels that there will be no or very little medical expenses due to the plan dad was on. If that is true, then right now I have nearly half of what my goal is for replacing my car. I can't imagine using the money for anything else - I know it would be what would make dad happy - knowing he helped me to get a new car. Of course, the next car I get will be even harder to let go of when the time comes...

I had planned on doing a lot of organizing and decluttering once I got home. I did some cleaning, but have done nothing as far as organizing and decluttering - at home at least. Maybe once the school year is started and I feel like I have a good handle on how everything's going, I'll get remotivated to work on my house.

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I have two groupons I bought which expire at the end of October. One for a 2-hr horseback ride, and one for a trolley tour -- both in/near ABQ. I'm debating on going out there over Labor Day weekend so I can use them (although I don't know if the places would be open then??) I hate to spend the gas money just to not let them go to waste ... (they cost a total of $26.) I'd kind of rather wait til Thanksgiving break to use them, but I don't think I can do that. I guess I need to just ante up and call these places and find out!!

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It looks like I won't be starting back to my online classes this Fall. I'd been accepted into the wrong program - called to find out what was going on, and was told to go to this particular link to update my application. I did that -- now nearly two weeks ago, and have heard nothing. Ugh. Although it probably is better to wait til January to start a class - it will give me more time to figure out my eating and exercise while working full time - get those habits going strong, then I can add in doing outside classwork.

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August NSD's: 6/12

Sorry, I just can't think of a title.

Yesterday I put in another full day at the library. I stopped at 5 p.m., went home and grabbed a bite, then headed up to big G to attend a small group meeting (my pastor/his wife, another couple and myself were the only ones in attendance.)

I spoke with the newbie teachers during lunch. I really should've made an outline of what I wanted to cover - I felt like I was all over the place. But today one of the other teachers who also was intro'ing herself told me that she thought I'd done really well. So, who knows.

My principal did something really thoughtful for me. At the lunch she had bought Blimpie subs for everyone, and she bought a veggie sub especially with me in mind. At the oil and gas company where I was for 3 years, we had free lunches many, many times, and very very rarely did they ever do anything to acknowledge that my eating preferences were different.

After my small group meeting, I went grocery shopping. I was nearly 9 p.m. when I started and I was already SO sleepy.

I made it out for $24.99:
bananas, oranges, diced butternut squash, carrot shreds, Kashi ceral, Kashi frozen spinach/pasta meal, etc.

I also filled up with gas ($32.xx). My tank of gas lasted for 2 1/2 trips to big G, at an average of 30.2 mpg.

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Today I had my assistant work with me for the first time!! She got a lot accomplished.

I also had the chance to talk with the person who took over lead mid-school teacher for summer school. He told me that the kids really had a blast, and that there were way more ideas than there was time to do them in. He also told me that one of the books I'd bought for them to read had some questionable language/scene description about two chapters into it - so they scrapped that book and went with the two others. He showed me the section ... oops. The reviews I read didn't mention anything about this - and it was recommended by middle school librarians and the school library journal!! It doesn't sound like there was any backlash from parents about it, so that is good. All the books still look brand new, so I hope that I can sell them for most of what I paid.

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This morning after I finished my 45 minute run I went into the office and saw the maintenance man. When I'd come in I'd found the lights and swamp cooler already on, so I wanted to tell him about that. When I said, "Good Morning!", he nearly jumped out of his skin. I apologized profusely. I really thought that he knew I was in the building since he'd seen my car parked out there before and found me in the gym ... Later I found out from AL that our maintenance guys had supposedly been "seeing" someone/something in the gym/chapel, so that may have contributed to his edginess.

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I am so glad that I can take the next 24 hours off without any guilt. My throat was feeling scratchy today and I really just wanted to go home, but had so much to do. Tomorrow I'll be sleeping in, going to church, staying for potluck, and then probably go sing at the nursing home. Then I will probably come home and take a good long nap!

Sunday I plan to do a 90 minute run/walk. I think I can do it. Next Sunday my brother is doing his tri-athalon and I want to do a 2-hr run/walk around the same time he's doing his event - so to kind of be in tandem.

I've been watching an episode of EH: Weight Loss edition most nights this week. Today I watched an episode where a man that weighed 493lbs got down to 313lbs in 6 months and completed a tri-athalon in 4:20. Seriously, if these people can do some of the things they show, then I sure can push my body to do more as well! Chris (the trainer on the show) constantly talks about how it is all about mind over body. If your mind believes you can do something, your body will comply no matter how difficult.

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August NSDs: 5/10

Cashed in for $5 AGC from SBs.

Yesterday I mentioned that some of the neighborhood/school kids had set up a sno-cone/fry bread stand. I had bought a sno-cone for $.25 (but gave them $1.) Today when I was coming home from school, I noticed that they are now selling the sno-cones for $.50! I guess they realized that they were majorly undercharging.

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As I was going through donated books today, I cam across this one book that looked interesting to me, but I wasn't sure if it'd be appropriate or not for our library. It is called, "The Kidnapping of Christina Latimar." I took it home to read and decide. Wow! It was really good -very suspenseful and some good twists and turns. I'm definitely going to put it in my Teen Fiction section and promote it too to my 7th/8th graders.

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I ran again this morning - 45 minutes. I got there a few minutes earlier, but still got caught at the tail end by the maintenance guy. I plan on sleeping in tomorrow though - my principal asked me to speak to the newbies at lunch tomorrow, so I want to be sure to be well rested.

I spent a good bit of time today getting desk space cleared off for my assistant. I may have use of her starting tomorrow - I can hardly wait!

I have a ton of boxes of books that I've weeded - either from the stacks or from donations. I'm really not sure what to do with them. Most of them are in good shape (I'm weeding duplicates, some triplicates as well as old and outdated or in poor shape books.)
If I was in Texas I'd haul them all to the nearest Half-Price bookstore, but I think the only used bookstore here went out of business this summer (besides, I don't know if they even purchased used books or not.) Some of the books are like new and fairly recent, so I may try selling them on half.com or something.

The little boy who let air out of my car tires last year drove by on his bike today. He called out to me, and told me that he wasn't coming back this year but was going to the public school. He lives diagonally across the street from me. I told him I was sorry to hear that, and truly I am, because despite the car tire incident(s??), I really did like him.

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August NSD's - 4/8

Last night I went on Hulu's website for whatever reason and ended up watching the most recent EM:Weight Loss Edition. For some reason watching that really kicked my behind. Since coming back from CA I've been kind of slacking off in the exercise department. I've been exercising... just not as much as I'd really committed to do.

So ... last night I made sure to set out all the things I would need to go running. I slept in my exercise leggings and socks. I made sure my water bottle was filled up, and my alarm set.

I got to the gym about 6:22 a.m. - about 7 minutes later than I was hoping for (most of that was the time it took me to convince myself to actually get up out of bed!) Then I preceded to run for most of the next 45 minutes!! My best guess is that I did roughly 3 miles (based on previous runs where GPS worked.)

One of our maintenance guys came about 5 minutes before I was finished. He started turning the lights on all over the building. (I'd not turned any on because I didn't want to make it obvious that someone was in the gym from the outside.)

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I'd mentioned to my principal that I had started back with my running program this summer. She apparently mentioned that to the K teacher ... The K teacher told me today that I might be asked to help out with the cross country/track elective! I didn't even know we had one ... just thought we had basketball. I'm not sure if this is something I want to do or not ... but I'll wait to make any decisions until I know what exactly it would mean as far as a time commitment.

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I spent about 9 hours at the library today. The last 2 of them unfortunately were not productive hours due to people talking to me .. but at least I had the first 7, right?!

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Today wasn't a no spend day. When I was coming home from school I noticed that some of our school kids/neighborhood kids had set up a sno-cone/fry bread stand at the entrance. After parking at home, I walked back over to the stand and asked about the sno-cones. $.25! So I ordered one - gave them $1 and left the change. When I got home I dumped it. I considered eating it, but decided not to for several reasons (one being empty calories.)

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I still haven't finished off that spinach (from last week) or opened up the new one, or cooked the asparagus. I must do that tomorrow, or else that food is going to be wasted. Plus it would be good for me to have the green leafy veggies.

This afternoon I took Kari to the different vet. She was so anxious and upset about being in the car/carrier that she not only did not stop yowling the whole way there, but she also got stomach sick.

When the vet tech took her back, I told him that she was very difficult to handle in regards to her nails. He went and got a second person and a towel. The towel worked (with two vet techs doing it!) Kari yowled a couple times, but overall didn't struggle too much. She was *very* happy to get back in her carrier when they were done.

Most of the way home she was quiet, although she was still doing some hyperventilating (not sure if it was hyperventilating, but she was breathing really heavily with her tongue out - the a/c was on so she wasn't hot.)

I gave her some wet food as a treat when we got home.
I think I have found my vet for the remainder of the time I live here (or have a pet.)

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Thanks to the hailstorm yesterday, the internet at school was down today. So I wrote down the barcodes of the books I was weeding in Excel and then printed them out and entered them at home. I also printed out some of the signs I'll be using for the fiction section and weeded more books.

I found out that the new (free) books had been picked up last week. They were in the art room for whatever reason. ?? H was going to take them over to the library for me. From my short perusal of them, there didn't seem to be many non-fiction books, and one box looked to be all of the same book??? I'll have to take a closer look tomorrow. I was really hoping for mostly non-fiction ... oh well.

Before taking Kari to the vet, I stopped by the mission office. I found out that the structure that runs our sewer system here was flooded yesterday under 6 inches of water. This is not good. Our sewer system was already barely holding on ... So I'm guessing we are going to have a few days without water here sometime soon while they work on it. Not fun.

The reason I went there was to ask if they could do one of their appeals for money for non-fiction books. They said they didn't think that would work, but I did find out that this year the library has an actual budget!!!! $1k!! I would never have known this if I hadn't asked. I almost wonder if I had one last year, and the principal didn't know ... so when I asked her about it, she told me I didn't have one. Hmmm...

I need to do some extensive weeding in our non-fiction, and then start figuring out how to best build it up. This'll be fun!!
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Spending:

$10.79 --- Kari's Nails

I'm glad I decided to make today a stay at home day. I got some housework done, finished season 7 of Family Ties (and then had to do some searching to find the episode(s) I was really looking for ...) and am working on reading MJF's book.

We had some major domo thunderstorms today ... and for a good 45 minutes+ there was hail! I would guess that it ranged from pebble sized hail to a small golf ball size. I haven't gone outside to check to see if there is any damage to my car, but if there is, then it isn't as though it would make it look any worse.

I found out during the heavy parts of the rain that there is a leak in the area of the roof where the swamp cooler is. I haven't noticed it before in lighter storms, so I'll need to mention it to the maintenance guys.

My phone weather app sure didn't do a good job keeping up to date with the weather conditions. 30 minutes into the hail storm it still showed cloudy skies. I was wondering if a tornado was possible, so checked online for any weather alerts and didn't see any ... only mentioned "scattered thunderstorms." So I guess nobody had any idea we were going to get hit with hail.

I feel bad for those with gardens though ... they are probably completely demolished. My co-worker who had me watch her cat for her when I got back from CA for a few days had tomato and bean plants in a small garden plot, and I think my principal grows corn and some other stuff.

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August NSDs 3/5

This morning I went over to the school gym and ran for almost 35 minutes straight (had a few walking laps.) I'm not sure what the distance was, but I'd guess it was around 2.5 miles.

Then I came home, showered, and ate breakfast (apple, orange, banana, and a bowl of Kashi cereal - I was stuffed!)

At church I received lots of hugs and many people saying how happy they were to see me back. I stayed for potluck, and ended up staying well after the food was gone. A group of about 8 of us were just sitting talking - shooting the breeze so to speak.

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When I got home I read my other frugal forum that I like to save for Saturday afternoons. In one of the threads someone posted a link to a PowerPot. I was thinking that it looked like a great thing to have for emergency preparation, or simply for camping as well. At $149 it isn't something I'm going to probably get anytime soon, but I did think it was a neat idea.

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I talked to my grandma this afternoon. She told me that the pkg with the car charger should be here no later than Monday. Yay

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I get frequent emails from Pixel of Ink for free and inexpensive ebooks. Today I saw they were featuring an ebook by Michael J. Fox called "A Lucky Man" for $1.99. It is only the 3rd ebook I have actually paid money for (really, I paid giftcard money ...) I've already read the first couple chapters, and am really enjoying it.

I think after sunset tonight, I'm going to watch season 7 of Family Ties. That I think is probably my favorite season of it - with Micheal's new relationship, and then the breakup. The episode with the breakup has a song that I absolutely fell in love with, and still love ... never can remember the name of it ... I thought it was on my phone, but then I think I must have gotten it off a CD, so it was one of those songs erased when I changed computers. (One reason to not get rid of CDs even after you have ripped them onto whatever variety of MP3 player you have/use.) One of the lines is something like "What would you say" and it talks about how he can't believe that she thought he'd hurt her - that if he had the chance he'd kiss the ground she walked on - that he'd give anything just to hold her one more time ...

When I was running this morning I realized that I only had 30 minutes of Christian songs tagged on my phone. I had to restart the playlist before I was finished running. So I need to go through and double check that I have everything tagged, and then if I do, well ... I may need to spend some of my fun money on a few more songs. (Again, why you don't get rid of CDs even after you've ripped the songs ... used to have a ton of Christian music CDs, ripped them, and gave them away. Now have had to slowly rebuy my favorites from those collections ...)

All in all with labor, parts and tax, it cost 616.xx to change the timing belt, replace the pulley, and replace the drive shaft. I was without a car for 3 days which was interesting .. I had planned on going into the library/school today after my car was finished .. but it wasn't finished until nearly 4 p.m. I'm just glad to have it done.

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I did my grocery shopping today.

I bought:

Groceries = $34.70
large container of baby spinach
7 bananas
3 oranges
6 apples
a bunch (is that the proper term?) of asparagus
a frozen Kashi meal of whole wheat pasta/spinach/artichoke/beans
a bag of milled flaxseed
a box of Kashi Go-Lean cereal
a 12 pk of Fiber One brownies
a bag of green grapes
a tub of Smart Balance Omega 3 butter

Kari budget --- $13.71
a door hanging scratching post
a bag of cat food

Misc. budget -- $23.76
Car charger (will probably return - just want to test the cig lighter to see if it works or not)
A pack of colored pens

My grocery budget for this week doesn't have much left (I'm trying to keep it to $40 or less per week) but as long as I actually eat what I purchased before it goes bad, I'm okay with that.

I am considering taking any desert type purchases out of my fun money category instead of groceries. If the bulk of my grocery money is spent on produce, then I won't have much left over for the non-healthy stuff, so that may work out fine.

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Tonight for supper I steamed half the bag of spinach I purchased on Monday. I hadn't opened it all week ... ooops! I also microwaved the bag of cut up butternut squash. Then I microwaved the Kashi dinner and mixed all of it in one large dish. It was really pretty good (and helped to not let the spinach or squash go to waste!!)

I'll probably steam the remainder of the spinach for supper tomorrow night (and maybe have an eggplant patty with it from my freezer.) MMMM....

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I really don't like the medical clinic here. I don't know that going to someplace in big G would be any better, at least not better enough to make a 35+ one way drive worth it. I was supposed to *just* get bloodwork done today (checking thyroid.) When I was taken back they weighed me as usual (down 5lbs since last doctor visit) and then the NP took me into one of the doctor's exam rooms. ??? She took my blood-pressure (which was on the rather high-side, rather unusual for me) and then told me the doctor would be with me in a few minutes, then she'd take my blood.

Remember, all I was supposed to be there for was bloodwork!! The doctor comes in and asks me if this was the first time she was seeing me. Mouth drop. This is the same lady I saw back in February, and then the office denied refilling my prescription a few weeks later because I hadn't been seen by this doctor. Ugh!!

She asks me some various questions, and then tells me that she's going to have my blood tested for diabetes as well - due to my weight. I can understand where she is coming from, and probably not a bad idea to check that again -- but not one word of acknowledgement that I had *lost weight* since my last visit? I don't know, I guess it just rubbed me the wrong way.

So I got my blood drawn (first time stuck, thankfully!) Then I went to the receptionist to pay - but apparently there was no co-pay (or they just didn't charge me one?) I had to tell her that I had a balance due (I'd gone in to pay it before leaving for CA, but no one was in the office.)

So ... $13.17 Medical

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Kari was attacking my feet again today. I got really fed up, and decided to see what options there are in big G. I called several places, and made an appointment for Monday afternoon with the one that actually had a live person answer. I told them that I needed to find someone who could trim Kari's claws *without* putting her under. If they can do that, then they'll have my business probably once every six weeks or so. (They charge $10 + tax.) It's worth every penny of that to me if they can do it.

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I was thinking of going to see a movie on Sunday (Wimpy Kid probably ...) but since I didn't get into the library/school today, I should do that on Sunday. It'll save gas money and maybe a better movie will come out that I can use my fun money for this month.

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August NSD's - 2/3

If you're like me, you didn't get the email telling you that Beezag is shutting down. : If you have at least 1,000 points you can cash out (in increments of 1,000) until November 1.

In about 18 months I earned slightly over $74. Sad to see them go.

Well I took my car into the mechanic again this morning. They took me back to school (where the internet was down ... so I got my keyboarding curriculum put together and a general outline for the year for all grades except PK.)

Around 11 am I got a call telling me that as they were getting to my timing belt they found that the pulley? was needing replaced and that it would come from ABQ.

Then around 1:30 I got another call telling me that my drive shaft was cracked and leaking. He did tell me that it was something that probably could be put off safely. I asked him how much, and he told me $120. So I said to go ahead and do it since they already were in there and who knows how long it had been cracked...

So, it looks like the total is going to be closer to $500 than $300 ... This is kind of what I was afraid of ... that once they really got in there they'd find problems that weren't readily apparent. Hopefully there won't be anymore, or else I may just have to call a halt to anymore and make some hard decisions.

My car won't be ready until tomorrow morning sometime. I have a doctor's appt at 8:30 am, so they will come pick me up and take me (it's only a mile or so away.) I guess I'll call when I'm done to be taken to the school??

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I called my graduate school alma mater to find out why I'd gotten a letter telling me I'd been accepted to the teacher pre-certification school ??? It seems as though I filled out the wrong application ... I thought I filled out the one from the link in the email from my advisor ... but oh well. I hope I can get it worked out before registration closes. Class starts on August 29 and I don't even know what books I need - probably can find that out though.

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Kari scratched the under part of my upper arm this morning pretty badly. It was an accident - she was on my chest and jumped off. Her claws are pretty long right now. Thankfully I had some anti-biotic cream.

I've tried unsuccessfully to trim her claws since the two times I managed to do so (partially). I'm almost willing to think about having her put under so her claws can be trimmed!! (I absolutely hate that idea for many reasons - $$, unnecessary meds, putting a cat under is unnecessary risk (i.e. Monkey ) I'm just not sure what to do though because she *really* needs them clipped. BADLY.

*The vet's office told me that if I wanted them to trim her claws, she would have to be put under due to her nearly biting the vet tech last time when she trimmed them.

Looking Forward, do you have any suggestions?? Anyone else?

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August NSD's = 2

I took my car in today to the shop - even skipped my workout to get it there as early as possible. One of their people dropped me off at school.

About 3 pm (6+ hrs later) I got a call telling me that they couldn't change my timing belt today because they didn't have some valve thing. Ergh! So they came and picked me up. Will take it in tomorrow to actually get it done.

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Got a good bit done at school. Cataloged and lexiled 52 books (hi/lo books), and then deleted at least 300 books I'd previously weeded. Now I just have to figure out where to go with them. Too bad there isn't a half-price bookstore in NM.

There was a set of library lesson books with no markings or labels (duplicates) so I'm thinking of putting them on ebay or perhaps half.com. Whatever I get from them will go into the book fund.

All but two of our new teachers have arrived now. One of the newbies suggested doing a teacher book club once a month -- good idea (esp since I'd tried suggesting the same thing last year...)

There is so much I really need to do in the library that it's hard to know what TO DO. I probably need to focus on putting together my keyboarding curriculum (3rd - 5th will come 2x/wk for 20 minutes of focused keyboarding - Common Core requires a student to comfortably type 2 pages in one session...) I'd also really like to get my signs made - though I still need to finalize what they are and check to see if the laminator is working. I have a ton more books to catalog and relabel and lexile. I also have a tall stack of books to read and make tests for (the high/lo books - I want them all to have a test ready.)
I also would like to create a media center newsletter - but really need to figure out my lesson plans for Aug/Sept first...

My principal asked me if I could use my asst's help on the 8th/9th. Hah! Could I ever!! Let's see .. finish covering the grade level labels on all the books (and retaping most of the ones in the early series section..) Go through non-fiction sections and make sure they are in as perfect order as possible. Work on finding lexiles for all the numerous books that don't have one in the computer. All of that should easily take every spare minute of time she can give me!

(BTW, the list above is just barely scratching the surface ... I at least have until the 20th to be completely ready ... so that gives me a little breathing room.)

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When I got back on Monday I realized I'd really left my place a mess. I think I had swept most of the house and taken the trash out before I left, but that's about it. Monday I was zonked. Yesterday I managed to motivate myself to unpack my suitcases and mostly put everything away. This morning I cleaned the bathroom sink and mirror before leaving ... then this afternoon I picked up all the trash, cleaned the litter box, and then swept the whole house! I also started a load of laundry.

Tomorrow I plan to do more laundry, and clean all the counters (bathroom/kitchen.) Then Friday I need to do dishes, and maybe start on decluttering my closet.

Baby steps ... baby steps.. (I'm not much for keeping up my home .. I like it when it's clean, just have a hard time motivating myself to keep it up.)

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I possibly have a babysitting job either Saturday or Sunday night. It's for two girls who go to our school (my principal already said this was okay - as long as it is at their home.) The mom has said she also would like me to do an overnight.

Can you say car fund baby?!!

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My brother saved me some money last night. I told him about getting the cig lighter fixed and that I hadn't found my car charger yet. I was thinking I'd get one this weekend and test it to make sure it worked - if not, I could take it back. He told me I should call grandma and ask her to send me the charger that is in the Rogue. I'd thought about taking it with me, but since I didn't think I'd actually be able to use it, I left it. Now though.. I might be able to use it.

The phone call to grandma trying to explain what I wanted was ...interesting... I hope she sends me the right thing.

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I've decided to see how many no spending days I can have each month. I'm not going to make a particular goal amount, but just see which month I can have the most NSDs in.

August -- 1 NSD

I went over to the school today to check my mail and see what if anything was happening. To my surprise, I received a card from My English Castle. I guess I've given enough clues for someone to figure out the name of the school I'm at (not that there's many in this neck of the woods ...or should I say, desert?) Thank you MEC, that was very thoughtful.

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This morning I used my elliptical for the first time since moving here. I managed to make it 30 minutes - the little computer on it said I'd gone 4.3 miles, but ... I kind of find that hard to believe.

Kari was slightly scared of the machine, but was also very interested, so kept coming near it. Thankfully not near enough to get hit though!

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Last night I was really wanting to eat some ice cream I have in my freezer. Instead, I ate a banana!

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This morning I took my car over to the place my co-worker recommended. I asked them to go over it with a fine tooth comb and see if there was anything they thought was a possible problem (safety wise.) They spent a good two hours on it! The end result was that they told me that my car looks like it is in good shape - they didn't see any potential problems.

So ... that is now two mechanics/places that have told me the same thing. Neither of them mentioned anything about the things holding the engine in - so I'm not sure what to make of that.

I also asked for an estimate of how much to change out the timing belt/water pump. $300!!! Including labor!! (I really thought it would be closer to $8 or 900 - at the dealership they charged me $1100 back in 2003/4.) I also asked them how much it would cost to fix my cig lighter. $10 - changed the fuse. Now I just have to find my car charger (if I still even have it...)I also asked about fixing the windshield wiper - that would be $90, so I passed on it. (It only works on two speeds - medium and fast.)

They charged me $20 for the fuse and tightening my a/c belt plus the two-hours of looking over my car. I thought that was very reasonable. I'm going to take it back tomorrow to get the timing belt changed.

In case you haven't guessed already, I have decided to take a chance on getting another year out of my car.

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Tithing $135.00
Offering $15.00
Phone $75.00
Internet $30.00
Netflix $9.00
Food $160.00
Auto Fuel $90.00
Fun Money $40.00
Medical/Dental $100.00
Clothing $10.00
Household/Misc. $30.00
Car Ins. $12.00
Life Ins. $16.00
Renter's Ins. $14.00
Gifts/Christmas $15.00
Professional $15.00
Kari (CAT) $25.00
Car Savings
(Repair/Replace)$255.00
Vacation $50.00
ROTH $100.00
EF $20.00

Most of these categories will stay the same going forward, except:

Medical/Dental -- I have a Dentist appt. and a blood draw this month. Normally this would be $50/mo

Car Savings: Should be closer to $388/mo.

ROTH - This is what I have been doing, but starting next month I plan to increase it to $150/mo.

EF - I'm mostly concentrating on my car savings right now, but going forward this will be $50/mo.

Car/Life/Renter's are all paid either annually or 2x a year.

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Today's Spending:

Car Stuff: $20
Auto Fuel: $31.71 (will come out of August's budget - I was on fumes otherwise I would have waited til tomorrow.)

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I am seriously loving YNAB 4! I entered my transactions on my phone at the gas station and the auto place. When I got home, they were both already updated on my desktop version. Also, it is a lot simpler now to copy and paste my budget numbers now. So Yay! Great job Jesse!!

The train pulled in about 9 a.m. this morning, only 40 minutes late ... What a ride! If Amtrak would like some pointers on why they are losing business, I may be able to offer a few. Last night I don't know if I got any real sleep at all. I was put in the car directly behind the lounge car ... ALL night long people were going into and out of it -swhoosh swhoosh went the doors .. Loud talkers exiting .. and on and on. The one good thing about it was that the seat was much roomier than the ones on the other trains I rode this summer.

My co-worker was there waiting for me and took me to Walmart so I could get groceries. I meant to get cat food but totally blanked! I bought $24.xx worth of fruits and veggies and nuts. Now I just have to actually EAT them!!

My co-worker and I were talking about the Rogue and about my car (Honda). She told me that when she drove it (H) around the other day it sounded to her like my brakes are about ready to be replaced. Ugh. She also called my car a piece of junk. She wasn't trying to be mean (I don't think at least...) She did suggest another mechanic I might want to take my car to for an intensive inspection. So, probably tomorrow I'll do that.

I am so utterly exhausted today - I tried sleeping earlier but couldn't. Kari wasn't quite sure what to make of me being back for the first hour or so. Now though she's been up on my lap while I've been at the computer for the past 4 or so hours.

Kari found $6 for me today. She knocked off an old box of letters on my bookshelf. When I picked them up I noticed some green ... it was a letter from my brother back in 1996 with $6 cash! Isn't that bizarre that in 16 years I didn't find that money??

I bought YNAB 4 today. Mmmm... Yummy. Automatic synching of budget between phone and computer program ... Seweet!! ($40)

Oh ... I did make it into the next decade yesterday morning. Down 10.5 lbs!

I need to run by the Post Office, and then go feed my co-workers cat (the one who picked me up this am.)

I might post the budget I'm looking at either tonight or tomorrow. Maybe I'll wait to finalize it until after I hear what the mechanic says ... dun dun dun...

I did not exercise today .. I need to check with my principal how early people have been arriving at the school - don't want to run in the gym if there's people around! (If too early, then I might just do my elliptical instead.) My co-worker suggested that I might not want to go full force into running here due to oxygen level differences between here and CA ... If I do run, it'll be in the gym so I guess it won't hurt to experiment.

My brother and my dad's friend arrived here late Thursday night. My brother and I finished going through the shed and dad's room - getting everything packed and put away or thrown away or put into donation boxes. It went much more quickly than either of us thought it was going to, so that was a good thing.

Then this morning I woke my brother up to go jogging. I didn't want to go any later because it gets *hot* quickly here. I had planned on a 2 mile jog and then let him go for his 6 miler ... he had other plans though!! The longest I've ran since starting back into jogging this summer was a 3 mile walk/run. Today I did 4.35 miles of walking and running - mostly running!! I told my brother that I was going to be wiped out the rest of the day after doing so much - he was like fine, take a nap. No sympathy there.

When we got back we both ate breakfast, and then went on a 3 mile walk with our dads friend. Part of the walk was feeding the ducks/geese by the veteran's home. I go pecked on the leg/shoe by one of the geese! (It didn't hurt, just was kind of funny.)

Tonight we are going to work on finishing up the garage (I took a nice long nap this afternoon ... can you say sore?!)

My brother flys back to Napa tomorrow morning, and I head back to NM tomorrow night. Hard to believe that the time has finally come to head back home! My dads friend will be staying here with grandma.

One of my coworkers turned my car on yesterday to make sure the battery, etc. was still good. It turned over with no problem. Today I think she was going to drive it around a bit to put the gears through their paces. She told me - I shouldn't have been surprised, it's a Honda!

I'll be getting back into big G Monday morning around 8:30 (depending on whether the train is on time or not) and hope to do some grocery shopping - depends on how much time my co-worker has who is picking me up. (They are heading to ABQ for a few days after dropping me off - I'll be looking after their cat.) It'll be so nice to be back home. I hope Kari (my cat) won't be too upset with me ...

This summer between exercising more regularly and not having boco access to junk eating ... I managed to lose approximately 9 lbs ... after today, I think I may be going into the next decade on the scale. Now I just have to figure out how to keep this up at home. Running outside isn't a very good option - lots of empty roads yes, but also lots of loose and wild dogs/animals. So my other option is the school gym .. on the small side, so could get *really* boring *really* fast (i.e. 20 laps equal 1 mile, so to do 3 miles 60 laps ...)

My dad had quite a few diet/healthy eating books in his closet. Most of them I just roll my eyes at, but one did actually intrigue me. I read it in less than an hour - mostly common sense, but just not practiced. It's called "The Full-Plate Diet" and it essentially advocates working up to eating 40+ grams of fiber daily (real foods) and of course drinking plenty of water to go with it. It suggests to eat the fiber rich foods first, then other foods. It has lists of the top 5 fiber foods in various categories (fruit, veggies, grains, something else.) The only food in any of the top 5 categories I don't eat is avacado.

I'm thinking I'm going to really try to get myself working towards eating this way. My normal breakfast is pretty fiber rich - rolled oats w/raisins, a banana and orange juice. I think I'll change the OJ with an actual orange (though I'll want to have that cut up the night before - especially during on school days.)

My lunches and dinners are all over the place. I had gotten away from relying on the vege meats, but they have slowly come back into my diet with a vengence. So .. I'd like to make a change there as well.

I think I'll start buying the fresh spinach again (I stopped after too many packages went bad before I used them up - sometimes before I even opened them ...) Lunch could basically be a big salad of spinach, shredded carrots and squash, diced cauliflower and broccli, silvered almonds, and more rasins. (I love raisins ...) This is something I can take to school with me pretty easily and keep in the teacher fridge until lunch. I may also add a cut up apple or orange or pear on the side.

To make this easier on myself (at first at least) I'll probably buy the pre-diced stuff. I'm WAY too likely to just let it sit in the fridge and mold if I buy stuff I have to actually dice and chop ...

For dinner, a sweet potato and quinoa or baked beans or lentils... (vegetarian!).

Then for a dessert/snack I could do a smoothie with frozen berries and a banana. Also for snacking I need to keep grapes in the fridge.

That would be a pretty fiber rich diet, and also a good amount of protein and numerous vitamins. It also is made up of all foods that I like and enjoy. It also is basically a vegan diet ... which I don't think would be a particularily bad way for me to go considering how my body tends to react to dairy products anymore.. (Poor Thrifty Ray and her DD3 got the pleasure of seeing my body react to the overload of ice cream from Ghiradelli's.. it was SO good, but almost not worth it ... almost..)I won't go strictly vegan because being strictly vegan is more of a whole lifestyle and being vegetarian is difficult enough at times. Besides, when the cafeteria serves grilled cheese and tomato soup ... I want to treat myself!! (I think they had it maybe 6 or 7 times this last school year. Twice during Lent.)

I don't know exactly how this will affect my grocery budget ... but having a good idea of how much I was spending on junk food ... well, I think my overall spending will go down.

Anyway, I won't be able to go full force into it because I have a lot of food in my freezer that I need to use up first. I think though that what I'll do is do breakfast and lunch like I outlined, and then use up the food in the freezer for dinner. Then, once it's gone, go to my dinner plan.

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I've been emailing back and forth with the internet sales person about the Versa for under $15k. I'd finally apologized to him for taking his time, but that I didn't think it was worth driving 200+ miles to see if the car was a good deal for me or not. He wrote back and asked me what *would* make it a good deal ... So I told him $13,500 walk out the door price after trade in. Then I described to him my car. I was pretty prolific in outlining it's good and bad points. Figured it didn't hurt to take a chance and see if a deal could be made... I have the feeling that he doesn't think it is a workable bargain because I haven't heard back from him today.

I think what I'm going to do when I get back is take my car to the local mechanic. Then I'll tell them that I am trying to decide whether or not to take a chance on my car lasting (w/o major repairs) for another year, or trying to sell it and get a newish car. I'll ask him to look over my car carefully and see if there are ANY safety concerns (such as the things holding the engine in, etc.) I'll also ask for a quote on the timing belt (because that absolutely will have to be done if I keep the car much longer.)

I read an article on yahoo today about how to get your car past 100k. In the comment section there were dozens of multiple people commenting that getting past 100k was nothing, and that they had cars easily make the 200k and more with no worries. My car made it to 100k with the only real major repair being the air conditioning going out (around the 50k mile mark.) After 100k is when the computer died (which led to my electric locks unlocking doors but not locking, the windshield wiper functioning from medium speed and up only, cruise control not functioning, the radio frying, and the airbags being disabled. I think it was also around this time that the cig lighter stopped working - for charging my phone.) I'm on my third or fourth starter (can't remember for sure.) So ... I'm kind of curious to see if I *could* get my car to 200k ... but I've got to admit that I'm really getting tired of driving something where about the only thing that works well (usually) is the ac/heat. That isn't a good reason to get a new car though... especially when the only way I can do it is to take out a loan ...

If I look at what I've spent on my car in the last year beyond the normal oil changes/new tires/change fluids stuff, it is nowhere near what a car payment would be. Even if the timing belt/water thingy cost $1k, divided by 12 it still would be less than a car payment. So ... I guess what I am thinking is that I am going to wait. If something else comes up with my car, then I'll be ready with having ideas of where to go to replace it. In the meantime I will be doing heavy duty saving in order to have the smallest possible loan when the time comes. (This is of course assuming that the mechanic doesn't tell me some expensive repairs are needed beyond the timing belt .. then I'll have to reconsider, as well as maybe get a second opinion.)

In one week I will be back in my own home with my own bed and my own cat! Can you tell that I'm more than ready to be back in NM??
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In looking at cars and prices, I'm beginning to wonder if I made a mistake not taking the Rogue. While it would not have been a car I was very excited about driving, it would be approximately the same amount as most cars I'm finding ($wise.) I showed my Egyptian Aunt and Uncle the car I found last night (2010 Versa w/less than 5k miles for $14,989) and my aunt came to me later and told me that I should probably keep it close to my chest that I'm looking at cars in the same price range as what was owed on the Rogue. Ugh! I can see what she's saying ... but if I looked at cars in the under 10k range, they'd be at least five or six years old with 50k+ miles. Someone probably would come up with some reason to be annoyed by that too.

It really would've been easier to have just kept the Rogue. Easier .. but I don't know that it would've made me happier (especially when my gas costs rose - Rogue avg 26mpg, Honda avg 30mgp.) Ok .. so maybe it's not THAT big of a difference in gas mileage... My brother's already changed his plane ticket, I've booked a train ticket and have someone picking me up.

I was pretty much in meltdown mode last week. I'd been doing research on what documents I needed for the DMV to transfer title, and saw a line in the affadavit that said something about "the estate has no creditors outstanding" and since all we've had come in so far of the medical bills is from the ambulance, I was worried about signing my name to that. Then my mind started going to where I imagined that the medical bills wiped out the little bit of cash estate left after paying the funeral expenses ... so then the choice would be to sell the Rogue or the stocks. Selling the stocks would be extremely stupid, so selling the Rogue .. what if I'd been making payments on it for six months and paying for the insurance .. sold my Honda already ... then I'd be out the payments plus have to look for another vehicle.. (this was part of my panic/meltdown thinking) Then I started looking at how to file taxes for a deceased, and it looked like the only way to do that was to petition the court to be appointed as the personal representative (still not sure on this one...) Anyway, my emotional state was way out of whack ... and what made me calm down was making the decision to NOT take the Rogue.

My aunt who works for a health insurance company, and a close friend of my brother's who is a doctor, both have stated that the liklihood of big bills from this isn't big due to dad having both medicare AND his former employer's health plan. Plus all the stuff he had done in the hospital are considered to be just procedures - not actual surgeries. I'll believe it when we're down the road a year from now and have seen the final costs ...

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In other news ... this morning I walked/ran 3 miles in 43:34 minutes. My pace was 14:50 - which is just ten seconds shy of my best 5k race time.

I am so tired - all the time. I keep hoping that my regualar running will at some point translate into energy. I wonder if my synthroid needs to be upped (although I hope not, not sure how much higher it can go - .137mcg.)

When I was feeding the birds this afternoon there was one larger bird that didn't get away. I stood really really still and it stayed put. I slowly stepped forward, and then a little ways towards it. It stayed. Only when I lifted my hand up to take down one of the bags did it fly away. That was pretty cool.

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I did the final steps to link my Bofa and ING accounts today, and then transferred the money. By Tuesday it will be available for me to pay off the credit card I put the funeral expenses on. I'll be very happy to see that balance go back to normal!

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Last night I spent about an hour weeding my dads garden. I only got maybe half-way through - the weeds were really running rampant. As I was taking my bucket of weeds to the garbage, I heard the garage door close and lock. My grandma had locked me out of the house! I knocked on the back window - she went to the front door. I kept on knocking and she finally figured out where the knocking was coming from.

I think I'll probably go weed some more in a half-hour or so (hopefully cooler ..) this time though I'll be sure that she knows I'm outside!

One thing I've noticed while out here in CA this summer is that most of my tops have a number of claw shaped holes in them, as well as some staining. I've seen Kari (my cat) in my closet before, but hadn't really realized how much damage she was inflicting on my clothing.

I decided that while I was in an area with an abundance of places to buy clothes, that I should try to replace a number of tops. So today my grandma and I went clothes shopping. I ended up buying 7 tops total - 3 from Walmart, 1 from Macy's, and 3 from Sears. The least expensive top was $5, and the most was $25. I'm very happy with all of them, and think they will help to upgrade my professional image. I was really hoping I could find a replica of this one particular top I bought at Lane Bryant 4 years ago which I absolutely love, but I didn't find anything close. (I've been looking ever since I realized how much I loved the top ...) It's at home (NM) so if I think about it I'll take a picture of it - maybe one of you have seen it somewhere ...

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***Please be advised, the following is a spewing of my thinking/thoughts arguing back and forth with myself ...

So in thinking about cars I took heed of the advice to look at certified cars. In my area (within 200 miles) there are 0 certified cars that are 2010 or newer AND less than $15k. There are 14 cars that are 2009 and newer AND less than $20k. So ... if I'm going to pay $14k+ for a car ... I'd rather get a brand new (last year model) with full warranty, etc., than a 2 - 4 year old car for the same $ or more.

When I get my next car, I want to be able to run it for a minimum of ten years. (My current car I've had since 1997 - bought new with 37 miles on it.) Since I live out in the boondocks (30+ miles to nearest town with more than two gas stations) I really cannot take many chances with the reliability of a vehcicle.

It would be great if I could find a car like my first one - a Hundayi Sonata that had sat in a grandma's garage and had 33k miles on it and was 4 years old .. in perfect condition. I paid $5k for it (in 1994) and drove it for 3 years, then sold it to my parents in 1997. My dad drove it for two more years (he put more miles on it in two years than it had on it when he bought it from me.)

I'm really looking at the Nissan Versa - mainly because it seems to get similar gas mileage to my Civic, it is a similar size/handling, and from my experiences riding in my co-workers Versa - seemed like a good car for the price range. I'd be open to other cars. Mostly what I'm lusting after is the ability to charge my phone via cig lighter and play my phone over the radio. Everything else I don't care about too much. (ok, I care a lot about gas mileage and size/handling - large part of why I ended up not taking on the Rogue.)

I could put $2 - 4k into my current car - change the timing belt, do whatever needs to be done to make sure the engine doesn't fall out, figure out how to get my cig lighter working again (was told $3-400), and install a radio (and just hope that it doesn't fry like my last radio fried ...), oh yeah, the shocks probably will need replacing soon and possibly the brakes within the next year or two .. Maybe I could get a new hood too ... My car might last another 4 years after all that, or .. the electrical system will go out or the a/c will fail and then my car'd be a goner or need a few thousand more dollars work ... Meanwhile my family would be getting more and more worked up about how unsafe my car is, and I'd be getting further and further behind on having the ability to get a new car with cash.

Or ... I could do all that and my car could keep going fine for another 4 or 5 years, and then I'd have more than enough time to save the funds needed to replace it.

Or .. I could buy a new car (last years model) for around $13-15k. Put down $4k in cash for it up front, and then use dealer financing for the other 8-11k. Depending on the dealer finance rate, either stick with it or borrow 10k from my grandma (5% finance rate) to pay it off. (I read in several places that you can work a better deal on the overall price if you go with dealer financing.) Then either way I went ... aggressively pay the car off within two years (any money left from dads estate after medical bills, using tax refunds and extra paychecks, plus whatever I can sell my Honda for.) Then have 7 - 8 years to save towards the next replacement car (while also having the ability to work on other financial goals.)

Whenever my family starts to chime in on how unsafe they think my car is, I tend to defend my car. But the reality is that every time I take a trip to ABQ (about a two-hour one-way) I do worry. I've kept up with the general maintenance and oil changes - but I've also had multiple minor accidents and mishaps over the years in it. The hood that is currently crumpled (due to me rear ending somoenone in Dec.) is actually the 4th hood my cars had (hail damage, running into a pipe sticking out the back of a truck and something else I can't remember ..) I was told before moving to NM that one of the things holding my engine in was completely corroded and that the other two were just a matter of time. My timing belt was last changed in 2003 or 4?? so it's probably on borrowed time. The computer in my car appears to be working fine right now - although it is the same one that was in my car when my radio fried... (it's the 4th computer in my car - 1st one died, replacement was stolen, 3rd one from junk yard was for a standard car and not automatic ..)

When I get back to NM in a week, I'm not really going to have time to do anything about this one way or the other. School starts on the 15th and I'm WAY behind in everything I feel like I need to have done. So ... maybe I'll wait till November when we have a week off for Thanksgiving. I'd have a lot more to put down by then, and my timing belt should *hopefully* hold out til then ...

(In doing further research about the best time to buy a car, it seems that there really is no consensus. So November might just be as good of a time as any other..)

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I finally made enough Swagbucks to redeem for a $5 AGC today. 1st one this summer!

One thing I've noticed while out here in CA this summer is that most of my tops have a number of claw shaped holes in them, as well as some staining. I've seen Kari (my cat) in my closet before, but hadn't really realized how much damage she was inflicting on my clothing.

I decided that while I was in an area with an abundance of places to buy clothes, that I should try to replace a number of tops. So today my grandma and I went clothes shopping. I ended up buying 7 tops total - 3 from Walmart, 1 from Macy's, and 3 from Sears. The least expensive top was $5, and the most was $25. I'm very happy with all of them, and think they will help to upgrade my professional image. I was really hoping I could find a replica of this one particular top I bought at Lane Bryant 4 years ago which I absolutely love, but I didn't find anything close. (I've been looking ever since I realized how much I loved the top ...) It's at home (NM) so if I think about it I'll take a picture of it - maybe one of you have seen it somewhere ...

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***Please be advised, the following is a spewing of my thinking/thoughts arguing back and forth with myself ...

So in thinking about cars I took heed of the advice to look at certified cars. In my area (within 200 miles) there are 0 certified cars that are 2010 or newer AND less than $15k. There are 14 cars that are 2009 and newer AND less than $20k. So ... if I'm going to pay $14k+ for a car ... I'd rather get a brand new (last year model) with full warranty, etc., than a 2 - 4 year old car for the same $ or more.

When I get my next car, I want to be able to run it for a minimum of ten years. (My current car I've had since 1997 - bought new with 37 miles on it.) Since I live out in the boondocks (30+ miles to nearest town with more than two gas stations) I really cannot take many chances with the reliability of a vehcicle.

It would be great if I could find a car like my first one - a Hundayi Sonata that had sat in a grandma's garage and had 33k miles on it and was 4 years old .. in perfect condition. I paid $5k for it (in 1994) and drove it for 3 years, then sold it to my parents in 1997. My dad drove it for two more years (he put more miles on it in two years than it had on it when he bought it from me.)

I'm really looking at the Nissan Versa - mainly because it seems to get similar gas mileage to my Civic, it is a similar size/handling, and from my experiences riding in my co-workers Versa - seemed like a good car for the price range. I'd be open to other cars. Mostly what I'm lusting after is the ability to charge my phone via cig lighter and play my phone over the radio. Everything else I don't care about too much. (ok, I care a lot about gas mileage and size/handling - large part of why I ended up not taking on the Rogue.)

I could put $2 - 4k into my current car - change the timing belt, do whatever needs to be done to make sure the engine doesn't fall out, figure out how to get my cig lighter working again (was told $3-400), and install a radio (and just hope that it doesn't fry like my last radio fried ...), oh yeah, the shocks probably will need replacing soon and possibly the brakes within the next year or two .. Maybe I could get a new hood too ... My car might last another 4 years after all that, or .. the electrical system will go out or the a/c will fail and then my car'd be a goner or need a few thousand more dollars work ... Meanwhile my family would be getting more and more worked up about how unsafe my car is, and I'd be getting further and further behind on having the ability to get a new car with cash.

Or ... I could do all that and my car could keep going fine for another 4 or 5 years, and then I'd have more than enough time to save the funds needed to replace it.

Or .. I could buy a new car (last years model) for around $13-15k. Put down $4k in cash for it up front, and then use dealer financing for the other 8-11k. Depending on the dealer finance rate, either stick with it or borrow 10k from my grandma (5% finance rate) to pay it off. (I read in several places that you can work a better deal on the overall price if you go with dealer financing.) Then either way I went ... aggressively pay the car off within two years (any money left from dads estate after medical bills, using tax refunds and extra paychecks, plus whatever I can sell my Honda for.) Then have 7 - 8 years to save towards the next replacement car (while also having the ability to work on other financial goals.)

Whenever my family starts to chime in on how unsafe they think my car is, I tend to defend my car. But the reality is that every time I take a trip to ABQ (about a two-hour one-way) I do worry. I've kept up with the general maintenance and oil changes - but I've also had multiple minor accidents and mishaps over the years in it. The hood that is currently crumpled (due to me rear ending somoenone in Dec.) is actually the 4th hood my cars had (hail damage, running into a pipe sticking out the back of a truck and something else I can't remember ..) I was told before moving to NM that one of the things holding my engine in was completely corroded and that the other two were just a matter of time. My timing belt was last changed in 2003 or 4?? so it's probably on borrowed time. The computer in my car appears to be working fine right now - although it is the same one that was in my car when my radio fried... (it's the 4th computer in my car - 1st one died, replacement was stolen, 3rd one from junk yard was for a standard car and not automatic ..)

When I get back to NM in a week, I'm not really going to have time to do anything about this one way or the other. School starts on the 15th and I'm WAY behind in everything I feel like I need to have done. So ... maybe I'll wait till November when we have a week off for Thanksgiving. I'd have a lot more to put down by then, and my timing belt should *hopefully* hold out til then ...

(In doing further research about the best time to buy a car, it seems that there really is no consensus. So November might just be as good of a time as any other..)

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I finally made enough Swagbucks to redeem for a $5 AGC today. 1st one this summer!

This morning I got up and got my run in - did 1.5 miles running in 14:39 pace. Then I did another mile walk/run in 15:12 pace. I think I may be getting close to being ready for another 5k. In fact ... I'm looking at a 5k race on August 12 in ABQ ... The weekend before school starts. The race is early in the morning, so I could make a day of it in the big city. It might be kind of fun actually - especially if I can get anyone to come with me.

My first 5k race was Too Hot To Handle and I think it was in mid-July 2008?? My dad was there cheering me on and took before and after pictures, as well as making a short video of it. He loved hearing all about my races when he wasn't able to make them.

Sigh.

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Today we went to the bank and got all my dads accounts closed out. I had them give my grandma a cashiers check for the amount I think was hers. (For some reason dad had an account in his name with her money ...the only way I figured out this was the account she was talking about is because of my dad's meticulous record keeping.) The rest was made in a cashiers check to me. I was going to deposit it into ING via picture deposit, but after opening the app to do it realized the amount was too large.

So tomorrow I'll deposit it into my Bofa account, and once I have ING and Bofa linked, I'll be able to move the money to ING. THEN I'll be able to pay the credit card bill that I put the funeral expenses onto. Whew. It's not due til mid-August, so I'm not worried.

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We had to get two documents notarized today. That cost $30. Thankfully no one else was there so we didn't have to wait. (There was no wait at the bank, but it took nearly two-hours to close out the accounts!)

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Next we stopped at the stock place where my dad had an account and started the process to transfer them to my name.

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Then we went to Walgreen's and picked up a prescription. (There are few Walgreen's in this area, but lots of Rite Aides.)

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Finally we went out to dinner at this Asian food place. Today is my Egypt Aunt and Uncle's 42nd wedding anniversary. They are high-school sweethearts.

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Before all of the above though ... I made a phone call to my internet service provider. I really didn't think it would do any good at all, but decided to try.
I was able to get a reduction of $20/month on my bill!!! Woo hoo!!

Before the phone call, my grandma and I had a nice chat to kind of clear the air about the last couple days worth of drama. She *really* wants me to replace my car. She said if I really want a Versa, that she'd loan me the money to get it this coming October (end of fiscal year) and I could pay it back $150/month. I tried to tell her no outright, but she wasn't taking it. So I finally told her I'd take it under consideration and think about it.

I have about $3k right now that I could put towards a car, and I *might* be able to get $1000 for my car. By October I *might* be able to save $1500 more (if I *really* buckle down.) So ...that's roughly $5500. That would mean a loan of approximately $8000.

I know the timing belt needs to be changed *soon*. I also know that I was told a year ago that one of the things holding the engine in had gone bad, and that it was only a matter of time for one or both of the remaining ones to fail. I also know that there are many other things that could go wrong that I don't know about.

I think I could probably pay this loan off in 14 to 16 months. If I put all of my tax refund to it, and then also the two "extra* paychecks, plus as much as I can afford to throw at it otherwise. I absolutely abhor the idea of the loan, but ... if it is for a car I'm choosing (and that gets good gas mileage) maybe it would be better to get the new car before my current one really starts falling apart and become worth nothing.

**I could also possibly have some money from my dad's estate to put towards it depending on the amount of the medical bills. So, that could cut the payoff date to 8 to 10 months.

I'm not sure if I'm trying to rationalize taking a loan, or if this really may be the thing to do....

My plan (before dad died) was to wait til Oct, 2013 and go to a dealer at the end of the day towards the end of October and ask to see what Versas they have from the last year models stock. Then name the price I'm willing to walk out on. (Depending on the features, I was thinking somewhere between $12 and 13k.) If I take my grandma up on her offer ... I could do the same thing, only in Oct, 2012.

If my car were to break down before Oct 2013 and/or require really expensive repairs, then I might have to take the loan anyway and end up paying more for a car. I had no warning that my car's computer was about to die in the summer of 2009, but yet it did. I definitely cannot afford anything like that again with this car.

I don't have to decide this right now. I can see how much I'm able to put away in savings between now and the beginning of October. I can also check with the local mechanic who's been working on my car and see what he thinks I might really be able to get for it. Then decide one way or the other after running the numbers.

**No, I am not in the market for a used car. I've read all the arguments for and against. I know many people have great success with used cars. IF I had a mechanic I trusted completely AND was in an area where I could have a good number of used vehicles to choose from, I might consider it. Since neither is the case - last year's model is my way to go. **

I had a great time this past weekend meeting SA friends and spending time with my brother. If you are ever in Napa, be sure to take in the Wine Train - it is quite a fascinating experience.

It's been a drama filled 36 hours or so here in LL. The long and short of it is that I am no longer going to be taking over the car loan for my dad's Rogue. It's going to stay with my grandma who will sell it to recoup as much of the loan cost as possible. I will be keeping my paid for 97 Honda Civic and buckling down hard to save for my replacement car (which is sorely needed.)

I feel a sense of relief in that I'm not taking on a debt, but I also feel sad that we're letting dads car go and that I'm not going to have the majorly updated car (2010 model) with all the nifty features. After sitting for 7 weeks, I'm not sure what shape my car will be in ... but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Starting in August I'm going to go on a cash basis for groceries, entertainment and the etc. stuff. I'm also going to attempt to lower my internet bill (only one provider in the area .. but will see if possible.) I need to start looking into the cost for making a will and living trust for a single person, as well as making sure that every bank account I have has a Payable On Death person listed and ALL my other accounts have a beneficiary listed. Then I will probably send my brother a sealed envelope with a list of accounts and passwords and update them twice a year or so (old copies to be destroyed without opening.)

I need to really save aggressively until September of 2013 or until I have at least $10k in my car fund. I probably will have to replace my timing belt sooner than later if I want to be sure my car lasts another 14 months ... so I need to start pricing that out.

Whenever I see a book I want to get for the library on Amazon that I don't have gift card money for ... I MUST learn to say NO!! If I don't, that will derail my car fund faster than anything else.