I'm home with the boys this week as my place of employment is on Winter Shutdown. What does this mean? Genuine, quality time with the boys... Or so it should have meant this. Unfortunately they both have wicked coughs and fevers (up to 102.6 so far) and the house is full of coughs and whines. Blah.
With their sickness, however, comes a bit of relaxation time for me. I've started a new knitting project, having finished Thing 1 and Thing 2's stockings just in time for Christmas. I told Dave I needed a break from stockings before I work on his, my and K's stockings for next Christmas. So, a blanket is what I'm working on now.
I've decided to start another (additional) blog, documenting my path of trying to save pennies I don't have in the first place. I've discovered quite a few ways to cut off dollars here and there, and having met some of the amazing people I have in the last month, I 've realized that more people than me need to know how to do the same.
For example, I bought an ORGANIC gallon of milk at the grocery for $1.67 (a non-organic gallon usually costs $2.99+) because it was about to hit the expiration date. With the rate we go through milk I knew the boys and I will drink it before it goes bad, so that 50% off purchase was AWESOME!
I'm searching for a USB cord to hook the camera up to the computer, and then I will share pictures of the stockings, and progress of the blanket... If you're interested, custom-made stockings will be posted for sale on etsy.com, however you will need to order early as they take about a month to knit. (No, I'm not dedicated to knitting every minute of my life.)
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Day 323
I've come to the realization that I do NOT like slow days at work. While some people may enjoy the fact that they can theoretically do what they want, I find my eyes wanting to close, and myself endlessly daydreaming about what I'd rather be doing. I like being busy. No, I don't like getting down to the wire with tasks that need to be done, but I really enjoy having a stream of projects to work on.
The boys have been with their dad since Wednesday and do not come home to Dave and I until Christmas Day (Sunday) at 3pm. I miss them. We enjoy the quiet, don't get me wrong, however... After a day or so it's almost too quiet.
Dave can't wait to give me my Christmas presents, and I can't wait to see Dave and the boys open theirs. The materialistic aura around Christmas continues to trouble me, however I love to give. Honestly, I have everything I could possibly want. If there were no presents under the tree for me, I would be perfectly ok with that.
Alright, I am going to move on to pretending I'm working on something else... In all reality, I'm probably listening to Tony Robbins and trying to develop a way to become financially successful. :-)
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Day 310
I'm out of the office on lunch and it occurred to me that I haven't updated the blog lately.
My silence has been the result of extreme happiness and hard work. Dave, the boys and I are all happy and healthy, and we are gearing up for Christmas. I've been trying to impress upon the boys this Christmas season what the true meaning of the holiday is. It's not about what we get, but about what we have and why we have it.
But I won't deny that's difficult. With a six-year-old (and nine-year-old) in the house, visions of Santa with a bag of presents are very prominent.
We have made K-Love, a national Christian radio station, a fixture in our lives, and I heard on it yesterday that the average PERSON (not couple, family, etc.) spends $700/year on Christmas presents. I let out an audible "phooooooo." $700/year... That's essentially rent for a month for us. So here I am trying to figure out how to make Christmas great on maybe $300, and I hear that the average person spends $700. So if you're reading this, I challenge you to remember what Christmas is really about, and try to focus on that instead.
Dave asked me over the weekend what I want for Christmas and my response (after telling him - him), was a new coffee cup. Yes, that's all I want. A new travel mug that doesn't leak when I try to take a sip out of it. But I guess I never cease to surprise him. I know he knows I'm not materialistic, but at the time of the year when most people send out mile long Christmas-lists with hundreds of dollars of ideas that they'll probably never use, I choose to be real. And even when I stretch my brain, I can't think of anything else I want for Christmas.
We found a new church in August that we've been attending, Grace Baptist, and we love how their focus in not on what the church needs financially, but when they do talk about money, it's about how we can help the missionaries or other organizations that need money. Our family decided to help out Operation Christmas Child (I think that's what it's called), after we heard about what children on the other side of the world have to do without. While I was able to buy my boys each a 24-box of Crayons for $.50, on the other side of the globe, children go without because crayons cost $5.00... and the average monthly income is $2.00. Children in Africa need to follow a food truck once a week in order to get fed, and because they lack bowls or cups, they drop the hot oatmeal (or whatever they're served) out of their hands and onto the road... And they end up eating it off the road.
So how can I ask for anything more than a coffee cup, when there are children living like this?
My silence has been the result of extreme happiness and hard work. Dave, the boys and I are all happy and healthy, and we are gearing up for Christmas. I've been trying to impress upon the boys this Christmas season what the true meaning of the holiday is. It's not about what we get, but about what we have and why we have it.
But I won't deny that's difficult. With a six-year-old (and nine-year-old) in the house, visions of Santa with a bag of presents are very prominent.
We have made K-Love, a national Christian radio station, a fixture in our lives, and I heard on it yesterday that the average PERSON (not couple, family, etc.) spends $700/year on Christmas presents. I let out an audible "phooooooo." $700/year... That's essentially rent for a month for us. So here I am trying to figure out how to make Christmas great on maybe $300, and I hear that the average person spends $700. So if you're reading this, I challenge you to remember what Christmas is really about, and try to focus on that instead.
Dave asked me over the weekend what I want for Christmas and my response (after telling him - him), was a new coffee cup. Yes, that's all I want. A new travel mug that doesn't leak when I try to take a sip out of it. But I guess I never cease to surprise him. I know he knows I'm not materialistic, but at the time of the year when most people send out mile long Christmas-lists with hundreds of dollars of ideas that they'll probably never use, I choose to be real. And even when I stretch my brain, I can't think of anything else I want for Christmas.
We found a new church in August that we've been attending, Grace Baptist, and we love how their focus in not on what the church needs financially, but when they do talk about money, it's about how we can help the missionaries or other organizations that need money. Our family decided to help out Operation Christmas Child (I think that's what it's called), after we heard about what children on the other side of the world have to do without. While I was able to buy my boys each a 24-box of Crayons for $.50, on the other side of the globe, children go without because crayons cost $5.00... and the average monthly income is $2.00. Children in Africa need to follow a food truck once a week in order to get fed, and because they lack bowls or cups, they drop the hot oatmeal (or whatever they're served) out of their hands and onto the road... And they end up eating it off the road.
So how can I ask for anything more than a coffee cup, when there are children living like this?
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