Monthly Archives: January 2008

List:

Posted on by
Reply

This Money Challenge is weird, man! It’s not even February, and I’ve found myself seeing so MUCH that I would probably typically buy — like these super cute divided plates at Target, in the shape of ladybugs, or something from the Pampered Chef fundraiser at Ingrid’s daycare (the timer — my mom has one, and every night when I use my PITA one, I crave it) or looking at the clearance endcaps at Target, you know, just in case. Wild.  Anyway, this has also led to some major windowshopping, so I made a list of stuff I want to do in the house, and thought I’d write it all down for posterity.

Basement:

  • small space heater for Dave’s area, one that is super-duper Gay-Ron-TEED to not set shit on fire, and even then, it would only be used with a person right next to it. It’s damn cold down there! I’ve played GH with him a few times, but my fingers literally get numb…. it’s like 49. Which, of course, is how cold it got in our bedroom in our apartment — I can’t believe we lived like that for that long!
  • Replace the 1/2 bath’s blue sink with a laundry tub
  • Get a small chest freezer (I like the split design of this one, but a 5.0 cf one is cheaper)

First Floor:

  • New fridge. Lordy, yes — ours is still humming along, but it’s almost 20 years old, and I know, I KNOW if we got a new one our power bills would drop. I’d love a bottom-freezer one, because we need to basically get the smallest there is, to fit the hole that is there. I’d especially love one from Elmira Stoveworks, but that isn’t going to happen. I’ll probably end up with the cheapest energy star rated one that fits, when the time comes.
  • Rebuild and extend from deck, and add railings and decent stairs
  • Figure out the woodstove situation/ get a propane or alt fuel stove to replace it
  • New dining table & a small hutch in the dining room

Second floor:

  • Bathroom — I’m immune to the pink swirly plastic tile and cowboy brothel vanity, but god, it needs to all go. At least the pink carpet went in the first 3 months of homeownership!
  • Guest room: When Ing moves to a big-girl-bed, I’d like to move the full bed (currently guest bed) to her room, and then move our old queen size bed to the guest room, and upgrade our bed. I would love to get a King* but even with split boxsprings, I don’t think it would fit around the stairs at the top.  A queen in the guest room means I’d take down the wall of shelves (which I’m not liking these days anyway) and position the head of the guest bed there, opposite where it is now. Then get a nice desk for the corner where the guest bed is currently, perhaps an L shaped one, and put a (real) bookcase on the other wall.
  • Ingrid’s room: with a full bed, I’d like to build a platform out of the little 2’x1′ bookshelves/storage cubes she has now, so that there is storage under her bed. I’d probably want to take down her bookshelves, too, as they seem like a total climbing hazard.
  • Hallway: Install one of those drop down attic staircases

Whole house:

  • Finish replacing windows, and possible the kitchen door
  • New roof
  • new siding

So, you know, that’s all. Ahem. As it stands now, if we get an economic stimulus check, it is going straight into the house either as windows or pre-buying oil, so that we don’t end up stimulating the economy even more, later.

Money challenge

Posted on by
Reply

Our most recent oil bill ($600! And we have a super-efficient furnace and use less than 450 gals a year!!!! ANd will probably have one more tank fill this winter… god) made me freak about money, so we’ve set a challenge to Not Buy Anything We Don’t Need* until March 1. Which is interesting, because I find myself windowshopping like mad all of a sudden. IE, I now want an Apple TV. The new update that makes it work standalone is pretty cool, and having AppleTV, I could subscribe to the daily show and colbert report and other shows, so it would be like having the exact cable shows I wish I had. In theory. And if AppleTV & iTunes ever do a netflix like thing, w00t, I’d be all over that.

Also windowshopping: cars. I really want to drive my car into the ground, and I’m doing well with that, but it doesn’t mean I can’t browse the websites for local dealerships. Honestly, it was less panic-inducing than I might have thought — I found a great used Outback, with 41k miles and all of the luxe features I’d want, for just 12k! And saw a car almost exactly like mine, with higher mileage, selling for 7k. Mine is prob in worse condition — it’s 10 years old and counting, and showing it’s age — but this one was just 2 years younger. I have kind of an arbitrary goal of making it to 200k in mine, and we’re at 135 now. And, since I drive about 5 miles a day, total, just 5 days a week, it could be years before I get to 200k, so I’ll just keep saving and hope to one day pay cash. On the off-chance I would need one quickly (horrific car crash, etc) it’s at least nice to know what’s out there.

And of course, new windows  — the show Tom did of the two we’ve put in Ing’s room aired this weekend, and it made me want more! more! MORE! But, alas, we will wait. I mostly want to see what our accounts look like after a month or so of necessity-only spending.

I don’t know how people who can’t afford oil, are affording it. It’s almost double what it was when we first moved in, four years ago, and like I said — we use very little! We  also keep our thermostat lower than anyone we know — 54 during the day (when we are not home) and 62 overnight, and 64 during the evening hours that we are awake.  And we have this woodstove, that the chimney sweep advised against using, but we really need a second opinion — especially if oil is like this next year. It’s also a goal to pre-buy this summer; my boss did, and paid a full DOLLAR less per gallon (2.49 vs 3.49) so that we don’t get these puke-inducing bills.

A month of window-shopping isn’t so bad.

*Exceptions are a photo-thank you card for my Grandma, for our Christmas checks, and we can use any giftcard balances we have, as that is not coming out of our MONEY.

Memo:

Posted on by
Reply

Why I don’t feel bad that Ingrid still wakes up between us every day:

New Caller: This is Ralph. You know I’m an older man, and I’m calling
about the person who called earlier worrying about their baby, that
they didn’t have heat and they were going to try to find a place to
stay. It might be more dangerous in these conditions taking the baby
out. Ask any grandmother, especially one out in the country, and she’ll
tell you all you got do is go to bed with that baby and put the baby in
between you, and that baby won’t even know the heat’s off!

From an article about the ’98 ice storm, in Bangor Metro.  It made me well up a bit (Um, I Held a Baby today and pretty much spontaneously ovulated, oh, and that baby’s mama confessed privately and sheepishly that the reason why he slept so well the night before may have been because "we tried the cosleeping thing" — after three weeks of staying up with the wee babe all night….)

Um, yeah, anyway. I like picturing that old guy out there, listening to the radio and thinking "kids today! I know the answer!" and calling in to broadcast it. 

Awesomeness

Posted on by
Reply

Really. Good. Week.

So far.

Ingrid’s transition has gone swimmingly — she loves the slide, allegedly, and has slept on a cot all week! My parents even stopped in yesterday unannounced and said she was doing well. (They don’t drop in that often, but I love when they do, just to get their perspective.)

Dinner has been on the table the last two nights, at 6 (ish). Of course, the first night was the first time in ages that Dave had to stay late, so he got home just in time for me to run past him to my car to make it to the Y on time. And now he has a cold, and the quiche took longer to cook than advertised, so we sat with Ingrid at 6, and then Ingrid sat with us at 6:40 while we ate (and she ate more at that sitting, too, so it was all good.)

I had a reallygood meeting/checkin/informal review with my big boss, that has re-energized me about my job, and gave me the shot of confidence I needed to know I was being seen “Out There.” It’s inspired me to formulate a flex/compressed/something schedule for summer and continuing, too. (Those of you that do 4 day weeks, I’d love to hear how it shuffles out for you…)

I go to the Y tonight for me PEP, excuse me, PEE EEE PEEE appointment. I have searched youtube for “elliptical accident” and found nothing, so I hope to survive the New Frontier of Machines.

see? GOOD.

Good stuff, yo.

Posted on by
2

My weekend has been awesome, and it’s not even noon on Sunday yet.

Dave had to work on Friday and Saturday night (that part wasn’t awesome) so I have decided to make game nights like that a mama-Ingrid funstravaganza. It worked out pretty well, actually!

Friday night, I picked her up from daycare and drove straight downtown. We parked, and I went to the Thai restaurant to order takeout. (Former locals: it’s in the old Bagel Shop.) It was going to be fifteen minutes or so, so we walked up one side of Main Street and down the other. She LOVED it.

It was already dark by then, of course, and the big tree is still lit in the square. A toddler’s eye view of Main Street is fascinating. People in restaurants, sitting in the windows. Brass instruments lined up. Rope lights. Bongs. Country Crafty Crap like dogs and snowmen. We waved at the museum staff, closing up for the day, and to the jewelry store clerks, cleaning out the window for the night. By the time we completed the loop, our food was done.

When we got home, there was a package for Ingrid from her online Secret Santa — two books, neither of which we had, and fuzzy slippers for both of us. ("Sooz!") We put on our slippers, and I set up our dinner at the dining room table* and we read "Goodnight Gorilla" and ate supper. We read several more books, of course, after dinner, and she went to bed happy.  Yesterday, we had swimming in the morning (I did wrangling, Dave did the actual water part) and she ended up taking an early nap in my arms afterward. When Dave went to work, we headed to Target, but it was PACKED. Insanely so. I didn’t even TRY to find a parking space, instead, ended up at Kohl’s and LLBean, when I realized "Wait! I have a museum membership now!!!" We hustled out of there and went downtown, and spent over an hour in the museum, which was GREAT. Exactly why I wanted a membership, honestly. We came home and had supper, and then ventured out to Target again (I really HAD to go, as we needed diapers) where Ingrid had fun counting everything she could see. ("Waaaan, CHREEE, fie, nein, ah ah ah ah. Yay!")

When we got home, we read and played some more, and then Ingrid helped me clean up the living room (a first! She even made a pile of books!) before bed. Ahh.

A few Doh! things I’ve realized in the last week: Ingrid likes spicy food. She always kind of has, and there’s a little bit of pride in the fact that she happily eats curry or whatever, but I never thought to translate it at home. IE, she often gets an egg at dinner, but lately hasn’t eaten it, so I started peppering it all up, and "MMMMMM!" she eats it. Also assisting her eating? A fork. Um, yeah. When she doesn’t eat the peppered egg, I hand her a fork, and she does. Sorry, baby.

A lot of that leads to my asterisk:

*It is my goal to get us all eating together. Dave has this ridiculous lack of hunger until 10 or so, and Ingrid eats at 5:30, and I’m somewhere in the middle, annoyed at eating so late and having two separate mealtimes. Now that she’s heading towards 2, it’s time to make that shift to Family Dinner, Goddammit. The plan is to have dinner at the table at 6. You don’t have to eat it (DAVE) but it will be there and so will you. (That’s sort of unfair, as the nights I have the group power class, I may not eat til later — the class is at 6:40, and it might suck to be doing disco barbells on a full stomach.)  It’s going to take some planning — I’m thinking of looking for meals that can be prepped the night before, and cooked between 4:30-6, to serve at 6, to help — but I think we can do it, if we commit to it. Plus, all of us eating together means that Ingrid can eat more Real Food, as opposed to eggs and fruit all the time or whatever.

I tend to feel like I ACED infancy with her — that nursing and babywearing and nurturing like that is my strong point, and that toddlerhood is fucking ruining me, with trying to figure out the meals and stuff. I am not a Cook, so I really struggle with it. 

Either way, a totally fun weekend with my girl. Wish me luck on the food thing.

Score!

Posted on by
Reply

Happy New Year! I started the year with a sweet bargain.

So, I ordered Dave a GPS from REI, and it was really more than I wanted to spend, but I really wanted to get it for him. We get it,and it turns out that Magellan just does NOT play nice with Macs, it was kind of a pain in the ass to figure out, too, blah blah blah, so I’m like "Dave, I’m sending it back, and we’ll keep looking." I mean, it is the thought that counts, right? I do some research, and settle on a range of Garmins, and poke around ebay, Amazon, etc looking for it.

Today we went to the LLBean outlet, to return some stuff, and they have a small case of electronics and knives and stuff, and it’s kind of jumbly, and I saw one in the back that was kind of like one I wanted, but I wasn’t sure, so we came home. When I got home, I realized that that would be a GREAT GPS, so I tell Dave "Hey, I’m going to go check it out again, I’ll be right back."

I go, they open the case, and I finally see the price: 249 marked down to 199, as it was a return. I had seen a "mention this ad for 10% off at the outlet" ad, and I asked the clerk if tha applied "oh yes!" and I had a $10 giftcard from an earlier promotion, and because I’m a cardholder, I figured I had some Bean Bucks. So, I do the math, and am thinking "well, it’s more than the other one, but it does more so… okay, I’ll get it." Kind of doubting myself on the way up to the register, I remind myself that I can always return it, so I figure I’ll get it and check eBay again, or whatever.

At the register, I tell the clerk (different one) "I saw the ad on the BDN site for 10% off?" She hadn’t heard of it, but I pointed to the lady I’d talked to at the case and said "she knew about it" so the woman was like "okay, cool" and entered it in. I gave her the GC, and said "I also think I have some coupons" (and I did, $30!) and she says "okay, that’s $72.46." Wha? What the what-what? Apparently, it’s part of the outdoor and hunting equipment sale, too, and it started at 119, not 199. Um, okay. I’ll take it!

In the end — a better GPS (this one has a MicroSD slot to add maps for driving directions and auto routing and stuff!) for HALF the price. Insane.

I love my LLBean Outlet.