Thursday, November 21, 2013

Last One Standing

You are bad, flu.
Five out of six is impressive.
You are sick, flu.
Gansta style.
I'd call you cool,
but it's more like a fever.
You are down with all that,
not afraid to show it.
Can we make a deal?
Call it good?

Pret
       ty
              Plea
                      s
                          e
                             ?


Monday, November 18, 2013

$$$$ Two Million Dollar Family


I'm sure you've heard of families that have one son and one daughter, referred to as "the million dollar family". When we found out our fourth baby was going to be a boy, a cousin commented that we were now going to have "the two million dollar family"!

This past year, while adjusting to a new mortagage, new home heating requirements, commuting costs  etc, we certainly wished we could have tapped into that two million dollars.

My husband started following the blog "Mr Money Mustache" http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/, hoping to glean some new found wisdom. He also created posters hoping to drum up business for firewood cutting, which is something he enjoys (a good outlet for the manly man). Thanks to our daughter Heidi putting up the posters, he was approached with a flexible, long term business partnership opportunity, meaning he now gets to cut firewood and use his skills to manage someone else's woodlot, every Saturday.

The biggest development of all is: in his search for a part time second job he applied for a position teaching at the local college and got it!
(Are college teachers referred to as professors?  Most of them have work experience and not PHd's I suppose, and therefore not?).

No teacher crushes allowed on this man college girls!!

I returned to the rusty, trusty old food budget (buying boneless, skinless ckn breast now seems extravagant ), and I started doing some extra childcare. 

All in all things are looking up. 

First order of business though- pay down debt! (um, after Christmas that is.)

Any financial management strategies you could share that work for you?

Thursday, November 7, 2013


" Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret".
                                                               ~Ambrose Bierce

This whole parenting gig can really bring a person down.  I don't know about you, but so far I'm finding 14 to be the age of discontent.  When struggling, I generally reach for a parenting book; this week it's "the Five Love Languages of Teenagers" by Gary Chapman. It's a little hokey, but worth the read.  

Do you know your primary love language? Have you tried to determine the love language of your significant others? I think he might be onto something with this whole idea. I'm pretty sure my primary love language is words of affirmation.

Anyway, I came across the above quote in my reading and it struck a chord.