Apparently it is legal to run up rediculous credit card bills and to take out 'pay day loans' (at terms the mafia would cringe to enforce!)

but they are trying to make it

illegal to play with your money...

I hate living in a country where freedom takes place to legislation to 'protect people from themseves'

K so most everything is half done, I have a batch of oatmeal muffins, one of oatmeal cookies in the freezer, sure hope they freeze well. and we ate half of the eggs and strawberries. I also shredded a bunch of carrots, I will shred more if we don't eat them all by thursday.

1. shred carrots half done
2. make applesauce..maybe apple turnovers
3. 'thaw' yeast..find out if it lives
4. bake bread if it does
5. bake for church sunday half done
6. bake/cook for company friday..I think.
7. cut/eat strawberries half done
8. make/eat egg salad half done

So I took that quiz to see how financially secure I am..I got a 61, and one of the thing recomended was to write down my goals, short medium and long term. then write down the amount saved torward them each month and a plan for how long it would take to achieve them.

umm I want everything,a nd it will take forever and a day!

ok a bit more serious:

Short = mattress..I apparently need to double what we have and then some.

Medium - yearly vacation (the real kind, not visitng family)

long - pay off house...

And the savings? umm well the medium is done for this year, the short is gonna take prolly till next spring if I don't buckle down. And the long will be ...oh yeah, forever and a day!

shred carrots
make applesauce..maybe apple turnovers
'thaw' yeast..find out if it lives
bake bread if it does
bake for church sunday
bake/cook for company friday..I think.
cut/eat strawberries
make/eat egg salad

I sent DH to the store with about $100 worth of food on his list, and that usually means it will go way over the 100, but I was impressed, gas and groceries, and a flower (I love my suprise flower!) all came to $140. Not to terrible.

Last week was only 50, so the two balance out rather well.

I hope to keep next week rather low also.

It ain't that easy.....

I tell myself it is, and honestly throwing a load in is easy, boiling some eggs is easy, throwing a batch of cookies or bars or muffins in is all pretty easy. So is cutting an apple or making applesauce, apple turnovers, or pizza pockets. Emptying the dishwasher or filling it, putting stuff away, or wiping a table. Balancing a checkbook, marking down a recipet, mailing a bill, or banking some chnge.

It is all easy, but......

You gotta do it ALL!

Or at least I try to do it all (and then some). Some days I manage and I think "what was so hard about that?" and some days my kids whine, my eggs burn, my laundry gets lost between the hamper and the dresser, my frugality gets lost in the screams of a baby, and I remember just what is so hard.

We went to the store to buy two mattresses, one for JC, she just got a twin bed, and one for us (we have a queen).

And we only have one.

I glanced at the price of a mattress in a store, set a figure in my mind to save for, and saved it (eons ago..) we waited till now to get it so that we could get JCs twin at the same time, figured it would save on delivery (and no way a mattress would fit in our car).

Well apparently the price was ofor half a matress! You have to buy the box and the mattress sepperatly, and they are the same price! Which leaves us with only half the cost of a matrtess in the savings account!

Well we had a little more to buy JCs matress (which cost well over our estimate) but we bought hers..and now we are waiting till we save more to buy ours...and I want a steak dinner..steak or new matress?

Course we have the money in the savings..but I really don't want to use it...

So I was being silly thinking of names for a website, and I thought I would type them in to see what came up.

What I found was a directory of sorts...a website dedicated to links for other sites on the same subject...with the main site for sale!

And for sale on a site along with thousands of other sites! I dunno what the cost to register a site and 'own it' is...hmmm I dunno how one does that.....but someone does,. and went out of their way to register thousands...

I clicked the 'two letter domain' list, and 4y, 2E, 1a all came up as availible for sale. Just make an offer! I wonder how much money they make storing names...

Since I am on my new goal of getting free stuff I actually read all the freebies that flash kimmie and others post...and some of them are worth it. I dunno just how useful 8oz of pom juice is, or that I will every buy it, but for 30 seconds of work I guess I may one day find out!

I added 3 minutes of internet time to do 3 freebies.

and I triued mypoints, apparently I did it wrong, there is a referal thing or something but it is too late for that. I am still trying to see how I can get points without buying stuff..cause in general we don't buy much.

main site

I folowed this link for 'you got owned' which is freaky..but then I discovered way cooler the

site

that one is well worth clicking!

I learned something yesterday..if a freebee comes from the manufacture or a store it might be real..if on the other hand it comes from 'to good to be true.com' then it is prolly too good to be true.

I spent another hour after my post yesterday, and in that time I came to half a dozen 'free with completion of sponser offers' before I got smart.

Now I just get to wait and see if anything comes in the mail...

The Magazine for Homeschool kids by Homeschool kids

K I read it, seems to be an interesting zine mainly by one girl (but a very good writer).

Interesting Parallels between Hebrew, Greek & Roman Education

And this shows the wonderful falacy of 'homeeducation' being 'new' . That and the wonderful advantages we have now in teaching children to read..I love little primers

or thursday, whatever!

It is raining, and I decided to take advantage of the freeebee section and get all the stocking stuffers I can..not much for the kids yet, but I signed up for a ton of stuff for the MIL and DM...they get stockings from us every year..sometimes I make em share with thier spouse...

Previously I sent all freebee links to DH to fill out, but for some reason he isn't online..so normally I would skip, but since there is no chance at a pool due to rain..why not.

It took about 20 minutes to search fill out and delete useless ones..but if half of it comes I will have 5 or so things to share between them. Now I am off to try the kid ssection

I'll post back next month to let you know what I got.

Oh previously DH got us a dove bar from walmart and a shower to shower thing..trouble is I have no idea what a shower to shower thing is.....

So I was well webwondering...and I came across this site:

Its just money and he talked about www.zillow.com

I put in my house info and had a moments confusion as my house seemed placed much closer to the front of the community than it aught to be. I finally figured it out, then moved the map to my real house...and discovered not a speck of green in my yard!

Not one single speck when looking at the 'satelite view'! I have an absolute desert of a yard that blends in with the empty lots next door (since filled) Really looks terrible! I can't imagine anyone but a tree hugger hoping to reform the land buying this house!

But on a slightly sadistic note I noticed the number of neighbors with green front yars whose back yards showed up on satelite as just as brown as mine ain't I a big meanie!

You have to register to comment, which sucks if you want comments.

I listened to Jeffreys interview on

money blogger podcast And I had some small comment I wanted to make, but first you have to register, which is no big deal, except i already did...and I can't remember what username or what password I used..which means after spending 5 minutes trying to figure it out I forgot what I wanted to say, I still am not logged into blogger, and I made no comment.

I hate that!

So the problem is I am unhappy, why on earth I would be unhappy with three ownderful children an absolutly amazing husband and plenty of food/shelter is beyond me. The problem remains I am unhappy.

How about a maid? a maid would free up considerable amounts of time...so do I need a maid or time?

How about a personal chef? somehow I can't see me eating what someone else picked 5 times a day..and I do eat 5 times a day...did I mention I am hungry?

Ok how about a perfect body? (is about as possible as a maid, so why not go all out!) hmm I have no time to enjoy the one my DH seems to think is awesome, I don't think losing one inch all around would really make that much of a difference....we are back to time.

Maybe a bigger house? more room for stuff so it wouldn't be ...everywhere....but then more space means more to clean...I have no time to clean what I have!

How about a babysiter? then I woudl have loads of time...can I get a wet nurse thrown in for fun? That would free up time and energy! no more making milk! Ah but then you know it isn't really best for my kids...less I could clone myself!

Perfect I figured it out! I get a clone to be the maid, one to be the chef/baker, one to be the babysitter/parent/whatever..and I get to be the err wife. I like it

Ever since my other post on

what I am peparing my kids for I have been thinking more on it, and while I am daunted by the task of preparing them ofr a career, any career. I am hopefull that I can prepare them for the garanteed neccessary skills.

I can practically (mostly) gurantee that my children will need the following skills:

1. cooking, might be over an open flame in Africa, might be gormet, might be just nuke it and go. but I can practically gurantee they will do some cooking. Along with that is....

2. nutrition Very few people have a nutritionalist picking out their meals, instead we choose our own prefferences, and hopefully at least some of them are in the relm of healthy.

3. finances I might not be able to hand over millions and some stock investments, but I can help them learn how to manage what they have (so that they always have something to manage)

4. negotiation/comprimise all relationships take comprimise, sharing toys or couchspace, or work. It all takes effrt.

5. work ethic whatever the job, my children will need to chose to do it well.

6. reading Not just "read this cause I said so", but the voluntary reading to learn somthing desired.

7. housekeeping getting all the work done in a house requires comprimise and planning, plus some prioritizing.

None of this is well taught in a classroom setting, but all of it is used near daily with my children. We negotiate when toys sqabbles come up, or when work must mix with fun. We read to find answers to many questions, we also read just because. We discuss why we eat what we eat and why we seek variety. We talk about why the lights don't need to be on when not in a room, or why we use fans not the AC for so long. We talk about what work around the house must get done every day and what can wait a bit. We talk about dillegence, and completing tasks that we start. And much more.

And yet in the midst of all this we pick up trivia, it isn't really a life skill to know that 'school' used to mean 'free time' in the origional Greek, but it is fun to know. I doubt any of my kids will need the information that ancient Egypt used a wooden right angle to make proper corners. I actually doubt that all three will need to know what all the angles are (according to JC when you have two sticks to make an acute angle it is an A..A for acute!), but hey we read about it we talked about it, and today we are playing with bread (cut off crust, eat, then cut off to make a pentagon, or hexagon or whatever... octagon sandwhiches anyone? maybe topped with 8 different toppings! hmmm maybe it would be easier to stick with a triangle!)

Hours of fun,plus some science lessons

Supplies:
1 white sock
1 black sock

Directions
1. Hand over to baby
2. Watch and learn

You might find the socks are teethers,soothing the oft painful gums of toddlerhood. Often combined with studying the limitations of a slightly stretchy sock. (bite, pull away, how long till it snaps back out of the mouth?)

Or instruments to observe gravity (yep you drop it, it goes down.. again.. again.. again...)

Or maybe the test is physics and levers as your little one trys to pull up a sock they are sitting on (this often requires adult help to solve)

Or it might be a cloth to cover a toe, a hand or a face. If mom gets involved a full fledged game of peek a boo can get underway.