Ice Skating

We took Landon ice skating for the first time a few weeks ago. Ice skating went great; getting there was not. Case in point:

Amount of time it took to get to St. Paul: 20 minutes
Amount of time it took to exchange $1 for quarters from the bank to pay the meter: 3 minutes
Amount of quarters put in the meter: 4
Time that it allotted us: 24 minutes
Time it was supposed to allot us: 48 minutes (the first quarter didn't take, the second did, the third one didn't - at which point I called the meter repair line and was told that there was nothing they could do and if I wanted my money back I'd have to send in a self-addressed stamped envelope. He also said I could stay parked there but risk a $33 ticket or move and use my last quarter. We opted to put the last quarter in the machine, hoping it would "take." It did.)
Additional time in here to walk to the rink, pay, and sign waivers.
Amount of time to put skating gear on a toddler and 2 adults: 13 minutes
Amount of time actually spent on the ice: 9 minutes
Ticket: None (thank you, Lord!)

It would have been nice if we had more time, since Landon thoroughly enjoyed it (and we paid $4 for the experience, but we didn't want to chance it any further). Next time, we'll remember to bring more quarters/dollars.



When Landon got tired of us holding him up by the armpits, he was perfectly content to sit on the ice and have Alan push him around. As you can tell, it wasn't crowded!

Long Overdue

Remember this post in which I shared my dreams for a freshly painted kitchen to go with my white cabinets and the cute pear fabric I found? Well, the kitchen is just about done and I neglected to post pictures. Yes, I did paint my kitchen lime green and love it!

It matches perfectly with my lime green KitchenAid (not pink, as I was initially hoping for, but it was a very generous gift and Landon loves using it, which might not be the case if it was pink - ha!) and the paint casts a kind of eerie glow upon our kitchen windows when it's dark outside and the kitchen lights are on.



Thanks to another gift, I was able to get new hardware for the kitchen cabinets, which we are slowly but surely getting installed.

I have a few more finishing touches to go (like hanging my apron, a shelf, and some artwork), but you still get the general idea.

Great Giveaway!

Here's another great giveaway going on at my other favorite blog site Money Saving Mom. Today she's giving away 5 $100 gift cards to the, drum roll please, store of your choice! Isn't that amazing and generous?!? If you'd like a chance to win too just head over here.

Pick Me! Pick Me!

I don't win things - ever. Okay, so maybe not "ever," but it's not very often. So when some of my favorite blogs offer contests, I enter them with the hopes of winning fun, fantastic prizes. And, today, while at MckMama's website, I saw that she was giving away an HP TouchSmart computer!!!!! Oy vey - that would be a great contest to win! So, in an effort to get as many entries into said contest as possible, I'm blogging about it. And, I suppose, you can enter too (even though it will reduce my chances of winning, but I'll still rejoice with you if you win the contest knowing you heard about it from me).

Priceless

Sorry for the shakiness - I was laughing at Landon's facial expression.

Proof

Thank goodness for modern technology. Because if I didn't have video capabilities on my phone, then Alan probably wouldn't have believed me that this happened. Shoot, I probably wouldn't have believed that this had happened!


Here's the story behind the video - After breakfast, I decided to clip Landon's fingernails while I had him confined in his chair. I easily did the right hand and was moving to the left when he decided to get all squirmy. I said, "I have just 5 more fingers to do," and Landon said, "Five, six, seven." Ohhhhh-kaaaaay. That is most definitely a "new" thing. He knows "1, 2, 3," because of the warnings we've given him, but never "5, 6, 7." I pursued a little further and he counted to nine! Of course, when I called my Grandma for Landon to share his new-found talent, he only got up to "2" because he was too preoccupied with the phone and it's lit up buttons. Fortunately, I was able to catch this moment later in the morning and he was, surprisingly, very focused on the task.

Like Gazelles

Several weeks ago, I finished reading Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Make-over. I know several people who just rave about Mr. Ramsey and felt the need to check him out myself. His money make-over emphasizes the need to get out of debt with "gazelle-like intensity." Although, I wouldn't consider us to be drowning in debt (besides our mortgage, we have my school loan, which has a fabulous interest rate, and a car loan), the debts we do have still loom over our heads and inhibit us from doing more things that we enjoy.

So we have decided to implement some of Mr. Ramsey's strategies. While I thoroughly enjoyed coupon-clipping and feeling the rush when I would see that I saved 50% on the bottom of my grocery receipt, we decided to step it up a notch. One of Mr. Ramsey's suggestions is to set a budget and stick to it. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong! We've always had budgets, but not complete budgets and would dip into our savings account when life insurance or car insurance was due. We decided to implement the envelope system, in which we put cash for some of our monthly expenses and also for those expenses that come up once or twice a year. For example, rather than transferring money from our savings account to pay Bentley's $300 yearly vet bill, we're stashing a set amount of cash aside in an envelope labelled "Bentley" to cover her yearly vet expenses, including meds, and dog food. Although we haven't been on the envelope system very long, I love it!!! Especially when it comes to grocery shopping. I know that I have $200 to spend on groceries in a month (this doesn't include diapers - we have a separate envelope for that) and once it's gone, it's gone. It forces me to hunt out the best deals, like the one below:

This was from the new and beautiful Rainbow somwhat near our house on Double Coupon Wednesdays. I paid $6.65 for all the groceries above (7 boxes of cereal, 1 box of Pop Tarts, 3 cans of beans, 2 deodorants, 2 boxes of Tornadoes, 4 cans of cream of mushroom soup, and a little over 2 1/2 pounds of bananas). How did I do it? Well, Double Coupon Wednesdays makes it fairly easy. At Rainbow, you must purchase $25 worth of items to be eligible for coupon doubling. They will only double up to 5 coupons per $25 transaction, and coupons will be doubled up to a face value of $1. They will also double coupons that say, "Do Not Double" on them. And, then I also have help from http://www.pocketyourdollars.com.
Carrie is local and she matches up store ads with coupons that are available and posts shopping lists for Rainbow, Cub, and Lund's/Byerly's. It has made my scouring the Sunday ads for deals 10 times easier!

So, hopefully, with this new and improved budget system worked out and "gazelle-like intensity", we will be debt-free, with the exception of our mortgage, by the end of next year. It's quite exciting, but a little nerve-wrecking at the same time. I'm hoping to use the blog as a platform to share how things are going and you, as well, are encouraged to hold us accountable to this task. Well, it's off to bed for this Little Gazelle (10:45 pm on 10/15). Happy saving money, friends!