Friday, April 13, 2012

I'm still around...

Boy, it's been a busy week or so. I took a couple days off last week for a 4 day weekend and then have been re-arranging my work schedule all week to be able to go watch Dd's tennis matches.  I just haven't had the energy to get online much after all that.

It's been a bit spendy, but was budgeted for and ended up being less, which is nice.  I spent $25 on 4 new bath towels. We needed to put new front brakes on Dd's car, which Dh and Ds were able to do, so we just had to pay for parts. I had budgeted $175 but it was $140.  Then her check engine light came on and for some reason Ds decided to change her oil, even though that wasn't due for another 6 weeks, then they put on a new air filter.  We've since determined the check engine light is most likely related to her gas cap, so not really a big issue.  The oil change and filter took up the rest of the brake budget, but at least it won't be an expense in 6 weeks.  And I'm glad Dh was able to tell me about the brakes a month ago, so I could plan for it.  Ds just changed the oil and air filter on the car he drives, but he used his own money, so that was nice.

My 71 year old Mom decided she was going to have liposuction done! OMG! I don't know what she was thinking, but yesterday she told me she changed her mind (which I figured she would, she is famous for saying she is going to do this or that and then never does) and is not going to do it. 

I also had to schedule our pest control company (we get those little "kitchen ants") back to monthly service now. We'd been on quarterly service all winter, but with the weather warming up the ants couldn't wait to come back for a visit! Ugh.  The guy just came and was a new young guy and he was so thorough. I was impressed.  I thought I'd have a one-time extra charge for all he did today, but it was just the regular monthly amount.  Plus, he said he will spray around the garage and shed monthly, which the previous 2 guys they sent out this past year did not do that.  I don't know why we've had such an ant problem the past 2 years. We've lived here 23 years and would need someone to come out maybe every 2-3 years but they'd come out once, maybe twice and that would take care of it. Now we can barely go a month without them coming back.  Makes me wonder what has changed on our property.

I haven't looked on mint.com the past couple of weeks to track my spending, but I know fast food has been up there again - I'm just too tired to cook after getting home at 6 pm (last night it was 6:45) from Dd's tennis matches.  I probably won't be posting as much until her tennis is over - just a few more weeks.

I will probably spend the weekend reading the 2nd book, Catching Fire, of the Hunger Games books.  I just got a $5 B&N gift card from Swagbucks (thanks to the extra help from my new referral!) and put it towards buying the book for my Nook, so I only had to pay half.  I'm getting close to a $10 gift card from MyPoints, and will use that to purchase the 3rd book, eventually.






4 comments:

  1. Lipo at 71?!?! Is your mom having a hard time dealing with getting old?

    I guess we'll see a lot more of this as baby boomers continue to age.

    We've got teeny ants too....a few times a year(mostly Spring and Summer), they swell up out of the crevice between the edge of the garage floor and the driveway. We can't seem to get rid of them, as the nest goes waaaaay down and we'd have to dig up the driveaway to get to them.lol Hubs keeps wanting to have someone come and blacktop over the crevice so they don't come up there but I told him that if he did that, they'd just find another route to the surface and it might be somewhere inside the house!lolol

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    1. I don't know what my mom as thinking! But glad she came to her senses. Most likely it has something to do with the boyfriend she has (but he is 7 years older than her).

      You are lucky the ants don't come into your house. The pest control guy gave me some info I didn't know, as while we were waiting the 2 days until they could come to spray we were just using a can of Raid type spray. He said don't use that - it makes the ants get worse (just the teeny kind) because they take the odor back to the nest and then the nest splits into 2 and if they keep bringing it back the nests keep splitting and moving to save themselves. Interesting!

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  2. Wow. We had those tiny ants last year and I sprayed Raid on them .... they did come back, worse than before so now it makes sense. I will have to do something about that this year.

    It's difficult to coordinate cooking with kids' activities. That was what drove us into the restaurants more than anything else during the time that the spouse and I were both working, with 4 young children. We couldn't be in two places at once. One item I would use more now if I had to do it over would be the crockpot. Do you use one?

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    1. Occasionally I use the crockpot, maybe once a month for usually a pork roast and veggies. I'm doing that this week, in fact. But, I should find more recipes and start using it more often.

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