Apartment Hunting

Even a Perfectly Honest "For Rent" Sign
Originally uploaded by dmperkins

We have been keeping our eye out for apartments in our neighborhood. There is one across the street that had a moving truck outside but when we asked if someone was moving out we were told no and there is one down the block. I met with the landlord of the down the block apartment today and it was not the most plesant experience I've ever had. Let's just say we'll probably keep looking but S is going to call him back to follow up.

-M

Not feeling well!

I haven't been feeling well since Thursday. It started out as a sore throat which went on to be cough. Yesterday, I took a day off of work because I had the voice of someone that had been smoking and drink straight scotch for 50 years. Today, I'm feeling better but still not 100%. I have a headache and a lingering cough.

Yesterday, I finished knitting a pair of mittens using my own pattern as I couldn't find one to fit her hand. They are a bit long but that's ok as she won't even put them on. She starts to shake her head and yell no when I get any where near her with them. Hopefully, she'll try them on before she out grows them. I'm very proud that I was able to finish the hat and mittens without putting them down for a different project. I've had a blanket in the works for awhile now. I'm going to work on that some more before I start yet another project.

-M

Work and Hobbies

While we haven't been any busier this week than we have in past weeks we experienced a big change and a hobby resurgence. S went back to work (at least one of us has been unemployed for the past 16 months) and I started knitting again.

S going back to work has created some mixed feelings from everyone. O now has both parents in the work force which is something she's never had before. I'm upset at the shift. S is upset he can't spent more time with us. We're both happy to have more money coming in. It is one of those situations in which you are damned if you do but even more damned if you don't.

Back to the more exciting stuff, knitting. I have been knitting on and off since high school. I taught myself using internet instructions. I bought a how to book as well as a kit to get started with and just couldn't figure out the darned pictures. I did end up learning the basic knit stitch and just like Ellen Page, I've made a bunch of scarves and attempted a hat which has a massive hole in the top. That is until this weekend! I attempted to make O a hat and it turned out nicely. It is very hard to see in the picture but it is a multi colored hat (purple, blue and green, 959) with a royal purple (596) trim. I'm not a big fan of the yarn itself but I had it around the house. She loves holding the hat and carrying it around but doesn't really like it on her head. I'm hoping she'll warm up to it. My next project is going to be a set of matching mittens... wish me luck!

-M

Money

Money
Originally uploaded by Leaca's Philosophy

I can honestly say I am shocked at the numbers for September! Our net worth went up when I fully expected it to continue to fall. I have come to realize that I haven't been counting my retirement fund in our net worth statements. I'm going to continue to not count it and while this may paint a skewed picture of our net worth we are not using that money for another oh 40 years so it is not in our every day thoughts. I'm going to keep it to banking accounts that we can access as well as debts.

Our E-fund is up a bit from $149 to $675. We are working our way to our long term goal slowly but we'll get there if we keep chugging along.

We did a deposit in O's savings account this month. We are not depositing every month so a lot of times this doesn't change. We deposited $60 to bring her to a total of $300.50. She also has $30 in her piggy bank in bills as well as a good deal of change. This will get deposited this month. Usually we do it all at once but S and I had a bit of a mix-up regarding who was depositing the check.

Our travel fund is down and down a lot! We used this money to pay for S's college tuition this month. He is paid in full for the semester and it is his last semester. This was not something I was willing to put on a credit card when we had the cash in the bank. Vacations will come and go but not more paying interest on college tuition than necessary is golden at this point.

Retirement stayed the same at 4% for September but I changed the deposit amount to 5% as of this past Sunday so that will have an increase in the October amounts.

M's Student Loan is down, of course, to just under $15,000 which was our goal for 2009! WOOHOO! We should have about $500 more paid off by the time January rolls around. I am excited about this but also know that we should be saving a little bit more. I'll think about changing how much I'm sending to my student loan this month and report back next month. S's student loan remains the same.

Our net worth, as I said, has gone up. It wasn't much but any improvement makes my heart and pocket happy. We are up to -$26,330 from -$26,740. As I said, it wasn't much of an improvement but I fully expected a decrease.

So, there you have it! Our monthly check in... a little late but due to illness it was to be expected.

-M

Visiting My Parents

As I've posted before, we are living with S's parents because S was unemployed for the past ten months. S started his new job yesterday and we're hoping to move out by our first wedding anniversary in March, if not a little sooner. I don't particularly enjoy living with S's parents and while I'm very grateful to have them to help us out in this time of need it makes me miss my own parents even more. I haven't always had the best relationship with my mom but I think all women go through that at some point. However, having O has changed things. While I'm annoyed that she wants to buy her toys every time she sees her, it has certainly made us closer. S's parents live three hours from my parents but we visit my parents often. In fact, I'm typing this from my parents' home computer. Visiting my parents has always been a priority for me even while away at college. I was the girl that went home at least once a month in addition to holidays and vacations. Now, we try to visit my parents twice a month. I'd like to cut it down a bit but then feel guilty that they will not see O as often and as my mom always reminds me, "She's only little once." We will continue to visit often so that O can have a great relationship with both sets of grandparents. S and I never had that option as our grandparents died while we were young. Well, that's not entirely true. S had his paternal grandmother until earlier this year. His mother did not get along with her and she lived a few states away so he did not see her often plus his mother's opinion of her strained their relationship. I think a part of parenthood is wanting your children to have what you didn't and that's why I visit my parents so often. I'm hoping she has a great relationship with all of her sets of grandparents.

-M

Tot School Delay!

We were supposed to start Tot School this week. We are both very sick with massive sinus infections. My poor kiddo can hardly breath and I don't want to pick my head up off the table. I can only imagine how she is feeling because she is unable to vocalize her symptoms and I'm a whining wreck. I'm sure that everyone that tries to home school runs into these issues. We will have to see if we are feeling better within the next few days. If so, we'll start and if not, we might need to delay a week. It seems like I keep delaying this and might make you wonder how committed I am. I want to be honest in saying I'm so excited to do this with O but it seems we keep running into road blocks. She is just about 16 months old so she is still young for formalized learning which makes delaying tot school a little less of a bummer for me. Hopefully, we'll be feeling better quickly and can finally do some of the tot school activities I have planned.

-M

Yummy Apple Butter!

As you can see O loved it! It was all over the place. She stuck her cracker in to her small cup of apple butter and licked the cracker clean. She eventually ate the cracker once the apple butter was gone.










From Left to Right:
Cinnamon Applesauce, Spicy Apple Butter, Not so Spicy Apple Butter, Applesauce and Raspberry Jam

We were able to get 2 quarts of apple sauce and 1.5 quarts of apple butter out of our remaining apples on Wednesday night. We have finally used up all of the apples. Yesterday, S's mom made two apple sauce cakes using our homemade apple sauce. Yummy!

A little late!

This week I trying to assess O to see what she needs to work on most. She is beginning to learn her colors but each week it seems she picks a color and then everything is that color. This week everything is blue. The conversation goes a little something like this:

Mommy: "What color is this?" (a red ball)

O: "Blue"

Mommy: "No, it's a red ball"

Mommy: "How about this one? What color is this ball?" (green)

O: "Blue ball"

Mommy: "No, it's green"

O: "Green"

Mommy: "Yes, green"

O: "Blue ball" (handing me a yellow ball)

Last week everything was yellow. She meeting and suprassing the doctor's expectations in physical development. I will continue to assess her as best I can this week and next week we'll start with our themes.

-M

Have you ever wondered...

about the person that had your phone number before you? Today, I received two phone calls for a woman named Judy. I've had my phone number for over a year and I also know that the college student that had my phone number before me was not named Judy. I only know this because when I first was given this number I receive a lot of phone calls for Jenn about school projects. The calls for Judy had me wondering on my three hour car ride about her and the man that was trying to get in touch with her. Was this Judy's number at one time? If so, how long ago could it have since at least one other person had the number before me that was not Judy? If this was an important person in Judy's life shouldn't she have given him her new phone number? If not, why is this man trying to get in touch with her now after years?

Then again it is completely possible he just misdialed twice.

-M

Our Harvest

I'm disappointed that I didn't take a picture of all of this fruit when we got home from the orchard. I think it would have been a great picture to have for memory sake. I did not weigh the items that were given to us so I can't honestly say how much we got from the CSA but I did weigh all of the produce we picked at the farm.



The Totals:
Plums: 3.5 pounds
Green Beans: 3.2 pounds
Strawberries: .5 pounds
Raspberries: 3.8 pounds
Red Peppers: 5.7 pounds
and for the big finale
Apples: 43 pounds!

So far we've made:
1 loaf of Apple Bread
17 Raspberry/Apple Muffins
5 pints of Raspberry Jam
4 pints of Applesauce and
3 pints of Apple Butter

And there is more to come... (with pictures)