Some things I learned yesterday

1. One should not only avoid grocery shopping while hungry, but also when depressed.
2. Chocolate ice cream does not heal all wounds (it helps a little though)
3. The movie theatre has extra-small popcorn and soda sizes on Tuesdays for $2.00
4. You can make Chili's Southwestern Eggrolls at home and bake them instead of frying - they are just as yummy (recipe here )

Completely off topic

I'm still around. The concert went awesome - amazing, and so much fun. Afterward I think we all keeled over frome exhaustion, but I loved it all. I can not wait to hear the final CD.

So that was Saturday. Sunday Brent and I both crashed. And Monday we both crashed even more, with some tidings of some Very Bad News. This is not the kind of bad news like your car insurance went up or the grocery store doesn't stock your favorite cereal anymore. This is more like the Very Bad News that will change your whole outlook on life and every decision you will make. (Don't worry, no one's sick or dying.)

I had this whole long post that I was going to write about how I wasn't going to lose my faith in God (I'm not, btw) or lose focus on our other goals in life, but right now I'm just sad and don't feel like writing. Sorry. I know I haven't been posting much at all lately, but forgive me for taking a little more time off.

Tracy

Random Post to let you know I still exist

Sorry it's been a while. I have some posts mulling around in my brain, but they are actually intelligent so they require a little bit more thought and I can't just bang them out on my lunch break...

So here's some meaningless filler....

Five sites I check multiple times daily:
1. Treehugger
2. Hugg
3. LifeHacker
4. PFBlogs
5. Straight Dope

Five things I need to do today:
1. Trim the grass by the fence
2. Pick dandelions
3. Go to the library
4. Meet a friend for chai
5. Go to knitting class

Five things on my desk right now:
One Barcode Scanner
Two Water bottles
Three staplers
Four Binder Clips
Five Pens

Five interesting news items in my life:
1. The album recording (see below)
2. I'm going to Texas the first half of June for work
3. I'm going to the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in June
4. Brent might be able to sell some of his equipment which will help a lot toward our debt repayment
5. It's Thursday (sorry, ran out of things)

Come to our live album recording!

On May 20th, our church is having a live album recording/rock concert, and you all are invited! Trust me, it will be an awesome time. And if any of you reader people come, and find me afterward, I will send you a copy of the album after it's finished. What a great deal!

Are there any of you who even live within driving distance of Sheboygan?

Hope to meet some of you there!

Praise Fellowship Church

Up for Review - thanks NCN!

I've been reviewed on the No Credit Needed Podcast! And what a great review it was. I'm flattered! :) Thanks NCN!


Listen to it here

Kohler develops Waterless Urinal

Article here - via BuildingGreen.com

Normally I wouldn't care much about a waterless urinal, as I have no personal use for them, however I am pretty closly tied with the company in mention, so I had to give it a shout-out.

I also never thought I would say that a urinal was beautiful.

I told Brent once that if we ever have a son - that is, if the males outnumber the females - we would install a urinal, and I will have to say that this may be the one.

Review of Cash Only April

Back here I mentioned that I was going to try the envelope method for April, but only with gas, groceries, allowance, and dining. It went okay, and I think I'm going to change our bill organization because of it.

In the gas envelope we had $60. I think we burned through that by April 10 or so - due to the gas prices and extra Easter travel. Since we couldn't go the rest of the month without filling up, we just scrapped that budget and filled up when we had the money.

In the grocery envelope we had $100. This lasted almost the whole month, until it came time to buy food for the party, then it ran out.

In the dining envelope we had $100. This lasted the whole month - no problem.

Allowance we usually divide up weekly, and I just gave it out all at once. I liked this much better, but I don't think Brent did.


All in all, I don't think I'll do this again. I didn't feel comfortable carrying a huge wad of cash with me everywhere, and every time we went out, I had to run in my office and get the envelope. I did like having extra for groceries for stocking up, but then I had to scrimp at the end of the month. The best part I think was not having to be so anal all the time about every penny. Usually I would have to get groceries and gas on Tuesdays - right when Brent got paid - pay bills, and then scrimp out the rest of the week until the next Tuesday. April was much less stressful.

So, here's what I'm going to change.
Gas - screw the budget - it never works anyway. Drive as little as possible, and fill up when I need it.
Groceries - still try to keep it under $25 per week and use the pantry as much as possible. I still want to keep some cash on hand for when we buy milk and eggs (from farms, not the grocery).
Dining out - We go out on Sundays after church. If we have extra cash during the week, we can go out. If not, well, too bad.
Allowance - Since I like it monthly and Brent likes it weekly, maybe I'll just change it to the 1st and 15th of the month. Good comprimise.

We'll see how this new situation works out for now.

We're Back

Did you miss me as much as I missed all of you?

We had an absolutely wonderful vacation. We went to Madison - not too far, but far enough to get away from normal life. We stayed at the Arbor House Inn which was beautiful and peaceful and I would recommend it to anyone. We went to the state capital, but didn't really do any other touristy stuff. Mostly we took walks, napped, and read books. It was great.

I will proudly say that this is the first vacation we have gone on when we didn't use our credit card or dip into our savings to pay for it. The biggest thing we did to save money was that we went to the grocery store first thing and bought some bread, meat, cheese, chips, and chocolate. After that we didn't really have to buy lunch or snacks. The one day we did eat lunch out, we bought from street vendors so it was cheaper than a regular restaurant.

All in all, I think we spent about $600 for gas, food, entertainment, and lodging. It was well worth every penny. :)

Almost Zero-Waste Event

Well, our party was a success, except for the weather. We wanted to have an outdoor cookout, but it rained all day. So we moved it inside the church.

As for the zero-waste goal - we did really well. We used no disposable dishes, silverware, or napkins. We didn't have enough glasses for everyone (about 40 people) so we bought cans of soda which we took home to recycle. At the end there was less than a kitchen bag of trash - mostly non-compostable food scraps - and some of it was from the last event that was held there.

It really was not that much more work. It took a couple of dishwasher loads to get through all of it, and really that was about it. The only pain was loading the bin of dirty dishes in the car to take home, but that would have been prevented had the weather been nicer.

All in all, it was fun, the food was good, and it was eco-friendly. That's my kind of party!



ps, we didn't ever get around to brewing the rootbeer, so that will be a post for another day.