Good Enough

Kate at One More Thing is doing a weekly carnival of sorts, choosing a topic for other bloggers to write about.  This week’s topic is “High School”.

High school.

Not my favorite  four years.   Sure, I had some fun.  And I had some good friends, many of whom went to other schools.

But what I had more of was a great lack of confidence, a mentally ill mother,  a decided lack of money, and some really bad perms.  And, worst of all, I was not who I wanted to be.

Still, it was what it was.  And what I can say now, twenty-five years later, is that I wish I had gotten out of my own way enough to really participate with some of the other people there, to be that person I wanted to be.  No horrible longing for what could have been, but just darn!  Opportunities missed.

College, on the other hand, was a complete and total blast!  I met some of my best, lifelong friends there.  I even married one.  And another is Son’s godfather.  That is where I became the person I’d always wanted to be.

Good enough.

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Linklet Lackadasically Late

I entered a couple of carnivals this week…

The Carnival of Personal Finance was hosted at Budgets Are Sexy.  My post Using What You Have – Landscaping the Yard was included.

There are tons of great posts. Check out:

• Financial Methods presented Stupid, Pointless and Worthless Frugality Tips.  I was amused to see how many of the items Matt listed that I actually do.
• Free By 50 ‘s article How To Get Thousands of FREE Books.  I love classic books, and I plan on downloading several to read on vacations, in the car on a long trip or wherever!

I also entered The Festival of Frugality, hosted at Frugal Upstate and included my post  Wise Spending on Landscaping ? What to Hire, What to Do Ourselves.

Be sure to check out:

• VH’s article Delayed Gratification: The frugalist’s secret weapon, posted at Funny about Money. I use this method often, and it saves me beaucoup dinero.
• Provident Planning’s article 10 Ways to Clip Your Food Costs without Clipping Coupons had some great ideas, and I agree with most of them. 🙂

Special thanks to all of the carnival editors for putting on two top-rate events!

Vacation Ends, You Can Find Me Left of Center

Kate at One More Thing is doing a weekly carnival of sorts, choosing a topic for other bloggers to write about.  This week’s topic is “Vacation”.

Our vacation this year was spent in North Carolina, where Husband spent nearly the entire time building a greenhouse for his parents.

He didn’t think it would take the entire week, but with some rain delays and just the added time anything takes when you do something you’ve never done before, just about our entire vacation was gone.

Husband felt bad that we didn’t really get to do anything fun, that I was stuck in the house.  Their home is thirty minutes from the nearest civilization,  and even that isn’t a hotbed of activity.  Most of my time was spent playing with son, playing on my computer, or doing housework for my mother-in-law.

There really is no reason for him to feel bad, I told Husband.  My entire life is a vacation.  I don’t have to go to work.  I get to have fun every day – taking Son to the playground, to the water park, to the library.  I can stay home in my PJs and spend the day swimming, playing Go Fish and cuddling a very cute 5 year-old as we take an afternoon nap.

I get to do what I want, when I want, all day long. And I get to do it with the most spectacular little blessing G-d has ever given me.  I feel so lucky that I get to do this.  It’s almost as if it’s some big secret that I should be protecting.  That if  someone figured out how great my gig was it would come to an immediate end.

I always knew it had to end – just like all vacations.  The brochure specifically stated that the all-day togetherness trip lasts only five years (unless you take the optional homeschooling rider, which I declined for the health and well-being of all involved) before a rider than changes everything kicks into gear.

And that change is now only five days away.

Because on that 5th day Son starts kindergarten.  And the best vacation I’ve ever taken in my life goes on hiatus for six hours a day.  And I move from being the center of his world to just left of center as he takes his place in a new sub-world, without me.

Sure, I’ll still spend lots of time with him.  And sure, it’s all part of growing up.  But I will forever miss this precious time we’ve had together, just the two of us.

And I’ll be forever grateful to G-d and to Husband for sending me on this five-year vacation.  I can’t wait to see what fun Son and I can cram into six less hours a day, as we inch towards age 15 when I will be so far from the center of his world that he’ll likely want me to walk two paces behind him in public.

Thursday Linklet, the It’s Been Awhile Edition

More evidence that I’m back into blogging – I entered two carnivals this week.

My post Politics was included in The BoBo Carnival of Politics.  The posts in tht carnival run the gamut from liberal to conservative and everywhere in between.

I also entered the Carnival of Money Stories with my post AmTrust Canceling my HELOC. Goodbye, safety net! There are always terrific stories there.

Thanks to the editors for including me, and for all their hard work!

Did That Really Just Happen?

Kate at One More Thing is doing a weekly carnival of sorts, choosing a topic for other bloggers to write about.  This Last week’s topic is “Did That Really Just Happen?”, but I’m apparently a week behind.  Sue me.

Kate’s life.  As of late.

That’s all I’ve got.

In the Kitchen

Kate at One More Thing is doing a weekly carnival of sorts, choosing a topic for other bloggers to write about.  This week’s topic is “In the Kitchen”.

Being a lifelong picky eater,  and having been single until age 37, I’m not known for my culinary skills.  I can follow a recipe, but spent most of my life thinking, “Why bother?”  It’s much easier to go through a fast food drive-thru than to take the time and energy to cook a healthy meal.

Hmmm.  Could that be part of the reason for my life-long weight struggle?  Ya think?

Because I cooked so little I would get completely stressed out when we would – very occasionally – invite company to share a meal.  Since marrying and having a son I’d definitely expanded my culinary horizons, but had never really entertained at home before.  Our last home was small enough that these visits were few and far between, thank goodness.  I would stress about every aspect of the visit – from the cleanliness of the house to the menu to cooking each item.  Trying to coordinate the meal so that everything was hot and ready at the same time caused me enough stress to send Husband to the garage to look for the wing nut from his 1977 Schwinn, which suddenly became of the utmost importance.

Since we moved into the new house I have room to spare.  We’ve had company every weekend, and sometimes during the week.  This past weekend I’d planned a Father’s Day Brunch, and even though I was sick we went ahead with our plans.

As I was cleaning up I noticed that I hadn’t gotten nervous or stressed this t ime.  In fact, I don’t think I’d gotten nervous or stressed about entertaining since we’d moved to the new house.

Could be maturity, could be that I’ve gotten enough of these visits under my belt to make it that much less a foreign enterprise.

Could be that I love my new kitchen.  Then again, who wouldn’t? At this point I could just link to the post about my kitchen, but I think I’ll just repeat it here:

I posted about the bold paint choices we made for our kitchen, and I finally have some photos to show…

Here’s what the kitchen looked like before we began:

That’s Son in the last shot.  Always happy!

I already had this print hanging in the kitchen in my old house.  That kitchen was painted the same yellow that most of the rest of that house, which is the same color we used to paint over the paneling in Son’s playroom.  It is one of my inspirations for the new kitchen, and this time I wanted to go bolder/  This print isn’t short on bold colors!

Then I found some inexpensive wood bowls (vases?) in Homegoods, and I knew I had my kitchen color – Volcanic Blast by Behr.  Well, at least one of them…

Too bright for the entire kitchen, I decided on green to ground the orange.  I picked the green in 5 seconds on the first green color page on Behr’s color wheel.  It’s Herbal Garden…

Here is the kitchen today…

See the table and chairs I got for a net $125 on Craigslist?  I’ll post about that coup and why it’s a “net $125” later this week…  And after seeing this photo that red bag is no longer hanging from that drawer pull.  🙂

Those plants were free, and the pots were 99 cents at Ikea.  I was going to paint some regular clay pots using the paint from the walls, but I like the white – and they have cool textures you can’t see in the photo.  And that’s an apple I was cutting up for Son.  Whoops…

The original plan was to paint the inside of the bar area the orange-red, but I changed my mind.  I’m so glad – I just love the way the green looks with the off-white cabinets and the black granite!

This entire room makeover cost under $200, and that includes the table and 6 chairs, the paint and a few accessories.  That’s bang for my buck!

So, yeah, I have a great kitchen.  And I love entertaining in it and from it and around it.

After all, it’s where I now spend most of my waking hours.

Who wouldn’t?

A year ago…

Kate at One More Thing is doing a weekly carnival of sorts, choosing a topic for other bloggers to write about.  This week’s topic is “A Year Ago”.

A year ago I was cleaning crap out of my Dad’s house.  This year I’m moving crap into my Dad’s house.

A year ago Son was in school.  This year he is not.

A year ago I was writing 1-2 posts per day.  This year I am writing 1-2 posts per week.

A year ago I had a colonoscopy.   This year I don’t have to.  Next year,  either.  Or the year after that.  Or the year after THAT.  We won’t talk about the year AFTER that.

A year ago we were worried because someone had just gotten laid off from Husband’s agency.  This year we are worried because someone has just gotten laid off from Husband’s agency.

A year ago Son napped daily and I napped occassionally. This year no one naps but Husband’s grandmother.

A year ago I was getting curtains hung.  This year I’m taking curtains down.

It’s been a fairly good year for us.  We’re all alive, Husband is employed and we are moving to a house more than twice as big as this one.

Here’s hoping this year is better.  And that next year I won’t have to consult my blogs to remember what happened this year.

What Kind of Fool Am I?

This week the theme of Kate’s informal weekly carnival is “Fools”.   I could just link the posts I wrote about my experience with Son’s school last week and no one could blame me.

But no, that’ wouldn’t be right.  You all deserve new material…

So, the subject is fools.

I am nobody’s fool.  But…

I am a fool for reality TV.

I am a fool for  chocolate.

I am a fool for doggies.

I am a fool that hates clutter but collects it uncontrollably.

I am a frugal fool.

I am a lazy fool.

I am a blogging fool.

I am an over-40, near AND farsighted fool.

I am a fool for my KITCHENAID MIXER.

I am a fool for lobster.

I am a foolish FSU football fan.

I’ve been known to be a dancin’ fool.

I don’t suffer fools gladly, and I have little patience for stupid fools, inconsiderate fools, selfish fools and abusive fools.

I am not a fool for Adam Lambert (he makes my ears bleed), and I’m certainly not a fool for Bret Michaels (though I thank the good Lord that many women are).  I am not a fool for Geraldo Rivera, Ann Coulter or Nancy Grace (all of whom are so foolish as to be caricatures of themselves).

I will not be a fool to anti-aging strategies, fashion (though I adore Project Runway I would never wear any of those creations) or cheesecake (even New York style).

I may not be happy about some of my foolish ways, but I accept my fool-ness.  And being a fool isn’t all bad – I am a fool in love – with Husband, with Son, with life.

And I’d love to be a fool for George Clooney.  It’s okay with Husband – he’s  on my List.

Sunday Night Linklet

I actually managed to make it into a few carnivals this week!

First, my article  The Lynching (in effigy) of Sarah Palin appeared in The BoBo Carnival of Politics, hosted at The Bobo Files this week.

The Festival of Frugality was held at Bargain Briana this week andincluded my article One Fart and It’s All Over.  Really, I think that’s one of my favorite post titles!

The Carnival of Family Life hosted at On a Quest to Be Debt Free this week.  My post Autumn is Good for My Soul was included.  That same post was also mentioned by The Expanding Life in her CFM roundup.  Thanks!

Special thanks to all the hosts who did a great job, and my fellow bloggers who wrote some great articles!

Sunday Linklet

I only entered one Carnival last week, The Carnival of Personal Finance. My article did not appear, and I’m going to assume it’s an error on their part and not that they didn’t find merit in the article I submitted.

That said, my article Easy and Frugal Halloween Costume and Makeup Ideas got included in Remodeling This Life’s roundup, and Miss Thrifty re-posted the Handbag giveaway on her blog and nicely linked back to the blog, so thanks very much to both of you!

Have a great week!

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Edited because Miss Thrifty told me my article WAS included.  For some reason I don’ thave a trackback showing, and wound up looking at the carnival from the week previous (that apparently was re-posted on the 14th (the day after the next carnival) due to some type of data crash, making me think THAT was the most recent one).  And I don’t expect you to understand all that, but I do so I know I’m not a complete idiot; just a partial one.

Anyhoo, my article Financial Instability Aftershocks Affect Your Credit, Too was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted at Greener Pastures.  Thanks!!!

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