Considering a big purchase. Thermal drapes.

Last year I felt too broke. I think this year is worse! Broke with medical bills.

But yeah, the thermostat will say 70 degrees but there will be a chill in the family room where we spend most of our time. Because the entire wall against the couch/chair is pretty much window. Excellent double paned windows that keep the house pretty comfortable, but still can't erase that slight chill in the air. (& yes, I am an extreme whimp - allergic to cold).

So I will probably need to spend around $100 on 2 sets of drapes for the 2 windows.

On the flip side, I don't expect to use the heat as much if we take care of that problem area. So I think I should just bite the bullet!

Our bed is farther from the window in our bedroom and it just has a very heavy drape material (home made drapes) so I don't have any issue up there. Plus when I am in bed there is lots of body heat and blankets!

The kids' have their beds under the windows and they don't have drapes anyway (BM has some paper thing variety - BM has none). So I think we will test out the drapes downstairs and maybe before winter, if we like them, we will purchase some for the kids. At least BM. I have no idea what we are going to do with LM's room. It was the nursery and it needs a revamp. Should probably not buy drapes until we know what we are going to do in there.

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Yesterday I canceled our farm organic produce delivery. They asked why. I Said, "I can't afford it right now." They were understanding and surprised we were paid up-to-date. Said it's a common thing these days (canceling. not paying. both). Not surprised.

School picture time is here! Dh wanted to buy the class picture which was $11. That was the cheapest package. The next cheapest package was $14. It has like 8 wallets or something. So that is what we got.

We did have the option to buy nothing. So that is nice. What I read around here about some of the school pictures - yeesh. With all the technology we have and all the amateur photographers we know (friends and fam) pictures are just not something we need to spend money on. I think having a class picture will be nice. A few wallets for $3, whatever.

Dh is doing a product test for a month, for $125. Some kind of soap.

I just deposited $100 into my account from ebay. I am using it to replenish my short-term savings a bit. (Dh sold a pile of games - he made $50 last week too).

I can't say if it is all profit, but he let me keep it. He is holding on to a Wii and hoping to make a killing come Christmas.

So the extra money flow is good.

My last balance transfer was officially paid back today. Phew. I guess I am no longer in credit card debt. Though in my mind I never considered it credit card debt. I mean, I would just forget it was there. & the cash was a wash against the debt. But yeah, until things settle down a bit I won't be doing any balance transfers.

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Dh bought BM a $20 costume. I was pulling out last years' costume to sell to make it a wash.

Wouldn't you know, I found 4 costumes. 2 Nemo costumes from last year, Winnie the Pooh (from when BM was 2) and a monkey costume (from when BM was 1).

I was surprised all the costumes fit LM.

I decided to keep the larger Nemo one since it is nice and has a few years in it.

To be fair, I offered to donate a couple of them to a lady who never showed up to pick them up. I posted them for sale and someone requested if I would donate them. I said, "sure." She never showed up. Now I have 4 costumes. LOL.

Selling the suckers!

I tried to talk LM into the monkey costume, but that is too babyish for him. He will be "Super Nemo" instead. Happy enough as long as he can pretend Nemo is a super hero. HE really took to the Pooh costume and it is also a little large, so we will keep it around. He may wear either come Halloween.

I have a high quality nemo one to sell now (may get $30) and a monkey. No idea what we'll get for that one. It's cute and in great shape, but not as fancy as the Nemo.

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Weekend is here!

Well, I know I will be drape shopping (online) and ebay selling. I also have a ton of stuff to unload off craigslist. If not, it will go in the donation pile.

We need to go through the old clothes and pull out winter clothes. Donate the stuff LM has outgrown. I just set out 5 boxes for donation, we may have a couple more for next time.

Maybe will go clothes shopping for BM (likely online. I perused Target a couple of weeks ago but didn't seem to have the boring uniform type clothes in stock, which he needs). I guess I may go by Target and bulk up on a few jeans and warm shirts for the weekends and such. He can wear jeans on Friday, phew. I don't even bother with the thrift store anymore - Target is so cheap and seems to hold up. I rarely pay more than $5 for an item of clothing for BM. For things LM will get to wear too. The convenience wins me over. I just hate shopping. I hate driving around to the thrifts to pay $3-$4 anyway. When you consider gas savings Target probably wins anyway.

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This month we wanted to go to the train museum. This weekend might be good while it is still pleasant weather.

I am starting to think we can also do a hike in October - weather has just been SO NICE.

It dropped into the 40s last night.

2 weeks ago was 100 degrees. Right now it is 48 degrees. It's a little extreme for my taste. I prefer to ease into fall a bit more. But the weather has been absolutely beautiful and I guess little to complain about.

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Dish sucks. We are going to drop Dish. When is the question. Dh called them about a couple of issues which for one they did not understand in the least. Worse, he has been hung up 4 times in the last week. FOUR times. We figure it has to be their system. Their sales people can not ALL be that rude. Can they? Either way, unacceptable. We only switched to Dish because our little local cable company got bought out by Comcast. We haven't been in cable hell with the rest of the world. This just sucks.

We would quit except dh has heard Comcast is way worse and he wants to switch to Direct TV WHEN THEY GET TIVO next year. We realize we are quite loyal to TIVO and all these other DVRs suck. So anyway, our parents have Direct TV with no complaints and their DVR does look a little better. Dh wants to hold out until they offer TIVO. It's in the works for now. Our TIVO is not compatible with either Dish or DirectTV. I am kind of glad we kept it for now. We may suck it up and switch to Comcast for a few months if this continues.

Dh called again and asked to talk to the retention department but they said no pretty much. Nothing they can do. ????? They gave us $20 off for this month and dh is content with this for this month. But he literally threatened to leave, quite seriously, and they were kind of like, "so?" Which, yeah, pretty much seals the deal. It may be a few months, but we are not happy at all and not sticking around for this crappy service.

I could probably live without both Dish and cable, but don't even go there. My dh lives for his TV. LOL. So we have to find something. Though I have to say even he is not against boycotting the entire system. It may come to that. Man, is he a grump though when he doesn't have his TV working "just so." It will be nice if we ever move past this. At this point I don't even care how much it cost. I mean, within reason anyway. If we have to pay $20/month more for DirectTv and dh blood pressures lowers, then at this point, it will be worth it.

We try really hard not to deal with giant corporations and stuff. Stick with the mom and pops. So this is just frustrating. We want our mom and pop cable back, for sure!!!!!