Looks like it got down to 43 degrees last night.

Impressed the house is still hovering around 70, though slightly chillier.

No heat here.

We got out blankets for the beds though.

I will break for heat when it gets much colder in the a.m. I hate showering in the cold. It's the kind of thing I may break now because it is such a shock. I can ease into colder mornings a little better, but this is a bit much, all at once. I don't care as much about the rest of the day. & we don't use heat at night. (The house would drop at most 10 degrees and that is only if it is 20-30 outside, which is rare).

We'll see. I do wonder how much we would save if I was willing to shower in the cold. I am trying to remember my pattern last year but I think I would turn on the heat when I woke up so our Master area was slightly warm by the time I shower and dressed.

We might have even turned it off during the day until I got home. Dh could live in an igloo - he doesn't care.

I usually nag him to keep the house warmer for the kids.

To be fair, if I didn't turn on the heat in the mornings, or ever, the house would probably just keep getting colder and colder. So I don't think it is the worst thing to flip it on a half hour every morning.

But I can work on setting it a degree or 2 lower.

I think the kids can live with less heat this year. They are both old enough, and they run around enough!!! We've been a little bit of extra energy hogs with wee little ones around.

---------------------------------------

Boy, this is a weekend of spend spend spend.

I finally found some thermal drapes for the family room. We have a green colored drape right now (just some cheap things I picked up eons ago). I know red would look nice, but I saw quite a few drapes in a "silver sage" color that looked rather similar to our green. Burgundy would no doubt change the feel of the room much. Though I had bought them before and tried them. It was just a toss up and I think dh preferred the green. So at least I know it works.

Anyway, I found some drapes on JCPenny (again) yesterday, online, and tried to order them, but they wouldn't add to my cart. I was frustrated, but not too frustrated before I realized the drapes were too short anyway. (Maybe it was a sign. I was going to measure before I completed the purchase, but still, the website was aggravating me).

But then I found them. $80 (for 4 panels) for some high quality ivory colored thermal drapes. (The other colors were blech but I figured I could live with ivory).

They had great reviews for being affordable and energy saving and nice looking and all that. They were nothing fancy, but probably a step up from my current $15 panels. These were on a deep sale.

The thing is I thought I had a free shipping coupon, but I realized I didn't have a $100 order to get free shipping. So I did a last ditch search for online coupon codes and found 20% off.

I can't help but wonder if I could have saved 20% off my bigger order for the living room drapes. I think it's too late - I already used that coupon. Orelse I would consider re-ordering them and returning the first order.

Lesson learned! I was happy with free shipping and didn't even look. DOH! An expensive lesson. It's like, I know this, but I wasn't thinking. *sigh*

But yes, I am pleased. It came to just under $80 for the drapes with shipping and all. I didn't want to spend a lot of money - I just want warmer windows. So I am pleased with this.

I do still have to buy a rod for the living room. I think I will wait until I see the drapes and get a better idea what kind of rod will work.

Nope, the spending is not done.

I also did a fair amount of christmas shopping yesterday. I found a Set Cubed game (looks like Set & Scrabble combined) which was just perfect for my dad. Dh picked up a gag gift for my mom. I also saw a game called Hisss while we were out and about. We had played it at the library before and it was awesome. It's like dominoes in concept but you build snakes with cards instead (each side of each snake is a different color, and there are a few heads and tails to complete your snakes with).

Anyway, that one I figured I'd price online. It was a good call. I found it at amazon for $8.99. I bought 3. We may keep one for us and keep the other 2 for gifts. If I had more cash to spare I would have bought 10. Gifts for a long time. LOL. I just thought it was so clever and BM loved it last time we played, at library family night.

Yesterday we also did the great clothes shuffle. I now have a giant bag of goodwill stuff from LM. I pulled out the next size and some winter clothes from BM's discard pile. I then went through and filled a new plastic tub with BM discards and assessed his situation. It's not bad. I just need to buy him a couple of sweatshirts and pants for school. He seems to have casual covered. Plenty of jeans that still fit.

I was worried because he put on some 5T pants that looked like they went about to his knees, yesterday. I was preparing for a large shopping trip. But most of the stuff I found yesterday seemed quite long enough. Those were an anomaly, phew. He might need a casual sweater and a couple of long sleeved shirts, but really he mostly needs more school clothes.

----------------------------------

Yesterday was quite nice. We went over to the California State Railroad Museum (highly recommend if you are ever in the area). We had never been. It was as awesome as I had heard, yes. Lots of historic trains inside (the place is just huge - not a huge museum overall - but the trains are so massive and it is amazing how many they have in there) and they had a couple of train tables and a bunch of model trains running in the kids' area. Kids just played forever. LM is a train fiend so it was just awesome.

We bought our membership (we decided to drop the zoo and add this one). It was only $35 for us since the kids are free anyway. Will pay for itself in 2 trips. (We dropped the Fairytale Town membership until spring so I guess it's the only membership we have right now).

We did end up paying $6 to park all day. Not bad, but not great. I think we could probably find some free parking somewhere and will make the membership very worthwhile. A perfect day excursion for LM.

We also rode the "spook-o-motive." LM was in heaven, of course. We did well, it wasn't crowded at all and they had much more costumed characters around than I remember last year. IT was fun. I think now with our membership we will have to return for the Christmas train.

Well, besides all that, we ate lunch and window shopped.

The kids spent their money on souvenirs and such.

I was proud of BM. Before we left I asked him if he wanted to count his money to see how much he had (now that he has an allowance). He had about $20 and for whatever reason said, "I want to spend $8." I said, "well, let's bring $8 then. You don't have to spend it all." I was just impressed with no prodding he decided to save more for later than he was going to spend.

& really, he had a blast with it. He LOVED being able to decide what he could buy with his money. We were trying to make him think because he settled on kind of a stupid souvenir in the end. So as I was trying to discuss it with him he kept saying, "So, can I buy it?" I kept saying, "You can buy whatever you want. I just want you to realize that if you spend it now you won't be able to buy anything else today. OR less to spend tomorrow." You know, along those lines. But he asked me like 3 times, "So, can I buy it then?" "You can buy whatever you want if you give it some thought," was my reply.

He's not at the "thought" age, but I think it's a good step. I know some people would find all this horrible, making my 5yo buy his own toys or whatever. But that is how my parents did it. I remember going to Tower records and spending my allowance every weekend. I would save some of course, but enjoyed being able to buy whatever I wanted with my own money. So it's just kind of fun to be able to start teaching the kids more about money.

The kids also bought rubber duckies with cash from their piggy banks. Since LM does not have an allowance, dh bought him a toy, to be slightly more fair. We strongly suggested he got the toy train instead of the stupid souvenir (like his big brother). Talked him into the toy.

So both kids were happy and all was well.

Yeah, you would even think that BM would be jealous that we bought LM a toy. But you know what? He could care less. He had so much fun taking his cash to the register I don't think he even noticed that we bought LM a toy.
----------------------------------

Well, today I am going to run by Target (I do have a couple of $5 off coupons) and maybe drop off those old car stereos for recycle at Best Buy.

I have to get listing on ebay and Craigslist.

The rest of the day I am fine with vegging. Phew.