**Yesterday was COLD. & today too. Um yeah, winter has arrived here.

Ignorance is bliss. I didn't have one second for the computer yesterday and had not realized it was in the 20s the night before that. I had no idea.

Because of that and because dh was home alone with no heat all day (he's just weird) the temp in the house dropped to 60 degrees last night. Brrrr. We don't turn on the heat at night and that's about as low as it gets inside the house. So I Call that winter weather. But since last night was warmer, I don't know if it would have gotten so cold, but for the 24 hours+ with no heat. (Well yesterday was quite chilly - I guess that had a lot to do with it).

Brrrrrrrr...

**Saved $300? Why yes. Ms. Preschool was going to be gone for a month or 2 or 3 and then that never materialized. But she just told me she is taking January off to deal with the family stuff she mentioned before. I guess decided to tack it on to Christmas break. We could send LM, someone will be there, but I welcome the chance to save some money. So he'll get 6 weeks off. Fine by us.

I've mentioned before but we try not to enter into long-term contracts for anything. For the preschool we have no contract. I pre-pay monthly for budget ease, but I guess for the most part it is week-to-week. (Most parents pay weekly - she finds me very odd. Well, it would drive me nuts to worry about weekly payments. How annoying. Plus, personally I would find it harder to have the money available if I just didn't pay it first thing. You know, pay the fixed expenses, see how much is left for the variable stuff. I just find it much easier to do it that way).

But anyway, if something happened and we wanted to drop the whole thing next week, we could. Well, little breaks like this are nice. Phew. The $300, of course, will go to savings.

Dh has also been wanting to add LM to the karate class, so he can try it out in January. We would have to switch days to add him otherwise, so I think this will be a good trial run. Karate is $30 and would have maybe been spent otherwise.

We can drop him off at a place for $7/hour so dh can keep his school volunteer duties. Could be around $30 for the month. I think it would be good for both of them but dh may not go for it. His loss. We'll see how he feels after a few weeks of no break from the kids. !! We'll still save a chunk, regardless of all this stuff. & I look forward to that!

**Christmas Lights - these were not a part of our budget, but a bulb went out on our tree lights and dh could not find an extra bulb. So he bought some LEDs. I think it will be a good investment for the long run. Will cut down on the Christmas tree electricity usage considerably.

**I feel like I have a working spouse this month and am totally exhausted. This is for the birds. Well, yeah, it would be another thing if there was extra money. But there isn't, so it this REALLY stinks. Hehe.

Actually, overall it hasn't been SO bad. The #1 thing is I have not been able to stick with my usual exercise routine. Which does NOT help with the extra stress. So, I am not happy about this. Last week was trying.

This week isn't much better. BUT with this whole preschool thing, I told dh we needed to have a date this week. We had been doing lunch dates while the kids were at school, and for whatever reason had fallen by the wayside. Probably because it's been BUSY.

I said how about this Wednesday, just because work is getting crazier and it may be hard for me next week.

He remembered later he had a lunch meeting already (this is "work" in a sense - just nonpaid). Monday he is volunteering 10-2 and Wednesday BM gets out of school early. We may be able to swing an early lunch Wednesday, but that's when school conferences are and I already wanted to take some time off for that. So if we could do lunch, pick up BM, and go to the conference that would work. But we'll probably get a crappy conference time and next week might as well be tax season for me. If I want to go to the conference, not sure how lunch will fit in. Will try I guess.

So now I am just bummed. Since when could we not swing a lunch date? Since when did it take so much planning? Yeesh.

Well, it's certainly full speed ahead into tax season.

**Oh yeah, did a double take the other day when I rode past neighbor's house. They had told us they moved 2 doors down. I realized that was why something didn't feel right when I saw their car 2 driveways sooner than expected. LOL. So was glad we heard this news before the move. IT could have confused me for a while.

But I am not sure I mentioned, some house sold for $270k or so in our neighborhood and that freaked me out about (no one in our entire neighborhood paid less than that, and that is kind of scary as far as the future of foreclosures go - if everyone who put $0 down/paid nothing is suddenly upside down).

BUT this house they purchased for $375k. $100k more for the same house!

SO, um, yeah, the prices are pretty volatile. For now, the $270k seems a bit of an anomaly. Though I wouldn't hold my breath that it stays that way. IT still is not good.

Anyway, nothing else has been selling. But everything that has sold this year (except for anomaly) has been WAY over the assessed value of our home. So yeah, prices are dropping like a rock, but no, our property taxes are not going down next year. I had to clarify because I did have my one freakout post a while back, but prices since have been rather high. (Asking prices still VERY high - and some of them still get some nibbles). So yeah, talk about a roller coaster!