**My last post was a tax/politics post if anyone cares or is interested. (If not - then you didn't miss anything).

**I looked in Quicken and had enough money to mail off the house insurance. Didn't want to forget! I think I Was being cautious since I noted to mail it 12/20. Phew. In danger of forgetting, otherwise.

Property taxes cleared the bank. Those are the big December doozies.

Actually, I was perplexed because home insurance said "pay less for higher deductible" but couldn't find any more info on that. I finally gave up and just paid it. The bill had gone down 16% from last year, so, eh.

I found the details after I wrote the check, but figured it was for the best. Can do that next year when rates will probably go up anyway. We had already raised our deductible to $2k. This was to raise it to $3k. The savings wasn't that much. But, for catastrophic insurance, I prefer higher deductibles. (All our insurance??? I suppose we have high deductibles on everything).

**The big Scholastic Warehouse sale is on. For anyone in Northern Cali who is interested in more info, just let me know. (Leave a comment).

Dh said he expected to earn $75 for us (& can spend $100 and get $25 off - so that is his plan).

I think $45 for each teacher. BM's teacher told us that he turned $80 into 300 BOOKS last year. Amazing, huh???

Dh volunteers for $10/hour in vouchers for payment.

**Both classroom parents are raising money for a group gift certificate. Kinder teacher asked for $20, so figured would just give $20/each. Very generous, with all the books too.

**Decided on $20 Amazon gift card for work gift exchange. Problem was, couldn't use my free GC to buy another GC. Should have known! Already made up my mind and got it anyway. Oh well!

That's about $130 cash/GCs for work, boss, gardener, and teachers. We spent about $100 already on Xmas (& that includes birthday since everyone in our fam has birthdays this month and next). I expect maybe another $100 with dh's family and January birthdays. Seems way less than usual, so I am probably forgetting something!

**For the weekend? Dh has a poker game with friends. Will probably get the kids together with their cousins. Might be my last RELAXING weekend in a long time.

Next weekend we are going to try for that Star Trek exhibit, again. Dh's aunt is visiting from the east coast, so will try. We were going to go a few weeks ago, but it is at a mostly outdoor museum. Nothing but rain rain rain. We could see the Star Trek exhibit, but can't see all the airplanes and such at the aerospace museum. We heard they had a really cool playground. Don't want to pay to get in (not expensive; not cheap) and have to miss half of it. The weather might not co-operate, but we are running out of time - the exhibit closes in January. So, crossing my fingers for decent weather next weekend.