***I have a new addiction. It's Rummikub! Dh picked up a Rummikub boxed game set at a garage sale a couple of weeks back. I hadn't played it, but BM is enjoying it. I played with them over the weekend and now I am hooked.

***Reminds me, my sis sent the kids some cash for their birthdays. Never has before, but she did just finish college recently and all that, so they are ecstatic to go spend some of it at a garage sale this weekend. Maybe tomorrow. Great gift!

***Monkey Munch! We tried this recipe and it was so YUMMY!!!

Tastes like crunchy peanut butter cups...

http://www.recipezaar.com/290434

***We still have eons of stuff on Craigslist with no bites. Will re-list after the holidays pass. I did go through and lower a few. I have had a few offers, but when I say "okay," no replies. That part is getting old.

Anyway, with the slowness of that and the kids' birthday next weekend, will probably not do any de-cluttering this weekend. I need to plan a menu and hit the dollar store for paper plates, etc. and party favors. I wanted to come up with awesome ideas for party favors, but I am afraid we have run out of time. Dollar store run will do. No one has RSVPed, but whatevah! I guess kind of what I Was waiting for...

We don't have a theme, I am not sure if we will.

We'll make our own ice cream cake and cupcakes.

But yeah, outward appearances will be theme of our cleaning this week. Then back to the de-cluttering...

*** Foreclosure down the street. The good ones are biting the dust! Was a large Indian family and we would see them at the park ALL the time, when generally no one else goes. We enjoyed them. BM was convinced for a long time that one of the older members of the family with a long white beard was santa claus (though that was where the similarities ended - LOL). Dh saw them moving out a few weeks back and I saw a "for sale" sign today. Obvious conclusion is foreclosure though I guess I had other hopes.

I zillowed it today on the whim - I did remember they were a high buyer. Everyone who paid $600k+ has foreclosed. Every single last one. I remember them buying in the $500k range (since most of our neighbors are still the originals - new development - I remember easily the "crazy people who paid $500k+ to live here." LOL).

So anyway, I don't see anything online, but did see they paid $495k. At best the house could fetch $400k, but more likely $350k. I think the writing is on the wall there.

I do admit they could have been renters. Just, who knows.

They will be missed...

***In regards to private school, I find it fascinating all my broke friends are dead set on private school for their kids (as so many of BM's friends start K in the fall).

All my well off friends are content with public school.

I just find that fascinating.

Particularly since our neighborhood lacks a school (I could go on all day on school board politics and land deals. Though their excuse that the "land is too expensive" is no more, now that I think about it...)

It's a rather upscale neighborhood so I expected the rest of the neighbors to be happy with private school. We were at a loss.

Instead they banded together and made their own PUBLIC school.

It does come somewhat to education. The well educated demand their right to public education where I have a lot of uneducated friends who had intended to go the public school route but gave up quickly when it was difficult.

But that's just one half. The other half of the uneducated simply believe that private school is better. The more educated realize there are a lot of opportunities and great public schools here. & that strength of school is measured by much more than test scores. I feel blessed to live in a community that realizes all this and fought for a very wonderful public school.

I really thought it could have easily gone the other way (everyone else going to private school and us struggling with an alternative). So now as I watch all my broke friends fight there way in to pay for such expensive educations, a bell rings off in my mind. IT's like, the broke stay broker, the rich get richer kind of thing...

***Made a killing on ebay yesterday. Woohoo! Dh listed a few items expecting $80 (to cover costs and he still had some more to sell from the $80 purchase).

Today I deposited $130 in my checking account!

We'll have some shipping fees and ebay fees, but I think we did well. Particularly since he only expected $80.

Crossing my fingers his projector finally goes today (someone interested but strung him along all week). That will go a long way to seed money. He kind of owes that to our IRA, but if he sells it and gives me the cash, my checking balance will be $0 (as opposed to -$300). & I will let him keep his two Wiis for seed money. Maybe it will motivate him. They saturated the market this week, much more than past weeks. So hopefully he'll have more luck later in the month.

***My last tidbit is about the locals. I just will never identify. Having come from somewhere where a starter home has always been $600+ (in my memory anyway). I just don't find much to complain about here.

It seems this week in particular there has been a lot of "you are poor if you make less than six figures." "It is impossible to make it." Young families struggle so much."

We moved here so we could live twice as well on half as much. As such, there is little struggle here. Though I don't necessarily put much fault on the locals for whining or feeling like it's hard. I know the difference is 99% perspective.

Anyway, I guess with the economy more I find myself in this situation more. Someone sitting across from me (usually a client) and looking at the pictures of my kids and assuming we have a monster mortgage and need 2 incomes to get by.

"See - you need 2 incomes and are probably struggling. Your mortgage must be $2k+ monthly."

LOL.

I just stare at them blankly.

Huh?

I don't need 2 incomes.

Our mortgage is nowhere near $2k.

I am sure that is the normal story here, but I say, "Oh we moved here from the Bay Area. Talk about expensive! We find it quite simple here. My spouse hasn't worked in years."

Then they keep going on and on and on.

"YEah, but the price and groceries and gas these days!"

ME - "Nothing compared to our health insurance. Now that is something I can go on about."

But since most of my clients, and most of the people here, work for the government, they don't *get* that either. They have awesome benefits. So then they just stare at me blankly. LOL.

I don't know, just bizarro.

I guess I find it fascinating the assumptions made since I am a rather young working mom. The assumption is we are in debt up to our eyeballs, or else I would be home, I guess. I think I would get that just for being young. All these young, stupid people taking on $400k mortgages. But the mom thing doesn't help.

I know they mean well but I am always rather insulted. Hell if I would take on a $400k mortgage. That is precisely why we moved here - to avoid that.

I don't know why people forget you could buy a HOUSE here for $100k in 1999. I mean, come on. A fair amount of us young folk should have been able to buy quite low. But then again, even most of those people owe 3 times as much since they cashed out their equity.

& hell if I am going to complain about my income either. IT's nowhere near six figures, but it is a-plenty! IT certainly stretches MUCH farther than the six figures we did make in San Jose.

Ugh, I live in the midst of insanity.

Oh yeah, the last and final angle is always "these insane income taxes."

If you add up the income taxes I paid in the last 5 years, ROTH conversions aside, I don't think it would add up to $10k. But I did prepare tax returns for a time, briefly before the Bush tax cuts. For people like us taxes have gotten insanely low. They have historically always been worse. So no, I won't complain about that either.

Guess I am just no fun!