Last Day

Well this has been a bittersweet week, knowing that summer is over today for me, and work begins on Monday. I am so appreciative of the time I had to rest and work on getting better. It did go really fast though.

This week was a flurry of appointments for the Moneytree family. Both boys had their eye appointments. I realized this is the last one DS1 receives gratus under the provincial health program. He will be 18 in November and will have graduated to the  'pay for it' club. They both got haircuts, a huge feat for DS2 who is usually traumatized by them. He did well this time.  I had an appt yesterday to get my hair permed and cut, so that is all done for the fall. I would have loved a pedicure but there is only so much money to go around.

We did the school shopping. Less items are required as they get older, though the graphing calculator about killed me.  DS2 got new shoes, which he also hates doing. I did that AND his hair appt the same day and just kept breathing to relax. He is painfully slow when shopping.

A week of birthdays too for us. My great nephew turned 2, my nephew turned 22, his fiance turned 21, a niece in law turned 24 and my father turned 76. We had a picnic/weiner roast at the farm and as many who could came, did. It was nice to gather together and relax and see each other. My dad is building a one room cabin out there so he got to show it off to us. Our gifts to him were cards for the flooring he will be putting in. He appreciated that as it was something he needed rather than something else to 'take up space'.  It was a much smaller and simpler event than last year.

I hit the library to return the books I had out. Next week will be busy enough and if I didn't return them today, I'd probably forget and get hit with late fees.
Today I did a boatload of banking as we got paid and it's off to the school for the rest of the day to get cracking.

Happy Friday everyone :-)

Sunday this'n'that

It's been a busy few days in the Money Tree House hold. Time for a bit of an update.

Friday I headed into the city for my specialist appointment. She was pleased to see that I am still doing relatively well. She agreed to let me stay status quo for now. We will know by the end of September if being back to work (busyness and stress) will affect me or not.  I will have to have another colonoscopy in November. Since this one will be done in the city I am going to have to stay in a hotel near the hospital. No driving far with that special prep drink inside you :-)

I gave myself $40 for the trip into the city. I used $16.50 to top up my tank. $3 went to the parking at the hospital. I felt like celebrating my good news ( the status quo, not the future poke and prod aka colonoscopy) so I treated myself to a $5.99 hardcover in the discount part of Indigo books. It is called the Postmistress and is set in WW2. Haven't started it yet.  Since I was in and out of the hospital so quickly I was making good time. I was debating going straight home or stopping for lunch. There is a DQ in the city that is only open in the summer and only serves ice cream things not the food part. I hadn't been there in years and it just felt right. I stopped for a cone instead of lunch and headed to a park a couple blocks away to just sit and relax and enjoy the moment. I don't do that quite enough I think. So  my day into the city cost me just under $30

DS2 is home from his canoe trip. I was anxious as he is out of contact for the whole time and, well, he's only 15 and a mother worries. He had a great time. Altogether in the 6 days they canoed and portaged 128 miles. This was through lakes, rivers, marshy area and rapids. They tented on the shores at night. It rained part of one day, and during one night while they were up there so that wasn't too bad. One of the leaders of this group, who is 22 now, did this trip when he was 15. That year, they came across a family who had hit the rapids badly, lost their canoe and were floundering on rocks in the middle of the river. That scout group rescued the family and ended up receiving medals of honour.

DS1 is at a pick up tourney for hockey up north this weekend. He is having a blast. First time he's been on skates since April and he was beyond excited to go. It's a fun tourney, co-ed, all ages. They played a tough team yesterday. They lost, but not by too much. I have never seen DS lose so happily before.  You see, on this team was none other than Stanley Cup 2012 LA Kings, Dwight King, and his brother, Washington Capitols, DJ King. DS skated by Dwight then went over to his dad and whispered 'holy cow he's big!!"  For a hockey kid to play against an NHL'er is a pretty big deal in their world :-). I wanted to get a picture of them together but no one else is doing that and DS said "please don't be THAT mom, mom"

I am enjoying my last weekend before school starts. Really am appreciating all the little moments.

Happy Sunday all

Back at it

Well this is the week before the week before school starts and things are getting back into gear. July is infinitely long and wonderful. August 1 comes and things absolutely fly. I came yesterday to the school to get some work done. About half the staff was here for at least  half the day getting started on work. There are things to put back after the cleaning was done.  New things to put up. Different furniture arrangements based on how many kids are coming into the class. And, of course, the prep. With the SK gov't continually changing /updating the curriculum there is never a year where everything taught is the same as last year. so there is always something new to be done.

Yesterday I moved things around, but not a lot. I spent a lot of time arranging my room last year and then in the last day before school I got a infusion of new students. With all the desks that  had to be moved into my room I had to rearrrange again and get rid of a ton of furniture or there wouldn't be room. I swore if they moved one more kid in we were going to have to start layering them like a London double decker bus.

I arrived to find one  new student added to my list. We shall see how much that changes before day 1. We used to have a fairly stable clientelle, but not so much anymore.

I ran into one of the mom's from our school yest while I was at the bank. She said she had driven by the school and had seen my vehicle there along with about a dozen more. She was surprised as she didn't know why we would be there before the 1st day of work. Unless you are in the system, I guess folks don't really understand the prep work. She is a lawyer so it isn't as though she is out of touch with hard work. I laughed and said "I suspect when you have a big case you don't just show up at the courtroom on the first day and start working then. Someone, you and /or your assistants have a boatload of prep work to do. She laughed too and I could tell she understood. Thank goodness I have a good rapport with many of our parents, or I wouldn't be able to say something like that without someone getting offended.

I also ran into one of our moms who is a childcare provider and she had a whole flock of her little charges at the library. I watched in awe as she had them all park their bikes, lock them and proceed in while she got the littlest one of out the bike stroller. I don't know how she does it - that organized with that many tiny ones.

I guess we truly don't  know the worklife of another unless we have worked that job ourselves.

I have been quite good and did not buy much for my classroom this year. I am trying hard to pare down. I bought some whiteboard markers. The school supplies black and blue. If we wish different colours that comes out of pocket. I also bought a bottle of whiteboard cleaner. We get one bottle a year out of supplies, which does not last the year. Supplies don't often come in until the second or third week of school and I am out, so I picked one up.

Last year they installed at projector in my room so I could hook up my computer and show digitally whatever I needed to. They will not provide audio though, so if I want to show anything with sound, I need to buy speakers (again, out of my own pocket). If anyone has any suggestions on brands/kinds of speakers, I would greatly appreciate it. I am naive in this area. I would need ones I could temporarily mount on the front boards, but take down easily should I be moved next year.  And ones that don't cost a boatload of cash. If the kids wreck them, there is no magical fund to replace them or reimburse me :-)

ok coffee break over. time to get my butt into gear

RRSP update

I got a statement in the mail yesterday with my new balance, which is odd, because I got one in June as well. I am pretty sure I only asked to get them twice a year so I am unsure why they are coming more frequently.

I am down from $4200 to $4137 in these couple of months. If I did my math correctly I am down about 1.5% in this time frame.


I wish I understood more about this stuff. I should look and see if there is an RRSP for dummies clas offered this winter :P

Not spending money - self talk

It would be fun to record my conversations with my self sometimes. They can be quite rational and encouraging or they can be hard, tough love. I bet it would sound interesting to outsiders LOL

Yesterday was a money self talk day. I am trying to project if I can get my savings goals and my LOC actually all taken care of by Dec 31.

I go through spurts of great attention to money detail, to those of little attention besides the $ balance at the end of the month. Right now I am on the great attention phase.

So at home yesterday was just  DS1 and myself. DH and DS2 were gone a scout camping. Technically it was just me home most of the day. DS1 had gone to a........gathering...the night before and they tented there on the friend's farm, so they didn't have to drive home. a smart option.

When it came time for lunch, DS1 was out like a light so it was just me. and oh my, but I wanted to go get something for lunch. Not healthy. Fast food. A Mc D burger was calling me. and then, the self talk began!

Did I have enough WW points to make this work? yup it was doable.

Did I have money in my grocery jar? yup I did.

But it would be about $10. And gas to get over and back - about $2.50 to $3 depending on traffic.

I had food in the house. I just didn't want it. I hemmed and hawed for what felt like forever. I had my keys in hand at one point, a frying pan on the stove at another. You would think I was deciding something important.

What did it for me was that $10. All I kept thinking was I could tuck that $10 (if any was left at the end of the week in the jar) into my snowflake and throw it down on a savings goal.

So what? $10. big whoop. treat yourself, the little shoulder devil said.

So you treat yourself, said the shoulder angel. And then next week? cuz like you won't have this fight again? $10 a week saved would net you 22 x $10 = $220. wouldn't it be nice to whap down $220 on a debt or savings goal?

But that's only if you actually did find $10 a week, said shoulder devil.

It was quite funny.

I ended up having a bowl of soup and a salad and I didn't die from not getting what I wanted. It took a bit for that urge to go to pass, but it passed.

For supper I vowed to do the same without the exhausting battle. I found a chicken breast in the freezer, cooked it up with a little olive oil and spices. I had fettucine noodles. I made laughing cow alfredo sauce. I had the urge for garlic bread. We had a couple of hamburger buns that were getting a little dry for burgers but would be great to make 4 pieces of garlic toast. I had one piece and DS had 3. And I survived, without spending money.

But wow, that is just one snapshot of one day. I don't win all the battles, but I win some of them :-)