My husband is really enjoying his new job. He likes the people he works with, he likes the variety and he (we! Hah!) like the pay. This boss pays the vacation pay out on every cheque.

Now we need to decide what to do with this extra money. Before taxes it's about $80. With his last 2 paycheques we've just spent the money willy nilly but I'd like to do something responsible with this money.

I've been thinking about it and have come up with these 4 options:

1. Put the holiday pay into an account for when we do take holidays.

PRO: Holiday Fund would become quite large quite fast as we are already saving $110 a month towards UK 2010

CON: Well, not really a con but just that -- that we are already saving $110 a month and that perhaps the money should funnelled elsewhere (either planned spending or going towards improving cashflow)

2. Put the holiday pay towards paying off the LOC

PRO: It's always best to work hardest at becoming consumer debt free.

CON: There would be no 'pay cheque' if/when we actually take holidays, kwim?

3. Put the holiday money into planned spending accounts.

PRO: We could identify more areas to save for (ie. Paying house insurance in one shot instead of monthly) & have savings for a variety of fun stuff (ie. new tv, new car)

CON: Interest is still accruing on LOC, holiday fund not growing quickly.

4. Some crazy combination of all of the above.

As usual do things the wacky dinah way. A little of everything.

What's your vote?

I did a stint of a large chunk of black this week...and my oh my black is hard to work with. It's absolutely impossible to see where the stitches start and end. I'm done with black for a while now. Moved on to other colours.

Okay, so I was tagged by Frugal Dreamer a couple days ago....I'm supposed to do the following:

1. Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.

2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post.

3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they've been tagged.

THE FACTS OF DINAH

1. My name is not Dinah. It's something else. Dinah is my alter ego and one day I'll tell you all why.

2. I smoke. I admit it. I start and I stop and I start and I stop. I'm working on it.

3. I got married in Glasgow, Scotland at the Registrars Office. We got married at 10 AM, were done by 10:30 AM, back at the hotel and changed by 11 AM, & out for lunch at noon. It was wonderful.

4. I've had glasses since I was 4. I even broke the 'unbreakable' pair of glasses 7 times.

5. I'm pretty clumsy. Stuff falls off shelves and things don't stay put when I'm around. Heck, I don't stay put when I'm around.

6. I'm tone deaf. Completely and totally. I don't understand tunes, melody's, keys, or rhythm. I just sing for the joy of it.

7. I have very large feet. Excessively large. Like size 11 women's large. Sometimes 12. Shoe shopping generally makes me cry.

But I don't know who else to tag...I think everyone's been tagged already. The tag ends with me. :P

I got paid today and saw my pay stub and I realized that I've gotten my yearly increment increase. Although I'm not entirely too sure why...I'm running with it. My increase has upped my pay by $5 so I'm implementing one of Gails ideas again.

Live on your pre-raise income. If you get a cost-of-living increase or a performance raise pretend you didn't and save the extra money you're bringing home each
pay.

I really like this way of saving. You don't feel like you're 'missing' out on anything because you never had the money in the first place. Your incoming money stays the same but your savings increases with virtually no hardship to you.

So, I've set up my 10 weeks of automatic transfers into our savings account for $45 a week. The distribution will be as follows:

$20 EF ($80 a month = $960 a year)
$20 Holiday Fund ($110 a month = $1320 a year)
$2 House Repair/Maintenance Fund ($8 a month = $96 a year)
$3 Car Repair/Maintenance Fund ($12 a month = $144 a year)
$45 a week = $210 a month = $2520 a year

Seeing the numbers out there in print makes everything so much more real and inspiring. :)

I was just commenting on Jessie's Blog about wanting to go camping the same time she is -- June 26 to July 1. It would be just me and Andrew for part of the time as Husband will be working Monday and Tuesday. So I want something more family friendly, not remote, with a store, with cell phone reception, and a beach.

We have some options that I have been mulling over in my head....

1. Go to Bird's Hill Park -- It's only about 10 minutes outside of the city. It would be easy for us. But the big con is that this Park is the Party Park because it is so close to the city.

2. Go to Otterfalls Campground -- I used to camp at this campground every summer until I was about 12 years old. It has some very good memories and is only about 1 hour from the city. The con is that it is a very open park with zero privacy and zero woodsy feel. But it is good for little kids.

3. Branch out and go someplace new like Nutimik (about 1.5 hours away) or Rushing River (about 2.5 hours away).

So many decisions!

Just for fun I thought I'd look up what I was blogging about 1 year ago today.

It's a fun post about trying to be more Green and Cheap. :P

& then if you're an uber die hard Who's A Blogwhore fan you can read the update here.

Aren't they beautiful?!?! I bought them from this Etsy Shop. I cannot wait for them to arrive!

Okay, so I signed up for this thing called Swagbucks...

I'm not too sure how it works but I have been able to figure out that when you get 45 swagbucks you can get a $5 Amazon card. I have also figured out that I'm supposed to urge friends and family to sign up using my referral link...which is right HERE (Click Me!). I've never done anything like this before but a bunch of other personal finance bloggers have been raving about it so I figured I'd give it a go. I've got a handy little search bar in the top right corner of my monitor and I've been doing searches as I go along.

Any gift cards or items that I get from this are of course going to go towards my Christmas fund.

Hiya all,

I've been steadily working on my new cross stitch that I purchased last week. I've been calling it "In Love".

These are my progress photos. I started in the middle like you're supposed to and when I bought the aida cloth I agonized for a good 20 minutes in Micheal's about which one to get and what I bought should be enough for almost 2 of my pictures...but of course I've got this worry that I will end up not having enough room to complete the picture.

The only thing that is preventing me from being totally and absolutely in love with this piece so far is that I can't see the picture. Do you know what i'm talking about? When I craft I really like (and need) to see the 'big picture' forming...and right now I can't. It's just a jumble of oranges and browns so far. & you can't tell from the picture (& you can barely tell in real life) but there is so far at least 8 different colors in use on the cloth. Some of them are so close that when I'm stitching I can't even see the difference. I'm seriously hoping (& praying a little bit) that once it's a finished product it will look beautiful and the color variations will really mean something then.

As a funny aside Andrew has figured out who this is for. I couldn't help but exclaim, 'how did you know?' when he said who it was for. So the cats out of the bag at our house and even though I told him about a zillion times that it's a surprise I have feeling when he sees my friends next week (they're coming over for dinner) he'll tell them all about their present. Hopefully he'll have forgotten by then...but I wonder if I should tell him that it is for someone else (like grandma) and then let them know the deal?

Anyways...tomorrow is Friday and then it's the weekend! Yippee Skippee!

I planted red pepper plants yesterday. I put them in a big planter (the one I was going to plant potatoes in but decided against potatoes). I put them in full sun (which the tag said they liked) and I am praying they grow.

My basil is still so small. So. Small. It's been almost a month now!

Andrew's radishes are doing very good. I never thought they would grow so fast and so well! I picked radishes for the kids to plant because the germination period was quite short and I thought the kids would appreciate seeing something grow right away. I thought for sure Andrew would under water them or over water them or tip the pot over or eat the mud or put his toys in the pot or something...but it doesn't seem to matter what we do, the radishes keep growing.

Now, here's my secret.

I don't like radishes. Never have. Never will.

What does one do to eat radishes? What does one put them in? When will they be ready to pick?

Hulp?

PS. What should I plant next. I have one mediumish (maybe on the small side) planter left.

Combine Harvester - The Wurzels
August 2004 - 3 or 4 days after meeting S

I remember husband downloading this song in the middle of the night after coming back from Eddy's Garage because he thought I would think it was funny. I think it was the same night he was going to steal the insanely large construction sign from across the street. & he was right I laughed and the song rang through my head for days. I thought (& still think) that it was brilliant that the then husband-to-be understood my sense of humor with such ease.

I drove my tractor through your hay stack last night
(ooh aah ooh aah)..../Cuz i got a brand new combine harvester/An ill give you the key/Come on now lets get together in perfect harmony/I got twenty acres/An' you got forty three/Now i got a brand new combine harvester/An' ill give you the key.


**I picked this video because the words were the clearest...I'm not sure why the video is so bizarre. :P **

I did some updating of my sidebars.

The deets -

EF Part 1 - 79% there. I am so proud of us!
UK 2010 - 11% there. Good start. A real good start! (I'm just guesstimating 4K...it could be less...or more I suppose. I have to do some actual research about the trip)
Yurt Trip in Sept - 100% saved for! Woweeeeeeeeeee!
LOC - 31%...still. I guess my mathing was off last time I updated the side bars...because even though i've made $50 in payments I'm still below what I had before by a few cents? (math is not my strength...ever!)
Christmas Fund - $30.25

I don't have side bars but I'm pleased to report that our Car Fund has $56.00 and our House Fund has $50.00. No too shabby!

2 months, 2 weeks, & 6 days until until we go for our long weekend away in the Yurt.

I desperately want to take 1 weeks holidays in October or November and drive to Calgary to visit my aunt. But, I don't know where the money for that would come from...

I can't believe that he is 4 years old already. Time has just flown by. Today we are going to see UP in 3D and then go to Nana's for cake. He is so excited that it's his Birthday. He's keeps saying, "I'm 4! I'm 4!'

Now for the picture montage....

1 or 2 days old in the hospital


3 months old with Daddy


1 year!


2.5 years old @ Christmas


3 years old @ the park


& a couple weeks ago


Happy Birthday Andrew!

Today is the day before Andrew's 4th Birthday and we are going to TinkerTown to celebrate. It's so fun going there with him because he gets SO EXCITED he can hardly contain himself. It's a wonderful day and the sun is shining and we are off to do good ol' family stuff together.

Cheers!

I haven't been posting much about money lately. We are trucking along. We continue to save. We continue to pay things off slowly. We continue to pay our utility bills (mostly) on time. We continue on. I haven't updated my sidebars in a long time....I should get on that. & I should add a ticker for our September camping trip.

We haven't started anything new. & we haven't addressed some of our issues that have been ongoing for years and years (ie. spending too much money on eating out/take out). I am stumped on how to address this. The minute we make a limit for how much we will spend on eating out...it almost seems like we work harder at spending more. If we have 'no eat out' days...we will out twice that day almost just to spite what we had set forth. We (well, I) try to recreate restaurant meals and it's always fail. We're bad for the restaurants. Bad. Bad. Bad. Breakfasts and lunches and dinners. & snacks.

I know part of the problem is that eating meals in restaurants is how we (& I) have dealt with stress. The day I peed on the stick...we went for supper. When my OCD/phobia get bad...I don't cook and we eat out. Upset about work..go out for lunch. Don't want to make a menu/grocery shop/deal with life...order in food. Sometimes the act of eating out doesn't even end up being about the food. It is about being with other people and connecting and being out and about.

Anyways...any suggestions? How have others conquered the restaurant woes?

I cannot wait

Today was a success! There was 14 children today! (12 kids and 2 babies) The adults all seemed to enjoy themselves too.

Some thoughts:

• 1 hour is too long...next month we should aim for 40-45 minutes
• Story time is a HIT....find an awesome story for next month
• Kids like to plant their seeds and then dump the mud into the flower bed and ask for more mud and seeds
• I need to learn to preside rather then babysit...
• Next month the kid that holds the banner should just stand with it at the front instead of trying to walk around with the ginourmous banner that is 3 times bigger then he is....although it was funny to see him walk into people and tables
• Andrew should not have 2 donuts right before Family Sunday service.
• We need more activities for the adults to do in the service....I don't want them just sitting there the entire time.
  

Anyways. I had a good time and the kids seemed to have had a good time. The adults too. I'm really enjoying the intergenerational worship.

I think for next month the theme is going to be "Sending Christian Greetings". We'll draw pictures, write letters, make cards (or something) to our 'sister' church in Cuba (and pray that they make it through customs) and to my aunts church in Calgary. I think it would be an excellent way to introduce the children the world 'out there' so we can move more into Mission and Service stuff.

Cheers!

Everything is finally finished and I am so pleased with my work and I am exhausted from preparing for this 'event'. It's a lot of work making a banner. I'm so glad I had Husband here to help me...because he did. A lot. He cut the felt hands out. He made the banner holder. He modeled the banner for me. He cut the paper hands out for me. He did all the computer things for me too. He scanned all the pictures I needed for the story time. He went shopping with me while I bought felt. He listened to me ask a million times, 'does it look good?' He's a good Husband. :)

I hope everything goes well and I hope my hands recover from all the stitching and cutting and gluing I did today.

Please excuse the pictures. They're not the greatest. I was using the wrong setting at first and didn't realize it. Here they are in no particular order. I'm so excited to share this with everyone!

We came back from our fake camping trip Sunday afternoon. We had a rockin' good time with our friends out there. I totally meant to take pictures...but we left the camera at home so it will all just live in our memories. lol.

I didn't want to come back...but it probably is a good thing that we did because I have come down with some kind of sickness. My throat is so sore...it feels like there's knives in it and my head is pounding.

I've been home for 2 days now and haven't left the house since we got back Sunday afternoon. I've slept about 22 of the 24 hours in the day. My big excitement has been walking down the stairs and sleeping on the couch and then going back upstairs to sleep in bed. Finally this afternoon I'm starting to feel a little better. I'm even contemplating having a shower.

It sucks that I'm this sick because there are a zillion things I need to be doing at home and I just know that my work is piling up while I'm dying on the couch.

The list of things that NEED to get done this week and I don't know how I will get them all done:

• Finish Banner. GAH. So much to do on that one still
• Make the "Hand Plant" (see picture)
• Finalize Family Sunday Service
• Plan Andrew's Birthday Party (This will be a whole other post as we have $46.15 to plan his birthday party with--and we can't even decide what to do or to invite or where to have it)
  
• Clean House (Have I mentioned that the house has not had any attention since some time last week)

& it's already Tuesday afternoon...*sigh* No rest for the wicked.