My husband went to a job interview today.

It's for a company in the area that he just faxed his resume to last Thursday. They phone yesterday and one of the employees is looking for a quasi-assistant. I've been trying not to say anything because I don't want to get my hopes up and I don't want to jinx anything. I figure I will post about here before I explode. My husband seemed to click well with the person looking for a quasi-assistant. They are both British and he says they got on well, so I think that is a great sign! It would just be so nice for him to have weekends off again and not work evenings.

I have not purchased any new yarn/thread/crafty materials since before December. YAHOO for me!! I haven't even missed purchasing anything new. I'm beginning to think that as long as I stay away from Value Village and Salvation Army I will probably be okay.

Things have been slow going...mostly because I am not usually in the crocheting mood right after the Christmas Madness. I have made 3 dishcloths so far out of cotton I had leftover and I have started a round ripple afghan. I'm so excited to start another one seeing as how I fell in love with pattern on the baby blanket I made.

It's going to be a mish mash of colours because I'm going to use all the old acrylic and unknown fibers I have kicking around and I have accumulated quite a bit over the years. It will be an excellent destashing project, freeing up at least half of one of my tubs.

I've got red, beige, grey, mauve, black, and green lined up so far. I don't tend to use that stuff for my projects anymore (aside from slippers). I think because I've become a bit of a yarn snob. Acrylic just seems so....unpopular these days.

I'm not very far in, only 9 rounds. I've got about a 100 more to go because I want to make this big enough for a bed. & if that becomes too ambitious (or I run out of yarn) I definitely want to make it a good sized lap blanket.

This project is for ME. That's right ME. It's been so long since I've made anything that is just for myself.

Little Spots has a little link love in her 'Whatcha Working on Wednesday' post. Thanks for the LOVE hon! Make sure you check out her Etsy Shop--AngelaSpots. It's a good place. My favourite is this upcycled Felted Market Tote. I wish I could felt the way she does. My felting experiments have always just been disasters.

In other Etsy News Thistledown & Finch had her Louisa Bag featured on the Front Page. Congrats to you T&F!

I've been thinking about how we clean again. (wait a minute, how WE clean? let's face it dear readers, I should rephrase that to read--I've been thinking about how I clean again--cause the husband just does not clean unless under severe threats). Let's start that again.

I've been thinking about how I clean again. The interval cleaning does work well for me and for him. I usually start in the kitchen and I am beginning to think that perhaps that is not the best tactic. The kitchen is always the room that needs the most work (the dishwasher needs attention, counters clean off, counters wiped, garbages, recycling, fridge is full of junk, floor is dirty, and on and on) and because it needs so much work I end up spending WAY too much time in there, thus neglecting the other rooms in our house.

I started to think, 'wouldn't it be nice if I could get most of the rooms clean in the same time that I was spending in the kitchen?' & it's true. It would be nice. Then I started to think about what rooms are the cleanest in our house. Andrew's Room, Our bedroom, The Upstairs Bathroom. These are the rooms we spend the least amount of time in. They often just need a quick pick-everything-off-the-floor and make the bed etc. 5 minutes max in each room. And I mean MAX. The computer room does not usually need that much more attention. It's the Kitchen, living room, main floor bathroom and dining room that take up the bulk of my time. Especially because in the living room and dining room as fast as I clean Andrew messes it up again by taking ALL his toys out and dumping them everywhere.

What I've started doing is cleaning the upstairs first and worrying less about the main floor. I don't know if this plan is any more efficient, but it sure is nice having a clean bedroom to sleep in at night and it sure is nice knowing that at least half my house is in a good state.

Well, we finally made it to Superstore to do our grocery shop. We hadn't been for a 'proper' shop since before Christmas. The breakdown:

Junk Food
Cookies - 5.00
Tortilla Chips - 3.38
Popcorn - 4.98
Cheesies - 2.26
Guacamole - 4.99
Total - 20.61

Misc.
Pasta - 2.34
Freezer Bags - 5.28
Salsa Verde - 2.29
Peanut Butter - 4.19
Granola Bars - 5.47
Granola Bars - 5.98
Sea Salt - 5.39
Table Salt - 1.02
Sundried Tomato - 3.99
Fruit To Go (They did not have any No-Name ones) - 7.87
1000 island dressing - 2.47
Chicken Broth - 1.67
Taco Seasoning - 1.19
Tin Foil - 3.48
Bulk Almonds - 3.11
Worshehtshchcheire Sauce (spelling is too hard) - 2.39
Bulk Sunflower Seeds - 3.94
Storage Tower* - 32.99
Total -95.06

Dairy
Skim Milk - 1.98
Chocolate Milk - .99
Yogurt - 4.78
Cottage Cheese - 2.58
Cheddar Cheese - 5.89
Parm Cheese - 3.10
Total - 19.32

Canned Goods
Canned Tomatoes - 2.91
Tomato Paste - .52
Total - 3.43

Produce
Mushrooms - 2.41
Celery - 1.28
Avocado - 1.58
Blueberries - 2.98
Oranges - 1.99
Bulk Raisins - 3.21
Green Pepper - .98
White Onion - 1.33
Tomato - 2.98
Red Pepper - 1.80
Yellow Pepper - 1.05
Bananas - 1.42
Fresh Parsley - 1.35
Cantaloupe - 3.10
Total - 27.46

Grains
Wraps - 2.68
Mini Bagels - 6.99
Bulk Brown Rice - .68
Total - 10.35

Meat
2kg Frozen Chicken Breast - 22.99
4 pkgs Hot Italian Sausage - 9.99
Ground Beef - 4.37
Sandwich Meat (Chicken) - 3.47
Sandwich Meat (Roast Beef) - 3.94
Total - 44.76

Cleaning Stuff
Dish Detergent - 6.49
Total 6.49

GST - 3.69
PST - 5.17
Total 236.34

Deductions
Storage Tower - 32.99
Colleague Discount - 22.27
Superbuck - 5.94
Coupon - 5.00

Final Total - $170.14ish
Actually I think I'm out somewhere...it should really be $173. 14 but I am too lazy to go back and re-check everything.

I'm feeling kinda 'meh' about this shop. It really felt like prices were higher then they used to be, but I'm not too sure if that was just me thinking that because of all the media reports or if they really were? Also, $6.49 for dishwasher detergent?? Wazzup with that. $5.98 for No Name freezer bags?? Seems high. Anyways, I've got a good menu planned for the week so I hope it all goes well.

*The Storage Tower is for my job at the church. I will be getting reimbursed for it so I am not going to use it as our grand total. I'm just listing it otherwise I won't be able to do the mathing and it will be all screwy.

Apparently I am on the ball. Who knew.

I recently signed up for a payroll savings bond through my work. I thought that the $20 that was getting deducted off my pay was all going into a bond in my name. Last week I thought to myself, 'Self, you should have made it so that $15 goes into a bond in your name and $5 goes into a bond in your sons name'. I quite agreed with my self and was making mental notes to remember to do this next October as you can only make changes like that once a year.

I signed up to look at my bonds today and lo and behold...$15 is going into one in my name and $5 is going into one in his name.

I'm a genius.

I think I can post now that I've calmed down. :) I got all giddy and giggly when I saw that Gail had left a comment.*

I unfortunately did not get anything a) finance related or b) blog related or c) craft related done this week as Andrew has pneumonia. He was starting to feel sick last Friday but I thought it was just a cold. I should have known something was very wrong when I took the Christmas Tree down on Saturday and all he did was lay on the couch and not 'help' in any way. Things got worse Sunday night and by Monday hubby decided to take him to the doctors. They took a chest x-ray and confirmed it was pneumonia, gave us antibiotics and sent us home. He started to do better by Wednesday and now today he seems in tip-top shape. He had pneumonia last year and it was way worse last year. I think it's because we got the very early diagnosis, last year we waited about a week before we took him to the doctors.

Today I had a great day at work. I took the time to make a spreadsheet so I can better manage one of the ordering tasks that I have to do on a regular basis. The computer program will spit out a silly report showing when the particular items need to be ordered for individuals, but I don't find the report user friendly at all. I can't manipulate the report in any way, so I have to print it and then I make my scribbly notes on it and then when I set to work ordering the item I have more scribbly notes on other papers and I end up getting all confused. Now I hope my problems are solved. I can sort the spreadsheet, I can easily see upcoming items that need ordering, I've colour coded certain aspects, added comments, and I can track my progress with ease. I just have to remember to keep it updated...because as all my dear readers know that while I am obsessed with lists, I am not so good at keeping up with them. & a spreadsheet is really just a giant list...**

It has been quite cold here (in the minus 30's-40's with the windchill), so it's hard to get motivated to do anything. I get home and I just want to curl up with a blankie and stay warm. I cannot wait for warmer weather. I'm dreaming of a day when it will be minus 10! lol.

On the mini holiday front I have this to report. I have been diligently having money transferred every week from our PC checking account into our credit union LOC. From there I have been transferring it into our credit union savings account because the PC account and the Credit Union savings account aren't linked online, but the LOC is (for payment purposes). Sadly, there appears to be service charges surrounding e-transferring money from the LOC to the savings account. There was a glitch on the credit unions side and the charges were never being applied, but I guess they've realized their mistake. Thankfully, they are not applying the previous charges but they have sent us a letter and it clearly says that they will starting applying the service charges (but they conveniently don't tell us how much these charges will be). I have just cancelled those automatic transfers and set up automatic transfers to go into our EF. I guess I will just need to be diligent in tracking how much money is in the Mini Holiday fund vs the EF.***

I also want to report that I've increased our EF saving and planned spending saving (which at this point is the mini holiday fund). We were saving $17 a week into the EF and I've upped that to $20 (I was going to do $19, but then I figured why not just make it a nice round number) and i've increased the planned spending saving from $8 a week to $10 (this is not including the $40/month that comes off my pay and is in a payroll savings bond). At this point, I think those will be our saving figures for the next little while. I am very proud of myself because we went form saving zip, zero, zilch, nada, nothing to $10 a week, then $12 a week, and upwards in increments to now $40 a week (including the payroll savings). That means that we are now saving $140 a month! It was a slow process. I started with $10 a week in May and I am very pleased to say that we have continued EF saving even though we have been going through a very tough time financially.

I've updated my side bars too.

I think after this very long and rambly post I am ready to hit publish and wish everyone a wonderful weekend! Relax and stay warm everyone.

*Hi Gail! (if you've popped in again)

**I'm being intentionally vague on purpose here, seeing as how this is work related.

***I just realized that this paragraph sounds vague as well, but really it is not vague on purpose. I think I am just bad at explaining things.

This week I am going to work on figuring out exactly (if it's even possible to figure that out exactly) what our Net Worth is. I know it is somewhere in the Negative 20 thousandths. One of the Yearly Goals I made for 2009 is to get our Net Worth to Zero. In order to do this I need to figure out exactly where we stand.

I have some questions about figuring out what your Net Worth is:

--Can someone refer me to a good site that will explain everything in detail (what to include, what not to include?)
--Do you include your yearly salary?
--How do you know what to put for the value of your house? (I know what houses are LISTING at on MLS but not what they are SELLING for?)
--How often do you typically do a Net Worth Statement?
--I only get quarterly statements for many of my investments...how often do you look at your investments?
--What do you use to calculate your Net Worth? (excel, paper, what?)

I did a quick Net Worth Statement and it came out at Negative 21K...I used the purchase price of our house as it's value and I forgot to put my husbands loan in it...so this is going to be a work in progress.

Tomorrow I need to phone these banks to figure out what our balances are on loans/investments:

1. BMO (that pesky car loan and my GIC)
2. ACU (Consolidation Loan and LOC--although I think all our stuff is online there)
3. First Line (Mortgage)
4. Husband will need to figure out what the status of his loan is.

I've been slightly AWOL from my blog and from others blogs. I'm playing a new computer game right now that I am absolutely obsessed with....so today's post is going to be 10 random things.

1. My fridge is not here. We got a call last night saying that it had not yet arrived from the warehouse in Ontario. They did not give us an ETA. I hope it comes soon. It's a good thing we don't need it right away.

2. Andrew is sick. I don't know with what but he has not ate today and is only reluctantly drinking. It's 5:50 as I type this and he's already asleep.

3. Our pilot light on the furnace and hot water heater went off for some reason on New Years Day. It got WAY chilly in here. The thermostat said 10.5 degrees! Yikes! Thankfully my father and my hubby were able to light them back up before any pipes froze. It was worrisome because it was MINUS 35 outside that day.

4. I've been thinking a lot about God and serving God and how I should (could?) be doing this. I am currently the Sunday School co-ordinator at my church, but really it is making me more upset and frustrated and not wanting to go to church. Something I did not want to happen again. I am really considering not continuing as co-ordinator when this session ends in May. Children are not my thing (no matter how much everyone tells me I am good with them and no matter how much I might like colouring and pasting with them) and managing adults to manage children is really not my thing. Right now the only bonus to this position is that I make an extra $192 a month which we have needed to have in our budget since I started in August.

5. While playing my computer game I am crocheting intermittently. What am I crocheting, you ask? You guessed it...more dishcloths. I'm making some for ME. I haven't made anything for myself in a very long time.

6. Gas is getting quite cheap in our city! It's about 76 cents a litre here! & because we get gas at Superstore we get an extra 15 cents off a litre for using our PC Mastercard. It was pretty darn cheap to fill our car the other day.

7. We spent New Years quietly this year. We went for supper (Yummy Thai!), then for a beer (at Billabong), and then we came home and watched 3rd Watch.

8. I took our Tree down today, but we are missing one box...so quite a few ornaments are sitting on the dining room table until I find it.

9. I really want to win Gails contest. I hope I do.

10. We have gotten quite lax with money and our budget over the Christmas Holidays. It's time to get back on Track.

We booked 2 nights in the sleepy hotel in Gimli. We have booked the 27th (Friday) and the 28th (Saturday) with a return on the 1st (Sunday). I was thinking that we would go for another night, but now I'm not too sure. Hubby will already be missing 3 days of work (he works weekends) so I don't think it's the best choice financially for us.

They only had suites available so it was $100.12 a night. Not too bad. My husband booked over the phone and apparently they have this program for 18 dollars more a night you get lunch and breakfast. They said we could upgrade when we got there if we wanted. If we have a suite though I might just bring good things to eat for breakfast and lunch. My husband is not a big eater anyways, so going out for every meal is usually lost on him.

Gimli is a lovely little town. It is really touristy in the summer because it's right on the lake, but in the winter it's pretty sleepy. We went last year for hubby's birthday and he really likes it there. I'm just glad to go anywhere! lol.

So far the plan looks like this;

Hotel - $230 2/nights
Gas - $60
Supper - $150 2/suppers & evenings out
Misc Spending - $75
Food For Breakfast/Lunch - $50

This all totals $565. We have $320 saved up so that leaves $185** to save up until the last week of February. I think that is a doable amount to save It will be nice to get away! It will be even nicer to go on a holiday that we have saved up for. I'm so proud of us.

**It's only $185 because I have $60 in gas vouchers from Air Miles that should be arriving any day now.

There's big things on the horizon for us this year. That's what I've decided.

I'm going to break this post up into 2 parts -- 2009 Goals and January 2009 Goals. I am always one to be making goals...it's harder for me to stick to them. This year is going to be different....

2009 GOALS--Short and Sweet and Simple

1. Net Worth to Zero (We are at about MINUS 21K right now)
2. Run 5K (I can't even run 1 block right now)
3. Establish Savings for Home Improvement
4. Follow Through on Goals Set!

January 2009 Goals

1. No Crafty purchases.
2. Eliminate stash by 2 boxes. Crochet stuff!
3. Set Up bill paying system as per Gail's Instructions
4. Pay Hydro Bill off completely for this month and previous months.
5. Exercise 500 minutes this month. 500 minutes is better then nothing!