Happy New Year!

Well, I am back after the new year celebrations. I actually had a date and went out for NYE. Wow, I haven't done that in....Well, ever. If you don't count the one where I had to be designated driver for my son's dad while I laid in the recliner trying not to keep jumping up and running to the bathroom and throw up. I was preggers-not drunk-keep it clean here... ;) That one was probably the most not fun I ever had. Any way, back to this new year. I have some resolutions again. As always. If only I could make them happen....

1. Not to go crazy from my job. It is a crazy place to work. We often have the discussion in my office of whether the employees are crazy when they are hired or if working here makes them crazy. We still haven't decided yet.

2. Keep on losing weight. It seems to be working so far, so I shall stick with it.

3. Have fun. And a lot of it.

That's it. I don't want to overwhelm myself this year with a bunch of goals that I know I will never follow through with. So I will stick with ones that I know I can do. Make me feel good about myself. Don't want to be an overachiever, so I'll just stick with three. Always better to be an underachiever.

I started the new year off right for sticking with resolution number three. I had a blast that night. I should do that more often. Well maybe not the drinking too much part. Although I was in good hands with a friend of mine who swore to take care of me. I even rode in a cab for the first time that night. I did not drink too tooo much. Just got a lot tipsy, not like hangover drunk. But what fun I did have. We went out to dinner, to the local bar/grill we all like to hang out at, then off to another bar to hear a band. The band was great, the drinks good, and the whole evening was fun. Happy new year to all of you and I hope that this is your year. We all need good things to come our way this year. So I proclaim this to be our year!

Not too exciting here

There has not been any updates. I do not have any new dates for court or depositions yet. Hopefully soon. I probably will not hear back from my atty until after the first of the year. With all the holidays and him being on vacation and honymooning from his recent marriage (Congrats Mr Atty!), he is not in right now.

As far as the new "friend", we hit a stone wall. He wanted to spend every available minute either at my house or on the phone together. That drives me nuts. I was feeling smothered. When I tried to tell him about it, he kind of blew me off saying that he did not want any more than I did and he would wait for me. I told him I could not give him the time and "energy" that a relationship with him would require and he just kept telling me he did not want anything, and did not expect anything. I told him that his behaviors and words told me he did want more and I could not give more. He then told me he would give me a while and some space to decide, but he would not just be friends. That to me sounded like an ultimatum and so I said that was fine and he left. I thought that was the end of it until the next day. I got a text message from him wanting to know where I was. As if he was sitting at my house and I was not there, so where was I? That bothered me. I did not ask him to come over and I had plans and was not going to be home. He did not ask, just assumed he could come over. When I told him where I was (what town) he wanted to know if I was still there from the night before when I was supposed to go to that town. I did not make it the night before because the plans fell through, but what business is it of his was how I felt. That pretty much told me that I did not/should not be in any kind of relationship with him. Well, I actually already knew that, it was just sort of the clincher. Then in the past two weeks, I keep getting text messages from him about how much he misses me. How do you miss someone you have only known for three weeks. I also got one from him on Christmas Eve morning at 5:30 in the morning! Talk about a rude awakening.

I did decide through all of this annoyance at him, though, that I was still interested in dating. I have met a couple of different guys, and have been introduced to others. I have been on one date, and I had a blast. It was really nice to go out with someone for a change. Obviously I have no idea where any of this will lead, and most likely it will be to nowhere, but I will have fun getting there. And if I get a nice dinner or two out of the deal, all the better.

On another personal note, I have been working on the weight loss goal I set for the year. You know, now that the year is almost over. I have started walking with my sister for two mornings a week. I would like more, but that is all she can commit to right now. I also have walked/jogged a few times on my own. I have been following my diet. I am down about 4 inches this past month. I was visiting my best friend and she was purging her closet. I love it when I am there when she does that. I came home with an armful of new clothes, some of them from her SIL with the tags still on, like JCrew and LizClaiborne. I started trying them on and they all fit. Then I thought while I was at it, I should try on my own clothes that did not fit anymore. Happy Day! I can get them on. Not all of them yet, the smallest ones don't fit yet, but I am well on my way! Happy Day Oh Happy Day! I even burned the food I was cooking for our family holiday dinner I was so excited and spent so much time in the bedroom trying on clothes. I totally forgot about it. I didn't ruin it thank goodness, it was just a little crunchy and dark on the top. We just picked that part off! *laughing at myself again*

So far that is all that is going on in my life. Nothing new to report on the deals and steals front. I still haven't really been shopping. Just for things like milk and eggs. I don't have any new reports on the custody front yet, although I hope really soon for that. And on the personal front, just the weight loss is going great. And the dinner. Hopefully more of those come my way....

Site of the Week Saturday

I would like to highlight a blog today. It is the website of a good pal of mine. She is a super hound and an even better friend! She is always generous and kind, so I thought she deserved to be my first Site of the Week! Annie over at Chi-Annie: at the table is the wonderful person I am talking about! Go check her place out! Lots of fabulous shopping tips, cooking tips, recipes, you name it she's got it. Go on, get over there!

Challenge Update

For Wednesday:

I will have my car greased tonight. My mechanic says it will only take him a few minutes. I asked him what he would charge and he did not answer me. I will probably give him $10 for his time and grease even if he says no charge. I do not want to be greedy and take advantage of him.

I gave my cats a treat this morning of a can of tuna. I can usually get tuna cheaper than cat food. I use only one can of tuna and two cans of cat food. The only time I get canned cat food is when Kmart is doing their doubles. Then I can get the food for cheaper than the cheap-o tuna.

I made my lunch for today. I made tuna salad, found some leftover taco soup ( not really sure how long it has been in there, but it smelled all right!), and brought some green beans. If I need a snack of some sort later, I have some popcorn that I keep at work.

Tonight, I am going to meet up with a friend of my dad's. She is a single mom(I think), and she has four kids. She wants to learn how to coupon! Hopefully another new face on The Pound!

I have been turning the heat down to 58 or 60 degrees. The heat does still come on occasionally. I did turn it up yesterday morning and this morning while I was getting ready for work and I was cold. I just turn it down before I leave for work.

I keep the lights off in the rooms I am not in. In fact, the two upstairs rooms have no items plugged in at all. The storage room downstairs only has a lamp plugged in, the kitchen has only the fridge and stove that stays plugged in because I unplug all appliances when not in use. The living room only has one lamp and one "nightlight" plugged in to timers to come on at some point in the evening. The lamp goes out fairly early, and the "nightlight" goes out in the morning when it starts getting light outside. I do not even have the t.v. on a power strip, it is just not plugged into anything!

I will try to find something to fix for dinner if I get home early enough to have for lunches and freezer meals. I had several errands to run last night and did not get home early enough. I ended up being at my sister's house until around 11:30!

I ordered a windshield for my van at the car recycling center yesterday, and they have a guy that will put it in on Saturday's for a discounted rate. It will save me about $100 going through these folks. The crack in my windshield is now pretty large and you can definitely tell it is there. I want to get it fixed before I get a ticket. Then I would have to pay for the ticket and to repair the windshield anyway. I had to get the money from my dad though. I did not have enough money to pay for it right now.

I do not plan any shopping today. I have no money right now. Thank goodness Friday is payday!

Challenge Update

Wow, I feel remiss. I have not posted anything on here for days.
- did not purchase anything on Friday.
-I did get gas on Saturday. I got $2.50 worth for the lawn mower to mow my yard. Then I spent $50 to fill the tank on my van. On Saturday afternoon, I went with my sister to CVS to help her and spend a few EB. I spent $2.60 of my cash and got back $7 in EB. According to my receipt, I saved $18.69.
-I did not spend any money on Sunday. I did drive to a small town in the next state (IN) about 20 minutes away because I was told that I could get the Indy Star at the IGA there. I was out of luck. They did not carry it. But my mom and I drove past a flower stand. We definitely had to stop. Mom got a plant called a straw flower. I bought nothing, just looked and enjoyed all the beautiful plants. I think that was kind of a waste of gas because I wanted to see about getting the newspaper so that I could get the q's and came home with nothing.
-On Monday morning on the way to work I stopped at Advance Auto to get some gas treatment for my van as it is not running smoothly right now, it seems to be missing. Actually ever since my trip last time. And here I am almost ready to go again. I hope it smooths out before I have to drive down.
-Also on Monday, I took a half a day off work to go with my mom to her doctor appointment in Champaign and to go to Meijer. I found out once we were over there that mom wanted to go to Target first. I spent $1.84 there. I got a camp flashlight for my son that has interchangeable lenses with different creatures on them. It has a spider, snake, frog, lizard, and a moon. I also got a tub of betty crocker frosting for 75 cents. Then we went to meijer. I did not need a lot of groceries, just a few things. I spent $46.05 and saved $32.77. I took advantage of their buy 2 of "x" products and get a free gallon of milk. I got two boxes of wheat thins and used a bogo free q and got a free gallon of milk. I also got 2 oreo cookies and got a free gallon of milk. I planned on buying oreos already for my son and me to eat on this next trip, so I got two and a bonus gallon of milk! I love free!
-On Tuesday, I spent no money again.
-On Wednesday, I am going to buy spark plugs for my van and go to my dad's to see if he can help me change them. If we can do it, that will save me the cost of paying someone else. Hopefully that will fix the missing problem with my van. If this does not fix it, I will be having the fuel filter changed when I get back (and get paid..).

Tuesday night I talked with my friend. She was telling me some of the financial difficulties her family is having right now. They own a farm. They have crops from last year that they have not sold yet. She is happy that her husband is no longer working a full time job on top of running the farm, but now they do not have as much money. She told me that they did shop around and found that they can save a little over $200 a month by bundling some of their services for internet, cells, and satellite. Her big expense that she did not know how to lower was groceries and household and health items. I am going over there next week to hang out for a while, have dinner and borrow some books. I did not tell her but I put a bag together for her and the family with some items out of my stockpile. I put in all kinds of stuff for her. I am so glad to be able to help her like this. I also told her the same thing I told my sister (who did not do it), which was to make a list of the most commonly eaten foods, the items for HBA that they can use if they have preferences. If they don't have specifics that have to be used to let me know that. I will then make a list for her the same time I make mine and get all the corresponding sale ads and then go to the store with her. We would go to walmart so they can price match. She does not go alone as she has three kids and it is too much to try and match sales to coupons, and keep an eye on three kids. I offered that I would go with her to cvs as well to get the really good deals there as well. She was really excited and told me she would most definitely do that. She would really appreciate all the help. I think it would be lots of fun, and I would be helping a friend that has helped me alot in the past. I hope this works out for all of us.