Attempting work today. Hopefully I make it through my 7 hours. That's all.

I think I am going to survive, Tamiflu seems to be helping, that's all.

Yesterday was payday and since I woke up a little early I decided to get up and check the bank accounts and go ahead and pay for the new washer and dryer. I process that payment at my bank web site, then I consider maybe I should go ahead and pay my AMEX bill.

Then the dilemma is should I pay everything that is owed to this point or just the balance due (closing date 9/30). I pay my Amex in full every month, but sometimes I pay several times a month so I don't have a huge payment at the end of the month.

Okay I will pay it all off, so then I download into Quicken the transactions. Costco, Coleman Co, AT&T, Direct TV, Costco, Comfort Inn, Comfort Inn, Costco.....wait Comfort Inn. The motel charged us??? We paid with gift certificates from our local radio station shopping show. We had to give them our credit cards in case we made a long distance call or something.

Grr.... get them on the phone, starting the conversation with them when DH says, "we didn't stay at the Comfort Inn". Fraud alert!! "Have your manager call me when she/he gets there at 7:00 a.m. please".

I immediately call AMEX and cancel my card, dispute the charges. I am fuming.... someone stole our information. I have been a victim of forged counterfeit checks several years ago, so I was very upset.

So I finally get off the phone with AMEX, am 15 minutes late to work. I call my mother's bank to check her VISA card to make sure there was no fraudulent activity since she also gave them her credit card (I am on my 80-year-old mother's accounts). No everything is fine on her account.

About 10:30 I realize Comfort Inn has not called yet, so I call them. Oh yes, she was just going to call me back. She remembers me, I was coming up for the US Figure Skating competition. Um... gulp... Yes "she is sorry, we did not call to cancel and they were booked solid so they charged my room"....

OMG I went to the wrong motel! No wonder Best Western Horizon Inn did not have a reservation for us when we got there (they had empty rooms though)!! That should have been my first clue.

"I am an idiot, I am so sorry". Assistant manager giggles and says "that's okay, I can refund you one night, but not both".

Umm yeah, I am lucky they didn't charge four nights of rooms since I also made my mother's reservation using my credit card.....

I'm telling you menopause does something to your mind. Luckily my dear sick husband was very nice about it. He didn't feel good enough to laugh, but told me "things happen".

So I might as well have set a match to a $100 bill. Ugh!

The Marine Corp 234th Birthday Marine Ball is on November 6th this year. Last year my granddaughter was 3 months old and I went back to take care of her so my YD and her DH could go (I had just flown home for 8 weeks after being there the first month after she was born).

This year my coworker grabbed that week off before I could... So DH is going back to take care of our little southern belle.




I found a flight on cheap tickets for $530.00 from here to LA to Dallas to Savannah, but it involved an overnight stay in LA. So he said try United Airlines (which is DH's business Visa Card). Their price was $630.00 out of here (which is cheap, we usually pay somewhere around $1000.00 for round trip from here to the Carolinas).

Anyway he says let's just check if we can use miles. Now may I just say we have never been able to use miles out of Humboldt except once when it cost us 40,000 miles to fly to Las Vegas. Otherwise there are simply no seats. We have to drive to San Francisco or Sacramento to use our miles.

So to humor him I pull it up on the computer and low and behold, we can book the round trip flight November 4-10th with miles. $10.00 fee and we splurged on the 5 extra inches of leg room for $79.00. Wow I could not believe it. First time ever. People must not be flying as much.

Now DH just needs to get over the flu that he came down with yesterday. DH is rarely sick so it is quite difficult. AND expensive. Yesterday he wanted Nyquil. Today he wants Thera-Flu. We were just at Walmart in Oregon (no sales tax)and I looked right at the Nyquil and thought we still had some... but no we don't. So yesterday I spent $8.96 on Nyquil and today $7.03 on Thera-Flu! Hopefully tomorrow he will not think of a different cold/flu medicine he wants.

Hoping I don't get it....

I ordered up the black yarn to finish up the ladybug sweater. I hope I get it by Saturday. I really want to finish it in time to send back with DH.

We are leaving soon for a trip up to Oregon to see my 10-year-old nephew participate in the US Figure Skating 2010 Western Regionals.

Our local radio station has a Saturday morning advertising/shopping show in which I obtained 6 nights (2 for us, 2 for my brother, 2 for my mom) at the local hotel for $44.00 a night. This is a $25.00 savings over the special price for skating visitors. I also purchased $40.00 worth of "blue money" for the restaurant across the street for $20.00.

One of my favorite quilt stores is in Medford and I am not even going to visit. Better to just stay away than fight urges that I vow to beat for the entire year (ending 9/30/2010). I am hoping to finish the red yarn portion of Ally's ladybug sweater over the weekend. My brother's family lives in Seattle, so this is a nice chance to get to see my nephew skate live and it is only 3 hours drive!

I am pretty sure the rooms have microwaves and I cooked enough oatmeal this morning for my breakfasts. We already have bottled water and I made iced tea to pack and take too. Still have some individual packs of that yummy trail mix from Costco with the M&M's in it.

While in Oregon which has no sales tax, we are making a stop at Walmart (closest from us is 1.5 hours) for some general merchandise including their almond face scrub. We were going to buy tires up there and have them put on but DH called the local chain tire center and they matched the savings so they are down being put on now. Cost $426.11 for 4 tires for my Toyota Camry.

DH is getting on board more and more and last night made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with the last of the ham cooked last weekend. He used the last 2 Costco sandwich rolls too. They were yummy with the addition of the last of the avocado and tomato. Unfortunately we ran out of milk and didn't want to get more since we are leaving town for a few days.

My friends daughter will be feeding the dogs:



Lola's old blanket that she curls up on to sleep at night (behind the love seat in the TV room) is in the new washer right now. It is so nice to not have to go to the laundromat to wash bulky items. Plus the last time we washed our bulky items it was about $5.00 a load!

It's a beautiful fall day on the North Coast of California, but a storm moves in Monday.

I hope everyone has a relaxing weekend.

I bought a new washer and dryer set on Saturday. However, we paid cash for the Whirlpool Duet set with the steam option. I am hoping to save money on dry cleaning and the water savings should pay for our garden next year. This was a planned purchase so should not count for the no buy anything for myself year.

I have been really down the past few days after seeing my granddaughter on Skype. She is growing so fast and we are missing so much. DH will probably travel to see her the first week of November. I cannot go since my coworker beat me to asking for that week off (she is going to a Nascar race) that the kids need us to babysit so they can go to the annual Marine Ball.

This is what makes me happy/sad:




I have not seen her since August 21st and will not see her again until the end of the year when I managed to get a week off. I hope Ally remembers me and greets me like this:



I am knitting this:


I should have it done by the time DH goes back to South Carolina.

Time to get up and use up the last of the zucchini in this:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/zucchini-gratin-recipe2/index.html

and then if I have enough energy left I am going to make this:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sandra-lee/shortcakes-with-warm-strawberry-sauce-recipe/index.html

Up and at em!

A new Kohl's opened this week in our area. While this may not be a difficult challenge for some of you, we have Ross, Sears, Target and K-Mart and now a Kohl's.

We received a $10.00 off coupon in the mail and DH needed some new T-shirts so we decided to go yesterday. First we went to our business for DH to make a schedule for the employees and take care of the cash register. Then we went over to his mother's house and had breakfast (I brought some bacon and some frozen french toast made last week to use up some bread). Finally it was after 9:00 a.m. and off we went. Well if we filled out a credit card application we received 20% of all our purchases that day and received another $10.00 coupon. DH and I both filled out applications so we had a total of $30.00 off purchases.

DH said he admired my goal of not buying anything for a year, but he thought it would be "okay" to get something. I admit I sort of looked but thought NO!

So we used the cash off to get my granddaughter a book and a Christmas Ornament. DH got about 10 new T-shirts at $4.80 a piece and my FIL's 80th birthday gift of an insulated looking long sleeve shirt with a matching Columbia Fleece Jacket.

So I did it, passed up the cute shoes, the Simply Vera Wang and the Dockers pants that would have been a nice addition to my work wardrobe (I live in jeans and T-shirts otherwise).

My five things for the day:
1. Got up, made coffee, let the dogs out and then tried to keep them quiet until DH woke up (we both rarely sleep in but wish we could).
2. Fixed the hem on 2 pairs of my winter wardrobe work slacks.
3. Doing laundry (this should count for more than 1).
4. Just got off the phone with Direct TV and got the HD football added for free after I screamed and yelled about their misleading advertising in their flyer and told them I would not pay the cancellation fee and it could go to collection for all I cared and actually it probably would fit a class action lawsuit if I could get enough people to say they had been misled too.
5. Going to go sit and knit and try to calm down after getting all worked up with the customer service people and getting transferred 4 times... yes 4 times before getting #4 resolved.

DH's 5 list:
1. Made breakfast.
2. Cleaned up kitchen really well including Clorox Cleanup on the drainboards.
3. Took a 1966 console stereo for the elderly folks next door to a secondhand shop since it still works and they hated to dump it.
4. Making split pea soup even as I type for same elderly neighbors for their dinner.
5. Has had lots of patience all day with menopausal me.

My self-imposed 1 year not buying anything that I don't absolutely genuinely need. No clothes, no shoes, no socks, no undergarments. No new makeup, unless I actually run out of something. No new moisturizers (I probably have enough assorted brands to last 5 years). No books, no magazines..... No nothing!

I had my first evaluation at my job yesterday and had no negatives or any place I needed to improve. That felt good. Today I saw the worker's comp doc and I felt ready to bump back up to 7 hours a day. My shoulder is much improved.

We had Direct TV installed today saving $17.00 a month over our cable TV with many, many more HD channels too.

DH is on board for this year, which is going to really help since he does 95% of the cooking and household/grocery shopping.

Our Christmas present will be flying back to see our sweet granddaughter, oh yeah and YD and SIL too.