About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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January 29, 2008
As of yesterday, the 3000 bonus Thank You points and the 2500 American Air miles were credited to my rewards accounts. That brings the total in both accounts to 28 thousand and change, strangely.
I’ve gone ahead and cancelled the CitiBusiness American Air card because that annual $75 price tag is still not worth it, on second thought.
I’m pretty sure that I need to cancel my CitiBusiness Premier Pass card soon because that annual fee ($75) was just charged and I have another card with which to earn 2% back on all purchases for a year.
RX: Three days of unscheduled time, one planned dinner, approximately two-mile walks each day, and quiet conversation.
I’m back at work after three days of good quality time with BoyDucky, our first since September, and boy! I feel GOOD. The exercise was great in the crisply, briskly blowing winds, and the company was excellent. Our jokes about Tony Little’s Gazelle, were later echoed, to our delight, in the movie Juno. At first I feared Juno would be another Running with Scissors because I’ve been living under a Drama Rock and haven’t seen any previews, but thankfully, it was really entertaining. It rather exquisitely balanced the serious against the ridiculous. I don’t mean to knock Running with Scissors, it just wasn’t the funny we were in the mood for at the time.
On Sunday, we visited our couple friends with two kiddies, the idea of which appealed off and on when we were talking about weekend un-plans, and I’m glad we did. We were impromptu babysitters while they cooked up the breakfast foods we brought over, and then played with the kids for a couple more hours. Playing with the kids was my strength training for the day, it was a little hard on my hands and wrists, honestly, and then we took another looooong walk.
Monday was our lunch, movie and window shopping day. As I said, we saw Juno and loved it. We wandered around the downtown area for a bit, drove to the next town’s downtown and wandered around window shopping there. Inevitably, I suppose, I used part of BoyDucky’s gift card to buy two work shirts on sale at Banana Republic ($12, reg. price $34 and $15, reg. price $44). I’ll give him part of my gift card, since I’d just left my wallet at home especially to discourage spending. *sigh* Seriously, self control, anyone?? š
At least it was using gift cards. The red camisole is an addition to my suit rotation – I only have about 4 shirts that are suitable (heehee, “suitable”) and the plum shrug top will be my third professional top. I have a distinct lack of tops that look like they’re meant for business attire, as I trend towards more casual, layering pieces. It’s fine for my office, but not so when I have business conferences. We’ve got this trip to Las Vegas coming up in February, and it would behoove me to start preparing the wardrobe. Hm, I’ll need to factor in dry cleaning my suit into the budget next month! Aish.
I’m proud that we got out and about so much considering the cold and rain. The weather made me extremely hibernatory, especially after the walks, but it was well worth it. Financially, we did pretty well. I remembered to take care of a few bills and deposits while there, we didn’t spend hundreds of dollars on a getaway, and instead of ordering wine at our special dinner, we went home and opened our bottle of anniversary Riesling from last year’s trip to Napa. We enjoyed the 2005 Potter Valley from Chateau Montelena with some leftover dessert cheese, bread and walnuts.
It’d be lovely if this sort of weekend wasn’t a once a year phenomenon.
January 26, 2008
’tis the passing of an era.
We’ve finally come up on the end of the year for the doomed-by-a-loan 0% BT. The money I worked so hard to hoard in anticipation of this moment is on its way, via a Citibank transfer, to close out that ill-fated transaction.
I have thirty dollars and fifty cents left from interest payments to show for it all.
Since money from my high interest savings account was just defraying the overall cost of the loan, I’m glad that I’ve closed that chapter in my financial life and am ready to move on. The credit line might be transferred to another card, and I might do another BT for myself, ALL for myself this time. Ahh, freedom from debt, I love it!
January 25, 2008
My insurance ship has come in! The removal of BroDucky from the insurance has resulted in a massive savings of $680 for this policy term.
That means that not only I’m finally only paying approximately $100/month, per person, I’ve already paid half the premium in a single payment. If I keep this up, I can work my way towards only making two auto insurance payments per year.
Yippee!
January 24, 2008
I was idly sitting at my laptop, pecking away at some keys and rifling through some clutter on my desk when I happened across an envelope wedged between my tape dispenser and Lone Wolf comic book. It was an envelope from work, so I thought that maybe I’d forgotten to send out a rebate for Walgreens or something, and I’d just stuck it in a used envelope.
*peek* Oooooh!
I was supposed to lend MaDucky $300 two weeks ago, but didn’t remember to go to the bank to get it. Actually, I just didn’t deposit $120 worth of cash and planned to withdraw the remaining $180. I forgot to do that and just paid the bill electronically for her. And then forgot all about the original $120 in cash! Man! I must be losing my mind. But that’s awesome! Another $120 towards those bills.
*yay*
January 23, 2008
Puppies are soooo cute … and cuddly, and adorable, and lovable. Right up until they break your pants.
Alright, so little Miss M is still cute, but I’ve learned my lesson about trusting her off the leash: don’t!
She’s still a youngun, so I should have known better, but she’d been so complacent and trustworthy all day that when I took her out to do her business before we left work for the day, I didn’t bother to clip on her leash. Why bother? She’d been impossible to motivate beyond eating, drinking, sleeping and occasionally peeing the entire day. Uh-huh. The dang dog’s nocturnal!
We went outside and she moseyed around the planters, sniffing and twitching her tail, checking out possible Hot Spots. The second I stopped paying attention, she bolted for the center of the biggest, most overgrown planter in the courtyard. I jumped right in after her, grabbed for her collar and *shhhcrack!* I stopped. Dead in my tracks. Uhm-hm. That dog made me bust my jeans open.
*shaking head*
I couldn’t believe how breezy it was, suddenly. Luckily, it was dark, we were alone outside, and I had a long shirt on that almost covered up the hole.
After I got over my fit of giggles, I hauled Little Miss Wriggly back into the office, and clipped that leash right on. *tsk* See if I ever trust her again!
R reminded me to try the Stitch Witchery bonding tape from my sewing kit. The tear was straight, extending from the corner of my pocket up to the waistband, so I found some cute green ladybug scrap fabric, and gave it a whirl. The jeans are hanging up to dry now, but it looks like the bonding tape did the job and sealed up the edges of the hole perfectly. Now I can add some stitching to reinforce the repair job, and hide the fact that my jeans had a temporary back door.
In the meantime, I inducted my backup jeans from the New York trip into the jeans rotations. It can sub in for the other jeans until they’re all better. Thank goodness for back-up clothing!
January 22, 2008
It’s a good thing I was so well prepared for R’s wedding gifts.
I paid for her bridal shower gifts using my hoarded Victoria’s Secret gift cards. No coupons to use there, but I did find everything on sale.
For the actual wedding gifts, I redeemed a $100 Macy’s gift card from my Thank You points last month, used a great all-purpose “11% off anything in the store” Macy’s coupon from my business trip in September, and bought three gifts from her registry for a total of $60 after coupon.
And the lady handed me back the coupon, which doesn’t expire until March 31st, back. š I have an extra one, so if anyone wants it, shoot me an email!
A few weeks ago, I read up on wedding gift etiquette, it’s a pretty hot topic on some wedding forums, and learned a few things that seemed contradictory:
1. Guests usually send upon receipt of their invitation, and have up to 1 year after the wedding to send a gift.
2. The bride and groom, however, are not supposed to talk about their registries in the invitation.
So … how do the guests who may not be very close to the bride and groom find out about the registries? I understand that it’s bad form to actively solicit gifts, but is it really preferable to send your guests on a scavenger hunt to find someone who’s in the know? And is it fair to the organizing person who is inevitably fielding a dozen wedding-related calls a day to have to return another dozen calls with a recitation of the registry stores? I can tell you I got pretty tired of getting the calls and texts asking, hey, where are they registered (again!)? There’s got to be a compromise somewhere in there.
3. The guests are not obligated to give gifts that are equal to the value of their plates.
Culturally this is a little funny for me, because that’s exactly the rule of thumb of gift giving in our community. You give at least what your plate probably cost, based on $50 increments, and much more if you’re family or close friends. And even more if you’re immediate family to either bride or groom. My parents, back in the day, gave my mom’s siblings from seven hundred dollars to a thousand dollars as their gift alone, and that doesn’t include paying for part of the wedding. Ma’s the oldest, so it was expected.
In R’s case, though, I didn’t feel obligated to calculate proper return on the cost of our plates because I’d done so much work, and spent so much on all the pre-wedding stuff, that the gift itself pales in comparison. Not to toot my own horn, but I was at that girl’s beck and call, and was darn good emotional support through some pretty tough nights! I was there for her, dangit! š
I also didn’t feel awkward about being creative in financing her gifts. After all, she still got things she liked from her registry, and it doesn’t hurt her at all that I didn’t go into debt for it.
