After yesterday's rant about the heat, I'm home with the heat off after 8:30. Maybe my chilliness will get me warming up on the treadmill.

And I'm in on the ebay/amazon/etc sales to the tune of $20.08 with a $100 goal for the month.

I also spent some time this morning checking out Manhattan hotel rates. I found a nice spot at the Affina Manhattan for $149/night, but thinking about switching to the Iroquois which is more expensive, but maybe????

Anyone with any Manhattan expertise? I haven't been there in years.

Ha! You thought this was going to be about the Olympics, didn't you? Nope, a different china from our various former lives instead.

I'm happy to report that both the china cake plate DH received for a wedding gift for his first marriage, and the vegetable dish lid from my first set of wedding china sold last night on ebay. Since my former husband broke the vegetable dish years ago, I have no idea why I held onto the lid, but it sold for $10 last night. The cake plate went for more. It's so satisfying to get something for basically nothing.

All of our annual insurance bills come due in late July and August--life insurance, homeowner's and at least one car. So until I get paid again, I'm transferring money from savings to help cover it. That and the prospect of a leaking coolant system on my car makes it all sort of ugly.

But I got a couple of checks from surveys and am determined to keep my chin up.

Maybe I can find something to list on ebay....

This is a mini-rant about a spending choice I think is pretty darn ridiculous.
If you're a designer handbag freak, log off now.
As some of you know, I teach at a large public university. Almost every term for the past few years, I get a 20something female student who wants to talk to me about her cool designer handbag that cost her $300+. I have no idea why they want to talk to ME about this--maybe they think I need fashion help. Today a friend told me about her niece who is tens of thousands in debt yet prides her designer bags above all else.

Has the world gone nuts? I have my splurges, but they tend to be a pint of raspberries or a bottle of hand lotion that's more expensive than normal.

My first car cost less than their bags!

Just when we found out we need to do about $5000 worth of work in the basement, I get a bad case of the "I wants."

I want
a nice vacation
a new dresser/chest of drawers
a nice bed and mattress
Central A/C

Now of course, I could buy all of that with the money we HAVE to spend on the basement, but I need to get inventive about what I want (none of this is particularly necessary) and what's actually affordable.

But we've been living with a mismatched bedroom, pretty badly mismatched at that, since we've been married and DH's bed joined my furniture with an IKEA dresser on the side. The bed is a European king size, which is unbelievably different than an American or British King size, so our sheets don't fit and the mattress is just plain worn out.

Now if I could get my vacation with airmiles, find an estate sale dresser, and some sort of bargain on A/C, well, maybe I could actually do some of this.

So, my last ebay sales have been lousy, so I scrounged up more unnecessary books to sell, and am trying to think of ways to make up the difference.

Man, I feel like I'm a whiny little brat today!

Today is start-over day.
I just found out that my one-week summer class had inadequate enrollment and so has been canceled. And I had to prepay for childcare for that week so I'm out of pocket on that one. Very discouraging, but will have to find ways to make that week work somehow.

But I am slowly dejunking. Someone came to pick up the booster seat I've freecycled, and am getting rid of DD's doll high chair the same way since my Craigslist stuff rarely sells. Three of the five e-bay items from last week sold, and I've listed some more.

I forecast a poorer but less cluttered summer.

With the super-cheap ebay listings right now, I've decided to list everything I've been considering before it expires on the 31st.

We had such a good time in Florida, I'd like to start funding that for next year with my ebay earnings. I'll bet I can at least get the hotel or condo funded...

No, not the Revd. Al Green, though I do dig him too, but Walgreen's. Years ago, a friend spotted a Walgreen's sign with the W burned out, and we've taken to calling it Al Green's which somehow makes it more fun.

I had a happy shopping trip at Al Green's today, remembering to use my $6 Register Reward before it expired. I got the Garnier skin care and Colgate toothpaste for less than free after rebate since I had coupons (so exciting!) too and will get the 10% bonus for taking the rebate on a Walgreen's gift card.

Love and Happiness, as the real Revd Al would say!

After a brief foray out into the world yesterday for groceries (it always costs double when I bring DD and DH along), gas, and Office Depot, I came home ready to tackle the taxes.

And done they are--with a nice refund to boot! I know it's more sensible to monkey with our withholding, but that nice check is so lovely. I'm eager to get them mailed off. I have to say, Turbotax is a dream for me to use. It truly is tax software for dummies.


My goals for the week are to get the taxes mailed, the returns done, and walk from the free parking to add to both the calorie expenditure and the parking fund.

It continues hectic as heck-tick here, but spring can't be THAT far away, can it?

And now more subzero cold to drive that heating bill up! Sometimes January goes on forever.

But I've sold an old textbook on Amazon and moved my craigslist listings to ebay. Sometimes Craigslist just doesn't generate the traffic, I think.

Expenses today included a 99cent thermal mug at Goodwill, saivng me 15cents a cup on my necessary caffeine infusion at school.

But dinners from the freezer continue!

I knew I was tempting the parking monitor demons when I bragged to a co-worker that I hadn't gotten a ticket in over a year. Five minutes later, and five minutes late for the meter, I'm out $20.


The whole day was sort of like that. I took my returns to Target, Kohl's and a couple other stops without buying anything. But I thought I should stop into Marshalls for a quick look. Yep, you guessed it--$45 later I finally got out the door.

I noticed they, perhaps deliberately, had too few checkers, but managed to weave us through a line filled with tempting Valentine-ish impulse buys. And several folks in that line commented on the happy jazzy music that kept us all smiling and buying. EVIL!

I'm going to try NOT to go into a store for a couple weeks--except for the grocers.

It's very cold here, so there goes the heating bill too!

Oh well, time to open a bottle of cheap red and let the weekend begin!