If anyone needs me, I'll be at Moldy's, chowing down on Black Forest Cheesecake...
Minimal preps added recently, but I did use several items I'd purchased on sale earlier in the year in preparing holiday goodies, so that money did not need to come out of my pocketbook in this traditionally expensive month; and bless the stores for not having good sales - that money stayed in it's envelope in my pocketbook as well!
Another savings this year was opting out of the gift exchange between adults in Hubby's family - I had tried and tried over the years to talk them into cutting it down to a reasonable level - one item - a jar of jam or some homemade fudge, something like that; but it just kept getting more and more extravagant, so I finally played the ogre this year and said "No more!" (I blamed it on the $14K pay cut hit that we took this year, so no one argued!) There is only one small child in his family - a six month old; we sent him a silver eagle, and Hubby caught his Mama in a quiet moment and slipped her a card with some cash. My daughter and SIL received a homemade certificate for 7 days of my time so that they could take an adult vacation, and the grandkids got mostly useful items.
We are still waiting for the magazines I subscribed to for the kids to show up, but they did try out the thermal swimsuits they received as part of their Christmas gifts when we all went swimming this evening; they seemed to work very well - at least the littlest one's teeth weren't chattering! Good exercise for Grandma - repeatedly lifting 32# and 60# out of 42" deep water up onto the deck of the pool so they can go down the slide again - and again and again and again..... - has got to be considered a good upper body workout
Plans for tomorrow include popping into the chiropractor's office for a quick adjustment, then a 3 mile walk with the neighbor lady. It is the one year anniversary of her husband's passing, so I left the day mostly clear in case she needed an ear, or a companion to do something with. If we are on the run, I have a partial skein of red/green/white yarn and a brand new in the package spool knitting thingy that I picked up at the Senior Citizens thrift shop the other day for a grand total of 75 cents out of pocket that I'll bring along to see if I can figure it out - I'm wanting to make stocking hats to put on some of those little battery operated tea lights (found a dozen of 'em in the Christmas decorations) to make them into snowmen ornaments for next year (it'll probably take me that long to figure out the knitting thingy
) The 'flame' on the tea lights is the carrot nose of the snowman; then you paint on the face and fasten a ribbon on the back for a hanger.
Other than giving the inside of my van a good cleaning while the weather is warm, Thursday plans are open until evening - daughter and SIL have a reception they need to go to, so I am taking the grandkids (and likely a couple of spare kids!) to see an animated movie at our small town movie theater (good thing I've got holiday pay coming from Christmas - one tub of popcorn is more expensive than the 4 tickets!)
Friday and Saturday are back to work - sure hope I remember how to do my job after somehow having been scheduled off 7 out of 8 days....(how THAT happened, I do NOT know!) (But I'm not complaining!)
Well, I guess I'd better close this post and head upstairs to catch a little sleep before tomorrow gets here. Take care, all - wishing you all the best...