Flickr Upload - February 2015

ell, I apparently did not take many pictures in February. Hopefully I will get back into the swing of things these next few months.  But most of this month did look like this first picture...  The rest you can find here...

 

 Snowblowing the driveway...  It was also a very pretty sunset.

 Homework time... this is starting to happen more often as they are getting into more involved material...

 Getting braces again... He's not happy.  But that's OK.

All bundled up with favorite snack and a TV show...

Frightful Weather Tuesday

Well, good morning!  Winter Storm Thor is dumping freezing rain on us, and quite a bit of snow to the north of us.  Of course this comes on the heels of Sparta which gave us 6" of snow.  Got to use the snow blower again, and that is always fun, but it left me a bit sore this time.  It does not usually do that.  Pandora kept me from 013's Science Olympiad in Goshen, IN this year.  011 and I attempted to get there, and got stranded at a very nice elderly lady's driveway and house for a couple of hours.  She was very sweet and wonderful, and gave us some shelter until it was safer to leave.  It was way too crazy beyond words.

So the school went right to cancelling, no 2 hour delay first.  That was odd.  But since 013 forgot to do his math homework, it saved his bacon.  Not sure what that will do to the band concert that is supposed to be Wednesday.  I guess we shall find out.
Our secretary at the church got a full-time job with benefits (yea!!!!  It has been a long time coming!) so I'll be filling in until they are able to find a replacement.  I am excited about the opportunity as it gives me a chance to serve, and it keeps me from being bored here at home!
My soaping is really starting to take off!  I'm very excited about that, and have lots of ideas that I want to try.  Thank you so much to everyone.  My crafting also continues to plug along.  That was certainly a big scare, when I lost my external drive.  I had my pictures backed up, but none of my artwork.  I know, dumb!  So I've been looking at RAID NASs on Amazon and think I have found one I like.  So once I get my tax refund, that will be the first thing I get.
Massage school is going well, we have learned so many fun things, I can't wait to get out there and start trying them!

Update from last time:

• Still preparing for the final
• Aced my MSA quiz
• March Menu done
• Freezer not nearly so jam-packed.  In fact, I ran out of lunches last week!  Don't worry, there are new ones in there now.
• Still slow going on the scrapping, but slowly plugging away
• Got a wonderful 100 song compilation for my iPod to use during massages.  Gadget got me a super-cool speaker to use with it so it sounds lovely!  Although 1 guy really likes 70s songs, so I put together a special playlist just for him.
• Last month's bill was not lower, darn-it!  I was really surprised.  But the good news is it is working so much better, so maybe I should just be happy that for the same amount of money I had a warm house, that stayed warm, and was set 2 degrees higher than last year!  We now keep it on 66 which is a tad bit more comfy.  We'll see about the bill for February that comes in March.  It is historically the big one.  If you don't keep track of this stuff, you really should.  Duke allows me to download my bills into CSV format, I then convert it to a regular XLSX format and do graphing and whatnot with it.  It allows me to keep track of the KW that we use, not just the $$ spent.  Trust me, it goes up every year, so if you are just tracking $$ it is not a good comparison, you need to be tracking usage.
• Other things I track?  Grocery spending and coupon saving, also in a spreadsheet.  I have historical data back to 2009.  It really helps you not spend so much, when you start to look at how much it is over the years.  And gas.  This is a new one that I started doing.  I have SpeedyRewards, and Kroger Points, so I try to track how much I save at each place.  Not every Speedway gives you the .10 credit, some just give you the points, so I've started using that info as well.  Wabash and Kokomo, and Auburn's Speedways do.  Marion and Battle Creek's do not.  And I have a Chase BP card, so I do get points on that occasionally, but there are fewer BPs near me now so I tend to not use that card much anymore, in favor of my Amazon card.  Also, Kroger is hard, I have to drive to Kokomo, Peru, Fort Wayne, or Huntington to get gas on that, so I tend to only go there 1x a month and use all the points in one go.  I am usually in one of those cities at some point during the month when I need gas so it works out.  And I use an app on my phone called Gas Buddy.  It will find all the stations around you and tell you the price.  You may think that there is not much variation, but I will tell you that the Speedway on the south side of Kokomo is typically 20 cents cheaper than the one on the north side.  Both of them give you the .10 discount, but you can guess which one I go to.  They are about 10 miles apart.  And between Alexandria (school) and home it can vary almost .40 per gallon so yea, it does pay, even with my tiny little gas tank!
• Massage practicing is starting to pick up and I've even had a few repeats, that is really cool!  I'm hoping once I am certified it will mean converting them to actual clients!

Well, that is about all, folks! Have a great, safe day!