Random Bits

Life is speeding by these days, although my job is officially half-time I have been working more as they are short staffed until they hire another worker and we are in our busy season.  I was offered and declined permanent additional hours because hubby's company where I work the rest of the time signed on 3 big clients in the last two weeks which require a lot of additional work as well.  In addition to that, I have been trying to get ready for our road trip to Oregon late next week.  Needless to say, a post about random bits of life was in order to catch you up to speed...

1.  My friend Jill over at A Little Bit of Everything is awesome at finding cool vintage items.  I gush regularly over her finds and she gifted me these lovelies as a fellow appreciator of old cookbooks.  I love them - thanks so much Jill!  Check out her blog - she posts tons of great recipes too.

2.  My Mother still has not sold her little senior mobile home which is up for sale, so we are checking on her new condo and hopefully she will be able to sell asap so she can move closer to us - the condo is two blocks down the street versus a two hour drive each way where she lives now.  We have been on the lookout for a decent used couch/hide-a-bed for her as her old loveseat is in tatters and well past its expiration date.  This weekend I was perusing Craigslist ads and found this couch.  $250 and the man delivered it!  It is practically brand new and spotless (though hubby insists on shampooing it just to make sure).  It is very difficult to find decent hide-a-beds in good shape.  Even harder is finding someone who would deliver it (with our help - hubby carrying the other end) as we have two cars and no trucks.  It now sits in her condo waiting for her to move in.

3.  Several months ago my neighbor across the street (who I don't really know at all except to wave hello) put this wicker chair and table on the curb with a free sign.  I promptly dragged it home (*hubby was at first mortified then shocked at how nice they were, he got over the mortified part pretty fast).   Well, handy hubby has now spray painted it white and I just need to find a cushion for it.   Cost so far?  $20 in paint.  We have gifted it to Mom to enjoy her patio in the Spring and Summer.  Sorry for the dark photo but it was very overcast the day I took this.

4.  Lots of people have joined in the no More Christmas Crap Campaign.  Many have said they intend to scale Christmas back a little year, both to save money and to put meaning back into Christmas.  If you haven't joined yet, read about it here.  I will do monthly updates for encouragement.

5.  We saved money this week by booking our Christmas flights on points.  It cost us $363 for the taxes on two air tickets (that included $40 for buying some points as we were just shy of having enough for the whole ticket).  If we had purchased the same two tickets on exact same flights it would have cost us $1119.82.  Thank goodness we are schooled in the art of getting airline points.  If you need to book Christmas flights do it now - or expect to pay more every day you let go by without getting it booked as space is already getting limited.

6.  I am in travel planning mode - for next week's trip to Oregon, for our Christmas trip to Alberta,  for two of the kids to come see us in November (again flying in on points) and for a Spring time trip to Europe.  The travel fund has been steadily growing and it is so nice to have options with the money tucked away.  We still have quite a ways to save for Europe but all other trips are paid for with cash or a combination of cash and points.

7.  Totally random thought - we are just about to watch the final episode of Season 1 Under the Dome.  I don't watch that much TV but we both really enjoyed this series based on a book by Stephen King.  We have also started watching the Netflix series 4400.  We signed back up for Netflix and now they have some things worth watching again.   Yes, we like our sci fi!

So, if you don't see me posting for several days at a time, no worries, I am still reading your blogs when I can and I will be back soon when life slows down a little bit.  Cheers!