OK. I did it.
I got up at 5am so I could go to the early morning, “After Thanksgiving Day” sales yesterday. I went through the sale ads while the turkey was cooking and made a list, by store, of items that would be good gifts for our list. I debated if it would be worth the crowds and the time, but I’ve barely started my Christmas shopping, so now is as good a time as any to get a bunch of it done, especially at the great sale prices.
I even enlisted the help of my husband, Dave. There were several stores on our list that opened at the same time and there was no way I’d be able to get the deals. So my husband went to the electronics stores for me.
The number #1 stores on our lists were almost ½ an hour away, so we had to get a good head start and leave soon enough. My husband headed for his first store, Best Buys, and my 14 year-old daughter, Courtney, and I headed for Target with our hot chocolate travel mugs to warm us up on the cold, dark morning.
When we got to Target there was a line outside that had just begun to file in. We parked and got in with the tale end of the line. It was crowded, so you couldn’t easily get a cart through, so I had my daughter man the cart nearby as I went to the crowded area to get the items we were looking for.
I was able to get a little more than half of the items on my list. But some of the main presents that I wanted, a GameBoy Advanced with the Spiderman game for my son, and a Karaoke machine for my daughter were both gone. Oh well. I was debating about the Game Boy anyway, worried that it is very expensive, (especially any extra game we would buy n the future) and will my son be responsible enough yet not to lose it.
My husband and I kept in touch with our cell phones. He informed me he was only able to get 1 of the three items on his list and he wasn’t going to stand in the huge line for the 1 item, a DVD player. I was able to get one a Target for just a few dollars more.
I got a call from my husband while he was at his second store on his list, which happened to open the next hour anyway, informing me that they were handing out vouchers to the first people in line who wanted certain items. The item he wanted, a $99 camcorder, was already gone, in vouchers at least, to the first people in line. In ways this system is good, because the first people in line are rewarded for being there first, but it’s definitely not worth it to me to stand in line in the middle of the night to get first dibs.
Oh, Dave also informed me he was never going to do this again.
He said, “The older I get, the fewer things there are that I’m willing to stand in line for.”
My daughter and I headed to a couple more stores, which were not crowded at all by this time, about 7:30 in the morning. I was able to get a few more items that were on the 1 day sales which they still had plenty of items in stock.
So, in general, I still think it is worth me getting up early and going to these sales. Yes it is early, and it is crowded, but I can get quite a bit of shopping done in a short amount of time at huge savings.
I’ve got to get all this shopping done sometime. I might as well get a jump-start on it.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Thursday, November 18, 2004
The Perfect “BAD” Examples
As my girls were flipping through the TV channels last night they stopped on a show that made me think.
I don’t know if it is still called “The Simple Life,” but it features Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie touring middle-America in a bright pink truck and trailer.
As we watched, to me it left the perfect example of what I DON”T want my girls to be;rude, vulgar, spoiled, selfish, perverted. The list could go on with the bad impression I got of these 2 young women.
I wonder if their parents watch the show and are horrified to witness their girls’ behavior and lack of respect for everyone else on the planet, or are their parents the same way?
I wonder if these girls have such a lack of self-esteem that they make fun of everyone else around them to boost themselves, or do they really think money is the ultimate ranking status of self-worth?
I truly believe these girls will never find happiness, as they live lives filled of “themselves” and any kind of “feels good” from vulgar humor, perverted sex and drugs and other substances to escape their reality.
I talked with my teenage girls about this perfect “BAD” example of what I want for them. I need to do some more thinking of the good examples in the media of teens they can look up to and respect.
So far…
…I haven’t thought of any.
(I came across this article, Girls Gone MILD, by Stanley J. Leffew
--I wonder if he was watching that same show when he wrote this???)
I don’t know if it is still called “The Simple Life,” but it features Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie touring middle-America in a bright pink truck and trailer.
As we watched, to me it left the perfect example of what I DON”T want my girls to be;rude, vulgar, spoiled, selfish, perverted. The list could go on with the bad impression I got of these 2 young women.
I wonder if their parents watch the show and are horrified to witness their girls’ behavior and lack of respect for everyone else on the planet, or are their parents the same way?
I wonder if these girls have such a lack of self-esteem that they make fun of everyone else around them to boost themselves, or do they really think money is the ultimate ranking status of self-worth?
I truly believe these girls will never find happiness, as they live lives filled of “themselves” and any kind of “feels good” from vulgar humor, perverted sex and drugs and other substances to escape their reality.
I talked with my teenage girls about this perfect “BAD” example of what I want for them. I need to do some more thinking of the good examples in the media of teens they can look up to and respect.
So far…
…I haven’t thought of any.
(I came across this article, Girls Gone MILD, by Stanley J. Leffew
--I wonder if he was watching that same show when he wrote this???)
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Modern Day Pancakes
The other day my little boy, Garrett, who is in kindergarten brought home the wordless picture book, Pancakes for Breakfast, By Tomie De Paola. I love Tomie De Paola’ s illustrations and have for years ( for several years I illustrated children’s educational materials, so I especially paid close attention to his work.)
This simple book taught me lesson on gratitude.
The story goes through the day of an old woman who lived on a farm. She decided she wanted pancakes for breakfast. She then proceeds to have to milk the cow to get the milk, gather eggs from the chicken coop, churn cream to make butter, go out and purchase syrup from the maple syrup man (at least she could buy that and not have to drain it from the trees herself.)
The cute story goes on from there—but it really made me think.Usually, we have cold cereal, a bagel, a yogurt, instant oatmeal you can heat up in the microwave. Pancakes takes about 2 more minutes, but is still so easy!
All I have to do is take out the pancake mix, add water, plug in the griddle, get out the syrup and butter.
I’m so grateful I have the modern conveniences I have today that make my life easier:
A furnace, a washing machine and dryer, a stove, milk from a gallon jug, etc.
Of course, with all the freed-up time we now have compared to 50 or 100 years ago—we have no problem filling it up with other things. But at least these modern day conveniences give us more choices in how we spend our time.
I guess I can make modern day pancakes-- every once in a while.
-Teresa
momsmakingit.com
This simple book taught me lesson on gratitude.
The story goes through the day of an old woman who lived on a farm. She decided she wanted pancakes for breakfast. She then proceeds to have to milk the cow to get the milk, gather eggs from the chicken coop, churn cream to make butter, go out and purchase syrup from the maple syrup man (at least she could buy that and not have to drain it from the trees herself.)
The cute story goes on from there—but it really made me think.Usually, we have cold cereal, a bagel, a yogurt, instant oatmeal you can heat up in the microwave. Pancakes takes about 2 more minutes, but is still so easy!
All I have to do is take out the pancake mix, add water, plug in the griddle, get out the syrup and butter.
I’m so grateful I have the modern conveniences I have today that make my life easier:
A furnace, a washing machine and dryer, a stove, milk from a gallon jug, etc.
Of course, with all the freed-up time we now have compared to 50 or 100 years ago—we have no problem filling it up with other things. But at least these modern day conveniences give us more choices in how we spend our time.
I guess I can make modern day pancakes-- every once in a while.
-Teresa
momsmakingit.com
Monday, October 11, 2004
Up & Running and NETWORKING!
After much frustration, time and compatibility issues, and help from some very kind people, my computer is up and running and even networked to our other computers in our house. Yea! Now I can get down to business with marketing and adding to my website!
Speaking of networking--I want to mention a little more about people networking.
Over the weekend we had a several family hunting/camping trip. We were pushing it as you never know what the weather will be like in the Utah mountains in October--but we were lucky. The weather held out for us--a bit nippy, but perfect for talking around the campfire.
I visited with a friend and told her about my newest project of launching my Moms Making It! website. She is a stay-at-home mom with 3 young children and and could totally relate to the ideas I want to share with moms on the website. She bargain shops and cuts coupons to help make ends meet so she can be home with her kids. She has her struggles with how to discipline her kids (one more than the others, but isn't that usually the case?!) and I shared with her one of my dilemmas in dealing with one of my teenagers (dealing with a 15-year-old is a different kind of hard in dealing with a 3-year-old. Both hard at times, but different.)
She also had many ideas of things I could share on the website:
She received CD as a baby gift that has beautiful songs with her daughter's name dubbed in. All her kids love it! It is now know as the "Carly" CD in their home! (I'll feature details on how to get it one an upcoming newsletter.)
She also mentioned that she always looks for the "Toys R us" game fall sale of "buy1 get 1 free" sale they have in the fall. She stocks up on these games for gifts for Christmas and throughout the year. And wouldn't you know it, when I got home and browsed through the Sunday ads, that sale is featured this week!--guess where I'm headed.
Marlo shared with me websites that she loves to visit and gets great information from. I'm going to visit those sites soon and let you know what I find and recommend.
It was so fun to visit with her and benefit from her great ideas and resources!
So lets network. It doesn't have to be sitting around the campfire, watching kids to be sure they don't pick up hot coals or skewer each other with their roasting sticks.
As much fun as that is...online works fine!
Speaking of networking--I want to mention a little more about people networking.
Over the weekend we had a several family hunting/camping trip. We were pushing it as you never know what the weather will be like in the Utah mountains in October--but we were lucky. The weather held out for us--a bit nippy, but perfect for talking around the campfire.
I visited with a friend and told her about my newest project of launching my Moms Making It! website. She is a stay-at-home mom with 3 young children and and could totally relate to the ideas I want to share with moms on the website. She bargain shops and cuts coupons to help make ends meet so she can be home with her kids. She has her struggles with how to discipline her kids (one more than the others, but isn't that usually the case?!) and I shared with her one of my dilemmas in dealing with one of my teenagers (dealing with a 15-year-old is a different kind of hard in dealing with a 3-year-old. Both hard at times, but different.)
She also had many ideas of things I could share on the website:
She received CD as a baby gift that has beautiful songs with her daughter's name dubbed in. All her kids love it! It is now know as the "Carly" CD in their home! (I'll feature details on how to get it one an upcoming newsletter.)
She also mentioned that she always looks for the "Toys R us" game fall sale of "buy1 get 1 free" sale they have in the fall. She stocks up on these games for gifts for Christmas and throughout the year. And wouldn't you know it, when I got home and browsed through the Sunday ads, that sale is featured this week!--guess where I'm headed.
Marlo shared with me websites that she loves to visit and gets great information from. I'm going to visit those sites soon and let you know what I find and recommend.
It was so fun to visit with her and benefit from her great ideas and resources!
So lets network. It doesn't have to be sitting around the campfire, watching kids to be sure they don't pick up hot coals or skewer each other with their roasting sticks.
As much fun as that is...online works fine!
Friday, October 01, 2004
It's a Love/Hate Relationship
...With my computer, that is! I love my computer when it is working--but when it's not working, the word (H A T E) comes to mind.
Just as I was ready to start marketing my site, my computer died. I saw it coming for the past month: it was getting slower and slower at bringing up programs, it would freeze and I'd have to restart, the CD-rom kept popping out for no apparent reason and it would take up to 10 times of pushing it back in before it would stay. My productivity was going way down, and my frustration was going way up.
My husband started looking for computers for me almost 2 weeks ago. But, the frugal one that I am, told him to hold off--I was going to save my 4-year old computer, and make it last at least a couple more years. I first went through the adware fixes and used McAfee to be sure I didn't have a virus. But that still didn't improve performance. It got so bad that I backed up all important documents and then reinstalled my operating system.
However, my operating system reinstalled next to, not over my old one. I wanted to totally get rid of whatever was causing the problems. So it took another day and a phone call to an expert to get it installed properly.
OK—I’m Ready to start again with a totally clean slate on my computer. I plugged in our DSL modem and installed the software. After a few problems I got it up and working! --for 2 hours that is. Then it began to act schizophrenic!-- IM would work, but IE wouldn't. I'd get on the phone with tech support and then all the sudden, it would work before they did anything. (No, I'm not really calling because I just want to talk to someone!! It really wouldn't work 2 minutes ago!)
Then my computer just shut down randomly. Even with the newly installed operating system!
That's it! After spending 3 days trying to get my computer working, unsuccessfully, I admitted my husband was right. I did need a new computer. That's what it takes--Days of frustration and non-productivity to allow myself to spend $800.
It took half a day of shopping around to find one that was a good deal and would fit my needs now and for the future. I guess I could have gone online to Dell, but every day without a computer meant no work. No moving forward. (Isn't that funny--it is hard to think of life without my computer!!)
Our challenge now is getting my extra internal drive, with all my important data to fit into the new computer. The new computer uses ATA connections for the drives, not serial, which is what my extra drive has, of course. So we purchased an ATA converter, but the drive doesn’t show up as having data on it.
My husband is at the computer store with the computer, drive, ATA converter, etc. trying to find a solution. I thank him for sharing in my frustration. I'll let you know how it turns out. I'm wishing for a happy ending!
Just as I was ready to start marketing my site, my computer died. I saw it coming for the past month: it was getting slower and slower at bringing up programs, it would freeze and I'd have to restart, the CD-rom kept popping out for no apparent reason and it would take up to 10 times of pushing it back in before it would stay. My productivity was going way down, and my frustration was going way up.
My husband started looking for computers for me almost 2 weeks ago. But, the frugal one that I am, told him to hold off--I was going to save my 4-year old computer, and make it last at least a couple more years. I first went through the adware fixes and used McAfee to be sure I didn't have a virus. But that still didn't improve performance. It got so bad that I backed up all important documents and then reinstalled my operating system.
However, my operating system reinstalled next to, not over my old one. I wanted to totally get rid of whatever was causing the problems. So it took another day and a phone call to an expert to get it installed properly.
OK—I’m Ready to start again with a totally clean slate on my computer. I plugged in our DSL modem and installed the software. After a few problems I got it up and working! --for 2 hours that is. Then it began to act schizophrenic!-- IM would work, but IE wouldn't. I'd get on the phone with tech support and then all the sudden, it would work before they did anything. (No, I'm not really calling because I just want to talk to someone!! It really wouldn't work 2 minutes ago!)
Then my computer just shut down randomly. Even with the newly installed operating system!
That's it! After spending 3 days trying to get my computer working, unsuccessfully, I admitted my husband was right. I did need a new computer. That's what it takes--Days of frustration and non-productivity to allow myself to spend $800.
It took half a day of shopping around to find one that was a good deal and would fit my needs now and for the future. I guess I could have gone online to Dell, but every day without a computer meant no work. No moving forward. (Isn't that funny--it is hard to think of life without my computer!!)
Our challenge now is getting my extra internal drive, with all my important data to fit into the new computer. The new computer uses ATA connections for the drives, not serial, which is what my extra drive has, of course. So we purchased an ATA converter, but the drive doesn’t show up as having data on it.
My husband is at the computer store with the computer, drive, ATA converter, etc. trying to find a solution. I thank him for sharing in my frustration. I'll let you know how it turns out. I'm wishing for a happy ending!
Saturday, September 25, 2004
Smart Women, Smart Money
I went to a conference yesterday called Smart Women, Smart Money. There were some good ideas shared and it was just nice to have a get-away day and learn!
Karen Sheridan, a financial planner and author of The Money Mystique was one of the keynote speakers. Besides being informative, she was very entertaining. The 3 things she said that really left an impression with me are:
1. Never, Never, NEVER put anything on a credit card that you can't pay off from your savings account in the same month.
2. Clearly define in your mind what you want. The clearer you are about that, the more likely it is to happen. (She gave an amazing story about this in her life!)
3. Vision without Action is Hallucination! (I had never heard that quote before, but it is so true!)
The other speaker I really enjoyed was Barbara Stanny, author of Prince Charming Isn't Coming. This is another book about women understanding money, and really, taking control of your financial destiny.
She has an colorful life story--she came from wealth. Her father is the "R" in H&R Block. But, she had a husband with a gambling problem that left her with nothing and daddy wasn't bailing her out of her financial woes.
She had to get smart about money, and she did. Four money success keys she pointed out, that I truly, deeply agree with are:
1. SPEND LESS
2. SAVE MORE
3. INVEST
4. GIVE GENEROUSLY
She also had a journalism job, and an assignment to interview 6-figure income women, which is the title of a second book. The funny thing is, she said, that some of these women who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year aren't very good at managing their money. I guess it takes both the ability to earn it and the ability to save and manage it.
The interesting thing about these 2 women's stories is that the both had periods of major "life crisis" that forced them to get educated about their finances and money.
The lesson to me is get educated about money before you are in survival/crisis mode. Respecting money and understanding it can give you power and peace.
I'm excited to read these women's books and learn more! -Teresa
Karen Sheridan, a financial planner and author of The Money Mystique was one of the keynote speakers. Besides being informative, she was very entertaining. The 3 things she said that really left an impression with me are:
1. Never, Never, NEVER put anything on a credit card that you can't pay off from your savings account in the same month.
2. Clearly define in your mind what you want. The clearer you are about that, the more likely it is to happen. (She gave an amazing story about this in her life!)
3. Vision without Action is Hallucination! (I had never heard that quote before, but it is so true!)
The other speaker I really enjoyed was Barbara Stanny, author of Prince Charming Isn't Coming. This is another book about women understanding money, and really, taking control of your financial destiny.
She has an colorful life story--she came from wealth. Her father is the "R" in H&R Block. But, she had a husband with a gambling problem that left her with nothing and daddy wasn't bailing her out of her financial woes.
She had to get smart about money, and she did. Four money success keys she pointed out, that I truly, deeply agree with are:
1. SPEND LESS
2. SAVE MORE
3. INVEST
4. GIVE GENEROUSLY
She also had a journalism job, and an assignment to interview 6-figure income women, which is the title of a second book. The funny thing is, she said, that some of these women who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year aren't very good at managing their money. I guess it takes both the ability to earn it and the ability to save and manage it.
The interesting thing about these 2 women's stories is that the both had periods of major "life crisis" that forced them to get educated about their finances and money.
The lesson to me is get educated about money before you are in survival/crisis mode. Respecting money and understanding it can give you power and peace.
I'm excited to read these women's books and learn more! -Teresa
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Figuring It All Out
I'm almost ready to launch my website. I've still got a few form and template issues--but I'm close!
I do want to add a blog to my site, so I'm just figuring out how to do this. I guess the answer is to just try. Just do it, even if you don't have it figured out yet.
So here goes.
I do want to add a blog to my site, so I'm just figuring out how to do this. I guess the answer is to just try. Just do it, even if you don't have it figured out yet.
So here goes.
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