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Archive for February, 2009

A whole week of ME time

March 1st, 2009 at 04:33 am

Tonight is the last night of an entire week of ME time. Hubby took Beaner to Vermont last week to see the in-laws. Since they were JUST here for a week, I opted out.

It was sad dropping them at the airport, and I felt a little lonely for the first couple of days.

But, a week alone presented a golden opportunity to work on the house, and do projects that I can't do with a baby around.

So, on my week off I not only caught up on some videos, I also "renovated" my bedroom and bathroom. It's in quotes because I didn't rip much out of the bathroom, I just gussied up what was there.

I painted and polyeurathaned the ugly 1970s vinyl floors so they are fabulous, fresh, and glossy now. I also repainted the walls and ceiling, replaced the grimy sliding shower doors with a rod and curtain, scraped out all of the old caulk and redid it, and scrubbed the grout. I also replaced our old-- I mean OLD- toilet with a super water saver one that is so much better. Fun fun. The bathroom actually took about 5 days to redo. I can't believe how much work it was!

I also redid our bedroom. It was a mess before. Dying of neglect. I primed, repainted the walls and ceiling in a much more soothing color, I painted an accent wall behind the bed, with a stripe in the middle. AND, as a surprise to hubby, I brushed off my paintbrushes and did a 36 x 36 painting to hang above the bed. I love it, and I think he will too. Of course it's tiki theme, but he's used to that by now. The room is so much more relaxing now. Really, we need that at the end of the day.

I also put up new sheers, rods and curtains in the living room, and cleaned the garage.

I can say-- and this is something I never thought I would say-- I am home-improvement-ed out for a while. Geesh. I never thought two rooms could take so much work. I guess it was all the prepping and all the coats of paint.

I did spend some dough doing all of this. I think my total bill was just under $500. About $200 of that was the toilet alone, so I guess that isn't too terrible. It's not like on HGTV where they redo everything and then say it "only" cost $30,000.

Tomorrow, I pick up my two main men from the airport. I hope they like what I did to the place while they were gone.

Going to try to trade on Craigslist

February 19th, 2009 at 06:45 pm

This could go horribly wrong, but I am going to try to trade some of the things around the house that need to go, for things we need or want. I'm hoping at least one of the items will get traded successfully.

Last week I gave away a vintage 1950s sofa (for free, yes) and even then it took 5 people to actually get someone to pick it up. I say why bother writing if you aren't going to come get it?

I plan to post a 1953 OKeefe and Merrit stove. I love this thing. We used it in our house in New Orleans and lugged it all the way up here, but then ended up in a house where it won't work.

A 1950s telephone chair with storage in the seat, a pair of 1950s ballerina lamps, and maybe some other odds and ends.

Wish me luck.

100k per bean for college

February 11th, 2009 at 06:12 pm

I used the Bankrate calculator to figure out how much we'd need to save to meet my hubby's goal to have 100,000 saved for each bean for college. Assuming a conservative 2 percent return each year, it works out to $385 a month for 18 years.

That's not as bad as I thought it would be. It's totally doable. And, if we had another, we'd still probably be OK, especially if I went to work even part time (plus freelancing).

I know it seems exorbitant, but my hubby's top-rated financial goal at the moment is to pay for his kids' college 100 percent, like his parents did for him, so we can give them a clean slate in adult life.

Tiki dreams, and then there's reality

February 10th, 2009 at 04:32 pm

Hubby and I went away for the weekend while his parents looked after Beanman. It was the first time we seriously talked about my tiki bar. It ended in a fight. The fight stems from our differing views of work.

Hubby comes from a family of salary people and has been taught to get a job, work hard at it, make money at it, then retire.

I come from a family of entrepreneurs, who believe you need to work hard-- at something you create- and you need to be boss if you really want to get ahead.

Long story short, Hubby is afraid to invest any of our money in a business venture. He thinks we'll be better off if we just both work 9-5 jobs for salaries and that's that.

The thing that upset me most was his suggestion that by opening a business, I would be taking money away from the Bean's college fund. Um, what???

We save and save and save. We're doing everything right. If anything, owning a business with a modicum of success will generate money to help pay for college.

Maybe this hit a nerve with me. Hubby's parents paid for all of his college. Mine paid for nothing. I had to drop out after two years due to lack of money, and go work in a bar for 7 years before I could afford to go back. I worked 60 plus hours a week and went to college full time, I paid as much in cash as possible to tuition every semester and still graduated with 40,000 in loan debt.

It's a sore subject to me. Obviously, I am still paying for that college education.

And, to make it worse, I got a journalism degree, took a 50 percent pay cut from working in a bar to take my first journalism job AND now, eight years after graduation, the industry has completely fallen apart. No ones hiring, no one is making money.

So, I guess it made me extra upset to hear that I had to supplant yet more of my dreams for yet another college education. I feel like I have been paying for one college education or another since 1993, and it's gotten me nothing but heartache. Is my whole working life, from age 18 to 65 only about paying for college degrees?

I am hurt and angry.

Sniff, another tiki bar gone

February 4th, 2009 at 01:13 am

Ugh. Hubby and I are planning a tacky road trip weekend. We have always wanted to visit the Aku Tiki restaurant, which was an original 1950s tiki restaurant and bar, that was built in a bar in the middle of a farm/cornfield in Kewanee,IL. I just called tonight to find out when they are open and it turns out they are closed forever. Sniff. It was such a great place.

Now I am looking for another authentic Illinois or Indiana tiki bar to visit this weekend. It won't be the same.

Hubby said we should open a bar in a barn in the middle of nowhere. It just so happens there is a barn on his parent's land in Vermont.... got the wheels turning!