When my hubby and I decided that we would go ahead and put up that workshop/garage in the back yard for him to tinker on his classic cars, he spent days online looking at the different types of metal buildings. Many telephone calls were made trying to get the best deals on vehicle lifts. Trips down to the county planner’s office to meet with the guy in charge of granting the building permits seemed to happen at least once a week. The whole project was a much bigger ordeal than I had expected it to be.
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Great cheap vacations
Some people like to tell me that I am “cheap.” Those are the people who have a lot more money than I do, usually born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Or they have what I like to call a “Sugar Daddy” or a “Sugar Mamma” in their lives. Because of that they can afford to travel around the world and eat all of their meals at restaurants every day of their lives. Me, I have always had to work for a living. And for the majority of the child-raising lives of my kids I had to work full-time, take college courses at night, and raise my kids on a shoestring. So I prefer to think of myself as “frugal.”
One trick that I learned about saving money back then was to not even bother fighting with their father for who would get the kids on a holiday, like Easter or Halloween. I’d go ahead and let them spend the night before at his house, and the day of the holiday, and even the next day too. I’d put off shopping for Easter candy, or Halloween candy until the day AFTER the holiday and then I’d go to the stores and buy a modest amount of holiday-themed goodies at the drastically reduced prices and when they would arrive home I would give them the small token gifts and they would be perfectly happy with what I had given them.
I became pretty skilled at providing cheap vacations as well. Those days were largely before the Internet was even invented, so I would use a travel agent to line up a time-share condo rental and cheap air-fare if the destination was too far to drive, or I’d arrange to drive to my parent’s house in the Washington DC area, stay with them (for free) and do a lot of the Smithsonian Museums, the National Zoo, and spend some great time with my parent’s at their beach house on the Northern Neck in Virginia. We’d go for boat rides, and picnic on the beach at Shark’s Tooth Island, and hunt for shark’s teeth. My siblings would show up and we’d use the family boat to go tubing and water-skiing. A day trip or two to King’s Dominion, or Luray Caverns might round out the vacation. Good times can be had without having to go deep into debt!
Family reunions
As my mother gets older, the family reunions at her place taper off. She says she is just too old to host such a large number of people at her place anymore. That makes me sad because I have many happy memories of my brothers and sisters bringing their families to Mom’s place for a weekend reunion filled with boating, skiing, fishing, and shared laughter around the fire pit in the evening.
I can remember as kids we would compete to sit in one of the few (an therefore coveted) big Adirondack chairs that had the best view of the waterfront. Picking freshly steamed crabs on top of the old newspaper-covered Picnic Tables on the porch. Somehow when picking crabs we didn’t need to worry quite so much about being quiet and polite. And finding branches to stick our marshmallows on and toasting them over the fire pit while sitting on the Park Benches that formed a semi-circle around the fire.
I miss those times, but am glad for the memories.
Going through our coat closet
Guest post written by Michelle Diaz
One thing that I’ve been putting off since last winter is going through our coat closet and sorting through all of the stuff that we haven’t’ worn in a long time. It also kind of serves as an overflow closet, which means that a lot of the time I’ll just throw junk in there when I don’t have time to find a proper place for it in our home. I’m paying for that now and trying to stop doing that.
I went online to see if I could find some tips about how to organize my closet. I did find a few tips and even bought some organizational stuff to help with it. We have so many gloves and scarves that were littering the floor, so I think that those organizational things will really help.
Getting Up There
Thanks to Darwin Barton
Mom and dad have been talking for years about getting a place out on some land in Texas somewhere but we weren’t expecting them to call last week and say “We did it!” We thought there’d be a big family meeting like there always is and we’d have to make a Pros and Cons list but nope, they jumped in feet first this time! None of us have been out to see the place yet but mom assures me it’s huge and has plenty of space for all of us to visit. I talked with her about ways to conserve electricity because she was worried about the utilities but I think they’ll be fine since they both worked long and hard and saved up a lot of money to retire on. I can’t wait to see the place and find out what all the fuss is about and hopefully my kids will like to ride horses and get out and about as much as my husband and I do! Way to go mom and dad! You finally really did do it!