"Are We There Yet?"

Tonya's Winter Free Piecing class is coming right along. More of us are popping in daily as we finish tucking away Christmas things.

I embroidered, layered, quilted and bound the Christmas sign yesterday. That's quite an accomplishment for me. I'm kinda slow. (Oh hush you, you in the back row snickering!)

Oh Hey! WAIT! I also cooked 2 meals yesterday. How unusual is that? My Dh usually does most of the cooking, yeah, I know, I'm totally spoiled. I do try to do some cooking on the weekends these days. During the week, I'm gone to work 6:20am - 6:00pm, he works 4:00am - 8:30am (and sometimes until noon). He simply just has more time. I wish.

Here's my dilema. I need one more sign representing California. These signs represent states that Dh and I have lived in together..well, sort of. I need a city name in the state of California that represents Christmas. "Angels Camp" does not work for us. I may be forced to make one up if I don't get some help! OK, I'm BEGGING. What can you think of...or make up for that matter?

Arizona...It's not just about the desert!

We moved here in April and quickly set about finding jobs. We didn't do much exploring, preferring to leave it "for when company visits." Now that we have j-o-b-s there isn't any time for company to come to visit! Who has vacation time? Sound familiar?

So we have been here 9 months and finally have our bearings. We're having fun getting to know our area, it's pretty foreign to us midwestern big-city "kids." Desert, washes, open spaces, and even mountains. All for us to discover and enjoy. We'll have to "do" the Grand Canyon when we have TIME!

Saturday, we spent most of the day visiting Mt. Lemmon, which is part of the Catalina Mountains. We should have visited sooner, it was lovely. 8000 feet in elevation, and we got to visit the snow!! I know many of you think that's a dirty word, but my Dh promised that once he took me away from the snow that we could at least "visit" it. That was enough coaxing, I've had enough snow memories to last my lifetime.

Once home, this was our last gift of the day. This is a shot just off our patio. It's clickable if you'd like.

A great day to explore, it was in the 30's and really windy up there, 70 at home. A nice place to visit, but wear layers!

Hopefully today will be full of sewing and I'll have something to show of my efforts soon.

Resolutions and The Orange Lion

My dd#2 said I had to make a resolution before the conclusion of 2007. I couldn't think of one. single.thing. I'm pretty OK dokey these days, albeit a little fluffy. When wasn't I? That's a work-in-progress, and that's OK too. Wait, I take that back. I'm not OK. I'm fantastic. I'm happy, healthy, and have someone(s) who loves me.

One of the top 2008 resolutions made by folks was to "get their finances in order". How can I help you ask? OK, so maybe you didn't, but I'm just sayin'...

Here's something successful that is working for me. Since 2001 in fact. A shamless plug? You betcha. Wish I got something out of it. Oh yeah, I will...YOU might get happy too? *vbg*

And btw, how much interest are you getting on your regular "passbook" savings account at your local bank? If you're lucky, maybe 1%?

In 2001 I decided to save some money. Until that time, that was a strange thing for me. I hadn't had a savings account since childhood. This account I was contemplating was for "travel". My first trip was to Brazil, went, had a wonderful time, have the pictures.

I had been hearing about "an internet savings account" called Ing. Some bank in the east..or west..or maybe only on paper, was touting a huge interest rate for an internet banking savings account.

So I noodled and nosed around a bit and decided I had a little extra to put into this interesting looking account, what did I have to loose? Better than spending my $10 on a lottery ticket, imho.

Fast forward to today. I make 4.1% interest on my little savings account. I still feel like a child at Christmas, "They're giving me MONEY!" They deduct a monthly amount (which you can change, postpone or stop AT ANY TIME) from my checking account and deposit it into my ing savings account. AT ANY TIME I want money transferred back to my checking account, it's easy as a few clicks. Within 3 days, the money is back into my checking for my use. Yeah, that's a delay, but I'll tell you what..if I needed the money that bad, I would have found a quicker way to come up with the cash, lol. Oh, and get this, there are NO service fees, or monthly use fees, or transaction fees. period. I've put money in, taken it out, added my dh to my account, all the things you could do at a walk-up bank.

So here's my point. What do you have to loose? Is there $10 a month that you could part with to save for a rainy day? Yeah, they even do $10/month. And the best part? No one calls, you don't have to get dressed to go to the bank, and only you and your mouse know what you're up to! And won't YOU be the clever one?! Could this be your new Christmas Account? Or your new LONGARM account? (Whew, got your attention there, didn't I?)

Go ahead, save for a rainy day, I double-dog-dare you!