One of our best baristas worked her last shift yesterday. Well, the last until sometime later this year. She's taken a LOA to move back to her hometown and get married and Zeus in a pink feather boa, I'm going to miss that girl!

She's young, perky, and has such a beautiful and sweet disposition. Even better, she stays calm when faced with long lines and perturbed customers. We work well together and feed off one another's energy and humor. In my seven years in that position, I haven't experienced that with many baristas.

We had just an hour together yesterday but after she clocked out she came to say goodbye and gave me a long and tight hug. When I went on break I found a hand decorated envelope in my lunch bag and inside was a card from her. As I read it, the onion ninjas appeared out of nowhere. Darn those ninjas!



I have some of the best regulars in my job and love each of them but Birdy is a very special barista. People like her, whether they work with me or get drinks from me, are part of what make my job so fun and satisfying.

I'll miss her!

Bye bye, Birdy!

And in totally unrelated news, I woke up with a swelling bottom lip and chin and dental pain. Oh joy.

I woke up at 3 this morning. My alarm was set for 5 AM but I was so very tired last night that I crashed on the couch before 9:00 PM. I rarely sleep more than 5 hours at a time so sleeping until 3 was great. For some reason, my blood sugar was 244 at about 7 this morning! My insulin pump was functioning fine so I bolused some units to deal with the high and by 9 AM my blood sugar was back in the good range. Later in the day it was too high again, 277! I bolused a small amount of insulin and put away our weekly order. That's some pretty physical work and between the insulin and activity the blood sugar was 108 a little later when I checked it. When I got home, I changed my set even though I put in a new one last night. Ugh. Those sets are expensive so every time something like this happens I cringe. But diabetes stuff happens and it is what it is!

I worked a 7.5 hour shift but forgot my lunch so I spent $4.33 on that. Grrrrr! I don't do that often but I really need to do it never.

After work I went to the bank to deposit the tax refund check then by the nursing home to see Pop but he wouldn't even uncover his head. I sat in a chair for about an hour, talking to him now and then while he talked to someone else who wasn't there. Dementia sucks, folks. It just sucks. I finally left and called Mom and she told me she wants to get a weed eater tomorrow so when she's ready to get out and about we'll go get one of those and go to the nursing home. Maybe we'll be able to get Pop out of bed and to the dining hall for a little bit of socialization time. Neither of us needs to spend money on lunch so we'll probably come back to my place for a quick meal together before she heads home.

Yesterday evening and this morning I went over my expenses with a fine tooth comb, a very fine tooth comb! There isn't a lot I can do to eliminate or reduce expenses but here are a few things I've done or will do:

Put my HuluPlus subscription on hold and will cancel it in April. I don't have cable television and pick up no local stations so I've relied on HuluPlus, Netflix, and Amazon Prime for viewing. The main reason I got HuluPlus was to watch "Vikings" and an old science fiction series I loved but I haven't used the service in a couple of months so it can go. That's a savings of $8.49 a month.

Decide if I want to keep my Amazon Prime membership. I do a lot of my shopping using Prime so I need to think about this for awhile. I pay annually but If I cancel Prime in September when it's up for renewal, that will be a monthly savings of about $9.

Decided to keep Netflix. I use it for about 90% of my television viewing and feel it's worth the $17.30 I pay per month.

Reduced my Starbucks card reload amount to $30 a month and am considering reducing it to $20. Even though I work at a licensed Starbucks we don't routinely get free drinks. When the boss is there, she'll sometimes let us have one but we don't count on that. I don't drink their dessert in a cup drinks - just unsweetened iced tea, no water added and coffee, hot or iced, or an Americano with cream. I need to drink more water, though, so reducing the amount I spend at work will help with finances and water consumption. That's a savings of $20 a month.

Right now that's about all I can do but progress is progress. Right? Right?? Right! ;-)

I'm off for the next two days and need to do some preliminary moving stuff - you know, throw out what needs to go, pack what I'm not using, etc. I also need to clean the apartment and do laundry, work on my Coffee Master certification, and work hard to have two more no spend days. Yeehaw!

I'm almost $300 over my budget for March. That's the bad news.

The good news is that I'm still working a job I love most of the time, have food to eat, a wonderful family, a bed to rest in, and a life that's absolutely wonderful! Also, I didn't need to fall back on credit to make up for the deficit and there are two days left in this month - two days of opportunity for something good to happen. Wooot!

The sun'll come out
Tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow
There'll be sun!

Here's hoping Monday will be spectacular. :-)

I haven't posted in a bit. I've been pretty busy with work, though. It's going great now that the wild and crazy season is behind us. This week I was only scheduled for 22 hours, though, which isn't enough. My boss wrote me in for four more hours then another 14 hours. That put me at 40, which is what I'd hoped for. Unfortunately, Wednesday I woke up with a sore throat and by Friday I was sicker than a dog. I went in anyway but they sent me home after two hours. So much for that 8 hour day on my pay! I work today, though, for six hours and I hope they let me stay the entire time as 32 hours are definitely better than 26. The month of February is historically slow so the hours will be slim and I'll be grateful for any and all I get!

I'm doing well without cable TV. The fact that I still pick up TNT, CNN (a little snowy but quite viewable), and a few others helps. Not sure how I'm still getting them but I'm glad I do. I don't watch much TV, though, and when I do it's usually a Law & Order episode I've streamed via Netflix on my PS3.

I'm very tired of my too large cell phone bill and want to go back to a prepaid phone. I'm just about at the point of paying the $200 to get out of the contract. I have a Straight Talk phone I bought months ago when I was having issues with Verizon's service. I used it for a month and it's now inactive. I can port my current Verizon number to it but it's not an easy phone to txt with and since I do txt a bit I need to be able to do that easily. So, perhaps I need to find another Straight Talk phone that's a little easier to txt with. The biggest problem with Straight Talk, though, is that it doesn't seem to work that well when I travel to Austin. Of course, I only do that once or twice a year but it's a five hour drive and I take some back roads and a working cell phone is a thing of beauty on those drives! I'd hate to have car trouble on one of those back roads and have no cell phone. Hmm, what a quandary.

I haven't been out to eat in awhile. Quite awhile. I'm still spending more than what I like on groceries but a lot less than what I was on eating out so that's a good thing.

Today is Day 50 of not smoking! Yes, I haven't had a single cigarette or puff from one for 50 days today. I've saved about $425 by not smoking, too! That's nothing to sneeze (or cough) at.

I read this and thought it was pretty interesting. Apparently, meat consumption in the U.S. has decreased substantially over the last five years.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/were-eating-...

I'd say I eat less meat than I did five years ago and less than a year ago. I still eat a lot but between the cost of it and my own attempts to simply my life and change a few things, I rely less on meat than I did.

Are you eating less meat than five years ago and a year ago, same amount, or more?

So I had another low spend day today. I took lunch, snacks and a drink to work but bought an iced coffee on my break. I worked alone from 7:30 to 5:00 so trust me when I say I needed that coffee! Other than that, I didn't spend and I'm okay with that.

I need to buy gas tomorrow so I'll spend about $50 on that but that should be all for tomorrow. The next day I go to my mother's house but unless she wants to go out for lunch or do a bit of shopping, I shouldn't spend much, if anything.

When I got in from work tonight I was starved but nothing on my menu sounded good so I had two beef hot dogs, no bun, with low sugar ketchup and some mustard. Not thrilling and not nutritious but meh, it was food.

Mom and I finalized the christmas dinner plans tonight. I don't celebrate this holiday - in fact, I generally run, screaming, as far as I can get from it. I don't participate in the gift thing, I don't send cards. I don't have a tree or a single ornament or christmas decoration. I simply don't participate. However, I do enjoy seeing my family on any day, including that one, and this year we're gathering at Mom's house. I doubt that my sons will be there since they came up for Thanksgiving. And one of my nephews has to work. I'm not sure about the other folks yet. But since we're going to have a small group and Mom hasn't been feeling very well, we decided to keep it very simple. One of my nieces hosted Thanksgiving. It was her first time and everyone went all out! There was a huge crowd and way too much food. We don't want or need to do that again so we're having Tex-Mex for dinner.

Mom is going to buy enchiladas from a local place that makes awesome ones and the rest of us will make and bring the sides of rice, beans, sopa, chips and tortillas, salsa, queso, guacamole, and perhaps even a Tres Leches cake. Hopefully, doing it this way will save on her stress level so she can rest. And we'll have more time to just sit and enjoy the gathering. I really like this idea! I close at work on the night before and the night after and I'm going to be exhausted so this works well all the way around.

Plus, no one will be out much money at all.

Ole!

Not a lot and it won't stay but we're getting some beautiful flakes.

I have a one-woman-with-the-occasional-helping-pair-of-hands-from-a-friend house cleaning business on the side but it's a secondary sort of thing. You know, something I do when sought out but not something I actively pursue for the most part. I cleaned a house last week and received two calls today. One is for the standard 3/2 house that just needs some cleaning and a little TLC. If I get that one, I'll do it next week and that will be another $125 or so to add to the piggy bank. The other one is a different ball of wax of another color....

The homeowner is apparently a hoarder. Perhaps not one diagnosed with a disorder but she hoards nonetheless. She apparently has some medical issues that contribute to her situation and a family friend is trying to finance the project to clean up the place.

I'm not the most experienced with cleaning hoarder's homes but I've done it. I know it's a major job that is physically and emotionally draining but I also know houses like this one are simply dangerous...both to live in and to clean. I'm willing to take it on, though, and when I gave the caller a tentative price for the job, $3000 to $3500, she said that was in line with what the other person she'd called said. She won't have financing until January and will give me plenty of notice so I can clear my calendar for five to seven days but if I get the job I'll have a nice chunk of change when the smoke clears and the homeowner will have a clean house. It's a win win situation.

I'm not an economist. Damn, I can barely balance my own checkbook and saving, well, that's something with which I struggle.

But just a few minutes ago, as I was entering some bills at

Where's George, I had a light bulb moment.



Since the point of registering bills at Where's George is to get said bills into circulation (read that as spend them rather than save them) and see where they go and a major help to the economic crisis right now is to get money circulating, ummm...why not combine the two? Heh...

Yep, that's right, folks! One way to help the economy is to register your bills at Where's George then go out and spend them rather than deposit them in the bank!

Okay, stop laughing! And don't throw rotten apples at me, either, Ima Saver! I told you I'm not an economist. But it could work. And it wouldn't cost us or the government more money. Mwaaahahahaha!

Oh yeah, you Canadian brethren can join in, too! Just go to Where's Willy.