Overdue For A New Entry!

Wow! I knew it had been awhile since my last blog entry, but I didn't realize it had been nearly a FULL MONTH!

I can't really say I'm all that surprised tho, as I've been finding it harder and harder to motivate myself to do blog entries. And not cuz of lack of material either. It's mostly a combination of the fact that very few of my recent entries have gotten ANY comments from anyone and the fact that some of the other blogs I read haven't had any new entries in well over a month - nearly or over TWO months, in some cases.

I realize that how often others do entries in their blogs shouldn't directly influence how often I do mine, but it has. I guess the novelty's worn off, and not just for me?

Plus I already know that I often have difficulty with "boundaries" and knowing what or how much to share about stuff, both in person and in contexts like this one. When I knew that folks were reading(and commenting on) my blog regularly, that made it easier to find/establish/maintain boundaries and limits on what I said and/or how much I said about it. But when I think nobody's reading, it's somewhat easier to say too much - or at least it seems that way - even tho there's still the possibility that folks ARE reading anything I put out here, whether anyone comments on any of it or not.

But there HAS been a LOT of material to blog about lately. We've been going thru a very interesting time in our lives, we've learned a lot from it, and there's always the possibility that doccumenting what I've learned from things(here) might cause other things I've learned from them to come to mind whereas it might not have done so otherwise.

Most of it's been related to the fact that Kat only worked 18 hours in October for medical reasons. So, things were VERY lean and VERY tight financially around here for AWHILE. We're just now getting back to "normal", although I hope we NEVER get back to what "normal" was for us before this, cuz I hope we've learned stuff from it, and I hope that we APPLY enough of what we've learned that our "normal" financial habits change, and hopefully more than a little too.

What brought us back out of our leanne$$ was the fact that we got our end-of-year check from my folks last Friday. They've been sending each of their kids a 4-digit check at the end of each year for about 8 years now, but we never know exactly when it's coming or exactly how much it'll be till we get it. Well, this year's came last Friday, and it was a VERY welcome sight! Needless to say, we've got way more places to send, spend, and put it than it could EVER cover, but it's still a nice "jump start" on at least a few plans, bills, etc.

Kat's parents were here last weekend. They brought all their Christmas presents for us and for Becky with them, as well as our family's Christmas presents from her sister's family. Most of them were wrapped and we'll open them Christmas week, but they also gave us a brand new 20" TV that wasn't wrapped(other than the box it was in, which made it's contents obvious), so we got that early. The best part of that is that we now have the DVD player I got for my birthday set up, for the FIRST time!

In this way, the timing of the arrival of my parent's check couldn't have been better, cuz it allowed Kat to go do some quick Christmas shopping for her family last Friday afternoon, before her parents arrived. This, in turn, enabled us to send all of their presents back with her folks, rather than having to $hip them up there ourselves, as we origionally expected we'd have to do.

But even tho there are things I would have bought during our leanness if I'd had the $ to buy them then that I haven't bought and don't plan to buy, and even tho I haven't bought everything that's come to my mind or that I've thought of buying since we got the check, I still don't feel that I've/we've learned "enough(or at least not applied enough)" from our recent leanness. Maybe I/we have, one's not always the best judge of one's own progress, but I don't think so.

I do know that I don't want to go to AC anytime soon, at least not for gambling. We're going to AC on New Year's Eve to go to the AC Bullies hockey game(and I've even got a friend mailing me 2 FREE tix!), but I don't want to go to any casinos for anything other than buffet meals ANYtime soon!

Which, in some ways, won't be hard; we haven't been to AC for gambling since last February. But I also know that, if we wanted to, we could do a("free") overnight @Showboat in January. I'm going to try to "work it out" so that we don't tho.

Don't get me wrong; we DON'T object to gambling on "moral" grounds. I/we have a very hard time seeing a significant difference between a couple spending $300 on a night/overnight @AC and spending that same $300 on a Flyers game, Broadway show, etc. We just don't need to be gambling again till we've gotten our finances a LOT more in order, if even then. We've got other priorities than those we had when we first started going to AC. Mostly, tho not entirely, cuz of Rebekah! :)

Thanksgiving went very well, perhaps my/our best one ever. We weren't able to go anywhere, since Kat only had Thanksgiving DAY off from work, so we didn't get together with any of our extended family. Instead, we got together with Chip & Chris, our best friends from church. Her kids were with their dad for the day, so it was just us 4 adults and Becky. Various members of Chrissie's family came over around dinnertime, which was also nice, but it was mostly just the 5 of us.

We're going up to NJ for Christmas. We'll only be up there from Friday night thru Sunday evening, since Kat has to work Friday and Monday, but at least we'll be up there for all of Christmas.

Since we'll be in NJ on Christmas, we'll prolly open up the Christmas gifts we have here sometime during Christmas week. Prolly on Monday the 20th, since Kat has that day off. This'll spread our Christmas gift opening out over a few days, which'll be nice.

We know which members of both of our families of origin we're getting gifts for and which ones we aren't. Deciding which friends to get stuff for and which ones to not get stuff for is a LOT harder.

There's even one couple we're friends with that we got "gag" gifts for, but haven't yet gotten anything else for them. AND we can't think of anything(that we feel is appropriate for them) to get them for "serious" or "real" Christmas presents. The end result of this is that I'm thinking we might return the "gag" gifts and skip them this year!

And that's but ONE example of how tough it's been for us to decide which friends to buy for this year. For whatever reason(s), that seems a LOT harder this year than it usually does/has.