This has been in my head for days. If I loved it less, that might annoy me.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
England 2014
On May 9, 2014, I will turn 30 years old. As a reward to myself for making it that far (let's be honest, it was a close run thing for a while), I'm going to spend my 30th birthday in England.
I just spent about 30 minutes crunching numbers and I figured out that, based on today's prices, which I realize are going to change in the next three years, it would cost roughly $2,124.08 for me to spend a week traveling around the country. I've worked out two nights in London, two nights in Yorkshire, two nights in the New Forest and a night in London before my flight back. I haven't settled exactly on Yorkshire and the New Forest as places to go, I just used them as stand-ins, but I love them both. I am open to suggested destinations.
Conversely, it would cost roughly $2,820.44 for me spend the whole week in London. That seemed a little odd to me, but London is one of the world's most expensive cities. I haven't decided which travel plan to go with yet. I love England as a whole, but London is, and always will be, my first love.
These numbers include everything from air fare, hotel rental, Brit rail and London Passes, spending money for food and general spending money. The only thing not included is getting my passport changed, it still says 'Margaret Eaton.'
My mother may have created a monster with this budgeting thing, I took those numbers and divided them by 128, the number of weeks between now and my 30th birthday. I discovered that to have enough money I would have to save $16.59 each week to travel around the country and $22.03 each week to stay in London.
This seems entirely doable. Who's coming with me? England 2014.
I just spent about 30 minutes crunching numbers and I figured out that, based on today's prices, which I realize are going to change in the next three years, it would cost roughly $2,124.08 for me to spend a week traveling around the country. I've worked out two nights in London, two nights in Yorkshire, two nights in the New Forest and a night in London before my flight back. I haven't settled exactly on Yorkshire and the New Forest as places to go, I just used them as stand-ins, but I love them both. I am open to suggested destinations.
Conversely, it would cost roughly $2,820.44 for me spend the whole week in London. That seemed a little odd to me, but London is one of the world's most expensive cities. I haven't decided which travel plan to go with yet. I love England as a whole, but London is, and always will be, my first love.
These numbers include everything from air fare, hotel rental, Brit rail and London Passes, spending money for food and general spending money. The only thing not included is getting my passport changed, it still says 'Margaret Eaton.'
My mother may have created a monster with this budgeting thing, I took those numbers and divided them by 128, the number of weeks between now and my 30th birthday. I discovered that to have enough money I would have to save $16.59 each week to travel around the country and $22.03 each week to stay in London.
This seems entirely doable. Who's coming with me? England 2014.
Friday, November 11, 2011
A Musical Soul
I surprised myself the other day with asking Nathan if he wanted to buy a piano. Wait, what? See, it's still surprising.
I've been noticing lately that every time we go over to his parents' house, Nathan always settles down in front of the piano and plays "Rainbow Connection," one of his favorite songs. The other day began a full-house search for the sheet music for "Ashokan Farewell" (that song that plays over and over during the Ken Burns Civil War series). It's another one of his favorites. We didn't end up finding it and I forget what he ended up playing instead.
He even tries to get me to play, but I can only handle either the top or bottom parts of Heart and Soul and when he tries to play the other part I get thrown off.
Nathan has always been musical: he played French horn in high school band and has been playing piano since grade school, not to mention singing in choir.
Lately he's even found a little protege. Our niece, Sophie, loves the piano. Every time he starts playing she has to be right there watching and banging away on the other end of the keyboard. She even insisted once that her high chair be moved so she could watch him play.
I happened to glance at the newspaper the last time we were leaving his Mom and Dad's house and saw that someone is selling a Story and Clark upright piano for $100. We're going to wait until it gets a little closer to Thanksgiving and call about coming to see it.
If we choose to buy it, hopefully we can get my brother-in-law's help moving it after the holiday.
I've been noticing lately that every time we go over to his parents' house, Nathan always settles down in front of the piano and plays "Rainbow Connection," one of his favorite songs. The other day began a full-house search for the sheet music for "Ashokan Farewell" (that song that plays over and over during the Ken Burns Civil War series). It's another one of his favorites. We didn't end up finding it and I forget what he ended up playing instead.
He even tries to get me to play, but I can only handle either the top or bottom parts of Heart and Soul and when he tries to play the other part I get thrown off.
Nathan has always been musical: he played French horn in high school band and has been playing piano since grade school, not to mention singing in choir.
Lately he's even found a little protege. Our niece, Sophie, loves the piano. Every time he starts playing she has to be right there watching and banging away on the other end of the keyboard. She even insisted once that her high chair be moved so she could watch him play.
I happened to glance at the newspaper the last time we were leaving his Mom and Dad's house and saw that someone is selling a Story and Clark upright piano for $100. We're going to wait until it gets a little closer to Thanksgiving and call about coming to see it.
If we choose to buy it, hopefully we can get my brother-in-law's help moving it after the holiday.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Number crunching
Since we've been married, Nathan and I have been pretty careful with our money. We both have cars we paid cash for, and we don't carry credit card balances month to month and we have paid off a couple of our student loans.
But we've been noticing lately that we could probably be saving more money each month. Therefore, starting in November, we are going to be on a monthly budget. I sat down and tried to work out budgeting for myself and didn't really do too well.
So, I turned to my mom, Queen of Budgets, and asked for help. She taught me how to estimate what all our expenses will be, give myself a monthly allowance for groceries and try to guess how much each of us will spend on gas. Hopefully the grocery budget will also lead to other things I've been meaning to do, like using coupons. Beyond that, we are each going to have a monthly allowance for what Nathan calls "random fun money." That will be for things like eating out, movies, yarn and books, or snacks.
It's going to take a while to get in the swing of it and figure out just how much we need to hang on to for each category, but hopefully it will help us put more money into savings each month.
But we've been noticing lately that we could probably be saving more money each month. Therefore, starting in November, we are going to be on a monthly budget. I sat down and tried to work out budgeting for myself and didn't really do too well.
So, I turned to my mom, Queen of Budgets, and asked for help. She taught me how to estimate what all our expenses will be, give myself a monthly allowance for groceries and try to guess how much each of us will spend on gas. Hopefully the grocery budget will also lead to other things I've been meaning to do, like using coupons. Beyond that, we are each going to have a monthly allowance for what Nathan calls "random fun money." That will be for things like eating out, movies, yarn and books, or snacks.
It's going to take a while to get in the swing of it and figure out just how much we need to hang on to for each category, but hopefully it will help us put more money into savings each month.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Same old...
I know that every year it seems I do a post about Halloween decorations. I'm sure this is getting boring for some people, but I keep getting new decorations that are so much fun I can't help but wanting to share them. So here we go...again:
I found this at Crimson Ridge this fall and I love it. I believe the design on the pumpkin is a witch flying against the moon over a cemetery and haunted house.
This was at Crimson Ridge last year and I practically had to be dragged out of the store without it. Fortunately, my mother noticed how much I wanted it and made sure it appeared under her Christmas tree. It's resin and the writing on it is from Macbeth:
Most of this is new. The wall applique says "Be Afraid of things that go bump in the night." I found it at Michaels and love it. That's also where the bats came from. The spider web basket and pumpkin, which is black and has silver spiderwebs on it both came from my mom and dad for Christmas by way of Crimson Ridge. (Seriously, I love that place.)
Here's a close up of the spider web basket and pumpkin.
...And that's just about all the new stuff. Not a single black cat to be seen this year.
I found this at Crimson Ridge this fall and I love it. I believe the design on the pumpkin is a witch flying against the moon over a cemetery and haunted house.
"Eye of newt and toe of frog
Wool of bat and tongue of dog
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing
For a charm of powerful trouble
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble
Double, double toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble"
The books underneath it were given to us by Nathan's dad and they are just about the same size and color as the decoration.
...And that's just about all the new stuff. Not a single black cat to be seen this year.
1,000 Little things
Lately, every time I think to myself, I should write a post about that, I realize it would only last a paragraph or two. There just isn't that much going on around here:
I've been on vacation since the 18th and go back Saturday. It has been very nice. Mostly, I've stayed home and relaxed.
Nathan and I celebrated our 5th anniversary on the 21st with a dinner at JMK Nippon in Rockford, the restaurant we went to for our first "official" date and also where we went the night we got engaged.
On the 22nd, my cousin got married and we all got to spend time with the family, one of my favorite things.
Because of some strange symptoms and goings on with my health, I am now wearing a 4-week event monitor, which I began on Monday. I have to say, I'm not a fan. Hopefully, this will tell the doctors what they want to know.
For Christmas last year, Elizabeth gave me fall colored yarn and I just finished knitting it into a blanket. The blanket itself isn't very big, but it's more decorative than anything.
Fall is a very busy time for Nathan. He pitched in again this year at the apple orchard close to home. He does this every year because the people who own it are friends of his parents. Now that that's over it will be time to help out with harvest soon.
We just had one of our biannual visits with our social worker. It seemed to go well and she was very encouraging.
That's about all we've got going on here.
I've been on vacation since the 18th and go back Saturday. It has been very nice. Mostly, I've stayed home and relaxed.
Nathan and I celebrated our 5th anniversary on the 21st with a dinner at JMK Nippon in Rockford, the restaurant we went to for our first "official" date and also where we went the night we got engaged.
On the 22nd, my cousin got married and we all got to spend time with the family, one of my favorite things.
Because of some strange symptoms and goings on with my health, I am now wearing a 4-week event monitor, which I began on Monday. I have to say, I'm not a fan. Hopefully, this will tell the doctors what they want to know.
For Christmas last year, Elizabeth gave me fall colored yarn and I just finished knitting it into a blanket. The blanket itself isn't very big, but it's more decorative than anything.
We just had one of our biannual visits with our social worker. It seemed to go well and she was very encouraging.
That's about all we've got going on here.
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