My best friend took her husband off of the ventilator yesterday afternoon. He suffered an aneurysm in his brain 9 days ago and has had no movement since. What a hard thing to go thru. I am so glad she has her three sons with her at this time.

I just colored my hair this morning. I have been doing this for 35 years. i wonder how much money that has saved me?

I am looking for things to put in my garage sale. I have found a few Jim Beam collectible bottles that still are full of whiskey. (the seal is not broken) I wonder if this 30 year old whiskey is still safe to drink?

My plan this afternoon, is to sit down and make a list of all of our financial assets, bank accounts, checking, money markets, cd's, etc., complete with account numbers.

My best friend's husband had an aneurysm in his brain on Tuesday morning and he has not moved sinced then. The odds are he is almost brain dead.

I see how fast life can change. My dh has no interest in finances at all and lets me handle everything.

I want to make up a list and go over everything with him, just in case. I think this is a smart plan for all of us.

Enjoy your life while it is happening to you.
I got an e mail from my best friend. She and I met in Jr. high school. We were not really friends in high school but became very good friends when she moved back to our home town and have been best friends every since.
I got an e mail that said her husband was in the hospital. He woke up Tuesday morning with a bad headache. He got dressed for work but laid back down on the bed. When she came out of the bathroom, he had passed out and she had to call an ambulance.
Something in his brain has burst and the doctors don't think he will ever recover.

On Wednesday, he received his 2nd social security check in his checking account. It will probably be the last one he will ever get.
I feel so sorry for my best friend, having to go thru all this. Thank goodness, she has a large family and church family to help out in her time of need.(she lives a long way from me)

dH headed for work Sat. morning and then I got a call. His van had quit. He had it towed to the repair shop. So he could not work all weekend and on Monday he used my vette all day.
Well, the good news was, the van had just run out of gas. Apparently, the gas gauge is not working correctly. There was no charge except for the towing and our insurance will reimburse us for that.
So, I hope that we have no more problems with that vehicle. It was having a transmission problem, but now that has stopped. Dh doesn't really want a new van. He is even thinking about getting a used pick up truck as a back up. We just don't have another vehicle that makes a good work vehicle. He is a carpenter and has a million tools!

We went to an open house the other day. It is the house that my husband took to fix up after another builder really botched the job. I am happy to say it looks much better and has passed inspection for everything and is back on the market for sale.
They had a drawing at the open house and I won! It was for an mp3 player. I have no idea what it is since I still live way back in the last century! However, I am sure I can find a good home for it! I am just excited to win something!!!

I got a call first thing this morning, my husband's work van had died on the way to work. He has no idea what is wrong with it, it just sputtered and died. He was on his way to rent a ditch witch! He was supposed to put in a water line today.
Instead, he is at home. We have no other vehicles capable of hauling a ditch witch (two corvettes and a 1933 ford victoria)
It is going to be a long weekend. They won't even look at the van until Monday.
I am thinking it is almost time for a new work van, but he wants a new car instead. Hopefully, it won't cost too much to repair it, but he will definately be out of work for a few days.

After being down as much as 300 points, the dow just turned positive with about 4 minutes to go. Go, dow, Go!!!!!!!!

I just checked my mutual funds and it ain't pretty. From my high on July 19th, I am down $29,000 as of yesterday. I sure hope this downward trend ends soon. No, I am not worried!

Today is the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. I saw Elvis in person, only once. I still have the ticket stub in my "elvis" bedroom. It was on Feb. 15th, 1977. It was a lucky week for me. I had front row seats.
I also met my dh 3 days later, on Feb. 18th, 1977.
I do have a poem written by Col. Parker and signed drumsticks by Elvis' early drumer, D.J. Fontana!
Guess I will go put on my blue suede shoes and hang out at the Heartbreak Hotel! Thank ya, thank ya very much.

(Oh the poem is signed too)

My dh and I had a free lunch at an open house today. It was the house that my husband took over to fix up for a nice couple building it for sale.
He has worked on it several months and it looks nice now.
The owners had the house,"staged" That is furniture was brought in and the house was all decorated. It really looked good.
The owner is from New Orleans and she made all New Orleans style food, which my husband tried. I hope he does not have heartburn tomorrow. I stuck with food that I know, namely dessert! But it was fun to get to go out with dh in the middle of the day.
We are going to build a big house (over 4550 sq. feet) for them next, so we gave them the house plans dh had drawn for them. wow, now I get to collect for all those weeks of drawing!!

What did the dow do yesterday. I know a computer literate person could figure out how to look that up, but that is not me! Could anyone tell me, please??

I just read Tynana's blog and I was so sorry to hear of her brother's suicide. He had lost his job and had a lot of debt.
I got over my head in debt once about 1980. We had decided to go into business with 2 other couples. We were all supposed to put in equal shares of money, but at the end, one couple had no money, so we loaned them their share.
The fellow we loaned the money too was supposed to be the "expert" and run the business. He turned out to be a bit of a crook and business was very bad.
My dh took over the business and ran it for a long time with absolutely no pay at all. It was a rough few years and it was not uncommon for my husband to work 20 hours a day.
We made it thru those years and sold the business and broke even.
But there were many many worried days and nights for us.
After that we learned to really save our money and build up a large emergency fund. Believe me when I say, a large emergency fund will take away most of your worries and I have such a happy life now.
I am so sorry for your loss, Tynana.

I got a letter from Home Depot offering to buy my stock from me at $39 a share. Since it is selling at $35, I thought it sounded like a good deal. I called them, and they have lowered their offer to $37 a share.
I still think I will sell because I am not happy with that store like I was when I first bought their stock in 1995. My husband goes there almost every day and he says the service is terrible and they are always out of everything.

I was reading an article about living below your means.
Start talking to yourself. Whenever you are faced with a desire to spend, STOP and ask yourself:
Can I afford it?
Do I really need it?
Do I need it now?
Do I have something like it already?
Can I find a cheaper substitue?
Is this the best deal?

Now, go home and sleep on it. Tomorrow you will probably change your mind!!

We had a really late dinner last night. We had planned to have a nice steak dinner. (and we did) However, dh got a call that his grading guy could do a job that needed done about 8 pm. It was actually 8:30 last night that we were all out at the job site, digging holes for the porch posts.
It did not take that long, but we did not get home til after 9 pm.
By the time we got the grill going and the potatoes cooked, it was 10:30 by the time we ate.
I usually add $20 to my challenge when we skip going out to eat during the week, but I had to give the money to my dh instead. He had used all his money buying gas this week and he was broke.
He has two jobs going and they are so far apart. He tries to get to both of them at least once or twice a day.
It was a neat night, we saw a bunch of baby deer coming home. And the steak was just as good, just kind of at a late hour!

We have a 1933 ford "hot rod" bright red. My dh loves to drive it when we go out to dinner. Last night, we did not go to our usual place, we went to a place where we could park close to the window and watch the car.

Lots of people go over and look at the car. It has sucide doors and no door handles so you have to use the push button control on the key to open the window, reach inside and unlatch the doors.

We were having fun watching the people. They would look in the car window and from inside the restaurant, we would push the button and lower the window. Of course, they would wonder what happened. After doing that a few times, I would go outside and tell them we were just teasing them.

We all got a good laugh out of that!

Dinner was good too.

Boy, it has been hot. It has been reaching between 95-100 degrees every day, even here in the mountains. I feel so sorry for my dh and his framing crew. They are just starting a house out in this heat, no shade at all.
Even tho I do read my meter every day and try and keep my electric bill down, I do keep my house cool, at about 75 degrees.
I will put on extra clothes in the winter and keep the temp. around 60, but I can not stand really hot weather.
I keep my electric bill pretty low most of the year, but this month I will happily pay extra to stay cool.

The dow has really been moving today. At one point, the dow was down 100 points, then at the highest it was up 135 points. It just closed at about 31 points up! Well, up is better than down!
They are going to talk about the stock Cisco next and I am curious. I have stock in cisco, so I hope the news is good.

Many of you know, I was a waitress for years. That was when I learned how to invest my money. I was only making $2.01 an hour.
Guess what, they still only make $2.15 an hour.
I talked to the young man that was our waiter last night. I gave him my usual little talk. "Did you know if you saved $2 a day and put it in a good mutual fund, you could be a millionaire when you are my age?""
Turns out he is already investing. He is 17 and has a roth IRA and has bought stock in apple.
His father is a local doctor. (Heck, he was one of the first people we met when we moved here 23 years ago. He had just gotten married)
His father is matching everything that our young waiter is putting in his roth. I predict a very good future for our young waiter. He wants to become a doctor too.

Yow, we had never even heard the name of this "builder" (I use the term lightly) a few years ago, now we hear a complaint about him every day since my husband took over the house he was building.
We talked to a young couple at the party Saturday night. They moved into one of his houses a few months ago. They had a very long list of things that needed to be fixed in their house, but so far, he has not fixed anything.
I cannot believe how many people do not get references before they build or buy a house.
We have about 30 letters, complete with names and phone numbers that we give out to all prospective customers wanting to build houses.

Well I dreamed abut pink flamingos last night. We went to a birthday party and that was the theme. There were flamingos up and down the drive way, hundred of them.
We all put on pink flamingo things on our head, pink flamingo leis and even pink flamingo sunglasses!
I have never seen so much food in my life. I am afraid to weigh myself this morning. Everything was so good and we had a great time.
We did bring home about 1/2 of the platter of sandwiches that we took, so guess what we will be eating for the next few days?

I went to fill the bird feeders this morning and there was a snake in the large container that I keep the bird seed in. Do they like sunflower seeds?

Anyway, I am not afraid of snakes, so I just carried him and put him outside.

That is one thing that I do spend money on, sunflower seeds. I have four feeders and I have to fill them constantly. We do buy the seed by the 50 pound bag, but I noticed that went up this month, almost $6 more a bag.
Oh well, the birds are worth it!

Oh my gosh. There was a skunk in our yard yesterday. I have to admit, I have only seen skunks in the road, run over. This one seemed to be playing in a pile of grass clippings. It was rolling all over for about 20 minutes while Holly and I watched, from inside.
I would love to have gone outside and gotten closer but I was kind of nervous of what might happen if I did. Holly did some serious barking at the skunk, but he/she did not seem to mind.

Disney steve mentioned having some money missing at the bank in one of his posts. I have had a missing check for about 3 weeks.
I mailed my car payment the beginning of July but it has still not cleared my checking account as of today.
I got worried so I call the bank I sent the check to cause I did not want to have a late payment.
They say they got the payment. Ok, where is my check??
Floating around in space, I guess. As long as I am not making a late payment, I won't let it worry me.
I have never made a late payment in my life except once. I somehow mailed my electric bill without a stamp and it took two weeks to come back to me.
I am sure my check will turn up someday. Too bad this isn't a checking account that pays interest.
I have one of those, but the rate is very tiny, like 1/2 of one percent.

My husband has bill collectors coming to the job.
He took this job over from another builder who was ripping the people off and doing a terrible job.
Apparently he was also not paying his sub contractors. Everyone my dh comes in contact with, says the other builder owes them money.
Yesterday a bill collector came claiming to be owed for two portolets for two houses for over a year! He went to the guys house but could not find him. I hate that there are people like that in my little town.

I just went out to visit a house my husband took over from another builder who was fired. The house was a total disaster, even if it was brand new.

My husband has ripped off all the doors (they wouldn't close) all the rock that had not already fallen off the fireplace (which was most of it), torn up the baseboards, etc. etc.
It looks like a totally new house. The fireplace (which he laid the rock) looks beautiful. He fixed the terrible big hole in the kitchen and turned it into a pantry. He somehow managed to fix the garden tub, which I can't even describe how bad it looked.
He has put down new baseboard, new doors, new copper guttering, et.
He has really done magic on this house!

The only day I was ever in a wedding (other than my own) was the first day of August. I was a bridesmaid in my sister's wedding and that was on aug. 1st, 1959. I still remember the ugly pink dress I wore.
The marriage last until 1978 but i don't think it was real happy. When my mother died, my sister moved out of her house and into my mother's vacant house.
Just last month, my ex brother in law and his wife stopped to visit me. They seemed happy.
Well, I hope your first day of August is a great one.

I haven't said a word today and I miss that!! It has just been a nice quiet day. I did pick up 3 things at the store for lunches for my dh, but nothing was on sale. It has really gotten hot here, so the a/c has pretty much been running all day.
I finally finished reading Money magazine. My subscription is about to run out, but I am sure I will subscribe again; I love that magazine!
I am just waiting on my darling hubby to come home and take me out on a date!!