Spondulicks Forever!

I was asked in a comment for my last post for a Kasha Varnishkes recipe. This one is from The Joy of Cooking.

"The trick to making tender but firm kasha is to coat it with egg and stir it over high heat until toasted and the grains are separate." In the summer you can turn this dish into a pasta salad using whatever fresh vegetables can be found and toss with a vinaigrette. I have found that kasha tastes super with some sprinkle of Tabasco or hot pepper sauce.

Brown in a medium nonstick skillet over medium-high heat:
2 to 3 tbsps chicken fat or vegetable oil
2 large onions, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 cups sliced mushrooms (button, shiitake, portobello or combination), optional
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Remove to a large bowl. Cook in a large pot of boiling salted water until tender but firm:
6 ounces bowtie pasta
Drain the noodles and toss with the onion mixture.
Beat in a small bowl ONE LARGE EGG.
Add 1 cup whole kasha (roasted buckwheat groats)
Stir until the grains are well coated. Wipe out the skillet and heat it over high heat. Transfer the kasha mixture to the skillet and cook, stirring, until the grains are toasted and separate, 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and add:
2 cups hot chicken stock.
Stir, cover, and simmer until the stock is absorbed and the kasha is tender but not mushy, 7 to 8 minutes. Stir in the noodle mixture. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Garnish with 2 TABLESPOONS CHOPPED FRESH PARSLEY. Serve immediately.
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I have $12.80 ($173.80 -($25 traffic fine + $136.80 dental bill for DS's triple tooth extraction)) remaining in the joint chequing account. I still have $300 in billings to pay, but those statements arrived this week. We did pay for stamps, a donut, mocha and croissant, potatoes and celery with cash on hand.
I have learned that Oyako Donburi (Chicken and Egg on Rice) by itself is not a satisfying dish: my son and I woke up in the middle of the night with our stomachs begging. It was pretty tasty though, and I would happily make it again, although with more rice.
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This Saturday I have a stock talk breakfast date. My friend goes for the big dividends, and I go for blue chips, mostly, with dividends, low price/sales ratio and/or low price/earnings growth ratio, with low projections of 14% annual growth if no or low dividend, and low projection of 7% annual growth if both dividend is in excess of 3.5% and I already own the stock. Ranked: WAG (Walgreen), SLB (Schlumberger), JNJ, GE, TGT and GG (GoldCorp).

$250 to last us six days, and not just the food budget (not much challenge to live on $250 worth of food for two adults and a kiddie). My household's remaining food items are refrigerated vegetables, half of which will be juiced; eggs; condiments; salmon; frozen perogies and vegetables; boneless skinless chicken thighs; handpicked berries; buckwheat soba noodles; quinoa; brown rice; sushi rice; pasta; oatmeal; sun-dried tomatoes.

Ideas: Oyako Donburi, Garlic Lime Salmon, Lentils 'n' Rice or Kusherie, Kasha Varnishkes, Frittatas, Karaage, some Pino Luongo recipes (the famed restauranteur/cookbook author went bankrupt in NYC recently), Perogies for those who want 'em, Coconut Chicken Curry, and Meatloaf.

Entertainment Link: 1958 Mad Daddy Pete Myers DJ recorded radio broadcast (early rock'n'roll, rhythm'n'blues) including a crazy thrill from David Seville

The whole family did pantry, freezer and refrigerator inventories so I could figure out what foodstuffs we need to eat before they spoil. We will "chow down the grains" which is fine because after eleven days of mostly roadtrip food we are ready to eat fresh vegetables and fruits.

Anniversary is tomorrow so we went to Peaks Frozen Custard so my spouse could have a double-scoop freebie. Then to Whole Foods, where all the fish is a dollar more a pound than my price book advises. I did find some deals: bulk-packaging chicken thighs for Japanese cooking, chard and kale bunches discounted by a dollar, and Garden of Life Raw Meal powder canisters at 40% off. I wonder if I could lose weight with those meal replacements. We are not eating out for the anniversary: we celebrated enough with custard, margaritas and pie slices. We will see "Safety Not Guaranteed", a homegrown indie movie that looks fun and clever.

Have a better idea how to time my bill-paying so nothing falls into arrears. Filled out MCDirect Purchase Plan application for DS, thought to pay into GE and WAG. Johnson Controls (JCI) looks really good now too.

Good news first: We showed our embittered DS that his Berkshire Hathaway stock holding DID contain Burlington Northern (not sure it still does though), so he is feeling a little better. He has identified McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) as his next stock purchase. Lucky for us, custodial accounts require only a $100 minimum. I will put some money into Target (TGT) as well into his college account and into my Roth. Other stocks on his horizon: Pepsico, Coca-Cola.

Bad news: I avoided looking at our accounts for a full week after our return. I doubt I can pay all my bills right now without bringing my money market account below its minimum balance, unless I unload some CDs or some precious metals. I will divide $2500 between what I owe the painter and what I owe on the cards. My goal is to pay the painter in full by August 24 which is well within a 30-day period, and half of the credit card bill by August 27. Was most of what we charged worth it? I guess yes, to be hospitable to my brother, who turned out to be whiny, obstinate and pretty ungrateful for the $2400 we saved him (he threatened to go because only one of us thanked him and his wife for cleaning the kitchen, and I waved good morning instead of spitting out my coconut oil and saying hello. Also complained that he had no car even though he refused to drive, complained we had no television even though hulu.com was available at high speed on the laptops they brought and he knew on past visits we do not have cable). If God exists, it is patting me on the head.

I do not betray secrets, but I see that a friend has been putting money into her investment accounts while she is paying off debt, and I may do that too. She does heavy dividends, which is attractive if the debt balance APR is in the low single digits. Stocks that look good to me are ArcelorMittal (MT), Questcor Pharm (QCOR), Teva Pharm (TEVA) - I think I have this already but will accumulate, and Freeport McMoran (FCX).

book by Phil Villarreal.
I do not think I would make a good stingy scoundrel. I have two watches, even though Phil says they are archaic nuisances, one for "take me seriously" and another for "ooh I like colours!". Also, he says tan lines are annoying, but he is from a warm-weather locale where drying clothes outside yearlong is a good idea. As a Cascadian (PNW), a tan line for me is like a 1963 silver dime. I like the colours and styles of these watches more than I do the phone's and the mp3 player's, and today's hi-tech thug just doesn't rip off arms at the elbow after some guileless person responds with the time @ the thug's request. Mp3 players and mobile phones can be snatched away.

Other disagreements I have with Phil, but this book is a collection of hilarious and ethically questionable ideas. This is what I have amassed from the first 34 pages.

Frugal Virus/Disease Busting Shots of hard liquor or almonds, grapes or onions chase your cough away!
Apples battle light depression.
Eat lemon slices to speed riddance of a common cold.
If your toenails are cracked and discolored by fungus piss on them. Or pour vinegar on them. I cannot pee on my toes: I am not that limber.

Price Matching Fun! What you need: stacks of sticky notes, pen and glossy grocery store ads. Affix Post-It to non-store-brand item, then name your own price. Use the pen to jot down the price-matched figure you are willing to pay. Feign authenticity by adding a random competing store name to each sticky note.

Things you never have to buy: honey, paper napkins, soy sauce, jam, relish, pepper. Just go help yourself from a fast food place or supermarket deli/food court.

Never visit a garage sale before noon on Sundays. I am totally going to follow this from now on.

Relationship/budget saver This one is for the young men, the ones who pretend they don't read my blog. WNBA. Varsity games. Minor leagues. Instant score with the GF (if you are hetero), and better for your budget.

Keep a spray bottle of diluted dish soap on hand then blast ants to oblivion.

I could not resist a book written by TheConsumerist.com alumnus Phil Villarreal, and my son could not resist a book with a cover showing George Washington's numismatic likeness embellished with red-crayon horns and demonic eyes and goatee.

I shall read it as a newborn (not kicking myself for not having thought this stuff up earlier, that is) and share the good parts: unless you've read it already, of course.

The neighbours left on vacation. They took the third best option and left their senile incontinent lonely whining dog inside. Better options are kenneling and taking the dog with them.

I left on vacation with my family. We took the 2nd best option and left all our cats with 24/7 housesitters. The best option would have been kenneling one cat and keeping two cats at home.

Semi-frugal: had free tickets for the Botanical Gardens and for OMNIMAX and Planetarium of the Science Center, and free breakfasts for most of the travel days. Also many dinner entrees for under $10, unheard of in Seattle unless there is a drive-thru and caloric information posted above a uniformed front-counter person.

not at all frugal: Hubby locked the car keys in the truck, requiring a locksmith, and the boy unbuckled his seatbelt when a state trooper approached us after pulling us over. Yes the car had stopped before the boy extricated himself but apparently that did not matter and cannot be proven in court.

Car got 30.5 mpg mileage -- not terrific, but it does terrific speed as we learned through Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Montana and Idaho.

more expenses: higher car insurance, boy requires three teeth extracted, ticket for the unbuckled seatbelt -- we were NOT ticketed for speeding, though we were pulled over for doing 88 in a 75 zone. We were not ticketed because my husband was driving: he had not exceeded the speed limit at any time in our marriage prior to this incident, and we had a rental car we had not spent much time in.

Not looking forward to credit card statements, no sirree.

I activated, that is, I punched numbers on a dial pad after a successful connection to a credit card company telephone line, a credit card I have owned since 2000.
I did this two weeks ago because I saw that American Express offers collision damage waiver insurance. Then I went to the car rental office to make my reservation.

Today I entered the car rental agency to pick up my vehicle and to pay in advance for the rental. I brought my American Express credit card and furnished it for processing. The transaction did not go through. I called American Express and learned my account was closed.

So yes, Americans, you can be given a replacement card and balance transfer checks and be allowed to activate that replacement card when your account is closed. If this makes sense to you please explain it to me. Because I am of little brain and little understanding in this.

I learned my VISA card allows collision damage waiver benefit, but not before an automaton tried to send me to the internet. I am not on the internet 24/7 and needed this information immediately.

DS has three adult teeth coming in, two of his baby teeth are not giving way -- his mouth again resembles that of a shark with a second set of munchers. 31 days from now the baby teeth get removed by dentist. Kaching Kaching. Weep.

Went out to Ivar's Acres of Clams as our guests, on a Sunday night, vacillated between seafood and pizza (show me a restaurant that does both well) -- getting reservations for six on short notice in tourist season is tricky. But I managed it. Brother knows pizza is four blocks away if he wants it: very fresh, like from the water to the pier, seafood is not. On days like that I am reminded how small our city is.

My waist is finally at 34", a one-inch reduction. I keep reading that women with waists 35" in circumference or thicker are at increased risk of diabetes, cancer, heart disease: what if you are taller than 98% of women? What if you are over 40 and your tummy naturally thickens as part of the aging process? What if your waist is still slimmer than your thighs and your breasts and you can look down and see your toes?

Roadtrip will damage my diet. That is why I have protein bars, trail mix, and spring water for food supply. Pondering taking coconut oil for insomnia and sleep issues, but I would need something portable as an oral debriding agent.

One cat has adopted my brother's family. The one that jumps on people ran back to us on the first cool evening and has not left the bed sixteen hours later. No he is not dead.

No dead pool news: Julius Pierpont Patches has died, which saddens those of us who grew up watching him on TV. Andy Williams is dying and I am sad about that too.

Too bad it is outgoing and not incoming.

My aged automobile's engine does not turn over when it is hot. This started a week before my relations arrived, but as I saw the engine temperature indicator narrowly near the red zone, I thought it was heat -- it was the first hot day of the year. The second time it happened was on Tuesday that week, I took it in for its oil change and asked the mechanics to look at the starter problem. They did not reproduce the problem of the engine not turning over when it was hot, but mentioned the starter lock cylinder and ignition switch were worn, and I hesitated as I did not see the connection between those worn parts and our engine. I had to go to Vancouver BC to pick up people and the car failed in Bellingham after I refueled. No rental cars available at the agency five blocks from the gas station because it was late afternoon Friday. My schedule was off and I did not get to see people because I arrived too late. A few more incidents of the vehicle not starting led me to call the shop in desperation and I authorized the replacement of the ignition lock cylinder and switch which is performed today. NOW, after driving it in hot weather, the shop owner says they have reproduced the problem and now it will cost me double.

The landscaping has been done on the new lawn but not on the garden which desperately needs weeding. My relatives will not take the car out for sightseeing because it is flaky and my brother will not drive if he is not licensed to drive in North America. Which leaves me to drive the piece of junk to places where it will naturally overheat, like the Dragon festival in the International District, or Tulalip outlet stores where my sister wants to visit.

I would babysit my nephew and let my brother and sister-in-law have time together but he does not understand English, and I do not speak much Japanese.

The bright spots is that my brother has not yet succeeded in picking a fight with me. The other bright spot: he arrived when my relatives are here so I was able to introduce everyone so no one will call 911 and erringly report a burglar when he shows up to paint our house. Thirdly, my nephew really likes our cats and our cats have, surprisingly, not fled in terror but let him touch them. My sister-in-law does not like cats but she is warming up to the idea of having one, which pleases my brother. She even did not mind when one cat jumped on her. I have warned the painter that my cat may try to jump on him if he enters our house. I know it is not cool or funny to let pets jump on visitors or strangers but the cat does not bite or scratch and we have to CATCH him in the act to correct his behaviour. We can't control him if we are not around to witness.

The painter has taken his deposit. This week has cost me $2500 and it is not even the end of Thursday. If it were not for Greg Proops taping an episode of "QI" for its tenth series with Stephen Fry, and my husband needing someone to share car-driving duties (RENTAL CAR: I AM DESPERATE BUT NOT COMPLETELY STUPID) for 4200 miles, I would do serious harm to myself.

The gift cards I mailed to what I thought was the Cafe Racer survivor's address did not reach him. They were not returned to me. All today has told me is how much I fail at life.

$405.07 for evaluation from occupational therapist confirming dysgraphia in DS: had hoped insurance would cover it, but it's flipping -----, so bleh. And my car/house/motorcycle insurer ----- ratcheted my renewal policy UP 10%. For a vehicle maybe worth 3x the insurance annual premium.

$800 roughly for a deposit for landscaping, $100 already spent on a room for the roadtrip, and DH decides he wants a rulebook for his fantasy role-playing game. Idiot that I am, I say okay, until I see how much the rulebook costs.

I understand the importance of having personal and discretionary allowance, but prioritizing costs getting the house ready for sale, and testing for child's individual education program, and car insurance, where does the new rulebook for fantasy role-playing come in? I am still paying for last month's tidalwave of medical expenses, baseball tickets (requested for and by my impending visitors)

Today is June 30. Thursday I was thinking, "boy would it not be spiffy if I got five kills in the $$$ dead pool before the end of June?" This has not yet happened, but I did get a hit in the alt.obituaries deadpool today with Yitzhak Shamir. Oy! " I am nowhere near the top, but I do have a 'twin' who has, at least until today, shared the exact names of stiffs for 2012 and thus the same number of points. The half-time for the year actually is on Canada Day (31+29+31+30+31+30+1=183=0.5*366).

I am not happy with the $400+ bill to evaluate and diagnose the tot's neuromotor difficulty. But if it leads to an individual education program and legally required concessions, it may be worth it. The boy is to try martial arts next month.

Visa bill is still high, pending my brother's reimbursement for Mariners tickets, and $100 taken out for a hotel stay. Hotels in the Great Plains sure are cheap!

Trying coconut oil to lose weight. I take two tablespoons a day so far, and put it in baking instead of shortening. Coconut oil is great for the hormones and for blood sugar, I have found, and moisturizes my hair and skin. The Energy Medicine alone did not help me to lose weight AT ALL, but two hefty walks along a lake so far may help. It did make me feel better to read that thickening of the middle is a natural and normal sign of middle age. I do not fancy the muffin-top look on me though.

Only because I intend to rent a car with it for our holiday. This better not be the beginning of the end.

As long as I am ranting about people who are in denial about their animals' age-related decline, I admit that my HP inkjet printer is not worth maintaining anymore. We are shelling out $20 big ones for a laser printer and a USB keyboard from the University surplus.

More in cheap deals: my credit union generously reduced the ticket price to minor league baseball so I could save $32 while I see my hometeam lose 2-12! We invited my kid's best friend to come along, which was a bad idea, as he brought lots of money and bought sugary things for him and for our own boy. At least my kid cannot claim we don't take him anywhere fun this summer.

Some people in my neighbourhood are still doing cash-out refinancing of their houses. I suppose it is marginally better than having outstanding home equity lines of credit if the balances are large, but doesn't one have to pay application fees, discount points, credit checks, appraisal fees, documentation fees, title search costs, et cetera? A regular refinance here could cost $4200-$6900. And the terms are usually for 30 years, regardless of the ages of the mortgagees. So four mortgage refinances over a decade, not uncommon where I am, cost close to $22000. Now, if the mortgages were for shorter terms and smaller interest, the costs would not be so cumbersome. I paid close to nothing for my refinance and neither shortened nor lengthened my term but I saved $8700 in interest. But if the amounts are larger and the terms remain constant, that is prolonged, the interest saved is not as significant.

Our newspapers used to present "oh woe" articles of people who have lived in their houses for most of their lives, but somehow did not mention the frequent mortgage refinances, always for larger amounts. And articles of the "we are underwater on our mortgage and have lost our equity" sort and it turns out they got 0% down or interest-only mortgages. Values in our area dropped from the 2007 peak by 30% by 2011, which is not long ago.

I weep for the future of your country. About half of these people vote too and nearly all have good, professional jobs. Or maybe it is just that many people in my neighbourhood are clueless. That seems most likely to me.

Having a lot of equity in the house helps only when you are trying to sell it; nowadays you cannot borrow so much from it.

We learned that a house down the street is scheduled for public auction. The owners had gone to India to take care of an ailing relative, but rented the house. I do not know how it is that the rental payments, for there are people living in the house, are not applied to the mortgage and that the mortgage is not paid. Maybe the mortgage is with a lender who went under or who is notoriously inept or the owners died or something. The amount owing is a trifle above what we owe on our house, I did not know if the renters knew about the notice of trustee sale so I printed a copy out, along with some advice and links on renters' rights. If they get booted out they can live in our house if they do not smoke. Their cat comes over almost daily to hang out with one of our cats. My husband fantasizes about buying the house by covering the outstanding amount so we save on moving expenses.

Gold slid 2.5% on deflationary fears. This bums me out but it is not like I have not already profited, and I expect some volatility. I am relieved my obsession with buying a car and keeping as many assets liquid as possible kept me focused away from gold buying.

An Eureka moment: the neighbours who are negligent dog owners are probably too clueless to suspect that their animals are at the ends of their average life spans per breed, and do not think animals can get dementia. Google will give the average life span for a dog breed, and calculating how long the people have been in their houses with their dogs leads us to conclude that these are old dogs. Having had a 19.75 year old cat, I can tell you that elderly animals can wander in the dark and moan, whimper and whine because they are disoriented or feel alone. Even without dementia, elderly animals suffer from separation anxiety and the pointer next door has ALWAYS suffered from separation anxiety.

Tip: do not get a Burmese or Siamese kitten if you are over 50 years old. At one time the world's oldest cat was a Burmese cat, 35 years old. We had no idea about the life spans of Orientals when my mom bought kittens; we told a couple who once owned a Siamese that we wanted to wait until my very possessive Burmese had died before having a baby, and they said "they can live into their 20s, you know."

I walked from Convention Place to Boren and Madison, then to 5th and Madison, then to Columbia and 4th, and saw no coins anywhere. The beggars must be especially keen-sighted or baselle must have beaten me to it. I was hoping for eleven cents to make up for my mortgage increase.

I should have read Amazon.com reviews of Peter D. Schiff's "The Real Crash" audiobook prior to attempting to listen to it. Out of the 2 of 5 discs I bothered to listen to, I got one independent clause of value, and that was a reiteration of the value I saw in _Crash Proof_.

That was to look for dividend-yielding global companies. I logged onto ValueLine and customized a screen for Foreign Stocks with Dividends higher than 3%.
I gathered short ratio and short float, target price, Price/sales ratio, current price from FinViz.com; Buy Price recommendations from Morningstar; IQ ratings from Standard and Poor. Tgt/Price is my custom formula for target price - current price, divided by the current price, or "upside potential, baby."

My conditional statement looks like this:
IF(AND(price<buy_at,Dividend>2.5,PriceSales<MEDIAN(PriceSales)),"buy", IF(AND(Return_on_Equity>15,IQ>90,tgt_price>0.3), "buy"))
leaving me currently with ArcelorMittal ADR (MT) and Total ADR (TOT).

I am mixing this up with

50 frugality blogs to help save money. I want my son to take martial arts this summer, even if it means cutting down on cappuccinos and potato chips.

Some debt group people are looking at their food expenses. I know I tend to overspend my own food budget, which is uneven because some months we buy meat in bulk, and some months we have Costco runs for the deals. Costco coffee went up 10 cents a pound, pooh. But gasoline went down twenty-five cents a gallon.

My visiting family are gourmands, so I will make some fish and veal stocks for them to use as they cook for us.

My price book cover looks like the Rapture happened, with four faces removed. As we are nearing the halftime show of Fantasy Celebrity Cemetery 2012, or Dirtnap for Dollars, here is a psychic remembrance of whom we will lose in 2013:

- Kirk Douglas
- Ernest Borgnine
- Andy Williams
- Billy Graham
- Christopher Lee
- Jake LaMotta
- The Duke of Edinburgh
- Olivia de Havilland
- Pauline Phillips ("Dear Abby")
- Mickey Rooney

you are welcome.

My goal now is to get more than $9.23 a month increase in net worth for my money market account, savings, certificates of deposit and chequing.

Just made biscuits and sausage gravy for brunch. Will make steak for dinner.

The day before was Bloomsday so I had a James Joyce cocktail at a very busy (two hour wait if you arrived at 7:15 pm) oyster bar. I saw the film "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" at the budget cinema, with no horrendously expensive pop or popcorn or candy.

I forgot what we entered as an acceptable deductible for health savings accounts but I am a little regretful it is high. I just paid $306 to my optometrist, $200 of that from the health savings account, and now the podiatrist is charging me $243 to show and tell me I fractured a toe. I have $19 left now in the HSA, so I must pay. The consolation being that when my medication needs a refill my deductible will be met. I will scramble for crash savings.

A bonus: if my spouse books and stays at a budget-conscious chain hotel, at least twice by mid-August, we can get a $50 gift card in addition to 15-20% discounts.

Almost interesting: the difference between the sum of HELOC payments made and the mortgage payments made is $3.60. As I cannot sustain $680/month HELOC payments the mortgage will have taken the lead.

I use the credit card to charge entertainment my brother's family wants: good tickets to a baseball game, market food tour. A Missouri-scale flood of expenses. I wonder if they will reward me by selling a Canadian gold coin to me without the premium.

$7.11 interest over six months of CDs. I could cry.

Thankfully there is an ice arena within driving distance. The boy will find out if he truly likes skating or hockey. If not, well, there is always curling, and that is plenty Canadian.

Thinking also of camps: spy camp, cooking lessons, swimming lessons, lacrosse... it is a first for me to even be considering these before school is out.

Also considering u-pick farms. Strawberries, blueberries... mmm...

Today I found a recent 401(k) statement for the spouse. This set me off on a hunt for the retirement statements I have. I have piles of papers scattered in the spare room, our bedroom and in the living room. Never mind I have three crates for filing these.

In rooting for these statements like a blind pig who trapped her snout in lavender oil for a half-hour, I learned I miss investing. I have not invested for three months, instead saving $$ for house, taxes, laptop, family vacation. I must return to dropping envelopes of hot love to my brokerage of choice, and dabble in foreign currencies and precious metals.

I have also learned I cannot have control over my life until I tame my clutter. Then I will have organized and prioritized. Everything is a wildcard right now. I want so much to keep things simple, but the monkey mind reigns supreme. I hate this because I set a bad example for my child who is even more organizationally impaired than I.

But in also rooting for the statements I have found a library book I feared I would never see! That goes back tomorrow.

$306.13 optometrist bill today. I wonder what kind of high deductible we have in our health savings account.
He understands though, and spots me some prescription medication when I visit for my regular examinations, saving me $89.

What else: oh I was tabulating the finance statements for our bridge loan application outside a closed cafe (no, baselle, not THAT one) when the killer's dad (TKD) comes up. We are alone as the spouse had gone across the street for cheap roadtrip reads. I give TKD a hug, we talk about the grieving process, bridge loans, nuclear detritus washing up on the West Coast (note to self: do not move south) and why the cafe is closed: owner hastened downtown for a permit to participate in the local farmers market which started today. I did not tell TKD that I bought gift cards for the recovering barista/cook (RBC). Some stalking, errr, research showed that RBC was threatened with foreclosure three years ago so he presumably is not a wealthy person. I got a Target card for him and a Petco card for his little cat friend who could well be his "cheap therapist" as he recovers to return to work. A man who rides a motorcycle and owns a cat melts my heart.

A fearless, organized life filled with vitality and love: that is my goal to work toward.

Going: me, on a road trip. I have a terrific 250-song list to put on my mp3 player.

Gone: Frank Cady and Ray Bradbury, the Cadbury week.

Dedicated to the list administrices of my dead pools this year, this entertaining and always safe for the grandkids Scopitone.

Possibly yesterday it was my blogoversary. I am not sure. Could have been Saturday.

What I am celebrating today: I succeeded in paying off the roof from the Home Equity Line of Credit. I borrowed $3500 last June and here we are back at $13400.

Summer Reading: Anna Karenina, Nightmare Abbey. Finished The Sisters Brothers: I started it before May 30, and found the violence hard to take after Wednesday. I didn't have as much problem with the violence in Lady, Go Die!, the sequel to Mickey Spillane's _I, The Jury_.

I may try collecting spare change to pay for the higher escrow payment (higher real estate taxes). By collecting I mean beyond what falls out of pants in the washer and dryer. My kid is pretty good about wading into water pools downtown to fish out cash. You should see how surreptitious we are at the Butchart Gardens and Kubota Gardens. I need to find new places. I've read that vending machines are good but I don't see many of them. Maybe I will try those at Safeway. I also look under photocopiers. Places to try: parking lots, bars, fast food outlets (not likely).

Fast food -- we looked in my kid's science notebook and saw a table of "what I know about fats" and "what I learned about fats" and half the notes were diatribes against McDonald's. I never taught my child to hate McDonald's, but I never took him there other than for preschooler birthday parties. The adults we know think it is strange for a child to be that vehement in actively disliking a fast food chain and I agree. He doesn't feel this way about Wendy's or A&W.

Cafe One is closed because of a horrific murder on Wednesday. Cafe Two will be closed by noon tomorrow as the owner is going to the Oregon Coast for scuba diving. Dare I attempt weaning myself off coffee? I heard coffee drinkers live longer but not where I am.

Challenge #2: the glorious thing about my travel was that I went with a menopausal woman who is dealing with spongy tummy, hot flashes and surreptitious weight gain just like I am. If you're a gay man like Dan Savage you can say that weight loss is easy when your diet is mostly fruits and vegetables, you lay off HFCS, and you exercise. If you're a woman of a certain age, your experience is that exercise and diet are key, but not the complete cure. We lay off HFCS but we suffer progesterone loss. So I will try to reduce my weight. Maybe five pounds this month. I am using Energy Medicine for Women which my friend bought at Powell's.

Challenge #3: Going outside to do gardening/yard cleanup while my neighbors let their dogs bark. This is a sanity challenge as after a few years the barks become close to torture. Better to have two months of prolonged torture and a lifetime of relief afterward than slow torture for years. I guess where I live the odds of dog owners stepping up their care regimen when their pets become geriatric are as likely as criminally insane people voluntarily committing themselves or voluntarily giving up their firearms.

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coupon book for 2nd year of mortgage arrived. Taxes went up, no surprise, and we are now paying eleven cents more a month.

I don't even want to talk about how much I spent. I went away to Portland to tour it with a Vancouver BC friend. I rented a car, got free breakfasts, went to Voodoo Donuts and Powell's (two locations) and the Saturday Market. We watched the Rose Festival Starlight Parade on a local news channel. I slept beautifully: blackout blinds, quiet floor, lots of room to stretch out on both the sofa bed and the kingsize bed.

My English Castle was correct: it was good to get away. When my friend came in on Fri/Sat @ midnight, I babbled about the shooting, apologized and said I didn't plan to be a downer this weekend. And I apparently wasn't.

My friend told me about the Toronto shooting -- I have had it up to HERE with shootings, and it turned out her train back was replaced by a bus owing to mudslides so rather than return to Vancouver on the bus from Portland, she went with me back to Seattle where we had some nice espresso (you'd think I would give up coffee since Wednesday) and biscotti and croissants. She's on a bus departed from Seattle back to Vancouver. I am happy in retrospect to have driven down rather than taken the train. My time in a 180-mile jaunt is 2.5 hours, including ten minutes jammed in Seattle Sunday traffic: very pleased!

I have a spiffy cloth large tote, three fragrant soaps from Rileyville, progesterone cream, two boxes of Shreddies for the boy, Games World of Puzzles, a copy of Anna Karenina for book club, a Haruki Murakami novel, a book for my friend whose birthday list would have led me to Cinema Books and Scarecrow Video, a few blocks south of Cafe Racer) so I told my travel companion if she wanted she could think that she saved my life by giving me the option to shop at Powell's Books.

I'd do the candle walk/dual service for the Cafe Racer victims but despite my fractured toe we walked several miles yesterday. My toe didn't act up but the soles are complaining.

Life is precious and fleeting, I see that now. Thank you for all your kind thoughts and fellowship.

My family and I lost some friends on Wednesday at one of our hangouts. At the other coffee hangout I would see an elderly man and chat with him, and come away happier or more filled with knowledge from the experience: that man is the father of the person who killed my friends. I hurt, but not as much as the family and best friends and fans of the dead, the man whose jaw, lung and armpit were shot, the cafe owner whom I have known and rode scooters with for years, and the elderly man who could do nothing but tried everything to prevent this from happening.

I paid $756 of our credit card bill. DH bought a laptop. Since August 1 I have paid $10225 principal of mortgage debt.

DH finally fixed his tax withholding so we are living on 6% less cash. This doesn't wreck me, but wherever we land next I will most definitely start working. And no more skimping for eight-ten weeks to come up with tax money.

I am going out of town for a few days. This was planned before the shootings and I need some time away from home. My friend is paying for the hotel, we are going dutch on food, and I am paying for my transportation there, back and around. I don't intend to be too frugal: I need sleepwear, would like some books at one of the largest brick-and-mortar bookstores in the country.

I still dislike my son's school. It employs an evaluation tool for teachers from the Northwest Evaluation Association which is very uneven and unreliable: my kid has scored from 60 percentile for his grade to, I kid you not, off the charts in the same subject. This tells me nothing. Nobody tells me anything, very few read my sentences, most interrupt or talk over me. I am waiting for education professionals to tell me how these behaviors and actions foster trust and communication and cooperation between parents and teaching staff. I do not put forward anything to the staff that is not evidence-based or documented or undiscussed with my in-laws, with a half-century of teaching experience between them.

My state really sucks for education and funding for public health. Do not move here.

I started tracking the values of twelve properties in my region, including mine: ten in my city, one in the same county, and one in a different county. My criteria for tracking: did I work with the individual homeowner, were we close in age? One I stopped tracking last year because the house was sold. One condo, one townhome, ten houses. Replaced that with a 3 bedroom house one town over.

COUNTIF(Houses with depreciating equity): 8
My equity went up by 0.17% over two years. That's with a 20-year mortgage, then a 12-year mortgage. Only two people refinanced over that two-year period. One refinanced four times over 100 months prior to May 2010, so she's probably due.
Median mortgage paid: $10702.96 from inception of mortgage. $16167.38 average.
Loan to Value ratios vary from 109.79 to 43.62.
Percent of mortgages paid year to date: 2.6683% to 17.2567%. I'm ranked fifth from the top, not bad for nine months mortgage.
Median mortgage balance remaining: $257614.13; average is $253945.84.
The Median Mortgage Debt in my state is $225581. This is one of the most expensive counties for real estate.

Median equity: $64205.97; average $69271.85
Median Value of Home Equity nationwide is $181189, so you can tell we suck bananas here. Lengths of mortgage range from 179 months to 9 months. Lengths of home ownership range from 179 months to 70 months.

Median equity percentage: 21.07%; average 21.78%.

I am one of a few participants in a certain celebrity dead pool who did not select someone under the age of 50. That's not hurting me yet, but if Lindsay Lohan and Dick Cheney die this year I certainly shall have strong competition. So next year I will have maybe a bell curve assortment of nonagenarians, octogenarians, septuagenarians, sexuagenarians, 50+ yos. So my total potential point total exceeds 250.

I will also encrypt the dead pool lists of other entrants. I didn't even mention Robin Gibb dying to my family, although he was my fourth strike of the year. My husband did, and my child asked who on the dead pool had zero points. I named one, he prompted "who else?" until I went through all the names and when I mentioned the last name he said "serves that person right." Seems the dear tot is in high dudgeon over two picks on that person's list. Yes you read that correctly, my kid is upset that someone he doesn't know put two people he admires on a dead pool list. He's memorized the names of the offenders AND their entries.

Zillow has undervalued my property by 30%. It did this by losing the first eight years of market price data for our house and halving the square footage of our house.

The real estate agent says she can price and sell our house at $90K above what I thought we could get for it.

DH has already started spending his life insurance returns. Admittedly so have I: I paid $140 of our credit card debt and put $60.24 toward the HELOC, and the Lord and Master bought a digital camera from a pawnshop and is shopping for a laptop. But I parked 90% of the money in the money market account like a good financial steward.

Got a nice message from the proprietor of a Bellingham bookstore I reviewed on Yelp.com: my review was that I enjoyed the shop and really wanted to buy something I needed but couldn't find certain authors in stock. Another store had what I needed but it wasn't as welcoming. His message was essentially that he found my review comments helpful, but some authors aren't to be found (I was looking for Gore Vidal) because they go in and go out very quickly.

It's assuring to know I have enough $$ to get the house up for sale and to live in an apartment hotel, that I can apply for a bridge loan or a contingency loan, and even if I get turned down I can use my available credit to corral a downpayment while I wait for my home to sell.

January 1:
HELOC $14771
Savings 10473
Gold & Silver 11918

Savings Goals:
Car Replacement: 3000
Roof Replacement: 3400
Tax: 1787
Laptop 400
Saint Louis 1200

-----------------
May 1:
HELOC $13700
Savings 14768
Gold & Silver 12350

Savings Goals:
Car Replacement: 1200
Roof Replacement: 2000
Tax - done! Gold star!
Laptop - done! Gold star!
Saint Louis - done! Gold star!

$3400 savings goals reached
$4300 savings increased
$1071 HELOC decrease

$96 left in chequing account. I hope Target National Bank hasn't received/processed my payment yet, although I understand it's prompt that way.