29 day giving challenge

I have decided to start the 29 day giving challenge tomorrow. Each day for 29 days you give a gift to someone. Your 29 gifts can be anything -- material objects, money, your time, smiles or kind thoughts. I am hoping I can work on the piece where it isn't always money & material objects I am giving but also my time as well.

http://www.29gifts.org/

money - where does it all go?

The dreaded b word - budget. It is a word that strikes fear in my heart. I really don't want to know how much I spend on eating out, heating our house, and more frightening on cute shoes. Even worse is seeing how much we spend now on gas which cuts into my shoe spending. I have resisted all budgeting software to date but I finally found something relatively painless (and free!) which even breaks down your spending in pie chart format if you so desire. It is http://www.mint.com/.

You sign up by loading your account information and then it will track your purchases for you and put them into various categories. Initially you may have to change the labels as it might not recognize the merchant. The tool sends you a weekly update to show your top merchants and categories if you don't want to log in too frequently like myself. So far it seems to be working well with little effort on my part. Just thought I would share something that has made my life a bit easier without having to put my nose to the grindstone or my fingers to the keyboard.

back to 1st grade

So last Thursday was my first day teaching the Junior Achievement program to 1st graders. Not having much experience with 1st graders other than when I was one much longer ago than I care to recollect and when I tutored them in college I turned to my nephew Levi who is in 1st grade.

Levi states he is really NOT a phone guy so telling him his Aunt Kayla needed advice was the secret to getting him on the phone. The lesson plan was a bit convoluted so I wanted his feedback on what he thought would work. The 1st lesson was about families how they are different and how they work together.

I asked Levi how I should introduce myself and if I should tell them a bit about his background - he told me that they weren't going to be very interested in a long introduction and didn't care for much detail on my life. I also found out cool pencils and animal stickers are a great reward and I didn't need to bring in treats as they bring their own lunch to school. This part I wasn't sure of cause I did remember I enjoyed treats myself but figured he knew best.

He also told me the students would want to talk about themselves and I should make sure to call on different students each time. Levi also reminded me they like to help out and to have them help me pass out the various items. I asked him who was in his family and he told me his mom, dad, Oscar (the family dog) and his little brother so that was a good reminder that kids view their pets as part of the family though this is something I still agree with.

Well Levi's good advice and suggestions paid off. The students weren't particularly interested in a long bio of me and they all wanted to participate. The stickers and pencils were a huge hit though I heard a few of them eagerly offering to trade with their neighbors as I had handed out a wide variety. Most were eager to share and some were so excited when I called on them they went blank and realized they had nothing to say after all.

All in all I thought it went well - much better than Sam's experience though I had 1st grade in Issaquah and he had the Alternative High School in White Center so that could explain it. Personally I wanted to volunteer with younger children for whom an adult guest teacher is a treat and put myself in a situation where I couldn't mess it up too badly if I had stickers to hand out at the end.

Thanks to Levi for reminding me what matters to a first grader and that it was about them and not me. The lesson for tomorrow is about needs and wants which should prove interesting and might be a good reminder for me as well. I do know that teaching wasn't ever the career path for me and this served as a good reminder. Definitely respect those who can control a class of 1st graders by just asking them to freeze!

back on the boat again . . . finally

Just in time for opening day Sam got his boat back for the weekend. We didn't know if we would even have the boat back as the keel didn't get put back on until this week. Being a sailboat the keel was a bit critical for us to get on the water. Weds we got the news we would have it for the weekend but we would have to drop it back off at the boatyard on Sunday to have the keel become symmetrical.

We picked up the boat Friday evening after work and headed over to SYC after frantically loading it up and trying to clean it up a bit. Saturday came with rain but by parade time it had cleared up and while it wasn't sunny it wasn't too wet. Tanya, Carla, Dave, and Paul joined us on the boat for the day and to help with our Go Cougs chanting.

Plenty of Cougar spirit made for a great day on the water and after stopping by Meydenbauer Yacht Club in Bellevue for the hamburgers they all convinced me to raise the sails. Yes I know I had to be convinced but when Sam was putting on the sails himself Friday nite at 6:30 it does make me a bit nervous to test them out. Sam was excited to be back on his boat if even for a short weekend.

Sunday was beautiful and sunny so it was a great day to take the boat back and the good thing about taking it back to the yard was not having to go through the locks with all of the other opening day boaters. Once again I think the Cougar spirit definitely outdid the Huskies which after all is the reason for the Cougar Yacht Club to be in existence. Go COUGS!

happy earth day

Today is earth day and unfortunately I need to be doing much more for our environment. There were several articles on things you could do to help out the environment but not many of them held much appeal. Here are some of the suggestions:

1. Taking shorter showers seemed to be on all the lists but I had our bathrooms remodeled and added 2 large shower heads and body sprays in our master bath. No way do I want to get out of my shower now in the recommended 2-5 minutes and I don't want to encourage Sam to take shorter showers since that is how he wakes up. Anyone who has spent much time with Sam early in the morning is sure to agree with me here.

2. Hanging your laundry to dry outside was another suggestion but where I live it is likely to get wetter if I put it outside most days and we live surrounded by very large trees so it would take days to dry even if it was sunny out. Yep am going to have to take a pass on this one as well.

3 Using your car less or carpooling was also suggested but if anyone has walked up my hill by my house with a few bags of groceries they know this isn't probably won't work very often unless all I am purchasing is bread and I am motivated for a good workout.

4. Taking your own bags to the grocery store for your groceries seemed like something I could do so I bought envirosax bags (yes of course they are stylish and cute otherwise why bother) to keep in my truck to use. Now if only I can remember to actually bring them in the store.

5. Recycle - now this I do but it seems that both my recycling bin and the garbage are full but am going to keep on trying.

6. Grow your own vegetables. Sorry but this one is a lost cause as well due in part to our shady yard and the fact I remember weeding my parents garden growing up. I will instead try to buy more produce that is grown locally.

I have decided I will concentrate on trying to produce less waste, reusing containers, and shopping locally. Maybe by next Earth Day I will have found an electric car that will help cut down on how much gas I use and I won't be quite so enamored with my new shower.

what's for dinner?

Frequently during the day I contemplate my next meal and wonder where and what I will be eating. If I make plans to go out of town I think about where I will be eating. If it is somewhere I have been before I make plans to eat at restaurants I enjoyed, then I look on the internet or ask friends for worthwhile dining suggestions. I think there are even places I visit because I found a restaurant I want to go back to again.

Yep I am probably just a bit too fixated on food and I certainly could miss a meal or 2 without any repercussions but I don't want to give up any dining opportunities. When I visit friends or family I ask about our plans and if they don't mention food I bring it up, though in my family we all seem to mention the food part very early on. I am not much of a snacker but I do really look forward to breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Most of my activities need to include food - if skiing I look forward to lunch in the lodge, if on the boat I bring plenty of snacks and more food than we will ever eat, if meeting friends there will be a restaurant involved of some type. I guess I just really enjoy good food and the part it plays in my life.

Growing up our family get togethers revolved around a meal or 2 and this seems to have carried over into adulthood. I have tried to make a conscious decision lately to not continue eating something if I am not truly enjoying it or just finding it somewhat mediocre. In fact as I write this post I am wondering what dinner will be right now. Yes I guess I am just a bit food oriented but everyone needs to have things they really enjoy and mine is looking forward to my next bite.

deadline oriented

Well it is the day of the year I dread - tax day! Once again I have waited until the last possible minute to have my taxes done. Well in actuality they were done late last evening so I am ahead of schedule but I have to pick them up, sign them, and of course send the IRS a check. Yes this would have once been called procrastination but my sister Tanya says it is really being deadline oriented. The latest I found a post office staying open today in the vicinity of where I live is 7:30. Growing up I remember my dad barely making it to the post office by midnight so I will beat him by hours this evening.

"If it wasn't for the last minute nothing would get done."