Our emergency fund is looking pretty healthy, although it has a way to go yet. Saving is now automatic for us instead of being an afterthought. Just as there is always time for the things that are put first, there is money for saving when we make it a priority.

Our utility bills are a lot lower this year than last, because we’ve been making some adjustments there also. When we are able to plant some trees in the back yard, we can save even more money on cooling.

I don’t think we’re going to be adding a tankless water heater any time soon, because it requires the wiring to be changed, and that’s more than we want to take on.

We have stopped buying commercial cleaners, since the ones I make are so effective and much less expensive.
Borax, Baking Soda, Dawn dishwashing liquid, white vinegar and water couldn’t be simpler to combine in various configurations, and work just fine.

I began learning to cook when I was 16. My mother was anxious about my being in the kitchen because of my congenital different abilities (cerebral palsy and vision impairment), because I might be burned or cut as I tried to learn to cook. I told her it was inevitable that I would indeed get burned and cut, but I would have to learn to deal with those things as everyone does. I also mentioned I thought it was not a wise idea to not learn to cook because I would need to feed myself and my family one day, and it was just another facet of my independence. She relented, and taught me to cook family style foods.

I also learned by watching my grandparents in the kitchen. I have always found cooking to be a creative outlet, and I greatly enjoy collecting and trying new recipes and creating my own, and I do use family recipes as well. I began teaching both my children to cook when they were about five years old and were able to be safe in the kitchen with supervision. Now, I am beginning to teach my grandchildren to cook, and I love watching their faces as they enjoy “their own” foods.

There are times when I do not feel well, but we still need to eat. I figured out a way to handle meals when I was pregnant with my daughter that I still use today. There were times during that first pregnancy when I was almost too tired to stand, and there were times when simply cracking an egg would make me ill. On the other hand, there were days when I felt I could take on the world before lunch and have energy to spare. I learned to use those times to good advantage to prepare for the “I don’t feel like cooking” times.

I used TV dinner trays (the foil ones, since microwave ovens had not yet been invented), and washed them carefully. Then, on days when I felt really well, I would cook entire meals, including extra portions. I included meats, fish, poultry, vegetables (fresh or frozen, to keep sodium intake down), pasta that was cooked not quite al dente, and casserole type meals. I put the extra portions into the trays, covered them tightly with heavy duty aluminum foil, and put them in the freezer. I tried to keep at least two to three weeks worth of lunches and dinners in the freezer for myself and my husband, and I could simply heat them in the oven for 30 minutes and eat. I found I could eat much easier if I did not have to cook when I felt ill. This strategy also kept our food budget down, because we were not eating out in restaurants.

I use the same strategy today, except I use heavy duty plastic containers with tight fitting seals that can go into the microwave. Sometimes I use a “once a month” cooking approach, but I usually just prepare extra portions as I go along.

It dawned on me that I may not put those zip files back on my hard drive. What I may do instead is just keep a text list of the filenames plus download links, just as I have done for all of my freeware and open source software titles. That way, I can save a lot of space on the hard drive and keep everything relatively uncluttered. The file structure had gotten complex, with folders, sub-folders, and even sub- sub-folders, and it was a pain to navigate through it.

With a well organized list, I have only one text file to store; it still allows me to find what I need quickly, with nearly instant access to downloads via the included hyperlinks, and I don’t have 8 of one type of application for a particular task. I can pull the list together quickly, and keep it updated easily. The text list is also easy to share with people, without fear of getting a virus or malware via an infected download.

I used a similar list recently when I decided to clean up my collection of bookmarks. Some of the bookmarks I had were in daily use, while others were less frequently used, and some were for a one time visit. So I put the links ones I don’t often use but really wanted to keep into a text list. Again, the included hyperlinks allow quick access, and I don’t have to sift through hundreds to find the ones I want.

My computer has been in the shop. It needed a new motherboard. I contacted Lynnae at Being Frugal to thank her for encouraging people to establish an emergency fund, and she asked me if I would be interested in writing a guest post for Being Frugal. It will appear next week. I have another major writing project in the works also.

I am so excited about Thanksgiving this year! We are having our open house on Friday after Thanksgiving, as we normally do because I work on Thanksgiving Day. I am making my grandmother’s traditional recipes (Turkey, dressing, candied yams, fruit salad, green bean casserole, scalloped potatoes, gravy, rolls and dessert). I hope both of my children can be here; Adam may have to work, but maybe we can get him a plate. Our newest grandson, Jordan, at just six weeks old is too young to eat solids, but Ryan should like the food. Dylan will be away with his Dad for the weekend so we will miss him.

November 2: Back to Standard Time for most of the US. Did you set your clocks back?

November 3:  My stepdaughter’s birthday

November 4:  Election Day in the US, and our tenth wedding anniversary (and the anniversary of 13 years together…pretty nice being able to have two anniversaries in one.)

November 11: Veteran’s Day…Remember to thank a veteran for his/her service.

November 15:  The first anniversary of owning our home.

November 27:  Thanksgiving Day in the US.

And the countdown to Christmas begins . . .

As part of my organizing routine, we got rid of a lot of books just before we moved last November; I did not want to move anything unnecessary. Even so, we still had a lot of books. A few months ago, I decided to go through all of the ones we kept, to see if I could get rid of more. I had read that a bookcase should not be kept completely packed; it should be about 2/3 full. We did get rid of another crate full of books, and now the bookcases (four of them, so far) are easier to access.

I sorted the books according to use, also. Cookbooks go into a bookshelf near the kitchen, since that is where they are used. Computer reference books and books on my “to be read” list are in the bookcase in the office; my husband’s books are near his desk; a bookcase in the master bedroom and one in the living room hold books we both enjoy.

I do plan to locate a library nearby to help save money.

I keep my most frequently used bookmarks in folders on my Bookmarks Toolbar, and added a new one for WordPress which did not get imported to the updated version of Firefox because I forgot to save the bookmarks before the update. Fortunately, the Wordpress folder was new enough that it had just a few bookmarks in it, and they were easy to locate again.  I have a tendency to collect all sorts of resources when I start working with anything new. I may also create a folder for links having to do with my web host, but I haven’t decided yet.

I have several different profiles in Firefox, for different purposes, but I use one of them on a daily basis, so it is the one I am most concerned with keeping current.  There are 34 active add-ons in this profile, with four inactive ones. I’ve had as many as 65 addons active on my profile at one time or another, which is a little top-heavy. 

I am especially happy to finally have a working version of the Fast Dial extension again. I have thumbnails of all of my most frequently used websites in a single tab, for fast and easy access.

I’ve never been really comfortable with keeping diaries; even as a child, I felt too much pressure to write much more than most diaries (usually set up with about six lines per day for a year, with a nice little lock (that wouldn’t keep out a really determined little brother or three and a tiny key that usually got lost somewhere in a week) would allow.  I also thought keeping a diary meant I should be writing every day, and sometimes there was nothing I felt was worth writing about.

Journaling appealed to me more: I found it much less cramped, in a sense.  Still, using pen and paper frustrated me, because my mind works faster than I can physically write.  I learned to use a typewriter (manual first, electric later) as a form of physical therapy to strengthen my left hand when I was fourteen, and became more prolific as a writer. Then I found computers with word processing software, and I felt like a five year old who’d been handed the keys to the candy store and a sack full of nickels.  Eventually I began to hear, via the internet, about web logs (online journals) also called blogs. I knew that whatever is published on the internet stays there, in some form, for a very long time, if not forever. . . and I was hesitant to try my hand at blogging.  Eventually, though I took the plunge.  I liked blogging well enough that I convinced a good friend of mine to start his own blog, despite his protests he had nothing to write about.  I am finding it isn’t so much the end result of blogging that interests me (although it certainly does), as much as it is the process that holds me rapt.

First there was Blogger.com, with a generic Blogger template. Very basic, nothing special. I created several blogs there, some of which are still on Blogger (for now).  Then I did a lot of reading of other blogs, and discovered that generic template could be edited and personalized.  Cool.  I stumbled around for a while in some strange looking html code, wrecking my Blogger template more than once in some pretty creative ways, until it began making sense. I discovered how awesome it can be to watch things happen, literally under my fingers as I began to write my own html (with a lot of help from books and online resources) for use in personal web pages.

Things rocked along pretty well….and I even developed my own website based on a personal webpage I created and used for an online word game on a free web host; I put it online for other players to use, and it has been online for almost two and a half years. (If I removed it, I’d probably be in some trouble, but I digress.)  I continued writing html code and made some personal pages for a few of my friends. I think some of those pages are even still in use.   Gradually, as a blogger, I began to feel too restricted,  and decided to move my main blog to a different platform.  After some research and consideration, I moved to WordPress.com:

I have moved this blog to Wordpress(.com) after almost four years with Blogger. I have been wanting to make this change for a while, and I have to say I’m impressed with what I’m seeing thus far. Eventually, I plan to get a paid webhost account for my own website, and will then be using Wordpress there, but this makes a good bridge. I’m looking forward to getting established here. I was very nervous about changing to Wordpress, but I found a good tutorial with a little research, and it has been easy to do. I did have trouble importing my blogroll, but I will get it sorted out as I go along.

Still a free host, but with a few more options than Blogger has (IMHO, even the updated Blogger is not as feature rich as WordPress.com which in turn, is not as rich as WordPress.org).  I settled in, and did some posting, and more reading. Fairly soon, I began to feel the old stirrings of discontent again. I wanted to spread my wings more than WordPress.com allowed.  I wanted to get my hands into the code again. I decided to get my own domain.  I asked around, and settled on my current paid web host, which offers automatic install of WordPress.org.  I finally managed to install WP without blowing anything up. I’ll take my successes where I can find them.

Since I’ve never had a domain of my own before, there is a learning curve on not just one but two fronts: my paid host and WordPress.org:

I am sometimes not a patient person. I notice this when I am beginning any new project: I want it done…last week.  And so it is with this blog, since I’ve just signed up with a paid hosting company. I know, logically, that it will take time to get things set up and working the way I want them to be.  I just don’t like it not being done yet.  I need to back up a couple of steps and do some reading and study help files and such.  So it will be a while yet before I am ready to really start working on moving my other site to the paid host, never mind creating any new ones.

Approaching Wordpress.org and a paid web host at once as a neophyte is more than daunting. It puts me in mind of when I first began learning to use Firefox.  I felt the same initial frustration, puzzlement, gradual confidence and comfort, and now Firefox is indispensable. So it is with WordPress.org and the paid host, except that this time, it’s a double-whammy.  I became very confused, and frustrated with the paid host and with WordPress.org. I just wanted them to work. This time, though, comparatively little was “out of the box ready to roll.” I found no shortage of information or resources; I was instead overwhelmed by the amount of information available for both. I had trouble finding a place to put my feet; I did not even know what questions to ask, let alone who to ask.  So, my blog lay dormant for a few weeks.  It took me a while to figure out how to post under my username instead of as “admin,” because I was using the log in information provided by my web host to log in to WordPress, instead of using my WordPress information to log in with. Even that small issue made me irritated. I admit, I am perfectionistic. . . . (I did not give up writing in the meantime; I simply wrote in other places, online and off.)

A few days ago, I was adding links to an online bookmarking site to use as my starting page in my browser, and decided to have one more crack at WordPress, to see what would happen.  Wonder of wonders:

After a few weeks of being so frustrated I couldn’t even look at this blog, I decided to log in today when I was setting up a new online start page for Firefox.  I logged in, using my WordPress user name and password instead of the ones my web host provided, and…it just works. I even upgraded to the newest version of WordPress, and the sparkle is back in my day. I don’t like to be without my blog(s)!  And it’s so much better on my own domain.

I slowly began reading more about how to work with WordPress, but first I had to get FTP software, then I had to configure the software and my router so that I could connect to my domain.  As soon as I was successfully connected to the domain, I started looking to see what the possibilities are.  Themes? Plug-ins? more customization, by the truckloads. A lot more power and flexibility into the bargain.  I gathered my courage and  downloaded, installed and activated my first new theme and a plugin yesterday, and I am once more captivated.  And today, I found more themes and more plugins (even a plugin for installing plugins without needing FTP: plugin central!)  Technically I still have not had my hands in raw template code on Wordpress, but I am more confident than ever that it will come, and this time I am not as impatient, because I am becoming much more confident. What a difference a little time can make!  I am beginning to realize how powerful WordPress is, and the freedom of having my domain is inspiring. I do have plans for at least two more websites.

Now, the fun really begins . . .