Collin's Thanksgiving 2006

At the boys school today, Collin showed me where his teacher had posted his assignment where he wrote out "I give thanks for . . . ." I got tears in my eyes as I read what was in his little heart and I was thankful for his great witness at school.

"I give thanks for my thankful God. He tells me to become a man of God. I give thanks for my wonderful Jesus. He died on the cross for my sins. I give thanks for my wonderful family. They take good care of me. I give thanks for my cute sister. She likes to play with me."

Sorry, this was taken with my Treo phone so it's not the best quality.

It's a mouse . . . and not for the computer!!!

Well, here I am up late and wide awake. Why? Because we found a mouse in our garage tonight!!! That's the first time that has ever happened.

The weather here is starting to get colder and we found out that others are experiencing the same thing. About 10:15 p.m. Heather came to tell me that "something is in the garage!" When I checked it out, I found what I think was a "house mouse" trapped in an empty trash can. Notice that I used the word "was" since I took care of him cleanly and humanely. Thank the Lord that he was in the empty trash can! I took a picture of him, secured the lid on the trash can (which I will always do from now on), and researched it on the Web since I had no idea what to do.

After my research, I found out that drowning the critters was the best way to kill them if you catch them alive. So, I took the trash can out into the yard and filled it with water while I made a 24 hour Walmart run to get a trap and poison. I found some droppings but not a lot. However, where there is one there is probably more. I thought that it was gross, but Heather was thoroughly FREAKED OUT.

We have an exterminator coming tomorrow so we'll see how this shakes out. I'm hoping for quick and easy solutions to this problem!

Update: We had to clean out the garage really well and disinfect it. We put out some rat poison but the exterminator said that he thought it would be fine. After several weeks, we still have not seen or found evidence of any more -- thank goodness!

Budgeting experiences

I recently had the need to document our budgeting experience so I thought that I would share it on the blog. Before I get into our own experiences, I found a very cool tool from Motley Fool for tracking your spending that may be of help to someone. It is a PDF file that you print off, cut out a section of it, use a little tape strategically, and you have a spending tracker that you can keep your credit or debit card in. Very good idea for some folks!

Through our almost 12 year marriage, we've moved from:
* about a year of not tracking anything but our major bills,
* to using and Excel spreadsheet to track our "spending" (not budgeting for the future but tracking our past),
* to using Excel to manage our budget (updating the spreadsheet once or twice per month),
* to now using a cash system for most of our key spending categories (and still using the spreadsheets to track everything).

The key benefits that we get out of the cash system:
* We feel more stable. We know where our money is going and we are in control.
* We feel more secure. We have a specific plan and know at any time how much money we have for each key category of our budget. Security is a key need of most ladies so this will help them tremendously.
* We feel more spiritually-focused. We're less apt to spend just to keep up with the Joneses, more apt to ensure our planning is Biblically based (like tithing first and ensuring good balance), and making us more accountable for practicing self-control.

Other notes about our budgeting experience so far:
* Using our spreadsheets we can track our spending on key categories over time and use that information to improve our planning and future budgeting.
* To determine our cash categories, we looked at some of the categories that were most out of control and temptations for us as well as what's practical (the electric bill is not a cash category).
* Using cash in those key categories forces us to plan our spending (especially since we only have one cash folder) and also insures that our spending is "pre-approved" with the other person.
* When we went to our cash only system for key categories, we reduced our spending in those categories by 31%!
* Our current cash categories are Eating Out, Groceries, Miscellaneous, Entertainment, Clothes/Cleaners, Child care, Gifts, Home, and Mad Money. "Mad Money" is for Heather and I to use at our own discretion so budgeting doesn't get too oppressive. We don't want to feel handcuffed but have some fun within reasonable boundaries.
* Changing behaviors (especially spending habits) is a learned thing and takes time to become a habit. It takes a few months to get used to the cash system or any new system (and getting receipts regardless of your system) but it's well worth it. Even our kids now ask for a receipt after they buy anything!

So, that's our journey so far and it'’s not too difficult for you to do. Remember the benefits of stability, security, and spiritually-focused living with your material resources.

Which way did he go?

Sorry! It's been so long since I've posted I feel like a blog loser.

I've just been busy with work, family, and parenting so my priorities have been right! At work, we are kicking off a Web redesign so there's a lot of work to be done there but it fun and exciting. Speaking of parenting, my wife is working a lot this month and that means that I've got more time with the kids so we've been playing more games (like Battleship and Uno) and even camping (that'll be a separate posting).

I've also really tried to focus on my Mamaw lately and she is doing much better. We got her going with Assisted Living and we are adjusting pretty well now. My Mom and I are now using a new blog that I created to record her health information (private!) so that we can share it with each other and we also have something to print out for the doctor's records. It's been some work to get it going but it's well worth it.

I also helped my Pastor start a blog for our Men's Ministry called Band of Brothers. It's been fun and very useful to help the church get started and be able to post, send out via e-mail (using FeedBlitz), and catalog for future use his devotional thoughts each week. We are also using categories that will come in handy for the future. The blog allows us to be able to search the entries also and keep everything in one place instead of stored in bunches of different e-mails.

Okay, I'll post again when I finish polishing up a few postings that I have saved over the weeks.

Camping at The Vinyards in Grapevine

The Vinyards is a relatively new facility on the south side of Grapevine lake. The city of Grapevine took a park that was in that location, shut it down for awhile, and converted it into the campground. The facilities are new, in great shape, and some of the areas still have good trees. It doesn’t have the boat checkout/rental or swimming areas that you would expect from a campground on a lake. In addition, since it’s an urban area you don’t get to see the stars like I normally like to see camping but it’s advantage is that is close to town with no long drive and close stores if you forget something.

I wanted to take the kids somewhere while Heather was elsewhere and we had lots to do the rest of the weekend. The Vineyards was perfect for this scenario – very short drive but still a good camping experience. We were in site #45 which only had one big tree but was right on the edge of a big field perfect for running around and playing.

Whenever we go camping somewhere, I normally take a few minutes to drive around and note the good campsites. By documenting the good sites, I can use that information next time we go camping somewhere, pass that information on to my friends, and now that you’re reading this . . . you can benefit from this information. I consider good camping sites that are by trees, pretty level site area, space for the kids to run around, playgrounds fairly close is a bonus, and with points for sites that are relatively close to the bathrooms. Good sites that I scouted at Vineyards are 15, 16, 18, 25, 26 (great), 27 that are close to the playground area and 43, 44 (great), 45, and 46.