bits

My goal on the task site is to make about 1.30 or more a day for the month, on average, and that would equal around 40 dollars for the month (in gift cards, which must be spent on that site).  I've been averaging a little more than that, and am getting close to my second gift card for the month.  Mark said not to treat it as a second job, but it feels like a good thing to do with extra time - and it really doesn't take that much time... it isn't like I'm devoting even an hour to it usually, and if it is an hour the return is a lot greater than 1.30.  I have to say I feel kind of excited to watch that card balance grow and know we can get something extra I wouldn't normally buy with our bank account dollars.  But there are extra things we can use here and there, birthday gifts and home items being the firstmost category.  Esme has pointed out a color of sheet for her bed that she would like in the future (I asked her) and we talked about colors of tshirts in case I throw one of those for her on an order.  Those seem like useful 'stock up' things to throw in the cart because we'll always get to needing them.

Thai Kitchen Red Curry Paste  This is what I was talking about yesterday.  I could probably eat the entire jar with a spoon.  It isn't spicy to me, only savory sweet and citrus tasting.  I put a good tablespoon of it right out of the jar on a sliced boiled egg yesterday.

Esme had some complications with a girl at school who had bamboozled her out of money this week - now she doesn't want to be her friend because Esme found out that the taking of the money was not cool and that her 'friend' tricked her.  She would have better chances of having a true friend with someone else, I told her.  Live and learn.  Esme's PTC is next Monday and now I have it organized at work so I can go to it.

I've been in late the last two days - which has given me time in the morning to do things at home.  We went to the store yesterday morning and by the time I got home it felt like I had lived two days instead of one.  Seriously, as I was driving home I had to think hard - 'Was that this morning?  It seems like a whole different day now, like yesterday...'

Esme would like to play with a friend Sunday but I also want her to go out and take photos of a local landmark to send to a pen pal request from Australia.  It is the only day I get 'off' this week so I was hoping she would want to go do that with me.  I keep thinking about her standing trying to hide under my coat on a cold day earlier this week - looking up at me through her eyelashes... I'm going to miss that when she gets taller than me.

Her new backpack should be coming sometime soon... another week or two maybe.  Her old one is quite sticky inside (even though we rinsed it out!) from repeated spills of drinks and the exploded banana.

SNACK ACCOUNT
How will you spend it?
We've also enacted a weekly 'snack fund' for her, ten dollars maximum (no rollover) to spend on SNACK items we would normally not buy as food OR to spend on buying school lunch or breakfast instead of what she would normally take from home.  She has to plan it out, make choices, and understand that if she takes the money to school and gets it tricked away from her.. well... we can't do anything by the school rules.  So, she'd better pack something in the morning.  We will keep all of our regular 'food' items stocked as always.  Sugary drinks and snacks she wants outside of our usual fare she would have to ask for and decide if that is her choice for the week.  She also has to choose does she want that kind of ice cream bar and then eat half of them immediately after we get them home?  Well... that was $ off your snack account and we won't go automatically buy another box tomorrow.  ETC.  (Can you tell we're not fans of LOTS of sugary drinks and snacks in general?  We keep maybe one or two cookie items on the table in bags and neither of us drink soda).  She always has Kool-Aid in the fridge, yogurt, cereal bars and free reign of anything she can make by herself as long as she isn't wasting it.  We make dinner or 'graze collectively' every night depending on what the leftover situation is from the night before.

Her original request yesterday was that she would like to have us pay a full month of breakfast and lunch at school in addition to the snack items she already purchased this week at the grocery.  Someone else at school told her that all breakfast and lunch are 'free' for them, because their parents pay it.  Hmm.. that's not free kid. I showed her the math, and then told her how much that was compared to what we spent for the entire week for the family groceries. I reminded her that she had decided at the beginning of the year that she wanted to pack her lunch and that we had made our grocery decisions all the way up to now based on that.   

She listened to our snack account proposal and decided that it sounded fair and she could be responsible to make those choices.  She looked at the lunch menu for today and tomorrow and decided that she didn't care for the food served today but did want tomorrows.. so she will get hot lunch tomorrow (but still pack a drink and a snack on the side just in case).

A day off while Esme is at school...

I'm using my spare time to do more than just read and knit and look up recipes.  I've started looking at a few receipt rewards and coupon sites to cushion the expenses of items for school lunch and more hair care products -- and they have paid off some already.  If I can just get in the habit.  I figured I have this free time now here and there that otherwise I'll just spend cruising around pinterest or facebook or ... and this is something that has possibility to benefit us.  And I've started another program that will reward with gift certificates to a site we use... so that is going to be cool if we can decide what we want.  I'm finding the surveys and things it asks me to do interesting and hope they will help as our household isn't very typical (that is for sure). 

Esme reports third grade is awesome!  We haven't heard anything negative from the teachers, and it is already the end of another week.  She says she loves having gym and music and all the different teachers in different classes.

I haven't played much more with the blender but I bought some apples and harvested more tomatoes today.

We watched a strange version of the Snow Queen from Netflix.  It had a very different cinema format than most movies nowadays... but it told the story (as seen from the Blue Fairy and other color books) faithfully and well. 

First day of Third Grade

Back to public school, first day of third grade!

We waited for an hour at the bus stop and no bus... so we had to take her in.  Mark will have to get her this afternoon while I'm at work.  I hope she has a good day... we're on our way.


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It;s so quiet in the house!  I hope she is having a good day.  I ordered a photo album for her with pics of her family, this picture and another good one I had taken last month.  She was having a little anxiety cry last night about not remembering everyone and not knowing how everyone was, getting thing mixed up etc..  I had given her my glass top display box for her rock and shell collection and she was going through the things I put in there (cleaned out from their previous home by my sewing box) and remembering who gave her what.  She really liked that I put in the geological samples she dug out for HS last year, and the iron-on patch from the planetarium, and the shells from Kentucky Lake.  The big shell her grandparents gave her last time they visited was in there, too.