Please join me in wishing my niece Meggie a very happy third birthday!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGGIE!!!!

Love,

Auntie Kat

Lets all wish my nephew a big, happy, wonderful fifth birthday!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREW MICHAEL!!!

Love always,

Auntie Kat

Summer is in full swing and that means one thing VACATION!

I know I’ve been remiss I my blogging duties and I’m sure I’ll be chastised by friends and family alike for it.

Friday, I’m headed to Seattle for 10 glorious days of fun, sun and fishing. I know your thinking wait… sun and Seattle just don’t mix, however I have to say that the two best months to visit Seattle are August and September. The doom and gloom normally have passed by and it’s time for all Seattleites to get out and work on their tan. The pasty white they have been sporting for the last ten months will be a thing of the past for at least a few months.

For the last 27 years, my parents have rented a cabin on the south end of beautiful Whidbey Island. It’s a small rustic place, but to our great delight we spend four delightful weeks, laying on the beach, searching for shells, fishing for salmon, when they run right from the beach, and when we get brave or it gets hotter than Hades, we brave the cold Puget Sound for a quick dip.

Since this cabin has no television and we do not bring one along, we make do with the old fashion type of entertainment. Reading books, playing cards, and talking with family members about everything from politics to what do we want to do the next day.

I’m sure you can tell just how much I enjoy this down time away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. No computers, no televisions, though with the advent of the cellular phone, those do get drug along but rarely answered.

It’s safe to say that I’m looking forward to catching my flight Friday and flying home!

Have a safe August and I’ll see ya’ll when I get back.

Kat

With school starting and working like a fiend, I’m finding I have less and less time to sit down with a good book and read. Recently I found a wonderful website where I can subscribe to books via email. DailyLit has so many options for those of us who enjoy reading. They offer the classic book titles for free and if that’s not your forte for a low price you can purchase a book off their site and have it emailed to you in installments.

This is how it works; you join their site for free, then you find a book you would like to read, you enter your email address and you subscribe. Then just sit back because you’ll receive installments of your book.

The super cool thing about it is, you can sit down, read your email in a brief period of time, then go back to your life while waiting for the next installment to come. How easy is that?

For the person who’s too busy to sit down and enjoy a good book, but loves to read, this is a great way to get your literary fix, and still have time for your daily life!

Enjoy!

~Kat

(for fun I’ll be adding a link under the recipe box, where you can see what I’m currently reading!)

So last night I called the local sheriffs station. It seems we have someone in our complex who feels that when there is a no parking zone it doesn’t pertain to them, when they are looking for street parking.

Our complex has assigned slips for each resident. If you have additional cars you end up having to park on a rather busy street. Unfortunately for us, because of this street parking we have a limited view of the busy main road when pulling out and this small amount of footage offered up by the ‘red zone’ gives us an additional site line of the oncoming traffic.

The other thing this person fails to realize, is that by parking in this zone, which also has a fire hydrant, IF the fire department were to show up for a house, car or any other kind of fire, with his vehicle there he hinders their access to this life saving measure, which could result in them putting the hose through his car windows.

What irritates me about this person is for the last 3 months he has felt that it’s his RIGHT to park there, never mind that by doing so he’s putting everyone at risk that live in this complex. This goes back to the posting about people believing their needs are more important the rest of the world.

So a couple of neighbors have decided to host a little campaign to stop the illegal parking of cars that put us at risk each and every day by parking in this red zone. A simple call to the back line of our local sheriffs station and quick conversation with the Sergeant on duty, will result in a drive by and ticket by a local deputy, though I hate to be the cause of additional paperwork for the deputy, I figure it’s less paperwork than an accident, should it occur.

While some might call this pissy behavior; however those who understand what the ‘red zone’ is about will also understand that this person seems to have an apparent disregard for those who are his neighbors.

So next time your in a hurry and looking for a spot to park your vehicle, remember your parking manners, don’t block a “red zone” as by doing so you might just put someone at risk.

Have a great day!

Kat

Growing up, whenever we took a family trip somewhere for the day, we girls would ask my dad “Can we go to McDonalds?” Dad had a standard answer that we dreaded, “We’re going to my favorite restaurant” he’d reply. You’d hear a collective groan from the lot of us and sometimes even my mother, because we all knew that Dad’s favorite restaurant was home to a meal he’d cook.

Now as an adult, I appreciate the multitude of reasons why we ate at home. The biggest being cost factor, my parents could feed a family of five for a lot less than it would cost to take the whole passel of us out to drive thru or a sit down restaurant, the other deciding factor was the food that Dad and sometimes Mom cooked was so much healthier for us.

So as I was cooking dinner the other night a thought struck me. I keep calling friends and family for various recipes that I love. So I’ve decided to just add a link to my blog called “The Recipe Box”.

I’ve included some of my favorites along with others that have been sent to me over the years. I know that cooking for ones self while it might seem like a chore, it’s so much better for you and more cost effective to.

I hope that you take sometime to enjoy some one on one time with your kitchen trying out the various recipes that I’ve posted.

If you have something you’d like to share please email it to me, I’ll give it a whirl and post it!

Happy Cooking

Kat

I have to admit I love playing games and what better game to play than one that affects your real life financial bottom line.  My younger sister told me about The Grocery Game.  The general gist is that you are out to stock your shelves with items you would use for a price less than what the store would normally like you to pay.  For those of you who are raising an eyebrow regarding this, yes it’s 100% legal.

You might ask how I can play this game. The game is based partly on coupons you cut out from your Sunday paper and online coupons you print and clip.  Every Sunday the lists of items that are on sale in your selected stores are posted on The Grocery Game website.  The lists will tell you what items it recommends that you stock up on.  Everything you can buy in the store is subject to be on the list, provided it’s on sale.  Each list is color coded.  Green items = Free Items, Blue Items = Best deal you’ll find on this item, Black Items = On sale but only buy as you need them.  You’ll read through the list and see where you can use your coupons to obtain the best deals.

I’ve learned a few things: 1. if you live in a state that double coupons for you, they only double the first coupon, so if you want all your coupons doubled you need to make more than one trip. 2. If you have a coupon worth more than one dollar, it will be doubled only to an additional dollar off. 3. Clip every coupon in the Sunday paper, things you think you’d never use, when they are ‘free’ you might just want to try them. 4. Its worth the money saved to take the time and shop this way.

I’ve been keeping a spread sheet with running totals showing me just how much money I’m saving on every trip and every month.  I figure, I’ll track my grocery spending for the year and see just how much I save.  So far I’m saving on average 61% off each of my grocery bills.

Hopefully you too will try out the game and see that it’s worth the money saved.  As I have asked my friends, if every time you go to the grocery store and save upwards of 70 dollars out of 100 spent, isn’t that worth the time you spend playing this game? I think its worth every penny!

Happy Shopping!

Kat and the kids.

 

So, here I was one evening seven days ago, hanging out in a yahoo chat room just passing time, when one of my girlfriends told me about this gaming site.  She told me Kat you need to check it out.  After putting up an initial fuss I bopped over the Future Criminal and signed up.  So here I am this noob (slang for newbie) who had no clue what she was in for.  Having my girlfriend walk me through getting a job (yes you have a job, but it doesn’t pay diddly squat… kind of like real life) and opening up a bank account, I was confident that I could handle what came my way.  Little did I expect to spend the rest of the night in the hospital having been cyber tossed from a building, into traffic and numerous other things.

The next day partnering up with one of my dearest male friends, I spent it networking.  Meeting up with some pretty nifty people, who were more than willing to take me under their wings and teach me to play this game.    Events happen in real time.  When you go to jail you can be there for 1 minute to umpteen million (ok so it feels like that many) minutes, with the options of sitting there waiting for your time to be done, to bribing guards or having someone break you out of jail, you just never know what’s going to happen next, yes one could say… I LOVE THIS GAME.

The staff of Future Criminal are always willing to impart any wisdom, you just have to be smart enough to ask them.  Any issues are handled swiftly with diplomacy as would be expected of any gaming site.  Players are helpful and will take a noob under their wing to teach them the ropes.  There is fun to be had by all, even those who have never gamed before will find this site easy to navigate and understand.

So, log on to Future Criminal sign up for an account and give it a whirl, you won’t be disappointed with this fun creative gaming site!