The Book

As children my siblings and I all had our books.  As I recall my book was blue, my older siblings' books were black with red binding much like the one shown below.  I don't remember the color of Becca's book, but I believe Mark's was red and of course Doug had the supersize blue book.  I'm not sure why he had a big book, but I'm sure I've teased him it about it.  We kept them in my Dad's desk and pulled them out on occasion to record purchases, allowances or payments from something or other.  These books were of course ledger books and each of us was responsible for keeping track of how much money we had deposited in the bank of mom and dad.

Early on most of the money in the book came from a weekly allowance that my parents would give to me.  This was not a large allowance by any means, but it was constant.  My parents didn't believe in making an allowance stipulatory on our acts, rather it was a tool to teach financial management.  During this time most of the money going out was spent at the C-Store at the top of the street for candy.  Though oftentimes the bank of mom and dad gave me quite a guilt trip for the frivolous spending of my money. to their credit they never did say no to my withdrawals.  

As I got older I would deposit lawn mowing money into my book.  This consisted of mowing the lawn and rather than having dad or mom pay me any money I would just record it in my book.  The biggest deposit each year came around my birthday when I would endorse my birthday check from grandma and hand it over to mom so I could record it in my book. On a few occasions my sum of money would get to a level that I would transfer a portion of it to the bank where I would earn interest.  I credit the book, for better or worse, for making me the tightwad that I am today.  

I didn't learn much of investing from my book, that spark came from an investment in Peter Lynch's Magellan fund at Fidelity Investments given by my grandparents to all their grandchildren.  There's nothing like a mutual fund earning upwards of 20% a year to pique one's interest in investing.  That's a story for another day (or another blog).

This brings us to yesterday.  Melissa decided that she was going to clean out the garden/shrub/trash area in the front area (she found a beer bottle in the area that has been there at least 2 years, but probably a lot more).  In doing so she found the best way to clean up the landscaping pebbles was to pick them up one by one, put them in a bucket and take them around back to the kids play area.  She had the wonderful idea to pay the kids 1 penny for each rock they put in the bucket.  Jessi and Spencer made $4 each yesterday.

Melissa and I don't carry cash.  We have $200 in ones and fives that we have had for the past 5 years in a ziplock bag for emergencies, but otherwise we just don't carry cash.  In order to pay Jessi and Spencer their $8 it would cost us $20 because once it is out of the bank it is as good as gone.  So in an effort to save ourselves the extra $12 we decided this was a perfect time to institute the ledger books (something we had planned to do when Spencer started 2nd grade).  

Ledger books aren't quite as prevalent nowadays as they were 25 years ago so after searching various stores we ended up back at Wal-Mart and bought 6 ledger books for $5 each (so much for that $12 savings).  It's not that we couldn't afford more books later, but I'm not sure you will even be able to buy ledger books at Wal-Mart in 5 more years and they run $20-$40 a piece at Staples.

The point of this whole story is that we bought 6 books which means Melissa has finally relented in her fight for 5 children, and I get to continue my search for a Yukon or Tahoe.

March Madness

Come one come all, no money just pride (not much of that either).



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Utes rule

He's Back, I'm Done, She's Almost One and The Sun

Jacob had CME last week in Syracuse New York. He said the seminars were pretty good, he was able to swing by Palmyra and attend the temple, and got to ride in 5 different airplanes. So all in all I would say it was a pretty good trip. My favorite part of it is that he is back! I know the kids are pretty happy to have him back as well. Not just because they missed him but because when mommy doesn't get a break for several days she tends to get a little short on patience. It is amazing how getting to deal with one less argument just saves my sanity. I love tag team parenting.

While Jacob was in Syracuse I took advantage of the evenings alone and painted my sewing room. Thanks Mom and Becca for help with the color choices. I love how it turned out. Now I have a new project to make some new curtains to match the new paint colors.

Although this is only one room it carries great significance. Why you ask? Because it reperesents the last room in my house that needs to be painted. Yippee Skippee!! I have now painted every wall, every trim, every ceiling, and every door in my house. (Okay, so I never painted the closet in my room and am debating whether to leave it white or paint it. I am pretty sure I will paint it, but for this post the decision is to leave it white so that I can say I am done!)

Kamryn turns 1 next Sunday. This really came up on me fast. I am sure I will post more about all her growth and such in a week but I just thought I would throw this out there.

And last but certainly not least, I can see the Sun again. The weather has been so nice the last few days. It is supposed to be in the 50's all week and I am so excited. I packed away all of the snow clothes, and pulled out the jackets. We are going to will Spring here!!

The greatest month of the year

When I was growing up February was probably my favorite month.  February always rivaled January for the most snow back home and I built a lot of snowmen and snow forts.  When I got to old for that stuff I would play snow football with my (now bigger) younger brothers.  Snow football for Corrys consisted of me kicking or throwing the football straight to my younger brother then pummeling him into the snow.  This was always best played when the snow was at least a foot deep so as to lessen the blows.  Another time I'll write about how I taught my brother to take a charge in basketball.  To his credit he won most of those games on free throws.   In my own mind I take a sliver of credit for Mark being an allstate wrestler and football player.  I had nothing to do with the javelin.

February is also the month of my birthday.  Nothing beats a birthday when you're a kid.  Everything is about you.  Sure I had to share the week with my younger brother (his birthday is a mere 4 days before mine), but celebrating with a bunch of dead presidents was always pretty cool.

Nowadays February is not so cool.  I miss the sun, I miss the warmth and birthdays are just a reminder that I'm 30 something and longing for the future.  (Alright it's not that bad, but I need to create some dramatic effect here)

With that in mind I have a plan to get over the midwinter doldrums.  This is a long term plan so it probably won't take effect for a few years, but when it does it's gonna be nice.  First off I'm going to move away from the land of clouds.  I've written before about my love of Cedar City so I won't belabor that now.

Second I am going to take up snowboarding.  February of 2011 is going to forever be known as Jake's Snowboarding month.  Sure, I could go snowboarding here, but that's kind of like Manti* pulling out his surfboard to hit the waves at Benton Harbor.  Plus it's expensive and I'm a tightwad.

When I get too old to snowboard I'm going to buy a bunch of snowmobiles and put tracks on my side-by-side. We'll be spend much of February at the cabin (not built yet) building fires, making snow caves and maybe playing a little snow football.  This step of the plan is obviously a few years off yet.

When the kids are all grown up and moved away and it's just Melissa and myself at home we will enter the last stage of the plan.  This stage is referred to as South America February.  I'm not sure how we're going to do it, but I think you get the picture.

So there you have it, my infallible plan to turn February back into the best month of the year.  Melissa will be learning about this plan for the first time with the rest of you readers out there.

I welcome any of your suggestions on how to improve on my plan.





*For you non South Benders, Manti Teo is a Notre Dame football player from Hawaii, and Benton Harbor is a beach town on Lake Michigan.