Hi Friends! I'm a little tired but I made it through the weekend! I had to work 2 nights on top of the craft fair day, so I have a little sleep to catch up on. LOL My mom and I had a wonderful day of sales on Saturday! It wasn't terribly busy but it was a steady stream of people all day. Which was nice. Sometimes those afternoons can be long after the morning rush! My poor mom cracked her tooth in the late morning so she had that to worry about instead of having craft fair fun. Sorry, mom. And it was her birthday yesterday, too. I hope you got to enjoy your day even with that in the way.
Speaking of tooth, Kellon lost his first tooth yesterday! It has been hanging on for dear life for quite sometime and finally came out when he was brushing his teeth. Mrs. Tooth Fairy was very generous and $2 was waiting under his pillow this morning. Kellon was so excited! The next teeth won't be as much. LOL Mrs. Tooth Fairy is on a budget!

Well I took some booth pictures for you! I wish you all could of been there. I did get to meet a blogging friend from Oregon! Carrie from Cricketwood Prims and Gardens was here in Nebraska to visit her son and family. So she took the hour plus drive over to our craft fair to meet me. Blogging friends are the best! Carrie is so nice and we had the nicest conversation. Wish I could of spent more time with you! I had to rest up for my night shift and she had to go back to her triplet grandsons. Maybe again in the spring we can meet up! And would you believe, I forgot to have our picture taken! I couldn't believe that when I got home and realized that. Bummer! Have a safe trip home, Carrie!
Before I share my photos, I had a customer tell me she came across my blog the other day! Locally, I don't really tell anyone my blog address. I don't know why...it's just different than strangers reading about me. LOL So when she told me that I was quite shocked. She started clicking away, you know how it is...getting lost in blog world and she stumbled upon mine and she was like "I know that girl!". Small world, isn't it? She loves primitives and decorating, so maybe she'll start a blog of her own. *Hint*Hint* So Aaron if you are reading this, "Hi!"
So here are few shots from our show!



















So now it's time to replenish the stock. For the most part, I'm taking this week off from crafting. A pumpkin patch trip is planned, costume making, teacher gifts, painting/carving pumpkins, a trick or treat trail and Halloween to end the week. I love this time of year and definitely want to enjoy it while I can. Pheasant hunting season also starts this coming up weekend and deer shortly after that. My husband loves to hunt! So lots of activities coming up and then the Holidays will quickly sneak up on us!
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Well it's time again for Money Saving Monday #3! Thank you all for your comments and personal tips. I will share a few of them every now and then just in case people don't read my comments.
Here's a couple from week #1:
"Because I am home alone a lot during the day, I dress more warmly and use a small room heater where I spend my time instead of heating the whole house. And last spring I bought a heated mattress pad so we can lower the thermostat even more. It's great when there are no other bedrooms that need heat." $Linda$
"One thing that my sweetie and I have always done, is to keep a change jar where at the end of each day, we would put all our change in. After a few weeks, it really starts adding up. When the kids were younger, we all did that and the kids included adding some of their allowance and we saved up enough money in one year to pay for a weeks vacation in Disney land. All expenses were paid for by our saving together." $Birgit$
Thanks for the tips girlies! Keep them coming!
My blog friend, Amy asked last week: "How do you handle birthday presents for your kids' friends? It's hard to budget for them because they come up all of a sudden. Also, weddings, showers, that type of thing. Do you just figure it into a misc spending for the year/month?"
Pull out your credit card...just kidding. I personally emailed Amy but wanted to share my thoughts on this. If you have anything to share, please feel free to comment. Personally I have my craft profit to help us pay for gifts and extras of the sort. But if I didn't have that extra income, I would put that in my "extras" category in my budget. We allow a little breathing room in our "extras". Sometimes we use it all and sometimes we don't. If gift giving tends to be a problem and always coming up unexpectantly and your budget can't keep up then I would definitely recommend putting a little money away each month in a "gift fund" so when those occasions do come up then you have the money and that leaves out the worry/stress for the month.
With Christmas coming up it's just a great idea in general to save a little $ every month all year long. Then when the time comes around then the $ won't be such a worry and you can enjoy the real reason for the season. Makes sense to do this, but why do people rack up their credit cards every Holiday season for the perfect gifts?! Just taking the time to prepare, makes a huge difference!
We started puting $ back every month for license plate renewal. We simply added all the cars together and divided it by 12 to get the amount to put back every month. We have online banking so it's easy to transfer that $ to our savings for safe keeping. In the future we hope to add other not so fun expenses that we get every year like: the vet bill, optometrist, our LPN and Engineer License renewal (goes up every time!)...and how about those big ticket items like an air conditioner, furnace, appliance?! Like I said, just planning for future events/disasters, makes them not look so bad when you don't have to panic and you have the $ safely tucked away. And yes, something bad/unexpected will happen! It's just the question of when??
Oh and I would love to go on a very nice vacation someday! Birgit and her family used loose change that got them to Disneyland! So every little bit counts!
I hope I helped a little bit on this subject or got the ideas flowing for you!
And I just want to commend my real life friend, Julie, on all the financial changes her and her husband are doing. They plan on doing a Dave Ramsey class at the beginning of next year! So way to go, guys!
Just remember: "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." Hebrews 12:11
Until next time! Thanks for visiting! Have a wonderful day!
Kindra