How Many Dogs Do You Have?

Aha ... I popped more pills, along with some Gravol, had myself a steamy hot bath, hit the sack and slept the night away.  This morning? just a few remnants left of the migraine which was squashed in no time at all with a couple more Tec 2's.

Despite having a migraine and trying to do my blog post last night, it was still difficult not to find myself being amused when ....

"... my "oh so amusing" Bandit is trying to vie for my attention so hard.  Poor boy needs someone to spend some "quality" let's play ball time with him I am thinking.  Maybe tomorrow .... but Mom !"

My "Crabby Cabbie" never arrived home until the wee hour of 5:00 am. this morning.  Needless to say, I tried to be very quiet around here this morning so he could get himself some very much needed sleep.  I busied myself with tidying up the kitchen, and putting a few more Christmas items away again.  Slowly but surely all evidence of Christmas will be all gone until next Year.

Rob did arise just before the noon hour  We had to stick around a bit as we were expecting someone to drop by just after lunch.  Once the person had arrived and left, we headed off to Owen Sound since we needed to replenish our "Checkerboard Aussie's" food supply.

Rob was pretty happy when he had hit the Dog Food aisle in Walmart to find their had been a "blow out" sale on our brand of Dog Food !  $26.00 a bag, rather then 29.00 or 30.00 usual price.  We stocked up on our usual with trying a different brand with Salmon for Bandit ... ewww hoping the transition isn't going to stink knock me out of the house !

There had been quite a bit of line up in the checkouts.  We had been in-between two cashiers at the time with Rob commenting to me that one kept glancing over at our cart all the while.  Finally the one we had been standing beside asked how many dogs we had, with the other following suit by asking the same question not too long after ....

"Should you not know, by looking at this would you be asking, "How Many Dogs Do You Have?  Ha ... with four dogs we have to take advantage of any savings we are able to grab and stock up on.  Just wait until the puppies arrive in February."

"I have been mulling over the Low/No Spend and Decluttering Challenge I have signed on for the month of January over at Carla's My 1/2 Dozen Daily the past couple of days."

The one very very very huge goal I have in mind is the part of the basement where I dogs are, and then onto the "OH MY GAWD I don't want to go in there" bathroom Rob uses and abuses, along with the bottom area of the stairs with tons of coats, etc ....  This in itself is going to be very time consuming for me on top of trying to keep up with the regular every day stuff I do in piece work when I am feeling well enough to.

The following is what I am going to try and attempt to do, when and if I am able:

Declutter Challenge:

1)  Declutter and clean the whole portion of the basement where the dogs reside;

2)  Declutter and clean the downstairs bathroom;

3)  Declutter and clean the bottom stair area;

4)  Declutter and clean the kitchen cupboards.

Trust me there is more to do, but I have to begin somewhere, and this is enough at the moment.

Low/No Spend Challenge:

1)  Spend absolutely no money at the grocery store, making an exception for milk and bread;

2)  Having 6 out of 7 "no spend" days per week;

3)  No eating out for the month, with the one exception outlined below (good thing we had King's Buffet today, is it not?);

Exceptions for the Month will be any regular monthly bills, vehicle fuel consumption and/or maintenance, Prescription or over the counter drugs (as last year I had pneumonia when the challenge had been on which incurred unforeseen expenses),  and any unexpected "emergency" family expenses/costs, as we all know "FAMILY COMES FIRST OVER ANYTHING" !

Another quite large exception will also be that we have had a pre-planned trip to the City in January for a once a Year shop at Costco, and a meeting we have to attend to.  This trip will also be costing us the expense of a lunch out as well.  This will be the one and only "spending" exception in January as the last time Rob and I were at a Costco had been 2 years ago.  Purchases will hopefully be on a "need" only, more then a "want" basis.  The amount spent this day will not be included in the Low/No Spend January Challenge.

There I hope I have covered that.  Now I can sit back and enjoy the next couple of days before the "crunch" of the Challenge begins.  There is still time to join up, just drop on over and sign yourself up HERE.

My youngest boy, Paul, used to play hockey when he was younger.  I was very happy to had been sent a photo last night to see he had gotten himself a pair of skates to go down to the outside rink in front of the Kitchener City Hall to enjoy some recreational skating.

".... and I had even been send a photo proving that he really had done so.  Wow it only seems like Yesterday I had him at Waterloo's Rink in the Park at 4 years old learning to skate with a chair in front of him.  *sigh* "

While skimming through the news feed page on Facebook this morning, I came across something that I thought was a totally "excellent" idea someone "out there" had posted.  Check out this very idea...

What do you think? is this not a "wicked" great idea to do throughout the year?  and a great idea for a single person, couple, or a family.  I think I might just "do" this one myself, what do you think?

"Should anyone have noticed in the side bar under "Join this site", I have some new friends there again.  Whoopee as I do LOVE me some new friends, as well as all my old friends."

A warm welcome to Jaime at Love Bakes Good Cakes, Kathy at Live on Lakeshore Drive, Hilary at Threaded Life, and Anne at Domesblissity.  Such a pleasure to have you ladies join me here for my everyday this and thats, along with my "odd" I need to vent my opinion and get my point across days.  I too look forward to dropping in on each and every one of you as well.

Not quite, but as my dear hubby just pointed out Yesterday I have almost had myself 100,000 page views to date.  Maybe, just maybe by the New Year ... ha, as if that is something I would really deem important to worry myself about?  NOT !

Really can you believe the Year 2013 is only but hours away from us now?  Oh where or where does my time get dwindled away to ..... "Just North of Wiarton & South of the Checkerboard".