Mispelled words?

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

I totally misspell words, sometimes intentionally for effect, mostly because I speak them incorrectly on purpose. Like rendezvous... i actually pronouce it ren- dez-vooo... cuz thats how I remember how to spell it so I may pronounce it funny and therefore may type it differently that its supposed to be.

;)

my favorite is aporkchop
hahahaha

Money and Dave Ramsey

So I'm on the road to monetary strength. I started with some Suze inspiration and now I've moved along to Dave Ramsey (pictured above). I won't pretend to know or represent their thoughts as you can go to their websites if you'd like but as always.... I will share my thoughts!.


First question: Does anyone know how to search through Blogosphere world and find bloggers devoted to budgeting and Dave Ramsey or that are like 'following his steps'.
I would very much like to connect to a strong community of Bloggies

Second question: I need some real logistical applications here. I can create a debt to income flow chart, I know what I owe and I know I make more.. I know how to set limits and I know how to break them. What I don't know is how to coordinate that with a 'significant other'. I'm not ready for the 'joint account' world, but we definitely want to be saving more and pushing ourselves more and limiting more and the logistics of 'envelope programming' is confusing to me.

Third question: When do you pay off bills and when do you pay above the minimum but use the extra for savings?

Fourth question: Do you put money away for when your car does need to be replaced? What areas are in your budgets and envelopes. Just when I think I have a complete budget I forget about prescriptions or stamps or something stupid.

Okay thats all the questions I have today.

Mostly I need some logistics and 'this pulls from here and this pulls from there and then your rich over a long period of time'

D

10,000 dollars!

Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money to spend. I wish I had it,, if I did these are some things I'd consider doing with it! What would you do!?


If I wanted to buy a 100,000 house in Buffalo (which is totally possible becuz housing prices are different everywhere),,, that would be a 10% deposit right there.. on a house I'd own FOREVER!!!

I could install a hot tub and pool in my backyard if I already had a house.

I could redo my kitchen and get new sink, cabinets and marble countertops (I know this is possible my parents did it!)...ohhh and new floors!!!!

I personally, could probably host a really awesome wedding celebration with all those I care/would want to celebrate with and not feel limited to invite people based on cost.

Okay using "money chimp" If you put that 10k in only once,, and never added a cent more (which would be strange but not impossible... and let it grow until say we were 60 (approximately 30 years).. and did NOTHING to it except let it accrue its interest....
THAT 10k.. would have grossed to about 43,219.42!!!! Now can you imagine the things you could do with 43k when your 60!! That could help you retired, that could let you and your family take a vacation, or maintain health insurance in this particular economy,, or help your children who are older to finance their weddings or their college eduations, or their new homes.. or so many things.

10k... what else?

I could go to Italy for perhaps a few weeks! Maybe more!

I could go to Ireland for perhaps a few weeks! Maybe more!

I could pay my COBRA insurance for 22 months,,, TWO YEARS

I could put a deposit on a condo in Florida so that I could visit Disney anytime I wanted!

I could put it in a savings bond for my kids so they can use it to pay for school or offset their college loans.

I could take my kids to disney! Probably more than once!

I could probably build like 4 schools in Africa or something.

I could refinish the basement of a house to have a playroom for the kids.

I could fly myself and my family members to Ireland so we could ALL go together and see one of our heritage-cultures.

I could donate to the church, synagogue, Red Cross, Cancer Society, Roswell Park.

I could pay for 1/2 of a year of tuition at a SUNY College. Be it for my own child or for one in need.

I could apply to possibly 10 med schools.

I could help a family in need (there are SOOO many right now) to find shelter and support and housing.

I could donate 70,000 (SEVENTY THOUSAND!) pounds of food through the Foodbank of WNY
SEVENTY THOUSAND!!!! Thats about FOUR THOUSAND MEALS..

Four thousand meals for those to survive.

What do you think? What would you do with 10k??
What things are your 'guilty pleasures that you'd like' and what things would you do for charitable organizations if you had that much 'extra' to share.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Pulled PORK!???

So as you may or may not have noticed I've been branching out in my 'food selections'. This weekend I cooked both Enchiladas (the Hungry Girl way,, PS I have to find her blog)... and Pulled Pork. The enchiladas were for K and I to eat and the Pulled Pork was for our potluck dinner! I will be making the enchiladas again (cuz they're delicious!) so I'll show you my attempts when I'm on round two!.

The pulled pork is new for me. Some of you may or may not know this, but I dont eat pig. I think its a filthy animal and other than bacon I have never seen a purpose. Mostly becuz I hate ham, and my grandma was a ham-pusher and every Christmas would force us all to have ham because "Everyone likes ham".

But I went to one of K's family functions and they served pulled pork as the main meal. I was hesitant but hungry so I tried it. HOLY crapola it was delicious. Saucy and meaty and sweet but full flavor. Oh geez!

So I planned when I got my hands on a crock pot that I'd try my hand at this pulled pork-ed-ness.

So here we go.
Step One: Assemble ingredients. Many recipes called for all kinds of extra stuff but I like the 'bare minimum' ingredients.
For this recipe you need:
Pork Tenderloin, A can of root beer, and a bottle (or two) of your fave BBQ sauce. My colleagues recommended Stubs' so that's what I got! You want to buy the pork fresh and not defrost or freeze it.. the freshness makes it easier to pull and taste better (or so I'm told).



Then you take the pork out of its casing and put it in the bottom of the crock pot. Doesnt it look like a weird alien or something?



Then you pour in a whole can of root beer. Some recipes call for ginger ale but it doesnt matter. I think the key is to submerge the pork so it kinda cooks into its own juices.

Set it on low for at least 6 hrs!

Then you dump the juice and pull the pork apart. Literally you take two forks and just shred it. It is so tender it falls apart pretty easily!.



Then you add a whole bottle/jar of BBQ sauce and you stir it up and its pretty much ready to serve. I left the crock pot on low to keep it all congealing and warm for our guests to eat. Put out some hamburger buns and your ready to go!



So its SUPER easy,, not terribly healthy but if you divide the bbq portions out it might not be TOTALLY bad. And its delicious. So set your crockers tonite for something sweet and tasty!

The Taming of the Tannenbaum

Merry SITSMAS!!!

So its that time of year,,time for the Christmas tree (or O Tannenbaum). So every year as a child, we would go out on the day after thanksgiving (long before we knew it as black Friday), and we would run around Gergley's tree farm in NY.We would run in six different directions and try to pick out the perfect tree. I frankly feel nervous at the thought of four kids running amuck without supervision, but perhaps as I grow older and wiser I'll be more calm about such things. We would base our judgments on the 'fullness, height, and color of the tree'. We also would check and make sure there were no 'holes' or big gaps in growth cuz those are hard to fill. It was okay if there were just one hole because then we could put it against the wall, but multiple holes were not good enough. When we all agreed (can you imagine this taking awhile it totally did and its cold!) we would put our name on a tag and label it ours. We'd later come back before Christmas to cut it down, but it was ours. Some years we'd forget where we put the tag, or someone would take our tagged tree and we couldn't find it, but overall we got the tree!

So when we moved upstate, we did the same thing, only now we were starting to go off to college. My mom wanted us to come home for thanksgiving with a tree up so we could be in the holiday spirit for a long time even if we were away. So she'd put up a artificial tree in the living room to look at all day and when we got home we'd do the real tree all together.

This continued and still does.

So now I have my own place with Kevin and we're starting new traditions. I thought it might be a bit much to tackle a real tree in year #1 (but its SO happening next year!) So I was lucky enough to borrow my parents old artificial tree and put that up. I got all the parts together and worked on 'fluffing it' for about a week so that you didn't see any (or many rather) holes or gaps. Then Kevin and I put the lights on and some decorations to make it our own. Because it was my first tree away from the parents I wanted to try a white-light only tree. I can always add color in with the ornaments or in the future with the lights too but as a start,,as a base. So we did.

This weekend we put the lights on and then took them off and then redid them, and then started with ornaments. What you see in the pic above is just lit, w/o ornaments.

I got these cool ornaments from Kohls that actually look like lil Brillo pads of silver that kinda sponge around the lights so they glow. SUPER cool. I hope there are more when I go back later for them! I'll look for some close ups later tonight!

UPDATE: Here are the pics...
(off the tree on the table)


(on the tree not turned on yet)


(pulled back so you can see the pretty silver and red ones too,, can you see where they will be?? prepare for the picture with the lights on!!!!)


BAM!!! (can you see the ones I love amidst the other ones? how they reflect the light in a larger sense and more luscious... so much love!)



So anyway you may say 'whats with the taming alliteration at the beginning'...
Well the tree with its artificial splendor attacks back. When I was putting the lights on and fluffing the branches, it didn't seem to like it very much and cut my hands all up.



You cant even see my arms, but they're ripped up! Scratches and cuts that are not healing easily (grrr). We did most of the decor on Saturday and this pic is from Monday! Two days latter and better but not gone ick!

So I still need to find a tree topper that I like and then both Kevin and I have received some family-owned decorations that were 'ours' when we were kids on our parents tree and we'll put them up later this week. Building traditions is fun,, but sometimes painful don't you think!?

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is one of my most craved food items for YEARS. I used to go to the Yearick house and have them when I was younger, and as I dont live near them anymore (and havent for many years) Each year around Thanksgiving I get the pumpkincraze that cannot be sustained. Until this year.. Due to the technology and status updating of FB, My friend posted she had the recipe and was so gracious as to share it with me. Because my culinary skills are SLOW to develop, I must share the few things I do cook with you in photo-journalistic ways that I've picked up from Shannon and Nicole.

Plus I wanna make you drool and go out and make these asap!

Okay First Assemble the Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup pumpkin
2 cups flour
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Chocolate chips to taste (i used a whole bag last nite)





Cream sugar and butter (apparently this means soften the butter and stir in the sugar until mostly dissolved not granular).
Add egg and vanilla and pumpkin.



Combine all dry ingredients separately (but not the sugar cuz you already used that!)



then add to wet mixture.


Don't forget the Chocolate CHIPS!!!


Drop teaspoonful on cookie sheet.


Bake at 350 until sponge-like. I started at 10 minutes and check them, you want them to be soft on top but spongy enough that your finger wont go through!. After the first few batches I dropped to 8 minutes cuz the cookie tray was hot to start.
They are still soft and mushy today (a full 24 hrs later!)




They are SUPER tasty and I encouraged Kevin to take some to work to share but he said he wants to eat them all and he's kind enough to hide them from me so I dont get to them first! (so cute!).

I hope you make them and enjoy and celebrate the pumpkin season!!!

ALL CREDIT goes to the Yearick Family for sharing their awesomeness with me!:)