No Whining Allowed

Labor Day is over. And in Michigan, that means BACK TO SCHOOL!

Only for Mousey, as the older ones started college 2 weeks ago. Hard to believe we have only one child left at the high school. Honey and I are flying towards the empty nest. That makes me sad.

We had a disjointed holiday weekend. We had big plans to start wrecking our landscaping, why should the sewer people have all the fun? We did have a fun get together with folks from our CareGroup on Saturday. We probably chose Saturday so we would have more uninterrupted time to move rocks.

But because people chose to sleep, and do other things that had nothing to do with moving tons of rocks, that operation did not occur until Monday afternoon, around 3. Honey, The Boy, Mousey and I worked steadily until about 5:30, when the floodgates of heaven opened on us and curtailed all the rock hauling. So clearly, 2 and 1/2 hours of hard labor on Labor Day Weekend was all we could possibly manage.

Even though that seems measly, I just now took a back pill to ward off the muscle spasms that I feel coming on. It would appear that I am no pioneer OR, demolition landscaper.

I spent the rest of my free time reading back postings of a blog that I didn’t know existed! I already read Bye Bye Pie regularly, love that June. But NOW, I  discover that she had a previous blog, Bye Bye Buy, that had been unknown to me until this very weekend! Buried like a treasure, a pirate’s booty of of hilarious gems!

Oh, I have to tell you how much I enjoyed reading this! The premise of the blog was to share, in great detail, about June and her husband Marvin’s decision to not spend any money over and above their allocated expenses.

Now, this subject interests me for several reasons. I once saw a woman on a morning news show who wrote a book about this very subject. I would tell you her name, if I could remember it, and the title, if I had a stinkin’ clue. But that information is just plain Bye Bye Bye. Complete with hand motions like N’sync.  Anyway, I checked this book out at the library and thoroughly enjoyed it. Except for her tendency to go on about her liberal political agenda, which I can’t even remember, so she made no convert here.

I really liked the way she thought about spending, and not spending. It made me think about the way I spent. Or shouldn’t spend. No hard core changes, but it made me think.

Another thing that  fascinates me on this subject. How people save money. As you KNOW, I am a devotee of The Little House Books, and their simple life has always been a source of curiosity and admiration. I also received “The Tightwad Gazette” newsletter for several years. That Amy Dacyczyn, aka The Frugal Zealot, she is a wealth of information on saving money. A good deal of it I would never do, but it is interesting to read her thought process. And I have to say, she is a very engaging writer. Oh, I was SO sad when she retired and stopped writing that newsletter. It was like losing a friend. I wish she would take up blogging.

OK, so I have established that I like to THINK about saving money. Honey is laughing his patootie off somewhere reading this.

Back to June. June Gardens, not the month. I have only read through September of her year of living without spending, but I have learned a LOT. Mostly about June and Marvin, but, hey, that’s just a bonus!  Once again, it has gotten me to think about how we can cut back, and why we spend on some of the things we do. All good information, since we are participating in the Ford Fiasco Family Budget and all.

So, even though there was not a ton of hard labor going on, it was a very productive weekend. In my mind.

What about you Guy’s? How was your weekend?