Happy Holidays and New Year's Goals

 

   I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is about to have a very Happy New Year!  We had a lovely Christmas Eve day brunch with Rachel's mother and the rest of our family. We did it potluck style and had crepes with both sweet and savory fillings, sausages, fresh pineapples and both homemade huckleberry and strawberry fillings for the crepes.  It was wonderful to spend that time with our kids, grandkids and Rachel's mother who came up to spend Christmas with Jaysn, Rachel and Steven.  She has had some health challenges and I think this meant a lot to her, as it did for us!  Does that mean that Christmas is over?  Nope, we like to stretch things out around here so we are doing our family Christmas on New Year's Day in the late afternoon.  We will be doing an appetizer dinner and the sliced apples with sauces and topping again like we did for Thanksgiving.  Everyone loved that so much and asked to do it again!

   

   Jeff and I spent a quiet day at home on Christmas.  I made us a very nice Christmas dinner with ham, loaded potato casserole and green bean casserole.  All of these things are huge favorites of Jeff's and I really like them too.   Plus, I love the leftover ham!  Jeff spoiled me with a collapsible bucket cart that I can haul around the chairs, drinks, food and blankets that we will be using this Spring when Bradley and Isaiah are both playing on different baseball teams.  I got him a gift card to the bowling alley and a bag full of some of his favorite treats.

        Jeff had been hit with some kind of virus hard the day before and was still a bit weak on Friday morning, so he took both days off.  He was feeling better in the afternoon, so we ran into town.  Our first stop was at our Credit Union where we paid off our personal loan and our credit card in full!!!  Yes we did!  We still had more money left after paying those off with the retirement payoff for Jeff that we had been waiting for.  That got put away in savings.  Our teller was our hanai daughter Tiffany and she was so excited for us!  We shared hugs and got caught up on each other's lives.  On our way out, we ran into another one of our hanai kids and she got us caught up on what has been going on in her family too. :)  Such fun!

  

   Our following stops were to Walmart where we hit the after Christmas sales, got some things for the cars, a Seal a Meal for me to use to help preserve our food better and protect it from freezer burn and picked up a few grocery items including another marked down ham, some marked down salad kits and some marked down bakery items.  Safeway was another stop where I cherry picked the deals.  Our last stop was at the thrift store where all Christmas items were 75% off.  I found a few Christmas items and also got some books and magazines since it was B1G1F.  My very lucky finds there though were a Bodin Coffee Press for $2.99 and some gorgeous Haviland dessert plates for .69 each.  I was also able to finish off my gift baskets for the kids and grandkids here.

   Jeff and I spent this morning going over our budget and setting some goals for a no spend January (other than necessities) and some for the year.  Our January goals start with trying to get more organized by cleaning out our clothing closets and taking things to a local consignment store, along with some baby items that we have had here for the grandkids who have now outgrown or don't need then anymore.  Anything they do not take will be donated and will not be returning home with us. 😁  We also want to get the windshield replaced on Jeff's car.  It has horrible cracks running through it.  Our third goal is to get everything set up and in place so Jeff can semi retire and only work 3 days a week and also start drawing his Social Security.  The last goal is the most exciting one for us!

   Some of our yearlong goals include paying off our last debt (a loan taken out against my life insurance policy to pay for a surgery years ago for me), putting money away each month in a vacation fund and building up our emergency fund.  Jeff would also like to clean out the garage and reclaim that space so he can work on projects in there.  It will officially become his Man Cave. We also have a plan in place to pick one bigger thing each month to either fix, replace or add to our lives.  These are tangible assets like tools, vehicle repairs, etc..  

   As I close this out, I have the ham bone from the first ham cooking away in the crockpot with all the rest of the split pea soup ingredients.  It smells so comfy cozy in our home.  The new sheets that I bought 2 years ago on sale and put back are all washed up and ready to go on the bed.  The older sheets will be used for projects and in the garden to help protect tender plants.  Jeff hung up some family pictures for me and got the floors swept.  The next few days will be spent cooking and putting the second ham in the freezer and also freezing the ham bone for a future big batch of soup.  We will also spend our family Christmas together, something that I am really looking forward to.  Be blessed my friends, and stay prayed up and prepared for what looks like a rather rocky road ahead.