Day	Amount	Place	Category
Monday	$9.00	dominoes	allowance
Wednesday	$6.00	parking	car
Thursday	$56.25	CostCo	groceries
	$21.75	Trader Joes	groceries
	$50.25	Fred Meyer	groceries
Friday	$8.00	Safeway	groceries
Saturday	$10.75	Movie	allowance
Sunday	$40.00	Gas	car

Wednesday, we went and saw the King Tut exhibit. Our Living Social deal for it had been expensive, but for some reason, I hadn’t thought that much about it. Well, the reason it was so expensive was that it came with a free copy of a $45 coffee table book “catalogue” of the exhibit. Which is pretty cool. At the gift shop at the end, there was some very pretty jewelry, though nothing I seriously considered. And then, for considerably less than the jewelry, were these really great statues that we looked at and pondered where we’d put them in the house. They were very cool (to anthropology/history geeks like us), but the truth is, we didn’t really consider them either. We have more than enough stuff.

Thursday, we did most of our Christmas dinner shopping, including grabbing a rib roast. I still haven’t actually bought any Christmas gifts. I’ll need to figure something out this week.

Other than that, it was a quiet week, which was good, because this next week is going to be anything but. Wednesday especially will be busy as I’ll have my department Christmas party, then we’ll go out to dinner, and finally see Pentatonix in concert. I’m hoping it won’t all be Christmas music, but I love them enough that I’ll survive either way. Then on Thursday my mom flies in, and Friday is my birthday/end of the world dinner.

 

We are almost done with 2012. I revised some of my goals because life took some turns I wasn’t quite planning on when I came up with them.

1)      Be paid for publishing one piece of fiction

Submissions so far: 4

Responses: 2 rejections 1 acceptance, 1 pending (will know Christmas week)

I have one more that I’m planning on getting submitted this month, I just need someone to give it a final read through first.

The anthology I had a piece accepted to is now available to buy on Amazon. It’s called Conquest Through Determination.

2)      Pay All Adoption Expenses in Cash & Still Pay for C’s College Out of Pocket

We’re doing good here. This was helped tremendously by getting 3x as much in life insurance from the MIL than expected. Our savings is still growing, and we’re in really good shape.

The background check was sent back by the state of Nevada at the beginning of November, but no one connected it to our application. It wasn’t until I did some digging two weeks ago that Washington realized they had it. And now they’re saying they need some more paperwork. I wish they could have told us that from the beginning since it’s not like we didn’t tell them exactly what the background check would find. I now figure we’ll be lucky to have our license by the end of the year January.

3)      Attend FinCon12. Pay for the trip with money from allowance/side projects saved/earned BEFORE the conference starts. Goal: $600

FinCon was awesome. Not all of the money came from allowance/side projects, but it was still easily affordable, so I’m calling this a win.

4)      Become a member of Yakezie (6 month anniversary is Jan 21)

I am not certain this is still the right goal for me to be going after. I love what the Yakezie network stands for, but I don’t care that much about getting my Alexa under 200k. It’s pretty stable around the 275k mark. Maybe I can convince Sam to create a Friend of Yakezie badge/category, for those of us who don’t feel like being permanent challengers.

Anyway, it’s something I’m pondering.

Current ranking: 251,048

5)      Make money from my blogs.

AdSense earnings: $30.56 at the end of November, with $0.25 made so far this month. (They won’t send me any money until I hit $100.)

Amazon earnings: $0.00

One of the things that FinCon really brought home for me is that I’m not actually in this for the money. For now, I’m leaving the AdSense blocks up, but they’re getting moved further down the page. I’ll keep tracking, but making money isn’t why I blog.

6)      Be healthier

I walked most days this week and got all of my bike riding in. I have a plan to get all my bike riding in next week and the week of Christmas. I’m still on track with my weight loss, and I am feeling good and liking the changes I’m seeing in the mirror (less double chin).

 

And if you have a dog, don’t forget to enter my giveaway for a Safe Glow LED collar

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