Day	Amount	Place	Category
Tuesday	$66.00	Diablo 3	Allowance
Wednesday	$192.00	Amazon.com	House
Friday	$35.00	outback	Eating Out
Saturday	$15.00	mattress recycle	House
	$30.50	buffalo wild wings	Eating Out
	$54.00	Gas	Car
Sunday	$53.00	Gas	Car
	$63.00	Target	House
	$44.00	Lowes	House

I actually felt really in control this week. I didn’t spend any money Monday-Thursday. C bought Diablo 3, but that was planned, and he’s the one that placed our Amazon order on Wednesday. The main thing we’re getting is a locking cabinet, that’s nice looking, to put our vitamins and medications and a few other things in that will make it so that we meet foster licensing requirements and free up room in our kitchen.

Friday we were feeling lazy and decided to go out to Outback for dinner. We sat in the section where they were experimenting with having patrons use tablets to order food. It was cool, and the food came really fast, but it actually came too fast. We got our salads. When we were less than half way done with our salads, our appetizer came out. We finished the salad, had maybe one bite of our appetizer, and the entrée was out. Not good. They need to work on spacing courses better. But, we were in and out in less than half an hour, which isn’t bad.

Saturday we got up with a plan, and then changed it not quite half way through the day. We realized we didn’t have a full dump run, and decided that we should take the mattress and a few other things we had for my cousin to Portland. So, we recycled one old mattress, some e-waste, Styrofoam, and dropped an exercise bike off at Value Village, then headed out.

Of course, we had to make a stop first, for a big event C’s school was doing. I got to meet a number of his classmates, so that was cool, but we weren’t really on the road to Portland until after 3:30pm. We took my cousin out to dinner, and made it home at midnight. We borrowed J’s truck for driving the stuff down there, so filled his gas tank in the way home.

This morning started with critique, then gas for our car. The B99 we use has gone up to $4.29/gallon, but that’s still not bad.

Otherwise, we did some work in the basement (it’s really close to being done), and then I went to Target and Lowes to pick up a few things.

I have six goals for 2012. As part of the Sunday evening posts, I am tracking those goals, kind of like I do for spending, in order to hold myself accountable.

1)      Be paid for publishing one piece of fiction

Submissions so far: 2

Responses: 1 rejection 1 acceptance

I have the galleys for the piece I had accepted sitting in my inbox. I need to review and make sure there are not mistakes, and then I also need to read the other entries and vote for a “Contributor’s Favorite”. I’m actually really excited about this, and you can bet you will all know when the anthology is published.

There’s a new post up over at The Prose Passage, about the value in having a writers’ retreat.

2)      Make money publishing my next art/fiction book

This is on hold for now. However, I did have a chance to talk with the artist I want to work with on Friday, and her life has settled down, so there’s a good chance we can start work on this sometime in June. (When my life settles down a bit.)

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

I’m in the negatives allowance wise.

Plane ticket prices have gone up, so right now, with credit card points, it would cost about $50 out of pocket for me to buy my ticket to FonCon. However, we’re still putting quite a bit on the card each month, and I don’t expect prices will go up much from where they are, and might even go back down again. (Sweet spot for prices out of Seattle tends to be around 4-6 weeks before the flight.) So for now, I’m still holding off on booking the plane ticket.

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

I plan to be a member of Epsilon class when the application goes up in August. I do need to make sure I’m still connecting with new challengers, though, because a lot of the challengers on my list this last time will be Yakezie Delta class members.

In order to develop relationships with new challengers, I have decided that each edition of What I’m Reading on Saturdays will now include a new challenger.

5)      Make money from my blogs.

AdSense earnings: $21.94 (They won’t send me any money until I hit $100.) Views on this blog (and all my blogs) have been going down lately, and I know that’s because I haven’t been as active on twitter or commenting in the last few months. As I pick up my activity I expect activity here will pick up and my AdSense income will pick up, at least a few cents or so.

6)      Be healthier

Thursday I had my ultrasound assisted biopsy of my thyroid nodules. Let me just say that being poked in the neck 6 times (2 lidocaine shots, and then the gathering of 2 samples from each nodule) leaves you feeling like you’ve been bitten by a vampire (or so I would imagine). However, the tests came back and, as expected, everything is benign.

We went to the dog park on Wednesday and Friday.

We had mango curry this week, pork and bell pepper, and turkey chili. Overall, food has been reasonably healthy.

I’ve been drinking more water at work, too, which is good.