Good, Good Father

Ian has come such a long way. He used to be too shy to even come up on stage and sing with a choir, and now he is brave enough to sing a solo. This morning (in both services) he had a very brief solo at the start of the song. Here's a link to the second service (quality isn't as good as it's from my cell phone because I didn't have enough memory on my memory card to use the video camera in both services), and I embedded the video from the first service below (which was taken with the video camera but the memory card became full before the end of the song). Ian's solo is in the first 15 seconds of the video. Oliver hasn't gone to the rehearsals the last few weeks. He surprised me when he said he wanted to sing on stage this morning, and he said he wanted to go to the rehearsal today, but then when he saw Pop Pop was in the sanctuary in the second service he opted to stay in the service with him rather than attend the rehearsal. I also checked with one of the directors of the choir, and she said to keep sending him. I thought maybe he was a behavior problem. So I guess

we'll keep sending him whenever his grandparents aren't in the sanctuary. The choir takes a break during the summer. They'll be singing in the services once in April and once in May, and then they're doing a musical on a Sunday evening in May.

My Sunday School teacher is on a mission trip in Panama. He left last Sunday. Two weeks ago he asked for a volunteer to substitute, as the many who usually fills in when he's away wasn't available this time. No one volunteered. When he asked ago last Sunday and no one was volunteering again, I went up to him at the end of class and volunteered. I enjoyed leading our discussion of Matthew 18 and Luke 15 today.

Ian attended a birthday party today after church, which is the reason he's not in these photos. He was at Bloom Bounce while I was taking photos of his siblings at home. The boys wore the snowmen tie I got them yesterday, and in one photo Oliver is wearing the penguin sweater I got for each of the kids. My version of the sweater doesn't have the penguin on it.

Paul's mom wasn't able to come up because she had some skin cancer removed from her nose a few days ago. We are praying it will heal properly. She has to return in April to have some skin cancer removed from her forehead. I am glad I can see the videos since she couldn't be there. Paul usually goes to the first service, but he was planning to go to the second service today before taking Ian to the birthday party. Unfortunately I had his keys in my purse because of my trip to the grocery store and CVS last night, and we have always only had one key for the Prius. We have three keys for the van. Thankfully one of our neighbors was at the first service so she was able to deliver the key to Paul, but it meant he was late for the second service, and the kids always sing at the very start of the service so he missed out on seeing them sing also. I felt really badly about the fact I had his key in my purse. It's so easy to do with a hybrid because you don't actually handle the key while driving. Whenever we replace his vehicle, I will look forward to having at least two keys again!

Mommy Daughter Day

On January 31 I purchased two tickets to see Beauty and the Beast on March 18. Yesterday I thought our plans might be in jeopardy because of the weather forecast for snow then ice and freezing rain, but thankfully we didn't get anywhere near as much snow as they had predicted and it went right from snow to rain. The boys were also thankful as they were disappointed when we told them that they might not be going to Grandma and Pop Pop's house after all. Paul didn't get home until about 9pm last night (16 hours after he had left for work) because he thought he wouldn't be able to go to work today, but when I peeked out the window at 7:00am, I told him I thought the roads looked fine. So he took the boys to his parents house on his way to work. Nadia and I had a little time at home, and we used part of that for painting my fingernails and her fingernails. I had contemplated having our nails done at the mall. It would be the first time for her, and it would have been my first time in at least seven years, but I felt that was too much of a splurge. It's much cheaper to paint our twenty fingernails myself. At some point I will pay for her to have a professional manicure. We left the house around 10:00 and got home at 4:00. During that time span we shopped at Shoe Dept, JcPenney, Gymboree, Macy's, and Hallmark. I had also hoped to stop at Jo-Ann Fabric to get fabric for the guinea pigs' cage, but it turns out there is a Michaels and A.C. Moore, but we would have had to travel a little bit farther for Jo-Ann. I also got my haircut for the first time since the end of November. I had to try a new hairstylist which was disappointing after going to the same one for awhile. Hopefully I'll like what she did today. While we were shopping Sears was rotating our tires. We also used a gift card to buy a foot long sub to share at Subway. We were in the mall for about two hours. That was an extremely rare treat for me. It is pure unadulterated torture to shop with Oliver at the mall so I try to go there as little as possible and get in and out as quickly as possible when I do go. Two hours was more than Nadia wanted to spend, but she did fine even though she would have preferred our shopping have ended sooner than it did.

During our shopping spree I got myself a pair of sneakers, Star Wars wrapping paper (for the birthday party tomorrow and also for gifts for Ian in the future), and a pair of pants for myself at JcP for $9.99 (after using a $10 off coupon). I shopped the clearance rack at Gymboree. They were taking an additional 50% off the lowest ticketed price, and then I had a coupon for another 25% off. So I got Nadia a pink cardigan sweater, a short sleeve shirt, a long sleeve dress, and two matching snowman neckties for the boys for a total of $21.70. The best bargains of the day were at Macy's. I didn't realize the store is closing in two days. I should have shopped their earlier in the week as they didn't have much left, and also we didn't have much time left by the time we got there, and I didn't want to be late for the movie. Everything was marked down at least 80%. The Christmas sweaters were marked down to $1 (originally $34-50 each). They had the same sweater available in kids', women's, and men's sizes. I bought four sweaters at first. They didn't have any in size 5 or 6, but I got a 4T (hoping it will still fit Oliver next year), 7/8 (for Ian), 10/12 (for Nadia), and one for myself. I have never seen Paul wear a sweater in the 20 years I've known him so I didn't consider buying him one. And then during the movie I regretted that decision so after the movie was over we made a quick stop in but what had been four racks of those sweaters was down to half of one rack. During the 3 hours since we left the store most of them had been purchased. There weren't any men's sweaters left in Paul's size. I had decided for $1 I figured he could wear it for a picture and then I could give it away. I did buy one more sweater in size 7/8 though in case the 4T is too small for Oliver. I think it's going to be a cute picture in the future! You can't beat five brand new sweaters for $5 total.

The saddest part of our outing was finding out that the JcPenney store is closing in June. It's my favorite department store by far. The Payless shoe store is also closing. Aside from getting work done on the vehicles at Sears, I can't see what will draw me to that mall in the future. I asked at Sears if they were closing also, and they said no, which was a relief because of the fact it's free to get the tires rotated there on our vehicles as we bought our tires there. I know Sears has been closing other stores so I figured there was a chance this one was going also. There are four department stores in that mall right now, but in two days they'll be down to three and by June down to two. Are shopping malls going to be a thing of the past? I love shopping online, but some things I really like to try on first. For example the sneakers. The pair I have been wearing the last couple of years are size 8.5, but in a different brand I needed a size 9. How would I know which size to buy if buying them online? I also stopped in two jewelry stores as I am still trying to find a reasonably priced setting for the diamond that I like. Unfortunately the one I fell in love with a couple of months ago costs more than I was hoping to spend. Decisions, decisions....

Then we went to see Beauty and the Beast. It was Nadia's second time ever in her life to be in a theatre when they were showing a movie that was newly released. I've taken them in the summer to see ones for $1 that are already on DVD, but her first time seeing a new release was in December when Grandpa bought tickets for Moana. This was the first time I bought her a ticket for a new release movie. I paid less than $5 total for our two tickets so it wasn't a splurge, but honestly it would have been worth paying even more than that. It was outstanding. People erupted in applause at the end of the movie. At one point I wasn't sure if I should use the tickets when I saw there was some controversy about the movie, but I didn't find it objectionable in the least. Nadia snuggled with me during the movie, and I admit I was in seventh heaven. Thank you, Lord for giving me this girl 8.75 years ago! It's scary to think she's almost half-way done with the 18 years of her life that she will live with us. I realize it could be longer depending on what happens when she graduates, but she could be leaving the nest in nine years so I need to savor every moment!

St. Patrick's Day was a very special day for my sister as she gave birth to her eighth child last night. She has given birth twice on that day because her son, Joshua, turned 10 yesterday. Their son (pictured above) is named Wesley Jayden. We are thrilled for them and will look forward to meeting him in person this summer.

Nadia and Ian went to the Upward basketball closing program this evening. Paul took them. Oliver didn't want to go, so I stayed home with him. I did take him to CVS and the grocery store part of the time. At CVS we got 10 boxes of cereal plus 2 bottles of laundry detergent for less than $6. I sure hope CVS isn't in jeopardy of closing or my couponing days may be over.

Wearing green!

Well some years I have done things like have the kids make sugar cookies decorated to look like Irish flags or serve beef stew and Irish soda bread for dinner, but all we did today was wear green clothes. Last year it was warm on March 17, and we were all wearing short sleeves. Although we wore short sleeves a little in February this year, we have definitely been back to warm clothes with the snow outside. It did get warmer today, and a temp of 41 actually felt balmy to us, ha ha! We're supposed to get more snow tonight, and yet in just a few days it will be spring! I haven't started the switch over yet with the kids' clothes. At some point I'll take out some of the winter clothes to make room for some short sleeve shirts, and then eventually over time we'll completely switch out to the summer clothes. Ian has finally grown tall enough to wear size 6 pants. I moved his size 5 pants to Oliver's closet this week. I was starting to get worried that both boys would be in size five pants at the same time. Whew. Nadia's only long sleeve green shirt was a Christmas shirt, so she wore a white turtleneck under a short sleeve green shirt.

Oliver was in no mood to have his picture taken when I tried to get a pic of all three kids together, so I just took one of Nadia and Ian, and then later I had the idea of asking Nadia to take a picture of Oliver and I. Although I'm not crazy about most pictures of myself, I know I need to get in the frame more often. I have a remote and tripod I've never used (oops!), and I also think I can download an app on my phone which would communicate with my camera and act as a remote as well. So I have no excuse. I must give that a whirl sometime this year. It could also come in handy for taking a family photo. We haven't had one of those taken since May 2015.

The kids were glad that they had gym class today. The kids program we planned to attend at church tonight was cancelled. We went to the library and also to Walmart. The two main things on my list were a birthday gift for a boy on Ian's basketball team (because Ian's going to his party on Sunday afternoon) and to get myself some new sunglasses because mine broke a few weeks ago.

 When I go into Walmart I usually stock up on a few food items that are cheaper there than at the grocery store such as oatmeal and sandwich crackers, but as I walked through the store we passed a few clearance racks that caught my eye, and I ended up spending a lot more money than I planned by buying my boys a few things plus a bunch for the Towfighis for future birthday and Christmas gifts for them. As an example, I got Ian a Lego Star Wars pair of pajamas (long sleeve shirt and pants) for $3 which was really marked down compared to the original price. There are times I manage to go into Walmart and only come out with one small thing, but today is more the norm where I end up spending at least $100. Thankfully I don't go in the store that often. Ian was wishing he hadn't ordered a Lego set on Amazon last night because they had it at Walmart, but he'll just have to wait three more days for Amazon to deliver it. He spends all his money on either stuffed animals or Legos. Nadia spends all her money on either apps for the iPad or food. Today she bought a package of gum at Walmart.

Oliver rarely gets money, but he spends his on food. He was wishing he had some money today as he wanted to buy something to eat at the Well while he was playing in the play land. He tried to convince me that I owed him money for when he helped me clean earlier this week. I didn't give him any, but it did make me realize he grasps the concept that sometimes I give his siblings money for doing housework above and beyond their usual chores. Speaking of which, soon I will need to start giving Oliver some chores. Thus far he does three things - help clean up toys, clear his dishes from the table after each meal, and put away his socks and underwear when I am putting away the rest of his clean laundry.

Nadia named this snowman Susie. We even gave her earrings made of leaves.

Cabin Fever

Paul went to work on Monday, but the kids and I were at home all day that day since Nadia's softball practice was cancelled. Although we spent a fair amount of time outside yesterday, we didn't leave our property. The plow did come through last night, and although the schools all around here were closed again today, when I found out AWANA was cancelled for this evening, I decided we should take a short drive to the library and go out to dinner. Nadia in particular prefers to get out and about most days. We got 16 inches, but some people less than 30 minutes from our house got more than 30 inches. It has gone down as one of the three worst winter storms in March in our area in over 100 years. There was a lot of drifting from the heavy winds, and the snowplow had blocked in our driveway so Paul and I did some more shoveling today. I actually enjoy shoveling the snow. I certainly can use the exercise! Paul didn't go in to work again today because there wasn't room for his vehicle on the property yet. His brother was working on digging out the plant. Paul plans to go in early tomorrow morning. The kids certainly enjoyed playing with Daddy in the snow two days in a row!

Lately when we've been using gift cards for restaurants it's just been the kids and I. Today all five of us ate at Applebee's. The kids' meals are each $2.99 on Wednesdays (which is $2 less than normal) so that was nice, and Paul and I ordered off the 2 for $20 menu which includes 2 entrees and an appetizer. Still we never would have eaten there without a gift card. The kids and I don't have any plans to go anywhere tomorrow, which again makes me think it was a good idea we went somewhere today. I assume by Friday everything will be back to normal and they'll have gym class in the morning, etc.

Staying home all day will certainly not be happening once the soccer and softball seasons get started because Oliver's practices are on M/W from 5:30-6:30, Ian's are on T/Th from 5:30-6:30, and Nadia's are on M/T/Th from 5:00-6:00. In other words I'll be at the soccer fields five days a week (including the games on Saturdays), and on M/T/Th I'll be bouncing back and forth as the locations of the softball and soccer fields are about a 10 minute drive apart. I'll have to drop Nadia off, then drive to the soccer field and drop Ian (or Oliver) off, then go back to get Nadia from softball, and then go back to the soccer field to get Ian (or Oliver). Basketball season is definitely easier in terms of chauffeuring since they each only have one practice a week. We shall see when these seasons actually get started as we certainly aren't playing soccer or softball with 16 inches of snow on the ground!

One thing we accomplished today (aside from school work and house work) was that Ian selected another child to sponsor since Compassion can't work in India any more. Tomorrow I need to write our final letter to Manu. My eyes welled up with tears every time I went to do so today. Goodbyes are not very fun. I have to trust God to meet Manu's needs even though he lives in a very impoverished area of the world. Nadia loved picking a child that had her same birthdate. There were many (more than 100) boys looking for sponsors who had 12/12 birthdays, and several were even born on 12/12/09, but Ian was most interested in picking as young as possible. So I just searched for boys born in 2016, and there were about 20 toddlers for Ian to pick between. He selected Morgan Muriiki, who lives in Kenya and turned one on March 8. Personally I enjoy picking a child a little bit older so we can communicate directly with the child (through a translator), but Ian really wanted a baby. I pray that we will be a blessing to Morgan and his family in the years to come!

Winter storm Stella!

I was thinking I'd be writing a "Thankful Tuesday" post today. I will still included a gratitude list below, but today we got the most snow we've gotten in one day in many years. I remember being in Maryland when my mom was in the hospital last year when they got more than two feet of snow in Maryland, but we rarely get that much snow even though we live farther north. Paul's parents typically get more snow than we do. They live about an hour south of us, but they live at a higher elevation. I told Paul yesterday that I thought he should either spend the night at his parents and not come home until Wednesday evening or plan on taking a snow day today. He opted to take a snow day since he won't see us for a week next month when the kids and I are planning to travel to Chicago when my sister's kids are on spring break from school. It is a rare treat to eat three meals in one day with Daddy! I made lasagna for dinner, which is one of Paul's favorite meals. I also baked two batches of cookies, one of which was Heath, which is one of Paul's top three favorite cookies.

I am always torn as to whether to take the day off of school when all the schools have a snow day. I decided to compromise and do a sort of half-day of school. We did math, reading, Bible, science, spelling, and social studies. We skipped the rest. Also, we usually do almost all of it before lunch, but today we spent a lot of time in the snow in the morning and finished our school work after lunch. Daddy did part of their science and all of their social studies with them today. Oliver usually sits on my lap when I am reading Nadia and Ian books from the library for social studies or science. I was particularly amazed when he sat through me reading a biography about Alexander the Great that was over 100 pages long. Now if I could get him to be more interested in learning to identify his numbers, what sounds each letter makes, etc. He sure does love to cook though!

1. The Frog and Toad show we saw at Bucknell last Tuesday was excellent!

2. We enjoyed learning about Mars at the Children's Museum on Wednesday morning. Nadia enjoyed making a Mars rover out of pasta, and Ian and Oliver enjoyed the space themed toys and kinetic sand.

3. I appreciated being able to carpool with another mom for getting Nadia to and from Camp Susque on Thursday for her standardized test.

4. Paul went into work really early (got up at 2:45AM) so that he could join us at the ice skating party on Thursday evening. Nadia really wanted him to come. We all enjoyed the pizza and other goodies and ice skating!

5. Grandma and Pop Pop were able to see Nadia and Ian's last basketball game on Saturday.

6. Nadia and I really enjoyed seeing a production of The Sound of Music on Sunday afternoon.

7. Ian is waking up a lot later since the time change. Hoping this lasts!

8. Nadia has been choosing to read missionary biographies that are at a reading level and 200 pages long. This thrills my heart for several reasons; so I ordered 15 more yesterday. I will read them aloud over the next few years, and Nadia can also read them to herself. I enjoy these books as well.

9. Oliver doesn't always want to be hugged or kissed (whereas his siblings never turn those down), but I'm very thankful he still loves to sit on my lap (such as when they're watching Superbook on the tv) and he also still loves to hold hands. He has been a big hand holder since he was in the NICU.

10. I sold Nadia's bike on Friday morning for $50. It was a birthday gift from my parents to Nadia in 2014. Over the past eight months I have been feeling very sentimentally attached to gifts from my parents because of my mom's passing. In that sense I wanted to hold onto it, but we had six bikes in the garage, and that was too many. Nadia is now riding Ian's new bike, which is a little too big for him just yet because her new bike is just a little too big for her just yet. So once Ian and Nadia graduate to their new bikes, I will be selling Ian's old bike because Oliver has one the same size so there's no need to save that one for Oliver. Then we'll be back down to four bikes, which is a good thing considering our garage is pretty packed. The mom I sold it to was giving it to her daughter for her birthday. Hopefully she'll get as much enjoyment out of it as Nadia did the past 2.5 years.

11. I am enjoying learning more about photography. A well known photographer gave me some feedback regarding how to improve my pictures of the kids playing basketball. Unfortunately I got the advice the day after their last game, but I hope to put it to good use in the future! On Sunday during lunch I noticed that Nadia's eyes were really sparkling. I
grabbed my camera and opened the aperture up much wider than normal (for me) to try to blur the undesirable background and took two pictures. I love how her eyes sparkle (see a photo farther down in the post), and that image is straight out of the camera (no editing involved). I am finally shooting in manual all the time (after using aperture priority mode for a few years) and in raw (instead of jpeg). The image below of Oliver  helping me make scrambled eggs yesterday wouldn't have been able to be saved if I had taken it in jpeg. It was underexposed, but I was able to correct it in Lightroom. Yay for finally switching to taking my pictures in raw (even if it meant I had to buy a newer version of Lightroom a few weeks ago).

Spring Forward

 Well we might be springing our clocks forward an hour during the night tonight, but we haven't exactly had spring weather the past two days! It was gorgeous on Thursday, and then we got snow on Friday. It laid on the trees in the most beautiful fashion and covered the grass (maybe 2 inches?), but the roads were fine where we live so the kids still had gym class. The roads weren't clear on all of Paul's commute. He witnessed three accidents within less than 10 miles. We're very thankful he had gotten new tires on Thursday and that he made it there safely! We're supposed to get 3-6 inches of snow in three days. I was hoping the snow yesterday was our last blast. I was wrong. Hopefully next week's snow will be the last blast of winter. Ian has been waking up earlier and earlier. I am hoping that the time change will help him go back to sleeping until closer to 7:00 am. Tonight we split the difference and put the kids to bed 30 minutes early according to the "old" time. We shall see what time they wake up tomorrow. My choir isn't singing, which means we can leave the house about 30 minutes later than usual which will be a help tomorrow.

Nadia and Ian had their last basketball games of 2017 today. Nadia's team was undefeated this season, and they dominated every team except for one. They played eight different teams. Nadia's softball practices are supposed to start on Monday, weather permitting. I ordered a face mask and mitt for her on Amazon, which are supposed to be delivered on Monday. I'll find out next week what days/times the boys will have their practices, and when their practices start will depend on the condition of the soccer field. Snow isn't a good thing for the field, but I'm fine with having a little gap in between the end of basketball and the start of soccer. Paul's parents joined us for the games today, and for the third time this season we had lunch at McDonald's in between the two games. They came over to our house for a few hours after Nadia's game. We played the game Guesstures together (everyone except for Oliver). I think everyone had fun playing that game. I bet we'll play it again some time! Although the basketball season is far simpler because all of the games are at the same location (only 12 minutes from our house), one plus of soccer and softball is that those games will be outside, which means much better light for my camera. Taking non-blurry pictures of a moving target indoors is a huge challenge for my photography skills. Hopefully in the coming years my skills will progress in that regard. I'm thinking about enrolling in a sports photography course online to help me with that.

First standardized test

Today Nadia took her first standardized test, the Terra Nova. Most homeschoolers in the US aren't required to take these tests, but it's one of the rules in Pennsylvania, and part of the reason Pennsylvania is ranked number #2 in the list of states with the worst homeschooling laws. New York claims the #1 spot. In our state homeschoolers are supposed to take a test in grades 3, 5, and 8. I paid $50 for her to take the test at Camp Susque today. In two years Ian and Nadia will both need to take a standardized test. I didn't file any paperwork for homeschooling Nadia until last summer in preparation for starting third grade with her, but I'll need to start the process with Ian this summer prior to second grade for him because he'll turn eight (the magic number in PA) during second grade since he has a December birthday. I feel confident that Nadia is on target or ahead depending on which subject we are talking about, but I have no idea how she'll do on the test, particularly since she's not accustomed to taking tests. Hopefully I'll be pleased when I see her results. I am so repulsed by how much time is spent in public schools preparing children to take the state test, that I just couldn't bring myself to spend more than a few minutes discussing some general test taking strategies with Nadia.

Since they allowed four hours for the testing today, I made plans to carpool with another mom so that the boys and I didn't have to stay up there the whole time. Allison dropped Melanie off at our house at 8:15 and we left around 8:45. I let the boys play on the playground up there for a little and then we came home. We made one stop on the way home to get some tickets to see a show later this month in Williamsport. Usually I order all tickets online, but I needed to do this one in person because the kids were getting free tickets if I bought one for myself. It's a beautiful day outside, which makes the weather forecast of 1-3 inches of snow tomorrow seem a bit out of place, but that's what the weather can be like in March - spring one day and winter the for next.

One thing on my heart lately has been one of the kids we've sponsored for almost six years - Manu Mohanan who lives in India. Unfortunately the government of India has broken ties with the vast majority of NGO's working in the country, and Compassion was one of the latest casualties. He's one of 145,000 children who are losing their sponsors effective March 15. Manu is 12 years old. I picked him because his birthday is December 12 like Ian. Every time I think about it I feel like crying. I hope that the partners in India who have been working with these 145,000 children will find a way to keep helping them even though the money from Compassion has come to an end. Compassion has been working in India for more than forty years. I also am praying that the Lord will guide us as we select another child to sponsor in place of Manu.

Speaking of tugging on my heart strings, this week I read the book, A Thousand Miles to Freedom: My Escape from North Korea. It's heartbreaking to know what the people of North Korea have been enduring for decades and that their plight is still so miserable. Speaking of first world problems that are so utterly unimportant compared to the struggles people face in communist dictatorships, I think I have finally resolved the last issues related to switching what bank account is used for all our automatic bill payments. The bank I had used since 2004 wasn't the best choice now that Paul works for the family business. Almost all the changes went through smoothly and there were quite a few - charitable donations, utility bills, credit card bills, mortgage, etc. There were two that involved a glitch. The natural gas company decided to charge BOTH bank accounts (old and new) in January and February. I called last month and tried to straighten it out, but I called again today and I think as of today they will only deduct the payment from the new account.

The other one was a much bigger headache. Our chase credit cards made the switch without a problem, but our Citi credit card company decided last month to deduct the payment from the bank account I had deleted from the account a few months ago, and there wasn't enough money in the account because I was in the process of closing the account and no money had been deposited in it since Paul's last check from Bucknell in August. If I hadn't driven out to Bloomsburg (in other words drove for one hour just to give the bank a check from our other account), the fees would have totaled $187 because of Citi's error. As it is we were charged $42 by the bank and $25 by Citi. Today I convinced Citi to remove their $25 fee. It's bad enough we have to pay the bank $42 because of their error, but it's beyond ridiculous that we should be expected to pay $25 to them because of a glitch in their system. Needless to say I am not a fan of Citi credit cards at the moment. It's a shame because the credit card gave 2% cash rebate on everything, which is better than most credit cards, but at the moment we're just using our Chase credit cards because I have no faith in the customer service of Citi. I'm grateful though that at least I won the battle over the $25 fee today. I don't want to add up how much time I have spent on the phone or emailing with Citi over the past few weeks. On the other hand I got $15 yesterday for completing a survey with 1800contacts, which was nice. "Easy come, easy go" as they say! Paul had a tire blow out early on Tuesday morning. We were very thankful that it didn't result in an accident because it was still dark outside when he had to change the tire. Today he went to Sears and got four new tires. We were expecting to spend about $500 on his tires this  (and that's what happened today), but then they said he also needs new brakes. I need to up the car repair line item in our budget. It's been quite a few years since we put brakes on a car so I'm not even sure how much that will cost when he takes care of that.