Against the Grain

What bike should I get?

My parents have offered to buy me a bike for my birthday (max cost about $300).  I currently use a mountain bike that isn't sized well for me and primarily use it with a trailer, hauling one or both boys around.  I don't mind getting an old bike that doesn't look too pretty, but I might need to have a quick-release axle added to use the trailer.  I'm getting conflicting advice from bike shop employees about what style of bike would be best.  I can get a decent 1980's road bike in that price range or a newer mountain bike, but not a cross bike that would be somewhere in the middle.  We're also planning to get a trail-a-bike next year for Peter to use.  I'm sick of feeling like I work over-hard with mountain bike tires on the paved paths/roads I use, but will a road bike lack the stability I'd need to pull a trailer or trail-a-bike?  I feel like taking them out for test rides is almost useless unless I can hook the trailer up, but many of these would need the quick-release axle first, and I'm not going to pay for that unless I'm keeping the bike. 

Who has a bike and trailer and has advice?  There must be experienced people here that can lead me one direction or another.

Farm Day

Yesterday afternoon, we got word that our 1/4 beef was ready.  With Dan returning to school on Wednesday, Tuesday had to be the day.  So, between 10:45am and 9:45pm, we went:
307 miles (almost all the way to South Dakota and back)
Drove 6.5 hours
Stopped at two farms, one meat processor, two gas stations, and a Subway

And brought home:
105 lbs of beef
20 lbs of chicken
6 lbs organic butter
2 squashes
2 dozen ears sweet corn
17 lbs apples

My route beat Google Maps and Mapquest's plans by 40 miles and 10 minutes.  We were on the freeway for 1 minute total. 

For the first two hours, Leo pointed out every corn field.  For the last hour, one of the boys said "Whoa!" every time a car's headlights went by us. 

Dan drove the whole way, partially because he's less stressed that way and also because on the way home, the passenger seat was moved so far forward I could barely fit into it.  If you ever pick up meat in bulk, ask beforehand whether you need coolers.  Empty coolers don't fit well in a Civic with four people and two large boxes of beef.

The orchard we stopped at 50 minutes west was open but not you-picking yet.  I didn't mind grabbing the pre-picked bags while the boys jumped around the corn cribs.  I like silky chickens but Dan thinks they're silly.  The orchard can also sell us chicks, this fall or in the spring.  We may return in October for late apples and a few laying hens.  The orchard also has peacocks, goats, ducks, doves, turkeys, cows, and cats, most of whom are wandering around the yard. 

The cattle farm was fabulous.  We got to eat almost-ripe grapes on our walk to their pond, where the boys splashed in inner tubes and made sand castles as we sat in Adirondack chairs and talked to the farmers about food, farming, and whatever else.  Dan and I might come back alone someday and stay in their little bed-and-breakfasty cabin (complete with very nice outhouse). 

We kept heading west to the processing center where our beef was waiting.  Seemed a little odd that this nice storefront in a small town must kill cattle in the back somewhere, but hey, the people were very nice.  Finding places that will process a few cattle at a time isn't always easy. 

We only stopped for dinner on the way home and a bathroom break.  We knew we hadn't eaten out much lately when the boys spent the hour before we stopped asking incredulously, "Are we really eating at a restaurant?" 

Peter learned that the state is broken up into counties and righty-tighty, lefty-loosey. 

I read the last few chapters of "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder aloud as we drove.  Now I need to find out why Almanzo left New York and his wonderful farm to go west and meet Laura. 

I blanched and froze my two dozen ears of corn when we got home, although they were disappointing.  I'm curious to see how many pounds they turned into. 

We should now have almost a year's worth of beef and two months' chicken and butter.  I'm going to have to bring a lot of the beef over to my parents' house next week when my next bulk food buying club order comes in because our chest freezer is past full already.    I still have 30 lbs of tomatoes from Friday that desperately need to be canned.  Oh my.

He learns a lot as he fidgets

On Friday, Peter and I attended Mass for the Feast of the Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary (actually we went to church twice because I incorrectly assumed there was a 5pm Mass).  Going to Mass with two small boys is more than a bit chaotic most of the time.  Leo will usually stay in the pew but has no desire to keep his non-stop chatter to a whisper.  Peter generally is happy to write on his drawing pad and look at books, with an occasional shove in Leo's direction.  Dan joined choir this spring after five years' hiatus right about the time Sunday School for Peter stopped for the summer, so on weeks when I've got both boys alone, I consider it a success if we're able to just stay in the side chapel for the hour.  Dan went to Mass on Friday at school and stayed home with Leo so that I was able to attend with only Peter.  We got there early, which is unusual for me and Peter noticed immediately that all the vestments were white instead of Ordinary Time's green.  The organist began the prelude and Peter commented that it was a song from his prayer book -- I had to listen a minute and check the worship aid to recognize that it was a variation of "Salve Regina."  During Mass, Peter joined singing part of the Kyrie and all of the Our Father and Hail Mary.  He genuflected before I did entering the pew.  He volunteered his hand and offered peace to our neighboring parishioners.  He jumped up at Communion rather than his usual whining to stay in the pew.  He also rattled the drawing pad enough that I took it away and he asked me what half a dozen titles were from the children's Bible he was looking at. 

This fall, both boys will be in Sunday School and I'll be able to concentrate on the Mass rather than how loud they're being.  But I'll miss something, not having the opportunity to watch Peter's face light up as he recognizes another part of the Mass and whispers to me that he knows that prayer, too.

No-S, one week later

I've stuck to the No-S Diet for a week now and have been really happy with it.  Not snacking or taking seconds was a lot easier than I expected.  I've been a lot more conscious of meals to make sure I get enough on my plate of the right foods so that I won't be too hungry before the next meal without going overboard.  A half-full carton of ice cream has stayed half-full.  Yesterday, the first S-Day, I spent most of the day in the kitchen* because I was overdue to make breakfast foods and also because I wouldn't feel guilty for tasting things between meals.  I didn't end up eating much more than usual.  I had scrambled eggs for breakfast, a muffin mid-morning, leftovers and fruit for lunch, and fajitas for dinner.  I fell asleep getting Leo to sleep, so I ended up not eating anything after dinner.  Today I've had a slice of pie and will probably have a small cup of ice cream in a bit just because it feels wrong to go almost two weeks without it.  I realized that our scale is completely worthless, so I can't check to see if I'm losing weight, but whatever.  I doubt a week would make too much of a difference on the scale, but the difference in my mindset has been huge.

*I made 18 lemon-blueberry muffins, 5 qts of granola, 6 tortillas, sauteed the weirdest selection of vegetables for fajitas -- kale, beet greens, fennel fronds, onions, garlic, and arugula -- and a blueberry cream pie with homemade graham cracker crust. 

Budgeting becoming routine

As July finishes up (eek, we can't possibly be into August yet!  Stay summer, stay!), we've just completed our first full, "normal" month on a budget, cash-envelope style.  It was mid-April when we cut all non-necessities from our credit card use and mid-May when we put them away entirely.  We spent a bare minimum of money for April and May and still needed to use the Economic Stimulus money to deal with the double-whammy of paying for April via credit cards coming due while still eating in May.  In June, we began the envelope system -- I have 51 budget categories altogether and 15 envelope categories (the other 36 are either paid automatically or via check or are paid out infrequently and put directly into long-term savings in the other months.  The challenge in June was that ten categories are paid quarterly or annually (despite my moving every possible bill to monthly charges) and unless the next bill was coming due the following May, I needed to save more than 1/12th of the charge.  I used our extra income from Dan starting his summer work to cover those charges, but there wasn't much to spare and the logistics were nightmarish even for my math-happy brain.  It felt great to put all that messiness behind me so I could start July with a clean slate, needing only to fill the normal amounts for each category.  Now our extra income from July was able to go into our emergency fund.  I recalculated our expected self-employment tax and was pleasantly surprised to see it drop substantially.  Then I found another category that I'd had to artificially inflate in June and bam, there was another $75 I could earmark for regular monthly emergency savings.  We don't have debt to snowball, but I'm seeing how the unexpected income here and there adds up now rather than just going back into checking to disappear.  For the first time, I was able to look at my checking account balance yesterday and know that the amount left exactly indicated how much was left after the month.  It never used to be clear because credit card payments lagged and some bills paid via credit card were even farther out of whack because of the "grace period". 

I look forward to checking our bank account balances now, out of curiosity to see what's cleared.  I'm not two pages behind updating my checkbook register.  I know exactly how much I owe on my credit card (I'm still waiting for our water/sewer/garbage bill to be transferred from the credit card to the debit), and I pay it within a couple days of it posting.  I did pay for Peter's tuition using my credit card, but I paid it immediately (it was high enough to add a chunk to the rewards program).  I don't expect to do that regularly, but for one-time large purchases where the money is waiting in the bank, it might make sense (I get 1% back that goes directly to my mortgage company). 

I'm amazed how much less stressed I am.  It really is a wonderfully freeing thing to not wonder where our money is and why there isn't as much of it as I thought.  I wish we were putting more money into savings this summer because I'd like to have a 3 month emergency fund AND get a new roof, but we're on our way. 

I'm reading my second Dave Ramsey book now (my number finally came up at the library), "Total Money Makeover" and I'm not sure Dave would approve of my pushing back the student loan repayment (our only non-house debt), but our interest rate is so low, we earn more by putting money in ING.  So for now, I pay the loan minimum every month and it slowly drops. 

I tried to be fairly generous in allocating money into categories -- I was afraid that we'd run out of money for toilet paper or be angry that there wasn't any money set aside for getting a bike fixed.  We've been pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to hold onto our $20 each blow money for the month.  After four months of spending as little as possible, it feels decadent to have a slight entertainment budget and have money set aside for birthday presents.  A lot of the envelopes are carrying money over between months, but lots of that is because $6 won't buy you many cleaning supplies and you don't need them every month, but after 3 months, we'll need that $18.  The sports envelope has gotten heavier as we debated between fixing Dan's bike or swim lessons for the boys.  Any extra money from the gas envelope goes into savings instead of rolling over.  I'm worried that when Dan and I each have to drive to his school 5 days a week (16 miles roundtrip) that we'll find ourselves filling up a lot more.  I almost cried yesterday, I was so excited to see gas selling for $3.49 (and at a station where I had a 7 cent/gallon coupon).  Four months ago, that would have seemed crazy. 

I think we're past the hardest part -- changing our mindset to stop being constant consumers and dealing with the fallout from moving from a buy-now-pay-later world to a save-and-plan existence.  Sure, I'm looking forward to my birthday next month where I'll get to have some new, fun things.  But we've found ways to do things we really wanted without much money (I traded in rewards from filling out online surveys to get a cookbook free that I've wanted all year and Dan got to see all the big summer movies while they were new releases because I got a $25 movie pass at a silent auction for half price and he purposely went to matinees to cut the price in half again).  We wouldn't have bothered trying things like that before because we would have justified them as almost-necessities and just paid without looking for alternatives.  I'd like to see the movies too, but I didn't care as much as Dan.  I might check out the best when they get to the $2 theatres and request others from the library as soon as they're available (I'm on a feed that alerts me the day they're ordered).  We spend more on food than Ramsey recommends, but I'm okay with that because I feel like I am finding cheaper ways to get high quality food.  We've stopped eating out entirely, unless we have gift cards or someone else is paying.  That ends up being a couple times a month, which is enough.  We have enough bulk food in the house that the times when we used to go out for lack of options are eliminated.