Seesters and Brudda: By the numbers

It's been ages since I did a "by the numbers" post. So....here goes!

• My first post after my blogging break was #1300!!
• I have been retired for 1505 days!
• I have two sisters and two brothers - ALL older than me. Yes, I'm the baby of the family! My two sisters are 9 and 12 years older than me. My brothers are four and seven years older. 
• I'm visiting one sister and one brother this week...in Bracebridge, ON (Santa's Village!) My other brother and I are going to Scotland soon and I hope to see my other sister at Christmas in PEI though Kazi has a new job and we'll have to see if we can make it happen. 
• Bracebridge is about a 4 hour drive and at one time both of my sisters lived there.
• We leave for Scotland in 30 days!
• Yesterday I rode my bike for 26.7kms :)
• I used points to purchase a $100 Esso card and two $50 grocery store cards (the budget is tight this month!)
• My property tax went down $7 per month! Woohoo!
• My cell phone bill will be increasing by about $15, so much for the previous savings of $7. I added unlimited long distance minutes anywhere in Canada.
• My natural gas bill was a mere $32 in August...but my electricity bill went over budget by $2.37 due to running the A/C. Considering how deathly hot it's been here for weeks and weeks I'm surprised my bill wasn't sky high!!
• So far this month I've spent a whopping $44 on food plus $7 for lemon tarts to share with my Scotland bound brother. Lemon is his favourite - I go to his place for tea every other Thursday and to make plans for the Scotland trip. 
• I have gone to Dairy Queen THREE times so far this month- I only get a plain cone as it has the least amount of calories!!
• And speaking of calories - between eating better (most of the time), cutting out a few things like bread & pasta and riding my bike almost every day I have lost 10% of my overall weight!! I haven't been below 130lbs in 15 years!! 
• I don't think I'll have any $$ to put into savings this month but that's ok. I paid off well over $1,000 on my Mastercard to cover new hiking boots ($423), almost $200 at the Mountain Equipment Company, Greyhound bus tickets to get us to Toronto's Pearson airport, travel insurance and an early birthday dinner with Kazi. Never fear...I clear off my Mastercard every month and pay no interest. 
• I also did some thrifting with my friend Jules; photos in my next post. Can't remember how much I spent but it wasn't much!

Thus ends "By the Numbers" August edition :)

Fun Friday

Every Friday at school is FUN FRIDAY!! It's great because we start off by making French Toast - yum yum - and then we play games. The little whipper snappers don't even realize they're still learning!! They think they're getting out of work!! HAH! 

Today we played:

The game involves: following a calendar, taking turns, being a good sport (they have gone from being the worst losers ever to now being fairly gracious losers - BIG progress!), patience, buying and selling property, reading all the game cards, adding and subtracting amounts of money, making decisions, taking risks, playing the lottery, paying bills etc etc. 

I was so happy with how they played the game together today. One girl used to be such a horrible loser she would threaten the other kids by making the "I'll slit your throat" gesture....yes, really. BUT now she can laugh it off when she loses AND when she wins she doesn't gloat quite so much.

To top it all off it was an actual PAYDAY for me too!! For all of five minutes I let my pay sit in my chequing account and then I whisked over half of it away into savings. I paid off my mastercard (groceries & gas plus a few odds and ends from Home Depot) (gotta collect those points!). After school I dropped into the LCBO to get my supply of red wine, then bought gas whilst shuddering at the prices and also purchased at few things at the Superstore. I still made it home by 3:30 where I promptly wasted some time on Facebook, fed the old decrepit cat and started my tax return. I finally have my T4 but I know it'll be awhile (ages and ages)  til Kazi gets all of her T4s and tuition amount from her college website. Getting the documents you need for doing taxes here in Canada can take a while (REALLY tests my patience!!). No one busts their butt getting things mailed out in a very timely fashion. That really irks me if you haven't figured that out by now. GRRRR! 

I'm just putting in time til I pick up a couple friends and we're going out to dinner! Yes, it's GREEK night at our local hangout - the Sweet Onion Grill. I am going to be SO ready for some great food and wine and music!! Yes, live music too while we eat! FUN FUN FUN for everyone today!!

What did YOU do today that was FUN FUN FUN for FRIDAY??!