Money, Love, and Change

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We got back earlier today from our travels.  I am glad to be back!

On the way home, both my husband and I were really tired.  At a rest stop on the turnpike, I purchased a really big (I’m not sure what it is called in Starbucks language, but I said “really big”, and the girl knew what I meant) coffee to wake me up for my leg of the trip.  I haven’t purchased a Starbucks coffee in almost 10 years (my last one was when I was driving my old car to graduate school in 1999).

It was really good.  And, more importantly, it woke me up.  I drove for 4 hours straight, and I don’t think I blinked the entire time.

Despite being frugal, I am going to endorse Starbucks.  But only when you are on the turnpike, really tired, and no other coffee options are available.

Are you a Starbucks addict?   Can you justify the amount you spend on coffee?

We’re going out-of-state this weekend to visit my husband’s family.  While I enjoy being there, I dread the 6-7 hour drive.  Our close friends from Arizona will be in town with their son, so it will be extra special!

I can’t promise that I will be able to keep up with Entrecard drops or posting, but I’ll be sure to drop cards on everyone early next week.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

If you’re a blogger, offset some of your carbon footprint by visiting Brighter Planet’s 350 blogger challenge and putting a badge on your site.  Even though their initial goal of 350 bloggers has been met, they will still make contributions for new additions. It took them a little over 24 hours to verify this site and send me my credit.  If you’ve got the time and the inclination, won’t you consider doing the same?

If you’ve been following some of my previous posts, you know that a recent source of stress in our lives has been finding a program for the kid for the next school year.  It seems like some good karma has come our way, and we found something that is a great fit.

My kid is only 2, so we’re trying to find something that doesn’t last all day, but gives him the chance to interact with other kids.  We always go to the free story time at our local library (as well as visit the library at least once a week), so I was hoping for something for 2 other days.

We found a program at a local farm that is two mornings a week.  The kids get to bake, hang out with the animals, and play.  It’s also a parent-child program, so I get to moo with the cows too, which I haven’t done since I was a small child.  How cool is that?

To top it all off, it’s affordable, and our money will be supporting an organic self-sustaining farm.

It’s still going to stretch our budget, though.  I need to get serious about finding a good source of work-at-home income.   But for tonight, I’m just going to be thankful that we found something!

If you’ve got young kids, what do you think of a program like this?  I know that it’s not traditional, but our son loves to be outside and running around; I think it’s a great fit for us.

There are a number of posts out there on getting the Digg button into WordPress - I ended up using snippets from a couple of them, and thought that it might be helpful for someone else.

I added the following code to my archives, index, and single post files:

<div style=”float:left; margin-right:10px;”>
<script type=”text/javascript”>digg_url = “<?php the_permalink(); ?>”</script>
<script src=”http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>
</div>

I inserted the code immediately above the <?php the_content (’<p>Read the rest of this entry &raquo;</p>’); ?> line in each of the files.

The div style lines puts the button floating (instead of above the post) and to the left with a 10 pixel margin.

The permalink line makes sure that the correct link is used for Digg submission - before I put in this snippet of code, the Digg button on my main page referenced the home page instead of the post. This meant that that Diggs could possibly be split across multiple submissions for the same content. For example, prior to inserting the permalink snippet, the Digg button on my main page for a prior post showed a “Submit” option instead of the Digg count.

Hope this helps someone out!

I feel pretty guilty about throwing things away.  We’ve been trying to get rid of the things that we don’t need anymore, and the next thing on the list is VCR tapes and coasters (CD/DVD discs that did not burn correctly).

Even though it costs money, Green Disk seems like a good option for us. Here is a list of some of the things that they will take for recycling (from their website):

• All forms of electronic media and their cases: diskettes, zip disks, CDs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, DVDs et al, video tape (i.e. VHS), audio tape, game cartridges, DAT, DLT, Beta or Digibeta, and virtually all other type of computer tapes.
• Hard drives, Zip and Jazz drives, jump drives, etc.
• All forms of printer cartridges including both inkjet and toner.
• All types of cell phones, pagers, PDAs and their chargers, cables, and headset accessories
• All types of rechargeable batteries (not regular alkaline ones) and their chargers
• All of the small computer accessories such as MP3 players, iPods, digital cameras, hand-held scanners, handheld games and other connected devices
• All of the cords, cables, boards, chips, etc. attached to or removed from a computer.
• Laptop computers.

They also will take computer systems and computer components, although it is part of a separate recycling program.

We’re thinking of purchasing a Technotrash can because the postage is included.  They also destroy any information on the media you send them, which is nice if you have a small business or even personal files.

Have you ever tried this service or used something similar?  I haven’t seen anything else where we can send all different types of items to one location yet, but would be interested in other options that may be available.