The Allowance

Scott and I are trying out a new little thing in our budget this year called an allowance.  We each get twenty bucks each month to spend on whatever we want.  I know, right?  Doesn't it seem like I just won Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

See kids, if you work hard and graduate from college and get a job, you might get the same allowance you had when you were 12.*  That is the lesson to be learned here.

Ahem, so this leads me into all sorts of exciting google searches about what I might spend the allowance on this month.  OR.  Do I wait and spend $40 next month?  This is not a use-it-or-lose-it thing, ya know.  OR.  Do I wait until the end of the year and then I have $240 to spend?  This is like getting double grandma money!

Scott already spent his allotment on lunch with a friend.  You see this is where we go from Who Wants to be a Millionaire to...the exit scenes of the Bachelor.  "Unexpected" things tend to happen, and then suddenly your dream boyfriend allowance is gone and you're driving away in a limo.  Ok I'm going to stop this analogy right now.

So back to finances.  This morning I went to the farmer's market and guess what?  I got vanilla beans for one cent each.  I am not even kidding.  Do you know how many vanilla beans I could buy with my twenty dollars?  I do, it's 2,000!  Luckily I kept my cool and only got 17.  This 17 cents is most likely part of the grocery budget and not my allowance, but the point is, now I have this totally crazy expectation that I need to utilize this $20 to get something greater than 2,000 vanilla beans.  How is this even going to be possible?  It isn't.

*Let it be known that I never got an allowance, but it seemed like other kids did...No real data is referenced in this post.  Except the vanilla bean calculations.

The New Toy

I finally got my new camera. :)  I pretty much took all my EA exams for this purpose, so this purchase has been about 6 months in the making.

I really wasn't sure how much my pictures would improve with a new camera since so much of photography is the photographer (still me, so...), but I have been pleasantly surprised at the instant improvements!

For example...over on my recipe blog I took this picture back in August...Doesn't this look appetizing?  Ha.

And then last Saturday we had taco soup for lunch so I decided I'd try some replacement photos.

I'm just not sure if this is that much better.  Hardy har har.  Clearly this camera is amazing and I am so happy to have it.  Now I just have to figure out how to use it...which feels like taking on a second job.  So maybe when I'm retired I'll have this figured out.

2014

It's time for the year in review!

January: We bought a freezer!  How on earth did I not mention that we got a freezer in our Christmas card?  Haha.  But seriously we are thrilled to have a freezer in the garage.  We have a lot more things in it now.

February: We added a tropical plant to the great room decor on Valentine's Day.  And we continued to not really use these couches...but aren't they classy? :)

March: Scott built our first planter box and we planned out our first garden.

April: We found out we have a pretty lovely tree out back.

May: We went backpacking!!!  Ok that was a joke in case you missed it.  Never will I "backpack" anywhere.  But for reals, we (and by we, I mean Scott) got more into emergency preparedness and now we are prepared to escape to the mountains.  Or whatever.

June: We celebrated our three-year anniversary.  Scott was so excited he was waving his arms around like a crazy person.

July: We traveled to Nauvoo!

August: We partied with the Foleys in Jackson Hole.

September: Not all of our garden items failed (although many did).

October: We explored a lot of new places around here.  Davis County is beautiful in the Fall.

November: This month was mainly spent studying tax law but we also ate delicious foods and blogged stuff.  I think I'm up to about 150 recipes over there!

December:  No one is spoiled in this household, why do you ask?  ...I probably shouldn't mention that not pictured here is also a new laptop and a DSLR camera, among many other things.  I don't know how things got so out of control.  I blame Grandma.