Unfortunately we didn't get to sit by the waterside, but that was actually a good thing because we weren't in the sun during dinner.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
YBPC Picture
We had one of the waiters take a group picture of us at dinner:
Unfortunately we didn't get to sit by the waterside, but that was actually a good thing because we weren't in the sun during dinner.
Unfortunately we didn't get to sit by the waterside, but that was actually a good thing because we weren't in the sun during dinner.
We are home.
*sigh*
We spent most of the day sitting on rocking chairs on the porch reading. So I finished Eleven on Top and I read the whole thing not sure if I had previously read it or not. It seemed really familiar, but it's also possible that mom had told me about it and that was why... I'm still not really sure, but it was good!
Afterward, I started Twelve Sharp, which I also may have previously read (see why I needed to start this whole list thing!!). I was pretty into it when we left the beach so I read the whole way home and I had three pages left when we were pulling in the driveway (talk about good timing!).
So now I'm starting Lean Mean Thirteen. My mother-in-law says that it's not as good as the others, so I'm not sure what it will be like...
Other than that, we're ordering pizza delivery from Papa John's and we're going to spend the evening watching Design Star and The Next Food Network Star, both of which I enjoy very much!
Oh, I almost forgot! Our trip to OKI was very profitable because my dad gave us his old cordless drill. He had forewarned us that the battery didn't work and that it might be cheaper just to buy a new drill rather than replace the battery; however, when he charged it up, it worked like a charm, so now we're ready for any drilling project ever...
In fact, Brian is in the backyard drilling for oil right now!
We spent most of the day sitting on rocking chairs on the porch reading. So I finished Eleven on Top and I read the whole thing not sure if I had previously read it or not. It seemed really familiar, but it's also possible that mom had told me about it and that was why... I'm still not really sure, but it was good!
Afterward, I started Twelve Sharp, which I also may have previously read (see why I needed to start this whole list thing!!). I was pretty into it when we left the beach so I read the whole way home and I had three pages left when we were pulling in the driveway (talk about good timing!).
So now I'm starting Lean Mean Thirteen. My mother-in-law says that it's not as good as the others, so I'm not sure what it will be like...
Other than that, we're ordering pizza delivery from Papa John's and we're going to spend the evening watching Design Star and The Next Food Network Star, both of which I enjoy very much!
Oh, I almost forgot! Our trip to OKI was very profitable because my dad gave us his old cordless drill. He had forewarned us that the battery didn't work and that it might be cheaper just to buy a new drill rather than replace the battery; however, when he charged it up, it worked like a charm, so now we're ready for any drilling project ever...
In fact, Brian is in the backyard drilling for oil right now!
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Happy Weekend!
Brian and I are back down here at Oak Island! Mom and nanny were down here all week and Dad, Callison, and Clayton came down for the weekend. Today was absolutely fantastic weather! When we first went down on the beach, there was very little wind and the ocean looked very calm (out at sea), but the waves breaking near the shore were pretty big. After we were down there for about an hour, the wind really picked up and the waves completely changed. They got really big and started rolling in at an angle (as opposed to parallel to the beach). It was hot, but the wind made it quite pleasant. We think the change in beach weather may have been due to Hurricane Bertha out at sea.
I finished off the book I was reading (Tourist Season) and started Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich. Tourist Season was pretty good, but it ended up being pretty serious and not too terribly funny. I still enjoyed it and would recommend it to someone looking for something good to read.
After the beach, we headed out to Southport and ate dinner at the Yacht Basin Provision Company, which is probably the most fantastic place on earth, ever. You eat outside on the waterfront under this big tent and their specialty is peel-and-eat-shrimp. The 5 of us eating shrimp chowed down on 4 lbs. of the little guys. Soooo yummy!!! Eating outside was so nice because they have these great ceiling fans under the tent and it wasn't hot or humid. I think my dad said (at least twice) "this is heaven!"
YBPC is a very important landmark for Family Samuels because four years ago my parents were eating down there and talking about how much they loved the beach. They talked about how great it was to live on the coast and how they were going to do anything in their power to move east. Right after they got home, my dad started looking for jobs and found the one at Big Rock to get them to the coast! And the rest is history.
We definitely do NOT want to come home tomorrow!
I finished off the book I was reading (Tourist Season) and started Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich. Tourist Season was pretty good, but it ended up being pretty serious and not too terribly funny. I still enjoyed it and would recommend it to someone looking for something good to read.
After the beach, we headed out to Southport and ate dinner at the Yacht Basin Provision Company, which is probably the most fantastic place on earth, ever. You eat outside on the waterfront under this big tent and their specialty is peel-and-eat-shrimp. The 5 of us eating shrimp chowed down on 4 lbs. of the little guys. Soooo yummy!!! Eating outside was so nice because they have these great ceiling fans under the tent and it wasn't hot or humid. I think my dad said (at least twice) "this is heaven!"
YBPC is a very important landmark for Family Samuels because four years ago my parents were eating down there and talking about how much they loved the beach. They talked about how great it was to live on the coast and how they were going to do anything in their power to move east. Right after they got home, my dad started looking for jobs and found the one at Big Rock to get them to the coast! And the rest is history.
We definitely do NOT want to come home tomorrow!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
POWER to the people...
As most of y'all know, I'm pretty ridiculously OCD about all things financial and any other thing that I can force into a list or spreadsheet.
Our current Finances spreadsheet has 11 tabs: Monthly Expenses, Checking Balance, Debt Payoff Schedule, Assets, Retirement Contributions, Retirement Balances, Net Worth, Escrows, List of Credit Accounts, Credit Reports & Scores, and Income Taxes.
And that's just for our current stuff.
I also have an archived spreadsheet (dating back to July 2006) that has another Debt Payoff Schedule [all of which are paid off] and our savings plan for our down payment and closing costs.
Yes. I'm serious.
I'm so serious that I have a program running in the background of my laptop that backs up our current Finances workbook every night at 11 p.m. to one of our desktop computers that we use for extra storage space.
I'm totally fascinated by this stuff--to the point where I might seriously consider being a personal financial planner.
So once we were seriously considering buying a house, I got pretty psycho about making sure that we could afford everything about it. I extrapolated our power bill at our apartment and budgeted $200/month total for our Progress Energy and PSNC bills. I know that there will probably be months when it's lower than that amount and the occasional amounts where it's higher.
We received a bill from Progress Energy right after we moved in but it was only for a partial month and during that time we had quite a few days where the thermostat was set in the high 60s or low 70s with the door wide open because of movers, service repair people, deliveries, etc. Plus, we didn't have our fan up in our living room. So, I couldn't really figure out too much from our first bill.
Well, imagine my surprise today when we got our first full bill: it was $113.31 for 30 days (some of which were 100+ degree days!). I was pretty pleased because our PSNC bill has been the standard $10 for a service connection. We haven't really used any gas because we only have it for our fireplace and our heat, neither of which we've used. I figure $123.31 isn't too bad, considering I had budgeted for much more!
We actually used fewer kwh in June of this year at our house than we did last year in our apartment--even though our house is more than twice as big as our apartment and the average daily temperature was 2 degrees higher this year!
Yay for new-construction efficiency!
Now, on the flip side, I have no idea what is going to happen in the winter when we switch over to gas heat (esp. considering PSNC was just granted two rate hikes). Fortunately, Brian and I both like the house to be pretty cool, so we can set our thermostat pretty low and be OK.
Question, though, for any of you who have a natural gas logs fireplace. In the winter, is it better to set your thermostat temperature lower than normal and then use your fireplace more often or is it better to set the temperature higher and use the fireplace more sparingly? I don't know what uses less gas...
Because our fireplace is in our main "living" area, I think we could set the temperature pretty low downstairs and then run the fireplace when we're watching TV. (We have a separate thermostat upstairs, so we could set the temperature a bit warmer up there.)
Also, just because I'm curious, I put a poll up on the left side of the blog about the temperature at which you keep your thermostat set during the summer months. If you don't mind, please answer it so that I can see what the general consensus is. We currently set ours at 78.
We're planning to put in programmable thermostats pretty soon, but for right now we have the nonprogrammable kind.
Our current Finances spreadsheet has 11 tabs: Monthly Expenses, Checking Balance, Debt Payoff Schedule, Assets, Retirement Contributions, Retirement Balances, Net Worth, Escrows, List of Credit Accounts, Credit Reports & Scores, and Income Taxes.
And that's just for our current stuff.
I also have an archived spreadsheet (dating back to July 2006) that has another Debt Payoff Schedule [all of which are paid off] and our savings plan for our down payment and closing costs.
Yes. I'm serious.
I'm so serious that I have a program running in the background of my laptop that backs up our current Finances workbook every night at 11 p.m. to one of our desktop computers that we use for extra storage space.
I'm totally fascinated by this stuff--to the point where I might seriously consider being a personal financial planner.
So once we were seriously considering buying a house, I got pretty psycho about making sure that we could afford everything about it. I extrapolated our power bill at our apartment and budgeted $200/month total for our Progress Energy and PSNC bills. I know that there will probably be months when it's lower than that amount and the occasional amounts where it's higher.
We received a bill from Progress Energy right after we moved in but it was only for a partial month and during that time we had quite a few days where the thermostat was set in the high 60s or low 70s with the door wide open because of movers, service repair people, deliveries, etc. Plus, we didn't have our fan up in our living room. So, I couldn't really figure out too much from our first bill.
Well, imagine my surprise today when we got our first full bill: it was $113.31 for 30 days (some of which were 100+ degree days!). I was pretty pleased because our PSNC bill has been the standard $10 for a service connection. We haven't really used any gas because we only have it for our fireplace and our heat, neither of which we've used. I figure $123.31 isn't too bad, considering I had budgeted for much more!
We actually used fewer kwh in June of this year at our house than we did last year in our apartment--even though our house is more than twice as big as our apartment and the average daily temperature was 2 degrees higher this year!
Yay for new-construction efficiency!
Now, on the flip side, I have no idea what is going to happen in the winter when we switch over to gas heat (esp. considering PSNC was just granted two rate hikes). Fortunately, Brian and I both like the house to be pretty cool, so we can set our thermostat pretty low and be OK.
Question, though, for any of you who have a natural gas logs fireplace. In the winter, is it better to set your thermostat temperature lower than normal and then use your fireplace more often or is it better to set the temperature higher and use the fireplace more sparingly? I don't know what uses less gas...
Because our fireplace is in our main "living" area, I think we could set the temperature pretty low downstairs and then run the fireplace when we're watching TV. (We have a separate thermostat upstairs, so we could set the temperature a bit warmer up there.)
Also, just because I'm curious, I put a poll up on the left side of the blog about the temperature at which you keep your thermostat set during the summer months. If you don't mind, please answer it so that I can see what the general consensus is. We currently set ours at 78.
We're planning to put in programmable thermostats pretty soon, but for right now we have the nonprogrammable kind.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Back in the 'hood
Tonight has been a pretty chill night. After we both got home from work, Brian and I went up to the pool and swam for a bit. The pool is really nice. It's set up like an L with with the short side being a kid's area with a sweet water playland (truth-be-told, after everyone else left, I did go down the water slide when I went swimming last week--it was fun!). The long length of the pool has swimming lanes. We had a good time splashing around. Afterward, we sat in the sun for a bit and read our books. Brian is currently enriching his mind with Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders and I'm cruising through Carl Hiaasen's Tourist Season.
We also have this really cool-looking yellow bird that is frequenting our bird feeder. We have no idea what type of bird it is. It's very pretty!
Any ideas?
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Weather
Bertha appears to be a nonissue.
It has been raining cats and dogs all evening, which is fantastic for our backyard and all our little trees and bushes! Yay liquid manna from heaven.
We've also had quite a few birds at our bird feeder (lots of birdseed is missing!). I hope we can get some good pictures of them at some point!
It has been raining cats and dogs all evening, which is fantastic for our backyard and all our little trees and bushes! Yay liquid manna from heaven.
We've also had quite a few birds at our bird feeder (lots of birdseed is missing!). I hope we can get some good pictures of them at some point!
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