Thoughts for the new year

As I sit here, I am wondering WHO is shooting a semi-automatic weapon? Ryan and his dad and Oscar are working on the house, so it is either coming from the muzzle loading range across the way, or our "neighbor" in the back who made his own range and comes up on random weekends and camps. Those are the acceptable answers.

My thoughts for the new year:

I love New Year's. All new years. It seems like a fresh start; a clean slate. I have no resolutions this year, because I am still working on the ones from high school, I think. They are always the same: Eat better, excercise more. Now that I am 30 weeks preggo, I don't even care about that. Not yet, anyway.

I love my new camera- it takes movies! (I sound so old fashioned- I could've said "It shows movin' pictures!") I took a few minutes worth of video and it was amazing how clear everything was and the sound was great. My camera is a Canon SD 800IS and I love it. Not the same as our SLR, but I love it. And the movie feature is outstanding. I love seeing little clips of people and what they moved like and sounded like. I won't be able to post anything, because I have DIAL-UP at 24000bps. So SLOW. We are thinking of getting HughesNet. Anyone have it? Love it? Hate it? FYI: We have no cable or DSL. (or cell reception, or radio...)

Things I've done to get ready for 2008:
Organized the kids toys. (Waiting for the bunks to go up, then it'll be "done")
Figured out a budget and money plan for the year. I am "in charge" of the money, so to speak, and have a plan with some options that Ryan and I are going to go over tonight or tomorrow. It looks great on paper- we'll see how it works in real life. This plan includes savings, investing, and aquiring debt to build our house, and paying off our tractor. It's a John Deere.
That is it! I am going to spend the month of January obsessing over cleanliness and organization because that is what I ALWAYS do when I'm pregnant. Then in February, I have to think about moving to Bakersfield with the kids until Jessie is born. (Living in the middle of nowhere, with an hour and 20 minute drive to the hospital, not including time to ditch the kids... in town is better for all involved. We'll just hope Ryan makes it.) Then in March, Ryan is suppossed to take some time off and frame, frame, frame the house. I turned in our plans for a lumber bid, and that makes us completely nervous. That is fairly non-negotiable. Most everything else can be cheaper or more expensive- for example, we could put in $200 windows, or we could put in $1400 windows. We've seen both. So cross your fingers for us- we have no idea. Three years ago a guy we know had his bid come in at $27,000. His house is similar in size to ours, but it's still not the same house. The housing market is kind of bad right now too, so maybe lumber will be cheaper.