Times such as these

It is with great relief that the end of January comes for me.  It signals the end of the craziness that is the autumn/early-to-mid winter:  college football, back-to-back holidays, hunting season.

This last weekend, we had a rare three-day weekend.  We made plans to spend most of it with my sister and my niece and nephew whom we haven't seen since early June, so when they cancelled their trip unexpectedly, we had two days wide open.  (You know, because of course one of the three was reserved for hunting...).

Sunday, after church, Eli and I took the kids to an Auburn women's basketball game--because we had free ticket vouchers that included free popcorn.  General admission to women's games includes floor seating (woot!), and the sparse spectatorship allows greater access to the 2014 UCA National Mascot Champion mascot (I don't care if you're not an Auburn fan--you can't deny the awesomeness of that tiger) and the Chick-Fil-A cow.  Also, fewer kids there means the adults that catch the parachuting plush cows feel more compelled to give them away to little kids (hello, free waffle fries!).  Women's basketball, outside of Baylor and a partial handful other elite programs, is, well, not so great.  We were watching the #10 team in the nation play Auburn (and eventually win by a point, coming from behind at the half), but it really felt like we were watching high school basketball. And that's pretty much just...meh.  However, I'm starting to hatch plans for Elsie to be a basketball player so that she can get a scholarship to play somewhere, because it apparently can't be that hard.  But, seriously, the experience reinforces for me that I LOVE living in a college town, even if it's not a college that my in-laws particularly like.  Just having an event like that to attend as a Sunday afternoon excursion is awesome--and we hardly spent any money to do it--just gasoline to get there and two drinks for the four of us to share.

Sunday afternoon, I was able to go (kid-free!) and meet with a friend and her husband about budgeting.  You know I love to talk about Dave Ramsey!  I had loaned them the DVDs from the old 13-week FPU so that they could start a conversation with each other about their finances, and I loved that they asked me to come over and peek at their preliminary cash-flow plan and talk about how to get that Baby Step 1, a $1000 beginner emergency fund in the bank, completed.

And finally, Sunday afternoon, I was able to finish catching up on all the back episodes of a series I found that I really like:  Elementary.  It's a different Sherlock Holmes show than the BBC's, and it is pretty fantastic.

So, this is a sneak peak into the mundanity (yes, I just made that up) that is my bliss.

Cheers.