Quilting, Budgeting and More

This is my latest creation prior to squaring it up and binding it. I call it Psychedelic for obvious reasons. Those blocks around the outside are called pineapple blocks and they are done by paper piecing. The panel in the middle is my attempt at folk art. The whole composition makes me happy to look at; I hope it gives you a smile as well.

Yesterday, Hubs and I embarked on a budget update. We had last done this in 2008 so it was in need of revision. Most categories had increased.....ie cable, medicine, propane....and some did not exist.

Last year, our banker had advised us to put everything on Discover rather than use a debit card. He said it was safer; a statement I question. At any rate we found it VERY EASY to put any and everything on ye old Discover Card. We did get $100 back from them in the last year under their cash back rewards plan BUT we probably spent way over $100 in undesignated buying. So we have decided to only use the DC on trips or "approved" Internet purchases. (Approved means there is money in the budget envelopes to cover the purchase.)

I am reading the biography of Betty Smith.....author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (and loaned to me by fellow blogger Mary Bailey). She was the daughter of Irish Immigrants and grew up in the tenements of Brooklyn and so far she has not had financial stability and she is in her forties. I might mention she has worked hard all her life to stay solvent.

Yesterday Hubs picked up the library book I requested called The Fence My Father Built. The narrator's father was an American Indian and the family suffered financial deprivation as well. I heard the author on Chris Fabry Live and was interested in her story. I am reading it as well.

On Wednesday nights there is a PBS program called The American Experience hosted by Louis Gates, Jr. Promo's showed Merel Streep, Steven Colbert, Kristi Yamaguchi and other public figures whose family roots have been researched as far back as possible. All of these people come from immigrant roots (duh, unless you are an American Indian yours do too).

It is so heartening and amazing what our ancestors went through to

• get to America
• leave family and security behind
• be treated like second class citizens (if allowed to become a citizen which was not allowed for any one other than Caucasian or Negro.....go figure)
• overcome tremendous odds (lack of health care...poverty etc..)

I didn't really realize any of this. It is very similar to today's situation regarding immigrants...they are NOT welcomed but they do the work no one else wants to do, they prosper and send money to their families back home.

Those are my "thoughts for today". What are yours?