Hubby's Birthday, Dodging a Bullet, and More

It's been a pretty busy week (how I ever had time to do anything when I was working is beyond me...I am not working now and I am still so busy!)...

• The electricity experiment continues.  We are still reading our meter each day and recording the reading.  Fortunately I think our next bill will be 1/3 to 1/2 lower just because we are more careful with how we use our electricity.
• Hubby's birthday is tomorrow and we decided to invite the cousins, my friends that recently moved here, and our brother-in-law who showed up unexpectedly yesterday to come to dinner. We will cook up a feast and have a nice dinner with everyone to celebrate his birthday--no big plans this year and with a super limited income, a homemade dinner and a homemade birthday cake (by me) will have to suffice.  I think the thing I miss the most about not having a lot of money is that I can't splurge on people for special occasions.
• I decided not to do the business with my friends (this is the dodging the bullet part).  After a bit of thought, I decided that doing this would violate a number of unwritten rules that I have about business, among them, never do a partnership, never go into business with friends, don't have a business with overhead, don't have employees, and don't mix friends and money.  My friends have already moved forward to start their own business (they got the business license so far) and I will do what I can for them (order their business cards, make up flyers for them, make them a website and host it for the first year at my expense) to help get their business started.  This won't cost me much money (my services and the couple of low expenses will be my gift to them) and it will encourage them to have a successful business but will not make me any part of the business so I think this will work out much better...
• I did my taxes with the H & R Block online tax program which I used last year.  For the first time in over a decade we are actually getting money back!  There is one more form that I need to file the taxes which hasn't been released by the IRS yet so I hope to get this finished up and e-filed by next week.
• As soon as I file the taxes I will send a copy of the taxes over to the lender so we can get a pre-approval letter for a mortgage and at the end of the month we will begin searching for a house to buy.
• I need to work more on being a writer.  This type of business fits all of my criteria for a business (it's portable, there is no overhead, I can work by myself, etc), and it's something I love to do (I just need to get motivated to actually sit down and write!).
• Tomorrow is caucus day in Nevada so I will go to my first presidential caucus.  This should be interesting!
• If you haven't heard of the MIT Open Courseware program, you should definitely check it out.  This is a free way to get an education (unfortunately not an actual degree but the knowledge is very valuable in and of itself) and now they are offering a free certificate program called MITx.  I think this will really become the future of education.
• Finally, did you know that I love to read romance novels?  These kinds of books are like brain candy to me since I usually read non-fiction books which aren't nearly as entertaining.  I just came across a new author who is a ridiculously good writer, her name is Julia Quinn.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and drive safe out there--it's Super Bowl weekend!