Remodeling This Life

I cannot believe that it’s already been two weeks of vacation. Time really does fly when you’re having fun. Such a good reminder to soak up every single wonderful moment of life as best I can because it all goes so fast.

I miraculously caught up on all 336 posts that were in my reader this week. Whew!

Here are a few favorites:

Running - Frugal or Not? While there are expenses to running, I have found it to be just about the cheapest form of exercise. And the benefits far outweigh any expenses!

10 Ways To Simplify Your Finances. Simplify? Finances? Love it.

Be Your Own Expert. I couldn’t agree more that knowing how to do things yourself is one of the more helpful things in living a frugal life. I am a huge proponent of DIY.

50 Ways To Celebrate Life Everyday. I love seeing others that are making the most of each day and sharing ways to treat each day as the gift it is.

Redefining Productivity. Alison shares great perspective here.

7 Life Tested Ways To Make Your Simple Life More Glamorous. I am a simple girl who tends to lean toward glamorous when the opportunity arises. Love this post.

Okay, that’s all folks. Back to soaking up the sun and splashing in the water for me!

While away on vacation, I still have a little linking to do, so here goes…

I was included in 
The Finance Fiesta , Festival Of Frugality and Carnival of Family Life. Thank you to all the fabulous and gracious hosts!

I’d also like to share a couple links I just discovered in my reader. It is overflowing, with more than 330 unread posts - but I plan to read them all when I have time! Here are just a few I thought I’d share

Homemaking Skills at Simple Mom

75 Tips To Survive a Down Economy at Frugal Dad

How To Be The Most Likable You at In My Heels

Why Choose Simplicity from none other than On Simplicity

Happy Sunday everyone! I hope you all had a great week!

I wanted so badly to participate in the I Saw Red Challenge. I love red. Ask my daughter and she’ll tell you that I “love everything red!” That’s not true. You could paint Walmart red and I still would hate it. But I hate bananas and would maybe like them a little more if they were red, so there is that. I just all week meant to walk around and snap photos of red stuff and didn’t do it and today is the last day!! *sigh*

Some exciting stuff happened around here this week. I was thrilled to have been linked from MSN SmartMoney yesterday - you can read the full article here - Deprived? Not us. Donna did such a great job and I love her whole article and not just because it mostly highlights me and agrees with me

I also want to share that Pinyo over at Moolanomy has started up PFBuzz, a place to find lots of great articles from personal finance blogs. You can register and vote up articles and find what’s buzzing now and what is up and coming. It’s a great way to get seen in the community and to find other great bloggers out there. Check it out!

Another fun thing this week is that like 3 years ago I won some coffee from Rocket Finance in a giveaway and I got it in the mail this week! Just kidding, Rocket, I know it was only like 2 years ago But you know what?!?! It was sooooo worth the wait. I could smell it before I even opened the box it was mailed in and could not wait to brew it. So perfect - it helped me become human this morning and I enjoyed my morning relaxing at my red patio set just a wee bit more today because of the delicious coffee. It’s Berres Brothers Highlander Grogg. I agree with the packaging when it says that it’s “indulgently sweet, richly enticing…an explosion of caramel, butterscotch and hazlenut”. Now tell me you don’t want to wake up to that every morning! Ahhhh

Oh, this is a roundup. I am supposed to be providing links to the amazingly fabulous content that I found around the web this week. Here you go!!

Over at Teri’s Organic Garden, you can find Green Gift Ideas For Father’s Day

Marelisa at The Abundance Blog gives tips for Creating Sacred Space.

Kacie at Sense To Save tells us I Don’t Want To Be Obsessed. It is important to strive for balance in all we do, including spending and saving.

Lynnae at Being Frugal shares Tips For Traveling With Children. I need this in preparing for our long journey north next week!

Dr. Diva at Blissfully Domestic tells us why Blogging Is Good For Your Health. See? If you don’t comment on my blog, I won’t be healthy. So please, comment away!

Simple Mom shares The Benefits of Money Management. An uplifting and motivating read.

Trying to sell your house? Ashley at Wide Open Wallet tells you 10 Tips To Get Your House Sold.

Please read this beautiful post I’m Not Defined By How Many Dishes I Wash. Nothing I can say about it will do it justice so just go read it for yourself.

And last but not least - The Wrath of Meta Stuff at On Simplicity.

Another week gone by, another weekend of family fun here. We found a great deal on a backyard swingset/playground yesterday on Craigslist so off hubby and my dad went to pick it up, take it apart, bring it back home and set it up for the kids. By 3 p.m. our kids were singing and sliding and giggling up a storm on that thing. I have decided that I won’t be getting to spend much time inside this summer - or at least until the novelty of it wears off.

On to the links!

Richer Than Rockefeller - Putting Wealth in Perspective at Get Rich Slowly, a guest post from Christian PF.

10 Easy Ways To Stay In Debt from I’ve Paid For This Twice Already seriously made me giggle. And feel bad about when I was in debt doing most of those things. I promise my card never matched my purse.

Frugal Dad posted a Community Discussion - New Home or Remodel?. I betcha know what I said But go read to find out what everyone else thought!

Can You Spend Irresponsibly If You’re Rich? from A Dollar A Day. You know, I have to say, yes, you can. But I live the way I do now so that later I can be a bit more irresponsible with my money and perhaps even slightly frivolous from time to time. I want to travel and be a bit more carefree later on with my money. Perhaps I am not making the proper distinction between that and being completely irresponsible.

Helping Kids See Past Commercialism from Natural Family Living Blog.

Pay Yourself First - Another Way To Think About Time Management from On Simplicity

Priorities from This Wasn’t In The Plan. Good stuff to remember!

This week’s roundup is going to be short and sweet!

An absolute must-read on Lessons In Simplicity From My Dog

I Am A Scavenger

Keep It Cheap

Depression Is Expensive, Denial Much More So

Snowflaking Your Life

Frugal Living For Beginners

Words Of The Financially Challenged

Making Memories

Do You Work To Live, or Live To Work?

Creating Spaces

Life Is Meant To Be Lived

Mind Shift

Enjoy the holiday weekend!!!