Is it worth it?

Hello one & all...been a while, I know. Been busy with the little details of life...piano lessons, band concerts, boy scouts, girl scouts, AWANA, art shows, science shows, renaissance fairs. Whew! On top of that we have faced two family medical crises. My father underwent two separate eye surgeries to remove cataracts and then blood clots from inside his right eye. Modern medicine is truly amazing...he can see better out of that eye than before the surgeries! Then my Mom was hospitalized with a lung infection last week. The littlest one and I spent 6 hours in the ER waiting to find out that they were admitting her. (My two year old was an angel!) Scary stuff. Been to see her 5 days out of the 6 that she has been "stuck there." (Running here, running there, running, running everywhere.) Tonight's visit was a true pleasure as she seems more her old self and her chest doesn't pain her quite as badly. The Lord is so very good and we all feel so very blessed to have both Matriarch and Patriarch back in action!!!

Been thinking a lot about the true value of things...I am not a "things" type of person. I don't have those desires to buy big fancy "toys" or to have the latest of this or that. I do get a hankering, though, every single spring for a camper. Not a fancy high-end one. Just a med-sized pop-up to replace the two (yup, we now need two...cheaper than replacing tent #1 with a huge model!) tents that are our current outdoor gear. Then I started thinking along the lines of the greatest Frugalista of all time...Amy from The Tightwad Gazette. She compares relative values something like this. I love to tent camp...my husband and 12 yo daughter- not so much. But I LOVE to tent camp. I am one of those freaks that would canoe out to an island with no toilet and no power for a week of camping (I do not, as yet, own a canoe but I'm trying to make a point here...) My tents cost $27 (love that Cabela's card!) and $35. A decent pop-up camper in so-so condition costs around $2500. Now, would I love camping 42 times MORE if I owned a pop-up versus our tents. Just can't see it given my current over the top (so the hubby says) desire to sleep on the ground. A mattress and metal shell cannot possibly make me enjoy camping 42 times more.

So when considering an upgrade or purchase do the math...I often ask my kids if they enjoy pizzeria pizza 4 times more than homemade. They always answer no.

Blessings, Eve