How to make your own checkbook register

I decided to take a little break from writing about optimism and think about the direction of this blog. More than two years seems a long time to keep writing about our struggles (and they do continue) while we wait to see optimism coming over the horizon.
There are signs, though. The Occupy Wall Street movement. The public opinion polls.
So while I ponder, I want to share something I learned that makes me happy.
A homemade checkbook register.
Now that most banking we do is online, we hardly write checks any more. But we do still use the registers to keep track of our accounts. And it always galls me that buying a register from the bank-approved printer costs $2.50-$3.00, plus another $2.00 shipping.
Five dollars? Really? I think we can do better than that.
So I came up with a way. Here it is. Enjoy.

First, get a blank Excel spreadsheet on your screen. You can personalize the columns any way you like, but since I'm used to the old-school registers, I used a standard check log for reference.
In the column headings, type: Number, Date, Transaction Description, Payment, the check mark symbol (you get this by changing the font to "webdings" and typing in "a."), Deposit and Balance. Remember to leave an extra blank "cents" column after Payment and Deposit.

You'll need to put your cursor over the lines between the letters to drag the columns to the right width. 

When you think you have it, it's time to draw the interior lines. Select a column or a row and go up to "borders" at the top. Choose whichever border will make the lines you want, running between columns or rows. You can also make some lines fatter or double to set them apart from others. Just go to the bottom of the "borders" menu and choose "line style." This gives you a pencil, which you can drag over the existing lines to change them.  My old Deluxe register had 27 rows, so I made lines for that many, with the rows in groups of two.

You'll need your register to be a specific size. Once again, this is your choice. I went with 5 and 3/8 inches tall by 6 inches wide, which is the size of the original one. To do this, find the page layout view box in the bottom right of the Excel page, next to the "100 percent." Click on it and adjust your cell widths again until you get the desired dimensions. Remember, you're looking at the last cell, not the margin--yet.

Okay, now you can select every other row and fill it with a light gray color, if you want. I went with a somewhat dark looking gray because it always comes out lighter in copies.

Now you have a reasonable facimile of a check register. The next part is trickier. To get this to print, you're going to have to make a double-sided master copy that is lined up so the headings are rightside-up on one side and upside-down on the other. This way, the headings will always be at the top when you turn the page.

To do this, you have to first center your image exactly on the page.

Go to the page layout heading at the top of the page and choose "print area." Then select the part of the Excel sheet you have filled out. Then find the part of the sheet--stilll in "page layout" view that looks like a ruler. Hold your cursor over the place on the left where it turns from white to blue. It will tell you how wide the left margin is. Click and drag the left and right margins until you have them both the same. Then do the same thing for the top and bottom margins (the ruler marking where it goes from blue to dark blue).

When everything is exactly centered, save your spreadsheet. Then save as a pdf and print the rightside up copy.

Now go to the top of the pdf page and find the "rotate" button. Or you can just click "control, shift, +." Rotate until your copy is upside down. Flip your printed page side to side, put it back in the printer and print again. 

Voila. You'll have back-to-back copies, one upside-down. 

You can print 10 more on your own printer, or take it up to Office Depot or Kinkos and not run yourself out of ink. (You might need to adjust the darkness for the gray fill, though). Use the paper cutter to trim it up, add a blank for the front and back cover and then staple it (from the outside) twice in the middle.

How much did you spend on the copying? A dollar or so? Compared with about $5 for the same thing from your bank and the check printing company. And best of all, you have the file in your computer and can print up more any time you want, without the wait.

Now there's a reason to be an optimist.

Pinch me

When you've been in crisis mode long enough, and then suddenly the crisis goes away, there's some mental weirdness that comes along with it.
It's like you've been running in a thicket and you abruptly stumble out into a clearing, blinking in confusion. What just happened? Where is that puma that was just behind me?
What am I supposed to think about now?
The news was finally in the Star today with Mike's farewell column. He's being promoted back to full-time. He regains all the benefits he lost--eyeglasses coverage, paid vacation, long-term disability, life insurance. And he gets a good raise. Not as much as we were making before, mind you. But we can once again pay our bills.
For two years and four long months I've been fantasizing about this day (or days like it, involving other employers). In my daydream, I would put on some raucous music and dance giddily. I would buy a bottle of champagne, which we would spend the evening drinking and toasting our good fortune. Perhaps I would even cry a little with gratitude.
So far, none of that has happened. Instead, I find myself at the Walgreens cosmetics counter with my daughter, looking at fingernail polish. I've been wanting nail polish for two and a third years. I could buy it now. But I don't. In fact I have a long list of under-$10 things too impossibly boring to itemize here that I can now buy. But yet I somehow can't.
When the big layoffs came, our income was cut by one-third, not including the value of the benefits. With a little skillful cutting and renegotiating, that gave us just enough to pay our everyday living expenses--the house payment, gas, food, utilities. Anything beyond that--for example the nearly $300 it takes to register your kid for public high school--had to come from a savings that had been depleted to put two kids through college. Or we raised it by selling lumber, bunk beds and whatever else we could part with.
Today, many more things are within reach. Tires for the car, shots for the cat, new glasses. Yet here I stand at the counter, strangely paralyzed. We've had a couple of weeks to get used to it, but somehow I can't quite believe we're coming back to the middle class.
Mike is getting a new job that will allow him a breath of fresh air and more room to grow professionally. He is getting showered today with kind words from his readers who will miss him. Elsewhere on the Internet, his conservative detractors are no doubt looking at it as a big humiliation for him. Perhaps some are even giving themselves credit with bringing him "down."
Maybe what is needed is a pricey cup of coffee. I should finally have that latte the financial advice columnists are forever telling me to skip. And as I sip it, I will consider our newly rightside-up world and try to make sense of it all.

Three days

Okay. I'll bite. Why is it that Kansas City is now considered the most positive city on the planet?
Yes. This planet. Earth.
The half-time of the most recent Sporting KC match was devoted to this bit of shocking news.
Normally, I don't pay much attention to what comes on the big screen during half-time breaks. This is my time for puling about the bad calls, drinking beer and just generally saving energy for the next 45-minute bout of standing and screaming. But this caught my attention because it started out just like one of those fake commercials they do on Saturday Night Live. Here, have a listen:




I won't lie. That video was terrifying. It starts with the menacing, almost sarcastic way the voice-over says, "You won," and continues through several horror-filled minutes while happy pod people and their families play and enjoy outdoor activities. When it was over, I felt my mouth go dry. Had some indescribable thing happened to my brain from watching this? Could I expect to get an anonymous call ala "The Ring" announcing I had but three days before I, too, would become insanely positive?
"Believe it. You're number one on the planet." While we were all so ecstatic about our good fortune to be living in Kansas City, a secret vote was being taken. "It's possible you didn't even know that a vote had taken place," the announcer said in gentle mockery.
Who are these shadowy forces that talk about us behind closed doors?
The United Nations NGO Positive Peace Awards, apparently. From what I gather on the Internet, the NGOs (Non-governmental organizations) voted on this at some point. NGOs would include groups like Rotary, Sister Cities, etc. Although the award bears the United Nations name, it's not mentioned on the UN home page. (To be fair, you could spend hours wading through the UN site trying to find it).
Judging criteria were also a bit of a mystery. Most things point to a group called Celebrate Positive LLC, which is dedicated to that always-hard-to-pin-down-but-I'll-know-it-when-I-see-it positivity. This is a group led by Scott Pederson of Atlanta. And this group is focused on finding the warmest and fuzziest from other areas of entertainment and sports as well.
If I were a real media person, I would click on the media relations link at the bottom of that page. But I am only a blogger with not much time. So I'll be stuck with my own imagination on what separates Kansas City from the pack. Doesn't every city have families and cultures and "amazing events?" Okay, so maybe Las Vegas doesn't celebrate the small town values like we do, but I bet Minneapolis and Milwaukee do. And without the bilious hatred that northlanders, Kansas Citians, Kansas City Kansans and Johnson Countians exhibit at random moments.
But then I...ca...can't...ahhhhg
We're number one! We're number one! We're number one!
Save yourselves people. Erase that video.

Just sharing

One of my favorite cartoon songs ever:





Or you can watch the whole cartoon by following this link: http://youtu.be/D9b7PEj3fR0

Trash picking: Part II

After more than two years of an extended "rough patch," it's nice to once in a while get a little break. It seems this summer the patron saint of garbage picking--whoever that may be--has crooked a greasy fingernail our direction and delivered upon us a second-hand blessing.
Because we are now two for two on fantastic finds in our local outings. Like the newb at the slot machines, it's just taken a little good luck to make me hunger for more information on local big trash days. Get me some more quarters, stat!
So there we were, with sun setting on big trash day in the wealthier western part of town and absolutely no time for curbside shopping. We had tickets to the Wi--Sporting KC and family obligations up til it was time to go.
Let's just take a quick turn around a couple of blocks on the way there, Mike said. We probably wouldn't find anything anyway.
Around corner one. Nothing. Corner two. Nothing. Corner three...wait, what's that?
At the end of one driveway was a pile of cushions and some wicker-looking outdoor furniture. We looked at each other. Outdoor furniture was, in fact, our only objective in this entire hunt.
I got out. The two wide chairs and settee were solid and heavy. A little bleached out, but with very few broken weaves. We could get new cushions and replace the horrible (really horrible) white wicker stuff that has been shaming our front porch the past two years.

After a brief discussion, Mike stayed behind to defend our kill from the other predators while I sped back for the big van. When I got back, he said, "We're taking the cushions, too."
And now voila! New porch furniture that makes us feel human again. Best of all, it's plastic wicker and heavy enough that it shouldn't blow off the porch like the old stuff.
Here's our old, dog-chewed stuff:
And here is the new, improved furniture, fresh from the garbage!
Who says life isn't good?

Respeck

You just get so used to the rich guys taking everything. They back their trucks up to the US Treasury to load up with your tax money. They take bonuses while their workers are getting salary cuts. They ask to take money out of your kids' school in one breath yet insist on getting tax money for their own private schools in the next.
Firefighters and teachers are dumped on in Wisconsin, the long-term unemployed are looking at no benefits at all in Arizona--over philosophical differences on the role of government, no less. If you want to be an optimist in the middle of this, the daily news will take you out to a deserted wheat field and forcibly beat the hope out of you.
That's why going to the Kansas City Wizards'--er, excuse me, Sporting Kansas City's--shiny new stadium is such a mood lifter.
Yes, it's beautiful and state-of-the-art and on par with Europe. And the seats offer a great view of the action no matter where you are. And yes, they won last night. But that's not what puts me in such a good mood.
It's something more simple and maybe even a little meaner-spirited of me than all that.
It's the fact that the priciest tickets cannot get you in to enjoy the best section of the stadium. My section. The cheap seats.
In a decision that upends the usual order of the world, the Sporting KC fans who pay the least for tickets gets some of the best advantages. The closest parking. Prime seats behind the goal. It's the first place triumphant players come to be congratulated after a well-fought match.
And---and!-we have a nice, enclosed, air-conditioned concession area close by filled with big screens. So far this season, while others are paying stadium beer prices for a Bud, we've been getting a somewhat smaller plastic cup of craft beer for $2.
Can the CEOs and fancy suits get in? No ma'am they cannot. We checked multiple times.
It goes without saying that this is the equivalent of reversing gravity in the world of American sports capitalism. Mike and I are so filled with wonder that much of our game night conversations go like this:
"Look at how far out this parking lot is. They have to ride a shuttle bus. Who parks here?"
"People who paid more than we did."
"Want a beer? It's $2! I bet all the guys behind that barrier over there wish they could have some."
"But they can't."
There is nothing like this that we can find in any other local sport. The Royals rebuilt it's stadium recently. Ask where the former "bleacher" sitters are now, and if they're bringing binoculars. But they have plenty of luxury boxes.
There are cheap seats at the T Bones. On a steep grass embankment. In the outfield. Facing the western sun. And the Chiefs? Aw hell no.
Of course we work for it. The Members area (aka the Cauldron) is what makes it a soccer event and not just an ordinary sports snooze. Members wear the colors. They stand for the whole game. They sing. They put up with big drums beaten with a sawed off piece of PVC pipe and constant flags and streamers. (Except for a little dogleg of seats facing the long edge of the pitch. Apparently this part of the Members area has not caught on about what's expected. We ended up in this section last night and were told by a lady near us that anyone who wants to stand for the game should just "go over there," pointing to the more animated area behind the posts.)
You have to give credit to On Goal. They know what a contribution the Cauldron makes to the atmosphere of the game. Without it, you'd have a bunch of people chattering amongst themselves and only cheering for the bold attack or good save. Or to do the wave. There would be no "12th man" bolstering the team when things aren't going well.
Maybe I'm naive. Maybe the Cauldron will be sold out one day and I'm a fool.
But for now, I'm enjoying the respect. And the $2 beer.
And if you're a six-figure company manager who got a bonus and free seats from your company to the match--well good for you. But you can't come in my section.
Sucka!

Dear Santa...

There's nothing like a little garbage scavenging to lift your spirits.
Friday was Big Trash night, or Curbside Christmas, as I like to call it. It's an event we look forward to eagerly every year.
We started trash when we were still making decent money--back in the heady days of the Clinton surplus and the dot.com bubble. Before there ever was an economic meltdown or a television show called American Pickers. Back then, we garbage picked because it was fun. Now, of course, we feel a little more in tune with the Joads and do it to give ourselves a treat we wouldn't normally be able to afford.
We've gotten quite a few good things over the years. A servicable, if ugly, long table. Plastic outdoor chairs. A bathroom sink with the old-fashioned brass fixtures still intact.
This year we went out with a plan to be selective. Two sons have moved out of town since last year, so we didn't have enough room for any extra stuff, no matter how fanciful or fun it may be.
Specifically, we needed outdoor patio furniture.
I should stop and say here that we have had a deck since the '80s, but we have never ever paid for outdoor furniture. The round table, chaises and chairs we have now are the same ones a friend of mine gave us when she updated her own set. In addition, we have a bunch of various plastic and metal/plastic chairs picked up from garbage nights past.
That was probably 15 or 20 years ago, though, and even though we've replaced the cushions and the umbrella, the hardware is beginning to fail. Too many plastic straps have broken. One chaise is all done and had to be tossed.
So we took to the side streets. We drove. And we drove. And for blocks...nothing.
I don't mean nothing as in not the things we were looking for. No, people were putting out real garbage this time. Rotting plywood. Tatty, moldy looking and obviously broken recliners. Sketchy plastic children's playsets.
For block after block, the only competition we had was the guys with flatbeds picking up lawnmowers and scrap metal. I became more and more glum. In my head, I began writing about how the recession has lasted so long that even the quality of the garbage has declined.
We passed a flatbed guy going over one of the more promising piles. We talked about how much further we'd go before calling it an evening.
And then...Paydirt! Three very nice deck chairs. Black metal frames with plastic straps in good shape. (The fourth one had broken seat straps. We left it for the other picker, who caught up with us just as we were loading them up.) All we have to do now is paint the metal on our table to match, and get new cushions and an umbrella (again) and our deck will no longer seem so much like a hobo camp.
As an extra plus, I opened up a horrible-looking guitar case at the same place and found inside a three-quarters sized six-string guitar in great shape. Mike put new strings on it today and it's fine. Now to learn the chords to "Brandy."
The only sour note was just before we got home. We spied a small leather (or maybe faux leather) couch that would have been a great replacement for the one in my daughter's room (which was also secured from someone's curbside). She and Mike were enthusiastic about getting it. But alas, it turned out to be a sleeper couch and they couldn't even lift it into the van, let alone get it up to the third floor. Oh well. Easy come, easy go.
So Big Trash Night becomes, once again, my favorite part of the summer. I can hardly wait for next weekend, when it's garbage night for our wealthier neighbors to the west who, presumably, can still afford to buy new.

Pops redux

Ok, I think I'm finally done with cake pops.
After spending pretty much every free minute learning how to make the things last winter, I had decided that there was just no way to charge enough for them. To do the really cute ones, you have to spend a lot of painstaking time getting the tiny bunny features just right. That's a lot more fine work than you'd have on a cake or a torte. Yet somehow, the size of the cake pop makes it hard to come up with a reasonable charge.
To make it worthwhile, each pop needs to cost at the bare minimum, a dollar. I've seen big slices of cake go for $4 in a coffee shop. If you crumbled those slices, you would not get 4 cake pops. Yet when I look at a little cake pop on a stick--well, it seems like $1 is a lot to ask for basically two bites of cake. I guess this is just the "super size" mentality.
So I put them away. Then I saw that Starbucks now sells cake pops for $1.50 each, and there's nothing fancy about them. They are just round orbs in a colored chocolate shell with sprinkles. "Are these selling?" I asked the woman at the counter. "Oh yes, very well!" she replied.
So maybe...
But then, two local coffee shops would not be enough. I'd need to develop some kind of online ordering. And wouldn't that involve shipping?
From what I've read at other blogs, shipping is a cake pop problem. First, you have to come up with a way to pack them that won't jostle off your cute decorations. Sadly, there is no ready-made cake pop packing box.
And then there's the weather. Most sites that sell them recommend freezing them and sending them next-day air to avoid them melting in the box. That means the customer would pay a HUGE shipping fee on top of the already high cake pops themselves. Given the way things have been going, are there enough people out there who have the money for this kind of thing?
So I'm back into the research again.
Then I notice that to sell any kind of food, Kansas law requires you use a state-approved kitchen and it cannot be the same kitchen you use for your own family.
In my case that would mean renting out someone else's approved kitchen. All before a single cake pop has been sold.
Ok, I accept it. There's no way to make money at this--at least not right away. Which is reasonable, I guess. Most small businesses don't make any money at first. Some never make any money at all.
So the plan would have to be: Put some pops out at volunteer things for free, and give out some cards and donate a bunch to get your name going. Then parlay that word of mouth into advanced orders.
And so round and round I go. On one side, solving the problem is fun and so is making the pops. On the other: I just don't have money or more time to risk getting myself out there.
There has to be a better way...

Tips from a Dip

The idea was to try and have cake pops perfected quickly. After which, I'd bring them by a couple of coffee shops in my neighborhood that also sell locally-made sweets.
I thought it was a pretty good plan. It should have worked. Here's what happened instead:
I made several trips to the Baker's Rack, a locally owned baking supply shop that is--as fortune would have it--just a short block away. Several trips were necessary because I kept having new problems with the chocolate dyeing, dipping and writing.
Because you see, there are apparently an infinite number of small details that can cause problems with cake pops.
Firstly, the design. Check Google "Images" for cake pops and most of the shapes you see are spherical. My Valentine design, though, is flat--like those Conversation Hearts your kids give out in their Valentine boxes.
The problem with flat is that the cake/frosting innards of the cake pop are not evenly distributed around the lollipop stick. Hence, sometimes half the heart will break off under the weight and heat of the chocolate dip.
So to the drawing board. My first pops were made with cake mix and canned butter cream frosting. For the second go-around, I did a from-scratch cake and homemade cream cheese frosting, in hopes that the cream cheese would be a little more solid.
But that wasn't all. I also froze the pops, to give them a better chance against the heat. That worked pretty well, I thought, until I noticed that the chocolate coating cracked on several after they dried.
Then I decided that the chocolate dip needed to be thinner. Thinning chocolate is tricky. Everyone knows water would make the chocolate seize up, but cooking oil is also problematic, because it doesn't mix in as well. So back to the store, where I was told lecithin flakes are the best and easiest way to thin.
Now I needed a good color. Conversation hearts are generally pastel, but despite a big selection of darker colors, pastels were a rarity. I didn't even consider grocery store food coloring, whose main ingredients are water and propylene glycol (alcohol). They don't give enough color anyway. I had some cake decorating gel, but it was ancient.
So back to the store again. for some dye especially made for chocolate.
I now had the dipping down. But Conversation Hearts need written witticisms. Food grade markers would be easiest but are hard to find here. The big craft stores sell one brand, but it gets uniformly nasty reviews online. And there was no time to wait for a mail order.
I would have to pipe on the comments with a pastry bag.
Now here's the thing I found out about piping chocolate: As you work, it hardens in the tip until you can't squeeze anything out. I had a little plastic tube of chocolate for this purpose (bought, once again, at the Baker's Rack). I thought at first I'd been ripped off and that the tube was mostly empty. Until I cut it open and found it still full of usable chocolate. It's just that the tip was completely hardened.
So I went back to my own pastry bag, worked quickly and put the whole thing--metal tip included--into the microwave on low every so often to keep it moving. (Yes, I put a paper towel over the metal tip.)
And voila! Success at last.
Then one more trip to the baking supply store for little plastic hoods.
I nerved myself up and dropped off my free samples and my phone number at the two coffee shops (neither owner was in when I came by). But I didn't have too much hope because by that time, Valentine's Day was less than a week away.
A good salesman would have been back and followed up with the owners. I know this. But by this time, I was in a crunch to get ready to be a presenter at a garden show (to sell and promote our gardening book) to practice for an accompanying job, to prepare an audition for a job I didn't get and to help our son move. And oh, yeah, to get my own piano students ready for their upcoming events.
I figured if I'd gotten a dollar apiece for the cake pops (after the stores' cut) I would have made about $28.
So what, ladies and gentlemen, have we learned today?
When the big career job stops paying, you have to fill in with a bunch of little jobs. On Planet Conservative, this character-building, nose to the grindstone workout rewards you with enough to live on. And if it doesn't, well you're just stupid I guess.
In real life, though, all the little jobs take way more time than anyone on Planet Conservative can even imagine. And they usually pay about $28.
Unless you own the Baker's Rack.

So far, so...

Okay, so we're almost a month into the new year and this is the first post since December sometime. Yes, you'd be right if you think that Means Something.
It means I'm beginning to think I may never become an optimist.
Now two years into this project, I'm just this close to giving it all up. I've gained exactly zero new insights into optimism and positive attitudes since December, as my oncoming extended whine may illustrate.
Like everybody else, I usually start the new year with some good intentions. I don't like to think of them as resolutions. They're just some sticky notes on my mental refrigerator. "You're too angry too much. You need to spend time every day meditating. Just learn to let the bad things go. Get back in the habit of blogging. And exercising. And composing. Something's gotta change for the better this year."
Stuff like that.
So how's it gone so far, you may ask.
First thing: A huge fight with my daughter. I'm not kidding. It was only, like, Jan. 3 or 4. Angry? Yes. Have I meditated? Not even once. Composing? No. Blogging? You can see for yourself. In fact, exercising is the one horse I've been able to get back up on.
So in the spirit of politicians everywhere, I've decided not to change myself at all. Instead, I'll spin it. This year, instead of trying to change my thinking, I'll be concentrating on doing. Specifically doing something that will bring in some desperately needed coin.
I have two things to report so far:
1) I've been trying to learn to make cake pops to sell...somewhere, somehow. Cake pops--basically, chocolate covered cake on a stick--are the rage on at least one coast, I've read, but no one seems to be doing them here.
People who know me may scoff. I can cook, sure, but I've never been much of a one for fine presentation. So the painstaking decorative hand that cake pops demand may prove to be too much. But I vow to have mastered the art by Valentine's Day or die trying. Here's an early attempt.

I'm still learning how much to thin the chocolate melts and the best way to get the writing on the front, which I haven't yet tried.
2)Now that I think about it, I can't really say much about the second project. It's just bad luck. But it's definitely a really real project that would (theoretically) bring in really real cash. Some day. Maybe not as soon as the cake pops, though.
Sadly, blogging is not something that has brought about any extra money, so I'll be cutting back my time on that. See how neatly that fits in with my sloth of late? Talk about expert spin.