Cheap Entertainment

Living in Korea has changed the way we entertain ourselves entirely! Since there are no shopping malls with stuff that interests us, no Best Buy, no scrapbooking stores, etc...we are not shopping like we used to. This is a pretty good thing as far as money goes, but the internet has thousands of places that are willing to ship to us...

Since our options for going out are so severely limited, we have found a few things to entertain ourselves. By far my favorite is Lost! We borrowed the DVDs from some friends and have been hooked! Every night when I get home from work we have dinner, then Jordy gets a bath, then straight to Lost! For several weeks I have been fairly sleep deprived b/c I end up staying up way too late!

Instead of buying 4 seasons of Lost on DVD, we borrowed them from a friend and saved at least 100 dollars. We have spent every evening for the past few weeks watching it! This great trade has made me wonder what else my friends have hiding in their DVD collections! What a great way to save money rather than buy something and only watch it once.

Usually Joe doesn't like people to borrow our DVDs (he is super paranoid about people touching his stuff!), but he will make people copies for them to take. That way I don't feel like we borrow and then never loan stuff out.

Another thing we have been doing a lot of is Jordy playgroups. At the food court on base they recently added an indoor play area. It is pretty nice and has a magazine rack filled with women's magazines like Allure and InStyle. I like to sit and read a magazine and watch Jordy play. This activity would be entirely free, except Joe likes to buy food from the food court everytime we go.. It is so much fun watching all the kids playing. They don't know not to push or hit yet, no idea what sharing is, but they all know how to cry when something doesn't go their way. It is very entertaining. Somehow everytime we go, the kids flock to Joe and I. We are the only parents who actually play with them! All the mothers just sit with the other moms and talk.

When the weather gets a bit warmer, I am looking forward to hiking in the hills behind our apartments. It is really beautiful back there, and Jordan seems to really enjoy running along the trail.

Before Jordan came along, Joe and I used to really like to go to the gym together. It was so much fun spotting for him. He makes the funniest faces while working out. Out here we can't go to the gym together since we don't have anyone to watch Jordan, but we still go. I have started going after work. It is easier for me to make it part of my work day, rather than try to make it back another time. Joe usually goes on my days off. I do look forward to getting back to the states and going to 24 hour fitness where they have a day care.

I really enjoy cooking, and trying out a new recipe is a fun way to spend the afternoon. I found a website called spark.com that has all kinds of healthy & low fat recipes. Some of them turn out pretty good. I like the crock pot ones so I can turn it on when I leave for work, and then come home to a delicious meal. Joe also gets on board for cooking sometimes. Last week he helped me make Chicken and Shrip Paella! Yummy!

Of course I love to scrapbook, so that takes up a ton of time. My only drawback here is the lack of storage space. I don't want to buy a lot of stuff to store things in here. The scrapbook room is a disaster with papers all over the place! Joe still gets his video games regularly. Right now he is waiting for the Bx to get Resident Evil. Everyday he goes to the Bx really early to check and see if it is out yet. What dedication!

Before we moved here I was working a DVD slide show of all of Jordy's first year. I didn't finish it though, perhaps I should.

After doing taxes with Katie, I am vowing to keep better records this year. I just put in a receipt to the 2009 tax file that she made for me. It was for 6.65 for uniform alterations. The old me would have thought that 6 bucks wasn't enough to matter, but we'll see what it adds up to!

I found a website called Postcrossing. It is a postcard club. I send a postcard to some random place in the world, and get some back too! Just yesterday I got one from South Africa. I have gotten about 10 postcards; from China, Thailand, US, Finland... It is free to join, and fun to do!

My point of doing this post was to remind myself, and you too!, that there are a lot of activities in the world that don't require spending money. I am just so used to shopping being my main past time, it is hard to get out of that mindset.

Any other ideas to add?