Posts Tagged ‘financial situations’

Too much to sort through!

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

So I’m having this issue where I want to write and I have no idea what to write about.  There are so many possibilities!

I could write about my weekend, which was mostly fantastically dull and involved watching movies and sleeping and talking with wonderful people on the phone.

Or I could talk about work and how we’re going to attempt an “affinity diagram” tomorrow and I have never done it before and I really hope it works out well.

I could talk about how we’re flying to Burlington, Vermont, again because we’re going for a wedding.  And I keep freaking out because Justin’s jacket is wrinkled and we haven’t gotten it dry cleaned yet.  And we don’t have a rental car yet, and since we’re staying at Justin’s folks’ place, we need a car to get from there to the wedding and all that.  And all these things about weddings keep stressing me the heck out so much that I haven’t even started thinking about freaking out about the traveling part of the whole deal.

I could talk about these books I’m reading about managing money and not undervaluing your worth and taking control of your finances and all the fun and exciting things I’m learning . . . that no one else thinks are fun and exciting at all.  And I’m reading books about marketing and writing business plans and don’t those sound fascinating, too?  No?  They do to me!

I could write about how well we ended up with our finances last month–with Justin making more money than expected and us handling budgeting and saving really well and ending up so far into the black that it’s astonishing how much we could potentially put away if we spent every month not going out to dinner or spending money on fun things and sitting at home sitting on our thumbs.  Which we’re not going to do but we might spend more time looking at the possiblities there.

Which would bring me into talking about our current situation with Justin’s car.

And dang it!  I haven’t bought gifts for Erica or Dad, who both have birthdays in the next 10 days, or for the bride and groom on Saturday.

So what I’m getting at here is that I really have so much going on in my head right now that it’s completely overwhelming and while I’m really having fun with most of it (car stuff = not so much fun, and what the heck is up with my wedding anxiety when I’m not even involved!), I have no idea where to start with the discussing of it all.

But I hope that you’re all doing very well and having a better start to your week than I did (there were ants in my cereal!) and I will babble nonsense at you all again soon.

Cheers!

1
Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Living! |

Last day of my “vacation”

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Okay, quick update because I’ve been lax lately.  Working backwards!

Today:
I got up and went babysitting earlier than I expected, but it was only for an 11-month old and he slept the entire time I was there.

Yesterday:
I worked with the children’s pastor on the store room at the church office and made it go from total chaotic eyesore to a shining example of organization.  Everyone is very pleased.

And then after grilling dinner and chatting with friends online, we drove Justin’s car to the mechanic’s while no one else was on the road.

Wednesday:
Relaxed, did some projects, made lots of phone calls about business license information and finding a mechanic.  Babysat in the evening for a few hours for a house of sleeping children.

Tuesday:
Drove to Macon with my small group leader/friend with her 11-month old, 3-year old, and 9-year old to drop the oldest off with her grandparents and then drove home again.

Monday:
Babysat for several hours for those same kids (I’ve seen a lot of them this week).  I swear I did something else on Monday but I have no idea what it was.

So, my last week of my vacation has been insane.  I made a chunk of change (gifted, if the unemployment office asks) to help with possible fixes for Justin’s car.

He’s been driving my car most of this month because I have a/c and get better mileage.  But also, for the last week and a half, because his brakes went out.  The mechanic looked at it today and didn’t have good news for us.  We’re going to chat about it tonight and go see the mechanic tomorrow morning.

And I didn’t do everything I’d hoped to do while I was off work, but I did have fun doing what I did and it doesn’t matter that I didn’t cross everything off my list.

Bills are coming due in the next couple weeks and if we managed to make it through this whole month without pulling from savings for anything other than paying for our plane tickets for next month’s wedding, then I’m a tickled lady.  We’ll know for sure in two more weeks.

I’ve made some good progress on my small business, learned a lot about the paperwork and how much more I really need to learn.

I learned a lot about IRAs and different money and retirement things.

I’ve slept in later most mornings that I should have but I don’t regret it one bit.

It’s been a nice break, but I’m ready to get back to work again.

After the weekend.

2
Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Living! |

Fixing up chairs on a Friday.

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

So, in my efforts to keep up with this better, this is what I did yesterday, complete with a couple pictures!

Yesterday, I got up and puttered a little at my computer.  Okay, a lot at my computer.  And then I got ready to go to the babysitting gig I thought I had that morning.  I remembered that I’d seen a message from Mom on my phone just as I was going to bed, but that my phone had died and I’d plugged it in.  So I went to go listen to the message from Mom and discovered another message from the woman for whom I was going to be babysitting, canceling our appointment.  I called her back to let her know that I’d received the message and then I changed back out of “decent” clothes and back into “work” clothes.

Then I went out onto the back porch and washed the heck out of the three wooden chairs we had sitting on our front porch.  They used to be the kitchen chairs at Justin’s old apartment in upstate New York, so they weren’t actually weather-proofed for that sort of thing.  They’re mostly under the cover of the porch, but it doesn’t really protect them that much.

The front of our house
The front of our house

They were all pretty spotty with mold, so I washed them good and hard for a long time and in the end, they mostly ended up looking like this.

Washed and worn looking

Washed and worn looking

But it’s impressive what a good dark stain will do.  This is what I did later in the afternoon.

Newly stained and beautiful

Newly stained and beautiful

One of them is darker than the other, just because it took more weather damage than the others, but they all look so much better than they did.

All refreshed and renewed
All refreshed and renewed

I think I might give them all a second coat, but I’m going to wait until they’re all good and dry, which means it won’t happen for a week or so.  But they’re all covered in a very good weather-resistant stain now, so hopefully they’ll fare better than they had been.

In between washing and staining, because I had to wait for them to dry, I went to the library to return my due book and pick up a handful of others.  I’d forgotten how liberating it is to *borrow* books instead of buying them.  I can pick up books for research that I wouldn’t want to buy and keep around, but are good to be able to borrow for a while, get the information I want, and then return.

Like The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke by Suze Orman.  I’m recommending this read to everybody I know.  Seriously.  READ THIS BOOK.  It’s all about how to get yourself out of debt and into a better place for the future.  And it’s not just “stop drinking Starbucks everyday.”  It’s “this is what your credit score means and why it’s important and how you can get it better.”  It’s “don’t worry about your savings account when you have $10,000 in credit card debt.”  And “this is what a Roth IRA is and why you want to start one RIGHT NOW.”  It’s “this is how you buy a house, after you’ve paid off your credit card debt and improved your credit score.”  It’s really great.  I’ve got the book full of Post-it notes and I’m working on doing the things she recommended.  But once I’m done, I’m returning the book and I didn’t have to pay a dime for the advice!  It’s lovely!

Anyway, back from the library, I went and stained the chairs, listening to podiobooks on my music box, and stupidly forgetting to put on sunscreen or bug spray.  My back is a lovely pink now and I’ve got bites all up my legs.  My legs were all spotty when I came in, both from the splatter from the stain and because I sat on the grass and I’m allergic to grass.  The bug bites didn’t even register until this morning!

So I came in and washed, collapsed for a while because I was tired (sunburn does that) and I’ve lost track of my evening after that.  Tired does that.  I know Justin and I played a game together for a while and then remembered that one of our favorite shows was coming back on that evening so we watched that.  Eureka! Fantastic show.  And then we went to bed.

I’m sorry I failed to call, Mom.  I will do that sometime today.

Justin found a great pattern for build-it-yourself bookshelves, so I think we might be working on that today, and maybe getting together with online friends to play a computer game online, but I’m not really sure yet.

I hope you’re all having a great day!  I’ll check back in again soon!

Cheers!

4
Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Living! |

Feelings of accomplishment through letting things go

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

I’ve made and followed up on several decisions today and I’m feeling rather powerful about it.

I decided to let go of Wake Up the Muse.  I started it ages ago thinking it would be a fun project to help me in my writing, while also encouraging others.  And it was fun for a while and I had a few other people join me in it.  But for the last while, probably almost a year, I haven’t tended to it like I feel like I ought to.  And not tending to it made me feel guilty.  Now, what’s the point of keeping something that I don’t feel like working on and feel guilty about whenever I think of it?  It’s not as useful as I thought it might be and it doesn’t have a significant following.  So I pulled the plug.  I put up a note saying that I’m stepping away from the project and I’m not going to worry about it any more.

Justin and I decided to hold off on chiropractic care for a while.  I emailed the office this morning and let them know that I wouldn’t be scheduling an appointment until we’d saved up the money that we would need to cover the care that they’re recommending.  We do plan to eventually go back and get things worked on, but not until we know we can afford to pay for it all and still take care of other expenses.

We also decided to go off this stupid wheat and dairy elimination diet.  While chatting last night I remembered the futility of the whole project (no matter the results, nothing is going to change) and the frustrations involved. After curling up in bed and talking about the foods that we really miss, I decided that I’d rather just not know and stop worrying about it and go back to life as normal.  It was interesting.  It was frustrating.  And I’m beyond ready to be done with the whole mess.  And eat chocolate.  Ice cream.  Cheese.  Bread.  Pasta.  Breaded chicken breast.  Birthday cake.  Pizza.

Of these three, the chiropractor is the only thing that I plan on going back to.  I’ve got other writing goals and projects and I think they’ll go further than the website.  Abandoning the elimination diet means I can get back to my normal diet and try to get back to logging my food and losing weight again, as soon as I kick this cold that leaves me too exhausted to exercise.

The chiropractor, though, seems like a really good idea.  My insurance will cover quite a lot of it, just not as much as we’d really need it to cover.  We’re looking at needing a good $1000 of our own money to cover the rest, at the very low end of the estimate.  And while the FSA will reimburse us for that amount, we didn’t stash away money with that expense in mind, so there’s not quite enough for that and all the other expected expenditures.  So, along with all our other savings and debt-reduction projects, I’m also going to start saving money away for us to take care of this.

Justin’s going to bring home pizza, milk, and Oreo cookies tonight, to celebrate the end of a stupid idea.  I’ve got several pages of writing sitting, waiting for review and edit.  And I’ll add a column on the budget spreadsheet to track chiropractic savings.

I’m wearing black, wide-legged pants that float a little when I walk, topped with a black turtleneck.  Over that, I’m wearing a lavender scarf/pashmina following one of the styles in Amy’s video reference.  I feel slender.  I feel stylish.  And I feel beautiful.

Also, my navel is looking really fantastic.  It was a little irritated this morning, but looks better now.  It’s already much better than it was just a couple days ago.  The piercing holes are not nearly as purple and it hasn’t been oozing at all.  And I’m pretty sure there’s no smell!  Now, if that’s not an improvement, I’m not sure what is.

3
Tags: , , ,
Posted in Living! |
Newer Entries »