Don't Ask Me Out For Lunch. I'm Paying Off My Credit Cards

I have finally sat down and created an interactive budget for myself. It's something I have dabbled with for years, but never actually completed. Now that I'm more Excel savvy, I created a three tab spreadsheet with my monthly budget, which paycheck pays which bills and my debt snowball schedule. It's already helping me tremendously, just by thinking "What category is this going to go in?" before I spend money. The fact that my happy little spreadsheet will hold me accountable for my debit card and ATM relationships has kept me in line this month. I've also been able to pay over $1000 towards my debt snowball!

If "Debt Snowball" is a term you are unfamiliar with, it works like this:

• Write down each and every debt you owe, outside of home expenses and utilities. Mine include 2 credit cards, a time-share and my car.
• Break down highest to lowest balance, interest rates, monthly payments.
• For me, my highest interest rate was also my lowest balance so I chose to pay that off first (we'll call it Debt 1).
• I pay the minimum payment on my remaining three debts and all discretionary cash on Debt 1 (this is over and above the minimum payment).
• Once Debt 1 is paid off, I roll my entire Debt 1 payment plus the minimum payment for Debt 2 to pay off Debt 2. And so on and so on until all debts are paid off.
• Once I am debt free, I will begin building my emergency fund. 3-6 months of expenses. Without my debt payments, my monthly expenses are pretty low.
• I will also max out my 401K and fully fund my Roth IRA.

My goal for 2010 is to pay off my two credit cards, time-share and most of my car. The car won't be fully paid off until halfway thru 2011, but I'll be in a much better financial situation before then.

So don't ask me out to lunch. I'm paying off my credit cards.

Jesus is the Reason for the Season!

As we bustle about driving here and driving there, buying this and buying that, let us remember the real reason for this joyous season. Celebration of the birth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Whenever his actual birthday may be, this is when we celebrate God's greatest gift to Man. His chosen Son, the Saviour of the world.

No matter who you are or what you've done, Jesus loves you and will stand with you through all your life. You do not need to be alone. He is always there with open arms, full of love and forgiveness. What joy it is to know that I have been forgiven and start each day as a new person.

I am so thankful to my Saviour for choosing to come to this Earth to live and die for me. If I were the only person on the Earth, He still would have come for me. As we visit with family and tear into our presents, remember that God gave us our most precious gift, his precious Son.
Merry Christmas to all!

Engaged!

We're Engaged!

Questions I Will Probably Never Know the Answer To

..At Least Not in This Life.

1. Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?
2. Why are there no 'B' batteries? Were they bad and sent away to the battery refugee camp, never to be heard from again?
3. Why are yawns contagious? Sometimes just thinking about yawning makes me yawn..like right now.
4. I live in a neat and clean 1 bedroom apartment and do my own laundry. Where the @&*! do my missing socks go?!?
5. Why does 'sour' cream have an expiration date? It's already gone bad!
6. Why do we hiccup? Cuz they suck.
7. Why are cute women's shoes always so painful to wear? I think they are designed by men as a way to keep women in bondage.
8. Has anyone ever got the skinny white ceramic dog that's always in the Wheel of Fortune prize showcase? It's been 15 years! Obviously no one wants the damn thing, give it to Goodwill!
9. How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? I'll never know because as soon as I taste the Toostie Roll center, I throw it away.
10. How is baseball 'America's pastime' when more people watch NASCAR?
11. Where do all my pens go? They must be hanging out with my missing socks and lost B batteries.

Help Us Remember

Heavenly Father,
Help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can't make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.

Heavenly Father, remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity. Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love. Matt 5:44

It's sunny outside!

As the days get shorter and the nights longer, my mind wanders through fuzzy mazes of clues and pastures. Rolling along the path, absent from the world's prerequisite of supposed truths. I spell relief with a good book, warm slippers and kiss on the forehead from someone who spoils me with sweetness. Through imagined climate change, destructive and rebuilding wars, famine and pandemics, I linger in the doorway leading to true happiness and peace. Baby steps along the road of life and learning. Will I walk this way again?

Happy Halloween

It's a White Trash day!

When...

When the world seems to be closing in and my cube walls suffocate all sense of freedom and energy, I close my eyes and picture a smooth green hillside to my left, a small creek running along the line of trees on my right. Sounds of cool running water, tickling over stones as it smooths the edges off my mind. Velvet breezes rustle leaves and creak high reaching branches above. Soft sunshine bathes my skin and warms my soul.

I do not know if this place is an actual recollection of some physical location, or a realm my imagination created to allow my escape from reality. Either way, I love coming here.

Such a Kitty

Caution: May contain traces of drool...

www.engrish.com

My new favorite website!

A Place to Call Home

In the search for a house, what I'm really looking for is a place to call home. Having moved more times that I can count, I am not reveling in the thought of boxing up my belongings again. Yet, I am ashiver with anticipation at the possibilities that lay in front of me. A yard to tend, pictures to hang, walls to paint and real garage to park my car in. Frivolities of life that I covet.

Apartment dwelling does have it's positives. Need a new garbage disposal? Call the office and they install a new one that day, easy-peasy! Drunk neighbors laughing like banshee's under my window at 3 am on a Tuesday, not a perk. One mile commute to work, definitely on the plus side of my list. I will miss the ease of location and maintenance, but will love owning my own piece of the American Dream.

Quote for the Day

The sound of silence

Can be melodic

Or deafening

Oh How I Miss the Good Ol' Days!

OH NO!!!

Those Moments

There are those moments in life when you think, where do I go from here? What are my next steps? So many plans and hopes, wants and dreams run together to create a mishmash map of life. Though money does not drive me, it does grant a certain level of freedom. Each step is interconnected with the next, and last. Without at least some semblence of a plan we meander through this world, listing with the wind and social demands. I have such great ideas and wonderful desires for the future, but tomorrow stands in front of me. Stalwart and sure. It will appear whether I want it or not. What steps do I need to take to accomplish my wishes? Where do I go from here?

He really is!

2-Line Rhymes

THESE ARE ENTRIES TO A WASHINGTON POST COMPETITION
ASKING FOR A TWO-LINE RHYME
WITH THE MOST ROMANTIC FIRST LINE,
AND THE LEAST ROMANTIC SECOND LINE:

1. My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:
Marrying you has screwed up my life.

2.I see your face when I am dreaming.
That's why I always wake up screaming.

3. Kind, intelligent, loving and hot;
This describes everything you are not.

4. Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss,
But I only slept with you 'cause I was pissed.

5. I thought that I could love no other-
- that is until I met your brother.

6. Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl's empty and so is your head.

7. I want to feel your sweet embrace;
But don't take that paper bag off your face.

8. I love your smile, your face, and your eyes
Damn, I'm good at telling lies!

9. My love, you take my breath away.
What have you stepped in to smell this way?

10. My feelings for you no words can tell,
Except for maybe 'Go to hell.'

11. What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts vodka, one part lime.

The Size of a Soul

How to measure the size of one's soul? It is measured by inches and feet, or ounces and pounds? Perhaps one can be measured by its acts, kind or cruel. Who would believe you if you were to tell them the weight of your soul? If it were at all possible to quantify our spirits, would that put a value on them?

If valued, then able to be bartered? If bartered, then marketed? If marketed, then increased demand for greater souls? With increased demand comes increased supply. Imagine of glut of souls available on the secondary market. What happens when the supply of a product far outpaces its demand? The value of that product shrinks, easy to get anywhere. No one wants it anymore. Unwanted souls, discarded and ignored.

No. Our souls are not weighted, nor are they measured. Each is priceless beyond recognition. We should not lose them so easily when another has sacrificed all for our right to keep them.

Part

To that he exclaimed, "You are nothing to me. Neither reality nor fiction. Your place is not with me. Move on and be gone."

What to do? Where to go now? With all the space this world has inside it, surely there is a parcel for me and my small soul.

Don't Ask

3 Letter Animals:

cat

dog

eel

rat

bat

emu

gnu

elk

yak

pug

fly

nit

ant

pig

cow

hog

egg

(if you do not support abortion, then you must believe that an egg is an animal)

Can you think of any more?