Broke my hear to take my sweet baby boy to have all his curls chopped off, but it was time. (So said Eli.)
Cheers.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Curls are for girls (O's first haircut)
Broke my hear to take my sweet baby boy to have all his curls chopped off, but it was time. (So said Eli.)
Cheers.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Debt Transparency
Conversations with friends, family, and acquaintances about money have been coming up over and over again in the last six months or so. Through these conversations, I have been very transparent with our debt, where we've come from and where we're headed. A big shout-out first to God for his grace, and a secondary shout-out to Dave Ramsey for teaching Biblical principles for handling money.
If you're reading this and you are lost financially, or you feel like you could be doing more, I'm going to direct you to Dave Ramsey, to his book The Total Money Makeover, to his baby steps, to his fantastic class, Financial Peace University, and to his movement, The Great Recovery.
Now, on to where we are. We took FPU in February of 2008 at our church in T-town. Then we moved,had two children, and bought a house in the middle there. And we just kept trucking along, adjusting our monthly cash-flow plan and debt snowball (Baby Step 2) to roll with the punches. Almost a year ago, we paid off my student loans. Earlier this year we paid off our both our credit cards. Aside from the mortgage (which is Dave's Baby Step 6), the only debt we have left is student loan debt--$52k of student loan debt. Feeling disheartened, thinking that we haven't made a very big dent in the overall debt, I decided to go back and get all the records I could from February 2008 to present and find out how far we've come, and I'm equally excited and pained to say that we have paid off more than $53,000 in debt in 44 months (thank you, homeowner's tax credit, for the boost)! We are halfway there!
I went onto the forums on mytotalmoneymakeover.com (subscription membership is so worth it for the entirety of Dave's daily 3-hour radio program) looking for motivation while staring at defeating our remaining debt, and someone suggested breaking that debt into small chunks and working it from there, using a debt thermometer to track progress. Excellent idea!
I hereby declare war on our chunks, $10k at a time. So, I'm going to post our progress on each of 5 chunks of $10k in the form of a debt thermometer, updated monthly (or more often if I'm particularly inspired). And yeah, it still might take us 5 years to pay it all off, but I'm hoping it doesn't! And yes, there will be more than 5 chunks of 10 once interest is said and done, but we have to start someplace, right? So, in October of the year 2011, we start with our empty, new chunk:
First 10K Chunk, started 10/1/11
Fundraising Thermometer
Cheers.
If you're reading this and you are lost financially, or you feel like you could be doing more, I'm going to direct you to Dave Ramsey, to his book The Total Money Makeover, to his baby steps, to his fantastic class, Financial Peace University, and to his movement, The Great Recovery.
Now, on to where we are. We took FPU in February of 2008 at our church in T-town. Then we moved,had two children, and bought a house in the middle there. And we just kept trucking along, adjusting our monthly cash-flow plan and debt snowball (Baby Step 2) to roll with the punches. Almost a year ago, we paid off my student loans. Earlier this year we paid off our both our credit cards. Aside from the mortgage (which is Dave's Baby Step 6), the only debt we have left is student loan debt--$52k of student loan debt. Feeling disheartened, thinking that we haven't made a very big dent in the overall debt, I decided to go back and get all the records I could from February 2008 to present and find out how far we've come, and I'm equally excited and pained to say that we have paid off more than $53,000 in debt in 44 months (thank you, homeowner's tax credit, for the boost)! We are halfway there!
I went onto the forums on mytotalmoneymakeover.com (subscription membership is so worth it for the entirety of Dave's daily 3-hour radio program) looking for motivation while staring at defeating our remaining debt, and someone suggested breaking that debt into small chunks and working it from there, using a debt thermometer to track progress. Excellent idea!
I hereby declare war on our chunks, $10k at a time. So, I'm going to post our progress on each of 5 chunks of $10k in the form of a debt thermometer, updated monthly (or more often if I'm particularly inspired). And yeah, it still might take us 5 years to pay it all off, but I'm hoping it doesn't! And yes, there will be more than 5 chunks of 10 once interest is said and done, but we have to start someplace, right? So, in October of the year 2011, we start with our empty, new chunk:
Fundraising Thermometer
Cheers.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thirty-nine and counting
The end of September marked my parents' 39th wedding anniversary. Amazing, isn't it?! The negativity of today's press would have us think that this doesn't happen anymore. But I know it does! It's not and never has been a perfect marriage--do those really exist when it's made up of two imperfect humans?--but it is one that, through God's grace, has weathered almost four decades. I am humbled to be a product of such a union.
Eli and I have been married 8.5 years (man, time does fly!) and my parents have been married 5 times as long. That's crazy! On Thursday morning, I announced to my homeroom that it was my parents' anniversary, and told them how long they had been married. "So lucky!" one of my star students said (and it should be noted that his parents are divorced--though I never would have guessed--and in his words, they can't stand each other, but they parent together). Lucky, huh?
I've caught myself recently trying to downplay the purported existence of luck. It's been such a cultural norm to say "Good luck!" to people as they face a trial, or to tell people how lucky they are when something good happens to them. I have recently consciously been saying, "Do your best!" or "Be your best!" and recognizing God's blessings in life.
So, no. My parents 39 years together has not been the result of luck. I bet they'd be the first to tell you that it's been a lot of hard work doing the best they can do through trials and tribulations, and that the years have been bathed in prayer and God's grace.
What a blessing to me, my sisters, and my family. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for your commitment and devotion to each other. And thank you for your faith in a God who bridges the gap for your shortcomings and imperfections--that is what makes a marriage "perfect".
I love you.
Eli and I have been married 8.5 years (man, time does fly!) and my parents have been married 5 times as long. That's crazy! On Thursday morning, I announced to my homeroom that it was my parents' anniversary, and told them how long they had been married. "So lucky!" one of my star students said (and it should be noted that his parents are divorced--though I never would have guessed--and in his words, they can't stand each other, but they parent together). Lucky, huh?
I've caught myself recently trying to downplay the purported existence of luck. It's been such a cultural norm to say "Good luck!" to people as they face a trial, or to tell people how lucky they are when something good happens to them. I have recently consciously been saying, "Do your best!" or "Be your best!" and recognizing God's blessings in life.
So, no. My parents 39 years together has not been the result of luck. I bet they'd be the first to tell you that it's been a lot of hard work doing the best they can do through trials and tribulations, and that the years have been bathed in prayer and God's grace.
What a blessing to me, my sisters, and my family. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for your commitment and devotion to each other. And thank you for your faith in a God who bridges the gap for your shortcomings and imperfections--that is what makes a marriage "perfect".
I love you.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Frustrated
You know, I used to think that checking e-mail on a telephone was a stupid thing to do. I was probably just jealous. Because just last week I was saying that I can't imagine life any other way.
And then Monday at school, my iPhone was stolen off my desk by one of my students. I didn't realize until it was too late in the day to do much about it except take statements, and I honestly have no idea who it was.
I think one of my faults (or, as a teacher, it usually a strength?) is that I think the best of people; somehow I'm the eternal optimist. I think that 95% of people, given the opportunity, will do the right thing. Given a second chance, I think that 80% of those who made the wrong decision the first time will make it right. (That leaves 1% of the original group that is just...mean or dimwitted.)
Remember the Baylor men's basketball scandal in 2003? No? Just me? Well, I was a big fan and supporter of Dave Bliss, an excellent coach, a positive role model, so when allegations about unrelated faculty/staff NCAA misconduct arose after investigations into the murder, I stood firmly next to Dave, sticking up for him, defending him (in a figurative sense--we weren't friends or anything). And then one day, my programming was interrupted by a news conference with Baylor's head coach where he was accepting full responsibility for and knowledge of the misconduct and resigning from his position. Wait. What?!? I felt so betrayed...
And Dave Bliss never coached college again (so far), but went on to coach prison basketball leagues. Do I think he was paying penance and trying to make it right? Yes, yes I do.
So here I am with my phone missing, and that sickening feeling in my gut that any one of the students I smile at, cheer on, encourage, could be the very child who stole from me; I have been betrayed again. Strangely, I'm not angry yet. And I hope to the Lord that I can be spared that.
The other adults want me to tell lies and scare the poo out of the kids about the lengths I can go to to recover the phone. I don't want to lie. That's part of the issue here anyway--one of the kids is lying to me and I refuse to stoop to his level. I just composed an e-mail to my colleagues whose numbers were stored in my phone and let them know of the possibility of receiving stupid text messages from some student who now has their phone number. I hate being that idiot who let this happen.
"You're certainly taking this well. Better than I would."
Yeah, I've heard that from several of my colleagues. But why waste time and energy getting angry when I have a shortage of both? I was very honest with them yesterday and told them that there are things more important to me than electronics, and that they should also take stock of what is invaluable to them. "You don't care, Mrs. Beaver?" Yes, of course I care. But I think I'm more worried about this student and what his motives are.
In class, we just read Langston Hughes's "Thank You, M'am", and I only wish I could be as noble as Mrs. Louella Bates Washington Jones when the boy tells her he tried to steal her purse because he wanted to buy himself some blue suede shoes. "You coulda' asked," she told him. "M'am?" the boy asked in disbelief. She made him wash his face, she fed him, and then she gave him some money and sent him on his way, admonishing him not to steal from anyone again. "Shoes got in devilish ways will burn your feet."
Well, I'm praying for this student, and I'm telling my students that phones got in devilish ways will burn their ears.
And I haven't decided if I am going to get another phone at all. I may just pay to break the contract. It's kinda' freeing being untethered like this. And I can't afford a new phone, nor am I going to ask anyone else to shoulder the expense for me again. All I need is an answering machine and I can go back to being old-fashioned. Haha.
So, I don't know what I'm supposed to do or how I'm supposed to feel, so I may be a little cuckoo/confused/depressed/frustrated for a while. Jill baked me cookies last night, and that made me smile. And yes, out of two dozen, I probably have eaten 16 of them in the last 24 hours (not including the 3 dough balls). And Eli gave me a big hug. And Mom tried to track the prankster who texted her. And Stacey wants to come BE the police. Love you guys.
Cheers.
And then Monday at school, my iPhone was stolen off my desk by one of my students. I didn't realize until it was too late in the day to do much about it except take statements, and I honestly have no idea who it was.
I think one of my faults (or, as a teacher, it usually a strength?) is that I think the best of people; somehow I'm the eternal optimist. I think that 95% of people, given the opportunity, will do the right thing. Given a second chance, I think that 80% of those who made the wrong decision the first time will make it right. (That leaves 1% of the original group that is just...mean or dimwitted.)
Remember the Baylor men's basketball scandal in 2003? No? Just me? Well, I was a big fan and supporter of Dave Bliss, an excellent coach, a positive role model, so when allegations about unrelated faculty/staff NCAA misconduct arose after investigations into the murder, I stood firmly next to Dave, sticking up for him, defending him (in a figurative sense--we weren't friends or anything). And then one day, my programming was interrupted by a news conference with Baylor's head coach where he was accepting full responsibility for and knowledge of the misconduct and resigning from his position. Wait. What?!? I felt so betrayed...
And Dave Bliss never coached college again (so far), but went on to coach prison basketball leagues. Do I think he was paying penance and trying to make it right? Yes, yes I do.
So here I am with my phone missing, and that sickening feeling in my gut that any one of the students I smile at, cheer on, encourage, could be the very child who stole from me; I have been betrayed again. Strangely, I'm not angry yet. And I hope to the Lord that I can be spared that.
The other adults want me to tell lies and scare the poo out of the kids about the lengths I can go to to recover the phone. I don't want to lie. That's part of the issue here anyway--one of the kids is lying to me and I refuse to stoop to his level. I just composed an e-mail to my colleagues whose numbers were stored in my phone and let them know of the possibility of receiving stupid text messages from some student who now has their phone number. I hate being that idiot who let this happen.
"You're certainly taking this well. Better than I would."
Yeah, I've heard that from several of my colleagues. But why waste time and energy getting angry when I have a shortage of both? I was very honest with them yesterday and told them that there are things more important to me than electronics, and that they should also take stock of what is invaluable to them. "You don't care, Mrs. Beaver?" Yes, of course I care. But I think I'm more worried about this student and what his motives are.
In class, we just read Langston Hughes's "Thank You, M'am", and I only wish I could be as noble as Mrs. Louella Bates Washington Jones when the boy tells her he tried to steal her purse because he wanted to buy himself some blue suede shoes. "You coulda' asked," she told him. "M'am?" the boy asked in disbelief. She made him wash his face, she fed him, and then she gave him some money and sent him on his way, admonishing him not to steal from anyone again. "Shoes got in devilish ways will burn your feet."
Well, I'm praying for this student, and I'm telling my students that phones got in devilish ways will burn their ears.
And I haven't decided if I am going to get another phone at all. I may just pay to break the contract. It's kinda' freeing being untethered like this. And I can't afford a new phone, nor am I going to ask anyone else to shoulder the expense for me again. All I need is an answering machine and I can go back to being old-fashioned. Haha.
So, I don't know what I'm supposed to do or how I'm supposed to feel, so I may be a little cuckoo/confused/depressed/frustrated for a while. Jill baked me cookies last night, and that made me smile. And yes, out of two dozen, I probably have eaten 16 of them in the last 24 hours (not including the 3 dough balls). And Eli gave me a big hug. And Mom tried to track the prankster who texted her. And Stacey wants to come BE the police. Love you guys.
Cheers.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Somnambulent
The babysitter asked me today if Elsie talks in her sleep. Not an odd question since I probably do, and so does Eli from time to time.
But, then she told me about something that Elsie did during naptime today. They sleep on nap cots, and about an hour after they laid down, Elsie got up from her cot, rolled up her napper (blanket thing) and put it in her drawer, and then went and sat on one of the other children. The other child woke up screaming, and then Elsie woke up screaming, and then all the children were screaming.
She's a sleepwalker! The babysitter said she watched this unfold just to see what Elsie would do. This freaks me out a little bit. I can't forget to close the gate at the top of stairs before bed ever again.
Cheers.
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