Just happy...

Do you ever feel...just happy? Not everything has to be going well. Bills are still due. Spilt spaghetti sauce stubbornly burrows in unsealed kitchen grout. Ants begin "aimlessly" wandering in to escape the "heat." Cars still leak oil. But you're just happy. That's what I am today.

Of course, there are reasons for my glee today. It's John's last day at the "old" job. This is a little bittersweet for him because he's good at what he does and his boss will really miss him, but as a family this is great because he works 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Let me spell that out for you: NO MORE 2 P.M. TO MIDNIGHT SHIFTS! WEEKENDS OFF! HUBBY HOME FOR DINNER! The old job really blessed us with a regular paycheck after a few other less-than-profitable positions that painfully tapered down with the faltering economy, but this sounds even better. The new job starts Monday. Praise God!

Reason two is that John gets his "last check" today, which is not like a million dollars, but it is coming on the exact day that we absolutely must have more money or bills will be late and interest rates will go up. So I pretty much want to do cartwheels about this reason, although I've never been able to do one.

The third reason is, well, today is the last day of work (which also feels like school, since I'm a high school substitute teacher) before a week off for Easter break! No one CALLS it Easter break anymore, and they even distanced it two weeks away from Easter so the dumbest people in the world cannot make the connection. But now I'm veering towards Negative Town, so I'll come on back to "happy." :-)

My photography business is starting up again nicely and little "happy thoughts" are to be listed here too:

• I have a couple super-exciting projects coming up that I need volunteers for!
• I have a new camera coming on Monday (took long enough...) and Nikon's fixing my broken one that I'll use as a backup.
• I've got a wedding on the 27th!
• Maternity/newborn shoots for a dear ex-student of mine.
• and even more that I can't mention just yet!

My "middle" sis actually has spring break off next week too and is coming home from UCSD! So we can actually spend time together!

I know there are still things I can be sad or mad or stressed about, but for today...well, I'm just happy!

Reality check?

Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he's been robbed. The fact is that most putts don't drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just ordinary people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. . .

Life is like an old-time rail journey--delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.

~Jenkin Lloyd Jones, journalist

What do you guys think about this quote?

I feel like it's pretty accurate. I know it sounds a little depressing, but Jesus was never about hiding the nitty gritty of reality from those who would listen, and I think this isn't totally off the mark.
Most of my day is spent dealing with verbal abuse from teenagers who obviously were NOT held to any discipline standard during their upbringing, then coming home to a poopy diaper, dirty kitchen and piles of laundry. Then I see my son, sitting at his new little table and chairs, playing with a toy car...and that is my beautiful vista for the day. I know ALL about delays and sidetracks, dust (literally) and jolts. Misunderstandings often lead to the smoke and cinders. But the sweet moments in between make it all worth grunting through, and possibly enduring with a smile.

And all I can say is, praise God!

'Cause Debt-Free is the Way to Be

I am proud to announce that, with the refund from Uncle Sam (and the $800 handout of funny money from Obama), we have paid off one credit card and one outstanding medical bill, with another medical bill to follow tomorrow!!!! We have never been able to make more than the minimum payments, which of course sentences us to 8,000,000 years of debt, as the now-required-by-law handy dandy chart tells me on each statment. But if I only increase my payment to $644 per month...well then, I'll be done in 3 years instead. Or something like that.



So now, with $165 of monthly bills out of the way, I'm channeling that exact amount on top of the minimum of our next smallest bill, which should cut 3 years down to about 8 months! Then, shuffle $190 on to the next bill and so on. If we can only stay at the same stable level of poverty for, say 5 years (unless we make MORE money, obviously), then I think most of our debt will be gone! Hooray! I canNOT even fathom what life would feel like with only a mortgage, car and utility payments. Unbelievable. I want that even more than show lemons.



Last week I planned every dinner and some lunches. I didn't make most of them ahead of time (that to come soon, I hope!) but it was wonderful to go shopping and know I didn't have to go to the store again until the week after. Plus, it's great to have that plan posted on the fridge. I feel like I have control over that area of my life. I've actually grown to internally leap for joy when it's "junk mail day" because with that comes all the store ads! Yay! I have not turned into a full-blown coupon junkie, but I have my little accordion file and will often keep John from buying something if I know I have a coupon for it at home.



I know it's easier to praise God when times are good and I have to constantly remind myself to praise God when times really suck and we're eating spaghetti with that cursed Prego sauce for the 90th time in a row! We're definitely not out of the woods--we've only begun to see a little light at the end of the forest--but it is so encouraging to finally start getting a break!



So, how are you guys doing with the battle to avoid/eliminate debt?



And, speaking of debt...look at this beautiful, custom bed!!!

They don't tell me how much it costs...so that means it costs too much! *tear* Shoulda gotten the hint from the "custom" concept, huh?

Rain, rain, go away...

photo by Arthur Leipzig

...come again later when my Jeep dries out completely because my roof leaks and by the time it stops smelling musty (yes, Theresa, that's a word!) in there and I think I can seal the hole, it rains. Again. It's raining NOW.

And if it's raining (and cold) I can't let Jack play in the backyard, which is an integral part of getting.him.to.sleep.at.a.decent.time.

So, please.

Stop raining for just a few weeks!

Do we really need show lemons?

I've been struggling with a desire to buy stuff. Join the club, right? We moved in to our house more than a month ago and I've had it with bare walls. At our first rental we barely hung anything on the walls because I was afraid of making holes. Then I realized how easy it was to putty up a white wall so I hung lots of things up at our second rental. And about two months later, we moved. Grrrr. In with my father-in-law, who had just remodeled and, understandably, didn't want any holes in the walls. GrrrrrRRRR!

So now I don't care. Putty is made for a reason! So is white toothpaste! So I want stuff on the walls. I'm going to hold off on painting, which is what I really want to do. Makes no sense to invest in the walls on a month-to-month rental. But we sold most of our decor items in garage sales to make way for Jack and to consolidate our stuff to fit in my father-in-law's garage.

I've taken up a hobby, therefore, of window shopping on the internet, bookmarking things I want and things I'd like to have a cheaper substitute of on my Amazon WishList. It's kind of addicting. Side tables and art and bedframes, oh my!

My issue is balancing buying things I think are pretty with living within our means. I want to buy a print of a painting to hang in the kitchen, but wonder if I should just deny the urge and put the equivalent value toward our looming credit card debt? Does the empty wall bug me more than the bills? No. But it's just difficult for me right now to figure out where spending a little (or a lot) on making a house a home fits in our budget, or if it really matters.

I want a coat rack. Or at least a series of hooks on the wall by the front door. We want a full or queen bed in the guest bedroom, obviously. With that should come a nightstand. And a lamp. And a TV stand for the living room that actually contains the game consoles and wires. And might as well get a flatscreen tv, right? Kidding, kidding... Do I really NEED two prints of songbirds in the bathroom? Or another tablecloth?

In the movie, The Break-Up, Jennifer Aniston gets extremeley irritated with Vince Vaughn because he doesn't buy enough lemons to display in a bowl on the table as a centerpiece. Not lemons to use, necessarily, but to show off. Do we really need "show lemons" to make us feel content? Where does that fit in with bills? Am I buying something to make me happy, or look impressive? Hmmm...

Sooooo sleepy

I have a bad habit of torturing myself with sleep or the lack thereof. On days off I sleep in until 9 a.m. (the absolute latest I can wait to get Jack up in order to hope for his decent bedtime). On days "on" I have to get up around 5:30 a.m. Think that messes with my stamina, mood or looks?

Nah...

"He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe..."

"...is as good as dead; his eyes are closed." ~Einstein

It's odd that a moment of self-realization starts with something that I say. Normally it comes from outside sources, but not this week.

A little history before The Moment: John and I are systematically going through all the old episodes of The Office now that we have Netflix and can watch movies instantly on his Xbox (it's salve on the wound, since we didn't sign up for cable when we moved). John asked if I minded him turning it on one evening and I was initially a little hesitant, Jack (and I) having watched way too much Kipper and Thomas the Engine that day as I did (not do) chores. He argued, "I like watching the old episodes with you. It reminds me of the good times." I found myself saying, "These ARE the good times" and we proceeded to watch a couple episodes.

That little statement has affected how I've looked at everything since then. I hear occasionally that I should savor/treasure the moment, since time flies by so quickly. And no one really knows that more than a parent, because the growth of a child fills you with grief over memories gone and joy over new milestones reached everyday.

So I've tried to treasure the hours I spend with John and Jack, but even more so after this revelation.
--Even though I have more credit card debt than I ever thought possible after years of responsible spending in high school and college turned to foolish decisions and periods of unemployment.
--Even though the house we live in isn't our own when we'd so desperately wanted to buy. (Tax credit--helllllooooooooo?)
--The bathrooms aren't clean.
--The guest bedroom is used for storage and doesn't contain a bed.
--I'm still paying off bills from my little skipped-heartbeat scare from April 2008 (thank you Blue Cross).
--John has only one pair of non-work pants.

EVEN though our lives aren't perfect, this time won't pass again. Jack will not be 21 months forever and teething his second set of molars. He will not always intermix English words with baby babble. He will not always call milk "mnou" and raisins "way-saw." We will not always be this young.

But these are the good times, believe it or not.