Footprints on the Moon

Update on the Emergency Fund

I’m getting off of here in just a minute, but I realized that with being out all weekend, I never updated on my emergency fund progress. I was able to put $270 straight into that fund on Friday, and I was very excited about that. There will be a little more money, maybe $50 or so, that I’ll be able to add to that by the end of the week probably. I’ve been on this budget for 2 months now, and I’m finally feeling like I’m getting some traction.

The first two months were more about getting ON a written plan, figuring out what works, and changing the bad habits. When you’re used to living paycheck to paycheck, or not even that really– paycheck to credit until the next paycheck, it’s hard to switch to using only cash. And to spending less than you earn. I didn’t realize just how hard it would be to just NOT get something until payday if the money was already gone. I was SO used to just putting it on the credit card until payday.

I still have a long way to go, but I’ve finally made some sizable progress so I had to share my excitement with you!

Self Portrait Sunday 3/30/08 - Back Home Again in Indiana

Okay, so I never really left the state of Indiana, but that’s beside the point. Mom and I headed 3 hours away to Anderson, where I went to school. That’s the bad thing about going to college so far away… a lot of my friends were originally FROM Anderson, or at least chose to stay close after graduation. So when there are weddings and babies, it requires a road trip. Now, I could have taken a fabulous picture in a very different location than you get every other week. But I forgot all about SPS. So you get this picture of me, pajama clad, and in the same apartment you see me pictured in every other week.

It was a good weekend overall. The purpose of the trip was a baby shower for my friend Stefanie. I wasn’t going to go because I couldn’t afford the trip, but my awesome mama wanted a weekend away so she footed the bill for our road trip. (I funded the trip down to Anderson last July when Bethany got married.) It was nice, all I had to pay for was the baby shower gift, and when I decided to buy some picture frames at Walmart. Thanks Mom!

We drove down Friday night after work, and just bummed in the hotel room when we got there. Then the baby shower was Saturday morning, we did some shopping Saturday afternoon, and then that evening we met my college roommate Leslie, the one that came up a couple weeks ago, and Megan for dinner at Texas Roadhouse. We had a good meal, and a good time.

We went out for breakfast this morning, and then after a quick trip down for one last soak in the hot tub, we packed up and headed back home. I think I get to clean tomorrow after work because this place is a nightmare! I usually clean Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings, neither of which I was home for. Instead, I made a big mess trying to pack quickly! It’s going to wait until at least tomorrow though because I’m tired from sleeping, or not as the case may be, in a hotel room instead of my own bed. As soon as this is posted, that’s exactly where I’m headed.

Don’t forget to visit everyone else’s Self portrait posts at Midlife Musings.

Is it Spring yet?

It’s officially spring, at least according to the calendar. Today it’s starting to look a little more like spring outside. The birds were back in the tree outside my window this morning, the sun is shining, and there’s only a little bit of snow left out there to remind us what happened yesterday:

This was the view from my living room window yesterday afternoon. It continued to snow long after this, and much bigger snowflakes for awhile. When I went to leave for work this morning, I had to scrape an inch or two of icy snow off of my windows before I could go anywhere. I have no idea what the temperature is out there, but it LOOKS like a gorgeous spring day.

This is the time of year where I really wish I didn’t have the apartment I did. I am on the second floor, with no balcony. All of the first floor apartments have sliding glass doors with small patios. It’s not much, but it would be nice to have a little spot to sit outside when it’s nice out. I really REALLY miss being able to sit outside. When I still lived with my dad, I would spend a lot of evenings on the porch reading until it got too dark out. I’ve been thinking about telling the apartment people that if one of the downstairs apartments opens up, I’d like to move. I’m torn between my desire to set up my teak patio furniture so I can spend my evenings outside reading, and my desire to not have to pack up my crap and move it!! Though, now that I’ve decided to pay down my debt, and I’ve spent some time mapping that out, I’m realizing I might be here longer than I originally planned thought I might… in which case it might be totally worth moving all my junk and bribing my dad to move my extremely heavy couch one more time even though he swore the last time was the last time… all so I can have 3 square feet of outside space. Of course, all of this is contingent upon one of the neighbors downstairs moving out. There’s one college student downstairs, so maybe he’ll leave at the end of the school year.

How long does it take?

I had every intention of posting last night, I even had one basically drafted in my head, but I never got it written down. The best laid plans… instead of blogging, I ended up going to one of the local walk-in clinics so that I could pee in a cup. For how long it usually takes to get into one of those places, I was in and out in fairly good time. Then it was off to the pharmacy to fill my prescriptions to take care of this urinary tract infection. I tried to go to Meijer first, but their pharmacy closed at 7, and it was already 8. I always thought they were open until 9, but either I’m crazy (don’t answer that) or their hours changed.

So it was back to WalMart. I dropped off my prescriptions, the lady told me it would take about 20 minutes, but they’d get them done as quickly possible, they close at 9, so please make sure I’m back there by 8:45. Sure. No problem. I had a baby shower gift to purchase for Saturday, so I walked back there, checked the time (8:14pm) and commenced picking out a gift. I wandered around the store for awhile, gave them about half an hour, and went back to the pharmacy at 8:35. Not ready. So I sit down in the pharmacy area to wait– they can’t forget about me, if I’m staring right at them, right?

Ten more minutes go by… they call my name. I go up there, and NOW they choose to tell me that my insurance wouldn’t go through, it kept asking for my SSN, so the antibiotic was going to be $4, but the other one was $36 or something like that. Uh, try again. I don’t pay money out of my paycheck every week to pay full price for prescriptions. If it’s asking you for my SSN, here’s a novel idea– ask me for it so you can put it in! Oh wait, or you could actually ask for my insurance card since it’s been more than a year since last filled a prescription here (gee, I wonder why?) and wouldn’t you know it? My insurance company issued new cards last year! Finally, she ran everything again, got it through my insurance and got the price down to $10.

So after a full 45 minutes, they are about 2 minutes away from closing, with a long line of people waiting for their medicine. Efficiency is not their forte. So when they finally get me up there to check me out, keep in mind that I have an armful of baby things to purchase. The girl asks me, “Would you like to pay for this back here?” So I ask, “Can I pay for all of this back here?” She sighs, looks at the clock and says, “It would be easier if you didn’t.” Okay fine, whatever. But don’t ask me then! They also kept claiming that their computers were going to automatically shut down at 9pm on the nose. Hmmm… maybe, but I’m a little skeptical on that one. I’m more inclined to believe that they merely wanted to go home on time.

Win a $20,000 Home Makeover

You read that title right… win a $20,000 Home Makeover, from Renuzit TriScents. How awesome does that sound? Unfortunately, I don’t have a home which basically renders me ineligible, but I know that there are some of you who are homeowners and I’m sure you could find something to use the money for!

Do you have a pressing need in your house? Maybe your kitchen is woefully outdated, or the plumbing is original to the house. Maybe your carpets are in desperate need of replacing… you tell me! Actually, don’t tell me– tell the people at Renuzit. You can See the official rules here, but in a nutshell, what you are going to need to do is make a video or take pictures that show why you need a home makeover. So put your ancient kitchen and dilapidated bathroom on film, write a 250 essay explaining why you need your makeover and get yourself entered! What are you waiting for? Click here and Enter to win.

Unfortunately, since I rent an apartment I am not eligible for this contest, but I know several people who could benefit. Unless the fine people at Renuzit are willing to call a down payment on a house a home makeover? No? I didn’t think so… well, all of you who have houses that need some work, get moving! I would love to see one of you win this contest!

Happy Dyngus Day!

If you’re not from an area with a high Polish population, that post title likely got a “huh?” from you. Dyngus Day is always the Monday after Easter, and is on your calendar simply as Easter Monday. Funny how that works, huh? Actually, until college, I didn’t realize that Dyngus Day wasn’t celebrated everywhere! That was the first time I was three hours away from home during the Easter season, and trust me, people look at you like you’re nuts when you start throwing around words like “Dyngus.”

For many, I’d say most actually, people around here, the holiday is all about Polish food. But it’s also considered the unofficial kick off to the political season. Obviously, with such a huge election looming on the horizon, this year’s political season is already well under way. But the Clinton campaign still thought it was a great opportunity– Bill Clinton was at the West Side Democratic Club today campaigning for his wife. Think he enjoyed a nice Polish dinner while he was here?

After all, everyone is Polish on Dyngus Day!

Retraining a Cat

How? I don’t know what to do!! I know I’ve posted about this on multiple occasions in the past, but I’m hoping if I post about it enough times, someone will come along and have the magic answer to make it all better! I have a little redheaded kitty cat that is about to need some term insurance if she doesn’t stop being such a destructive little turd!

See this thing?

She looks all cute and adorable, but she’s so ROTTEN. I don’t know what to do! She scratches all my furniture, she tears up any cardboard box in sight, and she pees outside the litter box. The other day, she squatted on the bathroom floor RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME and started peeing on the floor… I’m at my wit’s end. I really just don’t know what to do to get her to use her litterbox, and to stop destroying my furniture. I don’t want to give my cat away to another home, but I can’t do THIS for the next 15 years or so! At some point I’ll want NICE furniture, and I can’t do that if she’s just going to tear it up. Not to mention that cat pee is not the best substance to have constantly pooling on your bathroom floor!

Sleepless Night

Okay, it wasn’t an entirely sleepless night, but it sure felt like it wasn’t very far from it! Despite being very tired, I had a heck of a time falling asleep to begin with. Actually, I felt like I’d been taking in caffeine by the bucketful because I had the same kind of restless “crazies” feeling I get when I’ve had caffeinated beverages. Only I hadn’t had any caffeine yesterday except for whatever amount made it into the small amount of chocolate I had.

I did finally fall asleep, but then it felt like I was constantly awake. Rolling over. Cat jumping off the bed. Trying to go back to sleep. I don’t know how often I was up because I just refused to look at the clock, that usually makes it worse. I know I didn’t sleep well though because I remember dreaming last night. The only dream I remember was “playing” penny stocks, you know, like you would play a slot machine? Maybe because I knew I needed to write about penny stocks and Dad was playing slots on the computer when we were over there yesterday afternoon? Who knows! That was the last one, so it’s the only one that I remember what it was about… I was aware of my dreams all night long though which is always a sure sign of a poor night of sleep for me. I hardly ever remember my dreams and even then it’s only the ones I was having when the alarm went off in the morning if I make a conscious effort to retain them!

Hopefully today won’t be a painfully long day… I do have a feeling I will be making it into bed early though!

Easter Egg Hunting

Normally I share a Self Portrait Sunday every week at this time, but I never did get a picture of myself this week, and now I just can’t be bothered. I didn’t want to leave you all picture-less entirely though, so I thought I’d share a picture of one of my favorite people instead. You can also follow the digital signage by clicking on the picture below and you can see a few more pictures at my Flickr.

He was hunting Easter eggs, though he doesn’t quite “get” it yet. After he got the first egg, he got SO mad when they took it away to put in his basket. We eventually had to distract him very quickly with “Look!” and pointing at the next egg. He kept picking them out of the basket and throwing them on the floor. A couple of eggs had to be “rescued” when he figured out they were smashing, and stuck his thumb through the middle of them!

He’s so much fun! And see? You don’t even miss seeing a picture of my mug, do you?

ACS Daffodil Days

I’ve written about Daffodil Days before, but I thought we needed a refresher course. Of course, if you don’t want to hear about my flowers, I suppose I could describe, in detail, how I spent my day at my mom’s doing a massive amount of laundry… yeah, that’s what I thought!

Anyhow, the American Cancer Society does this thing called Daffodil Days every year at this time… they sell bunches of daffodils for $10, and a vase for $5. I bought a bunch for my desk last year, and I really loved how beautiful they were. I had planned on buying a bunch of daffodils this year, but when Stew, the “daffodil man”, arrived I found that I just couldn’t justify the money. I was sad, but okay with it.

Then, just before Stew and his wife finished handing out all the flowers, they set a bunch of daffodils in a vase on the guest book ledge on my desk. They just GAVE me the bunch of daffodils and the vase– I was so excited! Because it was the beginning of a long holiday weekend, I brought them home and have been enjoying them here.

Here’s what they look like as of a few minutes ago. Aren’t they pretty? They are sitting on top of my computer desk because it’s the only place Lucy can’t get them, and trust me, it’s not for lack of trying!

And just for giggles, here’s a picture I took of them on Thursday after I got home… I thought it looked cool.

Enjoy! It’s way past my bedtime now, so I think I’m going to grab the furniture catalog that came in the mail today and leaf through that, and then I’m going straight to bed– I have to go to sleep soon or the Easter bunny might not come!