Footprints on the Moon

As 2008 rolled into 2009, I sat down and thought about what I hoped to accomplish with my finances this year. “Get out of debt” just didn’t seem to do it for me, so I sat down and lined up four more specific goals to focus on. So how did I do?

1. Pay off my car — DONE! I have been driving a fully paid off vehicle since January 16, 2009!

2. Put money back in my emergency fund — I had a goal of $500. This is both DONE and NOT DONE. I met my $500 goal fairly easily, and fairly early on in the year. But then I raided it to pay on a credit card. I know, I know, this is the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do, but the credit card issuer made me angry and I was eager to get it paid off as quickly as possible. The fund currently holds around $100.

3. Save money for Christmas in cash– Also DONE and NOT DONE. Same reason as above, I raided this account to help make the final payments on my card. However, I did end using entirely cash for Christmas. Not a present was financed, so I count this one as a success even if it wasn’t to the letter of how I originally thought it would be.

4. Pay off WaMu Credit Card– DONE, DONE, DONE! Woohoo! Of course, they closed the account on me just before I managed to pay it off entirely, dinging my credit (damage of about THIRTY points to my FICO score ), but this credit card and its debt was going to be out of my life forever anyways!

As far as 2010 goals go… more of the above! Just exchange “Capital One” for “WaMu” in Goal #4! I hope to be more successful in the area of leaving my savings alone! I just find it too tempting when I’m within striking distance of paying something off, and that amount of money is just sitting in savings. Hmm… earn 1% interest, or pay off a debt at 20% interest! I realize that’s not the point of my emergency fund, but I just can’t help it!

So yes, leaving my savings alone… paying off my Capital One credit card… and paying back my Grandma the $250 I owe her. Here’s hoping for a great financial year in 2010!

I’m still at work, and I’m starting to think that I’m the only one here. I’ve had, count them, ONE visitor through the lobby all day today, and a handful of phone calls. Mostly from the lovely telemarketer calling to offer me my free insurance marketing magazine. Uh, no thanks. Just like the previous 983478 times you’ve called. I’ve taken down and repacked all of the Christmas decorations, balanced my checkbook, and reached the end of the internet…

So let’s look at pictures from Christmas 4 of 4. Otherwise known as, the post in which I post pictures of babies other than Killian! Number 4 was Christmas afternoon with the entire extended family on my mom’s side. Food and babies galore!

I didn’t get a whole lot of pictures, and some of what I did get didn’t turn out that great (wow, are we a family full of red eyed people!) but I have a few to share.

Like this picture of Lily playing with Aunt Ann.

Izzy and Joe with Carleigh’s stuffed piggy.

Carleigh with her reclaimed piggy and her blankie, snuggling in Dagon’s lap.

Carleigh again, partway between cheesing for the picture, and deciding to yell at me for disrupting her play with my flashing camera in her face.

A blurry picture of Mom and Alexander…

And Alexander making flirty eyes at my camera… I wish you could see the grin he’d flash me just after the flash went off every time, but I never managed to catch it.

No picture opening presents because I was right in the thick of it, and with paper flying everywhere, the only thing I managed was pictures of the backs of heads!

After telling the eleventy-billionth person that we do not accept resumes (okay, it was just one person today, and MAYBE I exaggerate just a little…), I decided it was time to look at more pictures of Killian! I mean, more pictures from Christmas.

Christmas 3 of 4 was Christmas morning, and the smaller family Christmas with my Dad, Gloria, Ryan, Ash-lee, Killian and Gammie. SOMEONE may have shown up for breakfast on Christmas morning with a bit of an attitude. I’m not naming names or anything, but he was kind of short.

The orneriness may or may not have been written all over his face…

He tackled his presents with one goal: toys. You might notice the partially opened present on the floor next to him. He ripped off enough paper to see clothes and tossed it aside for the next package. I believe the present he’s opening in this picture received the same treatment moments after I snapped the photo.

This one didn’t immediately look like clothes, so he could investigate it further than just opening the corner.

Look! There was someone present at Christmas other than Killian!

Two someones! Don’t you just love the “you’re about to take my picture, aren’t you?” look on his face?

Still completely serious, Killian did spend some time looking at the set of books I got him. Or just taking them away from his mommy. You know, whatever.

And it’s a crappy phone picture, but I just have to share the one I snuck of Dad playing with Killian’s work bench. Especially because when he figured out I’d taken the picture, he asked if he’d find it online later. Answer: Yup! Here it is!

Since I can’t be at home right now, lounging on one of those heated mattress pads, I figured I might as well finally get around to getting some pictures posted. Christmas Gathering 2 of 4 this year took place on Christmas Eve with my dad’s side of the family. That would be Dad, Gloria, Ryan, Ash-lee, Killian, Gammie, Aunt Lori, Uncle Dan, April and Nickson. Uncle Jim was a blur passing through at some point!

After we ate, we got down to serious business. Opening presents:

Killian and Gloria

Nickson seemed to enjoy the stuffed moose that he got from me.

The blocks (from Dad and Gloria? maybe?) weren’t too disappointing either!

Killian got more cars! from Aunt Jennifer that needed to be played with right away.

There was also the reading of our new books. Ash-lee and Killian under the Christmas tree…

and April and Nickson on the couch.

SOME of us were a little bored by the end of the night…

and mostly, I’ve seen Santa look a little more jolly…

But for the most part, a good time was had by all!

I’m getting ready to head to bed, but I wanted to get a post up real quick with my self portrait for this week. Not the greatest picture… taken with my webcam earlier today. You can see all the Christmas stuff and etc that still needed to be put back into my storage closet. And Lucy, who was greatly enjoying the stack of Christmas containers.

Don’t worry though, I was strangely productive today and not only did I get all that stuff into the storage unit, I also cleaned out the kitchen sinks, scooped litter boxes, and did laundry so that I wouldn’t have to go to work in my birthday suit tomorrow. One thing that I did NOT do was take out the trash and recycling because I had no desire to trudge through the snow to the dumpster. I’m already not looking forward to cleaning off my car tomorrow morning!

Speaking of tomorrow morning, I better get off of here and head for bed if I have any hope of dragging myself out of bed for work at 5am lol

As usual this year, I have several different Christmas gatherings to attend. I mentioned in passing that the first one for the season was on Sunday with Mom, Harold, Grandma, Ryan, Ash-lee and Killian. I was excited because I got to start handing out some of these:

(And to all of you on my list. No, sorry, there is nothing from Michael Kors in that pile. Not that anyone is expecting something like that from me. Baby dolls on the other hand…)

Anyways. Also as usual, I basically just have pictures of Killian to share with you. We had him hand out the presents. He’d hand them to Ash-lee to read the name, and then carry them to the lucky recipient. Well. Kind of. Some of them were a little too hard for him to carry…

Finally though, it was time to open presents! Yay!

What do you mean, it’s just clothes? (I have to say, after he’d realize the clothes were the present, he did a pretty good job of faking excitement. “Oooooh!”)

Oh, this big toy from Aunt Jennifer is much better!

*makes car noises*

Tickling Aunt Jennifer with the Elmo Tickle Hands from Great Grandma is pretty fun too!

And a huge train set table from Mommy, Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa!

Funny story here… in order to keep him away from it after it was set up, Ash-lee put a sheet over the table and then told Killian that it was Grandma’s big present. So when it was time, they pulled it out and asked Killian to help open Grandma’s Big Present. They pulled the sheet off and he goes, “It’s for meeeeee!”

After playing with it for a few minutes though, someone asked him, “Killian, isn’t that Grandma’s big present?” This was the look on his face:

Don’t worry, baby, it’s your train set! Merry Christmas

Stay tuned after Christmas Eve and Christmas Day for more pictures… most likely just of Killian

Alternatively titled: The Picture I Would Have Posted Yesterday If My Computer Had Cooperated

This is me, wearing my brother’s Colts Santa hat, at our family Christmas gathering yesterday with my mom. I would have posted it last night after I got home, but my computer decided to ignore my attempts to download my pictures. I may as well have been shoving a glass tile into the card reader on my laptop for all my efforts. At first I thought it was because it was the small SD card that came with the new camera, but my laptop wouldn’t recognize my older larger SD card either. I did finally get the pictures downloaded this morning.

Speaking of the new camera… I don’t know that I ever mentioned it here. Last week, I ordered a new point and shoot camera to replace my dying uncooperative Canon A530. I got another Canon, this time the A1100IS. I chose it largely because I was happy with my previous Canon, I wanted a point and shoot that still took AA batteries, and I could get it for about $30 after all the Amazon.com gift cards I had were taken off. I used it last night and after that experience, I think I’m going to be sending it back to Amazon in exchange for another camera. It just would not take good pictures. It didn’t matter if I put it in Auto, or Program, Portrait, Kids and Pets… etc… everything was blurry, or overexposed, or or or. You can really hear the camera when is auto-focusing, and it just felt really cheap when I first took it out of the box.

So I’m going to spend a good portion of my day searching Amazon and reading reviews trying to find a different camera to replace this one. Any advice? Got a great point and shoot camera that you love? (That’s around the $150 range?)

I wish I could have gotten more of this shirt into the picture. My mom bought it for me at Walmart. Under the picture it says, “I told Santa Claus what I wanted for Christmas this year and he washed my mouth out with soap.” Hehe!!

As far as the past week that I didn’t blog, I can sum it up in two words: Work. Cold.

I worked all week, as per usual. And it was bitterly cold out. Thursday there was a windchill of -7. Brrr… Definitely the time of year I start dreaming about an Outer Banks vacation rental! Not much snow to speak of so far this winter. That’s kind of crazy, but I’m certainly not complaining. I’m the kind of girl who would be satisfied with snow on Christmas only!

I finished my Christmas shopping today! Would you like to see?

What?? You didn’t think I’d really show you all the Christmas gifts, did you? I show you this one only because the recipient is less than a year old and therefore probably does not read my blog!!

Isn’t she cute? I wanted to buy a baby doll, and I discovered that I am exceedingly picky about baby dolls! Only a Cabbage Patch one would do. Even then, I could only find the surprise newborns, but I wanted to know if I was buying a boy or a girl, if it had hair, etc. I finally succeeded by finding this little newborn girl today!

So like I mentioned, I am now done with my Christmas shopping. Mom and I ran all over town this morning– Meijer, Walmart, Sam’s Club, Fashion Bug, Best Buy, JC Penney and Bath and Body Works. Between my purchases and hers, we filled my car’s trunk to the brim. I think the only thing we didn’t buy was low cost health insurance.

When I got home, I drug the Christmas stuff out of the storage unit. Now I just need to start wrapping, but I haven’t quite been able to work up the motivation for that yet.