Well, it's halfway over.

The year, that is. I'm feeling good about a fresh start to part two of this year called "2006". I've had some fairly creative book and music ideas recently, I've got the good vibes going, and I'll have a heck of a time during my vacation. I've got it all planned out: since I work best when I'm not shipped, I'm going to do a small dose of polyphasic sleep: sleep during the day when it is at its hottest, and also sleep at night when I cannot keep my eyes open any more. It should be mind-numbingly good. Oh yes, I've got a plan, and this is going to be an awesome two weeks.

Oh yeah, and Italy won today. France v. Brazil tomorrow: do I dare to dream? Do I dare to even think France can beat Brazil again? I'll be glued to the television set finding out. Unless France is getting creamed. Then I'll probably go read some Harry Potter or something.

Not exactly genius-level

And here I thought I was the master of these books. Ah well.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

Updated my template to something a bit more eye-catching and easier to manipulate from a back-end perspective. Basically, something I did - I have no idea what - caused my template to act dumb and stuff, and I couldn't get it to go back the way it was before. This new template is provided under a CC Limited Usage License and is from noipo.org.

I guess changing your template is somewhat like rearranging your furniture, but without all of the heavy lifting. I skinned my Windows today, too. I was talking with my Italian pen-friend the other day, and we both mentioned how we are free spirits, unable to stay in one place for any prolonged amount of time. I guess that's why my furniture / blog template / Windows theme / whatever keep getting changed around... that restlessness inside of me stirring for action.

And plus, when you redecorate your computer or your blog, it's free. Can't beat that.

My workspace, relaxified.

From 10 Ways to Relaxify Your Workspace, via Lifehacker

I'm working on increasing my productivity while decreasing my stress -- isn't everybody? -- and I came across this article from Steve Pavlina on "relaxifying" my workspace -- basically some ideas to customize your cube to make it more "yours", and adding relaxing touches so it's not a threshold into a pressure cooker.

First off, I have to say that his statement that my cube should be my favorite place in the building surprised me. My favorite place in the building is the break room, where the TV and the ping-pong table are. Well, maybe not the TV. So, I took up Steve's challenge to make my cube somewhere where I would like to be. I've already personalized my cube, hanging a couple of posters, a calendar, some Dilbert comics, some Demotivators, things like that.

On Steve's suggestion, I brought in a small desk lamp, something that I've been meaning to do for a long time, for both the personal touch and to help diffuse the fluorescent madness raining from above. If it were up to me, I would close off my cube from above, tent-like, so I could deal with the light levels on my own terms. There's a guy here who keeps his office dark save for a couple of ambient lights; it's one of the coolest things I've seen.

The clutter is cleared out, and the company has recently upped the plant population of the building by about 10000%. No greenery directly visible, but with my black thumb, that's probably a good thing. Still, I can turn my head and see plants. They're just not in my cube.

I added some scented candles as well. I had a couple just sitting around still in their wrappers (a Christmas present), so now I have coconut, cinnamon, and clove candles sitting on my desk. I can't burn them, but it has added an element of good smell, and good karma in general I think, to my area. At home to relax I have a lavender candle which I use occasionally, and some other smellgoods.

I've also noticed something about my music selection. I've been using iTunes for a while now, and have gone from having a very broad playlist to just over 7 hours of music on shuffle. I'm finding, after listening to a streaming trance station yesterday, and my favorites today, the trance does a much better job of bringing me into a work zone than the favorites. With my favorites I'm always adjusting the volume, but with the streaming, I'm more apt to set it to a comfortable volume, and everything just turns into background noise. It's rather effective, and I'm probably going to switch over to the trance shortly.

The chair I can't do anything about, and I would like to put a fountain in the unused space in the corner, and I'll probably put some plants on there as well, as I have plenty of space.

My biggest obstacle I would say would be the "uninterruptible time" -- given the nature of my job, it's virtually impossible for me to block out time to not be interrupted. It's something I've joked about before, however, it's up to me to see if I can actually pull something effective off. We'll see.

RMI Update - Exercise #10

Just a quick update on Exercise #10 (Keep Track of Your Personal Zeitgeist) here.

I'm not going to say that I'm a paranoid person, but I will freely admit to being anal-retentive and a bit OCD.  When the faith to which you subscribe counsels repeatedly to get out of debt and have a small preparedness kit ready, hopefully you listen.  When your zeitgeist kicks in and you hear from multiple sources (all unrelated) in a short time that preparedness is a very good thing, it's time to stand up and listen.

Regular readers (ha!) will know that I've tried some minor preparedness projects in the past, but due to an actual or perceived lack of resources, it hasn't gone over too well.  In fact, it could even go on my "list of aborted projects" for next week's mid-year update.  However, it's at or near the top of my priority list now, along with the 25 or so other projects that I would like to complete before July 25.

So what is preparedness to me?  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a website entitled Provident Living which talks a bit about emergency preparedness, and it recommends, in addition to having a year's supply of food stored, a "go bag" or "72-hour kit" in case of emergency.  I would also like to have onhand personal records and important documents, in case originals are destroyed in a disaster.  Another essential would be an emergency kit in each car, in case it is needed.

So, added to my goals through listening to my personal zeitgeist, is the following:

• 72-hour kit for the family
• Complete scanning of vital documents, encrypt, and burn to CD.
• Calculate food storage needs for one month, assess what is already on hand, and procure necessary stock to complete one month supply.  Make detailed, dated plan with fixed goal date to build stock to three months.
  
• Evaluate needs for car emergency kit, assess supplies on hand, make list of what is necessary, and prepare plan to have at least one emergency car kit completed by July 25.

I think this is two things:  important, and overdue.  We'll see how I do on this one -- this has the wonderful advantage of being something I can research during my spare time at work, so I won't feel too pressed about doing a bajillion things at once at home.

Goals, Week Ending 7/1/2006

1. Read D&C 66-76. MAN some of these sections are long.


2. That list I made of things I need/want to do while the girls are on vacation? Prioritize and schedule it.


3. This week will officially put us halfway through the year. Review earlier blog entries for things I gave up on, and see how I can complete things I've missed.


4. Relaxify my workspace. I got an old desklamp from a friend of mine, and some candles that have been sitting around the house for about 6 months now. I think that would be good.


5. Review benefits package and prepare for enrollment.


6. Savings account is active! Set it up in Quicken.

That's enough... I know that this week probably isn't going to be busy as Kent is on vacation and this is a non-Dominic week, but after a couple of weeks of setting goals and whiffing completely, I don't want to kill myself, or worse, miss so many goals I feel like giving up on the project completely (again).

Garh... been a while (Week in Review, 6/24/06)

The bank fiasco appears to be mostly fixed: just one or two things to be hammered out, and then everything should be back to a semblance of "normal". We'll see. It's been a bit stressful because of that, but aside from that it's been a pretty good week. I've been plotting my tasks for the time that Michelle is going to be in Texas, and it looks like it's going to be a full two weeks for me. That's OK, I'd rather it be that way, because last time I said I was going to do a lot of stuff, and wound up parked in front of the television.

I read my scriptures, and even managed to get caught up with the Book of Mormon reading project, having read through Words of Mormon. The only thing I don't like about the speed reading project is if you have a day where you miss for whatever reason, it's crunch time the next couple of days and you don't get as much out of it as you should.

Swamp cooler appears to be on the blink again -- missed a bunch of the World Cup game yesterday due to it being 85 in the house. The heat just drove me to sleep, and it's driving Michelle crazy. Someone is going to take a look at it on Monday, I think. Thank goodness!

Both France and Italy advanced in the World Cup -- awesome! I still have a few more days of rooting for the teams that I chose to root for instead of salvaging my spirit for another team. Go Blues! (Good thing that covers things in both languages!)

Ummm... nothing else much is going on. I was planning on writing a post updating how things have been going with some of the RMI stuff, but the "not wearing a watch" post just stopped yesterday, and I haven't found the creative energy to try it again. It was mutating into how I've become able to tell time by observing my environment in the morning, not by staring at an instrument on my wrist. We'll see how that goes.

Also: this week... nah, I'll save it for the goal page.

If my life were a Monopoly game, this is what it would be

RMI #14 - Work a four day work week

Radical Mutual-Improvement » Work a four-day work week (Exercise #14)

Hey look!  One that I can do!  Just not yet.  :-)

After the baby is born, I will be lucky enough to take two weeks 'paternity leave', then move to a 4/10 schedule so I can have an extra day a week at home with the fam.  Very, very lucky that work will let me be this flexible.  I just need to get my performance up so I can afford to be a little goofy again.  :-)

I tried updating, but...

I tried updating earlier with my goals, but the browser crashed... sigh.  Suffice it to say that I need to read my scriptures to a certain point, I need to use PocketMods more, and I'm in a holding pattern with any major paperwork until the wife and kid go on vacation.

So:  I'll find out tomorrow if France has a chance on earth of advancing to the knockout round.  With Italy, it's simple:  they just have to score as many goals as the Czech Republic on Thursday.  They can still advance if they lose and cannot cover the goal differential with Ghana (Italy is currently +2, Ghana is 0).

For the USA, it's more complex.  They need to win, but winning alone won't cover it.  They need a win and one of the following things to happen:

• Italy wins, OR
  
• Italy draws and the US covers the GD with the Czechs, OR
• Italy loses and the US covers the GD with Italy

So, needless to say, I'm going to be glued to the TV on Thursday, and really just rooting for Italy to win.  The US has played very poorly, and besides, I'm not rooting for them anyway.  Italy just needs to show up on Thursday, and I'm expecting them to, although the Czechs might just give them a run for their money, given Italy's lackluster performance against the Americans.

Forza Azzurri!

Yeah, so the game was a bit of a disappointment after all the hype -- especially after all the hype that ESPN/ABC were disgustingly slathering all over it. The ref plain old stink stank stunk. Should have been 2-0 Italy for a final, but whatever. It will be interesting to see how Ghana stacks up against the U.S. since the U.S. will be out two players for the last game of group play.

Hey look, it's me!

Photo from Radioburn's marathon 9 hour recording session on Wednesday. This was taken at least 8 hours into it. I didn't even have the energy to look at the camera, which is probably a good thing as I would have made some sort of face. :-)

Lucky #13 (Radical Mutual-Improvement)

Looks like I won't get a chance to re-do exercise #12 -- been removed from the testing project at work.  Ah well... it wasn't a good fit for me, anyway.  Now, instead of waiting to get assigned an actual workspace and permanent computer to use, I'm back "home", as it were.  I can also get on with the next exercise in the list: Set up your mind’s workspace (Exercise #13).

I can imagine my mind's workspace like I would imagine my ideal workspace:  sparse, well-lit, comfortable, and with everything I need within arm's reach (or easily findable if it wasn't within arm's reach).

The majority of the article here focuses on memory improvement, and I can tell you:  I certainly need that.  When I was at my most efficient, I had a white board right next to my desk, a big calendar drawn on it, and everything plotted out one month in advance.  I also carried a little notebook with me wherever I went (it helped that I wore collared shirts every day, and had a place for that little notebook that didn't involve it getting crushed when I sat down), and had a weekly planner for appointments and the like that went in the same pocket as my notebook.  I was, to say the least, very organized.  I had a list of 35 or so phone numbers at the command of my mind's eye.  Very organized.

Now, I don't have the white board or things planned out.  I've tried a bunch of virtual calendars but have never been able to stick with one, as it were.  We use Outlook here at work, but in order to access my work calendar from home, I have to fire up a VPN, load up Internet Explorer (not even my browser of choice, ugh), and then wait for a slow, outdated Webmail interface to pop up on the screen.  I wear t-shirts and jeans to work, so there is not a small notebook to be found, as I can't stand having things in my pants pockets (see "ultra slim mostly empty duct tape wallet"), nor is there a weekly planner.  I have experimented with PocketMods, but actually remembering where I've laid the 50 or so of those I've burned through is a chore, since I don't have a system at home to track them, and since they got put somewhere during the move, I don't know where they went.  I'm still working on getting everything put together that I need to on the home front.  I'm going to take a few hours while the wife is on vacation and really clean all the junk out of there and go for the fresh start.  And don't even get me started on phone numbers.  If you gave me a phone and told me to call one of my friends, there is no way I could do it without calling home and asking my wife to please go in that little phone book and tell me what number to dial.  And there's not even a guarantee that it's in there.

Anyway... memory.  Talking about improving memory, it has been suggested that the best way to improve one's memory is to associate things with a striking image, a powerful emotion, and/or a new smell.  This actually relates very well to a discussion I had with a friend yesterday about Skittles:  the flavors are different in France, and I was wracking my brain trying to remember which flavor the purple Skittle was.  I could taste the flavor in my mouth, that's how well I could remember it.  I just couldn't remember the word in French to trigger the association with what the heck it is in English (it's black currant, and I still don't know the French word).

While I don't want to memorize my friends' phone numbers through associating them with taste or smell, I can do the image and emotion thing.  So we'll see what kind of progress I can do in a week.  I'm going to dig up some old PocketMods, too -- can't hurt. :-)

Week in Review, Week Ending 6/10/06

1. I completed my scripture reading goals. Woohoo! I'm even doing it early and spacing it out throughout the week.

Yeah, I didn't get anything else done this week. LAME. I'm just moving these goals over to next week. I'm reading D&C 45-56 this week.

I had a tough time this week: I have been reading the Book of Mormon cover-to-cover for the first time in forever, and last week as leaders of the youth, we challenged them to read the entire BoM over the course of the summer (ending September 3, I think... 98 days total). I think that's a great challenge, but the only problem I had was that I was expected to participate in the challenge and start over again, and I was very far into my personal reading.

We've done similar things on the mission, and I've never had a problem with it. Of course, on the mission it was reading 30 minutes a day, and lots of jumping around topics, so a good "power read", I had no problem with. But this time was different, I was really resisting the idea of abandoning my personal study for a power read, as I was so close to the end and very excited about finishing. I was very resistant.

However, last Sunday, 4 days after we started the challenge, I gave in and softened my heart. I started reading as if it were the first time I had ever read the Book of Mormon -- and a wonderful place was opened in my heart -- it felt like I was reconnecting with an old friend who had so many wonderful stories to share from the time we spent apart. Plus, I am stumbling upon more opportunities to share the Gospel with others. I'm very glad I finally "gave in", so to speak.

What do I believe about money?

Hey look, two posts in one day!  This one's an easy one, drawn from Radical Mutual-Improvement,aka my blog's fodder.  He also linked to another post that I was planning on reviewing at Lifehacker, so perhaps karma, fate, or whatever will cause me to massively update on Monday morning.

I'm fairly sure part of this is based on a section in The Millionaire Course, so that's why it looks so familiar.  Anyway, link back to RMI for what the questions are.  Here are my beliefs about money:

• I do not believe that more money will make me happier.
• I do not spend money as soon as I get it.  Sometimes, I need to hold it to add to money from my next paycheck so I can pay a particuarly large bill.
• I barely have enough money right now, and there are some things that I consider "essential" that I am currently going without.  Strangely enough, a computer isn't one of them, but this one was free and is hopelessly outdated. :-)
• Money is the currency that is traded for labor.
• Making money requires work.  As far as it being hard work, I don't necessarily believe that you need to kill yourself dead to make money, but rather be smart with the money that you make from doing a job that you enjoy doing.
• Money does not corrupt.  It is the love of money that is the root of all evil.
• Money can buy everything that is not truly important in this world (shelter and sustenance excluded).  One cannot buy a good spiritual life, and one cannot buy a good family life.
• I don't believe there is a shortage of money in the world.
• Strangely enough, I don't want to be rich.  I would like enough money that I will be able to live doing what I want to do for a living, and not enough money to be able to teach my children the value of earning and saving money.
• With my previous attitude of money management, I definitely do not deserve to be rich at this point.  I'll settle on getting out of debt first before I can even consider whether or not I deserve to be rich.
• It takes enough money for one to be able to support his family, have a good savings for retirement, stash away enough for an emergency fund and other rainy days, and be out of debt to be rich.

I would be rich in money, and derive as much possible happiness from money, if I had $32,000.  I chose that number because that is how much it would take to get me out of debt, cars included.  After that, I make enough to be able to save towards my goals and still live comfortably on the remainder.

Do I deserve to have $32,000, and have what it takes to get it?  Yes I do.  There's no reason why I shouldn't be able to fix my past errors in spending judgment and get on with my life.  I don't think that anybody should have to live his life under a cloud of debt, unless it's to teach him how to appreciate not being in debt.

Goals? What goals?

Busy week here... I actually just clocked out from finishing all of my assigned work. Bringing work home is a double-edged sword: I really enjoy working and getting the overtime, but I don't like having to spend so much time away from the family. I guess the good news is, once September rolls around, I'll be able to go back to working eight hours at the office, with minimal working from home. I like that.

Call me a moron: in order to keep the hit counts on my site from getting artificially inflated, I haven't been visiting as often. And without visiting, I don't know what my goals are. So, I wind up going into a "crunch" on Saturday morning, trying to get things set up so I can accomplish at least some of my goals this week. While I'm watching the World Cup, I'm going to mark recipes to scan so I can get that done later this afternoon.

I had a moment yesterday where I was completely frustrated with speaking English. I'm fairly fluent in French, and learning Italian, and know some simple phrases in Tamil, but I rarely have the opportunity to use them, as my Italian pen pals keep flaking out and disappearing, and my French pan pal writes very infrequently. Tamil does not make sense to me as it is a completely different language than I have ever tried to learn. Hopefully I'll be able to find someone with whom I can more frequently practice my Romance languages.

Internet keeps cutting in and out. I hope that this isn't a sign they've finally gotten around to turning off the cable (we cancelled it last week)... I want to watch as much footie as possible. I'm rooting for France and Italy, by the way, but I think Germany has a really good chance, as the host team has generally done well in the past two Cups, and they just completely annihilated Costa Rica yesterday.

Goals, Week Ending 6/10/06

1. Read Doctrine and Covenants 36-44. Look at me, making steady progress in the scriptures!


2. Complete scanning project #1 - scanning cookbooks.


3. Complete finance project #1 - setting savings goals and putting them into buckets.


4. Complete finance project #2 - increase percentage of 401(k) contribution. I have budgeted for it at 5% in the cost of living spreadsheet, so might as well stick it there.


5. Complete scanning project #2 - Scan vital documents (marriage license, birth certificate, social security cards, etc.), encrypt them with a password, and burn them to CD so we have them somewhere in case of an emergency. Scanning and digital encryption - the new safe deposit box.


6. Figure out what the heck to do with my exorbitantly high car insurance. It's sad that that's one of the major expenses of the month.

I think that's it... I have a busy week again with teaching and band practice, and working a bunch of overtime to get my finances in some sort of shape, so I'm going conservative this week with less than one goal a day.

Week in Review, Week Ending 6/3/06

1. Finished reading through D&C 35. Good stuff.


2. Set up the account. Also, set up one of those "how much do you need to make to sustain your lifestyle" spreadsheets. I guess it's a bad thing that I named it screwed.ods. On the lifestyle vs. personal finance fronts, we turned cable TV off, but I'm still probably going to get a second job. The wife is still in denial about that one, unfortunately. I'm more realistic.


3. Figured it out but haven't done anything about it. This one gets moved to next week's goals, however, as it's pretty important. I made the mistake of procrastinating a lot of the financial stuff until the printer/scanner arrived, and since that set me back until Thursday, plus there's another project I'm doing with the scanner... yeah. Didn't work out.


4. I haven't received a new cubicle, nor my laptop yet. Other things seem to keep getting in the way at work. I'm going to make it a point to ask for it on Monday, barring my project leader's absence from the office (she was out Thursday and Friday).


5. Got the scanner set up. It works! I'm working on adding a bunch of recipes from books that I checked out from the library to my collection... what may be an insurmountable task, as I have checked out something like 38 million books, and have only marked the recipes that I want to keep in one. So, I'm playing catch-up there, as well.

How I Joined the Church

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints plays a large role in my life. I've talkted about it a couple times here, and since I was planning on writing my conversion story to a friend of mine this week, I figured I'd put it here, too.

I was raised in a Christian household (growing up Italian-American in New York, one might be able to guess which denomination), albeit one that never went to church too often. When we did go to church, my father never went, and I was so young, I used to just stretch out on the pew and go to sleep. My biggest memory of church services was watching the clock so we could get home in time to watch bowling on TV. I had attended church classes before I was confirmed in high school, but once I was confirmed, I made the choice to stop going, as I wasn't getting anything out of going to church. Looking back, that's probably more my fault than the church's.

I managed to keep church, and for the most part religion altogether, out of my life for a good ten years after that. I didn't have a good relationship with my parents, my father had just passed away, and I was in a romantic relationship that was very unhealthy. I received an invitation from a good friend of mine to come to Tucson, where he was in a band that needed a bass player, and since we had played together before and he knew I was in a bad situation (living at the time in Pennsylvania), he rang me up. A week later, I loaded my meager possessions into the back of my car and took off with no notice to anyone.

Once I arrived in Tucson, I managed to get set up with an apartment and a job fairly quickly. The band was very successful locally, and we were playing shows regularly. I had a decent circle of friends -- something that had been lacking for a few years -- and a fulfilling social life. One might say that I was living the life I had dreamed of for a while: steady income, playing in a rock band, no commitments, no debt... I was more or less able to do whatever I wanted, when I wanted to. It wasn't too bad.

One day, and I don't know what prompted this, it came to me that although I had everything I thought I had always wanted, I still wasn't completely happy with my life. The thought came to me that I should renew my relationship with God. It was a shocking proposition to me, as I hadn't considered myself a religious person in a long time, although I did still believe in some nebulous concept of God. I sat down and pondered which church I should attend. I knew I didn't want to return to my old denomination, nor any of the many denominations spun off from the first, as I felt I wouldn't find the spiritual fulfillment that I was looking for. I looked around online, but didn't find anything that appealed to me.

A chance conversation with a friend of mine led me to know of her being raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I had never really heard about that religion before, although I did grow up about 20 miles from where it was founded, so I was familiar with some of the history of the Church (i.e. Joseph Smith found some plates in a hill in Palmyra, NY, and then everybody went to Utah). I knew nothing about the doctrine, though, except that it was a Christian church. My friend was able to explain some of the doctrines to me, and it was enough that I wanted to learn more about it. I did what any good computer geek would do: I went online, and found a website that was operated by a church leader in Appleton, Wisconsin, who had compiled a FAQ list.

What I read on that list blew me away. It was like a list of every doctrine that I knew was true, or wished was true, whenever I thought about religion. Men being accountable for their own actions and not being punished for Adam's transgression in the Garden? Check. God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost being separate beings? Check. A code of health? Check. I also read about a book called The Book of Mormon, and how it came into existence. I decided, from the few excerpts I was able to read online, that I should get a copy of it. I called the 800 number of the Church specifically designed for this purpose, and ordered a copy of the Book to be delivered to my door by a pair of missionaries.

The missionaries (Elder Aaron Averett from Springville, UT and Elder Richard Stevens from Pocatello, ID) arrived about a week later with the book. They were about my age, which was good, as I don't think I wanted an "old man" explaining to me what the Church was -- it was definitely a good thing that someone whom I could consider a peer was helping me out here. We had some good discussions, and they always left me with an assignment for reading in the scriptures (I went and purchased a Bible, as I had none), and I was always ready to discuss what I read with them. I prayed to know that the message they were sharing with me was true, although by then it was almost a moot point, because I felt so much joy and peace whenever the missionaries came to visit and when I read the scriptures. It was truly what I was looking for with my spiritual quest.

I was baptised a member of the Church on January 16, 2000. I started attending Institute classes and soon discovered that there was a congregation for young single adults. I started attending that congregation, and was pleased to discover many new friends, the best of whom I remain in contact with to this day. It was the only place that I ever really felt I "fit in", and looking back, I know it's where I belong.

In the intervening six-and-one-half years since joining the Church, I've served a mission of my own to France, been married to a wonderful woman and had a beautiful daughter (with a son on the way in September), and been able to serve in a variety of fulfilling callings within the church, the current ones being teaching the 8-year-olds in Sunday School, and working with the 16- to 18-year-old boys in the Young Men organization.

I strongly urge anyone who may be curious about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to seriously investigate it and its teachings. It has brought a multitude of joys and blessings into my life, and has taught me how to become a better person, husband, and father. And most importantly, it has brought me closer to God and to Jesus, and helped me develop a very strong relationship with Them. I'm excited to be able to call myself a member of the Church, and I hope and pray that there is someone out there who will find as much joy in the Church as I have.

Sticky Post: My 4- and 5-star rated songs

(Due to a strange HTML error that puts in a whole table's worth of blank space, I am posting a link to this. Yes, a permalink to a link.)

http://calabresi.schtuff.com/top_rated_itunes_music

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

After two more successful days of taking the bus to work, I have decided to give my poor, aching legs a rest and drive. Well, maybe it was my legs making the decision. We are in a situation where I might only have the usage of the car for the next 4 weeks or so as it is, so I am going to take advantage of little breaks like this while I can. And still get my money's worth from the bus pass...

We are at a monetary crossroads -- we are at a point where I am basically forced to get a second job so we can meet expenses. And it's not like we're living beyond our means, either... we have two cars (and two car payments), and the insurance on those is unfathomably ginormous (don't know why, either), but other than that and the cable TV (which is geting cancelled today) we have no luxuries and are still barely scraping by. THE PERILS OF DEBT!! STAY OUT!! Also, get good health insurance so hospital bills are kept at a minimum... glad I'll be able to re-evaluate my plan in a couple weeks and keep those bills down -- especially with the new baby coming in September, we are going to be in some serious trouble if anything goes haywire. Heck, we're already teetering on the brink of serious trouble as it is.

Still haven't gotten the laptop from work yet, hopefully today will see that happening, so I can get that configured over the weekend. The all-in-one printer has arrived, but I haven't really had time to sit down and get that going how I would like to. It's installed, and it works, and everything, it's just that its arrival has signalled the start of a project I have for the restaurant, and that is a very time-consuming project. Time I don't have with Elizabeth acting up all the time these days. If only I had DVD decoding software on the computer, I could get her to watch Baby Einstein in the computer room with me while I scanned documents...

I did speak to my "sister" and she is doing better. I'm glad for her. What's really awesome is that I get to speak with her on a spiritual level, and share things about the Gospel with her. She really gets it, too, and that lifts me up emotionally and spiritually. See, it's not ALL about money...