Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Swaptree

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Nov
09

Recently I got an e-mail from a friend of mine that said, “I thought you might like this”.  Typically I don’t pay attention to these e-mails, but something made me go look.  What did I find?  Paradise. (Well, not really).  But what I found was really cool.

Swaptree.com is a web-site that allows members to post items they have (books, movies, Cd’s and video games) in their member profile.  Then they get to go through and pick items they want.  When there is a match, swaptree lets you know.  You can then initiate a trade with someone.  If you both decide to trade, you get to mail your item and they mail their item and all you are paying for is shipping and handling!  Whoo Hoo!!!  It’s better then the library!!!  Users then rate each other (much like e-bay and amazon) and that’s how you build trust that you will send the item you promised.  It is so cool.

I’m addicted now.  It’s a great way to be green, save money, and get rid of items that you don’t want anymore. Go check it out!  Now, if only they would work on bundleing items…

Gearing up

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May
12

Since I haven’t really kept up my commitment to writing one new post a week, I figured I would do a recap of the last few weeks because they have been super busy. My apologies and I will try and be better in the future.

I finished work on April 30 and am now just doing some stuff from home. The good part of that is now I can sleep in and work when I want to. The bad part is I can sleep in and don’t work when I should. Since I tend to be a procrastinator I end up doing my work later at night and then need more sleep in the morning…I guess it will prepare me for baby

Things are going well as far as baby goes. From what the midwife said, he is in position. For new mom’s this usually happens a few weeks before baby comes so we are right on schedule. We have the nursery set up for the most part. We still have a few things we need to get but they are not immediately needed (although a mattress for the crib and bedding is pretty high up there. Thankfully we have a bassinet that we can use until we are able to make the other purchases we need to). We finished our childbirth class and it was informative to say the least. I think I am going to leave myself some room to change my mind about pain meds if things get to be more then I can take. We also went to this really great GIANT “garage” sale if you will that had nothing but baby and young children stuff. That was nice because we were able to buy things that were close to brand new (in some cases they were new) for much cheaper then if we had gone to Babies-r-us or Target. Baby crap is expensive! Note to self: when you can buy it used- do it. Babies grow really fast.

My family is doing well. Mom is traveling, Andy is traveling, Quinn is in Texas, Dad is working. Greg is working and writing a lot. As for me, I’m ready for baby to be here. I’m a little freaked out about what happens once baby is here, and more freaked out about the process of baby getting here, but countless other women have done it and survived so I probably can too.

This whole election process is really starting to annoy me. I can see that Hillary rightly deserves her title as, “willing to do anything to become President”. Barring an act of God, I don’t think she will win this nomination and honestly, this process is taking longer then anyone cares to hear about. The drama that has come out is so junior high. Seriously. Granted, there are a few things that we should be concerned about, but some of it is so childish and petty.

I hope to have some tips up in the next week or two about how to have a great party with low cost. Until then, I’m just gearing up.

Priceless

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Apr
08

mastercard

Greg stole my blog idea for Murphy and God fighting, so I decided to write it anyway but in a different way.

Last month we had over $1900 dollars of expected/unexpected expenses come up. We thought that we could budget some of it in (and did) but some of it was just unforeseen expenses. Yes, we do Dave Ramsey so we have our minor emergency fund in place, however, we hate digging into that money. It leaves you feeling vulnerable for those few weeks that you are trying to build that money back up again. In addition, the expenses were more then our emergency fund.

To top all of that off, we are due to have our first baby in 8 weeks and currently have a crib (no mattress) and dresser (thank you Greg’s mom Rhonda and step dad Steve!), a few diapers, a few toys, and some baby wipes. Granted, we haven’t had a shower yet, but it still makes you nervous knowing that you have a LOT of bills and need to buy things for the baby. What makes you especially nervous, is knowing that you have made a commitment not to go back into debt so it is NOT an option. Needless to say, I’ve been trying to work a few extra hours to make a little extra money, but also because I plan to leave the office at the end of April and need to finish some things there

Little did I know that God had other plans and showed up to what I thought would be really really TIGHT few months. I am humbly reminded once again what a great God we serve. He continually provides for us and is patient with me and my worry.

Below you will find an itemized list of expenses and how God took care of them all.

New Crown for Shannon’s tooth- 945.90
Doctor’s Bills- 118.41
Doola- 250.00
KGB-ahem-sorry, that was the IRS- 353.00
Travel for Greg- 65.00
Unexpected car trouble (the water pump needed replacing)- 64.94
Travel for a wedding- 100.00
Unexpected phone expense- 25.00
Other random things you tend to forget to budget for 50.00

A God who provides for His children and sends random checks to your house with your name on them that amount to over 1100.00- PRICELESS

There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else there’s God.

My New Website

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Mar
08

Greg set me up with a website for my birthday. It’s just in it’s infant stages but come back regularly to see it grow. I promised Greg that I would write at least on blog a week to start off with. Some come back often and leave me comments as to what you think about it.