Category: Day To Day

Just replaced my fan on another Thinkpad.  This time in under 30 minutes.  I am getting good at it, but am hoping I won’t have to do it again for a LONG time.

I definitely am grateful for the instructions I used each time from InsideMyLaptop.com

Lucas spotted this duck in our yard this morning when he was having breakfast.  Mom took the photo.  Cool, huh?

We had a wonderful Easter day cooking, eating, drinking and being together!  Lucas made a fantastic dessert and all of the food was spectacular.

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It is 2:30am and I cannot sleep.  I had a very productive day ending a very productive week.  Throughout this week, I realized that my plans and goals are starting to come together once again and there are many pivotal moments approaching in the coming weeks.  I am constantly amazed by my accomplishments and always striving for that next goal.  Now I am getting close to another triumph where I can walk easy for a bit on a plateau before gearing up for the next climb.  Everything I have worked so hard to achieve over the last 16 years has been steps toward where I am heading.  Often I have tripped over myself to achieve goals and often I made the wrong choice at the fork in the road and found myself having to backtrack.

Next week I am paying final payments on two debts.  In March, I am paying off another and in May two more and then one more in July.  There is almost nothing left of my past business debt compared to where I started three years ago when I shut the businesses down.  I have approximately $12,000 left which may sound like a lot but is so relieving considering where I was when I started.  I still have a ways to go, but I can’t help but feel an eagerness to have these mini celebrations over the coming months as each debt starts dropping off.

I have been diligent in keeping a spreadsheet of goals and debts and income and planning.  Now I can finally feel more of the reality of what it will be like to free up available cash and have only manageable debt remaining such as house, car, student loan.  And then to work toward clearing all of those as well.  Is it really possible to be completely debt free and what might that be like?  I can’t help but become excited about that possibility and thinking about how I can make it a reality.

It has been a rough couple of months.  I am in the third year of my three year plan to pay off all of my old business debt, however, this requires about 90% of my income every month.  I rely on side jobs and overtime for the miscellaneous stuff like when Lucas needs special shirts for the band concert for school, or when our electric bill is a bit higher than we expected, or doing some home renovations, or even if I just feel like having a beer.  Side money and overtime is my gravy.

These last two months the overtime was non-existent and the side jobs were slim to none.  Even a couple of the hosting customers I have decided not to renew this year because their businesses are struggling.  Then a week ago, a customer who we built a website for a few years ago emailed and asked for an overhaul.  I was thinking, “Cool! It should just take a few hours and maybe I can get paid before Christmas.”.  It did take a few hours and he wanted to meet this morning (Christmas Eve) to review it and after an hour reviewing it, he paid me with paypal and I now have cash for Christmas.

Lucas wanted Steak for Christmas, but we had already bought groceries and spent about $100.  Now that I managed to get some “gravy”, I can get steak for Lucas too!

I know it sounds silly.  Most people think that I should have filed bankruptcy or something, but I have been determined to pay off all of that debt and it isn’t fun and it sometimes sucks when I realize I have ten dollars left to my name and payday is a week away, but I am over two years into a three year hard core plan to pay off huge debt and these next 7 months is the last hill before I can breath and know that I did it.

But for now, it is Christmas Eve and my son is going to have his steak!

Everyone knows I wear my heart on my sleeve and I am an open book.   Sometimes it takes me a while to get past certain events and figure out what I need to do next.  It was a tough year with Joe Dying, Jacob leaving and Greg and I breaking up all within a six month span.  I feel like I have become quite mental.  I still wake up nearly every morning from strange dreams that just don’t help to start off my day.  I wake up angry and sad and disappointed…

So, I am going to start to fix this in baby steps.  I am going to clean my room and finally get rid of all of the remnants of Greg.  I am going to finally change my sheets and start sleeping in my bed again.  I am going to go to the gym regularly and start taking better care of myself.

It’s time to move forward.

So many thoughts going through my head that I am finding it difficult to post anything on Facebook.  It’s hard to post the crap that is going on in your life when it is big and there is so much of it being hurled at you all at once.

Suddenly I find myself facing breaking up with my “boyfriend”.   That is very sad.  It just isn’t going to work out.  We just aren’t able to move beyond this together.    I guess we just didn’t realize how much we didn’t have in common because for the first year, whenever we spent time together, it was just us… into each other and hanging out with each  other all day on a Saturday or whatever.    I always made sure the errands and things I had to do were all done before Saturday morning.   It was an awesome year.  I thought we were building a great foundation for a good future together.  Especially since we went on date night every Thursday night and then Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon we hung out together… and we did that consistently for 18 months.  It was actually perfect for a busy girl like me with a lot on my plate.  I thought it was ideal.  But that is all this is or ever will be.  Trying to have him involved in my life seems to be a road block.

We have decided to go on our pre-planned Chicago trip  in spite of everything and have a good time together.  Which I am sure we will.  We have decided to give it some time after that to see what happens.  We have also determined that it is probably not going to work and that is sad for both of us.

I wish I could fully describe how I feel.  I wish I understood it myself.   This is not easy.  Greg and I put 18 months of our lives into this and he tells me that there is a possibility he can be more open to the idea of really being with someone and really getting to know someone deeply and really loving someone.    I think I just finally came to the conclusion that the possibility is still very slim.     And I wouldn’t even care so much about that… let’s just take it day by day…. that’s perfectly fine with me.  What does get to me is the fact that he is so freaking worried about this shit that he freaks himself out to the point where he forgets to be flirty.  He forgets to sneak up behind me and push my hair aside while he lightly nibbles and kisses my neck…. and so on.      His fear of a deep lasting relationship is paralyzing any possibilities of it.

We have had several long talks in the past couple weeks.  The talks are good and we do well together in that regard.  The conclusion is what is sad.

Although we have our new cabinets in, we still do not have our plumbing and sink in place.  In the meantime, we have been washing dishes in the bathtub and the backyard.  Today we cooked some good food on the grill and Dan helped us clean up with the hose.

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I sold my crappy black Nissan car and bought this 2001 Mazda Truck.  It is going to be sooooo much easier to transport drywall and other building materials now for our renovations.  Plus, I just love having a truck!

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The sky was very pretty tonight.  I noticed it from the back yard and then went to the front to get a good photo