My Date with a Rebel
I really, really , really, reeeeeealy want a new camera. A big girl SLR camera. I have out grown my trusty point and shoot that I’ve had since the summer of 2006. It’s been good to me, and we’ve captured some good memories. It’s been to Disney World, my graduation, Moanna’s birth, California and multiple holidays and birthdays. I’ve taken thousands and thousands of pictures with my camera. Like I said, we’ve been through a lot together, but I need more. I need more control of my pictures.
I have been researching and begging for months for a new camera. Because it’s such a heavy investment I will probably be researching and begging for several more months before I bring home a brand new camera. To hold me over, I borrowed a Rebel XTi from some friends the other weeks. I wanted a preview of what my relationship with an SLR would be like.
My date with the Rebel went something like this…
And then Steve intercepted my date…
I’m sure most people would be mortified to find a picture like this on the internet, but I’m amused by it. If we add lasers shooting out of my eyes it could star in a cheesy action movie.
And then I stepped back in…
Then I lost it again…
I had no idea what I was doing 99.9% of the time, and when I was starting to make progress Steve would take the camera and adjust the settings. I’m not at all versed enough in photography to deserve an SLR, but with most things in life I have no idea what I’m doing when I start a new adventure, I just make up as I go along until I get it right.
Junior Achievement – Financial Education for Children
A friend of mine from college works for Junior Achievement, a non-profit organization that educates children about personal finances. You know how important educating children about money is to me; Moanna may not know much geometry or history when she leaves home, but she will be well versed in personal finances.
Junior Achievement is in the running for a hefty donation from JP Morgan Chase & Co. through a contest on Facebook. These donations start at $20,000.00, and that can make a huge impact on a non-profit group. Can you imagine how many children will be able to make smart financial decisions and avoid debt with a donation like this? And $20,000.00 is the smallest donation; they go all the way up to a quarter million!
I don’t campaign for many things, but I am very passionate about children learning how to handle money. To support Junior Achievement all you have to do is vote for them on Facebook. The top 200 non-profit organizations will receive donations. To learn more about Junior Achievement and the Facebook contest by JP Morgan Chase & Co. please click on the icon below.
The information below is about the contest and was emailed to me by Lauren…
| Vote for JA of Greater Hampton Roads on Facebook
Chat with friends on Facebook and help a non-profit win $20,000-$250,000! Use 1 of your 20 votes to vote for JA between June 15 – July 12, 2010. JP Morgan Chase & Co. launched an innovative giving campaign program for small and local non-profit organizations. Through the Facebook Chase Community Giving campaign, YOU decide which small and local organizations will receive donations of $20,000-$250,000. The Top 200 will each receive $20,000 or more. More than $5 million will be distributed in this competition! Each vote puts us one step closer to receiving funds that will help us educate more than 10,000 Hampton Roads’ students about financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and work readiness. Step1: Visit our Chase Community Giving site at: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/540799839 to sign up and vote. You will have to allow the Chase Community Giving access to your profile to vote. Step 2: Share the link with your friends via Facebook wall or Twitter account. Feel free to email the link as well! Keep an eye out for winners to be announced on July 13th. Don’t forget–you have 20 votes, so you can still vote for your other favorite charities as well! |
The Scavenger Hunt
When you move (In case you missed the memo -yes, we’re moving), one of the first things you need is a place to live. Duh. I know, I’m stating the obvious, but work with me here.
Until you find a place to live, you can’t really go forward with the moving process and decision making. You won’t know what your morning commute will be, or where to buy your morning smoothie. You can’t have internet installed or the utilities put in your name. Without a house, you can’t decide where to put the kitchen table or the toy box.
We’re in the process of house hunting (rental properties) because without a house I have no where to put my bonsai or the toy box and I can’t have internet installed, and it is the most complicated scavenger hunt I have ever signed up for. It’s more than a scavenger hunt, it’s a scavenger hunt and one of those crazy critical thinking word puzzles combined. Smoke starts to spew out of my ears when math, English and science collide into one big ball.
When we started this house hunting process, Steve and I came up with a list of things that we could not live without, a list of things that would make life much easier, and a list of things that were bonus items. For example, we need a minimum of 3 bedrooms, life would be much easier with a bonus room (aka play room) and a pool in the neighborhood would be a major bonus. Although down here in “Hot-Lanta” a pool has quickly been bumped up as being a darn near necessity.
We have been very diligent when perusing houses online that our Realtor has been sending us. The past few weeks we have been playing this scavenger slash word puzzle game. We spend hours staring at the computer screen reading description, checking the vitals, squinting at tiny pictures and mapping the properties with Google Earth to make sure they are in a good location. We’ll find a house that is perfect and in our price range, but it’s a good thirty miles outside of the area that we want to live in. Or, it will have everything but a play room. Price will be great, location’s great, there is a pool down the street, but no play room. It gets really frustrating when it has everything on all three of our lists, but the neighborhood is crappy, or the house is dingy.
Somehow, by the grace of God – that’s how, we’ve pulled together a list of about a dozen properties that meet most of our needs and some of them meet most of our wants. Now it is time to see them in person. The scavenger hunt goes from virtual to reality. I’ve mastered the first level of this game, but I need help with the second level. I need your cheat codes and secret combo moves.
How did you approach looking at houses in person? What were your deal breakers? How did you peacefully compromise with your list of needs and wants? How did you know that you had found your new house, your new home?
Gratitude 06.20.2010
Today I am grateful for the energy and positivity of young children. This video says it all…
P.S. This post is in honor of Steve (who I am also grateful for today) on Father’s Day. He ran across this video online one day, and fell in love with it. When he gave Moanna her baby blessing, one of the things he emphasized was how important her positive energy would be. He told her that her positive energy would influence others and bring sunshine into their lives.
Happy Father’s Day!
Celebrating Three and One
June 4th was a big day here at the Adams’ Residence. On June 4th Moanna turned three, and My, Myself and Mommy turned one! Well tecnically, we bought the domain for the blog on September 24 of 2008, but I didn’t actually write my first post until June 4, 2010. Therefore, I consider June 4 to be Me Myself and Mommy’s birthday. September 24th was the conception date, and June 4th was the birth date, just like the conception and birth of a child. Sort of.
Anyhow, we celebrated Moanna’s birthday for two days.
On Friday, we met Steve’s parents and their friends (all of whom trekked down here from Maryland to spend the weekend with us) in Lexington for a carriage ride. In all of my 25 years, most of which were spent here, I had never taken a carriage ride through Lexington. I have watched these carriages trot through downtown my entire life, I have listened to them jingle as they whisk newly married couples off to start their honeymoon, but until now, I have never once taken the old fashioned cruise through town. Minus the stench of following a horses behind around for an hour in the blazing heat, it was a great time. We may have enjoyed it more than Moanna did. She wasn’t really interested in the history, but she did get a kick out of having horses pulling her around town.
After the carriage ride we went to dinner at Bistro on Main. I worked there one summer during college just after they opened, and the place has done nothing but improved since then. We ate until we popped. Brie, seared tuna, fruit, burgers, jambalaya, pasta with shrimp, stuffed chicken and salad canvased our table. Moanna was the only one who had room for dessert. Just moments before the brownie appeared with a candle on it , Moanna clamied that she was full, but buddy, as soon as that chocolate masterpiece rounded the corner, she perked right up.
Saturday was the big party, or should I say Fiesta.
There was a senorita outfit,
pin the tale on the donkey,
a Pinata,
cupcakes,
and presents.
The End.
Really Love Your Peaches
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve started to type the beginning of this post, and deleted it all. I’m really struggling with how to put this out there in the universe. In fact, I originally began this post all the way back on May 12th. For almost a month now, I’ve been trying to get the following information out of my system, and every time I go to tell you what I’m about to tell you, I chicken out.
OK. I’m just going to say it. It’s time to get this over with….
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OK, I’m really going to say it this time…
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We’re…
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We’re moving…
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To Georgia…
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To Atlanta, Georgia…
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To the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia…
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We’re moving to the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia.
I think I’m going to throw up…
….
Nope. No, we’re good. I’m cool.
Boy, I’m glad that’s over with. Now can we all go back to being normal, and pretend like I’ve not been keeping this deep, dark secret from you for so long?
And now that you know, can I please tell you all of the things that have been keeping me awake at night?
Are you ready for this? I’m warning you, this is some deep, philosophical stuff.
I lay awake at night worrying about how I’m going to get my bonzi tree safely from Virginia to Georgia. It sits in it’s own water fountain on my kitchen counter, and I have no clue how it’s going to make the journey. This bonzi is one of the few plants that I own that is thriving. Most plants I touch die within a few weeks, months if I’m lucky. I adopted this plant from a friend who moved half way across the country and didn’t know what to do with the plant. It was barely kicking when I took it in. I’ve had it for a year now, and it has doubled in size. If this poor tree manages to make it to the state of Georgia alive, where am I going to keep it? Will my new house have a place for this little tree to call home?
Another thing that keeps me up at night is worrying about the traffic in Atlanta. I have visions of merging onto a highway of thousands of cars driving 75mph, and being paralyzed with fear. I’m going to get on the highway and not be able to move. A helicopter is going to have to be flown in to drop ropes for me and Moanna to grab onto so we can be lifted out of the river of venomous cars. You laugh, but I’m serious. It’s going to take me forever to get up the courage to get on the road and go anywhere. When I finally do get up the nerve to drive, it’s going to take me hours to get anywhere because I’m going to be that car driving 35mph in the right lane afraid to change lanes.
Here’s something else. What if we get to our new house and forget to pack toilet paper? We’ll have to drip dry. But what if it’s not a drip dry kind of situation? We will have to go buy toilet paper. After being in the car for who knows how long, we’re going to have to get back in the car to find a store, and find toilet paper (which I probably won’t have a coupon handy for), find our way back to the house and then use the bathroom. By that point, it will be dark and none of our stuff will get unload, so we’ll have to sleep on the hard floor. The next morning we’ll wake up and be too sore and stiff to lug our boxes and furniture in the house. What we’ll end up doing is living out of the moving truck and going inside only when we have to pee because thank the stars we went to the store and bought toilet paper at full price.
So there you have it. We’re moving to the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, and I lay awake at night stressing about my bonzi tree, traffic and toilet paper.
The end…
For now…
My Great Grand Kids Will Be Paying Off My Credit Cards
It’s been a few months since I’ve written anything about money. I wish I could tell that it was because we struck gold and have been busy on a first class tour of the world. Unfortunately, it’s because we’ve been busy working hard and trying to keep up with the big changes that are about to take place in our lives. We’ve not done a very good job at tracking our money recently which without a doubt means we’ve been spending more than we should. We plan on catching up on all of earning and spending tracking really soon, and getting back on track with some of our goals that we have lost site of.
In the mean time, I thought I would share a little credit card story with you.
In recent months a law was passed to keep credit card companies in line. One of the clauses of this law requires credit card companies to include some new, and eye opening, information on your credit card bill each month.
Have you noticed this new information?
Go ahead, and find a recent bill and take a look at it. I’ll be waiting here with an ammonia stick to bring you back around after you pass out from the shock.
Did you find it?
This new law requires credit card bills to state how long it will take you to pay off your credit card if you only make the minimum payment and do not purchase anything else. Your credit card bill must also state how much money you will end up paying in interest over the millions of years it’s going to take for you to pay it off.
In case you are too afraid to look at your own credit card bill, I will let you know what mine had to say.
Statement Due Date 04/04/2010 (This was an old bill, so don’t panic)
Current Balance $5, 388.21
Minimum Payment $124.00
Interest Charged for this period $120.77
How insane is that?? Less than $4.00 of my minimum payment goes to paying off the balance, the rest goes to interest. I have an interest rate of roughly 25%. It would take me forever to calculate the weighted whatever of the interest rate of my purchases and cash advances.
It gets better, or worse, depending on your perspective.
If I pay only the minimum payment it will take me 221 years to pay off this poisonous thing. In 221 years this stupid credit card company probably won’t even exist. Credit cards as we know it probably won’t even exist in 221 years. My great grand kinds would have to pay off my credit cards if I only made the minimum payments.
If I only pay the minimum payments over the next 221 years, I will have paid $142,320.00 in interest.
Did your jaw just hit the ground? Mine did.
The credit card company also includes some good news. Here is the good news (if you can call it good news), if I pay $216.00 a month towards the card, it will be paid off in three years. I will pay $7,770.00. That’s a savings of $134, 550.00!
Three years isn’t fast enough for me. My goal (our goal I should say) is to have this thing paid off by the end of the year. We pay at least three times the minimum payment, and most of the time we pay more than that.
Back on January 1, 2010 the balance was $5,910.01. Today the balance is $4,033.15. That’s a pretty good junk we’ve taken out so far, but if we were on schedule it should be all the way down to $2,955.00. We’re $1,078.15 behind. I could make excuses all day for our stunted debt pay down, but I’m not going to waste your time with that baloney. Fear not, we have a plan. It’s going to involve a few stunts and moving money around, but it’s going to be totally worth it.
Liver 4 Lightner – Las Vegas Raffle
On May 14, 2010 my Dad had his second liver transplant (Liver 4 Lightner – Round Two). With the exception of a few pain management setbacks and a small infection he has been doing remarkably well. When I talked to him the other day on the phone he said that he hasn’t felt this alive in over two years, and for the first time in a long time he feels like he has a lot of life left him. If you know what his life has been like in recent years, you know how much of a miracle this is.
This picture was taken of my Dad and his wife (George and Janet) just ten days after the transplant.
When someone has a transplant, the family is asked to raise $10,000 to help cover the expenses associated with the transplant and recovery. While insurance covers the majority of the cost (can you imagine paying for a new organ out of pocket twice?!), there are still a lot of costs that are not covered by insurance. Raising this money is vital to the success of a healthy recovery.
Several of my Dad’s cousins have gotten together to put together a raffle to help the fund raising efforts. Lois, a cousin who lives in Las Vegas was able to score a very sizable donation from the Hooters Casino Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The donation from Hooters includes a two night stay, dinner for two and two tickets to a show! Not too shabby. Three cheers for Lois.
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Rules to the Raffle
1. Tickets for the raffle are $5.00 each. For example, if you donate $20.00 you will have four tickets for the raffle.
2. To be entered into the raffle, please make a donation to the Liver4Lightner Transplant Fund by check or cash. For the mailing address, please email liver4lightner@yahoo.com.
3. Along with your donation please include, “Enter me into the Vegas Raffle”
4. The raffle will close on June 30, 2010 and the drawing will be held on July 4, 2010. The winner will be contacted and announced shortly after the drawing.
5. The Hooters Casino Hotel package includes the following:
~Two night stay in a Standard King Room at Hooters Casino, Las Vegas. Valued at $250.00 (reservations based on availability.
~$75.00 towards food and beverage at the Mad Onion Fine Foods & Spirits inside Hooters Casino Hotel, Las Vegas. Gratuity is not included.
~Two tickets to winner’s choice of available show at Hooters Casino Hotel. Maximum value of $100.00. Tickets based on availability.
***** Raffle winner is responsible for any and all air-fair and transportation to-and-from Hooters Casino Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Please feel free to share this raffle with your friends and family, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other social media networks. Thank you in advance for your donations and prayers. We are continuously grateful for the support we have received during this journey.
Let Loose
There are very few commercials that I tolerate, but I absolutely love this commercial. It captures the freedom and playfulness of summer. It makes me giggle.
We all dance in our kitchens when no one is around to witness our silliness, but how many of us are confident enough to let loose in the yard where everyone can pass judgement on us?
Belated Celebrations
Last week, May 23 to be exact, was mine and Steve’s first wedding anniversary. However, we were not able to celebrate because he was out of town on business. I’ve told you all of this already. Remember? You remember.
After multiple delays, on Friday we were finally able to celebrate. I was sickly, and Steve was recovering from a trip to the dentist, but we went for it. We peeled ourselves away from the couch, popped a few pain pills, got all fancy and hit the door.
Steve had worked really hard to plan out our date night and my gift. I, on the other hand, should be sleeping with dogs because I did not plan well. Well, I had a plan, several plans to be exact, but my immune system had other plans and I wans’t able to make the journey to get his gift(s).
Steve made reservations at a really nice restaurant in the big city of Roanoke. It was a quiet, fancy, little place that prepared locally grown, organic foods – my favorite. I had the fillet mignon and Steve had halibut. Typically, dessert is the highlight of my dinner, but the salad at this place was to die for. I have been drooling for it ever since we left the restaurant. It was an organic lettuce mix tossed with a vinaigrette dressing with some tomatoes, mushrooms, apples, Parmesan cheese, and (the best part) a little heap of black beans on the side. I had the fillet mignon and Steve had the halibut. For dessert we had homemade lemon ice cream with fresh berries, refreshing and almost as good as the salad.
If you are keeping score – Steve 1/ Renee 0
When we got back in the car, Steve gave me my gift. For many of you this may seem very unromantic, but I told him not to give me presents or news during a meal. Food is fantastic on it’s own and does not need to be tainted with sentiment (good or bad). I opened the tiny little box to find a diamond band inside! Steve had bought my eternity band for our Sealing early. He wanted to make sure that nothing go in the way of us getting this ring, so he got it early. I was allowed to wear it for a whole 24 hours. After that, I had to put it back in it’s tiny box until our Sealing on July 30. I couldn’t pout since I hadn’t gotten Steve his gift yet.
Check of the score – Steve 2/ Renee 0
To end the night Steve took me to the movies, but not just to the movies. He took me to Sex and the City 2, and he pretended not to hate it. He was the only guy in the theater. There was us, and a group of about ten other women in the theater. I would have preferred teenagers making out in front of us instead of this group of ladies. They were holding full blown conversations and their cell phones kept ringing – not vibrating, ringing. If I wasn’t so drained from being sickly and digesting fillet, I would have chucked my open water bottle at them. I’m pretty sure they would have attacked me like the fight scene from Mean Girls, but it would have been so worth it.
Final score – Steve 3/ Renee 0
Game over. Renee loses. Period. Amen. The end.
I’m officially spoiled and loved. I should be in big trouble for not planning better, but like I said, I’m spoiled and loved so Steve let it slide. One day in the not so distant future, when my health returns and I have another day off, I will make the journey to fetch Steve’s present. It’s going to have to be five million times better than originally planned to make up for the gross delay. Perhaps it will be another excuse for a great dinner.
