Why Thursdays are the best days

I love Thursdays! I know it's not usually a favorite of the days of the week; however, like Friday, Thursday represents an ending of the work week. I still work at my full-time job on Friday, but Thursday is my last day of teaching for the week, so it's a relief when I get home with pizza from Little Caesar's for me and the fam and am able to just relax. Thursday is the only day/night of the week that I don't do anything related to my class (other than check email just in case) - no grading, no prepping, nothing. The kids and I share some pizza for dinner, Spencer and I watch Wow Wow Wubbzy, and after I get her bathed and in bed, Christian and I watch Survivor. My vegetative evening continues with Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, if I can make it all the way through! The only problem with Thursdays is that I am so tired from all the late nights during the week that I rarely can finish my shows. And that's why I also love my DVR.

Tomorrow is Thursday - I can't wait!

Teaching - 12 weeks down!

Wow, how the time flew after those first few weeks! There were a few weeks there right in the middle where I thought I wasn't going to make it through the book and teach everything I need to teach, but we pushed hard and now the rest of the semester will be fairly smooth sailing. I had a total of 5 students drop the class and another 4 or 5 have stopped showing up, so I'm down to about 19 students. Unfortunately, of those 19, several are not going to pass this class and move on. I'm amazed at some of these students who actually think they will pass the class when they continually show up late, don't come to class, don't turn in work, and obviously don't read any of the chapters! Then I have the core group of students who are doing very well - and of course, they're the ones who worry about their grades, and they have absolutely nothing to worry about!

I do get frustrated with the students who think they can just slack off and do nothing. I gave my students grade updates, and I had a couple students who were failing. A couple of them dropped, but several stayed in the class, even showing up sporadically. I just don't get it. Either get to work or get out of the class! And the thing that really gets me is that although I am pretty strict, I do give a lot of extra credit and chances to improve your grade. I gave a quiz that was pretty tough for everyone - even my best students. So I gave everyone the chance to get full credit on the quiz by taking it home and completing it, and I gave them a week to do it. Surprising, not even half the class did it. Not surprising, my A and B students were the ones who did.

This is not to say that I don't enjoy teaching - I am still loving it, and I wish I could be doing this full time. It's so great that I get to help these students improve their English and writing skills. I put in my request for Fall 2010 - I can only request 2 classes because I'm part time, but I basically requested everything! The Department Chair did suggest that if I request 7am classes, I'll most likely get at least one class - no one wants 7am! I am so not a morning person, but I've gotten used to it, and I know my students wonder how I can be so awake that early! I wonder sometimes, myself. Still no word on whether there's a class for me in Spring - keeping my fingers crossed!

Now this just makes no sense...

I finally have enough music on iTunes to do one of those music shuffle surveys - yeah! OK, so most of these answers make absolutely no sense for my life. Some of them are just plain wrong! My answers a bit skewed toward the Red Hot Chili Peppers (you'll see) - I swear I have more music than that on there! Oh well, it was fun anyway!

Here are the rules for anyone who has no idea what I'm talking about (how could you not know - if you've been on MySpace or Facebook for more than 5 minutes, you have to have seen one of these):

1) Open up your library (iPod, Winamp, iTunes, etc.)
2) Put it on shuffle
3) Press play
4) for each question, type in what song is playing
5) hit next for each question

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And now for this insightful glimpse into my life via my iTunes library:

1. What do people assume when they first look at me?
Road Trippin’ (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

2. What will be a big challenge in life for me?
You Won’t Be Mine (Matchbox Twenty)

3. Am I a good boyfriend/girlfriend?
The Man with the Dogs (The Dead Kennedys)

4. Do I have a Secret Admirer?
Around the World (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

5. Will I ever become manically depressed in my life?
Women and Men (They Might be Giants)

7. Is someone trying to kill me?
Pretty Little Ditty (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

8. What is my sexual preference?
Organic Anti-Beat Box Band (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

9. What am I afraid of?
Wonderwall (Oasis)

10. What will I be doing in a few years?
Man with the Hex (The Atomic Fireballs)

11. What is some good advice for me?
The Loved One (INXS)

12. What should I do instead of this quiz?
We Want a Rock (They Might be Giants)

13. Will you get married?
Smoke Two Joints (Sublime)

14. What is the story of your life?
Skinny Sweaty Man (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

15. How can you get ahead in life?
The Righteous & the Wicked (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

16. What is the best thing about your friends?
Love Trilogy (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

17. What song describes you?
Warm Tape (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

18. How does the world see you?
The Sounds of Silence (Simon and Garfunkel)

19. Will you have a happy life?
40 oz. To Freedom (Sublime)

20. How can I make myself happy?
Chica Me Tipo (Sublime)

21. What should you do with your life?
Underneath It All (No Doubt)

22. Will you ever have children?
Dosed (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

Our Journey to Financial Freedom and more...

Well, it's just like Dave says in the book - things are going great and then something happens. In our case, it's fortunately nothing bad, just a minor setback on our journey. Let's just say we're taking an unexpected Thanksgiving trip to Phoenix this year! It's actually really cool (other than the initial outlay of cash) that we're going to be doing something so completely different for the holidays. The only bummer is that Christian won't be with us - he'll be with his dad in Illinois (his dad is getting married that weekend).

The coolest thing about this trip is that we're only paying for the airfare and the rental car! Howard has been working out of town since August (5-6 days per week), and he's a Priority Club member at Holiday Inn. He has so many points saved up that we're able to get our hotel free for our trip (5 free days in a hotel - how nice is that on a travel budget?) and still have enough points left over and left to earn to possibly get free rooms in SF for Bay to Breakers in May!! Oh the paradox of Howard's out of town schedule - I hate that he's gone, but it has its perks. And for food, we've really hit the jackpot. We were given $50 in Chili's gift cards last year, Christian "cashed in" a $25 gift card at the Bank of Mom, we had a couple of Starbuck's gift cards from somewhere, and Howard got a $100 gift card as a safety bonus on this job he's on right now. I also cashed in points on MyPoints for another $70 in restaurant gift cards, so just about all of our food will be covered while we're travelling, too. You never realize how much the food costs when you travel and have to eat at a restaurant for every meal! This will definitely keep us on a tight budget.

So, our journey to financial freedom continues. Because we had to pay for the plane tickets in October, we wiped our emergency fund. Yes, I know travel is NOT an emergency on the plan, BUT we knew that we'd have it back at the beginning of this month. The other perk to Howard working so much over the past several months is that he gets a bonus for his billable time - I won't tell how much the bonus is, but I will say that it's been extremely helpful! And I get my check from teaching each month (OK so I make about $4 per hour when you consider all the time I spend prepping and grading, but still), which really helps for all the little expenses that seem to pop up every month (school pictures $54 - wtf?!?!).

We started our journey on September 1 and have paid off 4 of the smaller things we had hanging over our heads, including one car! Granted, the car only had 4 payments left when we started, but still - we made 4 payments in 2 months! Even with this unplanned vacation, we could still be on track to pay off the next credit card bill by the end of the year. And not only that, but we've gone completely credit card free since we started. I thought it would be a lot harder than it's been (again, that bonus has been a life saver), but we have really made an effort to change our charging ways! I don't even let Christian borrow his allowance anymore - no more credit from the Bank of Mom!

Even though we still have a long way to go, and it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, we can already see that first pinprick of light, and it's good!

Teaching

I'm 3 weeks into the teaching gig at the local community college. I'm still loving every long minute of it! I teach for 50 minutes 4 days per week, so that's the easy part. The planning is something I just was not prepared for. Being a first-timer, I know it takes so much longer. All I had was the official course outline from the school and some example syllabi to go from. I didn't have any previous lesson plans or ideas for class activities. Just me, the book, and the internet! So far, I have been preparing my lesson plans for each day as I go, but I really need to get ahead, so I can be sure that I'm on the right track to make it through the semester. It takes hours to plan a day or two, let alone a whole week! At least this week coming up is only 3 days - that will help a lot, considering that at the moment, I am writing my blog instead of planning... Oops!

I am so glad I got this opportunity to teach. The chair of the ESL Department took a chance on me, and I so appreciate it! I hope to one be full-time someday, whether at this school or another. I am mentoring with the department chair, so he's given me some really great feedback and is guiding me while I find my way. It's a challenge to just jump right in, but at the same time, I'm glad that I'm making it my own, instead of basing everything off of someone else's plan. I can figure out what works as I go and make mistakes along the way. That's ok with me - I like to learn, too.

And while I'm learning and teaching, I'm still working full time. It's such a difference to go from the classroom to the office. I feel stagnant at my full-time job, but when I'm teaching I feel like I'm actively doing something worthwhile and productive. There's really nothing more for me at my full-time job - the job is pretty much topped out, and there's no room for advannowhere else for me to go there. They've got me pigeonholed into my position, and they fail to see what more I can offer, despite my best efforts to show them and remind them. But it will be their loss when I finally am able to leave there and pursue teaching full time. I've never worked anywhere as long as I've worked for this company, so it will be sad to leave when the time comes, but I will be so excited to move on and move forward. I will have a class for next Fall - they prepare the schedules the year before, so I'm in for next year. I just don't know if I'll have a class for Spring - I have to wait and see what happens.

Our Journey to Financial Freedom

I came across "The Dave Ramsey Show" on the radio a couple months ago in a roundabout way. We had a cool station that played a fairly eclectic mix of music, but unfortunately it didn't last (as with all the cool stations). Of course, the channel remains preset in my car, and one day I was flipping through and hit the button, even though I knew it had changed to the FM version of the local conservative radio show. Obviously, this is not a station I would normally listen to. On this particular day, I hit the button out of habit and because there was nothing good on any of the other stations, I figured I would listen to what the conservatives were saying to get a good laugh. Well, interestingly enough, there was a guy talking about money. I like money, so I listened. He was pretty down-to-earth, and everything he talked about made sense. Not just, "Yeah that could work," but real common sense. I'm not usually in my car between 11am and 1pm, but after that day, if I was, I was listening to the money guy.

So fast forward a couple months. After listening to snippets of Dave Ramsey, I finally checked out his website, and Howard bought his book, "The Total Money Makeover" (TMMO) on Amazon for me. I devoured that book in about a day and a half so that Howard could take it and read it while he worked in the field. We talked about it every night that week! And when he came back, we made our plan and prepared for our journey to be debt-free! I won't go over Dave's book in detail, but I plan to record our progress in becoming financially free as we complete the Baby Steps in Dave's book.

Our official start date was September 1, 2009. We got our paychecks and started! This is a really good time for us to start - Howard has been getting a bonus (which will go through the end of this month) and we both received publication bonuses from work for an extra $500. Talk about a good start.

Baby Step #1 - Save $1000
I have been reading saving and debt reduction articles from a long time; like I said, I like money. So we had a small "emergency fund" of $600 already. Dave says $1000, so we're working on it. We wanted to make a start on Baby Step #2 right away, so we're taking care of #1 with our paycheck in the middle of the month. We will have our emergency fund started and can really get moving on the exciting stuff!

Baby Step #2 - Pay off all debts (other than the house)
So, this is the fun (and hard) part. We had 4 small bills that have just been hanging around and we just haven't been able "find" money to pay. So we knocked those out immediately and it felt so good to cross those off the list! We have two more things under $1000 to pay and will take care of those by October. Then we'll get the long haul of debt payment. We have 2 cars, 4 credit cards, and student loans for a grand total of about $65,000. How insane is that?

So Dave recommends paying off your bills from the lowest balance to the highest balance. Ok - that sounds good to me. I've paid off all my bills before, but I had used the system where you pay the bills from the highest interest rate first, then work your way through that way. I see Dave's point about going from lowest balance to highest. You get some quick results at the beginning to keep yourself motivated - that makes such a difference! I'm willing to give his sytem a chance.

Creating a Budget
This is one thing that we already had, but it just wasn't detailed enough. We had the main bills listed, but we didn't really plan for putting gas in the car or for miscellaneous expenses. We always just left some money over each paycheck, but we always used it up and then ended up charging gas or charging all that stuff we "needed" at Target. Not good. So Howard and I set up a new detailed budget where we account for every bit of money coming in each paycheck/month and know exactly where it's going to go before we even have our checks in our hands. We have money that we set aside each month for other expenses, like car repairs, car registration, household goods, or home repairs. It feels so freeing already! We use only cash (or a debit card) and all the credit cards are out of our wallets!

Next Steps
We had a great start out of the gate, but now we wait until our next paychecks. The next step is to finish the $1000 emergency fund and the pay off the next bill on the list. After that, we'll pay one car off 2 months early! The we really get serious to keep our momentum going to get those last bills paid. Goal date (debt-free except for house) = February 2012.

Freelance work

Well I have learned a really good lesson over the past couple weeks. I've done freelance work before for colleagues and have never had an issue with payment - I do the work, tell them my fee, and I get a check within a week. I've never needed a contract with them - verbal agreements were always fine. But, now I realize that having a contract on DAY ONE is super important! I've got the tell the story.

I answered an ad on Craigslist for a blog writer and met with the prospective employer after going back and forth through email (submitted resume, got a response, was asked to complete a "blog writing task," wrote it up in about 2 hours of my own time, got a response to meet). So I went to her office and we chatted for three hours - I thought it was an interview, but it turned out to be more of a brainstorming session for what she wanted done. I even showed her some tips for Microsoft Outlook. So, there I was on an "interview" doing work!

So I started working... She first drafted an article for me to just do some clean up and post on her blog. Well the article needed more than just simple clean up. I'm not saying it was poorly written, but it definitely came directly from the Associated Press article! Thank goodness I looked up the original article to check a name or I never would have known it and I would have posted it online. Well my integrity demanded that I edit it so that it wasn't plagiarized... And that was just the first blog.

The next blog she sent over was a very long article and when I first read it, it was all over the place. When I read it again, I realized that there were three distinct themes running through the article, so I separated it into three articles and edited them. She wanted one of the articles posted for a contest - one of the rules required that the articles submitted not be self-promoting, so I removed most of the "I" statements and made it a general informational article. She sent it back to me rewritten, saying that I removed "critical information." I don't know what she was referring to because all she put back in were the "I" statements! And her article received only one comment, so I think that says it all...

And the final blog was something she sent over from another article she received. She read the original and then rewrote each paragraph, so the article would have been just a paraphrased version of the original. Again, my integrity would not allow me to post it that way. I edited it to develop some of the information (some was very vague and needed explanation). I also edited it to be sure that nothing was copied directly from the original. I know I did a damn good job. And she received a comment that said it was a great blog!

Well at the end of it all, because I didn't have a contract up front, this woman has "decided" that she is not going to pay me because she doesn't agree with my charges. She apparently only wanted me to do a light copyedit of her blog posts and then post them as is. Even though her name is on the blog and not mine, I still couldn't allow her to plagiarize. I sent her my invoice and she took 8 days to replay back about my poor work that took too long to do. She may know real estate but I know writing and editing. How dare she tell me how to do my profession! And then to question my bill. Does she allow her clients to decide how much commission they're going to pay? Does she decide how much of her electric bill she'll pay each month? Give me a break.

Well, in all of this, I have learned a valuable lesson about doing freelance work - GET A CONTRACT!!! OK end of rant...

Tour of California

Christian and I went off to see the end of Stage 5 of the Tour of California about a mile from where we live in Old Town Clovis. We were hoping to catch a glimpse of Lance Armstrong (ah, the draw of celebrity). Of course, there was no way to know if we saw him - they were going by so fast! All I saw was the dust from the road in a cloud surrounding the riders and the blur of color and spinning wheels as they flew by us on the sprint to the finish line. But it was awesome!


So we went to the finish line where we could see the riders as they came across the finish and slowed down. But, the course was a loop, so we decided to go over one block (7th and Woodworth) to where we could watch them as they sprinted by and then run back and watch them cross the finish line. We made a wise move! We may not have been able to see Lance, but we met some local celebrities - Kim and Kopi, the news anchors for Great Day (local morning news show). We love their show and they were very cool in person. I chatted with them both as we waited, and Kopi was wandering around with a video camera filming for their Great Day Faces segment (they film people at events smiling and waving and then show the footage throughout the morning show). We may be on the news :)

We had our Livestrong signs and chalk and we kept hearing reports about how far out the riders were. It was exciting, and we knew they were getting close when groups of highway patrol motorcycles kept going by. Finally, we saw the riders flying down the street two blocks overs, flashing through openings in the crowd. When they got to us, they were going so fast, and I could barely get my phone up in time to take a photo! I got a shot of the middle of the pack - I have no idea who is in the photo.


As soon as the group was past, we and all the other people in our area, ran back to the finish line to see who would win. We were behind the crowd that had already gathered there and behind the photogs catching their photo finishes. We could barely see, standing on our tiptoes and peering through gaps. But we saw Cavendish ride through, arms held high. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of the finish, but here's a glimpse of the finish line...

It was fun to spend time with my kiddo. He rode his skateboard, I got out on a fantastic day for a 2.5 mile walk, we met people we see on TV... And the very best part of all - I got a picture of Christian SMILING!!!!!!!

Oh, the ups and downs of weight loss

After two good weeks, I thought I was on track for a good third week, but got sick and had to take prednisone. Yuck! I still was good and watched what I ate, but it still made me gain weight. But the following week was good and I lost what I gained the week before plus a little extra! Yippee! And that was with the Super Bowl! Unfortunately, I was not good this past week and haven't tracked my food all week, so I'm expecting to have a not so good weigh in tonight when I go. All it takes is one day to throw you off track (darn that Super Bowl). I know what I did, I never took my tracking book out... I admit it. I left it in my snazzy little envelope that I carry my WW stuff in to the meetings. Usually I get home from the meeting, take it out and write down my day and make a good dinner, but not last week. I don't have a single entry in my book. OK - I promise to myself and anyone else reading this that I will take out my tracker as soon as I get home from meeting tonight and write down everything from today. And I promise to track the whole week! There, I said it!

Back to the weight loss

I finally came to the realization that the 60 pounds I lost back in 2004-2006 and then gained back while preggo in 2006-2007 is NOT going to fall back off my body without some effort... Damn! I've been attempting to watch what I eat, but mainly all I do is watch my hand move the food directly into my mouth, over and over and over again. Yeah, that's not working. At the beginning of the year, I was only 2 pounds lower than the day I had Spencer. Yikes - that's depressing.

So I went back to Weight Watchers (where I lost most of the 60 pounds last time) and signed up for the monthly pass and got my first week books. All their materials are brand new, so it feels like I'm doing something completely different. And the books rock! The first week book had a bunch of recipes that I made for everyone (even Christian tried them - didn't always like them, but he did try). I was rewarded for my first week's efforts with a loss of 7 pounds. Woo hoo!!! And my 2nd week wasn't too shabby either - I lost another 1.6 pounds. Average = 4.3 pounds per week. Not a bad start!

Watching what I eat is not that hard. Weighing everything really isn't that hard either. It can make the whole meal planning and executing process take longer than I'd like, but so totally worth it in the end. What's hard is that I eat when I'm bored, lonely, tired, stressed, etc. Total emotional eater. That's a hard one to break, but I'm working on it. I can look at my points that I have left for the day and think, "I'm not <> enough to ruin my day." And then I go play guitar hero because you can't eat snacks and play a plastic guitar at the same time - who knew??? By the way - I love guitar hero!! It's so much fun :)

I want to stay on track and I figure if I post my goals on my blog, then I have to be accountable to whomever reads it... feel free to post comments and "smack" me if I'm not sticking to my program!!

1. Drink more water - this is one of the hardest things for me. I got myself a cute pink water bottle to take to work to drink more water. Yep - it's not at work yet. Gotta get on that.

2. Lose 25 pounds by May 17 - Bay to Breakers!! My sister and I do a 12K in San Francisco in mid-May. This will be my 3rd time (her 4th) because I was 39 weeks pregnant in 2007 and couldn't go. I did it last year at my heaviest and it was hard. It was a lot easier with 60 fewer pounds... 8.4 pounds down, 16.6 pounds to go!!!

3. Get back into a routine for exercise. When I lost weight before, I worked out about 5 days a week - swimming, treadmill, walking, hiking. Man, I felt so good then! And why am I paying for a gym membership to not use it??

OK there it is - the start of my weight loss journey (deja vu anyone?). Stay tuned for updates full of celebration and frustration!