Getting Older

April is the month of birthdays for our family.  Mom, my three brothers, and I all have our birthdays in April (plus countless friends) - it's a great month. 

Mom's birthday starts the month, and every year it makes me re-evaluate what a person's age means.  She is still working full-time, on her feet most of the day.  Will I be able to do that when I'm her age?  Will I still be as strong as she is?  Will I look younger than I am, like she does?

Brother #2 has the next birthday.  We're 5 years apart, but it seems much closer.  Every year, I can't believe he's THAT age!  He and his wife just had a baby last year - there's something about a new baby that makes a parent seem younger.

I'm the next birthday.  My own birthday doesn't usually bother me, though I have to admit that when I turned 26, it was a tough day.  10 years later, my own birthday didn't bother me (I'll re-evaluate in 4 years).  It was just another birthday.

3 days after my birthday is Brother #3.  This is the birthday that makes me feel older every year.  My brother is the baby of the family.  It doesn't matter that I'm next to last - when the baby gets older, I feel it.

And, rounding out the April birthdays is Brother #1, the eldest child.  He's turning 50 this year, and I'm still in shock.  I have no idea how HE feels about his big day, but I can't believe I have a sibling who will have a 5 in the 10s digit of his age...  Sister #2 will be joining the 50 club next year, so it's only getting closer for me.  I have a ways to go until I get there, so I take comfort in the fact that my siblings have aged very well!

April brings about a more contemplative me.  I wonder what my life will be like as I get older, but what I've learned so far is that I don't change much every year, other than a few more wrinkles and a couple of stray white hairs (only a few!).  I'll still be me when I'm 50, perhaps just wiser?  One can hope.      

One More Down... One To Go!

We paid off the SUV yesterday!!!!!

We paid the remaining balance of $3798.97 one year and 4 months early for a savings of almost $500 in interest! 

I am so glad I found Dave Ramsey on the radio that day in 2009 - we have paid off half our debt so far.  No, I won't tell you how much.  Maybe when we're done, I'll shock you with the number.

We will now begin attacking my student loan (I still can't believe it equals half our debt, but it's true).  We should have it completely paid off by April 2013.  Only 2 more years to get completely out of debt (except for the house), and then the REAL fun will begin (saving, saving, saving, and investing!). 

I highly recommend The Total Money Makeover - it changed the way we think about money.



Book Club Selection - April

Reading Waiting for the World to End by Nicole Hunter this month. 

So far, it's a slow read, but interesting. After reading essays, in which I hunt for sentence fragments for hours on end, the author's extensive use of fragments is kinda wearing on me.  She also uses the second person narration A LOT, which drives my crazy, as it's mixed in randomly with the third person narration of the rest of the story.

I'm not even half way through; I thought a week would give my plenty of time to read this one, but I find myself thinking of ways to avoid reading it.  I think it's probably a good story, but the delivery is not my cup of tea.

Freedom!

Yesterday, at 1:53 PM, I felt the most amazing, incredible, wonderful sense of relief.  It washed over me, taking (almost) every bit of stress out of my body.  It wasn't until about 15 minutes later, getting out of the elevator at Howard's office, that I felt the sense of freedom that the end of the quarter brings.  I had a huge, goofy grin on my face as the elevator doors opened.

It is difficult to describe this quarter.  As I do every quarter, I change up the information a little bit, present it a little differently, try to change those things that didn't work in previous quarters.  I don't think it was me.  In two of my classes, my students did well.  The ones who didn't pass knew the reasons why, and they know what they need to do to pass next time.  In my other 2 classes (2 sections of the same class), I had the worst results ever.  It's disheartening when out of a total of 36 students, only 10 pass.  But again, I don't think it was me.

The 26 students who didn't pass all had one thing in common: missing work.  There seems to be this sense among students that it's OK to miss work.  I have this feeling that in high school, students were allowed to make up work at the end of the term in order to bring up their grades, which gave them a false sense of how the world actually works.  In real life, you don't get do-overs every time you screw up or forget to do something.  Sometimes, forgetting or blowing something off has real, definite, and serious consequences.  So, too, in my class. I allow late work - students have basically 2 weeks to get every assignment turned in.  So why is it so difficult to get it done?

The questions will remain - I don't know why the students do what they do and don't do what they should.  All I know is that I'm free today, and I feel good!