Toxic Debt

I'm having a really hard time paying down debt.  Whether it be good things (my best friend's wedding) or bad things (mold in our walls), things seem to crop up and get in the way.  Last New Year's, the only debt we had was my car, our school loans, and *B*'s small credit card.  Now, we've added my card, our joint card, and a mortgage.  It's really getting out of hand.

I've heard a lot about Dave Ramsey lately.  In his plan, you snowball the amounts you can pay off by getting rid of the smallest amount of debt first, then putting that payment toward the next smallest amount.  Conventional wisdom (and mathematical sense) tells us that we should pay largest interest rate to smallest.  I think that we're going to go half way between the two - if the amounts are within a few hundred dollars, the higher interest rate goes first.

I'm doing my best to find ways to be frugal and put away money.  We have a bad habit of going out for food when neither of us feel like cooking.  My job this summer will be to cook every day and use the food we do have to the best of our ability.  That means no produce going to waste and always finishing off the leftovers.

Any other tips for frugality, savings, and debt repayment are more than welcome.

Taking Charge

I have three days of work left for the school year.  If I don't get a running start to the summer, nothing gets done.  So for the last few weeks, I've been super busy so that I keep up steam when I have nothing else to do.

In what appears to be an annual tradition, *B* and I went to see Prairie Home Companion at Wolf Trap.  We took an adult picnic complete with wine, crudites, and cheese.  The show was great, the day was beautiful, and we had a great time. 

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 The garden has been a point of stress for me.  For about a month, I threw my hands up and left it alone.  Now, it's coming along well.

 My mom made us a hanging strawberry planter.  It's not enough to feed anyone person at a sitting, but it's nice to be able to pick berries every day.

 Our potatoes may or may not make it through the season.  They seem to by dying off now, and they haven't even flowered yet.

 Indian false strawberries have taken over our yard.  Despite the name, they taste like nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

 Our raspberries are doing SO well that we even have a few berries on them!

 We planted snow peas everywhere.  They are doing so well.

 These snow peas had been eaten to the ground by the rabbits.  We put up more fencing, and they popped right up.

 We'll have more peas than we know what to do with!

 Even our lettuce is doing well.

 We were taught this trick at a gardening seminar this spring.  We fill up a holy milk jug rather than watering the plants directly.  It seems to help a bit.  We'll see at the end of the summer how well it works.

 This is one of only two rhubarb plants that made it through germination.  I'm excited for this new experiment!

We planted San Marzano tomatoes to make sauce this year.  We'll see what comes of it.  Last year, I got 2/3 cup of tomato sauce out of all of our plants.

Apparently our compost was not very hot when we tossed things in there.  We have tomato plants in one side.

In the other side of the compost, we have melons (I think).  We're going to try transplanting when they get a little stronger.

The plants even made it into our new herb bed.  We have thyme, basil, cumin, German chamomile, melons and tomatoes.  Go figure.

 Our asparagus came back and we planted two more beds.  The ferns are about 4 feet tall.  My only lament is that we won't be able to take it with us when we move in a few years.

*B* had to have his nasturtiums this year.  That boy loves his nasturtiums!  We also planted some purple ones, but they're tiny still.

  We had a small harvest of peas for the day, but it's enough for the two of us to split.

In our front yard, we have a huge bed of strawberries that I neglected to photograph.  I had a record harvest this year.  I'm estimating about two pounds of strawberries, and they're only about half picked!

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Recently, *B* has moved from winemaking to cider and beer brewing.  At the moment, we have a gallon of mead, two gallons of apple cider, and three gallons of red ale fermenting in our basement.  It's truly been an interesting experience.

Not to be outdone, I have been doing some fermenting of my own.  I discovered water kefir a few months ago and became hooked.  Our organic market only has a limited supply, so I broke down and bought the grains online.  I soaked them the past few days to rehydrate them, and am now working on our first batch!

On the left are the soaked grains.  The demerrara sugar makes the mixture brown.  On the right is sugar water.

I added a slice of ginger, some raisins, and a half of a lemon.

It'll stay sealed for two more days, then I can bottle it.  Supposedly, it'll become carbonated at that point.

In a future post, I'll show the results from my water kefir as well as *B*'s projects.

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The left side of our sink has been squirting water everywhere.  We couldn't understand what was going on, so we put a bucket under the sink and stopped using that side.  Today, I got fed up and explored further.

 If you look hard, it looks like someone went at it with a saws-all.  There's a huge gash in the locknut.

For the immediate time being, I fixed it up nicely with plumber's tape and a layer of duct tape.  I'm hoping to brush up my plumbing skills so that I can replace the locknut all by myself soon.

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And that's been my last few weeks.  We've had a ton of parties - baby introductions, Memorial Day, and end of school year get-togethers.  We have a wedding this weekend, and my best friend's wedding in two weeks.  We'll be traveling to Oklahoma the second week of June, so I'm very excited.  I've been before, but *B* hasn't.  It'll be a new adventure all around.

Such a Relief

Today, I signed my contract for school!  I'm under continuation of service status now, which is life tenure-lite.  Basically, they need to give me a reason if they fire me, and they need to give me a month's notice. 

I have a hard time believing that I've been teaching for three years now.  This is the longest period of time that I've ever held a job.  Usually by now, I'm itching to leave.  But really, I'm doing alright.  I have big plans for the kids next year, and I'll be teaching a new class for the first time since my first year.  It'll be busier, but more fulfilling overall.

Becoming a Godmother

*B* and I have been asked to be godparents for a very close friend whose son was born in January.  She will be baptizing him Catholic, so we can actually fulfill the roles if I am the godmother and *B* is a witness.  I've been doing a fair bit of research on my duties in the church in this manner, and I'm very excited.

The mother of this child is not herself particularly religious.  She was baptized Catholic, but I'm pretty sure she never had communion, and I know she wasn't confirmed.  I take it as my job to instruct my future godson in the faith in a way I was not nurtured as a child.   Though we live a country apart right now, I envision sending him his own Bible and letters (emails) about how to pray and lead a good life.  When together, I look forward to taking him to Mass and explaining the liturgy.

One thing I've realized as I've done my research on being a good godmother is that our children will have no one to be godparents to them.  This cuts me deeply.  My brother would have been a choice, but he was not confirmed and has no real religious belief.  We have one other friend who is Catholic.  We've known each other 20+ years, but I'm not sure she'd be a good choice as she's religiously sound, but not domestically stable.  *B*'s family is not religious in any manner, so there are no options there.

For now,  I'm going to invest my energy into praying for my future godson.  I think the only thing I can do is to ask God to send me someone in the future that could show the same devotion one day to my future children.

What Family Means

When I was younger, my cousin and I were very close.  She had some "attitude issues" and could be hard to get along with, but overall we were friends.  Sometime about five years ago, she was effectively disowned and moved far away.  My family hasn't seen her since then.  She will call sometimes, and I found her on Facebook, so we keep in touch a little bit.

When I was in grad school, she'd call me occasionally, asking for money or trying to sell me stereos at a good price that I was pretty sure were stolen.  She didn't stop asking until I explained to her that I couldn't make my own rent (which was 100% true at that time).  She hasn't asked me since then, but she asks the rest of the family at least a couple of times a year.

A few months ago, she had a baby.  I knew about it before she had it, but no one else did.  She told her mother about him when he was a week old.  The father was deported, so she's raising him on her own, living on welfare. 

I'm having a hard time balancing how my family treats her with how I should treat her.  I know that she's manipulative and has deeply hurt her parents in the past.  On the other hand, I feel so bad that her son will grow up without ANY family other than his mother.

I also feel like this is a warning sign that any false move on my part will put me in the same boat.  Rather than family meaning unconditional love, I walk on eggshells all the time.  Did I forget a thank you note or haven't called in a couple of weeks?  Ticks go in the negative column.  I have to pull something big to get back into good graces.

One of my biggest fears is incorporating the negative characteristics and habits of my existing family into my newly formed family.  I never want to put my kids - or anyone else for that matter - in the position of having to choose between who they are, their dreams, and their family.

Garden Goings-On

Relief At Last

Our lives are finally coming back around to normal.  Not that I know what normal is given what's been going on the last few months.  After the wall was fixed, we saw that there was water damage on the floor.

My father-in-law came over, ripped out the subfloor, and he and *B* replaced it.  I'm so thankful that I have such a handy family!

We decided that, since we needed new carpet anyway, we'd paint the room any color we'd like.  My mom suggested a brilliant idea - a focus wall.  We agreed on green, but we were very nervous when I first got it on the wall.

 

Because our room was originally bright (read: neon) yellow, the green looked absolutely gray.  I persevered though, and I'm so pleased how it turned out, especially with the gorgeous carpet we had installed:

We wasted no time in getting things put back.

Evie supervised :o)

 

 In the end, I think it turned out pretty well.  

 

The picture doesn't do it justice.  It reminds me of a spa - so clean and peaceful.  Given the awful beginning, we need the rest!