Shit Came Up

I've been rather silent these past few weeks. I can't really explain my absence except for the past week or so, so I'll start there.

So, not four days ago but the Saturday before that my fiance was enjoying his bachelor party at our condo while I was off having a girls night at a friends house. Part way through dinner I got a rather frantic call from the fiance. Apparently the sewer had backed up into our condo.

This happened once before but it only affected the bathroom and I woke up to find the bathroom mat sopping wet and kind of gross looking. This time we weren't so lucky. The sewage made it's way out the bathroom, into our tiny hall, and into the office, bedroom, and living room. It didn't get far but it was still a big problem.

Somehow I kept my head straight and calmly told my fiance that my friend and I would go and wait for the cleaning crew and he and his party could go to my friends house, whose husband was at the party. My friend and I made the trek back to my house and thankfully the rain of the past week hadn't yet started as we waited outside for the cleaning crew. The stench was awful, is still awful.

Fast forward to today, we currently have three huge dehumidifiers living in our condo, there's no carpet and they pulled the toilet up so they could plug the pipe. We've been told they are going to tear sections of the wall out, and perhaps the subfloor and tile in the bathroom but they have yet to touch it. It still reeks in there and I can't go in without holding my nose. We lived in a hotel for a week but now we've decided to stay with family for the week. We get married this Sunday and then we'll be gone on our honeymoon for two weeks. Hopefully we'll be much farther along in moving back in when we get back. Wish us luck.

Bathroom Water Saver

Last week sometime I came up with a great way to save water while in the bathroom. I meant to post about it then but somehow forgot. Lucky for you all I remembered. I have this weird thing about not being able to wear "dirty" clothes after a shower. Now, when I say "dirty" I guess what I really mean is previously worn. Let's say I threw some clothes on to go do some errands and then came home and took a shower. Even though those clothes were worn for an hour tops I won't wear them again. It feels weird against my skin when I try. In a similar vein I prefer to brush my teeth before washing my face so that once my face is clean it doesn't get "dirty" again from errant toothpaste suds. This is where I came up with my water saver. Normally I brush my teeth and then wash all of the toothpast gunk down the drain before I wash my face. However, I realized that I could leave the gunk in the sink, wash my face like normal, and the water from washing my face would wash the gunk down the sink for me. Genius idea? I think so.

A few Tips

I was looking at the frozen chicken sitting on my kitchen counter and came up with a good idea I thought I'd share. In order to understand the tip you first need to understand the story behind the tip. The frozen chicken came straight out of the freezer just an hour or two ago when my fiance decided to make chicken for dinner tonight, sadly we aren't very good at planning meals out ahead of time. I took the whole package out of the freezer because that was the way it went in and as I look at the frozen chicken I think, well this is gonna take a while. We will probably wind up popping the frozen chicken into a very hot bath until the chicken defrosts. However, I have the perfect solution. From now on when we buy chicken I am going to immediatly put each individual breast into its own plastic bag and then into the freezer. This way whenever I need chicken I can take the number of breasts out that we need and they will thaw much quicker. While I'm at it I may even put a plastic bucket into the freezer just for chicken that way I don't ever have to go rummaging around trying to see if we have chicken or not. Genius? I think so.

My blogging obsession

Okay, okay, I know you are probably thinking to yourself, "her blogging obsession? She barely blogs once a week. I know, this is a different kind of blogging obsession, not one where I am obsessed with keeping up my blog, though I wish I had that problem. My problem is more along the lines of reading blogs, and to many at that. I had a good friend come over a few weeks ago and help organize my office. She scoffed at the amount of magazines I keep. I tell myself I keep them to collage with but to be honest I'm not sure the last time I collaged, though I do have a project that is in the works, in my head at least, that needs to get done within the next two months. So, I took her scoffing to heart and decided it probably was time to get rid of some of them. Especially considering how heavy they are, and how that affects things when moving houses. I'd really rather not keep moving them. So instead, I sat down with a stack of twenty magazines and thumbed through them page by page. Anything that caught my eye for collaging got ripped out and put into a nice pretty purple decorative box that is just the same width as the page and a bit longer. I also ripped out any articles that seemed like something I wanted to keep for the long haul or those that were things I wanted to quick write down, like recipes. Where am I getting with this? I'll tell you. Two of the pages I ripped out were about blogs, and one in particular was a whole list of good blogs to read. Now, I'm not sure when the article was from exactly, however, I do know that some of the magazines dated back to 2008, and I'm sure some go back even farther. I hopped onto some of those blogs and saved any that I liked into my blog feeder thing. A lot of the blogs I read now tend to post craft projects they've done recently or ones that they have seen friends post on their blogs. Well, being the semi-crafty girl with to much time on her hands I would hope on over to those other blogs to check them out and would inevitably find myself adding more blogs to my blog feed. That coupled with the fact that one of my blogs posts interesting blogs that she's found in her travels made for way to many blogs for me to keep up with. I figure if I can see all of my blog titles on the left of my little blog feeder screen(all very technical terms I promise you), then I'm good and I can make sure to keep up with them all. Okay, finally to the reason for this whole darn blog in the first place. I started to add a few blogs and thought perhaps I should check out the one's I already have and see what was what, and you know what I found out? Some of the blogs I was following, mostly ones I just started following yesterday mind you, hadn't been updated in years, 2008 anyone? Hehe, so I realized perhaps I should see the currency with which the blogger actually blogs before I decide to subscribe to a blog.

Thankful Time

I was reading a new fav blog called Christina's Adventure's, check her out at http://christinasadventures2010.blogspot.com/. She listed out some things she was thankful for and seeing as how I've been having a bad couple of days I thought perhaps doing this would help to brighten my mood. So here, in no particular order is what I'm thankful for. 1. An amazing fiance 2. An hour at the gym 3. A semi-clean house 4. the sight of an asleep kitten on my fiance, you can't help but smile after seeing that. 5. Summer People by: Elin Hilderbrand, I have been noticing lately that most of the books I've been reading I've been slogging through and I really haven't enjoyed them, this one is different, definetly a must read 6. Lies My Teacher Told Me by: James Loewen, This book has opened my eyes a bit and is definetly also a must read. In fact I've decided that anyone wishing to become president should have to read this book before they put their name in the ring 7. Blogs: Namely The Mobile Home Woman, Chez Larrson, and Walk Slowly, Live Wildly. I don't spend or keep in touch with my friends as much as I'd like, reading these blogs makes me feel like I've have friends that I keep in touch with, is that bad?

Spring? Where are you?

As I sit here typing this I hear the lovely sounds of birds chirping and the not so lovely sounds of cars driving by, I will never live on a main road again. The sun is shining and it looks gorgeous out. It makes me want to throw my running sneakers on and head out for a nice run. However, weather.com tells me that would be a bad idea, well unless that is if I'd like to add multiple layers to my body to go running. Bah! March 21st is spring why hasn't mother nature gotten the memo?

Erasing $70,000 in debt and why I'll never do it

Wow, post two for the day, I'm impressed. I find that the more I write the more writing I want to do, and the more ideas I have. But before I start, if you want this post to make any sense head on over here http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/112352/how-to-erase-70000-in-debt?mod=bb-debtmanagement .

Back? Wow, wasn't that article a doozy? Oh, you never left, well let me give you the lowdown. A young couple had $70,000 in debt, thanks to school loans, car loans, and house loans. However, by cutting back they were able to pay it all off in about a year while also saving $23,000. Sounds amazing right? Want to know why I will never attempt something like this? Quick sidenote, I will probably never need to attempt something like this. Together they made $140,000 in one year, one year! They decided they could live on $40,000 post-taxes. Now, if my fiance and I made that post tax I'd be a happy camper. She says they took on extra work, but I'm guessing it couldn't have been $100,000 of extra work could it?

When I read this article I just had to laugh. She's only a year older than me and already makes more than I will ever make in a year. But readers I told you I wouldn't have to worry about things like this and would you like to know why? Good, cause I was going to tell you no matter what.

I was an English/Communications major. My dream since I was little was to become a writer. My dad, being the savy money man that he is, knew that with my degree after four years I'd be lucky getting a job that paid more than one flipping burgers. So, he wouldn't let me take out any student loans, and I owe him forever for that.

Second, my parents have instilled in me some amazing values and beliefs. The first brand new car they got was purchased when I was in college. For that reason it has never even been a thought of mine to purchase a car brand new. I am in fact in the market for a new car now and, while I'm planning on waiting until after I get married to finally buy one, I'm only planning on looking at cars that I can afford to pay cash for. Thank you no car loan.

And second, the condo I bought was cheap enough that the down payment was pretty miniscule. By the time my fiance and I started looking at condo's we'd already started putting money away towards a wedding fund and part of that fund went to pay the down payment on our condo. It also helps that our monthly condo payment plus our HOA fee is a bit less than we were paying in rent.

So, there you have it folks. Why I will never be $70,000 in debt, and why I won't have to pay it off. And, even though I am now unemployed when I was employed I was able to put a good chunk away towards savings each month. Though I think a lot of that savings also went towards house stuff, because it's gone now. Ah well, there's always the wedding fund.