Thank you to all of the current and former military members. Freedom is not free. Thank you for your service.
These are some awesome videos of dogs welcoming their soldiers home.
11/4 bonus: held Clara November 4, 2009
Yay!! Clara is super skittish so I am so pumped! Brian took a picture, so I will be sure to add it as soon as I upload it.
11/4: wiped out at Panera bread November 4, 2009
I mean completely ate it. There was some water on the floor and I thudded to the ground. hahaha Mortifying. Even more mortifying was that like 3 employees came over to make sure I was okay (I am- just a bruised ego and probably a big old bruise on my knee as of tomorrow morning) and they offered me cookies so I wouldn’t sue. Don’t even get me started on this nonsense- it was a freaking accident, but I know that a million people would be ready to cash the heck in. So thank you to the lovely Panera people who helped me up and thank you to everyone else for giggling quietly and not in my face. haha
Image from: http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:Ft1ovRkZOyhdUM:/url?source=imgres&ct=tbn&q=http://jocelynjanecox.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/1013073.gif&usg=AFQjCNG3Enmlr69Ut3HcugFeraT7tChB2Q
11/1: donated to an animal shelter that was destroyed by a fire November 1, 2009
I read about this today (a fire at a no-kill animal shelter in Texas):
http://www.centexhumanesociety.com/fire110109.shtml
So I decided that I would like to help and made a $50 donation. I support no-kill shelters and adopted my own two cats from a no-kill shelter (though not this one.) If you can help, here’s the paypal link:
http://www.centexhumanesociety.com/html/support.shtml
11/30: tried to make photo cards December 1, 2008
I will have to try again. It didn’t work out so well. It was for Christmas cards, but I couldn’t get it to be exactly what I wanted. Any recommendations for particular card websites or photo websites would be appreciated.
11/29: went to see my friend’s dad’s band December 1, 2008
They played at this little dive bar in Quincy and it was so ridiculously fun. The band is called Deep Water Blues Band and they are amazing. We met up with a bunch of great friends and danced and had a few drinks. It was a fabulous night. I am lucky to have such incredible friends. I thank my lucky stars every single day. This particular group is girls I used to work with- we were cocktail waitresses together for years. There are five of us and you would think that, meeting under such catty circumstances, we would not be friends all these years later. They are some of my nearest and dearest and I treasure them. Through them, I have met all sorts of other fabulous people too. I am so freaking lucky.
11/28: began debt snowballing November 29, 2008
This guy, Dave Ramsey, came up with this plan. Here is a more extensive description:
http://www.daveramsey.com/etc/cms/index.cfm?intContentID=4055
Basically, if you have four credit cards (like I do) you pay the minimum amount to three of them and then as much as you can to the fourth. When you get the fourth one paid off, you pay the amount you were paying to the fourth to the third and then continue to pay the minimum amount to the other two and so on. The most important thing is that you cannot keep adding to the balances. When you commit to the program, you have to stop using the cards.
Note: this picture is NOT Dave Ramsey.
I am starting with the ones with the smallest amounts because I will want to see progress. The highest interest rate I have is 8%, one has 6.99, one has 2.99, and one has 0. I believe I will be able to get all of these completely paid by April 2011. (However, I am planning to teach summer school and hoping to tutor so I am optimistic that I can pay this down faster. April 2011 assumes that I don’t have any additional income aside from my regular salary.)
Here is a really good debt calculator in case you are interested:
http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/debtplanner/debtplanner.jsp
11/27: watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade via DVR November 29, 2008
I watched the whole thing in like an hour. I give major props to the creator of DVR for allowing me to eliminate commercials from my parade viewing. Overall, I thought it was a pretty good parade, aside from the fact that I have no idea who most of the performers were. AND we all got RickRolled! hahaha
11/26 bonus: learned how many hits my blog has had November 26, 2008
I was reading the stats wrong. 7,404 hits! Whoo! 133 today alone. I was thinking that no one read this thing ever, not even my family. It is nice to know there is someone (or a few someones) out there who are at least semi-interested in my life. Thanks! And happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
11/26: went to a pep rally November 26, 2008
Technically, I have been to a pep rally in the past. However, this is a new thing because this is the first time I’ve been when I was the teacher. It was really fun! Everyone got revved up for the Thanksgiving game.
