Monday, June 15, 2009

Real Girlfriend of New Jersey

I must be the luckiest girlfriend in the world (or at least N. New Jersey). I spent part of the weekend up in George's neck of the woods and got spoiled with the following treats:

1. Date in the James McFaul Environmental Center. There were lots of fun things to see (peacock opening its feathers W-O-W!) We only got a little wet towards the end.

2. Watching cooking shows on Sunday afternoon because I was coming down with his cold. I'm sure I'll be doing my part this fall watching football games on Sunday for his fantasy football thingie.

3. Yummy steak cooked on the grill by George's dad. His dad has the best stories of growing up on Long Island Sound. Last night was telling me about how many boats he built as a pre-teen. And I thought reading Socrates and Plato was a challenge at that age!

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Learning the Lesson

It's been a year since I signed the papers to buy my condo and boy what a long, strange, trip it has been. This time last year, I had bruises up and down my arms from moving my stuff in and getting used to where things were and bumping into them again and again. Now, I can walk through my house in the dark and not bump AS hard into my furniture. I've traded some of it to my parents because it was just too big.

I have new windows (paid off finally) and some extra savings two fold that I was blessed with in the past few months. I'm looking forward to continuing to make better $$ choices and kick this burden of debt I chained myself to without even realizing it.

I was given quite a scare a few weeks ago when I was told my full-time position is possibly being reduced for budget reasons. This jump-started my job hunt once again and I met with a recruiter last week to get some help. Unfortunately, I was exhausted last week and couldn't do much on my own in terms of hunting. Hopefully this week will be better and I'll manage to get online after work and find some good leads. Officially I've been looking for a new job since last September when I broke down in front of my boss (my first time and hopefully my last) and told her I couldn't keep going on more than a few more months. It's been a few more months and that wake up call last week reminded me that I need to get out before I'm asked to leave.

One thing I've been excited about is seeing how little changes mean big things. I don't miss NetFlix and the digital cable box and now that some of my debt has been paid off in full (3 debts in 6 months, horray) I can continue to snowball my payments (thanks Dave Ramsey) and work towards really living more within my income instead of just at the tippy top.