Gonna be a long year-and-a-half!

Hello! Long time, no blog. Truth be told, I haven't had much to say. Today, however, I hope to begin a dia(tribe)logue that chronicles the ups and downs of fixing up and potentially selling a house; and then buying a new one. Well...new to us. Please laugh along with me over the next year-and-a-half. I've got to find the funny side to the whole thing, or else I'll just break down and cry.

Let's begin at the beginning, shall we?

Our house is a three bed, two bath ranch in Missouri...near St. Louis. We have a two car garage and a full basement on a corner lot. We will have lived here 10 years, as of June, and have enjoyed it very much. But, as with most families, we realize that we could use a bit more space. Hence, we hope to enter the housing market next summer.

And now the FUN begins!

I love my lavendar living room--but no buyer will. I've lived with the mismatched fixtures in my bathroom--but I don't expect a buyer to overlook them. And the recent makeover my son's room underwent this summer: OY! What was I thinking painting the closet a dark, royal blue?!?! Sure, it looks like a train tunnel. But only a very small niche house buying market will find that appealing.

Problem: I'm an artist! I'm a bit of a free spirit when it comes to decorating. I can't stand a "neutral decor", but now I find myself embracing paint colors such as Behr's Swiss Coffee (it's quite white--seriously, where's the coffee in their Swiss Coffee?) or Hushed White (it's extremely white). Much as I want to make one wall Chocolate Sparkle, and put Delicious Berry in my bedroom, I just can't do it--it'll have to wait for my next house. In the meantime, these paint colors are making me hungry.

So our aim to put a sign in the yard next June is ambitious to say the least. Just wait till I tell you about the flooring, or what we did to the kitchen 10 years ago. First, I think I'll let you into my coat closet. It shouldn't be difficult. We took the door off a couple of days ago.

11 years + 2 spoons= 1 very big hole

Are you familiar with an old Bob Segar song, "Tryin' to Live my Life Without You"? I think of that as I write this.

"I used to smoke five packs of cigarettes a day
It was the hardest thing to put them away
I drank four or five bottles of wine
I kept a glass in my hand all the time
Breaking those habits was hard to do
But nothin' compared to the changes that you put me through
Tryin to live my life without you, Babe, is the hardest thing I'll ever do"

So what's that got to do with 11 years or 2 spoons? For the first 11 years of our marriage, my husband and I racked up consumer debt living the "American way", i.e., beyond our means! And to do that, we used credit cards and went out to eat a lot. 11 years. 2 spoons. We started digging a hole.

Sometimes we used a shovel on the hole, like when the car needed tires, or we wanted a new couch.

And other times we used a backhoe, like when we bought a brand new (how stupid were we!) 2004 Mitsubishi Endeavor in the summer of 2003. That car payment was $136 per month more than what we could afford.

So we dug the hole and all the time sank deeper into it. It makes me think of another old song that is sooooooooooooooo befitting to my previous attitude toward our finances:

"La la la la la la live for today!!!!!!"

Ugh. I feel sick about that now.

"Now? Why? Don't you still feel sick?"

Nope! Know why?!? Because now

WE'RE DEBT FREE!!!!

Yeah!! We DID it!!! We got out of debt!!

How big was the hole? 3 years ago, it was over $31,000. We had a little over $12, 000 on a credit card, and that huge (yet 0%) car loan.

I got a part-time job for eleven months to pay off the credit card, which was great, but our spending habits didn't change much. We were still a financial ticking time bomb.

Then a year and a half ago, we took Financial Peace University classes at our church. FPU is the money makeover class taught (via DVD) by Dave Ramsey. This class changed our lives!

Which brings me back to that first old song I sang to you, "Trying to live my life without you"---that's for all the credit cards we closed and cut up! Oh, cutting that Victoria's Secret card actually hurt. But it doesn't compare to the feeling of power I have now in spending cash!


We learned how to live on a budget that helps us control spending, save money for irregular expenses, and build an "emergency" fund so that we don't have to use a credit card to pay for them.

I know what you're thinking: "Budget? No thanks." We used to think that way, too. We thought that way all the way to the bottom of that >$31,000 hole. The average family has, what, $11,000 in credit card debt? A lot of those people have mortgages, too. And car loans. Possibly even student loans. If this is you, and you're still saying that a budget isn't for you, I have two words for you: bonne chance! You're going to need a TON of luck to enjoy retirement. Nah, forget retirement. That much debt hindered my ability to enjoy the present tense, so I didn't even think about the future, I bet you don't either. And that's really sad.

Do yourself a favor: stop reading this and go to www.daveramsey.com, right now. Find the church nearest you that's offering the class and go see what it's about. Or order it online, or take it online and see how fast you can get some financial peace in your life.

Then you'll be able to call his radio show on Fridays and scream it with me (and thousands of other people) "I'M DEBT FREE!!!!!!!"

Happy Birthday to Me

Today I am 36 and I don't know if I thought this is where I'd be (say 20 years ago when I knew everything at 16) but

"When I look back over my life
and I think things o-o-ver
I can tru-ly say
that I've been blessed
I have a test-i-mo-oh-ny!"

Thank you to the Rev. Clay Evans & The AARC Mass Choir for that song! It so fits what I can say about today, or about the past 36 years.

Take today. I got to spend the day doing something I would only have dreamed about 20 years ago when I "knew everything": I edited film, that I directed, for an upcoming production that I wrote. Ok, true, it's an amateur production to be performed at church for 3 nights at the end of this month, but I got to do this today. God gave me an incredibly cool idea and the means to carry it out creatively!!! That's a gift from Him, no doubt about it. So is the faith to give Him the credit, something else I didn't do 20 years ago, when I knew nothing.

Another great gift from Him: I have a great family from my own parents down to my spouse and son. I certainly had no idea about those two people 20 years ago, either.

Yeah. I can truly say that I've been blessed, I have a testimony! In this space I will try to elaborate.