End of the week and now we rest

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I am almost ready for the Sabbath. It’s been a busy day but I feel accomplished. Before breakfast, I went grocery shopping. Walmart was very quiet this morning and it made for a relaxing trip. Then I spent the morning on my contract work, ate lunch, visited the post office, and completed some housework.

The only thing left to finish is putting away the clean dishes on the counter and in the dishwasher. I also have to clean out the litter boxes. Fun fun! Then I can relax and enjoy the Sabbath.

Shabbot Shalom!

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Randomness

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I’m not sure what I want to write about today. The only thing I accomplished today was six hours of work and I finished reading a book.

I’ve been dragging a bit lately when it comes to doing anything but my contract work. My energy levels are low, reasons known but not welcomed. Our house is passable but I haven’t continued work on the 31 days to clean challenge. I intend to return to that project.

So I guess I will conclude by admitting I have nothing useful to say. 🙂

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Writing Challenge – National Novel Writing Month

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This year, I will be participating in National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to write a 175 page novel (50,000 words) during the month of November. Nano starts on November 1st at 12:01 AM and ends November 30th at midnight. The rules state that I have to write a novel completely from scratch, no rewrites or finishing drafts that have already been started. On November 1st, I will sit down with a blank Word document. Hopefully, by November 30th, I will have written an entire novel of at least 50,000 words.

It’s fun! I’ve participated twice before. The first time I attempted this feat, my story petered out and I wasn’t able to finish. The second time I tried, my novel was complete, over 50,000 words, but was terrible. I couldn’t even bear to read it. It might be saved on my hard drive somewhere, but I don’t even really remember what the story was about.

This year, I’m preparing myself ahead of time. I’m going to write a “Biblical narrative,” a novel that tells a Bible story but is written from the perspective of fictional characters. I’ve always wondered what it would have been like to live as a slave in Egypt, experience the plagues, and see firsthand the awesome power of God delivering His people.

The novel will be written from the perspective of an Egyptian male who is involved with the Hebrews but I’m not sure exactly how. He will be either a scribe in Pharaoh’s court and will thus witness Moses’ demands regarding the Hebrews or he’ll be a tax collector who deals with the Hebrew farmers who grow part of their crops for Egypt.

The second character is a Hebrew slave, a young girl who lost both of her parents early in life and is no stranger to hardship and grief. I want to explore what it may have been like for both the Egyptians and Hebrews as the plagues progressed and the Hebrews were finally allowed to leave Egypt.

That’s what all my research has been about lately. I’ve been reading books on Egypt, the plagues, and Mt. Sinai. There are some very interesting theories about the 10 plagues, whether they were supernatural occurrences or natural events controlled by God. I’m not sure anyone really knows.

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Free emergency fund and shopping sales

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Dave Ramsey is giving away a $999 emergency fund. I didn’t find out about this until after it started, but he’s giving away an emergency fund every day until 9/17/09. You can enter each day for a chance to win. We already have an emergency fund in place ($1,000) but I’m still entering the drawing. If we win, we’ll use it to pay down our credit card.

I had an excellent shopping day. We don’t usually shop at Albertson’s, but they were having some good sales that I couldn’t pass up. They have selected cereals on sale for $1.50 each box, taco shells for $1.25 a box, and enchilada sauce for $1.25 a can. For the Mexican food, you could buy any combination of taco shells, enchilada sauce, and another product and the price would come out to 6 for $1.25 each plus a coupon for $3.00 off your next Albertson’s purchase.

I purchased:
1 box multi grain Cheerios
1 box Golden Grahams (hubby’s request)
2 packages of taco seasoning (free – “buy 2 boxes of taco shells, receive a free package of taco seasoning”)
4 boxes of taco shells
2 cans of enchilada sauce

Grand total: $9.62!! I also received a coupon for $3.00 off my next order. I saved 63% ($16.70) on this trip.

After work, hubby and I returned to Albertson’s to use the coupons I received this morning. The first coupon was for $1.50 off the purchase of three boxes of cereal. The second coupon was the $3.00 reward coupon off the next shopping trip. Because the boxes were $1.50 each, we got all three for free! We now have three extra boxes of Cheerios in our pantry.

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Responsibility and Accountability

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This week’s credit card activity:

$1,489.38 starting balance
– $31.00 September minimum payment
– $9.40 Half.com earnings

= $1,448.98 current balance (8.8% paid)

I am seeing very little movement on this balance, but it will speed up! I should be able to make a snowball payment at the end of the month and I have a paycheck coming this week.

Last week I mentioned that I would be interested in knowing how much interest we’ll be saving by paying this credit card off in the next three months. I found this calculator, which says that we will pay $403 in interest if we only pay minimums. I believe that we should be paying about $60 in interest over the next three months and will thus save $343 by paying the credit card off early.

We actually have more than one credit card.
CC1 – $1,448.98
CC2 – $3,037.29
CC3 – $4,363.78
CC4 – $9,105.16

I refuse to calculate how much interest we’ll be paying with all four cards. It would be too depressing. However, when I found the calculator earlier this week, I couldn’t help but plug in the numbers for CC4. Ouch. I shouldn’t have looked. Our highest balance credit card is also the one with the highest interest.

$9,105.16 balance
$231.00 monthly payment
18.24% interest rate
61 months until pay off, if only paying minimums

You will pay $5,069 in interest plus your balance for a total of $14,174.16.

Depressing. Very, very depressing. That’s why I titled this post “Responsibility and Accountability.” We have to face the music and pay the penalty for making bad financial decisions. I wish the price wasn’t so high, but this is a permanent lesson. Never again will I waste my money like this! All these numbers don’t even include all the payments and interest I’ve made over the past several years. What a waste! We could have done so many positive things with the money, but instead, we’re lining the pockets of the banks. Never again. And the worst part of all of this? Hubby and I have no idea what we charged on the cards!

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Second schedule attempt

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I attempted another scheduled day. It is going fairly well… Before my schedule started this morning, I wrote my three Morning Pages, exercised, took a shower, ate breakfast, and had Bible study with hubby.

10:30-11:00 – Housework
11:00-11:30 – Research
11:30-12:00 – Housework
12:00-1:00 – Lunch/Free Time
1:00-1:30 – Update prices/add items for sale on Half.com
1:30-2:00 – Read blogs/Check email
2:00-2:30 – Housework
2:30-? – Play Scrabble with hubby 🙂

The only thing left on my schedule is some character building for my novel. I was doing really well with the schedule but hubby is home and he was very agreeable to playing a game of Scrabble with me so I decided to toss out the last hour of my schedule. I’ve accomplished everything on my to-do list for today.

Tomorrow will be a return to unscheduled days. I should have contract work tomorrow morning and that’s always a priority over everything else. My contract work is first come, first serve so I watch my email very closely and drop everything else when work is assigned. The faster I can finish the initial assignment, the more work I am assigned until everything has been completed for the day by all the contractors. I like having the ability to work more hours than the initial assignment but it makes planning hard as I’m at the beck and call of my emails!

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The first time she attempts a schedule…

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As I knew in advance that I would have no contract work today and that hubby would be gone for hours, I decided to create a strict schedule for the day. This was my first attempt at creating a schedule for homemaking duties. I think I did fairly well!

9:00-9:45 – Housework
9:45-10:00 – Reading
10:00-10:30 – Bible study
10:30-11:00 – Housework
11:00-11:30 – Work on my brother’s Christmas present
11:30-12:00 – Exercise
12:00-1:00 – Lunch/Free time
1:00-2:00 – Research
2:00-2:30 – Reading (I was trying to finish a book today. Success!)

I followed my schedule almost exactly. The only deviation was that hubby called at noon and said he was done early. I talked to him for a few minutes and then hung up and did research until 1:00, when he arrived home. We ate lunch together at 1:00 and then I had free time until 2:00.

My contract work boss emailed everyone and said there is no work again tomorrow. I think I’m going to rearrange today’s schedule a bit and try it again tomorrow. I’d like to exercise before breakfast instead of lunch and I want to have Bible reading earlier in the morning. I finished reading John this morning started in Acts.

All in all, my first attempt at a schedule was a great success! I feel very productive. I’m not sure what I’m going to do this afternoon, but I’ll find something. Maybe I’ll keep working on my brother’s Christmas present. That’s going to take hours of dedicated work, I’ve realized!

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Doubling recipes

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I double a lot of recipes. In doing so, I find myself dealing with conversions from teaspoons to tablespoons, from tablespoons to cups… Even though I double recipes frequently, I always forget the conversions. Thankfully, I found this calculator today. This will make those conversions so much easier.

My contract work is still on hold and I have the day off tomorrow as well because of lack of work. Hubby will be working at client sites all day tomorrow and I am determined to maximize my productivity! I have much that I wish to accomplish – Bible study, vacuuming, a load of laundry, ironing, progress on my brother’s Christmas present, and some research for the novel I’m going to attempt writing in November.

During the day, I will be listening to classical music. I have a new found love for some of the old composers, especially Sergei Rachmaninoff.

My favorite, Rachmaninoff playing his Piano Concerto No. 2:

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