Weather, kitty update, and to do list

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I can’t believe how quickly it has cooled down. Just two weeks ago, it was reaching 105 degrees by afternoon. Today, my windows and doors are all open, a cool breeze is blowing into the apartment, and I’m actually a little chilly. Our highs are now around 85 degrees, which is starting to get chilly for Arizona. I’ve lived in Arizona for 10 years and I’ve acclimated fairly well. While I won’t complain about temperatures in the 70s, I will be wearing jeans and possibly a long sleeve shirt!

My kitty seems to be feeling better. Hubby saw him eating breakfast and he’s a bit more feisty. Hubby also caught Bruno and Susano on the counter early this morning eating one of my houseplants. Bad kitties!

I’ve neglected my six most important things list. I’m not sure why I stopped but not writing the list lowers my productivity levels. So today I decided to post my six most important things on my blog and see how much I can accomplish.

Preparation Friday:
Dishes
Wash and dry the sheets; remake the bed
Vacuum
Sweep floors in kitchen and bathrooms
Clean kitty litter boxes
Clean toilet and bathroom sink

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Sick kitty

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I think my kitty might be sick. He’s been lethargic all day and hasn’t eaten much. I’m giving him all the attention he wants and letting him sleep as much as possible. Poor baby.

I’ve never felt so close to a cat before. Hubby and I both raised him but Bruno connected with me. He follows me around every day, freaks out when I leave home for more than a few hours, and insists on staying by my side. He’s never that far away. I must have been the first thing he saw when his eyes finally opened and he’s never let go of me since. It hurts to watch him not feel well. Hopefully he’s feeling like himself tomorrow.

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First time for everything

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What a great day of firsts!

  • First day we’ve not turned on the air conditioning since June. I hope it stays that way!
  • First time I’ve filled out a Citizen Survey for my city.
  • First time I’ve gone shopping at Walmart at 5AM. Great customer service and the store is perfectly clean.
  • First time I’ve applied to participate in a credit card program. Earn 20% of any balance paid above the minimum for the next three billing cycles. I can’t use the card (no worries there) and my credit line will be reduced by the amount paid above the minimum. I had called to find out why my interest rate was raised 1.75% and they offered this instead. I applied, but hubby and I discussed this program and decided we won’t take advantage of it. Because the payments are applied to lowest interest rates first and we recently transferred a balance to this card at a much lower rate, we would actually be losing money by paying off the 1.9% interest instead of the 10.24% card we’re paying on now.

We might be visiting another small art museum for the first time tonight. It depends on how tired we are after doing the last bit of grocery shopping at the farmer’s market.

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The balance grew…

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I meant to post this yesterday but I fell asleep at 6:30 last night and woke up at 6:30 this morning!

We made NO progress on the credit card last week. I have a feeling that the first week of each month will be the one that we are unable to make a payment. Hubby gets paid at the end of each month but most of our bills are due within the first 10 days of the month.

$1,266.04 starting balance
+ $12.56 interest

= $1278.60 current balance (19.6% paid)

This week will be much better. I was paid on Friday but I’m waiting for the check to clear the bank. As soon as that clears, I’ll be sending a payment.

Our snowball will also be affected this month as our car wouldn’t start on Sabbath and we found out our battery needed to be replaced. We missed church. That’s another $100 we’ve had to put into the car. Combine the new battery purchase with the new tires and we’ve paid almost $550 into car maintenance in less that two weeks! The beauty of it all is that we have an emergency fund (for the battery; the tires were budgeted) and haven’t had to use the credit cards. God is very good!

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Branching out, trying something new

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One of my goals is to try new things, whether it be experiences, food, or styles. I am a very conservative person and have not experienced much because I’ve always been afraid to try something different. This is true in my diet, my music, my hobbies, and even my interactions with other people.

An easy way for me to branch out without too much risk is our food. Our menus are very limited and we get bored eating the same things day after day. My culinary repertoire is mostly Mexican and Italian dishes. I thought it would be fun to attempt apple butter today.

First I peeled the apples and quartered them. All the apples went into the Crock Pot with some vanilla. Then it cooked for eight hours.

After three hours, my apples were already starting to liquefy.

After eight hours of cooking, I added cinnamon, cloves, brown sugar, and white sugar. I stirred it all up and then let it cook for another two hours. The final product in my lovely recycled Classico jars:


I haven’t tried it yet. I was waiting for it to cool off and now I’m ready to eat a piece of homemade Amish bread with my homemade apple butter. I hope it turned out well!

I used this recipe for inspiration. I halved the recipe and didn’t cook it as long as the recipe called for because the apple butter was starting to turn dark brown and stick to the sides of the Crock Pot. Hopefully I made the right decision to end the cooking early. If not, I’ll just have to try again with a full recipe.

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Poor kitties

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I woke up at four am to the sound of mewing. It didn’t register at first that it wasn’t one of our cats. As I woke up, I realized that the sound was coming from outside. We opened the door, turned on the patio light, and saw nothing. It took awhile, but eventually, a tiny kitten walked in front of our patio. The kitten couldn’t have been more than seven or eight weeks old!

Hubby and I tried but couldn’t catch the kitten as it was feral and ran. While I don’t want another cat (we have three!), I was hoping to catch it, spay or neuter it, and then find it a new home. It broke my heart to see such a tiny kitten loose in the neighborhood. I left a handful of cat food on the patio and hopefully the kitten will return tonight to find dinner. Poor baby.

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Quietness

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Today was a very quiet day. Hubby attended a Microsoft conference this afternoon so I was home by myself. The cats were actually pretty quiet and I wasn’t sure what to do without any noise!

I was feeling a bit down this afternoon. I picked up my Bible and read a few chapters in Acts about how God kept protecting and guiding Paul and Silas. They were so focused on their mission to tell others about the gospel. I admire that drive. I wish I could say the same about myself. I’m afraid to talk to strangers about God. Chalk it up to insecurity, shyness, or fear of rejection.

Between my Bible study and housework, I’m feeling better this afternoon. When I finished reading the Bible, I tackled the kitchen. We now have very clean dishes, a clean stove, and an uncluttered counter top. I put pinto beans in the crock pot this morning and made rice just a bit ago. We’re having haystacks for dinner. Chips, homemade beans, homemade rice, tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, and guacamole. Yum!

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Slow progress, but forward motion nonetheless

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CC1 progress

$1,272.98 starting balance
– $6.94 Half.com earnings

= $1,266.04 current balance (20.34% paid)

I found another reason to get out of debt as quickly as possible. Blunt Money’s post on how interest rates are calculated shows that most credit cards charge a daily periodic rate, meaning that I am accumulating interest every single day. The term APR is misleading because you would think that it’s an annual percentage rate but it’s not.

Sure enough. I looked up my last statement on this credit card and they are charging interest every single day. That means that today I’m being charged interest on the interest that they charged yesterday. Compound interest strikes hard. I feel justified sending multiple payments every week if possible. It will save us money on interest because our daily balance will be lower.

We were hit hard with expenses last week. Four new tires plus alignment (which we desperately needed) cost us $416.75. Ouch! We have a $58 mail in rebate but that money can’t go to the credit card until I get a check, which usually takes 4-6 weeks. Oh, well. At least we had the money in the bank and could pay cash even without touching our savings account.

Groceries were also a big expense because we needed a few things that aren’t weekly purchases – olive oil, kitty litter, two bags of cat food, and a couple other odds and ends that couldn’t wait. We spent most of the grocery budget on staples, building up our pantry again. I’m probably going to have to use the rest of our snowball for September ($40) to buy additional food. We don’t have enough to last two weeks.

I keep reminding myself that we are making progress, even though it doesn’t seem like it some weeks. It’s a blessing to be able to cash flow expenses rather than dip into savings or use the credit cards. All of our bills are being paid on time and we even have extra money some weeks. I have to look at the big picture, not just at the previous week. The big picture looks so much better! God is very good.

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