A New Week and a Renewed Perspective
Okay, I know I started to get off on a shitty rant deal at the end of last week. And I do apologize for stepping on toes and behaving poorly. If I pissed you off then come on down to Santa Cruz and I'll buy you a beer or something.

But there are still the basic elements of the things that have been causing frustration. Only now I'm going to do my best to let them slide off me and not needle into me like they did last week.
A quick laundry list of the aggravations: my old house continues to be a pain in the ass, the guy who just moved in two weeks ago can't hack the "drama" and one of the other housemates guests so he wants to move out; one of the rent checks for the house bounced causing one of my bank accounts to become, essentially, useless for the entire weekend but this situation is being dealt with as we speak and should be resolved in the next day; the current work situation isn't changing or going anywhere, I will have to learn to deal with the person in my office that makes me want to bring the heavy smack down upon them; some mild home issues that don't really warrant much more explanation here although I should note that its not a problem between P and I; the slow mending of my elbow continues and has gotten much better in the last few days and I've got full use of the arm again, might even try a mellow ride up through Delaveaga this week.

I'm sure there's more but there've also been a whole lot of good things that have happened too.

We had a very successful yard sale with P & K which was both lucrative and alot of fun to kick back and hang out with them and Modoc, who's truly grown into a beautiful dog. And the best part is that we got rid of lots and lots of stuff that was just taking up space in the house. It felt good to get rid of things.
A couple of notes from the yard sale. The Goodwill donation station down the way had a few things that had been dropped off while they were closed (illegal if you read the signs but who's taking stuff back home to take back another time? and our justification was that since it was illegal to leave the stuff that it certainly can't be illegal to take it away). I grabbed a toaster oven that was literally in perfect condition and had been barely used. It added another $5 to our sales totals at the end of the day.
But the cool fold out chaise lounger was a bust as P dropped through it midway through the afternoon. Otherwise it would have been an excellent addition to the back yard.
Be prepared to drop prices as the afternoon wears on. It got to the point where we'd say a price and then drop it in an another moment just to get rid of the item in question. Five dollars? How's three sound instead?

The other thing is that there are some crazy mo-fo's who yard sale all weekend. Mostly harmless funny peoples but some that just left you wondering what the hell was going on. People who buy random stuff and then come back an hour or two later for more.

But it was fun to do it and I'd like to get another one going sometime soon. Get rid of more stuff that's not being used and has lots of use left in it. And sitting and drinking in the sun all Sunday's never a bad way to spend the day, although the Giants lost and that sucked but oh well, can't be quite perfect, can we?

So, I will strive to be a kinder, gentler blogger this week. We'll see just how it all goes as I can't promise anything except that I'm going to have some serious fun this Friday at E & J's wedding, a very, very long time in coming, no?

Personal Empowerment News
Can't recall if I've written about this already but I don't think so. I don't quite know why it took this long to set up and begin doing but I'm now paying bills online. I need to automate as much of the debt repayment as possible for several reasons. The first is easy, so I don't forget. But the second is better because, with on time payments over time, debtors will reward you with lowered interest rates, increased credit limits (the better to consolidate the debt with, dontcha know?) and better credit ratings (important for the down the road house purchase we're still planning on).

So now the next step is get things going without my intervention, just my money being parsed out to all the companies with thier hands out (actually credit card companies LOVE it when you don't make payments on time so they charge you sickening finance charges like $35 for a day late, take that movie rental houses). So, in six months, I expect to be much further along the repayment route. Should have my cycle all but paid off and can then start to repay that money into other debts. I plan on being completely debt free inside of five years (although a house mortgage may infringe on that plan just a wee bit) and the first step is gathering up all the threads and getting them in one place to dole out the cash as needed where its needed.

I also set up an automatic funds transfer into my savings account so that I save money before I even see the money show up in the account. Which makes it far more difficult to miss. My next step will be to map out my schedule into spreadsheets so that I can more easily keep track of where I am and where I'm going with all this money stuff. And then cancelling cards as soon as possible.

So ya, go me! I can't imagine what it will be like to make decent money and be able to save a large proportion of it every month because it won't be going to credit card companies. By the way, the debt got run up during my layoff period so its not like I just got a bunch of cards and went shopping mad with them, I used them to survive a dark time in my employment history. Not that that makes it okay but I think it makes it slightly more justifiable. But don't ask me about the student loans. Those are another thorn to extract ASAP. So much time, not enough money and too much work to be done in the interim.

But at least we're on the right path now and that's a very good start. Though a pending car payment won't help but it'll make travelling waaaaaay easier that it is now as my car's junk and P's has a speed wobble as the back rim needs to be replaced. But that's another post and I've gotta get cranking on work.

But an excellent forward from Kim will be going up later on today when I've got a few more minutes free.