Wednesday, April 2, 2008

MONTH #4 continued...

That's Hilaaarious!
Fucking Matt Damon and Ben Affleck videos and references...calling potholes "Vampires"...and our cat Pebbles, being called Pebbles J. Moose resurfaced as hilarious!
To top it all off was the SAUSAGE exclamations at random times, shouting it throughout our condo!

Good Talk
Well, a few weeks ago I started wanting to check out Open Houses - as noted in my Week #15 entry. After a few non-existent Open Houses we attempted to go to, we finally saw two -one was "just a condo" - a larger version of what we have, 3 bdms, but still that condo feel so we weren't that excited. Then we saw one in Addison that was everything we are looking for - 2 stories, plus full finished basement, 3 bdms, 2 1/2 bath, backyard w/deck, but only a one-car garage (it's pretty much impossible it seems to find all this with 2-car garage in our price range!). It would be $500 more a month. So while possibly do-able, if we can do some damage to our debt in the coming months. But since we liked it so much and it is somewhat in reach, it got us talking seriously about finances (not joking that someone will just give us $10K or we'll win it, or just bitching about how poor we are). So it made me feel good that we will be very responsible when it comes time to sell and buy!

The Good Life
Retraction!!!
I got my tax return right away, but Tim's was delayed. so he called to check and we had done our taxes wrong! It WAS only one return to file jointly like we had originally thought, but we hadn't noticed a place to enter both of our information - so we both filed. Well, we did NOT get $7K total. Instead, we got MY tax return amount, minus $400. So while it's great that I paid my car off, I now owe Tim $1600 which is half. AND I had to pay $400 in taxes back. So instead of being all excited to put my extra $230/month from my car payment to pay down our Wedding CC, that is now delayed a couple months as I need to pay $2K total back to taxes and to Tim :(
Band
I joined a community band again! It is the Spring Valley Concert Band in Schaumburg www.scvb.net . So while this isn't really "good" for Tim...he gets a night a week at home to have the place to himself sort of. And it's just one more *thing for us to do. I have a concert this weekend, and I like having *activities in my life, especially back to music, which is the core of my creativeness and pretty much has shaped my entire life!
Daily Cat Care for P.A.C.T.
In February, after starting my new job, I wanted to do something with all my extra time from my shorter commute. So I joined the band and also googled around to volunteer at an animal shelter! I found PACT which is a non-profit, all-volunteer no-kill animal shelter. They partner with PetSmart who gives them a room in the store for the cat cages and let's us use supplies - food, litter, etc. So my "job" is either weekday evenings or weekend mornings, I go into the store and clean out each kitty cage! This involves dumping and washing their litter boxes, rinsing out food dishes and giving them food, shaking out the towels/bed/blankets that are in their cage and replacing dirty ones as needed - and spending as much time playing with the kitties, petting them, brushing them, etc. It really warms my heart! Some of them are so timid, they won't come out of their cage, but if I take a few minutes and let them sniff my hand, etc they really warm up - and it warms my heart!
No, I will not be bringing any kitties home...2 is enough! But I can at least do this. I know it's not helping society, and I'm not necessarily helping people - but this is the type of volunteering I want to do b/c kitties are God's little helpless creatures (as my dad used to say!) and so I want to protect them. It's even more heartbreaking - the older kitties that aren't all cute and playful that have been there for awhile. The general public isn't going to want them. So that's why I've decided that every other cat Tim & I have in our life will be an older one from a shelter! B/c even right now, we have Pebbles - a cat pretty much the general public and even most cat lovers would NOT want with her attacking your hand all the time, etc...and then we have Colby Jack who would be adopted in like 2 seconds. So yea!! My cats always live forever, and Pebs is *only* 15 yrs old...so we've got like 5yrs til we can save a kitty :)

2 comments:

MyMuse said...

That place sounds awesome! I'm so happy for you guys, I hope we will be able to start looking at homes in the next couple years! Honestly, we really don't have any credit card debt, but we have school debt up the wazoo! But it's kind of an after thought, because everyone has SOME sort of debt and as long as you have it under control it'll be ok. Seriously, having ONE child is really not that expensive. I got so much from my baby showr, I almost had TOO much! I literally didn't have to buy anything. The only real expense in the beginning is diapers, especially if you breast feed and don't have to buy formula. Anyways, I thnk I'm off track here! I think this pertains to one of your posts in some way; I have major prego brain right now.
Good luck in your house hunting!

Miss Organizized said...

I like your "Good Talk" because it's ALWAYS good to BE ON THE SAME PAGE hahaha!

Once again, sorry about the tax thing...TOTALLY BITES. But at least it's not a huge major set back by any means. You're still on a good path financially speaking and ACTUALLY, it was a blessing in disguise that the mistake was made because you paid off your car! And otherwise you might have been a little gun shy to do so!

I CANNOT FREAKING WAIT to help with Kitty Care this weekend!!! One of the main reasons is because then I can "try it out" so to speak and perhaps join my own local Kitty Care volunteer organization!