My AZ weekend!

I'm back from Arizona for the second time in two weeks. I love Arizona, but I'm glad to be back home for now. Plus we're going to Washington this weekend and camping next weekend, so I'm not REALLY at home. Friday night we went to Los Dos, which is my FAVORITE Mexican restaurant. They have fabulous margaritas and delicious food. It's incredibly spicy but that's good because I'm trying to like spicy food more anyway, and it is very flavorful. With a margarita and some sour cream, I can take the heat! Yummy. There was some discussion about driving to Vegas that night, spending a few hours there, and driving back before my flight the next day, but that was eventually vetoed (giving my parents-in-law more fodder for their fight about me being "prematurely old" - lack of spontaneity in this one!). Saturday morning we went to breakfast at "The Farm", which is where Hart and Becky got married. Delish! Then we went to Hart and Becky's new house for a while. Somehow it came up that they couldn't find their GPS that they got for their wedding, so Hart started looking around for it. Then someone else mentioned geocaching, so we decided to go! We went to a park in Gilbert to look for the cache - 4 of us spent probably 45 minutes searching for it and never did find it. What a bummer. Still, it was grand fun. We hung out for a while longer and then it was time to take me to the airport! A great visit. :)

Sunday morning we met Gary at church. We were supposed to meet Julie too, but she hadn't slept well that night so she stayed in bed - what a slacker (yes, she does read my blog, and yes, she will scold me later for calling her a slacker on the internet. She will also laugh.) We went to the same church we went to last week (that Geoff and I have gone to for a while before the Great Church Search of 2008). The pastor at this church is excellent! One of the funny things he does in his sermons is mention "oh he's so spiritual" in a sarcastic way. For example last week he was talking about how he saw a stack of papers on the side of the road... he didn't pick them up because he's from California, not Oregon! Then he said "oh, Bob would have definitely picked them up, and then recycled them - Bob's so spiritual". Then yesterday he asked us to flip to a certain place in our Bibles... he saw someone get there really quickly and said "look at Fred, already there - Fred's so spiritual!". It's very funny. (NOT that that's what makes him an excellent pastor, just an amusing antedote to share). After that we went to Julie and Gary's for a delicious fajita lunch (see, earning points back by calling the lunch delicious - but honestly, it was). Then we talked about my Arizona trip, and geocaching came up. Everyone thought it sounded like tons of fun... and then Geoff and I recalled that we hadn't used our REI dividend yet for the year, plus I had an American Express gift card that I got from work, so we took those things, went to REI, and bought ourselves a GPS! It's nothing fancy, but it does the job we need for geocaching! So we took Julie and Gary and went to the parking structure of a local mall to try to find a cache hidden there. The 4 of us looked for about an hour and couldn't find it! We did get stopped by mall security though - that was fun, trying to explain we were looking for treasure in the parking garage... hehe. Luckily he was super nice and let us continue our search. No one was thrown into "mall jail". We also got a lot of suspicious looks from shoppers heading back to their cars. Certainly not a place you'd want to take kids geocaching - way too much traffic! This one was rated a 3.5 out of 5 on the difficulty scale. I think we thought too much of ourselves, we're going to have to try an easier one. Geoff and I swung by another cache location near our house on the way home (this one included a few pictures on the website - both of what the actual caches was, and of where it was hidden in the sign of the park). We walked straight to the sign, I felt up around the letter E, and there it was! It was a teeny tiny capsule about half the size of your ring finger that had a teeny tiny scroll that we signed our names to. It was so fun to find our first cache! We're going to try another one today after work on our way to softball practice. We're addicted. ;-) Definitely recommend it if you have or can borrow a GPS!

The house...

So remember the house last week that I said just wasn't the right time? Well after I blogged that, Geoff and I really couldn't get it out of our mind. There was just something about it. Not so much the house itself, but the land it was on (half an acre). If you want to see it, go to www.rmls.com and look up number 7113286. Since we couldn't stop thinking about it, we called up my (I guess our now) realtor and asked her to show us the property. I was expecting THE VERY WORST so it wasn't as bad as I thought. It was worse than Geoff thought though. It smelled like cigarette smoke before the front door was even open, and there was stuff EVERYWHERE. Every single surface was covered, including the entire kitchen. There was even a half empty bottle of vodka sitting on the kitchen counter - now if that doesn't attract potential homebuyers, I don't know what does! ;-) Luckily, I'm pretty good at looking through someone else's furniture/junk/paint colors/flooring/etc. to the potential of a house. This house definitely would have needed a lot of work - new EVERYTHING, or else tear it down and build new, but it had potential. My preference would have been start with the house that was there and renovate it, where as Geoff wanted to just build new. We do have the trailer, so we could have lived on the property while building new. The land was GREAT - there was a nice patio (good condition, nicely sized) that would be perfect for a hot tub (which is like my super-nice-to-have item that I really want someday). There was plenty of land for a shop for Geoff, and maybe an organic garden for me if I could manage to keep it alive. The price was also great - in addition to being a decent asking price, our realtor had the feeling (both on her own and from talking to the listing agent) that the owner would likely take an offer for 70 - 80% of the asking price. It was in a perfect location in terms of proximity - in the "country" but about 8 minutes from work, right on the freeway to get anywhere, an hour from the coast, 10 - 15 minutes from the grocery stores, less than 5 minutes to Costco (I know a Costco near the country, ha). BUT not a perfect location in terms of LITERALLY being right on the freeway - it backed up to the on ramp of the freeway that connects Portland and 26 (have I written all of this before?). We talked about building a sound wall and planting stuff there, and honestly the noise is less than our current house which is pretty close to a stop light so you get a lot of stopping and starting, plus big trucks, rather than just constant noise. But you're still right on a highway, plus that road is only 2 lanes there but 3 in other parts, so if they were ever going to do an expansion they would take our land! We checked with the county who said there were no current plans, but who knows what would happen in 10, 15, 20 years. There's just a lot of risk associated with buying that close to the highway (even if we could get over the sound and stuff), and who knows what would happen to resale value. I'm sad, and now I really want a house that we can REALLY renovate (with the price of that house, we would have had quite a bit of money available to do the necessary renovations). But that's okay - again, it just wasn't QUITE right. Something else will come along eventually. And that is my sad blog post about the house that still just isn't meant to be. :( Tear.

We survived!

We survived our first softball practice! It was actually really fun. :) About 20 minutes before practice started, it was hailing big time - yikes. We weren't sure how that was going to go. But it stopped and actually got a little sunny out, so by the time we started it was chilly, but tolerable. We met under a pavillion with picnic tables, and we had a little meeting with the parents and had them fill out forms. While I was collecting the forms, Geoff said "all the little girls come with me!" and they were so funny, they just lined up behind him. Then we walked over to the field and he started practice. He had them throwing the ball to each other for a while. There were only 9 of them there, so I had to throw with one for a while. After a few minutes she said to me "this is kinda easy..." so I suggested we move back. Then I felt bad for her that she had to be with me, so we rotated partners. At that point another player was quietly saying "Coach? Coach?" to Geoff, and I pointed her out to Geoff. Geoff said "what's up?" to her and she said "um, I'm bleeding." So I went over to her to see what was wrong. She had a small cut or hangnail on her thumb, so I took her off the field. Her mom was right there and had a band-aid in her purse (we had a first aid kit in the car, from now on we'll bring that out to the field!) so she fixed her right up. That girl is the cutest thing Geoff and I have ever seen... we both think she's our favorite. She's the smallest one (she's only 6!) and Geoff at first thought "oh great..." but then he saw her throw! He claims she can throw the ball further than I can, which may be true! After throwing for a while, we started batting practice. Geoff had the girls line up in a semi-circle in the field and had one player bat at a time. He was great when he worked with them, he made sure their feet were in the right place, that they were holding the bat correctly, etc. The bat was too big for the tiny girl, but she had her own bat so she used that. The other girls were getting cold and bored during batting practice (whoever wasn't batting) so Geoff would occasionally throw a ball out there just to keep them somewhat entertained. They would throw it back and sometimes Geoff wouldn't be paying attention and it would go over his head or whatever - ohhhh how they all giggled every time that happened. They thought Geoff was hilarious. Geoff claims that little girls like him because he has ALL girl cousins (at least on his dad's side) so he knows how to interact with them. Anyway, it was quite cute, and in 20 year or so I might have some competition for my husband. ;-) Then we worked on throwing grounders for a while. At this point it was about 6:40, and practice was supposed to end at 7, but the girls were all freezing and all of the parents were there so Geoff let them go home. That worked out well. At the end of practice one of the moms talked to us about more ideas for drills and said that she'd love to help us (she had thrown her back out this week so couldn't help last night but wants to in the future). It was definitely a good first practice, and our real goal was to see what skill level the girls had (a lot of them have played before, so that was good to find out... they acted like they would be comfortable with a pitch rather than a tee, so that's cool, we'll try that at the next practice) and how they interacted and what it was like to entertain ten 6 - 9 year olds for an hour and a half. :) Geoff will be on his own this Friday since I'll be out of town (hehehe) but then I'll be back for next week! We haven't picked a practice schedule for next week yet but we'll figure something out. This week Monday and Friday worked but starting next week there will be conflicts every day but Friday, so we'll miss at least one girl every week. We'll figure it out!

"Let me"

I just decided that the most overused phrase at my company is "let me".

"let me go back and check with Bob"
"let me look into that"
"let me do some research and get back to you"
"let me take a couple of days to think about"

I literally just overheard THREE different phone conversations around me that were all asking the person on the other end of the line to "let me". And when I thought about it, I realize I DEFINITELY say it too. In an email I wrote earlier today: "Let me give Tanya a call to see how her group allocates that in their systems and we'll go from there."

We need a new phrase.

Randoms

Couple of things I've been thinking about...

Sunday after Easter lunch at Geoff's parents, Geoff drove me by the school where he plays basketball on Monday nights. We saw a house for sale in the neighborhood and he pulled over and asked me to get the little flyer so we could see how much houses in that neighborhood cost. Then he kept pulling over to every house he saw... once we cleaned that neighorhood out of flyers, he went to a neighborhood nearby to look there... and that basically turned into a whole tour of neighborhoods. It was actually pretty fun, a lot of those neighborhoods I didn't even know existed. We ended up in the "country" which is about 10 minutes north of where we live. All of these beautiful properties with 1 - 10 acres each. Of course those homes are all $600K - $1.4M. It's fun to dream though! Yesterday I was browsing Craigslist home listings (which I do probably twice a week anyway) and searched for that neighborhood... well a $215K home popped up. I figured it was probably using that neighborhood as a key word but wasn't IN that neighborhood... but it was! Problem is it's very close to Hwy 26, which is a major freeway (connects Portland to the coast - it is PACKED on sunny nice weekends!). That's good and bad... it's nice for freeway access but not nice for freeway noise. We drove past it anyway after work... we actually loved the property! It is .45 acres, which is a good size for us. It would let us do some of the things we want to do (have a shop, park our RV on our property, have a hot tub, have a garden, entertain outdoors, etc.) without having a giant space to maintain. The house was built in the 40's and I'm quite sure isn't in the greatest condition, considering all of the pictures are of the property itself and NONE of the inside. I think the idea is that you'd buy the house for the property and either do massive renovations to the home or else tear it down and rebuild. Geoff says it's "teeny tiny" but really it's almost 1600 square feet which isn't bad at all (it is smaller than our current house but very reasonable I think). A nice property and a nice price, but it just isn't the right time! Such is life. :) Other properties will come along.

When you get a bonus, do you ever "allocate" it to multiple things? Like, oh, I got $100, I can go out to a really nice dinner. Then a week later "gosh I need some new jeans and a couple of new sweaters... oh, remember I just got that $100, perfect!" Then you find out your insurance doesn't cover the full cost of the procedure you just had at the doctor and you owe another $150, and you think "oh well that's good timing with this bonus". I have caught myself starting to do that before I realized "hello dummy you already planned on doing X with your bonus" (X is usually saving it...), you can't be trying to spend it on other things. If I really did that I'd use my bonuses 5 times over I think!

This morning on the radio I heard a commercial for getting 20,000 bonus miles when you apply for a new Alaska Airlines credit card. That's nothing special, all of the airline credit cards give you that pretty much all the time. I use my Costco Amex for 95% of my purchases. The only exception is when a place won't take Amex and I have to use a Visa, then I use my United College Plus Visa (I pay no annual fee but only get a mile for every $2 I spend instead of every $1). Actually I don't know why that's relevant... anyway, a couple of years ago American Airlines was having their 25th anniversary and they were doing all of these special things. One day they had a promo where if you got their credit card you got like 25,000 miles and two free companion tickets, plus no annual fee and whatever else. I thought "THERE is a deal I can get behind" and applied for the card. A few weeks later I got a note saying that they couldn't give me the card because they "couldn't verify my home phone number". Well that's because I have no home phone you fools. Oh well. No big deal. But now Geoff and I both get letters from American Airlines at least once a month asking us to get their credit card. I TRIED people, you wouldn't give it to me, remember? Now stop sending me mail.

I got my roster for softball today! So I guess we're "official". Unfortunately, that's ALL I got - a list of names and phone numbers. I emailed the guy back and I'm waiting on information like is their a coaches meeting? What about emergency forms and waivers and things like that. When do I start practice? He gave me a list of fields I could use that are in "various states of repair" and said I could use them as I find space... well that's just sketchy! So we'll see what happens with that... yikes. I hate a lack of organization! I'm sure it will work out, and that's fine, but I'm not going to just start calling parents and saying "well I got your name... how about we set up a caravan of our cars on Thursday at 5:30 PM and drive around until we find an empty field... and I'll just have you sign your name on a piece of paper for a medical release form... yeah...." No, that won't work. I'll just wait on more information. :)

Quote from an anonymous source

Based on my previous entry (and apparently stemming from the excessive detail that I tell my stories with):

"you need to have like 34983248 kids so you can have 409584095845048 grandkids to tell your stories to"

Why I'm an "engineer"

My first memory of "what do you want to be when you grow up?" was a teacher. There is no specific memory of it, I just know that's what I wanted to be. After that, for the longest time, it was a lawyer. My grandfather and three uncles are all lawyers. It kind of runs in the family, it seemed like a fun job, and everyone thought I was very observant so I would be a great lawyer. I remember specifically in 4th grade my teacher, Mrs. Francis, asked us all what we wanted to be. I said lawyer, but I remember a handful of kids saying they wanted to be an engineer. I thought about how odd it was that such a high proportion of kids in the class would want to be driving a train (see, even then I was mentally collecting and analyzing data). I had only ever heard of an engineer in that context - a train engineer. I can no longer clearly recall if I went home and mentioned it to my parents that night and they explained about electrical engineers and chemical engineers, or what. The event is specific in my mind, but I don't know if it was immediate or at some time in the future that I figured out "oh! those kids don't want to be train engineers, they want to be civil engineers or mechanical engineers!"

I'm not quite sure when I decided I didn't want to be a lawyer. By junior high, I LOVED computers - I had my first one, a TI-99/4A, when I was very young, but my first "real" computer, an Intel 386, when I was in 5th grade (1992). We got an Intel 133 Mhz Pentium in 1995 - that was the computer that probably made me fall in love with computers, most likely because it had the internet! I first signed onto AOL version 2.0 in October of 1995, early in the morning before school. I tried to pick the screenname Kelly (taken), and then Kelly13 (I was 13 at the time, that was taken too). It then suggested "Kelly94942", which I quickly accepted because I just wanted to get on and see the internet for a few minutes before school. Little did I know that 13 years later I would have the same screenname for nearly everything I use today. Oh well. :) That was still in the time when AOL cost $9.99 a month and every precious minute you were online had an additional fee - YIKES. I quickly became a chat room host... it was a chat room for kids and I was in charge of monitoring it and also providing games for the kids to play. One of our favorites was a movie initials game... you'd say initials of a movie, and someone else would guess what the movie was. Like you'd say HA - they'd guess Home Alone. One of the best ones we'd use was TWFTFEJN (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar). No one could ever get that one... hehe. I got a certain number of minutes for each hour or so that I hosted. I actually to this day have friends on Facebook that were my co-hosts in that chat room (called KidsBiz). If people started swearing or anything, I had the power to boot them offline! How cool is that? This was even before AOL introduced instant messages - I remember when they came online, and when BUDDY LISTS were invented... that was really fun! Later on, KidsBiz went away and I became a tutor in another AOL area - I'd help kids with their homework. It was great because it paid for all of the internet which I loved so much. Kind of funny that I was "working" online at 13, 14, and 15 years old though. Anyway my work history is a subject for another day... this is just how I fell in love with computers, and I think those early AOL days had a big part of it. I'm a champion at getting off topic in my blog. ;-)

Junior year of high school, I took an AP computer programming class. I was awful at it! So many people were so much better than I was. My mind just didn't really think that way. But I loved the internet, and I was decent at fixing computer problems and understanding the basics of a computer, so I still thought I should do it. Senior year, since there were no more advanced computer programming classes, I took an independent study computer programming class. This consisted of me writing a Jeopardy program that was ridiculously easy. I guess somewhere along the line there I applied for college, and I determined that since I liked computers, I should be a computer engineer or computer scientist. Since at most of the schools I applied to (especially University of Illinois), it was more difficult to get into the engineering schools than the College of Arts and Sciences, I applied to the engineering school and decided to go with computer engineering instead of computer science. I figured I could always switch from engineering to CAS, but I thought it might be more difficult to switch into engineering. Actually at Northwestern (where I actually ended up going) it was probably easier to get into engineering than CAS because engineering is certainly not Northwestern's strength, but whatever.

So freshman year, there I was, taking engineering classes. At that point, those days of Matlab, physics, chemistry, and calculus, it didn't really matter what sort of engineer I was going to be. Every engineer has to suffer through those same horrendous intro classes! (same as every pre-med student has to suffer through organic chemistry, and so on) One day that winter, my roommate (who was a political science major and didn't want anything to do with math or science) came home laughing because she'd been to some event where some "freak" was trying to convince her to be some crazy kind of engineer. They said it wasn't really even very engineer-ish, it was more like business, making things more efficient, statistics, etc. I was like "Wait, what? Tell me more! This sounds fascinating!" She laughed and said she thought that it might be called Industrial Engineering - I looked it up and in fact there was some crazy kind of engineering called Industrial Engineering that sounded completely like all of the things she'd described - all things I loved! Northwestern offered IE and I went to talk to the undergraduate IE coordinator - Ann, a woman we all eventually knew and loved. :) I also made a note on my resume that I was a computer engineering major but that there would be a "probable" switch to industrial engineering (I guess I knew right away that it was going to be that great). I distributed that same resume to probably 40 companies at a job fair January of my freshman year. UPS was one of the companies that called me about an internship, and it was going to be for industrial, not computer, engineering. I remember riding the train all the way to the south side of Chicago for an interview and talking to the IE district manager of the Metro Chicago district of UPS... it was a scary train ride, followed by an equally scary bus ride! I asked them "are you really going to want me? I'm a freshman, I know nothing!" - they replied that at least I'd have fresh new ideas, which were valuable. When he found out I was from Palatine, which was the site of another major UPS hub (about 5 or 10 minutes from my house!) he called his counterpart and arranged for me to have a job interview in Palatine! Excellent. I had the interview over spring break and they called soon after to offer me the job for that summer.

On to Spring Quarter of my freshman year (after quite an exciting Winter Quarter - finding a new major existed, doing a tiny bit of exploration, changing my resume, and getting an internship in a major I wasn't even sure I wanted yet) - I visited Ann, the undergrad IE coordinator again. I said that I still wasn't sure on my major, but I had ended up with this internship... but now I had to pick out my sophomore Fall Quarter classes and didn't know if I should pick computer or industrial engineering classes! Awesome Ann saved me - she pointed out that I had to take the final quarter of Engineering Analysis either way, I could take Introduction to Computer Engineering and use it as one of my electives if I didn't want it, and I could take a couple of other basic engineering classes that would be used in either class. So I signed up for those classes and off I went to my IE internship.

I LOVED working at UPS. That job was awesome - I worked 1 AM to 9 AM Monday through Friday, had a great boss who I learned a TON from, got to spend a day with a UPS package car driver on his route, got to do a re-routing project, etc. It was great. I was hooked - it was going to be industrial engineering for sure! I took my Fall Quarter classes - the computer engineering class was interesting, but it just didn't click in my mind the way IE did... everything IE-related, I got! I just loved it, it made so much sense to me and was so fascinating! So I took the plunge and Winter Quarter of my sophomore year I was a full fledged IE and took 3 out of my 4 classes as IE specific classes (we only took 4 classes per quarter since we had quarters instead fo semesters). Next to no one at Northwestern had come into school with the intention to be an IE, and in fact it was a big joke about "where we came from" (oh she was EE, I was computer engineering, etc.). But we all loved it - we were a tight knit group who had great professors, a computer lab that we all practically lived in (I once spent 13 hours in a single day in that lab), etc. "IE Love" was our slogan.

So I certainly never planned to be an engineer and didn't even realize that it was happening before it did, but I'm really happy that some random person decided to tell my roommate she should be an IE freshman year of college. :)

Status update

This is just a copy/paste from an email I wrote to my family:

Yesterday I got some Glade Flameless Scented Candles (3) from Walgreens, they paid me $1.01 each to take them out of the store. This weekend I am planning on getting a new sink scrub brush - I will have to pay for that but it's 50% off, and I'm going to get more free Excedrin and some free oven cleaner. I'm especially excited about the oven cleaner, my oven seriously needs help. That's all the free stuff I know of so far, we'll see what else pops up. Something usually does! Let's see... tonight if the rain holds off Geoff is gonna mow the lawn and then we're both going to work on getting the yard cleaned up... with all the rain you just have to weed constantly in the spring. The front and back and side yards all need to be weeded. I'm going to plant some basil inside - I will keep it inside for a month or so then move it outside to a big half barrel planter we have. Did you know that in the US it is illegal to make more than one batch of whiskey in a barrel? That's why there are so many half whiskey barrel planters. I learned that this week - although didn't check any reliable sources so it may just be heresay. They are pefect for herbs, because they keep them contained. Tomorrow I am going to have a big organize a roo... I'm going to try to find some little storage container with seperate little drawers for light bulbs, batteries, etc. Household things that we have a few little storage places for that are starting to get junky - yuck. Might make a run to Goodwill too, depending on what I come up with. I already have a small stack for Goodwill. Tomorrow night we're going to go to a 7 PM Easter service with Julie, Rebecca, and Gary. Then Sunday I will do my Walgreens, Rite Aid, and grocery shopping and then have lunch or dinner with those peeps too. Maybe some more organizing and/or cleaning then as well. We shall see!

Just call me Coach!

Monday morning during our team meeting at work, everyone was kinda doing the typical "ugh, it's Monday again". And I was like "yay, Monday!" They looked at me like I was crazy... and I said I get a little bored over the weekend, I don't have enough to do. They were like man, we ran this kid to baseball practice and this one had swimming lessons, and then we had to meet with the guy who's re-doing our kitchen and then the tax guy needed some stuff faxed over and then the toilet broke so we had to find a replacement... the weekend goes way too fast! (okay I just combined like 4 people's weekends, but that was the gist). Then one guy was like "hey, if you want something to do, you can coach my daughter's softball team. They're at the point right now where if they don't get a coach they're not going to have a team." I obviously don't know a thing about softball, but I was like "okay".

A couple of days go by, and then yesterday he asked if I would seriously consider coaching it, because they haven't found anyone. He couldn't do it because he was coaching his son's team, and it sounded like some other parents were in similar situations. So I said yes... especially if I could convince Geoff to help me with the actual "skills" part, since I'm lacking in that department. Geoff was VERY skeptical at first - "I've never played softball!" - but then once we talked about it more he actually got pretty excited about it. He also said "I better help because I don't want you misguiding all of these poor girls on how to throw a ball." Probably half of these girls have never played before and they just want to go out there and have fun. They're 9 years old, and according to the league president the goal is "to be able to catch the ball and get someone out at first base". They don't keep score, and the coaches often meet before the games to determine the exact rules of that game - for example one team may be used to coach pitch and another team is used to using a tee, so even during the game they will use different pitching methods. They just want all of the kids to be able to make some contact with the ball and be involved. I'm so excited! The head dude is going to call me today to tell me about practices, the coaches meeting, how we get our gear, etc. Should be a grand adventure. :)

His and hers

Geoff's mom just emailed me to see if Geoff and I have a copy of a movie. I knew I didn't, so I checked with Geoff to see if he did. He didn't either - but it made me think about how even though we think of everything as ours, there are some pre-marriage items that to me are either Geoff's or mine - not "ours". Another example happened on Sunday when we were talking about The DaVinci Code, which I hadn't read. I thought I remembered seeing it when I was organizing our bookshelf - so I asked Geoff if he/we had it (I can't remember now which I said). He said yes. Stuff like books, CDs, DVDs, and other little things is especially hard to keep track of... I don't even know everything "we" have because not all of it is something that I was there for the purchase or gift of. They just all of the sudden appeared in my (our!) house. :) We both call our house our house 100% of the time (unless I am referring to it in the past, then sometimes I will say my house... like "oh, when I bought my house it was such a seller's market"). We call Jake my car and the Tahoe his car - but I think that is quite common, most people seem to designate a car as one person's or the other. Everything we received for our wedding or bought post-wedding is always "ours". We have 2 guest bedrooms, and it's kind of funny because they are set up kind of like his old bedroom and my old bedroom - one has my bed, my bedding, etc. and one has his bed, his bedding, his dresser, etc. Although our old TVs are swapped in the rooms (mine is in the room with his bed and his is in the room with my bed) - just realized that, interesting. In our master bedroom, we actually have a new bed, new TV, and new bookshelf. Geoff said those things really helped him to feeling like it was HIS house (his meaning ours, in this case) because we weren't just living in my bedroom with my bed and my bedding in my house - we had new stuff that was ours. We both have desks that we bought post-wedding, and even though they have designations of whose desk they are, they still seem to be more "ours" than Geoff's TV that he had in college. That's still "Geoff's TV".

I imagine everyone sees this phenomenon to a certain extent - it's probably minimized for a couple who was married right out of school, and amplified for a couple who got married in their 30's or 40's. I imagine it also becomes minimized as you have more years together - you have a smaller percentage of "pre-marriage stuff", due to just accumulating more things, replacing things, selling/donating/throwing away things, etc.

Another interesting point I thought of is that as a child/teenager, I never saw this. There were a few things I can think of, like my dad's old college textbooks and speakers he had in college, that were his. But I never even saw anything as being "my parents", it was all just "ours". Like it just existed in the house and it had always been there and it was all I ever knew.

This is off topic, but many times in my young adulthood I have thought about things that just always existed around the house growing up that I actually had to go out and PURCHASE. Like recently, a heating pad. What house doesn't have a heating pad? But mine didn't for a whopping 2 or 3 years... you actually need to acquire one at some point to have that. Things like rubbing alcohol (have), hydrogen peroxide (don't have), bleach (have because a roommate abandoned it in the laundry room), etc. Household stuff that you don't need very often but when you need you normally think of it as being in your house. Every time I realize I don't have one of these things and I need to go purchase it, I think of it as an "investment" - I won't need to buy it the next time it inevitably comes up that I need it (in 5 years). These things are becoming more and more rare but I am always amused when one comes up. I suppose by the time you have children you have acquired most of these things, or else when the child suddenly needs it you buy it. To the child it just always existed... they don't necessarily see the process of going out and purchasing it. Many of these things are so interesting to me because I can still remember very clearly my viewpoint as a child/teenager but am starting to be able to see the adult viewpoint as well.

No real point to this blog... just some random thoughts... :) This did however give me the desire to go home and study our book, DVD, and CD collections. They are all combined on shelves together, but I don't know what they all are. I went through and merged our office supplies recently so I have a pretty good idea in my mind of what we have and what we don't. We have a box of Geoff's mementos and a box of mine, and then a box of wedding stuff (to be scrapbooked). Toiletries are all merged. Luckily, I like to organize so that helped me combine everything and also make a mental note of what we have and don't. I had a GRAND time going through and combining and organizing all of our things! Garage stuff is all merged (yes, we both came into this marriage with tools!). I think that's about it... there's nothing else I can think of! Those are my thoughts for the day... comment away!

Another funny

I don't know why I post all of my embarassing stories for the world to see... ahh the things I do to entertain you.

For the past month or so our kitchen light has been dying (just needs a new bulb). Every time we'd turn it on, it'd take a few seconds to actually turn on, or sometimes flicker before it came to life. We knew it was only a matter of time. Yesterday, it bit the dust. It wouldn't turn on at all anymore. We played with it a few times - and then eventually didn't even know if the switch was on or off (we have two switches in our kitchen, so they can be up or down and the light can be on or off... no real pattern).

Fast forward to last night... I couldn't sleep (although FINALLY not because I was coughing, just because I couldn't sleep) so I got up around 11 to go downstairs and clean or something. Well I opened the door to our bedroom and saw LIGHT downstairs (you can see where this is going). We never forget to turn the lights off when we go to bed, so I immediately yelled (well, whispered loudly) "GEOFF!!! Someone is down there! Someone is in our house!" and FLEW back into bed and burrowed under Geoff. No sooner was in safely under Geoff when I calmly said "Oh, I bet the light in the kitchen just finally came on". Geoff (half asleep) just sort of started at me like "yeah, you THINK?" Haha... oops... :)

A funny

I have a terrible habit which I am ashamed to admit but will anyway because it's necessary to get to the funny here. I fake being dead. I don't know why, you'd think I was attention starved or something, but I think it's so fun. I like the reaction I get from Geoff, he's so funny about it. And I asked him, he said it's okay. It's just kind of like a game - I'll cough or something and then collapse as though "dead". Geoff usually pokes me until I stop and occasionally will say something like "dead people don't breathe". But tonight was the best - he said "dead people don't adjust themselves so they're more comfortable while they fake being dead!" (I moved a couple of times very slightly... I was hoping he wouldn't notice!) Hahahahaha... I couldn't stop laughing. I hope you think this is funny and not just weird...

A fun weekend!

I'm still sick... ugh! But I have a doctor's appointment for tomorrow morning, so that is good. The only bad time really is night, when I'm trying to go to sleep. It takes about 3 hours for my coughing to settle down so I can finally get to sleep. Annoying!

Geoff's stepsister Rebecca is in town, so yesterday his parents called us to see if we wanted to go over to their house for a bit. We were thinking about it, and then I suggested than maybe they could come to our house, so that I wouldn't have to go out. And I suggested Geoff make fried chicken, because he loves cooking it and everyone loves eating it. Geoff thought that was a good plan, so he invited them over and they agreed. It was such a wonderful evening... the chicken always takes a long time to cook (10 - 13 minutes per batch and you can only do very small batches) so we just sat and chatted for hours. I had soooo much fun. It was just a lovely and perfect evening.

I don't know if I have mentioned this before or not, but Geoff and I are church-hunting with Geoff's parents. Now that Geoff is working a regular Monday - Friday schedule and can go to church with me, we could finally really look for a church together, and his parents said that they would love to go to church with us. So this week since Rebecca was in town we let her choose the church (I made a list in Excel with names, location, service times, and web links of churches that either (a) I've been to before and liked, (b) have had referred to me, or (c) came up in my random Google search). This church was my favorite of all of the churches we've "officially" visited together, but is not my favorite of churches I've been to in Oregon. The church that I would rate as my favorite has not been "officially" visited yet. We have a grand time talking about the church afterwards - we all rate on a scale of 1 to 10, say what we liked or didn't like, talk about the atmosphere, talk about the sermon, talk about the pastor, talk about the worship (music), talk about if others were friendly to us, etc. It is interesting because we all notice different things and have different priorities for what we're really looking for in a church.

After the church visit, we went back to Geoff's parent's house for brunch. Rebecca's aunt and uncle and cousins and grandmother and great aunt came too - it's so fun to have them around. The grandmother and great aunt in particular are quite funny... they are leaving for a week in Hawaii so it was so fun to see how excited they were about their trip!

I had another paragraph I was going to write but it didn't turn out how I hoped. My blog is typically not very thought out - it's usually just my spew, and you get what you get. I have actually come back to this twice (I started it about 5 PM, then went back to it about 7 PM, it's now 8:42 PM). I keep thinking that I'm going to have some better way to express what I was going to say, but I don't. It was perfect when I was originally thinking about it but didn't get to my computer to write it in time. That happens somewhat often - I think of something I want to blog about but don't actually do it while I still have the original emotion so it doesn't turn out as well. Maybe I will write it tomorrow if I can get a better semblance of words together.

At Oma and Opa's

This weekend Geoff and I are at Oma and Opa's north of Seattle. Also here are Gary and Julie (Geoff's parents) and Jeff and Hannah (Geoff's uncle and cousin). We're here in visiting for the weekend and then tomorrow morning we are going to Nora's (Geoff's cousin) baptism at Peter's (Geoff's uncle) church south of Seattle. We got here last night and I taught everyone SET - it has been so fun to have a big group of people to play with all weekend, and the cards keep coming out... people keep practicing, playing solitare, and playing with a group, etc. This morning we went to a Rotary/YMCA pancake breakfast and then I got my eyes checked by Opa! (he's an eye doctor, don't worry, I didn't just have my eyes checked by some random guy). I have 20/15 vision, although he wrote me a prescription for slight far-sightedness, +.25 in each eye. And I have a problem with vertical alignment or some such business that requires a prism prescription - I already had that from about 6 or 7 years ago, but he made some slight adjustments in the new prescription he wrote me. It was the first time I had my eyes checked since then, and it was really fun. It was very interesting and Opa explained a lot of stuff to me about eyes. It was quite fun. After that we came home, played some SET, went to Costco, I rested (I've been sick for days - I didn't go to work Thursday or Friday) and then we had dinner. Now we are watching The Blues Brothers... it is somewhat interesting because it is filmed in Chicago - like I just saw a Jewel (grocery store)... haven't seen one of those in 3 or 4 years. I can't believe it's been so long since I've been to Chicago, but I haven't been since Labor Day 2005. Crazy to think you haven't been to the city you're FROM in that long. Anyway, it's pretty fun to have a bunch of people around and be watching (not that I'm doing so much watching... but whatever).

I'm also Grocery Gaming (preparing my lists for shopping tomorrow) and obviously blogging... later Geoff and I might go out to get a newspaper so I can have my coupons! I think that is all... my life isn't very exciting. OH!!! I am writing a book. I don't know if I'll ever do anything with it, but I have started it and we'll see where it goes. If I decide to do anything with it, then I'll tell you more.

Recognition

Yesterday I was in a meeting and a coworker told me that I had won an award (along with him and a person in finance). It was presented at a meeting I typically don't go to (because I go to the equivalent in another building), so I didn't know about it before that. He said "don't worry, there wasn't any money or anything associated with it". I joking asked "how about a plaque or a piece of paper with our name on it?" He said no. :)

This morning I was looking at my paystub (I get paid this Friday and our paystub posts two days early) - and I noticed some additional money that I wasn't expecting. Turns out, there was in fact money associated with this award. Even better!

But the VERY BEST PART is that I was in a meeting this afternoon with some managers and a VP. One of the managers gave a short blurb about the award and gave a plaque to me and one of the other people who won it (the third person wasn't in the meeting). I was SO EXCITED to get this plaque! It seems that everyone else who works at my company has 15 of these things, and I didn't have any. I have been trying to get one for years! And now I have my very first one - complete with my married name (funny story actually, the award was apparently delayed because they had my old name on the original one!). I'm thrilled. What a good day.

I don't normally see my person as someone who really cares that much about recognition. I know that everyone enjoys recognition, but it never seemed to be a big thing to me. But this particular award (and PLAQUE!!!) definitely make me feel recognized and appreciated. And now I don't have to keep hoping for one of those plaques!

Couple of exciting weekends!

We've had a busy couple of weeks, hence the lack of posts. Two weekends ago, we went camping to Cannon Beach (the Oregon coast) with Geoff's mom and a coworker of mine and her family (they own an RV as well). It was great fun as always... we had TWO great campfires (perfect weather that weekend) and got to do lots of talking and relaxing and eating. Geoff made buffalo wings and fries for dinner one night and burgers and fries the second night - healthy, I know. :) His brother gave us a deep fryer for Christmas so we made use of it while camping. It was delicious! We talked about politics, religion, family, and who knows what else... it was very very fun!

Tuesday was my birthday, I got lots of cloth napkins! I realize that sounds lame, but it was perfect - I have really been wanting them and now I have a good sized stash. Geoff took me to THREE Goodwills to look for cloth napkins. We also had a delicious dinner at Geoff's parent's house... YUM. We had chicken parm pizza, which was a Rachael Ray recipe I'd really been wanting to try, and it was so good. I also got some gifts from our wedding registry, and the SET card game! I still play SET every day online, so I was so excited to get the card game. Geoff and I have played about 5 times so far and he has yet to beat me... hehe. :) Actually I think the only person who could beat me is my sister - and that comment is based only on our times each day. She usually has the fastest time in the online puzzle, then me, then Geoff, my mom, and Patrick (the three of them usually have similar times). But my sister consistenly beats me, so I'm sure she could beat me at the card game. I got 1 min and 8 seconds on the online game today. I love SET!

This weekend we got TONS done. I love getting things done. It makes my weekend so much more enjoyable. Friday night we had dinner with Addy, then Saturday morning we got up at 6:30 to take her to the airport - she's in Hawaii right now. LUCKY! Saturday afternoon I did 2 loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, swept and mopped, cleaned the bathroom, etc. Saturday night we went to Safeway to take part in the Savings Rally - buy 25 items and you get $20 back. So we bought 25 $1 cans of tomatoes - twice! Yes that is 50 cans... but we use 4 cans a week so that's only a couple of months worth. And they cost us $0.20 each. Yay. I am so easily amused. Sunday morning we went to Cedar Mill Bible Church with Geoff's parents - we are trying new churches with them which is really fun. I liked this church but I'm not positive it will be my favorite... as Geoff points out, that's the reason for trying new churches. We can either try our whole list until we run out of churches (we have about 15 - 20 on the list of options to try) or until we find one that we can't live without. So we'll see. Sunday afternoon we finished up our grocery shopping for the week, Geoff mowed the lawn, I filled up our yard waste bin by hacking away at our rose bush, lilac bush, and some other unidentified plant, did another load of laundry, went through and organized all of my bathroom (needed to throw away some expired medicines, make some space for all of my grocery game items, etc.), finished our taxes... I LOVE getting so much done. It's so great.

Now that I'm on this organizing frenzy, I'm going to dig some stuff out of our shed tonight. Geoff threw some boxes in there when he moved in, and I think they need to come out. He says most are office supplies. So I'm looking forward to doing that. During this process, I've come up with lots of stuff to donate, and I don't know where to donate this stuff? Like full-size bottles of shampoo and conditioner, plus tons of samples/trial sizes of things - makeup, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, etc. Plus I have a feeling we're going to have office supplies to donate after I go through all of our stuff tonight (I have a bunch too). Where do you donate that type of stuff? I actually talked to my sister about it and she said she would LOVE to have some of that stuff next year when she's in grad school (she's already worried about being a poor grad student), so some I will save for her. But still - where WOULD you donate that type of stuff if you wanted to?

Numbers Dropping

For as long as I can remember (since high school maybe?) I have always been annoyed when people "numbers drop". This seems to happen often in the type of setting where people are trying to brag or show off... "Dude, I got this new $45,000 car. Sweet!" or "Oh my goodness, did you see her? She must be wearing $150 jeans, I wonder how she affords that?" It always seems obnoxious to me.

Well lately, as my blog seems to be having more of a personal finance spin, I have been including numbers in my blog as well. To me, it's different to say "I spent $20 on groceries this week, I was able to save a lot by matching up coupons and sales" - trying to convey a message of savings! - then to talk about an expensive new toy. Numbers in personal finance blogs or a conversation about personal finance NEVER bother me. Like a friend saying "I'm trying to decide between a car that I sorta want that's $15,000 and one that I REALLY want that's $20,000 and I just don't know if it's worth the difference - what do you think?" or "I got a great deal on my new cable package, by adding in a phone line to my cable and internet I actually SAVE $10 a month!" That is actually useful information - it might lead me to look into finding out if a similar package is available in my area.

So I guess I don't like numbers dropping unless it has a "practical" purpose (typically of education). But what do you think - does it bother you regardless? Or do you not even notice? Unless given feedback otherwise, I will continue to maintain my policy of using numbers where I feel it's educational, and refraining from "dropping" them otherwise.

"All our freezing is not for naught!"

Geoff and I have been leaving the heater off a LOT at our house lately. Basically it is on from about 5 PM to 9 PM most nights - we turn it off when we got to bed, then leave it off until we get home from work the next day. We do this to "be green" and to save money. It's just the two of us, we're perfectly capable of putting on a sweater, and we just don't care about being super warm all the time. Well, last year in the February billing cycle the heating bill was $89.52. Today I got an email saying our statement was ready for viewing, and I was like "cool, maybe it will be like $75". Geoff thought "maybe it's even better, like $60!!!" So I went to view it... and $49.68! I couldn't believe the difference. It's not like it was on non-stop last winter... we have one of those programmable thermostats... but I guess turning it off for 20 hours every day really makes a HUGE difference! Awesome! :)

The title of my post? A quote from Geoff. ;-)

400th post

This is my 400th post (yay?) and I don't really have anything. Just one small CNN mistake: Huckabee's Saturday wins show that Republicans are necessarily following in line behind McCain, the Arizona senator and presumptive nominee

Think that should be NOT necessarily. Geoff sent me an ESPN mistake the other day, but I don't want to get into ALL news-type website mistakes. Just CNN. :) Geoff is on a Men's Retreat this weekend, so I'm just hanging out by myself. I went downtown to Kristie's last night, that was super fun. Today I've just been hanging out. I watched True Lies on TV and now SWAT is on. I'm also waiting for the Grocery Game lists for this week to post. And that's really about it!

Why I am who I am

I haven't blogged in almost a week. I haven't been able to determine any good blog fodder. There was a question about how I became such a Peak Oil freak but I'm annoyed with Peak Oil so I'm trying to avoid that topic. Then there's the Grocery Game but I figure no one cares how much I spend on groceries. Geoff found a CNN mistake this morning (Traditionally Democratic western Tennessee is now the fastest-growing part of the state, but he region's economic expansion has bolstered an increasing GOP edge) but that's not worth a whole blog. There have been a few other things here and there but nothing substantial. Last night though, I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep, I was thinking about how a specific purchase we are making later this month won't actually be due on the credit card bill until APRIL. [Edit: People want to know what this elusive purchase is... we're just pre-paying the rent on our trailer storage facility for 6 months. The rent is going up by $6 a month but you have the option to pre-pay for 6 months at the old rate. Since the $6 a month difference is more than we would make in interest, it is worth it to pre-pay, especially since we know we will be at this same facility for that duration. Barring any great disaster.] That made me think about what has shaped me into who I am (finances-wise) today.

My dad was always conservative with money. I remember when I was little, he would always cut coupons, and he and my grandmother loved shopping at one particular Houston grocery store because they would double and sometimes even triple coupons. I also recall one time trying to go through and organize his coupon book (he had two - one black and one brown), but he told me that his store took expired coupons so I shouldn't take those out. These are memories from being under 10 years old. In high school, one of the Illinois state requirements was a class called consumer economics. Every student had to take this, it was only one semester long, and it was sometimes a scheduling issue for people who were in band, a foreign language, etc. So people who had many other classes and couldn't fit consumer economics in their schedule (like me) often took it in the summer. I believe I took it between my freshman and sophomore years (though it could have been my sophomore and junior year). Anyway - I remember how excited I was to take the class, even though it had a reputation for being kind of boring. I had already learned in a similar class in junior high how to balance a checkbook and things like that, but I loved doing it so I enjoyed that part of the class. I don't remember who my teacher was (I think it was actually a teacher from a different high school) but I remember the room the class met in. One day they were doing some duct work or something in that classroom, so we were in a different classroom. Well that day, I remember something the teacher said that day that I thought was just amazing - he said that by paying with a credit card, you can essentially get FREE MONEY for up to 2 months. I was intrigued! He explained... say your statement period ends on the 20th of every month and your bill is due on the 15th of every month. So if you buy something on February 21st, it will show up on your statement ending March 20th and that bill will be due April 15th. If that item cost $100, and you have that money just sitting in your account waiting to pay for that item for 2 months you can make like 60 cents on the money! By using a credit card and paying it in full every month, you actually MAKE MONEY!! I was amazed by this idea! And I've pretty much done it ever since. :) Looking back, it was probably an idiotic thing to say to 95% of the class (encouraging a room full of 16 year olds to use credit cards?!), but it was brilliant to me. When I was 16 and got my drivers license (the summer after I turned 16 - July 1998), I also got a credit card. It was one of those special credit cards for high school students, from Capital One, where your parents are really the owners but your name is on it but they want to teach you how to use a credit card so they give it to you. That same summer I worked at a place called Card and Party Outlet (where I stayed working for the next 2 and a half years). I think I made $5.75 an hour - whatever it was was a profound raise over the $5 an hour I'd made as a lifeguard the summer before my sophomore year. The lifeguarding summer I had saved up all summer so that I could buy a Gemeinhardt flute (silver head, B foot). I love that flute. Okay, back to finances... when I started working at CPO just after spring break of my sophomore year (my mom had to drive me and pick me up the first 4 months or so) I started saving for a computer when I went to college. I also developed a Beanie Baby habit. ;-) I had never cared about them or really even noticed the excitement of them before I had worked at CPO, but we sold them there and people called about them all the time and I got wrapped up in it. It was kind of silly, but I had so much fun with it - I bought the magazines with checklists so I could see which ones I had, I alphabetized them in several different storage bins, etc. My mom got into it a little bit with me... one day we went to the Ty store in O'Hare airport to see if they had any Beanies that I didn't have (they didn't). We had fun trying to find these crazy little things everywhere! I had probably 300 or so at my peak - I sold most of them the summer before I started college, and then sold all but 2 or 3 of the remainder later in college. I didn't make up what I had spent on them, but it was worth it for the entertainment I had collecting them. Good memories. BACK TO FINANCES! I had that credit card, and I also had a checking account to pay for my credit card... this got me in the habit of depositing my paycheck in the bank that was in the same shopping center as CPO, writing a check to pay for my credit card every month, etc. I don't remember what else I bought on that credit card... gas probably (it cost me $11 to fill my 1997 Chevy Malibu all the time... remember this was 1998 and gas cost 99 cents a gallon!). I would go to the Little Ceasars in the KMart next to CPO when I worked on Saturdays (which was rare - I was generally the Sunday supervisor) and eat lunch. But mostly I bought Beanies and saved money for a computer. The summer before I started college, I ordered a custom HP that cost me $2200. I wanted to have the very best to start with so that I would be able to use it for all 4 years of college (which I did - and my mom used it after that up until about 3 months ago). In college I spent my money on eating out a lot. I had no car my freshman year and no job either. I had an internship with UPS the summer after my freshman year... it was in my hometown (which was nice - it was going to be in downtown Chicago but the district IE manager there called the district IE manager of the Palatine Division and arranged for me to work there!). I worked 1 AM - 9 AM and mostly tried to save money for college the next year. Sophomore year of college, one November day I was sitting in econ class doing the crossword puzzle in The Daily Northwestern, and I read a classified ad looking for tellers at a bank close to campus. That sounded fun! I wasn't really in the market for a job, but really, that sounded fun. So I faxed in my resume and heard nothing for about 3 weeks. During Fall Quarter finals, I got a call from the bank. I went in and interviewed with the VP, and started as a teller after Christmas break. I loved that job! (I have actually loved every job I've ever had). The year after sophomore year, I quit the bank and returned to UPS. I did, however, refer my friend Russ to the bank and he started working there after me (I later referred him to UPS and he worked there, too!). That summer I also bought a car. My sister had turned 16 and got her drivers license during my freshman year of college, so she'd mostly been driving our car when I was at school and we shared for a summer, but it got more difficult the second summer so I decided that I would buy a car. I really wanted a Jeep Liberty (they had come out in 2002), but I knew I couldn't afford that so I considered a Hyundai Santa Fe. I could have afforded that, but my dad HIGHLY discouraged it because he claimed that it would be much better to wait a couple of years until I graduated and then I could get any car I wanted (rather than buying just a very bottom of the line Santa Fe). I have no idea why, but I listened to that advice. Instead, I bought a 1994 Ford Escort. It was black and a two door hatchback and really quite cute. It had those seatbelts that slide over you and I had to deal with manual locks and windows and turning on my own headlights (the Malibu had automatic lights and power locks). But the car was all mine, and I had paid for it in cash that I had earned with my internships and at the bank. I also took the car to school my junior year. That year, I was an RA and the editor in chief of the yearbook, so I couldn't go back to the bank. I did, however, earn free room and board as an RA and a quite generous salary as editor of the yearbook (in addition I got to decide on the salaries for my entire staff of 25 or so based on a fixed budget for salaries - that was cool! I also sat on the board of the Students Publishing Company - looking back that really was a great experience). I continued to spend the majority of my money on eating out (I love eating out!). That year, I accepted an internship in Oregon... the salary was much higher than at UPS, but I was going to have to pay for an apartment, utilities, furniture rental, etc. (things I hadn't paid for when I worked at UPS and lived at home). After all that I made less than I had when I worked at UPS, but it was worth it for the experience. That was the first time I got to make a full budget for myself - rent, utilities, etc. I STILL didn't have to pay for auto insurance, health insurance, etc., but it was a good start. I enjoyed having to actually spend my money on things that I needed to live, instead of just having it mostly as "play money" (above and beyond any real living expenses I was encurring). I was in Oregon for 6 months and then went back to Evanston for the last 6 months of school. While I was in Oregon I started dating someone I knew from Chicago - but he moved to California about 3 weeks before I moved back to Chicago! So I bought several plane tickets that year to go visit him in California - I also remember advice from my parents on this one, to not waste all of my money going to California all the time. This time I did NOT heed the advice and continued going to California. But that was an okay decision too... I had a grand time and really loved getting to know LA! Plus I very clearly remember that phone conversation... I was walking right in front of Scott Hall (the building where Student Affairs is housed) and it was the first time in my life I ever remember deliberately disobeying my parent's advice. But that was an important step to take, making an adult decision based on what I thought was best at the time. And while it may or may not have been the right decision, I'm no worse for the wear and it had to be done! (I know all of the really important moments in my life because I can picture exactly where I was when they took place). I accepted the first job I was offered (which was probably dumb but it made it easy - I didn't worry about any other interviews all year long) and since that happened in January of my senior year I was set after that. I was only taking a few classes, and one of my sorority sisters was doing tons of babysitting. I commented on how fun that would be, so she "gave me" one of her clients. I then babysat a LOT the whole rest of the school year (from late January - June)... it was a great gig. I made $9 an hour babysitting a 2 month old, and could even get some reading done when he was sleeping sometimes! Plus the family's apartment had air conditioning - a blessing as it was VERY hot for quite a bit of May and June that year. When I graduated, I bought my first car, a 2004 Jeep Liberty. [Edited to add: Geoff says this is NOT my first car, Scort was. I said that may be, but in my heart, Jake will always be my first car!] I picked it up on July 13, 2004. My dad was right - I was glad I had waited. I picked out EXACTLY the car I wanted - it was near the end of the model year, so it was hard to find, but they found one at a dealer about 100 miles away. It had 107 miles on it when I got it. AND I got the Jeep "recent college graduate" deal, which gave me the car for 1% under invoice! I sold the Escort (which hadn't been the perfect car - it needed a new transmission and a new radiator, but it served me fine for 2 years) to a nice fellow in a neighboring town - they had wanted to give me between $500 and 600 for a trade in, but I thought that was ridiciulous so I decided to sell it myself. This was pre-Craigslist in Iowa, so I put an ad in the NEWSPAPER and I got a call at 8:30 AM the first morning in ran. That same person (Herb) bought it from me for $1400 - way more than the trade in would have been! Then I moved to Oregon and became a grown-up. Sort of.

So I guess this wasn't really what I intended to write about when I first was thinking of this last night (I really just wanted to talk about that consumer economics teacher who taught me about the advantage of credit cards when used properly... and then maybe a few other things I could remember from my childhood and teenage years that affected me financially). But it ended up being an interesting trip down memory lane, and my various jobs and experiences did shape who I am. I don't know that this even told you who I am... but maybe it was interesting nonetheless. Have a good day! :)