You know what, I continue to Not Be Happy. I can't seem to find the time to "catch up" after being gone for 2 weeks (end of December, beginning of January) do what I "love" (which is this). I'm "down to" 98 emails that I need to answer in my inbox -- I mean, how does this HAPPEN?
So, as I know that my blog is not viewed by many, I thought I would share the following....oh, big secret. I got married in Hawaii. Yes, my James and I "tied the knot." Not even my mom knows. Here are the pictures:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=19ozr0ly.8hak7x56&Uy=-29smz8&Ux=0
We are "really" getting married in September (of this year), but my James wasn't happy with the "big do" idea -- so I had a "little do" just for us.
We are going to the French Laundry for Valentine's (www.frenchlaundry.com) -- supposedly the best restaurant in the U.S. -- remind me to tell you all about the "concierge" thing if I haven't done that. We're celebrating 2/2 (as that's when we could get the reservations).
I think it's Chinese New Year -- which gives me another chance for a "new start" at getting my blog, book, etc. together!
We DID get me "moved in" this weekend -- in and among the rain (and taking 2 TONS of green waste to the dump in the moving van first. TWO TONS!) So now 80% of my stuff (nearly all) is down in the garage. Time to start sorting and such -- gotta be "light" as a Bond grrl!
More later -- yeah, so I say.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, secret, don't forget :-)
Solitaire
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2 comments:
I knew you were going to do that. When you said that you were going to Hawaii. I'm so happy for you and James!! You just don't know. The pics are so beautiful! You and James looked so good together! You two kissed a lot too during the wedding. Just couldn't wait till the end??? :)
Now what do you mean you are not happy?? You are a newly wed! You are still happy! Forget those emails. I know you "love" this but we, your public will just have to wait. You now have to add "wife" to your credentials. And, from what I've seen that the hardest title to hold.
Your secret is safe with me,excluding everyone I know. ;)
That's right, couldn't wait :-) It's pretty funny, I have "visions" of all the grrls in Chicago knowing and of course shhhhh no one here. :-)
We are actually doing GREAT. The move is killing us, sorting thru my stuff is killing me. But one story I need to tell has to do with my friend "Gold Rush" (her Bond grrl name), who met her "James soulmate" (I have talked about her before -- she's the one I taught how to "walk"). Before we left for Hawaii, she called us, said that her James had "hurt his leg," it wasn't getting better, and so they went to the doctor -- turned out to be a fast-growing bone cancer. We went to their house (I'm a notary) for my James to "witness his will" and me to notarize it -- but we were all joking, etc. etc. during the whole thing...kinda "wow, this is such a bummer, BUT..."
That was 12/24 -- by 12/31 he had passed. In fact, one of the pictures was me talking on the phone to her about the whole thing. It was unreal.
She's coming to stay with us this weekend (her ex-hubby has the kids), and one of the things she talked about was Do Not Wait. Do Not Wait to get out of debt. Do Not Wait to go through your clothes. Do Not Wait to get yourself "congruent" with your awesome Bond Grrl self.
She had broken up with her husband -- who had really just "held her down" for years. She's a big woman, and I will never forget when I was teaching her to walk, etc. saying something about lingerie....she took down this ENORMOUS tub of lingerie, lots of it with the tags still on. I teased her ("are you a lingerie pig...?") and she got all emotional, saying that most of it was from her bachelorette party (which at that point was 10 YEARS before), and she had worn one little number to bed with her now ex-husband, then fiance, and he said she looked like a "sausage in satin." Did she call off the wedding? NO (silly!) She put the lingerie all away, not to come down again until that one day when we were there.
We went through ALL of it, I made her try it ALL ON and told her what looked GREAT on her, what she was never going to get into so she should "gift" etc. etc. It was so amazing. But going thru that, sorting, sifting, and getting her "luscious underneath" -- even tho she was bigger than she wanted to be -- started her on the path to meeting her "soulmate" (the man who just passed).
She also started getting her "house in order" debt-wise. She had been using "credit card therapy" when she was married -- we talked about that too. This is a very smart woman -- but it's tough when you're not happy, and that latte/manicure/purse/whatever just "looks like a treat" and you "need" a treat. That's just gotta stop.
How I suggest it is take a BIG BREATH and then total up all the debt -- everything -- meaning the stuff you're not paying, the stuff you're avoiding, all of it. It's all a big black hole on your Bond Grrl ideals! Add it up and then have a cry. Then start to DEAL.
The best way to deal is to first wrap up your credit cards in 3 sandwich bags, one inside the other (zip, wrap, put in the next bag, zip, warp, etc.) Then put those in a milk carton and fill with water -- and FREEZE. Yes, you heard me. Now you are a "cash only" grrl. You still have those cards if there is a true "emergency" (e.g., the heater goes out), but they are not in your pocket when the "I am feeling like I need a treat" insect bites.
Then, look at your debt, figure out which of it has the highest interest rate. And start paying that down. The thing is, everything EVERYTHING needs to be cash now. So since that's the case, you can actually figure out how long it will take to pay your debt down -- take the full amount, multiply it by the average interest rate (which is probably in the teens), and that's how much interest you're paying on that monster. As an example, if you have $20,000 worth of debt, and don't add ANY to it, then at 15% you pay $3,000 "worth" of interest on it....the thing is, credit cards "compound." What that means is that the interest you earn on that card in one month, there is then interest "on that interest" the next month, and so on and so on. It never ends.
Once this scary proposition comes to mind, it's time to get Bond Grrl Determined. Let's say, like I said, you have $20,000 worth of debt. With compounding, the interest at 15% (which is low -- some are in the 20s!) is going to be somewhere around $5,000 per year (YES, that's nearly 1/4 more per year that you "add on" just in the interest). Now I am not good in math, but going with this, and forgive me for not compounding or continuing to add the interest etc., but let's say that you just take that $20,000 (not even including that nasty interest creep) and you say "I can afford $100/month." That means it will take 200 months -- or close to SEVENTEEN YEARS -- to paying that off.
Yikes.
This is why the cards have to go and everything has to go to cash IMMEDIATELY. Because the cards have to be paid off -- unfortunately most Jameses are in this sort of trouble too (they are often WORSE than the Bond Grrls b/c they don't feel GUILTY about it), and so there is no way to get "saved" by someone swooping in and saying "Bay-bee, I gunna just save your debt life." :-)
I wound up cutting down to pretty much "pork and beans" -- I took on another job -- I did it all to pay down my debt. Because I realized that it was just like the cancer that took my friend's James -- it is SAPPING your life AWAY. I wound up paying -- yes, it's true -- nearly $1500/month towards those cards. I cut all my magazine subscriptions, gym memberships, found cheap gas, I did it all. Swallowed my "oh, don't worry about its" and made people chip in for bridge/gas/etc. -- I became a "cheapskate."
BUT -- now I am FREE.
I am not sure where this came from or where it's going -- but I know you hear what I'm saying. This is the year to get control of that, to shake off that cancer, to just be DONE WITH it. And once you are, no joke, really, you can do ANYTHING. Because it's such a huge feat to do it -- to find the bravery to battle that debt first of all, the bravery to look at the long term versus the "gimme that now I feel low" short term, to instill in our kids the understanding about money that we somehow got away from.
I watch my James' daughter, who is 25, and she has no concept of money because he didn't instill it in her. Her credit score is so bad, she could NEVER buy a home. She gets her phone turned off for non-payment, she can't get apartments because her TRW sucks, she doesn't have a work ethic. This is so tough to watch. My James had to raise her alone (his wife left him and her when the baby was 3), and so maybe didn't have all the "equipment" to "parent" her into a successful adult, I don't know. But for those parents out there, that is the most important thing I can say -- you ARE the "world" to your children. You need to make sure that they understand -- in a fun way -- that you live the life that you want for THEM -- that money doesn't "come out of the wall" (as my friend's son thinks when she goes to the ATM -- she thinks it's "cute" I think it's awful)....we have to raise our kids to understand all this, and to be a "team" with us as we conquer our own issues with money, "love," bravery, short term gratification, fat, body image, and all the like.
Because I think of my friend's James -- no joke. He was dead in 3 weeks. I can't believe it. He was 45 years old. The nicest, kindest, gentlest, fun-loving, greatest guy. And (unfortunately) now my friend is having to deal with the fact that ~he~ didn't have his house in order when he died -- oh my. Don't do this to your kids, your family..........
OK enough enough :-)
Solitaire
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