Day 202 and just a quick check-in

I made it to Tahlequah and back safely. I'm exhausted tonight and heading to bed pretty quickly. I had a great time and I am glad to be home!

Day 201 and headed out with "my girls" today

Well, I'm headed to Tahlequah with "my girls" today, 3 of my best friends in child care and in the world. Yeah, I know, I'm a dorky sap. That's okay. That's me. LOL. I know it's a long drive with gas so high, but this conference is usually awesome, it's reasonably priced (almost enough to make up for the gas!), and it's a chance to spend time with my friends. I'll be back late tomorrow evening. I'll try to post if I can, if not, I'll "see" you on Sunday.

Oh, good news! I found out yesterday that I got a Sooner Heritage scholarship which should provide me with enough financial aid to cover my classes and fees. I can pull together enough money to buy my books. That takes care of this year's college financial needs. Hopefully I'll be able to finish up next fall! It's been wonderful how both years, the Lord has provided me enough to pay the tuition and fees and last year, even a little extra with some extra scholarships I applied for. He has been so good and faithful to me as I follow this dream!

Day 200 and Wow! Day 200!!!!

Ok, my first thought today is just "wow!" I've done this blog for 200 days.

Today's post at Frugal Dad talks about emergency funds, which got me to thinking about ours. I sometimes feel like we are stuck at Dave Ramsey's Baby Step 1: get $1000 into a baby emergency fund. We've been there and back a couple of times. LOL. But then I went in and added up all the unexpected expenses we've used it for, and it comes to over $2000 in the last several months! That would have caused major stress for us before, but we've had the money to take care of these emergencies and that is a huge blessing. Right now, our EF is at $345 and we've still got Josh's car repairs to take care of (although he is paying for at least part of it). So we need to get busy building it back up. I'm going to try and come up with some ways to do that. I know we've got some change saved, I'll roll it and cash it in and use it to put a little bit in the EF. I also have a couple more textbooks that I can list on half.com. Neither one of them are real high $, but every little bit helps. I'm also hoping for some drop-ins when school starts for some extra income that I can add to the EF. I could use some more ideas, too, if anyone has any to share!

Day 199 and things are going to start getting busy!

Dangit, I've had a sinus headache for 2 days now. Ugh!

Ok, a bit of a debt update finally. As of the credit card payments that I just mailed out within the lst few days, we are up to $6667.60 in debt paid off. July has been a really slow month, but things will start picking up in the next few weeks.

I ordered my books for my first session of college classes that start August 25th. I'll be taking 12 hours again this semester, 6 the first 8 weeks and 6 the second 8 weeks. OU has raised their tuition AGAIN so I'm just hoping & praying that I get enough financial aid to cover my classes. Next week, we have our first club meeting, I have parent/Tracy conferences, the week after that one of the child care associations start meeting, etc. etc.! Life is going to get busy!

Day 198 and the Moment is as it is

Last week I went into Child Care Finders in Enid to make some copies and I was able to borrow a set of DVD's on the Conscious Discipline system by Dr. Becky Bailey. Some of you already know that Dr. Bailey is one of my heroes. Anyway, I've been watching the DVD's as I've had time and one I watched today talked about accepting each moment as it is. We can't change what's happened in it (no matter how badly we may want to). We can only face what's happened, accept it, and move forward. If we refuse to accept the moment as it is, we're saying that the moment wasn't good enough and that we're not good enough. I'm thinking this really applies to our financial life, and kind of goes back to my time machine post of a few weeks ago. We can't change any of the foolish things we've done. I can't change what my income was like this summer, but I do know that the lower enrollment on some days has been really good for me mentally and I am feeling ready to get back into my college classes and have my child care be full again. I can't change what Josh did to his car, but I can be (and really am!) extremely grateful that it was just his car that was hurt and not him. I guess what I"m saying is that I want to stop fighting against what is and accept each moment as it comes. (You guys feel free to remind me of this in a few weeks when I'm whining about something else, LOL).

Day 197 and It's Back to Work We Go!

Hi ho! Hi Ho! It's back to work we go!

Greetings everyone! I'm back to work today. I'm getting to ease back in with just one child! This week is actually pretty quiet all around, and may be the last quiet week of the summer. In the next couple of weeks, things will probably be returning to normal.

Now a praise report: I've already told you that my two full-time spots are filled. I contacted the lady that I interviewed with before vacation and offered her a drop-in slot during the school day and she will be coming by to pick up paperwork. I have another possibility for a drop-in during the school day. That would be a huge blessing and allow us to work on rebuilding that baby EF back up and then hit some debt hard. I've kind of felt like we've been treading water all summer (which is better than drowning, LOL).

Day 196 and just a few more hours!

In just a few more hours, Tom & I will be back at work. Wow, this week went by fast. I think I'm ready to go back to work. Guess it doesn't matter if I am or not, because I'll be back at it tomorrow. LOL.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!