A little Friday night sharing

I suppose this will be brief because I have the attention span of a piece of lint.  I’m debating whether or not to continue on this “vintage” blog (ha!) or if it’s time to start something fresh and new.  Do I stick with the old tried and true or extend out of my familiar to give blogging a fresh start?

Hmm….

Will have to ponder that for a bit.

A sweet friend (square peg, you know who you are!) inspired me to write this evening.  Friendships can be found in many unusual places. That said, the most unusual I’ve experienced was OkCupid.  I was looking for friendship there because I was having a hard time extending out my connections with people in the real world.  One could say (easily) that is a weird place to try, but another electronic friend suggested it, so there you are.

Well, it was an odd odd place.  Maybe even odd odd odd.  

What I did find, however, was the opportunity for friendship with a couple kindred spirits – exactly as I’d hoped for.  Jen and Dory… you both make me smile and I may fade in and out, at least where electronic presence is concerned, but trust me – you are not forgotten.  I’m always glad to hear about your adventures and catch up as if no time had passed.

I send out electronic hugs and kisses to you both, wherever you may be!

And now, I think it’s time for me to retreat.  I’d love to take a nap, but that seems out of place on a Friday night.  

cheers,
moonfire

I’m back! Yay, 2014!

First off, I guess I’m actually back and I see that we now have a new interface for creating a posting.  Nice!  I like it.  It also seems to be less draggy than it used to be.  What is draggy?  Well, it used to lag and I could type faster than the text would appear on the screen.  I’m quite certain that the techie IT-guy husband would explain that it was my system or some such thing.  I don’t care.  I like this better.

So here I am, returning to my aged blog, ready and refreshed.  I also have a goal and may need to split it off in to a new blog.  We’ll see.  To sum up 2013:  My honey quit school.  I quit working on a second bach degree.  We sold our house.  We have simplified life.

Now we’re going in to 2014 with two goals for the year:

1) Financial Health

2) Physical Health

I’m not worrying about the weight thing.  That can be a 2015 or 2016 goal.

I’m also working on a “Positivity” project on FB.  Yes, the dreaded time-suck FB.  I post something positive each day – at least once per day, sometimes more.  Why?  Well, I’ve discovered that gradually over the years I have descended into a fair amount of pessimism that has carried over into all aspects of my life, including work, kids, and my relationship with my husband.  Not a healthy way to live and really destructive on those relationships.  Time to make a change and how better than to try 365 days of not whining in the one forum where it’s easy to whine.  Next year I can expand it beyond FB and see how I do.  I’m not looking for fast changes, just permanent ones.

As for the family’s #1 goal?  I’m using “You need a budget.com” or YNAB.com, for those of us who like things simple.  My first assignment is to write down some short- and long-term financial goals.  So I’ll start here and if I decide to blog my YNAB experiences, I’ll start up a separate blog and load them there.  First I need to make it through the trial period and see if I take to their system.  I like the education component, so I’m hopeful.  Anyway, here is a brief of some of our goals and I’ll firm them up more later (ie, when I can hold a family meeting and see if we all agree or if there are more to add):

Short term – get our monthly income stabilized so we’ve got the right amount being taken out for taxes and can afford all our payments and monthly bills, start a small savings plan for our emergency buffer, get rid of the storage unit so we’re not losing that money each month, get our taxes done correctly so we don’t owe a lot to either federal or state, prepare for the possibility of youngest son needing tonsillectomy. (there are more, but this is just off-the-cuff)

Long term – Get rid of all credit card debt, save for a new vehicle, get through the repayment time on our student loans and then watch the public service forgiveness take care of the remaining balance, get both our credit scores over 750, save for Christmas/gifts and vacations each year, increase our earnings, create solid retirement savings for both of us, save something for the boys for college (even if it’s just enough to help them in the first year).

I have more that I’d like to add for short-term and some are kind of medium-term.  I’m really thinking that I need to get it all written down and perhaps brainstorm with my honey, who is all to apt to just tune out anything to do with finances.  I should also add that I’d like to teach my kids how to handle money responsibly, since that hasn’t been done and in a few years (at least for my oldest) it will be a necessary life skill for them to have.

Well.  There it is.  I’m done for now, but will be back once I figure out where I’m heading with all this.   Here’s to 2014 and all the potential that exists for it since we’re in January and anything seems possible.

cheers,
moonfire

need to let it out

I know it has been a long, long time, but I really needed to vent so here I am.  Our house is on the market.  The kids are recovering from a lengthy bout of illness.  I’m trying to NOT get sick.  I hate my clean house. 

It’s a weird and rough buyer’s market here and honestly, I don’t think we’re going to get any offers.  Perhaps next spring, but not right now.  It’s freaking cold and we have to finish up MORE sod this Saturday.  I love the new sod – so pretty and bright, but being out in this cold is going to suck.  I did confirm that it’s not too cold to install it.  yay.

I just need a break from it all.  A real break, too.  Not the frantic “make everything look perfect” and then get the hell out so the house can be shown break.  I really need to get away from it all.  I need my kids to be healthy.  I need to be healthy.  I need a break from demands both at home and at work.

But no.  It’s not going to happen.  People will keep nattering at me. 

I promise I’ll take it all in stride but right now – here – tonight – I’ve had it. 

an uncomfortable time

Well, it has been a while.  I’ve been hanging out on tumblr periodically and getting in too much FB, especially damned Candy Crush Saga.

Life has gone into an uncomfortable place, for a number of reasons.  My youngest is going in for an adenoidectomy on Aug. 1 and the wait is a test for the patience (limited) of each of us.  He is one miserable little person and his weight is bottomed out.  I want to cry each time I look at him and feel his tiny little legs.  My oldest is hanging in there, but I have to wonder if the stresses in the family don’t dig into him.  

I had to be a part of a meeting at work this week that can best be described as “kicking a puppy” for how awful it made me feel.  How bad I feel was far exceeded by the recipient of the meeting and I can only hope that incredible things happen for her, as that would be the best possible outcome.

I’d like to write more about the other uncomfortable situation, but truthfully, I don’t know if I can do it in a public forum and so I think I’ll tuck it away inside myself.  I’d like to lance it from my system, as I don’t have another outlet, but there’s too much possibility of hurt.

Why is being an adult so hard?  Why are we left so aware of the possibilities and yet, often, not able to achieve them.  Why be able to imagine the best of worlds, but be stuck in the mud?

I threw a coin into a fountain last week, wishing for some relief for my son and some good health for my family.  I threw a second one for financial peace.  I guess I should have added one coin more… for peace, period.

On that note, I’m going to bed.

moonfire

I give up, I’m back.

WordPress, I just can’t seem to give you up.  I like tumblr for the visuals, but don’t like the lack of comment ability on posts and the text posts get lost in the deluge of images.  So that will be my visual blog and this will be my writing place.  Sometimes you just have to give in to your personality and roll with it.

So along with that, I have to say finding out that my children are predominantly visual-spatial learners (with both having a high likelihood of being kinesthetics, too) has been eye-opening.  To find out that I, myself, am a high visual-spatial learner, in combination with verbal and logic, was equally amazing.  Now it might now seem important, but I truly had no idea that not everyone thinks in images/smells/tastes.  In fact, to be honest, I’m having a really hard time imagining how non-visual-spatials do think.

My situation with the boys is complicated by the fact that I’m ultra high verbal.  Try helping expressive speech-delayed kids when you’re highly verbal.  It’s like trying to teach someone to catch water with a tea cup by spraying them with a hose.  Yeah.  It’s that successful.

My kids need some special handling because the typical sequential learning is not always going to work well for them.  My oldest demonstrates exactly the kind of issues these kids face – high performing during the young years when physical manipulatives were common and descending performance as more sequential processing has become standard in his class.  He started to run up against this in 3rd grade and it has partially continued in 4th grade.  The fact that he has an incredibly talented and creative teacher has been a big part of why he hasn’t completely fallen through the cracks.

She’s the one who got me to look into the possibility that the reason he’s having issues in the traditional classroom is this thinking/processing style that is so different.  Couple it with the expressive speech problems and without intervention, he could turn into the classic gifted underachiever.  So here’s my comment to those of you who see a pattern of a high-performing kid starting to drop off around 3rd or 4th grade… check in with them on how they perceive the world.  Start looking into visual-spatial learners (VSL).  Please do not assume that they are struggling because of a character defect or effort issues (one book I looked into actually said this!).  These kids are highly sensitive to criticism, emotionally astute (they pick up on non-verbal emotional clues easily) and they can be successful with some adaptations to the learning strategies.

So I’ve got some “assigned” reading to do over the spring break.  Oooh, sounds like fun!

moonfire

so very tired

Having fun at the other site, but thought I’d check in for those that don’t want to dig through the random images I’ve been collecting.  I stayed up too late last night and forgot to take a sleeping pill before actually sacking out.  Busy Brain woke me at 4am and it was downhill from there.  Why Mr. Insomnia, why?

Work and school are going swimmingly.  Family is happy, although the healthy part continues to elude us.  So unfair that these germs keep resurrecting.

Meant to tackle housework today and joy of joys, I’m too tired to even read.  I think I could nap but then what would that do to my sleep pattern this evening?

Life can be so difficult sometimes.  If this is the only problem I’m currently experiencing, then I’d have to say that I’m more than a bit lucky.

I’ve sort of moved to a “new location”

Find me at funnyirl.tumblr.com  and I may once in a while return here, but Funny In Real Life is where I feel more at home.

Admit it… we all saw this coming, right?  I have the attention span of a gnat.  I may return once in a while for a longer post, but I like the interface and I’m LOVING the images that I can share.  And I’m a giant lazy butt.

So come find me there.  It may be random, but it’s fun.