Monthly Update(or so it seems)

I seem to only be doing blog entries about every month or so. In some ways, I'd like to be doing them more often, but I'm not, so that's why this one got the title it did. And considering how hard it often is for me to come up with entry titles, I'm glad this one was so easy, lol.

Katrina's due date with #2 is now 8/25. But, since we know it'll be a C-section, the actual birthdate could be as much as a week before that. Which is kind of interesting, since exactly a week before that is 8/18, which is Tim Powers' birthday, and he's the baby's namesake if it's a boy.

And we'll know the gender sometime in the next week or so, since Kat went for an amniocentesis last Thursday. That was actually her 2nd, but the first one didn't work out, since the baby got too curious and too close to the needle. If the 2nd one hadn't worked out, we weren't gonna go for a 3rd try, so we're especially glad that it did. Of course, finding out the gender was NOT why she had the test, but that is one of the results that you get from it.

In other "news", the impossibly noisy people living above us moved out(!), and a mother and her 2 kids moved in. I didn't meet them till they showed up at our church, at nursery, my last Sunday there(in Nursery, not my last Sunday @Church, lol). They've been back every week since, which is a good thing. But they haven't been in nursery much, cuz the girl, Olyvia, is old enough to stay in service till the "big kids" leave and go to the older kids CE class and the boy, Jonathan, is going thru a phase where he's uncomfortable around female strangers. Iow, he'll prolly only be down in nursery when I'm there(or when Jeff Schiavone's there?), at least for now.

We finally had our first deacon's meeting with Randy last month. We're getting the church an official website and domain name, and Randy's seriously looking into evicting Little Acorn at the end of this school year. All of this is good news, imo.

Baseball season's approaching and I'm excited, as usual. I've been looking forward to this Saturday's "Blue Rocks BASH" for over a month now, and that's not even a live game! Naturally, it's supposed to rain on Saturday, but they'll still have it, we'll still go, and we'll hang out in the Quarry if we have to.

I'm trying to spend less time online, more time with Becky, and more time getting things DONE around the house. I started taking actions and DOing things to get our apartment a little(or maybe even a LOT?) less "clutterized" yesterday, and I feel very good about that. It'll take a lot of discipline, determination, and general "stick-to-it-iveness" to keep it going, but I'm really gonna try to make it happen. And to KEEP it unclutterized once I GET it that way too!

I'm also trying to speed up our debt repayment process. I sent a payment of over $500 to one of our credit cards about a month ago, which FINALLY got it back under limit(and even left some leeway under the credit limit) for the first time in awhile. It really felt good, if not great, so it motivated me to do more of the same with other creditors.

Things with Cambridge are progressing nicely. Yes, it's slow, but things didn't get this way overnight, so they're not gonna get all fixed overnight either.

But, as slow as it is, it's really starting to look good. I forget exactly when we enrolled with them, but it's been about a year. Which means that we've only got about another year and a half till ALL the bills we put with them are PAID IN FULL!

Some of them are already very low already. 2 or 3 of them are already below $100. Of course, the biggest part of it is that we haven't been able to use any of the accounts we put with them since we enrolled. Paying something each month isn't the hard part, not using the card/s and re-upping the balance on it/them IS.

Kat got a raise last month. It was a cost-of-living raise/increase, but it may have also included her annual raise, we're not yet sure. Either way, it was nice, and she's now making the most she's ever made at any job anywhere!

We're going to try to continue living on what she was making before the increase and put the difference in each check into savings. We're really gonna need that when she's out on maternity leave, since she'll only be getting about half-pay for those 12 weeks. We'll be ok, but having "extra" saved up won't hurt either.

Once she's back at work after the baby, we want to get her 401K(or whatever they call it in the nursing profession; it has a different name, I just forget what it is) started up. We've got NO retirement fund/s or investments right now, and the savings we'll be doing for her maternity leave is the first "savings" we've had in a long time. And, as my dad would say, "That's not saving, that's only deferred spending". We've got life insurance, and I'm pretty sure Kat's got a pension where she's working, but it won't be enough. My dad's "retirement stool" analogy is a hard one to forget, and impossible to refute.

But even tho we're still in significant debt, don't have any savings or investments, and aren't anywhere near able to afford a car anytime soon, we're still doing MUCH better with our spending habits. Among other things, we haven't put anything on credit OR been to AC in over a year. Even tho the former of those is little more than a "consequence" of enrolling with Cambridge, I think they're still both significant achievements. As is enrolling with Cambridge(and keeping with it; not defaulting on it or ever being late on a payment) as well.

We DO want to get a car relatively soon tho. No, not before the baby comes, and prolly not anytime in '05, but the sooner the better. At the very least, I want to get my license back, so we can rent a car for trips to Kat's family and elsewhere.

When I first sat down to do this entry, I expected to be mentioning Terry Schiavo a lot sooner than now. I don't really want to get into it in depth, but suffice it to say that I think the courts did the RIGHT thing here. Not only am I NOT in agreement with the vast majority of the "religious right", or the "conservatives/conservative Christians", or the(so-called) "Pro-life movement" here, but their hypocrisy, utilitarianism, double-speak, and other unsavory tactics with regard to their stand and statements on and about this issue/s totally disgusts me! It almost makes me sorry to identify myself as "pro-life(a dangerous "buzz word" to use, even before the Schiavo circus)", or as any of the other terms that seem to be used to describe her parent's supporters(and her husband's demonizers)!

I can't wait to watch "Countdown with Keith Olberman" tonight. He's been a rare voice of objectivity in all the reporting on this, and his perspective on the overall "circus" should be refreshing as well. I'll prolly also watch Dennis Miller's show tonight. He's conservative without being a lemming, so I'm sure he'll have a unique take as well, and as always.

As many of you already know, I watch the 700 Club rather regularly. I don't agree with everything they say or support there, but I still support their ministry - especially Operation Blessing - overall. In fact, we became members of the 700 Club this year and hope to increase our giving there in the not-too-distant future.

Anyway, there was a feature on today's program(and you can watch today's program, as well as any in the last 2 weeks, online at cbn.org ) about the fact that several homosexual activist groups are planing a TEN DAY pro-homosexual event, called the "world pride parade", IN JERUSALEM this August. They gave a web address to go to where you'd find(among other things) a petition AGAINST this planned event to read and sign.

So, I went there, read the petition, and signed it. If you'd like more info, go to http://www.israelblessgod.com And if, like me, you don't need any more info to know that you want to(read and) sign the petition, go to http://www.israelblessgod.com/protest_petition.asp
I don't often post or forward stuff like this(via e-mail), but I'm making an exception here.