Thankful

Some things I am thankful for these past few weeks:

• My friend Ashley, and her asking her husband, Lawrence, who fixed our garage door
• My friends Angie and Lindsey who I was able to get together with and where we can just pick up where we left off even if we haven't seen each other in awhile
• Hanging out with Lindsey to watch our movie series--that I only watch with her
• Being able to see Tim's brother and niece and nephews twice in a few weeks after not seeing them for three years
• Having Tim's mom come out from Ohio
• My great manager and coworkers
• God's care for me providing our needs

Tim's Student Loans--Update

I have been getting tired of paying these, so thought I would write out where we are at with Tim's loans so I can continue to feel like this is an exciting challenge so that I can continue to be motivated to keep going with payments!

As of today, August 10:

ISL: $8,213.22

ACS:  $37,369.95

In October:

ISL:  $11,820.06

ACS: $39,305.69

Well, not as much as a difference as I would like, but it's something, so this visualization has helped me mentally keep going!

New Carpet!

A few months ago, Wells Fargo decided to charge me for having a little savings account. Well, instead of moving the money I had in there to our regular checking account, I asked Tim if we could get new carpet instead. I was having bad allergies and I didn't think the carpet was helping matters. I scraped up $1,800 to spend, including birthday, piano, and amazon visa rewards $$. It is tough when you are on a tight budget and have $50,000 in schools loans.

Well, the carpet total came out to $1,827! I was so happy!

Wow, ripping up the carpet was a lot of work! I wanted to save a couple hundred dollars though since I only had $1,800 to spend. It really hurt my wrists--especially pulling up all those staples that held the padding!  

Here is what the house looked like when we toured it. I was not that excited about it. ;)

 

Ripping up the carpet!
It was so dirty, it made my nose hurt so bad and I didn't feel good after I ripped it out each day I did. It took me many days to rip it out! Little by little.

 

Notice the orange up the stairs in the background? Yeah, it's hideous.

   

Yes, it's ugly. I know. 

  

We found this little treasure when we were moving furniture! I was so happy! I just got this for Tim for Christmas, and the last one before this was stolen! He thought he lost it outside. Praise God we found it, I was praying we would! 

 

Tada!! It's so nice!!! Tim says it's like walking on clouds. We love it!

  I LOVE how my piano room looks!

 Timmy likes it. :) I am so thankful! 

 

Oven & Thankfulness

So the oven part of our range died. The stove still worked, but not the oven. I knew it would be a lot to fix because service calls are outrageous, so I tried to figure out how to fix it by looking at the online manual. I figure it was just a switch to the gas that needed reset or something. Well, the manual pictures were not very good and I couldn't find what they were trying to tell me. I think I may have had the wrong manual anyway. :) So we had to call a repair person and $200 later, it's fixed. Yes, I did not want to spend all that money, especially as I was trying to save the money that we had from paying off one school loan to put toward another, but thoughts of thankfulness entered my mind. I am so thankful that I have an oven and a house to put it in. I am thankful for that blessing! God is good to us and He provided the money to pay for the oven repair. A new oven that I want is over $1,500, so while I save money for a new one someday, I will enjoy my $200 repair and my old oven in all it's glory.

Hawaii

I was able to go to Hawaii from December 6-12. I visited a friend from school, Cassie, and was able see this beautiful place. God's creation is amazing!!!

I was able to fly around the island in a little plane. That was such a wonderful experience. I would love to go to Maui and Kauai and ride a plane around those islands too.

These are just a few of many pics. I feel so blessed to have been able to visit such a beautiful place, and am thankful for the money provided so I could go, as well as the people there I could stay with.

Shoes

So I've had the same brown clogs for...at least 8 years and it shows:

The middle of both shoes can bend in half and the heel of both is missing most of the rubber. They were really not good for my feet or posture, but I still wanted to wear them as they still were comfortable.

I am really picky when it comes to shoes, so it has really frustrated Tim over the years. :) Finally, we found some! Actually Tim found one that I had completely passed over! I got a black and brown pair. I needed black because my black boots' heels were half there too...*sigh*

Tim found these black ones! He was so proud of himself! :)
Pretty excited to find shoes I actually liked. :)

Operation School Loans: 1 PAID!

In an earlier post, I listed Tim's school loans so I could get a visual. I am happy to say that we paid the Sallie Mae loan with our tax return! I am SO EXCITED. One down, two huge ones to go, but it's a start and I am so thankful!

Sallie Mae, originally: $7,815.21
Amount Still Left when we paid it off: $2,555.68

At the rate we were going now, it would have been another 2 years before we would have paid this off!

YAY!