Ups and Downs

It has been a month full of ups and downs. Literally. One day Tara would be covered with lumps...


...and after a treatment at Red Bank Veterinary Hospital, they would be gone.












Now if only they would STAY gone. Everyone following on Facebook knows that Tara is now on her third protocol. The first one worked great, but only for 4-6 days at a time. By the time her weekly appointment with the oncologist rolled around, the lesions were creeping back. They kept coming back faster and more numerous as the weeks went by, so Tara was switched to a second protocol. That was last Wednesday. Things looked good on Thursday, but by Friday the lumps returned. Over the weekend, they kept growing, and more and more kept coming. Clearly protocol 2 wasn't working. Tara went back to Red Bank on Tuesday, and the oncologist put her on yet another protocol. It's Thursday now, and the lumps are getting smaller, but not at the rapid pace that they shrunk up before. Maybe that's a good thing, though. Maybe this time they will slowly shrink up and go away and stay away. Maybe the third time is the charm???

On another matter, totally unrelated to Tara, (who am I kidding, everything I think about and everything I do is 100% related to Tara), remember those posts I did a while ago about getting out of debt? You know, how I took a second job, and I cut up all my credit cards and vowed never to go into debt again? Funny thing about that... It's not gonna happen. I cash flowed the first month of Tara's treatment from my emergency fund (after all, what could possibly be more of an emergency than a sick dog, right?) but that well quickly ran dry, and guess who opened up a credit card?

It's not a terrible kind of credit card, though. It's called "Care Credit" and it's only for medical or dental expenses, for you and your pets. I hate posting about this and including a link, but I thought I would mention it in case anyone else finds themselves in a similar situation.

So, back to Tara. I don't want anyone to think that I'm allowing Tara to be used as a canine pincushion or a lab rat. I hate the fact that she is getting poison in her system every week. I hate the fact that that there isn't one treatment that works for every dog. I hate the fact that Tara's case is atypical, which just adds another element of surprise. (These kinds of surprises I could do without!) That's a lot of hate. But, as long as Tara is tolerating the chemo well with no (or minimal) side effects, we are going to give her every shot (no pun intended) to go into remission.

In the meantime, Tara spends her days hanging out with her brother and sister...

...taking naps...












...letting the ceiling fan blow her belly hair...












...and modeling mommy's knitting.

Tara thanks everyone for their continued prayers and healing vibes. She says she can feel your support, and it just makes her want to fight all that much harder. Keep 'em coming!

Pass the Marshmallows...

A few weeks ago, I was feeling like I was going nowhere with my get-out-of-debt plan, so I decided to figure out how much I had paid off since my last bonfire. I removed the chains from the Chain of Shame, it made a tidy little pile.



Time to break out the matches...

...and celebrate...

...and then go deeper into debt:



Yep, the Fortescue house is now officially under contract! Woo Hoo! All I need now is the mortgage commitment, which should come through by June 10th. That will keep everything on track to have the survey, inspections, certifications, blah, blah, blah, done by the settlement date of June 30th!

It looks like June will be a big month around here, with Dad's thyroid surgery on the 8th, and mom's esophagus surgery on the 14th. Fortunately, dad is already stocking up on supplies in anticipation of spending time in Fortescue in the next couple of months.

What supplies?



BUG SPRAY!

In Which The Chain Of Shame Gets A Little Smaller...

It's been just three months since I buckled down, got the lead out, put the nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, (and various other idioms) and began the long, looooong road of getting out of debt. You may remember this visual aid from a previous post.


It's the Chain of Shame I made to represent the amount of debt I have. Sickening, right? Well, today it got a bit smaller. I removed a pretty big (actually pretty small, when you consider the whole chain, but we won't go there) section from the chain, and had a little fun with it.


Yes indeed, I made Tara parade around the house wearing the section removed from the Chain of Shame! Lots of fun for me, but not so much fun for Tara... After I was done making her suffer... er, taking photos of her, I took the chain representing three months of hard (glitter-filled) work....


...and added it to a bunch of leaves and pine needles in the outdoor fireplace...


...and set that baby on fire!!!!


What a good feeling!

GOOD Post #2

It's been almost a month since my last Getting Out Of Debt post. What has kept me from updating? I've been waiting for something good to report. After doing the math, I realized that at the rate I am going, I will be out of debt in approximately a gazillion years. Give or take a few kajillion years. It's true. Math doesn't lie. Given this unsavory reality, I had no choice but to buy a boat-load of yarn. Nope, just kidding. Really, I went to a spa and for a massage and a mani-pedicure. Gotcha again!

Seriously, several weeks ago I applied for part time work at several local stores. Eight to be exact. A week went by, and no one called, begging me to come and work for them.

Very curious...

Then two weeks went by, and still no calls.

Very depressing...

Three weeks went by, and what do you know...a phone call! I was interviewed over the phone (while doing the dance of joy) and asked to come in for an in-person interview.

Very nerve-wracking. This was my first interview in 20 years. How old do I feel?

That was last week. It went well, I think, and I was told I would hear on Tuesday.

The phone rang last night. It was the store manager. I wasn't supposed to hear until Tuesday. I'm getting the call on Monday. Is this good news? It can't be. Can it? I've had no other calls in response to my applications, and now this place (which just happened to be my first choice of a second job) doesn't want me. What now? Will I ever get out of debt? No. I will be a homeless old woman, living in a chicken coop, surrounded by my dogs. I will be muttering things like "If only I didn't have so much debt" and "Why didn't I plan for retirement?"

But wait, I'm still on the phone with the store manager. I had better pay attention to what he is saying...

What do you know... I got the job! I start on Saturday! Woo Hoo! Where will I be working?


Michaels... and I'll get a discount on yarn! Hmmmm. I don't have a "yarn" category in my new budget. No problem. I'll charge it!

Oh, no... What have I done?

GOOD Post #1

Welcome to GOOD Post #1? What is GOOD? I'm glad you asked. GOOD is my acronym for Getting Out Of Debt. Recently, a good friend told be about Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover.

I read this book, and it has changed the way I look at money...more specifically the lack of it. My previous retirement plan was to die young. That's right. Live for today and hope tomorrow never comes. Or at least hope that I won't have all that many tomorrows to worry about. There seems to be a little problem with the execution of my plan, though. (No pun intended.) I haven't died yet, and I no longer consider myself "young." Barring any unforeseen circumstances, it looks like I will be on the earth for a little while yet. ::sigh::

OK then, time to take the proverbial bull by the horns. I'm sure there are lots of ways to do it, (robbing banks? prostitution?) but I decided to do it legally, the Dave Ramsey way. Below, I've broken down his Baby Steps into an uber-simplified version. If you want to know more, ask me. No, wait... I'm hardly an expert. I'm following his plan with the blind faith of a sheep following a shepherd. Baaaaa. If you have any questions, buy his book, or get a copy from your local library. In a nutshell, here is Dave's Plan.

Baby Step 1: Save a thousand dollars. This is your Baby Emergency Fund. It is there so that while I am busy getting rid of debt, I won't go further into debt if WHEN something goes wrong.

Baby Step 2: Pay off your debts (except mortgage), putting every spare penny that you can on the smallest debt, while paying minimums on the rest of them to keep them current. When the smallest debt is paid off, you can pat yourself on the back for being so hardworking and clever, and then move on to the next smallest debt, adding what you were paying on the first debt to whatever spare cash you have to pay off debt #2 until that is paid off. Then, congratulate yourself for being so hardworking and clever again, and move on until all debts are paid off. This stage is called the “debt snowball”.

Baby Step 3: Increase the Baby Emergency Fund until it’s a full fledged emergency fund of three to six months of living expenses. Wow. Seems like a lot, but I'm determined to do it when I get my debts paid off.

Baby Step 4: Start putting fifteen percent of your income into retirement savings. This is on the assumption that my initial plan of dying young is not going to come to fruition.

Baby Step 5: Save for kids’ college. WHEW! This is just reason #2,498,589 why I never had kids. No college savings. Although if I did have kids, they would be in college right now and I would be totally screwed. Or rather THEY would be totally screwed. Hey, I paid for my own education, so any mythical, imaginary kids of mine can do the same thing!

Baby Step 6: Pay off the mortgage. Mortgage? You have to have a house to have a mortgage, right? So I guess I can check this one off... In place of steps 5 and 6, I don't see why I can't substitute my own:

Baby Step 5&6: Save for my dream house. Do you think this one will still be up for sale?


Yeah, I don't think so either...

Baby Step 7: Continue to grow wealth. Give some away, have fun with some. Live like no one else. If I live that long.

So there it is. I've been on this GOOD journey for not quite a month now, and it came to me last weekend that I needed a visual representation of my debt. I channeled the inner School Teacher in me, and I made a paper chain.

Nice, huh? All those years of college getting my degree in Elementary Education didn't go to waste after all!

Each link in the chain represents $100 of debt.

Holy cow. That's a lot of links. That's a lot of money!

How did this happen?

After finishing the chain I wanted to cry.

And then throw up.

And then go to bed and never get back up.

And then pray for a Comet to come and smash into the earth to put me out of my misery.

After I indulged myself by acting like a child for a good 10 minutes, I decided it's time to put on my big girl panties (so to speak) and deal with it.

I'm determined to do this thing.

I will be debt free.

I WILL.

So anyway, from time to time I will be blogging about my journey out of hell , umm, debt. The silver lining to this black cloud of debt is that if I never make another yarn purchase, I have enough sock yarn...


...to last me a good long time!