I am fast approaching crazy insane woman status in regards to my family's upcoming visit. Up til now I have been impressed with how much nicer our apartment looks as compared to how it looked when I first started visiting a year and a half ago. Now, suddenly, I am looking at the place through the eyes of three women with varying, but good, tastes seeing it for the first time. I wish we had nicer furniture, but since we don't, I'm trying to make sure that everything is beyond spotlessly clean. This is tough to do since I'm still trying to be very careful with my back (although it seems to be pretty much back to normal now, and my knee is fine now too, still red and bruised but doesn't hurt anymore) and also I can't stand doing it. As I've said many times; I'm extremely tidy, but not very clean. I spend a lot of time sitting and staring around the apartment, eyeballing everything that my sisters or mom may look at and find not up to spec. I should point out, by the way, that they are not rude or picky people and would not think less of me if the place did not look great. It is ME that is picky and paranoid.
We also had Smeagol groomed a few days ago. Partly because she needed it and partly because I want her to smell and look good for her gramma and aunties ( I know, I'm one of THOSE people, shut up!)
I'm also trying to scan the apartment for anything that I may not want my old fashioned, religious mother to see. So far I haven't seen anything, but I just KNOW that something will be visible as soon as she walks in the door.
Other than that hypervigilance I have been continuing to put 8 frickin eyedrops in each eye every day. It sucks and is not getting any easier, and I can't say that my eyes feel any better. But, who knows, its probably too early to say. Tomorrow I go back to the optometrist for a follow up. I'm very curious what he will say.
I've also been continuing to go through wedding catalogs and websites etc. I want to have a bunch of stuff picked so that I can show my sisters and mom and get their opinions. I'm not super excited about the wedding stuff though because A) I'm paranoid that there will be a problem with Immigration and B) I have no idea how we will locate money to throw a wedding. I've seriously thought about just going to a justice of the peace, but that makes me sad. I want to celebrate my marriage to Paul with my loved ones. Time will tell, I suppose!
Speaking of money, I have been going through Paul's credit reports (yay, annualcreditreport.com) and bills and statements etc. Paul despises talking about or dealing with money so he has handed the whole shebang off to me. I enjoy doing this kind of organizational work, so I don't mind. Its a bit nervewracking, though, since money is such a huge issue for us. But, the first step to remedying our money problems is figuring out exactly where we stand and that's what I'm doing. The next step is for me to get a job and that's in the works too as we wait for Immigration. So stuff is progressing and I'm doing all that I can...it is just frustrating for me because I am worse at waiting than anyone else in the world. I also exaggerate more than anyone else in the world.
So, that's what is going on around here. I'm constantly amazed at how busy I can stay just cooking and cleaning and doing laundry etc. as well as all the paperwork that needs to be done to get our lives on track. However, I will probably be a bit bored now as I finished all the damn Harry Potter books for the second time (if you haven't read HP yet, GO READ IT!!! They are so utterly engaging and fascinating and well written. I guarantee you will get hooked). I have read everything in the house that is readable and I need MORE! I keep meaning to go find a nearby library but when it is 100F outside I barely set foot out there :P
C'est tout. Have a lovely day, my lovely readers.
4 comments:
Keeping credit reports in shape is hard. I've been told the opposite, reba, about closing old accounts, because if you knock off all that 'potential credit' you negatively affect your score because you then DON'T have as much possible credit. Say if you close out five accounts, that have zero balances, but you've had them forever, if they are five years old, or you've had them for five years, rather, you knock those five years of credit, good credit, if they have no balance, off your report. Gives you 'younger' credit I believe it's referred to. So while looking at my report, you see five or six accounts with no balances, but with a LOT of potential credit. That ups your score. If I were to close all of those, it would shrink my available credit and change my debt to available credit ratio to BAD!!!! I've spent a lot of time fixing our credit. Now that I've hijacked your comments, I will run away. I swear I won't do it again.
Hope you find stuff to read, too. And I also hear ya on making the house perfect for family visits. I think that's the only time my house gets really clean is when the inlaws come...sad.
Hmm, yeah, I have to agree with Jenna on this one. According to all the websites that I have checked and stuff (and according to Suze Orman, I love Suze) you should absolutely keep credit cards. What I have read is that you should not get any store cards at all, they are very very bad. However, you should definitely keep all your credit cards, but just not use them once they are at $0. On Oprah's Debt Diet episodes last week they said that the only reason you should cancel credit cards is if you simply cannot not use them. But, you are right, Reba, that if you do cancel them, make sure that is reflected (that YOU did it, not them). I'm not positive that I'm right here cause I respect Reba's knowledge a lot. Anyone clear this up for me?
However, that is all a 'moo' point (You know, a cow's opinion) since Paul has no credit cards at all.
As for Miriam Toews...I've heard of her but don't know anything about her. My family comes to visit in TEN DAYS so maybe I will ask them to bring one of her books to me.
Well hey, we all learned a little :) I imagine that financial advisors in magazines and on tv and stuff give information that is good for the general population, yet the advice may be exactly wrong for a certain type of consumer.
I'll post more about our current financial plan within the next few days.
And I'm certainly not a know it all *I just play one on tv WINK*, I just know what is relavent to MY situation. I don't have any store cards, I don't think. If I do they are old and have no balances. We're down to two cards with balances, and unfortunately they are high balances, according to the available limit, but I did the switching around because both cards are 0% interest for quite a long time, so I'm saving money in the long run. And since I'm not planning on doing a mortgage or anything anytime soon, it won't matter if my score drops a bit right now. Once those balances get paid down, which I'm busting my ass to do, the score will go back up.
I don't think any one thing is right for everybody, some things just work different/better for others. You'll figure out the right thing for you guys.
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