bits of sunshine

new year :: e's financial tracking system

this is not fancy.

but i think it's going to work.

it's easily accessible.

right by my door, by my kitchen, where i dump the mail.  it's right there.

i have my calendar up - printed for from a free site.

and a clip for receipts.  i'm going to keep every. single. receipt this year. 

and there's a post-it for income . . . every. single. penny that comes in.

and a post-it for out-go that doesn't have a reciept . . . every. single. penny that goes out.

at the end of each month, i'm going to sit down with what i've got and see where it came from and where it went.  track patterns.  or lack there-of.

we can't get a handle on it if we don't know exactly where it comes from or where it goes, now can we?  yeah, i know.  we've all heard that a thousand times.  some of you are probably awesome at this already.  i'm not.  and i need to be.  two years from now, ben and i want our financial situation to look very different than it does now.  that means being brutally honest with where we are right now.  and i think i finally have it in me to be brutally honest.  for the past couple years being honest has just been hard - any time i tried to write a budget, something came up and the budget i had written was worthless.  so we scraped by and ignored the bigger picture.  but now, ben's company (which he partners in with my brother) has made it through another year, even with the economy still not being very favorable for their business.  i have a part-time, decently paying job that i really like and that fits with our family life.  we've had some really good financial counsel in the past few days, and i'm seeking out a bit more.  ben and i are becoming more and more a team when it comes to this.  we've had to be, and it's so. very. good.  and i'm not starting out by writing a budget.  i'm starting with tracking our income and outgo.  then we can look at that and make a budget based on what really comes in and what we really need. i think this makes good sense.

how much of this financial stuff will i share here?  i'm not sure.  i think that i will keep you posted about how well i stick with this.  and from there . . . well . . . we'll just see.  but for now, i'll say this, i'm hopeful that my cupboard door will be a great tool in our journey toward peaceful living.

new year :: new job

I've been leaving little hints all over the place here about my new job.

So, I guess I should just tell you all about it.

I have to start with back in September when some dear friends decided they should give us $500.  Just beacuse.  Becuase they knew things were going crappy with our house and the bank.  We weren't sure what exactly to use the money for, so we decided to just hang on to it and pray about it for a bit. 

About that time, Ben and I had really started racking our brains to figure out something that I could do part-time that would help out our financial situation.  We knew it would have to be something that paid enough to make it worth while.  I still need to be home a lot.  We can't afford daycare - that would defeat the purpose of me working.  What to do?  Then one of Ben's friends asks, "Does she like old people?"  And he proceded to tell Ben about Nursing Assistant positions - especially in nursing homes or care centers for older people. 

I started looking and found some nursing homes in town that would be hiring.  I found out that I could work part-time over-nights.  I found out that working over-nights pays even better than working days.  And I found a class that started at the beginning of October (two days after we moved into our house) and ended at the end of November.  It was two evenings a week.  And the class cost $495.  And there would have been no way to afford that class if we hadn't had that check from our friends in the drawer, waiting for God to show us what to do with it. 

So, I took the class.  And the class went well.  And I passed my big test at the end.  And as of December 1, 2010, I am a certified nursing assistant. 

The week I took my test, I applied at a few nursing homes in town, and got accepted at the place I really wanted to work. 

I have worked some nights now, and two days.  I love the night shifts.  Things are much quieter.  Lots of my old people do sleep through the night, or need only minimal help.  Of course that's not the story with all of them . . . but I need something to keep me awake - right?  It's also quieter staff-wise.  There are just 6 staff on at night, as compared to the 16 (on the floor) and all the office personel during the day.  So there are a lot less dynamics . . . it's just all-around better (in my opinion).

When I get home from a night shift, I give Ben a hug and wish him a good day at work.  Then I eat breakfast with Maddie and Isaac and give them a little list of things to accomplish.  Things like school papers, reading, unloading the dishwasher, picking up a specific room.  When they are done with the list, they can play or watch a movie until I wake up.  Then I nap for 3 or 4 hours and get up to make lunch for us.  It works really well.  The kids like to be responsible, and they are so proud to show me what they've accomplished while I was sleeping.  So, for now, this is an excellent arrangement.  I do have a few people who are willing to take Maddie and Isaac if I need a longer stint of uninterrupted sleep, but if I don't work too many days in a row, I do just fine.

It's also ironic that many years ago someone close to me had suggested working in a nursing home to me.  I was trying to figure out the whole college major thing, and where I should continue my schooling, and this person told me I'd be really good at working in a nursing home.  Well, circumstances and parents (my parents weren't keen on me quitting my four-year education, even for something like this) intervened, and I didn't go through with it then.  I went to another college and continued my education for another two years (and that is a post for another day . . . ).  Needless to say, had I taken my nursing assistant course then, things would look a lot different now.  Or if I would have thought of it again when Ben and I were first married or . . . You know, those pesky what-ifs. 

But.  Here I am now.  And I am really happy that this opportunity re-presented itself.  I really like this new job of mine.  And I'm really grateful for the income that it will provide for my family.  I'm also grateful that it is a job where what I do really matters for someone, right the moment I do it.  If my mom or dad or grandma were in a nursing home, I'd want them well-taken care of, even if they were grumpy or throwing up or affected by dimentia or hard to understand.  So that's the way I treat my old people (that's what Maddie and Isaac call them, "Mom's old people"), and I reap the benefit of really enjoying my job.

  {me and my favorite "old person" - my grandma}

Happy New Year!!!

I can still say that - right????

I hope you all had a very, very merry Christmas and that your new year is starting off well - that you are encouraged and hopeful and that this new year will bring you so much goodness.

It's been too long since I've been in this space.  Too long.

Since I was here last I've celebrated Christmas with my family, sewn until my sewing machine needle broke,
gotten another needle from my mom and sewn some more, written a New Year letter to send out to all the people I didn't get a Christmas card sent to, worked through another wrinkle with our bank (there are still a few more to iron out . . . but God continues to provide in the most amazing ways!), started a new job, shoveled snow more than once (we've gotten over a foot in the last week),
filled the wood box about a gajillion times, made some goals for 2011, printed out calendar pages and turned the inside of a cupboard door into a "keeping-track-of-it-all center, I have gone down memory lane in the photo albums, read oodles of Christmas stories with my kids, done some more mousing,
played some more games with my family, taken down the Christmas tree, read all kinds of thought-provoking, encouraging bits, been so encouraged by dear people God has put into my life, been bouldering (oh. so. fun!),
. . . and lots more. 

It's been a good few weeks.  Really good.  And I'm ready to share some of it here with you all.

So, here's wishing us all a new year full of good memory making, and here's to many more posts on this little blog of mine!