Early Morning Surprises!

A few weeks ago (yes...I'm behind in blogging) I got a call at 4AM that woke me out of a dead sleep. My mom's fire alarms in her house were screaming and she could not shut them off. There was no smoke...no fire....no carbon monoxide....nothing. I raced to her house (which is about 2.5 miles away) and helped her change batteries in each of the eight devices around her house. However, that did not stop the blaring. Finally, I got fed up and started unplugging all of the devices I could (my mom has vaulted ceilings, so some of them were extremely high up and I needed a tall ladder to reach them). Finally, after I unplugged the one in my sister's old room, all the remaining attached alarms stopped blaring. These alarms are as old as the house (it was built in 1994), so they just got old and stopped working correctly. My mom bought all new fire alarms and I installed them all. It was really easy....not my electrical work involved.

What a way to wake up in the morning! My poor mom had to be jolted out of sleep with that horrendously loud noise and think her house was on fire. Not fun!

But wait....there's more.

Two weeks later, I got another call in the morning...this time it was at 5am. Another fire alarm was going off, but she could not find it. It was different because only one was sounding instead of all the alarms throughout the whole house. Being woken up out of a dead sleep, you just don't think as well as you do when you are fully awake. I tried over the phone to walk my mom through unplugging an alarm from the hallway (the alarm she thought was sounding), but she was too eager at pulling the device out of the ceiling and shocked herself a little. I jumped in my car and headed to her house. By the time I arrived, my mom had found the culprit. It was one of the old alarms I had unplugged and thrown away in the upstairs bathroom trash can two weeks earlier. WHOOPS!!! Sorry, mom! Because I didn't take the battery out, it was still active. When the battery ran out, it started blaring. Once we removed the battery, the alarm stopped.

Now that all the alarms are brand-spanking-new, we have not had any more early morning surprises. :o)

Financial Peace University: LESSON ONE

I've been going to classes to teach me how to get out of debt and save money. This class is taught by Dave Ramsey (through DVD class sessions). It is called Financial Peace University. I've been to four classes already, so I am a little behind in blogging about it, but I wanted to start. Here are the important things I learned from this first lesson:

Dave Ramsey has seven baby steps to follow. This lesson focused on baby step one and three:

BABY STEP 1: $1000 in an emergency fund

In this step you must build up your savings to $1000 and then use all the rest of your extra income (after paying expenses) to pay down debt. The thousand is for emergencies like unexpected car maintenance expenses, or home repair... not for unexpected pizza needs. This $1000 is your beginner emergency fund. Dave Ramsey said: Unexpected things happen -- expect them. This emergency fund will cover these unexpected things as you pay off your debt.

BABY STEP 3: Three to six months expenses in savings

Once your debt is paid off (which is baby step two...the focus of another lesson), your next step is to build up your real emergency fund to three to six months of your expenses. This emergency fund is for if you lose your job you will be able to still pay your expenses. This is NOT an investment. It is insurance.


LESSONS LEARNED:

So after this class was over, I promptly set aside $1000 for my baby-step-one emergency fund. I also decided it was stupid to try to save money when I am paying on credit cards. If I had the money to pay off the cards, why did I not? I liked having the savings in the bank, but then I didn't realize how much I was paying in interest. Because I had enough in savings to pay off my card, I decided to do that. I am now credit card debt free. YAY!!

One thing Dave Ramsey said is one of the quickest ways to make 13 to 18% in interest is to pay off your credit cards. You will be able to keep all that money instead of giving it to the cc companies. Very smart.

Most embarrassing moment

I haven't been on the computer for a little while because I've done the most humiliating thing. I signed up for Facebook. Just kidding....that's not the embarrassing thing.

While I was signing up for Facebook, I imported my yahoo address book into the Facebook application to see who is already signed up and who I can request to be my friend. In the process, I accidentally sent a notification or a request to EVERYONE in my address book. Here is a idea of people in my book:

- Contacts from my side business who I do web site work for
- Current and former team members from my day job
- My current employer
- My government team lead
- Most of the 4th Ward Relief Society (from when I was in the RS presidency)
- All bishops in the Sierra Vista Stake
- The SV Stake Presidency
- All Ward bulletin specialists for the stake (I have to send announcements for Stake choir twice a year)
- Other people who wanted updates when my dad was sick
- Friends and Family

After I pressed send and realized what I did (I was too click-happy and didn't read correctly), I started freaking out. I was hyperventilating ... crying ... I had to shut down my computer and not turn it on again for a few days. It was awful.

Now I am able to laugh at myself a bit more. But I am still embarrassed.

Who I am most embarrassed about are my business contacts (so unprofessional), my current employer and team members, some of the stake members who I don't even know.

Most people have been really nice and it is fun to see who is on Facebook that I never would have guessed would be on there. I already have 40 friends after three days. Maybe people felt sorry for me and thought I was desperate for friends. :o) Haha! Oh well. Maybe good will come out of my embarrassing moment.

Contractor Accolades

I recently had a HUGE PROJECT at work where I had to write a troubleshooting guide for the Army. I was just doing my job and I tried to do the best I could. My boss's boss's boss is the one who tasked my team to write this document. After we were able to turn in the final copy and send it out to be reviewed by upper level government and Army personnel, that same person (my boss's boss's boss) sent the following email to the contracting office to forward to my company:

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FROM: MB (director of organization)
SENT: Thursday, April 2, 2009
TO: SG (contracting officer)
SUBJECT: Contractor Accolades

SG,

About 2 weeks ago, there was a significant problem across the entire [Army] related to [cryptographic processes (PKI)]. In working with the [different organizations], it became apparent there was no clear guide to troubleshooting PKI issues.

I asked the PKI team to develop a PKI Troubleshooting Guide and within 2 weeks received the best quality, first draft product I have seen in well over 15 years. The work done by this team was excellent and very responsive to NETCOM's global operations mission.

Please pass my compliments to the company on this excellent effort and the associated PKI team.

I was especially impressed by the work Erin Callahan did in getting this task accomplished.

This was a job very well done...

MB


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WOW!!! In my ten years as working for an Army Contractor, I have never received that big of accolades! I was not expecting that AT ALL! Like I said, I was just trying to do my best. This email was sent all around the higher management of the Army organization I am contracted to, as well as my company in town and the upper management of the corporate office in Reston, VA. WOW!!

Needless to say, I had a very good day on Thursday. :o)

Her Morning Elegance

You have GOT TO check out this video on YouTube. It is SO GOOD. I can watch it over and over again. ENJOY!

Backyard Fun!

Recently, I decided it was time to FINALLY get my backyard ready for the Spring. I hadn't touched it since the Fall so it was pretty messy...with all the leaves from my trees still in piles around the patio where the wind blew them, and tall, and I mean tall, weeds growing in my otherwise empty flower beds.

So I got out my sucker/blower machine and started vacuuming up the leave when my very awesome neighbor came into my backyard to give me something. When she was leaving, she asked if her kids could come help with anything. I said (halfway joking), Sure! They can weed. So she sent her four kids over, plus three more boys she was watching for a friend, plus two neighborhood kids who were playing over at her house. I had 10 kids (ages 2 to 9) pulling weeds, raking leaves, punching holes in my grass to aerate it, and shoveling dirt, while I vacuumed my leaves and gave instructions to keep everyone occupied and happy. My neighbor was over helping with the work too. It was a lot of fun to have so many people work in my backyard. And the kids had fun too! Those boys LOVED to pull the huge honking weeds. And they cheered when a lot of the root came with it. It was fun to see them having fun with something I was dreading. What would have taken me hours and hours to do, we had done within one hour.

Now my yard is looking decent again. I just need to plant my gardens (flower and kitchen) and I'll be good to go!