Need To Do It Again

We really need to take another trip down to Cancun. We really enjoyed being away from it all for a week with no plans, nothing to do, and everything paid for. It definitely wasn't one of those gay vacations that can be done by going to the next town. It was an awesome trip. There were no kids to take along. The first day we were there, we did absolutely nothing and we absolutely loved it. Others thought we were crazy, but we were loving doing absolutely nothing.

Let's Go To Vegas

Sometimes I think it would great to take a short vacation to Las Vegas and just hang out there for a week. There are plenty of things to do there besides the gambling. There are rides to go on, buffets to go through, and a number of sites to see. Plus, those Vegas vacations tend to be fairly cheap and since we live one state away, we can drive down there and save money on the airfare.

A Turning Point

We've reached a bit of a turning point when it comes to our finances. We are one payment away from paying off our second vehicle. The next thing to pay off is student loans. We don't have any consumer debt and are freeing up money in the budget fairly fast. We are actually getting to the point where we are getting on top of our debt instead of the debt being on top of us. We've decided that we want to start putting part of the freed up money into my 401k account and the rest towards debt. We also decided to increase my number of withholdings on my paycheck so we get more out of my paychecks each time. Instead of spending that extra paycheck cash, we're going to throw it into our savings account. We like the idea of being able to save money, while still paying off debt super fast, and still having the things we stand in need of. It's definitely a great feeling.

On The Side

It's always nice to have money coming in on the side. Not something really major, just something to cover some of the monthly expenses. Something that will free up a little money in the budget. I've been thinking about taking some of those medical coding training courses so we could possibly have something else to have as a source of income. I hear doing medical billing is fairly easy and it can be done at home using your own computer. the trick is, can it be done on any schedule or do you still need to do the 9-5 thing?

The Odd One Out

One of our bathroom faucets in our home doesn't look like a bathroom faucet at all. I'm not quite sure why it's in there, but there is a faucet in one of our bathrooms that looks like a kitchen faucet. It's not even one of those Grohe faucets or anything. It may have been a temporary fix to replace a leaky faucet and they never got around to putting a proper bathroom faucet in there. If we're not careful, we may end up not getting around to replacing it either.

One Year Later

It has been nearly a year since I started on my weight loss contest. Back when I started, I weighed 171 pounds. Right now, I only weight 155 pounds. I have been able to keep it off, by not using a weight loss product or even dieting. I think the dieting I did for the contest jump started my metabolism back to the level it was when I was in college. I've been eating what I want and drinking what I want for over 6 months now and I have only gained back about 12 pounds. I am at the ideal weight. Eat that, Oprah.

The Best Smell Ever

The other day, we walked out of the theater and it had just rained outside. That has got to be the best smell in the world, the smell of the air right after it has rained. I'm not quite sure what about the smell is so great, I just know that it is great. Perhaps it's because the air is so clean mixed with the humidity in the air. When a breeze comes along, it's even better. When companies try to make an air freshener that mocks the smell of rain, they don't even come close.

The Old Fashioned Way

Yesterday, we watched the finale of The Biggest Loser. There were people on there that had lost over a hundred pounds, some almost 200 pounds. And the amazing thing is, they did it all with diet and exercise. No appetite suppressants, surgeries, or fad diets. I keep hearing stories from obese people that say they can't lose weight. When I see shows like The Biggest Loser, I know statements like that are just an excuse and there isn't much weight behind them.

Last Furniture Needed

We have furniture in every room of the house now. There is only one section of the property where furniture is needed. We have this really massive patio in our backyard. In fact, it's pretty much the entire backyard. The one thing that would be great would be to have some patio furniture to complete the makeup of the patio. We're not looking to go into debt to get some patio furniture in a section we hardly ever use. When the cards are right, we hope to finish the look of the patio.

What I Need More Of

Last weekend, I went over to father-in-law's house because it was in desperate need of some yard work. The 4 adults that live there, them being 3 of my brother-in-laws and one of their girlfriends, never seem to find time in their "busy" schedule of video games, eating, and watching tv to actually take care of the property. Actually, in the words of two of them, "It's not my house so I don't care". How could you not care? Even if it is not your house, you still need to take care of it. Respect other people's property for crying out loud. Anyway, that is a page-long post for another day.

What I would love to have from that house is the land itself. The house sites on a half acre of land, most of it yard. It even has a huge vegetable garden in the middle of the backyard. There is a ton of potential in that yard. I really wish I could call it mine. There is so much that I could do with it. With some TLC, the yard could be beautiful. It makes me sick that the adults that live there full time don't take care of what they have. When I say adults, I'm only using that in the legal term.

The Great Outdoors

One of the best benefits of my employer are the condos that are available for the employees to use, free of charge. There are on the coast of Bear Lake and there is another one down in St. George, UT. They are great for those weekend getaways where you just want to relax and forget everything for a few days. They are also awesome because they are fully stocked, all you have to do is bring food and clothes and a camera. Ahh, the great outdoors.

Almost There

Last weekend, we went over to father-in-law's house to do some yard work and some house cleaning. In the process of doing all that, I became familiar with the old cars that one of my brother-in-laws has bought. He has parts strung everywhere. I think he has ever part except Ferrari parts. However, the guy is still young and I wouldn't put it past him that if he ever had the chance, he would find an old, broken down Ferrari and start to restore it.

That Darn Cat

It seems that no matter what we do, no matter where we put the litter box or how often we clean the litter box, we have one cat that occasionally doesn't make it to the litter box in time. I've been thinking of going to a pet supplies store to see if they have any special collars that will sense when the cat has to go to the bathroom and push the cat to the box. Do they even make those kinds of collars? If they don't, they really should.

Best Shopping Trip Ever

We just got back from Albertsons. We have been getting down our last box of cereal and have been waiting for a store to have a good sale on cereal so we could restock. They had a sale today where if you bought 4 boxes of cereal, each box was only $1.50. We have tried Albertsons sales in the past and if you don't get there on the first day, all that they have sale is gone. The ad came out today so we immediately drove over there.

We ended up getting 57 boxes of cereal. After the first 32 boxes, we had 5 coupons for 2 dollars each and one coupon for 1.50. So we went back in and got 25 more boxes and used those coupons. Plus, we got 2 coupons for a free gallon of milk each. All in all, in the end we spent 80 dollars, got 57 boxes of cereal, and two free gallons of chocolate milk. We also have 3 more coupons for a free gallon of milk each. We saved a total of 200 dollars on this shopping trip.

But, wait, it gets better. When we got home, we found out that some of the cereal boxes had gift cards in them. Going through all the boxes, we found 20 dollars worth of gift cards. So we only spent 60 dollars in the end. I love shopping trips where you end up saving more than you spend. And we saved a lot. Plus, we have enough cereal to last us at least for a few months if not a year.

Testing

Before a weight loss pill hits the market, there have to be weight loss pills reviews so they have some sort of base to advertise their product with. I wonder what kind of compensation the people who try those pills get. Does it border on hazard pay because of some of the effects the pills may have or do the testers take the risks as a grain of salt since they are just testing things? I know I couldn't be a pill tester myself. However, if it's good money, there will always be plenty of people willing to do it.

One Trick

When I was doing that weight loss contest last year, my father-in-law gave me an idea of how to how to cleanse your colon. He suggested drinking a huge amount of water mixed with a couple of teaspoons of sea salt. For me, it didn't work. Either there really wasn't much to clean out or the sea salt soaked up all the water. Either way, I didn't lose any weight as a result of it. It may have even backfired on me. However, if there are better ways to cleanse your colon, I hear you can lose 5 to 10 pounds instantly by doing that.

An Awesome Way To Travel

One thing I would love to do in my golden years is buy an rv and travel the entire country for weeks at a time in it. You can pack up everything in it and visit the in's and out of this great country. You would save money on hotel rooms and food if you want to cook food in it. There are so many places in this country that you can only see by driving through them. I think it would be the most relaxing thing, to pick up one day and travel the entire country with your home traveling right behind you.

The Fifth Season

It is really, really sad that Utah has a construction season. They seem to be almost proud of it here that they have a road-construction season every year. What really bothers me is that they battle for a month to try in balance the budget. They balance the budget by cutting services and higher education budget. They are even now, talking about closing a high school because there isn't enough money. However, there is always enough money for the construction season. We're talking billions and billions of dollars in asphalt. And again, that doesn't ever seem like enough money.

I could see building and repairing roads if they were crumbling, but that is not the case. They are building roads and highways here just for the sake of building them. They are NOT needed, but since there is all this money, they build the roads. Even if building those roads means cutting education and schools and, in some places, knocking down people's homes, they still build the roads. Remember, it's the season for construction. I have never lived in a state where they schedule a construction season. I have a huge problem when the state places a huge priority on their roads and there is always enough money for them regardless of how useless they will be, but there is never enough money for education and sevices. GET YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT!!!! Placing so much emphasis on the roads will not get you anywhere. They say that road construction creates jobs. Ya, for how long, the season? If you don't put money in your education, your citizens cannot afford to get the education needed to get a good paying job and will be stuck doing the seasonal construction jobs for your state.

Wait a minute, maybe that is already happening. The state probabaly already knows they have started the cycle of pushing everyone into road construction jobs and can't find a way to stop the cycle, or they are too afraid, too. Utah, if you don't start pushing money into higher education, you will start to see your education base disappear. Actually, Utah, you probably already see this happening as is. Good luck getting out of the cycle. I'll give you a start: Stand up to the Utah Department of Transportation and give half their moey to education. Your citizens and your citizens' future will definitely thank you.

Lucky Us

There are a couple of shows on tv that highlight how to remodel your home. Many of them focus on the bathroom and the kitchen, which, incidently, are the areas you want to remodel. They give you the most bang for your buck. We want to change the flooring in a number of places in our home. Since our home is only 15 years old, we wouldn't have to worry about getting mesothelioma from asbestos. In any case, we would like to update the home to improve it's appearance that much more. There is nothing super wrong with the house, we just want to make the appearance a bit more modern.

No Quick Fix

I saw a news story today that stated that a popular diet pill was to be avoided. I'm not sure what has happened with people in America. What happened to the days where you worked hard for something and then enjoyed the benefits. Now, people just want to get the benefits without working that hard. We just want to take a pill and get the same results without doing anything. To be honest, there is no quick fix when it comes to losing weight, at least the right way. It takes a lot of exercise, discipline, and eating healthy to lose weight. That apparently sounds a little too hard for America today. Work hard and I garuntee you there will be benefits to reap.

Detour

On the second day of our Bear Lake vacation, my mom, my brother, and I decided to take a side trip to Logan to find a battery. While there, we stopped at Walmart and found a great sale on strawberries. My wife saw an ad for strawberries for 1.50 a pound. At Walmart, they had 15 pound boxes on sale for 7 dollars. It was too good of a deal to pass down so I bought one. We now have plenty of strawberries to make strawberry jam with.

Back To Reality

I have been on vacation for nearly a week now. Vacation time never seems to last long enough. As your vacation starts, it seems like it would last forever, but once it's over, it feels like it was over in a second. We had a good time at the Bear Lake resort doing close to nothing. Because the summer vacation season hasn't quite started yet, we basically had the resort all to ourselves. We attempted to go to the beach once, but the wind was so strong that it cut our beach time short. Mostly, we just enjoyed being there and not havening to worry about anything. After a few days there, we came back home. We left the home in a bit of disarray and strangely enough, it wasn't clean when we got home. We spent much of today cleaning the house. Most of it is done except for one room, the playroom. What is kindof ironic is that it has rained here nearly nonstop since we got home. Looks like we visited Bear Lake before the rainstorm came through. Ina couple days, I get to go back to work. I think it will take a bit to switch back into work mode. Hooray for vacations. They definitely give you a chance to unwind and recharge your batteries.