Sense to Save: Other Blog

Reading the Bible in a year

One goal I’ve had for a long time is to read the entire Bible. I’ve started and stopped this goal several times, and I hope that by periodically blogging about it, I’ll be holding myself more accountable.

I’ve made it through Genesis many times, only to get sidetracked. I’ve read bits and pieces of the Bible, but I want to read it in its entirety.

I found a Bible-in-a-year plan that I think will work well for me.

The Victory Bible reading plan is designed to be completed in 365 days. I started it today, with the hopes of finishing it by the end of 2008.

The plan has you read some from the Old Testament, some from the New Testament, and a Psalm or Proverb each day. I think that will keep me on track, and will get me through the muddy geneology and things that have been roadblocks for me in the past.

Also, I’ll read through the gospels twice in this plan. Gotta love that.

Have you read the Bible through in a year (or ever)? How’d it go?

The year that changed my life

Whoa. 2007 was an interesting year for me. I’m going to jot down some things so that later, I can reflect, remember and be glad for this year.

When I look through it by month, I’m just amazed at all that’s happened this year. I am not the same person I was 12 months ago–not even close. I didn’t even have the same name!

There were some rough patches (father-in-law’s hospitalization, being painfully homesick and lonely) but overall, this has been a good year for me.

So many things have happened–I was responsible for a newsroom of 200 employees, I planned a wedding, graduated from college, got married, went on a fabulous honeymoon, moved 400 miles from home, had a summer internship, and started to work from home.

January 2007

I can’t remember how I celebrated New Year’s Eve, but I think I was asleep. I was recently engaged (On Dec. 21, 2006) and just beginning my last semester of college. I also began my one-semester tenure as editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper. What a thrill! What intensity.

February 2007

I kept chugging along, taking my one class (hah), working at the newspaper, and planning my wedding. My then-fiance, his family and I celebrated his 22nd birthday that month. Actually, we celebrated several birthdays: His, his twin brother’s, and their father’s are all on the same day. Their mother’s is just a few days before.

March 2007

Spring break! My last spring break of college. Meep. I was fortunate to spend it in New York City at a journalism conference. We stayed at the Roosevelt Hotel just blocks from Times Square. I got to tour the New York Times newsroom, wander about the city, and visit with some alumni. I also may have been on MTV 3. Who knows–I don’t. I don’t even know anyone who has that channel.

My last class of college (Sociology 101, lolz) was completed by this point. It was an 8-week class, after all. I ended up walking out of it an hour early. I opted to pass/fail my grade, and I definitely passed. I had to get back to the newsroom for a big story.

April 2007

More of the same–wedding planning and newspaper editing. Such a rush, and such a wonderful time of my life. I miss my newspaper friends a lot. Also, we visited Pittsburgh and found our apartment.

May 2007

The biggest month of my life to date. May 5-graduated from college (although, I didn’t actually go to commencement). May 19-got married! Woo! May 21-a moving truck pulled up to my apartment, and loaded up all of my belongings. May 23-boarded a plane bound for Seattle for our honeymoon–a cruise to Alaska. We took a 7-night cruise and everything about it was amazing.

We flew back to Indiana, visited with our families for one last hurrah, and then boarded a plane to Pittsburgh. By then, it was the first part of June, which I’ll get to in a second.

Our wedding and honeymoon was definitely the highlight of the year. However, the week beforehand was uncertain and scary. My father-in-law was in the hospital–deathly ill. We were really close to losing him, actually. Thankfully, he recovered, and was even able to attend our wedding.

June 2007

We arrived in Pittsburgh on the first Monday of the month.

The next day, I started my internship. Ugh. Looking back, I should have tried to negotiate a later start date–I had no idea how to get around this city, and if you’ve ever been to Pittsburgh, you know that it’s hard to find your way around.

My husband started his new job on Wednesday, and it has gone really well for him.

On the 9th, I turned 22. It was just an OK birthday. I was grateful for my husband, but kind of mopey since my family and friends were so far away. I was overwhelmed by all of the recent life events that were happening. I can’t remember how I spent that day, but I was glad it was a Saturday and I didn’t have to work. I hope my 23rd birthday will be more fun.

July

Nothing remarkable. We spent too much money and I was exhausted at the end of every day. Weekends were spent catching up on chores. It wasn’t the funnest, so I’m glad I don’t remember much of it.

August

My parents and sister came to visit during the first weekend of the month. They were here during their 23rd wedding anniversary, and while wandering around the city, we saw three wedding parties being photographed. That was neat. It was really nice seeing family. Oh, and it was the hottest weekend of the year and our air conditioning stopped working. Also, the power went out for no apparent reason. Haha.

My husband went on a business trip to Los Angeles for a week. It was a good experience for him, but we really missed each other. It was a long, lonely week.

At the end of the month, my internship was over. That’s all I have to say about that.

September

Partly due to being homesick, and partly due to eating horrible food at a restaurant and being extremely upset about it, we made a last-minute decision to drive to Indiana for Labor Day. We headed out at about 7 p.m. that Friday and got to town by 2 a.m. or so. We surprised my husband’s mom, and they were really happy to see us. It felt so good to be there!

The next week, I drove back to Indiana again, this time, by myself. I stayed with my little sister while my parents went to Florida. It was certainly an adventure.

When I returned to Pittsburgh during the middle of the month or so, I became a full-time homemaker. I’m not sure how long this will last, but we made the decision for a few reasons. One, we don’t expect to be in this city for much longer. It wouldn’t be worthwhile to have a career-type job to only leave it a few months later. Two, we both see value in having someone maintain the home. I’ve received quite a bit of criticism for not holding an outside job, and that hurts. Still, it’s what’s working best for my husband and me, and that’s what matters most.

That month, I discovered The Tightwad Gazette and the frugal lifestyle. I made it my goal to reduce our spending so that I wouldn’t need to have an outside job. So far, by me not working, we’re spending thousands less than we did when I was. We’re money ahead. Isn’t that weird how that works?

I started my blog, Sense to Save, on Blogger at the end of September.

October

I continued building my blog and learning more ways to be frugal. It was a lovely month. October is one of my favorites, actually. The weather is fantastic, the leaves are beautiful, and it’s the month I met my husband. That October marked four years of us being together.

My husband’s parents came for a quick visit, and we took them all over the city. We all had a grand time.

Thanks to a friend, I started a regular freelance writing gig, which I am still doing. I earn decent money, and it’s helping us establish an emergency fund.

November

I migrated my blog to its own URL with the help of my savvy husband.

We took another trip to Indiana for Thanksgiving, spending it with my husband’s family and then seeing my family in the time after.

I was able to swing by my college newsroom to say hello to a few people. It was great to see them–the newspaper looked fantastic. It also provided some much-needed closure for me. That chapter of my life is over, and it’s time to move on.

December

It seems as soon as we got back to town, it was time to head back to Indiana for Christmas. Actually, it was just about three weeks later–so soon!

We spent time with my husband’s family for awhile. His mother broke her leg, and we tried to help with chores and errands. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my side of the family this year, and drove back on Christmas Day since my husband had to work on the 26th.

What a year of big change. Here’s to 2008!

Making your home a haven: Day 6

Today, I hope to accomplish a few things on my never-ending to-do list. I’m going to group them into categories: Around the house and Beyond. Lol.

Around the house:

-Vacuum

-Clean bathrooms (Our hot water tank is going to be replaced today, so I won’t be cleaning the bathroom until the serviceman leaves.

-10 minutes of straightening our bedroom

Beyond:

-Spend at least one hour on writing work

-Order Christmas presents online (at least, the ones I have planned to order there)

On the menu tonight:

-Split pea soup and dinner rolls. Can’t wait! And at less than $3 for the soup, what a bargain.

To check out others participating in Day 6 of the challenge, visit Crystal’s site.

Guilty pleasures: 10 songs

I’m joining Andrew at Everybody Loves Coupons and I’m going to list some of my 10 favorite songs that count as guilty pleasures–you know, songs that you love but are sort of embarrassed to tell others about.

I have to admit, I agree with him on a few of his choices, namely “I love you always forever.” He was not worried about his reputation with the store clerk when he bought Meat Loaf’s two most classic CDs. They’re among your guilty pleasures, too, (right?) so I don’t even need to name them.

I stand by these songs. They’re great, classic, and will survive long after I’m gone. So what if they’re cheesy/embarrassing/ridiculous/whatever.

“Don’t Stop Believin’”–Journey. For awhile, the opening chords served as my ringtone. Then, my phone died.
“Don’t Fear the Reaper”–Blue Oyster Cult. Is it just me, or do you think of the SNL sketch every time you hear this song? Hi-lar-ious.

“Total Eclipse of the Heart”–Bonnie Tyler. So intense.  I wish I could be her for this song.

“Saturday Night”–Bay City Rollers. Ok I’m LOLing at this one. This catchy boppy beat also has video connections for me–this time for the Disney movie “Heavyweights.” Remember when they were “saving the dance”? Lolz!

“More than a Feelin’”–Boston. Maybe I’m just a sucker for catchy guitar riffs, but I can’t get enough of this song.

“Crazy Train”–Ozzy Osburne. So what? This used to get me moving when I had to run for miles and miles.

If your train has derailed, you could always try setting sail on the virgin sea.

“Come Sail Away”–Styx. I have their greatest hits CD and I think the entire thing could be classified as a “guilty pleasure,” but this song takes the cake for me.

“C is for ‘Cookie’”–Cookie Monster. Speaking of cake…I’m just about addicted to cookies, and this song makes me think about them.

I have a song on this list that mentions one letter, so how about one that mentions three?

“ABC”–Jackson 5. It’s a catchy song, even though a certain singer in that former band is now a complete weirdo.

“Build Me up, Buttercup”–I don’t know why this is on this list, but it is. Back to the snack foods, I guess. I’m hungry. I should get a snack.

You want to make a mix tape of all of these songs right now, I know.

Making your home a haven: Day 3

I’m making some progress, thanks to Crystal’s “Making your home a haven” challenge. This is day 3.

1. Refresh your spirit and write three things you’re thankful for

I pulled out a snowman mug (it’s snowing this morning) and a packet of hot chocolate mix.

This morning, I read from Psalm chapter 34. A few verses stood out to me today:

I sought the Lord, and He heard me, And delivered me from all my fears. – Psalm 34:4 NKJV

The young lions lack and suffer hunger; But those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. - Psalm 34:10

And, I’m thankful for my wonderful husband, friends that are only a phone call away, and health insurance (neither of us are sick, thank goodness, but thanks to my husband’s vision plan, we’ll be getting new glasses and contact lenses this week).

2. Take time to plan

I went through yesterday’s to-do list pretty well, and ya know what? If I didn’t post my short list on my blog, I don’t know that I would have completed it. It’s amazing how writing things down and publishing them can hold us accountable, ya know?

Today, I’d like to:

- Spend 10 minutes cleaning/organizing our bedroom

- Spend 15 minutes cleaning/organizing our guest room/office

- Spend 10 minutes straightening the living room (how in the world does it get so cluttered? It was fine yesterday!)

- Make a trip to the Dollar Tree to buy some Christmas decorations

- Spend an hour on writing work

- Finish decorating our Christmas tree

Looks like a lot of cleaning today. If I break it into chunks, it really won’t be so bad. I plan to play the radio while I’m cleaning, or even chat with someone on the phone. Plus, once things get really organized around here, I won’t have to spend time organizing–I’ll just need to do quick maintenance. A little extra effort now will save me time in the long run.

3. Do something! The laundry

Today, Crystal has us tackling our laundry piles and laundry rooms. Whew–this won’t be so bad for me. I don’t have a laundry room of my own–I share it with the other 11 apartment units in my building. It’s always fairly tidy, but when I’m down there today, I’ll straighten whatever I can.

Since our laundry pile was huge earlier this week, on Monday I decided to do two loads (normally, I just need to do laundry on Wednesdays). I washed jeans and whites. I put the jeans through one dry cycle, and hung the whites on my drying rack to air-dry.

Today, I’ll wash two loads of colors. I’ll hang these clothes on my drying rack and on hangers.