Brother

I'm going to make a commitment to go work for my brother at least one night a week - Wednesdays. Hopefully twice a week, maybe on Sundays or Mondays?

But last night, I went over there and while he didn't have any work for me, we did start talking about money, our finances, how we're trying to fix our personal finances and then our family situation.

After some real heartfelt conversation for a few hours, we decided that we can work together and use each other as sounding boards for improving our financial health (which will improve our mental, emotional and physical health too!).

We're also going to sit down with a plan and talk with my mom about our lives and then about how she is doing. We want her to know that she doesn't have to be there for us, but that we can be there for her too.

After this, we plan to bring our younger sister into the planning. And then we're going to tackle our dad.

My father has been an alcoholic as far back as I can remember. Until just a few years ago, the four of us had moved away and left him because he would not stop drinking and all of the negative behavior that went with his drinking.

Three years ago, he finally decided to become sober. He moved here and we took him back into the family and he's been sober ever since then. He's found a full-time job and is - in some aspects - a much healthier person.

But my brother and I both agreed last night that while some aspects are okay, our father hasn't changed his mentality and respect level for the people in his lives. It's often like dealing with a beligerent 16-year-old asshole instead of the 60-year-old television Dad we wish we had (Bill Cosby would be my choice!).

He lives with my mom (who divorced him before he got sober) and pays her rent. But he's taken over her house with his hobbies and has created a pretty negative and depressing environment for our mom. We think it's reaching a peak for her mental health in dealing with this everyday. She basically hides up in her room - of her own house - with our family's dogs, rather than dealing with him every day.

So, that is our next step in the planning. My brother and I are going to sit down with our dad and explain that if he wants to stay part of this family, he's got to not only be sober, but he's got to treat people better and be an adult.

The good thing we kept saying to each other, my brother and I, is that overall - big picture - we're doing pretty well. We have good lives, even with all of our debt. And we have our family. And we have lots of blessings. And that this stuff we're dealing with now is going to be much easier than a lot of the crap we've dealt with before (brother also staying sober, his girlfriend getting sober, our parents divorcing, our family falling apart, bad relationships, etc.).

So, in that way, I'm feeling pretty positive about all of this.

I think also that once we get farther along in our sharing process, I will share this blog with my brother and possibly my mom. They know I have debt, but sharing the totals with them would be coming completely clean and help me accomplish part of my goal for 2008 of being honest with myself and others.

Updates

I paid all of my bills this week. Yeah!

I updated all of my sidebar totals with these payoffs.

I also went back in and updated my net worth. It was getting confused, since I tried to update a January with new info. So I changed the old one to December 2007 and updated the new one to January 2008. I also changed my asset total for cash in December to zero, so it more accurately reflected my positive cash on hand. Since I'm pretty much working with a zero budget, this made sense. I'm just including the positive balances in my checking account after all of my bills are paid for each month and then my various savings balances.

I'll also update my car value annually, so that number will stay consistent for 2008.

I am still waiting to find out what my retirement assets are within my job's retirement system. I believe we get some report in spring of each year. I couldn't find a way to access this online unfortunately.

I haven't started my 403b yet. I am going to focus on my emergency fund ($1000!) and then my debt payoff first. Depending on what happens with my job, I'll either wait for my next salary increase at my current job or if I do happen to get the new job I'm hoping for later in this year which hopefully gives me a salary increase as well, then I'll get that 403b started.

Day Off

I had a three-day weekend thanks to MLK day yesterday. It was very nice and relaxing, plus I accomplished a few things.

- I took my cat to the vet for the first time in a few years. He's in good health and has his two vaccines which are good for three years.

- I cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed and straighted up the house. Staying on top of the cat hair so the boyfriend's allergies don't kick in.

- I made stuffed shells with yummy (and lower-fat) cheesy and fresh spinach filling (not frozen) with sauce. Enough for us to eat all week. Plus I used up some old bananas and made banana bread, which turned out awesome.

- I worked out at home for the first in a I can't even remember. Boyfriend's basement is half-finished and provides a great workout space. So Mr. Cat and went downstairs to work out and modified some of my gym class workout to fit the basement. Which actually ended up being pretty tough. I did a similar warmup, even running some short down-and-backs (yeah for a long empty basement), jumproped (although I have to be careful to keep it low and not hit the ceiling) and then did four exercises counting down from 10 sets to 1 set of each in a series. Mr. Cat did chase me and swat me a few times, so we took a slight break to go get him a toy to chase around instead.

- I didn't get to my money day, but I'll be working on my finances later today.

- I also shoveled the whole driveway (my second time in a week!) and our sidewalks. We got a lot of snow yesterday, so I helped boyfriend a bit with having less overall snow this morning. I let him shovel our next door lady's house though (we help her out), because I did that the first time earlier this week.

- I keep reading about this tax rebate thing that Bush might give everyone. Mine would fund my emergency fund! I will not spend it, unless it doesn't come through for a few months in which case, I would pay off some credit card bills b/c my emergency fund will be already funded.

- Oh and I'd like to note that I went grocery shopping yesterday for the second time this weekend (which I know is bad and has become my little vice), but I stopped to see what Whole Foods was like because I had never been there. And even though it was gorgeous and healthy and full of samples and so much I would love to buy at it's rediculously overpriced prices, I walked out with absolutely nothing and went to my favorite and least expensive grocery store. A battle at a time, you know?

Late at work

Sitting here late at my office on Friday night because I need to wait 15 minutes before braving the cold for the next bus home.

Am going to a party of an alum from my sport tonight. And also going to see bull riding! My mom won two tickets to a local event on the radio, so free bull riding for me and my boyfriend. Good stuff.

Am very sore from workout last night. Really tough. Walking like a crippled old lady, but not as bad as I thought. Hopefully tomorrow is better and not worse.

Looking forward to this weekend to just sit home and get the new digs organized. I'm still living out of a laundry basket since I haven't made the boyfriend commit to a set-up for our now communcal living arrangements.

Also, I have to trim my cat's claws. They're getting long again and he's misbehaving for attention and going after boyfriend's nice furniture. Will have to set some money aside and look into declawing possibly if this keeps up, but he's really being a bad little guy. Last night I had to lock him in our basement (with all of his necessities) because he was waking us up by chewing on electrical cords and using the nearly new couch as his new personal scratching post. Can't take the chance that his bad behavior makes boyfriend want him out, so looking into options.

So happy it's Friday. Have a good weekend.

Total Money Makeover

Still reading Total Money Makeover on my daily bus rides. So far, I like it a lot and will likely follow it to get out of debt.

I'm working on developing my "gazelle intensity".

A lot of this applies to my health goals as well. About 90 minutes of sprinting last night, so I'm worn out and now finally a tad sore from Tuesday's fitness testing. Tonight is the first hard workout at the gym. And I need to start drinking more water every day.

Do gazelle's get sore?

Gym Class Day 1

This is my third year of taking these winter gym classes. Day one we always do fitness testing to set the bar, if you will, for improvement.

I did better than I thought I would in some aspects. I am a weakling in others. All in all, I was slightly surprised that I had my natural strength considering I have been a very lazy butt since October.

I ran a surprisingly decent 14.92 second 60-yard shuttle. The slower girls were running 16-second times while our fastest were in the 13-second range (who are both awesomely fit and gifted athletes). My time was only slightly slower than one of our speedier players, so I was kind of happy.

My balance tests were awful. We have to stand on one leg, with our arms crossed over our chest and our eyes closed (hard to do!) for 60 seconds. If you wiggle too much, lose your balance at all or touch your foot down, you get a point. You count all of your points at the end. My left leg had a 4, while my right had an 8.

I was not so bad in the pull-ups, but I did the 90-degree pull-ups from the ground versus the full-weight hanging style. I know I couldn't get even one on those, but I had 14 in the 90-degree.

Push-ups were my worst. My full plank was only 7. That said, they were full plank and not on my knees. Later, I used the power-wheel to do pike-ups and had a 6.5. I fell attempting my 7th, because I didn't keep decent form (which means I'm done).

We had to do a weighted-throw with 20-kg balls. My chest and my backwards throws were decent, a 17 and a 15 or 16 I think. Not too weak, but could be better.

And my walking lunges holding a 12-kg weight in each hand sucked horribly. I only made it about 12 yards before I was done. But that's a bigger weight than I initially wanted to use, so that's pretty good considering. My knees were bothered, but boy were my legs not happy. They did not want to move up.

So, tonight, we have our team indoor sessions. Lots of running and ball-handling. I need that cardio badly, but I know I will be sucking wind. Worth pointing out, it will only cost me $5 for all eight indoor winter sessions. $5!

Thursday, I'm back at the gym and I'm not looking forward to the big workout, but the sadistic inner fitness babe in me says bring it on.

Suckola

I started a Networth IQ profile last March. Haven't bothered with it since then. So I updated it today finally.

Mine's private, but I posted the newest total on the sidebar.

It's very ugly. And sad.

I look forward to making it pretty. And happy.

About the only thing that I have any positive net worth from is my car. And then it's only worth about $5620 according to Kelley Blue Book in good condition. And I still owe 4404 on it. But I'll take the positive $1200 on it.