Nincompoopery

To My Mother http://wp.me/p1StdW-pF

Today is my mother’s birthday.  She would have been 87 years old had she lived past 64. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of her, but today is one of those days that not a moment goes by without me thinking of her. It is her birthday.

Life after my mother’s passing was indescribably hard. I depended on my mother desperately during many dark hours in my life. The day she died was the darkest…

When You Get Stopped For Speeding

When you are not paying attention while you are driving, you may started to speed. When you speed, you may get stopped by a police officer and given a ticket. When you get a ticket, may you’ll forget to pay it. When you forget to pay it, your license may be suspended. When your license is suspended, you’ll have to pay a reinstatement fee. When you forget to pay the reinstatement fee, you are…

Monday Morning Coffee and a Poem

God Forbid The more I understand You, Lord, The more I understand I know very little. God forbid I stop knowing Your power and try to walk this life again on my own; I ever stop believing all things work together for good for those who know You, and for everything there is a season and purpose under heaven; a mustard seed of faith ever stops being enough. God forbid You become a religion to me,…

This has been my prayer since Grace started her journey with The World Race on Friday.

My daughter, Grace, left Friday on a year-long missions trip with World Race. I’ve been in constant communication with God since then. This is our conversation. Dear God, Grace left four days ago, and I can’t quit crying. I know You know this, but I need to say it because I keep telling everyone that I’m okay. I’m not. I am lonely for her and sad. I thank You for preparing me over the last 6…

None for me, but thank you for asking. I don’t like hot chocolate.  I did, but I don’t now.  The journey from “did” to “don’t” is an interesting story.  Imagine that. Remember, I come from a large family. There are 10 children: 4 boys and 6 girls, of which I am the youngest. We lived in a relatively large house in a relatively small town in Northeast Nebraska where the winters were (and still…

MURPHY’S LAW (part 2) Awhile ago, I talked about how Murphy’s Law always gets in our way of building the emergency fund, and how by making some very hard decision based on our commitment to add no new debt, we power through. I was getting excited for this blog post because I was going to be able to share that our emergency fund gained some ground on the $1500 mark, but before I could even start…

Celebrating a Success As Queen coined it, “Another one bites the dust.” Another credit card bill that is. For all the difficulties Murphy’s law throws at us, by sticking to our pledge to pay cash and implementing Dave Ramsey’s Debt Snowball tactic, we crushed another credit card and are one step closer to being debt free! To celebrate, because I’m the kind of girl who needs to celebrate meeting…

Here's a funny little story that happened on Spring Break.

My family spent a couple of days in Kansas City for Spring Break. It was wonderful. We rented bikes to peddle around downtown. The bike path took us one block off of Main Street, so we could still see the sights, but not be in direct competition for the road with drivers who have no time or patience for tourists. We came to a red light, and I noticed this sign:     Find out more at the Kauffman…

In the last installment of this series, I talked about routinely taking stock of one’s finances which is the first step in Dave Ramesey’s Financial Peace University class. Routine, routine, routine. It keeps my life from going off the rails and crashing, leaving behind a red, hot ball of firey flames rivaled only by the entrance to hell itself. The next step in Ramsey’s Financial Peace class is…

Just published "Taking Stock," the newest installment of my the Debt-free Living series.

  Taking Stock It’s Thursday, and that means one thing at my house: budget day! There are a few things that I do before diving into the budget. First, I pay tithe Second, I take stock of the finances. I am going to save what I mean by paying tithe for a later post and first discuss what it means to take stock. As mentioned in the first post of this series, we did all of the homework assigned in…

Renewal: Debit Free Living

Enter a caption Note: This blog or blog post is not in any way connected to Dave Ramsey or Financial Peace University other than being written by a student of Financial Peace classes. This blog is not being reimbursed for this testimony.    Living with debt is sheer nincompoopery (the bad kind, not the funny kind), and believing there is no way around living in debt is sheer nincompoopery (still…

Random Thoughts Friday #32

A Note to My Younger Self I have a few things I would like for you to understand. To Elementary School Me Don’t worry so much about not being able to read well. You figure it out eventually, and you do just fine. Relax and just keep reading. The same goes with math. Become a secret keeping pro. Trust me. It comes in handy later. Spend more time in the library and make friends with the librarian.…