Breaking Out of the Bubble...

I don't want to be in the "bubble" anymore!!! I don't want to live not knowing other cultures and how they work, live, play, and think. I want to break out!!!!

God has put too many cultures and countries on this earth for me to not to take the time to see it all.

I have decided to take the time and get TEFL certified. This should set me up to get a job if needed: a MBA, TEFL certified, and a teaching business certificate. But this is definitely not my goal. I would rather have my own business set up before I leave. We will see...

Kicking Debt in the A** and Other Ramblings

So I've taken a little break...

but don't worry, I haven't given up the blogging just yet. It's going to take me a while to become more accountable and actually take the time to update this blog but, as I have announced to myself, this will be one of my goals this year. So yeah add it to the list, lol.

While you were gone...

Don't worry, I didn't just sit around and do nothing while I was gone. I have started a little challenge for myself::: 1 hour of tv a day. Know you may not know this but I spend more time watching tv in a day than most people do in a week! Seriously, I could probably sit in front of the tv for a whole day... wait I definitely have so cross the probably. I've only started it this week and have lasted so far. Actually, it hasn't really been as hard as I thought it was going to be. I'm in grad school so most of the time I was doing homework and studying. Also, I did cook all this week! Good things too, like one day I wade seared ahi tuna with rice, corn, and garlic bread. It was delicious!

So you might be wondering why I started a challenge like this for myself. Well, I also went out and bought the book The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss the revised version. Well not the book but the audio cd because I don't have the time to read a book lol. I have gotten a lot of information from the book but a lot of it has to do with having a business on the side. Since I don't have a business yet I have been using some of the principles in my own life now and watching tv less (actually I think some people have cut it out altogether) is one of the principles. I really think that I want to actually read the book (I have the original book but never got past page 8!) and write down some of the principles and then blog my action plan for a week ... or two... regarding the principles. This should be interesting.

Take that school loans...

I have a school loan that is a variable interest loan. This loan makes me hyperventilate at times because it is so much, $40,000. We won't get into why I took it out but lets just say I was young and stupid and now I'm paying for it. We will forever call this loan D4L (Debt for life because the stupid thing has a term of 20 years! I just absolutely hate seeing my payoff date: 2029). So D4L and I just don't see eye to eye. I want to smash him and well I think he just wants to live. Do I have put myself on a new and improved plan. Well not really but I have decided that I will stop saving for two years and put all my money towards D4L until he is gone. DIE D4L DIE!!!

My monthly payment is $345.67. Oh did I mention that D4L has compounded interest that accrues DAILY!!! So about every month I have to pay $312 in interest before any money every reaches  my prinicple. So now I have decided to pay $1,300 every month. It should only take me 3 years to pay this off. Three years seems like a decade but at least I can be finished in 2013 instead of 2029. Now this doesn't effect my plans of traveling. In 2 1/2 years I'm selling my house... and by God's grace will have some profit to pay off the loan earlier than planned. I will have to travel on my current savings and the money I get from selling off ALL my things. That's the goal, but it won't happen for 2 1/2 - 3 years.

That leads me to my travelling goals...

So, after little convincing from my boyfriend, I have decided to get certified! TEFL here I come. If I sign up before Sunday (in two days) I get a free course on teaching Business! And the best part is ... the price! It's only $295 (Sorry savings but I NEED this). This goes right along with my masters and hopefully I can find a job overseas really easy because I will have: an MBA, TEFL certificate, and a course on teaching Business (don't know if that is a certificate or not). Someone has got to hire me right??? By the way, the job is just a backup plan. Hopefully I will find my muse and become an entrepreneur!

Ok so what have you been doing to kill your debt? How are you trying to obtain your goals?

God works in mysterious ways

Everyone always says it but I experienced it today (though it is not the first time). So let me tell you about my experience (and start off with a little background info, lol). One of my new year's resolutions/goals is to develop my relationship with God. I bought a house in July 2009 (about 6 months ago) and have since been looking for a home church. Now, to be honest I didn't attend church every Sunday but I did try and go. I was looking at a bunch of different churches but I just never felt that God was calling me to stay at any of the churches. So this morning I woke up early and got ready to go to a church. I hadn't figured out exactly where I was going but it was the first Sunday of the year and if I was going to accomplish my goal I needed to at least try out a new church. There was a church that I passed almost everyday (well, I actually noticed it on my way home from Walmart one day) and I thought that I would try that church. I couldn't remember the name of the church so I googled churches in my area. I found a church that I thought was the one that that I had passed. I put the address in my gps and started off, even though I thought I knew the address I am horrible when it comes to directions and I didn't want to be late. As to my surprise I ended up at a totally different church. I walked in and took my seat and almost immediately felt the spirit overtake me. The church is small and quant and the setup is just like my old church. I was so excited that I wanted to join like today lol. I signed up to have someone call me and then almost immediately called my best friend. I mean immediately, I wasn't even out of the parking lot lol.

So, here is a few things that I learned in church today:

The message was about Living a Consistent Life with Christ. God desires consistency in our relationship with Him. He doesn't want you to lose your way no matter what because the devil is always waiting. You should be prepared for the attack from others because you are a Christian.

So in 2010 your goals should be the following:
1. Worry less and become more faithful.   God has everything in his hand, when you worry you show your lack of faith in Him.
2. Be more gracious/compassionate
3. Make a dent in the Kingdom.    Do (act) something in God's kingdom!
4. Take care of what God has given to you
     -Relationships
     -Money, Time, and Talent
5. Pray for our leaders (whether you are for or against them they play a major impact in our life)
6. Invest in a local church  - don't be a pew sitter
7. Grow in your maturity in Christ and your relationships with others. (This by far is going to be the hardest one to complete but I can do it).

Here are some scripture references:
Galatians 5:22
Ephesians 4:1-3; 6:11-13; 5:15-20
Matthew 6:25-27
Romans 5:20-21
Acts 9:10-16
Job 1:1-3
I Timothy 2:1-2
I Corinthians 12:27


I'm so excited about this journey!!!

Resolutions...

So I was just cleaning out my email and I found some resolutions for 2008 entitled "A New Year A New Me." There were 4 goals on the list with a plan on how to achieve each one. It was a pretty good list and plan if I do say so myself (and I do, lol) but unfortunately I didn't accomplish not one of the goals! Maybe because it was in an email buried deep in a sea of confusion and clutter (and if you saw my email you would understand) that probably has never been looked at since I wrote them. They are great goals, and some of them I have on my list now (lose weight, find another home church - this is because I have moved to a new area, etc) but I have also added a few things. So, in order to focus on my goals and have them at the forefront of my mind, I will share my 2009 resolutions goals with you.


They can be found here

Tell the ones you love…

So a couple of days ago my boyfriend’s childhood friend passed away. I know that he is taking it hard because they were like brothers and he is so far away he can’t even console the family. This has been so hard on me because I don’t know how it is really affecting him because he refuses to talk to me. My boyfriend does not share his feelings, instead he holds everything in and just refuses to talk to anyone. Because he is overseas he can literally not log on to skype or pick up his phone and just not interact with anyone. This has been very frustrating for me over these last couple of days. I do not know how to approach him and I have already told him that he can come to me anytime.


Just really frustrated right now.

So honestly, I really wanted to write this to let everyone know that you should just let the people you love know it. You never know when God is going to call you home and you would want the ones you love to know that you loved them.

In the Beginning...

So this is the second… no wait, the third blog that I have started this month. I hope that I can finally keep up with one this time. My problem, I tried to focus on one specific thing for each blog and realized that I didn’t have a lot to say about one specific thing. So this is a blog about me… about everything that I think of… about everything that I want to achieve. I am writing this blog for me, so that I can focus all of my goals in one place and track my accomplishments.




So with the new year coming up I have a couple of goals that I want to achieve by the end of next year:

• I went natural!!! I stopped getting perms about a year ago and about two weeks ago I cut all of the perm out of my hair (3 inches was all that I had left of perm in my hair). So my goal is to keep it healthy and have it grow to my bra stap by the end of this year. This shouldn’t be too herd because it is about to my shoulder now. I want to achieve this by wearing protective styles as often as possible and not using as much heat on my hair.

• I need to lose weight and get healthy. I am currently considered overweight by the doctors standards. I am 5′3-5′4 and 148 lbs. I want to lose 20lbs by the end of this year. So this means cut back on the fried food, cut back on fast food, exercise at least 3 times a week, and start taking vitamins. Well just yesterday I tried the Wii Fit and it told me that my fitness age was 35!!! So this is a huge goal that I need to work on (by the way that's 10 yrs older than what I am, I want to cry right now).

Financially my goals are a little more defined:

• I have (wait for it) $68,000 in student loan debt!!! It overwhelms me so much that I have panic attacks about it but this year I have decided to tackle it with as much as I can. I have two loans, one is in deferment due to the fact that I am in graduate school part time, the other is a private loan totaling $40,000. It is a variable rate that started at $30,000 and has grown due to interest. Oh man that interest is going to kill me! I plan to put $1,000 a month towards the loan. Considering that I only have to pay $350 a month, that is a good start.

• Save $15,000 in an emergency fund. So far I have$13,000 in the account now. The $2,000 difference is going to have to come through an extra job or maybe tax dollars or something becuase I have no more income to put towards this!

• I am saving up to travel. This savings is going to further be refered to as TF, travel fund. I am going to save $1,800 this year; that’s $150 a month.

Well that is all for right now because it is getting late and I have some cooking to do. We are having a holiday potluck tomorrow at work… you know what that means… food all day long and a tummy ache later lol (but it will be well worth it).



Smooches

A New Year = A New Move, lol

I actually started his blog over at Wordpress.com but, because I am a beginner, there were too many things to figure out how to work, lol. I know a couple of people that blog on Blogger.com and they said that the ease of use is a bit better than Wordpress.com (for beginners) so .... here I am.

I didn't get that great of a start over there so I will just import all of those postings (I think it was only 3 anyway) to here. Yay, I'm so excited! Okay, so here I go.