30 Things, 4 Years Later: Day 29

30 Things to Accomplish in my 30s:
#29. Get back into the letter-writing habit again. You know — the snail-mail kind.

When I was younger, I liked to write letters.

Some of my friends can testify to that. I think my longest one was about 19 pages (front and back).

These letters were probably really, really boring.

Like, “On Wednesday, I had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. Speaking of sandwiches, do you know anything about The Earl of Sandwich? Or The Sandwich Islands? Our car is way too small. When we go somewhere, I end up sandwiched between my brothers in the back seat and it’s just not very appealing. Speaking of peels, I had a banana with that sandwich I mentioned a minute ago. Apparently some people like having banana slices on their peanut butter sandwiches? Inconceivable! Peanut butter and banana? Say what? No, no. Bananas are better left on the side.

“Speaking of left sides, spiral bound notebooks are not cool at all, on account of the spiral being on the left side. Terribly inconvenient for us lefties. Who came up with that idea anyway? Know what else is terribly inconvenient? I was trying to do my penmanship lesson the other day, and because I’m left-handed, the letters got all smudged and I got an inky pinky in the process.

“I got a pack of new pens with pink ink the other day. I just love pink ink. It makes me as happy as any [*moody pre-adolescent*] girl could possibly be. I’ve been writing in my journal with pink ink every third day because I have some pens with purple ink and green ink too, and equality and civil rights and all that jazz. It just wouldn’t do to have the purple and green feel like I was a raging racist…..

A couple of weeks ago, I went to this meeting and they had this funny prayer thing at the end where everyone was supposed to hold hands with someone. This big African American guy grabbed my hand. I’m 11 and this guy is holding my hand. But, I’m not a racist so I just stood there and thought about how brave I am for letting this stranger hold my hand.”

You get the idea….. Blibber-blabber about everything and nothing. Probably none of it made a whole lot of sense. And I tried very hard to be an equal opportunity writer so my inks wouldn’t feel left out. (Just kidding!)

Nowadays, I don’t send a whole lot of letters. I pretty much flunked out on this one, except for the occasional “Hi, how are you?” note or a thank you note.

I really, really like this goal because a few days ago, I got this in the mail:

Receiving this note was so encouraging and it made me smile on the inside. I’m all about encouraging people and making people smile, and that is a good enough reason to get going on this goal.

 

30 Things, 4 Years Later: Day 28

30 Things to Accomplish in my 30s:
#28. Visit at least one family member per month — unless the weather doesn’t cooperate.

Let’s say that the weather has been rather uncooperative.

Or, I could just tell the truth and say that since I work a lot of weekends, it’s hard to get out of town much these days.

That and the fact that I do live in South Dakota where it’s blustery, cold, rainy, snowy or icy about 8-9 months of the year and that doesn’t help matters much either.

When I wrote this goal, I thought it would be nice to have a family dinner once a month. They’re all in the same general area and I’d just have to drive 2 hours north, stop at that Pizza Ranch or one of my brothers’ houses, have dinner and chit-chat or play a game or something. Maybe I’d stay the weekend. Maybe I’d just stay the day.

It was a lovely idea, really.

Why did I not actually do this one?

 

30 Things, 4 Years Later: Day 27

That being said:

30 Things to Accomplish in my 30s:
#27. Visit Ireland. And Iran. And India. And Iraq. And maybe even Afghanistan. I want to go to Ireland because I’ve always been fascinated with the beauty, and I want to go to the other countries because I feel so much compassion for the women and girls who are in bondage because of religion and culture.

This illustrates why this hasn’t happened yet:

And, here is a solution to this problem:

(I didn’t say it was a good solution!)

A serious look at the feasibility of international travel:

For me, it would be slower going than that because I only spend $10 or more on a meal maybe 3 times a year. I never get drinks and I don’t think I’ve ever had more than 4 meals out in any given 7-day period, unless I was traveling.

But, if I cut those 1-4 weekly meals out, I might be able to save enough for a ticket somewhere once a year. Maybe.

At any rate…. I’ve been thinking about why I listed the countries I did.

I mean…. Iran? Iraq? Afghanistan? Seriously?

When I wrote the original list, ISIS hadn’t become a thing yet.

I’m not as daring today as I was then.

My heart still breaks for the mamas and the little girls in those countries who are property, not people. My heart aches for the young boys who are brainwashed into believing that blowing themselves up is somehow a good idea. I weep for the mothers who have to watch their babies train for suicide missions.

It’s so wrong on so many levels.

So, no, I haven’t traveled. I won’t get to the Middle East any time soon. I may never go anywhere. Who knows what will happen?

Now, to commence with the eating at home thing so I can go to Canada so I can check out the Hot Springs and see Aurora Borealis.

 

30 Things, 4 Years Later: Day 26

30 Things to Accomplish in my 30s:
#26. Use Dave Ramsey’s Envelope System the entire decade.

I like this one.

If. If I had actually done this, I’d be in a really good place financially.

Eight years ago, I did Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University class at my church. The class is phenomenal. If you apply the principles taught in the class, you’re going to go places.

I learned how to make a budget.I learned how to use the envelope system.
I learned about the Debt Snowball.
I learned the evils of credit cards — I’ve never had one and I plan on keeping it that way!
I learned the Seven Baby Steps.

I was told that I needed to have an accountability person — and that’s where the problems started.

Because my pastor thought he should get to see my budget and make decisions about how I spent my money.

I paid off a lot of debt.

I was working two part-time, minimum wage jobs and I managed to pay off about $15,000 in debt in roughly 2 years — even though for over half of that time, I was working less than 40 hours a week.

I think the reason this worked for me was because I used the envelope system. I budgeted my money meticulously. I put money for bills in my checking account and everything else was paid in cash. If the envelope didn’t have money in it, I didn’t buy it. I budgeted $2.50 per week for pie at Perkins and that was the extent of my fun money. I had an envelope for groceries, one for gas, one for clothing, one for toiletries and household items. I budgeted $10 a month for “mad money” and that was all I got. If an envelope was empty, I didn’t need whatever it was I wanted to buy. After filling my envelopes on payday and paying my bills, everything that was left went to extra payments on loans.

I paid off my car and my Perkins loan in about 3 months and then I was able to put a huge dent in my Stafford loan.

And then my entire existence went to pot.

Four years ago, I had lofty ambitions to get back on the bandwagon and take care of business. I was — again — working a part-time, minimum wage job and I could barely make ends meet. About 3 weeks after penning this goal, I was offered a full-time position at my job and I completely forgot about how helpful the envelope system had been.

So, no. I haven’t done this one at all. But I really, really need to.

 

30 Things to Accomplish in my 30s:
#25. Pay cash for a high-quality, gently-used, fuel-efficient, American-made car.

I commute roughly 250 miles per week and where I come from, when you have to drive 25 miles each way for something, you’re going to be driving through about 22 miles of…. nothing.

22 miles of fields.
22 miles of sunshine.
22 miles of wind, ice, fog and blowing snow.
22 miles of skunk stink.
22 miles of -0° F temps.
22 miles of mist, rain, hail and tornados.
22 miles of pheasants, deer, and tumbleweed that might cross your path.
22 miles of school bus stops and kids running across the road to hop on the bus.

Winter around here can be very cold and very treacherous.

The first winter I had this job, I was very much concerned with the fact that it was possible my car could die on the side of the road and I wouldn’t be able to get to work anymore.

I intended to save scads of money for the purpose of purchasing said gently used, fuel efficient, American-made car.

I had my eye on this:

Ford Escape.

Because, you need lots of room for
3 Tire irons
Full-size spare
3 blankes
Sleeping bag
Bag chair
Extra set of windshield wipers
A shovel
5 quarts of oil
A gallon of antifreeze
HEET
Flares
A mini air compressor
A floodlight
First Aid kit
CPR mask
A toolbox
Snowboots
2 jacks
Scrubs
An overnight bag

Because you never know what might happen when you’re 22 miles from anything.

Because it’s 4-Wheel Drive.
That might come in handy somewhere along 22 miles of ditches on either side of 22 miles of black ice.

Because with a 15 gallon gas tank and fuel efficiency of 29 MPG, I can get to work and back 9 times before having to fill up.

I was all gung-ho about this until it turned out that I had to move last January.

And then I bought a house.

My gently-used, fuel-efficient, American-made car fund currently stands at about $0.

In case anybody is interested, here is a link to a video on how you can drive new cars without having a car payment!

 

30 Things, 4 Years Later: Day 24

30 Things to Accomplish in my 30s:
#24. Buy a camera. I loved my old one to death.

I did.

Within a couple of months after writing this goal, I purchased a newer version of the camera I’d loved to death.

It wasn’t the same.

I’ve taken some pictures with it and they haven’t turned out anything like the ones from the old camera. And it doesn’t work like the old one either.

I would love, love, love to get a digital SLR camera. I love art and music and crafting and all that good stuff, but my favorite creative outlet is photography. Bright eyed babies, frisky puppies, sunsets — I love capturing beauty.

 

30 Things, 4 Years Later: Day 23

30 Things to Accomplish in my 30s:
#23. Learn to draw. (I’ve wanted to do this for like…. forever.)

I’m a more or less creative person, but I’ve never had any instruction on how to draw.

Fortunately, part of my job involves sitting in on a Kindergarten class.

Art isn’t nearly as intimidating when the artists around you are 6 year olds.

Here is a sample of something I drew several weeks ago….

The gist of that one is that if I could plant something and have more of it grow, I’d pick love — right after I sowed some love and grew some love.

I’m decent when it comes to lettering….

A couple of summers ago, I went to a class that taught how to do several styles of lettering. It was a really neat experience and I’ve really enjoyed doodling phrases or words since then. I really should take some more classes, huh? It would be super fun!