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Category Archives: Life
slow down to save some gas
My dad was always “one of those guys” who went like 5 mph under the speed limit and did NOT go above 55 mph on the highway. He would take his foot off the eccelerator like a mile before the stoplight and coast to the light. This drove me crazy! But he always said it was to save on gas mileage…the thing is, I never understood why he would need to go to such drastic measures to save a few pennies on a tank of gas, especially when it was 0.95 cents per gallon.
Now that I am married, on a budget and gas is about 4 times what it was 10 years ago, I find myself doing the same things my dad did that drove me crazy. I’m the old lady driver in the right lane going the speed limit as other drivers speed pass me. Not only did I slow my driving down from about 7-80mph to 60-65mph, I don’t speed off the starting line when the light turns green like a racing horse out of the gate anymore. If I would have done this when I had my xterra there’s no telling how much gas I could have saved. I could have gone from 16mpg to 23 mpg…but who knows for sure. But now that I have a car that gets close to 30 mpg and has a display for an estimated mpg for each tank of gas, I’ve turned it into a game to see how high I can get it. I’ve had it up to 36 mpg at one time–amazing!
I’ve heard of people getting bumper stickers that say stuff like “I’m driving slow to save gas” I’ve come up with my own bumper sticker but I can’t get it printed because I can’t have that type of language on my car- ;). It’s simply a play on words and honestly I find it pretty humorous. I’ll let you fill in the blank with whatever makes you happy–but it would say “Unless your going to pay for my gas, get off my —” Funny huh?! But now you see why I can’t use it.
Bottom line–slow down your driving and you’ll see a big difference in your gas mileage.
HGTV
I think our TV has been on HGTV since last Wednesday, with the occasional show on TLC. I’m sure Jonathan is ready for me to go back to work so I will quit coming up with things we need to do to the house. Currently I would like to:
~put cabinets in the laundry room –we have none in there currently
~paint the living room–it’s still white chocolate, it needs a color
~put a deck in the backyard– a small one, nothing lavish
~paint the office and guest room
~pull up the carpet and put hardwoods in (or a form of hardwoods)
~get an actual dining room table
I think that’s it for now! And I don’t expect to do all of these, or atleast not any time soon. But I do expect to paint the living room within the next month or two (whenever I can get on a ladder again). I’ve looked at applying to be on one of the 100 design shows on HGTV but they are all in like LA or NY…what about TEXAS! We need some design guidance too! what you want to pretty up all the other states but leave Texas in the dust? Geeze. Owell, we’ll just have to do it by ourselves!
update
I went to see the neurosurgeon today that they ER doc initially consulted while I was at Baylor. Apparently the ER doc misunderstood the neurosurgeon or just didn’t listen. Either way the ER doc told us the neurosurgeon wasn’t sure if there were any fractures and I could go home without wearing a C-Collar on my neck. Well I saw the Doctor this morning and he told me everything he saw and what really happened. The neurosurgeon said I did have fractures in my thoracic spine. We initially thought it was just T1 and T2, which are the top vertebrae of the thoracic part of the spine, but he told me I had fractures in my T1, T2, T3 and T4! Crazy! They are basically compression fractures from hitting the top of my head on the floor and that jammed my spine down and caused the fractures. Luckily the fractures are in my thoracic spine and not my cervical (neck) because my rib cage acts as a natural C-Collar or brace so I don’t need one-YEAH! And they should heal on their own without surgery. I still am in quite a bit of pain but I think I’ll just have to live with that for a while. He reluctantly released me to go back to work tomorrow…I think he was thinking Monday but I assured him I didn’t do anything too strenuous and he made me promise I wouldn’t lift anything–you know, like kids, or myself up off the floor ;( just kidding! I go back in 2 months for a follow up with the neurosurgeon and to get another CT to make sure it’s all healing like it should. Anywho–there you have it. As much as I’m going to miss sleeping in and laying on the couch all day; I’m ready to go back to work–broken back and all!!
Simplicity
I was going to post this Tuesday before I headed to work but I was running late so it never happened. Here’s the funny thing–look at the picture below and then remember I was in the ER all day on Tuesday.
The post was going to be about simplicity and how sometimes you take things for granted. As of Monday when I took this picture I had been feeling the best I’ve felt in over a year. My heart medications were finally at the right dosage and doing their job, my sinus surgery fixed my sinus infections and was all healed and I hadn’t had a headache in about 3 weeks–YEAH! I felt great, I was done with school and the hubs and I were enjoying life. On my way home from work on Monday I saw all the sunflowers had popped up basically overnight so Jonathan and I along with Presley took a stroll behind our house so I could take some pictures of the sunflowers. I got this picture and it just makes me think of summer and the simplicity of it, or how it used to be when we were kids. We would be off school for a couple of months and just have fun, times were simple. I miss those days! Not that life is complicated now by any means but it’s just not as simple as it used to be. Then Tuesday happened when things got a little less simple. But this will go away just as everything else does and we can get back to life. So if I ever want to remember those times of no work, bills or struggles I can just pull this picture out and look at it.
Last 5 Days
This is what I’ve been doing the last 5 days:
Fun huh?! NO–It’s been 5 days since I fell and hurt my neck–I would think 5 days later I should be ready to get up and do things, right? Wrong! I still can’t really sit up for more than 30 minutes without being in quite a bit of pain. Jonathan and I had our families over Friday evening for the July 4th and grilled some hamburgers and played some games…I thought I did good, not doing much and letting other people do things for me…well apparently not because I definitely paid for it on Saturday..I basically moved back a day or two in the healing process. Jonathan and I were talking yesterday and apparently when the neurosurgery resident came in to talk to us when I was in the ER she was talking about having surgery and all this, I don’t remember that or at least I didn’t hear it. I guess that’s a good thing because I might have been freaking out a little bit. Other than knowing I had a concussion and a sprained neck, we still don’t know whether or not I really have a broken neck, but I guess we’ll never know. I’m still waiting to hear from my primary doctor about my elevated white blood cell count and my current debate is trying to decide whether or not I should go back to work tomorrow. My brain says GO BACK TO WORK but my body says DON’T YOU DO IT! I am sooo tired of sitting/lying around. I’ve watched so much TLC and HGTV I now have all these ideas on things to do to our house but no money to do it with…or ability to do it right now–I’m sure Jonathan is glad that’s the case or he would have a paint brush in his hand right now. So if I don’t go back to work tomorrow, I’m gonna go stir crazy!
She’s Married!!!
My best friend Jen got married this past weekend. Her and Jed were married at Highland Park Presbyterian Church this past Saturday. It was a fun, busy weekend. Jonathan and I took some pictures at the wedding and reception and they are posted on my flickr page if you’re interested in looking at those.
It all started Friday afternoon for the bridesmaids luncheon at Dallas Country Club and then that following evening was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner at Royal Oaks Country Club.
Saturday evening was the wedding and reception at the Petroleum Club in Dallas (The building with the hole in the center in downtown Dallas).
I even got my dad to take a picture and his eyes were open–not typical!
We had a great time and great food! I know Jen and Jed had a great wedding day and are off celebrating in Mexico right now! I wish I were there. We got home around midnight Saturday night and then woke up Sunday to go to church because we had nursery duty. Sunday we pretty much rested and got ready for the week ahead.
I wish Jen and Jed the best and Jonathan and I are so happy for them and I know they are extremely excited to finally be spending their lives together as husband and wife.
weekend wrap up
This weekend wasn’t as busy as the last 3 or 4 weekends. We didn’t really have anything scheduled so we could do pretty much anything we wanted–YEAH! I needed this before next weekend hits–it’s gonna be busy. So here is what our fun weekend was full of.
Friday:
* took some stuff to a friends house for a garage sale and stayed and chatted with them for a while.
* made some “chicken littles” for dinner…imagine chick fil a nuggets but better -MMmmmmm.
* went to bed early because I was Exhausted!!
Saturday:
* slept in some but got up earlier than normal on a saturday and made waffles for us to eat.
* went and got my hair chopped off
* Jonathan and I went to the Waxahachie balloon fest with Richard, Amber and Gracelyn and Phil.
Sunday:
* went to church
* came home and made some lunch
* went shopping at Costco (piece of advice–go with a friend and split the cost of food–if we got 300 slices of cheese, 200 slices would go bad before we got to them! So split the cost and amount of cheese but don’t cut the cheese–HAHAHAHA just kidding)
* took a 30 minute nap
* uploaded pics to flickr
* baked a cake
* watered the lawn
* went to bed early
Early Birds?
Okay, whoever said “The earlier bird gets the worm” ought to be shot! Getting up early is way over rated. I started riding DART this week to save some money on gas. When I started putting $60 a week in my fuel efficient car I said somethings gotta change and it’s not going to be the gas prices. My commute to work is 50 miles a day, which isn’t horrible compared to some but when you add driving to and from Dallas 4 or 5 times every weekend it starts to add up. So I decided to ride DART. I get a HUGE discount through my work on an annual Dart pass. I only pay $36 a year for my annual pass, compared to Jonathan’s pass that we pay double that each month. Well, in order to get to work on time, I have to get up at 4:30 in the morning–4:30 . That’s EARLY…granted I only got up 30-40 minutes later when I drove, but still. So I catch the bus at the Glenn Heights station at 5:45 and ride to Union Station in downtown Dallas and then ride the TRE rail to market center and walk a mile to our clinic. Not too bad, and I get some more exercise–especially when I have to run to catch the train because the bus is late (that’s another story). I don’t mind riding the bus/train and I don’t mind getting up early for it, but I do not like being tired because of it. I’m sleepy! All to save money–geeze.
The reason behind all that is this -> Jonathan and I have decided to do the Dave Ramsey pay off your debt, live debt free thing. My suggestion was to sell Jonathan’s truck and live with one car until we get it all paid off…I dont’ think he went liked that idea. So that’s why I decided to stop driving and the money we save on gas may offset the car payment on his truck and in return give us more money to pay off debt. So if we tell you no when you ask us to go out to eat with you, it’s not because we don’t like you or want to…we are just trying to save some money to live debt free. It’s not like we have this huge amount of debt but more than we want to live with or are at peace with. So if becoming debt free means riding the dart bus, running in downtown dallas at 6:00am with 10 pound clogs on to catch the train and standing on the bus the whole way home because there are no more seats, I’ll do it for a while.
Livin’ Large
Brian is doing a new series at church called “Livin’ Large”…it’s basically about taking a look at the things/blessings we have. He asked us a question to answer in a group…my answer was different than most, I think I took a different approach–and in no way did I mean for my answer to be smart alecy or seem like I am high and mighty or better than anyone, it’s just what came to mind. Anyway, he asked us to reply to this: If we were sat in front of the top 10 wealthiest people what would we say to them. A lot of people replied with “can i have some money?” or “how did you do it, how did you become rich?” but my answer was simply this “I’ve saved a handful of babies and children from dying, what did you do and is it something you’re proud of?” The meaning behind this response is simple. I get paid A LOT less than they do, but at the end of the day I love what I do and I go home knowing I made a difference in someones life, whether it’s performing CPR on a baby to save their life, doing a simple diagnostic test to determine what disease they have or simply smiling at them and telling them to have a good day. Compared to the top 10 wealthiest people I make like nothing, but I’m happy and having more money won’t make me happier.
Did you know that if you make $37,000 or more a year you are in the top 5% of wage earners in the world. If you make $45,000 or more a year you are in the top 1% of wage earners in the world. Put that into perspective and I’m rich. I/we make more than 99% of the population in the world. There are some people in the world that live on $1 a day, can you imagine living on $1 a day now. Three billion people live on less than $2 per day while 1.3 billion get by on less than $1 per day. Seventy percent of those living on less than $1 per day are women.
Think of some of the things we spend our money on and some of the things we probably don’t need. This is a list of things we could do with the money we spend on certain things and what we could do with the same amount of money.
$8 could buy you 15 organic apples OR 25 fruit trees for farmers in Honduras to grow and sell fruit at their local market.
$30 could buy you an ER DVD Boxset OR a First Aid kit for a village in Haiti.
$73 could buy you a new mobile phone OR a new mobile health clinic to care for AIDS orphans in Uganda.
$2400 could buy you a second generation High Definition TV OR schooling for an entire generation of school children in an Angolan village.
Kind of puts things into perspective huh? So next time you want that new iPod or camera, think of what else you could be doing with that money. (myself included, since I did just buy a new ipod)
If you want to see how rich you are go here : http://www.globalrichlist.com/