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The library was one of my favorite places in the world when I was a kid. Library day was like Christmas and I would run in and get my maximum available bookage and then devour them and return them and fill back up.
Sadly, I haven’t been to the library in a decade or more. Perhaps my college library destroyed this love because of its smelly carpet or its lack of books published after 1950. Either way, in our recent attempts to save money the Brewer family loaded up on this rainy Monday and went to the library.
And I rediscovered my love for this wonderful place. I came across a bunch of books that I’ve got down on my “To Read” list (to be GTD-precise, it’s my “@book” list) including some brand new ones that have only been out for a short while. Not to mention the free kids DVD’s.
All in all, I came home with four books (below), my kids came home with eight books and a Blue’s Clues DVD and the Brewer family has just eliminated Chapters and Blockbuster from their budget.
Here’s my books from this visit, with plenty more free bookness to follow.
1. Generation X by Douglas Coupland — There’s not much by Coupland I haven’t read yet, and oddly enough it’s his most popular book that I’ve never read.
2. Freakonomics — I’ve heard lots of about it, never read it, now I will.
3. A Spot of Bother — I don’t know much about this book, really. All I know is that it’s the only other novel by Mark Haddon, who wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, and that’s enough for me.
4. Made to Stick — Again, one I’ve heard lots about from numerous ministry gurus, so I’ll give it a shot.
I figured I would post regular updates about our new quest to eliminate debt and build savings to give accountability and also as a way to look back on what we’ve accomplished. Hopefully that’ll be incentive to keep going no matter how depressed I am that I have to make my own coffee instead of having it handed to me through a window at a small brown brick building that smells of sugar and donuts and sometimes burnt bagels.
Current status:
1. Eliminated cable — Savings of $60/month
2. Eliminated Liz’s cell phone — Savings of $40/month
3. Eliminated sponsor child (sad but necessary) — $35/month
4. Eliminated Trius garbage can rental — $6/month
5. Set up an automatic $5/week transfer from checking to savings to begin Baby Step Savings Fund
6. Threw cat out into the street (Just joking)
New savings: $141/month
Current savings fund: $7.26 (hey, you gotta start somewhere)
Debt left to kill: A lot
It’s official: Liz and I just became followers of Dave Ramsey.
I know, I know. Some of you just rolled your eyes and groaned because you think he’s a loud-mouthed know-it-all. Which to some degree he is. But he’s a loud-mouthed know-it-all who’s debt free, and has helped thousands of other shlops like me become debt free.
Last night Liz and I had a very romantic date: we bought Total Money Makeover and read it out together for over an hour. We’re in need of making this happen. We’re a single-income family with 3 kids, no savings, big debt, no emergency fund…well, it’s just not a pretty picture.
So let the games begin! In fact, we’ve already started. Today we cut our cable–totally. We also bit the bullet and paid the penalty fee so we could cancel my wife’s cell phone contract. Heck, I even dusted off the ol’ bike so I can begin biking into work and saving on gas. Two expenses cut out, and more money per month brought back in.
The slow road to freedom has begun!
Though only 2 hours remain, June 20th is supposedly the Happiest Day of the Year. At least it is according to some guy named Cliff Arnall who devised this ’scientific’ formula:
O + (N xS) + Cpm/T + He.
“O stands for being outdoors and outdoor activity, N is connection with nature, which is in full bloom now, S is socialisation with neighbours and friends, Cpm stands for childhood positive memories, T is the mean temperature which is now usually warm, and He is holiday expected.”
Wow, what a load of baloney. However, I did have a fairly interesting day. For instance, it was sunny AND my awesome friend John Sherwood bought me a pretzel AND I got to watch bugs walk all over the sidewalk with Abby AND I got to watch Emily squoosh them all.
Oh, AND my wife nearly went into labor and she’s not due for 8 more weeks. My future daughter obviously wanted to make the Happiest Day Ever even happier by trying to show up. Apparently gross biological terms like ‘effacement’ and ‘mucous plug’ (SICK) mean things, and they mean that labor is near, and apparently for my wife, labor is near. It would be a happier day if my kid would wait and show up when she’s fully cooked, but hey, who wants to miss such a Happy Day? Not me.
I like made-up words. The internet has spawned a good number of these, or maybe it’s just responsible for spreading them like a plague. Either way, this movement towards ‘word creation’ is fantastic. In fact, I make up words daily. They usually stink, but it doesn’t take away from the warm feeling of messing around with our ridiculous language and its lame rules.
Here are some new words to add to your vocabulary, along with a definition. Most of these are stolen from others and used by myself whenever I think of them:
*Lolarious — LOL + Hilarious
*Ridonkulous — So ridiculous it’s the size of a donkey?
*Manpris — Men wearing capris. This is not advised.
*Amputree — A tree that has lost its limbs because it grows too closely to the road or power wires
*Uncomfterfull — Being so full that you’re uncomfortable
*Blidiot — Someone who’s being an idiot on a blog
*Sholo — When John Sherwood plays an awesome solo
*Slogger — A blogger who is slacking
Whaddya got??
Our national anthem, in lieu of this article.
“Oh Canada,
where feet wash up on shore.
They’re lacking legs
Who said we were a bore?
We’ve got more than snow and rain and ice
Just check out the West Coast. (dum da dum)
Disembodied limbs and severed feet
Are all great reasons to boast.”
Uh, that’s all I got. Way to make big headlines worldwide, Canada!
I have a new favorite website and its name is “Stuff Christians Like.” Yes, yes, it’s a direct rip-off of the ever-popular “Stuff White People Like” blog, but it’s awesome. It’s written by a guy who attends North Point church and writes about hilarious Christian idiosyncrasies with much sarcasm and irony. Hilarious. Every now and then he offers some depth but most of the time it’s just hilariousness all the way through.
I suggest starting at post #1 and working your way up (he’s up over 260 at this point, often updating 2-3 times a day). The site has gotten increasingly popular over the past few months and he’s got a book deal in the works. Which of course he makes fun of. Nothing is safe. Enjoy!
We’re kicking off a new summer series in July called Big Bad Questions, or, BBQ. To help us ‘drive home’ the point of each week, we’re going to BBQ. Every Sunday morning. For weeks. It’s going to rule. Oh, and the Big Bad Questions are going to be questions that people in the congregation submit to us via email/Facebook/phone, etc. We’ll pick the top 7 or 8 questions and go for it. Should be fun! Here’s the graphic, and if you’re in town in July or August, be sure to drop by for some charred meat.
I love this game. Add a caption. Go nuts! Add twelve.
This is not a post about the rapture. Rather, it’s a post about helpful things that can happen after the rapture.
Helpful Rapture People #1:
The friendly folks who run You’ve Been Left Behind are offering a hard-to-resist deal where, if the rapture happens, you’ll still be able to email all your terrible non-Christian friends who didn’t ‘make it’ and give them that one last chance they need to hear about Jesus. Seriously. For $40 a year you can write emails that will get sent to your friends 6 days after the rapture occurs. The world will be in bloody turmoil, but if your friend John decides to check his Gmail he also just might decide to follow Jesus, thanks to you and the magic of the internet.
You can learn more about how it works on their site which I would encourage you to do if you’re in need of an ironic chuckle. I can’t even believe this site exists, and yet I can.
Helpful Rapture People #2:
There are some friendly atheist type folks who are promising to feed our pets after the rapture happens. That way, if our precious pets don’t make it to heaven, we can be well-assured that they’ll be fed by the pagans who still populate the earth. No joke. This is from their site: We are assembling a community of heathen pet-lovers to care for pets that are “left-behind.” We are coordinating with feed mills and kennels in preparation for your post-apocalyptic pet care needs.
How friendly! Such nice folks.
Helpful Rapture Person #3:
Send me $25 and I’ll line someone up to take out your garbage, in the case that you and Kirk Cameron vanish from the earth tomorrow.
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