Well, once again it's been several months since I've been here. It's been a busy time. I'm still taking classes toward an accounting degree. This semester has been particularly tough.

A couple of weeks ago DH and I chaperoned our youth group on a trip to NYC to work with The Relief Bus. It's a mobile soup kitchen based out of Newark, NJ that provides soup, bread and clothing to the poor and homeless in NYC. They also refer them to shelters, job opportunities, health care and counseling centers. It was a really neat few days. It was awesome to see the youth in our group (2 of them our own) step out of their comfort zone and reach out to those less fortunate than themselves. We were all blessed, probably far more than those to whom we ministered.

And some exciting news for us: In 3 weeks DH and I will be facilitating our first Financial Peace University class at our church! This has been a dream of mine for a long time and I'm so excited to finally be getting to do it. We have 20 families signed up so far. I am really looking forward to it. If it changes one family's life as much as it has ours, it will be so worth it!

We are getting so close to being debt-free (except the house)! I can't wait!!!

We added a new member to our family in March. His name is Ramsey and he has really livened up our household. He's a 4-pound Yorkshire Terrier. When we got him he was only 1.6 pounds, so he's really filled out since then!

I have always wanted a Yorkie and so when DS#3's girlfriend's dog had puppies and they said they'd only charge us half-price, I started saving my blow money. Slowly, but surely, it added up until I had just enough by the time the puppies were ready to come home.

I couldn't make up my mind which of them I wanted. There were 2 girls and a boy in the litter. I was pretty sure I wanted a girl, but which one? On the way home from church one night DS#3 mentioned that he really liked the boy puppy and if we didn't take him, his girlfriend's parents were going to keep him just because he was so lovable. I told him that I didn't have a name for a boy though. I had a couple of names picked out for a girl. DH replied that I should name him Dave Ramsey since I listen to him all the time. And so that is how Ramsey became a part of our family.

DH and I have stumbled upon a new hobby that we enjoy. It's even better because we can do it together and it's not very expensive.

I was wracking my brain for a birthday gift for him last spring and a friend suggested a GPS unit so we could go geocaching. I had never heard of geocaching until about a year ago. I thought it sounded interesting so I did a little bit of research. Now, I am a big fan of the TV show Amazing Race, but we could never do that together because we would either kill each other or get divorced. Too much pressure! But, geocaching I thought we could handle.

So I found someone that wanted to upgrade to a better GPS unit and bought their used one from them for us to give this a try. We are now hooked! All it costs us is our gasoline and money for a meal if we decide to eat out.

For those that don't know what geocaching is, it's a sort of treasure hunt. We go to geocaching.com and download coordinates for the caches we want to find into our GPS unit and off we go. We drive to the area where the cache is hidden and then follow the GPS to within a few feet and then the hunt begins.

A cache can be very small (think medicine container) or rather large. Quite often they are in ammunition boxes. When you find the cache, there is a log to sign and goodies that you can trade. We carry a bag with odds and ends in it to leave in the caches. Quite often, I get a Happy Meal at McDonald's so that I can leave the toy that comes in it.

We have found 75 geocaches so far. Right now we are working on a series of caches for which we will earn medallions when we are done.

A few of the kids have gone geocaching with us when they were able and have enjoyed it also. It's a great recreational activity for the whole family. It gets you out to places that you might not otherwise ever see and you get exercise while doing it.

LuxLiving tells me that I need to update, so here I am. :-) I do mean to post here more often, but it just doesn't seem to happen.

We are doing fairly well. We did have some excitement this past Tuesday. Son # 2 (of course!) called and asked us to come pick him up. He was on the interstate and his engine blew! He said that oil sprayed everywhere and the compartment filled up with black smoke so that he couldn't see to pull over. He slowed and edged over until he felt the rumble strip and managed to get off the road. By the time we'd gotten to where he was stranded, he had the car at a salvage yard and made arrangements to send them the title to scrap it. So he is without a car once again. This was the 6th car since he started driving 3 years ago that has bit the dust!

We are still whittling away at debt. We have just over $6,000 left on the car and then we will be on to working on a fully-funded emergency fund.

I did quit my 2 evening jobs. It was getting to be too much with taking 2 classes and DD's volleyball season starting up. I got to figuring that by the time I bought my dinner those nights and took into account how much I spent on gasoline, I really wasn't making anything anyway. It's been a huge relief. I am still doing bookkeeping for one library as a side job though.

Guess that's all I can think of that's happened lately. Hopefully I'll get back here before Lux has to tell me it's time. :-)

Thanks to LuxLiving for checking on me. We are alive and well. Last month was a bit of a strain, mostly emotionally.

On July 2nd our middle son (19), who is an EMT in a city 2.5 hours from us, was cleaning some basement walls in his fiance's house and ended up spilling ammonia in both eyes. He had set the bottle up on a pillar above him and when he grabbed the bottle it tilted and poured in his face. He was alone but managed to flush his eyes and dial 911. The ER sent him to a specialist who assured him that the vision would return in 48 hours. 48 hours later the vision was worse. The vision in the right eye was totally gone and the left eye could only see vague shapes. He was referred to a 2nd specialist who also could not find any reason that the vision had not returned.

Finally, on the 3rd week the vision did start to come back slowly. They still wanted to know why it was taking so long to heal so we made a trip to the Cleveland Clinic to be seen at the Vision Clinic. By the time we made that trip the vision was back to 20/20 and only some cloudiness remained on the cornea, which we were told would clear up. I'm thrilled to say that it is all totally clear now. Some of you may remember the accident this same son had a month before his high school graduation when he fell asleep at the wheel, rolled his vehicle 5 times and was lifeflighted to a major trauma center. If anything is going to happen in our family, it will be this child to whom it will happen.

The funny thing is that at the time of the accident he already had an interview set up with the ambulance service that took him to the ER for the following week. He went to the interview BLIND and they HIRED HIM to drive ambulance! I told him that he is the only person I know who could pull that off! By the time he was scheduled to begin work his sight was back.

Now for our 2nd Murphy visit: On July 8th someone hacked into my email and from there, got into my Paypal and Ebay accounts which I haven't used in years. They proceeded to order an iphone and a Louis Vuitton wallet for a combined total of $1500. The Paypal account was hooked directly to both of our checking accounts, but I found out just in time to put freezes on them so that no money was ever removed from our accounts. The crazy thing is that the Louis Vuitton wallet was actually mailed to me from Australia! I refused the package and sent it right back on its way to Australia. I filed a police report but hear that they seldom actually ever do anything. We had the address where they requested the iphone be delivered. It was a medical building in Memphis, TN.

I am happy to report that, besides the mortgage, we are working on our last debt. We owe just a bit over $7,000 and hope to have it paid off early next year, if not before. I am working 2 nights a week and applying all of that income toward this debt. I can't wait to start on a fully-funded emergency fund.

DH and I are going through FPU and we had decided that we are finally ready to take the step of stopping our retirement contributions temporarily so we can apply that money to the debt snowball. I had no problem stopping mine at work since I'm the one that does the payroll. DH went into his payroll department and was told that he can't stop his contributions until the beginning of the next quarter.

It's just very frustrating to finally have him on board and now we can't do this. It will really slow the debt snowball down. I guess I'm just anxious to get it done and get a fully-funded emergency fund.

Wow, has it been a long time since I've written on this blog! Lots of changes for us in the past 7 months.

DS#1 is in his last semester of college. He is pursuing an art degree. DD#1 is taking a semester off of college and working to save money. DS#2 graduated high school and is now in paramedic school. He's working as an EMT and loves it. DS#3 is a junior in high school and working on getting his driver's license. DD#2 is in the 8th grade and is growing up way too fast!

DH and I are going through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. We bought the home kit and just finished the Dumping Debt lesson. We are no longer using credit cards. We should have mortgage #1 paid off this year and the car paid off next year. DH is really getting into it now that he sees it's not boring and it does work.

Our 24th anniversary is this Sunday. We celebrated by buying Walmart's cheapest DVD player ($30) because the Playstation 2 that we'd been using will not play the newer DVDs. We'll go out for dinner on Sunday and use gift cards that we received for Christmas.

I completed 2 more semesters towards my accounting degree. I have 6 more to go. This past semester I took 2 classes instead of just a single and it really worked out well so I'm doing the same this semester.

I have also met my weight goal with Weight Watchers in June and became a Lifetime member in July. Soon after I began working for them as a receptionist. I normally work one meeting a week, but sometimes substitute for others an manage to earn a bit more money. I really enjoy helping other people meet their weight goals.

All in all, 2008 was a pretty good year for our family. I'm hoping 2009 brings a lot of financial advances for us as we strive to pay off the debt.

Today was not my day. It started out by me forgetting to take my lunch to work so I had to end up buying a slice of pizza while I was on the road doing a delivery.

Got to the library. Got out of the car and slipped on the ice and fell flat on my left side. Both hands were full so I couldn't even break my fall. Get into the library, and since it's Thursday and the library director works, our lights were not on. (She can't be bothered to flip on the 2 switches at the end of the row that she turns on). Marched up front and turned the lights on and told her I'd fallen. She laughed. That really made me happy. It is her responsibility to call the borough and get them out to sand. She didn't bother.

On my delivery I came around a bend and was face to face with a semi. A state truck was pulled off the road on the opposite side with it's 4-ways on so the semi had come into my lane to go around it. Thank goodness the System Jeep has good brakes!

Get to my delivery place, unload all the books and audio books onto my cart. Start up the ramp into the library and get halfway up and slip on ice. Managed to catch myself so that I and the cart didn't go sliding to the bottom.

Yes, it was an exciting day. Not one I'd care to repeat again. I hope I'm able to get out of bed tomorrow. I'm already feeling the effects of the fall.

I did have to sort of chuckle at my one delivery stop. I was checking in the books and realized that the radio station that was on was playing Bad Day by Daniel Powter. Couldn't have been more appropriate.

I have had my Equinox to the shop at least 5 times over the past 3 weeks. It has a bad strut that they believe is a result of my accident several months ago. Well, each time I've taken it up and left it, the strut that they are going to put on it hasn't fit. After trying to force 2 of them to fit and ruining them in the process, they finally contacted the manufacturer. They had tried to make them universal so that they would fit either side. Someone wasn't thinking too clearly because the place where they fasten on is on the wrong side if you are trying to do the driver's side. So now they have recalled ALL of those struts!

The shop found one factory strut in a dealership near us, but the cost is over twice as much as after-market struts. They are trying to turn this into my car insurance and get it covered since they also found that the strut plate was bent and it's on the side that ended up in the ditch. So we are waiting to hear whether it will be covered or not. If not, it's going to cost us over $500 if they have to put the factory strut on! That's about what I have in the car repair budget, but that was being saved to get DH's paint job done on his truck that keeps getting put off.

I've spent way too much time the past 2 days watching repeats of Lost. I had watched it when it first began but didn't see any of last year's episodes. I decided I wanted to get back into it again, especially when I saw that you can watch all of the previous episodes on-line for free.

So yesterday I began with the pilot episode and am making my way through season 1.

I figured this is a much cheaper way to do it than buying the DVDs for all 3 seasons!

I sat down this morning to figure out how much I could pay on the mortgage payment that is due tomorrow. I want to pay $604.16, but looks like I'll only be able to pay $307.48, maybe a bit more depending on how much overtime is in DH's paycheck. But that's more than the minimum I have to pay of $235.34 so I guess that's better than nothing. The oven repair set me back this month and then the unexpected ER visit and DD#2's new medicine that she's taking for migraines.

I should be getting my first paycheck for the new bookkeeping job in a couple of weeks, so I'm planning on putting that on the mortgage.

And I've been told that I may be getting another bookkeeping job. I guess the librarian at the library just across the border in NY state is pushing for me to do their books for them. I went over a couple of weeks ago and helped her treasurer get their QuickBooks set up. When she heard that I do a monthly report for the libraries so that they know what they're spending, she was interested. Right now they pay an accountant to do their books. All he does is figure payroll and then inputs the yearly information into the annual report. He doesn't give them a monthly report so she never knows exactly how much she's spent on collection items or anything else for that matter. So keep your fingers crossed that she can convince her board to hire me!

We've had 2 expensive days in a row. Yesterday we spent $46 on a new prescription for DD#2. She's been having migraines lately and the doctor wanted her to try a couple of new medicines. So a trip to the drug store resulted in being $46 poorer.

Then, of course, the ER trip last night wasn't cheap either. We haven't paid anything yet, but we have a $55 co-pay so that bill will be coming in the mail, plus any fees from the doctor that we'll have to pay $20 toward.

Today we had to have a repairman come and fix our oven. It needed a new ignitor. I was thinking it would be about $65 or so. Ha! Just to have him come out was $85 and the part brought the total to over $150!!!

Guess my first paycheck from my new library bookkeeping job will go to pay for the oven. Bummer!

We were at DS#3's basketball game tonight and DH was the EMT at the game and I was selling 50/50 raffle tickets for the Sports Boosters. Shortly after the 2nd quarter of the varsity game began my mother came in crying. Our 17-year-old had called her since he couldn't get us and told her that he was walking down the street going from his job at Subway to his job at McDonald's when 2 guys came out from the shadows of a building and started hitting him. They had something in their hands (he's not sure what) that they hit him in the head with. They went to hit him again and he lifted his hand to protect himself so they got him in the wrist instead.

They took his money, all of $2, and ran off across the street. He said he was kind of dazed so he leaned against a pile of gravel for a bit and then continued on to McDonald's. He called the State Police from there and they sent the town cop over. He told him what had happened and the town cop said that based on where it happened he's pretty sure he knows who the 2 guys were (this is a small town) and they are awaiting sentencing on drug, weapon, and rape charges!!!! So he said DS#2 may have to come down and identify them when he rounds them up.

Yikes!!! It could have been SO much worse! We took him to the ER even though he looked and acted fine. He has a red spot above his right eye that is probably going to bruise and his wrist is just sore. DH is supposed to wake him up at 3 when he gets up for work to make sure he's okay and can answer questions. Then as long as he's up and acting okay at 7:30 he can go to school tomorrow.

I don't think it's all sunk into me yet. I noticed on the way over the hill to McDonald's that I was trembling pretty badly, but my emotions haven't caught up yet.

This is the very same child that has had multiple concussions, hemiplegic migraines, and seizures. He is also the one whose car was wrecked by the school bus backing over it. He is the one that anything and everything will happen to!!! I just don't understand it.

This week is going to be an expensive one for us. Tomorrow we take our oldest DD to college. It's 2.5 hours away and we'll be leaving right after church so we'll need to eat lunch and dinner. Lunch will probably be McDonald's, but we decided that dinner is going to be a special treat at Red Lobster. We don't have any Red Lobsters around us so we're going to take advantage of the trip and treat ourselves. DD#2 will also be going along with us.

Then on Tuesday, DH's father is having 5 heart bypasses done so we'll need to travel 2 hours to the hospital where that is taking place. Another day of eating out. Hard on the pocket book, but necessary.

Also hard on the WW plan. LOL! I am .4 pounds away from hitting the 30 pound mark so I am trying to be very diligent with my eating and exercising.

We celebrated our 23rd anniversary yesterday. After work we went out for dinner to one of our favorite restaurants. DH had received a gift card for this restaurant from his supervisor at work, so that was really nice. I indulged and went off my diet for that one meal and had crabmeat stuffed shrimp and peanut butter ice cream pie with hot fudge topping for dessert. I only ate 2 of the 5 shrimp and one third of the pie. The servings were just too big!

We bought a Magic Bullet and each got nice headphones for our anniversary. We were going to go see a movie but never did make it there. I'm not a movie person and tend to fall asleep so I hate the thought of spending $10 for me to sleep through the movie.

Last night I made a dent in my Christmas shopping, all from the comfort of my own living room. Just a few clicks of the mouse and the gifts are on their way. DS#1 is getting some art supplies and Star Wars books, DS#2 is getting a paramedic bag (fully loaded with supplies), DS#3 is getting a computer tool repair kit and flash drive, and DD#2 is getting a digital camera. I will actually have to go out and get what DH wants and DD#1 has given me no ideas as of yet.

I love shopping this way. I have never been much of a shopper so to be able to do it without leaving the house and fighting the crowds is wonderful for me. I have them delivered to my office and then I don't have to worry about anyone 'accidentally' finding them either. I wrap them at work and then bring them home just before Christmas and place them under the tree. Simple!!!

I actually ended up saving money on DD#2's digital camera. I had done my 'shopping' little by little as the ideas came in and placed them in a cart on Amazon.com. The items stay in the cart for 90 days and the prices get updated if anything changes. I logged in yesterday and the price on the camera had dropped $10, so by not placing my order right away I was able to save money. Of course, the opposite also applies, so you're taking a gamble and also the risk of the item selling out if you don't order it right away. I did not know this about Amazon.com until this year.

I am going to have to actually go Christmas shopping this week with my mother to help give her ideas for the kids, but at least the pressure is off of me, since mine is practically done.

This has absolutely nothing to do with finances, but was triggered by a Martha Stewart commercial I saw this morning. One of the newer slang phrases has been bothering me for quite a while and viewing this commercial this morning is to blame for this blog entry.

I can't stand to hear anyone use the phrase "my bad". Bad is not a noun, so it can't be yours! It just drives me crazy to hear people say that.

Sorry...just had to get that off of my chest. LOL!

We had to take DD#1 to the ER today. She didn't tell us until this morning that she wrecked a friend's ATV yesterday afternoon. Her hand is all bruised and swollen and we were also worried about internal injuries. She is complaining of lower back pain also.

They did x-rays and found nothing broken. They said that she sprained her hand and neck. They did splint her hand so that it would have more support as it heals and told her to go back to work with light duty for the week.

She said the reason that she didn't tell us was because she knew we would make her go to the ER and she's worried that she might not be covered under our insurance since she's taken the semester off of college. DH had checked with human resources at the beginning of the semester and they assured him that she would still be covered. I guess we'll find out.

So far the visit cost us the $50 co-pay, but at least I can sleep tonight knowing that she's been checked over and is apparently okay.

Last week DH's clutch went out of his truck in the middle of an intersection. We had to have the truck towed to the repair shop. A week later & the repairs are done and the total came to over $375! Wasn't expecting that much so had to ask the shop to hold the check a couple of days until I could transfer that amount from my Electric Orange account to my local checking. This is when I wish Electric Orange offered checks.

We be reimbursed the amount of the towing bill from AAA. That will help a lot.

I haven't been blogging much lately at all. Seems like life is too busy at the moment.

I did want to drop in though and say that my friend and I have done a good job this summer of finding free things for the kids to do to keep their summer from being a total washout.

Our church sponsors an AIA (Athletes in Action) baseball team and we've been going to their games. Free admission and you can buy dinner (hot dog, chips and drink) for $1.75 if you want.

Last night we took them to a Power Team event at a nearby school. They really enjoyed that.

Last weekend my friend and I chaperoned "Wordstock", a teen concert put on by our youth group. They had bands from around the area come and play and also had volleyball tournaments, pie and hot dog eating contests, and water balloon launching. We had the night shift so we were up all night. The kids had a great time and plan on making it a yearly event that will hopefully grow bigger. This year we had 65 attend.

So that's what I've been up to. Still saving money and still paying down debt. I am keeping my sidebar updated even if I don't have time to post anything.

I hope everyone has a very happy and safe Fourth of July.

For the first time in 7 years we will not be having a yard sale today. I am so thrilled! LOL! I guess I'd better give some background:

Each year on the 4th of July weekend our town has a Country Festival. The day starts off with a pancake breakfast at the Senior Center, followed by a parade and then festivities in the park all day. There are vendors selling all kinds of stuff and the community groups sell food to raise funds. There are games for the kids to play and rides.

This is the time that there are a LOT of yard sales in town. Since we are on a corner lot my mother has always felt our home to be the perfect location for her yard sale each year. So she would normally start bringing things down for this sale the night before and store everything on our large wrap-a-round porch. The day of the sale her and her friend would arrive at 6 a.m. and start setting up.

Our porch is always the finance center of the venture so people would be tramping through our yard all day (and usually the gardens too) and then onto the porch where they would often come look in our windows. (Our house is one of the old Victorians in town and people are always interested in seeing what it looks like inside.)

Our whole family has always dreaded this time of the year because we are just not yard sale people. But we felt obligated since we owed my parents money for DH's truck. Since the truck is now paid off we decided that this was the year to say no, we did not want the yard sale to be here. It's also perfect timing because DH has been replacing the porch roof and siding around that area. My mother was not happy, but decided to have the yard sale at her own home instead.

It's been such a relief to enjoy the weekend without strangers milling around in your yard that next year I'm determined we're not playing host either. We can actually enjoy our holiday weekend.

My apologies to all you yard sale lovers out there. I don't mind going to them, I just don't like hosting them.

I have an appointment tonight to get my hair cut so I've been looking off and on all day for some styles that I like. I think I've finally settled on this one:

Right now I have a bob and I'm tired of having to pull my hair back all of the time to keep it out of my eyes. This style would take care of that problem and still be cool for the summer heat.

This Wednesday will be a fun-day for us. We've made plans to take our 2 youngest kids to an amusement park. We are going with another couple who are taking their 2.

We got a discount through Boy Scouts so that instead of well over $100 for 4 of us it only cost $60. We are planning on packing our food and eating at the picnic benches just outside the park, so that will save a bundle. The park is about 2 hours away so it will cost us a bit to drive there but I think we're doing pretty good at keeping expenses to a minimum.

With having so many kids, we are hardly ever able to do anything like this, so it will be a special treat.

I must invest in some good sunblocker though. My daughter (a redhead) and I burn extremely easily and I know we'll need to apply sunblock quite often throughout the day.

We got home today and found this update in our email:

We finally brought Syd home on Friday. She slept most of the way in the ambulance. She's now home and doing well.

We're having problems adjusting her formula so it's right for her, as the amount the hospital had prescribed overloads her tummy and makes her throw up. So we have cut her back to almost
half of what they wanted us to feed her and we will gradually work back up. Her little tummy just can't take the full amount yet as she has been weeks with little or nothing going into her,
except IV's. Because of her inhaling the vomit the night of the seizure it is
probably one of our biggest fears at this time.

Because of the damage done to her brain stem she is unable to regulate her own body temperature, and has to be watched closely for fevers and chills (yes I said chills, she had one the other night,
and her grandpa and I thought she was having a seizure but when we see her stats were okay we realized it had to just be a chill-her body temp had dropped to below 97 degrees).

The hospital was unwilling to send us home with oxygen and a pulsox(unsure of spelling) machine for her vitals. So we called her pediatrician, Dr. Tronetti, and he ordered them for us. She doesn't
need oxygen all the time and hasn't needed it at all since we've been home, but we just feel better knowing it's there and handy for us to use. It's always good to be able to watch her vitals so we can see if they're dipping or getting too high.

Her other set of grandparents are starting to learn to give her her meds and do the suctioning, the more people that can help with her the better for her and her parents. We want them to be able to go places and not be tied to the house all the time, especially since they have two sons to care for
also.

DS#2's settlement check for his car accident finally arrived this week. It's been almost 3 months since the accident. What a long, complicated process it has been.

First thing he did was pay off the car. The previous owner has been extremely patient while waiting for his money for a car that doesn't exist anymore. He included a $50 bonus for that reason.

Next, he paid us back for the money we loaned him for his tux for the prom and the car registration.

The last thing to pay for are the repairs he'd made to the car the day it was totalled. Thank goodness everyone has been willing to wait for their money!

He wants the remaining money put into an ING or Emigrant savings account for the summer while he's at camp so he can earn some decent interest on it. He'll use the money to buy another car when he has been seizure-free for 6 months and can get his driver's license back.

I am glad to have this all taken care of now. I don't like owing anyone money and felt responsible for the whole thing. It's been at the back of my mind constantly for 3 months.

DD#2's flute is finally paid in full. She's been paying for this flute for over 3 years (since 4th grade), using her allowance money she gets for doing chores. It's been a long haul and she finally finished it.

To be honest, I thought she'd get part way through the plan and decide she wasn't interested in playing the flute any longer, but she didn't. She faithfully practices and really enjoys it. It was a good investment.

Today is a great day at work. My boss took today off for her birthday so I'm able to listen to Dave Ramsey all day while working on inventory.

We almost had a house fire on Saturday. I was in the living room watching TV and sleeping since I'm still not feeling well. I thought I smelled something odd, but no one else said anything so I figured it was just my sinuses being so messed up.

The dryer went off so I went in and folded the clothes and put the last load in the dryer. I thought the smell was even stronger in there but, since I wasn't feeling well, I didn't investigate.

About a half hour later the light next to my chair in the living room flashed bright and made a weird sound. At the same time I heard a pop coming from the kitchen area. I went out and looked around but didn't see anything. I went upstairs and DS#3 said that the surge protector on his computer had beeped. I could smell a really strong electrical smell in the upstairs hallway. I checked around upstairs and didn't find anything.

Back downstairs I went and finally found the problem in the downstairs bathroom. The outlet for the dryer was melted and there was black soot all over the wall around it! I tried to yell for DH, but since I have laryngitis that didn't work very well. He finally heard me and rushed in with a fire extinguisher. There was no fire, thank goodness, just that awful smell.

We have no idea why the outlet overheated. The outlet itself was really hot and so was the dryer plug, but not the cord. We think the dryer is probably okay. I hope so, it's only a year old.

Rolled $6 in change this morning and deposited it in the Emergency Fund after work.

Came home from NYC with the worst sinus infection I've ever had. I've been sick all week and seem to be getting worse. I'm now on antibiotics but woke up this morning with very little voice. The family is enjoying that.

Tomorrow there is a motorcycle dice run to benefit Sydney, my cousin's 18-month old daughter that had the seizure. She has been off of life support for quite a while now and is still breathing on her own. Her eyes have begun to respond a bit to light even though the doctors said it would never happen. She's had a feeding tube inserted and the family is either going to bring her home next week or take her to a nursing home near them.

Getting anxious to get that $248 paid to drop our total debt below $70,000.

DS#2 called from camp tonight but a thunderstorm was rolling in and we lost the connection. DH had time to ask him if he was taking his seizure medicine like he should and that's about it.

DS#2's salvage title FINALLY came for his wrecked Toyota so I faxed that right off to the insurance company so they can mail him the check. Maybe that whole mess can be done soon. It's only taken 3 months...