It's a bit late in the posting (I was offline all week), but there are both good things and bad things at the same time for this update.
Weight: 192
-At least it's still going down, but I appear to have hit a plateau. This is kinda annoying, but I also can figure out why. I was going to up my exercise, and I did - at the end of the month, and not soon enough to make much of a difference. That and my screwy schedule, which led also to me going off on my eating habits, are what I blame. Better luck for myself this month. ^^;
Pages written: 5
Pages typed: 16
Jewelry Made: 0
Art done: Made a badge for an online/convention friend, and inked some images.
Custom Ponies completed: 0
Custom Ponies in the works: 5
Ponies cleaned for later customising: 37
-Acetone is much more tolerable outside, but still reeks. Bleh.
Other; Brushed the kitty. A lot.
So, yeah; the month has been fairly productive, just not where I'd like to end, wight-wise. I'd hoped to be down into the 180's by now. on the other hand, I'm only what, 3 pounds away from being in the 180's? That's not too bad.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
It's convention time
-I am not going to AC this year.
This was mainly a financial decision, and I'm glad I made it. Granted, I'm not going mainly because I don't want to send $200 on gas getting there and back, but it's still something that gets me out of going in the first place.
It helped that we wound up on the waiting list for a table in the Dealer's area; we could respectfully bow out without losing any money on the venture. I hope to be able to attend AC next year, but in the mean time, it looks like my first (and maybe only?) convention this year will be MFM, in Olive Branch, MS. New location, so I should check it out this year, and the Dealer's tables still cost quite a bit less than the ones for AC. Then again, AC is a much larger convention, so that could always account for the price difference.
I realize this is a strange thing to mention, going to a convention, just after mentioning other financial decisions. This is also a case of the business partner insisting on going to at least one convention, though, as a vacation to get away from her unpaid day job as her mother's full-time care taker.
Le sigh~. At least I can limit the damage a bit.
This was mainly a financial decision, and I'm glad I made it. Granted, I'm not going mainly because I don't want to send $200 on gas getting there and back, but it's still something that gets me out of going in the first place.
It helped that we wound up on the waiting list for a table in the Dealer's area; we could respectfully bow out without losing any money on the venture. I hope to be able to attend AC next year, but in the mean time, it looks like my first (and maybe only?) convention this year will be MFM, in Olive Branch, MS. New location, so I should check it out this year, and the Dealer's tables still cost quite a bit less than the ones for AC. Then again, AC is a much larger convention, so that could always account for the price difference.
I realize this is a strange thing to mention, going to a convention, just after mentioning other financial decisions. This is also a case of the business partner insisting on going to at least one convention, though, as a vacation to get away from her unpaid day job as her mother's full-time care taker.
Le sigh~. At least I can limit the damage a bit.
Finincial Decision A
I have made a rather big financial decision in the last few days.
Mainly, I have decided to stop focusing on my credit cards long enough to build up the money to pay back the last of the loan I took out from my 401(k) a few years ago. This will actually take me until the first pay period in October, and basically entails me making the basic (or close to basic) monthly payments, instead of much higher payments that I had already planned to do.
This is a good thing, I feel.
The bad news is, at the end of that month, I plan on taking out another 401(k) loan, which I would rather not do, but I will be using what I get from that to pay off a loan with a much higher interest rate. Paying 6.25% in interest is much better than paying ~27% in interest for the same amount. And yes, the loan I am going to be paying off with this does indeed fall into the, "what was she thinking?" camp of questioning. (The answer being that I thought it was a good idea at the time.)
I am actually beginning to feel there should definitely be a cap on how much interest a bank can charge people.
Do you know, I did the math, and if you take out a mortgage on a house for $100,000, with a horrendous interest rate of 10%, over 30 years you'd be paying the bank a total of $297,000? In essence, you're paying the bank double the amount of what your house is worth, just to borrow the money from them. Granted, the incredibly low interest rates we have going on right now are very nice, but with a 5% interest rate, you're still essentially paying the bank twice the amount you took out.
This is actually making me dread buying a house, but I still want my own place, eventually (read as, not my parents').
Mainly, I have decided to stop focusing on my credit cards long enough to build up the money to pay back the last of the loan I took out from my 401(k) a few years ago. This will actually take me until the first pay period in October, and basically entails me making the basic (or close to basic) monthly payments, instead of much higher payments that I had already planned to do.
This is a good thing, I feel.
The bad news is, at the end of that month, I plan on taking out another 401(k) loan, which I would rather not do, but I will be using what I get from that to pay off a loan with a much higher interest rate. Paying 6.25% in interest is much better than paying ~27% in interest for the same amount. And yes, the loan I am going to be paying off with this does indeed fall into the, "what was she thinking?" camp of questioning. (The answer being that I thought it was a good idea at the time.)
I am actually beginning to feel there should definitely be a cap on how much interest a bank can charge people.
Do you know, I did the math, and if you take out a mortgage on a house for $100,000, with a horrendous interest rate of 10%, over 30 years you'd be paying the bank a total of $297,000? In essence, you're paying the bank double the amount of what your house is worth, just to borrow the money from them. Granted, the incredibly low interest rates we have going on right now are very nice, but with a 5% interest rate, you're still essentially paying the bank twice the amount you took out.
This is actually making me dread buying a house, but I still want my own place, eventually (read as, not my parents').
Feeling hopeful
I am feeling more hopeful for an outcome of my future.
My Aunt Sally, back about 3 years ago, was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, and had to undergo treatment for it. Ultimately, she lost both breasts, but the cancer has not come back, for which she is thankful.
Needless to say, this puts myself at a rather high risk for said cancer. One of the people I follow on Twitter recently forwarded this to everyone:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8714085.stm
I consider this then to be very good news. From the sound of it, their main concern is the vaccine causing people to not make the protein at all. I have no idea how they would make a vaccine target a protein only if there is too much of the protein made in the body, though. Then again, I'm not a specialist in that field, so there's no logical reason why I would know it.
Regardless, for the health front and the war on Cancer, things are looking up.
My Aunt Sally, back about 3 years ago, was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, and had to undergo treatment for it. Ultimately, she lost both breasts, but the cancer has not come back, for which she is thankful.
Needless to say, this puts myself at a rather high risk for said cancer. One of the people I follow on Twitter recently forwarded this to everyone:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8714085.stm
I consider this then to be very good news. From the sound of it, their main concern is the vaccine causing people to not make the protein at all. I have no idea how they would make a vaccine target a protein only if there is too much of the protein made in the body, though. Then again, I'm not a specialist in that field, so there's no logical reason why I would know it.
Regardless, for the health front and the war on Cancer, things are looking up.
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