A few days ago I noticed my daughter was wearing her t-shirt from when we participated in 'The Race For The Place' to benefit The Gathering Place in Beechwood. I remembered the day and the great experience and thought how wonderful it was that she saw people coming together and standing together in support of those touched by cancer.
She's proud to wear that shirt.
And I'm proud because of the way that my friends and family came together for a total of 400 dollars donated through this website! I mean, I am totally overwhelmed, happy and humbled by the sharing that was done.
The Gathering Place benefited greatly from your compassion. Thank you!
Additionally, I received 20 casual days for the summer to use at work. I work in a shirt-and-tie environment and we love our casual days. To share the love, I gave a casual day to the 6 people that I work with the most. I still had 14 days left.
I spent the whole month of June in shorts at work. I feel so laid back I can touch my toes through my ankles.
So Thank You! for everything. At the event, the organizer for our company stopped me and thanked me personally for the money raised. I told her that it was my awesome friends and family that got me there.
In what may be the greatest garage sale find I have ever heard of, a beloved family member found this amazing playable piece of history!
I'm trying to get a hold of my old friend Big John who moved to Nashville recently. If you have contact information I would really appreciate you sending it to me.
I have more pictures if you have knowledge of these beautiful treasures.
He writes that by today's standards, the penny in your hand is not worth as much as the penny that you earned. He says that it depends on your tax bracket.
If you pay 30% of your paycheck in taxes, then the money in your hand is worth less than what it took to earn it.
I'm probably making it harder to wrap your head around this, but I found it very fascinating.
If you pay 30% of your paycheck in taxes, you have to earn roughly 1.3 cents to have 1 cent in your hand.
Damn, that hurts.
The idea is that knowing this should cause you to think more about the items that you are purchasing. Something that cost 100 dollars to buy cost 130 dollars to earn.
This short article in Bottom Line is really messing with my head. The guy is very good at being cheap.
He recommends having a 'designated cheapskate' much like a 'designated driver' when going on any shopping trips. Take turns. Then you have one person who will be saying 'Do we really need this?' and 'Is this cheaper online?'
This comes after hearing the estimate for some brake work on my 94 volvo 850. I am working very hard at saving money and the estimate from the DEALERSHIP is more than I want to spend. However, the Foreign Auto places are only open from 8:30 to 5:30 Monday thru Friday. It's totally sucky. I haven't decided what to do. I think I am going to first rescue my car from the dealership, and then try to get some weekend estimates and then do the repairs every other week in baby steps instead of one chunk at a time.
Of course the dealer said that it is hard to access the brakes for them to do repairs and it is better to do everything at once.
The weird thing is that I thought I could see the brakes just inside of the tire hub. That doesn't seem that hard to reach. Of course, I fear the dealer. They said that it would be 8 hours of labor and would run 800 dollars. I can't believe that their shop rate is lower than a hundred dollars. How can 8 hours of labor equate to an 800 dollar bill?
Oddly fitting the topic, I am working through about a year of emails. If you get a reply to something from a long time ago, it's because I'm just getting to it.
Dominion wants me to spend $4.75 a month to belong to their sewer line repair program.
The letter that I got scared me. It's a full color brochure that has the words 'still gambling?' on the outside. Inside it warns of people who 'bet that their sewer line had no cracks or roots forcing their way into the line.' Then they were faced with a 4,000 dollar repair bill.
But I can have peace of mind from the killer organics taking over the sewer line for $4.75 a month. With the 'insurance' I am protected from where the sewer line or septic exits my house to the main sewage line or up to the septic tank.
Is this stupid? I am asking because I don't know.
Dominion gives me gas. They say they will include the program on my gas bill so that there is no additional bill to worry about.
Could anybody that gives me a bill just decide to sell me sewer insurance?
Thanks again for all your help. I am really, sincerely humbled when I think of the friends I have and the difference they make. I know I haven't been doing much here lately, and I do hope to change that.
