What the Heck is Wrong With Me???

I posted last week about some dental pain I was having and now I think there is a bigger problem.  After the dental pain went away, I woke up the next day with literally the entire right side of my body having a weird feeling on my skin.  It was like hot and cold and tingly patches but when I looked at my skin it looked perfectly normal.  I thought I was having a stroke so I did a quick stroke test (again do-it-yourself-medicine) and I seemed fine (gait was normal, smile was even, lifted arms and both were even, grabbed hubby's hands and both grips were even).  I didn't run to the doctor immediately because all of my systems seemed fine (breathing fine, blood pressure fine, blood sugar fine, bones fine, muscles fine, no headache, no joint pain).  Then, of course, I Googled away and found this and this which sound exactly like my symptoms. 
So I am guessing that it may be a vitamin deficiency (my diet has been crap lately), a virus (which I kind of thought when the dental pain went away so quick...sometimes viruses move around your body and I did have a wart on my finger recently when I got rid of which is caused by a virus), MS (which kind of freaks me out because my mom had severe MS towards the end of her life), environmental toxins (too many to list in the area we recently moved to), stress (I really have no reason to stress but literally every day in Las Vegas makes me stressed so I'm thinking I might not like to live here), something I picked up in Asia when we were traveling, or nerve damage from a few huge bruises I had on my right leg after we moved here (I fell over a fence on New Years and it left a half dozen huge bruises on my leg and before that I gave myself a huge bruise when we were moving furniture.
So tomorrow I will call my doctor in Seattle and I am sure she will tell me to see a neurologist.  I would like to fly back up to Seattle because medical care there is really excellent and my doctor is great but since we are officially living in Las Vegas I am thinking I should probably find a doctor here.  The good thing is that we have good insurance that covers just about everything, anywhere we are.  The bad thing is...I am not a fan of doctors, clinics, hospitals, medical tests, etc. and would be happy with a nice naturopathic cure for whatever this is.  Yikes.

A Big Rambling Update

Since I just had a big dose of caffeine, this may be a rather rambling blog post but here's what's been going on lately...

• I skipped any and all caffeine for a few days then relapsed today. Now I am a jittery mess. Ugh.  I may be allergic to caffeine so I definitely need to find a substitute for my favorite pick me ups (either a Starbucks coffee frap or a Basking Robbins Blast). 
• Freelance Switch recently published one of my articles, you can read it here.  Yeah freelance income :)
• I have no idea what to get the hubby for Valentine's Day and it's next week and I have no money so I need to get creative.  Fast.
• The dental problem went away on it's own.  Or maybe it went away because of my diligent brushing and flossing.  Either way I am greatly relieved that I won't have to make a trek to Connecticut (plus it's snowing there. Eekk).
• My friend's business is off to a good start.  Here is the website I made for them (and no I didn't design it, I just tweaked a free template you can find here).  I know I should learn Wordpress because everyone and their brother uses it but CSS is so much easier (especially with templates designed by super creative people!).
• Here's some links you might enjoy: Avoiding the Top 5 Deathbed Regrets, A New Kind of School, A Very Good Way to Teach Your Kid a Lesson Via Facebook.
• Also, I am SO SORRY I haven't read/commented on your blog posts recently!  I've been slacking but tonight I hope to catch up on what everyone is doing.

Have a great weekend!

Arrgg Dental Problems

Yesterday I started noticing a slight discomfort--not exactly pain--on the right side of my mouth.  Trying to run through all of the things it could be (how's that for do-it-yourself medicine?) I considered maybe a sinus infection (it's so dry here in the desert that I haven't had ANY sinus issue since we got here), a problem with my crowns (I have two on that side of my mouth but they seem sturdy), my diet hasn't been that great (maybe I need some vitamins?), I guess I could have a cavity or something, or the worst thing I could think of--I could have some sort of abscess under the gums (a definite horror since hubby had that once and his entire head swelled up like a watermelon!).
So I brushed and flossed really well last night, rinsed my mouth out with salt water, took an aspirin, and...there still seems to be something not quite right there.  Unfortunately we don't have dental insurance.  Fortunately I have a sister in law who is a dentist and she has done all of my dental work for the past fifteen years.  Unfortunately she lives all the way across the country.  Fortunately we have all of the time in the world to travel so we could actually go to Connecticut if necessary.  Unfortunately we would have to buy tickets which are running around $350 per person right now.
So I am a bit in a holding pattern.  I think I will give it a few days and see what happens.  I did notice a dentist office down the street from us who was advertising $50 teeth cleanings and x rays so I may make a trip over there (I'm not a fan of finding new dentists).  If it turns out to be an abscess I could have my SIL send me some antibiotics then we could send ourselves to her (an expensive proposition I don't really want to consider unless absolutely necessary).  But at least I have some options.  I don't know what people do who have no money and no way to receive dental care.  That's a super scary thought because when you are in pain you just want the problem fixed.  I know in many poor countries if the tooth is bad, people just get it pulled as that is the cheapest option but I am pretty attached to my teeth.  And I should definitely take better care of them!!

A Wonderful Birthday Party

We celebrated hubby's birthday yesterday with a small party and it was wonderful!  At 63, he isn't much into birthdays and parties (in fact, I'm sure he would have been happier parked at a poker table somewhere), but we threw together a last-minute gathering with some friends and some food and ended up with everyone eating until they were stuffed and having a great time.  Of course I offered to cook everything since it was his birthday but he, in fact, ended up cooking almost everything (thank goodness, I can bake but really can't cook very well).  Hubby's three cousins came over, our brother-in-law from Atlanta came over, and my friends who recently moved here from Seattle came as well and although they are all from very different backgrounds, they all talked for hours (a sure sign of success when it comes to house parties).  Hubby made some amazing gourmet food which ranged from Mexican to Filipino, and we sang happy birthday to him.  We actually spent very little on the food (everything was cooked from scratch) and didn't even have a cake (banana bread and brownies seem to go over much better, especially since I baked a lot of extra to send home with everyone) but this was one of the best birthday parties we have had in recent memory!

Hubby's Birthday, Dodging a Bullet, and More

It's been a pretty busy week (how I ever had time to do anything when I was working is beyond me...I am not working now and I am still so busy!)...

• The electricity experiment continues.  We are still reading our meter each day and recording the reading.  Fortunately I think our next bill will be 1/3 to 1/2 lower just because we are more careful with how we use our electricity.
• Hubby's birthday is tomorrow and we decided to invite the cousins, my friends that recently moved here, and our brother-in-law who showed up unexpectedly yesterday to come to dinner. We will cook up a feast and have a nice dinner with everyone to celebrate his birthday--no big plans this year and with a super limited income, a homemade dinner and a homemade birthday cake (by me) will have to suffice.  I think the thing I miss the most about not having a lot of money is that I can't splurge on people for special occasions.
• I decided not to do the business with my friends (this is the dodging the bullet part).  After a bit of thought, I decided that doing this would violate a number of unwritten rules that I have about business, among them, never do a partnership, never go into business with friends, don't have a business with overhead, don't have employees, and don't mix friends and money.  My friends have already moved forward to start their own business (they got the business license so far) and I will do what I can for them (order their business cards, make up flyers for them, make them a website and host it for the first year at my expense) to help get their business started.  This won't cost me much money (my services and the couple of low expenses will be my gift to them) and it will encourage them to have a successful business but will not make me any part of the business so I think this will work out much better...
• I did my taxes with the H & R Block online tax program which I used last year.  For the first time in over a decade we are actually getting money back!  There is one more form that I need to file the taxes which hasn't been released by the IRS yet so I hope to get this finished up and e-filed by next week.
• As soon as I file the taxes I will send a copy of the taxes over to the lender so we can get a pre-approval letter for a mortgage and at the end of the month we will begin searching for a house to buy.
• I need to work more on being a writer.  This type of business fits all of my criteria for a business (it's portable, there is no overhead, I can work by myself, etc), and it's something I love to do (I just need to get motivated to actually sit down and write!).
• Tomorrow is caucus day in Nevada so I will go to my first presidential caucus.  This should be interesting!
• If you haven't heard of the MIT Open Courseware program, you should definitely check it out.  This is a free way to get an education (unfortunately not an actual degree but the knowledge is very valuable in and of itself) and now they are offering a free certificate program called MITx.  I think this will really become the future of education.
• Finally, did you know that I love to read romance novels?  These kinds of books are like brain candy to me since I usually read non-fiction books which aren't nearly as entertaining.  I just came across a new author who is a ridiculously good writer, her name is Julia Quinn.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and drive safe out there--it's Super Bowl weekend!

'You Are What You Do'

I'm on a reading kick and gaining all kinds of motivation and inspiration from re-reading this list of some of my favorite success books.  A couple of days ago I was reading a book by one of my favorite motivational authors, Zig Zigler, called "Steps to the Top" and came across a quote that said "you are what you do."  I'm not sure what it was about those specific five words but they kind of hit me like a ton of bricks.  It didn't say 'you are what you intend to do' and it didn't say 'you are what you say you are going to do' but it said "you are what you do."  Something inside me shifted...like my entire outlook.  I've heard of other people who had experienced similar things--all of the sudden a phrase or a sentence changes their entire outlook on life--but it had never happened to me...until now. 
This made me look at myself in a whole new light.  Believe me, I have a ton of good intentions and I often say I am going to do things but my follow-through is horrible, but if the person I am is reflected in the things I do, I better get busy actually doing things.  For example, I had $30 in my wallet today and while I wanted to use some of that money to go get a pair of shoes, hubby's cell phone bill is coming due soon.  Sometimes I am still not very good with money so I will spend what I have and expect that I can cover my bills with other money that will be coming in.  But today I wanted my actions to reflect that I am a good steward of my money--not just talk about it, but actually show it in my actions--so I skipped shopping and went and paid hubby's cell bill.
I think this new concept may very well change my life...

No Wonder I Was Broke!

I was going through a box of stuff last night and came across the notebook I used to write my monthly bills in.  The notebook covered the years from 2002 to 2008.  Looking back through those list of bills was a startling trip down memory lane.  What was I thinking?  Each month I was burying myself in more and more debt and I didn't notice anything wrong with that??  My today self should have slapped my then self upside the head--at least then I may not have kept adding "small monthly payments" that eventually added up to nearly overwhelming debt. Here's what one of the biggest months looked like:

• Mortgage $1500
• Second mortgage $325
• Car payment $595
• Car insurance $195 (we had five cars at the time)
• Water/sewer $40
• Gas $90 (it was winter)
• Electricity $75 (ditto)
• Cable/internet $195 (apparently we needed every station known to man)
• Garbage $15
• Health insurance $35
• Cell phones $250 (we must have still had some kids on our plan)
• Son's family in the Philippines $150
• Tithe $100
• Newspaper $10
• Macys $50
• Sears $75
• J C Penny $60
• Chevron $250
• Visa $125
• Mastercard $100
• Other visa $90
• Discover $100

The list didn't include all of the cash we paid out each month for restaurants (daily), clothing (stuff we didn't put on the credit cards), money we would give to the kids, etc.

Just looking at that list made me cringe.  We were paying almost $800 a month just on credit cards!!!! (sadly most of that money went to interest, over limit fees and late fees).  I was such an idiot.

Fortunately we (eventually) got our act together and got out of debt and our monthly bill list now looks much more reasonable:

• Rent $600
• Electricity $112 (but going down next month!)
• Cell phones $80
• Health insurance $35
• Car insurance $33 (liability only for one--paid for--car)
• Son's family in the Philippines $95
• Tithe $50

Basically it was a three step process to go from over-the-top bills to spending a fraction of the cost to keep us fed, sheltered, and entertained each month.  The first step was paying off debt as quickly as possible and not using credit cards any more.  The second step was cutting down on the cost of things we can't do without (ie: we don't need a big house but we do need shelter so a small, one bedroom condo works very well for us and, fortunately the rental fee covers water, sewer, and garbage).  The third step was doing without things that don't impact us too greatly (ie: no cable, liability only car insurance, cheaper cell phone plans, no newspaper since I now read this online, etc).

Now that the trip down memory lane is done, I never want to go back there!  I'm debating whether to burn the notebook or keep it as a reminder in case I ever edge toward debt again...