Fun with Friends

Over the years I've moved quite often. I don't like to just visit places I like to experience them! So I've lived in various cities in Utah, Florida, Oregon, Namibia, and Australia. There are a few things that tend to occur right before I move somewhere. I've noticed things seem to be awesome right before I go. Sometimes I met an awesome guy, other times there were spectacular events I attended, but most of the time I was just having a blast with friends. In addition I have also seen how the Lord prepares myself and others for my departure. It's as if I suddenly realize I'm no longer needed. This is how I have felt this last week.

This week was a lot of fun times with friends. Monday we had Family Home Evening at our apartment where we watched the new Saints and Soldiers movie Airborne Creed. It was not like I expected, but it was still good. Matt and I went from never eating popcorn to suddenly wanting butter or caramel popcorn for every movie! It certainly makes a better movie night.

Tuesday Matt and I went to our tax consultant to do taxes. I had spent hours before sorting out all of our business expenses and income, and although Matt had made a lot more in 2012 we thought my Herbalife business expenses would balance it out a lot. We found out later that we owe nearly $6000 in taxes! Normally Matt always keeps money in savings to cover taxes, but we had to use everything we had to pay for deposits to go to Australia. So in the last year we went from being pretty good financially to be in more debt than we ever expected! This is easily the best timing for us to be taking the Dave Ramsey financial class.   This week's class was all about the myths about debt. For example some truths are...you don't ever need a credit card, or finance your car/house, or build up your credit score. The credit score is completely based on  debt! Here is the breakdown...35% is based on payment history, 30% is on debt level, 15% on length of history, 10% on new credit, and 10% type of credit. This does not measure how well you are doing financially at all! Now that we have more debt than ever before, we are creating detailed budgets and are going to attack our debt with full force!

Wednesday I went with Paul and Cassie to donate plasma, which turned out to be a painful experience this time. The woman kept digging around in my arm and this ended in pain even as I was pumping blood. I didn't think much of it, but I noticed after they wrapped it that it still hurt and I was definitely bruised. When I took the bandage off about 6 hours later I still bled! Not to mention it looked like I had a separate vein coming out sideways from where I was poked. Luckily it almost looks back to normal, but it is still a little bruised. When I went again on Saturday I was nervous about using my other arm, but in the end I was turned away because my blood work came back below acceptable beta levels. I'm not dying or anything, but they wanted to do another blood draw to see if the levels stay the same. I decided it wasn't worth it.

Thursday I went to Corvallis to hang out with my friends Laura and Valerie. It's great to have friends where you can just enjoy sitting around and talking. We didn't do much, but we just caught up on current events. Laura's baby is adorable, but it definitely changes dynamics of hanging out. It was a lot of fun, but I could tell that after being out of Corvallis for six months that things move on without you being a part of it. Friends will always be friends, but at the same time I think the Lord makes it easier for everyone to move on without you being a major part of things.

The weekend was crazy. I went to lunch with Paul and Cassie (had to wake them up for it) and then we went and saw Wreck-It Ralph at the dollar theater. It was a super awesome movie. When we got home, Matt was there and we had sloppy joe biscuits. Matt decided we should have a sleepover and play games and watch movies. First stop was the store and I got all the ingredients for a chocolate pretzel cheesecake with caramel on top. It was my first time making a cheesecake and will not be my last. Unfortunately I was having difficulty with the chocolate and put it on the crust before it was melty so I tried to pick the glob up and put it back in the bowl. This resulted in me severely burning three of my fingers, one was a second degree burn that blistered - yeah me. On the bright side this led to Matt having to do all the cleaning the next day because my finger couldn't touch hot water. The fun part was playing games and watching movies. To everyone's surprise I won Settlers even though I was easily most distracted by the movie Push that was playing at the same time. We also watched Hot Rod that night which I decided was kind of like Napolean Dynamite and pretty hilarious. Around 3 A.M. we finally went to bed although I struggled to sleep because my finger was throbbing like crazy since it wasn't soaking in cold water anymore. I tried baking soda, and then researched using aloe vera and toothpaste which allowed me to sleep. It must have worked because the blister was gone by Sunday.

We all slept in till about 12 P.M. and Matt and I made french toast and smoothies. Then we went to donate plasma which as I mentioned before led to me waiting about 2 hours for Paul and Cassie to finish. The day went by quick because of that and we were all surprisingly tired. Sunday I was still tired and took a lovely nap after church. Although I was hoping to hear about my Visa the whole day...the e-mail never came. So I packed a bunch of clothes and things, and will just have to wait until the Visa comes before anything else. Packing clothes was frustrating as Matt and I discovered many of my clothes don't fit right because I lost so much weight. At least I don't have to worry about more stuff I want to take! I'm just hoping I can leave by Wednesday so I can still make my first orientation! We shall see.