Leading up to Christmas

I had quite an interesting an unexpected week coming back from Chicago. I had a bunch of things that I had to get done at home before I headed back to work. The plan was to be back in the office Monday through Wednesday (we are closed on Thursday and Friday). That was the original plan. Here is what really happened.

We were having some basement work done on Tuesday and Wednesday and I had to remove some drywall and support beams. On two walls, all I had to do was remove about two feet from the bottom so the guys could put in the baseboards to redirect our leaking water. The third wall had to have everything removed since we had some beams going up to help stabilize the wall (the two other walls were already stabilized). I got all the drywall off and took care of the clearing the beams off the two walls. I decided to wait until Monday to take apart the last wall.

Monday was a normal day. I went to the office to get caught up. Unfortunately, knowing what was coming up, I had to fit three days of office work into one day and hope to supplement anything else from home. After work, I went to Boot Camp at the gym and headed home to finish up the basement. Of course, in the string of things that could go wrong, the battery charger for my cordless reciprocating saw took a dump. As luck would have it, no one in Evansville has that particular brand. I bought a new cordless saw, but didn't realize that the battery wasn't included. To save me from doing something stupid out of complete frustration, Leandra went to get the corded version. She came home and finished up the rest.

I stayed home on Tuesday while the guys were working. I was hoping to connect to my work computer and work remotely, but was not having much luck. The most I could do was check e-mail and do some database searching. The guys left at 3:00 and I decided to go out for a run. I got in a nice 4.5 mile run, which is my longest outdoor run as I prep for my half-marathon in April.

Not much was different on Wednesday except that the guys were done by noon. I wanted to hit the gym that night, but I found out that my green biking jacket was at work. In order for me to be visible for the evening ride home, I had to make a quick trip to work before it got dark. I headed over to the gym for Group Kick and another Boot Camp.

I got the car on Thursday so I could finish up my Christmas shopping and run some other errands. I had lunch with a co-worker and headed back home to do some cleaning and fix a strand of Christmas lights (which still aren't working...oh well). I headed back to the gym for Group Power (with Melissa) and Spinning (with Tamara). I happened to be the only one at Group Power that night, and one of two to be in spinning. By the end of classes, I was soaked. Luckily, I brought a shirt to change into.

I woke up this morning and was feeling pretty sore. I was told about another Group Kick being offered this morning and I said I would go. I was having second thoughts. A combination of how I felt, having to ride my bike and uncertainty of the weather were weighing in on my decision. In the end, I guilted myself to go. My rationale? Gym access limited over the weekend; I need to start losing weight for this half-marathon (yeah...I'm still fat for a runner); and I said I would go. Class was fun and the room was packed. My legs were shot by the end of class. Thankfully, I was not in a rush to get home so I took a leisurely pace.

Leandra gets home around 5:00 tonight. We're not going to Wisconsin this year so we're going to take the evening a finally decorate our tree. It's been up for a few weeks (it's a fake tree that is pre-lit), but our conflicting work schedules have never given us enough time to decorate.

That's it for us. Have a great holiday weekend.

The 2010 Midwest Clinic

It's Saturday and I'm just about packed up and ready to head out from the hotel. I have a few minutes before I check out so I thought I would give a quick overview of a long, but fantastic, week.

The Fraternity's booth was in a new spot. A little out of the way, but we had two things going for us:

1. We were on a far row of the exhibit hall and had nothing behind us...no instruments, no speakers...nothing. It was nice.
2. Even better, we had a corner which allowed us to rearrange our tables/materials and open our booth on two sides which gave visitors more space to check out what we brought with us.

Over the course of the three days, I figure we had about 375 Sinfonians stop by to visit. We gave some colony information to a professor working at a school in North Dakota. Coincidentally, we had an alum ask about alumni association information for that same area.

The highlight of the event was our reception where we presented the Fraternity's National Citation to TubaChristmas. We presented the award to Carol Phillips, the widow of the late Harvey Phillips, who founded of the event over 30 years ago. We got to meet a number of Carol's family members who also came in for the award presentation.

The event went very well. She was very appreciative of the award and spoke highly of everything the Harvey was able to accomplish in his lifetime. At the end of the event, the brothers gathered for some singing and serenaded Mrs. Phillips...as well as some of other female guests.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable week. Still, I'm looking forward to get home.

Chicago: Prepping for The Midwest Clinic

I got into Chicago yesterday to visit Tim Cooper and get an early start at prepping the Phi Mu Alpha booth at The Midwest Clinic. After dinner last night, Tim and I watch the original Tron (actually, I watched Tron...he slept) in preparation of seeing the Tron:Legacy sequel on Friday.

I woke up this morning and checked my e-mail and got some cool and interesting news. The Hyatt (which is the hotel connected to McCormick Place) has a new online check-in system. "Sweet."

It also notifies you when you room is ready. I guess mine was ready because I received an immediate e-mail with the notification. "Double sweet."

I left Tim's place as quickly as I could. Once I got to the hotel, I was able to check in quickly and with no problems and started unloading all of the materials for our booth.

The layout of his year's conference is a little different as they have "categorized" the booths into regions. All of the instrument businesses are together; the print music publishers are are together; and all of the music schools, organizations, etc. are in the same area.

We were lucky to get a corner booth this year so we don't have a railing on one side. This allowed us to reconfigure the look of the booth and make it look a little more open. Very cool. I need to request this for next year.

I hope to see my brothers and my "peeps" for UW-W.

So Much for Getting out of Debt

This last five months have been rough. There are a lot of good things that have either happened, or will be happening, but it has come at a price. Let's take a look:

• In vitro fertilization process
• Car repairs (x2 - same problem...damn mouse)
• Home assessment for mortgage refinancing
• Pulled wisdom tooth
• Root canal
• Crown for the root canal
• Leaking basement (and possible foundation stablization)

When all is said and done, we are looking at having dropped about $17,000 since August with money we don't have...but our credit cards do. Frustrating.

When Leandra and I got married, we had about $20,000 in various credit card debt from college, wedding, etc. For many years, we did the 0% credit card game and jumped from promo to promo; consolidating our credit cards and paying off our debt while avoiding the interest.

This worked great for us. It may have affected the credit rating, but it was something I was willing to accept while getting about $14,000 paid off. We sort of plateaued at the $6,000 mark. Sopme of this had to do with the Leandra's emergency surgery in Dec. 2007 and having to redirect funds to get that paid off...which we are still working on.

The good news is that Leandra has been making some good sales at work and we have been able to redirect some of that money towards these credit cards. We pay a good chunk extra already each month so there has been some peace of mind knowing we are making some progress.

Unfortunately, it also means that we are not stashing anything into a "rainy day" fund. Doubly frustrating. Probably the biggest frustration was being able to pay an extra $300 to one of our cards and charging $450 the next day for my root canal.

With neither of our work places providing a family plan for insurance and day care going to come into play very soon, money is going to be an issue in our upcoming future. How we budget our money once the summer rolls around will be challenging. I'm fortunate to have friends who have already felt my pain in one way or another and are doing very well now. So I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We just have to be creative getting there.