LIFE HAPPENS

The phrase above is familiar to those of you who listen to Dave Ramsey, author of the Total Money Makeover. Instead of the proverbial "shit happens", Dave says "life happens", and it is true.

For over a year now, Mel and I have been trying to stay on track with the principles outlined in Dave's book. Namely, build up an emergency fund, and start paying off your credit cards; lowest balances first. Dave says the emergency fund is for life's surprises and keeps you from having to charge these emergencies on your credit cards and get deeper and deeper into debt.

Case in point, Mel has been having car problems lately; rightly so, as her Chevy Cavalier is over 12 years old. Last month it was a brake job, this month a set of tires. Couple that with a pet emergency, increased fuel costs, etc, all of those things constitute "life happening".

It gets frustrating at times, because I've been wanting to go visit Michael in Dallas for months now. It seems like one thing or another always comes up that has delayed my visit. Now I am waiting for our tax stimulus check, but we aren't scheduled to get that until next month.

Every morning when I say my prayers on the drive to work, I ask God for patience. I guess this is his way of giving me practice. It could always be worse, considering today's economy. I am blessed with a good job, a loving wife and sons, and a couple of mutts who love me when they see me with treats in my hand.

We have also made strides in reducing our debt in the last year or so. In addition, Christmas was entirely budgeted and no credit cards were used in the yule tide merriment. I am also blessed with the ability to still ride my mountain bike every Sunday to exorcise the stress demons!

Speaking of which, Hopkins and I plan to tackle OP Schnable again tomorrow morning. I WILL NOT eat breakfast before the ride, as last week I learned a full stomach does not mix well with mountain biking.

This past week was a particularly stressful one at work, so Wednesday I went for a ride at McAllister Park after work. It's been a couple of weeks since I rode Mac, but I had a good 2 hour ride workout. Hopefully we'll be able to get at least a couple of hours in tomorrow.

Hasta la pasta baby!