Odds and Ends and Expenses, Oh, MY!!

I don't really have a lot to say today, but it has been an age since I posted, so I figured I'd share a little glimpse into the foggy windows of my life...

• Saturday (last post) we dropped Big Red off at the Toyota dealer for some torture. The check engine light had come on, and since Ornery was supposed to go out of town Sunday, we had Elizabeth meet us at the dealer after our last training session. The service technician said he thought it might be something that was covered under warranty. Then she dropped him off at work to pick up the rental car he was taking to Clovis, NM. 
• Sunday morning, bright and early, Ornery left for Clovis. There is no cell phone service there with our carrier, so we talked via the computer or his land line room phone. He worked 17-18 hour days, then drove home on Thursday. 
• Tuesday we found out the pickup was going to cost $1700. to repair. The main issue was indeed covered by an extended warranty (although the 2007 truck only has 45,000 miles on it) but the other issues were not. Since it is our only vehicle and we intend to keep it a long time, we went ahead and had it repaired.
• Wednesday afternoon the vehicle was finished, and they drove it home for us and parked it in the garage, so it was here ready and waiting for Ornery when he got home Thursday night! :) 
• Friday, July 3 was a holiday, so Elizabeth took him over to work to return the car, and his mom came over to work a puzzle with me. We enjoyed the long weekend.  Elizabeth and Michael went to Toys R Us and bought a few toys for our house,  because we just plain didn't have anything for our grandkids to play with!  I'm not sure I would have gotten the Lego Technic set Elizabeth selected, but Ornery and I spent an enjoyable Saturday morning building the three pieces. :)  It was the first time I had ever built one, as Ryan had never wanted my help when he got them as a kid. Before we knew it, Monday had rolled around again.
• Monday morning a man came to clean our dryer vent. It is not a good design, and feeds through the wall behind the dryer, up into the attic and out the roof. He took the pipe apart inside the attic, and located the problem--a bird had built a 12" deep nest in the top of the pipe, which impeded airflow considerably. The birds ended up in the garage for a few hours, cheeping and carrying on like they had been sorely abused. We were able to get them out eventually.
• Tuesday morning, a man came and fixed our sprinkler system--it had frozen over the winter and we were just now finally getting around to having it fixed. THAT was an expensive mistake!  Ornery had plugged in the heat tape, but either it was just too cold for it or the GCFI receptacle was bad and we didn't know it. 
• Monday night we had a call from the company that is training us in Real Estate, and that took pretty much all evening from 4:00 to 9:00.  We signed up for more training... It's all good, and I think this will be the best part as it is one-on-one mentoring.
• The week flew by, although I can't really tell you what we did.  Friday night, however, we hosted our kids and grandkids for burgers and dogs.  It was a delightful time. Micah really enjoyed the Lego set, and Makayla was quite taken with the horses and play food. 
• Ornery went to work a bit on Saturday, mowed the lawn, and did some online training. I did a bit of art, read some books, and lounged around.  My hip has been really aggravated lately for some reason, and it just wasn't appealing to be out and about.
• And here we are back in a new week. We just had our first mentoring call and did part of our first assignments. Ornery is assembling my new desk chair. 
• I signed up for a pocket letter group and several Swap Bot swaps and am looking forward to spending a bit more time in my art room this week.  

That's about it. When I condense it down to a short paragraph, it seems like a pretty shallow existence...

Weekend in Review: Super Dooper

Hello, poor deserted blog. Honestly, if I hadn't scheduled all my A to Z posts, I am not sure I would have posted more than a handful of times in April.  Life is zipping along.

This weekend we spent a lot of time working on the courses we signed up for at the Millionaire Mind Experience*. We are currently in two programs, one is called Master Wealth Creator and the other is Mastering the Markets*.  Both courses had already begun when we joined, so we started out behind.  This weekend we worked on getting caught up.  We updated our wills, recorded all our expenses for the month of April, and listened to all the calls for one program. I think we are mostly caught up, but it has taken a concerted effort!  There is still a lot of homework, (practicing and memorizing mostly) and we still have all the actions required and weekly calls for the two group coaching programs we were signed up for prior to Dallas.
(* Please Note: the above links take you to the sites and use our affiliate numbers to give us financial imbursement should you attend the event or sign up for the products/services.)

I also signed up for a free 7 Day Book Writing Challenge that begins today. Well, for me it will begin tomorrow, because the time slot on my new Week at a Glance planner for writing was in the morning and we haven't gotten our first assignment yet.  Ornery is at a disadvantage since he has to go to work everyday--I can work on the modules while he is gone, but he has to do the work in the evenings.  Later this week he is headed to New Mexico for his job for a few days, so that could create even more of a time crunch for him.  However, the nature of the job is that there is a considerable amount of waiting around doing nothing, so he might be able to do some studying then.

I had another emotional breakthrough this week: this one is related to my thinking and learning.  When I was in the 7th grade, my Dad was married to his second wife.  It was a stressful time for me, and even more so when I missed a week or more of school  at the end of the first semester due to illness.  I got my first ever failing marks on my report card (ironically one was in Home Economics) and I missed some key concepts and fell so far behind in math that I never really caught up.  I was in honors math at the time and we were studying algebra. From that time on I struggled with numbers, math, and anything related to them.  It was the subject I had the hardest time teaching my kids, and even the remedial math class in college was beyond my comprehension. I would look at the material and freeze.

Whether the emotional burden of having a difficult home-life was to blame or what, I don't know.  But one of the courses we are taking is for learning how to trade in the stock market (Mastering the Markets). At first I felt like I would be able to handle it, then panic set in and my conditioned mind took over. Gah!

So, yesterday I spent some time after my sauna session doing some EFT, and then later did some Heart Physics meditation to put off the fear of failure in the area of math and numbers and put on the mind of Christ.  That was before I really spent any time in the modules learning the material.  I'm not sure whether the teachers are just that good or if my mind really isn't as mathematically challenged as I have always assumed, but I actually understand everything they have presented so far, and while I will continue to review it and practice doing the work, I am relieved that I am not panicked about it anymore. In fact, I am really excited about doing the trading. :)

We got a call on Saturday (?) from our son who shared some exciting news with us that he and his family are moving back to Oklahoma as he has gotten a job in Owasso, a nearby town. We are excited that we will be able to see our grand children from time to time, although I am not going to count on that happening very often. They are moving over the Memorial Day weekend, which will be here before we know it!

I got to spend some time on Sunday playing in my studio with a few art projects and writing some letters.  Ornery also spent some time with his hobby; he cut out some more rings on his scroll saw to make the basket/bowls everyone likes so well. I cut his hair, bought groceries, cleaned up the kitchen and got the laundry done.  In all it was a very productive weekend.

It's only Tuesday, but my week has also seen a lot of productivity, and I have to say I like that a lot! I've been cooking every day, and trying some new things.  Yesterday I baked GF brownies, Saturday I made a GF pumpkin pie. Ornery says he has broken through to a "new" lower number on the scales (in the period of a couple of years.)  I haven't weighed, but I may have lost as well.  I am much more mobile this week than I was even last week, and have started taking a cane with me when I go out so I can walk for longer periods of time.  My energy/stamina is much improved, and I seem to be able to focus fairly well.  So, that's our weekend (and first part of the new week) in review! :)

(Belated) Weekend in Review: The Beginning Stages

My weekend in review is a little late, but I hope you will find it worth the wait...

My heart is just exploding right now and I have to write my thoughts and feelings here even though this is a long post. They say people connect when they are vulnerable, so I'll just whip it out here, and you can decide if you still want to hang out with me or not. So, here goes.  Are you ready?

At the end of 2014 Ornery and I sat down and wrote out some goals for 2015. Celine Dion's song Another Year Has Gone By on Ornery's Christmas music track was an ear worm reminding him that time was passing and things were still the same as they were 5, 10, 15 years ago. He was really frustrated with his lack of retirement options, so he determined to change things in the coming year.  Our goals and plan of action were stringent, uncomfortable, and focused.  Uneducated, but very focused.  There were a few things we did know: 

• We didn't have much of a retirement fund and at the rate things were going he would have to work until he died--and if anything happened to him I would be up Poo Creek in a leaky boat without a paddle.
• Our single rental property wouldn't come close to funding our dreams, much less our basic living expenses if anything should happen to his job--especially not with the repair expenses being more than the income every month so far this year.
• We knew that the key would be to find something we could do together; a business that I could tend while he worked at his job until it would pay for him to be able to quit.
• We researched several options, but also determined to work on improving ourselves first so we would be able to handle success without self-destructing, or losing everything.  
• Not only would we need to research vehicles for passive income, we would need to take some significant action. 

So, since we knew that the greatest change in our outer circumstances would be affected by the beliefs of our hearts, we started there.  We started at the end of December reading Proverbs every day, along with Dr. Jim Richards' The Prayer Organizer and Connie Witter's Bible Study, Because of Jesus.  We set the alarm for 3:00 AM and started each day in the Word and in prayer.  While there were a few days we missed this, for the most part we have managed to complete four months of daily quiet time. (In almost 36 years of marriage we have not been able to maintain the practice for more than a month at a time, despite numerous attempts!) 

Dr. Richards always says that the more modalities you use the quicker you will see transformation, so we made some other changes, commitments and goals as well, but this was the first one to get implemented and the only one that hasn't altered since we began. Ornery determined to do the work required to get some online business activity going, and I committed to writing my memoirs.  We cut back on other outside commitments so we would not feel pressured by the additions to an already fairly full schedule.   

One of the things we felt would be beneficial was to start a DIY blog, and Ornery stepped way out of his comfort zone and did so. He took pictures of a couple of his projects and posted them, then work got extra busy and he began working more overtime. That was good for the checking account, but not really good enough for us to think it would help financially in the long run.  

Then things began to happen.  Thursday, March 5th it snowed here in our little corner of the world. Despite the fact that Ornery's job is a mere mile from the house, the steep driveway was slicker than a greased pig, and since he had plenty of vacation stored up he stayed home. To pass the time, I read aloud to him. All day.  Little did I know the journey that would begin on that day!  Here is an excerpt I wrote in a post on March 11, 2015:

Last Wednesday when we were snowed in, Ornery and I began reading aloud Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T Harv Eker. We spent several hours that day, and have continued to work our way through it a bit each day since then.  We should be done reading it for the first time by this weekend. We have also signed up and made hotel reservations to attend a Millionaire Mind Intensive seminar, and been faithfully following the advice in the book, in as much as we are able.

 It is time consuming and emotionally intensive to address long held beliefs and take the steps to alter those thought patterns.  However, it is another step in the progression of the goals we set at the beginning of the year, and we are both on-board with the plan.  It seems when we are both in agreement with anything, we make serious progress, so it is exciting to consider the future and what it may hold in store for us.

 Our ultimate goal at the beginning of the year was to replace Ornery's income at his job with self-employment and/or passive income within 5 years.  We thought to do it with real estate, but it requires much more investment capital than we have been able to secure, so we are taking some different paths.  So far we haven't made any money, but we have learned a LOT and I think we are moving in the right direction. Time will tell, but we aren't quite through with the first quarter of the year and we can already see that things are aligning to bring about the changes we seek. 

We have both continued to maintain a lot of the routine we set for ourselves in January. We know that success in the financial arena will require that we have good health and stamina, so part of our daily routine has been to spend time doing the sauna, exercising and eating for health.  We have gone a couple of weeks now without eating wheat, and Ornery says he has lost about 5 lbs. so far.  We are also still having a quiet time each morning, reading from the Proverbs, Psalms and two different Bible study books depending on the time we have.  We are fairly consistent (more so lately) in our nightly journaling exercise wherein we track the daily activities that will bring us closer to our goals. 

One of the quotes by Jim Rohn that has really helped us to focus is, "If it's easy to do it is also easy not to do." Doing those little "easy" things every day makes change and will create the lifestyle we seek. But it isn't possible to just do something once and establish a habit or change core beliefs--it is by repetition every day that will achieve success. Easy to do, but easy not to do. And life is so DAILY! 

This is the longest period of time we have been able to maintain our momentum, and that is really encouraging to us both. We have been able to remind each other of the potential benefits, and have had some really deep discussions and addressed some heretofore unknown issues in ourselves. I would say the last month has been one of the most rewarding times relationally we have ever had. And that is saying something because we have always had a very close relationship!

Once we had signed up for the program, we began getting emails for webinars and other things, so we started taking advantages of those programs.  We signed up for some group coaching, then after we saw another webinar we signed up for MORE group coaching.  We are listening to two coaching calls each week and doing the related actions. We added a reading session in the evenings to go along with those we were doing in the morning.  We read Harv's book through again in the mornings and read Dr. Richards' book, Wired for Success, Programmed for Failure in the evenings.  We read just one chapter a day, but it always sparked discussion and moved us closer to being prepared for the changes we would experience at the Millionaire Mind Intensive. 

So, here we are, almost two months after we picked up that first book.  We attended the Millionaire Mind Experience (formerly Intensive) this past weekend.  I can't even tell you the number of ways we had to get out of our comfort zones to attend, but one of Harv's principles is that your comfort zone = your wealth zone. If you have a small comfort zone, you won't make much money, but if you work to expand the number of situations in which you are comfortable, your entire world will expand. Ours ought to be explosive after all that, just sayin'.  

The personal victories this weekend were astounding for both of us.  Ornery eradicated his lifelong fear of failure, and I broke the mental and emotional chains of a lack of self worth. Both of us have been battling with these issues for years, and they have limited us for way longer than they should have. Despite having a number of tools at our disposal to conquer them completely, (Heart Physics, E.F.T, etc.) for whatever reason, we were still being held captive by our conditioned minds and hearts.   

Seeing my shy, wall-flower husband on the stage dancing and wearing a big smile several times throughout the weekend, watching victories all over the room together and supporting each other through some incredibly potent exercises designed to write new truths at a cellular level created an even deeper sense of intimacy and commitment to each other than ever.

The energy generated at the MME was intense, healing and long lasting. I am still fired up, and rarin' to go! Yesterday I was super-productive and maintained an upbeat attitude through some pretty frustrating circumstances. I had even more emotional healing yesterday as I was doing some reviewing of an old Darren Hardy program we did in 2010 when I had to answer the question of whether there was anyone in my life that I had not completely forgiven. I got quiet, took a deep breath, closed my eyes and asked my heart if there was anyone I had not yet fully forgiven and when the person came to mind, I took care of it. :)

One of the tools we are using for change (and have been since January) is a transformation journal we write in each night just before bed.  Various actions we are working to establish as habits are given a point value with the objective of making 100 points every day. There are enough activities on the list to make this possible even if you don't do every single thing, but when I had done the exercise in the past, after a few weeks my focus would wane and I would start accumulating fewer and fewer points each day--sometimes as few as 40 points--end then just quit altogether.  It is a rare day now when I don't have 125 to 140 points. I am more focused than ever, yet yesterday I spent thirty minutes just sitting outside listening to the birds sing and admiring my lovely flowers, so I am getting more done and still taking time to regenerate.

While we were at the MME seminar we signed up for several more training experiences. So many of the things we had been looking for as far as passive income were addressed at the MME and will be thoroughly covered at the other events.  I'm not going to lie--it was scary to hand over the credit card (which was finally almost at a zero balance again!) and commit to such a significant financial expenditure, but we knew we had to take action now.  The next couple of years will be a wild ride for us. Changes will happen rapid-fire, but the personal growth promised by these opportunities will be worth any sacrifices we may decide are necessary to get to our goal. 

When we left here last Thursday I had three objectives: 

1. Make friends with three or four like-minded people/couples we could connect with socially 
2. Re-set our Financial Blueprint so we would stop sabotaging our success
3. Get training to establish passive income

MME delivered on all its promises and I was able to meet all my objectives and more. We are both more excited about our future than we ever hoped to be.  We have more tools, new skills, amazing support and increasing energy; and with the blockages to success removed, the sky is the limit.  

Thank you for reading all this, and I want to say that if you are sharing any of the same frustrations that we have felt for many years--no end to the rat race, getting wealth is too hard, or whatever other lies you have told yourself-- I hope you will at least pick up The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind and read it through.  If it speaks to you, or if you click the link to the MME sign up page above and you resonate with the message in the promotional video, I hope you will take the first action of attending one of the three day seminars. It will be worth every moment of your time and every dime of the money it takes to get there.  And if you go, will you let me know?  I would love to cheer you on. It's been less than two months since we really started the program and the change has been incredible. I know we still have a long way to go, but for the first time ever, we believe we have found the help we need to make the journey.

Weekend in Review: Wheels and Whine

It has been quite awhile since I have done a weekend in review post, so I thought I would do one since I am, you know, posting every day this month! :)

Oh my goodness! Spring is simply stunning this year, and today Ornery and I spent a whole day playing outside in the back yard.  HE would say we were working, but honestly, when a day is as beautiful as this one was, I am pretty sure it was a pleasure to be outside, no matter what we were doing.  And what were we doing?

I am so glad you asked!  We were getting our backyard ready for the summer.  We turned the soil in the two raised vegetable beds, transplanted four mature nandina bushes to a spot outside my studio window, moved around some pots and transplanted a few perennials that had managed to winter over in pots.

Ornery unclogged his staple gun (a procedure that took so long I thought he had gotten lost or something) and used it around four raised beds to get the landscape fabric up off the ground. The highlight of his day was using his cordless drill to hang the rain gauge on the fence.  I swept, raked, hoed, shoveled, bent over and over and over... and boy am I feeling a winter of inactivity!  Anyway, we got about 75% of the work out there finished, and even planted some little seedlings courtesy of my sweet daughter who has been ever so faithfully watering them every day since Valentine's Day.  I planted six tomatoes and two zucchini squash plants. :) I also transplanted three herbs that had over-wintered.  I am using one 4X8' bed for vegetables and the other one for herbs. Next weekend we will finish all the planting, and hopefully get some fresh mulch down on the bed we removed the nandinas from.

Yesterday we went grocery shopping and worked a little bit in the front yard--I planted a few new perennial flowers I picked up at Whole Foods--and Ornery mowed. He had just finished with the mower and was getting the weed eater out when the skies opened up. It was great sleeping weather, so we had a nap, which kept us awake much later into the night than we are used to, so we ended up sleeping in this morning.

The other news is that I am now in possession of my old van again.  Ornery is not thrilled because it is pretty much a heap of junk, but it is wheels and it does run, so I now have a bit of freedom to come and go while he is at work.  It has been almost four years (?) since I have driven, and I can't say I had missed it at all until Ornery was gone for a whole week and I couldn't get my mail! :(  Very sad.   Anyway, Elizabeth and Michael brought it over Saturday so now I can't use the excuse of "I don't have a car" anymore. Not that I ever offer excuses... :)

Rain is in the forecast for the next five days. Thursday we have an appointment with the county tax assessor's office to contest their property valuation on our rental property. Boy, I sure hope they lower the taxes on it!
And that's been our weekend.  It was nice!