Boring financial stuff.

We are still coordinating this. Right now we have more of a spending record than a true budget, but we are definitely headed in the right direction. My spreadsheet is beginning to resemble a Hydra, with separate pages for medical expenses, family birthday timing and budget, goals, etc.

My base salary is increasing by X, effective next payday. I have been reviewing my 401K’s, using their wizard to project whether I/we will be eating PBJ’s or cat food when I retire, and wrapping my head around the numbers that my
our HMO is paying the hospital for Beloved’s cancer treatments.

I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I sent 9% of my base salary to the 401K accounts [traditional and Roth] for the past twelve months. I bumped that up to 10% for the coming year. Next year I might be able to increase by another percentage point, maybe two, depending on where we are with our savings and how much of our consumer debt we have paid off.

Beloved loves it that he has an intelligent wife (this would be a continuance of the tradition, not an establishment of a new one). I love it that he listens to me. Not only do we have a mutual admiration society going on, but we have a mutual respect society. We counsel together. I bless his late wife nearly every day.

Work, yesterday, was interesting. For awhile, in the Chinese-curse sense. I sent Beloved a message via FB along the lines of Mom-I’m-bored. Granted, boredom is preferable to sitting for several hours in oncology with a tube in one’s chest. I had already sent out a will-type-for-food message on Wednesday afternoon, to no avail. Thankfully, one of my friends had two mundane tasks which kept me busy, if not entertained, for about three and a half hours. So I mostly felt as if I had earned my keep, by the time I left the office.

Went to the temple, where they want to train me as a coordinator for one of the ordinances. In which I still feel a little uncoordinated. I rarely tell people that I need to pray about or think about it, but in this case that is just what I did. I have so much on my plate and am so tired, physically, and I don’t want the increased responsibility to be just one-more-thing-I-gotta-do.

Got home from the temple last night a little after 10:00. We sat in the kitchen and talked for almost two hours. Much needed. And I woke up half past dead this morning, to the point that when Beloved was fixing breakfast and asking the occasional question, I reverted to the stage when I had a houseful of importunate girls and the third question was one question too many. No, I did not get cranky with him. I have grown up a little since then. But I did have to ask him to hold off on the questions for awhile.

After breakfast and a shower and reading an article that made him hoot out loud (I love his laugh!) which will be linked to in a future post, I am marginally ready to take on my day. But there is something he wants to tell me, and then I have to finish my hair and grab the bags and git.

I am going to my first Time Out for Women tonight, with Firstborn and Secondborn. Will explain later, when I have two brain cells to rub together.

Over and out.