Pieces of Randomness

My house is sort of clean, yea, verily, I attest that it is so! I vacuumed and mopped last evening, thanks to DH, who kept the kids preoccupied outside in the yard with their new super duper yard toys from Target. (Best $60 I ever spent, and the weather is only starting to be nice...) SO, since I am a Chief Procrastinator Extraordinaire and have no desire to commence grading lab reports or finish my Bible study homework, I am blogging.

The first item of interest to circulate in my consciousness this morning is the news that the changes in the FICO scoring system mean that my student loan debt will be counted toward my credit score. This does not make me happy. I have a large student loan, which will not be going away anytime soon...my latest off-the-cuff calculations of debt repayment tells me that we won't even get to the student loan on the snowball for FIVE YEARS...which is a long time to have my credit score be depressed from its existence. I have to do more research into this and how exactly it is likely to affect us. Since we have no plans to refinance our mortgage, or buy anything requiring financing, nor sell our house and buy another one in the next five years or so, it's not that big a deal...but who knows what the horizon holds? Yet another stick to incentivize us to be focused on debt paydown.

In other financial LBYM news, our car balance is now reduced still further with a large principal payment from our tax refund. Huzzah! Six and a half months of car payments left if we do nothing else, but you can bet your bottom dollar we are going to be doing something else, namely throwing all extra cash at that loan until it's gone, gone, GONE! My personal goal is to have it paid off by the time we go on vacation to Ireland, which means I have to find at least 2 months of car payments somewhere. I am hoping I get to teach again next quarter, and that would throw another 3 payments into the mix. Fingers crossed...it's still too early for predictions about class load next term, so I'm just hoping there are an extra 15 students needing to take chemistry. I cannot express how tempting it is to take the vacation airfare money and throw that at the car loan too, but that would result in charging airfare, and we have vowed to do away with charging anything. So as tempting as it is to get that quick fix gratification of paying off the car loan, I am going to leave the airfare money where it is.

Speaking of airfare, I am not quite certain what we are going to end up paying for this little jaunt of ours to visit DH's family. So far, the peak time when we want to go, is the most expensive time, to the tune of $1600 more than we have budgeted. If we go earlier, say end of May, then we could squeak in just $400 above our budget. However, this would definitely mean I could not teach for the spring quarter, as the quarter would still be ongoing at that time. So we are sort of on a limb here--I really need to find out what the likelihood is of me teaching next term, because I don't want to book our vacation and then be told, "Oh yeah, could you teach for us, and oh by the way could you teach TWO sections this summer ($3k+)?" *Snort* We want to go see DH's family, but we don't want to throw out several thousand bucks to do it! I am keeping an eye on farecast.com and all the travel websites, but it remains to be seen when is the best time to go, and if we can AFFORD to go.

And, we finally cut DD's hair. It was time--she is 3. I did it myself, and since her hair is curly I wasn't too preoccupied with making sure it was exactly, perfectly even. She did very well once she realized it didn't hurt to have her hair cut. DH snapped pics of the whole process and I have my curl of hair for her scrapbook. *sniff* However, she LOVES her new do, and has been primping in the mirror in advance of school today, eager to show off her new haircut.

Lastly, it is not too difficult to make an Easter bunny face out of paper plates and make-up cotton circles. When your 3 year old wants to do a craft while her brother naps, you make do with what you've got (and it's very LBYM, I might add). Ears were traced and cut out of 2 paper plates, and a third was designated the "face" plate. DD started coloring all three and I finished (as usual). I did not have any big googly eyes so I had to draw a cute pair of eyes with a Sharpie. She got to use pom-poms as a nose & cheeks, and she glued 2 makeup pads on each ear. I cut up another pad to fill in the gaps between the two circles, for a very fluffy couple of ears. (Hey, I don't wear makeup, so they might as well get some good use.) I colored some scrap bits of paper plate black and cut them into thin strips to use as whiskers, and she glued those on top of the pom-pom cheeks. I drew a mouth & big front teeth, and she glued on some scrap ribbon tied into a bow for his necktie. I think he turned out pretty well! DD wants to take him to show & tell at school today. Not bad for a last minute craft! And yes, I am patting myself on the back...tsk tsk. Don't worry, I'm sure my lack of grading and procrastination on my Bible study homework will more than make up for any self-congratulatory impulses I am feeling now.

Speaking of which, I really ought to get going on one of those things...hmmmmmmmm....