OUR LIFE IN 3D

24 Dec 2011

Progress so far…

This is a post originally published 12/24/2011. Yes, Christmas eve on my second month of blogging.This was one of the bright spots amid all the stress of preparing for Santa…reliving Christmas past once again:

Yesterday we had to traverse the Mall-WalMart-Best Buy triangle gauntlet on the way to Target. Its our local version of the Holiday frenzy that keeps you from getting to anywhere on time.

The cars waiting to get in the Wal-mart parking lot (let call lot A) were lined up back to the Best Buy parking lot. Cars waiting to get in the Best Buy parking lot (lets call lot B) were stacked up all the way back to Wal-mart. And then there was the mall traffic making traffic come to a standstill.

As bad as it was my wife pointed out trying to make it to the Target today, the 23rd, would not be as insane as Christmas eve.

She’s probably right. I say probably because I am not going to find out.

I rounded up items off the list we needed at the Target with no incidents and headed back.

We got behind a pickup truck with a bale of hay in the back of it while wading back through the MWBB triangle.

Dylan’ say’s, “what’s that in the back of the truck?”

I said “a bale of hay.”

She asks, “What’s the bale of hay for Daddy?”

Feeling like a sitting duck for a list of 20 questions while sitting in traffic I said, ”I don’t know Dylan. What do you think?”

Dylan thought, “Hmmmm.” Then she blurts out, “Maybe it for the baby Jesus in the manger!” ( she is only 3 years old this particular year)

I am making progress with this girl. Last week she couldn’t make it past the sheep and the donkeys in the baby Jesus story. Maybe she is listening after all?

She walked in my bedroom this morning and said, “Santa didn’t come last night!”

One more morning of this! Progress.

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23 Dec 2011

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Everyone Should Marry a Nerd…

Go, go, go…I look up at the calendar and the big day is almost here! Which has led me up to the two biggest days of procrastination…today and tomorrow, i.e. “It can wait, it can wait”. There is so much to do today now! Add ‘lazy’ on top of ‘procrastination’. I just had our carpets professionally cleaned (I had a coupon!) So there are 5 rooms I do not have to vacuum today! ~cross them off the list!

Speaking of lists, I crossed a big one off last night, wrapping the kids presents. We have this deal in our family, my wife buys (shops for) all the Christmas presents each year and I am the wrapper of her pillage. I don’t mind the wrapping because it gets me out of shopping on some key college football Saturdays in November!

Thanks to one or two of our Angels I had quite a few gifts to wrap too. But what to my wandering eyes should appear? Educational toys instead of footballs and other sporting gear!

My wife went out and bought lots of, dare I say, “cool” toys for our girls to learn things at their level. I would have bought balls and bats and other ‘fun’ things. These girls are going to grow up and find the ‘fun in learning’ ( a contradiction in terms), be smart, and be a nerd; just like their mother. That’s OK with me, (See Tight Wad Tuesday post) we’ll be prepared.

Our friends say these girls will cause me to lose a great deal of sleep when they hit their teens. If I can push those moments back a few years because they are running a with a smarter crowd, dare I say, ‘nerdier crowd’ it is alright with me!

And why wouldn’t they? Their mom is a self-admitted nerd, that caters to ‘Sheldon’ and the other geniuses on The Big Bang Theory. She’s turning me into one! It may be in these girl’s destiny! I have no regrets. She’s made me a better and nerdier (vs. naughtier) person.

Are girly nerds still all fashion focused in high school? We’ll see.

Speaking of Angels, we were touched by another one of the very special Angels in our lives again yesterday! Thanks so much! We love you! Did you see that very bright star they left in the sky last night? Now we will be looking for some wise men. My wife insists they don’t exist.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

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22 Dec 2011

Merry Christmas….

Sorry, I was trying to learn how to embed a video in the blog. It finally worked!

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20 Dec 2011

Tight-Wad Tuesday: Going to College

I told my oldest elf that her Uncle John was coming to visit over the holidays and that he was looking forward to playing with her and chasing her around.

She smiles and asks, “Can I body slam Uncle John?” Either she remembers the stories of her uncle John being a wrestler or I have played waaaay to rough with this child! I need to teach her better and get her, and her sister, into a good college!

Speaking of, I left off last Tuesday on telling how you can send your child to college for free! It involved a little investing in state sponsored 529 plans. This Tuesday I wanted to bring you up to speed on doing intelligent investing so your 529 can grow, even during a stagnant economy.

I said ‘intelligent’ as we are all intelligent here, right? If you are reading this dry info you must have an interest in it. Now I do not want to assume you know everything I am pointing out here (You probably do) so I want to start with some basics to understand that are really, really cool.

First are two key terms, Compounded Annual Growth and Dollar Cost Averaging and why these two are always phriendly phrases when investing.

Even in the worst economies Dollar Cost Averaging is always on your side. Simply, it is the idea of steady, constant investing. The Motley Fool describes it this way: the discipline of regularly buying shares of stock. An investor using this long-term technique would invest a set amount every month, as opposed to saving it up and investing it in one lump sum.

The keys here are 1) set amounts of money and 2) every month. An example is say you invest $50 every month in a stock and that stock’s price is $25. So each month you buy 2 shares. Say the price of the stock drops all the way down to $12.50. Bad, right? No its good this time. Now that $50 buys you 4 shares of that stock that month. So, if you are a long-term investor (for college) you are accumulating more shares of stock this way to compound. Over time, these purchases average to a mid price of all purchases, bringing your purchase prices lower…over time.

The compounded annual growth is phriendly concept thats maybe a bit harder to grasp. But it is the reason we invest over a long period of time. Simply, if you have $500 to invest and it grows 10% the first year you will have $550 at the end of the year, or $50 in growth. Now imagine in a few years you invest regularly and your investment grows to $5000. Now the same 10% annual growth is $500 in growth. Lots bigger than the $50 year one! Like the batter bunny, it keeps growing and growing and growing….

That is why you should invest regularly and over the long-term (get started as early as possible) to save you’re your Einstein’s education in 529 plans. Get the most for your dependents….and get your entire yearly investment back each year; in the form of state tax credit! Going to college for free!

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16 Dec 2011

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DYLANism

We were cleaning up the living room today when Dylan came over to hand me something to throw away. I held out my hand to transfer whatever she had in her hand to the trash.

When I didn’t immediately see anything I said, “What do you have here?”

She says, “Can you throw this away for me?”

I said, ” I don’t see anything” becoming more curious. “Where’d you find it?”

Innocently Dylan says, “My nose.”