The Plight of the Homeless

Does seeing a homeless person begging for money make you squirm in your car seat? When I did a quick Wal-mart run earlier this week, there was a brunette woman with a stray dog; she had a sign that  said "out of work. hungry. every little bit helps."

My first internal response is usually skeptical. How do I know you're not trying to fund alcohol or drug additions you're enslaved to? And then uncomfortable. What of the shelters that are downtown? Are there enough resources in this town, or is it not enough to go around?

A quick google search showed there are a wide variety of of estimates on how many homeless people exist in the United States. It's a hard task to do a census on homeless since they're always on the go from one place to another, and the count is affected by weather, economic times, and high turn-over rates in shelters.

In addition, it's equally hard to pinpoint a certain cause for homelessness. Often people who are poverty stricken are one paycheck away from living in the streets. When illness or loss of work opportunities strikes, the biggest bill, usually the house or apartment payment, gets postponed in favor of food and necessities, leading to foreclosure or eviction.

Other causes, according to The National Coalition for the Homeless, include addictions of different forms, domestic abuse, lack of affordable housing, lack of health insurance, mental illnesses, decline in public assistance, or a combination of several factors. Overall, a mind-boggling 100 million people are estimated to be homeless world-wide.

Interestedly, there is also a list of ways to help given, some of which I hadn't thought of.

• Smile. Avoiding eye contact with homeless people dehumanizes them. They may or may not be at fault for their situation, but still crave human connection nevertheless. 

• Donate. Shelters can use many items such as non-perishable foods, toiletries, clothes, etc. Give of any excess you may have. 

• Help. Organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and your local shelters can always use hands-on volunteers.

• Give. It may not be a wise idea to hand out cash to homeless, but some people give out gift certificates to fast food joints, bus pass tickets, paid phone cards, or keep snacks such as crackers, water, dried fruit, etc to hand out.

What are your thoughts on homelessness or what ideas do you have to help?

Here I am to Worship

A day in the life of a stay-home-housewife (hey, that rhymed!)

For folks that wonder what I do all day since I don't have a job (yet, I'm really good at landing interviews though ;-) ) I thought I'd try my hand at taking pictures and blogging about it. On a second thought, that seems really vain as that assumes you're interested in what I do. I'll just promise I don't normally do this and get on with this post. :)

Upon waking every morning:

I make the bed so I'm not tempted to crawl back in and sleep some more while my husband gets ready for work. (I puffy heart sleep). I also pack his lunch, start the coffeepot, throw one load of clothes in the washer, turn the computer on, open up blinds, but I was too sleepy to take pics of all those tasks and this is before 8 in the morning. Cut me some slack. :p

After hubby left, I started ironing the huge iron "pile" while watching Dancing With the Stars. I may not be a bon-bon eating, tv watching housewife, but I feel justified watching tv if I do something at the same time.

 Altogether I ironed seven of Mikey's shirts and one of his work pants. (There were still two more pants left in the pile, but I got really tired of ironing by that point--maybe today I'll finish)

Then, time to take out the trash and get the mail:

That done, time to plan dinner (tuna noodle casserole) and shower. 

Onto dishes, got a big pile there from cooking during the weekend:

I cheated and had hubby help with some later. My next house WILL have a dishwasher, I despise doing dishes. However, I do love those moments when we can catch up on our day and talk. Didn't do all of them, as our hunger pangs struck when the casserole was done cooking. Tis okay, I wrapped it up this morning. End result:

 Yay you can see the stove now! Everything's been windexed and lysoled too so it's all shiny and bacteria free. May as well clean off the dining table while I'm at it:

I love those flowers. I impulsively got a bouquet on sale a week earlier while grocery shopping. Now, time to put the washer load in the dryer:

As soon as the floors are re-done, I'm painting this room a sunflower yellow. I cannot wait. 

On to sweeping, dusting, vacuuming, and wiping down mirrors/glass surfaces:

Back of door is our coupons for eating out; that way we won't forget to look for deals for our monthly date nights.

Also straightened up the couch as well (hubby built this, just need to paint the box, add feet, and a padded headboard. Another project for when we have extra $.)

Spent some time posting items to sell online from this pile of items on the floor here. This is what I'm doing for now to make extra $ on Amazon. It's working well so far. 

Now onto dinner:

Chili in the crock-pot. I love using my crock-pot, there is something about taking 10 minutes in the morning to dump, err lovingly mix ingredients in a pot that really appeals to my laziness. As a bonus, I don't have to think about dinner for the rest of the day--I probably use crock-pot recipes about 3-4 times a week. Oh, and the recipe for the chili is from here. One of my favorite blogs ever. 

Now that I'm about done posting this, I need to fold the clothes, make a new menu plan (I use this free website--it's awesome) and go out to do my errands today. In case the layout was confusing, this was from yesterday (Monday) and a part of this morning. I do deep cleaning on Mondays, errands on Tuesday, yard work, kitchen and bathroom cleaning on Wednesday, a project from the ongoing project list on Thursday, and detail cleaning on Friday. Weekends are off, I just relax with my husband, make homemade pizza and watch netflix and hulu with him. It's my goal to post regularly on my blog to help us earn an additional revenue (we'll see how that works out) and it's also my hope you enjoyed this post.

Time to get in gear, this won't get done by itself:

Oh! And have a great day! ;)

The Love of God

I love this song and can watch this over and over without ever getting tired of it. This encourages me whenever I'm discouraged, depressed, or just going through a hard time. This song is often sung too quickly, but this video is slow enough to really let the lyrics sink in. I hope you feel as overwhelmed by God's love as I do when watching this.

Peer pressure never seems to go away...

"If all your friends were to jump off a cliff, would you jump off too?"

I cannot be the only person that hated hearing that as a kid growing up. But there I something I have noticed, and that is peer pressure continues into adulthood if not even more so. Especially in Christian circles, whether it'd be in church, on Facebook, in school, etc.

I've noticed peer pressure when wives are expected to be a Christian version of a Stepford-wives--meek, submissive, a good housekeeper, slaves over a hot stove to make meals, etc. Not that I don't do some of those things, but the idea behind peer pressure is that you will be looked down upon if you do not meet those expectations. My friends, this should not be so.

I've noticed peer pressure when folks are guilt-tripped on Facebook to repost certain statuses or they're "denying Christ". Or they're not supporting our military, politicians, or whatever it may be. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the purpose of Facebook was to stay in touch with friends, share news, and encourage each other during hard times--not perpetrate spam.

I've noticed peer pressure, when parents are asked their plans for discipline, education, even methods of baby feeding/sleeping/ schedules--all with the intent of passing judgment, rather than encouraging them to do what is best for their family. I've noticed it when my alumni mater blocks a local newspaper's website without giving  a logical explanation behind their decision. Discouraging the use of wisdom and discernment in students is yet another form of peer pressure--to get the adult students to think the same way as they do--without an open forum for discussion and debate. As my previous post stated, if there is no room for difference of opinion, true learning cannot occur.

Let us propose something radical. How about we be real? Honest? Transparent? Let's show other people for what we really are in our current season of life and not what we're pressured to be, even if we have much growing and learning left to do. Let's stop with hiding reality and guilt-tripping. Instead, let us be willing to challenge each other on why we believe what we do, lest we grow stagnant and turn into folks that nod their heads to about everything. Let's never stop thinking critically, logistically and start standing our own two feet despite what others may think. If later I realize my previous stance on any opinion was in error, there is no shame in admitting it and changing course.

For life is not a pass/fail test. :)

Quote of the day

"Cognitive dissonance is where true learning occurs. Hearing two vastly different view points causes you to truly examine what you believe and why." 
(from a commenter on a blog)


Love, love, LOVE this! Some of you might be going, "well duh", but I cannot begin to tell you how much that struck a chord with me. 

A penny saved; A penny earned

After walking in the front door, I put my purse on the entry table, took off my coat, and sat in front of the computer and BUZZ, there was an IM from my husband.

"Haha! BBT just sent me the balance update,

I know where you are! You just hit the bank!"

I smiled as I typed him a reply back. Since we signed up for email alerts for all our transactions, he knew I was following through my promise to deposit the extra change we had to our checking. This was in light of our new financial goals to pay off our debt and make needed house repairs. We downloaded a (free) ebook on finances that we're currently reading together, one chapter at a time since there is SO much to glean from.

It drew us in and inspired us to re-evaluate our finances. From that inspiration we made the following goals; perhaps it might inspire you as well:

• Transfer $50 to savings account every payday and budget with the remainder $

• Transfer any extra cash from primary income to credit card the day before payday

• Wife gets a PT job to help fund house repairs (currently going through interviews atm)

• After house repairs are completed, secondary income goes towards debt

• All upcoming bills are to be paid on payday and not the due date; this prevents overspending

• Search for a better deal on internet service

If all goes to plan, our credit card will be paid off by June, our personal loan by 2013 and my student loan by 2014. Even with just one income at the time, it is still very doable. The trick is to keep staying as motivated and on task as we are now.

And the book we're reading? It's no longer free, but still worth getting. Find The Simple Dollar here: http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Dollar-Achieved-Dreams-ebook/dp/B003HOXLHA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1302031267&sr=1-1.

We still have a ways to go, but as one of my teachers once said "Luck favors the prepared man".