State Bible Quizzing and AwanaGames

Whew. State is officially over and it was a great day. It's hard to believe that Summit is only 6 days away but I think everyone's excitement levels just got kicked up a notch today.

My Bible Quiz team did very well and placed 5th out of 9 high school teams. I'm proud of them. =) I'm excited to see how they do at Summit next week. Pray for the health of all the kids going!

Most of Palmcroft's high schoolers

5th place

1st place

2nd place

I didn't have my camera with me on the floor at games so I'll have to wait until I get copies from other people to post those. My team (Palmcroft #2) took first in our flight beating out one other team and got to do a special playoff round against the other winning team (Palmcroft #1). We lost by one event that my team made a mistake on that DQed us. It was a tough event to swallow but I'm proud of how the kids handled it. I have full faith in them for next week. =D

25 Things

I previously published this list as a Facebook note over a year ago. I posted it way after these kinds of "25 random things" posts were popular. However, I found the task of coming up with this list to be fun and as such I've decided it deserves a place on my blog.

1. My love language is quality time. The way that I show love is through acts of service.
2. When I find a new song that I love I listen to it a zillion times in a row. It'd probably scare people if they knew how many times I could listen to a single song without getting sick of it. I do this sometimes with albums too.
3. I've served on a jury. It was only a basic traffic accident case but I loved it. I'm sure there are a lot of screwed up things about our court system but at least we Americans have the right to a fair trial. If I get called for jury duty again within the next 3 years I'll probably still go.
4. I have a college degree and a career that I love even though neither of these things will be necessary for where I expect that my life is going to go. I think that raising my children will be one of the highest callings God could give me and I'm excited to be a wife and a mom someday. (I still think having a college degree is important either way, just for the record.)
   

   A) I was 11 when I decided that I wanted to major in Computer Science and I never once changed my major in college.

5. After living the majority of my life in Arizona I came really close to moving to Washington DC about a year ago. I now know that Phoenix is exactly where God wants me at this stage of my life but rejecting the job offers from DC is what finally made me realize that Phoenix is where I'm supposed to be at right now. This (for now) closed the door for a lot of the opportunities I'd been wondering about for the last couple of years. I switch back and forth between thinking that Phoenix is the perfect place to live and wanting to try living in a different city.
6. I'm a night owl. Even if I'm tired in the evening there's just something that happens to me late at night and I come alive.
7. I love Eeyore. I still have a stuffed Eeyore that I grew up with as a kid. My first car had an Eeyore on it. My AOL screenname when I was a kid had Eeyore in it.
8. The biggest impact on my spiritual life growing up was Awana/Scholarship camp. A large portion of what I know about the Bible came from my years in Awana. The spiritual growth and friends that came from camp, not to mention the great stories, are incredible. The CSCMI/GWC ministry is very near and dear to my heart.
9. I have a hard time talking about me or my life unless someone asks me to. I always assume that the person I'm talking to doesn't care or that I'd bore them. And when I do talk about myself I tend to talk really fast and then change the subject quickly afterwards. I've been trying really hard to get better about just opening up without requiring someone to ask me something.
10. I have a small dent in my skull from where a marble candle holder fell on my face when my sister kicked my bed sheet tent down while I was in it. The candle holder was holding the edge of the sheet on the piano and landed right above my eye. The dent is visible only with certain facial expressions and luckily it's not noticeable enough for anyone to have ever noticed it. I had a black eye for days.
11. I've had multiple ppl starting singing "Mandy" by Barry Mannilow to me after they learned my name. And yes, all of these ppl were over 35.
12. My full name is NOT Amanda, it's Melinda. This never ceases to confuse ppl and understandably so. Just go with it. I never know which name to put on my voicemail and there have been times when I've awkwardly paused on the phone after saying "Hey, this is....uh..." because I can't remember which name to say to that person.
13. I want to attend a home game for every major league baseball team at some point in my lifetime. So far I've only got 3 teams on that list, so I have a ways to go. *
14. When my family moved from the Chicago area to Phoenix when I was 4 or 5 I cried because we weren't taking the leaves from our big tree in the front yard. My mom had to get me a cup to put some of the leaves in before I would calm down. As a kid I used to feel bad about "abandoning" inanimate objects. I would worry that they'd feel left out and lonely. I was pretty old before I finally accepted that inanimate objects don't have feelings.
15. I cut the ribbon for the grand opening of the teen area at the Cholla Branch Library when I was in highschool.
16. At one point in highschool I wanted to be a librarian. I mapped out a plan that, if followed, would’ve meant that I’d have a Masters in Library Science by now.
17. My life isn't about taking part in some sort of "organized religion". My individual relationship with the Creator of the universe is the single most important relationship I've ever and will ever have. I can't imagine how ppl get through life without knowing Him.
18. The number one thing that bothers me about myself is my lack of consistency in reading His word.
19. The graduating class for my major was less than 10% female (a high percentage in comparison to some schools) and I am the only female in a department of 30+ guys at work. I get asked how I'm still single and the best answer I've ever come up with for this question is something I heard the other day: "When it comes to engineering guys, the odds are good, but the goods are odd".
20. The timeframe from when I submitted my application to U of A and when I got my official scholarship offer was 7-8 months instead of 7-8 weeks because of a clerical error in the admissions office. It was an unfortunate situation that turned out for the best but created a very confusing eight months of my life. Nothing like getting the "So, what are you going to do after graduation?" question a million times and having an hour long explanation as to why you haven't been able to commit to a specific university yet. I can't imagine my life without those three years at U of A though, so I'm glad it worked out in the end.
21. I’ve always loved sports but one of my biggest insecurities is my lack of athletic abilities.
22. I never attended a public (or private) school until I was taking my first college class. And I don't regret not having a prom, I didn’t do school in my pajamas, I do know how to socialize and I’m not super smart.
23. I can overanalyze anything. Seriously, anything!
24. If you give me a clicky pen I will proceed to click it constantly until I put it down. And if I put the pen down somewhere near me chances are I'll pick the pen up again shortly thereafter and start clicking it again. Or flipping it around my fingers.
25. I love lists. If you give me a list I'll be a happy camper.

*The count is now at five!

It's now five days until State and eleven days until I leave for Summit. Crazy how time is flying!

New Roof

20 of the 28 houses on my street have gotten new roofs since the hail storm in October. I know at least a couple more are scheduled for new roofs soon. If you're having a hard time picking out a shingle color for a new roof you can find a showcase of all the options just by driving through my neighborhood.

In fact, my roofer told me to drive around and pick a house with a shingle color that I liked since that method of picking would be easier than looking at little sample pieces. I debated for a couple of days between gray and brown and eventually settled on a gray. The same day I picked and ordered my color I came home to see that my neighbor across the street had a new roof. I immediately fell in love with how it looked. It has a mix of grays in it and looks awesome. I called my poor roofer (on a Friday night no less) and asked if it would be possible to switch my order. I felt like such a girl at that moment. =D

Long story short, they were able to get me one that they thought was the same style as my neighbor's, but in the end it actually turned out to be different. The one they ended up getting has brown mixed in as well. At first I was a bit irked since it wasn't what I had asked for, but then I quickly realized it was the perfect marriage of the two colors I originally couldn't choose between.



Before



During



After

Now I just have painting, two windows and this eyesore to complete before I can wrap up my claim.

In case any of you were wondering, it cost $7,340 to do the roof on my 2k square foot house. The bid came in well below what my claim allowed and I didn't have to wrestle with the insurance company at all.

 This weekend was the first bit of rain that the new roof has ever seen and so far all is well!

The 2011 Tax Cut – Have You Even Noticed It?

I’m not the type of person who pays a lot of attention to politics and trending topics. When ObamaCare was the huge topic of the day I knew essentially nothing about it. When I heard that Obama had issued 2011 tax cuts I didn’t even stop to read about what they were. I just assumed they didn’t impact someone like me.

Well… as it turns out… they do. Obama decreased Social Security from 6.2% to 4.2% thus increasing my take home pay each month. The sad thing is that I didn’t know anything about this until I noticed that my first paycheck in January was larger than normal. 

The cool thing about all of this? I have more money! My first thought was to just not even think about it and pretend it wasn’t there. Then I realized that was a bad idea because one thing I’ve learned since graduating from college is that money finds ways to disappear and also that you adjust your lifestyle to fit whatever amount of money you make. If you start to make more money, you adjust your lifestyle up to fit the new budget. As much as you say you won’t, you do anyway. And I do realize that the amount of money we’re talking about is somewhat minor but it is still extra income nonetheless.

So, what did I decide to do with my extra money? I setup an automatic transfer of the extra amount to my mortgage (as an extra principal payment) each month. Doing a rough calculation it looks like that small amount each month will add up to an extra mortgage payment or two by the end of 2011. Why did I choose to do this with the money? Is it the best return on my investment? Actually, no, I don’t think it will be. While an automatic transfer to somewhere is better than just leaving it in my bank account I actually think that investing this money in a nice index fund would serve me better than putting it towards my mortgage. However, given what the bible has to say about debt, I have a large desire to be rid of my mortgage in a much shorter span of time than the thirty years given to me and as such hope to continue to pay it down at an accelerated pace. I don’t trust myself to earmark an index fund for the mortgage so I’m going to make the money a straight payment towards my mortgage.

While I’ll never scoff at free money it does kind of make me cringe thinking about what the first paycheck of 2012 will be like. It’ll be like the opposite of getting a raise. I’m guessing that there will be a lot of people who don’t understand where the extra money is coming from or where it went when it goes away. The great thing about automatic transfers is that it only takes the click of a button to cancel them at the end of 2011.

Did you notice the tax cut?

Here’s a New York Times article about this subject:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/25/your-money/25money.html

And a calculator to use to calculate how much your paycheck should have increased:

http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/2011_Social_Security_payroll_tax_cut_calculator/

Note: I guess companies have until March to get all of this straightened out and for some people their paychecks won't stabilize until then.

What I'm Loving

1) Angry Birds - You launch wingless birds at structures and pigs in an attempt to seek revenge for stolen eggs. Sound crazy? It's extremely addicting! This is all a result of my cousin Isaac and his phone over Christmas vacation. I bring my iPod Touch and play Angry Birds whenever I'm waiting at places now.

2) Starbucks Cinnamon Swirl Coffee Cake - Without a doubt my favorite breakfast treat that I indulge in WAY too often. Pure amazingness.

3) New episodes of 19 Kids And Counting - This is my favorite TV show. I know people judge this family a lot but I love them and I love the Christian example that they're trying to set. And no, not the example of having a million children. If that's what you think the show is about you should go watch it and see what it really is about.

4) Summit 2011 (formerly Varsity USA for you Awana alumni out there) - We're less than a month away from Summit now. I feel like I spend my time sleeping, working and going to Summit practices. I'm insanely proud of what those kids are doing and I'll be proud (and a bit scared!) to be one of their coaches when we travel to Chicago next month.


Note: I apologize for the horrible quality of the above image. My development machine crashed last week and it'll be a little while before I get the replacement or my netbook setup with my image editing software again.

Craigslist Goodness

I'm a huge fan of Craigslist. I've used Craislist to buy a mini fridge (used until my real fridge arrived), a washer/dryer set, a couch and now a chandelier. I've yet to sell anything on Craigslist as the idea of having a random stranger coming to my house still kinda freaks me out.

But back to the positive. I've been scouring (ie: I have a feed setup) for a silver/nickel/chrome chandelier to replace the ugly gold one in my dining room for awhile now. I knew as soon as I moved in that I wanted to replace that chandelier but things that function don't make it to the top of the to-do list when you buy a foreclosure.

Old ugly chandelier

Most of the chandeliers on Craigslist are hideous. If a nice looking one comes up it usually goes pretty quickly. When I saw this one I jumped on it. The sellers told me that someone else was coming to look at it and that it might not be available when I got off work that day. Luckily, the other person was a no show.

New brushed nickel chandelier

I snagged this guy for a cheap price and had my handyman install it for me (I didn't want to attempt my first light fixture swap with a fixture at the top of a vaulted ceiling). I think it goes a long way towards making the room look updated. There's room to lengthen the chain but I need to find some matching chain first so for now it's a bit higher than I would've wanted.

Now I just need to find a matching entry light....

My Nonfiction Reading List

I have a long list of books that I want to read. The stack has been piling up over the last few months since work has been so crazy. I'm really getting the reading itch again though and hope to be able to devote more time to knocking some of these books off my list.

Here's my list:
Feminine Appeal by Carolyn Mahaney - I'm about a third of the way through this and it's already made me rethink a viewpoint I had about stay at home wives (not to be confused with SAHM or Stay At Home Moms).
Crazy Love by Francis Chan - I'm about two thirds of the way through this and I can tell you that Francis Chan is as excellent of an author as he is a speaker.
Forgotten God by Francis Chan - Another partially completed book. This one has already had a huge impact on me in regards to how I look at the Holy Spirit.
Dug Down Deep by Josh Harris - Once again, about a third of the way through. Joshua Harris books are awesome.
Boy Meets Girl by Josh Harris - I've read this book too many times to count. It's an excellent book on relationships even if it is a bit conservative for a lot of people's tastes. It's been so long since I've read it that I've decided to refresh myself on it.
The Purpose of Man by AW Tozer - I got introduced to AW Tozer by reading Josh Harris' blog and I've been intrigued ever since. He strikes me as someone similar to CS Lewis but with a much easier to read writing style.
Experiencing the Presence of God by AW Tozer - Another AW Tozer book that Borders had in stock and that intrigued me.
Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey - Being a personal finance junkie I suppose it's only fair that I read one of the most popular personal finance books around. Especially since it is "Christian".
Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung - I read this book cover to cover in a week and it changed me! I'm going to write a blog post about it.
Money, Possessions and Eternity by Randy Alcorn - When this arrived I realized it was a much larger book that I had anticipated. I'm probably going to read it more as a reference book than something I read cover to cover.

Passion vs Money

I read a statistic the other day that 75% of college students change their major in college at least once and on average students change their major 3-4 times. I know people who changed their major 7 or 8 times.
I've never been able to relate to that. I was twelve or so when I decided I wanted to pursue programming because I loved doing it. I'm not even sure I ever had a talent for it but it was what I wanted to pursue. When I was sixteen and filling out college applications I declared my major as "Computer Science" on every application and didn't doubt my decision.

I read this blog post today. The author talks about how many times she changed her major. That's not really what stuck out to me though. What stuck out was how she recommends choosing a career that would give you the best possible lifestyle. I bristled up reading this. I know this author isn't writing from a Christian perspective so I can understand a basic difference in outlooks. If I weren't a christian I'd probably hold the same viewpoint. Her viewpoint does go against another common viewpoint of "Do what you love". I tend to disagree with both viewpoints.

The "Do what you love" viewpoint holds some water for me because if you're miserable at work it's going to impact other aspects of your life. If you're at a job that you hate it might not be a bad idea to look for something else. I certainly wouldn't want to discourage that. However, I don't think "Am I happy here?" is the right question to ask.

The viewpoint of picking a career that will net you the most cash is the option that appeals the most to a personal finance lover like myself. I'm not going to lie... watching the numbers in my bank account increase is indubitably something that I enjoy. Is it wrong to pursue a career because it's a good paying one? I don't think so but I also don't think that "Which job pays the most?" is the right question to ask either.

What about a balance between the two? "What job would I enjoy doing that also pays a reasonable amount?". Once again, I'm not sure in and of itself that this is a bad question. In fact, I think it is one that most people should ask themselves sooner rather than later, particularly the guys. And they need to be realistic about it. The most important question in my eyes isn't about WHICH career but instead "How am I going to serve God in whatever career I pursue?". All career paths short of something immoral or illegal can be done while serving God. I think if more people stopped asking "What do I want to do?" and started asking "What can I do to serve God right here and right now and how can I make my life something of worth?" we'd see a huge impact in the world as we know it. If we spent more time focusing on how to serve God and less on what we do or don't enjoy about our job I think we'd all be better off. And maybe, just maybe, the choice to make a career shift isn't really about getting a special signal from God. Maybe it's about making a wise decision and always continuing to ask "How am I going to serve God NOW?".

While people still need to make decisions about what to do with their lives I think the questions relating to those decisions should be minor in comparison to the bigger question of how they can serve God. Does God really care whether you're a pilot or a teacher as long as you're serving Him to your fullest? No, I don't really think He does.

One side note that I'll throw out there. I do think that there are some careers that are better left alone if they require excessive amounts of time away from family. A Dad who has to work 70 hours a week is going to be slacking off on the home front and I DO think that God cares about that. There are problem other considerations like that to think about.

(Just FYI, I know I haven't addressed my career and how I ended up where I am in this post. I have more thoughts on my career and why I am where I am so I think I'll save that for another day.)