The Past Few Weeks

Over the years that I have lived alone there has been many times that I have thought it would be a good idea to get a roommate to help with expenses (particularly during those rough stretches of eating mac & cheese for weeks straight and dodging phone calls from creditors). I count myself fortunate that I have found a way, purely by the grace of God, to provide for myself well enough to survive living on my own.
I have been faced with that decision again in recent weeks. Not because of my need, but because of the need of a friend. I learned by the example of many people in my life, when you have the ability to help you should do what you can. I offered my help to a friend up to and including allowing them to move in with me, if they felt that was a good option.
It appeared that it was going to head in that direction until this weekend. I spent Saturday with this person and their dog at my house, cleaning up the yard (mowing and such things). I found myself stressing out about the dog, it figured out how to open the gate in all of about a minute. This dog, while friendly and apparently smart, is very high spirited and curious. That whole evening I spent thinking about this and praying for the wisdom to determine if this was really the best course of action. That whole experience just reminded me of how much I like living alone.
I had a couple conversations with this person on Sunday and together we came up with other ideas and ways that I could help out and make things easier. We found a couple of solutions that will provide the freed up cash they need and the space that I need. Things are resolved and back to normal…I think. For the foreseeable future I will continue to live alone.

On a different note, here is an update on my job situation.
I seem to have finally shaken my old job. After weeks of sitting with my new team but doing my old job, and making trips back downtown to do filing of all things, I think I am now fully dedicated to the new position. That’s both good and bad. The good is that I am no longer under the tyrannical thumb of my old manager. The bad is now I am stuck on the see-saw of learning new things and fighting of boredom.

So this has been my life during the past few weeks.

Pretty Good Weekend

I guess I should start with a quick synopsis of how last week went. Last week was my first experience with ‘close’. For those of you not in the finance world, this is the period where the prior months books (transactions, invoices, etc) are closed. This process involves making changes, adjustments, and general fixes to the books. For my team this means hundreds of journal entries (debiting one account and crediting another).
Close is generally three to four days. During those days we work from 8am to 8pm. This month, as I’ve talked about before, I was training on the new job while still performing and training a new person on my old job. Lucky me close overlaps with the peak of the invoicing cycle. I know to a lot of you working 60+ hours in a week is somewhat routine. But for me, I’ve gotten used to the 40-45 work week. Too much more than that and, well…

Anyway, on Friday at about 3pm my manager walked around told everyone to go home. Let’s just say there was no need to tell me twice.

Friday night was good. We had Kim’s birthday celebration. You can read all about it on her blog. Saturday was pretty good as well. I got to sleep in a little before heading out loan James my VUE so he could move a dresser. I got some yard work done during the day. I had hoped to get the whole yard mowed and cleaned up. It took my about two hours, and four full lawn bags, to do just the front yard. I ended up not getting to the back yard. Hopefully the rain they are predicting for this week will hold off long enough for me to get some of that done.
Saturday night I had the guys over for cards. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve done that, so it was nice to be able to play again. Surprisingly enough I was the big winner of the night (for only the second time in the last six months or so). This time we actually played until only one person was left standing. I took the whole pot, which was about $45. Not a bad return on my $5 buy-in.

Sunday morning I did the church thing, of course. Went to Panera with a few of my Faith Works friends, which has become more or less a normal thing for me. I then went out to lunch with the parents and Michael for Mothers Day. We all gathered at Kim and Chris’s to spend the afternoon, and have dinner over there. Now I’m home, sitting on my back porch at my new patio table, typing this on my still-new laptop; enjoying the last few moments of this pretty good weekend.