Debt Free: What I Won't Miss About the Journey

During school we tried to live as frugally as possible, but we still acquired a student loan to the tune of more than $37,000. Thanks to the Army and Grandpa Hibbard, that number is about 1/3 to 1/4 what it could have been! Our original goal was to pay it off in 18 months, and then save the same amount for the next 18 months of our first tour of duty with the military. At first I thought this was ambitious; in fact, I remember feeling like it may have been a little too ambitious. On paper it just didn't look possible to pay it off any faster than that. Luckily, both Ruth and I are pretty content people. We have a job, food on the table, chairs to sit on (albeit the metal folding kind), live in a nice rental, enjoy great health, and wonderful kids!

Once we arrived here in Missouri and started getting paid we realized that we had a little more left over at the end of the month than we had planned on (always a good thing). It didn't take us long to realize that we could get this debt taken care of in less than 18 months. At the pace we had chosen we were scheduled to pay it off in around 13 months. In the middle of August Ruth realized that if we paid it off one pay check earlier we could say we paid it off in "one year!" Basically the only place the extra money could come from to accomplish this one-year feat was from the food budget.

As content as we are, there will be a few things I won't miss about this these last few months as we made that push to finish our goal in one year.

A list comes to mind of a few things I won't miss missing:
Yogurt
Cheese
Lunch meat
Beef
Pork
Ice cream
"Snacks" (although, Ruth makes great cookies, and other desserts no matter what the food budget is)
Paper towels!!

Things I'm looking forward to:
Saving money instead of giving it to our creditors
Buying a computer that stays on for more than an hour
Buying a DVD player that actually plays an entire movie (I personally hate DVD players, but I'm not sure what the alternative is)
Buying Christmas presents that total more than $15 a person
Going out to eat every now and then (meaning 3-4 times a year instead of once or twice)
Netflix!
Doing stuff that costs money (water parks, museums, tours, games, etc...)

It's been a good journey, but I am glad it's over. (Till we buy a house, that is.)

Cold Cereal: Confessions of an Addict

Growing up cold cereal was reserved for Sunday morning. The rest of the week's breakfasts were a rotation of hot cereal, eggs, and either pancakes or French toast on Saturdays.

Yep, I was a lucky boy! My cold cereal and pop-tart-eating friends were always envious of my home cooked meals.

Over time I really started to enjoy cold cereal on Sundays and in a way start to look forward to it. By the time I was in middle school I frequently had it as an after-school or late-night snack.

I now consider cold cereal one of my favorite foods! It's a great meal and a great dessert! I still try to reserve it for breakfast only, but occasionally I splurge and eat it for a snack as well.

Occasionally, at the end of the day when I'm laying in bed and I start to think of all the things I have to do, or trials coming up, I'll catch myself thinking to myself, "Well, at least I get to eat cold cereal first thing tomorrow morning!!"

Crazy? Obsessed?

I think so. I know I've thought about cold cereal in times of stress several times before I ever really thought about it and realized how strange of a thought process it was.

I can't think of a cold cereal I don't like. Whatever it is, I like it to be a little soggy and the milk to be around 55-60 degrees instead of the cold 45 degrees at which the refrigerator keeps it. One way to do this is to just let it sit out for 5 minutes, but once it's in the bowl I can't wait that long. Fifteen seconds in the microwave get's it just right!!

APFT

This week I took my semi-annual Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT)! I was a little worried about it since I haven't been working out like I ought to have been, but I have been riding my bike to work almost every day and sometimes several times a day.

BUT...as it turned out I scored better this time around than last!

Push-up's: 64
Sit-up's: 63
2-mile run: 14:30

That's a 252. Last April I scored a 230 and a year ago I think I got a 220. Three hundred is the score to get. My push-up's and sit-up's were pretty close to the same as last time although I think I did do a few more in each one, but my run was the big improvement. I did it extactly one minute faster than in April! I think 14:10 or 20 is the fastest I've ever ran it and that was just because I was trying to beat Sheldon.

To get a 300 I need to do the run in 13:18, 82 sit-up's, and 77 push-up's. The sit-up's are the hardest for me because I run out of time. You have to do the sit-up's in 2 minutes (same thing with the push-up's). We'll see, maybe I'll get motivated and go for it.

Mr. Fix-it!

Excerpts from my journal this last weekend:

Friday we went to the temple. We met the Stouts there and they watched our kids while Ruth and I went in. Always a good experience. Unfortunately it was raining the whole time so the Stouts and all the kids just stayed in their van and watched movies on their car DVD player - glad they had one; one of the few times I wished we did. Then we switched. We all went into the annex waiting room and did our best to let the kids release their pent up energy without causing too much of a ruckus.

After that we went home and stopped in Rolla to stock up on some food from Aldi. They were doing road work around Rolla so we couldn't get back on the free way there. We had to drive down a country road about 10 miles or so to get to the next on-ramp.

We had decided to have me change he oil in the van instead of having the shop do it so we stopped at Autozone and just as we were pulling in our front passenger tire went flat. We had to drive a whole 20 yards on the flat tire. Pretty blessed if you ask me. I went in and bought the oil, oil filter, and a tire repair kit. It all still turned out to cost less than an oil change. While we were there I saw a guy from our church and he helped me change the tire.

On the way home we stopped at the PX pharmacy to get my artificial tears since I was almost out. There were a lot of people waiting and it didn't seem to be moving very quickly. It was around 4:45 and it said they closed at 6:00 so I figured it would be better to just get everybody home as it had been a long day. I was back there by 5:20 and they were closed!! There was a lady there closing up and turning off the lights and she could tell I was confused. She pointed out a sign that said they closed at 5:00 due to the holiday weekend (Columbus Day). I must have looked pretty disappointed because she asked if it was just a refill that was ready to pick up - which it was. She took me back there and found a worker that hadn't turned their computer off yet and they let me fill the Rx!!! Thank you PX Pharmacy!!

That night for dinner I made pizza. I think I finally got it just how I wanted. Ruth said it was the best pizza dough we've made yet!! After the kids were in bed Ruth and I played Set, a "matching" card game we have. It had been a while since we'd played; we ended up tying, which is always nice.

Saturday I made pancakes, changed the oil by myself for the (almost ashamed to say it) first time. I also found the hole in our tire and patched it up. I had seen my Dad do it once before on a trip to Uncle Bert's in San Diego. At the time I was very skeptical that any type of patch that worked by essentially ramming a sticky worm into a hole would actually work. Well, it did then for my Dad and it did yesterday for me. I have to admit, I felt pretty good about myself after changing our oil and fixing the hole in our tire.

After that we went to a baptism at the church. When we got home we ate lunch and and Cal and I went to the library and Commissary. After dinner we got everybody ready for bed and got the girls in bed. Then Ruth, myself, and the boys played That's Life, a German-style board game that I bought a couple of years ago. It says you're supposed to be 8 to play it but Clark understands it pretty well and Cal likes to roll the dice and move his little man around the board. Again, Ruth and I tied.

Later that night I listened to the first half of the BYU / UNLV game. BYU was up by at least 17 by the end of the first half and it was late so I went to bed.

Church was pretty good today. Lots of great testimonies. Shanna and Haley had a little "moment" before we even got through the opening hymn, but for the most part they eventually settled down. No official dinner tonight. We just sort of snacked on food around the house, plus Ruth made some yummy zucchini muffins. We listened to a conference talk and ate ice cream before the kids went to bed. Ruth put them to bed and I cleaned up.

Tomorrow is Columbus Day so no work! To bad Clark has to go to school. One of the perks of working for the government.

PRK Trip

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In June I sent in my application to have refractive surgery done by the military. They accept all active duty soldiers that are good candidates for the procedure; but the appointments aren’t made on a first come first serve basis, there’s a three-tier priority list based on your job (not rank) in the military. I’m the lowest priority so I didn’t get a surgery date until September.

You can have it done in either San Antonio or at an Army base near Clarksville TN. The ophthalmologist here does them in TN but he was on his way out of the military and was going to be gone by September. I knew the new one would be fresh out of residency so I figured I’d take my chances with the doctors in San Antonio.

As many of you know we are almost out of debt (~30 Oct 2009) and so finding the money to cover a trip down to TX was the first problem. I went through my optometry books and found 3 that we were told to buy but never used. I decided that if I hadn’t used them yet, I probably wouldn’t ever use them. I put them on Amazon.com and within 3-4 weeks they had all sold for a total of around $350.00!

Monday we left after work and drove to Darrell and Stacie’s house in Stillwater OK. The next morning we had some yummy pancakes and before noon we were on our way to San Antonio. My pre-op appointment was at 7:00am the next morning so we didn’t stay with Paul and Cindy that first night, but with a brother of a friend of ours. They were very nice and our kids enjoyed playing together for an hour or so before we got them to bed.

The next morning we got lost on the way to the Air Force base and I was a couple minutes late to my exam. It went well and the rest of the morning the kids played at a park there on base. The weather was a little cool and windy but we didn’t bring any warm clothes. Since it was nice in Missouri we figured it would be even warmer in south Texas; so much for that. At noon I had a “consent briefing” where the surgeon talked to all her patients for the next day about the surgery and follow-up care, etc. I looked to me like there were 15 of us. She said she would be looking at everybody’s records that afternoon and evening to decide in each case whether LASIK or PRK would be better. I had figured based on my own numbers that PRK would be better, but for a different reason than the surgeon thought PRK would be better. In any case, we both agreed that PRK would be better.

That afternoon we drove up to Austin to stay with Paul and Cindy. The kids had a blast playing with their big bucket of Legos. We had a good visit and a great dinner (thanks Cindy).

The next morning, Wednesday, was my surgery. I was supposed to be there at 7:00 am again so we had to leave really early to get down there in time. It turned out that all the patients had to be there at 7:00. I don’t know how they picked who went first, but I was third to last. I had my surgery at 11:20 and was outside waiting for Ruth to pick me up at 11:40.

Right before I went into the room with the laser they put some numbing drops in my eyes. For the surgery they had me lay down on this flat bench/bed thing that, once I was settled, swiveled around so that my head was underneath the laser/microscope. They stuck a speculum in my eye to hold my eye lids open. I’d seen it done in real life and in pictures loads of times and always thought it looked really uncomfortable – it wasn’t. I looked at an orange light strait in front of me (somewhere up inside the machine) while the surgeon did everything. First she put a little dish on my eye to hold alcohol. It’s like a bucket without a bottom. The alcohol loosens that outer layer of cells that in LASIK they cut under. They did that for 15 seconds and then she took a little brush – looks more like a squeegee – and wiped it clean and made sure it was smooth and ready to be lasered. Then she rinsed it all off and told me to look at the orange light and not move – I never stared so hard at a light in my life. Earlier they had said it would take like 30-40 seconds, but I think it was less. It only seemed like 15-20. Then they rinsed that eye off really well and put a bandage contact lens on it; then they did the other eye. Like I said, not long after that I had called Ruth and I was outside waiting for her to pick me up.

Then we went to Chachos. It is a big Mexican restaurant in San Antonio. It has a normal place where you order food, a place where you order their homemade ice cream, and a bakery where they have various assortments of huge cookies, pieces of cake, brownies, and many other huge things you can bake in a bakery. They also have a really big play area for kids. We ordered some ice cream and the kids played.

At that point my vision was pretty good and my eyes felt pretty good. After ice cream at Chachos we drove back up to Austin and Paul and Cindy took us out to Rudy’s for some yummy BBQ. My 1-day post-op the next day was scheduled for 12:30 so we were able to sleep in a little the next day (Thursday).

When I woke up Thursday my eyes were a little more blurry and felt a little worse, but not bad enough to warrant any of the pain medication they had prescribed for all of us. Paul made us some yummy pancakes, including some with blueberries!

My appointment went well. They told me that I should probably start taking the pain medication that night because it would probably get worse. It did. From about that afternoon and for the next 2-3 days my eyes felt pretty crummy.

Once we were done there we started on our way back home. I was supposed to stay for a 5-day post-op on Monday, but I figured they wouldn’t mind if we left as long as I sent them a copy of my 5-day post-op done up here at Ft. Leonard Wood.

From then on Ruth had to do all the driving and so we didn’t make it all the way to Darrell’s before she got too tired to drive. We slept in the car and finished our trip up to Darrell’s the next morning. The kids played and we hung out there the rest of the morning and after lunch we drove back home.

By Sunday afternoon my eyes were feeling pretty good, but my vision was only slightly better if any.

Monday morning I went in to have my colleagues look at my eyes and get the bandage contact lens out. They said that they felt the bandage contact wasn’t ready to come out so we decided to keep it in for another day or two. That morning the refractive surgery center called and said that I wasn’t supposed to leave the area and that they were going to talk to the surgeon to see what she wanted to do. They called back and had me talk to her. She said since they were the ones that did the surgery they had to see me and that I had to come back down for my 5-day post-op!! I tried to reason with her and she just got very nasty about it and told me that she would notify my chain of command and execute disciplinary action if I wasn’t there at 8:00am the next morning! So, we set Clark up to stay with some friends so he could stay in school and we got in the car and drove back down to San Antonio. Ruth was a trooper and drove all night except for a 1 ½ hour nap in the middle of the night. We got there about an hour early. The doctor said my eyes were healing a little slower than normal, but that they looked good. They took out the contact lens and by 9:30 I was done. We went to the commissary and got some snacks, filled up the gas tank and were on our way. Before we even got out of the San Antonio city limits the kids were all asleep so Ruth pulled over in some neighborhood and we all took a nap. I don’t think we actually got out of town until around noon or so. We stopped in Dallas at a park we saw on the map and ate dinner and let the kids run around for about an hour. Then we drove until 9:30 at which time Ruth had to take another nap. She tried to drive a couple more times during the night, but in the end we basically slept most the night. We were on the road again around 6:00am Wednesday morning and got home that afternoon before Clark was out of school.

Now it’s been a week and my eyes feel pretty good. I still have to use the artificial tears every 30 minutes or so, which is normal. That will go down as my eyes heal. My vision is about 20/30 or so. It is slowly getting better, but I’ve seen enough PRK post-op patients myself to know that it can take several weeks for the vision to get better.

I was and am hopeful that eventually my vision will be acceptable to me without glasses; however, if by next spring it’s still a little too blurry for my taste I’ll probably get some glasses again. But this time the prescription would be very minimal.