Road hazards, company celebration, paring back

I took the camera with me this morning to see if I could get a picture of a windmill with the moon behind it. The moon has been low on the horizon and extremely bright for the past few mornings. I did stop to try one picture but without a tripod I do not think it will turn out very well. I got a picture of a train on the horizon with the moon in the background. I think it turned out a little better.


As I was driving out of Panhandle, TX this morning I hit a pretty big skunk. There was no way to avoid it. Believe me, I wish I could have but my headlights caught him when he was so close that I would have wrecked the car to try and swerve around him. I felt bad most of the way to work. Everyone else will feel bad for most of the week – maybe longer.

I am going to wash the car this morning as soon as I get the chance, but since I ran over him with the driver’s side tires, I am not sure how much good it will do. I have heard that tomato juice can remove the odor, but I don’t think there is a tomato juice nozzle at the carwash. This is Texas, so you never know. The really bad part is that Grandpa wanted to work on Victoria’s car this coming week.

Today is a celebration at work. The company will announce the bonus we are receiving for 2010. It is never a large amount of money, but it is a big deal for management. Most of the money will go to Maggie and Aaron for their wedding – perfect timing. The rest, after the tithe, will go to pay taxes I will owe due to the move. There will be a big announcement and a ton of cookies and cupcakes to mark the moment. “How Sweet it is to be in the Lower 48” is the theme. The Lower 48 is the business unit I am in now and it is very different from working the refinery; pleasantly different.

I told Mama and the kids last night that I will be giving up my iPhone. There are a number of reasons but the main one is that we cannot maintain the current lifestyle and realistically approach the idea of buying a farm. Many things will have to go. I explained that whatever is not a necessity will have to be sacrificed to make the dream come true. Cell phone contracts may actually be a necessity in our society today, but a $50/month data plan is not.

The YMCA membership will have to go as will any plans to upgrade the vehicles. We talked about Direct TV but I met some pretty strong resistance there; it turns out that may be a necessity also. The internet, because of my business needs, will have to stay on our bills list also.

But just as what is happening in our nation today, cutting spending alone will not make up the difference. I have to aggressively pay off all outstanding debts, maintain payments on necessities, pare back to a minimum on all service contracts I am now obligated to, and avoid any contractual obligations on future earnings: no new loans or contracts. That’s a hard path to walk in our society today.

There is no looming multi-level marketing business success I am praying will stem the flood. There is no excessive raise expected in my salary. I will not ask Mama to get a job. What is coming in will not change. We must simply fill the hole we have dug with the dirt we dug from it. There is a consolation. Every time I have dug a hole and used the dirt I have removed from the hole to refill it, there was always too much dirt to go back in and it left a little heap over what was once a hole in the ground.

Maybe it will end up that way in our finance too.