Money, Becky, the move

I had to stop and laugh at myself as I talked with Victoria last night. She was lamenting being out of money and I was agreeing with her. It is a discouraging thing to be out of money, but I know she is not out of money nor am I. What is discouraging is that every dollar we have is already spoken for – and a couple of them twice spoken for. We are blessed and we need to realize it.


I am tapped out because we took on $1500 of additional monthly payments to purchase the farm and the equipment we are now using. That is one of the reasons we are moving into a less expensive rental. Victoria is tapped out because of the travel she did for Heather’s wedding a couple months ago. She is still recovering financially. Both of us are looking for ways to draw the financial net a little tighter and there seem to be endless, ever changing obligations for our money.

Case in point, I had to order a replacement radiator for the little van. I will get the money back with the return of the leaking one, but I still had to obligate the money to get the replacement. It will cost about $300 to flush the cooling system and put the new radiator in the car – but it has to be done. Fuel has to be bought for our trip to Bowie. A truck has to be rented for our move. We have signed up for a well to be drilled on the farm; something we cannot do without. Chase’s plane ticked will need to be bought very soon, etc.

The real blessing is that, somehow we will get it all done while paying our tithe, giving to Faith Promise and setting money aside for 2011 taxes to be paid in April 2012. Christmas might be a little lean, but all we need is to be together as a family to make it special. Gifts are nice but they are not the focus. It might be enough to have enough money set aside to help pay for the gas to get everyone who is able to Bowie for Christmas. We are looking forward to just that.

Mama and I will be leaving for Bowie Sunday after church. I will spend the week in the office in Decatur. Monday in that office will be spent in coordinating the moves my boss has requested. Not everyone is happy about it, but that’s the way things are. Evenings, for me, will be spent at the farm unless we are rained out – which would be a real blessing.

For the moment, it looks like we will have enough help in moving. I have been careful to not ask for too much help because it ends up being a fiasco when there are too many people doing such a focused task. The last time we had too much help things really got away from me and I lost complete track of boxes I wanted to set aside and things got put where I could not reach them later. So it is best to move more carefully and have a better focus – especially as badly as both Mama and I are hurting. In this move there will be even more going into storage than there was in our last move and some things will be set aside to go to the farm in the coming months. It is best if I keep close track of things.

According to the latest news from Becky, she could be home next week. I need to call because it has been several days since I have heard from her. The last I did hear from her it was six times in one day, but it has been several days since then.

Pastor’s joke session during our Leadership meeting featured jokes for the educated. One that caught my attention was that the roundest knight at King Arthur’s table was Sir Cumference. He got that way from eating too much pi.