I'm a grown-up

Last night, for the first time in my adult life, I ate brussel sprouts.

Not only did I eat them, but I MADE them. What has gotten into me? I have never liked brussel sprouts, or so I thought. I can clearly remember as a child not getting to leave my dinner chair until I had two or three more bites of my brussel sprouts. And I can remember the 'ole "act like you're having a coughing fit and spit the food into your napkin and then run to the bathroom" trick. (As if that ever worked!) So, again I ask... what has gotten into me?

I guess I'm a grown-up now.

In recent years I have developed a love of cooking. And my new best cooking friend is a woman in France named Katie who has a website with complete dinner menus for a week. I absolutely love her site, and I have tried so many different things because of her. It just so happens that brussel sprouts were a side dish for one of the menus this week. So, ever the adventurer, I decided to give them a shot. I never considered the fact that brussel sprouts are little tiny cabbages, and I like cabbage. So at the dinner table, Jeremy and I both had sauteed brussel sprouts with shallots, and they were fantastic!

So here is my official declaration: brussel sprouts no longer make the "eww, gross!" list. For that matter, neither does asparagus, sweet potatoes, onions, or mustard (all things I strongly disliked as a kid). I'm going to leave liver on the list for now, until I actually try it as an adult.

It has taken 34 years, 9 months, and 7 days to realize that I really am a grown-up.

Baby Blogs

It seems like blogs are everywhere now. Most of our church friends have a blog, and set one up specifically when they had their first child. It's kind of funny... I've never even told anyone I have a blog except my husband, and I think even he forgets and wouldn't know how to find my blog if his life depended on it.

So why haven't I told anyone that I have a blog? Good question, and I'm not sure I know the answer to it. Part of me thinks that the enemy of my soul is whispering "you aren't good enough.... no one cares what you have to say... you're not significant". But obviously I started this blog because I feel like I DO have something to say, even though I don't have kids and am not plastering their pictures all over the site. Could it really be that whether or not I publicize my blog is actually a spiritual issue? Probably.

Anyway... just musings on this first Monday in December.

Golf Swings

My husband and I have been playing more golf lately. For our anniversary this past August, we decided to buy golf clubs for ourselves, as the ones we had been using were from a different millennium. On one outing last month, I brought along our camera and we took short videos of our golf swing. I had never seen my own swing before. While I could definitely use some lessons, I think I do okay. Here's the video of my swing, for your viewing pleasure:




And here is Jeremy's (my hand is not as steady as his):

Blogs I Read

In recent months, I have become a somewhat avid blog-reader. This is new for me (as is having my very own blog) but it is quite fun. I mostly read blogs in the morning, when I'm sipping coffee, after I've had a bit of quiet time between me and the Lord. I waddle downstairs, update my Quicken, and then hop on any number of blogs. I thought I'd post the ones I'm currently reading.

Thyme For Cooking
This is one of my very favorites right now. This site isn't officially a blog, but the author does have a blog that I sometimes read. She is an American woman living with her husband in France, and she creates menus for every day of the week and posts them along with every recipe. She makes some very interesting and creative dishes, so I'm always eager to check them out, and make the ones that I'm brave enough to try.

PF Blog
This guy has a goal of reaching $1 million in net worth by the time he is 36 years old. (As of today I think he's 32). His original goal was to reach $1 million by age 40, but he's so far ahead that he adjusted his goal and made it 36. He talks about his journey and shares what he does to increase his net worth.

The Kirk Report
"One pro's view of the stock market" his how he labels his blog. A lot of it is over my head, but that's exactly why I read it. I want to learn more about the stock market, and about the economy in general.

Jonathan Bow
Jonathan is the pastor of the church my husband and I attend, Crosspointe Church in Cary, NC. He shares whatever is on his mind, whether it's about our church, God, his family, etc. He recently shared his thoughts on Halloween, which I found to be very good and timely, since many Christian parents struggle with what to do during this holiday.

There are others that I occasionally glance at, and many more that I no longer read because they did not hold my attention. But the blogs listed above are a good sampling of what I'm into right now.

Off to read some more.....

Net Worth

My name is Joey ("Hi, Joey!") and I am a Net Worth addict.

It's true.

I use Quicken to track all of our finances. Literally every penny we earn and spend is accounted for in Quicken. We accomplish this by downloading all of our bank account transactions and credit card transactions, as well as my asset accounts. We use one credit card each for almost every purchase we make, because we get airmiles for every dollar we spend. This comes in handy considering we are in North Carolina, and have family in Texas (mine) and Oregon (my husband's) and we love to fly to see them. Anyway, we simply pay off the credit card each month, but in the meantime all of our spending is tracked and we can see exactly how much we're spending in a given category (gas, groceries, etc.).

Well.... on the main page there is a summary of my assets and my liabilities, and at the very bottom left corner is my very favorite part of Quicken: My Net Worth.

I don't know why I'm so fascinated by this, really. I just love to watch it grow, and it bothers me when it shrinks (like when the stock market isn't doing well and I lose several thousand dollars in investments). It's rather silly of me to get all caught up in my net worth at this stage of my life, especially since I will not need the money in my retirement funds for many years, but I can't help it.

I remember when my net worth passed the six-figure mark for the first time. I felt absolutely rich! And then some bills came out of my checking account, and the net worth immediately dipped back into the five-figures. Sad. But then money got deposited for my IRA and it went back to six figures. Happy! And this is how it goes for me.

Want to know your net worth but don't have something fancy like Quicken? You can calculate your own net worth HERE.

One more fun little thing to try: See where you rank based on age and income. It's very interesting to me. I am WAY above normal for my age, and right at the median net worth for my income. How about you? I mean, not that I'm trying to get YOU addicted or anything, but.... try it! You'll like it! :-)

Jury "Service"

On Monday of this week I was summoned for Jury Duty. I innocently believed that I'd be in and out of there in a couple of hours. Not sure where I got that idea from, but let's just say my expectations were not met. At 9am I reported for duty, got signed in, and waited for 30 minutes. Then a woman who had clearly memorized a script proceeded to recite the script to us. If she had sounded the least bit conversational it wouldn't have appeared strange, but no. After her performance, she turned on the TVs and we watched a Charles Kuralt video on the pleasures of Jury "Service". "Many people call it jury duty", he said, "but truly you are in service to your community". Nice spin, I thought. And considering that Charles Kuralt has been dead for over 10 years, well.... the video was a bit outdated, to say the least. Then we got sworn in. Everyone had to find their nearest Bible (and there were tons of them laying around), put our left hand on it, hold our right hand in the air, and promise to tell the truth. "I DO", we all said in unison. I wondered about all the people in the room who were of other religions. Surely there has been some lawsuit somewhere in the country where a Muslim was offended that he or she had to swear by a book they do not believe in? Anyway.... 7 hours later and one very tired butt from sitting in a chair all day, we got released with no explanation and a "thanks for your service". If it weren't for a very good book, and getting to eat lunch downtown with my husband, it would have been a miserable day. (We even had a beer at lunch! Shhh... don't tell the jury police!) And thus concluded my "service" to my community for at least two years.

Here we go

I am late to the whole blogging game, I realize that. I never have been all that original. But for months, maybe even years, I've asked myself if I really have enough to say that might be worth writing down. And increasingly, my answer to myself is "yes". So... I'm going with that, and even if this just ends up being my online diary that no one reads but me, I am good with that.

I named it The Personal and The Professional because I intend to talk about both. For me, these two strongly overlap. I am a mortgage broker and I have a big interest in not only mortgages, but also personal finance. I am drawn to finance blogs way more than just general blogs. So, we'll see how it goes.

Here we go.

Joey