I never was a poster child for anything, but I think I finally am (although I'm no child, by any stretch of the imagination!). I'm the poster child for bad financial choices. Oh, maybe I'm being extreme, but in my adult life I have not made very many good ones. Financial choices, that is.
I'm working to make that better, and I am extremely committed to it. But it's hard. It's hard to say no. To myself. To my kids. But I'm doing it, and every hard answer leaves me feeling a little more on top of things. It will take time, though, and it's hard to be patient. I'm making more money right now, working a little less than full-time, than I've ever made in my life. Though we're not rolling in dough, it would make you think we might finally be doing ok, but bad choices through the lean years leave us worse off, maybe, than we were then. But, I truly feel like the choices we are making now, the changes and the committment to eliminating debt, are making us better off every day. Maybe not financially better off, right now. But mentally and spiritually better off.
Retirement looms. I never believed it when I was young and the sages told me to save my money for retirement. But it is looming ever closer. I struggle, though, when I think about "putting money away for retirement" and "planning for the future by saving in retirement funds". I think about this
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—
We went to Topeka yesterday to protest the governor's proposed elimination of the Kansas Arts Commission. It was awesome. It was freezing. I have hope! If you live in Kansas, and want to know what you can do to try to make this NOT HAPPEN, leave me a comment and I'll send you info. There are many good video clips on the internet so you can see some of the speakers and some of the art that was there. Google "Kansas rally against cuts to Kansas Arts Commission". Here are some photos of our group (and the group at large) and the signs we made to take with us. It was really, really cold, so the girls look less than thrilled in some of the pictures. But it was a great experience! They might not understand much now, but the memory of the experience will stay with them. I hope they remember that they have a voice, and that standing up for something you feel passion about matters! 
