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Archive for February, 2008

Shoes!!!

February 29th, 2008 at 09:09 pm

went and found the perfect school shoes for Ale...Hush Puppies brand...marked at $22, but with a 25% discount!)...found the perfect Hush Puppies for me, too! ($15, and my old were already starting to be a point of embarrassment!)...and MY Hush Puppies were eligible for 2X1...so we found ANOTHER pair of school shoes for Ale marked at $8(not Hush Puppies, I know that brand won't last as long, but...)that were also 2X1 eligible- we bought 1 shoe size bigger than she currently wears...so, we left them at the cashiers and went to the cc booth at the same mall, and asked how many points we had ....we had enough for a $15 voucher!!...sooooo....
1 pair Hush Puppies for Ale (for this school year)
1 pair X brand school shoes for Ale (for NEXT school year)
1 pair Hush Puppies for me..

"real" total = 45
minus discounts and promo= $31
minus voucher = $16!!

so, I paid $16 (cash) for 3 pairs of shoes...2 of them Hush Puppies!!!

Aaaaah!...I feel so RICH!!!

look at the ticker!!!

February 28th, 2008 at 05:33 am

total debt is at $10,114.46.... I'm this [] close to getting that total to $10K!!! woo-hoo!!!

$60 more!

February 27th, 2008 at 09:06 pm

I had a couple fast translations today (as in: wording for 2 or more pages was 90% the same!)- woo-hoo!...that went real fast...and I even get paid tonight for 1 of them! woo-hoo! ($53...will go to new school shoes for Ale...hers are starting to come apart...they cost $20...the new ones should last us until end of May - which is the end of the school year- don't have much hope of them still fitting in August!)

stressed out!

February 26th, 2008 at 09:32 pm

ugh! tough week at work (notice it's just Tuesday?)....tough environment at home with sis crying every 10 minutes then starting to tell me how unfair it is that she cannot get her loan because of cousin...(at least, cousin has NOT been calling me!)...Ale has not been slacking at school...it hasn't affected her grades (yet) but I've had at least 3 "did not work in class today" notes last week!...to top it all off the newspaper says gas prices will go up by $0.17 this week!....

UGH!

Cousin again!

February 25th, 2008 at 04:52 pm

ugh! sis is on the verge of a heart attack...about 5 years ago she co-signed for cousin's car loan (bad decision...but, she felt bad because cousin needed a car to continue with her independent sales/catering business....) cousin has defaulted on more than one occasion, and, last time we heard, she had managed to get a small loan to bring that up to date and even pay it off (there was like $1k left there)...well, sis is trying to refinance her debt, and, guess what...there's a problem with her loan due her co-signing for cousin (most probably, cousin did NOT pay off her car and has defaulted again!)...
and, as sis says: most probably the bank's solution will be: pay off that loan (or bring it up to date) and then you can get your loan...#1 sis doesn't have the money...#2, if she did and she paid that, it would be like giving the money away to cousin, because she's NOT going to pay it back!...
Really, the way I worry about my debt, I cannot understand how cousin can live like this and NOT CARE (because, obviously, if she still has her cable/internet AND if she's been talking about getting a NEW car ...she just doesn't care!)

**about the NEW car, she mentions it every time there are "promotions" in the paper...like the $1 downpayment and no payments for 6 months kind of thing...oh, and she doesn't want a USED car, either...her last one was bought new, so getting a used one would be "regression"...honestly, I've always tried to talk her out of it (or, rather, I have pointed out she shouldn't be getting more debt and, I've even been "mean" by pointing out she won't find anyone to co-sign for it...just in case she ever thought of asking me!...BUT, I always assumed THIS car was already paid off!!!!)

I think I can, I think I can...

February 23rd, 2008 at 05:35 am

Some of the latest translation jobs I got will most probably be paid in April, so I have updated my excel file to divide /4 to get the monthly average....it's still at $1,043!!...

If things continue like this, I will be able to pay off enough debt by May to actually consider the Disney trip before the end of June! ....

I think I can, I think I can....


((that being said, I AM tired...and I'm taking this Sunday - and, hopefully, all next weekend!-off!...we are going to visit my aunt in the mountains -- she retired to her family home, right in the middle of town, in the heart of coffee-growing mountains!))

One man's trash...

February 22nd, 2008 at 05:58 pm

One of our neighbors moved out last weekend...she left lots of nice clay pots with dead plants in them outside her house to be taken by the garbage truck...we,er, recycled her pots...I gave niece $10 to buy plants and soil... so, now we have a "renovated" garden, courtesy of our former neighbor!

(she even left 3 "half-pots", the kind you fix to walls for hanging plants?...in perfect condition....those are $3.25 each at the store!)

new cellphone??

February 22nd, 2008 at 04:54 am

my old one is working fine...but, I saw this cellphone a while back that I liked, but, dismissed instantly because of price ($89!- ha! no way!)...well, now it's on sale for $39....plus, there's a new alliance between cc2 and the phone company (the same one I'm currently using) so you can use points to redeem a certificate...I have enough points to buy a $25 certificate, so that would mean paying only $14 for it... and there would still be points "left over"...but, then I discovered that I could convert the reward points from the dept store card into points for CC2 company...which would give me enough to buy a $50, which means I could buy the phone plus $11 in phone cards (I go prepay!- I don't think I'll go for contract again!...who knows, they have new contracts now, where you choose your minutes and, once those are over, you cannot make any more phone calls unless you use phone cards...which would be a good way to have a contract and still have some control...right now, it's not worth it...maybe if I went with the freelance translator gig it would...)

anyway....I'm thinking about it...

A lapsus idioticus....

February 20th, 2008 at 09:59 pm

Remember I told you I went to the grocery store and came out with nothing but a flea collar for Fiona?...I should have gotten something else...I should have gotten the milk, which was on sale for $2.95/ bag of 360gm....normal price is $3.55!!!...but, for some strange reason, my brain registered it as $3.95...so I thought the price was high...it took me about 2 days to realize that! ...duh!

$2.74 in my bank account until payday!!

February 19th, 2008 at 03:10 pm

at least:
1. all bills are paid
2. 1 cc paid off, other cc's and bank loan are paid for the month
3. Boom-boom's tank is full of gas
4. payday is this Friday (we get paid bi-weekly!)

...funny, at this time yesterday, I had $1,124 -cash!- in my hands!

Passports and cake!

February 18th, 2008 at 11:55 pm

We tried to get our new passports today, but were unable to…the guy did not accept our birth certificates…mine does not have all info on my marriage and divorce (should be annotated on the margin), and both had been folded, so they considered them unacceptable…((sigh))…oh, well, at least they checked the other documents and pronounced them OK…
To celebrate my freedom from CC1, I had told Ale we could get a piece of cake after the passports…so, we went to do that instead…I asked for just one piece of cake and 2 sodas…Ale wasn’t too pleased about 1 piece for both, but, let it go because I let her choose the cake… I don’t know the real name of the cake she ordered, but it might as well have been “Sugar O.D”, or, maybe “Death by Chocolate”…I took 4 bites and OD’d …Ale was able to go for 6 bites before going blhaaaaa on chocolate…there were still at least 3 bites left to that piece of cake!!!...and I said to her: Can you imagine if we had bought 2 pieces?...she said: Waste!

I gave Ale $6 and told her to go pay…she said: how much is it? And I said: I don’t know, we didn’t ask before we bought it…(I knew it couldn’t be more than $3 for the cake!...our total ended up $4.85)…she gave me this look…and she said: “You didn’t ASK??” …((the look was: WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!!!!????))….
Ahhh, there’s hope for us yet!

Great and Small victories!!

February 18th, 2008 at 06:02 pm

Great one:
We got paid for the school supplies...I paid off 1 cc!!! woo-hoo!!! highest interest/lowest balance!!!

Small one:
After paying, I went into the grocery store to buy a flea collar for Fiona (her's had "expired" and we found 3 fleas on her the other day! eeeek!)...AND, I came out of there with 1 flea collar...nothing else!!!

woo-hoo!!

$0.48 till payday!

February 15th, 2008 at 05:25 pm

oh, boy!...I just checked my balance on line... I have a whooping $0.48....which should have to last until next Friday...yeah, right!...the good news is, we are supposed to be getting the money for the first school supply packages on Monday (about $1k for me)...((sigh))

meantime, I have $2.6K in uncollected translation money, too...which should have been paid to me before the 10th of Feb....hopefully at least part of that $$$ will come through this weekend!

Back to work!

Happy Valentine's!!

February 14th, 2008 at 04:24 pm

Thanks to all for your friendship!


Drowning in translations!!!

February 14th, 2008 at 05:27 am

2 new customers...a translation for $700 and another one for $63...on top of my normal workload from the translation agency since they are at that 6-week training program again!...oh, boy!

it's scary in a good way!!

job title....

February 12th, 2008 at 07:31 pm

funny...my boss has been asking would-be visitors to make all their logistics arrangements through "MI, our office administrator"...LOL! didn't know I had gotten a promotion! -- my guess is that the visitors would probably feel more confident going through the Office Administrator than going through the Admin Assistant! (oh, yes, titles DO matter!)

that stings!

February 11th, 2008 at 10:20 pm

I could kick myself!...I was asked to quote on a translation job...I did..I quoted $50...turns out, I somehow got my math wrong...it should have been $150!... the customer accepted, I accepted the job and, only half-way through it did I realize: "hey, this is too long for $50!"...aaaargh! ...

ok, lesson learned! (double and triple check before committing to a quote!!) ... a $100 lesson!

10 things I've learned from my elders

February 11th, 2008 at 03:21 am

1. Show the people you love that you care.
Grandma used to say: "en vida" (while we are alive)...and she always said she'd rather have 1 daisy given to her while she was alive than 10,000 roses at her funeral!

2. You can't please everybody.
"Uno no es monedita de oro para caerle bien a todo el mundo" (we are not little gold coins, not everyone will like you)And there's no reason trying to change who you are just to have someone else like you!...

3. You cannot give what you don't have. If you don't love yourself, no one else can love you either!

4. A person who knows how to cook will never starve! ...a good cook doesn't need a lot to make a good meal...plus, it is a very marketable skill!

5. A woman with a needle will always find a way to feed herself - and her family. Sewing, knitting, crocheting, cross-stitch, embroidery...those also are marketable skills!

6. Anything material can be taken away from you, but knowledge and skills will always be yours once you acquire them! (Dad loved to quote this one whenever we had bad grades! - he also made sure to tell us it wasn't about the grades as long as you understood the contents, as some people just don't test well.

7. There's always people who are worse off than we are - try to help if you can.
(I'll always remember Mom buying a Big Mac for a small girl once, and how sis and I said: Mom, she's too little to eat all that!...and Mom replied: by herself, maybe, but, I'm sure that burger is going to be cut at least in 4 pieces)

8. Lose your temper, lose the fight....grandma used to say: If you're raising your voice, it's probably because the other person has better arguments...

9. You do NOT separate families. If there were troubles or danger, we always faced it together. - Dad was sent away from his mom when he was 7, and he and his three brothers each lived with a different Aunt...he was fiercely protective of the family unit!

10. Home-made is best! - Mom loved to cook and knit, and crochet.... she used to bake our cakes for birthdays (eventhough she spent like crazy on the gifts!) and for truly special occasions (like baptisms, First Communions and weddings) she insisted on knitting or crocheting the gifts for the guests herself!

I'm back at $1,001!!!

February 7th, 2008 at 04:05 pm

with the translations I submitted yesterday, my monthly average for translations is back at $1,001!!!! - that is my main goal for the year, to have at least $1,000 monthly average income from the translations...not all will go into debt...some will be for "reinvestment" (buying stuff I need for translating...like my new glasses - prescription changed!- or specialized dictionaries and funding an account in case my laptop NEEDS to be replaced or serviced)...part will go to savings!!!! .... last month I put $50 into savings!!!...then again, I had to take $20 out to pay for additional gas and groceries...so, it ended up being only $30...but, I figure it's $30 is better than $0!!!

$349 more for the challenge!

February 6th, 2008 at 03:07 am

I've been busy lately, and, translations over the weekend, yesterday and today will get me $349 come March! woo-hoo!!!- my monthly average is at $986...and rising!!...it will continue to rise until the third week of Feb...from then, I'll have to start counting April (as the payments typically take 30-45 days!)

Will work for milk

February 4th, 2008 at 05:22 pm

Toño (ruler of our house...er, I mean, our cat)has understood our morning routine...I wake up, go into the bathroom, then come out and wake up Ale and then the four of us (Ale, Toño, Fiona- our dog- and myself) go downstairs for breakfast...so, HIS morning routine now is that, as soon as I enter the bathroom, he goes and bumps his head against Ale's back to wake her...then comes to stand watch at the bathroom door with Fiona...I guess he figures this speeds up the whole process...after all, I prepare a glass of milk for our breakfast (I pour some on Ale's cereal, some in mine, and leave a bit for Toño and Fiona)...

...and because I didn't take the bite the last time...

February 4th, 2008 at 02:08 am

the cc company sent me ANOTHER letter indicating I'm entitled to a pre-approved "extra-financing" and called me again...hmmm, maybe they think after 1 month I might be more tempted??...well, guess what? NO!...after seeing that I paid $100 this month and that their charges were $155 (interests, fees and insurances only!!!)...well, NO!...usually it's not so bad, but, this month they charged me for the annual membership (which I really can do nothing about, unless I were cancelling the cc today...and you cannot cancel the cc unless you pay it in full ...and then only after you have received a statement showing $0 balance...and only at their most remote branch...oh, joy!)...still, I'll get them yet!...this is the cc that will take the longest to close, but, I've made my numbers and think I have a really good chance of closing the account next year)

Rice and beans

February 1st, 2008 at 08:15 pm

We've been joking about it for some time now with sis, but, I think we are now getting to the point where we WILL have to institute this as a meal at least 2x week! (nothing wrong with it, except I must cook it - for some strange reason, none of us like the way nanny cooks it!... I mean, there's no science to it...I think it might be that she adds tomato and worcestershire sauceto it...eventhough we've asked her not to! -see, that is the downside of having someone to do stuff for you!Wink )