A Baby? Maybe...

Midterms are done! Whoo hoo!

2008-10-10T14:31:00Z

I'm so glad this week is over! I had two midterms (thankfully, I didn't have one in my 3rd class) - one on Wednesday and one on Thursday in my Estate Planning and my Tax Accounting courses. Both were open book but they were difficult tests. I think I did well on my Estate Planning midterm, but I'm on the fence about the Tax Accounting test. I should find out early next week what my grades are on both exams. The only other grades I have for these courses are from the final exams so I'm hoping I did well on these.

On another note, registration for the winter trimester is coming up in a few weeks so I spoke my with academic advisor about not only the upcoming term, but also about the graduation requirements. I must say, I'm somewhat bummed. I will have completed the degree requirements as of August 2009 but my college only offers one graduation ceremony per academic year, ours being at the end of spring term in May. Generally, if you only have 6 credits left to complete at the end of the spring term, you are allowed to walk in the graduation ceremony. If not, you have to wait until the following spring. As it stands, I'll have 9 credits remaining at that point - only 1 additional class. I'm so torn. After what will be 7 years of school, walking through graduation is very important for me and I certainly feel like I've earned it. On the other hand, I'm not sure that it will be worth the two terms that I'll have to take (winter and spring) with a very heavy credit load in order to actually walk. Taking the extra credits in winter and spring won't help me to graduate any earlier as I'll still have to take a summer course regardless. Why can't this just be easy?

The wait is killing me!

2008-10-06T15:05:00Z

I have no idea why I'm having such a hard time waiting to take a HPT this month. After this many months, I'm usually just very "blah" about it. As of today, I have 2 more days to go to and the only thing that has stopped me thus far is the fact that I only have one FRER left in the house. We had terrible timing this month and were honestly way too tired to even think about baby-making around the time I was ovulating. I think part of the problem is that I would absolutely love to have a summer baby and if I were to get pregnant this month, I'd be due in June. The fact that I watched "Baby Mama" this weekend isn't helping either. Sigh. I have nothing but babies on my mind right now. This is going to be a long couple of days.

Performance Review

2008-10-01T15:33:00Z

I have my very first performance review today at 2:00 and, needless to say, I'm very nervous. My previous employer hardly ever gave raises so they never saw the need to do them. Then, last year at performance review time I hadn't been with the company long enough to warrant having one. I guess I should be happy as I really didn't think we were going to get raises this year - at least that's how our President made it seem in May when he said that our raises would be "on hold" for the time being. To be honest, I'm not expecting much. If they did manage to pull the funds from somewhere, I'm sure it's probably only enough to cover a 3% cost of living increase. I guess all I can do for now is keep my fingers crossed.

In light of the current financial markets...

2008-09-30T13:03:00Z

Being an MM board regular, there have been an unproportionately large amount of posts lately regarding investing/saving strategies, especially with regard to retirement accounts. Being an avid investor myself and having some level of expertise on the subject, I felt it necessary to address some of these concerns I've continuously seen posted.

Question #1 - What happens if my bank were to declare bankruptcy or "go under"?

The greatest source of information on this subject can be found at www.fdic.gov. As long as your bank is FDIC insured (as most banks are), generally speaking, you have nothing to worry about. The FDIC insures up to $100,000 per depositor per bank, meaning that if you have a joint account at your bank, your money is insured up to $200,000. If your accounts contain more than this amount, you can always inquire about additional insurance with your banking institution. While this additional level of insurance is not free, it's well worth it. You also have the option of transferring all funds above the FDIC limit to another bank to take advantage of more FDIC coverage since, remember, the insurance per bank. Should the FDIC need to step in on the behalf of your banking institituion, there is a possibility that you will not have access to your funds for a period which generally does not exceed 24 hours.

A similar type of insurance is in place for all investment accounts. See http://www.sipc.org/. Essentially, if your brokerage/security firm fails, the reserve funds of SIPC are used to insure your accounts, up to a ceiling of $500,000 per customer, including a maximum of $100,000 for cash claims. Additional funds may be available to satisfy the remainder of customer claims after the cost of liquidating the brokerage firm is taken into account.

Question #2 - Should I pull all of my funds out of my bank account so that I can have all my funds liquid and in my possession in case my bank should close?

No, please don't! Don't help to create panic and mass hysteria. Your money is perfectly safe. Please see the above answer for an explanation as to why this is the case. What you are essentially doing by pulling all of your money out of the bank at a time when banks need it most is that you are causing a bank run - what occurs when a large number of bank customers withdraw their funds at the same time. As more and more people withdraw their deposits, the likelihood of default increases, which only encourages further withdrawals. The ultimate result is forcing the bank into bankruptcy. Remember the Great Depression? Bank runs were a major player in the destabilization of the economy during that time. NOT a good thing.

Question #3 - Should I stop investing all together until the market stabilizes? What about cashing out all of my investment accounts?

No, avoid emotional investing by any means possible. All investors should strive to buy low and sell high. In other words, the best time to invest is when the market is down since you are essentially purchasing shares "on sale". Since market shares have decreased in price, your money is buying much more of these shares that it would if the market was doing well. When the market does happen to rebound, these additional shares will help to add value to your portfolio. If you are investing for retirement, continue to tell yourself that you are investing for the long-term and the chances of your portfolio rebounding by the time you retire are quite substantial, especially if you are only in your 20's and 30's.

I came accross these two articles from Fidelity in my inbox this morning and thought they might be helpful for anyone who is uncertain about what course of action they should take with their current investments.

http://personal.fidelity.com/misc/framesets/iw2.shtml

http://personal.fidelity.com/misc/framesets/iw3.shtml

Hopefully, by putting this info. out there for you it may help to ease some of your current financial worries. Rest assured, economic highs (peaks) and lows (troughs) are all part of the economic cycle. They've occured time and time again and will eventually level off (hence the "cycle" concept); it's all perfectly natural. Unfortunately, this type of advice doesn't sell magazines or news stories. Always consider your source. The sky isn't falling....at least not yet.

Didn't get the job.

2008-09-17T12:53:00Z

I actually found out on Friday but this is the first time I've had a moment to write an update. Unfortunately, the job went to the coworker who I was 99% sure was going to get it anyway. I was a bit salty in the beginning since I have 5+ years of experience to her 1.5 years, but I'm over it. The commute alone would have been terrible and my work load would have quadrupled. I'm comfortable where I am despite my frustrations with my current job. I only need to be here for one more year until I finish my degree program and can start looking for a job that I actually really want to do in my field. In the grand scheme of things, one year is not too bad and will fly by, I'm sure. I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.

Yesturday was also Mike's birthday. Happy Birthday, baby! It was somewhat crappy that I had to go to class last night and couldn't spend alot of time with him, but I made it a point to not work on any homework after class so that we could just hang out. The only thing he really wanted to do anyway was to take Louis to the dog park since he hadn't been able to go with us in the past. He loved it! He spent about 2 hours there just walking the trails with Lou and taking him through the agility course. I also had a Dairy Queen blizzard cake (Yay, for Reese's peanut butter cups!) for him there when he got home along with his gifts. All in all, he seemed to have a really good day. I still won't let him forget that he's now halfway to 50...hehe

AF, why do you mock me so?

2008-09-10T13:40:00Z

Why can't she ever seem to come on time? She was due yesturday and has been a no-show. I'm not even sure why I'm bothering to blog about this because I'm sure she'll arrive as soon as this posts. I think I'm starting to tire of her senseless mindgames each month. The fact that I'm exhausted and do not feel well today are only making matters worse. I could so use a nap

I've only tested once so far this month at approximately 13 DPO with a digital (it was the only test I had in the house) and it was negative. I keep telling myself that if nothing happens by tomorrow (3 days late - 16 DPO), I'll buy some more FRER tests and give it another shot. Here's hoping!

The truth is, I've been really down about TTC lately. It just seems like everyone I know, either IRL or online, is pregnant. It also doesn't help that others in the family, mostly my MIL, question me about having children pretty consistently. DH has provided wonderful support through all of this though - I'm extremely thankful for him and our marriage. All I can continue to do at this point is pray and not give up hope, but that oftentimes proves easier said than done.

I apologize in advance for sounding like a Debbie-Downer this morning. I think I'm just overly tired and PMS'ing...neither of which seem to jive all that well together.

Eeekkk...interview on Friday!

2008-09-08T16:15:00Z

I got an email this morning from my boss to let me know that they've scheduled my interview for the Assistant Director postion on Friday at 10am.....with all of the higher-ups at the college (VP of Finance, Dean of Administration, Director of Admissions, etc.). Eeek! I'm freaking out. I've never really had an interview of this "caliber" before and while I'm excited, I'm also freakin' nervous!

I'm also slightly bummed though as well. Since this position is at one of our satellite campuses, the interview will be held there as well. My boss sent around another email this morning to the other two internal candidates and myself to see if we all wanted to carpool to our interviews together. I was slightly put off by this because:

1.) I found it highly unprofessional. I really would have prefered to keep the fact that I applied for this position private.

2.) The two other candidates both meet the BA degree requirement and I don't. I won't graduate until next summer.

I'm actually really bummed now that I know who my competition is for this position. The one candidate and I started together and (she had no financial aid experience whatsoever and I already had 3 years under my belt) both applied for our current positions when they became available. I was passed over by her because she had management experience in a totally unrelated field and had her degree (again, in a totally unrelated field). I felt that I was only offered the position the next time it opened up because my boss didn't want to go through the hassle of having to interview anyone again. I can just picture history repeating itself all over again and it's pretty disconcerting as the experience that I do have is highly relevant to the position. It's so frustrating that it's clear my employer is only looking for that piece of paper and doesn't seem to care in the slightest whether or not someone has the appropriate work experience and/or whether they are working very diligently to get their degree.

My initial excitement this morning has now just turned to utter frustration. I'm so tired of spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere.

Dog parks are the greatest!

2008-09-06T18:31:00Z

While Mike was at his golf tournament today, Louis and I had a great day together.

I'd been putting off getting Lou his dog license for over 2 years now (), not because I didn't want to, but because it was one of those things that kept slipping my mind. Well, after hearing on Wednesday of this week that we were finally getting a dog park in our area and that their grand opening was today, I figured this was as great a time as any since he had to be licensed to be allowed to enter the park. I ended up stopping by one of the dog licensing centers listed on our city website and stumbled accross the best pet supply store E-V-E-R. It sells all natural, American-made dog food, treats, and toys and the staff there is beyond fantasic. They were all so knowledgeable! They also offer amazing prices. I'd been attempting to find a local dealer for ages of Cannidae dog food and I've finally found one.

Afterwards, I took Lou up to the new dog park so see what it was like and to see how well he would listen when around other dogs. Honestly, I was blown away. The dog park sits on 58 acres (an old golf course), has hiking trails, agility courses, ponds, rental areas and offers a ton of special events/training sessions. They are also open year round, despite the snow. Louis had a blast! Because the weather wasn't so great, we just went to play in the small dog area and there were only 2 other dogs there today. Louis listened so well and was so happy to get to play with the other dogs. He did so much running that he slept all the way home.

Needless to say, I'm absolutely going to become a member. I can't wait until next time so that Mike can come play with us, too. It just made me so happy to see our little guy having so much fun and behaving so well.

If anyone reading this is from the Erie area or is interested in checking it out just for fun, here's their website - http://www.howlabaloodogpark.com/.

EDITED TO ADD: I just got a call that we also won one month's free membership to the park as well! Whoo hoo!