I was poked to give a signal that I'm still alive and kicking! I assure you that I am.

I've not dropped off a financial cliff, and I've not racked up thousands of dollars of CC debt that I'm too embarrassed to blog about.

Basically, I've been busy. November and December (along with April and May) are my busiest months at work, and that busyness has seemed to leak into January.

In addition to the busyness, I've not been all that motivated to blog here during the spare moments that I do have. And, I think the reason is that I don't have that CC debt wolf breathing down my back anymore. The accountability that I found here when I was digging myself out of that hole was a real motivator. And, I find myself not needing that financial motivation.

There have been some financial doozies the past couple of months.

For starters - DW had a minor accident with the family van. Everybody was very much alright. But, the van is old. It blue books at about 3.5K. There was 4.0K of body damage, along with a punctured oil pan. It was fully insured, and our insurance company totaled it out. So, we bought back the van, and paid for 1.85K of necessary work to get it safe, driveable, and legal. Basically, we came out ahead about $900 after deductible. The van looks fine, but it has a salvage title, and we can't carry collision anymore.

We'll set the $900 aside as part of our down payment when we are ready for a new family van.

That all happened just before Christmas. Another thing happened the night before Christmas. A wheel bearing went out in my pick up. That was a $480 repair. Luckily, we have some family members who allowed us to borrow a couple vehicles for a while. My pickup was fixed about three days later, and we just got the van back yesterday.

We got our first 1099 in the mail yesterday. $13 and I think six cents for interest we earned from the IRS on our adoption credit from last year. I'll make sure we claim that!

We're still waiting for the biggie - the 1099 for the forgiven debt on our short-sale house.

It's been cold, cold, cold here in the upper mid-west. We've been on a budget plan with our heating fuel supplier, and that has helped even out the cash flow paying for heating our house. I also got on a "keep full" program for the first time. Instead of monitoring the level of our heating fuel myself, and calling for a fill-up, we're on a regular route now. We were filled up sometime in the third week of December, and again yesterday. Our fill-up was 98 gallons! About $360 to heat our house this past month. And, that with the additional insulation we had put on our basement walls last fall. And, it doesn't sound as if things are going to get much warmer anytime soon. I sure am glad we're on that budget plan now, but I cringe to think what our monthly payment will be starting next July.

That's enough for now. I'll try to provide updates a little more regularly.

(Do you still have to copy a long post before you publish it? Or has that bug been fixed?)

I see you still have to copy it!