Somebody told me it was frightening how much topsoil we are losing each year, but I told that story around the campfire and nobody got scared. – Jack Handey
For those who were not fortunate enough to be with the New Life Presbyterian Church Youth Group camping trip to Cornerstone ’90, the title of this post will mean very little. However, for those who have at least been camping or have slept in a tent at some point in life, you will probably understand what a “bungee” is and why it might be necessary to grab it during a torrential downpour with gale-force winds beating your tent into the ground and then attempting to turn it into a kite.
This weekend I went camping with about 20 people from The Well. Thankfully it was not Monsoon season in French Creek State Park, so I do not have any tales like that of the Perfect Storm that hit our camp at Cornerstone, but there were still some wild times and laughs had I thought I’d share.
Friday I decided to take a half-day. Worked from home in the morning and then knocked off around 1:00 to pack and run errands which included taking Chena to the groomers for her first trim. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of her at the moment, but I really should take some now. She lost about 2 inches of fuzz all over making her look a lot thinner (which is a good thing because everyone seemed to think she was fat before). The catalyst for this visit being that I was afraid taking her camping with her previous coat would be too hot for her. I mean seriously, how would you like to go camping in the hot, humid August of the East Coast while wearing your woolliest winter ski coat? And then what if your woolliest winter ski coat was actually GROWING on you? Not sounding very fun, is it? And so I had Chena’s coat trimmed down a bit.
After getting Chena and making a stop at the store, I picked up Gary (we were carpooling) and we took off for the hills.
French Creek State Park is located about 60 miles away from where I live (heading out towards Reading), so it’s an easy drive and a really nice state park compared to Tyler. I’m not busting on Tyler, but it is pretty small as far as state parks go, and doesn’t have nearly the activities available that French Creek does…but I’m getting ahead of myself.
After most everyone else showed up on Friday, we set up and got everything situated for the weekend. More stragglers joined us periodically up until about 11 o’clock when Mark and Beth finally found us (as you might imagine, it gets increasing difficult to find one’s way in the woods after dark – even, or especially, when driving). Friday night consisted of dinner, campfire, s’mores, laughter, and finally sleep.
Saturday morning, Chena woke up growling because it seemed she had trouble telling the difference between other members of our group looking for breakfast and rabid animals looking for fresh meat. Being an early riser anyway, I didn’t mind so we got up and made a b-line for the coffee.
After breakfast, everyone sort of grouped together and went off to tackle different activities. I ended up with a handful of people who wanted to go down to one of the lakes and see about renting a boat. Located next to the biggest pool any of us had ever seen in their lives, the boat rental dock is right on the shore of Hopewell Lake which was beautiful (this included Mark & Beth who had brought their dog, Ollie – a perfect friend for Chena). Unfortunately we weren’t there more than 10 minutes when the threatening thunder we had been hearing in the distance all morning decided to blow our way and put on a rather impressive show. The storm didn’t last long, but after it had finished, we decided instead to head back up to the campsite after detouring to pick up more ice for the coolers.
Chena and I both ended up lazing for the rest of the afternoon with a few others who stayed at camp, finally rounding out the day with dinner, more s’mores (is it just me, or does that sound redundant?), and of course laughter. A little later Saturday night, Ryan and Michelle broke out a nifty camping tool which looks somewhat like the precursor to the Panini press. Two iron squares which fit together neatly hold buttered bread and filling of choice (cheese, meat, pie filling…but not all at once) held into the fire for a few minutes cooks up a tasty treat. There was a name for them, but I’m blanking on what it was…and no, it’s not “sandwich”.
I’m sorry to report that I don’t remember much of Sunday. The morning was fine and I remember that well. Chena growled, we got up, I decided to take a shower which ended up sparking a high-speed chase through the campground (Chena running up to the showers to find me, Mark running after her, Ollie running after him, Chena running back to the campsite, Ollie taking off in a different direction, Mark running after Ollie, leaving everyone back at camp wondering where Mark & Ollie were once Chena showed back up).
It was only after breakfast that I started noticing a headache coming on. Within a couple of hours, it had progressed into a full-blown migraine – the likes of which I haven’t had in a pretty great while. Somehow I managed to pack up my stuff, but was struggling with how I was going to manage the drive home when another couple from our group (Davis & Denise) offered to help. Denise drove my car with me and her husband followed. I don’t really remember the drive, just the pain. Once home, I collapsed on the sofa with a large ice pack covering my head and there I stayed until about 8pm when it finally began to subside. Ug. The best part is, I think I did it to myself. Sadly, one of my migraine triggers is chocolate and I’d had a lot of that this weekend. Not all in one sitting, but over the course of 24 hours, I’d had a lot more than I’m used to and I feel fairly confident that this is what did it. Way to go, Deb. I’m just thankful it didn’t hit we were getting ready to head out anyway, otherwise what a bummer that would have been.
All-in-all, it was a great few days with a lot of valuable takeaways:
- Chena is a fantastic camping dog
- Gary is an excellent human Poison Ivy detector
- French Creek = good PA camping
- Campfires are great no matter what time of year it is
- Those little iron things make great camping treats (despite the fact I can’t remember what they’re called)
- There are still new friends to be had in the Philly suburbs.
On that last point, I really was thrilled to have the opportunity to make some more friends (as well as get to know some of my newer friends better) – something I would have not thought I would have been doing a year ago. In fact, it was a year ago that Kim was coming down from NYC to help me avoid The Zoid. Wow. What a difference a year makes.
God is full of surprises.
Beans & Rice
First and foremost, I have a victory to celebrate. I paid off another credit card last week! …and the crowd goes wild… Payment posted on 6/26 which was also 8 months ahead of schedule from what I thought when I started my debt snowball. That’s the power of hitting it with gazelle intensity for ya! Yay! So to Providian/WaMu I can now echo the immortal words of Clark Griswold from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, “Eat my rubber!”
Second, I think that going through this whole deal as a single person has some definite perks (e.g. I don’t have to worry about getting and keeping someone else “on board”) but it also has its pitfalls. For one, if I start to falter in my motivation to keep running this race, there’s no one around to keep me from just sitting down on the bench and calling it a day.
Paying off that additional credit card (the first I’ve paid off since February, I might add) helped renew my energy for sure, but now I’m looking at probably 7 or 8 more months before I’m able to check another off. Upon this realization, I felt the vigor induced by my recent win start to fade. So in an effort to keep it alive, I decided to go back and try to figure out how I got to the place where I now have so much to pay off of this one last major card (I think the balance currently stands around $8,600 and was pushing $10,000 when I started). I mean seriously, what on earth did I buy for that much money? I mean, it’s not like I went hog-wild and upgraded my entire living situation. I didn’t revamp my wardrobe. I don’t have any shoes worth more than $80. I didn’t install some super-fab surround-sound home theater system. Nor did I put in the hardwood floors and tile I want so badly. And my backyard still sits patio-less. So honestly, where did all this credit card money I spent last year go?
Just to get some perspective around this, you have to understand that I started out 2008 with a total of almost $27,000 in credit card debt. Yikes. Makes me sick to even type that. This year to-date, I have paid off roughly $17,000 of that, most of which was done when my bonus/tax refund hit in February.
So for kicks, I went back and grabbed all of my credit cards’ year-end statement summaries where they kindly provide all of my transactions for the year and even categorize them for me. Of course I didn’t agree with some of the categorizations, so I consolidated them all into one Excel spreadsheet and then re-categorized them myself so they would fall more inline with the way I categorize my spending today. The sums of which resulted in a major “holy freaking cow” moment.
And so where did all my money for last year go? Apparently I ate a good chunk of it – like $500/month worth. Another decent portion went to travel (no surprise there). And then there were a lot of bits and pieces along the way which by their lonesome weren’t much, but added up over time. Would you believe over $100/month of the charges on the cards collectively were in fees?? Finance charges, balance transfers, cash advances, etc. Total, utter insanity and further evidence of my growing conviction that credit cards are, indeed, pure evil.
My “budget” (and I use that term VERY loosely) for 2007 was a total joke…and a bad joke at that. Granted, I had a lot of fun – one might argue maybe a little too much fun – but in looking back and weighing the cost, I have to admit that it really wasn’t worth it.
This year, I am THRILLED to say, is looking just a tad different. To give you some apples-to-apples, my average food spending so far this year is in the $200/month range (really closer to $150 except for the last two months were I kinda blew it) – that’s 40% of what it was last year. Travel is also averaging at about 0.03% of 2007’s total spending.
2008 is half over which means I’m now a quarter of my way to becoming debt free. Yes, I know when I first started blogging about this I thought I’d be there by next June, but after doing some more careful evaluating of my current debt, I discovered that I have more than I thought I did and so it will really be taking me through 2010 to kill it all
2011 and forward will be fun for sure (I still have an Antarctica trip to reschedule, after all) so it’s that debt-free side of the fence I’m trying to keep my focus on. But – and here’s the rub – in order to get there, I need to remain motivated to live like no one else (beans-and-rice, rice-and-beans) so that later I can live like no one else (wine-and-cheese, cheese-and-wine).
So pass the beans, please.