A Small Success & Trying to Stay Out of the Flesh

In October 2007, yep, almost a full year ago, my hubby purchased many gifts for me for my birthday. He likes to overdo it a bit, I think it's one of his love languages - gift giving. Anyway, among the gifts he gave me was Microsoft Money.

Being that I'm the "nerd" in the family, and I'm sure those reading this that know me well think I shouldn't even put quotations above "nerd". I'm not a "nerd", more like a NERD. But that's besides the point, being that I'm the NERD of the family, I do the checkbook, pay the bills, and tweak our budget. I like doing these things. They are detail oriented, I like that. Kelly knows this and therefore got me a nerdy gift for my birthday: Microsoft Money.

I was pretty excited about it at first, looking at all the images on the box and the different features of the program. But I then tried to use the program and my excitement started to dwindle. I could not get it to accurately balance my checking account on the program. I was balanced great in my written checkbook, but trying to add the info to MS Money was not happening. I probably spent 15 man hours working on this program throughout the next month. Kelly would try to argue this point because he was often off doing other things (watching football) as I battled with MS Money. Sooner or later, I gave up.

I had not touched MS Moneys since that time - November 2007, until YESTERDAY. I don't know what it was, maybe it was Kelly being out of the house doing is University of Memphis manager duties, or the cleaned up office we actually can now work in and sit at a desk... whatever it was, I attempted MS Money again. I opened the program, deleted everything that I had done in 07, and started a fresh (something I had done twenty times over back last Oct/Nov).

It worked. I now have all our accounts set up in there, and am starting to piddle with all the feature, the pie charts, the budgeting, the graphs, etc. It should work out pretty well, I hope with renewed excitement. Kelly mentioned last night that he thinks I'll really like it once I get the program down... only time will tell.

So that was my small success. Yay.
Now on to my trying to stay out of the flesh.

Rain + Memphis + Drivers = FRUSTRATION

Any of you Memphians know what I'm talking about here, don't you? I was thinking about it on my last 5 minute leg to work... wow, rain + Memphis + drivers really tests my patience. I don't understand why driving becomes soooo difficult for people as soon as some sprinkling occurs, and if real rain comes, WATCH OUT, disaster is about to occur on the streets.

Tell me if this makes any sense... we're driving on the interstate/hwy going the speed limit 65-70 mph and people SLAM ON THEIR BREAKS because it starts to rain a little harder. HELLO!!!! CAN WE SAY CAR ACCCIDENT??? I just don't get it. And it frustrates to poo out of me.

So this is what I've come up with, rain + memphis + driver = A quick reminder of my sinfulness.

Why you might ask? Because I struggle so hard not to call each and every idiot on the road - see.... happens already - a name, and huff and puff my way through the chaos, with my blood pressure up, and my frustration hitting the roof. It's ridiculous. I go into automatic fleshly Heather. It's not good.

So today, during the last few minutes of my trip, I cranked up KLove - listened to the Christian tunes, and thought about it a bit. I slowed down and thought "I'll just be a few minutes late for work, I can handle that" and coasted my way in a defensive driver state but with one again a calm and collective spirit. Until next time. :)