OMG I just went to Endless.com, Bakersshoes.com and Zappos and can’t find any shoes I like!

But on the bright side, I did find some I like in a catalog.  (I think I started getting this catalog because of shoes I ordered on endless.com)

I can’t wear heels anymore.  Too chicken.  After falling twice while wearing platforms, I decided I’d better stay a little closer to the ground.

I decided to take a mental health day today.  It was nice.  I stayed in bed reading until 10:30.  Then I got up and played with some MySpace karaoke until about 3, then I played World of Warcraft (in fact, it’s going on in the background right now.  I alt-tabbed out while I was flying to a different city.)

Now I’m sleepy and will probably go to bed soon.  I wish I could take another of these.  But I best not.

Do you ever take mental health days from work?

We had a retirement planner come to our office to talk to staff.  It made me realize I’ve been kind of lackadaisical with regard to my retirement accounts.

I had one that I needed to roll over or they were going to cash it in for me because it was so small.  I ignored it and they sent me a check.  I had to pay a 10% penalty on it. (Just glad it wasn’t much!)

I rolled the 401(k) from my last employer into an IRA at my bank.  At my current job, I have two accounts – the one my employer contributes to (they match 8% of my annual income) and the one I contribute to (I contribute the max allowed, which also includes the $5,000 over 50 catch-up amount.)  It’s those two accounts that I need to look at.  The employer-contribution account I have set pretty aggressively since it’s free money.  My own contributions are right now in treasury funds and I need to diversify that a little.  It’s worked well for me during the stock market crash we’ve experienced, since the value of it has gone up instead of down (albeit by very little.)

I need to learn more about Roth IRAs – I know there are income restrictions.  I need to find out what they are.  I like that there is no minimum age for withdrawals, and that the earnings are tax-free.  I’m thinking this would be a good investment for retirement that we could also use as an emergency fund if we needed something above and beyond what we have in checking and savings.  There are pros and cons.  We pay tax on the money we invest, so it’s not a tax shelter now, but when we withdraw, it’s tax free (including the earnings.)  The only thing is that we are in a higher tax bracket now than we would be at retirement, so we may be paying more.  On the other hand, if we keep it there and don’t spend it, when we do decide to retire, we will have hopefully earned quite a bit of tax-free interest.

After doing our taxes this year and looking at the results, the difference between our Gross income and Adjusted gross income is not as much as the “average” for our income level.  We’re in the 5th percentile that is going to pay for the 95%  who will get stimulus money.  I need to find more investment tax shelters. 

I wish I had started saving for retirement earlier.  But 20 years ago, I didn’t think I could afford it.  However, at an 8% return, investing about $3 a day would have grown to about $95,000 in 30 years.

All of this, of course, is according to the retirement planner who came to our office.

It seems the few times I’ve posted a controversial blog, I get at least one commenter who disagrees with me and decides to call me names instead of agreeing to disagree.

I posted a blog a few days ago that cost me a subscriber and got someone spewing a bunch of economist jargon at me (I know what he is talking about, I just disagree with him – though I am not really interested in economics, I did get an A in it.)  In the end, he called me clueless.  I guess that’s one way to bow out of a disagreement you aren’t going to win.

Why is it that normally intelligent people resort to such ad hominem attacks when they realize their proselytizing is not going to bring the person they are trying to persuade over to their side?

On a related note, I do realize in that blog I may have come off as a little harsh.  I will post a follow-up blog later, after I’ve gotten my thoughts together on this.  I’ll remember not to “blog from the hip” after this LOL

I started on Xanga with my SherylM account about 6 1/2 years ago.  And although in that time I’ve created 600+ entries (many of them protected) I often found it hard to blog about anything.  I thought every blog would have to be thought-provoking, worthy of some kind of literary award (okay, not really, but I think you know what I mean.)

I opened this account about three years ago as “NotMarthaStewart” when I was going through a house-decluttering frenzy and wanted to post my progress. 

Both accounts are lifetime premium.  What was I thinking making NotMarthaStewart a lifetime account?  Yes, keeping a house clean is a never-ending job, but the big project ended (and with the exception of my new electric griddle/grill, there is still NOTHING on top of my cupboards!)

So anyway, I decided to make SherylM protected only because I was writing about work and stuff that was better left only to a select few to see.  I changed NotMarthaStewart to Kallioph and decided I would post my public entries here.

Still, what to blog about?  I still had this notion that blogging had to be totally thought-provoking, pulitzer prize quality writing or it wasn’t worth writing about.  Then I realized, with a little help from Ex Libris, that this is “All About Me” and for my own benefit.  I do benefit from comments from subscribers, but basically, this is where I can put little snippets of my thoughts, life, whatever.  And provided Xanga’s life is at least as long as mine (otherwise, what would be the purpose of lifetime premium??) this will give me something to look back on in the future, and also serves as written documentation whenever there is something “newsworthy” going on in my life.

Still, I had a hard time blogging because my first thought was “who cares?” 

Then last November, Tyche joined NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) where the object is to post every day for a month.  And when you do, you get to wear a really cool badge (see NaBloPoMo box at left). I joined in mid-december and decided to give it a try.  Starting in January, I made myself blog about something every day.  I kept it up in February.

I like it.

I’ve found that with the exception of a few entries (like this one) my blogs are much shorter, and to the point. Every day I have found something to blog about.

My blogs will never make the “Featured Blogs” list, because, quite frankly, they aren’t that interesting.  But it does force me to see something every day that is worth mentioning.

However, I need more subscriptions.  I check several times a day and don’t have enough subscriptions to keep me involved for more than a few minutes at a time.  If you read someone that you would recommend, please leave me a link to their blog. 

My car will be 7 years old this year.  (Thanks again to TNuts who pointed me in this direction!)  I love my car.  I only have about 60,000 miles on it and have kept it maintained as Ford suggested (synthetic oil every 5000 miles, radiator flush, transmission flush, all that stuff when it comes due, change air filter when it gets dirty, etc.)  The car has run like a kitten ever since I got it.  I paid it off in 2005.  It’s been my experience that as soon as you pay a car off, you start dumping money into it.  Not so with this one. 

But I finally did have to put some money into it.  I had to have my brakes done (all four) today.  This is the first major repair I have had to put into this car.

Can you guess what my next car will be?

Here’s a hint:

Every time I hear about a government stimulus package, or any kind of government handout, this crosses my mind:

“Let’s give money to the taxpayers.”
“Where are we going to get it?”
“From the taxpayers.” 

Or does it go more like this?

“Let’s give money to the low-income and non-working non-tax-payers.”
“Where are we going to get it?”
“From the idiots that worked their butts off, went to college, worked their way up through the ranks, and became successful.  They are the ones who live within their means, don’t borrow more then they can repay, pay off their credit cards every month.  What idiots they are.  They could have gotten in over their heads and then held out for a guvmint handout.”

I fall into that group of idiots.  Silly me.  What was I thinking, living within my means?

I know I’ve written about this before, but like backing up to a 3′ flame, just hearing this stuff burns my butt.

Not even sure why I did this, since I have a little over 4,000 credits and don’t use them very often.

Oh well, free anything is hard for me to resist, which is why I have 15 Estee Lauder makeup bags, 9 tote bags, 17 tubes of lipstick I’ll never wear, 11 sample eye creams…  Which reminds me, I need to get to Carson Pirie Scott before their gift with purchase is over with.  They are giving a really cool white tote (plus a makeup bag and some lipsticks and eye cream) with any Estee Lauder purchase over $35 and I need some more of my tinted moisturizer, which qualifies at $38.

Hmmm….I wonder if that was last week.  I’m always behind in these things.

I just posted this File of Facts widget for 250 credits. You can earn free credits too!