Start saving money for your retirement.

First, Sheila made some blocks for Lincoln. They turned out great.
Second, with Lincoln on the way and after hearing one side of a phone conversation between Sean and Sheila, I want to suggest something to all of the families. Putting money away for your retirement should be started immediately. I know all of you have different incomes and expenses and I am not telling you what to do with your money. However, starting a retirement account when you are young(ish) is smart because you will save a lot more money in the long run. You can save a lot of tax money by using a pre-tax IRA and not even miss the money from your check!
I have been working with a financial adviser for about 10 years. The first year he charged me $400 and invested some money in pre-tax accounts, thus saving me close to $600 in taxes, saved money on my car insurance, gave me 2 free tickets to the Saturday round of the Memorial golf tournament plus hospitality suite (worth roughly $250), and invested my tiny savings into a much better mutual fund that had a higher return. I know the golf tickets were a fluke and my situation was not typical but he saved me money. He now talks to Sheila and I about 3 times a year and is available other times, if we need him. His name is Marc D. Arnold and he works for Ameriprise Financial in West Virginia. His number is 304-352-8200. Call him and tell him I sent you. If you don't want to talk to him go to your local bank or find another financial adviser to talk to. The first contact is free and they can tell you if they can help you or not. You may be surprised at how easy it is to save some money FOR YOU OR YOUR KIDS. Best of luck everyone.

House improvements

With the baby coming, we needed to rearrange the house, clean the office (3rd bedroom) and decorate the baby room. All of our games (350+) were in the baby's room on a couple of decent wooden shelves, a few less decent wooden shelves, 16 or so milk crates, on top of all that and a few left over ones in the floor. We did not want to keep the "wonderful" shelving system that we had.
So we took the 2 decent shelves and one other shelf into the office and put books and stamp collection on them. We moved some white plastic shelves into the baby room. We got some new cabinets with doors last week. We moved all of the games from the baby's room to the office. We had been preparing for this by reorganizing things in smaller boxes, selling stuff on ebay, taking 5 boxes of English books to Sheila's office at work, stacking things tighter in the closets, doubling up the book on some shelves, taking more stuff to the shed, and actually throwing away a few things.


So now the office is still crammed full of stuff as you can see. There are 3 tall cabinets on the left full of games and the 2 decent shelves in the center from the other room with books, and 2 smaller shelves stacked on each other for my stamps on the right. The boxes in front are depression glassware that I still need to get rid of. On the side of the room that you cannot see are 2 more small shelves, a small computer desk (I am using it to type the blog) and a small table that Sheila uses for a desk. It is a very functional office and game/book/stamp storage room with barely enough room in the floor for 2 guests to use.

The best thing is that we got the baby room clean enough to paint. The theme will be jungle animals. Here is what it looks like with just the paint. The top half of the room is a dark baby blue. The middle is a chocolate brown asymmetric stripe. It is hard to see in the picture but the bottom of the stripe is parallel to the floor while the top rises or lowers across each wall. The top of the brown in the corner behind the shelf is about 8 inches lower than the top in the 2 corners you cannot see. It is very apparent standing in the room. The bottom is white. The idea is that the brown is the earth and the blue is the sky. There will be cutouts of these patterned animals/trees (those on our amazon gift registry) stuck on the wall.


So that is what we have been doing for the last week. This week we are going to work on my syllabus and lesson plans (I have no idea what I an doing) and go to Tenn Game Days in Nashville this weekend. The next 4 weeks Sheila is off while I will be teaching a class. She is supposed to work on photo albums from our wedding and honeymoon, work on the composition book she is writing, make a lot of crochet squares for a baby blanket, and plant the spring flowers in her garden. I will be teaching and selling glassware and stamps on ebay.

P.S. If any of the kids (or parents) want to start a stamp collection in the future or need stamps for a school project, I can help.