A Little Personal

Published March 21, 2009

This is a little odd for The Paycheck Chronicles, but I'm feeling like playing along. Penelope at Pecuniarities tagged me in a meme. What does meme mean? According to dictionary.com, a meme is "A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another." In blogging, it is a set of questions or a thought that is answered by individual authors on their site. You can learn interesting things about other people by participating. Thus this little experiment to see your reaction to this meme.

7 Things You Didn't Know About Me" Meme Rules

Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
Let them know they've been tagged.

Oh, gosh, that means I have to find 7 people to tag. I hope I can do that!

Here goes:

I have four children and two cats. Both have been considerably more expensive than I anticipated. The cats have more frequent flier miles than most people, due to our odd duty stations.
My dear husband has been in the Navy for almost 18 years. It is hard to imagine that he could retire in just two more years. Then what would we do? I can't imagine living in the same place forever.
I tend to take on more than I can reasonably handle. Need an Ombudsman? Sure, no problem. PTO need to raise some funds? I'll organize a fundraiser. The obvious outcome is that my personal life suffers - the house is a wreck and I haven't sent out Christmas cards yet. For 2008, not 2009.
It took me 8 1/2 years to graduate from college. First, I wasn't really paying attention, then I got married, and (of course) transferring wasn't going to be as easy as I thought. I took some classes at Tidewater Community College while we were in Virginia Beach and petitioned my university to accept them. One time that my husband deployed, I moved home for a semester to finish my last TWO classes. The whole thing used much more time and money than necessary. Now I tell people: just go to class. The rest will work itself out if you just show up every day.
Writing The Paycheck Chronicles is just about a dream job for me. I am totally geeky about personal finance and I truly hope to share my enthusiasm with others. In addition to my personal learning an experiences, I've worked in the foreclosure department of a mortgage bank and I'm trained to prepare taxes (though I hire an accountant - my taxes are confusing!). I hate to handle actual cash, so no bank jobs for me, but I'm great with money as long as it is on paper.
I waited tables through college and I love the restaurant business. A good friend owns a restaurant and I help out when he's in a pinch, and I am just so darn happy to be there. Too bad it isn't a sensible job for a mom with a deployed spouse, and the pay isn't really that great either. I won't wait tables anymore but I'm happy as a clam running the front desk and making nice with all the customers.
While we've managed to shave 7,000 lbs. off our household goods (we were wwaayy over three moves ago), we still own too much stuff to be reasonable. Clearing out before we move again is one of my biggest goals.

OK, who to tag? In no particular order, friends from various venues (mostly they are my internet friends, or "imaginary" friends):

Please let me know what you think of this little experiment? Did you enjoy learning more about me, or was this just a waste of space on The Paycheck Chronicles. Give me the good, the bad, and the ugly. I want to hear!

Story Continues