ON AIR

Monday, our local market played the episode of the Dave Ramsey show in which we were featured, so we all gathered around William who was painting the back of the house and enjoyed it together (again)!

We're Debt Free!!

I thought that I'd share our journey to "debt-freeness" here on our blog hoping to inspire others...

Since the onset of adulthood, both William and I have been in debt. I began with a little Discover Card when they were brand new on the market, and William was given a Visa when he was sent off to college. I tried paying my card off every month until one month, it didn't get paid off . The interest was added for the previous 2 months, and I found myself in over my head. I joined the marriage with about $400 on my card. William was another story... He was given a Visa when he went away to school and gave it a work-out! He made minimum payments each month. He also had a gas card to keep him on the move. He brought his cards with over $2500 and a sizable loan for my wedding ring set to our marriage.

We had major income crises for the first 3 years of our marriage. Our plans to graduate from college and get our dream jobs were not fulfilled in the least as we scrambled around for decent employment. We even went into debt another $1200 to pay a headhunter for William to work at the Footlocker 12 hours a day, 6 days a week! (Major stupid tax!!!!!)

In 1994, we decided that we needed a new, dependable car, so we ordered a Sapphire Blue Chrysler Concorde that cost 70% of William's salary. We put a down payment on it and leased the rest of it, later to re-finance when we found out that leases were bad, and 17 years later, we're still driving the thing! Lesson learned.

Over the years, we used our ATM card for most of our purchases, and when the money was gone (usually a little before the next pay day), we charged it, not really thinking that anything was wrong with doing that and didn't know that we were spending 12-18% more by swiping a card. That's what everybody does, right? Occasionally, we'd receive a tax refund, bonus, or gift, and pay down our cards just to charge them back up when we hit a crisis which would happen all too often. We had investment accounts and stocks, but no savings for emergencies.

In 2009, my sister, Patti and her husband, Scott, attended Financial Peace University, a personal finance course taught by Dave Ramsey on DVD, at their church. First, I thought that they were falling info some kind of crazy christian spin-off cult or get-rich scheme, but William and I saw big difference in the way that they dealt with money. It was really good to see the change.

Out of curiosity, I skeptically began listening to Dave Ramsey's podcast of an hour of each of his daily radio shows and listened to the "The Total Money Makeover," and he actually made sense. "The same advice your grandmother would give you, only we keep our teeth in." Basic common sense. (How come nobody taught us about this? Shouldn't everybody know this stuff?)

So, in February 2010, I told William that we needed to get it together. He totally agreed, and indicated that he was waiting for me. We were so sick of living paycheck to paycheck. William makes good money, but we didn't have much to show for it and felt like we are struggling to buy necessities and to maintain our modest home and older vehicles.

At the same time, William and I both LOVE to GIVE! We were giving to several worthy organizations and supporting several missionaries, and giving above and beyond our tithe to our church, but at the cost of taking care of our family. This really hit me when I read I Timothy 5:8 "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." So there's "giving sacrificially," and then there's giving away most everything and living off of the credit card. That doesn't make any sense! We can't give what we don't have. We look forward giving extravagantly!

Over the next several months, we began our debt snowball and attempted to make a workable budget TOGETHER as William taught me how to get into all of the places online to balance accounts and pay bills. We stopped using the credit cards. It was all very painful. We had trouble finding the right tool to balance our bank accounts and track our budget that didn't have a monthly fee because we did not need to add another monthly payment. We finally found You Need a Budget (YNAB) to do the job and have been very satisfied with it.

In September, we began Financial Peace University at our church. (William listened to the audio CD's that came in the kit since he stayed home with the kids.) Although, we had heard a lot of what we needed to know to get going with the Baby Steps, it was great encouragement and inspiration to attend the class. My mom and I graduated with perfect attendance, and it was totally worth the 13 Tuesday nights and the $102 for the materials!

Over the last several months as we have been getting closer and closer to our goal, "Murphy" has moved in. William got sick and had to go for medical tests twice, our furnace needed repair, we slid on the ice and hit a tree, we had to get new brakes, and our oven and dishwasher no longer work. For emergencies, we've had our $1,000 emergency fund, and for other things, the budget allows us to allocate each paycheck where it needs to go. We had to roll the medical expenses into our snowball, and now we'll be replacing the bumper, dishwasher, and oven with CASH!


On to baby step #3: Saving 6-months of expenses for our BIG emergency fund.

Our story, filled with so much STUPID TAX, really makes me excited to teach the personal finance course in our home school co-op, and we know that our kids are learning a lot from our experiences and openness about our family finances, so hopefully, they won't be paying so much stupid tax because they know better!

Oh, my gravy!

It has been since October since I have updated our blog! Yes, that means that I haven't been reading your blogs either! Facebook has taken over.

School is going well. The kids are growing quickly. Jeremy swims, and the girls are dancing. Benaiah uses the toilet.

I'm teaching Dave Ramsey's Foundations in Personal Finance to middle and high school students at our home school co-op and loving it.

IBM is still paying William.

Mom is getting her house ready to put on the market to downsize. Patti and her family are doing well. Scott's business is growing.

Jasmine is still kicking, but sometimes she scares us by sleeping until 2 pm. Patti got a springer spaniel with missing toes that is named "Ladybug." She is sweet.

I am tired.

Dancing for Kenya!

Graceful Expressions, where the girls are both taking dance classes is having a special performance to benefit the the children at Noel orphanage in Choimim, Kenya.

The show is going to be so cute! (Annika is actually quite a scary spider!) Miss April is so creative with her choreography and costumes, and our girls are both spiders and have been practicing very hard for this special night!

You can go to the Graceful Expressions site or go the the Holly Springs Cultural Center for tickets.

Hope to see you there!

BiT ~ Mid May

The Ethiopian adoption community in the triangle area was invited to share a meal by the woman who makes and sells the best injera in town! A lot of people showed up for this wonderful feast hosted by Tenu and her husband Moges. There are remarkable people who run a soup kitchen in Raleigh and an orphanage in Ethiopia! They gathered all of the families into a huge circle and we went around and introduced ourselves. This is just he kind of experience we want to share with Benaiah! By the way, the food was phenomenal! Better than any restaurant!



Jeremy swam his last USA Swimming meet with New Wave for now... He did really well and won his heat in the 100 backstroke for which he was awarded the duck. He loves getting those ducks!

BiT ~ Early May 2010

We wrapped up another year of Awana with the "Awarnaval" and celebrated the conclusion of the spring semester of our home school co-op with family night.

We also found a skink or something creepy-crawly in our bedroom. He kept getting away and discovered again under pillows -NOT on the bed!



William took Jeremy on a trip that we hope he will always remember. They traveled to Wilmington, NC where the went through the "Passport 2 Purity" materials. (It has object lessons and CD's that cover the birds and bees and addresses staying keeping pure for your future spouse.) They had a great time! They stayed in a Kozy Kabin at the KOA. (You just have to chuckle at that!) In between sessions of the program, they went to the beach and toured the USS North Carolina. To top it off, they went out for a really nice dinner, and Jeremy was presented with a gift to remember the occasion. *sniff*

A Little BIT

So, my last family post was in April!! UGH! So much has happened since then! So, where to begin? One GINORMOUS post with the past 4 months? Or 50,000 smaller posts?

We are going to go BACK IN TIME, "BIT" for short. (The kids love Huey Lewis & The News' song, and Benaiah asks for it in the car!)

So, watch for our BIT posts!

Is Anybody Out There?

I just saw that I haven't posted to this blog since April! Where did the time go? We have been very busy... mostly with summer swimming.

I hope to post photos and short re-caps of things soon!

Now, I need to work on our yearly update for Benaiah. We have to send a report to Ethiopia every year until he reaches 18!

Later!

Into the Streets of Ethiopia -GIVEAWAY!

Did anybody notice the *new* button that I put up last week for Into the Streets of Ethiopia?

A sweet couple with whom we have shared our adoption journey has began a non-profit to help street kids in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They are currently working with Robel, an amazing young man who was our guide while we were in Ethiopian and is also a former street kid. Robel started an Ethiopian organization called Children's Future Ethiopia to feed, clothe, school, and give medical care to kids on the streets of Addis. (Robel's bio is on the site too. Check it out! AMAZING! We LOVE Robel!)

Please, consider helping these kids who don't have families to care for them!


Now for the GIVEAWAY... Remember the necklace that somebody thought looked like TX? LOL! That was made by Tracy at JunkPosse. She sells a lot of beautiful adoption and Africa-related original silver creation on esty.com. After reading about Into the Streets of Ethiopia, she has donated $80 in credit toward a necklace (your choice!) with FREE shipping for Into the Streets of Ethiopia to give away so that they can get people looking at the site and HELPING these kids!

Just check out the Into the Streets of Ethiopia site for details!

Easter at Home!

(click collage to imbiggen)

In addition to the family Easter at Mom's house, we celebrated at home. Some of our family went to Easter services at church on Saturday night while the rest of us stayed home with snot and coughing. We remembered to get the eggs boiled before bedtime Saturday night and were able to enjoy coloring them in between watching "Flywheel."

After we got home from Mom's, we had to put Benaiah down for a very late nap since it was way past his nap time. Then, we gave the big kids their Easter baskets from us. The were ecstatic to find eggs full of AA batteries to put in their Wii remotes! (See Jeremy's photo above!) They also got some new pajamas, some Wii accessories, and some candy.

The family fun continued as we played Wii Sports Resort together.

Then the sugar overdose kicked in, all of the kids turned into total freaks, and we couldn't wait to get them all to bed! LOL!

Happy Birthday to ME!

(click collage to imbiggen)

My birthday was GREAT! It was much better than the last time my birthday was on Easter! (Last time was when I turned 30, and my grandma had died so we were in OH to bury her and left to go home to GA. On the way home, we stopped at a Bob Evans where are server quit his job in the middle of our meal, and we were left with no service. It was just a sucky day.)

Anyway, we started the day with chocolate chip pancakes and little, sweet sausages. YUM! The kids are always anxious to give their gifts, and I love the Webkinz Marshmallow Bunny that they got me this year! She is so cute, and I named her "Fasika," the amharic word for Easter since I got her on my Easter birthday.

We went to mom's to celebrate Easter and my birthday. We had one of my favorite dinners, cubed steak with mashed potatoes, and William got a chocolate raspberry cake from Once in a Blue Moon. YUM!

It was wonderful being surrounded by people I love all day, and I enjoyed all of the cards, calls, and Facebook messages! I did have a very happy birthday! THANK-YOU!

Easter at Mema's

(click to imbiggen)

We spent most of Easter Sunday at my mom's house with her and my sister's family. It was a great time! The kids are at a perfect age for an egg hunt, and with 7 of them, it makes for a lot of excitement!

We all sounded like we gargled with gravel after being out in the pollen! The yellow scunge was pretty bad that day!

Hope you all had a blessed day celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!!

Is This How the World Feels?

Anybody who is a Facebook friend of mine probably realizes what a rough week this has been for me. God must be trying to teach me something ... again... or still.

I got my teeth cleaned this week. I hate going to the dentist even though my mouth is healthy. I do like the music there. It's the people who usually annoy me! The hygienists seem to want my teeth to have something wrong with them because I am honest and tell them that I only floss 3 times a week rather than everyday. It really bugs them that I can have clean teeth without flossing every, single day!

The hygienist asked if my necklace was Texas. Nope.

The hygienist mentioned something about kids who come in with their new teeth growing in before their baby teeth fall out, so I thought that being in the dental field and being a human being, that she would be interested and concerned for some children that I had learned about through Drawn From Water.

Me: "Did you know that there are some tribes in Ethiopia who think that children who have two sets of teeth like that are bad luck, so they kill them."

Hygienist: "Ha ha!"

(She must not understand what I just said.)

Me: "They're doing it now, it isn't just something that happened a long time ago."

Hygienist: "Well, I guess that keeps the population under control. Ha ha."

(Are you serious?)

Me: "It's NEVER OK to kill children."

(My blood is boiling now. There are tools in my mouth, and I am at a loss for words anyway.)

Hygienist: "Different strokes for different folks.... I could kill my kids sometimes. Ha ha!"

Is this how the rest of the world feels about people in Africa? That they're not really children of God like you and me?

This breaks my heart for her -that she is so ignorant and empty. It breaks my heart for the people in other countries that are not seen by many as the *real* people that they are who love their children just like you and I do.

To learn more about this practice and how to help save these children who are being drowned in the river because their teeth come in "wrong," they are born out of wedlock, are twins, or they chipped a tooth please, visit the Drawn From Water blog.

2010 Census Race Questions

About a week or so after we received our letter from the U.S. Census Bureau warning us that we were going to get our census forms, we got it. Thanks for the warning and for wasting all of that money our government doesn't have to send something saying that you were going to send me something.

Although, everyone is only required by law to write in the number of people living in their dwelling, we thought it would be fun to fill it out for all 6 of us. For Benaiah, we proudly checked the box indicating that he was our adopted son. Then, we got down to race...

Race. What is race? I checked Merriam-Webster and Wikipedia trying to make sense of the census form.

The first question having to do with race asked if one was of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin, and if so, from where did his or her heritage originate. At the time, it seemed reasonable that the census bureau wanted to collect some extra information about Hispanics/Latino/Spanish folks for whatever reason. Strange, just the same that that people group was singled out from the rest of the races.

Here are the choices from the 2010 U.S. Census for everyone else:

• white
• black, African Am., negro
• American Indian or Alaska Native (has space for principal tribe)
• Asian Indian
• Chinese
• Filipino
• Other Asian -Print race, for example, Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian, and so on.
• Japanese
• Korean
• Vietnamese
• Native Hawaiian
• Guamanian or Chamorro
• Samoan
• Other Pacific Islander -Print race, for example, Fijian, Tongan, and so on.
• Some other race -Print race.
  

Where do I begin? Notice that the U.S. Census Bureau is interested more in nationalities of people if you are Hispanic, Asian, Native American, or from the South Pacific, but if we have WHITE or BLACK skin, we are all the same as all the other people who have the same skin color. Seriously?

It appears that the census bureau thinks that if you are of African decent, you are "black, African Am., or negro." First, I have always thought that the term "African American" specifically refers to an American-born person who is of brown-skinned African descent. (Merriam-Webster agrees.) NEGRO? Really? "Black" and then, "African American" have replaced that term in the years since the civil rights movement!

According to the U.S. Census Bureau:

Black or African American. A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro," or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian. (http:/quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68178.htm)

So, how did we answer the question of Benaiah's race? We checked "Other" and printed "Ethiopian" knowing that they will lump him in the "black, African Am., negro" category, and I'm fine with that. We are proud of his ethnicity, race, nationality, and whatever!

The problem that I have is that some races are so sub-divided into different people groups based on nationality, and others are just all lumped together. Just lump us all together into the 4-5 groups that are needed and used for funding and dividing out representatives. Collecting information that reflects our actual heritage would be interesting if it were for ALL races, but not really necessary for anything.

Needless to say, I was totally weirded-out by this stupid form, and it has hurt my little Pooh brain thinking about it!

Be proud of whatever you have been labeled! God loves us all!

Annika's Story

The Peppermint Puppy
by Annika Schmidt
Rivendell Academy
Kindergarten

ONCE, there was a little puppy named “Peppermint Puppy.” She was so small that when she sat on a leaf one windy day, the wind blew her away to the end of the world!

When she finally landed, she turned into a blue peppermint puppy! “Oh no! I'm a peppermint!”

Then a green peppermint baby said, “Who are you?

My name is “Peppermint Puppy. What is your name?”

The baby said, “My name is Michael, and this is Peppermint Land. This is my sister Natalie and my other sister Lia.”

“Will you stay for my birthday?” said Michael.

Natalie said, “Would you like to help me bake the cake?”

Lia said, “Will you help me clean the dishes?”

“Yes, yes, and yes. I will.”

“Good! We like you to be here with us.”

The cake is done. The dishes are done. It is time to eat!

They ate and ate and ate.

Michael, Natalie, and Lia put Peppermint Puppy back on the leaf and shouted “Good-bye!” as she floated away.

When she made it home, her dinner was waiting for her, and a mint was in her bowl!

THE END

Marissa's Story

A Princess Named Marissa

by Marissa Schmidt

Rivendell Academy

Grade 3

Once upon a time, there was a princess named Marissa and a pirate who was a bully named Blacktooth.

One day, Blacktooth kidnapped the princess! She said, “I am doomed!” Blacktooth had taken her to a big tower in his castle that was surrounded with mean dogs.

Blacktooth gave Princess Marissa bread and water every day, and she wasn't allowed to take a bath or brush her hair.

After three days, Super Miriam popped out of nowhere with cats to scare the dogs.

"Stop right there Blacktooth!” said Super Miriam. Blacktooth put his hands up, and said, “I surrender.”

Super Miriam called the police and freed princess Marissa, and they lived happily ever after.

THE END

Epilogue: Blacktooth got a job at the police because he was so good at trapping people.

PBS Young Writers and Illustrators Contest

Marissa and Annika have written, illustrated, and sent in their entries for the PBS Young Writers and Illustrators contest! They had so much fun writing their stories and drawing pictures!

Annika was first to write her story. Since she has the limited writing abilities of most kindergartners, she told me the story, and I typed it. Kindergartners are limited to no more than 200 words. Well, that girl has A LOT of words!! Her first draft was 430 words!! We had to edit that thing WAY DOWN!

On the other hand, Marissa's first draft was 84 words. Third-graders have to have between 100-350 words! I asked her for details, it made more story, and she finally ended up with 140 or so words. Whew. It seems that Annika had Marissa's helping of words!

I hope to post the girls' stories and drawings in the next couple of days, so stay tuned!

Marissa's First Awana Bible Quiz

After being snowed out in late January, and then again in mid February, we finally had nice weather for Bible quiz! There were 12 multiple choice questions, and then there were 12 speed round questions.

All of the kids learned quite a lot and did a great job!

Marissa & her partner Audie placed 2nd! YEAH!

Thank-you for coaching again, William! This was his 4th year of coaching. Benaiah spotted his daddy on the stage keeping score for the multiple choice and repeatedly said, "Hi, Daddy!" "Hi, Daddy!" "Hi, Daddy!" "Hi, Daddy!" It was funny the first few times.

Way to go, Marissa! We know you worked hard!

Made to Be a Schmidt!

This morning at the gym, I don't know why, I just wondered when Benaiah had been conceived and what our family may have been doing at that time.

Benaiah's birth date is the day after Annika's due date, so I knew that Benaiah had been conceived in April because Annika was. I also remembered that we had applied to adopt sometime at the end of April.

So I pulled up a due date calculator online, and it allowed me to plug in Benaiah's birth date, and it calculated his "estimated date of conception." Then, I went to our AWAA folder in my inbox of my email, and looked at the first email that they sent us saying that we had been accepted into their Ethiopia program...

You've guess it! They were the EXACT SAME DATES! April 29, 2007! Is that cool or what?

God is so awesome to reveal these little details of his plans for our lives!

Hands of Hope

Every year our church does a church-wide Bible/book study, and each week, the pastor's sermon ties in with the lesson. This year's "Full Service in a Self-Service World" is a little different! Instead of holding the normal weekend services this week, the congregation was sent out to serve others in the Hands of Hope service projects!

Here are some of the projects from which to choose:

• Helping local schools with landscaping, litter pickups, mulching, painting, etc...
• Assisting various human service agencies such as the Salvation Army Soup Kitchen, Salvation Army Thrift Store, American Red Cross, Wake Interfaith Hospitality, Society of St. Andrews, an assisted living home, New Bern House, and more.
• Packaging 100,000 meals for Stop Hunger Now to send to those in need in Africa and Haiti.

The Schmidt family chose to glean with the Society of St. Andrew. We were sent to a field in Louisberg, NC to harvest collards and cabbages. Since it was over an hour away, we were off to an early start for a Saturday morning. It is quite a chore to get 6 people adequately adorned to work in a cold, wet, dirty field, but somehow, we made it out of here on time!

We smartly put latex gloves over our cheap Dollar Tree gardening gloves, William and I were given sharp weapons, and we were sent out into a field to harvest the collards and cabbage. With Benaiah on my back and what looked like a little linoleum knife, I quickly realized that I was ill-equipped to harvest the collards. So, I crawled down the row cutting cabbages and peeling the icky leaves off so that they looked like what you would buy at the store. William harvested was a harvesting machine doing both collards and cabbages with his little saw. Jeremy did a great job hauling 8-9 cabbages at a time to the Inter-faith Food Shuttle's truck. Marissa enjoyed pulling the nasty leaves off of the collards and bagging them, Annika was in charge of the cabbage bag and peeled a few of them, and Benaiah got himself into a position on my back where he could see over my shoulder and give me editorial comments like, "EWWwwwww! Dat distustin', Mommy." Near the end, he started asking to watch "Yo Gabba Gabba" and "Barney."

We harvested for 2 hours, and as we were walking off of the field, the kids asked about doing it again!

We joined some other families from church at Bojangle's for lunch -our reward.

Sadly, we forgot the camera because I'm sure that the photos would have been great entertainment for many! These are collards. The field in which we worked had sand in between the rows, and the cabbages and collards were inter-mixed.

It is so cool to know that within 48 hours of our family project, people in need are eating the cabbages and collards that we picked!

Jeremy went back to church that evening to join his middle school small group in packaging meals for Stop Hunger Now. He said that was fun too.

When can we do it again?