Monet update...

Saturday morning, we overslept, but thankfully not that much and didn't miss Monet's appointment with the vet. So we brought her in, explained her symptoms (not jumping all of a sudden, seeming she was in a little pain in her hind quarters, etc.) The doc took awhile and examined her, felt her belly for masses, watched her walk, felt her spine, manipulated her legs, etc.

He thinks it's a combination of age (she's only 10), possibly arthritis and that she overplayed with our other cat. He offered to give her a steroid shot, but I turned it down for now considering he wasn't sure if what was wrong with her was muscular. He did give her some "joint juice" pills, which we're giving her twice a day and she is jumping from the floor to the couch (not as high as the bed), so we think it might be soreness from over playing. We're going to keep an eye on her though and see how she is in the next couple of weeks. The good thing is that her personality hasn't changed and she's eating enough.

Last night, we pulled out the heating pad and had her lie on it, and switched her in the middle so she could warm both sides of her lower half. We don't know if it helped, but she LOVED it. She's always searching for warmth anywhere in the house (all winter she'll sit in front of the forced air vents, or she'll get on top of the dryer while it's going to feel the warmth) so I'm sure this heating pad was an added bonus.

Two good things...

1. I am officially on the board of the Kawasaki Disease Foundation! I've got to talk with the President either this week or next to discuss my contributions, role, etc. but I'm pretty excited about it! Never thought this would happen, so it's something I think will be great for me personally as well as professionally.

2. The husband and I went to the gym last night for our orientation with the trainer. He set us up with a workout plan and we did it and it kicked our butts! But the best part was when he weighed us, took measurements and fat percentage. I have been monitoring myself at home with our own measuring tape, fat percentage meter and scale, and 3 months ago, I did the last set of measurements and weight. Since then, I've lost only 6 lbs, but I've gone down 3% in body fat, and lost 1 inch off each of my arms, 1 inch off of my waist, 2 inches off of each of my thighs and 2.5 inches off of my hips and butt! I was shocked because I didn't really think it was that much until I compared the measurements! Wow! The trainer, of course, wanted us to buy training packages and we think we might buy a couple of sessions. It's great how motivated we are right now...currently it's for our vacation to Cabo San Lucas next month, but by the time we start seeing more results like this, we don't need any motivation other than that!

My cat...

My cat Monet isn't herself. Last night she attempted to jump up onto me while I was on the couch and instead just sort of pulled herself up with her front paws. Then, later, while Tito and I were in bed and our other cat, Eponine was in bed with us, Monet attempted to get up into bed, but instead pulled herself up there as well. We have a platform bed frame and she kind of scooted her back paws to be sitting on the bed frame and then pulled herself with her front paws.

I told Tito I thought something was wrong with her because she hadn't been jumping all day it seemed like. So we attempted to make her jump to the bed and she wouldn't. We opened the window and attempted to make her jump to the window sill - she wanted to, we could totally see she wanted to, her tail was twitching in excitement, and then she attempted to make the jump, but only made it about half way up the wall and then stopped trying. And she proceeded to sleep really close to me last night (she normally snuggles with Tito) and then this morning she was moving very slowly. I attempted to make her play with her favorite ball and she looked like she wanted to chase after it and then sort of walked over to it and pushed the ball slowly. I think she's got something going on with her hips/legs.

When I pick her up she meows more than normal. I'm really worried about my little girl...when I left this morning she was sleeping on my pillow which is something else unusual for her. She's not old either, which is really worrying me. She's only 8! So hopefully it's nothing serious and maybe she just hurt herself in some way? Anyone have experience with something like this? My childhood cat lost the ability to jump after awhile but she was 17 when that happened.

One project down....working on the second one right now...I can't wait until this week is over!

We're booked!

We booked our vacation and we're so happy! We got a great deal - $1400 for the two of us for 6 days and 5 nights, all inclusive (including alcohol) so we don't have to leave or pay for any food or drink while we're there. Happily we paid for it with cash and had saved for over 6 months for the trip. We're back to adding to our travel fund until we go (Thanksgiving week) so we can do some fun things while there if we want to.

I'm headed to Chicago next weekend for a charity event on Sunday, but I have Saturday and Monday to myself (I fly back at 6pm on Monday.) I'll be doing some fun things on the cheap, and maybe a little shopping for myself and Christmas presents. And a trip must be made to H&M! :)

News Flash: Credit Card Reform Bill Gets Nod From the House

http://www.savvysugar.com/2071723

How To Save More Without Spending More

Raises may be a rare occasion during these days of employer belt-tightening, and when they do come along they're likely to disappoint. Stagnant paychecks don't have to imply savings-as-usual — there's a tangible way to save money without earning more!

Scott Burns of MSN Money calls it the "Power of Attentive Spending," but I just call it a good idea. When you hold a magnifying glass to your spending there's no doubt you'll discover places where you can find better deals and spend less. Consumer Reports' August issue is confident we can save $500 each month by reviewing these six expenses: car insurance, life insurance, food shopping, phone costs, bank fees, credit card bills.

Even if you can't find $500 within your expenses that can be turned into money saved, a lesser amount would still have a positive impact on your savings. However you manage to cut your bills and save the money instead, Burns suggests you think of the amount you save over one year as after-tax income. So, if your salary is $50,000 and you find $6,000 by using your power of attentive spending, that's a not-too-shabby, after-tax, 12 percent gain.

Yay!

I paid off a credit card on Friday! The other two remaining cards are slotted to be PAID OFF on September 15th!! Woo-hoo! This is HUGE for me...after this debt is paid, I have a remaining loan from my parents, which I'll now dump the money I was paying in CC's towards, one small student loan ($800) which I will have paid off by December 15th, my computer loan (which will be paid off by December as well) and then the only thing I'll have is my large student loan. After doing some calculations, I figured I could increase my payments by $200 a month and pay it off in 5 years...so that's the minimum...I figured it would be safe to do the smallest amount I could increase my payments and pay off in a short amount of time rather than going all out and risking forgetting about other debts in the future (i.e. I'll be taking over the payments on my husband's car as he'll be getting a new one in the next month, so that's $200 a month plus $90 a month in insurance to add into the budget) as well as if we choose to buy a house or rent something larger with a higher payment than we have now. And then there's the whole having kids thing...but the good thing is that throughout all of this I'm still saving. Right now it's only $400 a month, but will increase as I have less debt. I am just so excited to have NO credit card debt and have that available just in case (being on the other side of the country from my family and having family that's ill and the possibility I may have to fly home at the last minute is a good emergency fund use.)

Free=good

Free stuff is great. Last night I came home to find a package from Walmart.com on my doorstep. I had no idea what it was, so I opened it and it turned out to be a sample sized Nivea body and face lotion. I remember vaguely signing up to receive it, but had forgotten about ordering it. So yay! Now I have a perfect purse sized lotion to try, and just in time because I ran out of my other hand cream the other day!

College Degrees Pay Off, Especially For Women

There are plenty examples of people who have made a name (and billions) for themselves without a college degree, but The New York Times argues that the progress women have made over the last 40 years goes to show that higher education is not overrated. The statistics they note are remarkable: Only 25 percent of women received a college degree in the 1960s, while today almost 40 percent will end up with one. During the same time period, between 30 and 35 percent of men graduated from a four-year college.

Overall, educated women have seen their degrees pay off — the average inflation-adjusted weekly pay of women has increased 26 percent since 1980, while men's pay has risen only one percent in the last 20 years. Less gender discrimination has something to do with women being able to seek out higher paying jobs — about half of new doctors today are women, up from just one of every 10 in the early 1970s.