It's All Ours

Don't you find it interesting that people (me included) always say that we own our cars or we own our house. Have you ever thought about that? We don't own squat until the balance on our statements say $0.00. The bank owns everything. This last week we can say that we officially own our car! In fact, we now own outright both of our vehicles. They certainly are not the newest things on the block but I can say that I own them. I do not owe anymore money to anyone and I love it! It almost makes me not want to ever take out another car loan. I despise them.

I actually thought that I had paid the loan off in November. All was good until I received a statement from the credit union stating that we owed $.22. Can you believe that! It had me laughing so hard. And the dumb thing was that it also said that we owed our entire monthly payment still and that we missed a payment in December so that one was passed due. BUT the balance still said $.22. So I called and talked to this crazy guy. He informed me that we did in fact just owe change but he went on and on about how the credit union is like a force field and things get sucked into it and .... I really don't know what he was talking about and stopped listening to him half way through. Then I asked him where the closest branch would be. I really, really did not want to drive into Boise for that. He informed me that they just acquired a new branch at the beginning of the year and it was in Nampa. Awesome! He also told me that I could go eat lunch and use the extra change to pay off the loan. I told him that I could just look around the house and find the extra change. He then goes back to telling me I could go eat lunch and use the extra change. He was SO weird. So the next day I traveled over to the branch and had to wait for this one lady to get back from her lunch break. When she did, she informed me that it was true, they are now part of that credit union but did not have any of the systems until February. How annoying! She did tell me about the shared branch thing and how I could go into a number of local credit unions and with my account number, do whatever I needed to do. I had no idea. So she gave me the closest one. I realized that I did not bring my account number and had to head home for it anyway. On the way home and a couple of errands later, I looked on my phone for the location of that branch. It did not exist! BUT one literally just down the road from my house in Caldwell did. I went in and paid off that $.22 loan! I am so thrilled!

I made a post of Facebook about this and got the funniest responses. One friend said that I should get change from Gunnar's bank and pay it off. Then we can say Gunnar paid off the loan. One commented on how the stamp to send the statement was more than the loan total. And another asked if they accepted checks. Everyone had me laughing.

So the next day I was on the laptop in the morning. I got on but then it died. I tried again and it was dead, dead, DEAD! I knew the battery was slowly losing its efficiency but it was plugged into the wall. I would have assumed it still worked but it wasn't working at all. I started looking up batteries on my phone and options that we had. Finally I called Dell to make sure it really was the battery. The guy had me doing all sorts of things. I was taking the battery in and out. Trying over and over again. He finally asked me if the light on the charger was on. Maybe that was faulty. I looked and it wasn't but I also noticed a plug in laying on the floor. Now the charger was plugged in...so I thought. I started busting up laughing and told this man from India that this may have been the dumbest thing he heard all day. Jeff was ironing that morning and plugged in the iron and unplugged the computer. This entire time I had been feeling the ironing cord and not the computer cord. The man started laughing, I plugged in the computer charger and the computer started right up. Seriously!? Such a blonde moment. Jeff later informed me that he never unplugged the cord and he was wondering why the night before the computer was struggling to stay charged. I have a feeling a little toddler named Brecken came along and unplugged it. He loves to do that.

The night before the Dell problem, my poor sewing machine went stupid. I was working on Mindy's birthday present when it decided to be dumb and jam up. I was not happy at all and now he gets to go see the sewing machine doctor for a tune up. I was a little frustrated because I had other sewing projects I wanted to work on this week. I headed over to Michael's to get the last of Mindy's birthday present and they were still out of what I needed. They ran out before Christmas! So frustrating...so that gift is a little delayed. I'm excited about it though.

When things still go wrong, it is so important to remind myself that it is not the end of the world. Life for me right now is great. We are all healthy, Jeff has a job, I have my business that is doing well, Gunnar is enjoying school and Brecken is a happy toddler. I couldn't ask for more than that. I found the quote at the top of this post on Pinterest today and loved it. Thought I would share.