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By Alyssa, February 10, 2010 10:46 am

Courtesy of Dave Ramsey's website

I’m excited.  Nope, beyond excited.  We could potentially be DEBT FREE BY JUNE!

I think June would be fitting as it was June in 2008 when we started this process.  I was pregnant with Zeke when we first attended a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace class. Close friends raved about the material and we decided with our upcoming life changes (another baby, leaving active Army, final move to Denver) that it wouldn’t hurt for us to attend the 13 week course.  Hubby and I felt like we were fairly good stewards of our income before the class.  We started the course with minor credit card debt, car payments, and a small loan.

It would take more than this post for me to explain the results of going through all 13 weeks.  Hubby and I agree that the course could easily be called the Dave Ramsey Financial Marriage Counseling study.  The material helped us get to the root of our problems with finances, why and when we spend, and ended up improving our marriage as we improved the way we managed our finances.  Not only that, the class completely transformed how we look at money.

Even before we finished the 13 weeks, we sold numerous household items, a car, and our house.  Amidst selling and buying a home, we paid off over  $15,000 of our consumer debt (all debt except a home mortgage).  Using the course steps, we secured an emergency fund, and started our “debt snowball” so that by the time I left the Army, we had paid off over $30,000, almost all of our debt. I tell you this not to brag, but to encourage anyone that is considering changing the way they handle their money.  We were amazed at how our cash budget and extra work (overtime pay, odd jobs, etc.) amazingly added up to major debt pay-offs.

We are so close to the end of this step in our financial process that I can’t help but feel giddy.  After I left active duty and we went down to one income, our debt payoff when from a fire hose to a faucet trickle.  I started to feel discouraged that we would never be debt-free.  Crazy that I wasn’t satisfied with paying off $30,000 the year before.  I guess my hopelessness had more personal roots.  When I left the Army, I agreed with Hubby that as soon as all of our consumer debt was paid off, in other words his school loans were paid off, that we could try to have another baby.  At the beginning of this year, I reasoned that we probably wouldn’t raise enough until next year with his income and my small Army drill contributions.

Man was I  wrong!  Foreseeing no major catastrophes, it looks like our tax return and my Army training this spring will pay everything off within the next few months.  WITHIN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS!!  I’ll keep you updated as we get closer to the goal.  I can’t wait to call Dave Ramsey and yell, “WE’RE DEBT FREE!”  Oh, and “I’M PREGNANT!”

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By Alyssa, February 5, 2010 4:20 pm

Missed the first part of the story?  Start here.

Let’s just call him, “Cowboy.”  I met him through a girlfriend, my next door neighbor in the dorm.  I’ll never forget our first date that went a little like this:

Me (nonchalantly trying not to study his football physique):  You know I’m in ROTC right?
Cowboy: Yeah, that’s cool.  My dad was in the military for awhile.  He enlisted.
Me:  No way!  My dad’s in now.  I guess we’re both Army brats.
Cowboy: Uh-huh.  I think it’s awesome that you’re going to serve our country.  I’d love to hear more about what you do in ROTC.  Wow, your eyes are beautiful.  You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met.  Want to go out tomorrow?

O.K., so I may be exaggerating our first conversation a bit.  The chances of meeting an Army brat at a private Christian Liberal Arts college were pretty slim and my brain turned off after I made that connection.  Cowboy escorted me to my first military ball and, of course in only a week or two, I was sure we were made for each other.  I pushed aside about a hundred reasons why we weren’t exactly compatible and convinced myself that our common background would keep us together.  Two weeks into the summer after our freshman year when I hadn’t received a call from him, I thought, hmmm, he must be busy.  After two months with little to no correspondence, I crossed “Mr. and Mrs. Cowboy” out of my journal and broke it off.

Remember what it was like breaking up with someone at nineteen?  Cowboy was only my second real boyfriend and my heart told me I’d lost my only chance at a guy that could brave dating an Army girl.  I came back to college that fall determined not to make the same mistakes again. Knowing about the Army and wanted to spend your life around it are two very different things.  I concentrated on my studies and decided I didn’t come to college to get my M.r.s.  My second year of ROTC was substantially harder than the first.  Gone were the days of learning left face and forward march.  Sophomore year marked my first year of “Ranger Challenge,” an extracurricular addition to my ROTC classes.  Although not mandatory, participation in the Ranger Challenge weekly practices and final competition were “highly recommended,” a phrase I would become very familiar with in the military.

Instead of just driving down for my physical fitness sessions in the morning, I also spent my afternoons after Whitworth classes practicing grenade tosses, weapon drills, and rope bridge assembly.  My all-female team would practice for two months before competing against other female cadet teams in the Northwest. With over 120 cadets in the Gonzaga ROTC program, only 15 or so were women.  I had a few females in my ROTC class, but during Ranger Challenge I spent dedicated time with almost all of the females in the program.  I didn’t realize it then but the relationships I built during those practices proved invaluable throughout the rest of my ROTC career.

I remember coming back from those physical practices exhausted and sweaty.  Heads would turn as my black boots clicked on the Whitworth dining hall floor and I’m pretty sure I was the only one eating with mud stains all over their clothes.  I was definitely the only one in camo.  Rangers helped me move from being embarrassed about who I was becoming to pridefully accepting my new role.  I have to add the other benefits of my intimidating outfit.  Although we became friends later on, the first time I met Cowboy’s new girlfriend, we happened to be in the same area of the dining hall and I caught her uneasily glancing at my muddy t-shirt and rappel rope.

Things were going pretty well that year, despite some nasty rope bridge bruises, and I wish I could say my “no-need-for-a-boyfriend” ideals were holding strong.  I was great for about 5 minutes, and then the football team walked by.

To Be Continued…

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By Alyssa, February 4, 2010 4:22 pm

I was making our bed yesterday and had just pulled the sheets up to the top when my hand lost its grip and I slammed my knuckles into our headboard.  Hmmm… that doesn’t sound painful enough… I lost my grip and slammed every single one of my knuckles into the solid wood grooves on our headboard with a resounding thud.  So then I did it, I dropped a “F#(@!” before I even knew it was out of my mouth and grabbed my red and swollen knuckles.  I looked around the room and thanked God that the children were downstairs before finishing the bed.

I realized that it had been a long time since I’d used that word.  It’s not like I’m completely unfamiliar with cussing.  Growing up I’ve heard my dad occasionally swear, usually in association with his work on old farm machinery, and, in the Army, I’ve heard bad words used as adjectives, nouns, adverbs, you name it.  I don’t like it when I hear men swear, but I’m not a man, so I can’t speak to why they do it.  One thing I’ve never gotten used to in and out of the military is when women have potty-mouths.

Swearing is a negative habit, but, I’ll admit, I judge women more for it.  I think that women shouldn’t swear.  We, women, just sound silly when we try to cuss and I wish an older, wiser military mentor would have told me that a long time ago.  I swore in the Army to fit in.  As the only ponytail in the room, I thought swearing might make me sound like I had my stuff together.  Here’s the thing that I learned, cussing doesn’t make you sound smarter, look tougher, or even really help you get your point across. Once I accepted that I didn’t need to be masculine to lead in the military, I embraced my feminine leadership skills.  Swearing and femininity don’t go together in my opinion.

I will tell you that after I let out that f-bomb yesterday making the bed, I followed it up with a “Son of a Gun on Toast!”  When I stopped swearing regularly, I found that I still really needed something to yell to relieve the pressure of anger or pain.  I’ve been known to yell “Crap and a Half,” and “Hot Dang” too.  Ridiculous?  Yes, but still effective.  I’m not only a woman, but I’m a mother.  Now when my four-year-old stubs his toe on the playground and yells, “Gun and Toast!” to his friends, I celebrate that he learned that and not “#$&@” from his mom.

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By Alyssa, February 1, 2010 5:16 pm

I’ve been a task oriented person my whole life.  When I was a kid, I used to write myself checklists complete with the amount of estimated time it would take me to finish each task.  Yep, super geek training started early.  My nine-year-old checklists looked a little like: wake-up, brush teeth, wash face, get dressed, eat breakfast.  It wasn’t that I was going to forget to dress myself in the morning, I just loved the sense of satisfaction I experienced checking off each block with my number 2 pencil and annotating how quickly I completed the list.  Later in life, the Army became the perfect place to hone my skills.  The military thrives on regulations and certifications, in other words, big, huge checklists.  For over ten years, I identified myself with how well I accomplished my tasks to the Army standard.

It’s an understatement to say my last year and a half at home with the boys has been an amazing transition, but I think with no “super mommy” evaluations, my perfectionist mindset went into overdrive.  In my head, I ticked off check marks within my new list: raise genius boys (hopefully they take after their father), keep immaculate house (with three boys and a dog, who am I kidding?), write inspiring memoir.  This tiring method of living my life wasn’t exactly making me a joy to be around.  Hubby made a comment at the beginning of this year that it seemed like I was never satisfied, always wanting to do more faster, better, more efficiently.  His words made me angry and then, I hate to admit, incredibly depressed.  I didn’t know how physically evident my self-inflicted pressure had become.

I’m not sure what prompted me to bring this subject up to a few girlfriends last Friday night, but after I did, I broke down.  ”I CAN’T DO THIS!” I practically screamed at them.  I told them that my biggest worry was that I would never be able to do everything I felt I was called to do as perfectly as I thought I should.  These insightful women listened and prayed and encouraged me throughout the evening until, very suddenly in fact, I felt relief.  Trying to perfectly order my life to the point of exhaustion was not living a satisfied life.  I decided during my week off to give up the control.

What does giving up control look like?  Well, my week didn’t involve bonbons and foot massages, but it did require me to stop worrying about how many books I’d read to my children lately or how many words I’d spelled wrong on my website or how much dust had accumulated on my coffee table.  Instead I wrestled with my little boys and enjoyed a couple really long conversations with my husband (right next to a HUGE pile of dishes I might add).  I still desire raising my boys and writing an inspiring memoir, but I’m not in complete control of that any more, nor do I want to be.  I’m at rest knowing I’ve been called to do those things, and I am at peace with the fact that callings are never meant to be perfect.