And The Pace Quickens

Posted on by Jordan

Oddly enough a weekend at home kept me more tied up than I am when we have a lot on the schedule!

The aforementioned Django/Python site is 80% feature complete, just needing a few more screens fleshed out, and then liberal application of CSS magic.

There will be the fun of getting it deployed to my hosting provider instead of running locally. If I do that right I may manage to render the entire heatherandjordan.com domain inoperable for a few days. On the bright side I am not ready to attempt  that part just yet. All the same the site is coming along nicely.

In other news, Heather and I are again facilitating a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University class. Maybe it makes us strange, but we both really enjoy the chance to share the class with new people! Our first class was just hours prior to my writing this, and we have a great group signed up. I think it’s going to be a really rewarding experience again this year!

-Jordan

Closing Out June

Posted on by Jordan

Well that went fast!

I probably could have eked a few posts out of the things that happened in June, but we are staring the first of July in the face and I know the new month will have new things to talk about. Rather than letting everything slip past without comment, I will throw a few words at the highlights.

Heather participated in a marathon! Not a half marathon like last year… a real one! Grandma’s Marathon takes place up in Duluth MN every year. Heather found out about it from a girl we know from church who is from there. They struck on the idea of staying at her parent’s house and doing the marathon. Somehow the trip grew in encompass two runners and three walkers. Heather was always planning to walk, and did what appeared to be rigorous training in the months, weeks, and days leading up to the event.

After eight hours of walking, however she decided that perhaps her training did not sufficiently prepare her for 26 miles of walking. Key point is that she finished the marathon! As I understand it she was the last person to finish, but that cannot detract from finishing the marathon! In what can perhaps be called a happy coincidence, she finished the marathon walking with an 83 year old grandma. It seems somehow fitting to complete “Grandma’s Marathon” walking with a grandmother.

To quote Heather on the event: “NEVER AGAIN!” I am still proud of her though 🙂

Wedding season? In contrast to last year, we haven’t had a lot of weddings to attend this year. In fact we almost made it to July before attending our first one.

It was for a family friend, and thanks to some combination of social circles and location the guest list contained a handful of people I went to high school with. I was surprised to find that I didn’t remember names for a few of them. Beyond some distressing gaps in my memory, Heather and I were excited to see another couple enter into married life. It has been a great thing for us and we hope it can be that for them too!

Dave Ramsey!

Well, sort of anyway… As has become a sort of trend for us, we attempted to sign up to participate in the Financial Peace University class that was going to be offered through our church. Participation quickly turned into facilitating… something we were open to, and I think is going to be a really neat experience.  We just had our fist class a mere two hours prior to my writing this, and are both excited to go through the material again, while sharing it with people excited to learn!

I think that will suffice to recap all the news we wanted to share for the month. With only two days left, I can say with certainty there will be at least one more newsworthy event in June, but it will have to wait until after the fact to show up here 🙂

-Jordan

Dave Ramsey Live!

Posted on by Jordan

I seem to be falling behind… lucky for me March ended up being kind of uneventful, so the fact that I am just getting this posted doesn’t mean you missed much.

Heather and I went to see Dave Ramsey in Kansas City. We bought the tickets months in advance, and Heather suffered a small amount of ridicule at work for her excitement over having the tickets. The fact that the event later sold out was somewhat vindicating I suppose.

It did mean that the friends who we talked into going to the event with us were unable to purchase tickets, so we had to go by ourselves.

To be completely honest, I was doing a little bit of foot-dragging in the weeks leading up to the event. I mean, how exciting can it be to see a five-hour recap of the class we took three years ago? Well, the answer to that is, a lot more exciting than you ever would have guessed!

Dave is a gifted speaker, and his team puts on a great event. We really enjoyed it.

Reflecting on the event, I think part of the reason it’s worth doing is that culturally, it’s hard to talk about money and budgets with your peers. It was refreshing to be in an environment where people could say “I am debt free!” Granted, a person could go into the office on Monday and say that, but I don’t know how many friends that would make you… or maybe I am taking too dim a view of humanity… at any rate, it got Heather and I excited to buckle down and focus on our financial goals again, and that alone makes it worth the price of admission.

-Jordan