I HOPE and PRAY this never ends.

I love my job. I LOVE my job. I love my job?

How is this "job" a job? I don't "work."

My job is to have fun, play music, promote tasty food, and just a bunch of other fun things like laughing.

I hope that I always love my job. I am so happy to have it. I don't even feel like I work, ever.

I love this feeling, and I never want it to end.

Friends.

I am amazed at how amazing my friends are.
As mine and Terry's wedding day nears, more and more friends are showing how much they love us.
I don't want to ask too much of anyone, and seriously, I am just in awe of how much people want and will do for us.


Here's to you friends! *cheers (with my energy drink)*

Extreme Coupons.

I am a fan, a true blue fan, of Extreme Couponing on TLC. I watch the shows right when they premiere, I watch the previews online, I research their methods, it is sickening.

Today while shopping in HEB I had an epiphany that discredited the practice of extreme couponing. At least for me.

The whole practice of extreme couponing is get as many groceries as possible without paying.  The lower percentage you pay for, the better. Let's ask ourselves what are the affects of this?

A hit TV show.
Discounted groceries for the extreme couponer.
Food stocked up for their family for at least a couple of months.
Sometimes, and only sometimes, a charitable giving of their extras to the poor, or others in need.
Perhaps some more that I am missing.

Another question to be asked is, why do they extreme coupon?

They need groceries, who doesn't?
They need to pay a small amount for the groceries.
There are other deeper reasons, but those are not for me to diagnose.

Now let's ask ourselves how extreme couponing affects "us," the people who don't extreme coupon, but might occasionally coupon.

This practice causes coupon policies to get more and more confusing, to the point where there is no time for many people to even bother.

It could cause for prices to be higher because companies lose money when their product doesn't get paid for.  Many extreme couponers urge people to extreme coupon, but there is no way that everyone could, or they would do away with coupons. The companies would lose so much money, they would have to cut back labor and or production.

A true "extreme couponer," in my opinion, is someone who spends a set amount of money that they can afford on the items they need/want, and don't cause harm to others by doing so.  Getting by on what you have, and not stalking up the entire grocery store for tomorrow. Sure, use coupons, use them to your hearts content, but don't make it harder for the rest of us who don't have time to extreme coupon, or are too poor to print out coupons. Seriously.

I used to admire extreme couponers, but that admiration was amiss.
I admire people who chose the job they love over the job that makes the extra money. 
I admire people who do what they want, when they want, without going crazy.
I admire people who get by on minimum wages and less than minimum living, happily. 

How to be poor.

Alright, so I've never been poor in my life that I can remember.
Of course there were hard times when I was a kid, but I never really cared that we were driving a stolen car and eating Helper minus the Hamburger. We were the cool kids whose dad brought home a Corvette one week, and "after he got tired of that one" a monster truck.

This shows me that the only way to be cool poor people is to become criminals. I feel as if this is not exactly the right path for us at the moment.

I need help, figuring out how to be poor. What do I buy? What can I go without?
My problem is that I can't "do nothing." I have to be doing something, whether that is cooking, crafting, reading, shopping, I just have to be busy.

Each of those things cost money. Yes, I own a keyboard and a guitar, yes I could spend more time on them, but sometimes I just get bored of doing the same thing all day.

I need help, please, someone, ANYONE! Teach me how to be poor.