Personal Updates and Some Future Plans for My Blog

First of all, I just wanted to let everyone know that very soon, I will be on vacation with family, going to see my sister in Northern Indiana. Don't expect any blog posts anytime after Thursday, I'll probably be gone for 4-5 days, and I may not be able to write another blog post before then.

That will try my patience for sure, 6 adults (including my parents, and their many annoying habits, 3 kids, and an obnoxious Chihuahua. I probably won't bring my Cymbalta with me, since there would be no way possible for me to take it in that cramped house without being noticed.

I suppose I'll have to make sure that I'm taking it everyday before I go, so hopefully the effects of it being gone won't hit me for a while, there's been occasions where I have been so busy that I forgot to take it for several days, the full effects of that didn't hit until about 3-4 days after stopping it.

 

I have the feeling that this is going to be a highly stressful week anyway, I've been trying to deal with finance companies and banks to try and get a loan to put in a new furnace, hot water heater, and air conditioner in the house. All the estimates I have been getting put that around $6,000.

 

The water heater is running fine, but it's very old, and I don't trust it, who knows if it will go out sometime soon, and while I have to replace the furnace and AC, I might as well replace it. The furnace is shot, and so is the air conditioner because the filthy, disgusting family that owned the house before me let the air conditioner run without Freon in it, and then ran the furnace with no filter in it despite the trash, filth, and bugs that infested the house.

 

Needless to say, the crucial internal parts for both were destroyed in the process. The heating and cooling company applied to several different banks and finance companies for me to see if they would approve financing for me. All of them rejected me despite the fact that I have a credit score in the mid 700's, because I don't have enough "lines of credit" open.

Essentially, banks in the US now want you to be in plenty of debt. and have "multiple lines of credit" open, such as several credit cards, plus maybe a car loan or two, before they will give you more debt, especially for an unsecured loan such as financing like this, or a personal/signature loan (loans with no collarteral attached, unlike a mortgage, etc). The only debt I have had recently was about $7,000 dollars in debt from the Southern Baptist university I was at for a year, and I paid that off this January.

Their line of thinking these days is so counterintutive, you would think that they would consider someone with a large amount of debt to be a credit risk, not someone you would want to loan even more to. I've tried dealing with my own credit union, but they are just as bad, I had asked about a personal loan, and despite the fact that my mom was willing to co-sign, the most they would loan was only $2,000. My dad wants to go with me to ask a well known local bank that is known to be a little more flexible about loans, to see if they can help.

 

My mom really hates the idea of me getting a home equity loan on the house, since she says she doesn't want me to have the house put at risk if say, I lost my job. I would actually much rather prefer that option. I could roll everything into one payment, the work on the house, pay off what I owe mom and dad for the building supplies (that's actually running just short of $5,000 right now), and put in a little extra for new glasses I desperately need and a new computer.

 

The home equity loan would be 15 year term, and so the payments would actually be much lower each month than the payments I'm making to mom and dad. It would make life financially month to month easier, and with the new furnace, AC and hot water heater, my utility bills would be lower. I could save money each month, and start building up my bank accounts, so if I were laid off, etc, I could buy some more time before financial disaster stikes. Of course, this makes a lot of sense, so therfore, my mom doesn't like the idea.

 

That, and the fact that my finances would not be intermingled with hers, and she wouldn't be "supporting me", as she likes to say, and therfore feel like she has the right to force herself into my life. If I had to cut her out of my life, I could, and I think that scares her, I mean, after all, she went to extreme (and I would say abusive and illegal lengths) to force me to stay under her control. It would be so nice if I could get approved for a home equity loan, no longer owing her any money alone would be worth it.

 

Anyway, sometimes I think I whine too much on this blog about my life, and maybe I'm saying a few things that I shouldn't publicly, I don't know.

On a much better topic for the blog, I have been thinking lately about my future plans for the blog, I know I want to make some improvements to it, there's a few things I have been considering. I've been wanting to start a podcast for the blog for a while now, and call it "Sheldon's Spot". If you're not a fan of The Big Bang Theory, this YouTube clip will explain the reference.

Obviously, if I could get a loan, and therfore, a computer of my own (the last one I had died about 2 years ago), then having a podcast would be much easier. However, if I can't get a computer, I could still find a way to do it. I have looked online at different stores, and in person at Wal-Mart for digitial voice recorders.

 

They aren't as expensive as I first thought, I have found some as low as around $30. Perhaps, I could get one, record my message at home, (that would give me something to do when home alone, having no internet gets boring), then the next time I can get to a library, connect it by USB to the computer, and upload it. I wonder how many of you are curious as to what I sound like. I have noticed from his YouTube videos that Andrew Hall has much more of a Boston accent than I ever would have imagined, I wonder if people would be surprised by what I sound like.

 

Hopefully, I'll be able to commicate somewhat effectively, and not end up sounding like, well, this:

 

 

Another improvement I wanted to make was to try to write more guest posts and host more guest posts on the blog. I like writing guest posts for other blogs, and I like having guest posts on my blog.

I think a good goal would be to write and have published two guest posts on other blogs a month, and to have at least 2 guest posts on this blog a month.

 

Something else I would like to try is joining Twitter, I would run that account much like I run my Google + account It wouldn't just be a promotional page for the blog, but it would be a reflection of me in many ways, links to the blog would be intermingled with links to anything and everything I find interesting, and I would like to become a part of the community over there, join the conversations.

 

Many of my favorite bloggers are already on Twitter (and they aren't on Google +), so getting to talk to them would be great. It wouldn't hurt that it would help to grow my blog audience as well ;) I would especially like to grow my blog audience before I would start a podcast, it would make it much more worthwhile to have more people commenting on my blog posts, and plenty of conversation surronding the podcast episodes.

 

Do you have any ideas for what you would like to see on the blog, any improvments you would like to see happen in the near future?