42%

Our annual reviews were this week. I really wasn't too nervous about it since I had gotten a sneak peek at what my manager had said. Our review process is one where you set goals at the beginning of the year and at the end you review yourself and then your boss reviews your performance. I wasn't able to do my self evaluation because I was out on leave yet my boss still had to do her review. This process is done online. The only way for me to write my review was to write in the same document where my supervisor had already written. I knew that she was happy with my performance for last year. In fact what she thought was really great that I completed all my goals in 10 months time.

I knew that I was going to get a nice wage increase because my boss's husband (who works at my company too) told me about the fight that my boss had about my wage with upper management. He told me about this about a month or so ago. I had it in the back of my mind and have been anxious to hear about it. I was absolutely floored when I read the amount. It is even 29% higher than when I started here. That equals about $10,000/year more. Which is 42% higher than what I was paid at my old job. Just keep in mind these changes are all within a 2 year time span. I have my 2-yr anniversary here on the 24th of this month. I think changing companies was a smart decision!

NCAA pool final

The office braggart won the NCAA pool. So now we get to hear about how awesome he is. Uggg...... Only 2 more months until he is obsessed with his Bocce team.

It's HERE!!!!!

The Computer is here and installed!!! Josh spent yesterday afternoon playing with it and putting it all together. I was up until 11:30pm transferring songs from my CDs to my iPod. It will be another night of that. It takes about 5 min/CD. I want to get most of my CDs transferred. Then I can start to decide about buying/downloading more songs. Off to WORK!!!

The Tale of the $1100 iPod

Yesterday Josh called me last night to ask me if he could by an iPod. The story behind that is some guy returned it full of rap music without a receipt. Therefore Wally World is unable to return it to their distributors. They just sell the item at a generous discount to their associates. The proceeds then go to the Children's Miracle network. So we ended up paying $100 for this iPod. I told him that it was up to him if we bought it or not. A guy with a decision about electronics will inevitably buy whatever it is.

We get it home and I checked it out. Since the thing was full of Rap music I wanted to get it hooked up to the computer so that I could get it off. I insert the disc and wait for it load. A pop-up came that said we need windows 2000 or XP. We have Windows ME. Now we have been looking at computers for a little while now. A couple times when I was off and even last month the computer has crashed and had the computer restart in DOS mode and unable to start up. So last night was the straw that broke the camel's back. We bought a new Dell.

The thing is this time we are going to take VERY good care of this computer. We are going to keep our spyware up to date and our virus protection current. We cannot afford not too. Especially if we will be getting a bunch of new music off the internet. We will also back it up so if it crashes on it we won't have to go back to square one.

Bracketnesia

Every year I fill out a NCAA bracket. Every year I fail miserably! Yet, each year when March Madness hits I succumb to the hope that I will do better this year. I have even started filling out 2 brackets. Trying to hedge my bets. In the end, I end up losing anyway. It is only a 3 dollar pool, so what do I have to lose? Not much in the grand scheme of things. Although each year I enjoy the last minute victories and the Cinderella teams. It is worth the $6 ride.

Other news from the week...... I have to apologize to my mom. I didn't tell her about the extent of our money troubles. I guess the way I saw it was we didn't want anyone to know at the time how hard the times were. Since it was all repaired rather quickly I thought it would be OK to talk about. I know that she felt like I didn't want to share this with her but I would share it with the internet. Really that wasn't the way that it was. Mom, I am REALLY sorry!!! Along money lines, Josh thinks that his bonus is going to be taxed as regular pay instead of a bonus! Don't ask me how they get around it. I think that we will be credit card debt free this time next week!!!!! yeah!!!!!

I have really started to research houses in the Madison area. I am pretty well aware of what are high prices and what kind of prices to expect where. That should really help this time next year when the house hunt has begun! I will continue to look around until then! Of course we will save, save, save!!

I also had a little mishap this week. Friday I was walking out to my car and in the shadow of my car was and ice patch. I ended up slipping and pulling some muscles in my leg and butt. I skipped the pool that day and went to the pool yesterday, but I am still pretty sore. I really hope that I didn't mess stuff up too badly.

The final excitement for the week was, I had a chance to go to England, but graciously asked another co-worker before I committed. I knew that he may want to go. Plus, I have to update my passport and didn't think that I could do it in 3 weeks. We don't have copies of our marriage certificate. We never requested official copies of it. So I have sent out for those and have the passport papers all ready to be sent so that I can get a new one. So that I don't have to pass up that opportunity ever again!