Now all that money stuff is resolved. We owe no parents money. The credit card is paid in full. We made our first mortgage payment two weeks ago, and we’re ready for the next one. (We’re making payments every two weeks instead of monthly.) We will likely be getting an extra $1319 of withheld taxes back from Uncle Sam at some point too. Joy wants to spend that on doing projects around the house. I’d like to just pay off more of our mortgage, and use the money in our budget for the house… for doing projects around the house. My thought was that it would buy me some time to lighten my already too overwhelming schedule before Joy fills it up with more projects.

We decided that half would go toward the mortgage and half would go toward fixing up the house. So, I am going to have two to five house projects to do as soon as that money is wired into our account and noticed by Joy. I just hope that happens sometime after May is behind me. At that point I might actually be looking forward to doing a project. If it is pushed forward before that, then I will be pretty resistant to say the least. The “everything must be perfect now!” attitude is kinda getting to me. She has a wonderful, nearly perfect, almost new house, two cars that were made within the last two years to park in that house, a nice job, friends that stop by and visit whenever she wants, and a brand new husband. Please be happy, and let me rest from all of these huge projects.

Oh wait, we’ve got to do this house warming thing where over 50 people are invited, and there is a lot that we have to do before that to be ready. The best time for that is, of course, one week before your finals, but please please please try to be excited about this all this and HELP ME OUT! I really want everything to be perfect, David. I can’t tell you how much this means to me!

So, I have been quite overwhelmed lately. I have basically three and a half hours to rest and chill out, but it feels more like adrenaline detox because everything has been non-stop go, go, go lately. My semester started on Groundhog Day. Since that time I have gotten a new job, I spent one weekend looking for condos and one weekend looking for houses. I did this thinking that I was doing something to spend quality time with my wife doing things she would enjoy. Given that inch, we bid on a house at the end of February, briefly celebrated my birthday, did a ton of paper work and financial wrangling to get the money ready for the house, closed on it on March 3rd, painted the house, packed up the apartment, and moved into the house before March 31st. Now we are a few weeks into April and we are still working on a constant stream of smaller projects, and to top it off we are now fighting because I would like things to slow down a bit. Joy is frustrated with me because I am “being unreasonable.” I am frustrated with her because she doesn’t get my situation, and I can’t seem to explain it to her that I’d like to hold off on things so I can catch up on my school work.

I fear that when she discovers that I am using some of my time today to blog she will react just like she reacts when I play ogame, which takes about 3-10 minutes. “Why are you blogging when you’ve got so much schoolwork to do and the house isn’t spotless?” My explanation would be the same as always, but it doesn’t seem to click with her. Perhaps it is unreasonable. I don’t know. I haven’t been able to run it by any of my friends yet. Here’s what I say, ‘I am tired, worn out, stressed out. I just want to unwind, unload the fatique, and have a brief diversion before I get back to work in a half hour.’ Her response — “Why don’t you do something with me to unwind? We could have some people over, work on our taxes (wait, that’s done now, whew!) talk about (plan) the house warming, or go get some grocieries.” ‘Well baby, unfortunately, I need some time away from you too right now. When I am not at work or at school, I am at home and you schedule your day around that so that we can always be together doing stuff. I am really tired of doing all that stuff and I need to study. Please get off my back for a while and let me relax.’ (read an exasperated tone into these quotes too, because that is definately how I am feeling at that point and it comes out clearly)

Perhaps I am being unreasonable and a dick. I really don’t know. I do know that I want, and feel a desperate need for, this time that I am getting to just let it all out. I’d prefer to talk about this with some friends, but it is the middle of the day and they are typically in class or at work about this time. I will be going to work at four and working until one or two AM. I just have to do this today, tomorrow, and Wednesday. Then I open on Saturday and work until sometime between four and nine. Who knows.

I’d really like some more time to chill and unwind, but I do have to go do some reading for my class. I hope to catch up with most of my reading this week and next week. I will need to if I am going to be ready to devote a few days into preparing for this house warming. I also wish that Joy could hear what I am saying and wanting instead of the things she actually hears. Somehow when I tell her all of this she walks away thinking that I just said I don’t want to spend ANY time with her AT ALL. It gets all polarized and exaggerated when she tells me what she heard me say. I don’t get that at all. The good news is that when my semester is over she will probably chill out and relax. When that happens everything goes back to great again and she’ll wonder what happened this spring. My next hope will be that she doesn’t find a new set of things during my Fall semester.

I feel like I can’t keep her quite happy. So she is finding relief in spending time with her friends. They come over just a couple nights a week — somewhere between 2-5 nights a week — but it gets to me. I don’t have the energy to “pretend to be happy” as Joy insists. I would like to just go somewhere else, but I don’t really have another place to go. I’ve got my place and that’s about it, but everyone is at my place, and it is the place I am trying to leave.

I feel like if I could get some time to myself to sort things out and just rest that I would feel a whole lot better and be ready, willing, and eager to socialize. That doesn’t happen though. Joy’s job allows her to be always present at my house, and when there aren’t people when I walk in they come just minutes later. Today is a fine example. I came home today at 5:00PM and there was someone else here by 5:20. I hadn’t even finished changing and I had barely spoken to Joy in those first 20 minutes.

One respite from all of this constant activity has been yet another activity… running. I have started running again. I have measured out a distance of a little over 5K that I have run several times so far. It keeps me busy for almost 30 minutes and gives me at least that much time to clear my head. It has made a big difference the days that I’ve gotten to run, but I can’t run every day yet. I haven’t run in several years, and whenever I run I run as fast and hard as I can. I am thinking that I will likely go run again soon.

One thing I’ve been reminded of in this most stressful time of my life is this thing about sticking up for people or coming to their defense. I have always felt that is something that friends do for each other. Lately, I have had some people I work with do that for me. I immediately felt like I liked them a lot more afterward. That’s one of the things that I associate with friendship. Certainly I can try tp defend myself from whatever there may be, but it is a bonding experience to have someone else (unexpectedly) come to your defense as well. This has all come to mind as I am working in a new environment. I’m in training so I am kind of going through a learn by fire process. Some of my coworkers have come forward to keep me from some of the unnecessary fire, and it warmed my heart and got me thinking. Most of the people I spend my time with regularly probably wouldn’t do this for me.

Are my friends not all that great of friends or do certain strangers just have a knack for friendship that most other people do not have?

Even as I am typing all of this my wife is pretending. Then again maybe she’s not, but I got a stern scolding about “being miserable,” “being antisocial,” and the lot. She’d prefer me to come out and play host to her constant hostess. I’d prefer that too, but I am wiped. I need a release. I need some time to sit and think. More than anything I want to not be re-greeted, and then have to make small-talk with a group of my wife’s friends that I have known for years.

I feel like if I were allowed to leave Easter dinner and go spend time with my friends that they would actually ask me how things are going because they were willing to hear all that I’ve written here. They would probably then feel for me and let me know that. Maybe they would also offer a few words of encouragement, some advice, or just listen and have nothing to add but a knowing glance. We’ve all been overwhelmed by taking too big a bite out of life. I’m right in the thick of it now, and I just want to take a big step away from all that is overwhelming me so that I have some energy when I step back into it again.

Thank God for blogging. I feel a little better already. I am going to go and try this thing. Hopefully, everyone is not as judgmental about my ‘unsocial’ time in my office as Joy portends.

One of the most frustrating things about all of this is that I feel that I am being dealt a bad hand in some of these situations, yet I am continually being told that everything is my responsibility and that no matter what happens that there is no excuse for anything but meeting the highest of expectations.

I am frustrated because I would very much like to meet and exceed all expectations place on me, but it isn’t happening for me. I know that people do not realistically expect perfection. They will say that every time. Reality just works out differently than people tell you.

My wife has very high expectations and she is unhappy because they are not being met. My job has high expectations and they are not being met, but to make matters worse the people above me are all very new (less than a year when you add the experience together) at the particulars of their position yet they have worked for the company for ages. So there is all this undue self confidence and micromanagement, and I feel like they are not even doing their jobs well. In fact, I feel like their mistakes are making my job much harder to do than it should be. My friends are also giving me all these high expectations too. I would like to relax and be without any of this for a while, but everywhere I go I am being told about new expectations that I have failed to meet along with a slew of old ones that I have and/or have not met.

My habit during difficult times that are out of my control is to turn away from things if I can and focus on something else for a while. Right now schoolwork isn’t seeming so unattractive. The expectations are high there too, but I am pretty accustomed to that at this point. It will give me something to do until I go to work again and resume my efforts to meet their expectations. Hopefully, I start to get some of this stuff in order by June.

I’m not the biggest Gator Basketball fan, but I am still really happy that we won. Our basketball team’s success had a small impact on my college decision back in 2000… even though that is really silly I didn’t know what to base my choice on, and I was excited about going to a school with a great football team and a great basketball team.

I hope that the team stays together and stays on for another year or two. I would bet money that Joakim Noah stays for at least another year… if not for all four years.

The job search is over. It ended January 28th, 2006. I am now working as an assistant manager for Domino’s Pizza. I am an MIT — manager in training. I hope to be done training by June when my semester is over and the schoolwork is done for a while.

The house has been painted, cleaned, the floors prepped, and everything is ready to go for moving. Actually, with the help of several of my friends I have managed to move the majority of our stuff from the apartment that we are leaving to our new home. Joy does not know this yet. I hope she is suprised tomorrow night when she comes home.

Joy has been out of town for the past two weeks now. She is finishing Phase 4 training for her job. She called me a few hours ago and told me that she has successfully completed her training and is ready to come home tomorrow. She’ll spend most of her day in route to her new home. She still thinks that I’ll arrive at the airport ready to take her back to our apartment. She’ll be pleasantly suprised.

Tomorrow I open the store on a Friday morning for the first time. This is a big deal. At my Domino’s, Friday morning is busy because there is a standing order for 80 orders of breadsticks with 20 pizzas and a second order for 30 pizzas. I have to make all of this, and it has to be on-time.

Last Thursday, I shadowed the owner of this Domino’s store. It was a whirlwind day starting early in the morning and ending at 9PM when I left a charity banquet to change into my Domino’s uniform and close the store. It was my second time closing the store as a manger on my own. I would find out the next day that I had a lot to learn about cleaning.

When I was shadowing the owner, I was able to ask him dozens of questions. So I did. I also told him about my blog, and asked him how he’d feel about me writing about my Domino’s experience. He said it was cool with him. He even thought it would be good for other people to know what goes on behind the scenes at Domino’s and what he is able to accomplish for the community since his success from managing and owning a Domino’s. I had waited to write anything, because I wanted to get his opinion.

Tonight I watched Domino with Mickey Rourke and Keira Knightley. I liked it a lot.

Oh, we also finished painting our entire house.

Today Joy and I closed on our very first home!!

We started our day early; got dressed up; and drove to the house that would soon be ours. We met our Real Estate Broker at the house, and then we drove together to the lawyer’s office to go through the paperwork for the closing.

All the paperwork took over an hour, but it was interesting and even fun. Our lawyer had a fun personality and cracked jokes that he had probably shared for years with every new home owner that walked through his doors.

After we closed on the house, I called the bank to check on my balance and to change the address on my account. You would think that they would know that I had a change of address considering that they are handling my mortgage, but they don’t make that assumption.

After doing some office-type work at our apartment, Joy’s dad arrived from our home town. He wanted to go out and celebrate, but I had a meeting with the owner of the Domino’s that I am managing. So, we decided to go to Moe’s because it is usually quick and is right next to the place where I had my meeting.

My meeting went really well and lasted quite a long time. I am still in training to become a general manager so I need to meet with the owner on a weekly or bi weekly basis. When the meeting was over I had received a $0.25/hour raise and an invitation to an incredible leadership conference in Tampa on Wednesday. I accepted the invitation later on that day, but told my Franchisee that I would need to check to see if I could get the day off.

After that three-hour meeting I went home and got ready to go to work. I had to be at work at 5PM that afternoon. It was just for a short dinner-rush shift. So, when I got home Joy, Joy’s dad, and I talked for a while, and then Joy and I went to Blockbuster to get a movie. We ended up watching Cinderella Man. Then it was off to sleep for everyone.

With a proposed price for the Nintendo Revolution at around $200 per console and an initial shipment in high enough numbers to meet demand, Nintendo could easily make a big impact on this generation of console gaming. I hope it does.

People who know about our imminent purchase are offering up their advice on any number of things ranging from realtors, contract clauses that should be included, banks, mortgages, etc.

There is one piece of advice that I have gotten roughly a dozen times now (that is a lot considering that only two to three dozen people even know about what is going on here.) People tell me not to pay down my mortgage aggressively. I’ve heard their reasons. I understand the logic. I disagree.

I want to aggressively pay down my mortgage, and that is what I will likely end up doing so long as Joy is on board with the idea. I will not go around telling everyone to do the same, or even proclaim that it is financially the best way to operate.

I do think that it is the best plan for me. The first thing that people tell me is that instead of putting my money into paying off my mortgage early, I should invest it into something else that will earn money at a higher percentage rate than the mortgage. They will ask me if I know of any good investments that could yield a better earnings rate than the rate that I got on my mortgage. I say, ‘yes.’
I then get an explanation that if I simply invest the money that I would have put into prepaying my mortgage into that other investment I would be better off considering that I will get to write off the interest expense on the house, and that my extra $10-$30 will be making me somewhere in the neighborhood of $1K-$10K depending on how well my investments do.

I disagree with this advice on many grounds, but to throw out one quick realization that I had… I will be able to write off the interest expense for the first five to seven years in either scenario. The way my mortage (a 5-1 ARM) is set up, I will be paying the exact same amount of interest for the first five years regardless of how quickly or slowly I pay off the mortgage.

My plan is to aggressively pay down this mortgage and be done with it in five to seven years. The money that I may have saved and invested will be taxed. Taxation seems to be a consideration for people when they are suggesting that I make minimal payments, but it is only mentioned as a benefit. They say that I can write off the interest that I pay the banks. Well, I see that as something that will be constant for the first five years no matter what route I take. By saving my money and investing it, I will have to pay taxes on the earnings at the rate that I pay taxes, which means that I will need to get a far better interest rate than originally calculated by the advice givers.

The frustrating thing about all of this is that talking about it, typing it out, explaining and explaining doesn’t really do much. The best way to deal with this is to work out all the numbers. I have done this, but I need to do it again. There are many, many variables so I will end up with a big chart, and in the end I will presumably know what is the better choice. However, I take the quick route and think of it like this… In seven years, I can be out of debt and have a house worth a quarter million or more. All my future income can go towards savings and investments if that is my perogative at that time. Using the other method, I will have paid 30% or more of my earnings in taxes each year. Who knows what my investments will earn? Finally, how much discipline will it take to not touch the growing sum of money that is sitting in my bank or brokerage account? Will my wife or I want a new car? Perhaps we’ll want something else? Will we begin to change our spending habits from feeling that we are more and more financially secure?

I know myself well enough to say that for me personally, it makes sense to get out of debt, and to tie the money down so I can’t spend it in some moment of irrational decision making. Perhaps everyone else who is following this advice is immune to the marketing efforts of hundreds and thousands of people and companies, but I do not think that highly of myself. I see a strategy of aggressively paying down my mortgage as a sort of forced saving, forced financial discpline, and a way to stay inspired to work hard and live frugally for at least the next seven years.