TGeeIF

Thanks GOD it's Friday. It's been a short week, but still need the weekend. Although, I have to go to Cary High School for All District Band auditions. My day tomorrow starts with picking up a student at 5:45AM, driving to Cary, judging until 2...3...4...5......PM, and then coming home. If I'm lucky, I'll get to see Addison before she goes to bed. At least I get sunday off :)

I was reading a blog that I follow, The Hipster Dad, and he called his Friday posts "What's new Friday," so I thought I'd give that a shot.

What's new with us:

If you've been keeping up with my Fb or twitter accounts, you have noticed that I am due for an upgrade with Verizon. iPhone 4S!!!!! Oh wait. The ENTIRE state is sold out of the stupid phone. It would only take 4 days to get it shipped to my house or a Verizon store, but I can't charge it to my account like I could if it was in stock (winter supplement wasn't keyed in on the paycheck). Basically, this means I have to wait until the 10th and hope that a Verizon store gets some in stock so I can charge it to my account. It really isn't that big of a deal, I've just wanted one for so long. I guess I could wait another month.

Kathleen and I finished our Masters of Education in Music degrees this past summer (FINALLY!). However, because we weren't full time students, we were taken off the university's email list. This caused us to miss the notification of the deadline to turn in the paperwork and money for the application to graduate (that's a mouthful). We didn't figure this out until it was too late, meaning the state did not recognize us as "Masters" and we did not get a pay increase, nor our new licensure. This has been a huge hardship, as we had to sell our other car this past summer to make ends meet. We've been living paycheck to paycheck since July and the busiest season of the year is coming up and having one car is a huge headache.
Thankfully, we just received word that the state will be recognizing Kat (my nickname for Kathleen) and I as Masters and we will be receiving our pay increase in January's paycheck. The state will also be paying us backpay for all the months we had our degree but did not receive the pay. Hopefully that check will come in February.

(That's Master Chief getting a diploma)

So, a new car... we will be making more money, but we also will have more bills (Grad school loans, yay!) So getting a new car is tricky. We will have to find something that is reliable (guess that rules out about every car maker in the world), low miles (something to last 10 years or so), has good MPG (the Escape is killing us right now), and affordable. Like when I narrow down to what we could pay a month, a '91 Taurus wagon affordable...

We'll make it work and we'll definitely keep you updated when (if) we get a "new" car.

And finally, I'll update you on Addison. It just so happens that she was born on a Friday, so every Friday I've been getting a weekly email from a new Mommy website (yeah, I know I'm a dad, but those dad websites sucked!) detailing what our child should be doing and advancements of the current week. She is 56 weeks old today (almost 13 months). I swear, sometimes it sounds like she is talking in complete sentences. She can say "shoe" when we ask her what a shoe is called and she says dog like "dgo." She is growing so fast right before our eyes, I can't believe it. The next time I blog she'll be fixing my grammar mistakes :)

Again, don't expect a new post every day. It ain't gonna happen. Sorry 'bout it (there you go Karo, if you're reading).

Until next time, dear readers...

It Master Chief saying "Hey, I use to drive a '91 Taurus! You're going to pay!" I drew it in 5 minutes, and I hate guns so there you go!