Anyways, me and my brother finally moved into our new place and I spent the whole weekend unpacking and cleaning. I can’t even begin to describe how tired I am. I should have gone to bed early last night, but sorta neglected to do laundry during the daytime hours. I was up until almost 2am as a result.. *sigh*

Just before writing this post, I decided to watch some news and heard about this messed up six car collision. The accident was caused by a woman who was driving with a buddy of hers, while they were smoking crack. She crashed head on into an SUV with a mother and her 2 children. The mother’s car ended up flipping upside down.

Now, an accident like this sounds pretty tragic as is. You would think that it couldn’t possibly get any worse, right? Wrong. While the mother and her kids were dangling upside down in a totaled SUV, some neighbors decided that it would be a cool idea to rob her. Yes, you heard right… they reached into the SUV and stole the woman’s purse. What is the world coming to?

A few minutes after hearing about that story, another one caught my attention. This one woman is frustrated that the case concerning her 12 years-old son is moving a bit too quick. Her son was put in juvenile detention 5 weeks ago after beating his 17 month-old cousin to death with a baseball bat. When asked why, he reportedly tells officers that she was bothering him while he was watching cartoons…

OK… um… I’m confused. Where was his mother while this little girl was being beaten to death? Isn’t this some form of child neglect?

And people wonder why I don’t like to watch the news.

The post Weekly Updates and Rants appeared first on Natasha's World.

At this moment, I am taking a quick break from packing to eat some oatmeal. Me and my brother are moving and have to be out of this apartment by tomorrow. I have to do as much as I can today because in the morning, I go to work. Thank God that my bro and I have opposite schedules. While I’m at work, him and his buddies can finish moving and doing whatever else needs to be done.

As for my job, I just started working as an HTML Developer 3 weeks ago. This is my first time working with a design team. At most of my previous jobs, I was either freelancing or taking on the responsibility of an entire design department. Now, I work with men and women who know as much, if not more then me, which is challenging and cool at the same time.

The 2 most challenging aspects of working on a team is learning to be patient and learning to leave my ego at home. As far as patience goes, I am used to working in environments where I have more control over when things happen and how they happen. Now, I have to learn to wait on my fellow team members to do their jobs… so I am constantly reminding myself of one of my favorite quotes:

“Patience is a tree whose roots are bitter, but its fruits are very sweet.” -Anonymous

Leaving my ego at home is even tougher. For a long time, I worked in a state of always having to defend my intelligence and skills. At my previous job for example, I often felt like I was hired to meet an affirmative action quota. The worst type of insults, in my opinion, are the subtle ones. The one where your intelligence is often being indirectly questioned. The one where your peers are surprised when you do your job well (noticed I said surprised and not impressed – huge difference). The one where you’re hired as a salary employee who is expected to put in more then 40 hours, but treated like a micromanaged hourly employee. Funny thing is that the whole time I worked there, I never saw anyone else but the interns be asked to fill out a form every time they were late. And before you think that I was slacking, 99% of my reasons for being late were a transportation issues or sickness. In addition, whenever I was late or had to miss a day, I always made up for the time by working through my lunches and doing extra work from home. I guess it wasn’t enough.

So as far as egos go, I am realizing that on a team there is no room for it. I have to be willing to take constructive criticism and to learn from others. There is also no need to be on the defensive. I’m finding that I have as good of a chance to grow and succeed as anyone else. I am not treated like the town idiot, but instead am considered an equal citizen with a voice. I can get used to this.

Anyhow, I must get back to packing. Thanks for taking a glimpse into my world.

The post Blogging About Daily Life appeared first on Natasha's World.

The post I got Tagged! appeared first on Natasha's World.

Well, I had one of those moments yesterday. I was looking around my room at piles of laundry needing to be done. The reason why they were not done is because I’ve been afraid to touch my checking account. Why am I afraid, you ask? Oh, that’s because I haven’t been working since September and my accounts are looking pretty sad.

Now, something like this can do one of two things to a person. You can either get very depressed and start looking for the strongest liquor you can find. Or, you can see this as an opportunity to re-evaluate past mistakes, and think about what you would do differently, if given a second chance. I chose the latter. I’m a sucker for second chances.

I then did the math and am embarrassed to admit that the total was a little over 60K. Yea. But, if I prayed for only 60K, then I would be broke again once all my debt was paid. That just won’t work. So after much thought, I came up with the figure $100,000.

Now, before I continue, let me clarify a couple of things. My credit has been excellent until I stopped working. In addition, most of my debt, 85% of it to be exact, are student loans and my car note. Now if you’re wondering why I stopped working, that’s a whole other post in and of itself. Just know one thing, it was justified.

Anyhow, once I knew that I wanted to be blessed with $100,000, I put together the following breakdown of how I would use it:

1. ~60K would go towards all my debt. This includes my student loans, car note and credit card.
2. 10K would be donated to charity. I’m currently a World Vision sponsor, so some of that money would go to them. I would also support Hope World Wide and Heifer International. Once I attract more money into my life, I’ll support more organizations.
3. 10K would go to my brother. In my home we’re not mushy people, but I admit that I am really grateful for him. He has been super supportive since I stopped working, and he has given up a lot to be here for Mom (to learn more about my mom’s condition, click here). In addition, he hasn’t been able to get all the equipment he needs to pursue his dream, which is to make movies. So my hope would be that the 10K would give him the edge that he needs to get started.
4. Finally, that leaves me with 20K.
   1. 5K would would be placed in a some type of interest-yielding account (e.g. money market).
   2. ~6700 would be used to buy a Macbook Pro (which Santa did not bring me last Christmas) and the Adobe Creative Suite Web Premium
   3. ~1000-1600 would go towards a down payment for a new apartment (my lease ends in February and I have to move. No option to stay. Yea.)
   4. Anything left over would be split. Half would go to my checking and the other half would go to my savings. This would hold me over until I start my new job in January.
   5. Maintenance: I would make a budget where I determine how much I spend on certain things each month. For example, I would give myself an allowance to spend no more then $50 a week on eating out, etc. In this way, whatever is leftover at the end of the month would go into my savings.

Now I know, I can hear you now. Your probably thinking that I’m still not that well off after all is said and done. Heck, maybe you’re even wondering why I don’t pray for more. Well, $100,000 just makes sense to me. I believe that once I gets used to having money flow into my life, I will attract more.

So, there you have it. Now you know what I would do if I had $100,000. What about you? How would you spend it?

By the way, if after reading this, you’re feeling a bit generous or motivated to give, I am willing to accept your tax write-off as a donation. Simply click here and we can get the ball rolling. Happy New Year!

The post What I would do if I had $100,000 appeared first on Natasha's World.