The mysteries you find...

... in the washing machine. Every three months, I take the time to clean my washing machine. While most people are baffled that I would clean something that seems to clean itself, let me share some photographic evidence about why your washing machine needs a little lovin' every once in a while. 

"Did you REALLY just clean that 3 months ago?"

After a little love

It doesn't take much to get this soap scum removed, but let me share the full process of getting a sparkly clean washing machine!

1. Run the hottest cycle until your washer is full and then add 1 quart of bleach. Close the lid and let the machine agitate for about a minute. Open the lid and leave the machine set for an hour, then let the cycle finish.

2. Repeat step 1 using one quart of vinegar. Except..

3. While the vinegar/water is sitting, use a toothbrush, scrubber, or your preferred scrubbing tool. I used a toothbrush to scrub off all of that junk while using a vinegar/water solution on the entire washer/dryer unit as well. 

Hopefully my roommates will be so excited the washing machine is clean that they won't be upset I shared our "dirtiness" with the world!

Happy cleaning,

Ashley

Student Loan Debt

I'm here to tell you that debt happens, and as much as you can try to avoid it and think it's stupid (See, Daivd Ramsey), I didn't have another option. My parents provided me what they could, I had ample scholarships, but I was willing to take on the debt because I believe in the power of higher education in society.

In the end, I graduated with a little over $27,000 in debt from attending a private liberal arts institution, with an AmeriCorps Education Award and my assistantship at Iowa State plus some scholarships to pay for graduate school.

What wasn't the best choice for me was taking a TEACH grant. After deciding not to teach at a specific school for a specific number of years, this was converted to a high-interest loan, which is what I have started paying off. I'm not paying it off because I have to, I'm paying it off because I want to and because I have been blessed with a wonderful job and part-time job that have enabled to me to so.

I have committed myself to making these loan payments after researching, thinking, and calculating if it would be worth it, and for those specific loans that are already collecting interest, it is. For those not collecting interest they can sit there and be all beautiful at the original balance.

I'm sharing this because I know many people google for hours trying to figure out if they should be paying off their debt. It's a very personal situation and the people who write blogs about it are typically the ones that are to one extreme or the other. Hopefully, I can offer you some questions to make the decision a little more concrete, no matter what you choose to do with your debt.

Here are some questions I asked myself before I began the journey of paying back some of my loans:

1. Can I manage to continue to drive my shitty Sunfire for a while longer? (Relate this to anything you have that you have been dying to upgrade.)

2. Will I put myself at a disadvantage? Will I have to eat ramen and never go shopping with my friends because I am financially strained?

3. Could I survive with the money I have in savings if I lost my job? (It is recommended to have 3 months of living expenses in savings, someday I will make another post about savings.)

4. Are there any major expenses coming up?

Answer these questions for yourself in an honest and open way. Your responses will lead you to your decision to put some money towards those loans, or to wait.

And a few strategies...

1. I was offered an extra 10 hours of work per week, I decided to put those dollars directly toward my loans because I had been doing fine prior to having them. If you find yourself in this situation, I think it has been a huge relief to me to see that debt go down every month.

2. Start with the smallest loan that accrues interest. I had three TEACH grants. The three values were about ~900, ~1600 and the other is ~4,000 at 6.8 percent interest. I was able to pay off the $900 in about two months and feel accomplished before jumping the next loan. While it would make more sense in terms of savings to pay off the 4000 dollar one, I wanted to feel accomplished and not drag myself down over it.

Share your experiences, thoughts and decisions toward student loan debt, comments are appreciated!

Always,

Ashley

Communication

In both my personal life and my professional life as a Teaching Assistant for Human Development across the Life-Span, relationship health has been a major topic of discussion. Couples. Husbands and Wives. Friends. All of the interactions we have on a daily basis.

Research shows how unhealthy it is to bottle up our emotions. We talk about how to communicate our anger from a very young age. We teach children how to say "I feel sad when you call me mean names because it hurts my feelings." Instead of saying "You are a jerk!" Research shows that these statements, known as I-statements, are more effective in healthy relationship development. Partners can communicate, "You never take me on dates anymore," more effectively by saying, "I feel like we aren't spending as much quality time together anymore." 

We talk about the importance of not bottling up our feelings because it's not healthy and can often cause an unhealthy eruption, as well as lead to adverse health effects. Primarily, these feelings are noted as being anger, frustration or other negative feelings that need to escape our hearts.

One I-statement personally overlooked, held-back and bottled up in my own life is an important one that is too often forgotten.

I love you.

It's awkward. Uncomfortable. Maybe a little disappointing if we are expecting a similar response that doesn't come. The dictionary definition of  love is an intense feeling of deep affection. That's a pretty abstract, relative, ambiguous, and subjective feeling. However, just like it's not healthy to bottle up our anger, it's also not healthy to bottle up our love. If you have been thinking for days, months, weeks, years, eons... that you could be in love with someone. Let them know. Give them that I-statement, without expecting a response. Get it off your chest.

Always,

Ashley

Goals

"Goals. Why are we talking about goals, again?"

In graduate school I am learning we talk about goals quite a bit. For myself, I always have a long list of goals I am working toward. Mostly personal, some professional. I used to always think "Why are we sharing goals? These are MY goals."

There's a reason we share our goals. It helps us stay true. It holds us accountable. So, in lieu of being held accountable, I am sharing with my 70+ readers my current goals. 


Professional

No terse emails. Yay to not sounding rude, mean, or short in emails!

Propose my thesis. 'Cause it's that time.


Personal

Quit drinking pop. For realz this time. If you see me running in some new shoes after October 21, that means I didn't drink pop between now and then. 

Exercise at least 4 times a week, and vary the workout, so far Zumba, running, weights and biking. I get in such a "rut" of only running. Only running, terrible right? I find that if I run everyday, I get unmotivated because it's the same thing all the time.

There's more, but this is a good start to the accountability factor.

In other news, we made the Iowa 4-H Foundation blog!

Grad Life

As I almost have "Week 2" in the books, I thought I would take some time to share my experiences with being at ISU full-time as a graduate student. I gave myself a little too much caffeine today, so I made lists so my brain would focus better for all you lovely readers.

Life:
Life. Life. Life. It's different being on campus this year, but so far I like it! I have people around to remind me when I forget to do something, and I have the chance to go to research presentations and such. Also, I am only working 20 hours a week  for my assistantship so that's supposed to leave me tons of free time, but I'll let you know where that time has been going once I figure that one out. I miss my AmeriCorps position and the youth, but 

For those who know about the food count I was doing, so far I have had free meals seven times. So graduate school has other benefits as well. ;)

My classes:
Statistics 401: Well, our professor likes to talk about falling cats and lets us out of lab after thirty minutes. So there's that!

HDFS 504: Qualitative Methods. It's seeming really awesome. We get to conduct interviews and spend hours coding them!

HDFS 510: Family Theory. Theory classes, yay! We will be writing a theories essay, and I think my partner and I are focusing on the perceptions of substance use among emerging adults. Stay tuned!  \

YTH 501: Foundations of youth development. A one credit course to knock out of the way. 

My Assistantship(s):
Teaching Assistant: I am spending 10 hours a week with Dr. Baltimore and two other graduate students teaching HDFS 102, Human Development and Life Span... from womb to tomb as we call it. As you can see in the photo, there has been a lot of paper grading so far, but it goes pretty quickly!

Research Assistant: I am also spending 10 hours a week with Dr. Susan Maude working on a program evaluation. It's pretty exciting, and I get to work with some pretty rad undergrads (see what I did there!).

 I hope you all love my amazing desk, and if you are in Ames, stop by MacKay 34 to say hi. I have already gotten rid of two cockroaches, so it should be safe!

Love always,

Ashley

Using your education award

Hello,

This blog hasn't had any posts in quite some time, but there are a few tips I would like to reflect on as my year of service has came to a close.

My education award of $5,550 will be applied to finish my Master's at Iowa State. I have requested my payment, and it is being processed. It won't take the full amount, but I will use whatever is left over to pay off some student loans. The interest rate for student loans is doubling, so it's smarter for me to use that award for graduate school.

Hopefully all AmeriCorps members know they also have the option of paying back the accrued interest from your student loans. My loan provider switched during my year of service, but I was already in an up-hill battle since I wasn't in forbearance. I will make another post once this gets (or doesn't get) approved to fill you in on this process. UPDATE: I got my interest payment!

Many of you are or were AmeriCorps members, feel free to post your own experiences with your education awards and ask questions! The awards are handy, and should be used to their full potential!

I have a few other life updates to share as well. :)

1. Curtis has accepted a full-time offer in San Bruno, CA with Google. Yay! I am so proud of him for following his dream and living the life! He will start in March.

2. Babies! My older sister (Crystal) is having a girl, and my step-brother (Matt) and his girlfriend (Kyla) are also due around the same time! Looks like the Kinkade family Christmas is going to expand quite a bit!

3. Once the State Fair is over, I will on campus full-time at ISU. I have been lucky enough to get both a teaching and a research assistantship to fund my course-work to finish my Masters. Spending ten hours a week as a Teaching Assistant for Human Life Span (HDFS 102) and ten hours doing research with Dr. Susan Maude will be a great addition to my experiences. I will also be taking 13 credits in the fall and hopefully whipping out my thesis by next December at the latest.

AmeriCorps hour 1287

Just thought I would drop by and provide a few updates!

1. Today, Collins-Maxwell IMPACT completed their service learning project for Global Youth Service Day! A few months ago, they identified cooking, sports, and iPads as their interests, and chose to collect canned goods for the food pantry in exchange for a healthy snack and the option of playing some bags. The youth collected 28 cans and $4.00!

2. Tomorrow is the Risky Business conference. I have the opportunity to present with a co-worker and  staff from VolunteerLocal. Our presentation focuses on volunteering and social media and I have the opportunity to promote AmeriCorps while talking about the differences between service-learning and volunteering. This is a great example of how AmeriCorps members can expand their experiences through professional opportunities!

3. I have finalized my graduate committee! We are hoping I can finish my masters and certificate program by the Fall of 2014 at the latest. More details regarding the focus of my thesis to come! Since AmeriCorps terms are only a year long, next year I will be working on my masters full-time in order to take advantage of ISU's campus and the professional opportunities provided though assistantship programs.

4. As you can tell, I am closer to being at  the 1,700 hours required for my education award! I am ahead, so I am hoping to spend some time in the lovely state of Washington with Mr. B over the summer before I finish my year of service on July 31st.

Good night for now!

Ashley