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