Something has dawned on me over the past couple of months. I might be a packrat for ideas. By ‘dawned on me’ I mean it has been smashing me over the head with a hammer.

Over the last couple of years I have had so many projects that I wanted to get done. And new projects and million dollar ideas were sprouting up all of the time. Some of them were online, some of them off.

These ideas were across a broad range, everything from building a chess board, building a giant ‘colony size’ ant farm, to creating a program that sent out lottery numbers after every draw (And most of them were just as dorky sounding!).

It’s time that I start retiring a couple of projects of mine. When I get ideas, I want them to happen, so I’ll begin. The problem is that new ideas come and I want them to happen, so I’ll begin. Of course there hasn’t been enough time to complete the original project before starting on the next. This basically means the old project is doomed.

Soon there is another great flash of inspiration and a new project emerges and another becomes doomed.

My final stance is I’m officially closing down some projects. A big problem is that juggling so many things, none of them ever got completed. It’s time to start filling that filing cabinet with those ‘million dollar ideas‘ and start focusing on fewer and fewer.

I’ll be posting quite a few ideas and one-day projects. By one-day projects, I mean “one day I’de like to…” Hopefully there is someone out there that can benefit from some them.

Those of you who clicked www.makingthishome.com after my last post when I told you I lost the address may have been a little confused.  In Part 1, I told you someone else had purchased the domain name when enom central placed me on their fraud alert and canceled my domain purchased.  But I got the name back, and the website is running.

HOW I GOT MY DOMAIN NAME BACK BY PICKING UP THE PHONE

I hate to admit it, but I had become attached to the idea of calling my blog “Making This Home”.  It sounded perfect, and it was tough to believe that someone else would have thought of the exact same name only four days after I had.  So I decided to call the man who had purchased the name.

“I was wondering what you were planning on doing with that domain name,” I told him.

He laughed nervously and said, “Umm.  Make some money?”

The interesting thing was that he had no idea which domain name I was talking about, though he seemed open to the idea of selling it back to me.  I launched into my sad story instead.  It didn’t make sense to pay the guy for something neither of us had invested anything into.

He took a little time looking up www.makingthishome.com on his computer and said it hadn’t been making him any money.  It didn’t seem like his goal was to sell the website.  I almost wondered if he was seeking profits from residual traffic.  I really have no idea.  But he was very kind to me and said that he would give up the domain name; I could have it back.

The next morning, just as he promised, the domain name was available again.  I bought it, and now www.makingthishome.com is mine, and I do hope you’ll come visit me!

I just read an article over at ‘Smart Money‘ about how couples often make similar mistakes in regards to their finances. It brings up many good points and issues.

“Most of us don’t know how to talk about money,” says Mary Claire Allvine, a certified financial planner (CFP) and co-author of “The Family CFO: The Couple’s Business Plan for Love and Money.”

“People tend to be emotional and reactive about money, not strategic,” she says.

When emotions run high, people tend to make fiscal mistakes. Allvine’s solution: Approach family finances as if you were running a business. “If you put a business metaphor into the picture, you’d be surprised how much more methodical people are.”

In this article she talks about 6 common pitfalls that could arise if issues are not properly resolved.

1. Merging finances
2. Controlling debt
3. Spending habits
4. Investing Wisely
5. Money Secrets
6. Emergency Planning

Give the article a read, I think that you will find it full of good ideas and perspective for you.

March 24, 24 Hours, 24 Articles, and 1 soon to be struggling with carpal tunnel writer.  It’s beginning to  dawn on me just how extensive this project will be.  I have come up with ideas for some of the posts, and jotted down a few ideas so far.  I want to do the majority of the writing on the 24th.

To many bloggers 24 posts is not a very significant amount for one day.  Then again that is their full time job.  I’m not sure how they don’t get blocked up.  Of course many of them are looking at a newsfeed, commenting on other posts, or bringing up weird stories.  Not that there is anything wrong with this.

My goal is to pack in as much value for you as possible within my 24 posts.  Just 4 days left!

In less than a week, I will be turning 24. Granted this isn’t the most incredible of life’s landmarks, I want to do something different for my golden birthday. With that I am going to do two difficult tasks.

First, I am going to change the look of Aridni. I have had an idea in my head for a new them for a couple of months now. It’s time I finish coding it and get it released. On March 24, Aridni will look quite a bit different. Hopefully it’s for the best.

Secondly, and perhaps quite a bit harder than putting together the theme in one week, I am going to post on the 24th. A LOT. I am going for 24 posts in 24 hours.

To make it fun, I will give away a $24 Amazon gift certificate to a lucky commenter on the this day.

Just in case you haven’t done so already, make sure you are subscribed to the Aridni RSS feed, because you don’t want to miss out on this posting spectacular.

If anybody else wants to join me in the pursuit of a plethora of posts, please let me know and I’ll get a link to your site here.

I need to go stock up on coffee and start stretching my fingers, because the fun is about to begin.

The net worth is struggling to maintain itself these days, and to be honest, I’m not thinking about money to the point of obsession like I used to. Instead, I’m experiencing the things that I haven’t been able to do since college:

learning how to cook
writing a book

My husband is doing something he’s always wanted to do:

earning a master’s degree

While my co-personal finance bloggers experience rapid growth this year, we’re setting different goals for ourselves that involve personal development and enrichment. I work part time until May, which is the coolest feeling I have ever experiencing about work. Working 9 to 5+++ was the most miserable experience I have ever had.

Now I don’t have to worry about what the boss thinks or if I’ll lose my job or how to spend my messily vacation days. I have total freedom for myself, which no one else in my office experiences. Sure I get paid less. But at some point, we have to ask ourselves what matters most: lots of money or lots of freedom.

I read a fantastic book that illustrated the way I was feeling:
The Anti 9-to-5 : Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube

I suggest that anyone feeling frustrated with work take a glance. It has some fantastic strategies for reflecting on what makes you happiest and determining how to obtain the best situation for your working self. The fact that it’s targeted to women is something pretty much only relevant in the title. The rest is easily male or female.