Here We Go Again!

It was a TV that set me off this time.  A couple of weeks ago, I bought a 42" LCD TV because I'm sick and tired of not having a logical layout in my living room - TV over the fireplace (focal point) instead of off to one side so it's now visible from all the furniture instead of just that on the left.  The only way I could figure out how to do that was to mount it over the mantel, which meant flatscreen, which meant a lot of research and a piggyback effect - there was a sale, and I got 10% off if I used my department store card plus another 5% because they accepted my Discover in its place.  Again, as I did a few short months ago (and many other times) I got my jolt, my gasp, my thrill from the transaction, one that was almost as strong as when I realized that 50-cent pair of earrings three weeks ago was 18-karat gold.

And I need to do something about it.

Since I began my original quest, I've paid off (off!) about seventy-five thousand dollars in consumer debt, opened and put about fifteen thousand into my IRA, and changed the entire way we not only did our household business but how we think about money.  Since I changed the site, focused on finding, I've lost track of my path.  Because I've narrowed its boundaries.

Welcome to the modern age!  Things aren't the only valuables in this world, not any more.  Here I am limiting myself to meat and cheese and not even seeing the buffet out there!  (And most poor souls are starving - thank you Auntie Mame!)

Oh, yes, I want it all - bargains and rebates, Tiffany and Faberge, dubloons and Civil War buttons, Fendi and Posen, sweat equity and stock trades.  I want to net something every minute, learn something every day, pass on something every week.  I want to dive nose-first into life, all of it, the whole cacaphony of sharps and flats, flavors and textures, failures and gold stars.  I want to find and win and earn and inherit and steal my way through time, not just for a better future but for a fantastic present.

It's time to move forward by going back, redefine my mission statement via my original thought map - the one that wasn't just a wicked fun ride but one that had danger, mistakes, and ignorance on a global scale, one that felt more like achievement than like luck, like reaching benchmarks instead of just taking stock.  I want it so badly I can almost taste it now - salty, like sweat ... with a generous dose of asphalt.

Ah, road rash, I missed you!