Thornock.Org

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Normally we feel a little homesick on Thanksgiving but this year we were too busy to feel sorry for ourselves. We hosted the feast at our apartment and had a full house. There were fourteen people and a dog. We had so much food, the dog even feasted. Here are some pictures:

This is the first turkey I’ve ever made. It turned out very tender and delicious, if I say so myself. I used the Homestyle Turkey, the Michigander Way recipe so I can’t take too much credit. Anything smothered in butter will turn out delicious.

The gang about to dig in(minus me, two babies and the dog).

YUM!!! Turkey, mashed potatoes/gravy, rolls, corn on cob, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, stuffing, homemade baked beans, raspberry jello dessert, and deviled eggs. Not to mention there were appetizers: veggies and ranch, cheese and crackers, pumpkin muffins with cream cheese icing. And of course we topped off the evening with some chocolate pecan pie, pumpkin cream pie and ice cream.


Allie’s meal consisted of crackers, muffins, rolls, pie and ice cream. A nice well rounded meal.

Luke watched from the sidelines.

After dinner we exercised it off by playing Wii boxing matches. We had some good laughs watching each couple take each other on. Allie got into it as well.

We had a Thankful Tree. Every day in November Allie would say something she is thankful for and we’d put it on a leaf and onto the tree. She came up with some interesting things: wishes, princesses, beds, bags. She also came up with some very meaningful things: family, friends, home, food, Jesus Christ, church, prophet.

Lastly, I want to say how grateful I am for my darling children, amazing husband, perfect parents, siblings who I adore, wonderful in-laws and super fun friends. I’m also grateful for my health, my home, and for the food that we have. My Heavenly Father and Savior are especially important and I’m extremely thankful that I know of them and their plan for me.

If you watch the financial markets at all, you’ll have surely noticed that prices are all over the place right now. The indices are down over the past year and tax season is upon us. What does that mean? Now is the time to save! Combined with the tax credit for putting money into an IRA and the down market, this is the perfect time to fund a long-term retirement account.

Here is a nice little article about saving for retirement. The key to being well-off when you retire is the principle of compound interest. This concept may sound a little nebulous, so here’s the main point of a compounding return: start early.

I’m very passionate about the issue of savings because the current state of America is to spend way more than we save. And my generation is very different from that of our parents in two ways: 1) we will probably live longer and 2) we won’t have a pension. All this combines to a recipe of financial uncertainty.

So, to all my friends and family who read this, I issue you a challenge: confront your retirement now! The early you save, the earlier you retire…it’s really quite simple. You don’t get rich spending your money.

I’ll be issuing some more unsolicited financial advice in some upcoming posts, all of which will be laced with the same message: save hard.

[If you want more personal advice, I'd be glad to give it privately. However, although I'm passionate about this, I'm not a fiduciary]

School started for Jake on Thursday but we are trying to squeeze in a few more summer activities before the semester starts getting crazy. We and our friends rented canoes at a lake that we just discovered. The lake is literally 3 miles away and we never knew it existed. Unfortunately, no swimming is allowed. I was so tempted to jump in the water though…it was extremely hot. We rowed around for awhile then docked at a small beach area and had snacks. It was so peaceful there. I felt like I was in a movie based in Venice with my umbrella in hand and my hubby rowing behind me. It was a great way to start out the weekend.


Patrick, Elizabeth and Iliana

Snack time

Just soak it all in…

Recently, I’ve been slammed trying finish up my projects before we head on vacation for a couple weeks. After this week, we’ll be in Cali for a couple weeks and then…gulp…I’m back in school for another year of coursework. I love school, but the summer has been incredible. I’ve gotten a ton done in school, mainly on my summer paper. It’s entitled “Short selling constraints and earnings timeliness”…trust me, you want to read it.

Last week, I attended an accounting conference (you’d love it) at Emory University in Atlanta. It was my first time visiting the ATL and I really enjoyed it. I went with two other PhD students and we made a road trip out of it. Our goal was to get as much out of the conference as possible, but also get as much out of our visit to Atlanta as possible. I got to experience a lot of firsts.

The most memorable was the culmination of our trip…an Atlanta Braves game. I’ve been a passive Braves fan since youth, so it was awesome to finally get to be at Turner Field and watch the Braves play the Cardinals. The Braves lost, but I got to experience a great game and enjoy some time with my buddies.

The trip was also a culinary carnival. Our first night we ate at a Bangaladeshi restaurant called Panahar, which was delicious! I love Indian food…so this was a great fit. The next day, we ate lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Cuban sandwich shop called Havana Sandwich Shop. The food was very similar to what I ate in the DR, so of course I loved it. Finally, that night, before the Braves game, we grabbed a burger at a crazy bar and grille called the Vortex. For the first time in my life, I got tater tots with my huge bleu cheese burger. I must have consumed 8000 calories that day.

Anyways, the trip was sweet…I bonded with my fellows students and I got to see most of Atlanta…all on my department’s dime! It was awesome!

I was in the shower this morning taking care of my usual business: legs, pits, hair, feet…etc. As I was finishing a little thought fairy whispered in my ear, “wash behind your ears,” to which I dutifully complied. But I began to think to myself, what could possibly be growing behind the human ear that would cause generations of mothers to advise their children cleanse behind the ear? Surely nothing dangerous…right?

So I would like to perform an experiment. My hypothesis is that nothing bad can happen if I don’t wash behind my ears. I would test it by washing only behind my right ear and leaving my left ear untouched and exposed to what ever danger lies behind the wives tale. Each week, I would make Kerrie examine my ears, sniffing, dabbing and tugging to find some lurking hazard behind the left ear. After a couple months, something terrible should flourish.

This is what only what I would do, not what I will do–one should never mess with wives tales. And, to be honest, I’m too scared of what lies behind the unwashed ear.

Sometimes, I go into the grocery store and I am forced to ask myself: “Who buys their patio furniture here?”

We are planning a trip to Washington, D.C. during Jake’s spring break in two weeks. We’re going with another couple who has been there many times and can show us the ropes. We are staying in an empty home for free (courtesy of our friend’s friend). We’re looking forward to visiting D.C.; it’s so rich in politics and history (my two worst subjects).

Anyway, we don’t have anywhere for Allie to sleep and she won’t just go to sleep on a bed yet; she needs a crib. We’ve never purchased a Pack N Play for Allie because all the grandparents have one. She’s getting a little big for a pack n play but I decided to purchase one anyway. I’m sure we’ll have more kids in the future and we can use it as a bassinet for the newborns. I’ve been searching Craig’s List for the past month. I found one this morning and called on it. This is the pack n play. We decided to meet at a local shopping center and exchange the goods for 50 bones.

Unfortunately, things weren’t going my way this morning. Jake had both sets of keys with the security cards to get into our apartment building. That meant that as soon as I left the building I’d be locked out. So I called my neighbor and asked her to help me in when I returned. Well, when I packed Allie in the car, I realized I left my wallet in the house. So I got Allie out, then had to call my neighbor to let me in so I could get my wallet. By the time I arrived at the shopping center I was 5 minutes late. I didn’t see the lady’s car so I reached into my pocket to pull out her cell number to find that it wasn’t there. I searched the car for it….it was no where to be found. I waited 15 minutes. Never saw her. I went home bummed out, wondering if it was a bad omen. Maybe I shouldn’t purchase this after all.

I called her and we don’t know what happened. We just didn’t see each other, I guess. So we decided to meet this evening. I was worried that something would go wrong, but nothing did. We made the switch and I came home and put it together. It was so easy to put together and it looks brand new. It has a mobile, changing station, storage area, music (with nature sounds), night light, and bassinet. I feel like I got a great deal. So was it worth two trips and $50…absolutely.

Peanut butter is hard to resist. And that’s precisely why I have so much trouble keeping the stuff at home without gobbling up the entire jar in a few sittings. I haven’t met a person who doesn’t like peanut butter. It’s great with celery, bananas, apples, delicious on toast, in ice cream, in candy bars, the list could go on and on. The one thing that will stop me from scraping the jar clean is a warning on CNN that my Great Value peanut butter jar may contain Salmonella. I decide to immediately dump it in the garbage and move onto my backup peanut butter, the Peter Pan brand. Oops, that one could contain Salmonella too.

Some of you may have heard about this on the news. If not, you can read about it here. They are recalling all Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butters with the product code on the lid beginning with 2111. It’s just odd that we happened to have BOTH peanut butters and BOTH start with 2111. We had devoured the GV peanut butter before hearing this; it’s practically empty. There are no signs of illness with any of us so I think we are safe. But we are not going to even test the unopened Peter Pan jar. So it’s back to the grocery store we go to buy a different peanut butter (and get a refund on the other two)…there’s just no way Allie or I could go longer than a few days without this delcious, creamy goo.

Kerrie and I were driving last week and we drove by this place where they were fixing a curb to allow for wheels, carts, etc. Several times we had walked up to that curb with Allie in the stroller and had to lift her up to keep going. So it’s nice that it is going to get fixed. It reminded me of how much I love those curbs…

…because, as a kid with a bike, every curb is a jump. In fact, everything is a jump as long as you had a piece of plywood. There is probably less junk in the world that I haven’t jumped than that I have. Some of the crazy things I remember jumping are old tires, tree stumps, car ramps, and car parts. Of course, just because I jumped, didn’t mean that I landed. Life wasn’t normal without scabs on my knees and elbows to pick at.

Unlike all of Hollywood and most of the people on Oprah, I had a pretty good childhood. I played a ton and I have great memories of time well spent making nothing into something.

Sometimes, I really enjoy thinking back on life as a kid, because everyday was a small adventure, regardless of how boring the day was: Trees to climb, fish to catch, and football in the front yard. Somehow, I need to learn to see the monotony and challenges of my life now like I did then–everything is a jump.

(Please pardon the cheese…I seriously considered deleting this poetic waxing…but Kerrie insisted that it stayed)

Every third Friday of the month I play Bunko with a group of 12 ladies. Last Friday night I drove and two others carpooled with me. Our car had been making funny noises so I said, “I hope this car doesn’t break down on us.” I jinxed us then and there. As I was driving home the car all of the sudden powered off. The gas would not accelerate and the brakes and steering wheel locked up. Somehow I was able to pull over. I didn’t have my cell phone on me. I’m still not used to carrying a cell phone around; it’s the last thing on my mind when leaving the door because I usually have a million other things (Allie’s stuff that is) with me. My friend, who had her baby 4 days later, had her cell phone. I called Jake and he and a buddy came to the rescue.

Let me set the scene for you. It was close to 11PM on a VERY dark road; a road that we had never been on before. We were about five miles away from home. Three women were in the car (one large with child). It began to get quite cold after 15 minutes. A scary looking man walked toward our car and began to look inside. At that very moment, Jake pulled up. The man continued to walk on. Whew!!! We were getting a little nervous. If Jake had showed up a moment later I was certain my friend was going to have a nervous breakdown. She doesn’t handle stress well, which made us all a little tense. To make a long story short, we got home safe and sound and the car was towed to the Toyota dealership the next day. The timing belt had snapped. Several hundred dollars and a few days later, we have old Gold Digger back with us. Here is a list of things that I have learned from this experience:

1. Always take a cell phone and always have it charged. (What’s the point of having a cell phone if I don’t ever use it?)
2. Purchase an emergency kit for the car. (i.e. tow rope, flashlights, blankets, etc)
3. Lock all your doors when stranded on a dark street.
4. When you know something’s wrong with your car, take it in before it breaks down. (Jake had a feeling something was wrong with the timing belt but we just procrastinated it).

P.S. Congratulations to Kelli and Matt on their new baby boy, Abe!