I'm having a party on Saturday and everyone on estrip is invited! 9pm to ? That's right, until ?

I'll have some party food and a very limited supply of alcohol so you may want to bring something to drink for yourself.

Hope to see you there!

*DON"T FORGET THE PARTY!" See last post for details.

I finally got my FICO score. It certainly is a lot better than I thought it would be. I did make my mistakes that I am paying for, but I am hoping that as the time goes by with me being responsible, I will improve my score so that I can get better rates when it comes down to buying a home or accessing other lines of credit. Here is some info about what kind of rates I would get right now based on my score.

Accurate as of June 10, 2009. Source: Informa Research Services.
30 year mortgage
    Score     Rate
    760- 850     5.234%
    700- 759     5.456%
    680- 699     5.633%
Your current range     660- 679     5.847%
    640- 659     6.277%
    620- 639     6.823%
    
15 year home equity loan
    Score     Rate
    740- 850     8.118%
    720- 739     8.418%
    700- 719     8.918%
Your current range     670- 699     9.693%
    640- 669     11.193%
    620- 639     12.443%
    
48 month auto loan
    Score     Rate
    720- 850     5.961%
    690- 719     7.425%
Your current range     660- 689     8.843%
    620- 659     11.626%
    590- 619     15.428%
    500- 589     16.231%
Home equity line of credit (under $50,000)     8.057%     Home equity line of credit (over $50,000)     8.174%
30 year jumbo mortgage     5.847%     10 year home equity loan     9.523%
15 year mortgage     5.389%     15 year jumbo mortgage     5.389%
1/1 ARM     3.721%     1/1 jumbo ARM     3.721%
3/1 ARM     4.271%     3/1 jumbo ARM     4.271%
5/1 ARM     4.513%     5/1 jumbo ARM     4.513%
7/1 ARM     4.755%     7/1 jumbo ARM     4.755%
10/1 ARM     5.251%     10/1 jumbo ARM     5.634%
36 month auto loan     8.843%     48 month used auto loan     9.647%
60 month auto loan     8.882%          

Using a 30 year fixed mortgage as an example, your FICO® score qualifies you for an interest rate of 5.847%. Someone with a FICO® score of 630 would receive a rate of 6.823%. On a $250,000 mortgage, you would save more than $160 a month compared to a person who has a relatively poor score. So it's vitally important that you keep your score high.

You can purchase your score for $15.95/ each. I say "each" because there are more than one to choose from. Go to myfico.com

It is definitely worth it to know your score and it does tell you how to improve it. It also gives you an opportunity to dispute things that are not accurate. For me it was that they did not have my employer listed and that they did not have a phone number for me on file.

It sucks that I have some bad marks against me. At least I rectified them and am moving forward with consistent on time payments. Those will affect me less as time goes by.

Your FICO score does matter. It is a probability that you will pay back what you borrowed. Your rates are going to be decided upon based largely on this score. A difference in just one percent point can make huge differences in your monthly payment.

My goal is to get to over 700 in the next five years.

This dog in my neighborhood will not shut up. It is driving me crazy. The other night I was forced to shut my windows it was so bad. It makes me think of this Seinfeld clip.

I wanted to be hypnotized over two years ago to help with my lingering cravings to smoke cigarettes. This is the journal I wrote about it in. Basically, I was having a really hard time not smoking but glad that I had quit nonetheless. So, now on Monday a woman that I work with is going to hypnotize me with the hopes that it will help with my lingering cravings. Clearly at this point it is all mental. At least I will be able to tell if it helps; whereas, if I were still smoking it would be harder to tell if it really works or if I just really wanted to quit.

Because hypnotism for smoking cessation is not evidence based, I can't really advocate it at work even if it does end up helping me. I'm really hoping it works because even now a good two years after that post I still struggle with not smoking. It still isn't an option for me to have a puff and so far that strategy has worked but I still have this basic tension from not smoking.

Today I talked to a woman who was completely addicted to the nicotine gum. It was kind of sad because she seemed a little desperate to get off of it. Of course that was touchy ground for me to give advice to get off of nicotine replacement. I think I did good. She wanted to know if she could use the patch to wean herself off. I told her it made sense logically but that she would have to consult a MD as it was off label use of the medicine. Anyways, I went off on this tangent about her because she really seemed OK off of the cigarettes but just couldn't really deal with not having nicotine in her blood. Actually she had a lot more nicotine in her blood using the gum than if she were still smoking what she had been when she quit. It seems that it really does have an effect on your body physiologically long after the physical addiction has stopped. I sometimes wonder what Chantix could do for me but quickly put that out of my mind each and every time I hear of it causing awful side effects. It seems to me that I would rather smoke than use that drug.

I'll let you guys know how the hypnotism works out. At this point I think I might need an exorcism. The woman who is going to do it does know what she is doing and also says that she doesn't want to smoke anymore. She hasn't said that was from the hypnotism or not. I have heard her tell people that it was hard to quit smoking so I would assume that hypnotism doesn't make it easy. Nothing makes it easy.

I just hate everything about them. Their furniture looks cheap but it is not. They also send huge catalogs all the time to people that obviously don't want to order. My roommate ordered one thing from them a year ago and has kept on getting a catalog just about every other week. I finally just took the liberty of removing him from their mailing list.

F U POTTERY BARN. If I ever have money I certainly would not want my house to look like one of your wretched catalogs.

So my friend Kathy came today to hypnotize me for smoking cessation. It was pretty awesome. I like the whole process really. I was totally conscious of everything. First she had me close my eyes and then she had me relax all of my muscles in my head one by one. Then I was going deeper and deeper down these stairs and once I got to the bottom she planted the suggestions. I think they had an effect on me but it is still too soon to tell. It did seem that there was an immediate aversion to ever filling my lungs with the cigarette smoke again. She is coming again next week to do another session. She said it doesn't work for long the first try, that it really should be done more than once. Since she is going to do all the sessions for free-- why not?

She also can teach me to do self-hypnosis. I did try hypnosis tapes (I think I was a teen) a while back and I did like doing them. It was weird because a lot of it was the same but I definitely liked it a lot better with Kathy. The next time is supposed to be a deeper hypnosis and generally work better.

I made dinner. Organic chicken thighs with homemade honey mustard dipping sauce. Also served tortellini salad, grilled veggies and salad. Finished with Stony Field Farms after dark chocolate ice cream (thanks S) along with vegan cookie.

I ripped my only (wearable) pair of jeans right up the side. This was right after I whizzed by e:james and right in front of e:lauren and e:fellyconnelly's place. My pant leg got stuck in my gear sprocket. Funny thing is just yesterday I got a pair of "work dungarees" from Carhart. I like them but they are so stiff and need to be broken in. Also I am worried they are going to shrink but I don't know if they will shrink because they are pre-washed. I think it is good that they are snug around the waste because it will keep me in shape if I want to wear them. I just don't get why sizes are not more universal and why when you order the same size waist they can vary by so much.

I just got two new pairs of kicks from zappos.com. I love that site because they never really seem to f it up and their service is so easy and fast. Maybe bad for my carbon footprint, but if the malls would sell what I want, than maybe I wouldn't have to order online. I have looked for jeans for quite a long time but can't find any at the malls that I am really happy with. I am prepared to spend up to $100 but preferably cheaper than that. Does anyone know of a good place online I can find quality, good fit, non ripped, no faded horizontal striped jeans?

So now things that I need/want for my bike:

Rack- Want
Tires-Need
U lock-Want
Helmet-Want
Camera bag for handle bars-Want

I could probably list other stuff but that is all good for now. I really want the rack and tires first for an upcoming bike trip. They are expensive and now I have to go and buy jeans...