Sanders' World Changing

       After waiting on the stone boulders at the bottom of Nellie Hill near Grammie's house like every other morning, I climbed up the elementary school bus steps expecting to see the same handful of kids I was used to seeing. This specific day, however, a new person was sitting in one of the front left seats. I had never seen this person before or if I had, I had never seen this person like this. I froze. Anxiety overcame me, and my face began to heat quickly. My heart beat as if it were in my throat and I ran. I literally ran down the steps, off the bus, and across the lawn back toward the house. I fell on my way up the cement walkway and tore a hole in my pants. Before I knew it, I was entering in the back door crying to my Grandmother that I could not go back on the bus. I did not tell her why. She did not ask. She drove me to school.       The next morning, I stalled. I said my stomach hurt. I said I couldn't find my shoes. I d...

A STORY ABOUT MY KITCHEN SINK: Picture a kitchen sink with two sides. Each side has a drain. Typically each drain would have a pipe that runs down and the two pipes would meet underneath the sink to connect and form one bigger pipe that drains to the ocean just like in 'Finding Nemo'. Now picture that the left pipe is missing. And the water is on. The water is still able to drain, though. Now over the years the pipe on the right side starts to get a little build up. Maybe some oil and grease  coat it a little. You don't notice as it happens because it is gradual. The water can still drain. It just drains a little slower. Over time even more build up. A little slower. More build up. Over time a little slower. Get the picture? In this scenario, imagine in this scenario that the water can never be turned off and eventually you realize the water does not drain like it used to. The water is not able to get down the drain and is backing up into the sin...

I have made many financial mistakes. I came from a unique financial makeup, split family in which my mother and father always worked very hard, but separately two households,  part single income mother, part we had “what we needed”, part police officer dad,  part we worked for rich farmers and had amazing opportunities, part we had incredibly generous grandparents, very much dysfunctional, money was not exactly spoken about, taught by example to cyclically get in and out of debt because someone will bail you out until there is no one left to bail you out, until one day the term “over your head” became a reality. The idea that a dual military couple making well over six figures that could “make the payments” were in such a financial crisis mode was such a foreign concept to me, until it wasn’t. Until it was me.  We are not out of debt yet. We aren’t even close but we are getting closer.  For transparency sake, though, I stopped focusing on getting out of debt...