James Woosley’s Blog

My wife and I adopted our son Ian last year from Taiwan. It’s been quite an adventure, and you can review the entire story here. Ian is now two and a half, but still not talking much (though he can scream and screech with the best of them).

We initially blamed the lack of words on the change in languages (we got him when he was ten months old). But as time went on, we suspected the problem was more complex. It didn’t seem to be learning disability as he is very clever and bright. I thought about autism for a bit, but that was quickly ruled out. It turns out he just can’t hear very well (which also explains the decibel levels he reaches in anger).

After many tests and doctors (the first of whom said the loss was severe), we now know for sure that he has a mild-to-moderate hearing loss in both ears. And on Wednesday he received his hearing aids.

He did great the first day, but since then he doesn’t want to wear them for very long. It’ll be quite an adjustment, but his doctor assures us that once he realizes that he can hear better with them, he’ll want to wear them.

His near future holds speech therapy and when he turns three, a special preschool to help him catchup developmentally. But he’ll be fine and once he does get caught-up, I think he’ll quickly get ahead. Of course, I’m a biased dad!

So what caused this hearing loss? We jokingly say he caused it himself by being so loud (it really is hard to believe!). But the likely cause is either genetics or the severe fever he had when he was a month old in Taiwan. It could be a combination, but we don’t really know.

The good news is that we’re able to help him where his birth family may not have been able to. But it’s not cheap. Almost no medical insurance covers hearing aids, and ours doesn’t cover the testing. The original doctors recommended aids costing $4-5000+ dollars. The new doctors (who specialize in children), were able to cut that in half.

And for all those Dave Ramsey/FPU types out there, no we didn’t have to put it on a credit card! I was afraid that was my only option for a while, but between stopping the debt snowball and the price cut, we were able to make it. Prayer really works! And as an extra blessing, the day before the appointment we got a check in the mail from our bank saying we had overpaid our escrow and were getting a $300 refund.

We messed up in September and bought a van we shouldn’t have (because we borrowed money). I regret that now, and have vowed it would the last time I borrow money (except for a modest mortgage if we ever move). Taking care of my family may be the only other exception. But God found a way for us not to have to do that this time. I’m hopeful that we’ll get out of debt and build up our savings enough that I never break that vow.

If all goes well in 2007 we’ll be debt free! And with the hearing aids and help, big sister Anna will have some competition when it comes to non-stop talking!

Time for one of my favorite cool tools…CutePDF.

The PDF document format (Portable Document Format) was created by Adobe and is a great way to store and share information. The files can generally not be edited, so you can easily control both the content and layout yet share the files with users on multiple computer systems without any special expensive software (just a PDF reader).

Here are some of the things I like to use them for:

• Tax Returns — Using most tax software and even the fill-in forms available from many state governments, you can do your taxes, get the math done automatically, and print a legible return. I’m horrible in storing paper files, but great with the electronic ones. So every year when I do my taxes, I simply print my returns to PDF and I always have easy access to past returns!
• Online Receipts — I don’t do a ton of shopping online, but when I do, I always make sure to print the online receipt to PDF. I don’t have to keep the paper, but I have all the data I need to remember the purchase or process a return. This is also nice when you don’t have a printer available.
• News Articles — A lot of times when I’m surfing the net, I’ll run across an article I want to keep forever. And since articles sometimes disappear from the original owner’s site, I’ll just save it as a PDF and it’s mine whenever I need it. It’s also great for storing articles to read later when you’re not online (very helpful when I was flying every week).
• Complex Screenshots — Sometimes you need to take a screenshot of a web page or something and MS Paint just can’t handle it (like the page scrolls more than your screen can handle). There are specific programs that do that well, but sometimes a simple PDF is good enough.

CutePDF is a free program that sets up a printer on your computer. Whenever you have a document or web page that you want to turn into a PDF, you simply print it to the CutePDF printer. It then prompts you for a file name and location. Instant PDF!

It’s a rare occurrence when I can’t create a PDF I want, and the format should be good no matter what computer I’m using and will likely be usable good for decades to come (unlike your operating system).

Later, I’ll share a tool that lets you split and combine different PDF files…

Okay, so there’s slightly more than 40 days until Christmas. But it’s coming fast, and I want to share with the world!

So I’m pledging to make 40 posts to the blog before Christmas. It might not be everyday, but I’ll be posting much more often than I have been.

What can you expect?

• Lots of Cool Tools and Tips
• Financial Info and FPU Updates
• Messages and Observations of Faith
• Family and Friend Updates

And as an added bonus, this one doesn’t count toward the total! Look for the 40 starting soon!

Lots to catch up with here, so I think it’s time for a speed round update…

FPU Graduation
We had a great class and graduated 41 people, who paid off more than $130,000 and saved over $40,000. We also turned in more than $8.3M in credit offers!

Now we’re ramping up for another class during the summer. If you’re interested, head on over to GazelleIntensity.com.

In other Dave Ramsey news, we also have a group heading to Birmingham on Saturday for a Total Money Makeover Live Event.

TiVo is Great!
There are all kinds of reasons to love TiVo, but tonight I was reminded of another one. I’ve been watching The Unit on CBS on Tuesday nights. It’s a great military action/family show about a group of Army special forces types and their wives. Tonight, CBS decided to air two new episodes instead of just one. My VCR would have been programmed for one (because I’d have done it manually). But the TiVo is SMART! It just kept on recording and grabbed the second episode. Gotta love it!

Easter Bunny Lessons
It’s a bit out of date, but my daughter taught me quite a lesson at Easter. In her Easter basket was a bible book cover and a Narnia bookmark. She asked me to put her Bible in the cover (which I did) and then to put the bookmark in the story Jesus told about the talents (Matt 25:14-30). She’s only five and a few weeks before this I had miraculously found the story when I needed to in order to prove a point to her about taking care of her toys. She didn’t seem that interested at the time, but that five year old sponge of a brain was paying attention.

It’s another reminder that they are paying attention even when we don’t think they are. They notice the good things and the bad.

That’s all for now folks. Don’t forget Mother’s Day!

James

I’m not really the hands-on type of guy. I can manage to change light bulbs and drive nail into a board when needed, but I’m better with software (undo is so handy…why isn’t there an undo button for real life?).

This weekend I installed stereo units in our cars. I’d never done it before, but figured I’m not dummy, so why not try. Both of our 1995 cars still had the factory units in them, and they weren’t fancy. No CD, and certainly no MP3!

I researched for about 6-8 months before deciding on a unit. I went with the Sony CDX-GT200. The number one feature I wanted was a front auxiliary jack for my iPod. Check. Then I wanted CD/MP3 playback. Check. And for ease of use and installation, I wanted them to fit in both of our cars. Check. After that, the remote and other features were icing on the cake.

I’d had a $100 gift certificate with Amazon.com for months and decided to use it. Amazon sells the unit using Crutchfield.com. My father used to get Crutchfield catalogs and had used them before, so I figured it was a safe order. I peppered them with questions before ordering (just to make sure all the freebies would still come–they did).

I placed the order last Monday morning, had confirmation a few hours later, and that afternoon got an email saying I needed to contact them with my vehicle information. I called, they put the order in process, and it was shipped that night. The package included all of the installation gear, and arrived Wednesday afternoon (free shipping, too!).

I had three hours on Saturday available so I started the install. It wasn’t pretty at first. My brother-in-law Mike came over to help, and I had to call tech support once for help, but we managed to run all the wires (all the way to the back of the Explorer), splice the wires and get it working. It didn’t lock into place, but it worked.

Sunday I started on my wife’s Accord. Under the center console I found dove shaped confetti from our wedding (1996) and a receipt for gas from Ames, IA dated May 1997 (our trip to a wedding in Minnesota). Her install was much easier, though I did call to make sure I got the blue wire for the power antenna right. But again, her unit wasn’t locking in place.

One more call and I managed to figure out the locking problem. Simple and easy, if only the instructions had been a touch better (overall they were great, but included a lot of extra similar vehicles and speaker replacement instructions, too).

There was only one other problem. My wife said her CD player wasn’t working, so I had to troubleshoot it. It was making a very loud annoying noise. I had tested it with the radio, but didn’t have a CD before she needed the car. It turned out to be a speaker wire splice that didn’t stay in place, so I had to redo it. That was it!

All told, I spent about 4-5 hours installing two stereos in our cars this weekend, and taught two FPU course, spent time with my kids and wife, attended church and a Valentine’s Day dinner, but I missed the first NASCAR race of the year.

The TiVo was aimed for Saturday night, but rain delayed the race until Sunday afternoon. I was in a media blackout because I didn’t want to hear who won before I could watch it. I sure hope it’s sunny and bright for the Daytona 500 next week. The TiVo will be running again, and I’ll be on the couch between church and FPU to see what I can see, and finish it after class. So no, I can’t change that light bulb that’s out next Sunday. I’ll have to take care of it Saturday.

James