Many of you have noticed I took up the moniker "Moni" a couple years ago. To be honest I was going through a change in life of learning who I was after being reconnected with my birth family, and that was a nickname my natural parents called me. In my eagerness to be connected to who I was before my adoption I decided to try basking in that name for a while. Then when I felt "full-grown" and was ready to step back into life as "Monica", damned Facebook decided to limit name changes. So I am stuck being "Moni" when I really want to be Monica. Everyone has adapted that name and it has definitely stuck, so I'll let it lie. To be honest, it's kind of sweet that everyone has accepted my different changes of growth and is just going along with my flow. So I don't really mind. Just know that Monica is the fierce outer shell protecting the inner child "Moni." As I've been getting to know "Moni," I've been very

The past two months of our lives have looked completely different. I'm laughing inside at the idea of "perfection" we all have of others...perfect marriages, perfect families, perfect pregnancies, perfect hair, perfect bodies, perfect schedules, perfect perfect perfect...Can I call it? It's all BS! We all have to do the best with what we're given, and we're all given some of the same things: brains. mouths. butts (ok that was pointless). opportunities (although not identical). Here's what has changed for us, and WHY I'm happy with it. In March we became completely debt-free. Nothing owed to any collectors, creditors, parents, NADA. We worked our butts off for this to happen, had some arguments, the whole 9. When we made it I was so relieved and could barely believe it. I felt free. We were really happy. We felt to RICH not owing others. Then we worked on building up our emergency fund. Dave Ramsey suggests a 3-6 month fund, Suze Orman suggests