Simple. Easy.

Oh! I should be better about posting, but it seems life has just sped up.

I saved substantially on groceries and food. I'm hoping to keep it up through the end of the year so I can afford everything else in my life without reducing the amount I'm putting into savings. I like this experiment that I have going on. I think it's helping to get my priorities in order.

My new theme to add to everything that is going on in my life is decluttering. In part I need to do this because of my new part time work project, grantwriting. In part I think it's simply a better way to live. Yesterday, I cleaned out my closet. A bag of clothing is going to goodwill.

This weekend my project will be my office. Shredding papers, getting rid of college notebooks, getting rid of useless stuff. Time permitting the next projects are going to be reorganizing photographs and getting rid of stuff from my many travels. I have receipts, and things that will actually never get used or looked at meaningfully. It's time. Otherwise I will continue accumulate, and not have room or time for things that may actually matter one day.

I want life, as far as I can control it, to be simple and easy, and organized.

How to scratch my feet.

My feet have been feeling itchy recently. I don't know what to do to counteract that. 

I only have 2 free weekends between now and 2011, so it's not because I lack anything to do. I'm tackling a half marathon in a week and a half, come hell or high water, so it's not because I'm lacking challenges. I'm probably more happy with my life as it is now than I care to admit, so it isn't that something desperately needs changing either. 

What could it be?

I am a little disappointed that stained glass class was full this fall, perhaps I have too much pent up creative energy. Or of course I could just have too much energy. 


Partially, I think I'm feeling the need to travel again. That just requires so much planning. I need to be able to take a week off, have the money to spend, a destination in mind, and I want my man to be able to come with. That adds up to a whole lot of moving parts.  What happened to summer vacation that automatically meant TIME. Where's the gig that will get me to that point again?



All I know is that I need to be out of my box. If even for a weekend. Place, perspective, activities.  I'm taking suggestions for adventures of all sorts of varieties.

Flying Broccoli Salad

Tonight, on the way to a work cookout, I had one of those stop and stare and wonder if in fact this is your life moments.

After preparing the most delicious broccoli salad, it flew down the stairs on my way out of my building. Flew. Being a triathlete, and walking into porta potties with bare feet on a semi regular basis, eating the salad doesn't phase me at all. I picked it up, fast.

(I know, you're grossed out right now, but i bet you still kiss your dog on the mouth and you know where that tongue goes)

I should have just brought it to the thing because people said they would have had some anyway. sigh. It's still in my fridge. It's still delicious. I'm disgusting and I don't care.

Delicious broccoli salad:

a whole bunch of raw broccoli
most or all of a red onion cut up.
bacon
sunflower seeds
crasins
mayo
a little vinegar
a little sugar.

Mix. Don't drop on the floor. Enjoy. It wins at BBQs of all sorts.

Race Thoughts.

Yesterday was Nation's Triathlon. I was able to hit a new PR if only by 10 seconds. I think that if my knee felt better, I was actually feeling well enough that I could have taken off a bit more time.

I have a half marathon in three weeks. Ice, ibprofen, rest and a few long runs and I think i'll be in a good place for it. And, if I do well and can keep up a training schedule, I suspect a half iron is on my list for next year.

To get started with this training business I've got to loose some weight. I'd do so well if I had 10-15 fewer pounds to tote doing these things. So much better. I think it's a possibility. I've done it before. I simply have to get my head in the right place for it again. Just a few changes and sticking to a training plan...

I'll get it. I'll write about it. All of it.


I get paid tomorrow, at midnight. My bank account is so super excited. My plan is to continue to not allow myself to spend for about another month. I'll have a few expenses sure. The tax bill for my car came in, but is less than registration was in TN.  But I'm hoping to follow my rules of packing lunch, planning meals and not going out. (saving the two things I have planned this week). Things will look much better at the other end of this month, and even better a month from now. I'm sure of it.

Food and Money and Money and Food

So. I had a wonderful birthday. I didn't do anything really 'exciting' or fantastic, except to get a venti pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks for breakfast. My birthday is my unofficial opening day of pumpkin spice latte season. They are delicious treats. So, I had my latte and got lots of wonderful happy birthdayness, and was cooked a delicious dinner by my most favorite person. It was a good day. A true birthday celebration will take place next week, at a pub. There will be much mischeif as there cannot be right before a race.

And for my birthday, my debts are paid! I paid a parking ticket. I paid my credit card. I paid a pet deposit to my apartment (after a year of not paying it). The only money I owe to anything outstanding is about $2.64, which was some sort of discover interest charge that will be paid as soon as the whole scheduling process catches up with my dwindling bank account. 

And how will I help my poor little bank account? (right now, poor and little are the BEST ways to describe it) My focus this month is retraining my food shopping habits. I did a little math, and for the past 9 months I've spent, on average, $573.55 on food. EVERY month. That's a lot of money to eat. So I'm working on decreasing that, and so far I think I've been pretty successful.  It's the 10th, and so far I've spent $155 on food. I'm expecting to not spend any more on eating for about a week, save a post race meal. With a little planning that $155 bought me a lot of what I need for quite a bit of time. I'm pretty excited. If I keep this up, for two months, I think a) I'll get the hang of it and b) my bank account will be back to it's happier type levels. Until, of course, it is time to pay property tax on my car. I've never done it before and I'm honestly a little worried about what the bill may be.

Beginning

Tonight feels like sort of a wash so I'm going to write this introductory entry to attempt to salvage something from my evening. 

I got home, after stopping by J's to pick up my yoga mat, bike gear, and bicycle and cooked dinner. I made a soup that I like with red lentil and swiss chard. It didn't come out as good as it typically does. :-/  The soup also took forever. I don't remember waiting around that much previously. Result: soso okay soup that I'll be eating for days and sapping all time and energy that was supposed to also be spent on a short run... 

...Nation's Tri is 5 days away. I don't know how prepared I feel for this race. I know I can finish. I also know that parts of it are going to hurt. So I'm left to think about goals. My goals for the race? Finish feeling good enough that training for next year sounds exciting. I am going to need something to keep my going, something I'm going to have to discover. 

I suppose the real reason I am beginning to keep this is to remind myself to find better ways of doing things. Primarily I'm setting a goal for myself. In 2 days I'll have my 28th birthday. My gift to myself is to live, completely, within my means. This means no credit that is not paid off in it's entirety that month. Historically, I've not been good at doing this. I've never carried vast amounts of debt, but I've seen the way it builds and grows. 

I'm taking control. 9/9 will be D-day for any debt. Pending some huge crisis I will have a year of zero debt. Might that mean I can't buy plane tickets right away when the mood strikes? Yes. Will it mean that I won't be taking a stained glass class? Yes. (at least for this fall). Maybe I can end up doing those things, they are just going to take a little more planning. I can plan. I can plan the shit out of things. I don't know how to predict the future, so I think that may make this a neat experiment.