Bliss

I don't know when.
I don't know where. 
But I do know that I'm getting married, without a doubt, to my most favorite person ever. 


And that makes me very happy. 


Hopefully I will write more about it. 

Writing and Planning

I am so adult. I have an IRA and everything.

I also have to move. I"m pretty much through with my apartment. We are broken up. It's so aggravating. The rent is going up too much for a renewal. So, the plan is... it is.. to move.

Here's the thing about this area. There is no great place. What are we giving up? Location? Outside space?  Laundry? Closets? The ability to pay for race registrations?

I don't know. Hopefully the perfect place shows up on craigslist or some for rent by owner site. In the meantime I want to get ready to move. Reducing the amount of stuff I have, organizing, and dreaming of all the things I want to do with a new place.

My last assignment to myself worked really well. I was finished within 3-4 days. I should have documented. My new assignment to myself will be to remove all the photos from albums that were stuck into the albums so they'd have a place to go. They will be rehoused into an archival box. Extra Credit: Put together 2-3 nice albums with pictures of things people would want to see.

Assignment 2: Sweaters. I need to organize them and weed out a lot. I have a lot of sweaters that I don't wear, but keep because maybe I'll nee it. I need to reduce these to sweaters I wear and that look good on me. It's all about managing the wardrobe. Extra Credit: Get wool-lite and wash some of them.

Due Date: 3 weeks.  July 7.

Spinning Up Hill

Blog, what happened!? We did great there, for at least one whole entry. 

Non-profit me is back. I went to a bike co-op meeting tonight. I am excited to start helping to get things organized. That's a very cool place, that seems to need help. I also have a meeting to help with fundraising letters at the art league. I'm finding my footing again and it feels really good.

So, hopefully all this time will become time well spent and I'll soon be on the road to where I'm going- where ever that may be. Ability to balance my life with all of this? It will come.

Training, work, two volunteer gigs, keeping up with things at home (I got a lesson in keeping my stove clean from the maintenance guy today- oops), re-paying of my credit cards (wasn't this blog supposed to be about that to begin with?) yep, I can take it. I feel my energy picking back up already. Yesterday my mind was racing before bed with ideas, making it hard to sleep. I've needed more to do in my life, my job isn't one that could currently fulfill me, but it's doing a good job of giving me what I need. 

What was that about my credit cards? February happened... did I mention that? So, I was over 1000 in the hole because I lost my back wheel, got into a fender bender, paid car insurance, paid for a year at the fairfax county rec center, and had an unplanned hotel stay to save my sanity in the worst driving experience in my life. Currently that debt's down to 650. Mint projects I'll be finished with that mess in July. My other financial goal? Start a Roth IRA. I'm giving myself a month- till June 20th. The hold-up is figuring out what to do with the money in the account. I need to research some money market accounts. I'm going to start it off with 500 from savings, I think. And then put in 50/month..... I think that will work out well with only some slight re-arranging. I'd do it now but I don't know where to put the money. There. This blog was supposed to be about my debt free-ness... well there's a whole mini financial summary. 

Sometimes adulthood is just not my thing.

                           

This all started with the government shutdown. You, know- the one that never happened.

Since my job is government related I began to daydream about spring break. Of course, I wouldn't have been furloughed, since I work for a private company. I just couldn't help but begin to daydream. Reading, time to train, adventures, a beach trip, hiking around on some mountain, drawing, figuring out what I want to do with my life. I could have had time for it all. I wouldn't have gotten any of that, but I can dream, can't I?

On top of all that I'm re-reading the Dharma Bums. 

The result of all this was is that my brain has gotten stuck in the change loop. These routines that have become my life seem worn and rusty. I don't feel like I am pushing myself. I want to run wild. I want to go hike Matterhorn with Japhy, forget that I own an iphone, and feel connected with the earth and whatever it is that binds us to it.

Maybe the modern condition of government shutdowns, recession, earthquakes and meltdowns, antibiotics and hormones in food, chemicals in plastics, and revolution and war in the middle east has gotten to me. Maybe I'm tired of staring at a screen for 8 hours a day, and coming home to play with a smart phone while mindlessly watching TV when I'm not training for a triathlon, recovering from training, or sleeping. Maybe the suburban life that has neither the drive of a city or the tranquility of a mountain top has dropped me into a funk. Maybe I'm just Beat at the moment.

It's the sort of scene Norman Mailer once set before writing: "It is on this bleak scene that a phenomenon has appeared: the American existentialist—the hipster, the man who knows that if our collective condition is to live with instant death by atomic war, relatively quick death by the State as l’univers concentrationnaire, or with a slow death by conformity with every creative and rebellious instinct stifled (at what damage to the mind and the heart and the liver and the nerves no research foundation for cancer will discover in a hurry) , if the fate of twentieth century man is to live with death from adolescence to premature senescence, why then the only life-giving answer is to accept the terms of death, to live with death as immediate danger, to divorce oneself from society, to exist without roots, to set out on that uncharted journey into the rebellious imperatives of the self.

I think that in the Fall of '57, when The White Negro was published, perhaps that was the only answer. Certainly that answer became what we know as the iconic 60s. Today I feel like there are other answers. We don't have to drop out. I'd really like to think that at least. For the most part I really enjoy my life, and although I've admittedly run away from it at times, I don't really care to drop out of society. I'm done running. You can travel around the world, and never-never land exists on mountaintops, and at the end of the day it doesn't change much.  Not that I don't plan on figuring out how to go all over the world or live on mountaintops again, but in the future either option is going to look very different. 

So, what's the answer? How can you live within modernity? Obviously, the ending of the 20th century didn't change much. Obviously, every generation since the beginning of man has spent a considerable amount of energy attempting to figure this out. That's the thing- there are no universal answers. I feel like I'm getting closer, but I am not there yet. That's probably the answer- we get there, little by little. 

                           

Ready.

Today I got home, opened the door to the porch, opened a beer and opened a book and enjoyed the warm wonderful weather. I forgot that I spent the day at work, re-seting passwords and unable to breathe. Even if I was still unable to breathe. 

It's wonderful how things can melt away so that only everything good and wonderful remains. My life is crazy and messy and fantastic. I am so thankful for what I have and for the people in my life.

But I can do so much better. I'm working with a friend at accountability. It's time to start making changes and to get back on track. It's time to not settle, but to trust myself.

Right after I made that last post, the wheel fell of my bike. I've been quiet for the rest of the month because I really didn't want February to go down as the most expensive month ever. Anyone who has a bike, please note, having the back wheel fall off is super expensive. Luckily, I have an amazing boyfriend who is fixing it once and for all, 3 cartridges, 1 wheel-set and a chain later. It took a few wrong steps to get it right. 

And now, this weekend, I can finally start training for this half-ironman like a big girl, on my bike. 

As I think about training, about work, an about simplifying my life it boils down to one common theme. Organize BEFORE things get crazy. Unfortunately it's all at the crazy stage. I spend my days at work putting out fires at a level or two above my pay grade. I'm 9 weeks out from race day and don't remember how to ride a bike (exaggeration, sure, but I'm nervous still). I am slowly getting things together at home, but don't have tons of time for that either. Hopefully I'll be able to spend some time on that this weekend after finishing up stained glass stuff, riding my bike and running lots. 

I'm stoked. I'm done with traveling for a few months until race season starts. And I'm going to make some time, by choosing to take things off my list one by one.

Time Crunched Triathlete

So I'm registered for a half ironman in May. 

AHH! 

I'm also taking stained glass, work has picked up, and life is insane. I've not been balancing it all well. The bag of clothes I created for Goodwill in October is still sitting in the office. Have I been floating since then?


I know that I can get things organized. I know I can handle everything, but somehow I'm failing at getting everything together and training regularly. 6 days a week is looking more and more impossible. 4-5 seems doable. But I have to ensure that I am getting a good workout in, and in the winter it's tough. 


Do I need to start making myself accountable to a blog? Maybe so. 


This week. Laundry. 2 runs. A swim. A ride. Clothes to Goodwill. Recycles out. 


That's achievable. Very achievable. 


Now: I started this with the intention of a year long debt free experiment. I've since put quite a bit into savings. Currently: Good credit and little debt is awesome, especially when life throws you an emergency hotel stay and a fender bender the same month you're buying a year long gym membership and paying a 6 month insurance premium. A little credit card debt will have to do for a month or so. At least it's tax return time, right?