A New Start

I've not been very good at this blogging thing, but I hope to turn that around. Aside from the wedding, and getting a second job just a few months before the wedding, I've been thinking a lot about living intentionally. Just thinking about living intentionally does not get anyone very far though. It's time for that to change.

Jim and I have made a few goals, but we are slow to take steps to really achieve them. Part of this was a bit of a honeymoon for us. We didn't take a lot seriously for a month after the wedding, which we needed. We did re-arrange the apartment. We relaxed. We found out we both have a bit of an obsession with "How I Met Your Mother" and watched 3 seasons in as many weeks. Didn't I just say I've been thinking about living intentionally? I guess that's enough to wear me out.  

Last weekend we went to Wyoming for a family reunion with my family. While, I don't think you can consider that honeymooning, the trip did give us some time to think about where we might live. We also may have realized that 100% rural is not for us, as romantic as it sounds. (Ok, I knew that, but now I really know that).

So, I'm getting back into posting as a means of accountability. I've thought a lot about life, and where I want to go and think I'm able to break this down into a few themes. Structure has got to be a good thing, right? For this blog I'm hoping for the following:

1) Hold myself accountable as I work towards the goals I share with Jim and a few of my own.

2) Begin to take photos to add to the blog, and do that, regularly. (I think this will help with goals).

3) Use this blog to spur my own professional development. More on that later.

So that's this blog. That's where I am, and a hint at where I am going. I will post more about goals shortly.

Goal 1 for the New Year: $3000 and a Fit Wallet

I'm hoping to accomplish some goals with the New Year. This first is to use this blog more. So for the next few days I'm going to outline a goal for the year each day. 


I originally started the blog to track a debt free year. I did not have a debt free year. In fact, I spent most of the year paying down purchases I had to make with the credit card, then having to make more with the credit card. Bad move. I just paid the thing off- pre-Christmas. Good move. 


With the wedding Jim and I are working on saving. The yearly goal is $3,000 on top of what we already save and on top of any gifts received.  That should be easy. It's 125 each a month. That should also cover air-fare for our year later honeymoon planed for 2013. So that's the big, measurable goal. 


The less measurable goal it to approach money differently. I want to approach it like I approach a race.


Hanging out with my parents is always wonderful. But as I 'grow up' it becomes apparent that my parent's handle money really well, and not just because they make a bunch. They are reasonable, and know how to enjoy things that they treat as indulgences. Their indulgences are not daily things, but things like fishing trips for the family while we are at the beach house. They pace themselves, if you will so they can enjoy what counts. 


I think the race metaphor is good for me, because I can pace myself and manage my race like a pro when I'm in shape. You get in shape, you know what you can do, and you do it, but save enough that those last few minutes of the race you can pick it up, reel people in and fly by them. If you've done a good job you aren't laid up for a week because of your efforts.  Granted, for most of the race people are flying by me, but there are people who set themselves up for me to pass later on by not pacing themselves early on. 


So, while there is a money saving goal for the year, there's also a bigger, more important goal. It's to get in shape, learn to pace myself and enjoy those things that are important and that I remember. That means my indulgences can't be things like a latte in the morning. Really, they shouldn't. That's not an indulgence. It's an expensive habit. A great indulgence is not feeling squeezed when going out to a fancy dinner with J. A great indulgence is surprise airfare to go visit friends and family. A great indulgence is replacing the TV that direly needs replacing. 


Being able to afford and enjoy these indulgences means being able to afford  the other parts of life without hassle. Dogs need to go to the vet. Cars need maintenance and sometimes repair. Emergency funds need funding. 


So this goal is going to work like training for a race season, with a few basic phases. These won't work exactly like a race season. Life is dynamic and there are going to be moments that call for certain behaviors, so while there are steps, they may all be simultaneous. 


Phase 1- Build a base- get the house in order, get into shape and figure out where your limits are and how to push yourself further. It's painful at times and feels like it's taking over your life, but it's mandatory if you're going to run a successful race. I think I have an okay base at this point, but it needs work. Base building should happen as a part of the normal course of things. 


Steps: 
            - Review the budget
            - Determine what is excessive and what is necessary
            - Refine my savings plan


Phase 2- Speed building- For the financial goal this is going to work on getting over obstacles, and learning how to manage the race. It's living, but not indulging. It's determining how to make indulgences easier. What shortcuts are there? 


Steps: 
         - Learn about Travel Hacking
         - Reduce crap. Sell what we can. 
         - Choosing indulgences.  


Phase 3- Race- Live, follow the plan, use my base, remember my speed training, and enjoy the finish. Enjoy what counts. There are times in the race where you are in a pain cave. No surprise. It'll happen. There have been good and bad training days. But there is a time to enjoy it. 


Steps:
        - Be aware of surroundings.
        - Don't use the slightly faster person to pace yourself early on.
        - Enjoy the ride. 




I think in a way my metaphor gets confusing. It happens. There are not really phases in this whole living thing, but I think they all sort of happen, and you just have to choose what phase you're in. For January we are in Phase 1. Saving and recouping. Figuring out what our base is and how we can work on speed. There's not a lot of racing to be done when it's so cold out. 

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.