January 1, 2013
Just like that, the New Year’s slipped in the door, all kinds of Bowls are on the telly while Doggle sighs and flops dramatically while PiC and I tap away at our keyboards.
I’ve been working since we returned from a pretty stressful Christmas trip back home so any recap or reflection posts will come later. Right now, I’m taking a quick look at things we’ve decided. Backwards? Sure. But it’s what works for me right now! 🙂
Things to Do
1. New-to-us furniture in, some old furniture and possessions out:
Even at the slow-mo rate that I collect books and comics, PiC wanted another bookcase. We’ve talk-imagined how to fit this in because I’m getting Possessions Claustrophia. We agreed that if we’re adding furniture, we have to get rid of some things because it’s getting crowded in here!
To make this work, we both committed to:
A) clearing out enough shoes to eliminate a small shoe rack
B) selling his extra never-used bike and moving the remaining bike
C) reorganizing the current storage system in the existing book shelf, perhaps with nice containers for the non book items.
*PiC has always been in charge of the furniture and decor by default, I don’t tend to care about those details as long as we’re not spending or collecting too much. It’s nice to be able to participate in this discussion without feeling frustrated and come out with an agreed plan.
2. Tackling the second closet. We have very limited storage here and we’re not making the most of the space.
A) We’ve collected too many coolers, big and small, and I’m pretty sure that at least one can be returned. Perhaps one can be regifted or sold. It’s a novelty item.
B) We have an unwielding shelving system that came with the place. Time to rethink!
3. There’s at least one bit of paperwork left to sort from leaving my ex-employer.
DO THAT.
Moving towards more simplicity and focus, J. Money and I are on the same wavelength there!
Actual Goals
Money: We’re almost ready to review the last year’s spending and create this year’s budget. If we’re going to talk about a house property, then we need to get serious about money allocation.
A) Create budget based on more realistic savings and spending needs for 2013. Lots of big travel anticipated this year and if we’re doing it, we need to be careful how the cash flows. Our first year of shared but not combined expenses (lack of action, courtesy of my health difficulties) really could have been better and I hate wasting time and opportunity. Allowances, here we come!
B) Refinance this place.
C) Save at least $35k toward new house stuff.
** I’ve not posted any monthly reports since last year because I didn’t know how to present the numbers coming from just mine to both of ours. Still haven’t figured that out yet.
Fitness: PiC has insane-to-me fitness goals but I’m supporting him. From the sofa.
Haha yes and no .. I have been adding some careful gymming to my life lately in 15-20 minute increments and I am going to try and add a little bit more exercise at a time. Maybe I can even work up to running short distances? I would love a buddy who works at my level because at the moment, PiC and I are at the opposite ends of the fitness spectrum and I enjoy working out w/others. Then again, I can just go to a happy place to work out too – I love solo time.
The active/competitive spirit in me was slowly waking up in the last couple weeks and I just want to be able to do some things I used to: run a mile in good time, go for long walks and feel refreshed – not depleted, regain flexibility and stamina.
Not all of that is under my control: I don’t know how my body will react on any given day, much less to any of the pie in the sky fitness hopes, but I think it’s realistic to have a fitness plan menu from which I can slowly work on weak areas as and when I’m feeling up to it or just thinking I can.
I have to start somewhere!
I’m both a touch envious of but also proud of my IRL and online friends taking on new fitness challenges this year (@patti_v in her August race!) and will join them in my own small way.
Career: This new job requires a lot of stretching, some of which I simply don’t feel ready for, and others of which are brainmeldingly frustrating but sort of fun because I’m learning new things again.
It’s time to get back on the horse with regard to balancing the time I spend on the full time job, which could turn into 20 hrs a day, 7 days a week if I let it, and exploring what other projects are out there just waiting to be kicked around. One idea that’s been floating for a long time has to do with my management experience. I spend a fair amount of time helping out a few fellow bloggers with hiring, career and other related advice. Perhaps it’s worth exploring that as a real side job?
Happy New Year, everyone, what’s on your mind for this coming year?
October 15, 2012
Things went truly bad last week. Dark times bad. Withdraw from Twitter, my only form of consistent social interaction these days, no writing, bad. Stayed on the edge of the ledge, though, and was able to check back in with the few people who checked in with me, so didn’t totally lose it. Turned the corner on Sunday.
From Twitter: EEmusings of recent traveling thought that no one subscribed to comment threads. Yes? No? I always do, I like to follow conversations for a while and then I subscribe after a while. It annoys me when I don’t get the option to subscribe at all. Though, the stupid WordPress requirement that you confirm your follow is just as annoying.
This article on robo-resume sorting really annoyed me. As a recruiting hiring manager, there’s no magic formula that a machine’s going to follow that will hurk up the perfect candidate. It’ll probably pull out 20% of the decent ones but I absolutely have to read the cover letters and the resumes to find the intelligence and the spark that I’m looking for. The right stuff aren’t keywords, they are elegantly composed thoughts and they are interesting experiences and they have good perspective, common sense, humor and sometimes that includes keywords and sometimes it doesn’t but no machine is going to find each member of my super team. I will, thank you very much. It can take the resumes and letters and sort them so I can read them without eyestrain but that’d be about it. If people can’t figure that much out then no wonder jobs are going begging. /rant.
Honestly, a large part of the problem tends to be HMs trying to force three jobs into one, writing an impossible job description and then of course you can’t find a person who will fit the bill. Five in a million will, and four of them are too smart to take the job, three of them wouldn’t have applied and your machine rejected the fifth.
Funny’s pointless Physical Therapy class sounds just about as worthless as my last one. I was so horrified at having waited for an hour to get to the real stuff that I couldn’t believe the evidence of my senses. The “real stuff” never happened. Ugh.
Katie’s realization about the Emergency Fund: You know, it’s sort of funny that I managed to completely miss that we were polar opposites on this topic at one point. Hah. But I understand, somehow. Go figure. I think it’s funny she used to think I was insane but she’s really going to think I’m nuts now when I say I feel the need to have $100K in emergency money now. 😉 I blame that on SingleMa hitting that target: I’m getting competitive.
No, it’s actually not, it’s obviously more than that and I’ll discuss more later, but it’s because there’s two of us and because we’ve got families that I don’t necessarily believe are 100% financially on the same page. Not that I plan or expect to act as the next family bank but because I also don’t expect to depend on anyone anymore than I did before marriage.
The human capital that Flexo discusses here isn’t something I’ve ever counted on from family. When I was last unemployed, I had an incredible outflow of unimaginably generous and loving support from the blogosphere that knew nothing but my story for which I am still grateful, whilst support with regard to family flowed only outward. Our cost of living has gone up, and my responsibility to my Dad remains, so should there be any catastrophic or major event like a job loss, we would not expect any more help than I alone could have expected: a meal or two, on the fly perhaps. Nothing beyond what a busy acquaintance might offer when asked for a meeting, in other words. And I wouldn’t bother to ask, since time and energy is best spent doing something productive, to my mind.
I might actually be able to reach to friends among bloggers and bounce ideas off them and work with some of them, though, and that’s something to be valued.
DOGGLE UPDATE: He’s driving me batty. Insists on following PiC everywhere when he’s home. Me? Ehhh, he can take me or leave me. We are now fighting the battle of compresses wherein I must convince him to stay in one place long enough to keep a warm towel on him. Mostly I’m hanging onto his hind end lightly (no pressure applied, just have a hand on him) or his tail so he knows I’m there reminding him it would be really nice if he’d stay. He thinks about it, then turns to leave. Then I move my hand and tell him to stay again. Rinse, repeat. He’s really not supposed to move at all except he loses his mind when he’s crated now and sedation upsets him AND his papa so here we are. Sigh. Silly puppy.
MONEY UPDATE: Back on the mortgage refinance trail. Doing a bit of research again. I’m also still feeling the need to save every penny, both for any closing and down payment costs, as well as for any possible house we might want. And there’s this tiny inkling that if we might-maybe possibly consider making any family type changes, I’m going to want every bit of financial stability possible. Aside from that, there’s some travel coming up next year related to weddings and it could be a hell of a doozy. So, y’know. All instincts set to SAVE.
CAREER UPDATE:Â If I could keep my eyes open during the day or sleep at night, I suspect I would get more done. Slowly becoming nocturnal and this flexible (almost) set my schedule work thing is not exactly doing me any favors. We’re in a crunch period so I am actually needing to do a lot more hours than I’ve actually logged but there’s not been too much pressure to do so because there’s an understanding about my health and a desire not to break me.
September 15, 2012
Doggle is finally learning to play a little bit.
- I’ve been chasing him around the yard when we travel to places that have yards, and he chases me in turn. Hilarity.
- He is crap at visual recognition. He couldn’t figure out that he’d knocked his toy under a piece of furniture and in his panic to find a toy, any toy, he ran to a pile of towels and tried to pick them up. Â No, dear, those aren’t for you.
Once in a while, I fondly look at my husband and wonder: how did we end up together? We’re so different.
- He loves Groundhog Day. I haaaaate that movie. I didn’t have an opinion on Bill Murray until that film and to this day, I have a near-allergic reaction to his character’s smarminess.
- His love of Coming to America baffles me just as much. But it doesn’t bother me.
- He’s a compulsive cleaner. I’m comfortable with cyclical cleaning or cleaning as stress relief. I did grow up stomping about barns, after all.
The new horizon is so bright and shiny. It was hell on the innards traipsing my way to the conclusion and Things To Come. But so worth it.
- A new thing to learn: pacing myself. I am so very bad at this.
- I have added at least one, sometimes two! walks to my day. That’s pretty good for a new routine where I could have backslid into none.
Finances feel neglected. Not like they’re dwindling while I’m off playing or working necessarily, just that I’m not 100% on top of every detail.
- This is true because I missed a credit card bill. Called to have the late fee waived but not within minutes.
- Karen, regular reader, tells me that HSBC notified her of intent to implement a $12 inbound transfer fee which we both think is crap. I’m not a customer though I was considering opening an account there – wonder if they followed through.
- Very happy about the salary bump though not ready to start the calculations of how far away we still are from a refinance and a small yard.
I suspect I just have brain overload at the moment – too many commitments and for the first time, my survival doesn’t depend on knowing where every penny lives. My gut still doesn’t love that idea though so it’s taking note.
July 10, 2010
Despite knowing about our trip down south last weekend for a couple months, I failed to prepare far enough in advance to prevent several wasteful results of being gone and off routine.
Spending, while not wildly out of control, couldn’t be said to be under control either because I’ve honestly not been keeping track of my cash flow spreadsheet. July doesn’t have a single entry listed.
   A) While down south, I went to Target fully knowing I needed 4 or 5 items and that they weren’t really budgeted for. Went anyway. Luckily, I found nothing on the list except a handful of really cute and well-priced cards that I needed for weddings, birthdays, and other occasions: $6.Â
   B) We ordered take-out lunch while rushing from lodgings to hospital to see the new baby and parents; we failed to take note of the total price until I asked for it after calling the order in: $70!
   C) Vending machines in hospitals take credit cards now. When you’re there all day for multiple days and only brought one bottle of water: $10
   D) Groceries that I didn’t have time to prepare beforehand went bad (some salsa, some pasta sauce, some veggies)
   E) Grocery shopping only happens on weekends so getting back late on Monday night meant eating leftovers brought back from the weekend OR …. eating out. One night, a high-earning friend was in town and insisted on going to Ruth’s Chris so also insisted on treating so we now owe her the next dinner, instead of just paying our own way each time.
   F) It could have been worse, without fresh veggies to fix lunch either, it was a peanut butter sandwich every day this week. I’m glad that I really like PB!
   G) Almost forgot, I also spent $40 on groceries for the new parents. A gift, let’s call it.
Bills didn’t go unpaid, thankfully because I tend to pay them every two weeks and the day before any trips, but I did forget to calculate my net worth for the month of June, I forgot to set up some invoices, and barely managed to meet other online commitments.
It’s time to get it together.Â
1. Invoices – prepare and send
2. Net worth – pull it together! Since I’m still in between paychecks, it should be fairly accurate
3. Grocery shopping – at least decide what recipes are up for the week and make up the list. Perhaps even go today. (I’m still pretty achy, yesterday was a tough day.)
4. Cooking!
Prepare chicken stock for soupbases for the week.
Defrost another chicken and have PiC learn from the fabulous @HeatherSolos from Home Ec 101 how to wield a knife and break down a whole chicken (almost the only kind of chicken I think is cheap enough to buy). I prefer to hog kitchen duty but my bones and muscles can’t handle the heavy duty stuff.
Perhaps defrost all the jambalaya making stuff and make up a whole tureen for the week?
That’s more than enough for today since I also have to get some work-work in before Monday. And PiC promised to sit down with me and crunch numbers for some possible trips we’d like to take.