Lately it feels like money is just sliding out of my pockets. I was totally on empty today so I fueled my gas hogging Jeep Wrangler up and it was a whopping $55. This will last me 2.5 days. I remembered in grad school when I lived in Louisville, I paid 76 cents for gas, now I'm paying $3.32 a gallon. I've been pondering if the Jeep needs to go lately. The only thing that is keeping me from selling it is that it is paid off, I've maintained it nicely, and we have a small sail boat (that has not seen water in two years). I'm been secretly desiring to buy a small shitkicker but the only downfall of that, is that I don't want to buy a used junker that is questionable. Though, driving 105 miles per day myself and Chris is driving 120 miles is getting me to think about some other car options. We hit $760 for gas last month and we didn't take any trips. I got all excited thinking that we were going to save some major money this month but then the brakes on the jeep were going so we shelled out $600 for brakes but at least we had the money to pay for it in cash without touching the savings. It just seems like since the first of the year, we've been sending out a ton of money with property taxes, car insurance, etc. Plus vacation is only three months away so I would like to have some extra pocket change for the trip. At least we don't have any credit card debt! I learned in my 20s to stay away from that kind of debt.
I feel pretty bummed for my sister. She was attempting to get into grad school for speech pathology but she was waitlisted. Hopefully, a spot will open up for her. It's been 8 years since she's been out of school. She graduated the top student out of her class so I was suprised to her that she was waitlisted. At least she didn't get rejected but if she doesn't get a spot, hopefully she will try again. My mom said that there was over 200 applicants for the 32 spots. So send her some positive thoughts. I know that things happen for a reason but it would be nice to see her go back to school so that she could get her masters. Thank God I got my masters when I did. I would strongly urge those who need to go on for their career to do it while their young because when you get older you have too many responsibilities. I couldn't imagine going back to school at this point in my life. So I give people a lot of credit who do it with kids and a full time job.
I ate 26 points today...day 3 of tracking...just 21 more days to make it a habit, right? I'm heading in the right direction....take care all-Kellie
Monday, April 07, 2008
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Love this feeling....
I love spring. I truly do. Nothing is better than the sun shinning brightly, a warm breeze, and the feeling that the snow is over. DH and I travelled over to Lansing yesterday and it was amazing. We drove by the campus of Michigan State and people were sprawling on the grass, throwing ball, etc. Seeing that sparked the feeling of winter is finally over and spring is going to be in full force.
Today we get to do some spring cleaning. Our duties today is to rake the remaining leaves on the lawn and do some general clean up. I'm trying to convince Chris to rent us a small dumpster to get ride of some of the yard waste that we didn't focus on last year. Our back yard is pretty funky. We live on an incline and in our back yard we have some flat space but then we have a 12 foot hill with an incline. Future plans for the hill include a Pagoda type structure, a small pond, and some other landscaping. That's a few years out but we still our planning. The most immediate thing we need to do is to get some new windows and insulation. We finally get to start saving some money this money because nothing major is going to be going out. We just put brakes on the jeep so there no big forecasted expensives coming up until vacation. Thanks to the stinking stimulus package, we're going on vacation with that so it's not going to impact the budget. We were going to buy a video camera for the trip but I think we are going to hold off on that until the technology price comes down (Chris wants a sony 60gb HD video camera that is running about $1K at Costco...I say wait on that).
The weight is staying put (which is awesome) and I'm tracking my points for the second day in a row. I've been trying to be more mindful of what I put in my mouth. For instance, yesterday, I could have completely gorged myself. We hit the Michigan Brewing Company and I was very good. Chris tried some brews out and I tasted. Prior to going to the brewig company, we stopped a nice but strange restaurant in Okemos (a small town outside of East Lansing). It was called "The Travelers Club" which was a tuba museum and a restaurant that had food inspired from all over the world. He had a few samples of their brew and I ate a delicious Greek salad instead of picking the Indian meal complete with a mango lassi...
We hit the gym 3 times this week and it was exciting. I think that it's getting darker later in the night, makes it easier. I'm still in a quandry about the curves place so we'll see where that goes. Working out there has been a complete time challenge lately and I don't know if it's going to be any better. Summer will be more flexible on my schedule because I won't have to put up with the after school appointments because everyone will be home. Well that's it for me today because we have a busy day! Take care all-Kellie
Today we get to do some spring cleaning. Our duties today is to rake the remaining leaves on the lawn and do some general clean up. I'm trying to convince Chris to rent us a small dumpster to get ride of some of the yard waste that we didn't focus on last year. Our back yard is pretty funky. We live on an incline and in our back yard we have some flat space but then we have a 12 foot hill with an incline. Future plans for the hill include a Pagoda type structure, a small pond, and some other landscaping. That's a few years out but we still our planning. The most immediate thing we need to do is to get some new windows and insulation. We finally get to start saving some money this money because nothing major is going to be going out. We just put brakes on the jeep so there no big forecasted expensives coming up until vacation. Thanks to the stinking stimulus package, we're going on vacation with that so it's not going to impact the budget. We were going to buy a video camera for the trip but I think we are going to hold off on that until the technology price comes down (Chris wants a sony 60gb HD video camera that is running about $1K at Costco...I say wait on that).
The weight is staying put (which is awesome) and I'm tracking my points for the second day in a row. I've been trying to be more mindful of what I put in my mouth. For instance, yesterday, I could have completely gorged myself. We hit the Michigan Brewing Company and I was very good. Chris tried some brews out and I tasted. Prior to going to the brewig company, we stopped a nice but strange restaurant in Okemos (a small town outside of East Lansing). It was called "The Travelers Club" which was a tuba museum and a restaurant that had food inspired from all over the world. He had a few samples of their brew and I ate a delicious Greek salad instead of picking the Indian meal complete with a mango lassi...
We hit the gym 3 times this week and it was exciting. I think that it's getting darker later in the night, makes it easier. I'm still in a quandry about the curves place so we'll see where that goes. Working out there has been a complete time challenge lately and I don't know if it's going to be any better. Summer will be more flexible on my schedule because I won't have to put up with the after school appointments because everyone will be home. Well that's it for me today because we have a busy day! Take care all-Kellie
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Slowly finding the mojo...
I am slowly finding my mojo back. Darn, that trip to Kalamazoo! It totally threw me off course and it's taken me forever to get back on. I think I used almost every excuse in the book of why I haven't been feeling like exercising. For instance, "Oh, I am working late" or "Chris is sick" or my favorite one is "Oh, my energy is completely gone". Last week, we made it to the gym once but then Saturday we went out Geocaching around Muskegon near the lakeshore. The one thing about living in West Michigan that is wonderful is all the access to the beaches. We found two caches in Muskegon State Park and they were wonderful. The trails were awesome but as I was walking around, I was very aware of how out of shape I have become. It was a sad realization that I could definitely not reframe. It felt good though to be back on the trail. I'm looking forward to being outside this summer. We have the house exactly where it will not need any work so we can focus our energy on maintenance and having fun. We haven't camped in years either so it's definitely a goal this year to grab the tent and do some exploring. Geocaching is awesome. If you have a GPS, there is no excuse on not using it for some fun. The positive thing about caching is that it takes you to some awesome spots that you would never know about. Like this weekend, when we went out to the park, we hike about 1.5 miles and the views were stunning. When we go on vacation, we're always grabbing our GPS to take us to spots. There are several favorite sports that caching has taken me. My number one spot was looking at Sun Island at Glacier National Park in WY. The other was in DC where they had a spot with all of the individuals who signed the Declaration of Independence. We would have never known about it unless we were caching.
I found out last week that my Curves owners is sold the club. I know that things have been tight but I was so sad to hear this. I was happy that they were able to sell without just closing it but I'm so sad that they are not going to be running it anymore. It kept me accountable and now I found out that they are also losing the whole staff because the new owner is bring in her own people. It's sad....my ladies will be broken up. We're planning on keeping in touch but I feel it will be like that for a while, then we will part ways. Goes back to my transitional friend theory. I have this theory about friends. People are in your life for a certain time and they exit your life accordingly. I'm very cautious when it comes to friend. My best girl friend is Teresa and she is probably in my life because when I exited her's she did such a good job of keeping in touch with me. Besides that, the only women I feel close to are my curves acquaintances. My coworkers on my team are awesome but I always keep a distance because I'm afraid to blur the lines there. I sometimes wonder why I don't have too many close friends but to tell you the truth, I'm okay with it. People burn me out. I'm very skilled clinician and put 110% into my job and meeting the "client of where they are at" and then to deal with people like that are high mantinence in my personal life? No thank you. That's why I loved the ladies at Curves. They were non-draining positive people and this is a rarity in my life to have people like that in my life. So when I heard the ladies were selling the club, I was sort of crushed. I feel sad about losing part of my support network and I truly hope that they are not a part of my transitional friend theory. There are people that stay in touch, right?
I found out last week that my Curves owners is sold the club. I know that things have been tight but I was so sad to hear this. I was happy that they were able to sell without just closing it but I'm so sad that they are not going to be running it anymore. It kept me accountable and now I found out that they are also losing the whole staff because the new owner is bring in her own people. It's sad....my ladies will be broken up. We're planning on keeping in touch but I feel it will be like that for a while, then we will part ways. Goes back to my transitional friend theory. I have this theory about friends. People are in your life for a certain time and they exit your life accordingly. I'm very cautious when it comes to friend. My best girl friend is Teresa and she is probably in my life because when I exited her's she did such a good job of keeping in touch with me. Besides that, the only women I feel close to are my curves acquaintances. My coworkers on my team are awesome but I always keep a distance because I'm afraid to blur the lines there. I sometimes wonder why I don't have too many close friends but to tell you the truth, I'm okay with it. People burn me out. I'm very skilled clinician and put 110% into my job and meeting the "client of where they are at" and then to deal with people like that are high mantinence in my personal life? No thank you. That's why I loved the ladies at Curves. They were non-draining positive people and this is a rarity in my life to have people like that in my life. So when I heard the ladies were selling the club, I was sort of crushed. I feel sad about losing part of my support network and I truly hope that they are not a part of my transitional friend theory. There are people that stay in touch, right?
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