23 September 2016

Been a good week



I had more energy this week and generally just felt better all around. I'm still not where I want to be, but at least this week I wasn't completely exhausted every day. So now I think it is time to step it up a bit. I make these plans and then do nothing. Like today. I had a faculty meeting this morning and planned on doing some stuff this afternoon. I did nothing. I took a nap and watched TV. It is now 5 pm and I have accomplished exactly nothing today. It is really depressing. I did order a new activity tracker because 3 that work fine is just not enough. Got to have a lot of activity trackers for the lack of exercise I do. So this week I'm going to focus on following my plans. I'm going to make a reasonable plan and then I'm going to follow through. All I need is to force myself to do things to make them a habit. I know this. And yet I still let my feelings take over and talk me out of doing things. Ugh!!! Hate that. So this week it is just to stick with my plan. That's all.

On the weight front, I've hit a holding pattern. At least I'm not gaining more weight. But I still need to start things moving in the other direction. I feel bloated most of the time and I need to lose that. I hate to pile too much on myself though, that is a recipe for failure. So I'm not going to stress over the food this week. One week won't make a huge amount of difference anyway. I will work on getting into the habit of working out. Also, once I start working out, the food tends to start to fall into line. Okay, so my focus this week will be activity.

18 September 2016

Adulting


I have spent a lot of my adult life avoiding adulting. Seriously. I worked and paid bills, but I was always very spontaneous. I never considered the future let alone plan for it. I very much lived one day at a time. Was it a smart thing to do? NO. I spent a lot of time stressing over money and things. I'm sure I also paid way more than I needed to over the years because I let things slide. Late charges and past due fees were the norm for me.

10 years ago, when we moved to Waimanalo, I started to get my act together. I worked out a budget. Paid bills on time. Even managed to save a little money. Then we bought the house on Paleka road and thing went to shit again. I then spent the next 6 years trying hard to adult correctly and just not having the resources to do it. In my defense, I really, really tried, but it was a huge struggle every step of the way. Then we moved here. I have done more adulting since we moved then I ever have in my life. We have been able to do many, many adult things. Buy new furniture. Actually, decorate a room or two. Make serious decisions about what we want to do with our money. And the truth of the matter is that it feels really good. It feels good to have money in the bank. It feels awesome to have all the bills paid and money in the bank. It feels incredible to actually be able to think about things like vacations and saving accounts. Seriously. It really feels good. I made a plan last night to get $10,000 put away as an emergency fund. I should be able to get that put away within the year, maybe sooner. Then I'm starting a vacation fund. I want to travel to Europe and Australia. Now that Charlie can get a passport, we are going to do that. But we are going to do it the adult way; save the money before we go. You have no idea how exciting it is to feel like you finally have a handle on life. You have no idea. I have set up recurring payments for the mortgage and am paying $83.90 extra every month. I read somewhere that you can cut 7 years off your mortgage by making 1 extra payment a year. $83.90 a month is more than 1 payment a year. Yeah!!! A couple of weeks ago we bought a new car. The payments don't start until October, but I set up the payments to start next week. We will be paying 1/2 the payment every 2 weeks plus an additional $22 a payment. That equates to an extra payment every year plus an extra payment in additional money. That will have us paying off the car 10 months early and saving us over $1,000 in interest. Woo hoo. It really is so much easier to be an adult when there is money to work with.

I can honestly say that moving from Hawaii was one of the smartest things we ever did. I now feel like I am finally a true adult.

Conversation with Hubby

 So yesterday morning I presented my idea of working out at home to the Hubby. Once I presented it to him, he said he was in. I told him I h...