A Girls Gotta Eat

Before I jump right into the results of my January Spending Freeze, I think it’s important to give you a glimpse into how D and I handle our affairs.  After climbing our way out from under an obscene amount of debt, we devised a plan to keep us on track and spending within our means.  The system is quite simple and it’s incredibly effective as long as we stick to it.  We have “house” money, the money we save and/or use to pay our bills with.  And then we have “allowance”.  We each get the same amount of allowance every pay period and we’re free to spend it at our discretion (shoes for me, video games for D, whatever). 

Simple enough right.  Well I think I clearly exhibited in How To Spend  A Month’s Allowance On Your Lunch Break that Idon’t always do a very good job towing the line.  I’ve gotten in the bad habit of borrowing money from the “house” and things have gotten a bit sketch since August.  Before I knew it I found myself owing $600, yikes!  It’s a slippery slope because I make good money and I work hard so at the end of a pay period, I want to reward myself with some pretty new thing.  When I owe the house money though, I’m paying that back, which leaves me with less money for me so I borrow more.  See why I need help? 

When I saw the January Spending Freeze I thought I’d give it a go, and well let’s just say I wasn’t successful in that I spent money.  I also didn’t save a dime.  I did however pay off my debt to the house, prove I can go an entire month without buying something shiny and new and gain a lot of perspective into my spending habits.  You may not, but I’m calling this a success. 

So my journey.  I started out strong and managed to make it a whole three days before I broke down and bought my first coffee, $1.75.  I felt guilty, really guilty actually, but that didn’t stop me from doing it again four days later, another $1.75.  I broke the freeze very early on but like anything in life, this freeze had its ups and downs.  Not perfect, but in the first two weeks I only spent $3.50.  I killed it by eating breakfast at home and by bringing my lunch to work every day.  This without a doubt is what allowed me to pay back the debt I owed.    

Happy, happy, joy, joy.  Life is good……WRONG.  Once my debt was down to zero, things went completely aery.  I stopped keeping track of my infractions and I spent my entire second allowance on takeout!  Such a waste of money, but I mean a girls got to eat right.  I’ve discovered that if I’m going to get serious about saving, I’m gonna need to do the work and get my butt to the grocery store every weekend.  No joke you guys there are times where I won’t go to the store for three weeks and even then the only reason I’ll go is because we’re out of cat food.  I’m going to need to prepare meals regularly, and I’ll need to wake up early so that I don’t leave the house without eating breakfast.  I definitely need your help here.  I’m so tired of making crummy recipes that take lots of time and turn out like crap.  What can I make in bulk that will keep and TASTE GOOD.  I know this may sound easy to some of you, but I swear it was an anomaly for me in the first two weeks which is why I am so fricken proud of myself.    

This was a great exercise and I will definitely give it a go again.  I’m thrilled and relieved to be out of debt.  I’m glad to know I can go a month without buying a shiny new object and I’ve pin pointed a huge part of the reason I spend so much money.  March, I’m coming for you.           

Want To Meet Poochie?

Poochie and Beeps made their debut on the blog a few weeks ago in this post.  Some of you asked to see more of them around these parts, so here goes.  Meet Poochie aka baby lamb.

Isn't she cute???  Poochie and I are the best of friends.  She's my sidekick, my snuggle buddy, my faithful companion.  For those of you who say cats don't have personality like dogs do, I invite you to come meet my little love.  Poochie had personality from the get go.  Look at these pictures of her as a kitten (8 years ago).

One day I came home from work to find 30 pairs of socks scattered across the living room floor.  For days we strategized about what in the hell had happened.  Anyways, about a week later we saw her in action.  She definitely keeps us on our toes.

Like her mama, this little lady is obsessed with food.  She eats so fast half the time it comes right back up.  She insists that she be allowed to drink from the bathroom faucet at all times   We've actually contemplated getting a sensor faucet so we don't have to constantly help her get the water on.

This can is tenacious and she loves nothing more than destroying our door jams.

I mean, who does that.  We use to replace them but have realized it's all in vein.  A few months later they'll just look like this again.  But man is she sweet and loving and with a face like hers we've learned to take the good with the bad.

I hope you're all lucky enough to experience the kind of pure joy that Poochie has shown us.  Have a great weekend.  Anyone watching the Superbowl?  I'm going to try my luck with this recipe today (if I can get myself out of my pajamas and to the store at some point).  Wish me luck!

Ladies, Forgive Me

Ladies, forgive me.  It's been 8 days since my last confession.  Seriously, I just had to do this again.  I can't tell you how good getting seemingly little things off my chest made me feel.  Since I wrote about my indiscretion with a cigarette or two (here), I haven't thought about smoking even once.  It's like magic.  So here goes, round 2, and I promise I won't make a habit of this.

I shave my legs once a week, maybe.

I drive a brand new Lexus, but my 5 year old sheets have a hole in them.

Aunt flow is late.  Like weeks late, so after stressing for days and wondering if  I was pregnant, I finally cracked and took a pregnancy test.  It came back negative, thank god!  I'm mean I'm too old for this shit.  My little scare has however without a doubt confirmed my desire to NEVER have children.  We'll be beefing up to security big time.

I don't have a bank of blog posts so this ship could go down at anytime. 

I don't love my Clairsonic.

I've owned my Kitchen Aid stand mixer for 6 years now and have used it once to make instant pudding.  For years I kept in on my kitchen counter because I thought it was a status symbol (ridiculous right?).  Now I keep it stored away in a cupboard somewhere waiting for the day I magically become Susie homemaker, so basically when hell freezes over.  I could give it to someone I know would enjoy it, but I keep it because that's the kind of greedy person I am.  Please tell me I'm not alone here???

I saw this really cool OC Bloggers Brunch posted on The Nectar Collective earlier this week. My first thought was to register and go meet some new friends!  So why haven't I...fear.  Fear that I go and nobody talks to me because "they" all already know each other and they don't have room for me in their already full lives.  Or that "they" do talk to me and quickly realize that they don't like me.   

Don't judge and by all means feel free to unload, it really does feel so good.  Hugs friends. 

Stress Less, Tips For Reducing Stress

We all stress.  Some of us definitely stress more than others (me) and our reasons for being stressed may vary (work, family, money, health issues etc.), but the end result looks and feels the same:  Mind racing, pounding heart, elevated blood pressure, a sense of panic.  You get where I'm going with this.

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Three out of five days I bet if you walked by my desk, I'd look a little something like this.  Now in my defense, I do have a stressful job.  With a high profile project coming to completion, the last few months have been particularly stressful, but like I said above, we all have reasons we could be stressed out.  The key word here is could.  Like anything else, letting stress effect you is a choice. 

For years, maybe even a decade now, I've made the choice to be stressed out (I think most of us have, for different reasons of course).  For me, so much of my self worth was based on the job that I had, that I've conditioned my mind to work overtime.  I wanted so desperately to be successful in my career, that I made an overachiever look lazy.  I pushed and I climbed and I did whatever it took to prove myself worthy in the workplace.  I've been the ideal employee, a bosses dream.  Bravo for me right?  Wrong!  The "conditioning" I put myself though may have gotten me raises and promotions in the short term, and if I'm being honest, it definitely helped me get out of a really bad situation, but in the end, where it matters most, it's left me a stressed out mess. 

One of the many reasons I'm now in weekly therapy sessions, yep weekly, you read that right, is because at 34 I need to retrain my brain.  In layman's terms, I'm learning to slow my brain down.  I'm teaching myself how to live a stressful life without being stressed out.  I've made a conscious decision that 2014 is going to be the year I learn to lose the weight of the world, and for me a big part of that means losing a mind that runs overtime trying to achieve.  In just a few short weeks, I've seen an incredible shift in my attitude and in my stress level.  In no way has the stress I'm under gone away, I'm just learning to reduce the impact it has on my mind and body.  I'm not an expert but I've picked up some super, simple tips over the last month that I'd like to share.  Full disclosure, the exercises themselves are incredibly easy, it's implementing them into your daily life that takes work.

Tip #1 Self Regulation
Ever heard of it?  Me neither until a few weeks ago.  Man, what a positive impact this exercise has had on me though.  To get started you'll need to pinpoint your first signs of stress.  It didn't take me long to realize that in stressful situations my breathing instantly gets shallow and then the speed of my movements increases.  Once I knew what to look for, I put myself on alert.  The moment I'd notice my breathing get shallow, I'd take three deep breaths.  As soon as I noticed my typing speed increase, I'd stop typing.  If I'd start to walk fast, I'd immediately slow my pace.  By consciously looking for and then correcting these behaviors, I'm regulating my level of stress and ultimately stopping what could be a slippery slope.

Tip #2 Unplug
This is huge.  I think a big part of the reason so many of us are as stressed out as we are is because were over stimulated.  I know I am.  I'm not gonna go off and get all crazy about how bad technology is because I love my ipad as much as the next person, but what I will say is that when you're feeling stressed, the added stimulation isn't helpful.  If I'm feeling stressed out and my cell phone rings or a text comes in, I don't answer it.  In the past few weeks I've changed a lot of little behaviors centering around technology that have really seemed to help,  I've stopped listening to music in the car on my way to and from work.  I've also stopped watching tv or surfing the internet at least 30 minutes before I go to bed.  I don't need the extra chatter.  I've stopped using my lunch break to blog as well.  I mean how can I expect my brain to slow down when I'm constantly stimulating it???  

Tip #3 Go Outside
It's amazing what some fresh air and a 10 minute walk can do for you.  I use to say I was too busy to step away from my desk and if I did go outside, I'd use that time to make calls or return personal e-mails.  I guess something is better than nothing, but what I mean here when I say go outside, is really go be outside.  Let the sunshine warm your face or the breeze blow your hair.  Nature has a great impact on our moods. 

Tip #4 Just Breathe

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I mean the simplest of all concepts.  We have to breathe to survive right?  I know I mentioned my shallow breathing above but what I didn't mention is that there are days, no joke, where I don't think I've taken a deep breath until I get into bed at 10 o'clock at night.  Lately in my therapy sessions we've been spending a good half hour just breathing/meditating (pretty much one in the same).  I'm probably the only person on the planet paying their shrink to meditate with them, but hey, it's helpful.  The practice has helped so much that I now find myself doing it while I'm doing other things (like having full on conversations).  It's amazing!    

Tip #5 Visualize

If you guys follow me on Instagram (which you should) you've already seen my new little friend.  She is a reminder to be still and to be at peace.  I've had her on my nightstand for the last week and every time I look at her I visualize myself as calm and at peace as she appears to be.  There's a reason they sell this shit you guys.  I mean we all love our mantras, maybe you have your favorite saying or a reminder to yourself on your desktop or pinned up on your bathroom mirror.  Visual reminders help to keep us moving down the right path, they work.   There may be a third tattoo on the horizon...

Well that's it for my tips and tricks for now.  Like I said, these are super simple concepts.  The hard part is making them habit.  The good news though is that it really only takes a few weeks before these practices stop feeling forced and start feeling a bit more natural.  Again, I'm not an expert and I still have a long road ahead of me but for now these things really seem to be helping me manage my stress.  I hope they help you too and I'd love to hear what you guys do to keep yourself calm and at peace in this stressful world.