January Challenges - Week 4

Carla is doing an amazing job on her goals & hosting the challenge, so go check it out! :-)

Here are the goals I'm focusing on this last week of the month!

Financial:

• Stick to $360 $300 for all of our variable expenses. I've cut this down, as per the final challenge of the month. The $60 in savings will go towards our tax/emergency fund savings account.

Decluttering:

• Get rid of 30 items this week. Increasing from my original goal of 20, because I think there's still more there. :-)
• Organize the food stash!

So, that's what I'll be up to this final week of the month.

Question for all of you. . . now that we're putting our finances & houses back in order, would anyone be interested in a Fitness-Focused February Challenge, where we set goals & check in & cheer each other on? Maybe with prizes? ;-)

Do you ever feel like a slacker?

Because, I'll confess, I often do. I think by external measures, most people would classify me as very efficient, but . . . there are many, many days that I feel lazy & like I have not accomplished a single thing.

It's very hard to break that thinking, & sometimes I try to dig a little deeper. This morning, as I was thinking about my pedicure over the weekend, I asked myself why I really wanted one. The answer? I think it was less about the pedicure itself, & more about the "reward", the "treating myself" by going somewhere (ALONE) for an entire hour, dedicated to me. And, wet toenails meant I couldn't go on my run for the day. . . The more I think about it, the more I realize that some days - I'm just exhausted & need a break. It's so hard for me to take the time to relax without feeling guilty, like I really should be accomplishing something. But, taking time for myself is an accomplishment, after all.

I worked out four times last week, which is two workouts less than I prefer to get. I had a pathetic running week (clocking all of two miles), and it sort of haunted me that I was falling behind on my goals. Rather than asking myself why I didn't feel like running (the answer is - I was exhausted from skiing & my race on Saturday), I kind of beat myself up over it. Beating yourself up, for the record, is not a very motivating technique. :-)

I skied super hard on Sunday (my kids are getting good, & I can tell that I'm going to be putting in a ton of effort to keep up), but still managed a work out yesterday. . . because I wanted one, & it felt good. Not as though it was an obligation.

I'm trying to find the balance, because I have a new job that's very demanding, M is traveling a ton, & it can be overwhelming. I'd like to be super woman, but some days it's just not possible. So, I'll settle for myself, and giving myself a break when I start to reach that exhausted stage. Because, that's clearly my body & mind's way of telling me to put the brakes on for a few hours & relax.

Do you ever struggle with these feelings of "not enough"? That you're not quite capable of tackling everything on your plate, or that you're not being "efficient" enough? How do you handle it? Do you build in self rewards?

This is the least glamorous picture that exists of me, but reminder that hard work & motivation pays off. Completing a task way outside of what I thought was possible. On the flip side, lots of "rest" days went into making this day happen. Lots of regular, take a step forward, take care of myself days were needed before I was ready for the challenge. And, that's sort of the rub, I guess. If you're not regularly taking breaks & taking care of yourself, you're never know what you're capable of.

January Challenges - week 3!

Week 3 is now complete, & thanks to Carla for hosting the fabulous January challenge!


Here were the goals for the challenge:

Decluttering Challenge: Choose a closet, any closet, and clean it out!! Pick 2 closets if you're feeling really energetic & determined!! Take before & after photos so you can awe & inspire everyone else participating in my challenges as well! ;) lol!

 

 

Financial Challenge: Give. Find a way in your budget to "give" financially somehow... It doesn't have to be grand, you don't have to go hungry. I just want you to go that 'extra mile' for someone else. Buy a coffee for the person in line behind you at the coffee shop, hand a $5.00 bill to a homeless person on the way to work, throw a little extra into the collection plate at church, toss your change into the charity box in front of the register at the grocery store, etc... simply give

 

My additional goals from the beginning of the challenge were to declutter/get rid of 20 items/week, & stick to $360 of weekly spending money (all variable expenses, no mortgage, fixed bills included).

 

Let's start with the financial end of the challenge. Here's how we did:

 

• Groceries - $103.19 - we continue to spend more than I'd like on groceries. That's pretty much all I'll say here. I'm still looking for ways to make more bread products at home to save on things like: bagels, tortillas, sandwich bread, etc, but it's the produce that kills us. And, for M, that's a non-negotiable.
• Dining out - $15.63 - this was $8 for our lunch date (I had a gift card for the rest + a snack while skiing yesterday).
• Health - $74.77 - signed up for my next race (a half marathon in March).
• Misc - $134.98 - $80 for the boys karate uniforms (by far the biggest unplanned expense this week), + dry cleaning (a 2013 category I completely forgot to include. Oh boy!) + items for S's seventh birthday that's coming right up.
• Gas - $27.79
• Personal - $77 - N desperately needed a hair cut (I suppose I should learn to do this myself?), and after repeated requests from the husband, I got a pedicure. My feet get very gnarly when I run & I caved. I shouldn't have, because it was an unplanned expense. It did make me feel pretty fabulous, & now all of my toes are covered (you can't see the blue bruises & swelling under the polish), but it was totally unnecessary.
• Car - $9.71 - car wash after skiing.
• House - $17.50 - some new light bulbs & various other items that I can't remember

Total spend = $460.57. . . $100.57 over my goal. $80 for the unplanned karate uniforms, & $30 for the pedicure. Otherwise, I would have been right on target. I haven't had my hair cut in a year, but pedicures are my weakness. Maybe it's time to learn how to do them myself?

 

The good news about the karate expense, is that I thought the fee for classes was monthly, but it's actually 8 weeks, so we won't have any lesson fee in February, & the $80 can offset that savings.

 

On the other side, I've increased my charitable giving this month by 10%, and I also have a secret (financial) surprise in store for someone in my family this month, post-holidays that will be around $150. So, I'm counting this as a win! :-)

 

 

On the decluttering side, I failed to clean my closet, but I did comb through both boys dressers & closets (clothes only - the toys remain) & pulled out anything that didn't fit. That was a project unto itself. Next up is going through the toys. Both boys are moving up sizes, so I need to transition S's clothes to N's closet, move new shirts into S's closet, & donate anything left that doesn't fit N. The advantage of having two boys a year apart. Hand me downs! :-)

 

How are you doing with your January challenges? My goals for this week? To stick to my financial spending plan, get my closet back in shape (still stashed with tons of Ebay stuff, but the clutter is making me nuts), & finish the kids closets.

 

 

Menu Plan Monday

M is traveling this week (we're back to our routine, I suppose), so I'm going to keep things easy:

• Monday - 1/21 - Chili (freezer) + homemade bread
• Tuesday - 1/22 - Fiesta Chicken casserole (I have a tiny portion that didn't fit into a casserole dish, so perfect for one person) (freezer)
• Wednesday - 1/23 - Chili (freezer) + homemade bread
• Thursday - 1/24 - Leftover pizza
• Friday - 1/25 - Grilled chicken with tortellini & pesto
• Saturday - 1/26 - Chicken risotto
• Sunday - 1/27 - Meatball & fresh mozzarella pizza
• Monday - 1/28 - Chicken pastina casserole (freezer)
• Tuesday - 1/29 - Tomato soup with chicken and gorgonzola (I'll likely substitute feta, as we have it on hand)
• Wednesday - 1/30 - Leftovers
• Thursday - 1/31 - Chicken fiesta casserole (freezer)
• Friday - 2/1 - Santa Fe chicken over rice
• Saturday - 2/2 - Leftovers
• Sunday - 2/3 - Barbecue chicken pizza

I'd also like to do a little baking, time permitting:

• Chocolate cherry biscotti
• Chocolate cookies (frosted with some extra buttercream frosting I'd like to use up)
• Apple cranberry bread
• Cranberry nut bars (yes, I have a lot of cranberries in the freezer to use up :-)

What's on your menu for the next week or so? Any great cranberry recipes to recommend?

Sunday night chit chat

Thanks to Carla, for hosting!

Reading - I haven't started a new book, so nothing really.

Watching - Arthur, with the kiddos.

Listening to - Ditto above.

Baking/Cooking - It was a low key weekend for cooking, but I made a homemade cheese pizza (kids) & a chicken pesto pizza for the adults.

Happy you accomplished this week - I got a ton of big work projects done, & we finished one of two refinances.

Looking forward to next week - I have another monster work project, & if I can get that done, it will be amazing & a total relief. Also, if I can get our second refinance out of the way, it would be brilliant!

Thankful for today - for having the time & energy to ski with the kiddos. Today, S outskied my husband, who is a double black diamond skier. It was quite the moment. S still has some skills to learn, but his speed & fearlessness is unmatchable, especially by us old folks. ;-)

*BONUS QUESTION* Are you an optimist or a pessimist? - Optimist, for sure!

First time we put S in ski gear, right before we took him to the mountain. He was not quite three, & a natural. :-)

Change can be exciting - and terrifying

Right now, I'm leaning more towards the "terrifying" side of it.

I was asked yesterday to become the consumer face of our blog at work, & start writing weekly & filming video clips. It's a major consumer product, & to say that I'm nervous would be a huge understatement. I'm not a fan of being on camera (I swear, the camera makes my face look like a pumpkin), I turn all red & blotchy, I get nervous & use words like, "dude" a lot. . . I can just hear it now, "Well, um, dude, you should like totally um, check out our product."

It also doubles my workload, which should be . . . interesting. I'm already feeling swamped, so I'll have to vet all of that out with my manager.

On the other hand, my long term goals involve shifting to freelancing (writing, editing, project management consulting, etc) & I've spent the last 15 years in a content discipline. So, it's a great fit & will help build my resume in an amazing way that I could never do on my own. Oh, & I'll have access to a copy editor, so that will certainly be helpful. ;-) This could be huge in terms of developing my portfolio & opening up my career in a very new & flexible way, which is amazing.

But, I'm totally terrified. And, both my mom & sister told me I need a hair cut, & potentially a full makeover. Thanks?

When I get nervous, I bake. So, check off one of my 2013 goals, because I baked two amazing loaves of bread yesterday!!! And, homemade vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting for our dinner party tonight.



Other than that, it's been a pretty mellow day. Karate for the kids, a quick workout for me, hair cuts for the boy who was too sick to get one last weekend, a stop at Target to return a sweater my mom purchased (which was lovely, but had a hole), picked up goodie bag items for S's birthday party, made lunch for the crew, got a pedicure, & now I'm relaxing while M has the kids out at Home Depot. We're heading to dinner at a friends, so no dinner preparation necessary. I'm also trying my hand (again) at an English muffin bread recipe, since my last once didn't rise & tastes great, but is way too dense.

What's the last thing you've done that's terrified you? How do you feel about being on camera?!

Five Things Friday

I know, another list post. However, I swear that this week has been crazier than usual due to last minute refinance issues, & a huge backlog of work.

Here's what I'm thinking about today:

1) I'm going to try my hand at baking bread. Again. This time I learned about proofing the yeast. We'll see. :-)
2) We signed one of our refinances!!!! Our primary residence, which is not the most valuable (i.e. biggest rate reduction), but one out of two to kick off the weekend! Yeah!!!
3) I ran today. It was a super short run between appointments & signings & meetings, but I did it. Back in the saddle again. This is much needed, since I signed up for a half marathon in March, & this is week one of my training plan.
4) It's Friday! We're having curried butternut squash soup, goat cheese crostini, sauteed brussels sprouts, & wine for dinner. I'm excited. :-)
5) I volunteered at my youngest's school today! It's been one of my goals to both increase my volunteer time, & spend more time helping at school, so this was a win/win. Especially awesome is that my employer matches my volunteer time with an in kind cash donation for each hour that I volunteer!

This little guy was extremely happy to see me in his classroom today. :-)

What is everyone else up to this weekend?

Ten things Thursday

Crazy week! Here's what's happening in our world.

1. It's lunch date day with M! So excited. We switched from weekend/evening dates to lunch dates, & while I'll admit that it's not the same, it's much less expensive. Getting together for weekday lunches is one of my favorite treats. I even have rewards from my credit card to use, so it should be free!
2. I've invested over 100 hours in our two refinances. That's no joke. Last night I got an email that we were going to lose funding unless I could find a ridiculous piece of paperwork. We're talking about an account that has $47 in it. I cried - I've spent SO much time & energy on it. I got up early this morning (skipped my workout - more on that) & dug through our massive filing cabinet, and . . FOUND IT! I'm waiting news from our broker, but I think this will work. Booyah, baby! As my oldest son would say.
3. I listed my first things on Ebay! I'm a novice. :-) I'm sure I'll screw something up on these first few sales, so I started small.
4. I finally got over my nerves, and started investigating alternate sources of income, including freelance writing. I'd like to build up a portfolio, & there's no time like the present. For whatever reason, I've been hesitant to take the next step.
5. S is turning seven in a few weeks, & wanted a small bowling party. Unfortunately, his birthday falls on a weekend that is the start of "ski break" in our area, & no one will be around. He was okay with not having any friends attend (two are going to Whistler, three to Hawaii, & one on a cruise - rough life), so I'll have to make it special for him. My parents, my sister, & her boys will be there, so we'll go bowling & then do a casual dinner at our house.
6. I finished three GIANT work projects yesterday. I have one other super hairy project to go, but I feel so happy to finally make progress at my new job.
7. I haven't been working out regularly. See #2 & #6. :-( Not working out makes me feel like a slug. I need to be up at 5:00 to work out, & my 5:00 brain is awesome and coming up with excuses & just generally being lazy. Tips?
8. I'm going to sign up for my second race of the year - a half marathon in March. I think it will help spur me to overcome #7! :-)
9. I dressed up for work today, in anticipation of my lunch date. It feels kind of nice! Black pencil skirt, black patent pumps, tights, cashmere sweater. . .
10. It's almost the weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How is your Thursday going? Tips for motivating me to get up earlier - consistently!?

Cannot believe that this little love muffin is almost seven! Where has the time gone? And, where have those chubby cheeks gone?! He is now crazy skinny, & I have to beg him to eat. . . Ahh, to have that problem. :-)

January Challenge - Week 2

Here's how my progress went on week two of the January Challenge. Many thanks to Carla for hosting.

• For the financial challenge, my goal is to keep our weekly spending to $360/week. This includes the following categories (and, does not include standard bills like the mortgage, child care, etc). . . And, the second week did not go as planned! We were out of basically every kind of grocery in our house - flour, sugar, brown sugar, butter, canned tomatoes, black beans, chicken, ground beef. . . You name it, we were out of it!
• Groceries - $281.43. :-( Holy smokes. Our monthly budget is $500, so I'm trending way up.
• Dining out - $16.55 - I bought snacks (and a Gatorade for N, who really wasn't feeling well) at skiing.
• Gifts - $6.56 - I picked up a gift for N, that was a craft project.
• Health/Misc - I spent $10 on parking at my race on Saturday, because I was running behind & they were out of parking. Fiscal fail!
• Clothes (mine & kids) - $0.
• Kids lessons - $0.
• Gas - $36.31
• Personal (this is hair cuts, etc) -
• Car - $259.17. We had to renew our car tabs, & we had both cars washed at the car wash following skiing. It's been below freezing here, so no hand washing.

Total spend for the week, & well over our goal $610.02. So frustrating! I'm hoping that we'll need very minimal groceries this week. I think the big thing I'm noticing is that our grocery spending is going up, as our eating out is going down. To be expected, but I'd really hoped to drive down our grocery budget further.

• For the decluttering challenge, my goal is to get rid of (either sell, toss, or donate) 20 items per week in January. Bonus goal would be to clean my closet & dresser! Carla also gave us an additional challenge of cleaning out our junk drawer!

I did, in fact, get my junk drawer cleaned out! I didn't make as much progress on my donation pile, but I'm well past 40 for the past couple of week, so on track. I've cleaned out my dressers, & I still have a giant pile of Ebay donations sitting on the floor of my closet. That's on my list for next week.

Here's the before & after pictures of my junk drawer, plus my giant closet mess. :-)

How did you do on your January Challenge in Week 2?

January Goal Check - Mid-Month

The month is halfway over (already!) so I thought it would be good to see how I'm doing against my January goals. Following up on my progress reminds me of anything that I still need to do, & helps me prioritize my time.

Also, I sold something else (two old portable DVD players) on Craig's List yesterday for $30. Woohoo! Two snowflakes for the year. :-)

1. Lose 4 pounds. This should be very doable. Goal end weight for January is 143. - No, sadly. I've done really well on my exercising, & reasonably well on my eating, but no progress. I'm going to continue to push on. I'm in that hard initial part, where I know I'm getting in better shape & converting fat to muscle, as well as letting my stomach adjust to smaller portions. :-)
2. Track food & exercise every day in My Fitness Pal. - Yes! And, I added something to this goal to stay within my calorie goals for 90% of the days. So far, I'm at 10/15 for January.
3. Complete 1100 minutes of cardio. - On track. I'm at 526 minutes of cardio.
4. Complete 10 strength workouts. - I'm at 4/10, so a little bit off pace.
5. Complete 10 stretching workouts. - 2/10, so off pace. Need to step this up.
6. Run consistently, which means:
7. Run 1 race. I'm currently signed up for a very close (& frugal - $15!) race on January 12th.  - Done!
8. Run 20 miles/week. - Pretty much, although I've tried to just make this "run consistently", which is a little more vague, but on week's where I'm skiing twice, or on days when I have an actual race, easing up the mileage. Basically, I'm ramping up my running, & don't want to focus so much on the number/goal that I'm injuring myself.
9. Run 100 miles for the month. - I'm at just over 30 miles for the month, but pleased with my ramp up, as I took a few weeks off over the holidays.
10. Buy one tuition credit for each child. - This is on hold until I can cash some holiday checks that I have. I'm waiting for our refinance to clear, as you have to "source" all of your deposits, & I'd prefer not to have to source checks from my family. ;-)
11. Pay $5000 principal on mortgages. (This will be dependent upon the timing of our refinances.) - We've paid $1359 so far, & have two pending mortgage payments that may or may not close by the end of the month due to the date of our closing.  
12. Have one date night (or lunch) with M. I have a gift card to keep the costs low. - This is scheduled for this week!
13. Get together with two friends. - Done! I got together with one friend for lunch, & skied/had dinner with other friends over the weekend.
14. Track spending, stick to budget, & create a monthly report. - On track!
15. Increase charitable giving by 10% - On track!
16. Clean my closet, dresser, & donate/purge 20 items from the house. - I've purged more than 20 items (and am actually shooting for 20 items/week, and I think I'm at 50 for the month). I've also cleaned my dresser. My closet is currently a disaster, pending listing a bunch of stuff on Ebay.
17. Practice my baking skills by trying one bread & one English muffin recipe. - Done! The English muffin bread didn't rise, but I'll keep trying because the taste was fabulous. I also made a bread recipe, but I'm still definitely learning on getting the bread to rise. I have mixed luck on that element. :-)
18. Research wills online (i.e. what do we need to do to prepare? Is it covered under my legal insurance, etc). - Yes! We've tentatively agreed on a guardian, & I have a meeting set with an attorney. Woot!!!!!

Menu Plan Monday

Can't believe that it's Monday already - the weekend went by way too quickly!

I did a lot of freezer cooking over the weekend, so we're fully stocked & ready to face the rest of the month.

Here's what's on the menu:

• Monday (1/14) - We're having spaghetti with meatballs tonight. The sauce is already prepped, & the meatballs come from Costco. ;-) Making them in batches & freezing is the next thing I want to tackle, but ran out of time this week.
• Tuesday (1/15) - Butternut squash soup & homemade bread (bumped from last week) + roasted brussels sprouts
• Wednesday (1/16) - Chicken enchiladas (freezer)
• Thursday (1/17) - Tacos
• Friday (1/18) - Oven baked chicken risotto
• Saturday (1/19) - Dinner with friends. I'm in charge of dessert, so I think I'll make cupcakes.
• Sunday (1/20) - Pizza after skiing. I'm thinking I'll try barbecue chicken.
• Monday (1/21) - Fiesta chicken casserole (freezer)
• Tuesday (1/22) - Leftovers
• Wednesday (1/23) - Chicken pastina bake (freezer)
• Thursday (1/24) - Salmon + rice
• Friday (1/25) Spaghetti & meatballs
• Saturday (1/26) - Leftovers
• Sunday (1/27) - Pizza! Meatball pizza, or chicken pesto

What's on your menu for the week (or weeks ahead)? Trying any yummy recipes?

And, completely unrelated to food preparations, but here's one of my favorite pictures from the holiday. (I blame Blogger for making me wait this long to post it!) This is my youngest, N, as he sees Santa walking across the deck at my parents house, with a bag full of gifts. N is so excited that he literally leaps from the couch & flies through the air. It's a little blurry, because this is an action shot. :-)

Sunday night chit chat

Thanks to Carla, for hosting!

I'm still fiddling with Blogger & the "HTML" picture setting. This is a picture from today on the mountain. It was gorgeous! Friends & S, on the far right. :-) We had to go home with N, who had the flu & got sick at the lodge. Poor baby. My wonderful friend & her daughters entertained S for the rest of the day at the mountain.
:-)

What are you...

• Reading - Just finished a Tami Hoag novel from the library. Haven't started anything else.
• Watching - Phineas & Ferb. With the kiddos. :-)
• Listening to - Ditto above.
• Baking/Cooking - I made Best Chocolate Chip cookies (substituting dried cranberries for the nuts) & pizzas for everyone. We had friends over (impromptu) after skiing. Chicken pesto pizza for the adults, cheese pizza for the kids, salad for everyone + chocolate chip cookies. Oh, & pomegranate martinis for the adults. Fun! :-) I cooked a ton yesterday.
• Happy you accomplished this week - I completed my first race of the year, & did my first snowball - $13! :-) Baby steps. :-)
• Looking forward to next week - Finally accomplishing a big work task, hopefully completing an 8 (or 10) mile long run, and . . . setting a date for the closing of our refinances. That would be sweet!
• *BONUS QUESTION* What is your favourite board game?  - Pictionary! Or, Monopoly.

Out of everything

Well, in December, we came in right at our grocery budget for the first time ever, & I think January is definitely reflecting that. We've spent a small fortune at Costco & the grocery store, after having a relatively frugal first week. I did do a major freezer stock up yesterday, but we were out of:

• Flour
• Sugar
• Brown sugar
• Butter
• Milk
• Eggs
• Ground beef
• Chicken breasts
• Olive oil

Plus all our normal grocery expenditures. Holy smokes! We're now at $326 of our $500 grocery budget for January. How's this going to work? :-)

ETA: Thanks so much for the help with the pictures!!!

Trying something new to get photos to work in Blogger. . . Here's the before picture of our junk drawer. We're pretty tidy, so it wasn't too out of control.

And, here's the after shot!

I got rid of some cords, found something for my donation pile, & cleaned up extra paperwork. Feels good to be able to mark something off of my January challenge.

But, if you want to see something MESSSY, check out my Ebay pile, currently hanging out in my closet. I'm definitely not always tidy & still haven't found time to tackle listing all of this.

How  about you? How was your weekend?