As October comes to a close...

Before finalizing my November goals, I think it’s worthwhile to review and assess October:


Gas. Again, we only filled the car once. By consolidating shopping trips we were even able to manage a trip to Scandia, MN (about an hour each way). Gas prices fell considerably over October and I’m proud that we didn’t respond by increasing consumption.


Tracking Spending. Complete success! Because CC and I have been diligent about putting personal spending on our separate accounts, there’s been less activity in our household checking accounts; I was able to cancel our $10/monthly accounting software and switch to a (free) Google spreadsheet.


Cutting Expenses. The cable plan is already paying off. Axing CC’s blackberry service hasn’t been reflected yet in the bill, but it will. Last month’s investment in blinds looks promising as the temps drop but the bedroom has stayed cozy.


Savings. No luck this month. The health savings account and the unexpected car repairs wiped us out this month. Primary goal for November.


Eating Out. We slipped a couple of times. Two non-scheduled/expensive nights at Eli’s. Two trips to Chipotle. But considering it was October, a huge success – the Birthday Fortnight from 10/8-21 used to be two weeks of expensive “it’s the day before my birthday-eve!” dinners that emptied our bank account.


Better Living. The cooking plan has continued to work. We had lazy agenda-less weekends and many stress-reducing weeknights. I’ve gotten back into photography and started reading a book (which, I admit, I haven't finished...). We're still watching plenty of TV - but without the DVR it doesn't seem like we have all these shows "to get through". And we're finally utilizing Netflix!


Sometime this weekend I'm going to review the bank account and analyze the spending to see how well we stuck to the budget with respect to groceries, eating out, etc.

$15.36!

The cable bill posted today - $15.36. Fifteen thirty-six!
More importantly, it's $110.87 less than last month. And so far, life-sans-DVR hasn't been that bad. Granted, it's election season and we've been watching about 3 hours of MSNBC each night (Hardball, then Countdown, then Rachel Maddow)(we LOVE Rachel Maddow!!!).
And we've started Season 2 of The Wire ...

Not too much else today. The Costco trip was fun. They had a super-huge 108 oz can of tomatoes from Italy for $3.50 - which would otherwise be ridiculous if CC and I didn't plan to make some kick-ass homemade tomato sauce! Perhaps this weekend.

Our neighbor CB's birthday is tomorrow night. We're heading to his favorite restaurant and then having cake at our place later. Caramel cake from the SmittenKitchen - looks delish!

Synchronized Presidential Debating

Must watch! Safe for work!

http://www.236.com/video/2008/watch_synchronized_presidentia_9857.php

Blends parts of the three presidential debates - equal parts amazing and scary at the same time...

Macro Lens arrived – Are you ready for your closeup??

A happy surprise waiting for me last night – the macro lens arrived! I played around for a while, but the light wasn’t very good and I still don’t have a flash.

I took some shots of dinner (salmon poached in creamy bean curry, which rocked!) but they which weren’t pretty.

Aside from finalizing Thanksgiving weekend, the November menu is done! We’re heading to a home improvement store tonight, so we’ll also stop by Costco for some bulk items.

Oh Scandia!

Mellow Friday night/Pizza night/Movie night. Feeling lazy, we tried that Pillsbury dough in a canister (next week we’re going to pre-bake the crust) with summer sausage and green olives (next week we’re going to rinse the olives). Yum!
Spiderman 3 mostly sucked. I’m over Tobey Maguire (I can't even be bothered to google the spelling of his name).

We drove to Scandia on Saturday to visit VP – so nice to get out of the city for a while – although there were HUGE Bachman/McCain/GOP lawnsigns all over. A couple of signs for Obama/Franken/hope here and there.
She has such a cool home - can't see any neighbors, has her own pond, an apple tree - we were sort of jealous.

Saturday night we had dinner at Porter & Frye in the Ivey Hotel. Amazing! CC and I both had beef tenderloin that was sous-vide (cooked in a vacuum bag at low temp) that was so tender. Mashed potatoes and mushrooms with a healthy dose of white truffle oil. Pork terrine to start, an heirloom tomato salad with crème fraiche sorbet, fun drinks. Dinner lasted two and a half hours!

Laid around yesterday. It was odd to see periodic snow flurries outside. We stayed a bit bundled and, thanks to the blinds in the bedroom, the house didn’t feel cold. In fact the heater didn’t run all day!

And back to Monday. I’m starting on the November menu. We inventoried the freezers, so I’m trying to incorporate a lot of those meals. It’s time to see the cost-savings next month!

They call us mellow yellows...

quite right...



Chill night last night. One of the partners I work for took us out for drinks and then I prepped dinner.

Frozen pesto, a can of diced tomatoes, frozen corn and linguine. Not bad, but next time I need to do something with the tomatoes so they’ll blend in the sauce. When you had a bite with tomato, you mostly tasted tomato – and if there wasn’t a chuck of tomato, you wouldn’t have known they were in the dish.
Perhaps a combination of dicing them even further and perhaps cooking them briefly so the flavor isn’t so bright.

We did a couple loads of laundry and watched Top Design last night (since they cable hasn’t completely switched yet) – sort of funny to have to watch commercials – so retro!

And then CC fell asleep on the couch.

Road-worthy

So nice to drive the car and not worry about it breaking at any moment – which I realize could still happen. The total was $414 – about $350 less than Firestone and the Audi dealer would have charged! I paid over the phone and asked if I could buy them a round of drinks – and was politely turned down.

Neighbors over for CC’s birthday dinner last night. They brought down some brie and blue cheese and I broiled Indian-spiced chicken burgers (from Martha’s Everyday Food cookbook). Delish!
And then we shared slivers of the cake.

Today I canceled Mvelopes. The happy news is that since CC and I have moved our discretionary spending to separate allowance checking accounts, there isn’t as much activity on our checking account. Between lunches, coffee breaks, Target stops, dinner, nitecaps, etc. - we'd often have between 6-10 transactions per day. Now it's more like 6 transactions per week - I can handle that many entries.
When shopping for software in August, the first requirement was that the program pull bank information through the internet – and that’s clearly not as necessary.
Additionally – while the envelopes system is helpful in knowing if you’re below or over budget on any of your categories, there’s still that “will there be enough in the account” worry. When I worried about funding my health savings account, whether we’d have enough money in early November to pay our mortgage and other early-month bills, Mvelopes didn’t provide the answers. So I created a basic ledger in excel and input our future paychecks and fixed bills. The ledger helped me know that we could pay for the car repairs and let’s me know when I need to have additional funds to keep the account in the black.
I still want to use the envelope system to track budget items – so I found a program called “Budget” (from a St. Paul software company) that is more basic. You fund envelopes and enter debits/credits, etc. – but this program was a one-time $30 fee (rather than $8/monthly).
So I figure I might operate using both systems. My ledger is online at google docs, so I can have peace of mind when I check the account each day – and then I can use the ledger on the weekends to update Budget and see where we’re currently at.

Finally, a lovely chat this morning with VP, my fave photographer friend. I'm thinking of selling some of my lighting gear and getting a more portable flash. We also chatted about macro (close-up) lenses. It's fun to dream and also to think through what pieces I want to try to save for - so many people into photography dump thousands of dollars into 10+ lenses, etc. - my goal is still to be realistic about what kinds of pictures I want to take - and then to create a tight collection of superb pieces. We'll see. My birthday money got eaten by car repairs this month - but if we're dilligent next month with eating out, I should be able to be paid back.

Let them eat CAKE!!

The car place called and to fix the breaks and replace the serpentine belt it’ll be “around $400”. They also checked the CV boots, but advised that they didn’t need to be fixed yet. I’m so happy happy happy! Based on the numbers I heard from Firestone, I was seriously expecting to hear that the necessary repairs would run $1200+!

Hooray!

Picture today of the most amazing cake ever! Courtesy of the smittenkitchen (http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/08/chocolate-peanut-butter-cake/) it’s the chocolate sour cream cake with peanut butter frosting and chocolate peanut butter glaze! It looked like a million bucks and tasted that good too! CC did such an amazing job – dutifully chilling the cakes in between frosting layers, doing a crumb layer first, etc.

Sunday night we went to WA Frost with friend SD before the So You Think You Can Dance concert. Dinner and the tickets were courtesy of SD’s law firm – yay! The show was amazing and dinner was good. The weird part was that as soon as we sat down at our table I saw one of the waiters and was like, “That’s Paul”. We sort-of dated for about two months back in 1999. He was the first guy I thought had long-term potential – he was witty, had goals (to go MIT and study linguistics – guess that didn’t happen), read for fun. And then he sort-of broke my heart.
And even though it has been nine years, I recognized him immediately (and I’m not that good at remembering faces). Wondering if this happens to anyone else…

Today’s CC’s birthday! The weekend sapped more energy than we anticipated, so we’re having a mellow night at home.

Last night we dropped off the car and were feeling lazy about dinner. I reheated the leftover chili and then we tossed in a can of diced tomatoes and a can of mock pork (“mock polk”) – delicious and easy.

The Good, The Bad, and The So-So

Things aren’t actually that bad – but I’m stressed about money again. Funny to realize/recognize that I’m out of practice worrying about money!

Back to worrying - about the car. The rear brakes ($500+) and the serpentine belt ($150?) need work/replacement. After that the car should be good to go. But on top of pre-funding the Health Savings Account - these car payments are quite a blow to the budget. We may end up dipping into our newly-created savings account this month – I need to remember that it’s there for car repairs, etc.
Happily, I looked on the Car Talk website and found a highly recommended mechanic in Northeast Minneapolis that specializes in older VW’s and Audi’s. Reports indicate it’s one of those places that says, “Three things need fixing – you need to do #2 today but the other’s can be delayed for X months.”
We’ve got car repairs as a budget item – hopefully remembering the tightness of this month and next will keep me diligent about funding the line item.

Saturday’s party was awesome. I worried oddly that people wouldn’t show. It was the perfect size – just enough to mingle and chat with everybody – but not so many that things were too crowded. The food was a hit and it turns out we didn’t overcook. But by making all the food from scratch (and a little help from Ikea) we were able to stay within our $100 budget (including beer and vodka).

Picture of the cake tomorrow…

setback, courtesy of the car

Rufus was absolutely amazing last night. I almost cried several times. And afterwards CC and I stopped at Eli's for a drink and just sat there basking in the experience, barely talking.

The auto place called this morning and there's some tie rod end that's broken ($180) and the rear brakes are worn ($580). Ugh. I told him to go ahead on the "tie rod end" since it's a driveability issue - but that we'd wait on the brakes. I'm going to ask CC to investigate if there are other places that are cheaper. We'll cut way back on driving for a while.

Party tomorrow night to celebrate birthdays. So tonight we're baking the cake (frosting and glazes tomorrow) and making some spiced nuts and fried split pea appetizers. And hopefully watching a movie ... after all, it is Pizza Night! (tonight's is summer sausage and green olives)

RUFUS RUFUS RUFUS

We're heading to see Rufus tonight!

I saw him back in 2001 at a really small bar in town, but my friend LD and I had just scored Madonna tickets that morning. Throughout the show we'd turn to each other and squeel (quietly) "we're going to Madonna!" - after about 45 minutes we realized that we were too distracted to appreciate Rufus - so we went and grabbed drinks.

I had hoped to make soup last night that we could just reheat and also feed our neighbors who are going too - but I was too tired last night. These nights will happen. Provisional plans to eat at the restaurant downstairs, but maybe I can muster the willpower to cook something quick at home - and then we could have glow-y post-show drinks instead!
Fingers crossed...

CC called over lunch - the front tire is flat. I checked Costco and found tires for roughly $120 each. And thought that seemed reasonable. It's not like I price tires on a reasonable basis and figured it must cost $500-600 to replace all the tires.
Then, remembering that Firestone is just around the corner (seriously, two blocks) - I found tires there for $40 each. Sure, there are better/sleeker/sportier/more-tractiony tires for $80 & $110 - but we mostly use the car around town.

So four tires will cost $215.92 - instead of $384.20 (for the $80 tires) - instead of $504 (for the Costco tires)!
And we'll eat at home before the show.

Health Savings Account funding!

Special second post for today.

I've been worrying the past few days about funding my health savings account. One of the health insurance options at work is this new relatively new system where you have a high high deductible, and then everything after that is covered 100%.

They pair this high deductible plan with a "health savings account" (HSA) which is similar to a 401(k). Pre-tax payroll contributions, they don't disappear if unused (unlike flex spending plans) and the HSA is portable (if you change employers).

The plan started October 1.

The problem is coming up with the deductible moneys this month. For most folks, the $50 or so contributed each paycheck will probably cover them - a cold in December, X-rays in February, etc. But I've already had the endoscopy this month and my psoriasis medication is roughly $1800 a month. So I hit my $2200 deductible right away.

So the challenge has been coming up with a way to make sure that if I have the full $2200 deducted from the October paychecks, that we'll still have enough left over to pay the mortgage, electricity, etc.

Just got back from meeting with our HR department and they ran a scenario in the computer - and we're OK! I'll even be able to pay the phone bill on time, and we won't have to dip into the savings/emergency fund! Being careful with money last month, and ultra careful this month have already paid off!

That's all - just needed to share...

ROBBED!

Not exactly…
We turned in the cable box and cable modem last night. We also did nearly all the shopping for our birthday party this Saturday.

It’s always so gross going to the cable store. They have a bored security guard hovering over the service area, lighting that’s too harsh, movie posters strewn about, stupid local news blasting from the TV. And the other customers. Last night there were these two women exchanging a DVR box. Huge waddling women.

A huge mix of emotions. Part of me felt suddenly skinny! Then I felt a bit ashamed that we were switching to basic cable – and then sort of annoyed that we can’t afford “standard” cable when evidently a DVR box is a basic, welfare need.

And then I remembered why we were there. While I’m super excited to see the extra money show up in our budget, we were there to be rid of the DVR.

Oh DVR - the demonic/blessed box that allowed us to record infinite amounts of television. The box that helped create CC & NK, semi-pro couch potatoes (“Able to watch an entire episode of Project Runway in just 37 minutes!”). The box that turned me into someone who said “I only really read cookbooks anymore.”

And then there were those two ladies. I’ve no doubt that they see cable as a good investment – something that gives them so many hours of joy – for only 80ish dollars per month. But it also reminded me of why I often get depressed at Rainbow – I’m usually behind these men or women in line and see them unload dozens of HotPockets and bags of frozen chicken wings.

CC sat briefly in the car after dropping off the DVR. It felt like something poignant should be said. But looking at CC, I realized that mainly, it felt like something poignant should be said – that occasion didn’t call for ceremony, rather it felt like it should call for ceremony. We’ve been thinking about the decision for weeks and we were ready to say goodbye and start focusing on other priorities.

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/10/10/120-minutes/

We got home, straightened some for the party, and watched CNN (still included in basic cable). And then we went to bed. Oprah was on CBS (still included in basic cable) with Suze Orman and they were reviewing a recent graduate’s spending habits. I’d seen these segments elsewhere (you spend $150 monthly on manicures!)(you spend $500 monthly eating out!) but when the girl broke down and explained that she spent because everyone else did too – it dawned on me that we inadvertently had done that to each other. Similar to quitting smoking while everyone was still puffing away – it was unimaginable to not make the spending choices I made, because that’s what we did. We ate out and had drinks. We shopping at Target and bought cute things. Oprah and Suze didn’t question it, but I suspect that none of the girl’s friends could afford that lifestyle either.

Which is why I’m really lucky to have had CR’s support and guidance when I was at the end of my rope – and I’m lucky that so many friends have simultaneously been making similar choices with respect to money and budgeting. WE ROCK!

Good bye cable. You’ll be missed. But not as much as I’d imagined.

Where did the weekend go?

Watched a bunch of TV on Friday night and then on Saturday we waited around all afternoon for the wireless guy to show up. Noon to 4pm window came and went – he showed shortly after 5. But thankfully the internet’s much faster. There’s still some additional fix that needs to happen on their network end. Oh well.
But internet now streams radio reliably and almost loads Youtube videos quickly enough to watch them straight through.

Last night we reheated hamburgers – but made our own buns using the refrigerator bread recipe. They were super delicious, but sort of overwhelmingly – I’m so used to buns that are mostly air. So after dinner we laid around the living room and watched the Amazing Race and the rest of The Wire, Season 1.

Finally – strange dreams last night. I don’t often remember my dreams – and the memorable ones tend to be apocalyptic – so it was nice to wake up with fond thoughts. Some weird cloud-person came into an inheritance and was busy designing an exclusive club/planet thing. The dream was sort of a mashup of Mario Galaxy and a gay bar. Cloudboy changed midway through from this:

to something along these lines!

Throat Abuse

I was mostly out of commission yesterday.

It wasn’t the leftovers of birthday night – which was full of many delicious enchiladas from Barrio!

It was the 10am upper endoscopy. My third in three years to monitor my heartburn condition. Usually they’re no big deal. Hooked up to several monitors – they spray the back of your throat with a numbing concoction – then some drugs that make you pass out for about 15 minutes.

Yesterday the pass-out drugs didn’t work. So I was awake for the whole thing. Rolled on my side – a mouth guard (with a hole in it) strapped around my head – I gagged and coughed the whole time as they kept saying “breathe through your nose” (which didn’t work). I could feel the tube in my stomach as they took biopsies. Thoroughly gross and upsetting.

So I slept yesterday afternoon away.

The highlight of the day was making Indian-spiced chili. Another recipe from 660 Curries – this one was a vegan bean chili with a fresh curry spice mixture – and several cups of pulsed pinenuts/cashews/pistachios (CC remarked earlier how low-fat it was – until it was time to add the equivalent of three cups of peanut butter!).
While it was cooking I wondered if it would even vaguely remind us of chili – but the potential downside was a huge pot of curry, so I wasn’t worried.

Not surprisingly, it was delicious. The kidney beans and bits of tomatoes grounded it in the “chili” tradition.

Almost no plans this weekend. Pizza night tonight. Watching The Wire. Going to Home Depot – we bought Maggie an indoor litter box but she refuses to use it because the gravel base is unsturdy. I’m hopeful that swapping the gravel with Astroturf will convince her to revisit the contraption!

Thirty Five

I made it to thirty five. Not that I view this as any sort of milestone.

Oddly, I don’t get too retrospective during birthdays – leaving it to New Years – probably because I like the company.

But courtesy of the global market chaos, I’m spending significant chunks of today in my zen place. I took this picture during my last visit to North Dakota and I turn to it for calm. There's so much of me that stems from the prairie - I love the sense of space - there's nothing interrupting your view of the sky - exposed to the sun, and the constant wind - god is embracing you so fully because there aren't other distractions - that's what I feel in this picture.

An old friend treated me to lunch at this new crepes place in downtown Minneapolis (http://www.labellecrepe.com/) that used to be an old popcorn/cigarettes counter next to Zelo. It was delicious and we were able to find seating outside in the sun. As we pass quickly through fall, I’m trying to take advantage of lunches outside.

A final aside, I have the biggest crush on Donna Brazile – make a point to watch this video:
http://jezebel.com/5059945/donna-brazile-is-not-going-to-the-back-of-the-bus?cpage=2&sort=asc#viewcomments

Gloomy

I’ve never been fond of rain, and I’m especially displeased by cold rain. It’s that weather that makes you feel damp and chilled, even if you’re carrying a large umbrella – which I am.

Borscht was awesome. Our pressure cooker cookbook (http://www.amazon.com/Pressure-Perfect-Twenty-Minutes-Cooker/dp/0060505346) really is an amazing book and I recommend it to anyone contemplating taking the PC plunge!

It was a really slow day at work yesterday (which is troubling considering the ongoing market drama) but I used the time to really get down and dirty with Mvelopes – our financial tracking software. Similar to Franklin Planner and Blackberry, I’ve always suspected that you need to at some point surrender yourself to the program and quit relying on daily balance checks online.
By way of context, I’ve relied solely on checking balances (as opposed to balancing my checkbook) for 10 years now.
And since I’ve never studied accounting (not even in high school), I’ve been unsure how to develop confidence in Mvelopes. So yesterday I crunched the numbers and am feeling better.

Not ready to never look at the bank website – but closer…

There is a season – turn, turn, turn

CC began the painful process of dismantling the garden in the sky yesterday. I’m so proud of what he’s accomplished back there – and how each year looks better than the year before.
This year we added a few plants that we grew from seeds. I think we’ll do that again this winter in hopes of further reducing the amount of money spent at Bachman’s in the spring. We started morning glories from seed and they basically took over, climbing into the hanging baskets and up chains to our upstairs neighbor’s balcony (CC helped things along).

Saturday we did the mongo-grocery-shopping-stravaganza! Costco, Target, Lund’s – then home. I have all of the October meals planned out (even weekends and lunches) and have each week’s fresh-food list prepared. The downtown Target is being retrofitted for fresh produce, so I’m hopeful that will help me keep the weekly shopping within budget!

My contact at the city’s wireless internet provider called on Friday to report that our area was fully up and running. So last night I switched the wireless router again. And after an hour of frustration, things were working again. I ran an internet speed test and found that we’re only reaching speeds of about half a megabyte per second – not fast enough to stream youtube without giving it time to load, but fast enough for most other uses.

Because 1 MBps will suffice, I can buy a year’s worth of service for $14.95 per month!

CURRENT MEDIA PLAN:
Cable & internet: $126
Netflix (3 out at a time): $20
Monthly total was $146

NEW MEDIA PLAN:
Basic cable: $15
City internet: $15
Netflix (5 out at a time): $30
Monthly total will be $60

Tonight we’re making borscht in the pressure cooker. CC loves borscht (and all other things beet). And then we just going to bum around at home and maybe hang a couple more shelves in the bedroom.

Saturday night I started reading the Informant. I haven’t read a book (not counting cookbooks) in so long. I’d sort of forgotten how pleasant it can be to let time slip away while reading. We installed the thermal blinds in the back bedroom last night, so I’m eager to spend an entire Saturday reading. Soon.

I’m the original Maverick!!

A fun night last night watching the debate. The Trio and our neighbors were over. I made butternut squash soup from yesterday’s farmer’s market and fresh bread (pictured). I love the immersion blender.

I’m so relieved the debate is over.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxGKlrS9SxE

Looking forward to the weekend. The October menu is almost done – tonight I’m going to try to finalize and then make the grocery list and sublists. The idea is that we start at Costco, then hit SuperTarget, and then Kowalski’s for any remaining items. And this month I also want to have weekly sublists containing that week’s perishables.

Pizza night again tonight – summer squash (probably the last of the season) and herbed ricotta. And The Wire!

The frenemy of my enemy is... friendly Mimi

Chilled out with Maggie last night. CC had to work late. Dinner was reheated three-bean curry, which tasted great! (CC’s still a bit nervous that some items will turn gross in the freezer)

The Trio gave us some stuff from their CSA that they weren’t going to use, so I cleaned/cut up radishes and cucumbers and put them in vinegar and oil (with a touch of apple cider vinegar). A little treat for Friday’s lunch.

CC got home just before 10 – we ate quickly, then met up with some friends over drinks to discuss his new play. Animal Farm opens Halloween – and it sounds like it will be really amazing. We saw him last summer and he’s got that ‘zing’ factor that’s so engaging.

Last night we each paid for our own drinks out of the allowance. We were at our local watering hole, so CC explained the new system – for fear of them thinking we were breaking up (separate checks, etc.). It felt good to be having a drink, but according to the budget.

This morning I was invited to a political fundraiser in our building. Not uncommon, but one of the listed sponsors is my best frenemy from high school – we’ll call him ET.

A touch of background:
ET’s family was in medicine so they always had lots of money and nice cars. Mom frequently invited ET to dinner – but he never never accepted. Our house wasn’t as nice as theirs.
ET and I were sort of good friends, but most years we’d have a fight and not talk to each other for a week or so. One year it was yearbook.
ET went to an Ivy League college – and had a Louis Vuitton Wallet.
ET went to a crappy med school and didn’t do well there either. But he always spun things in a ‘isn’t it great that I get another year of med school to decide what I want to do’ (instead of just admitting that he didn’t match for residency…).
He was visiting once and I took him to the Saloon to see some porn star/stripper. While we were waiting, I finally said, “So you’re out now?” and he still insisted he was straight. Even though we were hanging out with hundreds of other men waiting to watch some other guy shed clothes.
Basically the last time we chatted, he called to say he was moving to the Cities and his dad was buying him a condo, so where should he buy? (I was still renting in Lowry Hill – an apartment he once called ‘quaint’ and ‘not bad for this stage of your life’ [with each move, ET’s dad had given moving/decorating allowances]).

ET always found a way of making me feel like white trash. And now he’s listed with 20 other men, all openly gay, to host this shindig – well, I’m assuming he’s finally out. But that wasn’t really my issue with him.

It’s been about 7 years –maybe I should just get over it. Or at least be open to the possibility that he’s changed.
But what to do if he’s still condescending?

Schwamped!

Busy day at work – need to enter all of my billable time for September. Such a pain, but that’s the way it works.

CR, my budgetmentor, joined me in an after-work toast yesterday. She was helpful in suggesting that I might think of the budget in terms of quitting spending (rather than starting a budget). Realizing that so many of my habits revolve around spending - that by “quitting” spending we’ll have healthier lives down the road – just like quitting smoking. It’s not usually urgent, but over the long run there are huge impacts.

Sometime this winter I’m going to make tofu!
Martha Stewart had a segment last year with a Japanese chef in NYC who made tofu. A hoot of a segment as this guy didn’t speak a bit of English and the translator sucked – the interview was so awkward and you could tell the chef didn’t know or care about Martha – and she didn’t care how horribly things were going – cuz Martha was that excited about fresh tofu!
Here’s a link to a vegan blog I follow:
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2008/10/making-tofu.html

Back to the grind – thanks for the comments yesterday – quel helpful!