By Golly, I"m Back

Sorry for the tremendously long break folks. Here is the run down of what's been going on:

• We had a death in the family that I don't care to share at this point. I will let it be known that Chris, Alexander and I are doing well, and we are all healthy, happy, and chugging along.
• I am on vacation form school and I am loving every minute of it. Alexander does go to day care for two mornings a week so he won't forget Lina, his sitter. I wish I didn't have to send him, but I don't want to be anxious in September when he has to go back. Plus, he gets to play with his little friends when he's there.
• I am 1/3 finished with my last graduate course for the summer. This will make 24 credits (8 classes) since February. I'm hoping they all get final approval from the lady in Human Resources so I can move from the +60 pay column to the +90 pay column.
• I bought a fancy new MacBook Pro, which I am on right now. I love it, but I'm finding a little bit intimidating as I've been using PCs for years. So far, I love it, but I haven't had a lot of opportunity to use it other than typing things up for graduate classes, and frankly Microsoft Word is Microsoft word for the most part no matter what type of machine you happen to be using.
• I want to start doing the Manic Mondays again, and I'm hoping to do so this Monday. The following Monday might be a challenge because we'll be on vacation. I'll see what I can do.
• Alexander is turning 2 in less than 2 weeks. Can you frickin' believe it? I certainly cannot. He is giving me issues about taking a nap these days. He won't stay in his bed, he climbs out of the pack and play. I can rock him until he's drowsy and then put him down, or drive him around in the car. If I wait too long to put him down, he gets wound up and totally nutso, which is funny until he starts putting his feet in my shirt whenever I pick him up and then he's stuck. He thinks it's hilarious, I find it frustrating. I think he gets it from Chris, who gets really dumb and silly when he is lacking sleep.

Well, there you go. My drive-by update!

Trying to be smarter

I am trying to be smarter these days about food and money. As I'm sure you all know, both are so hard to be smart about. I am taking good steps forward. Now that we're mostly unpacked, Chris and I have been cooking dinner at home, and bringing lunch most days. We even stopped buying cookies. Instead, if we want cookies we bake them ourselves, but not the whole batch. We freeze at least half the dough so we can't binge eat cookies. So food is getting better in that sense...and so is money as a result.

Money is a touchy subject for me. I feel as if things are out of control...they actually aren't, but with the move, the new house and Christmas gifts just purchased last credit card statement, things can seem overwhelming. I did quite my big fancy $102 a month gym (and that was with a discount) and joined Curves, which is much cheaper and I can go during my lunch...it's that close to work. I'm still doing Starbucks only once per work week...I will occasionally have some on the weekend if I'm meeting a friend for coffee or something, but that's still saving me cash.

I don't think I'm doing the resolution thing this year...I find that I never fulfill them and I find that depressing. I do want to set goals for myself. One goal for 2009 is to cut my non-mortgage debt down by a minimum of 20%. This included student loans, credit cards (with home construction stuff on it), personal loan and car loan. That is a lot of $$ and if I can make some of it disappear, I am going to do it!