what's up
in order to better align myself with the slew of non-technical skills i've had to ramp up on in the past 5 months, i've been reading a lot of business and econ orientated books. they really REALLY love using the phrase "the elephant/gorilla in the room". it reminds me of the obvious issue i've been ignoring for a while now on lj. :p
my priorities changed over the past 6 months. the list of things more important to do crowded out spending leisure time on the net, and so posting became more of a nagging chore than a delightful way to spend an evening.
one thing kept me coming back, and that's knowing my parents were on the other side of the world patiently hitting refresh on my lj, hoping for an update filled with proof that my brother and i were living a life less ordinary. or at least proof that we were alive and still had jobs. :p yeah i could email them, but honestly i think blog entries are way more fun and other people can get their 2 seconds worth out of the bloody thing to boot.
and so! brief outline of the happenings and goings of months and weekend already past:
- my project at work is now over! this hellish entity ate up most hours of my life starting from mid dec. i was pulling 9-12 hour work days, working on weekends, and i actually liked it. it also made me realize all those years hiding in my cubical nyuking with fellow engineer dorks did nothing for my social skills.
- late november of last year i hurt my knee attempting to run at a ridiculously high cadence as instructed by my gung ho triathlete brother. i've been paying for it ever since. i would take a break for 2 weeks, attempt to ease into my running schedule again, ouch. ok let's take another break. run run, ouch. rinse repeat until end of january. by that point i got fed up and resolved to stay off my knees as long as it took, b/c i was obviously slowing my recovery. i haven't been to the gym in ... well ok i went 2 weeks ago, but i tried not to run. i ran a 2 mile interval the week prior to that and my knees fared much better. expectations for the glucosamine i started downing last week runs high.
- i've reached that point my life of commerce where things are needing maintenance or replacement. at the 5-6 point mark, my pillows, sheets, duvet cover are completely dead. this is the first time in my life i vividly remember using a fabric to tatters. sure it happened in childhood, but this is in the NOW. unfortunately my car nekomobile seems to share the same lifespan. i got my timing belt system replaced, new tires mounted/balanced, new rear brakes and rotors all in the span of 3 days. it doesn't seem like much now, but getting those 3 things done equated to one massive headache of a month with something going wrong every step of the way. i really hate haggling over prices especially when i know the mechanic is lying straight to my face. i'm working on not taking it personally. still have 4 more things to fix: parking light, leaking washer fluid resevoir, passenger side window, and order a replacement center cap for one wheel that mysteriously disappeared overnight. (who the hell steals these things? COME ON!)
- related to recouping costs for the the above, wes and i tried a no spend february. we spent money only on essentials and did some fancy budgeting for the one weekend we had out of town guests. we told no one of our intent. it was difficult hanging out with friends since it usually involved eating out, but everything else slid into place. i spent $88 the entire month which rang up to a total savings of a mere $100 over the amount i normally save. i still need to work on changing my mindset that $100 is small change.
- still related to the above, it hit me just recently why i seemed to have less money to spend despite having slowly downsized my spending over the years. i've been on autopilot financially for the first 5 years out of college and never noticed what was happening. now simple math can explain the phenomenon! voila, my salary has roughly doubled since i first started working 7 years ago, yet i've been living on the same take home pay i got back in 2000. add inflation to that, the disappearance of a corporate yearly bonus, and the fact that my rent has increased 50% since then, i've now located my missing chunk of cash. :p
- i've been a terrible biznatch with all the stress of the past few months. i've said this before, but wes really is the best bf for having dealt with all the crap i've tossed at him lately. i'm damn lucky he hasn't headed for the hills by now. :p