"January! You start the year off fine..."

Yes, that's a line from "Calendar Girl" by Neil Sedaka.  Yes, I know some music from the 1960's.  Although I favour country music, my taste can sometimes be labeled eclectic (if you want to be nice).

So, wow, it's 2016.  It's already the middle of February, or rather, given this month's abbreviated existence (even in a Leap Year), it's already the second half of February.  Time to review January and see what happened there.

I do believe I have found "planner peace", so far as the organisation and set-up of my Bullet Journal is concerned.  I toyed with the idea of "One Journal to Rule Them All", but decided that I enjoy compartmentalization entirely too much to want to combine into a single book everything I do so far as planning and organising my life.  Well, it was either that or admit that I do so much planning and organising that the one book would have to be hardbound and at least the size of one of those massive quire books I used to buy for a forgotten purpose at a job many moons ago.

So, for 2016, I will continue to use a multi-book set-up: an actual pre-printed weekly/monthly planner from Mead (yes, I went cheap this year) for my daily to-dos and work hours, alongside my spiral notebook from 2014 which is still going strong (I am too cheap to start a new book for the new year) for my daily log notes, and an interactive journal I bought from Chapters-Indigo (the store in Canada where I could cheerfully go bankrupt) with daily prompts to encourage a year of self-exploration.

I set myself some fairly simple goals for January, and today I took a look back through my various books and calendars and my Habit Tracker (located in my Bullet Journal) and decided maybe they were loftier than I thought (ha!).  To recap:

Financial - Start saving again using the 52 Week Money Challenge.  For the last couple of years I have managed to make it to the middle of this challenge, only to quit once the weeks/amounts started really adding up.  This year, I decided to start from the other end, working my way down the amounts, to align my goal with my income, which is higher in the winter and early spring because of my seasonal employment.  Well, I was a little slow out of the gate in January, and saved just enough to cover weeks 1-8 ($36), instead of weeks 52 and 51 ($103) as was my goal.  I have to call this one a miss.

On the win side for Financial, though, was my goal to not spend any money for at least 90% of the month, or 28 days out of 31.  I managed exactly the 28 days.  By "spending" I refer to anything no related to our needs for food, shelter and automobile expenses.  I am not even counting clothing, because I have enough in my closet to suit my various seasonal needs, and more besides, so clothing went on the chopped side of the list when I made this goal.  Similarly, although the tin of Tazo tea (Awake English Breakfast, seriously good tea) would count as food, I have more than a few varieties of tea in the kitchen, I could have kept my money in my pocket, but I didn't, so that day went on the "spending" side of the equation.

Mental/Emotional - Definitely a win here, as I continue to meditate daily with Headspace.  January saw me through to day 398, as I completed a repeat of the Self-Esteem pack, worked through the new Generosity pack, and started repeating the Pro packs (less guidance from Andy, more silence, extremely challenging for a mind that needs no encouragement to get caught up and lost in thought).

Physical - This may be a win?  The goal here was to complete a minimum of 3 workouts per week, and I actually did my 5 scheduled workouts for 3 weeks out of 4.  The off week I managed 2 workouts, but am seriously bummed that I couldn't motivate myself enough to even get on my yoga mat for 20 minutes for the one day needed to make this a certain win.  I've made some changes to my schedule for February that should hopefully make this easier this month.  You'll just have to read more rambling next month to find out how I did.

The definite miss on the physical goals was to establish a habit of going to bed by 9:30.  Read strictly, my Fitbit sleep logs tell me I managed that exactly 3 nights out of 31.  Yep, 3.  If I read more into the spirit of the goal instead of the letter, and interpret it loosely to mean "get to bed before 10:00 p.m.", I still only managed that for 16 out of 31 nights (and some of those days are rather iffy, because really, not a few of them were like 9:57 p.m.).  Again, I decided a schedule change had to happen in February, so look for that goal to come around again.

Interests/Hobbies - Anyone who knows me, and quite a few who don't, knows I read for pleasure.  To that end, it might seem strange that I decided to track my reading days in my Habit Tracker, but I decided it might be worth tracking because lately I haven't done as much as I would like.  In December, I managed 14 of 31 days, in January I brought it up to 21.  That still leaves 10 days in the month when I didn't do the one thing I enjoy more than anything else.  That's 10 days I didn't make time for what I love to do.  What was I so busy doing I didn't make time for me that way?

I also set a goal to use the calligraphy supplies I received for Christmas every day to practice my lettering, with a goal to learning the Italics alphabet to at least a competent standard by the end of the year.  I managed 15 days out of the 31 in January, this even after realising that it only takes me 15 minutes to write the entire alphabet in miniscule (common, or small letters) and majuscule (capitals).  There's another pleasurable activity that I couldn't spare 1% of the day for.  So, some work is called for here to make sure I balance the increased work hours with downtime to rejuvenate.

Well, it's been snowing all day this Family Day, the rest of my family is reposed in front of the television, so I think it's time to go and hang with them again.

My Journal System for 2016

Encouraging myself to practice

Calligraphy supplies, courtesy of G

Downtime

Fall is here

September slipped away nearly as quickly as August did.  I barely got myself re-organised, before it was all over and the month of October was looking me in the face.

This month: I discover Bullet Journaling

Back in August, I began trying out the Bullet Journal system of planning and noting in what I call my "Day Book", which I have been using since 2014 to keep myself organised alongside the Evernote and Trello apps.  I came across the Bullet Journal system thanks to a blog entry from Evernote, actually.

Not everyone finds a digital application suitable to their purposes, and there are still (many!) people in the world who prefer pen and paper for the inherent flexibility and customization that comes with a blank sheet of paper, as opposed to the structured architecture of the app.  There are also people, like myself, who use digital applications for one purpose, but otherwise turn to pen and paper (or, in my case, pencil and paper, I prefer pencil) for another.

While I will plan a day of doing the bookkeeping for G's business in an Evernote notebook, or list the three things I must get done so I can feel accomplished on a specific day on a Trello board, I have always had an agenda/daily diary type book since I was 13 years old, if not every year, then most of those years, and rely on them for keeping appointments and scheduling work and personal occasions.

Previously, my Day Book just consisted of my goals for the month and any other tasks I wanted to especially accomplish (in 2014 I just did a list of my Resolutions under various subheadings).  If you checked out the Bullet Journal (Bu-Jo to its fans) site, you will see it starts with calendar spreads for the month and the week, and then daily logging (rapid logging) in the form of tasks, events and notes with signifiers (symbols) that quickly identify what an item is.

So far, I am still tweaking the system to suit myself.  I use a monthly calendar listing to see any events at a glance, a Tasks page for an ongoing list of anything that needs doing, a Due page for my bill payment schedule, and follow these pages with what I call my Daily Download, which is just a summary of each day's main events, completed tasks, activities and even random thoughts.  I do not think I will add "Collections" in the form of say, books to read, not this year anyways.  I also do not log daily activities such as meals or workouts in my Day Book, I use apps (LoseIt, Fitocracy, Fitbit) for all that already and am not minded to change that.

One thing that is quickly apparent about Bu-Jo users is how creative they are.  I can't decorate anything to save my life, I have zero talent in the area of drawing, or art, or crafting.  I feel like quite the impostor looking at the posts of the group on Facebook I joined to get ideas about tweaking the Bullet Journal system, my Day Book is relentlessly plain, just words on a page.  To add just a touch of creativity, a friend sent me a box of rubber stamps designed for planners, with symbols you are likely to need in a planner.  I spent a little time stamping each one into the last pages of my Day Book (I don't call it a Bu-Jo, even though I use the Bu-Jo system to organise it now) and labeling them so I know what each will be used for.  Who knows, I might even spend some money and buy some washi tape, a very decorative tape originating in Japan, and give my Day Book some colour.

What else I got up to:

In September, I didn't save anything.  I temporarily discontinued my RRSP contributions in July to allow for some additional income, because G's business slowed right down to very little.  I re-started my contributions with my first pay in October.

I served as a volunteer at the local running of the Terry Fox Run on September 20.  Terry Fox is very much a Canadian national hero, he ran on a prosthetic leg across Canada to raise awareness about cancer.  35 years later and counting, his inspirational spirit is still honoured with runs organised in communities large and small.  It was my first year volunteering with this particular effort, but likely will not be my last.

For 29 of the 30 days in September, I wrote a short affirmation each morning after completing my Headspace meditation practice.  I wrote for 3 minutes, as that was the most time I could add to my morning schedule without going completely off-track.  The point of this was to both start the day with a positive frame of mind, and to use my handwriting, something I don't do much of anymore with all the digital tools I use.

Finally, I decided to not pull out the sweaters and scarves until it was at least mid- to late October.  Summer ended on a beautiful note, but fall swept right in, with high temperatures going from an average of 21 *C to no more than 15 *C in less than a week.  It's not winter yet, and I am not going to dress for it until I have to.  After 3 years, I am interested to see just how adjusted I am.

Some of the stamps, labeled

The rest of the stamps, labeled

The stamps

A single fall rose

This month's cute pup picture

May the fourth...er, first, be with you!

If you're wondering how come I am writing this post before noon on May 1st, and not on the weekend, it's because I took the day off from both my jobs.  March and April have been a two month-long orgy of work, work, and more work, and I knew this going into these months, so I planned a day off to reward myself, and I am taking it.  I'm going to work tomorrow, which was unplanned: this was supposed to be a long weekend off but circumstances beyond my control threw a serious monkey wrench into that part of the plan.  However, that is no reason not to enjoy today, so here I am.

I started the day off a little early: last night I ate about half the pint of Haagen Dazs ice-cream I had been saving for this day.  It made for a great dinner, if I do say so myself.  Today's meals will consist largely of the rest of that ice-cream, and chips and salsa of the Tostitos brand, but only the "Medium" salsa and not the "Hot" one because after nearly three years of scouring every place in E.L. that has food for sale to the public, I have come to the conclusion that either none of the stores stock it because no-one buys it, or everyone buys it so there never is any when I look.  My money is on the first alternative.  I've eaten about a third of the jar by now, and have a somewhat interesting tingle on the sides of my tongue, but that's about the extent of the "spicy" factor in a "Medium". Oh, well.

Looking at my day book, I would say April went well, indeed.  I wrote 7 goals and 2 notes, and, of the 9 items, 8 were actionable in April.  The ninth item requires some budget adjustments starting in May, so it will be carried forward to this month.

I planned to save for the April weeks from the 52 Week Money Challenge ($15+$16+$17+18=$66) by setting aside $22 from 3 each of the weekly paycheques from my seasonal position, and did exactly that.  If you're wondering why I didn't save each week's amount from a cheque in each week, it's because I wanted to have this particular item accomplished well before the end of the month.

Three other goals for this month were also financial, namely, to keep paying down the balance of one of our two low limit credit cards, to pay both off once I received my income tax refund for 2014, and then to snowball the payments I made monthly on the lower limit cards to the card with the next higher limit (multiple credit cards is the bane of the modern North American's financial existence, if you ask me!).  My return was duly assessed, Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) agreed with my figures, and refunded the excess income tax deducted.  Both smaller cards now have a nil balance, and I have quite the sense of accomplishment in keeping both at nil.  I was able to make a second payment on the next-higher limit card in April, and the plan for May is to put a little from each pay towards it.

One goal and two of the notes involved writing: I wanted to write my April blog post over the Easter weekend, which I did, and the second goal and note involved reading then writing "take-away" points from a book I borrowed from the Library at Job #1.  Since last year, I have been reading through the Self Development and Personal Awareness list compiled by that library, and each time I borrow a book on the list I try to write a summary of what I read that really resonated with me.  April's book was "Smart Women Finish Rich" by David Bach, which was so popular I had to wait 3 weeks on a waiting list before I could take a turn reading it.

I would recommend the book as reading material for any woman, no matter where she is in life financially.  It is solidly grounded in the reality women face in dealing with finances, and written on the premise that any woman can hold the reins of her financial life and do just fine at it with some guidance under her belt.  Bonus: the book was originally written with American women in mind, but the version I read was specifically targeted to Canadian women, and contained some eye-opening facts and information about my financial future as a female Canadian resident.

My carried forward goal actually relates to something I learned from reading "Smart Women Finish Rich", which was to figure out where you stand financially and where you want to go (Chapter 3).  After doing my figuring, I decided to "max out" my Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) contribution room for Job #1, and after doing the calculations demonstrated by the book, I realised I was only contributing about half of what I need to in order to make that a reality.  (RRSP contribution room is set by the CRA, currently the figure is 18% of earned income for the previous year, up to a set maximum limit of $23,820.)   In composing my Goals & Notes for May, I now need to state my plan for making it happen, and get it done.

One goal was related to G's business, namely, doing the bookkeeping for January through March of this year.  In 2014, I tried to do the bookkeeping on a monthly basis as much as possible, chiefly because I had to the bookkeeping for all of his first year (8 months in 2013) in four or five days in a rush to get his information ready for having our taxes done.  I would learn later on from our tax preparer that had I not done the bookkeeping myself, his fee would have been considerably higher than the sum I paid.  This year I fell behind because I have been working every weekend since mid-February, but with winter 2014/15 as slow as it was for him, I was able to do the first quarter over the course of a day in April.  Hopefully, I can go back to the two hours or so each month now that my weekends are soon to be mine again.

To wrap up April on a high note, my seasonal employer has asked me to continue on throughout the summer on an ad hoc basis, whereby she will turn over to me some of the work she usually does herself in that business, so she can focus on another that she co-owns.  I will not have as many hours as I did from January to April, but even a smaller income stream is better than no extra income at all.  I will have access to additional training resources and information, which means I can also upgrade my skills to be of even more worth when the next season rolls around.  I am very excited about this opportunity, and need to do some forward planning to make sure I take full advantage and give the best possible service.

It's a beautiful day out there, I think I have rambled enough for today.  It's time to get some air and sunshine!

Changes, challenges, and choices

Just like that, March is gone, and the first quarter of 2015 is over.  Looking back, I'd like to say it was successful, this first quarter of another year.

According to my Day Book, I made it to my goal of 90 days straight meditating with Headspace.  I'm really happy, and very pleased with myself for sticking to this particular goal.  Meditation is a real challenge for me, I have quite the "monkey mind" going on, and can mentally leap and veer from issue to issue with seeming abandon.  Sitting still and observing this behaviour, without judging and with gentle compassion, is very hard for me.

For the last 30 days of my 90 day count, I worked on Headspace's "Focus" pack (a pack is a meditation series designed to guide you through a particular mental challenge), and I came to the conclusion that I will need to repeat this pack several times before I will feel like I am comfortable with the techniques.  Although I find visualisation one of the easier techniques, my vivid imagination also proved to be my downfall.  I spent quite a bit of time bringing myself back to the visualisation that is part of the meditation from the tangents that I suddenly found myself wandering off on.

March was the second month in a row I chose not to spend unless I was using cash or debit, i.e. no credit card purchases.  I came to the realisation that it is quite useless to try to pay off a credit card while adding charges to the balance (the bank is doing so without my assistance!) , so I stuck to my decision to get off that particular treadmill.

Having to stare at my bank balance or rummage in my purse before every purchase made the decision to spend money that much less automatic and forced me to be more aware of what I was doing with my money, and it is working.  I am coming to like seeing my money sitting in my bank account, or resting in my purse, as opposed to vanishing into the ether to pay another credit card bill, or into someone else's till.  I have kept up with the 52-weeks savings plan to week 14, another March goal.  I aim to continue this theme into April, and will make some changes once I apply my tax refund to additional debt repayment.

It is most definitely spring, the snow is receding.  The sun's warmth is actually felt, it is not just bright on sunny days.  G has plans to begin raking the lawn and garden, and has started raking the backyard so that the accumulated leaves and other debris that got buried in the winter snow can be gathered easily as the backyard dries out.  There is still slush and ice in the backyard where the shadow of the house covers it, but if the weather continues the warming trend, that should also pass by the end of this month.

It will soon be time to put away my sweaters and pull out my not-winter wear.  To make life easier for myself this year, I have decided on a "uniform" for work, to minimise time wasted in contemplating/worrying/choosing what to wear.  After reading the same exhortation on several minimalist living websites, I have decided that a "uniform" is not a bad thing.  Several public figures, including President Obama, the late Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO) are all pointed to as examples of this, as they are all known to wear more or less the same type/colour of clothing daily.

On the one hand, it is certainly easier for men to do this, but on the other hand, I am from a country where working people are used to wearing uniforms and I never had anything against the practice.  I found it convenient not to have worry about what I would wear to work, as there was no choice: most of my employers provided uniforms, and I wore them.  Certainly, it was cheaper: uniforms were either a deductible expense to the employer or a taxable benefit to employees, but it meant that the clothing I wore for most of the day was not an out-of-pocket expense.

Since coming to Canada, most of my spending (including many of the charges to said credit card I am now paying off) has been on clothing.  Quite often the first thing I asked myself before buying something was: "Can I wear this to work?" and if the answer was no, I was always conscious of a very tangible sense of guilt at spending money on something that wouldn't get worn very often.  Last year, I tried to buy spring and summer shirts that could be worn either for work or during leisure time, but found that I was still buying too much, as I am more often at work than anywhere else.  Indeed, whenever I am out and about, it is either work-related or just after work so I am wearing my work clothes.

To that end, I chose a "uniform" outfit from what I am most comfortable presenting myself in for work: long-sleeved Oxford shirts and dress pants or skirt.  Long-sleeved, because I work in air-conditioned surroundings in (largely) sedentary jobs and find that I feel cold quite easily.  23* Celsius, the normal temperature of the buildings I work in, is just a tad on the cool side for me if I am not moving around.  Having made the choice to stick with wearing this uniform outfit, all I need do now is ensure that the clothes are washed and ironed each week. (Yes, I still iron my clothes.  I have not adopted the Canadian habit of using the dryer or relying on "wrinkle-free" material.)

G and the pups are napping yet again, so I think I will do some reading while I have the peace and quiet.  Today, I finished reading "Smart Women Finish Rich" by David Bach (the Canadian version), and wrote some take-away points that I hope to include in my financial planning over the rest of this year.  I am going to take up again reading "The Simple Living Guide" by Janet Luhrs, which I bought for a toonie ($2, coin) at the last library sale.  I had to pause reading Simple Living Guide as I had Smart Women for two weeks only from the library at work, as it is very popular and I had to wait to get my turn to read it and want to ensure I have it back in time for the next person.

Until next time, enjoy these photos of the pups:

Nipper on the yoga mat

Nipper and Ariea

Ariea hogs the yoga mat too

 

Sleepy buddies

Spooning puppies!

Spring? Already?! (Also, the apps that keep my life organised)

I am late with this entry, but at the very least it's still March!

It would appear that spring is definitely going to happen sometime around the spring equinox (Friday March 20 this year)!  Last week temperatures began to warm up, and the amount of melting that has happened in that week is simply amazing.  Mind you, we have less snow this year, and the frost went deeper into the ground because there were very cold days as usual, but the snow has melted dramatically.  In just a single day, we went from small, random patches in the backyard to large swathes being completely uncovered.  Even the front lawn is giving up its snow cover quickly.  While being undeniably glad to see it go, I'm also hoping it doesn't go too quickly, because flooding of basements is always a concern at this time of year.

Flipping the page back to my February Goals and Notes, I see that I did well on several of my goals for the month.  Having hit a 30 day streak on the Headspace app, which I am using for my meditation and mindfulness training, I decided to go for the gusto and hit a 90 day run.  I decided to mark off each day in 15 day increments in my monthly planning book, and it kept me in good stead all through February.  February ended with me successfully two-thirds of the way to the 90 day mark.  If it takes at least 84 days to successfully make something a habit, I am on my way to meditating daily.

February also featured financial goals, including:

1.  limiting incidental spending to cash only, 
2. paying down the balance of one of our smaller credit cards while keeping the others current with just-above-minimum payments (the goal being to eliminate balances one at a time in this fashion), 
3. keeping my spending overview app Spendee up-to-date instead of waiting until weeks (or even months!) have gone by to look back at my income/outgoing comparison, 
4. setting aside some savings using the 52 Week Money Challenge (click this link for a .pdf template), and
5. bringing my own lunch for work daily, rather than buying it.

Aside from still being lax about updating Spendee (I only got to it twice in February), I managed all the other goals.

I started a "gratitude practice" in February.  This involves writing down three things from the past or current day that I feel grateful for.  This has become a sort of preliminary to my meditation practice, to set the frame of mind for a period of mindfulness.  At times I feel almost apologetic about the things I feel grateful for, they can seem so trivial, rather ordinary and mundane.  

Gratitude for the fact that I have a less rigorous workout on Friday mornings has been a recurring theme.  Lately, I have so little motivation to get up in the mornings (see last year's rant about daylight saving time) that knowing all I am required to do is twenty minutes of yoga and 3 sets of 5 reps of one-arm dumbbell rows is all that gets me out of bed at the end of the week.  For the rest of the week, Bodbot schedules my strength training workouts, and I have been learning the basics of yoga from Rodney Yee's excellent Beginner's Yoga DVD (link to his website here).

My work week right now includes Saturdays, as I am trying to get in as many hours as possible at my seasonal job.  There's about two weeks left in the "peak period", so my manager tells me, and then we will "coast" for the next four weeks to the end of the season.  On the one hand, I will have more time on my hands, on the other I will go back to a single income stream.  For now, I am making the most of things by paying down what I can, so that when we are back to the lower income level there will be less it is required to cover.  

I can now go to Trello, and move writing this blog from both "To Do" (last week's card) and "Doing" (card for the week before that).  I felt quite guilty as it sat undone on the Weekly Planning board, in two places, for two whole weeks, let me tell you.  I find that visual reminders work very well with me, so lately I have taken to putting things where I can't avoid seeing them.  I am learning to utilise Trello as a sort of "big picture" viewer, whereas when I want to plan a specific activity such as my housework day or a day of doing G's bookkeeping, I prefer to use Evernote, if only because it has a cleaner, more utilitarian feel, when compared to Trello's decidedly creative feel.

In spite of all this reliance on technology, I haven't given up pencil and paper.  I still carry an agenda: this year's is a smaller, pocket-sized Moleskine (I don't know how to pronounce it, either) Daily/Weekly agenda, complete with handy labels.  Looking back at last year's agenda, I see I used it mostly to record hours worked, and the odd event, so I didn't mind graduating to a smaller size this year.  There's a lined page across from each week where I can put a checklist of things I need to do or remember, and I update Trello from this list if necessary.  And, of course, I have my "day book", where I record my monthly goals and anything of note that comes up (registration keys for products, for example), and keep a copy of each month's calendar once past, so I can see how many days I worked out for the month.

G is awake, and out of the bed, taking the dogs with him, so I can finally fold the laundry.  Aside from accompanying him to the grocery store and doing some light tidying of our bedroom, that's all the housework I am doing today, so no list for that.  I hear a book calling my name, because it will be a while yet before dinner is ready.  I don't know which it will be, but I need some uninterrupted reading time before my rest day is done.  Here's what the bed looked like while I wrote this:

Three Yellow Ribbons, and hello, February!

Well, the shine is off 2015, it's already February 1.  I could say something about how fast time is flying, but I sound cliche enough when I say that out loud.

Yesterday, to close out January, I participated in the Walk for Memories put on by the area chapter of the Alzheimer's Society.  This is my third year participating in this Walk, so I have three yellow ribbons decorating a lanyard on my bedside lamp, one for each year.  This is the last year I will be doing the Walk for Memories, though.  Oh, I will still be supporting the fundraising efforts, but starting next year it will be the Walk for Alzheimer's, under the theme "Make Memories Matter".

My family was very briefly touched by dementia when my great-grandfather regressed to his youth shortly before his death at the age of 87 (almost).  He was convinced my mother was his mother, and that she was upset with him because he wasn't at home, and he kept trying to leave the home he had lived in and raised children with my great-grandmother in for more than 30 years, including my mother.  I loved him as the only grandfather I knew, and this period of his life intersected heavily with ours because my mother was his main caregiver, and I still remember how helpless she felt because there was nowhere she could go for help.  It matters to me that others affected by dementia have support locally, so when I was asked to participate in the fundraising and walk, I had no trouble saying, "Sure!"

Looking at my January goals, I can say I did OK for the most part.  Financially, I am still struggling to put a cap on the expense side of the equation.  Balancing our household budget was made especially hard over the past three months by the Hydro (electricity) bills soaring past $400 because we were using the electric baseboards to heat the house, after the furnace stopped working.

G kept saying the furnace was essentially done for, and that it couldn't be fixed.  When I raised the subject of getting a technician in to look into it, he flatly refused and would only provide reasons having to do with personal issues with prior technicians.  To me, those reasons didn't wash against the need to know exactly what was wrong and exactly how much it would cost to rectify the situation, so on a day when he couldn't stop me (he had to go to the hospital for his treatment), I essentially defied him and got a technician to look at the furnace and fireplace.  Mind you, this particular technician was not on his blacklist.

Less than $100 later, both the furnace and fireplace are up and running.  The fireplace needed to be set up properly and restarted, it took the technician less than 10 minutes to get it roaring away.  I was never so grateful to anyone in recent memory once I saw the blue flames burning away.  The furnace needed a little longer, but within an hour he was dusting off his hands and leaving.  As much as I cringe when I look at the Hydro bills for the last 3 months, I am blissfully happy to be warm again.  Baseboard heaters are simply inefficient in a house with rooms this size, central forced air is the way to go if you're not in a small apartment.

On the accomplished side of the list are things like getting the bookkeeping to the end of the year done for G's business.  For the most part, that is.  There are still one or two things left to be done, but all "cosmetic" touches, really, they will not affect the bottom line very much.  Essentially, we are waiting on my slips to do our taxes for 2014, unlike last year when I had to do his entire year's bookkeeping a month before the tax deadline.  Starting this year, I will be spending some time each month to do the previous month's bookkeeping, much as I did for clients when I worked in an accounting firm.

Also accomplished was making time each day to meditate before 11 a.m.  I am working on making mindfulness a daily habit, and want to get it done as part of the beginning of the day, rather than squeezing it in somewhere near the end, as I found myself doing on weekends and poorly-planned weekdays.  The plan is to keep that going into February, as it is supposed to take as many as 84 days to make something habitual.

As is often the case these days, I find myself surrounded by sleeping husband and sleeping dogs.  I think it's time I closed this retrospective on January 2015 and wind down to sleep.  5:45 a.m. comes quickly!

Reading projects, and more changes

Yes, I have an agenda now, to schedule things in and remind myself to get things done.  It doesn't help if I don't write everything I need to do in there.  Like keep up with this blog.  I am making a note of my next scheduled post date right now.  Honestly!

Two months ago, I was starting out my grandly-titled (in my mind, anyway) "Year End Reading Project".  A Song of Ice and Fire (Books 1-4) had been languishing on my TBR (to-be-read) shelf for more than a year since my birthday of 2012, and I decided it was time to give them a go.  Or, I should say, another go.  I started reading A Game of Thrones in October 2012, but quit within the first hundred pages.  I simply couldn't get into the book, and the author's use of character names instead of chapter numbers almost guaranteed I would end up confused and lost about who was whom, much as I was the first time I read The Lord of the Rings.

However, I decided that four months left in the year and four books in my boxed set was serendipitous, so I embarked (again) on the journey into the fantasy of George R. R. Martin.  I resolved to read the books on my lunch break at work, and read something else on the weekends.  I bought myself a book to use as a book journal, so that I could keep people straight, then discovered that the books had appendices naming the major, and not a few of the minor,  characters.

Fast forward two months, and instead of being halfway through, I am very nearly done with all four books.  I have been sucked into the Westerosi universe, and leave only reluctantly.  As a consequence, I read the second book over the space of 4 days, and the third and fourth in about two weeks each.  I only managed to stay true to my original calendar with the first book.  The fifth is now on its way, ordered via Amazon.ca, thank goodness.

Since I took over the organization of our home finances, things have been somewhat more orderly.  After a mis-communication that saw us over-paying the hydro and under-paying the gas bills, G and I have worked out a system whereby he opens and sorts the mail, hands off all the bills to me, I input them into the spreadsheet I use for tracking, and all bills are sorted into 3 neatly labeled caddies (one for unpaid, two for paid).  At any point in time, I can hand him all outstanding bills if needed, or confirm all paid bills.  Although I pay everything online, I print the payment confirmations.  Computer systems do fail, occasionally.

Another recent contribution of mine to our "home economics", is the use of a menu plan for weeknight meals and grocery shopping.  For some many months, one of my main bones of contention with G has been how late we eat on weeknights.  Often it is not until he collects me after work that he turns his mind to what we will eat for dinner, and that usually means some amount of waiting for food to be prepared.  Jamaicans do not eat dinner at 9:30 p.m. very often, at least not the ones I know.  However, that was becoming a normal practice for us, and it began to annoy me to no end.  Two weeks ago, I decided to end this practice by using one of the dozen or more cookbooks we have as a basis for menu-planning.  Specifically, Betty Crocker's Big Book of Weeknight Dinners.

The results have been encouraging so far.  Rather than going to the supermarket every couple weeks and spending $300-400 to buy random items we might like to eat, and still complaining that there's nothing available to make dinner (or lunch for work), we select recipes for each night, plan our shopping list accordingly, and I make weeknight dinners now, with help from G where needed.  Leftovers become lunch the following day, and usually there are leftovers.  So far we have not spent more than $140 on each week, and it has not been necessary for me to purchase lunch (usually between $5 and $10 per day), or any items specifically for lunch (such as prepared salads).  Saturdays and Sundays, meals remain G's sole responsibility.

As of this week, and for the foreseeable future, I will not need a lunch anymore.  My hours have been cut at work, the usual "budget cutback" cry has become fashionable in my workplace.  It came as a blow, but with many of the major bills out of the way for this year, such as the property tax, I won't complain.  For the rest of the year, or until my hours go up again, we will just have to tighten the belt a little further.  As a Jamaican, this is nothing new to me.  I am new to being a part-time employee, having been employed full-time in salaried positions since I started working at 20, but with a new life comes new things.

Something new is up next tonight: With the end of the Showtime series Dexter, it became necessary for G and I to find a favourite series to spend some of our "couple time" watching.  After seeing my enthusiasm over the Game of Thrones book, he agreed to give the HBO series based on the books a try.  We are halfway through the first of three seasons, but I can confidently say we have a new favourite series!