We had a great time at Zach and Emily’s wedding last weekend. Blessed to be friends with each of them individually, the happiness I usually experience at a friend’s wedding was doubled for me. Zach and Emily were both so happy and so in love. It was amazing. Emily is a beautiful person but I haven’t seen her as radiant and happy as she was on her wedding day. We had a great time celebrating with them and look forward to sharing more happiness with them in the future.
Part of the reason the weekend was so great was because we didn’t have to worry about money or how we were going to pay for things this weekend. No, a wedding fairy didn’t come down and make the weekend free. We planned ahead for occasions like this in our 2012 budget. While we want to attack our debt and try to save a little bit of money, we don’t want to forgo life events and sharing in special, happy times with friends to do so. We now allocate money each month for upcoming weddings and other celebrations. We call this line in our budget our “participation in life” fund. Because we planned ahead, we didn’t have to worry about where money for gas, meals, tolls, the hotel, and gift would come from or put these things on a credit card.
Part of the reason we’ve been feeling disconnected is because I’ve been kind of depressed this week. Every day, all I wanted to do was go home and watch TV. I didn’t feel like writing, I didn’t feel like reading, cooking, cleaning, brainstorming, anything. I just wanted to go sit on the couch, watch TV, and go to bed. I don’t feel overly sad, I just feel blah, not motivated to do anything. Yesterday morning it was so bad that I seriously considered calling out sick and just laying in bed all day.
This isn’t a new feeling for me, especially during the winter. But this also isn’t me. I’m usually upbeat and excited and engaged, not just going through the motions. I don’t like operating like this. But when I feel like I did this week, it’s hard to do anything else.
Instead of panicking over this feeling I told myself I’d give my body what it needs for the week and hopefully by the weekend I’d feel better. I tried not to put pressure on the situation because being down over feeling down just makes the experience more painful.
I had a productive day at work yesterday and after a lunch time walk, I felt like myself again. Then Mike and I met for dinner and caught up a bit.
Now as the sun comes up over the District, I have the whole weekend ahead of me and I’m so glad I’m back to my normal self. I hope to write a lot, and be productive on some other things (maybe even run the numbers through my entire debt snowball). Other than that, Mike and I are going on a date tonight (planned during our text convo the other day) and I’m looking forward to having lunch with Jordan tomorrow. Here’s to a fun, energizing, and productive weekend.
Happy Saturday!
I’d love to know:
Do you ever feel not like yourself? How do you get through periods like this?
Happy Friday! I don’t have anything profound to say today so I’m just going to share a list of random things on my mind.
I’m excited to see my mom this weekend. We’ll spend some time together tomorrow afternoon and I’m really looking forward to it.
Being able to wear jeans to work on Fridays makes my day. I currently only have one pair of work pants, I only have black tights but only have brown shoes that are appropriate to wear with skirts so I’m so happy I can just wear jeans today.
I felt like a million bucks running on the treadmill this morning. I almost got back in bed but didn’t so instead of lifting told myself I’d just walk on the treadmill. But when Blackoutcame on my iPod I got super pumped up and ran to the beat of the song. I knew I bought that song for a reason! I only ran for the duration of that one song but I had goosebumps while doing so, I was so in the zone.
I’ve been spending my lunch breaks this week with this cute guy. I almost kinda fell asleep on Wednesday while we cuddling on the couch. I wish I had a couch to sit on and a window to look out for every lunch break. However, I’m not that excited for our time today because there’s a little bit of a mess on the carpet that I have to clean up.
Zach and Emily are getting married on Sunday! We’re headed up to Long Island to see them tie the knot. It’s going to be a great time. Can’t wait to see how pretty Emily looks.
When I randomly woke up at 4 am this morning, I heard a baby crying in the apartment above ours and I thought “oh, those poor parents.” Then I wanted to stick a note under their door saying something like “don’t worry, it won’t be like this for long” or “you can get through this” or some other encouraging thing. Or bake a lasagna or something. Since I don’t know these people, the above things would be weird. So instead I just sent them some calm, relaxing thoughts and happy baby wishes. I also tried to turn our alarm off pretty quickly just in case the baby could hear it 🙂
Also looking forward to going to “the D” with my girlfriends from home tomorrow night!
Plans for tonight: post about Valentine’s Day and schedule to post tomorrow morning, finish cake balls to bring home for our families, and pack.
Looking forward to some nice long car rides with Mike this weekend and the good talks we usually have during them.
Talk to me:
Have you felt like a million bucks recently? What are you looking forward to this weekend?
Since we’re not saving for a house and focusing on paying down my student loans using Dave Ramsey’s debt snowball method, I’ve been playing around with CNNmoney’s student loan calculator. This thing is seriously like magic! Before our money conversation, I was doing my own number crunching at Modern Times Coffeehouse at Politics and Prose, my favorite Saturday morning spot. I was so shocked and excited when I clicked calculate that I just had to interrupt the woman sitting across from me and share my findings with her. Since then, I’ve gone a little farther in my calculations and I wanted to share my new calculations with you!
First, let me explain the debt snowball. The debt snowball is a pretty easy concept. Make a list of all of your debts (minus the mortgage) from lowest amount to highest amount. While still making minimum payments on all accounts, attack the lowest amount by paying as much above the minimum as you can. Once the smallest loan is paid off, put all the money you were putting to the lowest one, to the next lowest. Continue until the highest loan is paid off.
My lowest loan amount at the beginning of the year was $1,710. The minimum payment is $50/month and the interest rate is 6.8%. Put that info into the loan calculator:
At this rate, it will take 3 years and 3 months to pay off this loan.
In our budget conversation we decided to allocate $130 to the loan in addition to the $50 minimum. Then, I realized that we actually had money in our student loan budget line that wasn’t actually being spent each month. (My interest rates are variable and my monthly payments have gone down over the last few years but I haven’t changed the budget line). So we decided to put that money toward this loan too. So now, each month we can put $299 towards the loan. Put that in the calculator:
and we can have this loan paid off by the 4th of July! We’ll also save 83% in interest. Pretty great, huh?
Think that’s cool? Watch this.
Here are the terms for my next smallest loan:
If I continue to pay the minimum each month, I’ll make my final payment summer 2019.
If I use the debt snowball and roll the $299 from loan 1 onto this loan plus its minimum:
we can pay off this second loan by Easter next year!
And it will just get more powerful as the snowball continues to grow through five more loans. I haven’t crunched those numbers yet as I’m sure we’ll have some big expenses/adjustments to our budget in the next few years but this is all very exciting to me. When I graduated college my goal was to pay off my student loans before my kids go to college. Now, I see it’s possible to pay off them well before that.
So go ahead, I dare you, play around with my new favorite toy. It should work with credit cards and car payments too.
Sitting across from my best friends at breakfast Sunday morning, I’m struck by how beautiful they all are and how lucky I am to have them in my life. Yes, they are all pretty women, I’ve always known that. But over the past year or so I’ve realized that my friends are all around beautiful people: they are strong, smart, funny, kind, driven, loyal, caring, comforting people and my life wouldn’t be the same without them in it.
In high school and through college I think I took my friends for granted–often opting to spend time Mike and his friends instead of my girlfriends. It’s not until I graduated from college and moved away from them all that I realized how precious friendships are, how much girlfriends add to your life.
We had an amazing weekend together. Planned about a month ago to celebrate Jordyn’s birthday and her return to the east coast (she moved from LA to DC in January), we were all so looking forward to the girl time. We each had our own reasons for looking forward to the trip, and I think it was exactly what we needed.
The girls got to DC on Friday night and the grown-up slumber party began with dinner at my apartment. (I made this.) Having us all around my kitchen table was a bit surreal. If it was in a movie a slow happy song would play as the camera slowly pans over each of our faces as we smile, throw our heads back in laughter, and raise our glasses for a toast. It’s crazy to think that we’re all adults now and our conversations focus on work, serious relationships, being moms some day, finances, goals, and dreams.
Saturday morning my living room was covered in air mattresses, blankets, and luggage just like my bedroom was in middle school when these slumber parties began. I made my favorite pancakes and we went to my favorite yoga class. We got back around lunchtime and Mike made us all homemade pizza. Then we just veged in our gym clothes for the afternoon, read magazines, books, took naps, watched a movie. Because we really didn’t have to do anything. We just wanted to be together.
We put ourselves together on Saturday night for a night out on the town. We had an 8 o’clock reservation at Zaytinya and after two sketchy cab rides we all arrived at our destination. We shared a few carafes of the Pom Fili (white wine, vodka, and pomegranate juice) and sampled a lot of menu items: salads, fritters, spreads, meats. We left dinner with happy hearts and happy bellies.
Tina, Jordyn, me, Leslie, Bridget
Next, we headed to POV at the W Hotel just a quick walk away from the restaurant. We felt pretty baller walking in and when we got to our table I was so excited we were there. POV, the rooftop bar, is one of my favorite places in the city and I’d been wanting to take girlfriends there for a while.
Unfortunately, our stay was short-lived. As we began ordering our first drinks, the server said “did anyone tell you about the policy?” “No,” we said, “what policy?” “It’s a $50 per person minimum or you have to do bottle service.” WHAT?!?! Since we were all pretty full and not wanting to spend $60 on drinks alone, we left our table and headed back to my neighborhood. We had a drink at a neighborhood bar before coming back to my apartment, making Pillsbury cinnamon buns, and going to bed.
And so quickly it was Sunday morning. Of course, I had to take my friends to my favorite breakfast place: Open City in Woodley Park. As we chat over coffee, I get a bit emotional at the joy of the experience and wish that I could be surrounded by these girls all the time. These are girls I’ve liked since middle school but have come to truly admire in the past few years. Luckily, the conversation quickly turns to when we can have another weekend like this and we brainstorm places we can travel together.
As I gave them hugs at the train station, I had to fight back tears. I really hate to see them go.
Luckily, one’s still here for good and we’re already planning our next girls weekend.
–chose 100 items to get rid of in support of my January focus, made a box to go to Goodwill, the DC Library, a piles to trash, and to freecycle,
–sent packages to two of my sisters including some things I wanted to get rid of that I thought they could use,
–successfully made cake balls (after a failed first attempt),
–did our taxes (including doing our DC taxes BY HAND to figure out a discrepancy and get us money back–oh yeah!),
–made some extra money babysitting and put the money toward my credit card, and
–started making some moves towards my business–reading/researching/brainstorming with others.
I’m feeling that our household is organized and while I work to keep it that way (and continue to stick to my resolutions) through February, I have a new focus for this month.
My focus for February is…my blog! I’m excited to put some serious energy into Things After the Rings this month.
I’m working with Julie of Savvy Eats to give Things After the Rings a fresh look. So stay tuned for that!
I’ll be doing my first giveaways–yay for free stuff!
And I hope to post a little bit more often. I have a huge list of post ideas and I’m going to make a concerted effort to stop thinking about them and start writing/posting them!
I’m looking forward to a good month!
I’d love to know:
How did your January end? What’s your focus for February?
Here’s a funny story for your Saturday. I couldn’t wait to share this story with Mike on our date a few weeks ago.
I was rushing to an appointment that I thought was canceled but wasn’t (I hate being late), left the deal for our date on my desk, had some anxiety about the appointment, and was just fuming while riding the metro. I was so mad and grumpy and couldn’t think about anything except my grumpiness.
I’m standing in the doorway on the metro totally in my own head when this man comes and stands in front of me facing the door. He’s between 40 and 50 with a big belly. He’s wearing a thick royal blue and white patterned knit sweater from the late 80’s/early 90’s, faded black pants sitting kind of low and baggy and he was far from attractive. Though I have to admit his hair was kind of nice. It was completely gray and though he had a full head of hair it was kind of thin but it was styled like someone my age. Like standing up and nicely combed.
We’re just riding along when all of a sudden he takes out a can of hair spray and starts spraying his hair while looking at his reflection in the train door. “Just need some hair spray,” he says to me as I look at him in disbelief, speechless. “This can cost me $7,” he continues nodding at the pocket size spray in his hand, “but luckily the guy that owns the shop gave me a discount.” He mutters a few more things as I look around to see who else has witnessed this, trying not to burst out laughing. He gets off at the next stop and I exchange glances/laughs/head shaking with some on-lookers.
I couldn’t stop laughing to myself for the rest of the ride (I probably became the spectacle after that). And that was it. The cloud I was carrying over my head was completely gone. I think God or the universe sent this strange man to me so that I’d stop stewing and lighten up.
I’d love to know:
Have you ever had a strange or funny experience on public transportation? This wasn’t my first. Remember the best bus ride ever?
While waiting in line at Starbucks yesterday morning, I overheard a conversation between a teenager and a middle aged woman. I imagine this was a college admissions interview and the woman was an alumna and the young man a high school senior. While the senior was talking about his experience running cross country, I was struck by two things he said and how they apply to so much more than running.
Keep your own pace
He said that in cross country it’s important to find your own pace and keep your own pace. That when someone passes you it’s very tempting, almost innate, to want to run faster to catch up with him and then pass him, but you have to know your own pace and not use up all of your energy in one burst sprinting to beat the person in front of you. That you need to figure out a pace that you can maintain and just keep it at that.
You don’t have to be first to win
The teen also said that in cross country, you don’t have to be the first to win. That simply hitting a personal best is an accomplishment in itself.
I think I may have gotten tears in my eyes as I heard this, thinking “wow, this is a great reminder for life.” It can be so easy to compare yourself to friends, coworkers, people from high school or college that you’re not friends with in real life but are friends on Facebook. If they’re getting married, buying a house, having kids, getting promoted, getting a Master’s degree, traveling, buying x, y, or z. And when we see people “passing” us it’s easy to want to sprint to catch up, and to put pressure on ourselves to find a boyfriend or buy a home or whatever. But doing so only expends unnecessary energy. It feels so much better if you’re doing it at your own pace, not sprinting to get to catch up to the person in front of you. And remember that just because you’re not the first doesn’t make crossing the finish line any less significant.
My focus for January is household organization because I’ve been feeling unorganized and not on top of things for the past few months (thanks bed bugs!). We had our last bed-bug treatment on January 3, so this focus is fitting and timely. And what a great way to start a new year.
Organized Space
My best friend Amanda came down the weekend after the treatment and helped us put all of our belongings back in their homes. Without her, it would’ve taken Mike and I days to put everything back and it would’ve remained unorganized even after things were in their places. It can be so paralyzing to make decisions about your own things and I can get totally lost in the weeds over-analyzing where things should go. But as I combed through all of our belongings making decisions on what should stay and what should go, Amanda found homes for them in our closets, on our desk, and in our bookshelf. I honestly couldn’t believe how organized things were when she was done. She just has an eye for this sort of thing. (I told her she should start a side business to make some extra money while she’s in law school.)
Our space is organized (minus our bedroom, we decided to let the treatment sit for an additional week), and I’d like to keep it that way so I’ve paid special attention to putting things back where they belong. I’d also like to keep our apartment clean.
Clean Space
To be honest, I’ve never been great about keeping our place clean. Aside from dishes and laundry, cleaning has never been super high on our priority list. We’d both clean the apartment but not on a regular basis. It was just something we never thought about, until things got so gross that one of us got fed up and decided to do something about it.
To get us organized I made a Cleaning Checklist and taped it to the wall in our kitchen. This way we’ll both remember what needs to be done and if we have some time we can tackle one of the items on the list. Honestly, each of the tasks on the list takes 20 minutes tops and I’d rather spend 20 minutes here and there than an entire afternoon on a weekend cleaning. I proposed we adapt the Williams’ 10-minute rule but it hasn’t caught on just yet. Next week is the first week this month that our schedules aren’t crazy so maybe we’ll pick it up then. But even 10 minutes a few times a week is better than what we were doing before.
Money in order
The other aspect of our household that we wanted to get organized was our finances. We had a nice conversation about our money and then on January 1 we sat down and worked out a new budget. Then I posted a tracker on the wall in our kitchen to track variable expenses throughout the month. And so far, we’ve stuck to our budget! I think just having the awareness helped. I’m not sure we’re necessarily spending differently than we did in the past but we’re more on the same page about where we are with our budget, what’s been spent, etc.
Still to do
In the last week and a half of the month, we’ll get our bedroom cleaned and organized, I’ll look through our apartment for things to purge, add them to the pile above, (inspired by Jess’ challenge, I’m hoping to get rid of 100 items), and then get them out of our home either by freecycling, donating, giving to friends, or trashing.
I’d love to know:
How’s your January?
Do you ever feel not-on-top-of-it when it comes to household/personal tasks?
I’m back from a long weekend in Florida with my friend Lauren. We planned this trip in the fall and I was so looking forward to the girl time and the sunny weather. We had a great weekend: went for long walks in the morning, did quite a bit of shopping, ate good food, and just talked a lot. As always, it was so good to spend quality time with her.
I love spending time with my girlfriends and I think it’s really important for men and women to have time with their guy friends and girlfriends on a regular basis. I’ve said before that I think spending time with girlfriends is good for the soul and I truly believe that.
When you’re in a relationship, it’s really important to prioritize your friendships and have girl time and guy time. Honestly, I’m having a hard time articulating why this is important but believe me, it is. It’s good for me to talk and talk and talk with a girlfriend over a glass of wine and dinner. And it’s good for my husband to chat with a buddy over beers and wings.
Because I value and crave girl time so much, I wonder if I may have isolated my husband from my friends. In the past, friends would ask if Mike was coming along and I’d say “nah” because I just wanted the girl time and quality time with my friend. Now that we’re married I truly do want my friends to know my husband and my husband to know my friends. But I still crave the girl time so I’m not sure how I’ll find that balance.
I’d love to know:
Can you articulate why girl time and guy is so important? (I’m hoping you’ll have the words that are escaping me at the moment.)
How can I bring my husband and my friends together?
