Two Things.

1) Spot, the adorable little stuffed puppy of children's literary fame, has been decapitated and met his sorrowful death. May he rest in peace, and my his legacy live on in the hearts, minds, and bookshelves of future generations.

2) I realized this morning that I had a pretty good dating life in college. There was an interest, whether it turned into anything or not, each of my four years.

Except what led me to this conclusion was the realization that it's been nearly two years since I went on a proper date, and a year and a half since I even hung out with a guy with any sort of interest in me.

Of course, I could have taken Mr. Car Dealership himself up on his offer.

Wait...no. Definitely no.

Dear Self (6 Months Ago),

If you knew what I know now, you'd be doing things a little differntly. Sure, you might not make all of those impulse purchases that now hang in my closet unused. But you'd have a lot more cash. And you'd feel a lot better about life.

See, budgeting is kind of a neat trick. Being able to say, "Thanks, but I'm eating in tonight. Gotta stick to the budget." is pretty cool. And when it's all on paper (theoretically, 'cause it's actually maintained digitally), you can't even try to justify spending more than you have or have allotted. Even if you tried, the red bar of overbudgetedness would be staring you back in the face, yelling "Ehhhhhhhh. Wrong answer!"

Needless to say, I'm doing pretty well over here. Cleaning up your messes, though, which will take far longer for me than it took you to make them. Thanks for that, really.

Peace, love, and balanced budgets.

C-Jo

Things that make me smile.

1) There's a puppy under my chair. Her name is Bennet. You've met her.
2) I have The Office sticky notes. They say "Petty behavior. Zero productivity. All in a day's work."
3) I'm eating grapes, and I just had a delicious homemade black bean veggie burger.
4) I'm leaving work at 4:00 today, which is approximately 3 hours and 38 minutes from now.
5) I live in Texas, and though it's November, the sun is shining bright, warm, and delicious.


I should do this weekly. :)

Angry puppy.

Let it be established right now that Bennet, my dear, sweet girl-puppy, does not like the ocean.

At all.

I made her play in the waves. Her response was to run the other direction and glare at me. If looks could kill, I'd been dead and buried four times over.

After rinsing off my own feet and allowing her to leave the shoreline, prissy little princess trotted all the way home, barely stopping to sniff, pulling hard on the leash in my hand. She was wet, she was mad, and she wasn't going to give me the time of day until I learned from my mistakes.




Until we got into the yard at home. Then all was well, and cuddles resumed.

Brownies.

I dreamed about brownies last night. For reals. In fact, there might have been brownies in two locations in my dream. One, at some holiday dinnery thing, and the other in a college cafeteria, where I was, for some odd reason, eating. And forgot my ID, as I so often did in college, but that's a separate issue.

The real issue here is brownies.

I don't know what sparked this dream. I haven't had a brownie in at least two weeks, and I certainly don't have any in the house. My roommates are all asleep, so I know they weren't baking and invading my dreams with the scent of heavenly chocolate.

Though I wish they had, because now I want one.





No, I will not eat brownies. I will attempt, against all odds, to eat healthily today.

No brownies for this girl.

Childhood Memories.

Bennet has a new toy, courtesy of Goodwill (best place to buy your dog toys EVER...just grab stuffed animals, and the puppy is happy!).



Her newest stufty is Spot, from this book series. Now that's a trip down memory lane. :)

On money (or the lack thereof).

Today, I was sitting around ClergyCon with no demands on my time, and so I thought, "I should do my finances."

That's what you do when you're bored, right?

Anyway, I signed up for mint.com (highly recommended by Maggie), and was told:

"YOU'RE OVER BUDGET."

Okay, I was a business major. I get this finance thing. Money comes in, money goes out. You pay your bills, and that makes lenders happy, which, in turn, makes you happy.

Yet that I have little to no concept of how to properly manage my money. I haven't figured out how not to spend more than I actually hold. And how to spend it on the right things. And how to save up for those little emergencies (like needing new tires on my four-year-owned cavalier).

My financial issues are deep -- far deeper than selective ignorance (though that would be enough). There's a certain amount of pride in spending freely, without giving a thought to the consequences. There's pride in wearing the right things at the right time, which sometimes requires a purchase or two. There's also comfort, using shopping as a crutch, as a support system, as an expression of joy.

I love clothes and things. I love to shop. I like to be looked well upon, and I like retail therapy. But at what cost? The future of my finances?

I'm working on it, and that's why I'm on the site. Today, for the first time in months, I saw my net worth.

(Actually, I saw a portion of it. I'm having trouble getting two of my loans to load.)

Either way, it's U-G-L-Y. And I ain't got no alibi.