"Wow, you really love your vegetables!"

(cuteness courtesy of Cakespy)


I'm nervous now that this high will wear off--that it would be impossible for me to feel good this good for more than, say, two days in a row, especially with a return to teaching a mere 10 hours away, and I'll go back to the doldrums. I'm nervous that it's not my cells reacting with joy to beautiful good nutrition, but a placebo effect. I'm nervous, frankly, that it was all a beautiful dream, but real life will return soon, and all this good stuff will just disappear like dust motes when the sun stops shining on them.

I mean, who am I to take radical changes to be happy? The woman who punished herself through isolation, overspending and woefully poor food choices for two months, for having the gall to leave home and friends-that-are-family behind and move to a completely foreign city. She wants to be happy?

Hell, yes, motha-effer, she does. And she's busy tapping on her demons, reminding herself that she deserves nothing less than radiant health. She went for a walk today, positively exulting in the sunshine, the beauty of plants and nature and blue skies and energy. And maybe she should stop with the third person.

Does it happen like that? Do I just get to make simple healthy food choices and feel that much better? I invested in hemp oil (omegas are beautiful for a number of reasons, with some thought that they prevent depression being a big one for me) and stocked up on some leafyGs--four bunches of spinach, two of kale (it is so virtuous! it makes me so charged up! smoothies feel lonely without them!) and one lettuce. This, along with avocados, peaches, bananas, cherry tomatoes for snacking--I think maybe 4 things in my cart were processed out of everything I bought. The cashier was like, "Wow, you really love vegetables", and I took the opportunity to blather on about how yeah, I make a green smoothie for breakfast and lunch every day, and it's so easy, and for some reason I crave sugar less, and I just feel great....I think she was unconvinced by the babbling, but oh well. Maybe I'll get better at being evangelical later on. (And I was frugal, in a green way: all the veggies were bought on sale, and I purposely stocked up on what seemed like super cheap spinach: $.77 for a bunch. I haven't been veggie-crazy in America for three years--is that a good deal?)

If anyone out there can give me some perspective--does the good energy fade? Does it keep building? Will I just get used to it? I realize that it brings up huge issues of believing that I don't deserve to feel happy or healthy--and really, these are enormous issues; I'm grateful that I can confront them in this positive way. I feel really drawn to making better, simpler, cleaner vegan food choices; I did make a quinoa salad for lunch tomorrow with feta, but I'd much rather use what I have than waste food. Whatevs. I am hugely enjoying feeling healthy, and hugely enjoying researching raw and vegan and raw vegan and whole foods diet and nutrition information. I feel like it's radical in the best of all radical ways: me empowering myself to be more powerful to accomplish more good living to make my weeny little corner of the world the change I want to see.

And Now for Something Green

The other day, something amazing happened...

I cooked. Real FOOD. Not frozen Trader Joe's burritos (and the less said about the horrible week where I ate them for three days in a row, the better) but actually walking to the health food store, picking out orzo and feta and squash and coming home and making raw ingredients into food. It was kind of amazing. And before that? Before that, I splurged on a cheap blender (that's going to come back to bite me in the ass, though, since 5 smoothies later, it's already burning out the motor...but I get ahead of myself) and the book Green for Life and began a health remodel on my own self.

It's been about two months since I felt really healthy, in body, mind or spirit, as the majority of the posts here can show, and as all my friends and family will readily attest to. I was at a loss on Saturday, just a total loss of spirit due to one really effing rude waiter, and casting about for anything positive to do. I can't explain why, except that I'm a goal-driven person with a lot of positive energy to make and find change (and full of myself, too, apparently)--but instead of heading out to Target (option 1), thrifting (option 2) or the art museum (that's for today) I headed out to Borders to buy Green for Life, a blender at Target, and then to the local health food store for a week' worth of greens.


It may be the best thing I've ever done for myself. The basic premise behind green smoothies is pretty anecdotally persuasive, and the results are, in my personal experience, nothing short of mind-opening. It's basically a ridiculously easy way to triple the amount of fruits and dark leafy green vegetables in your daily diet without even trying that hard, and in the 5 days since I've been doing it, my sleep has improved, my energy has increased, and I feel a little...glowy. There are testimonials about weight loss, healing from disease, increased joy--I can't testify to those, but if even one of them is true, I'll be happy!

I make one large blender full a day--it takes about 2 minutes from start to finish, and drink it for breakfast and lunch. Right now, I'm using kale, spinach, strawberries, oranges, and some celery--and while it's not competing with a Frostie or something like that, it's not meant to. It's about feeding your body food that's actually good for it. And while I'm cynical enough to admit that it might easily be a placebo effect, I'm also an experienced enough hand at dealing with long-term depression and anxiety issues to recognize that when I feed my body garbage, my body rebels against it. My first real, long-term, Rx-drug-free recovery from chronic (and I do mean chronic, averaging about half my life to that point) depression was handled not with Celexa, Zoloft or Prozac (although G-d bless all of them, since I desperately needed them when I was on them and think that they have saved so many people from that interminable dark night) but with...erm... B vitamins. When I am taking proactive care of myself, which includes yoga, meditation, EFT, and good eating habits, my anxiety lessens tremendously, which frees me from the potential for a negative cycle and allows me to focus on positive, beautiful, real change rather than dread or fear. Nutrition is just one aspect of self-care, one I dropped too easily in this huge move across the world. Green smoothies are now my newest weapon in my I'm Worth It arsenal, those tools of self-respect and care that remind me that I am a warrior for my Self. (Sorry--the cynic part of me is over on the side puking after reading that sentence. Clean-up on Aisle Two!)

I find myself already craving them and avoiding other foods, as if there's some magical sensitizing agent in them (which there might be; greens are alkalizing, and that's my next area of nutrition research). I splurged on delivery pizza last night, and after one slice of gluey white flour, I felt sick to my stomach and...erm...blocked up. Now, white flour has been a cornerstone of my diet for about two months, from morning crumpets to burritos to fake meal bars--and for two months, I've felt blocked up in every possible way (except the obvious way, thanks to a whizbang coffee habit. Was that too much?).

Thrift-wise, I'm not even counting the financial cost. Recent experience has shown me that there is very definitely a "long short road" and a "short long road" as Adin Steinsaltz says. Green and healthy eating is squarely, solidly, definitely in the first column. My greens and fruits cost me $69 dollars at Henry's, and so far, have served me for 5 smoothies--and I've still got a freezer full of greens and a fridge full of fruit. I'm guesstimating that I should get about 10 smoothies out of it in total, which would make the daily cost...wait, let me get out a calculator...$6.90 a day. That as a number doesn't seem thrifty at all, but when I put that against the mental and emotional cost of feeling lethargic, on edge, unhealthy and unhappy, I'm willing to make food a serious line item in my budget again. It truly feels like someone threw open the curtains in my dark bedroom (of the soul, people, of the soul! now where is my black nailpolish and my journallllll???) and I'm waking up. And I love it already: yesterday, I was patient and kind to my students, which made me feel better about myself. I had sustained energy throughout the entire day. I was...oh, good Lord, it's this weird emotion, very sunshine-y, very...dammit, starts with an "h"...

oh, right. HAPPY.

Information can be found by simply googling "green smoothies". Do yourSELF a huge favor and try one.

This is Why I'm OK with Thrifted

i think this was the last photo i took in j'lem
Originally uploaded by sweetkugel

The shirt and belt were from a WIZO thrift store run by three grumpy old women who got used to seeing me come in every week. The skirt was a brand new find from a Goodwill right across the street from my student teaching site. The shoes were a splurge two summers ago, and worn well into schlumpiness/ should really be given away status a while ago. All together, it's an outfit that speaks to my history over the past year, to my growing sense of confidence in my style and my willingness to take risks. It's cobbled together from multiple stories (the shirt was really a pajama top that I almost put back until the thriftstore owner convinced me that a good washing and bleaching in the sun would take care of it, and who knows where the skirt originally hailed from?) and it looks ass-kickingly cute (actually almost too cute and theme-y, looking back at it) and it was about $5 all together.

In Which it Was THAT Kind of a Week

Holy balls, y'alls, it was a sick and twisted kind of a week. And not in the good "i decided randomly to dye my hair pink and run off to vegas where i met the handsome head of a major record label and now i am a staaaaaaaarrrrrr" kind of way. More in the way of crying in my office at lunch and calling five sets of parents and crying in the bathtub and rethinking my job choice for the 80 millionth time and crying myself to sleep. The sheer satanic power of 7th and 8th grade boys cannot be overstated. I have a colleague who swears that 8th grade girls are more evil-stink-of-satan, because they're all so influenced by Gossip Girl, but no, he is wrong. It is the boy-children who will destroy me.

So I'm sorry to report that there was minor depression shopping-one blind, I still sort of can't remember why I even went there trip to CVS, where I spent $56 and left with 3 cans of Progresso, a mineral foundation (in a tube! with a built in brush! which I don't even come close to needing!), a lipgloss which fortunately I really do like, even if it violates the terms of my mental treaty with myself, and some bags of candy for my kids, to celebrate the holiday. (Cause I want to be likkkkkkeeeeedddd. What is so wrong with me? Can a FYT discipline and bribe simeltaneously? Discipline and be nice simeltaneously? Isn't there a mixed message there?)

Jeezum, how did that add up to $56? I remember that I literally felt hypnotized as I handed over the card; my eyes were seamed hut with crusty-crying-eye syndrome, and I remember that I had to leave the house RIGHT NOW, and I remember that I hadn't eaten anything that day. Here's hoping that all that gets to stay a memory. I don't know how many of those my psychic armor can stand up to. (Although I do say that every time it happens, and I ain't dead yet.) (Although my throat is really sore, and I am praying in much the same way I have prayed for love previously that I get sick and lose my voice and can't teach on Monday. Your kind wishes would help, no doubt.)

There was also a hit on AmVets, yesterday, where I must say, I was a very lucky girl.


Observe, if you will: a F-elly bag (a faux, donchaknow; apparently the 7th grade way of implying that you KNOW perfectly well you own a knockoff is to sub an "eff" in for the first letter; fake Ray-bans are Fay-fans, etc, etc. Like duh, you didn't know that???). A tooled red leather belt that works if I keep it really high on my waist. A pair of vintage wedges with a New Testament verse inscribed on the insole. Which I find a puzzling location for a verse from a sacred scripture; I personally would never think to put a pasuk from the Torah in my shoes.

And here:

Burgundy tooled Mexican leather 80's slouch bag. Now maybe the hipsters around here will stop spitting on me. (J/K, y'all. The hipsters around here are too busy starving themselves and trying to keep their ridiculous fedoras on their heads to notice me.) A pair of white woven Saltwater Sandal lookalikes. Very comfy, although given my newfound love of wedge heels, I'm not sure how much wear flats will actually get. A rayon sundress, which was a bad-eye buy; it had a huge rip in the pocket. I'm undecided if it should go into the Pile of Alterations or just back to the donation bag.

Two of the four dresses I lugged home. I am wicked excited about the plaid shirtdress--even though I prefer a fuller skirt, I love plaid! And this one is particularly Maine-waspy. Right next to it is a beautiful jersey dress with a print that reminds me of robins and fall. I failed signally to hit the sale tags on anything except a denim wrap dress with gold lame woven into it--it's got a subtle yet totally trashy sparkle to it that whets my will to Pull Anything Off.

I would take a picture of the dress currently vying for Favorite Ever-mint green, gray polkadots, such clever details and HUGE POCKETS--but as I am wearing it and a face full of Queen Helene Mint Julep mask, I say no. And you will thank me for that.

Chuck is the Bomb, or Weeding the Mental Garden

I positively ache to dress like one Chuck, from one absolutely ace show. Her hyper-femme style is just so right now--50s girly/quirky? Yes, please! Check it over there. I applaud the costume designer in a multiple ovation way. It's something that seems totally fresh and doable thrifting.

















I'm on a two-day break from showing up at the office--not from the grind of grading and lesson planning, just the actual standing up in front of my crackmonkeys. I plan on a first trip to the art museum, some adopting of some kitten (for reals! an adorable tuxedo kitteh named Buster may just be waiting for me at the Coronado animal shelter!), some grading of some quizzes, and some quality time in the park getting to know the walking trails more.

On a thrift/ frugality note, the frozen credit card is frozen no longer; I had to buy contact lenses and couldn't wait till payday to pay cash. I will get recompensed by my vision provider at some point for all but $50, but it brought the CC debt back up again. I will try to keep it on a mental freeze, but I think it's a good idea to have a back-up means of payment for food, gas, etc. As long as I'm not headed over to Sephora and throwing down, I think I can make it--and I'll still keep to my goal of paying off at least 2x the minimum payment until I can save enough to make a larger balloon payment.

I'm also trying my hardest to sit on my hands thrifting-wise; I am just not in a financial position to afford $30 at AmVets--and yet it's so freaking difficult to break such a rewarding hobby. I love thrifting for so many reasons, but I've really gone into overdrive and it needs to be curtailed. I'm trying to replace driving straight to the thrifty for stress relief after work with a new walking habit (bonus: my calves are looking hot and I've got a ton more energy), and I've made a deal with myself that thrifting is contingent upon walking 3 or more times per week.

We'll see. Ultimately, it's about loneliness in a big, perfectly pleasant but still totally new city. I get that. I know that showing up at my local haunts week after week is not a replacement for human contact--but most weeks, I leave work so burnt out from FYT (first year teaching) that I feel battered, inhuman, exhausted and incapable of making any kind of get-to-know-you social convo. So easy to say, "get out, hot young thing! go meet the people!" but unless the people happen to be 7th graders, I have literally one free day a week. That's about 10-12 hours of time for a naturally introverted (me), exhausted (me), stressed and overworked (me again) person to get food, do laundry, maybe exercise, maybe walk to the park or get an eyebrow wax or take a nap or something-------

Oh, enough! Enough! I'm even boring myself on my own blog! I know I'm a FYT, not a residentm or a solider, or something truly stressful--but in all my jobs, in all my changes of careers, I have never done anything this consistently stress inducing and pleasureless. It's so hard to try to weed out the notion that I deserve whatever I want to make up for that from my mental garden.

I wish I didn't have to, really. I wish I never had to deny my love of vintage sundresses and uncannily good shoe finds--but I do. I just do. For all sorts of reasons, credit card debt being the least, and financial maturity and meeting socio-spiritual vision goals being the...well, the best.

But g dash d-dammit, it ain't easy, especially when it ain't easy.

Another Man's Treasure!

How awesome does *this* look???

Another Man's Treasure Community Yard Sale

How quickly did I transfer some precious greenbacks out of savings? Too quickly. Still, it's in one of my very favorite places, it's free for green organizations, and it's just too rad not to go to because I might be a little broke. I'm in, said Flynn.

Melting the Ice

My credit card has been frozen for about three weeks now.

I mean, literally frozen. It resides in my freezer, in a ziploc full of ice, and I can't use it mainly because I never remember to take it out and let the sucker melt. So far, it's the most successful way I've found to stop me from whipping that sucker out and willy-nilly using it. But today, I really want to use it.

I really want to buy a rosy-pink lipgloss--I even had a dream about it last night. And I really want some new headphones for my iPod. And maybe some shoes. I really have a strong craving for boots right now. And then there's the growing pile of alterations. Allz I'm saying is I could use some credit.

It doesn't take much to see that I could just wait till payday in a few days and walk down to the local electronics store to get headphones, or the lipgloss, or even--gasp!--not get them all together, since it's pretty clear they're not essential. It's more than I want something to do. I feel like I'm engaged in some kind of weird consumption-based meditation: looking at my whirling dervish of desire and holding off on acting on it, just watching it, waiting to see how and why it wants to be acted upon.

I'm really just looking for something to fill my time, to give me something to do, for some evidence that I had something.

And wow, that even reads pathetic, doesn't it? I remember reading once, in a book I bought during one of the 16 million times I tried to straighten out my relationship to money, that not only should I log daily spending, but how I felt when I bought something. Was I sad, happy, looking to numb something, etc--and it was really right on advice, because I am an emotional spender. The only problem? All emotions trigger the desire to shop. Hell, breathing triggers the desire to shop. Even now, it's hard to control the desire to leap out of my chair and head down to the local thrifty, despite the fact that I have $20 in my checking, a frozen credit card, and have literally run out of hangers in my closet.

If anyone is reading this, and can identify with it: how did you conquer/ live with/ compassionately engage your emotional shopping? I am not out to beat it into submission, or to move from shopping once a week to a Compact-style lifestyle--although I think it rawks and those who can, mazal tov--but rather to understand with hippie-dippie love, so that frugality becomes not about punishment, but a celebration of values and virtues. (Sorry about that painfully long sentencem y'all. I do abuse the poor comma.) I want warm and fuzzy frugality. Frugality that's about expansion, not contraction. Celebratory frugality!

New Favorite Free Thing

The newest feature to debut on the three-day old blog! It's the first edition (better save it for your grandkids--this may actually be a good investment someday!) of Favorite Free Things, dedicated to reminding me how great free can be.

This week: Shoving my feet into my running shoes and going for a walk in Balboa Park.

The park may be one of the single nicest things about SDO, and I feel so insanely lucky to live so close to it. My new walk takes me by the Zoo, to see the koala enclosure, where I can peer in and see them curled up, snoring away their little koala dreams; from there in a meandering loop up to El Prado and the fountain for a quick stretch, a gander at the lily pond; to the Japanese gardens, and then back home. I get home mildly sweaty and a whole lot less stressed out--and it's all for nothing, yo, all for nothing.

Blog Shout-outs: this new frugal-ish/ frugal-lite/ frugal-friendly blogger just discovered Frugal Babe. Not only do I like her writing, her values and her message, I LOVE the links to other blogs she posts. Am headed back there right now for some serious surfing.

Depression Era Spending

This is going to sound so dramatic, so paint-my-nails-black-and-listen-to-Tori-Amos, but I wake up every day fairly convinced that I'm not where I should be. I live in SDO, on a pretty street, in a pretty apartment, and everything in my life is absolutely, totally fine (aside from the staggering propensity of 13 year old boys to be total dicks, and the fact that I have to routinely interact with said crackmonkeys). But I want to be back home--home like Jerusalem, home like Israel. The holidays here have made it very clear to me that this is just what being in exile is: being on the faded outlines of the periphery, away from the vibrancy that infuses and makes every choice vital. It's not a bad exile, and really, it's the lovely padded cushy-cell kind of exile that makes it easy to see why so few American Jews make aliyah. I could never get anything close to a Borders or an AmVets or a boutique yarn store in Israel; I'd always materially be choosing to get by with less, or not get what I wanted, or find myself one day buying a pair of hot pink platform sandals, or rocking a non-ironic mullet inflicted upon me by an Israeli hairdresser that knew what I wanted better than I did. But I'd be in Israel, at the forefront of the redemption, at the center of history, making a decision every day that meant something to someone.

I don't think there's any similar situation in America, really, and even though I might find a reall high-quality material life, I don't feel satisfied here. I feel separate, disparate, different, off-kilter. I have so enjoyed every thrifted dress and every Sunday brunch, but sitting in services today, I just wanted to be home at a shul down the street, walking to a friend's house for break fast, feeling the day and the 10 days before it in an inescapable rhythm that colored time itself. I wanted meaning and purpose, not just the meaning that I gave to my spiritual effort, but communal meaning and purpose, as well.

_______________

I keep spending money that I shouldn't. Yesterday, I celebrated the half-day from school by driving straight to AmVets and plunking down a cool $30 for about 5 dresses. (So cute, I must say.) I continued my new practice of "2 Back", the incredibly technical method of saving money in which I...erm...put at least two things back before checking out. And, I passed on incredibly cute but unnessecary Naturalizer heels (which I must say, I kind of regret doing, even though they were high enough that I could never wear them to teach in. Which renders them practically useless, but still...they were really cute...)

I ended up with an 80's print dress with 50's styling; a bold, graphic, gutsy orange and white tunic, a mint green flowered 80's sundress, a black fullskirted sundress with tan/ gold embroidery on the bottom (a little last year, I think, but really nice for school, since I hardly own anything black) and a red, folksy smockey type thing with embroidery and cut out arms that needs to be shortened, but about which I am super excited. I think I have about 20 dresses at this point. I don't really wear anything else--only own three pairs of pants, really--but I am not kidding, the closet rail is beginning to sag a little.

Pictures would be a good thing, I guess.

Now, it's finally the weekend, the much earned, long awaited weekend. I would normally be toasting my freedom with a glass of $2 Chuck, but am too tired and footsore to make the trek to Trader Joes. Maybe post-nap? Good G-d, the sheer sybaritic luxury of even thinking those words makes me curl my toes in pleasure.

The Things I Do

Home home beautiful lovely home at last! Armed with a box of oyster crackers (the traditional snack of the ms. m. family) I am more than ready to kick off my unwise choice of footwear (today was my light teaching load, so I wore my bombass thrifted turquoise mocs...but combined with the equally bombass shinsplints I have from yesterday's walk, not so great) and repent my failure to get a bottle of red wine ready.

I have about $120 till the 15th, and will definitely need to gas the car before then. The goal right now is not to tap into my poor savings account, but to really use this time to figure out rational weekly spending patterns. I am not going to shop, should have enough food, and should, theoretically, be able to make it through. (All this being made easier by the fact that I literally know one person in SDO, and she is just as cash-strapped as me, so I never go out. As a diehard vegetarian, I also don't eat out that much--veggie offerings, unless it's a dedicated vegetarian restaraunt, are so so blah and not worth my time.money.honey.)

I thought I'd make a list of the frugal things I do already, and why. I'm interested to see how much is sheer laziness, how much is green-ness, and how much is actual frugality. (Does that matter? I guess not, as long as the pennies make their way to the savings account...)

--I don't own a TV. I didn't have one for three years, never missed it, and am totally out of the habit. I do have internet, and watch what I want to watch on hulu.com or another free site. It's just about the perfect solution for me. I would take internet over TV in a flippin' heartbeat, and it saves me about $60 per month, plus the cost of the TV I never bought.
--I stopped buying magazines. In part to avoid paper wastage, and in part because holy hell! They're like $4 now! I read a lot of magazines' sites online, and did choose to subscribe to Yoga Journal and Lucky, my two favorites.
--I buy 90% of my clothes from the thrift store. Not my panties, and not if there's something wicked specific I want, like black boots that are not skanky chunky 90's-in-the-bad-way boots. On any given day, I am wearing something thrifted, and it's amazing to me the way my attitude about my wardrobe has changed. I used to treat thrifted clothes as disposable items; now, I want to brag about my good luck and rub everyone's face in the fact that my brand new Anthropologie top cost me $2hollabitches!
--I buy books secondhand; see above re: paper wastage.
--I eat out only once per week, usually in an attempt to try a new ethnic cuisine. I love my Vietnamese food--sure, it would be more frugal to learn how to make it, or cut the expenditure out all together. But right now, when simple pleasures are few and far between in my life, eating out on the back patio of the local Vietnamese place while reading a new mystery novel is an okay line item.
--No manis, pedis for me: I honestly could care less about manicures, and pedis are a once-in-a-very-long while treat. I do spend $ on a monthly eyebrow wax to take care of the caterpillars that nest above my eyes, thanks so much Dad.
--Don't belong to a gym. Gym fees are like flushing money away for me. I don't even feel guilty about never joining anymore. I walk instead, and try to direct that moolah to a yoga class or workshop.
--Canceled my PayPal account. It was waaaaaay too easy to drop a cool $100 at iTunes, or to bid on a random vintage dress that ended up costing me $45 at eBay, or to find a handcrafted ring/pair of earrings/ print at etsy. The madness had to end when I bid on a polyester dress that was so heinous, polyester itself blushed for shame. No pictures were ever taken, thank G-d.
--Limit my driving. I drive a lot for work, so when I get home, I try my best to walk the rest of the time. I purposely live in a very walkable neighborhood.

Um. Kind of feel like there should be more, to tell you the truthsies.
Guess that's part of the problem.

Next post: all the ways I fart my money away!

Returning and Moving

So, since the last post....

Well, I moved across the ocean, and then across the continent. You can now find me hermiting in my lovely if totally completely too expensive but safe! and with a washer and dryer! apartment in sunny (all. the. freaking. time. it. drives. me. nuts) San Diego. I got a job, a car, over a sort of paralyzing fear of driving and a permanent eyelid twitch from teaching 7th and 8th graders at VVGJDS. Turns out that what was going to be my life mission is not so much a life mission as a recipe for ulcers and sleepless nights--not the most cheering thought, to be honest, so in my good little crunchy way, I meditate regularly (hello, Big Mind! Thank goodness for you!) and try to do The Work on habitual thoughts, and when that fails, I drink cheap French table wine by myself while watching the cheesiest science fiction TV I can find.

I am assured that this is a normal first year of teaching.

If that is the case, I cannot fathom why anyone would go for a second helping.

Anyhow: things that are good and different, not just different:

SDO thrift stores are putting a solid "hellzno" to buying new. I did buy a pair of running shoes yesterday on a great sale, and socks and a pair of workout pants, but other than that--the stuff people are getting rid of here? I'll take it! It's so good that I quickly developed a crippling thrift store addiction; note to self, thrifting is not thrifty if one spends upwards of $30 a week at AmVets. Unfortunately, my new hobby has not only netted me a fricking pretty as all getout collection of sundresses and platform shoes, it's become my version of self-medication. Most of my income (um, literally, pretty much 50%) goes towards my rent, and what is left must go to gas, paying off the credit card bill, food--you know, real essentials. Not the "oh, shit, nothing went right today, let's drive down to AmVets and see what new shoes they've got" kind of essentials. Priorities! Miss Bird, please think about real priorities! Like, idunnoknow, not being afraid when you check your bank balance!

At some point, I'll move to a different neighborhood; I have a month to month lease and am checking rentals in other nearby neighborhoods that I now know I like just as much as the HC. But, when I first landed in this fair city of hottie tattooed peeps (yesterday, I saw a guy with his head shaved and the most bombass paisley tattoo encircling his entire head, just where his hair would have been; it was like the most beautiful toupee ever), well, I had no idea where I was or time to figure it out. I literally had three days to rent an apartment, buy some furniture, and get my first car in three years.

So, I rented the first apartment that I saw that had what I figured was really key here: a permanent parking space. That alone probably added $100 to the rent, but is well worth it, as is the washer and dryer. Not to mention that my apartment is the apartment of an adult, not a student, for the first time in my life--even though I passed student a few years back and by all rights should be worrying about my 401k and thinking about whether or not my kidlets should be in Waldorf preschool or get involved in the local homeschooled network. (Am still child-free, but point-->I am still at the point where managing to save and simeltaneously pay off my CC is a major accomplishment, let alone figure out what organic green juice to feed my future babies or what I'll live on when I retire.)

I'm turning this here blog away from frivolous fashion to the great vision quest of fashioning my life in the way that best suits me. I'm not ever giving up on having clothes I love, but I'm not buying them new anymore--to save things from the waste stream as well as to save money. And that said, I'm not buying so much of them, either. And I want my hair to look great, and my car to be full of gas, and my house to be warm and pretty--but I am tired of panicking and bad financial decisionmaking. I'm tired of short-term thinking that nets me pretty things but leaves me unable to travel. I'm tired of prioritizing checking over savings; I want to double my savings in the next year. And I am done with credit card debt. I have $600 more to pay off, which in the grand scheme of American debt is a teeny amount. I want that off my shoulders, and I want the mantle of disciplined, value-driven living there instead.

I think that for the first time in my life, I might be able to get there. This is the journal of my asskicking vision quest from here on out. Welcome.