Fantastic Four Day Weekend Ahead

Ah, I love the smell of a four day weekend in the morning!  Thanks to my wonderful friend Heidi turning 30 and throwing a party, I get to enjoy a four day weekend!  Day One has started off perfectly lazy.  We've been watching Brent's Season Two of Sons of Anarchy that he got for his birthday on Wednesday.  And I've been coupon clipping, drinking coffee, and planning my morning pre-party errands.

It should be a great weekend.  Party with friends.  Hiking.  Party with friends.  Garage cleaning.  Jujitsu.  Sleeping in!!  Oh yes, I love the smell of a four day weekend in the morning!

White Belt

I had my second ju-jitsu class tonight.  I got my pants, shirt, and belt when I arrived at class.  It's called a gi.  And I'm one of two white belts in the class. The other is a ten-ish year old boy.  I have no shame.  I wore it well.  And the fact that it's a size five was enough to make me feel better about myself!  The whole getup was as comfy as I always imagined it would be - it's very much like wearing pajamas.

Tonight I learned some punch blocking and throwing and some bear hug releases.  It was a lot of fun.  I did not get to do each move as much as I'd like and will probably have a hard time remembering them all.  I really wish I could go twice a week.

While I have no idea where my training will take me, I do know it's a fun way to spend one hour a week.  I'm already looking forward to next time!

Heavy sigh

Brent, Brinkley, and I went for hike yesterday.  In all of the years I've lived in Ft. Fun and driven up and down the canyon, I've never once hiked Gray Rock.  Technically, I guess I still have not hiked it.  I gave it a good try on Sunday.  We made it about 2.5 miles up the trial or so and then turned back.  While a five mile hike in 30 degree weather isn't anything to be disappointed about, I couldn't help but shake my head and clench my fists in frustration.  My body couldn't hold up long enough to finish the hike to the top.   At one point my legs stung so bad (waking up from so much inactivity) I was literally clenching my fists so I wouldn't itch my legs into oblivion.

Never again.  That's what I kept telling myself all the way down the mountain.  Never again will I be so miserably disappointed with the state of my being.  Never again will I backslide after getting into shape.  Never again will I be so fat that I can't complete a simple task.  Oh yes, I had one hell of a conversation with myself on the way down that mountain.

Heavy sigh.

Catching Up

2011 is cruising along nicely.  It's hard to believe January is more than half over.  I've been doing well on resolutions.  I haven't made one coffee shop stop all year!  I've been making an effort each day to take a healthy snack with me and leaving my debit card at home.  My couponing adventures continue to pay off.  I took six boxes of free cereal out of Rite Aid one day.  And I recently scored some Welch's grape juice and V8 Fusion + Tea for super cheap. 

Matching coupons with sales and taking home super cheap stuff has turned into a great way for us to try new things.  Tonight we had mac and cheese for dinner.  But not just any mac and cheese.  It was Kraft's Homestyle Mac and Cheese.  And it was very good.  Actually, it was great!  I got 6 of them for 62 cents each at Walgreens.  So, Brent and I had dinner tonight for 62 cents.  And we have leftovers!  Now that's living frugally.   

In the Fixing Mr. Allergy department, I've also started reading up on dog food and real food diets.  I currently have The Whole Pet Diet checked out from the library.  On one hand, the book is eye-opening and on the other hand, it's only confirming what I already knew.  Commercial dog food is garbage and the likely cause of many pet problems, like allergies.  There is no entity that checks and approves dog food, and it's because of that, dry kibble is made of the cheapest, inhumane ingredients.  A small fraction of kibble is actually digestible.  And all kinds, even the supposedly higher class dog food is made up of cheap filler products that carry nothing of nutritional value and is only meant to sustain life, not enrich it.  Feeding a dog commercial dog food is the equivalent of feeding a child potato chips from toddler hood to the senior home.  Yes, the person may live, but health problems and quality of life are greatly affected.

I haven't made any changes to Brink's diet just yet.  I still need to read and gather and plan.  It's best to do it and not go back and I want to make sure I've got all my ducks in a row before I make any changes.  It's easy to dump a cup of dry food into a bowl, it's another thing to cook fresh food, separate meals for fridge and freezer, and ensure supplements are balanced.  Some may think I'm crazy, but I'm okay with that.  I want Brink to be as healthy as he can be and live a long healthy, happy life.

My resolution to declutter myself and lose some of those extra milk jugs is moving along slowly.  The week of strep set me back a little.  I've started a food journal so I keep myself accountable for what I'm stuffing in my mouth.  I'd say my food intake has dropped to normal levels over the last few weeks.  I'm looking forward to adding some hard exercising in the coming weeks.  I'm still searching for my photograph of me finishing my Disney World half marathon many years ago.  It's going on my fridge to remind me of where I've been!

What else? I got to spend the weekend with my UW girls!  We finally got around to another scrapbooking weekend.  Two days of scrapbooking and watching romantic comedies was just what my soul needed.  I got three events done and a few Brinkley pages.  I'm not sure how many movies we watched but it sure was fun and I can't wait to do it again.  AND Bryn made the yummiest mac and cheese I've ever tasted.  Macaroni Grill should hire her!

Ok, I think I'm all caught up now.  At least, I think I am.  That was a busy week that just flew by.  It's going to be a crazy year!

Fixing Mr. Allergy

Brinkley Miles has allergies.  His ears get yeasty inside and turn beet red.  They must drive him crazy because he scratches his ears, sometimes until he breaks skin.  His paws get itchy and he'll lick his paws until they are raw.  His skin will get red on his belly and around his nose.  His eyes get really watery and he'll sleep more than normal.  And what's most irritating is that I don't know exactly what he's allergic too.  Ever since Brink was nine months old or so he's had a constant fight with allergies.

I don't think he's had the same type of dog food twice in a row.  Each time he needs more food, I can't remember what kind he just had or we have to try something new because he reacted poorly to his previous kind.  There are some foods that make him incredibly lethargic.  Beneful was the worst!  If you feed your dog Beneful, Google it - it's deadly.

I often wonder just how much it would cost to feed him real, healthy food instead of highly processed dog food.  After all, he loves real food like rice, turkey, green beans, and yogurt.  Before humans came along to domesticate our furry friends, they didn't eat perfectly symmetrical kibble bits.  

I've spent a lot of time reading up on dog food.  Just like the food itself, it can be a dry subject.  When reading about the ingredients on dry dog food, I can't even identify 98% of what is on the list.  And the beef by-product and chicken by-product really isn't any beef or chicken I would want to eat.  It's from the dying, diseased, or dead animals that arrive at a processing plant that can't legally be sold to humans.  Sounds scrumptious, right?

My logic is Brink is allergic to some chemical or altered food source that is part of the processed dog food.  And the only way to determine what exactly it is, is to do an allergy test at the vet for a $200.  That would be testing him for over 300 different things.  In addition to the test, it would probably require a food change to some unique protein, like duck or pheasant.  At a whopping $50 or more for 20lbs of food, that would mean a $100 or more food bill just to feed Mr. Miles.  And he would still be getting over processed crud with his kibble.

Why am I rambling about kibble?  One of my other resolutions for 2011 is to fix Mr. Allergy.  I've always said Brinkley deserves better than he gets and this is one thing I have easy control over.  Before I go dropping $200 on an allergy test, I'm going to give the real food diet a try to see how Brinkley reacts.  In the end, I may actually spend less on feeding him because I won't have the added expense of vet visits for ear infections, ear wash, and medicine.  And I'm sure Brinkley would appreciate not getting hollered at to stop scratching his ears and to stop licking his feet.

So, first thing, I'm going to talk to Brink's vet and start to track down some beneficial dog food recipes.  I figure most meals can be concocted in the slow cooker and extra can be frozen.  The food will actually be richer than kibble so I may not have to feed him as much as he eats now.  I'll do my best to post what the vet says and any recipes that may follow.

He already gets homemade dog treats, which he LOVES.  I mixed up some Banana Sesame Bites yesterday.  For less than $2 I made about 5 dozen treats with ingredients I can identify and would eat myself.  Yum!

ONE thing is a DONE thing

I'm starting to go a little stir crazy.  I've been home for five days now.  Four of those were spent mostly in bed.  My experience with strep has been odd.  The crud was first in my chest, and then my chest and throat, then my throat only, then it was just in my throat with some head congestion, and now I have a lingering cough, a runny nose and some on and off head congestion.  It's all been a little bizarre if you ask me.

I'm mentally ready to go back to work but I'm not sure if I'm physically ready.  Ten hour work days out in the cold and wind make for some LONG days when I'm not feeling all that well.  I hope my last day of rest really helps me out!!  I would hate to drag this out my involuntary break any longer than I have to.

I managed to kill some of my awake time on Sunday by organizing and compiling my recipes.  While kicked back in bed with the room much like a sauna thanks to the vaporizer, I weeded through the dozens of recipes that had accumulated on my desk, fridge, counter, and in my small three ring binder.  After much debate, I settled on some categories and then placed them all in a larger three ringer binder with new dividers.  I even have some room to grow!  This has been something on my To Do list for a long time and I'm glad it's done!

I was going to say something about how focusing on one thing and ONE thing only has really helped me out.  Playing with words in my head .... maybe there is a reason one and done look good together... ONE is DONE.  ONE thing is a DONE thing.  ONE makes it DONE.  DONE by ONE.  A campaign to pitch to Oprah?!  Down with multi-tasking!!

Wow, maybe I'm just tired.  The cough syrup is kicking in.  It's time for more sleep, I guess.  I'm not sure how that's possible, but sleep, I shall.

Strep sucks

In a matter of 48 hours I went from feeling more alive than I've felt in a while to feeling like death on Triscuit!  Wednesday was a pretty good day.  I went to work, stayed busy, and went home.  At about 10 o'clock that night by chest started to hurt.  You know, that nice warm, hollow feeling?  I could actually feel the crud building inside of me.  I couldn't get to sleep and Thursday morning I knew it was going to be a long day.

I should have called in sick but I thought I'd try to tough it out.  I only toughed it out for a couple of hours before I threw in the towel and headed home.  I headed to the doctor and got checked out.  I have strep throat with a "high threat of pneumonia."  I was prescribed some antibiotics and cough syrup and warned not do anything for a few days.  So, for a few days now I've done nothing.  Talking about life slapping me upside the head and telling me to slow down and pay attention to my health.

My chest congestion is better, but my throat feels worse.  I thought I would feel a lot better by now.  I'm grateful that I have a handful of days off from work to recover.  I've been plopped in the recliner playing on Brent's laptop and reading up on couponing.  I was printing coupons until I ran out of paper.

Today I weeded through the massive pile of paperwork on my desk and hole-punched and filed what was left of my 2010 paperwork.  My desk is cleaner, but not clean.  Not a bad day's work, I thought.  So I followed up my hard work with cough syrup and a nap!!

Just call me Mulan

I started making headway on another New Years Resolution on Tuesday.  This would be a resolution that falls into the decluttering category.  I think there are a lot of things in my life right now that hold me back and prevent me from being the person I want to be and doing the things I want to do.  I feel over-stuffed, unorganized, and generally ten steps behind in life.  I don't often do one thing and one thing only.

I'm a multi-tasker.  While this is excellent for the job I have, I think it's become a hinderance in my non-work life.  At times I'm so obsessed with being productive and trying to do more than two or three things at once that I get bogged down by the incessant back and forth, and possibly ADHD, that I never truly accomplish anything significant.  For example, I never sit down and write a blog post.  It's written over a matter of hours or a whole day because I get distracted by some thing or many things.  Oh, was that a squirrel?  What's that shiny thing?  I'm hungry.  What was I doing?

If I ever expect to complete any of the projects on my never-ending to do list, I need to stop trying to complete them all at once.  I need to act like a camera and FOCUS.  Enter martial arts.  All schools of martial arts tout discipline, focus, and self confidence as benefits to the sport.  In treating myself like an unruly 8 year old, I enrolled in hopes of finding me these things.

Since starting my new job last year I've been wanting to start taking some type of self defense training.  As with the most everything else I've been wanting to do, I put it off.  Well, a few weeks before Christmas I finally stopped piddly dinking around and called a place I knew some people at PD have attended.

So, Tuesday night I had my first self-defense jujitsu class.   The only class that I can attend during the week is the one for family night.  This works to my advantage.  The kids were oblivious to the fact that an obese, almost 30 year-old woman was struggling to do the things they did.  And the few other almost-adults and adults in the class were in my shoes in their not to recent past and were encouraging and helpful.

We lined up for warm-ups, which involved stretching and break falls.  My pear-shaped weight makes these incredibly hard to do on count with everyone else.  I have the equivalent of 10 milk jugs of extra fat on my body.  This slows me down.  After warming up with break falls, which is basically falling backwards gracefully and slapping your hands to your side to disperse energy and getting back up again, we moved on to somersaults.

A little over a year ago, somersaults were the bane of my existence.  My non-athletic self pulled a groin muscle doing rolls in my nightmarish week of Defensive Tactics training at work.  I brushed away my bad memories and with more courage than ever walked into a somersault.  Walked into it!  It wasn't graceful and it was far from perfect, but I DID IT!  And it gave me confidence, which was good because I had to do it about 30 more times.  And just when my rear was getting used to being over my head, we switched to take downs.

Take downs are fun.  Take downs are what will keep me going back.  The general idea is someone grabs you from behind or from the front, and in a few swift moves they are splat on the ground wondering what just happened.  I learned four moves and repeated them over and over for the duration of the class, which zoomed right by.  I have no idea how many times I hit the mat, but I would guess it's over 200.  Splat, splat, splat.

My body is achy all over and muscles that haven't been used since my DT class last winter are screaming at me for waking them up.  It's a great feeling.  And in one hour's class, I learned why martial arts can teach discipline, focus, and confidence.  It takes discipline to practice each move over and over again.  It took complete focus on what I was doing so that I didn't end up having a concussion or breaking any bones. And I built confidence every time I got my fat ass over my head without pulling a groin muscle!  By my 30th somersault, I wasn't so afraid of them!

It was nice not thinking about anything else but that one single thing for an hour.  No distractions, no interruptions.  I felt accomplished.  And alive.  Just call me Mulan!

"We must be swift as the coursing river.  With all the force of a great typhoon.  With all the strength of a raging fire.  Mysterious as the dark side of the moon!"

My first coupon outing

After a few days of planning and a couple hours in stores today, I would definitely call my first super frugal shopping adventure a success!  I've been reading various blogs, like Hip2Save, Totally Target, The Krazy Coupon Lady in order to gather tips, tricks, and links to coupons.  I printed high value coupons at home and trekked through the snow early Sunday to get my copy of the newspaper with coupons.  I didn't know what to expect, but all of my time spent was worth it.  Check out all that I picked up for $30.95.

• 2 - Red Baron pizzas (regular 3.28, on sale 2.88, with 1.00 coupons) paid $1.88 each
• 4 - Honey Nut Cheerios (regular 3.49, on sale 1.79, with 1.00/2 coupons) paid $1.29 each
• 2 - Marcal facial tissue (regular 1.69, on sale 1.25, with 1.00 coupons) paid .25 each
• 2 - Coffeemate creamer (regular 2.45, on sale 2/2.45, with 1.00 & .75 coupon) paid .35 each!!
• 2 - Bumblee Chicken Salad lunch kits (regular 1.19, temp price cut .91) paid .91 each
• 2 - Wholly Queso & Salsa (regular 3.99/2.99, sale 2.50, BOGO coupon, 2.00 coupon) paid .50 for both!!
• 2 - Johnsville Brats (regular 4.99, sale 2.99, safeway coupon made them 1.99, .35 coupons double) paid $1.29 each
• 10 - Yoplait yogurt (sale .38 when buy 10, .35 coupons doubled) paid .22 each!!
• 2 - Nature Valley granola bars (regular 3.29, sale 2.49, .50 coupons doubled) paid $1.50 each... totally forgot I had another coupon to stack with the others.  It would have made these 77 cents each, which was my original plan.
• Carmex (regular 1.39, sale 1.00, .50 coupon doubled) FREE!!
• 2 - Milkyways (regular .80, sale 2/$1, .50 coupon doubled) FREE!!
• 2 - Blackberries (regular 4.99, sale 1.00) paid $1.00 each
• 2 - Ortega 10pk taco shells/ 3pk seasoning combos (regular 1.99/2.14, sale 1.25/1.00, 1.00/2 coupons.  Paid $1.25 for combo.  Regular price for ONE seasoning envelope at King Sooper's is .89.  I got a THREE pack AND 10 shells for $1.25.  Squeee!!
• 1 - Martha White Chocolate Chip Muffin Mix (regular 1.19, on sale 1.00, coupon doubled) FREE!
• 2 - Betty Crocker 2-pack pie crusts (regular 3.49, manager clearance 1.88) paid $1.88 each

That's a whole lot of stuff for $31.  Matching sales with coupons saved me $60.  I normally go for sale items, but really paying attention to things saved me a lot more.  I went from store to store today and compared prices on things as I went.  I found that Target has the lower price on most grocery items pre and post coupon.

It was a fun day!  I can see how getting super cheap deals on things can be addicting.  It was also a surprising day.  Once I started wandering aisles and really looking at what things cost, I about had a coronary.  I've always been one for shopping sales so it's been a long while since I've really looked at regular price on things!  YIKES!  

Yep, me and my coupons are going to get along just fine.

Happy Bleepin' New Year

I'm not in the cheeriest of moods so this post may not sound as optimistic as I'd like it to.  My New Year has thus far been as uneventful and blah as I should have expected.  I say should have because I honestly hoped for something different, something better.  Call me sentimental or a hopeless romantic or a sucker but I've always liked New Years Eve.  I like reflecting on the past and thinking about how to make the present better.

I had a great 2010 and am very blessed in life.  But I won't lie and put up a false front.  Many parts of last year sucked.  It was an emotional roller coaster and I would have loved to scream from the rooftops, "Good riddance 2010 and all of the stupid emotional baggage you dumped on my doorstep."  Moving on to a fresh year seemed reason enough to celebrate...you know, balloons, silly hat, a blower thingy, some confetti, and champagne!!

I had to work New Year's Eve and New Year's Day so I wasn't going to make the annual NYE bonfire in eastern Colorado.  Brent was planning on ditching me but the whole event was canceled.  This made me happy.  Not because Brent can't have any fun without but he would have ditched me on New Years Eve.  I was grumpy about that because I wouldn't be working AT midnight, which is the whole point of NYE.

Anywho, he stayed home and NYE became just any other, non-eventful day.  He started constructing a radio he got for Christmas, using my new coffee table as a workbench (yes, I'm still cringing at seeing the soldering iron and various metals anywhere near it).   That was his day.  I left for work and he was working on it.  At some point he left for a while.  Ten hours later I came home, and he was still working on it.  I figured there was no point competing with it and didn't really care to watch and went to bed...at 9:30.  So much for making wonderful fond memories while ringing in the new year together.  Happy Bleepin' New Year!  I should have known better than to expect any level of holiday sentimentality from a man who has had no holiday traditions, of any kind.

Besides the craptastically lame NYE, I'm still happy to see a new year begin.  While working yesterday I saw a lot of people out walking and running.  And all of the gym parking lots were overflowing.  I'm not making some grand plan to lose weight and become fitter than ever before.  I know better.  That is one quick way for me to become utterly disappointed in myself.  I am, however, taking on a list of more productive and "doable" resolutions.  I'm sure my four readers are buckled over with laughter right now....I mean, have I accomplished any of the "challenges" that I've given myself??  A girl can dream.  Sigh.

In 2011, my main resolution is to live frugally.  In 2010, with a new job to give me cushion, I purchased the following "big ticket" items... large flat screen tv, a new cruiser bicycle, a recumbent exercise bike, a new couch, an end table, a coffee table, a ten-day fabulous road trip, new glasses, two cavity fillings, application for refinancing, and a second round of braces.  Oh, and don't forget the $1,000 (I'm estimating, but I'm probably close) spent on coffee shop stops.  And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

My resolution to live frugally is motivated largely by the fact that I will never be able to move out of this place and get a house with elbow room and a yard for Brinkley Miles and some goats until I'm no longer upside down with my home loan.  Thank you, crappy housing market!  The sooner I get right side up again, the sooner I'll be sitting in a rocking chair on a back porch watching Brinkley chase chickens around.  And if the market turns around before that happens and I luck out and turn a profit on this place, all the better.

So, living frugally will entail leaving my debit card at home.  If I don't have it on me, I can't spend money on frivolous things of temporary enjoyment, such as $5 lattes.  Any money I do spend, I'll try to stretch as far as I can.  I'm going to try my hand at extreme couponing, so my necessities are cheaper than they normally would be.  It may take some work and practice, but scoring us some free and super cheap items would add more cash to the coffer over the course of the year.

My dream goal for the year would be to pay off my second mortgage.  That would not only put me right side up but save me a TON of interest over the long haul.  It's also the highest interest loan I have so I'll be glad to wish it good riddance!  Giving less of my money to the evil bank empire is an added bonus!

In line with living frugally and preparing to someday move, is a year of purging.  I did well at this last year so hopefully my streak will continue.  The garage is a scary place to enter right now.  I said I did well last year, but I'm not a miracle worker.  I did make the garage messier in the process of uncluttering.  It will be organized and purged by the end of this year or I will take a match to it!  I'm even going to add a picture, just so you know what I'm up against.

Isn't that scary?  It looks like a hoarder's living room, minus the dead cats and three-year old pizza boxes. The one small path on the ground goes to the small chest freezer.  Oh yes, much work is to be done.

I have more resolutions, but for now I am done rambling.  This year will wish it never met me!  Mwa ha ha!  I shall kick its ass.  And mark your calendars, friends.  I'm throwing a NYE bash next year.  My place.  Bring your own silly hats, blowy things, and confetti!

**Totally random after note...this fine blog post is my 100th on A Break From Modern Living.  Feel free to click print and post it on your fridge.**