May Day! May Day! May Day!

Happy May Day!

I feel like it's a new beginning. Anybody else? And it couldn't be more perfect that today falls on a Friday. It feels even MORE like a new beginning as I have the weekend to recharge & start fresh. Fresh, fresh, fresh.

I know fresh starts are usually reserved for New Years and birthdays. But I just can't help it. It FEELS fresh. Maybe it has something to do with the change in the weather. I feel springy. And with the brighter season, I'm dusting off my new years resolutions and brightening my outlook. To memorialize this event, I'm picking the areas where I am committing to do a little better:

1) working out. I was doing well before, but then we threw in the wrench of transitioning to working full-time AND waking up an hour earlier. This threw my desire to WORK out... WAY out... the window. I think its symptomatic of the fact that routine changes take a lot out of me. I need adjustment periods before I am really able to juggle the new changes along with everything else. Now that I have been working full-time for a couple weeks and am finally waking up on time refreshed and no longer need to nap when I get home, I think I'm ready to get cracking again. Woohoo!

2) I am reaffirming my commitment to cook so Ben and I eat at home. And eat HEALTHY at home. Left to his own devices, I believe Ben would live off of cream cheese, salsa, chips, hot dogs and licorice. And maybe some Taco Bell. No Quiero Taco Bell! We've been doing well so far, even with the fact that we both work now. We just have to keep it up ....and diversify the lunch menu a little bit more. Canned soup and lunchmeat sandwiches are going to get old really fast.

3) A new affirmation -- ramping up preparations to buy a house. This involves many things, but the most pressing is for me to be the monkey on Ben's back, nagging him to finish working on the jeep. We can't move until we have a second car and he will never finish the work on the jeep to get it to drive-able if I leave him alone. I have the last.... oh, year or so of the non-finishing of the jeep as proof of this. And I am a believer and a hoper that I do not nag about much else. But I'm willing to resort to almost anything to become a two-car family. A woman needs her vehicular freedom!

4) we must budget like fiends so we have enough money to buy the darn thing. Good thing I like budgeting. But it's getting harder and harder as I am seeing that my clothes (especially my shoes!) are less and less updated and more and more worn looking. I know, I know. I'm hard-pressed to make convincing argument that I'm needy in this area. But I really DO need a good, reliable black handbag. Don't you think? :) And Coach makes the loveliest handbags..... I think my christmas list is going to be long this year.

One cool tool we found to watch our monthly expenses is this website called Wesabe, if anyone is interested. I think it rocks, and is a lot easier to use than Microsoft Money (granted I've never tried Quicken. But we're cheap and Wesabe is free and online.)

4) Finding a fitness goal. What should it be? Another 1/2 marathon? Maybe I'm getting to old and I should scale back to 5 and 10k's? I'm totally jacked up after 1/2's. Or maybe forget that and do all of the above? Or starting out a new sport -- the triathlon? I kinda wanna do a triathlon, but I wanna get a bike for it, and THAT is probably going to be a "hold" item till we get the house(kinda like my black coach handbag. :)) But I need to do something for motivation's sake. I miss these little mile stones. I want to pick one, commit, and get to it.

5) list-making. I used to make a lot of lists. I found these lists to be incredibly helpful in getting things done. Now, I do not make lists so much, and I get LESS done. I will write lists again. Maybe. :)

6) using my free time more wisely. This is coupled with the list-making goal. I don't know what exactly I will do with my free time, but sometimes I waste it not doing anything. And really I don't even ENJOY not doing anything. Admittedly, this problem is a little new to me. I don't think I've really HAD free time over the past few years until we moved to Ohio. So, it's no wonder I don't know what to do. All the more reason to capitalize on using it well.

Now, I do realize that "fresh start" is a total misnomer for anyone who has been alive for more than a day. I am a creature of habit and the fact that I'm not already in the habit of having these things mastered speaks strongly against my ability to do these things and for them to stick. But I believe I have hope. I'm a work in progress. See Sharon Run. See Sharon stop running for a couple weeks. See Sharon run again. See Sharon make a list. See Sharon make a list twice. See Sharon make progress.

I think this makes for a lovely easy-reader for 1st graders. And if they can get it, I too should be able to get it.

This Week

Things I'm grateful for this week:

1. My sister -- I'm SO glad she moved back and is close by and I can talk to her and see her regular and talk her ear off about all the details of my me-centric life. She humors me and loves me all at the same time. And she compliments me a lot. I like that too. And she's just awesome. She's not crazy or mean like some sisters can be. She's sensible and nice and caring and has AMAZING perspective. She's awesome.

2. Good friends -- I don't talk with as many people on a regular basis as I used to. My life has changed a bit in that regard in comparison to my early twenties. And I am grateful for all my friends. But I have some very close friends who I love having around, hearing about their lives, getting advice from them when I get to my wits end(which can happen pretty often), going on vacations with, double dating with, planning game nights with, doing choreographed lip sync routines to ridiculous song compilations, hot tubbing with, book clubbing with, going to the gym with.... the list goes on. What would I do without you?

3. Jefita -- I wouldn't be going into business without him. I wouldn't have had as many fun and crazy stories from college without him. I would not have a lot of things without him. He's a great cheerleader, a great friend, a great supporter, a hard worker, a great talent and, overall, a good person to have around. Everybody should have their own Jefita.

4. An ability to budget -- I am not a frugal person. I would say, in general, I am a terrible waster of money and very bad at saving. I am not thrifty when it comes to my wardrobe budget. Especially my shoe budget. I take vacations. I buy new cd's. I like to buy people nice presents. I just bought a new car. I buy expensive cheeses and shop at Wild Oats for most of my groceries. See? Not frugal. But I was going over all my financial obligations and necessary expenses in my head yesterday and going over my income and then the state of my bank account. (I really like doing that. Really. It's fun for me. It's like a weird, twisted, fun past-time I have to look over money and account balances and see where it all goes. I know. Weird.) Well, after all was analyzed, my conclusion is: Wow. I saved all that? With all those bills? On my little nonprofit salary? I am an amazing budgeter! I'm like Houdini! It's like the loaves and the fishes all over again! An LDS individual such as myself might also accredit and sing praises to the blessings of tithing. And I think it's true in this case. But I still like to think of myself as an amazing budgeter. It strokes my ego. But the best part is knowing I don't overspend, as it brings great peace and relief to my soul.

5. Male -- he's a boy with ill-timed napping tendencies, yes. But a good friend pointed out that as far as faults go, it could be a lot worse. On the plus side, he's really nice to me. And he calls me all the time and he likes to see me and he always opens my doors and he always tells me what he thinks as opposed to what I would like to hear (even when it would be a REALLY good idea for him to tell me what I want to hear. But at least I always know he's honest). And he's kinda cute. And I have to admit, I'm a lot more of a stable and settled kind of person since he stepped in than I was pre-Male. Much less neurotic. I know, I know. I'm still neurotic. I'm telling you -- I was REALLY neurotic before. Seriously. It wasn't healthy.

6. Music -- Given the right afternoon and a bit of free time and the right mood, the perfect cd in my car while I'm on a drive just makes me soar. Does life get better than that?

7. Airplanes -- I love love love to travel and I can't wait for my next trip. Vegas. Yeah, baby! After that, I have no idea when or where it will be to. But I know I will like it. I actually just got "roped in" to another business trip in July. I say roped in because I've decided I'll be much cooler if I act like I'm "put off" by the "inconvenience" of having to tear myself away from my life to travel for business. We'll pretend I'm cool like that. Ok, maybe not. I'm not fooling anyone. I love traveling, be it for business, pleasure or otherwise. Love it. And when I'm not doing it, I'm probably day dreaming about it. I love airplanes. They're my portal to everywhere I want to be.

8. Good coworkers -- I love good coworkers. And at my current place of employment, I have a few really CRAZY coworkers. These crazy coworkers magnify the fabulousness of the other good coworkers I have by A LOT. I like and appreciate the good ones twenty times more than I did before because of the crazy ones. Funny how that works? Thank heavens for working with people who are fun and helpful to work with.

9. My curly hair -- I don't always wear my hair curly, but I have been a lot lately and I've decided I really like my curly hair. I hate it sometimes when I have a bad hairday. I have very thick hair so as opposed to a person with a thinner head of hair, my bad hair day tends to be a lot BIGGER bunch of bad than they're smaller bunch of bad (im my humble opinion.) But despite these traumatic, large-headed days, I like my hair a lot lately. Maybe it's because I'm getting older and growing to like myself better than I used to. For whatever the reason, I'll take it.

10. My appreciation for basketball -- I actually like to watch basketball. I don't really do it of my own accord very often because I like shopping better, but when persuaded to watch a game, I really enjoy it. Male loves watching basketball and has asked me to watch many games with him over the past few months. I think our relationship would be less fun for me if I didn't actually like watching with him. Or maybe it would be less fun for him because I wouldn't be willing to do it. Either way, I like that it's a non-issue.

I didn't have too many big events or details about this week, but lots of things have struck me that I have been very grateful for, so I wanted to list them. I also updated the Sartorial Freshman as a lot has been happening with the business, so that might be why not a lot of other stuff has happened.

It just so happens that sometimes, rather than having been to a place physically, I feel like I have gone to a very profound spot, worthy of note, inside. Just those little moments where something true rings very loudly and makes you stop and notice for a moment.

Weekly Word: "Spender"

Through research, the general population of economists and financial advisors have found most people "grow into" their income. There's that initial point of being able to meet needs, (which I think is somewhere around $30,000 for a family of 4), and then everything after is really just the extra comforts and niceties we know, love and would like to know better .

I have reached the point where I am meet my own basic needs. Hallelujah. And now? Ooooh. I can easily imagine "getting by" on practically double my salary. I look forward to the year I can get my hair done regularly and fly to Europe for a two and a half week vacation, stomping and frolicking all over London and Paris. At that time, I would ideally be vacationing away from my fabulous home which I have filled with creature comforts of lovely furniture and home decor. Am I asking for a lot? Growing up in America where bigger is always better and spending money is fashionable, I might seem a "reasonable"gal. Take me to Africa and they would likely think me a Diva. It's just so hard to figure out "reasonable" when you look from a global rather than national perspective. It'd be easier for me if I didn't do that. Note to self: endeavor to be less globally minded. Then you won't feel so bad for being such a spender.

In looking at spending from another angle, I think about lavish hopes and wants and needs in relationships. You can lavish someone with kind deeds, thoughtfulness, affection, listening, patience, service, selflessness and a whole bunch of things. These things are free as far as money is concerned. But can you overspend? Can you give someone too much? And then, what about the receiving side? How do you know what your budget is? How do you know what it should be.

It makes a lot of sense to look at this kind of budget in terms of romantic relationships as well. I am reminded of the "love languages" theory. Let me think.... If I remember correctly, we have: physical affection, acts of service/kindness, compliments, gifts and quality time. Amongst these categories, one could draw out a budget of what you need and also what you tend to spend. Then, compare with whoever it is you are or would like to be romantically "relationed" to and see if you can adjust and meet each other's needs. It's TOTALLY like a budget. And if you or they can't do that... well... much like a job that can't pay your bills, you should likely find a different one that fits.

It seems to me these kinds of commodities translate into a type of universal budget that knows no class of people. What a lovely idea that we can all "afford" to spend and be spent on, where it would be possible that there be no poor. I suspect that I fall into the group of people who are low-budget. I don't ask much. But I have a concern. If you do that, do others budget you less because you don't seem to need it? Or does the excess go into a savings account that you can access later? Maybe I should become more expensive.....

On the other side of the coin,I don't think I give that much. Therefore, uncharacteristically, this makes me not a very big spender. I'm low budget on every end of this. How absurd. What I have in abundance I seem to dream up fewer ways to do things with. That's a really bad way to do things. From what I can make of this kind of budget, I think I should be 'spending' as much as possible. You'd think it would be so easy, considering my nature. If only that transferred into how I spend my thoughtfulness, service, patiences, affection and selflessness. Alas, I must endeavor to be a better spender AND be less globally minded. How's your spending going?