Friday, April 6, 2018

Well. It's April. That happened quickly.

Read 20 books.
Reduce waste.
Pay off consumer debt.
Do two "low spend" months.
Eat more homemade meals.
Stick to a healthier lifestyle.
Deep clean the house.


1. Read 20 Books. I fell a little behind. I'll explain here in a second.

Reduce waste. I would like to say that I am doing this in the ways that I can. I have been re-using plastic bags, but mostly using re-usable fabric grocery sacks when shopping. I have also been using wash cloths for most kitchen clean up rather than paper towels. Those kind of things. BUT we rented a dumpster and so I feel like by filling it with old carpet, carpet pads, bathroom counters, etc I definitely met my waste threshold for the year. Good lord. I threw away so much old, worthless stuff. All this means is that I really need to be on my a-game for the rest of the year.

Pay off consumer debt. Chugging along. Except that I bought $2K of flooring at home depot and put it on my home depot consumer card. Shit.

Do two "low spend" months. I am going to do this in June! I am also trying to do it this month - not as extreme as I will in June though. BUT for April I am going to only get coffee out and about once/week, cut back on eating out significantly, and bring my lunch to work every day! EVERY DAY.

Eat more homemade meals. Yikes. YIKES. I fell a little behind. I'll give my excuse in a second.

Stick to a healthier lifestyle. God dammit. I need to climb back on this horse.

Deep clean the house. FINALLY. A goal that I met in March. Thank goodness I stuck with one of them. I went through both bathrooms (see below), most my closet (I need to do the shelf still), the office closet, the office desk, and the guest room. For April, I am going to do the shelf in my closet and the basement.

So here's what happened in February/March. I had a little goal of updating the hallway bathtub. Pretty simple little project. There is a kit and I read some blogs/watched some videos. You buy this nasty epoxy paint and a respirator mask and go to town. That turned into have a gorgeous bathtub (its hardly brand new, but good lord, a HUGE improvement). If you have a gorgeous bathtub, you need to have a nice vanity and sink. And if you are going to update that, you might as well put down a new floor since the new vanity is, of course, not the same size as the old one. And if you are going to put down a new floor, you might as well paint the walls. And since you are painting the walls, might as well paint the ceiling. And if you are going to paint the walls and ceiling, its a good opportunity to get a new medicine cabinet. See what happened? It only gets worse. Because if you update the hallway bathroom, you really need to update the other bathroom in the house. So another new vanity, another new sink, another new medicine cabinet, new shelves AND a new toilet. Oh! And I'm getting carpet installed in my upstairs bedrooms next week. AND Logan and I put in Lifeproof vinyl plank flooring in the living room, hallway, and kitchen. Hence falling off the wagon on the reducing consumer debt thing.

And because we have been doing projects damn near every evening since mid-February, I've barely read anything.

And because I have been pooped out from home improvement projects, we have been grabbing something while we are out running errands. Or ordering something to be delivered. I legit didn't go to the grocery store for 2 weeks. Which means a lot of ordering in/dining out and leftovers. And I had to buy my lunch almost every day. Not good! And we worked on these projects every day after work and every day we were off work. Which means no 9Round for me. Yikes. The perfect storm for slipping up and failing.

But here's the good news - the lion's share of the home improvement projects are done. Which means I'm climbing back on the horse. AND I had a giant dumpster in the driveway for 10 days. So I did a LOT of throwing away. So much old stuff. So much broken stuff. I also donated a trunk full of housewares, clothing, decorations. That felt nice. I cleaned out my closet and found a HUGE box of notes/homework/lectures from nursing school. Throwing that in the recycling bin was pretty cathartic.

But now it's April and I need to get back to caring for myself!

My to do list:
1. Start reading before bed again.
2. Keep using the reusables!
3. Keep paying shit down.
4. Keep applying the "low spend" mindset - start a low spend month in June.
5. Restart eating at home.
6. Start going to 9R again. Keep drinking water.
7. Clean the April rooms.