Cavewoman!

Today is my first day trying out the Paleo diet lifestyle. Clearly diets and I don't work, I've only tried ten or so in the last year. I haven't read the book yet (ordered it today and broke my no spending money on books in 2011 rule - at least I bought the ebook version), but I've been reading tons of blogs and other internet sites and and I like what I've read so far. I don't know all the rules quite yet (thanks for all the text responses, Mom!), but I'm getting started. I had an bit of an incident today that finally pushed me to try something new and healthy. To keep me going I'm going to try and snap a picture of each meal over the next seven days. My goal is to not cheat (as best I know the rules) at all for the first seven days.

I kicked off with dinner tonight. I made Turkey Tacos, from my new favorite blog, including the homemade guacamole and taco mix from scratch. I bought all fresh ingredients and it tasted amazing. Not pictured is the rest of the romaine head that I chopped into a salad and ate with half a tomato and a salsa/lemon juice dressing. I also had a glass of OJ before my mom texted back saying I should stay away from it at the beginning due to the high sugar content. Better get back to reading my book...

Crappy pictures, but I'm too cheap to upgrade to the iPhone 4 for now. 

The first casualty of the Paleo diet was not my waistline or the constant thirst I've had the last few weeks. Instead it was my favorite (and not cheap!) knife. It has been a rough, rough Monday. 

January Update

I'm sure these monthly posts will be of no real interest to anyone but me, but I'm doing them anyway, mostly for my own accountability.

January Book Report

1. Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology by Eric Brende. Eric and his wife spend 18 months living within a "Minimite" community and he details their experiences. 

2. The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove by Cathy Erway. Written by a 20 something New Yorker who gives up take out and dining in for two years. Great timing as I continue to cut back on restaurant eating and learn to enjoy cooking more. Bonus point: My first eBook loaner from the library! Highly recommend checking if your library system provides this service.

3. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. Loved this super quick read (maybe four rides on the Genenbus?) that details Murakami's thoughts as he trains for the 2005 New York marathon. 

4. The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A. J. Jacobs. A secular Jew attempts a literal interpretation of the Bible for one year. It's funny and interesting to see how his beliefs are shaped by his actions as the year goes on. 

5. The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach. The inventor of the "Latte factor", or how your regular $3 (or $5 or $10) expenditures are costing you your retirement. The book was very basic (and frankly made me feel great about where I am with saving), but since I'd like to apply something I learned from the book to my life, I'm stopping all work vending machine purchases for the rest of the year. All my other "lattes" I'm fine with and choose to spend that money in those ways.

On a side note: When I looked at my financial goals for 2011, one of the places I realized I can really save money is books. I am not spending any money in 2011 on books and borrowed each of these from the SF Public Library.

I'm at 17% of my 30 books in 2011 goal. Last year started out really heaving in January and I barely finished 30. Something about when the weather gets nice and the sun stays out later makes it a lot harder to sit down and open a book.

I did, however, totally fail at one of my book goals. I'm trying to do three Bible studies this year. My goal for January was to get through the first two weeks of the first one. I managed one week. I'm not finding it terribly interesting but don't really want to spend money on a new one.

January Financial Report

House Fund: I ended the month at 29% of my total goal (I started the year with 25% already tucked away) and at 107% of what I had hoped to save in January. It will be awesome if this trend continues. 

Travel Fund: I ended the month at 11% of my total goal, though in January I only saved 85% of what I'd planned. Back on track next month.

January Health Report

No races to report on for this month, but I've been training for the Austin Half Marathon in late February.

I ended the month with a loss of 2% of my body weight. Yeah! Unfortunately it's involved a lot of Smart Ones and I'm going to work on bringing that down next month. I don't think waking up thirsty every morning is a good thing. 

2011 Goals

Since I didn't document these earlier, here are my goals for the year. I find it much easier to meet them if I create smaller goals each month.

• Read 30 books (including one personal finance book every other month)
• Complete 3 Bible studies
• Save 100% of my house fund (includes downpayment plus enough to cover all fees)
• Save 100% of the costs of the two big trips I have planned this year
• Run 3 half marathons
• Lose 16% of my body weight

February Goals

• Read four books
• Complete weeks 2 and 3 of The Patriarchs
• Save another 4% of my house fund and bring the total to 33%
• Save another 5% of my travel fund and bring the total to 16%
• Run my first half of the year
• End the month with a 4% body weight loss

Fun in Bainbridge

Last weekend was a Seattle weekend without any plans. We ended up taking the car on a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island.

 

They have two lanes for driving cars on to the ferry. I think this is the point where I got really excited to drive on to a ferry and yelled "It's just like Noah's Ark!". 

View of Seattle from the boat.

This looks like a fake background with how blue the sky is and the perfect skyline including the Space Needle. It really was just a gorgeous day out. I've yet to visit Seattle in bad weather (cold yes, but not even any rain) so I'm choosing to believe that everyone else is just lying about how yucky it can get. :)

I didn't get any pictures of us on the island, but we went to the Eleven winery tasting room on the main street then shared some chips and salsa at a cantina across the street. We're quickly turning in to old people with afternoon drinks and early bird dinners. 

Living More Simply

Yesterday I took step one on my minimalism journey. Actually, we're changing the name of the journey to living more simply. I feel like minimalism has a set of rules to follow and is an actual movement. I'd just like to enjoy more free time and have less clutter, both physical and mental. So there it is - living more simply. Credit for that should go both to Mom with her "Live simply so others may simple live" mantra and the boyfriend who mentioned something about a more simple life when I was describing my closet clean out. 

Now the details. I tackled my two most used (and most overflowing) drawers this weekend: The t-shirt and the work out clothes drawers. 

I knew I owned way more t-shirts than I needed or can reasonably wear, but I had no idea I owned 56 tees. That doesn't include tops that I wear to work or out socially. Seriously, 56. Ridiculous. I now own 21 and my almost broken IKEA drawer might last the rest of the year until I move.

My work out clothing drawer has been a source of stress for a while. On the days I'm not organized enough to set out clothes in the evening, trying to find something for the gym or a run at 5:10 am is not the best way to start the day. This drawer was such a mess I forgot about a brand new triathlon suit I had purchased (for no good reason) last year sometime. Hello, ebay! 

Overall, I have a "keep rate" of 48%. I may be less of a consumerist pack rat, but I'll never not be a data nerd. :)

Keep: 48 (44 + 4 - I have four items of workout clothing that now live in Seattle)
Donate: 48
Sell: 1
Trash: 2 (I had two work out shirts that were too stained to donate and haven't been able to find info regarding recycling used clothing that isn't worth donating)

Stuff

This is not a post about a hodgepodge of things, but a post about actual stuff. Some time in late 2009 while blog hunting (yes, I am my mother's daughter), I came across a blog on minimalism. As tends to happen in the blog world, one post on minimalism lead to as many more as I possibly could have stayed up reading.

I'm not a minimalist and probably never will be. I appreciate things and enjoy a certain level of comfort. I don't desire to live with only 100 belongings or live a monkish life. But I also feel very overwhelmed by how much stuff I have. Picking out clothes for work involves fighting coat hangers and hand bags in my closet. Putting away the dishes involves the precise placement of plates and cups to make sure nothing bursts out of the china cabinet and breaks. I simply have too much stuff. Way more than I need. And now, I've crossed a new line to way more than I want.

My quest towards minimalism probably won't involve much more than dealing with my consumption. I'm not trying to get away from the working world or move to India with just a small carry on to my name. But I would like spend the year applying what I read on these blogs to my own life in ways that make sense. I'm starting with the closet. I've given my self three months to get it under control, one step at a time.

Book Nerd

I wrote a detailed post last week describing how I came up with the following list of books for 2011. I reread it today before posting and had to laugh at myself. No one needs seven paragraphs to do what can be said in four sentences:

Read 30 books (well, 1 to go) in 2010. Thought 30 was a good number, but wanted to branch out from 90% fiction. Picked a few areas I’m interested in, filled in with books that have been on my list for a while. Left a few spots open to fill in later.

Simple Living

1. The Joy of Less (Francine Jay)
2. The Paleo Solution (Robb Wolf)
3. Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology (Eric Bende)
4. The Story of Stuff (Annie Leonard)

Memoirs and Biographies

5. Three Cups of Tea (Greg Mortenson)
6. My Life in France (Julia Child)
7. The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It (Tilar J. Mazzeo)

Running

8. Marathon: A Novel (Hal Higdon)
9. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Super Athletes, and the Greatest Race the World has Never Seen (Christopher McDougall)
10. What I talk About When I Talk About Running (Haruki Murakami)

Personal Finance

11. Frugillionaire (Francine Jay)
12.
13.

Faith

14. Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (Rob Bell)
15. Radical: Take Back Your Faith from the American Dream (David Platt)
16. The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Litterally as Possible (A. J. Jacobs)
17. Mere Christianity (C. S. Lewis)

Travel

18. Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer (Chuck Tompson)
19. The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday (Niel MacFarquahar)
20.

Career

21. Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding The Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty (Patrick Lencioni)
22.

Fiction

23. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
24. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Anne Shafer)
25. Cutting for Stone (Abraham Verghese)
26. I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith)
27. The 19th Wife
28.
29.
30.

2011

2009 was the year of blogging about my CSA. That lasted a month.

2010 was the year of blogging about my adventures. That made it all the way to July!

2011... I'm going to give it another try. I have three ideas I'm going to start with and maybe one will stick: Continuing to document my adventures so I remember what I did this year (it was super fun to read back on my year from Jan - July right now); documenting my book list for the year (mostly to hold myself accountable); and finally, chronicling my new found fascination with minimalism.

So, fair readers (Mom and Lauren), I'll see you in 2011. :)