Revisting my September goals

September Goals or my list of things to do...

1.Get my wisdom teeth pulled [ No pain from them but they aren't looking so hot :( ]
A. speak with dentist at my appointment for crown on Wed.-done!
B. set up an appointment for the referral place-done!
C. Go to the appointment- Set for October 21st-earliest they had!D. I'm sure I'll have to then schedule for the teeth to actually come out- not done
E. Go to that appointment- not done
F. Recover-not done

2. Get my hair cut- I feel like I haven't even realized how long it had gotten until someone commented on a picture on FB and pointed it out...and now I can't believe how long it is either.
A. Call and set up an appointment (for this week)- done!
B. Go to appointment and get hair cut. (Since I don't dye/highlight my hair that should be relatively easy and relatively cheap) done and scheduled next appointment already

3. Get my prescription refilled and possibly transferred to a new pharmacy
A. Call and see if the office is still closed on Fridays (yay sequestration..not) done
B. order the refill and see if I can get it transferred somewhere else so I don't keep running into the same problem every 3 months ;) half done/ decided not to transfer prescription
4. Go to social security office and get name changed/new social security card.I know that this one is especially important for my husband and I should stop procrastinating on it...oops.
1. Find out where office is. done
2. Call and see if I can set up an appointment not done
3. Go in on a Friday after work not done
4. Gather everything I need not done
5. Go to appointment. not done

5. After social security is done and I get my new card...
1. Study for NC driving test. nope
2. Go to DMV- take driving test (written) nope
3. Hopefully ;) get new NC driver's license. no way
4. Surrender Illinois license :( :( yeah no

6.Get Notary Public status (Depends on when class is available.
1. Call and sign up for a class at the community college nope not until i have a nc license....
2. Take Class
3. Take my oath at courthouse
4. Buy/Order the seal 

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Alright well I got my hair cut, refilled my prescription, and scheduled a consultation for my wisdom teeth. However, I made no progress with getting my name changed or getting a NC drivers license or notary seal. Hopefully I can make a little more progress for October. But hey at least I stopped procrastinating a little. 

Tomorrow I will post my October goals for the month. Hopefully they will be a little more fun and actually contain some personal/mental goals :)

Enjoying a glass of wine after work...is that bad?

Now I am the farthest thing from a big drinker-for several reasons and here they are. 1) I'm pretty small weight wise and I don't have a big tolerance for alcohol call me a lightweight if you will. 2)I don't like getting dizzy or nauseous or having headaches. 3) I like to be in control of myself at all times and I feel like you lose that when you drink. 4) I've seen how alcohol tears apart families (not my own...thank God). There you have it. A big night for me is probably 3 beers and I'm done in. Now that I have established my propensity to prove to the blogging world that I don't drink much... I'll tell you that for the past 2-3 days I've been enjoying a glass of wine before dinner.

It's been a pretty stressful week at work so the desire to sit on the couch, throw on some reality tv while dinner is being made, and enjoy a nice red or white has been rather strong. It has been a chance to relax and unwind from my day. This week my husband has been working a little later than usual and has been coming home around 7:30ish or so. This might sound a little bad but instead of being upset or a little annoyed (no fault of his own) I have been been very relaxed and genuinely happy to see him. I haven't complained or been grumpy...and embarrassingly enough...I think it's that glass of wine. Usually I stress over having dinner ready on time or trying to figure out what time he is getting home. Instead he gave me a ballpark estimate I've had dinner ready those two nights right as he was coming in the door and it has been...nice. Does this mean that I need a glass of wine to relax me and curb my temper? I sure hope not because I don't want to become dependent on it but I am enjoying feeling less stressed and angry. It's like that episode of King of Queens where Doug is making Appletinis for his wife every night and she is in such a good mood. lol! Anyone ever see that episode, it's hilarious.

I don't feel like OH MY GOODNESS I NEED A GLASS OF WINE OR A DRINK or anything like that...it just has helped put me in a better mood...and since its been that time of the month for me...it certainly hasn't hurt. ;)

How about you? Do you have a glass of wine or maybe something a little stronger to help you unwind after a long day? Let me know so I don't feel like the only one with a budding drinking routine. :)

Why is it so easy to be a night owl?

...Yet so hard to be the early bird that catches the worm? I love staying awake at night I honestly do. I'm such a night person that I feel like my night is wasted if I go to bed before 12:30. I'm sure that it is such a wonder then that I normally have trouble waking up in the morning even with the assistance of several alarms on my phone. It is just so easy to hit that beautiful, beautiful snooze button....over...and over...and over again. I've even learned to sleep through some of the more annoying alarm ring tones. What an accomplishment, right? It's really bad and there are days that I seriously wait until the very very last minute to wake up and run around like a crazy person. I also have the very bad tendency of being 5-8 minutes late for work...almost everyday. Sure I can try blaming it on the 5 school zones that I drive through or traffic but really it is me. I leave my house way too late and even though it doesn't take me too long to get to work I'm still rushed and I'm still late.  I have a very relaxed boss but it really makes me feel like I'm being unprofessional and taking advantage of her. I both need and want to do better. I don't know if this happens for anyone else but I sometimes feel so overwhelmed when I am running late that I completely shut down mentally for a moment. I can't focus and I can't make any decisions. I literally just stand there for 30 seconds to a minute...frozen. This especially happens when I'm trying to pick out clothes or shoes to throw on. Or I'm about to leave the house and I remember something I need to grab...fantastic! It also doesn't help that I'm OCD and will get in the car and then have to check again to make sure my front door is locked or check my purse again before I leave the house to make sure I have my phone and sunglasses. Why do I do this to myself?

I know the answer. Lack of planning, lack of organizing, and most importantly lack of sleeping. Alright that was a lie, at least the most importantly lack of sleeping part. I'm just too much of a night owl. There are things though that I can and should be doing differently. I've been trying to follow (at times when it suits me or I get inspired) Flylady.net but I still struggle with the whole morning routine/before bed routine. Why is it so hard to make my lunch the night before or pick out an outfit for the next day? How about even just making sure I have water in my keurig or make my bed in the morning? Here's why-you can't really accomplish a whole heck of a lot when you only have 10 minutes to get ready and out the door! What am I thinking!? Again, why do I do this to myself?

You will be shocked after having read all of the text above to hear that I actually managed to wake up 40 minutes earlier than I usually do. Not only did I have time to put my outfit together and make my bed. I also grabbed everything I needed out of my bedroom without making countless trips back upstairs before I left. I made my lunch and grabbed grapes for breakfast. I  had my sunglasses and phone ready and didn't have to check anything to make sure it was there...well except for locking the door ;). I ALSO left for work early and...got to work early! Amazing how that works. Tonight I'm going to make a simple bedtime/ morning routine for myself and see if I can start sticking to it. So far I feel great for managing to wake up early and hopefully it is a sign of good things to come!

A small color change, content changes, and a confession

For some reason I haven't really been inspired to write lately and I think I figured it out. The color on my page was so boring. Don't get me wrong I LOVE teal but it was time for a small change. The purple seems so much more vibrant. I've also decided to bring more of me into this blog. So far it has only been finances and I love to read about people's daily lives. People may not want to read about my daily life but hey they can always click out of the website if I'm that boring. :)

It's been kind of a weird week at home. I went to the grocery store once to pick up some things for dinner. Monday we had hotdogs and fries, Tuesday-breaded chicken sandwiches,Wednesday we had Chinese, and then had leftover Chinese Thursday night. I haven't really been in the cooking mood but also haven't been in the dining out/spending mood either. S and I really tried this month to watch our spending and I think we were pretty successful. S got Grand Theft Auto 5 so he and I have kind of been missing in action this week lol. He has been spending all of his time stealing cars and I have been upstairs in the bedroom mainly watching youtube videos and episodes of Game of Thrones. I'm kind of disappointed in my self because prior to this past weekend for the past 10 days I had been making sure to get off work, go home, make the bed, straighten up the bedroom (really only putting away 1 or two things since I had been keeping it pretty spotless, clean up the master bathroom, and stick a load of laundry (one a day) in the washing machine. I had been so good at it but got lazy this week. I just need to remember just because I took a break doesn't mean I have to give up. I was tired last night but didn't want my bedroom to look so messy. I set a timer for 5 minutes and I was actually very surprised and how much I was able to get done in just 5 minutes. I wasn't even running around like a crazy person-just straightening up like normal. It goes to show how much you can accomplish in a short amount of time provided that you actually just GET UP and DO IT! :)

It's Friday and I only have 3 hours left of work. This weekend we have a small get together at a friend's house to celebrate a birthday. The Renaissance Fair is tomorrow and I've never been so my husband and I might go just to try something different. Could be fun.

So here's my confession:

I've been making good progress on my loans but I also seem to be shopping a lot lately. I spent over $200 combined at Target and TJ Maxx this month. At least I haven't put it on the credit card (Discover)? If I really want my loans to go down I need to avoid shopping! That's it for now-back to work!

5 months until 0 and a small raise!

I'm back from our little weekend get-a-way to Myrtle Beach. I had a very nice time and was glad that we got to spend time with the in-laws. They are truly wonderful people. It is so easy to forget that Myrtle beach is only 2.5 hours away from us. It was nice to be able to leave around 2pm and be home by 4:30ish. The only weird thing is I got this rash on my stomach and I have no idea what it is from! I didn't discover it until last night. I'm going to the store after work and picking up some benadryl. Hopefully that will help! It isn't really itchy but its all across my stomach and nowhere else...what the heck!?

I'm very happy to announce that I got a small raise at work. I work 40 hours a week and get paid hourly..it isn't really much but it is an extra 120 a month after taxes so I will take what I can get. The nice thing is that 120 a month means that my loans will get even more of a snowball on them. :) I paid my federal loans for the month and my $1,623.04 loan is now at $1,372.680 every little bit helps. If I make steady payments of $275 a month on that loan I can have it paid off in as little as 5 months. If I only paid the minimum on the loan it would take me 7 years to pay off and I would pay $278 in interest...no thank you! I already make very little as it is-I want my money to go as far as possible. :)

Prior to our wedding my husband and I had agreed to take a certain amount of money from what we received at the wedding and work on paying down our credit cards. So far I haven't touched the money yet but I think I'm going to start taking money out each month and begin to actually make some progress on the credit card front. Currently I only spend 17.99 a month on my card (birch box and credit score tracker). However with 18% interest and 5300 on the card and $200 a month payments I don't seem to be getting very far. It's time to make a large payment and get the ball rolling.

Well that's it for now...time to get back to work. Also, my heart goes out to everyone involved in the Washington Navy Yard Shooting. Praying for everyone involved.

Halfway to Myrtle Beach!

Hi everyone! It's been a little while hasn't it? Here I was doing so well with remembering to blog too! Anyway, S and I have actually been very good about  watching our spending this month. For the first time in quite a long time we had actually spent more than we took in during the month of July -eek! However we had some planned/unplanned expenses come up and we didn't really budget for any of them. Although it was only $200 more than we (actually he) made (our finances are still semi separate) it was still scary for us. I will say that because of our recent wedding we do have a pretty nice cushion in our savings account but we are trying not to touch any of that money. Anyway, long story short we have been very careful for the past couple of weeks. We have definitely been using what we have instead of grocery shopping and we only ate out twice in two weekends -usually we eat out at least twice on the weekends. The reason why we are going to Myrtle Beach is that his parents are going on vacation there this weekend and so we are driving down (4 hours away) to see them and spend some time with them. We aren't going home for Thanksgiving so we wouldn't see them until Christmas otherwise. We already planned out the expense for the hotel and his parents are insisting on paying for our meals (although I don't like that and will try to argue-which will end up being pointless..anyways...) I'm excited to spend some time with the inlaws-so time to pack, get through two more days of work, and head down to SC!