Adam used to have this little rear view mirror car ornament named Geronimo. It was a little blue translucent dolphin hanging from an elastic that would spring and bob if you pulled it down and released it. Eventually the cord lost all elasticity and Geronimo just hung there with the occasional sway. I don't know where the name came from, he probably just said it once in passing and it just stuck. When the Lumina died, he died with it. I'm not sure what made me think of him just now. Weeeiiiiiird.
I'm on a mission today. It started last night, and now I'm just taking it to a whole-'nother-level. I'm talking about CLEANING. We got a notice in the mail that the fire safety company that provides protection for our building is doing in-suite inspections later this month. And nothing incentivizes me to clean like expecting company. To top it all off, that company is one of our top distributors. I'm almost done the living room. I've moved all of the furniture and swept and mopped the floors. And I'm going through everything too, every single thing I own. This shit is real and it's happening. I even vacuumed the entire couch. Last night I did maybe about half of the kitchen. When I look around at what I have done vs what I haven't done it's overwhelming but I need to do this. I think it's time for a to-do list.
I'm hoping Nikki will join me tomorrow for a trip to IKEA. I don't necessarily need her there, but it's much more enjoyable with another person. The plan is to get enough done today so I can have a complete list of what I need to pick up tomorrow. I need to get a shoe rack. I can't decide between two racks from the same brand. One has a bench and the other is just for shoes. I don't really want to spend the extra $40 but the bench does look nicer.
I'm coming up on a year that I've had my budgeting software. I think this next year to come is going to be different. After buying this place I felt like I was starting from scratch with my savings. Every last penny aside for about 5K went onto my mortgage. That 5 became my emergency fund, and I've had to start from the beginning for everything else, instead of having a massive pot in my savings account I could dip into at will. The software demands that you "assign a job to every dollar." So even if that dollar is sitting in the bank, my software tells me I have a dollar saved up for car repairs. A year in I finally have a bit of a float in each of my savings categories. And maybe now I'll be mentally able to start spending on myself. Maybe I'll let myself get the shoe rack with the bench because it's the one I actually want. But I also have thought about new savings goals. Like starting a fund to buy myself a new car. I can barely stand the thought of buying something else on credit, I'd rather buy it outright. It would take me years to save any substantial amount of money. I should probably just keep putting it all on my mortgage, and buy the car using my fancy line of credit when the time comes. Money just really sucks. Maybe it never gets better?
I helped Nikki move last weekend. I helped her pack for about 4hrs on Saturday night until about 11:30pm, and then was back the next morning at 10am to ship it out. Thank god Rossi had his truck there. I told Nikki she needed to rent a truck but she said her boyfriend's SUV would suffice. I guess I can't definitively say it wouldn't have, but having a proper moving sized van made moving a lot of the furniture easy. The moving isn't the hardest part for me, it's the walk-ups. Maybe one of these days she'll move into a place with an elevator. We finished by 2:30 which is some sort of world record. Last move took about 14 hrs end to end. It helped that she had pre-moved almost all of the boxes she had packed up. I met her work colleague that lives in my building. He actually toured my condo while it was on the market but went with something else. He said "Yeah they tried to sell me on the faucet saying it was a $500 faucet." I was like, that faucet sucks, I hate that faucet. He told me it extends down, and I said it didn't. I've tried pulling on it before but it was always uncooperative. Last night I remembered her friend's words and gave it a good yank. Presto manifesto. After 14 months of pure hatred I have a new found admiration for my kitchen faucet. Small victories, they add up.
I think I'm going to make some banana bread, and some cabbage soup, and then get back to work!!
2 comments:
do you still have the pig?
You best believe I still have that piggy. It's a bit worse for wear. But it's firmly placed on the dash of my car, and there it will stay because my arms aren't long enough to reach it. Adam had to put it there.
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