Tomorrow night we will be breaking my fast with hamburgers and fries from Five Guys (the best burger place around here. If there was an In-N-Out, that would be my go-to place), and wine that I'm going to pick up tonight. I am ABSURDLY excited about this.
Anyway, so things I've learned over the past 21 days:
- Being vegan sucks for people who have minimal patience. (like me)
- Being vegan is actually pretty damn tasty sometimes.
- I don't miss all that sugar.
- Sugar is in EVERYTHING. Even store-bought tortilla chips! Stupid.
- I am ABSURDLY excited for coffee on Saturday. I miss coffee.
- Tea without honey isn't completely horrible.
- I lack patience hardcore.
- I can't stick to a menu plan at all.
- Couscous is both super easy to make, and super tasty. You can put all kinds of things on top of it/in it and it's a whole meal! (Way better than rice.)
- Vegetables are amazing.
- Spaghetti squash. Who knew?!
- Homemade nut butter is way better than store-bought.
- Homemade hummus is also amazing. And super easy to make!
- Homemade crackers, yum. I need to make more of those suckers.
- Even though my commute is "too long" (especially on the way home), it's a great time to pray.
- Sometimes I just need to take a step back from all of the planning and stressing and remember that God's got a plan for me. (Obviously I'll still do all of those things, but knowing that there's a job somewhere that I don't hate, and a location where we can eventually buy a house, makes me not completely hate life.)
There are more things, but I won't bore you with anymore of them. Those are just the bigg'ns.
And, oh what the hey. Since I'm blogging, I'll do a Mission 2014 update too.
Mission 1: Save 5k. I've been consistent and have saved a little over $200 from each paycheck so far this year, which brings me up to about $600 in savings. I should step it up a little bit. We're taking a trip to IKEA in a few weeks to get a few more house essentials, and we'll be visiting a bank while we're there to finally get the whole "joint account" thing worked out. We're also starting to look at filing our taxes. If we get any money back, I have a feeling it will go straight into savings. Or, at least I'm kind of hoping it will.
Mission 2: Read 30 books. I'm currently on book 6: and I'm over halfway through with it.
Mission 2.1: Cut back on screen time. This one still needs work. This past week I've been getting headaches at work from staring at my monitors for too long.
Mission 3: Work/life balance. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Nope. Nothing yet. Last week I worked something like 55 hours. Averaging 11 hours a day. And that's with a 2 hour delay due to snow.
Mission 4: Get organized. We're getting there. The living room looks presentable, and so does the kitchen/dining area. (Which is all of downstairs.) Our bedroom is almost there - I need to reorganize my closet and clear off the top of my dresser. I kind of want to get a mirror for my dresser, now that I think about it. Add it to the IKEA list, methinks... Or, just hang up the full length one we have.
4.1: Boxes to Goodwill. We took the first load - and it felt SO GOOD. Now we have more boxes in the same spot that need to be taken over there. Sigh. It's a never ending process.
4.2: Closet purge. Hasn't happened yet.
4.3: Kitchen purge.
I crack myself up.4.4: I still have to get the print we bought in Disney framed, but that requires a trip to Hobby Lobby/Micheal's. I have a few more frames we bought I need to hang up above our bed, but a lot of the stuff is up & off the floor!
Mission 5: Etsy Store. I have a name for it! That's as far as I've gotten. "TheLyonsLounge", since "TheLyonsDen" was taken. It might change, it might not. I'm going to mostly be selling sewn baby-related things (diaper bags, burp cloths, possibly swaddling blankets), and then whatever the hubs wants to knit. I also tried "LyonsTigersBears" but that was taken too. Anyone have any other suggestions? I'm open to changing it.
Saturday is our LotR Marathon day! We've invited some friends from church over, and one of my coworkers (because I'm determined to get him to not work so much on Saturdays) over to our place to watch the entire trilogy. Yes, in one day. Yes, we're insane. No, we wouldn't ever include The Hobbit. That would have to be another day, because that will be 3 more movies, and the first two are both like 3 hours. Ridiculous.
Anyway, I think that's all I've got for now. I really need to pick up running again. There's a PlanetFitness on my way home from work, I figure maybe if I can convince myself to leave by a certain time two or three times a week, I can stop there on my way home, get in a 30-45 minute jog, and then go home all smelly to my wonderful husband. Or drag my sorry ass out of the house and run outside. But I don't want to go running right outside of our apt, it's kinda iffy. Which is part of the reason I want to move in September when our lease is up. Have I mentioned that yet? No, I don't think I have. I think that's another story for another blog.
So basically everyone is telling me how awesome PF is. Sounds like I need to suck it up and go.