Getting it Together: Baby Steps

If you don't know what this is, get out. Or google "Perfect Strangers"

Hey, strangers. How you been?

I'm not going to bother trying to explain why I disappeared or what I've been up to since then because it's not even that interesting. I'll just start from today. (Also not that interesting, but hey.)

What I'm trying to do now is get my shit together in, like, every facet of my life. There are a lot of things that don't come easily to me - like organization, tidiness, and general having-it-togetherness - but I am basically going to try to force myself to change that and become someone I'm not! Starting off with a healthy perspective is so important.

Here's what I'm trying to do:

1. Get our expenses under control
2. Cook more, eat out less
3. Pack lunches
4. Use what I have, waste less
5. Keep the house clean
6. Keep the house organized
7. Exercise at least somewhat regularly

(Yes, at the age of 30, my goals essentially boil down to just living like an actual adult.) Some of those kind of go together, and several of them have sub-goals that fall underneath. For example, a sub-goal relating to numbers 1 and 7 is to stop driving to work, that way I won't have parking expenses, and I'll be doing some walking as part of my train commute.

Some of those can also work directly against each other on days when it feels like there just isn't enough time to do it all. If making time for exercise comes at the expense of cooking dinner, but we end up eating crappy fast food because it's cheap, what good is any of that? No good. So far I've done a pretty good job handling those kinds of roadblocks, but damn, it's hard.

What I do after a day of ass kicking and goal achieving

I'm doing pretty well with our expenses, cooking, packing lunches, and wasting less. (Except for Milkgate 2014, but that's a story for another time.) I'm doing alright with the exercise. The clear loser in this situation is the cleaning and organization. I want to get better at that and add some new goals into the mix eventually, like learning to sew, learning to take good pictures, talking with long-distance family and friends more often, planting a little balcony garden, and completing some lingering projects around the apartment. But let's not lose our minds here.

Baby steps.