Halloween Bostons

Boston Terriers are by far the cutest dogs on the planet, which is why we have one!

Here are some Bostons that got into the spirit of Halloween!

More Boston Costumes

Breakfast

I really struggle with breakfast. First of all, I never, repeat never, have extra time in the morning. I am always jealous of the people who wake up early on a work day to sip coffee and read the paper. How do they have the motivation to jump out of bed on a workday with such enthusiasm?
Let me clarify, it's not that I am not a morning person. While I love my sleep, I often wake up at 5am to workout before work, but I am always scrambling to leave the house before 8.
I think I eat pretty healthfully, which adds to my dilemma because I won't just grab a scone or toaster strudel.. I am a cereal snob (most of it is junk), I try not to eat empty carbs in the morning, and I don't like to eat anything sweet in the morning because I never feel good. My ideal breakfast is an egg on sprouted toast, or in the summer I make a smoothie with protein powder (the only sugar is in the fruit). I just cant seem to find something that I continually like to eat, and most importantly get in the habit of making... I need help!
Here are some items I found to be a success for me (if I can plan ahead, or get my butt out of bed):

• Smoothie with banana, plain nonfat yogurt, frozen berries, protein powder, nuts, supplements. Not okay on snowy days like today!
• Kamut or Spelt flakes with almond milk, raisins and dried coconut. A quick option, like cereal, but gets old after a couple days of eating it.
• Egg on sprouted toast
• Egg scramble with veggies. I never have time for this, but sometimes get lucky an T makes it.
• Egg "taco" on a corn tortilla with vegetarian refried beans, a fried egg and spinach on top. Very tasty!
• Once I made these "quiche cups" but I made such a huge batch that by the end I was really grossed out and haven't made them since. Also I don't use egg substitute, it is a weird concept to me :)

What it sounds like is that I have plenty of breakfast options, I just need to plan ahead (for 5 minutes the night before) or wake up earlier. Seriously, why is this so difficult?

No one reads my blog (well my best friend, M, but that's it!), but if I had a bunch of followers, I would ask:
What is your "breakfast of champions" and how and when do you prepare it?!

Goals are Good

Here are some more goals I am working on:

• Preparing breakfast items, or at least having something I can grab so I eat a healthy breakfast every day.


• Make coffee at home or at work. Get an individual drip filter cone like this:

• Make concious decisions about the next item I need in my wardrobe. This way I am working toward making a complete wardrobe, buying exactly the items I need. I succeeded at my last purchase of Paige Skinny Jeans! Wearing them today with boots and a sweater. I hardly wore these boots before because they only look good with skinny jeans or tights tucked in.

• Start getting to work by 8am, not 8:10. I am really bad about this, because truth be told, I don't really care. It's not like my boss sees me come in late every day... But I need to have a little more respect in what I do and show up on time!

Race Across the Sky

I had the good fortune of attending the world premier of this movie Race Across the Sky which is about the Leadville 100 mountain bike race.

Before the movie began, we got to hear the from a panel of racers. The panel consisted of:

• The Leadville 100 Race Director- cool, older guy who has been doing this race for years
• Lance Armstong- 1st place
• Dave Wiens- 6 time first place winner who got 2nd to Lance this year
• Travis Brown- local rider- 7th place
• Matt Shriver- 3rd place, T and I's good friend and the FLC cycling coach

It was such a treat to hear the racers talk about the event before seeing the action unfold on the big screen. The movie did a great job of capturing the emotion of the gruelling race, along with the strategy that unfolded among the top riders.

• Here are my take-aways from that inspiring evening:
• Lance Armstrong is tiny! (I joked with T, who is very skinny, that Lance even makes him look fat!)
• I am really proud of our friend, Matt, who worked hard to help Lance win, and had a great race himself, finishing in 3rd place. His help to Lance is the only reason why Lance came back to our tiny town to help raise money for the FLC cycling team, and repay the favor to Matt.
• What race or physical challenge should I sign up for next?! I think everyone in the room was thinking that. The emotion involved in accomplishing a tough race is what most of us live for. Its a good challenge that typically makes us appreciate what our body can do rather than bag on ourselves about what we can't do. I was especially touched by the woman who almost died when a car hit her on her bike one day. While laying in her hospital bed, all she wanted was the ability to ride a bike again. It was pretty awesome to watch her cross the finish line of the Leadville 100!
• Lance is a pretty bad ass mountain biker, especially since he spends all his time on the road. I just LOVE that pro mtb guys think they can beat him on the mountain bike! (This is coming from someone who is not the World's #1 Lance fan either. I like the guy well enough, but I certainly don't idolize him)
• A quote from the race director himself "you can do more than you think we can."

All in all, fun night out, and motivating movie!

What am I doing with my life?!?!

Tightening the Proverbial Belt

These next few months may be the biggest test on T and I's relationship as we not only create a joint budget (we are pretty diligent with our personal budgets, and manage our joint account well) but also begin to squeeze every penny out of that budget to pay off all, yes all, of our consumer debt. I am not just talking about credit cards here, that would be waaay too easy! I am talking about credit cards, cars, student loans... everything except our mortgage. On top of that we are creating a 3-6 month emergency fund, where we could survive for 3-6 months without income. Right now we would be unable to survive 6 weeks without income, so you can see how far we need to go!
To me it is interesting how the American Dream consists of being a steward to thousands and thousands of dollars of debt. Think about it, most people think they are not in debt when they don't have a credit card, but what about that depreciating vehicle, or student loans, or home equity lines of credit? We live off of this idea that we can buy stuff we don't have the money for. Then we spend the next coming years being a servant to this stuff that we bought. Check out this video, that is ridiculous and true about how we spend money.

Think about it, if you had no debt, how much money would you really need to make to survive?
And if you had no debt, and made what you currently make, how much could you put away into an investment for your retirement or kid's college or medical emergency fund?

T and I don't want to be servants to our debt forever, so we are starting now... tightening the belt so we can be one step closer to our dreams. But what are our dreams...? Good question! We will spend the next week talking about things we want to do with our life so we understand why we are giving up that latte, dinner at a restaurant or new jacket now? So we can travel the world for 12 months and not work, so we can have kids someday and I can stay home while they are young, or so we can be financially independent by 50 and enjoy life while we are still physically able!

We will see how it goes as we discuss whether it is worth it to buy those new mountain bikes, get my hair done ($120 every 6 weeks), or eat out when we could cook at home. It's gonna get ugly, but it is time to start owning up to what we really spend and what it is costing us.

I need to get on it!

I am not sure why I am so hung up about blogging. I have all these ideas of things I want to put on here and then just get lazy about it, or think it's not worth blogging about. I seriously need to get over that!!
I absolutely love this one blog Stacking Pennies who writes a lot about personal finance but adds other things in there about her life. Everything from her wedding plans, goals to run more, and ideas about clothes she wants to buy. She usually does monthly goals, its like reading someone's to-do list. It is inspiring!
I started this blog to have a place to keep track of my life, my goals and ideas and inspirations.
So here is my first attempt at blogging more with a monthly goals list like my friend Stacking Pennies, who I feel like I know even though I have no idea what she looks like, what her name is or where she lives!
End of October Goals:

• Gather up personal finance info for meeting with our finance coach
• Get started developing T and I's joint budget
• Use the rest of my yoga punches that expire on Oct 31st!
• Write our wedding thank yous!!!!
• Mail some goodies to friends/family that I have sitting in piles around the house
• Schedule carpet steam cleaning
• Get my new drivers license with my married name!
• Sync my new blackberry (Thanks T for the b-day gift) with Outlook and update b-days and contact info.
• Make dentist appt
• Deal with my health insurance rate change. Lame!
• Write in my blog. Obvi doing that now, but I mean, more than once this month!

Ok that's enough for now!

Until next time...