As I always do at the beginning of a new month, I sat down yesterday and totaled up all of my debts to get a picture of where I’m at and how I’m doing. I was excited to realize– the credit card portion of my debt is officially under ten thousand! Woohoo!! I may even be able to get it under the 9,000 mark by the end of this month if I can “find” some extra money. I probably won’t quite get there, but it will be close.

Even if I don’t get to the 9k mark, the Chase card that I’m currently focusing on will be under one thousand as soon as I get paid tomorrow. That’s exciting! Still, I have a long way to go yet. Working over my budget for the next few months, it’s certainly clear that I won’t be affording one of those teeny little netbooks any time soon. Actually, I’m thinking I might not even be able to go to the conference in Florida this fall, even with the free conference ticket. Every time I try to figure out where to pull the money for a plane ticket and a hotel room, my poor budget cries. I’ll be disappointed if I can’t go, but it won’t be the end of the world. With the economy and the job market, I think paying off as much debt as possible has to be my first priority.

*sigh* Sometimes being a responsible adult sucks.

Taken just a few minutes ago… I can’t believe it’s nearly bedtime on Sunday already. Man, the weekends sure do fly by! Last weekend was crammed full of things to do… this weekend was mostly lazy, and yet they both sped by just as quickly. My Monday morning alarm will go off less than 8 hours from now. *groan* That being said, I need to think about getting my butt ready for bed.

Summer hit with a vengeance this week! From cold and rainy last week to hot and humid this week, all in one fell swoop. According to the Weather Channel, it’s currently 90 degrees, feels like 97. Anyone who has been in that has a car with a thermometer insists it is 100 or 101 degrees outside. Needless to say, it’s a little toasty. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’m looking forward to climbing in my oven, I mean, car for the ride home today. If I wasn’t morally opposed to the idea, it’d almost be enough to convince me to stay at work in the air conditioning.

That’s okay. I’ll brave baking my internal organs on the way home. I took the time to crank up the a/c on my way out the door this morning, so I’ll have a nice cool apartment when I get there. I don’t even want to think about how much my electric bill is going to be after these hot hot hot days!

Last night, just after I dried my hair and before I went to bed:

And… right now:

I don’t know… it’s kind of difficult. They are so similar you probably can’t tell what might be different.

While out with the boat on Lake Michigan, we may or may not have encouraged Killian to participate in some age-inappropriate behaviors.

Like underage driving!

Or, um, pole dancing?

He was actually getting sunscreen put on him…

… but he obviously did a good job because he earned a ten spot!

Happy Father’s Day!

I spent the day with my dad up on Lake Michigan. Thankfully, unlike my last trip up to the boat, I did NOT spend the entire trip face down on the cushion, or with my head hanging over the back of boat. I did stop and get some Dramamine on the way up, so maybe that helped. Maybe I’d have been okay anyways. Who knows, but I wasn’t planning on taking that chance!

It was a lovely day… stifling hot, but once we got the boat out of the slip and down the river, there was a good breeze. Who needs Outer Banks rentals? Lake Michigan was looking pretty good to me today. I got a few more pictures out on the lake today, but I’ll have to share them later. You wouldn’t think lounging around on a sailboat soaking up the sun would be tiring, but I’m exhausted! I’m about ready to go dry my hair, and then drop my self in bed.

A little while back, I won a Pepsi Throwback package from Elizabeth at Table 4 Five. The package arrived earlier this week and included a trucker hat that I passed on to my dad, a lunch box, a radio, a USB powered Glitter “lava” like lamp, and 2 cans of Throwback pop.

I don’t normally drink caffeinated beverages, so I stuck them in the fridge thinking I’d offer them to the next caffeine-imbibing person that came over. Yesterday morning though, I decided I wanted to drink one of those pops (gee, maybe that’s part of the reason I was still trying to make myself go to bed at 10:30 last night?) For some reason, I decided to flip the can over and look at the expiration date. Then I had to laugh.

When they say Throwback, they mean it! If you can’t read those, both of those cans of pop are past the expiration date… one by a week, and one by a month! I’m used to drinking out of date pop, so I drank it anyways, but I did find it amusing.

And it gave me something better to write about than the fact that there are no admin jobs ever available in the classifieds. (No, I’m not unemployed… I’m mostly looking for a friend who is really unhappy in her job, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t pursue something if it looked fantastic!)

Me, shortly after my shower… because I’m a slacker who didn’t bother getting clean until after 8pm!

Well, I can’t be too much of a slacker because I did get the dishes washed, two loads of laundry clean, squeezed in a workout and still managed to sit outside with a book for an hour. Yes, I said workout. Last week, I walked probably 4 days. Last night, I did one of the DVDs in my Firm set. I really enjoy the walking outside, but I did the Firm program last night for two reasons: I really do need the strength training, and soon it will be far too hot to comfortably exercise outside in the hours available to me to do so. Strange to say that when it was only 50 degrees when I left for work this morning, but true!

Do you know what the best fat burner is though? A hundred trips up and down the stairs at my apartment… to start the laundry, change the laundry, go back upstairs because I forgot the laundry basket, a trip to the car, downstairs to read, back to the car to get something I forgot, get the last load of laundry, take out the trash… etc, etc, etc. Phew. Makes me tired just talking about all those trips up and down!

In an effort to look less like I could use some diet pills, I’ve been trying to get into the swing of being more active. I intended to start the Couch to 5k running program as that’s on my 101 Things list, but I think that program is for fit couch potatoes LOL Basically, all the muscles below my knees rebelled at the idea of running, so I’m starting even slower than that.

Every day this week, I’ve gone walking. I missed yesterday due to the rain that just would not quit. It finally did stop raining about the time I got dinner, but I couldn’t be sure it was actually done and I had no desire to be caught out in the rain. I’ve been walking in the cemetery that’s not far from my apartment. It’s pretty peaceful, and I don’t have to worry about feeling self-conscious about all the cars going by. Another plus to walking in the cemetery– no teenage boys to drive by and remind you that you’re fat! You do spend a lot of time thinking about death though! If you ever want to make your problems feel really insignificant, go to the nearest cemetery and find the section of babies. Puts everything in perspective.