Ever heard of Chillhop or Jazzhop? Until about three days ago, I'd never even heard of it. Now it's currently the music of my dreams at work. Think of jazz piano and other relaxing music paired with a light hip hop beat. I love it because the mixes I've found don't just have songs in them. They're all faded into one another and it helps the time go by faster because I'm not marking my day by three to four minute songs for hours on end and I only have to load up a new mix every hour or so. I've even found Miyazaki and Cowboy Bebop tribute mixes. It's wonderful.
Outside of finding new music, though, things are shifting. I recently started a new self-improvement course online and it's really making me think about the way that I approach myself and a lot of the situations that I'm in--and I'm only four hours in out of fifty-two. I'm already becoming more mindful of myself and my actions after just a few hours which is really encouraging for me. Now I just need to figure out the rest of my life. Maybe this will spill over? (Finger's crossed.)
There are definitely things that I need to work on and get motivated to do right now, though. Exercise being the number one thing. My moods have been my sullen recently and I think that a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm not out moving and enjoying any of San Diego's beautiful weather. I also have a gym membership that I never use. I could be using my time more wisely, wake up in the morning maybe twenty minutes earlier and do a quick full body workout before heading into work. We do have room in our office for me to do that, so it's all a matter of wanting to. For the last few weeks I've been staying up later than I should be, so I'm not waking up feeling rested, but if I stuck to my guns and actually got to bed on time, I bet that I could get into a routine of quickly working out in the morning and starting each day on the right foot.
Another habit I feel I might need to work on is my thinking about money. Husband and I are very fortunate in that we're financially stable and able to build up some wealth, but I think about money a lot. I'm constantly asking myself if there's more we can do. Can we pay off the mortgage any faster? How can I put more away toward retirement? Am I putting all of our money into the right place? Even now as I'm writing this, I've got another tab open to calculate how much interest our savings account could be making over the next few years. Sometimes I feel like I'm obsessed with nickel-and-diming our way to wealth. Right now we're lower-middle class. I'm not sure that we'll ever get above middle-middle class, but it's one of those things were I just really want to succeed. I want to pay our mortgage off as fast as possible. It's a daily ritual to try and find a new and better way. I know how much we pay on our house each month by heart and since I'm getting a raise on this month's paycheck I've been strategizing on the best way to utilize this extra bit of new money for weeks. I'm to the point where I'm wondering is this is healthy, but the thing is that I get enjoyment out of playing with all the calculators and what ifs. And then there's the fact that Hubby could be up for a big promotion in the new few weeks which would significantly impact our bottom line.
Last week, Husband's mentor contacted him about a new position that is coming down the pipeline really, really soon. It hasn't officially been announced, but it would be a sixteen hour per week position that would decrease Hubby's at home workload and increase his pay effectively by $800-900 per month. We're really hoping that he gets it, because it would almost double one of his current paychecks. And let's face it. You can put $5500 into a Roth IRA each year per person. If you put $918 per month into that Roth IRA, you max it out each year. So we're talking about that much take home money per month--our entire retirement contribution. That would free up our current retirement contributions so that we could put it toward traveling or the house or just into regular savings. It's a huge deal, so we're really hoping that he gets the position. It would be a total life changer. (See what I mean about the money thing?) Anyway, we're keeping our fingers crossed, but trying to keep realistic expectations. Everything will happen as it should, but we're really hoping that this one comes through for us.
