Chillhop Among Other Things

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.

What A Day

We're on a 4/10 work schedule right now, so today is my Friday--and thank goodness for it. Today has been a whirlwind. It's the last day that our office is open before a huge deadline and we've gotten nothing but call after call after call asking "Is my stuff sent? It's not showing up." It seems like everyone I've talked to today is frantic in some way and the emotional contagion has really affected me. We had an individual whose records were being held incorrectly, too, and it was an absolute fiasco trying to get it fixed, an all day affair that my supervisor and I have been trying to deal with since something like 11:00am this morning. And the issue wasn't even our office's fault. It was another department that royally messed up. All I can say is that I am so grateful that today is my Friday. I have no idea what I'll be doing this weekend, but at least I'll have some time to decompress. Between deadlines and projects at work and emotional situations at home, I'm just pooped and my confidence is just shot.

I'm at a point where I'm functioning, but I'm not thriving. I'm able to get to work and cook dinner and do the day-to-day things, but  my relationship with Husband is having some rocky bits. Please don't get me wrong, we're getting along really well and we have an extremely close friendship, but right now I'm having issues communicating how I'm feeling and expressing what I need. And when I do and I try and be proactive to help things, I just feel like an absolute failure. Thank god Husband is my anchor or I would have drifted away already. He doesn't know this (or if he does he's trying to give me privacy with it), but last night after a really bad attempt at trying to make things better I just gave up. I had managed to get myself into the shower and bathed and whatever, but afterward I just couldn't bring myself to face him. I was too ashamed, so I just curled up in a ball on the shower floor and laid there until I realized that I still had chores to do around the house. If I didn't do them, then I was just going to suffer for it later, so I had to basically pull myself up by my bootstraps and try to carry on. I am so ashamed and so insecure with some of the things going on in my life right now, though, that I'm just a wreck on the inside.

The only thing that I feel like I've got down really well right now is the fact that I have meals planned out for the next week or so and overall the meals are pretty healthy. I think part of the reason I'm feeling so bad right now is because I've let my weight creep up again and it's really affecting how I look and think about myself, so I'm actually doing something about it which is making me feel much more empowered. I haven't been perfect about it, but I have been logging my food and when Husband and I went grocery shopping last night, we bought a ton of healthy foods--lots of fruits and veggies. Today I was able to resist temptation by going out to a potluck and not eating anything bad. I came back with some cherry tomatoes and baby carrots, but no dip, so it felt really good. And the control freak in me is grateful to have something to hold onto. Tonight, I have no idea what I'm going to make for dinner, but at least I know that when I go home I'll be able to whip up something without too much trouble. This weekend I'm hoping to try a new crockpot recipe, too, so that should make things easier food-prep wise should I need the break.

For now and this evening, though, my plan is to just try and relax. If that means hiding in the bedroom all evening while I read, then so be it. Husband is one of my top priorities, but if I'm not taking care of myself then I have no idea how I'll be able to support him. He's put himself up for a new job, by the way and if all goes well then our lives could be changed pretty dramatically for the better. I'll post more when I have more information, but just wanted to put it out there.

Reflection on a Work Day

It's 9:22am on a Friday and I'm done with my work in the office until the mail comes in around 11:00. I've got Cookie Clicker running in the background of my Mozilla browser and the Chrono Trigger soundtrack playing through my headphones. This week has been slow, but some days have gone faster than others. And today I have my highlighter yellow [WORK NAME] shirt on, so you can't miss me even if you tried.

After a major blowout last month with my husband, things have been remarkably better than they have been since April 2016 when I was diagnosed with a pretty hard-hitting disease by the doctor. It was an earth shattering and unexpected piece of my life that I never thought I would have to deal with and it damaged my self esteem to the point where I could barely function. I could go through my daily functions and get to work on most days, but I was so depressed and in such a dark place that I thought I could never be fully happy again for the rest of my life. The biggest blowout fight of my life with Husband is what finally shook me out of a thirteen month funk. When you're in a bad place and you're hurting, it can be nearly impossible to empathize and notice that others are hurting, too. That's what happened to me and our fight was so emotionally intense that I was finally able to see how hard things had gotten for Husband. It was the fight that nearly caused a divorce, but it was also the fight that saved my life and in turn our relationship. Husband feels like he can help me through my ups and downs now when before he felt like he had exhausted all of his ways to try and help me.

My life has changed so much of the last year, too. In September we went through the process of buying our first home. We bought at exactly the right time and we're incredibly fortunate to have locked in a thirty year mortgage rate on our home as rental prices are soaring in our area. It makes me enjoy paying our mortgage bill every month and my favorite thing in the world is that fact that we pay extra toward our principal every month. We'll pay off our mortgage three years early at this rate and with potentially (positive) life changing event in my near future, we might be able to up our additional principal payments  and build our home equity even faster. Husband might think I'm crazy, but I almost jumped up and down with excitement when I noticed that our principal amount on our payments started going up $1.20 a month instead of the original $1.10 since we started additional payments. It's extremely rewarding to see that our extra bit of work is paying off less than a year since we started payments.

But after the stress and events of buying our condo, the fact that we were getting married in February began to set in and I became a truly nervous wreck. I began having panic attacks and anxiety attacks which were so bad I would get to the point where I couldn't breathe and my asthma was so bad we considered going to the Emergency Room to make sure my windpipe didn't close up. It was incredibly scary and there was more than one occasion where I seriously considered calling the whole wedding off because of how sick I was getting from trying to plan everything out. With the help of Husband's and my mom's family, though, we were able to pull through and the wedding ended up being the most amazing day of my life. It went by in an absolute blur, but I know for a fact that nothing will ever be able to top how perfect the day was. After our wedding, though, the dynamics of Husband's and my relationship seemed to change in ways that I never expected. We started to be more frustrated with each other and had less patience in each of our interactions. As I have talked to others over the last two and a half months, though, our bumps in the road seem to have been normal. Let me note, though, that they felt absolutely terrible. Since the big fight, though, we're best friends again and I honestly don't think that I could be happier than I right now. I've been told that I am "the sunshine of the office" again which seems miraculous.

And work, well that's it's own animal. I work in an office with three men and almost twenty women. Yeah, I'm Little Miss Sunshine again, but right now I have to poke my head into my boss's office every day and remind him that each day is a good one. The events of the day are going to happen, but what really matters is how you react to them. (God, this feels so weird to say after being so miserable for thirteen months...) Plus, when you add a cup of coffee to your morning with creme brulee creamer in it, you can't really have a bad start to your day. I'm impressed that I can have caffeine again, though. When my anxiety was really, really bad, I had to completely stay off of it or I wouldn't be able to sleep. I'd have nightmares that would wake me and keep me up all night. And now I'm fine. I'm sleeping like a baby and I'm drinking my morning coffee like it's just a normal part of life. It bewilders me.

But that's the new normal and I want to document it. I want to see how things bend and flex and transpire as I live my mid-twenties and eventually my thirties. I always joke that I'm an "old man on the inside," so maybe it's time to see if that's true. Am I as courageous as Husband says for all that's happened in the course of my life and our relationship? Will we actually do all the traveling that we say we want to do over the next decade (and beyond)? I know that we'll be doing our first excursion to the Bahamas for our honeymoon next month, but whether or not the travel bug will really bite us is to be seen. Hopefully there will be a lot of pictures from our trip which I'll be able to post here, but it all depends on Husband and me remembering to actually take the photos!