dancezwithkittehz - summer life rehaul!

[dancezwithkittehz]

Still pondering my exact goals for this! I realized in early June-ish (or maybe late may?) that I wasn't quite happy with how things were going. I had "needed a break" on my hectic schedule because of my overbooking for the last few years, but then realized I'd cut TOO MUCH out of my schedule, especially exercise and training and I wasn't really happy about it. 1) Exercise makes me really damn happy and I love doing it. 2) My fat loss stalled out because I had stopped exercising but kept eating about the same (luckily no fat gains, just the slow overtime weight loss stalled out on me.)

 

I also have come to realize that I have become SO MUCH better at adulting and managing money but I could be doing SO MUCH BETTER. This might be partially inspired by the fact that I am finally getting quotes on all the home maintenance and repairs we need to do and having an actual budget would be so helpful in the long run for me -- as well as making myself put money in savings both for house expenses, for my own emergency expenses, and for fun times savings. Developing a budget and figuring out how to track it will be a thing! I already track expenses manually though an app but I haven't been applying that exactly towards an overall budget/ I more do that to make me have to think more about where I am spending my money and know how much I have at any given time, but now is time to make GOALS to do with spending teh money and not just tracking it! I am looking into possibly switching my tracking app to something that has a budgeting feature in it (this one tells me how much I've spent in my different categories if I look at it but it isn't the main feature.) If I go with another app I want it to be something I manually have to enter numbers into and not something I have to link to my bank account that will then calculate out everything for me. I am much more conscious of my spending if I have to do the data entry myself!

 

Soooo with these general goals in mind:

 

1. Running - run 2x per week (can sub a walk or hike in for a run if I want to or need to.)

2. Aerial & Aerial conditioning - Continue with aerial 1x per week and add one aerial conditioning workout per week. This can be included into my required strength training for the days for the week (make sure I add pull up work and core work into whatever workout I am doing.)

3. Strength - strength training at minimum 2x per week. I will opt to NOT include aerial in this so I am doing 2 extra strength days = 3 days overall of strength stuff because of aerial. I do want to get back into lifting but I realized last challenge that the workout I will actually do is better than specifically wanting to go lift, so if at home bodyweight work is what I will actually do then I will take it!!!

4. UPDATE! Adding in macro goal starting week 2: track macros every day, especially on weekends when I decide beer is kind of like water.

 

 

Life goals:

BUDGETING - Phase 1- develop budget. By the end of this challenge I want to have selected which app I plan to use for tracking (or if I plan to use something else figure that out??), and determine my areas I want to track and how much cash goes into each category.

 

ADULTING - Continue with decluttering and cleaning missions. Clean at least 30 min per week. Also - continue progress on house repair plans which is harder to quantify but, by the end of this challenge I want to have figured out our final budget we need for all the repairs and apply for the home equity loan, and then begin scheduling out jobs if I know a firm date when the $ will be available

[Mad Hatter]

Such adult. Many impress! 

 

I've also been trying to figure out this whole money thing recently and you just inspired me to install a budgeting app myself.  I found Goodbudget which basically lets you put money in virtual envelopes and for each transaction you take money out of the envelope. It's all manual and on the main page you see each envelope with a bar that tells you how much money you have left in it. Not sure if it's maybe too simple for your needs, but for me I think it could work quite well as I'm only really interested in tracking my daily expenditures and non-essentials. Bearing in mind I've only just set it up, so it could also plain suck.  

 

What aerial disciplines are you doing??  

[sylph]

here for this (of course)

[LouCarJo]

Hey, we sound similar in that I do strength training a couple of times a week plus (only starting very recently) aerial stuff too.  I don't run though ;-)

 

I've been planning/tracking budgets for three months now.  I just created my own spreadsheet with loads of tabs.  It gets a bit complicated as I am putting more into savings each month than I can "afford" on the basis of what I'm earning, but I have accrued saved money in accounts that pay less interest so it makes sense to move that to higher paying accounts each month up to the maximum they allow.  It's a little disheartening to see that each month shows a deficit, though it's not a real deficit.  And I can see already my projection of how much I will have actually saved after 12 months.  I'm planning on sinking that in to home improvements too, either a new bathroom or some gardening work.  So far the little home improvement jobs I've managed to cover using income, helped by a tax return and a recent refund on something else.  I just noticed a broken brick in a wall around a door last night, though, and we need a new lock on our front door, argh!

[dancezwithkittehz]

9 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Such adult. Many impress! 

 

I've also been trying to figure out this whole money thing recently and you just inspired me to install a budgeting app myself.  I found Goodbudget which basically lets you put money in virtual envelopes and for each transaction you take money out of the envelope. It's all manual and on the main page you see each envelope with a bar that tells you how much money you have left in it. Not sure if it's maybe too simple for your needs, but for me I think it could work quite well as I'm only really interested in tracking my daily expenditures and non-essentials. Bearing in mind I've only just set it up, so it could also plain suck.  

 

What aerial disciplines are you doing??  

 

AHA! I think that is the one I was looking into actually but I'd forgotten the name and was going to have to go dig around to find it again. THANK YOU! Hahaha.

 

I'm currently taking multi-apparatus classes. My gym offers some specialized ones for different things but I am sooo back to stage one with my skills that the basic advanced beginner class is fine with me! We do a lot of silks as well as aerial hammock, and we occasionally mix in trapeze and lyra and rope and other things depending on what the teacher feels like. I was almost at intermediate level back when I was doing a ton of aerial and then I took an almost 2 year break sooo yeah, muscles are coming back slowly! Inversions without cheating it a bit with momentum are soooo not there for me yet. Getting closer, but it will take time!

[dancezwithkittehz]

3 hours ago, sylph said:

here for this (of course)

 <3

[karinajean]

hellooooo!

 

I am a HUGE nerd about budgeting. what works for us is: I have a household budgeting spreadsheet that we use, where we put our incomes in and it divides how much we each should contribute to the general pot for all expenses based on our % of the whole income that we each earn. I use that to set up, and then after that we handle our budgeting with envelope budgets - I have a million savings accounts that I stash $ into monthly, and all of our other major expenses to go the credit card which I summarize monthly manually too, to see how much we are actually spending on our budget categories.  I can share with you the link for the budgeting spreadsheet if you'd like!

[dancezwithkittehz]

2 hours ago, LouCarJo said:

Hey, we sound similar in that I do strength training a couple of times a week plus (only starting very recently) aerial stuff too.  I don't run though ;-)

 

I've been planning/tracking budgets for three months now.  I just created my own spreadsheet with loads of tabs.  It gets a bit complicated as I am putting more into savings each month than I can "afford" on the basis of what I'm earning, but I have accrued saved money in accounts that pay less interest so it makes sense to move that to higher paying accounts each month up to the maximum they allow.  It's a little disheartening to see that each month shows a deficit, though it's not a real deficit.  And I can see already my projection of how much I will have actually saved after 12 months.  I'm planning on sinking that in to home improvements too, either a new bathroom or some gardening work.  So far the little home improvement jobs I've managed to cover using income, helped by a tax return and a recent refund on something else.  I just noticed a broken brick in a wall around a door last night, though, and we need a new lock on our front door, argh!

 

Ugh houses. Always things that need fixing! I'm going the route of having all of our big safety issues/ needs to be done NOW things paid for with a home equity loan and then I'm going to start savings for house stuff which we can start using to fix the other stuff that I'd like to fix but isn't crucial for safety type things. Working stairs and roofs and safe front deck are all important, but UGH SO MUCH MONEY.

 

Also, clearly this means you should also start running as well because reasons =P hahahahahaha.

[dancezwithkittehz]

So I am planning my first Friday long run of the summer and UGH it is supposed to be in the 90s this afternoon. Ugh ugh ugh. UGH. But...I need to run and it's only going to get hotter until like November soooooo I will just deal. (My boss is the bestest and lets us leave at 3pm on Fridays for the summer quarter....however, I have the boyfriend who carpools with me and he does not get off until normal time, soooo 3-5pm afternoon running it is!)

 

 

[sylph]

1 hour ago, dancezwithkittehz said:

So I am planning my first Friday long run of the summer and UGH it is supposed to be in the 90s this afternoon. Ugh ugh ugh. UGH. But...I need to run and it's only going to get hotter until like November soooooo I will just deal. (My boss is the bestest and lets us leave at 3pm on Fridays for the summer quarter....however, I have the boyfriend who carpools with me and he does not get off until normal time, soooo 3-5pm afternoon running it is!)

 

 

Built-in running time = winning, really.

[raptron]

\o/

[dancezwithkittehz]

56 minutes ago, sylph said:

Built-in running time = winning, really.

 

Right? At first I was like what the heck am I going to do for 2 hours on Friday and then I was like OH WAIT I HAS PLAN!

 

This will let me be able to do longer runs than when I squish a run into lunch hour which is what I normally do, so I can essentially only actually run for about 30 min on a lunch run to make time for getting dressed into and out of exercise clothes. I am slow enough right now that that means I can only do about 1.5 miles at lunch (plus my 5 min ish walking warm up and cool down. I walk to the lagoon, run around lagoon, walk back to office.)

 

I keep thinking UGH 90 DEGREE WEATHER I WILL DIE. And then I remember I have backpacked with 30+ lb pack hiking miserable through 100+ degree weather so by comparison this will be nice.

[WhiteGhost]

I saw this as was thinking "how did I not know you were doing a challenge"  Then I checked the date

 

[Mad Hatter]

15 hours ago, dancezwithkittehz said:

I'm currently taking multi-apparatus classes. My gym offers some specialized ones for different things but I am sooo back to stage one with my skills that the basic advanced beginner class is fine with me! We do a lot of silks as well as aerial hammock, and we occasionally mix in trapeze and lyra and rope and other things depending on what the teacher feels like. I was almost at intermediate level back when I was doing a ton of aerial and then I took an almost 2 year break sooo yeah, muscles are coming back slowly! Inversions without cheating it a bit with momentum are soooo not there for me yet. Getting closer, but it will take time!

Nice, sounds fun! Coming back to aerial is rough for sure, but it sounds like you're well on your way!  

 

13 hours ago, sylph said:

Built-in running time = winning, really.

Except for the running bit, sure.  

 

[LouCarJo]

On 07/07/2017 at 7:05 PM, dancezwithkittehz said:

 

Ugh houses. Always things that need fixing! I'm going the route of having all of our big safety issues/ needs to be done NOW things paid for with a home equity loan and then I'm going to start savings for house stuff which we can start using to fix the other stuff that I'd like to fix but isn't crucial for safety type things. Working stairs and roofs and safe front deck are all important, but UGH SO MUCH MONEY.

 

Also, clearly this means you should also start running as well because reasons =P hahahahahaha.

No running ever (except if I have a train to catch)!

[dancezwithkittehz]

H'OK!!!! I usually don't recognize Sunday as the start day, but I did a lot yesterday so I guess we can count this as Sunday start?

 

Also! I survived my run on Friday. Thankfully there was a cool breeze so I didn't totally die from the 90 degree weather! 3.5 miles, average pace 16:23 min per mile (which means I am getting slightly faster because usually heat + more miles would slow me down from 16 min mile, woot woot!) Slooooowly shifting to running more and walking less but it's a sloooooow process.

 

Anyway! This week so far:

 

Goal 1 - Running - 0 out of 2 per week so far.

Goal 2 Aerial & Aerial Conditioning - Aerial class - not yet, aerial conditioning - yes! -- did negative pulls ups, assisted chin ups, and hanging knee raises

Goal 3 - Strength - 1 out of 2 per week so far. Strength Sunday, wheeee!

 

Life Goals

Budgeting - No specific progress yet. Need to make good budget account and install app.

Adulting - cleaned at least 30 min per week?  Yep! No specific progress on other adulting things yet, waiting to hear back on estimate from general contractor.

[raptron]

Go, go, running! 

[dancezwithkittehz]

 

I failed on the bringing running clothes thing today. I was like "oh I might go to dance after aerial so if I run, aerial, and dance in one day that will suck and be too much leg impact in one day" and I'd need to go get cash at lunch for dance class...and then I remember I NEED to do laundry tonight or I will have no clean underwear or workout clothes for the rest of the week sooo I guess I need to just do aerial and then come home and do laundry ugh. Maybe next week I can make it to aerial/ dance on Tuesday! (My studio just added a Tuesday class starting this week.)

 

I guess running tomorrow will be a thing!!! (And then long run on Friday because off at 3!)

[dancezwithkittehz]

Also, todays feels:

 

 

I'm not exactly sure why. I think headache/mild sinus ick going on due to nearby wildfires is certainly a factor. I actually got more sleep last night than the day prior so I don't think it's lack of sleep. MEH. SO CRANKY. Hopefully exercise will help!

[dancezwithkittehz]

In spite of sinus UGHHH from the fires I did get a few things done yesterday!

 

Goal 1 - Running - 1 out of 2 per week so far. 

 

I decided to sub a walk for the run yesterday at lunch because walking and being outside can sometimes help my mood. (it did a bit! did not help headache, but hey small rewards are still rewards)

 

Goal 2 Aerial & Aerial Conditioning - Aerial class - yep, aerial conditioning - yes! --

 

Aerial Tuesday was a success in spite of horrendous traffic and me being 15 min late and missing the entire warm up except the ab circuit of course (JOY. pike overs and straddle backs on the floor plus...evil oblique crunch things where we lift legs up as well as torso up...kind of like v ups but at an angle to hit obliques more. EVIL whatever they are called.)  It was a floppy and struggle bus sort of night (thank you sinus headache + shark week so strength is just nope right now.) I mostly did a lot of conditioning since I couldn't actually do a bunch of skills I can normally do. Ugh. But yay conditioning.

 

Goal 3 - Strength - 1 out of 2 per week so far.

 

Life Goals

Budgeting - Progress! And I did all the things I wanted to accomplish on this for the challenge duration (picked a program. installed program and created account. started tracking. #done!)

Adulting - cleaned at least 30 min per week?  Yep!  I am also still waiting on estimate from contractor for the rest of the house stuff so the final budget/ apply for loan part is on hold until that comes in. I did confirm with the termite people that we should get all the construction done first and THEN have them fumigate so, that was helpful!

[Mad Hatter]

OOOF that ab exercise does sound like pure evil. Awesome for getting through it!

[karinajean]

whut abs.

all these healthy ab routines of pain and awful make me feel like I need to do a lot more on my own abs.

um.....

 

[sylph]

17 hours ago, dancezwithkittehz said:

evil oblique crunch things where we lift legs up as well as torso up...kind of like v ups but at an angle to hit obliques more. EVIL whatever they are called.) 

My studio calls these "floppy fish"

 

They suck ass.

[raptron]

15 hours ago, karinajean said:

whut abs.

all these healthy ab routines of pain and awful make me feel like I need to do a lot more on my own abs.

um.....

 

#DOYOURABS

[dancezwithkittehz]

3 hours ago, sylph said:

My studio calls these "floppy fish"

 

They suck ass.

 

That is a good name for them! And yeah they suck. But are also so good for us I guess. Hahahha