Random NJ observations

I’ve found three diners within ¾ mile of each other—not cool retro diners but just plain ol diners. I’ve eaten at two of them already.

People in diners talk to mere acquaintances about the most personal things. Last night I heard all about someone’s colon cancer (in remission), someone else’s son (couldn’t tell if the son was doing well or in trouble) and speculation about hunting season.

Diner food may be plain but I haven’t left hungry. Tonight I couldn’t come close to finishing it all. I had planned on having dessert (chocolate lover’s cake; the word choice made me giggle just a bit) but there’s no room in my tummy.

The Jersey accent is very different from Boston (which I already knew). It’s also different from the Philadelphia accent. Even so, I’ll probably bring some of it home with me.

Also my allergies are kicking my booty. I think it’s the ragweed but it might also be mold since where I’m training is both old and very poorly ventilated. They’ve gotten inspection reports citing the air quality as an issue. I believe it.

Heading to NJ

And apparently Wally wants to go too:




Eddie got frustrated because he couldn't fit in there too, so he picked on Chloe:

A never before seen event

Yesterday, Kent said that he had both Chloe and Eddie on his lap at one time; you have to understand that Chloe doesn't kitty pile with the boys, ever. She may end up having one sleep near her but that's only because she's asleep when they edge closer to her.

Eddie was apparently racked out as only Eddie can be (just look at the picture in my blog header for a perfect example of how he sleeps). Chloe jumped up on Kent's lap and managed to find a way to have lap time with Kent--even if it did mean snuggling with Eddie. Kent said this historic event lasted about 10 minutes.

I think they look a little bit like Siamese twins.

Frequent flier

The next three weeks will be a whirlwind for me. I am (unexpectedly) heading to southern New Jersey for all of next week, returning on Saturday. Then I leave for Seattle on October 5 and return on the 7th. I conclude this little bit of jetting around by flying to Hawaii on October 13 and flying home the night of the 15th although I won’t actually get home until the 16th. I’ll have two weeks at home before I head out again, almost certainly back out to Hawaii.

I just got a new smaller suitcase. I’m a pretty good packer, although truly ultra-light packers would sniff at some of the things I bring and that I use a roller bag. But the bag I was using—a 21” suitcase which meets Delta’s carry on standards—was a little bit too big and my things would fall down in the suitcase and wrinkle more. So I got a 19” bag instead.

We’ll see how it goes. I prefer to carry what I need and no more; the difference for this trip is that I also need to bring a great big honking binder, so the new suitcase may not get a debut until the Seattle trip.

In other news

I just got an email from Kent. He wrote:


Dear Elizabeth,

With this email I resign my position as house husband effective on 9/29/2010

Love,

Kent


Those words mean we are returning to a two-income family and I'm not ashamed to say I teared up reading them.

This picture isn’t actually from today but it’s pretty typical of how the cats react to news that doesn’t net them tuna water or a new toy:

If only they knew, they have a huge change coming up in their kitty lives. The boys have pretty much had a hairless one keeping them company since we got them three years ago. Well that's changing now.

Our rug

In addition to floating during our flood last October (and sparing the coffee table from utter ruin) and acting as a sponge during the second water invasion in July, our rug has other benefits. I think we could sleep on it like a bed because it’s very thick and since it’s 100% wool, it also blocks a lot of the cold that seeps in from the floor. I don’t think the store pictures do the rug justice, the colors are a lot more rich in real life.

But what’s really funny is to watch the three cats with the rug. Even when we brought the 12” x 12” sample home, Eddie loved the rug. He was the first to get on the full size version and today he still digs in it with his front paws almost like the rug is dirt. He also loves to roll around on it and often takes long kitty naps on it.

Wally will nap on it but not out in the open; he has to be under the coffee table and usually he prefers to nap up someplace high.

Chloe hates the rug. She’ll walk across it if I’m in the middle waiting to pet her but she lifts her paws high, almost with distaste, and doesn’t stick around long. She would much rather sleep on her back on the hard floor than touch the rug.

I offer you pictures of the two kitties who do enjoy the rug (to varying degrees).

Frugal fatigue

I thought I’d finish up the original frugal series from my tome by including this part about frugal fatigue. I didn’t invent the term and I don’t recall where I read it first, but essentially after being good for so long, we’ll start to feel deprived and get tired of the restrictions. That’s when we’re more likely to end up having dinner out a second time in a week, and then a third time because we deserve it or are so tired or we’ve been so good etc. In the early days, we lost financial ground because we didn’t actually see the damage we were doing to our savings. Now that we review our financials every month, we see the trend right away before it becomes a budget buster. This recession isn’t over, Kent doesn’t have a job and us choosing to eat out more often just hurts US.

We’ve also learned that we have to find ways to treat ourselves within our budget or else we will fail catastrophically. For us, those treats include buying an ice cream cone (or a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream), or deciding that yes, this week we will eat out once and then have take-out because take-out is still cheaper than sitting down at a restaurant. The key is spending with a plan—my dear friend Cindy has the same philosophy about her diet. Six years ago she was over 100 pounds overweight and now she’s a personal trainer, certified in yoga, Pilates, spinning etc. Her tag line on her blog is “eat intentionally,” and I’ve changed it to say “spend intentionally.”

Kent pointed out that where we made the most severe budget cuts were in the areas that brought us the least pleasure (cable TV, new clothes for the non-working spouse, and minimal clothes for the working one). That’s brought us the most bang for our budget buck. Rather than spread the cut-back pain around everywhere, we completely cut some things out. Living without these low-pleasure items was easier than we thought. Even if we wound up bringing those things back into the budget, we had a very clear idea of how much we wanted to spend.

We’ve also cut out making big house purchases that fall into the want category rather than the need category. This got tested when we had to buy all our furniture again after the flood, because pretty much all of it was ruined. That was a chance for us to decide which items we really did need (not want) and hold off on the rest. So we didn’t replace my sewing cabinet, we didn’t replace the bed even though it’s got a tiny bit of rust on it, and we share one dresser (which required paring down our clothes).

If you are living on a restricted budget, where are your pitfalls? What’s likely to trip you up despite your best intentions?