Expanded Ventures

I finally feel like I'm in a good groove for the new season and semester.  There's a lot I want to accomplish, and there are a lot of things that I'm working on simultaneously like finishing my short story collection, paying down my debts (while still finding ways to do the things I like to do), and meeting my obligations.

Not that this is new, but I'm on a budget.  We're trying to go to Berlin in 2013, and our goal is to be debt-free when we go.  The budget has been challenging; however, on the best days, I treat it like a new way to be crafty because to live happily on a budget you have to be crafty.

Some of the ways I've cut costs as well as added funding have been:  playing hockey only once a week (instead of twice), reimagining my existing wardrobe (new combos and so forth), doing an "energy exchange" for my yoga classes, selling stuff on ebay (my user name is "hopespringseternal"), and working one day a week at the Melissa (read a recent review here).  Here I am in front of the store last December:

I'm really excited to be working there.  It started as a way to help my friend out, and now it's become (even before my first day in the shop) another creative outlet for me - dressing for retail!  Yes, everything is an opportunity for a new way to look at your wardrobe.  I'm sensing a lot of hats for this one.

In other areas - I'm less than two weeks away from the marathon in San Francisco.  I ran 21.5 miles last week, and it made me feel good about the whole thing.  I'm in the lovely tapering phase right now; my runs are getting shorter in preparation.  I'm still nervous, but I've taken pressure off myself by just focusing on the run itself and not my time or any of those other concerns.  Plus, I get to see 'the boy' (aka our son), which is worth crawling the entire thing.

And prep is another theme for me right now.  Not to make your eyes roll, but I am thinking about the upcoming December holidays.  As someone who tries to make the majority of her gifts, I need to make a plan so that I don't spend all of December in the "craftory" - the craft factory.  Prep is a way to maintain holiday sanity as well.

All in all, everything feels pretty good.  I hope I can find ways to expand that feeling throughout the upcoming months and beyond.