Tag Archives: reducing the stuff

Dec 25

Recap of 2011 and Looking Forward to 2012

Posted on by

I got a new job in November, I’m now a “Service Desk Resource I” (basically, tech support) at BDO (an international accounting firm). Since I’m no longer commuting as much, I finally had some time to catch up on my various to-do items lately, and one of those was to make at least a small update to this site. I’m still trying to decide if I like the new theme I picked, though. Also the Links page has been updated – all of my current social network profile pages are on there now, in addition to the buttons in the right sidebar.

Barton and I recently rented a self-storage unit, and have been seriously hammering away at all of the stuff we own that we don’t regularly use, to get it in boxes/totes and moved into the storage space. Some of the things getting packed away are items that we would love to have at our fingertips or on display – if we owned a house. But an 800-ish square foot apartment? Nope, there is just not enough room. We still have a long way to go though, and I expect the unit will be mostly full by the time we’re satisfied with our de-cluttering efforts. This will also make moving a slightly less monumental task.. I hope.

We also joined a local ham radio club this year – MARA (Michigan Amateur Radio Alliance). Interacting with those folks, and attending the monthly meetings has been a welcome break to the usual work-chores-sleep-work-chores-sleep monotony. We also joined the ARRL as well. I’ve been studying, off and on, to get ready to take the General License exam too, hopefully I will have that accomplished by sometime this coming spring.

If you have looked through my Tumblr (Warning: do not click on that link if you are at all sensitive to sexual content.. especially giantwtfomgbbqrobosex) at all, you’ve probably noticed I’ve had a huge resurgence in following Transformers/Transfandom this year. I’d hoped I might be able to attend Botcon 2012, but alas, it is now prohibitively expensive to go. Maybe 2013? Urgh. HOWEVER, I am still immensely looking forward to the second season of Transformers: Prime which premieres in February.

If you have waded through this massive update and are still with me… thank you… and…

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Apr 30

Vacation

Posted on by

On vacation for the first time since last August. Day one is over, I have 9 left until I have to go back to work.

Spent most of today cleaning, taking out trash, etc. I think the apartment looks the least cluttered since we moved into it in Dec 09. At this rate it should be both spartan and spotless by the time my vacation is over.

Pfffft. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Mar 02

Accomplishment

Posted on by

Over the last couple of weekends, I’ve managed to go through some of the excess clothes that make up the Stuff that we own but don’t use. In doing so, I found a few items I can still wear, so those are going “back into rotation.” The rest got put into boxes and one of those boxes got dropped off at Goodwill today. Two more boxes will be going tomorrow. I still have several other totes to go through, and I’m sure I’ll have more boxes to get donated in the next couple of weeks. Just glad that I am finally making progress on Reducing the Stuff.

I’m also feeling accomplished about cooking at home more often. The last few weekends I’ve managed to cook at least 2-3 meals at home each weekend. While that doesn’t sound like much, its huge for us because 3 meals cooked at home equals 1 meal going out, in terms of cost.

Speaking of costs, I’m also revisiting getting a solid budget put together. Its hard to do, especially when your $outgo exceeds your $income every single month. Since before I started working at LW I have not been able to make it one month without adding to my credit card debt, and that is really sad. However, with the help of some unexpected extra $income I got about a month ago, I may be able to break that trend. May being the keyword here. We’ll see.