My Life. Medication Optional.

Tomorrow is my 30th Birthday. Obviously that means I should reflect upon where I am and draw conclusions about my awesomeness or lack thereof.

Age: 30

Spouse: 1 Husband, Jeff. The Shawn to my Gus, the Hank to my Peggy, the Red to my Kitty.

Children: 1, Hannah. My reason for waking up in the morning, my sunshine.

Job: Grocery Merchandiser. Good pay, moderately good hours (as in I could use more), flexible schedule. And I like it. Good for now.

Education: BA in Psychology from Mesa State. Loved college, one of the best times in my life.

Goals Achieved: Ran a 5K. Lost 40lbs. Run for fun, on purpose. Graduated college. Married Jeff. Had a kid. Flew on a plane, saw the ocean, went to a foreign country (Canada counts!). Had my writing published and paid for! Got to write for Pajiba. Own our own home. Created a fabulous financial plan.

Goals Remaining: Pay off truck (5 months), Student loans (15 months) and house (10 years). Run a 10K. Run at least one race every year. Maintain a home my daughter can be proud to have friends come to. Be financially comfortable enough that we can do a little traveling with Hannah. Do some pen-and-ink published freelance writing. Stop worrying about what other people think. Make more friends. Be more outgoing.
Stop dwelling on things.

Reflections: Since meeting Jeff my life has been a series of adventures I could never have imagined and that now I can't imagine missing.

Hannah is everything i ever could have wanted in a child. She's smart, funny and kind. I hope she grows up to be everything she wants to be and more.

My life is very fulfilling and content. All I have to do is let it be.

So most of the reason I have no time to blog is because I now have three jobs. I picked up two extra merchandising jobs in the same store I'm already in to bring in some more cash. We were fine on money, but I've decided my 12 year old Tracer needs to go pretty soon. Don't get me wrong, it's been a great car. I couldn't recommend it more highly. Very little in the way of repair work needed, it's been really reliable, great gas mileage. It's getting older, though, and as my daughter gets bigger, the need for a slightly larger car is becoming apparent.

I'm pretty much in love with the Honda CR-V. It gets good mileage, it's large enough for car seats and groceries without being too big, it's super cute and it should last forever.  The Mr. and I are very conscious of our money and what we spend, so we want to have a large down payment before we buy. Hence, the second job. He has a new(er) truck, so it's my turn.

Why do you guys drive and what do you think of the CR-V? Do you recommend another small crossover SUV instead? Comment, please!

After a two months of running and tracking my progress (in miles and in pounds lost) I was down ten pounds. On days I didn't run, I used the elliptical or the treadclimber at the gym, instead of walking. After running, trying to walk for an hour was boring and felt pointless. I liked being able to move faster and feeling stronger. I also started lifting weights. I found weightlifting moves and tips in magazines and books and adapted what I could for myself. I started keeping a log of when I exercised, what lifts or cardio I did, how many sets, reps and weight of each. I had a notebook I took to the gym and I tracked everything online at SparkPeople.com. It makes things in to graphs and charts so you can see your progress and you can share your info with other people.

Here are some of the things that helped me change my ideas about fitness and to become more involved in my lifestyle change.

SparkPeople.com, which I briefly mentioned above. SparkPeople is a free website that has everything you need to make substantial lifestyle changes. It has a calorie tracker, fitness tracker, goal setting tips and charts for your progress, an option to create your own SparkPeople page, forums, articles and a lot more. The best part for me was being able to chart what I was eating and how much I was really working out.

Oxygen Women's Fitness. It's a fitness magazine for women, but it's not boring diet tips and endless crunches like you'd get from Shape or Fitness. This has serious diet plans geared towards women who want to push the limits of what their body can do and who are willing to work hard to do it. I learned amazing moves for lifting, saw women who had transformed their figures and got more practical, useful tips than I ever got in any other magazine.

Roni's Weigh (http://ronisweigh.com/). Roni is a fitness success story. She shed 60 lbs and ran a marathon last year and held a fit blogging conference this year. Not only is she a great fitness role model, but when she blogs, it feels like she is talking to you, honestly. Roni is the real deal. (Plus she is sweet enough to answer some of my questions on Twitter and to give support. Thanks Roni!)

Body for Life. Mys sister talked me into doing to Body for Life challenge, which is taking the book's exercise and eating principles and following them for twelve weeks to see results. The workouts are based on intensity and utilize cardio and weights. The eating plan was the best part for me. I learned about planning food in advance and to eat a protein and a carb together at every meal. It was a great way to find foods that are good for me and that will help me achieve my fitness goals.

I'm not perfect about what I eat or working out. I try to hit the gym six days a week. Some weeks I make it, some I don't. Some days I get 40 minutes of intense cardio, some days a moderate 20 minutes is all I can handle. You have to be flexible and listen to your body, but you also have to remember not to sell yourself short. Sometimes my not wanting to go to the gym isn't about the gym, it's about my emotions or laziness or a million other things. Usually by the time I get to the gym and get changed, I remember that I didn't want to be doing this, but by then it's too late, so I do it anyway. That's pretty much my philosophy. Acknowledge my feelings (good and bad) then do it anyway.

I am a big believer in saving money and using a budget wisely.  One way I could save money is in the grocery store.  I am really bad about going in to pick up a few things.  I also work in a store, so it's really tempting to grab one or two things on my way out the door.

I did a detailed budget last week and decided to see if our little family of three could spend $200 on groceries for the month.  Here's my plan to make it work.

1. I'm going to actually write down what I have on hand, in the pantry and freezer. Usually before I shop I skim the cupboards to give myself an idea.  This time I'm taking notes.  (I love notes.)

2. Instead of making a meal plan specific for each day, I'm going to write out a list of meals we like and plan to have the ingredients for 14 meals at a time.  (Lunches are usually leftovers for Jeff and soup for me.) Breakfast is oatmeal for the both of us.  And I am going to use the list in the previous step to use up what we already have.

3. I'm going to cash.  I'm going to take the grocery money out of the bank and envelope it.  The debit card stays home.  I'll take a calculator and paper to make sure I'm not overbudget.

4. I will shop alone and use my coupons!  (I love coupons.) Only use coupons if the price per ounce is cheaper than the store version. 

5. From now on, the debit card stays home when I work.  If I have some spending cash I can use that, but that's it.

6. I'm going to save every receipt in an envelope and see how we do at the end of the month.

How do you save money at the grocery store?

I am really lucky in the fact that I love my job.  What I do isn't life-changing, or even significant, really.  It's just putting some products on a shelf, but I really get something out of it. 

I love the fact that I work alone.  My boss is 5 hours away, so unless he plans to come and see me, I only have email and phone contact with him.  I don't have any co-workers and I can set my own schedule, with a little structure.  I created a binder with each day of the week listed and what needs to be taken care of for each day.  I started a system of dating products to reduce the credits I write.  In the busy summer time I willingly come in for an extra hour some evenings to fill up the shelves.

I live the independence, I like the structure with flexibility, I like the satisfaction of doing my work well, without direct supervision.  I also really like the actual work.  I like walking the store, putting the product away.  Yeah, it sounds boring, but what it is for me is Zen.  I can get everything put away without a large degree of concentration.  My mind wanders and I have the time to plan my day, make goals, think about things I've seen and read, even just tune everything out and think of nothing.  It is the best benefit I'll never tell them about.