Baby steps into 2013

Day one of 2013 is behind us, and I can already tell I'll be screwing up the date a lot. It just doesn't seem like a real number. I remember back in 2004 drawing up financial plans for the next ten years and thinking how unlikely 2014 sounded.

Now here we are.

I've become less ambitious with my financial plans since then. If you're wondering, my primary concerns in 2004 were paying off student loans and credit card debt and saving a downpayment for a house. We also still lived in Santa Barbara, so we needed funds to move, and our retirement funds were low.

This blog covers most of that adventure, but I'll spoil the ending. Over the course of about five years, I paid off my loans and my credit cards and we bought a house with 10% down. Through automatic investing we were also able to save a chunk in our 401(k) plans and IRAs. We could have done more, but I wanted a cushion in case -- I don't know -- I quit my job to learn how to write. But what kind of crazy person would do that?

Well played, life.

Now that I'm properly nostalgic, let's talk about yesterday. Jer had the day off from work, so we had coffee together (at home), ate our assorted breakfasts (oatmeal for me, bagel for him), and went our separate ways. First I edited a couple of pictures from our 17-day trip to Spain and Portugal for the photoblog.

Here's one--subscribe to the RSS feed to see more:

I wrote a little. I used the treadmill for 50 minutes. I've discovered that if I play an episode of Lost the time seems to pass quicker --I'm woefully behind on Lost, so no spoilers even if it did air years and years ago.

My current preferred workout setup is to prop up a hand-me-down iPad on the front of the treadmill, play the show through Netflix, and use my Bluetooth headphones so there's no cord in the way. Wi-fi isn't perfect where I'm at, so there's a lot of buffering and stuttering, but the frustration is welcome fuel.

And then I read 200 pages in a book. Somewhere in there I ate lunch and dinner (a turkey sandwich and Thai leftovers, respectively) Eventually I fell asleep reading a Weight Watchers magazine.

Not really a party animal these days. (Who am I kidding? Or ever.)

It's safe to say I touched on all of my major resolutions yesterday. If I want to keep it up I'll have to go to the grocery store and buy ingredients for dinner. And pick something out to cook.

Anyway, hope you have also experienced an auspicious start to the new year. Good day to you, Internet denizens.