Checking Balances

Today I went and looked in at the bank statement. I was surprised at how little money we have. Ooops.

At one point during the pandemic, we had (what I think was) a lot of money. Doug has been putting money into his eTrade account, wheelin' and dealin' with da stocks and da mahkets. Okay fine, that's good. Make me some money, babe.

We had a zero balance on our credit card, with 22k available credit. 

We were only spending money if it was coming out of our checking account, not using the credit card. We weren't going out to eat, we weren't traveling, hell we did nothing at all for 2 years or more.

But ... the spending creep returned in the form of us going out maybe once a week. And then concerts, travel, plane tickets, hotels, all by me. (Pretty much all by me). 

This summer, I switched to using the credit card more often. A couple of reasons. One, to get points on the card so we can maybe get some free fun, maybe. Two, well, I didn't want to totally kill our checking account, which we now are mostly only using for groceries, trips to the beer store, and the occasional night out. 

And when we were in Massachusetts, staying 8 days at a hotel, paying for 2 rooms (linda in one, us in the other), paying for 2 parties for after the funeral and the day after ...  I mean, it sort of starts to rack up, doesn't it?

Time to tighten the belt and get back some of the cash in the coffer and pay down that creeping debt. 

I also realized I make what I think is a lot of money, but, we changed my 401k/retirement withholdings to 22% this year so we could get more money in the account faster. So I am bringing home less in hopes that when I'm 70 I can have money coming in. Catch-22! 

After October, after dad's 2nd service (Bart Funeral 2: Electric Bartaloo) I don't see a lot of travel coming up. I think my last Guster concert of the year is next week in Pittsburgh. Unless they announce a show super local to DC, I'm not traveling. 

There are a couple shows Doug has expressed interest in (Slaid Cleaves & Robbie Fulks, Buddy Guy) but they are local. Annapolis, Baltimore, DC. Nothing like going to Pittsburgh, or Florida, or Maine. 

Things can rebound by the end of the year. Pretty sure I can pay off the credit card in full again. 

I also checked my PTO balance. I have one floating holiday, 5 hours of personal time, and 90 hours vacation. That's not a lot. Usually this time of year I'm scrambling to schedule time off so I don't lose the hours, since only X amount of hours roll into the next year. This year is not going to be a problem. I'll end the year with more in the bucket, since I'm still accruing the hours. But it isn't a lot. 

I think taking time off actually makes me hate work. That's exhausting. Being away from work and truly away from work makes me resent work. That's a lesson I learned this year from actually not working at all during my time out of office. And I won't call it vacation, some of it was decidedly not vacation.

I didn't used to be this way. I used to love my job.

There was a meeting yesterday that I attended, and one of the attendees didn't know what team necessarily that I'm on, nor my manager for that matter. Someone asked about "after care" support, and this guy started going on and on... about how wonderful the support is. He had nothing but good things to say about "them." Meaning me, and my colleagues. It surprised me. I was kind of ready to be defensive and protective of my people, mention how few of us there are to how many of them there are. 

But I stopped feeling like I hate my job. For a minute. 

To hear someone talk about "them" in such a way, I kind of just let it come into my ears, and eventually my heart. He was assuring the other client that his experience with us over the years (and I don't really know him well, to be honest) has been largely so positive, he wished that other businesses had such great customer service. 

It's nice to get this out of the blue unsolicited praise.

In other news, tonight I made some bracelets for a Frank Turner fan who saw my Guster bracelets on Facebook. I have 6 and may make a couple more. I told her I'd make them back in August, and here we are, me doing late night bracelet making. Just like old times. 

I made:
4 simple words
FTxHC
photosynthesis
poz songs 4 neg ppl
be more kind
love ire song

I am tired, so I am headed to bed. I think tomorrow I'll make I still believe, little changes, LE VI (Lost Evenings 6, the 4 day fest in LA later in September that she's going to) and maybe a couple more FTxHC

There are guster fans that I'm seeing in 2 weeks who wanted some bracelets so I'm going to get back on my grind and build those out for the Pittsburgh shows. 

I've had to dip into the square letter beads, and I have a whole bag of black square letter beads that someone gave me at On The Ocean (she was so sweet to think of me and buy them). I am not a big fan of the square beads but they work well with the big "pony" beads like the black FTxHC one there. The tiny beads look good with the circle letters. I like those a lot. 

I felt relaxed and quiet, sitting here with a big thunderstorm (lots of thunder and lightning, no rain, so weird) drinking wine and making things. Very calming. 

Maybe that's why I've been such a mess for a week or so - I'm not doing something small, stupid, but creative. Hmmm.

digits

exercise: 12/12 hours of 250 steps

blood glucose:

9am: 180
4:15pm: 176
11pm: 173

food:

coffee, water 
noon: toasted 647 bread (2 pieces) w/giant slice of tomato, 2 slices of colby jack, sliced turkey, mayo; metformin
6pm: baked ziti with meat sauce
7pm: metformin+jardiance
8pm: 2 chocolate chip cookies
white wine