No FOMO

FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, is exactly what it sounds like. The fear of regret…of making the wrong choices or not obtaining the same levels of psychological satisfaction that your peer group (or whoever you define as “everyone”).

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So what leads me to my own FOMO?

I collect postcards. Part of my collection can be seen in the header above, some are posted in my bedroom, and some are still stored. Part of my Valentine’s Day gift was a postcard from Z from South Africa (inscribed he had flown all the way to SA and back just to get me that card for V-Day – hehehe). This means that the only two continents I am missing are Antarctica and Australia, so I made an all-call post on fb to the people I know who regularly go to Antarctica for work and hopefully someone who knew someone else in Australia. I then got the following comment:

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Now I don’t know whether this was meant in an ugly way, but it sort of jabbed me in a
sore spot, right in the FOMO. I love going to new map places and on adventures, but I haven’t been able to make a big trip in the last few years because of monetary reasons. This isn’t meant to imply I’ve never done anything ever – I’ve been to Canada and several states…but aside from local travel (to Natchitoches, New Orleans, and last summer, Texas), I have a music festival in Florida in May and a wedding to attend in Colorado in June to look forward to. I really would like to travel to another continent and be the one choosing my own postcards and racking up stamps in my passport. I guess the implication of the comment (what I felt) was “Travel and get your own damn postcards you inauthentic butthole!” I am fairly certain that isn’t what she meant, but it still made me feel sad.

When I look around my living room, I have three world maps, a United States map, a wooden sign that says “Choose your Own Adventure” and a wooden sign with a space shuttle painted on that says “Adventure Awaits!” It’s very clear that I’ve been infected by the travel bug.

To be honest, I have two fears. There’s the fear of missing out and the fear of instability. I’m in no way financially stable right now, so who would I be to dedicate that kind of money to travel…but at what point does waiting become more harmful than helpful? I’m not sure how to reconcile these feelings and fears. I also want to pursue a Master’s degree, so that’s money right there…plus my consumer debt and the student debt that already exists. I know my adventure awaits…I just have to figure out how to fund it and how much I’m willing to spend for experience…and how much it would cost me if I didn’t gain these memories at all…

February Updates

No witty quips to start this with! Oops. I’ve been doing well with keeping up with my notebook. I didn’t stick to WW this past weekend, but last week I did really well and this week is off to a good start. I honestly thought it might be a waste of $20, but it really is a lot easier to keep track of than calories.

I also completed week one of Couch to 10K last week for a total of 4.5 miles! I got faster on the last run/walk. I do not regret paying for the “Pro” version because it links online and tracks distance and lets you play music while you’re in the middle of a session. They’re only 30 minutes long (so far). I’ve been running in the morning, which, although it’s a pain to wake up early, has been much better than trying to do it at night. The chart below shows my weight and the days I ran. You can see pretty clearly that, although I haven’t lost anything yet, you can see from my higher weights on there’s been a decrease. I know exercise doesn’t burn a ton of calories, but it can help raise my metabolism and I hope to be able to participate in a 5K on March 19 at the Louisiana School for the Deaf. I’m really enjoying it 🙂

Below is a graphical representation of my weight progress for February. As you can see, there’s not too much of an actual difference. My highest weight was on February 10 (201.4) and my lowest weight was on February 21 (195.4). I started at 199.2 and ended at 201.2, which isn’t a statistically significant difference. I’ll do better next month!

Mercredi des Cendres

I did some things today! And some things happened this weekend! Were they exclamation point worthy? MAYBE!!! YOU decide!

Friday morning, it was 29⁰F (the coldest this winter that I can think of). I sat in my car until the window defrosted thinking “Friday before a long weekend, YASSSS.” About halfway to work, my car started acting funny. It ran hot when I was going over 20mph and the battery light came on. When I got to work, I checked my liquid levels and hoped I could make it home and maybe it was a fluke. About halfway home, it started going nuts. The dials weren’t working well, it kept saying the battery was dying and that it was overheating. Finally it died…and I pulled into an empty parking lot. It wouldn’t start again.

Z biked back to his house to retrieve his gallant steed and rescued me from certain death (waiting around). He brought me to my house and that’s where I spent most of Mardi Gras break. I got to see him again Saturday night – we went out to Hibachi to celebrate his passing his candidacy exam for his math PhD program!!! #soproud

I cleaned and lazed Sunday. Monday, I made gumbo and got to see Casey and her toddler (who is adorable).

Her: “What color is this?”

Me: “It’s yellow”

Her: “It’s yellow! Bery [Very] good!”

I later made gumbo and watched Despicable Me 2 (adorable) with Z. Mardi Gras started with my first attempt at banana pancakes followed by Casey came back over without her mini-me to pick me up. My friend Bella had offered to let me drive her jeep until my vehicle is fixed. Did I mention I have the very best friends? I have the very best friends.

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So as of today, I have arranged for my car to be towed to a auto-repair place. Apparently the serpentine belt has broken, so counting being towed, it should hopefully be only around $250 or less!

UPDATE: Repairing the serpentine belt (with towing) is only $201…however it’s leaking oil, coolant, power steering fluid, and needs work on the head…so the total to make my car actually driveable will be $1744. So now is the search for a new vehicle 😦

February is probably my least favorite month of the year (excluding my passed Nana’s birthday of course). February always passes unnaturally quickly (more quickly than it should even with a few days missing). Right now, Louisiana’s weather can’t decide what it wants. The temperature range for this week has been 36⁰F to 78⁰F…crazy right?

But really, what makes me dislike February so much is what typically makes it the “month of love” – Valentine’s Day. I have a Valentine this year, but it’s really more the pressure of what to do. I’m not too much on the ingrained sexist, prejudices around this holiday. I’d like a celebration of love to go both ways. So it’s pressure because I don’t know what’s expected of me. I don’t want to overstep boundaries or slight Z. He’s dear to me, but he’s also being crazy because he’s taking his general exam (or candidacy exam as it’s called). I’m going to do something sweet and crafty because that’s who I am. Hopefully he doesn’t get grumpasaurus at me.

But aside from scouring Pinterest, I have some other goals in mind for this month! I have been keeping a notebook of budgeting, weight, goals, etc. I am going to give Weight Watchers a chance. My friend is having a lot of success with it, so maybe it’ll work better for me than calorie counting (although it’s pretty much the same thing…)

Goals

Lose 5 lbs
Read I Am Malala
Make at least one bear for the Mother Bear project
Complete 3 weeks of Couch-to-10k
Create a new working budget with changed roommate situation
Write Colt a letter at bootcamp

Not too much going on this month. I’m focusing on tracking my own behaviors and seeing where I spend the most, where I eat the most, and what I should do to better my life…and see if anything needs a complete overhaul.

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January is named for the Roman God Janus, of new beginnings, which comes from ianua, Latin for door

The last few weeks of silence have been a time of transition in many areas of my life. I know it has been a few weeks since you’ve heard from me, and I apologize for that. It feels like it has been so much and yet so little.

New Year’s started with the best Louisiana tradition, black-eyed peas, braised cabbage, [along with] pork tenderloin, and baked sweet potatoes. I got the recipes for the black-eyed peas and braised cabbage from my Thug Kitchen cookbook. I thought this would load my year with luck and money, but sometimes these things don’t happen like we expect.

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I began having passive problems with Bayleaf about a month into our lease. As she became more infatuated with the person she was dating, she spent less time at home and less time focusing on work (both at home and her profession). She became more withdrawn and, well, grumpier. The beginning of November was not positive for me due to me and Z breaking up for a while and getting bronchitis at the same time. I didn’t even have the energy to mope. I ended up hiding out in my room so I wouldn’t contaminate the house, but I still went to work because nearly everyone was out and there weren’t enough substitutes to cover every class. Around this time, it looked like Bayleaf’s brother, Colt, would be coming back home from PA. He asked to stay with us for a little while about halfway through November. As a group, we agreed to let him stay through the end of the year and reevaluate the situation then.

By the end of the month, things had come to a head. I couldn’t stand living in a house where I felt like I wasn’t being spoken to, where Bayleaf was driving 3 hours to spend Thurs-Mon with her bf while her large dog remained behind. The confrontation ended in cursing and yelling, with nothing resolved. Ugly jabs were made about her job and my breakup. She ended up being fired the next day, though she had part-time work to fall back on. She approached me to mend the bridge a little and promised to take her dog to her parents as we had agreed whenever she was out of town. About a week after that, Z and I began again, and so I hoped everything was looking up.

But it wasn’t. And she didn’t keep her promises. She left him at the apartment every weekend to visit her bf while making jabs at Colt. She and her bf spent the NY with me and Z with relatively little interaction. Colt ended up joining the army and was to go to bootcamp January 24, 2016. Things with Bayleaf got progressively worse. She was not contributing to the apartment, she wasn’t cleaning, replacing supplies, replacing spices or food, and was being short and mean to me and her brother. I finally had enough when, the week after I thought I had addressed it, she left her dog again for a long weekend. He jumped on the stove and ate half a tenderloin I had cooked, not his first time doing things like this. She messaged us as a group after ignoring us to ask what the problem was. I was out to dinner, so I didn’t respond. The next night I messaged to ask her if she was going home to take her dog to her parents.

She proceeded to block both Colt and me on social media and begin separating out and packing up her things. I got home from work and just removed my things from her hutch (she had pushed them to the edge). She had even pushed aside our groceries in the pantry to be divided along an individual line. The next day she had separated out the freezer and refrigerator. That night, I didn’t want any conflict, so I went to Z’s house and spent the night. I came home to a call from Colt saying they had gotten into a physical altercation, where he pushed her away from him and she came at him flailing. Where her bf had gotten involved. Where I walked in and the plate of our apartment was hanging off, decorations were broken, and there were cracks in the frame of doors. I spoke to the apartment managers, but there wasn’t anything they could do.

I. Was. Furious.

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Colt is one of my best friends. The idea that someone, even his sibling, would attack him was the final straw. I can go through living with a Great Wall between us. I can go through being ignored. But I will not stand for the people I love being harmed by anyone. I became the Petty Queen. I moved everything that belonged to me, from the kitchen trashcan to the cleaning supplies to the dishtowels into my room and locked it. I feel that I was being pushed to my limit to create an altercation to give her an excuse to move in with her bf…but I proceeded to write a note detailing exactly what “the problem” was and ended it with that she was ugly inside and out and I did not want her in my life. I taped it to her door.

She proceeded to leave the apartment and the lease.

Time will tell if I get the half of the electricity she owes me, and time will tell if paying the full rent (an increase of $450) will be that detrimental to my finances. What I believe will be most apparent is the decrease in stress from not living in what started to feel like a storage unit, hiding out in my room because I don’t want to deal with the cold shoulder and forced conversation in my kitchen. I am already sleeping better and more fitfully. I have taken steps to turn it back into my home. And although this may be a detailed, biased account of a personal situation, it is a big part of why I haven’t been around and a big part of why I have felt like I was being stretched too thin.

But. I chose my own adventure, and I chose this. I chose to try this out to save money. For a small amount of time it worked, but ultimately it did not. It would appear that it ruined a friendship, but as Death Cab for Cutie succinctly puts it…

And you can’t find nothing at all,
If there was nothing there all along.
There were churches, theme parks and malls,
But there was nothing there all along.