How To Have Cancer

Today is the four year anniversary of my friend Bri's (rhymes with dry, not like the cheese) cancer survival.  In order to celebrate, she made this fantastic photo album that made me laugh and cry all in the course of a few minutes.  I asked her if I could share it, and she said yes.

Hopefully everyone who sees this will never need this information, but most of it is just solid life advice regardless.  Thanks, Bri, and Happy Anniversary!

Note:  if you hit play, the slideshow goes super fast--too fast!  Hit play, then skip picture to picture.

Week Off: Day 3

YOGA!

Yesterday's to-do list:

• Cross Training workout--see below
• 2pm meeting
• Trip to Target
• Bring Shoes to Cobbler
• Start Cleaning Basement
• Writing
• Mop Floors
• Cocktails with J (different J)

That workout was brutal-- holy crap.  It's amazing how exhausted you can get in only 20 minutes, but I was certainly feeling it, and I really wonder what downstairs neighbor thought of me doing burpees over his head.

And yes, I didn't do the four least attractive things on that list, but I'm not going to beat myself up about it.  I was way too ambitious when I made the list, let's be honest.

Today's agenda includes:

• Shorter run, 4-6 miles depending on how springy my legs are feeling
• Bikram Yoga
• Meeting with Bikram instructor about getting free yoga!! That's right!  A friend of mine had worked out a deal with the yoga studio where she traded light cleaning duties for free yoga.  Now she can't do that anymore, and she gave them my name! This is perfect because I've been wanting to keep up with yoga--especially over the winter when I can't run as much, but I really couldn't afford it.  Win/win!
• After the run and yoga, I'll probably want to laze around for a while, so I'm totally giving myself permission to do that.
• Writing--I can write and laze
• Light cleaning around the house--perhaps venture down to the basement and asses the situation
• Home-made dinner, and a walk with B.  Probably watching a movie/tv show with dance and/or gymnastics to follow.  Like you do.

Week Off: Day 2

Yesterday's to-do list included

We'll continue with a new cute kitteh picture each day

Long run--7 miles

Bring Shoes to the Cobbler

Read

Watch Safe House

Put away Laundry and clean office

Make mashed potatoes

Cocktails with J later on tonight

I discovered on my run, that the cobbler isn't open Mondays, so that task gets bumped to Tuesday

• Cross Training workout--see below
• 2pm meeting
• Trip to Target
• Bring Shoes to Cobbler
• Start Cleaning Basement
• Writing
• Mop Floors
• Cocktails with J (different J)

Week Off: Day 1

Awwww

It is day one of my forced vacation, and the weather could not be more perfect!  I slept in til 8am, and feel like I've lost five pounds due to lack of 93% humidity.  It's so awesome.

Agenda items today:

• Long run--7 miles
• Bring Shoes to the Cobbler
• Read
• Watch Safe House
• Put away Laundry and clean office
• Make mashed potatoes
• Cocktails with J later on tonight

This may not be the vacation I've chosen, but I am certainly going to make the most of it.

Here's What Vexes Me

I've talked a fair amount about my student loans in this blog, and without going into great detail again, I'll just say that it's not a pretty situation.  But I'm working on it.  I had set up an income-based repayment schedule that I could live with, and I was chipping away--slowly--at the big scary number.

Except.

My income-based repayment expired in April.  I called Direct Loans who put me back in temporary forebearance, sent in a new form with proof of income and waited.  Nothing happened.  I called Direct Loans back, and was told that for some reason, my request didn't go through, and I would have to start over.  The person I spoke to extended my forbearance, and I faxed in more paperwork.

Then, I got a letter from another company, Granite State Management and Resources telling me that my loans were outsourced to them, and I would no longer be dealing with Direct Loans.

I called the new company, told them I had sent all of the necessary paperwork to Direct Loans already, then asked if I needed to re-resend it to them.  The woman I spoke to said to send in my proof of income again, but the paperwork should have been sent to them by Direct Loans.

I've been checking my account daily--sometimes more then once a day, but nothing was changing, so I called again and found out that the paperwork was not sent over, and they wanted another paystub.

As of today, September 6, the process that I started in May is finally finished and I'm on income-based repayment again.  The only problem is that because I was in forbearance all summer, all of the progress I had made in reducing my principal balance over the past two years, has been wiped out.  Yes, I could have tried to make payments over the summer, but since I was in forbearance, the interest rate was higher, and I didn't even know who to make the payments to half the time!

This is probably the most hopeless I've ever felt in my whole financial life, and it's not even something that happened because of stupidity or poor choices, it's like I was playing by the rules and then the rules changed. I'm not going to get down about it though.  I made a payment today, 15 days early and $50 more than I owed.

Chipping away at a mountain with a tiny Swiss Army knife.

What To Do With a Week Off?

I cannot afford this kind of vacation, sadly

I've got a weird situation coming up.  I mentioned before that my work had a major budget cut, and the union that I'm a member of agreed to forgo our 401k matching for the year to offset the loss of funds.  Because of that, the library is closed for a week in September and we all get a week off--paid.  It's kind of like a thank you from the library, and while I hate to complain about a paid week off, it's also kind of inconvenient.

See, I was already planning on taking the following week off to go visit my brother.  I could just go a week earlier, but we were also planning to see a Sloan concert in Minneapolis, which is September 21st.  So now, I've taken the following week off as well, and do not have to go to work September 22.  The problem with this is, I can't really afford to enjoy myself for that first week.  I just got back from vacation, and now I'll have all this time off and really nothing to do with it.  So I'm racking my brain to come up with frugal ways to enjoy myself, not feel like I wasted this mini-vacation and hopefully not eat a ton out of boredom.

1. Go Running a Lot.  This is a bit of a no-brainer, but thankfully this week also coincides with the time I should be putting in the most effort training for my next race.  Hopefully I won't overtrain out of boredom, but the weather is getting cooler, and that makes me want to run!

2. Read. I've been such a slacker in the reading department this summer.  When it gets too hot, I just sort of shut down and all I want is to be passively entertained.  So I've been watching Biggest Loser all the time.  I've got reading to do for the Rhode Island Teen Book Award committee, of which I'm a member, and also just tons of books I want to read.  I'm nerding out this week.

3. Write.  I've joined a writer's group, which will hopefully give me the kick in the ass I need to actually start writing fiction and creative stuff again.  Either way, I have a mini-assignment due, and I should work on it!

4. Clean out the Basement.  This will obviously be the most fun part of my week (sarcasm).  I've been wanting to tackle our basement storage space for a while, but it was hot and I'm lazy.  I have no excuse now, and it will be a cathartic feeling.

5. Organize Closet.  My closet is getting a bit cluttered and could do with a bit of rearranging now that the seasons are changing.

6. Mop Floors.  I think we've mopped once since we moved in three years ago.  Sad, but true.  The floors don't really look that bad, but  if I mop then this month, I can put it off for another three years and feel no guilt!

7. Do Thursday Things. Because I work on Thursday night, and everything social, fun and free happens on Thursday, I'm going to enjoy it, damnit.  The free outdoor movie is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which I haven't actually seen all of and I believe that the downtown happy hour in the park is still happening.  I will be there.

8. Mending.  I have a pile of mending that has been sitting around for most of the year--time to tackle it.

9. Cobbling.  I need to get a couple pair of  sandals re-soled, so I'm going to go check out a cobbler in my neighborhood who has good yelp reviews.  I shall ride my bike there and it will all feel very European!

Anyone have other suggestions for me?