Day	Amount	Place	Category
Wednesday	$17.50	Safeway	Groceries
	$16.50	Safeway	Groceries
Saturday	$90.00	Gas	Car
	$88.50	CostCo	Groceries
	$16.50	CostCo	Allowance
	$18.00	Office Depot	Allowance
	$35.00	Taste of India	Eating Out

Talk about feeling in control, we only spent money from the bank account two days this week, and less than $300 total. On Friday C used some of his allowance cash to take a classmate out to dinner, and today I used a gift card for Starbucks, but since money didn’t come out of the account for those things, they don’t really count.

It has been a bit of an odd week as I hurt my back over the weekend, thought it was getting better, and then suffered a major muscle spasm on Wednesday evening- bad enough that I worked from home on Thursday so that I could take frequent breaks to lie on a heating pad. To go along with that, C started getting sick on Tuesday night, with what we thought was a sinus infection. But by Friday, I was sick too. Of course, he’s almost completely better, and I’m still stuck in the head cold phase. Hopefully I’ll be feeling better soon.

As it is, though, we barely did anything yesterday and yet I felt exhausted. Today, I was able to be productive only in spurts with much needed breaks. However, C and J did put together our new locking cabinet this morning while I was at critique group, so we’re working on getting everything that needs to be locked away locked away.

We still have books to be sorted through and some organizational work to do, but I’m happy with progress of any sort right now.

The other big thing for me right now is the Stanley Cup Finals. I’m a major Devils fan and have been for over 15 years. Thrilled to see them back in the finals after missing the playoffs completely last year, but they’ve lost the two opening games. Both went to overtime, so it’s not like they’re playing badly, but they can’t seem to close.

 

I have six goals for 2012. As part of the Sunday evening posts, I am tracking those goals, kind of like I do for spending, in order to hold myself accountable.

1)      Be paid for publishing one piece of fiction

Submissions so far: 2

Responses: 1 rejection 1 acceptance

I will let people know when the anthology I’m in is available.

2)      Make money publishing my next art/fiction book

This is on hold for now. However, I did have a chance to talk with the artist I want to work with on Friday, and her life has settled down, so there’s a good chance we can start work on this sometime in June. (When my life settles down a bit.)

3)      Attend FinCon12. Pay for the trip with money from allowance/side projects saved/earned BEFORE the conference starts. Goal: $600

I’m in the negatives allowance wise, but didn’t spend much in may, so I think my June allotment should get me back in the black.

Plane ticket prices have gone up, so right now, with credit card points, it would cost about $50 out of pocket for me to buy my ticket to FinCon. However, we’re still putting quite a bit on the card each month, and I don’t expect prices will go up much from where they are, and might even go back down again. (Sweet spot for prices out of Seattle tends to be around 4-6 weeks before the flight.) So for now, I’m still holding off on booking the plane ticket.

4)      Become a member of Yakezie (6 month anniversary is Jan 21)

I plan to be a member of Epsilon class when the application goes up in August. I do need to make sure I’m still connecting with new challengers, though, because a lot of the challengers on my list this last time will be Yakezie Delta class members.

In order to develop relationships with new challengers, I have decided that each edition of What I’m Reading on Saturdays will now include a new challenger.

5)      Make money from my blogs.

AdSense earnings: $22.02 (They won’t send me any money until I hit $100.) I appear to have made 8 cents in May. I know I should probably find another way to make revenue from the blogs, but at least for now, I do this for fun, not money, and I’m okay with that.

6)      Be healthier

Given the way I’ve felt this week, I think you’ll find it unsurprising there hasn’t been much exercise. We did take the dogs to the dog park on Saturday morning.

Food this week has mostly been leftovers from what was made for last weekend, so pasta salad, homemade mac and cheese, ribs. J brought home pizza one night, and on Saturday we had mango curry.

Goal for this week- eat some salad. I like salad. I should eat it.