Progress

So, a lot has changed since my last blog... sort of. Will finally got an interview at Chase Bank after 4 months of job hunting. If he gets the job (we should be hearing back from them this week) it will mean he will have to drive an hour north of Anacortes to Bellingham every day. I know, it kills me to think of all the miles he will put on our car... and the cost of gas :/ But we have to take whatever we can get at this point. We have also put together a 6-months-to-financial-freedom plan that I am pretty excited about. 6 months of aggressive debt reduction and another 6 months of aggressively building our savings. Phew! It's exhausting even to talk about it, but every day of sticking to the plan will bring us one step closer to a place of our own, to hardwood floors, a vegetable garden and waking up feeling free again.

It's gotten harder these past weeks to keep it together. I am stifled. My creativity, my personality. I need to get out. I need to have control over my life again. I have to repeat my goals over and over like a mantra just to keep sane sometimes....

On a side note, Will painted the bedroom today. Yellow. Just like at our old place. And also just like our old place, it looks like mustard or Mac and Cheese. How did I manage to do it twice?! I thought I had learned my lesson the first time but it looks like we will be making another trip to Home Depot to fix our color mishap. Again. We also replaced the ugly red curtains, finally. Now they are white and they let in just enough light and night breeze into the room so we don't feel so claustrophobic. Will says it feels like sleeping in a tent... the curtains blow gently from side to side and turn the light in the room a soft grayish-silver. We laid in bed the other day and listened to the kids play soccer next door and to the trees rustling in the wind. Just like camping.

We also put blinds in the awkward shaped windows that face the refinery so we aren't blinded by the morning sun that creeps in a 5 am. They don't block out all the light but it's way better than before. The only problem is, that any changes we make so that we sleep more comfortably, (louder fans, mattress toppers, new sheets etc.) always throws me off for the first couple of days. Like now the room looks different in the early morning and I seem to sense it so I wake up and can't fall back asleep. This morning I was up at 5. So by 7am I kicked Will out of bed and we went on a hike before work. A nice brisk walk in the quiet, shady forrest of Washington Park. We stopped at the scenic view point at the South Bluffs and admired the turquoise water and the quiet town below... perfect.

When I got to work at 11, I saw a flier for a 10k marathon in June. I want to enter. Washington Park is 2.2 miles long and I think I can run in the race if I run the park every morning before work. I would have to run it 3 times. yikes. Will doesn't think we can do it. Party Pooper! But I feel if I spend the money on registration then it will force me to get in shape. And to spend my mornings being productive instead of with Cory Matthews and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. But I literally would have 3 weeks to train and I got up to pee just now and my ass is pretty sore from our walk this morning. Not a good sign. I think I'll sign up regardless... the money goes to support our local library's and I would much rather help our community out by getting my ass into shape than by flipping burgers like Will did this past weekend...

Will keeps getting volunteered to help out the Anacortes Lions Club by running burger trucks at the Waterfront Festival or by cleaning up parks or whatever. I, thankfully, had to be at work both these days but Will had nothing better to do so his parents offered his help to "the community". I realized recently that I really don't like our community. Is that bad? I mean, I don't relate to the people here at all and I definitely don't see myself living here long term... Everyone here is old, ugly and square!! Square, I tell you!!! Believe me, I tried finding the hip, fun people and there are none. I feel like people come here to die. If it weren't for the beauty of God's creation, this place would suck. Thankfully it has been blessed with ample amounts of nature. And a really great Thai restaurant.

Maybe if I felt like I had something to gain from Anacortes (you mean, besides financial freedom???) then maybe I would see helping out as important. But I can't. I can't even recycle. It doesn't seem important here. I mean, it IS important, just not to me. And it's not because I hate the earth or anything because I WANT to recycle and to compost and to ride my bike to work but I just can't seem to muster up enough energy to do any of it. Jolyn and Doug even have a veggie garden planted out back but I honestly want no part in it. Why? I daydream about my own garden every day so why can't I put some time into the one that's already planted? Because how can I care about those things right now when I don't even have my own place to live? When my husband is unemployed and when everything else in my life is chaos? My life is a mess. I can't fix my own life and the planet all in the same day. Not. Gonna. Happen. So, in order to start saving the planet, I must first fix my debt. Then I'll think about composting.