I’m not “there” yet with the facing of my fear. I went to bed tonight at 7:45, I know I was just in super avoidance mode. I’m still absurdly nervous of all of this. I’ve realised it would be better for me, better for our marriage, and good for Neil for us to do The Great Organising together. I think we need to set ourselves a mini-goal, such as, we’ll organize all the cd’s and dvd’s related to our computer and put away the junk on the credenza. If we can just get past one thing, we can build on our success.
Here’s what I think we need to do:
- we need to find our important papers (passports, etc.) and make sure they’re in a safe place. I’d likto put them in a fire-proof box.
- we need to get a handle on what insurances we have (life, auto, renters) and make sure they’re up to date and we know their value
- I need to get up the nerve to peek into my 401k, Neil into his IRA. I know, just about everyone gets nervous about THAT!
- we need to write down the numbers of all our different accounts in a summary
- we need to fill out a budget. I have a wonderful budget template in Excel. Years ago we bought Quicken, and never used it much. I’m all for going with a simple spreadsheet for now.
- we need to sit for 1/2 hour or so, every night and keep on top of the mail and the money

Here we are, both almost 50 and we need to learn and take to heart the lessons of the young. The one lesson I think we’re good at comes out of our super naivity - we work almost exclusively with cash, which is why our debt is low. We’re pretty good at delaying gratification. But we’re not making the most of our finances, we’re not getting ahead.

Food wise, I didn’t do all that well yesterday, but didn’t eat a huge amount either. While the quantity might have been low, the quality could have been better:
- an omlette for breakfast (with onion, peppers and mushroom), no bread or ketchup.
- 1/2 a tuna sandwich and a pickle for lunch - but it was a rather large sandwich, so I’m counting it as a whole.
- a good old New York “slice” for supper. Slice of pizza that is. I took Roseanne to Staples for some supplies, and I suggested we stop at the pizzeria next door. We shared a diet coke. I like pizza, but seldom have it.

I probably just barely stayed within my points. I believe 1 slice of pizza from an 18″ pie is as much as 18 points. The tuna salad is 9 and the roll it was on (whole grain) is 2. That omlette was probably about 3. Nope, actually, I went way over, my daily points limit is only 24. On the plus side I did 30 full minutes of strenuous exercise at lunch time on that elliptical, which earned me back 4 points, but I’m being conservative and will only record 3.

It’s 3:05 as I type this, and I’ve just consumed hot chocolate and two pecan cookies. Also something I rarely do.

I joined the Weight Watcher’s online program last week. It works out less expensive than just paying $12 for each week’s meeting, plus you have their extensive web application as a resource. I can plug in my food choices and find out what my whopping points are…even though I can figure it out in my head. I think you can enter your recipes and they’ll break down the points for you, I’m excited about that, if it’s true, because I don’t buy a lot of pre-prepared food. Money, points…points, money. I WILL get the hang of all of this and get my confidence back!