Friday, September 7, 2012

Wallpaper = Sheet Rock Holocaust

In addition to my ongoing New Year's resolutions, I have a few other ones listed that are more of a to-do list, and after an embarrassing 3 months, I took my watch in to get its battery replaced. The sad part is, I thought it would have to be shipped off and cost me $80, but after 10 bucks and five minutes, the wrist was blingin' again. Woo!

Now onto the wallpaper...the previous owners had god-awful wallpaper borders, and after investigating a variety of options ranging from an expensive steamer to cursing it off, I settled on a wallpaper removal concentrate, which didn't work any better than just hot water, a sponge, and a scraper. I'm sure the steamer might have been the best option, but $100 is nuts compared to the $5 I paid for the scraper and maybe another $5 I paid for the scorer. The real test is going to be when I tackle the completely wall-papered foyer (which admittedly, doesn't look terrible) and the painted over wallpaper in the kitchen.

My PRK surgery seems to have healed at a pace which can only be described as incredi-fast. My eyesight is at least near 20/20, and for the first time since the surgery I set the screen back to 100% instead of 150%.


Saturday, September 1, 2012

Man, it's been a while

I just noticed that I haven't posted since June....and wow, what a change. I guess the first thing is to give the progress on my goals

1) Quit smoking - Back on the wagon, 16 days smoke free. And i feel like everything in my life is stable enough now that I won't be going back anytime soon.

2) Run a marathon - I started running bigtime a few weeks ago, gradually increasing the mileage. Last week I ran 20.5 miles throughout the week, but since I just got eye surgery, breaking a huge sweat isn't going to be in the cards for a week or two, unfortunately.

3) Networth - This one kind of went haywire, especially since I just bought a freakin house! Obviously I didn't buy it in cash, so I'll be basing the networth portion as compared to the estimated value from my bank's estimator tool. But to also be fair and kind of keep me on my toes, if it's worth more than I owe, I'm not going to count it with my other finances. This isn't a personal finance blog, so I'm making up my own rules, and I don't think it's dishonest if it makes it harder for me to say I have a positive networth.

But with all that said, my head is still above water financially, and I'm slowly but surely adding value to my house while paying down the rest of my debt. I'm planning on being completely out of debt by September of 2014, and hopefully I'll be able to reach that date without needing to sell off any investments.

4) Write more - I haven't been, obviously. It's either been work or working out, but I think there's a novel challenege in november that I may partake in. I guess we'll see.

5) Travel more - I was supposed to go on a trip, but that didn't happen, so at some point before the end of the year I'm going to find a way to go on a different trip or SOMETHING that won't also have a negative effect on my financial outlook.

So, now that the final four months of the year have begun, I'm hoping to finish as strongly as I started this whole process. I also had lasers zap my eyes to what will hopefully be 20/20 or better, so here's hoping for a speedy recovery. I'm on day 3, and my sight seems to fluctuate between good and, well, shitty. I think a lot of it is due to the bandage contacts they put in to protect the cornea as it heals, but I can pop those out on Monday. From what I've (blurrily) read, my sight will actually decrease again following that before healing steadily, hopefully in time for the Eagles' season opener.

I wish I had more to write about, but it's mostly been a lot of small scale house work lately. I bought the Nest wifi programmable thermostat and it has been a really, really cool gadget. Anyway, hopefully I'll have some better things to write about soon.