Smart Writers & World Events

My writer friend Edmund and I had a conversation last month about writers and how the best writers are very, very smart. When you read interviews with them it says things like, "Mr. Smith reads five newspapers a day, including French and Italian papers which he has delivered daily." Or their bio will begin, "After completing a PhD in biophysics at MIT, Ms. Johnson decided to try her hand at novel writing..."

Make me puke.

I barely keep up with the news. I'll catch 10 minutes of the Today show every now and again, skim the Sunday paper, and maybe log onto MSNBC. I'm not proud to admit it, but there you have it. Which is why one of my semi-goals for the new year is to read a daily paper. I'm still debating whether I want the local paper, USA Today, or maybe even The Wall Street Journal (I enjoy the writing there).

I say semi-goal because I'm not convinced I'll keep up with it. Reading a paper takes time. That's over an hour each day that will disappear from an already busy schedule. BUT, a firm goal of the New Year is to drastically cut back on TV time.  For January, I'm allotting an hour a day during the week, and 2 hours/day on weekends, in case I want to watch a DVD.  The point being though, I should be able to switch an hour of wasted TV viewing over to keeping up with world events. Not a bad tradeoff.

Will it make me smarter? Probably not. But I'll take "better informed" and "able to participate in conversations with some degree of intelligence," as goals worthy of striving for.

I think I'll start with the local paper and if that goes well, move up the chain. Who knows? This time next year I may have French newspaper delivered to my door. Stay tuned...

Fiscal Responsibility in the New Year

2008 may go down in history as the year the Harris' experienced financial ruin. Why? Job loss? Nope.  Disability? Uh-uh. Terminal illness? Not even close. No, the reason one can smell impending disaster on the air is that Blair and I have decided that come January 1st, 2008...(drum roll and deep breath) Dena will be in charge of family finances.

As close friends know, I pretty much use my fingers to add up anything totalling over twelve. So why put me in charge? A couple of reasons. One, we're trying to get get a grip on our finances. Back when I was single and broke, I knew the cost of everything. I could tell you to the penny how much milk, gas, and celery cost. I knew where to find the cheapest gas in town. But nowadays, while we certainly don't go wild by any means with our spending, we just don't pay much attention to what we buy (and by we I mean, of course, me). I have no idea what our water or electric bill runs. And, although I'm kind of embarrassed to admit it, I often don't know how much gas or milk is because, well, I just buy it and don't think about it. So it's time to take a leap back to reality.

The other reason is that when I'm in charge of the money, I tend to be tighter than Blair with spending. Sounds not true, but it is. I'm a cheapskate at heart. We have some big goals for the New Year, including building and furnishing a cabin and it's going to take some careful money watching to make that happen.  Plus, we now have fish to care for... <grin>

Blair and I have spent several icky evenings mapping out a monthly and yearly budget. Actually, the evenings weren't that bad. They were even kind of fun. My dread of sitting down to do it was much worse than the actual event.

We've decided to try tracking our receipts. Which means you-know-who gets the joy of entering receipts into the computer a couple of times a week. I've already warned Blair that he better have plenty of chocolate in the house on those nights to offset my bad temper which is sure to follow. (I love to type words, loath keying in numbers).

And here's the fun part. We're starting a money envelope for entertainment and eating out. I can't prove it to you, but I suspect a large portion of our income goes toward my mochas at Starbucks. So we're setting aside a certain amount of cash each month. Once the envelope is empty, no more lunches, mochas, or Chinese food for dinner until next month.

I also get to be in charge of family requests for borrowing money and I am already practicing my best "Thor, God of Thunder" voice to say, "NO! And now I shall smite you for even making the request."

It's not all bad...

Here Be Fish

Look at our new babies! Aren't they sweet? Yes, I have crossed over to the fish side. We brought our four Serpa Tetra home on Christmas Eve. Blair taped Christmas paper over the glass windows leading into the library so the cats wouldn't be able to see the fish before "Santa" brought them. We have great video of Olivia on Christmas morning staring at the tank, mesmerized.

We only have the four small fish for now. You have to start off with a few hardy fish to stabilize the tank. In about two weeks, we'll add a few more tetras and then a few weeks after that we'll get 1 or 2 larger fish--something along the lines of an Angelfish, perhaps. We'll also be adding more plants.

We are lovin' the fish! It's soothing to sit and just watch them dart about. And even with just the four of them, they tend to school around the tank, which is fun.  I am in charge of feeding them. The guy at the fish store said to give them "a pinch" of food daily. That leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Is his pinch the same as my pinch? So now I worry I'm either starving or overfeeding the fish, depending on which way my mood swings.

No fish smell yet, which is good. That could diminish the fish love fest I currently have going on. But so far, totally digging the fish.

Decorating Diaries: Pictures of (Almost) Completed Exercise Room

Ta-da! We still need to hang pictures and curtains, but here is the 95% completed exercise room. I did a 4-mile jog in there this morning on the treadmill and loved it. No more damn ducks staring at me while I sweat. Note the green towels stuffed in the corner window. That's the one that broke when we attempted to move the bookcase. We're going into Greensboro today to buy replacement glass.

Merry Christmas!!!