Sam's club is awesome

Hello all. Today I spent $3.44 and this is what I've got to show for it: Oh, and one more bottle of water. Closeup of the chicken showing the oozing mozzarella, and the diced tomatoes, with ricotta on top. Pretty tasty. And for less than $3.50? jeez! Oh wait, that $3.44 also includes the grilled cheese sandwich I had! wow. So simple, and yet I've been paying $5 for a footlong sub, or $6+ for a meal at In-n-Out! NICE!

So, I have a lot of other thoughts today, but I need to gather them before I post. So that's all for now.

They come in threes

Today saw the tragic loss of three outstanding, blue star, capped brothers. New, Castle & Brown Ale were all horrible killed in a freak accident when their commander mistakenly tried to lead them home from Saturn with one hand! The supporting barricade could not withstand the force of gravity and buckled under the pressure, sending all 24, highly fragile soldiers plummeting towards Earth at approximately 9.81 m/s/s. Luckily, 21 of the original 24 survived with minor scratches and surface wounds. They survivors were then given a thorough detox and are now safe, or "chillin" as the cool kids say, in their proper destination.

In lieu of flowers, we ask that everyone "pour one for the homies." If you find that wasteful, please send a fresh replacement.

Thank you!


This also means my budget per beer went up $0.14/bottle, and brought my daily total to $6.25 :( so sad!

I need napkins

Note to self #2: Don't eat finger foods like corn on the cob without having napkins in your house!

Anyway. Here is a picture of my dinner tonight. This dinner cost me $2.96! Well, technically the corn, bell pepper and onion was leftover from last week when I was experimenting with chicken dishes, but still. It is chicken breast in Sioux-z-wow sauce, sauteed sweet onions and bell peppers, corn and salad with Italian dressing and a glass of red wine (again from my prior purchases). It was great minus the no napkin thing! And as always, I cleaned up after myself and did all the dishes.

Tomorrow night I am going to hammer some meat (haha had to say it-chicken) place some ricotta and mozzarella cheese with sun-dried tomatoes on it, roll it up, place it in the crock pot, throw in a can of diced tomatoes, and let it cook for about an hour, hour and a half. It's marinating in Italian right now. Should be moist and delicious, but it could also come out as a waste of $3, since I'm making it up! oh well. We shall see!

I'm going to continue typing until my internet decides to come back, so I don't have to redo all of this!

Op! There it is! WHEW! Almost typed that I got something in both my eyes watching the end of Definitely, Maybe. That was close!

Impregnation and Anonymity

Hello everyone. For those of you who are still confused about the post where I said I knocked someone up and was going to marry them, I didn't do either. If you kept reading, below the goal, I put in parenthesis that the entire first half of that paragraph was made up. I did not knock anyone up and I wasn't planning on marrying anyone. Just checking to see how well everyone read before getting to the end. Know I know which of you start books but don't finish them! bwa ha haa

Also, if you're going to leave a comment and don't have a profile, please put your name at the end so I know who you are. Otherwise, it just says, "Anonymous said blah blah blah." So yeah, leave your name at the end. Unless you want to remain anonymous, which hasn't been cool since 4/13/05.

That is all.

Bejeweled Blitz is crack!

So, if I had half as much determination in ANY other aspect of my life as I do for getting higher and higher scores on that stupid game on facebook, I'd be a millionaire already! Anyways, let's get this thing started. First, to sum up what has happened since my last post, which I believe was like Thursday or Friday or something. Let's just say Thursday.

Friday, I don't really remember. Ummm OH YEAH! I made it through without spending a dime. After work, I drove 85 miles to Moorpark to spend the 3rd of July with some family friends. We used to go there every third, but haven't been in a while, so it was very nice to see everyone again.

Saturday was the 4th of July. I worked until 3 and then drove to my parents. Didn't spend a dime that day or Sunday. Enjoyed the 4th with my family in Temecula, but it just didn't "feel" like the 4th. Maybe it was the lack of fireworks or a break from the "usual" but it was missing something. Who knows, maybe it was a girlfriend. My mom pointed out that it was the first time I was single for the 4th. I told her I know that I'm the man and all, but I think there was about 6 years where I was single. Age 0-6. ;) All kidding aside, it was the first time in about 10 years I didn't have a girlfriend there though. jeez.

I spent some time talking to my MOMS, which was nice. Apparently they both enjoy reading my blog. In fact, it seemed like most people looked forward to it for some reason I still don't understand. I'll tell you one thing, it is kind of odd to have everyone know what's going on with you, and be super confused because you don't how they know, until they tell you they read your blog. Maybe I'm too open! Or, maybe I haven't ever been open, and that's why they enjoy it. They can finally see inside this chiseled body to the soft, emotional parts of Kyle. Uh oh, now I'm thinking...

I have, over the years, realized that when I'm feeling a particular "good" feeling about someone or something, and - wait, let me just give an example. I'm dating a girl, and all day I've been thinking about how much I love her and I'm going to do something romantic and tell her when I see her tonight. I get there, I'm all ready, then something happens. She's pissed at me or she says something that I think is so stupid and then BAM! All romanticism and love is gone. Isn't that the point when I should tell them the most? Have I been looking for a reason or excuse NOT to share or open up? Is that why my relationships get to a certain comfortable point and stop. I know we all over-exaggerate the love and the affection and the dates when we're in courtship mode, then over time it fades. But why? Why is it that you only see one out what seems every 1000 people that can keep that love and happiness going for decades? Hmm. I don't think I'm ready to make this a new goal. Don't know if it's just setting myself up for failure, but here it goes anyway.

Goal #7: Express my feelings not matter what wrench is thrown in. Don't wait. If I'm feeling something, there's always a way to let someone know! (Oh, and just in case you're wondering how I remember what # I'm on, I have an excel spreadsheet to accompany this blog haha)

AND BAM! He's already on top of it! Just sent a text! Guess I can just croooooooooss that one off now? :-\ haha Just kidding.

Sorry for the tangent. It happens though. Deal with it. Where was I? Oh yeah, the 4th, my moms, enjoying this blog. My moms wanted a shout out so I think y'all got three so far! And for those of you thinking that I just call my mom, "moms," I have two moms. My parents are still married-shocking, I know- but my mom and her best friend have been inseperable since I was 2, so we jokingly call them my "moms" or life partners.

Sunday, SUNDAY, sunday! Woke up. Watched the ridiculous Wimbledon finals. Watched Tiger win again. Lounged in the pool. Ate leftovers. Went golfing, which was free because my dad had a gift card. Oh and on the golfing front, my blog has motivated me to give up the perks of playing at 6-7 am and play twilight instead. Same course, near same weather, BUT HALF PRICE! Normally we would play SCGA at 7am for $68 each. Instead, we went at 4 and paid $58 for the PAIR! good stuff.

Monday, took a lazy day. Spent $10 on valet parking for my last dance class. Then $7 on ice cream. Oh and $18 on a haircut. $35 for the day. Only sad thing is that the haircut is the only thing that lasted beyond that day. The pint of Cherry's Garcia sadly saw its demise. RIP Mrs. Garcia.

Tuesday, took another lazy day HA! Went shopping at Sam's club and spent $151. But I also went to staples and returned $21 worth of stuff that I've had for a few months! So make that $130! I got a lot of things, and my hope is that these things will last for the next 13 days. I got 5lbs of ground beef and 12 breasts of chicken. I split up the beef into 5 bags and put a pound in each, and split the chicken up into 6 bags of 2 breasts each. If I simply eat the beef and the chicken each night, that should last me 11 days! I also got bread, cheese and ham for sandwiches, and buns for the pulled pork I made yesterday. These things alone should tide my eating for the next 13 days, but I also got some tortillas, lettuce, water, 3 frozen pizzas, a 24 pack of newcastle and dog food. I've been so anal and conscious of this new spending, that I've even broken down the cost of most of these things, so I can monitor if I'm spending more or less than the $10/day. So this should be interesting! haha I also spent $20 after volleyball at Islands.

So since Thursday, I've spent $55, which is $5 over the $10/day, but it includes the haircut, which will last one month! SO SUCK IT BUDGET! I win!

I did not get up to exercise yesterday or today though, which was dumb because now I have to do three days in a row!

Well, it's now time for me to go and try to beat someone's score on Bejeweled for the next 28 minutes, then call it a night so I don't wake up late for my morning jog!

Crap. I forgot that I spent $135 on more dance classes over the next 6 weeks as well as $22 for a volleyball tournament on Sunday. Both things I'm not sorry over deciding on (a la goal #3-handling wants over 24 hours, as I did for both) So I think that I'm rockin! Keep it up Kyle!

Right place, right time?

Ok. I'm torn on opinions here. I can say, and believe, one of two things here.

Take 1:
Isn't it strange how things seem to happen at the right time? The sermon the week you decide to go to church seems to be aimed directly at you. The movie you watch tends to portray your life at that exact moment. An article on Yahoo! has a heading and advice on budget problems the day your bills are due.

Take 2:
Isn't it strange how much you're aware of things when they are applicable to your current situation? You buy a new Accord and all of the sudden it seems like EVERYONE has an Accord. Wait, bad example. Everyone DOES have an Accord. The sermon the week you decide to go is on a subject that you can relate to. The movie you watch has situations, that you would have otherwise just watched, but you're drawn to tie the moral into YOUR life. There are 4 articles on Yahoo! about love, health, money and Michael Jackson, but you only notice the one about love because you just broke up with someone.

Whichever take you agree with doesn't matter. All that matters is that it does, temporarily, motivate you! And tonight, a stupid movie that I put on my Netflix did just this. It was called Run Fat Boy, Run! In case I didn't mention it already, which we both know I did, it was stupid! Brief synopsis: Loser ditches pregnant bride at altar, continues dead-end job, is overweight, irresponsible, broke and finds out his baby mamma found a new man. He decides to run a marathon to both compete against new guy and prove he can finish something he starts. New guy trips him in marathon, sprains ankle, finishes anyway. Wins girl. Gag.

I know you're probably thinking to yourself, "Hmmm. How does this relate to Kyle?" Well I'll tell you. I recently inpregnated a woman and we thought of getting married. Then we realized that we were both broke and I was too irresponsible. And tonight, on the drive home, I was thinking about one of the brilliant ideas I mentioned back in post 1 or 2, about using exercise to deter myself from spending money. I think it was something like, "Get in shape AND save money? Brilliant!" Anywho. I was going to post tonight about how I am going to COMMIT to this, but in a different way, and then I watched this movie and although it was stupid, it did motivate me. It being stupid isn't the point. The point is that they made the movie because it's believable and relatable and I related. The only Hollywood fantasy was that he probably wouldn't have gotten the girl in real life. So here's a new goal.

Goal #6: Exercise at least 3 days/week (between M-F) before work!

The key factor in this goal is the 'before work' part. (Oh and before my phone blows up, the entire first half of that paragraph was made up.) It's key because even though I have the time before AND after work, I need to instill a sort of "lifestyle change" and I don't think working out after work will do anything for me. I will also be starting this goal tomorrow, so I don't just push it off for another week!

My hopes are that this will give me more energy throughout the day. Get me up earlier in the morning and working. And show me that I can really commit to something that I know will be the hardest.

*****

Update on the past 4 days, since I haven't blogged. After accomplishing goal #4 & #5, blog for 7 days straight and spend $10/day on misc. things, respectively, as well as doing a lot of housework, I thought I should reward myself. In retrospect, it was exactly the WRONG decision. So, here I am to fess up to what I spent, and come up with a way to make it up! It's so easy to make excuses, as there's always some sort of birthday or holiday you can blame it on, but it's also just as easy to come up with alternatives. One just requires less thought.

SO:
Sunday - I spent $5 on Del Taco, which is my new least favorite place. POOOOOOOOOORQUE DEL TACO???? And $33 at PF Changs where I had an unnecessary $7 glass of wine. (TOTAL: $38)

Monday - I spent $6 on In-N-Out.

Tuesday - I spent $15 on golf, $13 on In-N-Out for Scott and me (lost a bet). $10 on dinner. $13 at 711 on completely unnecessary items. I could have saved probably $23 here, but didn't. (TOTAL: $51)

Wednesday - I spent $68 on groceries. Now, this isn't all a waste, as I got some spices that I'll use forever, and some pork that should last me a few days. I did probably make too much chicken last night though.

Total for 4 days = $163 or about $41/day I'm going to say that about $40 is on things that I will still use, so bring it to $123 or $31/day. :::shaking my head at myself:::

Today I spent $5 :::SMILING:::

Till next time...

I fell off the wagon...

pretty hard! More to come later, as I have nothing to do tonight! Just know that I definitely took a step backward this weekend. :(