It’s rained quite a bit lately, with a few breaks for the sun, but the weather has warmed up enough that it feels like spring. And really, it’s the mild rain that makes it most feel like spring, more than the sun, because that and the gray is what we tend to see most up until June or July around here, though summer seems to keep showing up earlier each year. And as much as I love the extra sunshine, the knowledge that the climate is changing isn’t always welcome.
In other news, I attended a retirement dinner earlier this week for someone on the volunteer board I serve on. He’s become a good friend from our evenings together and I am absolutely going to miss seeing him on those nights. Unrelated to personal finance and this blog, perhaps, but I wouldn’t have time for that board if I hadn’t first cut my hours at work. My goal is to have a whole life that I’m proud of, not just one piece of it. And I’ve sure appreciated my time with him there.
If you’re reading this, friend, I’m glad to have spent so many hours with you over the past year. Let’s be sure to grab lunch now and again and I’m sure I’ll see you around otherwise.
Friday’s Frugal Five
1. One day I ended work one town over and didn’t have time to head back to the office before being back home for the kiddo, but instead of going to a coffee shop and spending money to hang out there and finish up the bit of work I had left, I headed straight home and worked from there. My son is now old enough that I can more easily get a bit of work done around him, though I try not to do too much of that. What I had left was short though, and it worked out well to do it from home.
Instead of just patting myself on the back about saving the money from the coffee shop like I would usually do, I finally opened up a “found money” savings account and deposited the ten dollars I would have spent at the coffee shop. This was an idea I first read about from Erin a good year ago, and I’m finally putting it into practice. It will be interesting to see how much money is in there a year from now.
2. My son and I finally planted the rest of the potatoes. While I wanted to wait a bit past the typical Saint Patrick’s Day weekend to plant them because of our extended cold weather, I definitely pushed the limit on how late I actually did plant them. They had sprouted well, and now I have to hope I still get a good harvest from them even though I planted them a couple weeks later than I meant to.
Like I said at the start of this post, it is finally feeling like it’s really spring around here, and besides the rain, it’s obvious with how different our front yard garden looks these days. If you’re a garden voyeur, I’ll have a garden update out this coming Monday, though it will look much more like last March than April.
3. I decided that I would have yet another vegetarian day on Monday in honor of Earth Day, which would mark three of them in the course of just over a week, which is a lot more than normal. Really, that’s more than I have in a typical month. Perhaps as I pay attention I’m getting better at choosing to leave the meat out.
Monday night was that retirement dinner party though at an Italian restaurant I had never been to before, and I was so tempted by so many of the dishes on the menu. I ended up picking a spinach lasagna though in order to stick to my veggie day, and it was totally awesome. Once I started eating the meal I stopped thinking about the alternative dishes. Perhaps I just need to force myself to think this way more often, because I don’t feel like I missed out at all.
4. I managed another commute day where I didn’t do any driving, but this week I ended up taking the bus part of the way instead of walking the three miles from my son’s preschool to my office. My foot is still not back to one hundred percent after I injured it last week, so I decided I should stay off it a bit longer, even if my step count has been pretty sad this week.
5. The regular pen I use at work ran out of ink, so I dug out another refill and replaced just the cartridge, keeping the outside of the pen itself out of the landfill. While this doesn’t technically save me money personally since it is a work supply, it does save waste and saves the company money as well. I wrote a post last year about ways to make your office more sustainable, and this was one of them; so easy, but it does make a bit of an impact without actually changing the way you work at all.
Exercise Update
My exercise this week has been quite a bit subdued thanks to my foot injury, but it appears staying off it some has helped it get back to normal reasonably quickly. That said, Friday was a “very low” step count day for me at just over 8,000 steps, so I probably could have healed faster had I actually stayed off of it.
Saturday was then a lot of time working out in the garden, but a lot of that was sitting and pulling weeds. Sunday was a walk to the park after Easter dinner, but still just a slow 12,000 steps for the day. By Monday, I realized I had to do a better job of actually letting my foot rest and ended the day with barely 6,000, but *surprise* my foot felt 90% better after a real rest day.
Tuesday I continued to be good and worked out on the stationary bike and then lifted some weights since I decided my wrist was finally back to 100% after slipping on the ice a few months ago. I ended up being pretty sore on Wednesday because of it, which felt awesome because it had been quite some time since I had been work out sore.
I went for a very short run then on Wednesday, but kept it slow and mostly to a walk. Fingers crossed when I write this update next week it will be to say I’m totally back to normal. It’s been a rough few months as far as minor injuries are concerned.
Are you good about resting and taking care of injuries when they happen? Or are you more like me and end up stretching them out because you can’t slow down and just let them heal?