Guess what? It's close. It's all close.
Work, money, relationship, family, friends, and fitness.
Quickly breaking it all down - work: I am now one of the rarest of the rare - I have not one, not two, but three jobs. I'm still working at Sport Clips, which is my bread and butter. It pays the bills, it's helped me grow leaps and bounds with men's cuts and it lead me to my second job, at a full service salon. I'm assisting at Hairlights Salon in Pleasanton, which is a Paul Mitchell Focus salon. I've already learned SO much both on the hair side and the business side. The owner is an amazing educator with Paul Mitchell and has so much business savvy. I am beside myself that I fell into this opportunity. The third job is less time consuming, but more of a passion that Sport Clips. I was hired to freelance with MAC Cosmetics, after years of working on my own to build a portfolio and waiting for the opportunity. I am thrilled.
Money: Jeff and I have started to budget using a software called YNAB. It was $60 to download the software for our computers and $5 each to download the app for iPhone. After one month of using the budget I can safely say it was $70 well spent. We've been living paycheck to paycheck for sometime, and while we're never dirt broke I hate juggling with bills - "let's pay this now and these two after we get paid again..." - it was terrible. Thanks to YNAB after one month we already have 25% of our buffer (that is a full month's income) built up, so in theory by November we should have a 100% buffer built up and can simply pay bills as they come in. Additionally I set up a debt snowball. We should have all of our debt (minus student loans) paid off within a year, perhaps less. And the total of our debt is NOT tiny. We relied on our credit cards way way way too much in 2011.
Relationship: Without delving too much into it (because it is not just my business but Jeff's as well), we went through a bit of a rocky phase. I was stressed out, worrying constantly and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Luckily we worked it out and are better than ever. Saying our relationship is solid is an understatement, and I'm thrilled neither of us just quit when it got hard.
My family life and friends are great. My mom and dad are doing pretty well, my sister is taking HER cosmetology state board exam tomorrow and things are just going all together well. I'm hoping the trend continues. My friendships have all been flourishing, I don't know how with my schedule being more hectic than ever I've had time to nurture those relationships but I'm grateful. It's only gotten harder to see my high school friends regularly since everyone's married and has kiddos and grown up jobs and lives, but we made it work this past weekend when we participated in The Color Run, then had a BBQ after. And we have plans next June for a girls only joint 30th birthday weekend at a beach house. Two days sitting on the beach with a cocktail in my hand? Yes, please.
Fitness: Remember how in my last post (in JUNE) I said things were clicking and I was seeing big changes? Well that's an understatement:
The photo on the left is June 1. The photo on the right is July 31. In two months I lost just shy of 40 pounds, went from wanting to die running for 60 seconds to completing a 5K training program (still working on actually being able to run the entire 3.1, but I can officially say I am addicted to running!), am feeling STRONG and capable, and am happy. Happy as hell. Thanks to Ease into 5K and the bootcamp I just started I am watching my body change every day. Feel free to keep watching with me!
