At least the mix I made is safe for work

I'm trying to keep my writing muscles limber and not be overcome with ennui, so here's some bullet points to get me going and we'll see where this leads us.

• Don't forget that Sunday at 5pm eastern is the deadline for our second Living Out Loud project. This assignment is to write an ode to something about your body that kicks ass. Part two of the assignment is to provide a photo of yourself that pleases you, but doesn't necessarily exemplify what kicks ass about your body. You can do it! Have I mentioned how nice you look today?

• Speaking of self-image, I dyed my hair last night. When I showed up, Joseph my pushy Filipino hair stylist met me at the door with a giant book of hair samples and declared, "we're doing something different today." Uh, ok. We did our usual bicker/banter over colors and I eventually closed my eyes and let him do what he wanted. I was shocked at the resulting color and not too sure if I liked it. Then Rich pointed out that it looks like Felicia Day and I think it will fade a bit into Katie West. Since those are two of the hottest ladies on the Internet, I'm suddenly much more pleased with my hair. As a note, it took me about 15 minutes to find a photo of Katie West that was safe for work, so cruise her site and Flickr stream at your own risk.

• Rich and I need to learn to synchronize our music purchases because we both have been buying stuff on Amazon and then don't tell the other about them. I think he might enjoy my Elvis Costello greatest hits and I could use his copy of I'm on a Boat to get that song out of my skull. Yet again, the audio for I'm on a Boat is not work-friendly, but grab your headphones and get it stuck in your brain just like I have.

• I bought one of the Kindle 2 book readers and it arrived yesterday. Amazon has already gotten a chunk of change from me as I bought several books I already had in print so that I might actually read them versus ignoring them around the house. My greatest joy in the Kindle is that it's kitty friendly and I can read it while the cats crawl all over me in bed. No more dropping hardback books and losing my place. It also easily fits in my purse. I bought some yarn to knit a cosey (kozie? kosee? whatever.) for it. I think that makes me a Crazy Kindle Lady.

• I'm cruising through old music on my iTunes. The Beach Boys just declared they were "loading up their woody" for their Surfin' Safari and I snickered out loud. Seriously.

On that note, I've created a mix for you all of songs I had forgotten how much I love. I hope they perk you up as much as they did me. There are several that make me snicker too. I'm looking at you, Ethel.

Well, Hello Old Friend - an OpenTape mix for your listening pleasure

Living Out Loud Volume 2: your body is a wonderland

After the great success of our first Living Out Loud Project, let's try it again! Lately, I've noticed a lot of people lamenting their bodies. Maybe we've all reached that cold weather slump after our New Year's Resolutions and we're disillusioned with what we see in the mirror. We've been diligent with our grapefruit diet, we've gone to the gym, we got a new hairstyle and it's still just not cutting it. I'm sad, though, to think so many people would give their own bodies an annual evaluation of "Needs Improvement" year after year without any sort of positive reinforcement. You wouldn't do that to an employee, you wouldn't do that to your child, and yet your tell yourself every day that you've been measured (perhaps literally) and found lacking.

Our body is our closest companion and the relationship we have with it shapes every other relationship we have with the outside world. So now is the time for us to snuggle up and write down what we love about ourselves physically. You don't have to pick a certain body part, but you can if you choose. Maybe you love the way your hair looks fresh out of the shower. Maybe you relish in being double-jointed or missed your calling as a hand model. Maybe God graced you with a great rack. Maybe you take for granted that you can heft a 40lb. bag of dog food by yourself and not fall over.

Tell us what makes you hot stuff. Perhaps just putting the words down will affirm them in your heart. Everyone has something that sets them apart physically. It's part of the magic of our diverse species. So revel in it for a bit and share it with the rest of us.

This project has a second part to it as well. With your submission, I'd like you to provide a current photo of yourself that pleases you. This means don't submit your baby portrait, but a photo that when you look at it you think, "yeah, I should probably print that out." The photo doesn't have to compliment your essay about your aforementioned hot stuff (or exemplify how you can carry a bag of dog food unassisted). It just has to be a photo that pleases you. I realize this means some of you will have to pull out the camera and take a photo of yourself, but that's part of the fun!

To make it a little less confusing than last month, once you have written your entry (with photo), email me the link to your blog post. If you don’t have a blog or web site to publish your submission, feel free to email the text and photo to me instead. Any email entries I receive that aren't blog posts, I will publish (with credit to you) on my site so everyone can read them. Remember that if you are using LiveJournal and normally lock your entries, please make this one entry public.

The deadline for submissions is 5pm eastern on Sunday February March 1 (whoops). Once I have compiled all the submissions, I will make a list of them with links for you all to enjoy. And again, like last month, one writer will receive a prize for his or her efforts.

So have at it and flaunt what your mamma gave you!

Cooking the books

After spending an hour balancing our bank account last night I was ready to hire someone to do it for me. Really, I'm at odds between my compulsion to track things to the penny and my fatigue at doing all the manual labor. I'm not sure when I started having such a hard time keeping up with it. I know part of it was all the house construction going on. That was also about the time we suddenly had two gas bills, two electric bills, two water bills and two mortgages for our two houses. Those bills are never due on the same day and the gas, power and city people can't comprehend that you might need a little more info about which bill it is other than it's the account ending in #7441. Would a street address kill you? So yeah, I've started to dread sitting down and tallying it all up.

We use Bank of America for all our accounts and I have used Microsoft Money for over 10 years now to track spending. I use Money to list every expense and deposit for our checking account. I can tell you how much I spent on my pavilion (purchased 6/5/2006), the shed at our old house (purchased 5/16/2005), and my laser eye surgery (performed on 7/1/2005 for the new fiscal year). These things are important to me to track and log somewhere electronically. But I can also tell you how many times we ate at Panera Bread last May (six) and how much our regular meal at Pho 79 costs every time we go there ($27.39).

Some of these facts are more important than others. I tell myself that I like to know what we're spending where and that Money has a ton of graphs to report that to us. I just wish there were an easier way to get the data into the system in a tidy format other than my manually typing it in twice a month.

I think our next plan is to put all our miscellaneous charges on the credit card and pay it off each month. The largest number of purchases each month is "dining out" and "miscellaneous" by far, not necessarily in amount of money but number of transactions. If I could just pay off a chunk of money each month and call it "food" in our bills, I would be happy. I would be happy to never have to enter a Starbucks receipt for $4.06 again.

I like knowing all this information but I just want it to be more on automatic pilot. I've got most of my bills set to auto pay now except for our water bill which doesn't have that option and a few others. I'm just convinced that one day we're going to come home to a very cold house and it will be because I forgot to pay a bill.

As I drag out all our papers to do our taxes, I'm glad I can do a quick tally in Money to tell me how many charitable contributions we made last year. I'm glad I can see how much heat costs in this house versus our old house. I'm glad I can know when the electric bill is due without hoping I haven't lost the paper slip in the mail. I just would like something a little more elegant.