With the changes we’re making around the apartment (moving things around and putting things in storage) in combination with the upcoming tax preparation, I’m starting to re-evaluate lots of things.

The housing situation I’m in bugs the living shit out of me. I’m tired of having me, Jenn, the two cats, and enough stuff to fill a two-bit flea market all crammed into 1000 square feet. It’s just not enough space. We’ve pared down a lot of the stuff we don’t use, making several donation trips to Goodwill, having a garage sale, and getting this storage closet to offload some of the lesser used items. Even with all of that, I’m irritated. I need space to stretch out and walk around in, and I just don’t have it here. I was hoping we could afford a house this year, but with Jenn in school and without a regular job, and me with the economy the way it is (thanks, stock market!), it’s just not going to happen.

The household budget is not nearly what it could be. I’m a cheap bastard, I’ll admit it. I really just don’t value food, so when friends ask me to go out for dinner, I usually say no - I just can’t spend that kind of money on something that goes in one hole and comes out the other. What I do buy are DVDs and CDs. I’m a media junkie. I’ve got this rockin’ CD database program that I use to keep track of my CDs, and looking at it now, it says I have 577 CDs. That’s counting multi-CD sets as individuals (so a two-CD set counts as “2” and not “1”). I can’t tell you how many DVDs I have, but they pretty much fill up a six foot tall bookcase. I love my media. But now that Christmas has passed and I have those bills coming in… and I bought my TV (which was admittedly expensive but I haven’t regretted it for a single second)… man, I’m fucking broke. I mean, seriously. I used to be able to pay all my bills and then put a little money into savings for a down payment on a house or something. Not anymore. I’m spending every penny I bring in, trying to pay down the credit cards and stuff. I haven’t bought nearly as many CDs or DVDs as I usually do, which hurts morale but helps on the budget. I’m hoping to have some of the larger bills paid off by the end of the quarter, at which point I will be in a better situation.

Physical fitness has me irritated, too. As in, “I’m a hunk of lard and my ass is melting over the sides of my chair right now because I’m so disgustingly atrophied.” Jenn and I are both a little concerned over our personal fitness, since we both have desk jobs providing exercise roughly the equivalent of grazing. We’ve picked up a couple of those yoga exercise balls and have done a little work there, but somehow I think I’m going to need something a little higher impact to counteract the effect of the berry pie in the refrigerator. (Change my diet? Are you nuts?) Of course, I’ve talked about this before, so I won’t go on with it. But it does bug me.

So, anyway, I’m re-evaluating all this stuff, realizing that something’s got to give. I’m not sure what it’ll be first, but something tells me I’ll fix up my budget and correct inadequacies in my housing situation prior to ever getting anything resembling muscle tone.