The Frenchman, aka the Banker, aka the amazing guy that I’ve been seeing over the past three months, is flying away on August 10th to the Land Down Under, leaving me on my lonesome for a full three weeks. While he’s in Australia for a wedding, I’m going to use the time to pump up my workouts, and NOT SPEND MONEY.
My problem is that I like spending time with him so much, that I am mostly going over to his place (it’s more convenient since I have a car), and wind up spending way more. He lives in a condo downtown, which is fantastic, but it means that when we’re downtown, we are usually eating out. He doesn’t keep a lot of food in his fridge because he is so busy with work and usually gets take-out, so our options are usually cooking with very limited means, or eating out. We sometimes go to pick up ingredients, but we are often on some sort of adventure downtown, which doesn’t give us very much time to stay in and cook.
Next week, I’m going to try a challenge where I work out every day BEFORE work, and prepare all of my lunches at home. I’ve been neglecting my exercise yet again because I’m tired when I come home, and since I’ve been spending so much time out of my apartment, I have barely unpacked. I also need to start swimming, which I’ll be doing in the evenings on top of my morning exercise. I’m looking forward to posting my before and after pics, they’re going to be pretty amazing.
So even though I’m sad that my wonderful, wonderful man is leaving me for 21 days (in a land with the world’s most dangerous animals, no less), I am genuinely looking forward to spending the weekends in my own home, which in turn will translate to doing more part time work, working out, and being home instead of being out spending money. Although I’m going to a birthday party tomorrow, I’m intentionally NOT scheduling any tea or dinner dates with friends, so I can have three weeks of relative solitude, and time to work on my own projects.
I am not worried about the bf. I am not worried about the bf. Oh God, he's going to get eaten by a gator and I'm going to have to identify the remains.
Also – thank you for all your words of warning about bed bugs. I did some research today and the first thing I’ll be doing when I get home is submerging my furniture find in some hot water. I’m now paranoid that I may have unwittingly chosen a piece that is infested (even though the odds are very slim and I have a dust cover on my bed, I am wishing I could run home right now to check over the table for signs of bugs). It’s going to live on my balcony until I paint it, I think. Once it’s painted, any and all cracks will be sealed shut, and even if there are little buggers in there, they’ll go the way of the dinosaur.
The final bill for my camping came in. I was expecting somewhere around $500, but it ended up being about $250 per person. Much, much better.
Oh, so been there. I used to clean and do food prep on Sundays, but now that I’ve been spending my weekends at The Boy’s (40km drive away, he has no roommates) that hasn’t been happening. It’s caused more than a few breakfasts/lunches/dinners out as a result of having no groceries. I must have mentioned something, because he’s started packing me lunches for Monday.
He went on a bike trip recently, and I did manage to get things done, but I realized some things gotta give. I do more in the evenings during the week, and like you stopped over booking social obligations. It’s helped a lot.
Yeah… Australia is a deadly place for wildlife. It has 2 or 3 of the world’s deadliest spiders. The funnel-web spider, for example, has a bite that will kill you in 20-30 minutes (an antedote exists, and is freely available, IIRC). Also, the death is absolutely horrible, including swelling of the tongue, frothing of the mouth and the most intense headache you could imagine, culminating in suffocation. The plus side is that they are mainly in the “outback” and don’t go indoors.
Hurray for the only books I read in grade 3. They’ve served me well.
Hey, I chose August as my month of frugality, too! NO eating out…can I do it? That has yet to be determined, but I’ve done well since the 1st!
Good luck to you – keep us posted!
good luck on the challenge! don’t worry about the Frenchman. He’ll be fine.
I hope it’s not bed bugs. Those are hard to get rid off. >_< But there's usually telling signs (ie: you can see them.)