Sailing Baby Blue

As part of our 2011 plan to pursue some short-term goals, I signed up for and just started yoga teacher training. From what I can gather about the requirements of training, I will be at the yoga studio whenever I'm not at work or asleep.So, that thing I said about starting an Etsy shop to occupy myself and make some extra money? Forget about that. Maybe teaching yoga is something I will be able to do as we travel to feed the cruising kitty, or at least can provide additional funds while we're preparing to leave. Yoga has been the only form of exercise I've found that I actually enjoy. Or to put it a little more accurately, I absolutely hate working out, and yoga is something I enjoy that happens to be considered exercise. Instead of feeling like a chore, it reminds me of how much I used to love ballet. Since we've been focusing so much on saving money, we had enough to cover the training. It's a rather impulsive decision, I admit, (let's spend all the mon...

In November of last year we created a budget and have been keeping track of our expenses since then. I must say that I'm doing a great job keeping track of how much we spend, and not such a great job actually sticking to the budget. Each month so far we've come up with some reason to go way over budget. I guess we do a pretty good job staying within the limits of the categories we've created, but something always comes up that we haven't planned for and we easily convince ourselves to spend. In December it was Christmas presents. Next year we will definitely set a limit on that. Yeesh. Also, we decided to take a trip to Strawberry Hot Springs for my birthday. It was wonderful, but expensive. In January, we took a snowboarding trip with friends. In February we bought a new printer, new glasses for me, concert tickets, ballet tickets, and a bike trainer for Jon. However, the amazing news for February is that we'r...

A couple of weeks ago we finally found the motivation to build the cold frame we'd been thinking about since October. It took about 10 minutes to build and probably cost about $5. We used the PVC pipe we had left over from hoola hoop making for the wedding, clear plastic sheeting, and pipe clamps. Last week I planted it with a crunchy winter green mix, two varieties of spinach, and mustard greens. I also started some onion sets in the other garden beds. The cold frame has been getting up around 20 degrees warmer than outside temperatures, and I've been opening it in back to vent it most mornings so it doesn't overheat. It definitely helps with moisture retention and I've only had to water every 3 days or so.

Jon's still hanging in there with biking to work everyday. There were a few days at the beginning of last month where the temperature dropped to 20 below zero. I gave him a ride on those days, because even my car was having trouble. The antifreeze actually froze in the lines and my engine overheated! Luckily it wasn't anything major (knock on wood) and the car was fine after the thaw.

Jon and I both independently came to the conclusion that we need some sort of goal to work toward right now that can be achieved a little sooner than the Cruising-Within-Four-Years dream. It occurred to me when I decided that I want to open my own etsy store this year, that it really feels good to have a large but relatively short-term goal again. I was crafting like a crazy person before the wedding, but felt a little lost afterward as to how to spend all my new found free time. Now with an achievable outcome in sight I'm much more motivated to practice my sewing and pattern-making skills. Jon has been saying for awhile that it's hard for him to stay motivated to attain something so far in the future, and needs something to keep himself occupied in the meantime. Since he's been without a car for almost a year and half now, he has rediscovered his love of biking. He is going to start training for the Leadville 100 bike race this A...

We just got all of our pictures back from the wedding, and they're amazing. Thank you Patrick ! I wanted to share all of the things we made and opted to do ourselves. It was an insane amount of work but so worth it! I guess first thing's first: the dress. I used my grandmother's wedding dress that my mother wore when she married my dad. They gave me permission to do whatever I wanted with it, all they wanted out of the bargain was a picture. My bouquet: I decided early on that I didn't want to spend a lot of money on flowers that might wilt on the big day and ultimately die. After a lot of searching, I decided the brooch bouquet was for me and that I could make one myself. I scored some vintage jewelry at an auction and supplemented the collection with jars of treasures from my favorite costume shop. The result was a perfect excuse not to do the bouquet toss! Ahem, I also made something to get us out of the garter toss: I made...

So, we borrowed a friend's truck and went out to Moab again for another dirt biking adventure. I took a pretty hard fall in the sand, and then freaked out for ...two days. I really didn't want to fall again and just felt nervous constantly. Apparently that just makes it worse. But, we were on some beautiful trails the second day and saw deer. It would've been a bit more enjoyable if I weren't afraid I was going to die the whole time. Then, for the non-biking part of the trip we drove 4 or 5 more hours to Bryce Canyon. It was definitely worth the trip. So dirt biking doesn't have much to do with the subject of this blog: saving money to go sailing. But maybe posting will make me feel better about the money we spent. And hey, going on mini-adventures prepares us for our future grand adventure!