February 3, 2009

Right now I'm out in sunny California, trying to keep my projects going and get all of my stuff done! Traveling seems to suck up a lot of time because you just spend more time driving, getting ready, eating, etc.... So you lose a few hours of every day. The upside is that I'm not at my house to work on the things I need to do there, so it kind of evens out.

And last night I filed my taxes so now I'm done! I should be getting my refund in about 8 business days. My refund wasn't as big as I was thinking it was going to be, but I'll be able to pay off all my loans on time so I won't get hit with any big APR's. So that makes me feel better. Now I just need to catch up to my credit card payments!

So since I've been traveling, I've tried really hard to eat reasonably, but sometimes it's so hard! The food out here is amazing, and they give me too much. But I've done a pretty good job of ordering things that are pretty healthy and eating decent portions. Today we went to this salad bar place and it was amazing! They had all the toppings you'd ever want to put on a salad, and you just made your own. They also had about 10 different soups and pizza and stuff like that. I wish MN had a restaurant like this, it was great. But it was a buffet style restaurant, and as I looked around at the people that were there, many of them were very obese, so that helped me keep my portions small. At that moment I vowed to avoid buffets whenever possible. It just made me sick to watch what some people were eating and what their KIDS were eating. Some of those kids will start having health problems when they're 18, it's really sad....

Since I'm traveling, I really have no personal expenses. And I'll be traveling about half of this month. And when I'm not traveling I'll either be working on the duplex or working at my new part time job. So that should keep me out of spending trouble and I'll be able to catch up with my credit card balance!

My focus at work has been off but I think that's because I'm in CA. When I'm out here it's really hard for me to get in "the zone". It's just not my normal atmosphere so I'm kind of out of it. Whenever I come out here my goal is to just take care of the things that HAVE to get done, and I'll take care of everything else when I get back in the office. The other thing that is getting my off focus at work is my management company and some opportunities that have shown their faces! It has real potential to take off! Then by the time I'm 30 maybe I'll be financially free and not have to work if I don't want to.

Right now I'm reading The Starbucks Experience. It's a pretty decent book about how to go above and beyond in regards to customer service but I'm not sure how much more there is to the book. Especially now knowing that Starbucks has taken a dive and isn't the mecca that it used to be. But there are some valid points to learn from it. I'm hoping to finish it by the time I land back in MN.

As for the house, I'm not sure what kind of shape it's in, I'm not there to mess it up, so I'm sure it's alright!

Also, I'm going to start trying to make my blogs more interactive, I just now learned how to put links in!