Update on the Last month

Molly and I have been fairly busy for the past 3 weeks. We have both been working out a lot to try to get in good shape for our Peru hike at the end of March. I'd say that we're doing very well with that. I'm down to 207 lbs, and put on a ton of muscle. Molly has lost a little weight, too, and is getting very strong too.

On top of that, we have been on a budget... in this economy you really can't be too careful. Not that we we're crazy spenders anyway, but we have been lazy about getting the credit cards paid off. We were sitting at 15k at the beginning of December, and we'll be credit card debt free on March 20th... and that is including the Peru trip, and a trip to Atlanta that we added in between there. So we've been playing it all pretty low-key. Eating in as much as possible, not buying expensive wine (it was suprising how much we were spending on that). Quicken really is a life-saver for tracking all of that.

Last night we went out for the first time this month. We had a coupon for a place here in town near our house, and had some movie tickets that we had purchased from Costco last year. The dinner was pretty good... a bit expensive, but it was nice to get out of the house. Afterward we saw Coraline, which is a Tim Burton animated film. It was filmed here in Portland, and it was in 3D... I loved it, and recommend it highly.

On Monday Molly is getting a colonoscopy, just as a preventative thing since she has family history (and personal history) of that kind of problem. So tomorrow she cannot eat anything except clear liquids, and has to take a "sh*t ton" of mirolax. Not fun... but at least its not me doing it :)

Molly flew out to Atlanta for her Mom's birthday over Valentines day (last weekend)... I stayed home because it really was cost-prohibitive... one ticket was $500, and $1000 for 48 hour trip is really out of our budget right now. She said she had a great time and enjoyed seeing her family. She gave her mom some neat gifts. She spent like 5 weeks learning some of her Mom's favorite songs on piano and did a concert for the whole family. She had them down cold here at the house, but said she messed up a lot when it counted. She also put together a cool slide-show of her mom's life to music, and burned it onto a DVD for her. It was very cool.

I've been working my butt off. I've worked pretty much 75 hours a week for the past 5 weeks. I should be working right now, and I'll get back to it right after this. I'm ready to be done with this project, for sure. I'm hoping to be "over the hump" so-to-speak by Tuesday or Wednesday... and I think that is obtainable.

Anyway, I should get back to it. I apologize to everybody that I've been ignoring as of late... its not on purpose. I'm just swamped. I can't wait to get back to a "normal" life of wine-tasting, hot-tub-sitting, skiing and mountain climbing. I love it here!