75 Miles Later

75 Miles. In 24 days. No dessert.

I was soooooooo ready for this donut.

From Daytime TV to a Full Thermometer

Last year J and I were sorting through some tough decisions regarding the financial investment that is our home. Like many others, we bought our home near the peak of the bubble hoping to get in before we couldn't afford to, and then, as we all know, the bubble popped, leaving us with a mortgage that was very disproportional to the market.

But we have a home. We can afford to pay our mortgage and put food on the table and clothes on our backs and still have wiggle room for fun luxuries like eating out and traveling. We are abundantly blessed, especially when we maintain a whole world perspective. However, we also wanted to be financially wise, and from an investment standpoint, we were aboard a sinking ship - "underwater" is the popular term. So in the interest of good stewardship and proactivity in our finances, we evaluated our options. We had to do something. We had to do something. We didn't want to keep paying this crazy mortgage into nowhere anymore. What if we ever want to move? That wasn't an option because there was no way we could sell, and we could never rent to cover our payment. After a lot of thought, prayer, and wise counsel, we decided to go with a hare-brained scheme I cooked up after watching a talk show.

No joke.

Anna Newell Jones was the guest on the talk show - she writes the blog And Then We Saved, all about how she went on a spending fast in order to pay off her overwhelming debt. Her initial goal was just to pay off $6,000 in a year, but once she got going she was able to pay off over $17,000 of debt in the first year. And her complete debt of over $23,000 was paid off in 15 months!  And I thought.....you know, if she could pay off $17,000 of debt by herself in a year, together we should be able to too.

I was inspired.

Our mortgage was actually two loans - it was an 80%/15%/5% loan, the 5% being our down payment.  Thanks to the HARP 2.0 program, we were finally rewarded for paying our mortgage on time every month and we were able to refinance the 80% loan, giving us a much better interest rate and lower monthly payment on that loan. But we were not able to do that for our 15% loan...so instead, I came up with the crazy idea that we should pay it off.

It seemed like a huge, intimidating number. But we had some wiggle room in our budget already, and, thanks to the refinance, we were about to have the extra money we were saving from our newly lowered monthly payment. And so I started thinking about what else we could cut from our budget so that we could pour that money into paying off our 15% loan instead. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that now is the perfect time for this kind of project. The boys are young and won't notice less gifts, less vacations, less extras.  Paying off the small loan would lead to a lower monthly mortgage payment, and would bring our payment down into a range where we could possibly rent the house for that price, if we ever decided to move. So I punched in the numbers, presented the idea to J, and we decided to go for...not broke, exactly, but a streamlined budget.

I thought it would probably take us 18 months - optimistically, maybe we could cut it down to 15 months - but I guessed there would probably be some unexpected hiccups along the way.

I knew this would only work if we stayed motivated and excited about this project, especially when we were missing a luxury item we had cut out, and I didn't want to dump most of our savings account (we did keep an emergency fund in our savings) into this mortgage if we weren't going to finish the job, so I made us a little thermometer to fill in each month to track our progress. Nothing fancy - in fact, it looked grade-school caliber, but I hung it behind our computer where we would see it every day. I did not expect that little thermometer to be as motivating as it was - the thermometer helped us keep track of exactly how much we owed at all times, and every time we colored more red and saw our progress we got excited about new ways that we could get to the top faster.

On Saturday, J paid our last payment on our small loan.

We accomplished our goal in 10 months.

And I got to do the honors of coloring in the thermometer all the way to the top.

I still cannot believe we were able to accomplish this goal in such a short time frame. Initially we used a chunk of savings and our tax return, and this year's tax return went in too, and J took extra side jobs which also really moved things along. We had also cut out or cut down on various luxury items. And we did it!!!

Now, between the refinance of the larger loan and paying off this loan, our mortgage is cut down by 1/3!

Now that I know what we are capable of, I am already coming up with more crazy saving schemes - but first, J and I are going to celebrate this summer. We are going to my niece's high school graduation in Washington, are planning on a family beach trip (a yearly tradition we have missed the last two summers), some camping with the boys, I'm getting a new pair of running shoes

......and J and I booked a Hawaii trip!!

Work hard, play hard, right?

And that's the story of how daytime TV transformed my life...or, at least, my budget. :)

The Journey of 6.2 miles - Check!

OhmygoshI'msounbelieveablybehindonblogging.

Just going to forge ahead.

Remember when I decided to train for a 10K? Well,

my to-do list now reads like this:

10K - CHECK!

(I live for those check marks).

I ran the entire 6.2 miles of the CATwalk around the U of A campus AND I ran it at a 10:37 pace, which was much faster than I expected. I did not pay any attention to my pace or times while training until the last long run I did before the 10K, and then I got all interested in what time I would finish in. My "goal" became to run it in 1 hr and 15 minutes, but my secret goal was to finish in 1 hr and 10 minutes, so when I crossed the halfway mark at 31:30 I was surprised and proud and I welled up a little, especially because I had just seen this:

and I ended up finishing at 1:05:51. Jubilation!

I was surprised at how emotional I was over this accomplishment. And at how much I really enjoyed the training process.

With Wilma the Wildcat, our mascot.
(BB burst into tears the moment Wilma looked at him.)

The Gory Details

If you're interested, here are the gory details of the entire run:
The first half of the race was tough. Way harder than I expected. I actually thought "Am I going to be able to do this?" I was really surprised because I had ran 5.5 miles twice before the race and felt great, I had never felt that weak, even though the 4th mile would be tough, but then I would get into a groove and feel really loose and feel like I could run a lot longer.

I had a friend from work that was also running the race, so we ran the first two miles together - she has a good 6 inches on me and is in training for a half marathon, but was getting over a cold so we decided to start the race together.


After the race she told me she was surprised at the pace we kept (she knew that I hadn't been worrying about times at all, just running to finish the distance), and that we crossed the 1 mile mark at 9:40. So that explained why I felt so drained so early on in the race - I was trying to keep up with her!


The race was also tough because everything was different from my normal runs - I am not used to running with someone, I didn't know the course, we were running on a rough road with lots of potholes, and it was really hot out. I had almost changed my mp3 playlist for the 10K, and I was so relieved that I didn't because it was one thing that was familiar.

I fell back from T about the two mile mark.

Once I crossed the halfway point I got into a comfortable groove and since the race was two laps of a 5K, I knew the course the second time around, and I felt really good the rest of the race. I definitely felt my body want to stop about the 5.5 mile mark, like it was saying "Okay! We're done now right? This is where we always stop!?" but we kept on going, and finished strong.

And that's my 10K adventure! Would I do it again? Definitely!
In fact, on Thanksgiving Day I ran a 4 mile Turkey Trot in Olympia, Washington with my sister, brother, brother-in-law, and niece! And it felt awesome - it was a perfect way to start Thanksgiving. I never understood those people that truly enjoyed the running and not just the feeling of accomplishment or fulfilling a workout obligation afterwards, and now I have been converted. So converted that I even ran those 4 miles IN THE SNOW.
(You know you're from Arizona when you really want to insert a word between "the" and "snow").


Evidence

New York City: an Other Mommy Tale

J and I got to take a vacation. Just the two of us. To New York City.

Yes, it was totally amazing.

With a free place to stay with one of our favorite friends from college and an iconic city to explore, how could it not be, right? Unrestricted by nap times and bed times and unencumbered by diaper bags and strollers, we felt liberated (albeit a little lonely for our little man). Waiting for our plane in the Tucson airport, we realized, Hey! We're not responsible for anyone but ourselves! This feels SO WEIRD!!

GG came to Tucson and stayed with BB while J and I took a bite out of the Big Apple - it was such a blessing knowing that BB was loved and safe (and probably a little spoiled) while we embarked on the trip of a lifetime.

The trip of a lifetime.

I keep using that phrase to describe our trip, and what I mean by that is that I will never forget this trip, ever. I will never forget the freedom, the exploration, the excitement, and the culture J and I experienced in those five days. Our time together in New York City will go down as a Personal Record in the statistics of our marriage, a goal in the World Cup of our relationship, a bestseller in the volume-filled library of our life together.

And now, an exhaustive photographic tour of New York City, as seen by J & K:

Listening to Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z on the plane as we got ready to land at JFK

My first subway stop EVER!
(J had been to NYC once a couple of years ago for less than 24 hours - he had a work conference in Rhode Island and took the train to see our friends.) We are in love with public transportation. We felt so much more connected to the city than if we had been in a car.

Thanks to a 3-hour time difference and no built-in tiny-human-alarm clock, J and I slept until 12:40 pm the first day - AUGH! We awoke panicked that we were sleeping away our vacation, but at least we were well-rested.

Street hot dogs in Times Square - Thanks to a recommendation from a friend (who helped me plan our trip) we weren't afraid to try them. (Yes, I'm eating a hot dog. No, this is not a normal occurrence. But I figured it's a New York thing - when in Rome, right? Also, I was really hungry.)

The Times Square shot. For those of you who are wondering (like I was), Times Square is basically just a big commercial.

But in this moment, it's an encouraging commercial. Great Times Are Waiting, Times Square.

Here we are sitting on the double-decker bus tour - the bus tour had both tourist and resident stamps-of-approval, so we knew we wanted to do it. Our favorite thing we learned about the city was that the same family has been building wooden rooftop water tanks for buildings all over New York for over a century.

Empire State Building, as seen from a double-decker tour bus

The Flatiron building - J really liked this building

My first sighting of the Dean & Deluca that the D&D in Felicity is modeled after - J sweetly researched this ahead of time for me. Now's probably a good time to tell you that Felicity was a big part of my NYC trip. I'm actually surprised it took this long to come up.

We got off the bus to eat some "linner" in Little Italy, since thanks to grossly oversleeping and our Broadway tickets for that evening, we had to budget our time and couldn't take advantage of the hop-on-hop-off feature of the bus tour. The streets are literally lined with restaurants, and we actually just let a waiter corral us to his reasonably-priced table. We found our way home with Andy's handy-dandy pop-up map (seriously, the coolest map book ever) and with Laura's crash-course in New York geography floating around in my head.


Outside the theater later that evening

We saw Promises, Promises, starring Sean Hayes and Kristen Chenowith, who is so talented. This show also co-starred Katie Finneran, who won a well-deserved Tony for her hilarious role in this show.


Times Square around 11 pm


We then ventured on to legendary Junior's Cheesecake, what all cheesecake aspires to be, where we ate a slice of raspberry swirl cheesecake that will forever leave us disappointed in all future cheesecake.


And then we went to Rockefeller Center.

We wanted to try to go to Top of the Rock to see the skyline, but we got there at 11:50 and it closed at midnight. We never did make it up there, so Top of the Rock is at the top of the list for next trip.

DAY TWO:

At "our" (Andy's) subway stop
(Many thanks to Laura for modeling scarf fashion that I could steal)


Just casually waiting for our train, completely oblivious to the photography
(P.S. Every time a train went by and my hair blew back, I felt like Felicity at the Bleeker Street stop)


Mmm, bagels. I had apple cream cheese - amazing. We ate on the subway. Because we could because no one had to drive. Because we're pretty much New Yorkers at this point. We are so much New Yorkers that we even got a bagel with lox, in the spirit of "When in Rome" - I think I read about lox in Babysitters Club. Stacey was from New York, after all. The lox was mostly gross after my sweet apple cream cheese, but if you like savory cream cheese maybe it could be good.



St. Paul's Chapel, est. 1776 - across the street from the World Trade Center, which is currently under construction.
I remember this iron gate where people hung memorials to their loved ones from photos of September 11th coverage. The headstones in the church cemetery were hundreds of years old.



At a memorial area that displayed a model of the future World Trade Center site. Very moving - there were videos playing with people sharing their memories from September 11th, 2001 and family members talking about their loved ones and heroes.


We took the (free!) Staten Island Ferry to see Lady Liberty


Then we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge


and ate iconic New York Grimaldi's Pizza


Then we walked back across the Brooklyn Bridge, but this time at night, and went to an improv comedy show with Andy (our host, who's the greatest). Suffice it to say that our tourist-cards were thoroughly punched at this point.

DAY THREE:

Meet JM and Sarah, dear friends from college. They live in this amazing apartment on the Upper West Side. As in, across the street from the Natural History Museum. As in, you can see Central Park from their rooftop deck. Yes, I just said rooftop deck. Where the view looks like this:


They are living our fantasy New York City life.
But we got to live it with them for a day. We joined them at their church, where I actually thought, I could see myself liking this church like I like my church, which is a tall order to fill. But the amazing worship music and challenging, authentic message were undeniably great. Then we walked through Central Park to have brunch at Isabella's, where we ate Filet Mignon Eggs Benedict. It doesn't get fancier than that people. The meal even came with an included mimosa, coffee, or orange juice. Fancy.
After we toured their apartment, the men put on their matching jaunty caps

and we went for a stroll through Central Park.


The bridge from Keeping the Faith where Edward Norton says,
"You know, I think whoever said it, it was really true. The true New Yorkers understand that people living anywhere else must be, in some sense, kidding."


J and I had gotten used to Andy's thoughtful, informative answers to all of our New York questions. JM was a different kind of tour guide (but equally lovable). "I think Strawberry Fields are over there somewhere..." "What's that?" "I don't know." "Where's the Alice and Wonderland statue?" "I don't know - is there one?" I was dying laughing by the end of it.
Later the men watched football while Sarah took me shopping (WOO!) and then we got to meet and get to know their friends for dinner at Calle Ocho (Latin American food with a sangria bar) and dessert at Shake Shack.

DAY FOUR:
Okay, back to Felicity.

Breakfast at Dean & Deluca. This was probably my favorite day of the whole trip. And not just because I'm wearing my new favorite dress (purchased the day before). J and I plotted this whole day, figuring out what was close to what, found our way around (I LOVED that!) and did a bunch of things we had seen or heard of the first couple of days and wanted to spend more time doing, along with a couple of recommendations.


Drinking Dean & Deluca coffee in Bryant Park? It doesn't get more Felicity than that.


Bryant Park is where Ben was supposed to meet Felicity to see an outdoor movie, but he doesn't. Later, to win Felicity back, (at Dean & Deluca) he gives her a film reel of the movie they were supposed to see, calls it a time machine, and they watch it projected on the roof. It's very romantic. I cry every time he says "No, it's a time machine."


Behind Bryant Park is the New York City Public Library, where Big and Carrie don't get married. There were a lot of pop culture romantic mishaps in this area.
The library was under construction - boo.

But seriously, Bryant Park is beautiful and busy - I loved it. They have a children's play area with children's books just sitting outside on a cart, and all of the little tables - it's lovely. I think there is a city girl not too far from the surface in here, and Bryant Park made me want to pick up and move.


We found Washington Square Park!


We went into fancy stores in Greenwich and Soho - After Marc Jacobs and Vera Wang I stopped taking pictures of them, but trust me, there is no shortage of actual designer shops. I also went into some fun, more affordable vintage shops that I think were more in Greenwich than Soho.


And then we found this store - See that $4.99 Shoes Sale sign in the window? Yes Please!
J patiently waited while I shopped.


Yup, here's the Dean & Deluca Felicity's was modeled after. Again. I had to get a non-blurry photo.



Amazing street art we saw along the way.



Pastrami for lunch at Katz Deli, where they filmed "that scene" from When Harry Met Sally. See the little sign?


Cupcakes for dessert at Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery. The best cupcake I've ever eaten, hands down. Strawberry cheesecake. And I think they were $1.25.






Then we rowed boats in Central Park. This was probably my favorite thing we did the whole trip (Thanks for the suggestion Betsy!) - it was so refreshing. J and I played, challenging each other to rowing duels, and enjoyed the amazing views of the park and the city skyline.


The sun was setting as we got out of our boat and went on a mission to find that Alice statue (another thing I had read about in Babysitters Club). Along the way, J found Hans Christian Anderson.


And then we found Alice!


This was when I realized one thing I do not like about NYC - whatever you want to do, chances are there are a bunch of other people who want to do it too, so you don't really experience anything alone. For example, I would've loved a picture of J and I with Alice without a pink booty next to us.

After we checked Alice off of our list, we met Andy and he gave us a tour of Columbia, where he is about to complete grad school.

Andy showed us the old Columbia library, which is where they now award people the Pulitzer Prize. Seriously. New York is such a big deal.


And then he took us to a delicious Italian restaurant (where I waited for 5 minutes outside a locked door that turned out not to be the bathroom). It rained while we were inside eating - the restaurant is subset into the ground, you have to walk down steps from the surface level to get in, so we could see the rain hitting the pavement out the window, and it made it so cozy inside. Food was delicious and the company was better.

DAY FIVE:
It was supposed to rain on our last day, but it ended up raining the night before, and it never did rain during the day - we had planned to go to the Metropolitan Museum this day, to stay dry and to mix in some actual culture with all the Felicity pop culture.


We saw Picasso and Dali and O'Keefe and Rockwell, to name just a few. Marble statues and ancient jewelry and ancient armor and Egyptian artifacts.


We saw the fountain that Claudia and Jamie bathed in and stole money from in one of my favorite children's books, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.


That's the Thinker at the top.

We had spied this bamboo structure on the top of the Met when we were in Central Park


and we went up to the roof to see it up close.



I put my Barbizon Modeling School experience to good use


And so did J


The skyline on the roof of the Met

Then we raced through the Natural History Museum in thirty minutes - we just wanted to see the dinosaurs.

When J was a little boy, he wrote a book about dinosaurs. He made the cover out of cardboard. I've seen it.




Then we raced to Times Square to meet JM for a farewell cupcake


which we ate at Rockefeller Center. This was our lunch. I've figured out how people in NYC stay thin - you walk everywhere, and there's so much to do that you only have time to eat two meals a day.

Why were we at Rockefeller Center, you ask? Well because we had to get to the 30 Rock building for our taping of the Jimmy Fallon show! Andy's friend works for the show and was able to get us last minute tickets to the taping! I kept waiting for them to announce that Keri Russell was the guest, but as it turned out, Johnny Knoxville and Judah Friedlander were there instead.

See us in the audience? Look for my yellow sweater.


The boys got high-fives from Jimmy Fallon!




Outside the studio after the taping


After the taping, J and I scoured Times Square for a souvenir, and then went back and spent some quality time with Andy, our amazing host and dear friend. He's the greatest.

I am so thankful for how this trip just came together. I feel like the Lord planned out this opportunity for us way before we realized it and I just praise Him for making it happen for us. Our time off of work was already carved out when other plans fell through and we realized we could use the time to finally visit New York, in October, when we had always been told the weather was perfect (and it was - sunny and comfortably cool every day).

I'm so glad I went on this trip because I found out that New York is a normal place where normal people live - yes, there are famous people and there's fashion and culture and history, but actually being there, everything was just a little less glamorous than I expected, in a comforting way, a way that made it accessible to me. I wasn't totally separate from this vibrant city - in fact, (start spreading the news...) I was a part of it, for a few days.

What else is there to say? I heart NY.