It’s ok to not be ok.I hereby welcome you to my Pity Party.
I saw a tweet the other day that said “physically i am two days away from july, emotionally i am still processing February.” This could not be any more real. Like… what the F*&K happened to 2020?? I looked at the calendar the other day and I was like wow… back in January, WHO WOULD HAVE THUNK?!
And here’s the thing, there are a lot of terrible things going on in the world. There is a police brutality crisis, mass incarceration, unemployment, world hunger, and Russian dictators putting bounties on American soldiers. Not to mention 503K deaths worldwide from Covid, and more every day.
But you know what else is going on? NOTHING. At least in my life. And to be completely honest, I have good days and bad days. Last weekend? A lot of bad days. But I had ice cream, which made it a little bit better.
I’m in mourning for the year I thought I was going to have. I had really high hopes! I had goals to visit three new countries. Remember traveling? Another goal: to go to 100 bootcamp classes. Ya know, at the gym. Remember those? And another goal: To book hair for 2 weddings. Remember weddings? Where people attended IRL and got their hair done?
Speaking of weddings, how about mine?
This is usually around the point where I start to unravel. Not to be overly dramatic, but my entire plan for my life has come undone at this point. And yes, I know it’s only been 4 months of quarantine (so far), but the reality is, we have a LONG road ahead of us. No vaccine on the horizon, no idea when it will be released. When it is, will it be safe? Will it be unfathomably expensive? Will it be widely available? Should it be? We won’t know the long-term side effects; we won’t really know what side effects there are at all. Will you even feel comfortable taking it? And how long until we do feel comfortable? What happens in the meantime?
Back to my life plan – it’s out the window at this point. I feel like Rachel from Friends when she turns 30. (That whole clip is worth watching, by the way.)
In Rachel’s words, “I realized it was stupid to get upset about not having a husband and kids, all I really needed was a plan!” Well we all know what they said about the best laid plans. If you guys don’t watch the clip, the gist is that she wants three kids, starting to have the first one at 35 so she counts backward from there and… spoiler alert, she is already too old for her own plan.
I’m not going to say I live by the Rachel Green’s plan, but the annoying part about this whole pandemic is that a LOT of things have been postponed. Weddings can be pushed off, travel can be rescheduled, engagement parties, brunches, celebrations of all kinds. But you know what Rachel had right? Time marches on and fertility still has an expiration date. Wtf!
Now, this is not a blog about having a baby, and I’m not having one right now anyway, but I’d like to have time before I do. Time to travel without kids. Time to enjoy my engagement. Time to celebrate it. Time to plan a wedding and actually visit venues, to have the opportunity see them with my own eyes. Time to enjoy Girls Nights Out.
When we got engaged, for the three glorious weeks post-engagement and pre-pandemic, people asked if we had a wedding date. (Why? I have no idea. Don’t do that, guys.) Anyway, when I said we didn’t, invariably they said, “That’s great! That’s fine! Enjoy your engagement! It’s the best time.”
Is this “enjoying our engagement?” Is it “the best time?” Living in a house that is not our own, halfway across the country, without the ability to go out on dates, have an engagement party, show off my ring, see my parents? I can’t even get my nails done to show my ring off on Instagram!
So yeah, I’m not ok. Not today, at least. I spent the last three days watching TV and trying to forget real life. It didn’t really work but the ice cream was good. I realize that things could be worse. We are lucky to be employed, safe, healthy, etc. But sometimes I need to throw myself a pity party. Y’all are invited to the next one. It’ll be on Zoom. BYO ice cream.
It’s TUESDAY!! And that means Date Night. Date Night is something that is sacrosanct in our house. It’s how I have lasted years through CFA studying, and years in a relationship in general with someone who works upwards of 70 hours/week. Every Tuesday, there is a recurring event in my google calendar, (shared with my fiancé), “Chris and Emily Date Night.”
Why Tuesday? To be honest, date night started at the very beginning of our relationship. Girls love to create their own rules to make sure they don’t seem too “available” or “easy.” My self-designated way of doing that? I told him I was only free on Tuesdays! It made me seem unattainable and super busy, it meant no sleepovers (duh I had work the next day), and it was a great way to get through the week. Both of us had busy schedules, I was teaching 3 classes/week at the gym and he was working 90 hours/week at the time. It was important to set aside time to see each other. Slowly, it became a tradition. Nowadays, if I have something else I need to do on a Tuesday, I ask in advance if we can switch date night to another night of the week. I love that it ensures that we see each other or make dedicated time for each other at least once.
When we moved in together, I didn’t think date night would
be necessary anymore, but I was wrong. Even if we fall out of the habit for a
few weeks because of work travel or other things, we can always feel the distance
start to come between us. I guess that’s what living in New York means, everyone
is so busy!
I know what you’re thinking… every week??? Don’t you run out
of things to do? Isn’t it expensive?? No, and sometimes.
When we first started dating, I used to complain that Chris’s only date ideas were going out to dinner. Not that I don’t like dinner, hello, I LOVE food, but I like doing activities. A long time ago, I sent him a list of possible ideas. Now, I have a running list of date ideas in my Bullet Journal. Some still involve dinner, but at cool spots, like a Liberian restaurant, or a Japanese place that has a prix fixe menu set to old-school vinyl. And some involve actual activities like mini golf, bowling, pottery, and holiday markets.
DANGEROUS Date Night, ax-throwing in Brooklyn.
Yummy Date Night, make your own ice cream.
Fancy Date Night, out to a Broadway show.
Casual Date Night, out for a margarita.
Some of them are relatively cheap or free, like walking around a new neighborhood, and some of them are pricier, like seeing a Broadway show. And about half the time, they don’t involve going anywhere at all! One of my favorite date nights involves cooking dinner at home, watching Netflix (we STILL haven’t finished The Wire), and maybe walking across the street for ice cream after. The purpose of date night isn’t to spend money or explore new places (although the latter is a cool perk), it’s to spend time with each other and not get lost in the hustle and bustle of New York. It gives us a designated day of the week where I promise not to teach at the gym or go out with friends, and Chris promises to try and get home from work at a normal hour.
Most recently, we went to Dave & Busters. Taking the subway and the getting out at Times Square, especially amidst the Corona situation, is not usually something I would volunteer to do. The food was sub-par and the table was a little dirty when we got there. But the drinks were half off until 7:30 (helloooo $6 watermelon margarita!) and the quality time together was so much fun! We spent an hour after we ate just playing air hockey, ring toss, skeeball, corn hole, and various other games. I think we got a LOT of tickets, but it’s all virtual on the cards now, so I can’t be sure. We had so many credits left on our play cards, that we decided we’d need to go back another time and cash out on our winnings, then.
Air Hockey Champs. By that I mean me. I am the champ (ok, I lost twice).
Lots of tickets won on ring toss.
Coronarita. DANGER.
I always think of myself as a trendsetter, but Date Night has definitely caught on with some of our friends. I recently found out that two close friends of Chris’s have take the idea themselves, and they designated Wednesdays as date night. Having a weekday date night makes it low pressure (no need for an all-night Saturday marathon date) and it’s also easier to make reservations or get tickets to things. I hope to combine some of my “Date Night Ideas” with my “New York Bucket List” items soon, like going to the Guggenheim or seeing Alvin Ailey. Good thing there are 52 Tuesdays per year!
Do you have any awesome date ideas? Leave them below in the comments!
Oops, I did it again. I wasted my time, got lost in the hype. Oh baby, baby.
That’s right guys, my failed 2018 resolution and I had another go-around. I am happy to say that with some major adjustments, I had slightly more success, which was largely because I changed my mindset and stopped caring about succeeding. Of course, I’m talking about bullet journaling.
For those of
you who are new around here, a bullet journal is “a way to track the past, organize
the present, and plan for the future.” Sounds awesome. Unfortunately, it is
VERY time consuming, especially if you want it to be cute! Which, of course I
do.
If you are too lazy to read my blog from last year, the TLDR is that in 2018, I went down the BuJo Youtube rabbit hole, got obsessed with many different “habit trackers,” I got behind, I was tired of writing down everything I did, and I basically gave up on both the journaling aspect, the “tracking the past” aspect, and decided I would just use my google calendar to “plan for the future.” I decided to ditch the BuJo since it became a time-wasting method instead of a time-saving method.
But then I got
a 40% off coupon for Michaels (seriously, I get one every 2 weeks, how does
that store make money??) so I decided to buy a new notebook and start again
with some adjustments.
The main parts of the bullet journal concept remained: the index to keep track of where everything was, the future log to put things for later in the year, the monthly log, weekly logs and collections. My main addition was a lot more scrapbooking. I kept little mementos from things I attended and attached them to the pages with Washi tape. For example, many many playbill covers, “Beat” stickers from football games, my ticket from the Belmont Stakes, tickets to Knicks/Heat games, and bus tickets and mementos from my travels.
Index
More Index
Why do I write this out every year?
Planning the dots so I know how much fits on a page
Future log for future planning
I need to space this better in 2020
The main changes in 2019 were to my collections and to the way I tracked my weeks. Between those changes to my actual bullet journal, and the change in my attitude about keeping up with it, aka my “IDGAF mentality,” I was able to successfully keep up with my journal all year long.
Collections:
Last year, I got reallllllyyy behind in tracking my moods. Also, it felt repetitive (yay for being happy most of the time), useless (why does it matter in December that I was sad for 2 days in January?), and also it was difficult to track if I fell behind. There’s actually a psychological phenomenon about this called rosy retrospection, and when I was a week behind, I just assumed I had been happy the whole week. Which is dumb and pointless. The first thing to go in my 2019 BuJo was the mood tracker. I decided to keep my 10,000 steps a day tracker, because it was easy to fill in if I got behind thanks to my FitBit app, and I kept my daily workout tracker, because I wanted to see the distribution of my workouts as I tried to add in more strength training to my routine.
Steps and Workouts
Blogs Posted. MUST write more!
SO MANY BOOKS.
Impressive travel for the year.
Savings goals all hit!
Never looked at this.
Social Stats.
Marathon Training Schedule
Marathon Training ACTUALLY
I chose to get
rid of pages I either didn’t use, or pages that were repetitive because I was
tracking the data in some other way or in some other app. For example, I got rid
of my “To-Read” page because it was easier to add them in the Good Reads app,
and I always had my phone with me to add books as people recommended them to
me. I also got rid of the ratings on my Movies Watched page, because I could remember
how I felt about a movie without writing it down. I got rid of my “braids to
learn” page, because they were bookmarked in my Instragram. I also got rid of
my “Key” because after a year of bullet journaling, I didn’t have to remind
myself what the symbols meant anymore.
The last thing
I wanted to do was make my life MORE difficult, but I did add on a few new
collections of pages for my 2018 layout. First, marathon training! I added my
training schedule based on the Hal Higdon method, and I added pages to track my
training and miles. I liked seeing it all together, instead of scrolling
through my Nike+ app. Also, I liked writing down how certain runs felt to me, so
I could remember that I sometimes had bad days, but they were often followed by
much better ones. I also added a Braiding calendar at the beginning of each
month. The “braiding community” often puts together “twins” for people’s
birthdays, where you do a similar style or type of style for someone’s special
day, or you just have a certain hashtag to add. This was hard for me to keep up
with because they are often planned in advance so I reserved a page each month
for this. I may not do this next year, because I often forgot to check my BuJo
before posting for the day, anyway, and they are often planned early for the
next month, so I couldn’t write them down anyway. TBD if this collection makes an
appearance in 2020. I also added a collection of “hair hashtags” but I never
ended up looking at it, so I think it will also get the boot in 2020.
I LOVED my
Savings Goals page. Not only did I get a chance to draw my adorable piggy bank
again, but it gave me a lot of pride and a sense of accomplishment to see that
I was making my goals for the year. Speaking of goals, I also loved my goals
page and will continue that for 2020. Also staying in 2020? My social stats
tracking page, my blogs posted page (really trying for 24 this year), my spin
themes page, and my reading stats page. I read 35 books last year, and
definitely met my goal of non-fiction v. fiction, with 9/35 non-fiction! Only
6/35 were written by men, though. I need to work on that.
It was super
fun to see my travel summarized on one page, so I will keep that for 2020, as
well I was away 90 days, traveled 23,965 miles x 2 (there and back! 47,930!!),
and I took 18 trains and 18 planes.
Weekly Log:
I think I was better able to keep up with my BuJo in 2019 because I changed the way I journaled my weeks. I often got behind by a day or two in 2018, so in 2019, I decided not to split up my weekly logs by day. I just gave a single page for a week, and jotted down a few memorable things about the week. The main reason I use my bullet journal is to remember goals and tasks I want to complete for the week that may not be incredibly important enough to set phone reminders, but make me feel good to check off and save me money. For example, for my tasks, I wrote down when I needed to cancel my Clear membership before the free trial was over. Or I wrote down that I needed to make a dentist appointment. Book a hotel for a wedding I was going to, buy more paper towels, frame my diplomas, RSVP to a wedding, Venmo request my bf for the electricity bill, buy a wedding gift (lots of wedding-related tasks). I also grouped my goals in this category, for example, publish a blog about my BuJo, apply for 3 jobs, finish my continuing education class final project. Writing down these small goals and tasks reminded me to do them, and also incentivized me to complete them. There’s really nothing like ticking a box or crossing something off of a list.
Monthly and weekly layouts, including braiding calendars. Featuring my terrible doodles.
IDGAF:
The main reason I was more successful in 2019 than in 2018 was because I did not give a f*ck. Here’s an example. In September, I went on a vacation to Paris with my bf. I brought my bullet journal. I did not write in it one single time despite already having laid out the pages. In 2018 I would have been upset with myself. In 2019, I just kept on going. In October, I went on a vacation to Greece. I was determined to keep up with my Bujo. Again, I brought it with me and I collected little mementos throughout the trip, and I didn’t write in it once. I just taped my bus tickets and winery pamphlets onto the pages and continued on. My lack of self-loathing for being behind in my bullet journal helped me continue.
The clarity for WHY I was journaling was helpful. For me, it’s to keep track of things I need to do, and to have a little reminder of my year at the end. And if I forget to write something? It’s not the end of the world. Has anyone out there tried their hand yet at bullet journaling? I bought some new Mildliner “creative markers” and I can’t wait to see how things change in 2020!
P.S. I still cannot doodle to save my life, but my piggy bank drawing is still adorable!
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a night filled with
champagne and a next day filled with naps and recovery. At least, that’s what I
did.
As you may know from years past, I don’t totally believe in resolutions, but yet I make them every year. This past year, instead of calling them “resolutions,” I instead called them goals, and I tried my best to work toward them all year. As I said in my previous post about resolutions, they don’t have to be negative or painful, like, “starve self to lose 10 pounds in a month.” Mine tend to be more positive, like “use all of my vacation days.”
One of my failed resolutions 2018, as you may recall, was starting a bullet journal. Well SURPRISE, I decided to actually try my hand at BuJo-ing again in 2019, and I switched up a few things about it to try and set myself up for success. I will dedicate an entire post to my semi-successful BuJo next week, but for now, I mention it because it’s where I wrote down my goals! That’s TIP #1: write your goals down!
I decided to split my goals into categories both for
organization purposes and also because it helped me focus my thoughts and think
meaningfully about them. Also, I tried to follow the ultimate goal formula, to
make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Based).
My categories for the year were: Personal (a little vague), Social Media,
Relationship, Work, and Financial.
Ironically, although I feel like I spend a majority of my time on social media every day, that is the sole category where I did not reach any of my goals. Lesson learned is TIP #2: Make sure you are being realistic in your goals. And TIP #3: Don’t be demoralized by failure, just reevaluate if that goal is still something you would like to achieve, decide if it should be adjusted, and then roll that goal over to the next year.
So what were my 2019 goals and did I achieve them? I’ll break it down for you.
BuJo goal-setting
Personal
Travel to 2 new countries – Check! I planned to go to Italy for my friend’s wedding, and Greece as a girls’ trip in the Fall. Sort of on a whim, my emoji-bf and I decided to add a 5-day jaunt to Paris for Labor Day, so I actually checked 3 new countries off the list! I LOVED this goal (who wouldn’t!?) and I think I’ll roll it over to 2020 to do again.
Learn to do a Dutch infinity braid on myself – Success!! I am not PERFECT at them, but they are presentable. I will continue to work on this one.
Film a tutorial video/learn how to edit video for Braid in Manhattan – FAIL! Or rather, I should say, I decided in around March that this was no longer a goal of mine. I reevaluated my business and decided it was more important to focus on getting clients and less important to give people tutorials on how to do it themselves and essentially undercut my client base.
Social Media
100 Tweets/Month – Fail!! Every year I
make some sort of goal about getting better at Twitter. This was by far my best
year yet, but I only tweeted about 650 times total. This is another roll-over
goal. I think I will attempt the same thing again.
10,000 Followers on Braid in Manhattan – For
my first year of BID, I gained over 1,000 followers from 500, and I thought
that the growth would be exponential. I was wrong. I think Instagram also
changed the algorithm so I was getting less likes as the year went on. However,
I still did gain 2,080 followers over the year so that’s a nice bump! I’ll need
to reevaluate my goal on this one. Maybe 6,000 is a more achievable goal.
Post at least 2 blogs/Month – Fail again!
As much as I try to be consistent on here, things keep popping up (like
surprise trips to Paris) and I lose my momentum. I started the year strong with
3-4 posts/month last year, but tapered off and only totaled at 17 for 2019.
This seems like a feasible goal though, and I think I will try for 2/month again.
Relationship
Date Night once a week – Success! I am so
happy this worked out, and we really tried to maintain it. I even put a
calendar reminder at 7:30 pm every Tuesday night so we would remember. It didn’t
need to be a date out, but we tried to switch between Netflix and home-cooked
meals in, and fun nights out. Since our weekend activities often don’t line up
with work travel and other responsibilities, we agreed to Tuesdays and have
stuck to it.
Over the summer at one point, we let it slip
and realized we weren’t spending any time with each other so we reinstated it
and were much happier. I recently found out that one of my bf’s friends
instated their own weekly date night and also love it, and that made me so
happy!
Work
Successful Interview Week – Check! This
is a week-long event I run every year, and for the second time, it was in LA last
year. It was a huge success with a record number of participants.
Title Change – Career Center Director – Success!
My actual title is Director of Career Services, which I like even more, but it’s
important to really visualize what you want, so I wrote that title down on
January 1 and kept looking at it every day!
Raise! $$ – Done! I went through a LONG
job search process this year that was originally unplanned (perhaps I need to
write a recap of that whole thing in a blog post), but ultimately I decided to
stay at my current employer with a new title (as seen above) and new salary!
Run Session at Continuing Education Event – Success!
I ran a session this past summer on the Johari Window and Covey
Window/Time
Management Matrix. It was great practice being in front of a group, and I
think my group teaching skills are improving.
Begin Career Coaching Course – Not only
did I begin this, I finished it! I submitted my final project last week and I
am waiting for the grade so I can begin the credentialing process (a 2020
goal).
Finance
$38K in Retirement Account – Surpassed!
Due to a good year in the markets, and a raise in the autumn, I surpassed this goal
and I’m almost at $40K. I also maxed out my Roth IRA the last 2 years. That
makes my overall net worth about -$50K! LOL
Pay off Private Student Loans – DONE.
As I talked about in a previous
blog, I transferred these to a credit card to give myself 20 interest-free
months to pay them off. And I did! WOO! Of course I still have about $100K in
Federal Loans but I’m trying to still run the clock off on those. 4.5 years to
go!
Monetize Braid in Manhattan, Make $1000 –
Surpassed! This was a great one to track and I had fun with it, filling in
segments of a bow on my savings page in my BuJo. I can’t wait to see what 2020
has in store for my fav hobby/side hustle.
Bring Lunch
3x/week – Surpassed. I brought lunch 4-5 times a week! This was a TOUGH
one. It was very time consuming, but I saved a LOT of money, and I felt like I
was eating healthier meals. It was semi annoying to always be carrying
containers with me, but I think it was worth it. I’ll be trying to continue
this one. It helps if your coworkers also bring their lunch. I love to go for a
walk so I would often go with my coworkers and then get jealous and want to buy
something. If we instead just go for a walk without a lunch destination, I save
more money and have less FOMO.
Overall, it was a great year for me and I achieved a
majority of my goals/resolutions. I am still forming my goals for the coming
year. Who says they need to begin on January 1? Mine will probably begin around
January 12. Brainstorm a few for yourself and let me know what you’re aiming
for in the comments!
I have been completely ignoring my blog because I haven’t
had time to write anything meaningful. But then this morning I realized, isn’t blog
short for “weblog,” which means I can just write about anything I want? Well…
you’re about to get a (very quick) rant about how busy I am.
Here are a few things I’m doing/reasons I’m overwhelmed:
Working my regular job Monday-Friday for most of my waking hours.
Attempting to monetize my braiding business. I have my first wedding with 11 bridesmaids and a bride in less than 2 weeks!
Trying to keep up with this blog (failing).
Cooking lunches for me and my sweet emoji boyfriend both for health reasons and $$$ reasons.
Teaching classes at gyms. I taught 13 Spin classes in April, and I was out of town for 13 days of the month!
Creating fun, new playlists for above spin classes.
Planning my birthday, which is in 13 days (btw, I haven’t planned anything).
Training for the NYC marathon.
Oh, and on top of all of that, I’m also job hunting, which is a full-time job in and of itself! Writing cover letters is VERY time-consuming. A friend said to me today that I live 9 lives. But unlike a cat, I’m living them concurrently, not consecutively. If you noticed that sleep was not on the list of things I’m doing, you’d be making a correct observation. Caffeine = good.
Also on my list of things I’m doing (although I know I swore
I wouldn’t do it again!) is bullet journaling. I have changed the way I
approach it, and I think it’s working so far. It helps me set goals for the
week and the year, and feel accomplished in completing things, even if it’s not
all of the things.
I owe you guys many blog posts, especially about my travels throughout southern Italy and in Montreal, and I will try to write them soon, but no promises! There are so many updates to give about my foray back into running (I signed up for my first race of the year!) and about my attempts at meal prep. Also, how to start a passion-driven business using solely social media and word of mouth! There will be some great content here… someday.
Thanks for sticking with me through this crazy time! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
You’ve probably heard the phrase “money doesn’t grow on trees” or, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Well, ladies and gents, I’m here to tell you that everything you learned is FALSE and there is a such thing as free money. It’s in the form of credit card bonuses and it is complete sorcery.
http://gph.is/1a4df5e
I was never part of the magic until I met my emoji boyfriend who got me in DEEP with “credit card churning,” and I’m loving every second of it. We actually have a little jig we do in our house called the “free money dance.” Not lying. Churning basically means that you get a new credit card to access the sign-on bonus, and then after a certain amount of time, you get another one, and start all over again. Some people think that this affects your credit score, which it does, but usually not enough for it to matter if you do it right. In general, a hard inquiry, which is what a credit card company does every time you apply for a new card, affects about 10% of your credit score. But if you do it infrequently enough, then your credit should be fine.
Yesterday, I just signed up for my 7th credit card in 3.5 years’ time. Aka the amount of time I have been with my boyfriend. It all started when we began to talk to each other about finances. These finance bros get off on this stuff. JK. But really, he was very interested to hear about my student loans, etc. We got to talking and he found out that I had a credit score in the middle 700’s, but had a credit card running balance of about $4,000. He was FLABBERGASTED. Literally, I think I had to pick his jaw off the ground. Maybe not literally, but he was gaping at me. He told me he didn’t understand how a person with my credit score could be paying interest on a balance, when I could just open a new card and do a balance transfer to buy myself time. Now, guys, if you’re confused, I was, too.
Quick explanation: Another reason people like to open credit cards is because they offer “balance transfer offers.” This means you can open a card, transfer your outstanding debt to a new card, and they offer to not charge you interest on it for a certain amount of time. I looked at this, realized I was getting free money, and I was HOOKED. I was able to pay off my credit card debt by saving all of the money I would have been spending on interest, and I did the same thing with my private student loans! I transferred my $6.5K from Wells Fargo to a credit card, and I have been making minimum payments for 18 months, without paying any interest! I have enough money now to pay them off by May, when the interest will kick in (this particular card had a 21-month interest-free grace period).
Again, balance
transfers are not even the tip of the iceberg of this money, as the “real
money” lies in the sign on bonuses. It seems crazy to me that this free money
exists out there in the universe and people don’t access it left and right, but
the truth is, most people don’t know how! There are millions of Reddit threads
on the topic, but it can get very technical, very quickly. I am lucky to have
an in-house financial advisor who is patient with me and explains the
intricacies. I will try my best to give an equally-as-elementary explanation
here.
I am not new to this credit card business. In fact, growing up, our family used to carry around little laminated cards in our wallets that my dad would make, to remind us which cards to use every quarter based on the percentages back we would get on different categories of purchases. Example: January through March, you should use the Discover card for gas, and the Visa for groceries; they’re 5% back. My parents still do this! This is #LevelExpert, and I do not recommend it for novices. Also, although 3% v. 6% does add up, most people “churn” for the bigger money bonuses. The Showcase Showdown, if you will, is the sign-on bonus.
Here’s the
simple summary: credit card companies want to hook you on their cards, so they
offer a bonus if you sign up and spend a certain amount of money, generally
within the first 3 months. These bonuses differ from card to card – sometimes
it’s miles, sometimes it’s points, and sometimes it’s cold hard cash in the
form of a statement credit. The catch here, of course, is that you need to
“spend money to save money.” The trick is not to open a card with a sign on
bonus if you will need to make purchases you wouldn’t normally make in order to
get the bonus. However, sometimes it’s still worth it if you come out on top!
Here’s an example: when I signed up for the Amex Platinum card, they offered a $1K bonus but you needed to spend $5K in 3 months. That is MUCH more than my budget, if you don’t include rent. So, I paid my rent on the card for a month to make the minimum. Rent in NYC is high. Now, this complicates things because my landlord charges 3% on credit card payments. But overall, it was still worth it to get the bonus.
I see some of
you guys rolling your eyes, saying that this whole process isn’t worth it. But
I ask you, if someone said you’d get $1,000 for it, wouldn’t it be worth it?
That’s the trick. You need to get a bonus that’s big enough to be worth the
work.
So far, I have
gotten:
Citi Double Cash for 18 months interest free
Citi Diamond Preferred for 21 months interest free
Chase Sapphire Preferred for 40,000 bonus points
American Express Platinum for 100,000 bonus points
American Express Charles Schwab Platinum for 60,000 bonus points
American Express Blue Preferred for $200 back
Barclay’s Arrival Plus World Elite for $700 in travel back
https://gph.is/2OWJkaQ
I want to let you guys know, I am not the only one out there doing this. A lot of people do, especially if they know they have big purchases coming up where they will be dropping a lot of mulah anyway. Another example: a friend of mine got the Amex Platinum because he bought his fiancée’s engagement ring with it. So savvy.
I have traveled many times now by using bonuses. My trip to Spain last year cost me $120 out of pocket. My trip to Costa Rica was completely free. Durham, North Carolina? Free. I also transfered $110,000 Amex points to a Charles Schwab investment account at 1.25 cents/point, which means I got $1,375 FOR FREE! I have been very fortunate to have someone explain this to me and I hope I have been helpful as well.
Still
confused? Try checking out The Points Guy; he is one of the
most famous churners on the internet nowadays, and you can filter cards by the
category you want rewards for (airline, cash back, etc.). He does receive money
from clicks, and he does have partnerships with certain cards, but he is pretty
clear when he receives kickbacks from companies, and he is also very reliable
with his information. He even has a beginner’s guide!
A few warnings
& tips:
If you have bad credit, you may not get approved for certain cards. Most credit cards rely on your credit score when they decide whether to approve you. You can check your credit score for free on Credit Karma to see where you stand.
Opening cards does affect your credit score, as I said earlier, so don’t do it too often. The general rule of thumb is to not open more than 2/year, or one every 6 months.
Closing accounts too often can also affect your score. When you close a card, your overall credit limit decreases. This increases the percentage of credit you are using (or “utilization”), and lowers your credit score. Try to keep the account open. You don’t need to use the card, just keep it in a safe place. At home.
Beware of annual fees! Some of these cards charge hefty annual fees. Sometimes it’s worth it for the bonus but be aware. You can always downgrade the card after you get the bonus, before you have to pay the annual fee the next year. Downgrading means keeping the account open but changing it to a less prestigious card without an annual fee. This way you aren’t closing an account, but you aren’t paying fees. I did this with my Chase card, switching from Sapphire Preferred ($95 annual fee) to Freedom ($0 annual fee).
Don’t carry a balance on cards. It can be very tempting to buy things. Especially when it takes 45 seconds to be approved on a new card, and they grant you a $12K credit limit straight out the gate. IT’S A TRAP! Make sure you can pay off your statement balance when it’s due, otherwise you owe interest and then THEY WIN.
A related point: If you’re opening a card to do a balance transfer, make sure you set up auto-payments for the minimum payments. You don’t pay interest, but you still have to make minimum payments, and you don’t want to miss those. Just set it on auto-pay and forget about it. Otherwise they charge interest and again THEY WIN. DON’T LET THEM WIN!
I hope this was helpful. I am not a financial planner. I am not good at this stuff. But I am understanding it more and more every day, and if I get free money and free trips, then I feel obligated to share the wealth. By wealth, I mean knowledge. Y’all b*tches aren’t getting’ any of my trips!
Do you guys have any other tips or tricks? Card recommendations? I’ll need a new one in 6 months!
Sometimes you have to throw in the towel. Or admit defeat. That’s what happened to one of my 2018 resolutions to keep a bullet journal. I realized that there was just not enough time in the day to both do things, and then write about them. Let me explain.
Bullet Journaling, or #BuJo for short, has a cult
following, especially in the crafting/online community. Basically, it was
invented by a guy, Ryder Carroll, to make up for the things he couldn’t do
using an app. It is an analog way to “track the past, organize the present, and
plan the future.” He has a handy 4-minute YouTube video about it here. BEWARE of the YouTube black hole, guys.
My story began by watching that 4-minute video, and next thing you know it was
5 days later and I was at Michaels purchasing 5 types of felt-tip pens and 8
tubes of washi-tape. But again, I’m getting ahead of myself.
In theory, Bullet Journaling is great. You can use any notebook, although Bullet Journal sells their own, because #capitalism. But the point of a BuJo is that anyone can do it, in any notebook they want. Of course, the internet has favorites (the Leuchtturm, Moleskine etc.), but you can use any book. That’s because you do all of the work yourself! You write it as you go. You do most of the work when you first set it up, at the beginning of the year. If you had never heard of bullet journaling, but all of a sudden, you’ve seen it on your social media, that’s because the first week of the year just finished and people were rushing to set up their new “layouts.” In fact, the YouTube black hole contains HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of bloggers showing their 2019 setups. DON’T CLICK IT. IT’S A TRAP.
My gorgeous Bullet Journal (#RIP). I used it enough that I broke the elastic!
Here’s the main gist, and what is included in all bullet
journals:
Index: This is a running list of your pages. Remember that you can do this BuJo thing in any plain notebook. That means you need to write your own page numbers and refer back to this Index as you add pages and update it.
Future Log: This is usually a quick monthly separation of your year, where you add the events that are coming up in the months ahead. This is necessary because you only write the current week’s tasks. You can control how many pages you use this way, or if you need to add anything.
Monthly Log: Includes the days of the month, and the letter of the day (M for Monday etc.). This is a “Birds Eye View” of your monthly appointments and tasks.
Daily Logs (usually done by the week) – Tasks, Events, and Notes for each day, in bullet form, and sometimes starred for importance
Collections: Lists of tasks or other things all grouped together by topic. This is where the Pinterest/internet community gets carried away, but more on that later.
At the end of each month, you set up the next month by looking at any leftover tasks you didn’t complete. You go to the previous month’s tasks, check off the ones you completed. With the leftover ones, if you don’t want to do it anymore, you cross it out. But if it’s still worth your time, “migrate” it by drawing an arrow, then writing it in the next month’s monthly log. If the task is not due for a few months, then you can instead write it in the future log, for the month when it’s due.
This is all meant to reduce distraction and be more productive,
basically a “Konmari method for your thoughts,” according to Vogue. (Marie
Kondo is so IN right now.)
Well guys, I was so determined last year. Not only did I set up my Index, Future Log, and Monthly Log, (all of the photos in this blog are REAL excerpts from my bullet journal!), I also did all of the extra things that the crazy people on the internet do. I even wrote a yearly calendar at the beginning where I wrote out the numbers 1-31 for every single month in tiny little invisible squares. (I got the “dotted” notebook, which is loved by all internet BuJo’ers, because you can write straight, but you don’t have those UNSIGHTLY lines. Lines in a notebook? EW!) I tried to learn how to doodle, to make cute borders, I bought pens of different colors and thicknesses, I googled “how to draw a piggy bank” for my savings page, I really was all in.
My Index & Key (Note my Braid in Manhattan Business Card)
My Business Card is a fold-out easy-reference key!
Yes, I wrote all those numbers myself. I told you I’m nuts.
Yearly Goals (many pages have been redacted #Mueller)
Future Log!
Monthly Log for January (check out those fireworks doodles)
Monthly Goals and steps tracker.
Weekly Log (I was fastidious at this point!)
I even added some momentos with washi tape, like this playbill cover.
The most fun part was the collections, although it also became the most time-consuming part. As I quickly learned from my new internet-blogger peeps, you can make a collection for ANYTHING. The first type of collection is a “habit-tracker,” where you do exactly that. You can track your daily sleep, steps, exercise, food, etc. You can have a graph where you mark every day you successfully make breakfast at home, or go without caffeine, or make it to the gym! I had two habit trackers, for my gym sessions (color-coded by type of workout), and for my moods. The mood one quickly made me realize that I’m happy a large majority of days. Good discovery, I guess, but boring to track after a while. I would sometimes get a week behind on these, which was much easier to remember my gym sessions, but more difficult to try and remember how I was feeling on a particular day. Sometimes I think I faked it.
Habit Tracking! This did not last long.
The other types of collections were more like lists to keep a running tally of things throughout the year. These lists included books I read, stats for my books (gender of author, length, genre), movies I’d seen (there were a lot… this was in the heyday of Moviepass RIP) and also my social media statistics (followers, number of posts etc.). I also wrote about my many many trips and travel stats.
I was doing so well for a few months, especially with the collections. I am a very crafty person, so I was having fun! I used to scrapbook all the time when I lived in Florida, and although I still have most of my scrapbooking stuff, it sits in a box underneath my bed because as all New Yorker’s say, “ain’t nobody got space for that!” Anyway, bullet journaling was a great way to keep crafting, but keep it to one single book with a small(er) amount of supplies.
It was fun… until it wasn’t. It became burdensome. I hit my first hurdle in my very first month with my bullet journal when I went to Seattle and Vancouver. Should I bring my Bullet Journal? How many pens? Is it worth carrying in my backpack? Will I forget it anywhere? When will I have time to write in it if I’m busy hanging with my best friend, hiking and boozing it up? Ultimately, I did bring it with me, but it was difficult to keep up with. I brought it with me on MANY trips, even to Spain! I wrote in it on each train ride between cities to recap what we had done.
One of my trips with my BuJo!
My last trip with my Bujo… notice the blank space.
But eventually, it became a hassle. I didn’t feel like recapping my day. I had never been great at keeping a diary and making a note of each time I fought with my bf seemed stupid and useless. Also, did that make me sad? Angry? Tired? Or was I still overall happy for the day? What would I put in my mood habit tracker?
I also started to fall very behind on my collections. Although I thought it was a good idea and I did enjoy crafting, it felt redundant. When I heard of a book I wanted to read, I put it on my Goodreads “want to read” shelf. Why would I also write it in my BuJo? Also, as I progressed with my braiding, I was bookmarking all of the braids I wanted to try within the Instagram app. Why would I also try to describe it in words in my BuJo? Same thing with my travel: I was already writing about it on my blog (sometimes), so why would I also waste my time and write about it by hand? Everything seemed superfluous and time-consuming.
I spent a few weeks scaling back, and only writing the highlights of my weeks, but I realized I wasn’t even using the bullet journal anymore as it is intended, as a planner and organizer, but more as a diary. Again, why would I use it as a planner when I have Google calendar on my phone, in my pocket? There are some things I miss, like tracking my social media stats, but I may just keep a running list of that in the memos in my phone, instead of a full craft-stravaganza.
Weekly Log (I was fastidious at this point!)
Some of my last full weeks. Note how messy and quick I got.
I understand that some people enjoy bullet journaling as a
creative outlet, but overall, I don’t understand it as a time-saving method. To
me, it was a huge time suck. Although it was fun, I would probably never do it
again. I did, however, learn how to draw a SICK piggy bank! Have any of you
experimented with bullet journaling? What did you think?
Savings Goals! (I did much better than this but I stopped keeping track)
As 2018 comes to a close, I want to check in with you guys on your resolutions. Did you make any? Did you stick to them? I wrote a blog last year where I challenged you to make a few, and it’s only fair to tell you guys how I did with mine, as well. Quick refresher, my three resolutions were:
Plan myself less; have 1-2 FREE nights/week.
Get back in the pool and start swimming again.
Do more weight training to become stronger.
The first one was a half-win. I booked myself permanently for Tuesday nights as “date nights,” which made my free time 1/7th less. However, I told my emoji-bf that our date nights didn’t need to be excursions all the time; it could be Netflix & chill. Sure enough, we did that a lot. I did a better job of not making plans on Fridays, which I always regret when I make them. I am so busy all the time, especially with travel (another blog coming soon on my 2018 travel recap), that it’s nice to sit at home and veg out every once in a while. I think I will continue this resolution and roll it into 2019.
Speaking
of rollovers, my second and third resolutions were actually leftover from 2017.
I did a much better job at these! For swimming, I moved to an apartment that
was closer to a gym with a pool, which was incredibly helpful. Before Tuesdays
became date nights, I was swimming every Tuesday. Also, after I unfortunately
sprained my ankle AGAIN over the summer, swimming provided a great alternative
cardio workout. I even swam for weeks using a buoy between my legs, and only
using my arms. I felt so much stronger, and my ankle always felt better after
stretching just by dragging through the water resistance. I have fallen off the
swimming a bit in the past 2 months because of date night and because it’s
COLD! I don’t like being wet and walking the (albeit short) 9 blocks home.
Swimming is always easier with a friend to push you!
My
last resolution to weight train more has been incredibly successful, again
thanks to my proximity to a new gym. I found two classes a week that I enjoy: A
Sunday morning boot camp class, and a Wednesday evening TRX interval class. Between
these two classes, I have increased my strength and I have gained self-esteem
by realizing I can do things I didn’t realize before (like hold a handstand
against the wall for a full minute!) Adding non-cardio workouts to my routine
has helped me stick to a diversified schedule, and the secret was just finding
instructors I liked, and small classes to keep me accountable.
I get down on myself when I fail at resolutions, so it’s important
to recognize success where I can find it. I am all about positive reinforcement,
even for myself. I like to recognize and pat myself on the back occasionally. Some
of my ongoing resolutions that I have been able to stick to are:
Make coffee at home. I prefer iced coffee, so I used to buy it out every day. I have been incredibly successful at making it in advance at home. I have spent a mere $169 on coffee shops in 2018. This may seem like a lot, but I used to spend $75/month! That’s a reduction of $731 for the year.
Speaking of saving money and budgeting, I have continued to stick to my mint. I may not be saving yet but, but at least I know where each of my dollars is going. That’s the first step.
Travel more internationally. As I mentioned before, a blog about my 2018 travel is coming soon. I have fallen off a bit with my travel blogging, but I did make it to three countries outside the US this year, and two of them were new!
Tweet more. Last year at this time, I had about 510 tweets. Now I have 1,147! Not bad! I’m still working on it. Follow me @longlegsbigcity!
Save for retirement. My work has helped me with this; they have an amazing plan where if I put in 6%, they put in 8%! It’s basically unheard of. I was doing really well before our Commander in Idiocy crashed the market last week. Oh well.
Read 4 nonfiction books/year. I have succeeded! This year I read 41 books so far, and 12 of them were nonfiction. My nonfiction selections were: Becoming, The New Jim Crow, Tuesdays with Morrie, Lean In, So You Want to Talk About Race, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, Lucky, Wild, When, Shrill, The New Rabbi and What Happened. Follow me on GoodReads for recommendations!
Traveling internationally for the first time with a backpack! (and Purple Bear)
I’m excited for 2019, and I will try and continue these resolutions, as well as add on a few more. My two main resolutions are:
Food prep more and bring lunch to work. This means traveling less on the weekends, so I have Sundays for food shopping and cooking. We’ll see if I succeed. I have my doubts because I already have 3 weddings on the calendar.
Get BraidInManhattan.com up and running and monetize the braiding hobby into a braiding business! Right now, I purchased the domain and I have it redirecting to my Instagram (I’m up to 1,336 followers!). For 2019 I want to do more hair for weddings, prom, events, etc. Do you know anyone who needs a stylist?
What are your resolutions? Do you have any? Leave them in
the comments or let me know how you did with your 2018 ones!
When you think of the New York nightmare, many things may come to mind: Losing your monthly MetroCard the day after you buy it, being late to an interview and the next train is in 16 minutes, going into the hottest subway car without AC in mid-August, moving to a great apartment in Williamsburg and finding out the next day that the L is going to stop running there for 7 months to a year… and those are all just nightmares related to the subway! But everyone can agree that the absolute worst fear of every New York Resident is one, four-millimeter insect: the bed bug.
First, a history. A few weeks ago, my sweet emoji boyfriend got a bug bite on his wrist. He decided it was different than any other bug bite because it itched so much. So in the middle of a work day, he texted me “I think we have bed bugs.” I have a visceral fear of any bug, not to mention the ones that may live inside my bed, so of course, I FREAKED OUT. I told him he should never mention the B-word again, especially when I was at work and there was nothing I could do about. I also told him that he only had one bug bite on his arm and he needed to “take a chill pill” and realize it was probably a mosquito bite. (I’m a very sweet and kind girlfriend, clearly.) Emoji-bf checked the bed, and he found nothing.
Fast-forward five days, he woke up and he had three bug bites, one of which was on the top of his leg, where his boxers cover. He INSISTED now that we had bed bugs. I was definitely more swayed, since bed bugs tend to bite in a line*, and now he had more than one. (*Sidenote: I know more about bed bugs now, like their biting pattern, than I EVER wanted to know.) At this point, I was sufficiently scared, and I texted the super to get the exterminator in the house. The exterminator came, took apart the bed, turned the couch upside-down, and found nothing.
My bf was pissed and itchy, though. So, we switched the sheets to be safe. We threw out our rug in the bedroom after shaking it out into the bathtub and finding nothing. We took our down comforter to the dry cleaners. We got bed bug glue traps. We got supersonic plug-in bug killers. We got a massive bug trapper with black light. But still… nothing. And I mean NOTHING. I made him check the traps every day because I was terrified of seeing one, and there was not a single one.
Fast-forward 2 days, let me set the scene. Sunday morning, 6 am. I woke up because every light was on our room. I heard my bf packing a bag, throwing things in from his closet.
Me, sleepily: “Are you running away from home?”
Him, strangely: “No, I just figured I would go shower at Equinox, and go to my office.”
Me, confused: “You do know it’s Sunday?”
Him, still strangely: “Yes, um, I’ll be back later.”
Me, very tired: “Ok, well if you’re going to keep the lights on, can you get me an eye mask? I don’t have to be up for 2 more hours.”
Him, hesitantly holding the eye mask and not giving it to me: “Well… I’m not sure if I should tell you this or not but… I found one. I found a bed bug.”
Me, jumping out of bed: “Are you sure? Where? Are you really sure? What did it look like? How many? Are you SURE?”
Him: “Yes, I’m sure. It was ON me. And I got a video. Incontrovertible evidence.”
Me: “That’s a big word for a Sunday morning at 6 am. But let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Well guys, it was Sunday, so unfortunately that meant the exterminators don’t work. Fun fact. But I felt like I had been evicted from my home. I packed a bag for the day, and went with Emoji-bf to his office to wait until I had to teach my Spin class. Then I carefully taught my class and did not put my belongings near anyone or touch anything besides my own bike. I felt like I had an STD. I finished class and began texting and telling anyone I had come in contact with in the previous two weeks, or anyone who had contact with my house. My bf group-texted my super and me with the video of the bug, which I refused to watch. I mentally prepared myself for weeks and months of sleep filled with bug nightmares. I evacuated my house and walked around Central Park for hours. I walked 30,769 steps that day. That’s 14 miles. But who’s counting?
Beautiful view, terrible circumstances.
Thankfully, our super lives in the apartment below us, and he was equally as terrified as we were. He insisted that the exterminator checked on Friday and found nothing. And we insisted that we believed him, but also directed him to watch the video of incontrovertible evidence. Our super directed us to put every piece of fabric: bedding, curtains, towels, pillows, sheets, clothing, into plastic bags and to seal them. He gave us 40 bags, and we used them all.
Every fabric in our house… in bags.
Me: sitting on the kitchen (the only safe space) while waiting for the exterminator.
At first, I think my bf took the video just to prove the existence of the bug to me, but it came in handy. The super made an appointment for an exterminator for the next day, at which time I showed the video yet again (without ever watching it, still terrified), and he confirmed that it was, in fact, a bed bug. ONE. SINGULAR. BUG. Again, he insisted that he had been there on Friday and had not seen anything, but “better safe than sorry.” I cannot tell you how many times I have uttered that phrase in the past two weeks. “Do we need to worry about our shoes?” “Better safe than sorry!” “Should we throw out our hangers?” “Better safe than sorry!” “Do we need to spray our electronics?” “Can’t do that, but you should vacuum any small openings just in case.” “Better safe than sorry!”
The exterminator answered my questions for approximately 45 minutes, and then proceeded to put on a massive HAZMAT-type suit to begin the spraying process. I wish I took a photo of him, but it seemed weird. He kept trying to tell me stories of “worse situations” he had seen, and I kept cutting him off. Example:
Exterminator: “This one time, I was at a house with a massive infestation (worst word ever when hearing BB stories) and when I took the mattress off…”
Me: “PLEASE STOP FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I BELIEVE YOU BUT I DON’T WANT TO KNOW.”
Anyway, he sprayed the house and instructed us not to come back for at least 4 hours. “6 hours if you can, better safe than sorry!”
I didn’t come back for 10 hours. That night, our super kept the laundry room open for us overnight so we could run every fabric in our house through the dryer. He let us do it at night because we could use all of the machines, and also because he didn’t want anyone else in the building to know about the bug and cause mass hysteria.
*Fun Bed Bug Fact!* They don’t die in water, but they die in heat. You must high-heat or steam everything to kill them. We did so much drying and plastic bag carrying. We learned the perfect way to open plastic bags directly into dryers to make sure that no bed bugs fall on the floor. Then we re-bagged everything into NEW plastic bags, because the exterminator was coming BACK! A second, bonus round of spraying was included in our “treatment” for a week later. We were told to separate one bag each of clothes we would need for the next two weeks, and to keep the other things sealed in bags until the ordeal was over so we didn’t have to re-dry everything a second time. We finally finished at 1 am, and thankfully, my bf had gotten us a hotel room on the next block because I couldn’t stand one more day without sleep. Then again, who knows if hotel beds in NYC are any better, bed-bug-wise…
SO. MUCH. LAUNDRY. (and note the Amazon Now bags full of detergent.
2 weeks later, I can say with absolute certainty that I have NEVER done so much laundry in my LIFE. In fact, as I sit here in my living room on my laptop that came out of a sealed trash bag, looking at the remaining 4 plastic bags of things that I haven’t put away yet because I am waiting for our new hangers to come from Amazon, I can tell you that I have never experienced anything so terrible. I am sitting on my couch in a tank top, fearing for my arms and fearing that there may be any bugs left. Every night, I go to sleep fearing that maybe there was one more. Maybe it was hiding. We bought special bed bug protectors that we zipped our mattress and box spring in and we zip-tied them shut. I have changed our sheets 5 times in the past 2.5 weeks. I am still working on putting clothes back in my dresser from bags, boxes, and laundry bags.
Did I mention the best part??? THE EXTERMINATOR DIDN’T FIND ANY OTHER BUGS. NONE. THERE WAS JUST ONE. He told me when he first came to the house that it was “very common” for there to be one or two and no more, but, “better safe than sorry!” He said you can pick one up on clothes from buses, trains, subways, taxis, Ubers, movie theaters, or from other people rubbing against you. He said it could come from anyone, you, your spouse, your friends, your cleaning lady. He said it could come from bags put on the floor, bags put near other bags, from luggage, from airports or from hotels. Basically, NO ONE IS SAFE AND NOWHERE IS SAFE. And if that doesn’t make you fear for your life and the safety of your home, I don’t know what will. If you guys wake up with nightmares of bed bugs tomorrow, let me know. And take some solace in the fact that I probably woke up from them as well.
I am 3 weeks post-ankle-sprain, and I am hoping to run my FINAL race of the 9+1 this Saturday. It has been a very long road to recovery, and I have not passed the proverbial finish line yet. Recovering from an injury in New York City has its own set of unique obstacles, just like being Sick in the City. Specifically, it’s an issue because we are required to be on our feet walking everywhere we go. Accordingly, it is more difficult to recover, and more difficult to live a normal life. I compiled a short list of my gimp-difficulties below.
STAIRS. Y’all, I never realized how many stairs I do in a day. Ok, I guess I did realize because my fitbit tells me, but it’s a LOT!! This particular injury made it relatively feasible to go UP stairs, but nearly impossible to go DOWN. I dare you to attempt taking the stairs down to the subway by slowly walking down each stair with both feet, and holding onto the railing, in rush hour. I have heard some nasty comments in my 8 years in New York, but nothing like when you get in the way of a person trying to run for the subway. Particularly when you appear to be a young, healthy person.
STANDING. There is a lot of standing. Especially when waiting for the subway. As you probably know from either the news, or personal experience, or my multiple blogs complaining about the MTA, the trains in New York are in unusually terrible shape, and it is common to wait 10-12 minutes for a train, especially at night. When standing is difficult, and the subway walls are covered in all sorts of bodily fluids, it becomes necessary to balance on one leg for long periods of time. Great balance work, but also V annoying.
SUBWAY BALANCING. This is an offshoot of the previous bullet point, but it is not common for a person to give up their seat for a seemingly healthy young person. Therefore, you must stand, or in my case, balance on one leg. I have found a few tricks for this, like for example, facing the direction the train is going, instead of sideways. My forward-backward balance is better on one leg. Also, I’m always ready to lose my balance a few times. I’m ready to receive more ugly looks and comments directed at my gimp self. #ShitHappens #ShittyPeopleHappen #NewYorkProblems
HEAT! This week has cooled down a bit, but last week’s triple-digit temperatures did NOT help my healing. The hotter it was, the more my ankle swelled and became more uncomfortable. No amount of icing helps when you leave your apartment and enter the almighty depths of Hades, right outside your front door.
RUNNING. I know what you’re thinking: “Why are you running if your ankle is busted?” I’m not talking about running for exercise, I’m talking about running out of necessity. Again, I didn’t realize how often I did this until I was unable to. There’s the quick “oh shit, I’m in the crosswalk and a cab is going to run me over if I don’t shuffle faster” run, or there’s the “I’m going to miss the bus that is one block away and then I’ll have to wait 20 more minutes” run. There is a lot of mandatory running.
Basically, it’s super hard to live in a city that never sleeps and never stops running when you’re unable to run. Here’s hoping I don’t fall in another pothole in the near future. Meanwhile, I hope you had stock in CVS because I have purchased at least 4 ankle braces from there. Am I missing anything on this list?
