I was very quiet all day at work, because I was a grouchy, grouchy grouch. People kept losing things and failing to come through, and it was just too much for a Monday 
However, I plugged away at my little spreadsheet and answered email politely like the little trooper I am.
Lunch was something new for me – Jimmy John’s, delivered to my office!
I had a veggie club unwich, a pickle, and some chips (which I rarely eat, but I thought they might appease the grouchy grouch.)
The unwich was huge!
And made of lettuce. And cheese. Too much cheese. I couldn’t finish it all at lunch – it became lunch + my afternoon snack, and I gave away half of the chips. Next time, I will go for the regular veggie sandwich, despite my co-worker’s warnings that the non-club sandwiches are too small. However, it was a great sort of lunch junk food that I haven’t had in ages, and I really appreciate that they offer a bread alternative! Way to go, JJ.
I wanted to go for a big, long run when I got home to let the grouch out, but I was too hungry to go running in the 100+ degree rush hour heat. So, WB and I finished off the last of the green wine (vinho verde) with some leftover cheese and crackers, and I made a lasagne sort of casserole by layering sauteed eggplant, tomato sauce, crumbled tofu (“ricotta”), fresh basil, tortillas, and an ounce or two of smoked mozzarella.
The finished product, after baking for about 20 min at 350º
Afterward, WB and I sat on the couch and watched Property Virgins while we each worked on a laptop. (If you can call mine “work” – I made a spreadsheet that calculated what we need to earn in order to afford the house that we want, then came to the conclusion that we don’t know many people that can afford the houses they were approved for and subsequently purchased, at least not according to conventional housing advice.*)
But no, I have not forgotten that I have a half marathon in just 88 days! Today was supposed to be a 3 mile run, but it was not at all in the cards. WB and I went for a brisk 1.3 mile walk, and afterward I did:
- 20 minutes on the elliptical
- 20 minutes of strength training with a resistance band because some dudes were monopolizing the 10 lb weights (squats, lunges, arm curls, rows, one-legged bridges on a stability ball)
- Tamilee Abs (from OnDemand – chosen by WB, and boy were they tough! Next time, he will have to do them, too.)
I can never do the elliptical without remembering the sorority girls I knew when I was in grad school in LA – they were so worried about getting “elliptical butt” from their workouts. (Stretching, my friends. It helps prevent such things.)
And now I am off to write some notes, drink a lot of water, and get to bed only 90 minutes late, all of which will be accompanied by this:
*For the truly curious, perhaps those who have a fascination with the mundane power of personal finance like I do:
I used the bankrate mortgage calculator to approximate our monthly mortgage payment for values between 200k and 500k. (I feel pretty confident about the interest rate guess that I used, as well as the fact that we’d be approved for a 30-year fixed, since I watch our credit scores in a hawk-like manner.) Then, I looked up tax records in our neighborhood to approximate the % of tax we’d owe each year if we stayed in the area, and made a column to calculate that. Next up: utilities, HOA fees, and insurance; the latter was easy since WB sold insurance for a few months when he first moved down here. I mushed all that together to approximate a monthly payment, then calculated what our net monthly income would be in order to have that monthly payment be 33% of our take-home pay. Finally, I calculated what the total purchase price would be (assuming a 20% downpayment, because yes, we save like hungry squirrels in late autumn), and threw in an extra column to approximate what yearly maintenance would run us, just for kicks.
I didn’t include closing costs because I hope we won’t have to pay the full deal on that, but it would have to come out of our total purchase price if we did. And I didn’t do any fancy figuring about tax credits, because we’re not actually buying a house right now and those details will change between now and our golden age of home ownership.
Long story short, if WB and I can even things out a bit more, our starter home will be much nicer than we ever anticipated. Also, I think that property tax here is crazy high. In fact, I looked it up, and sure enough – more than double what taxes are in the state where I grew up! Then again, state income tax is different here…they get you coming or going, but at least it’s not both.