The Wish List

I love this dress. Claire Danes (as Mirabelle) was wearing it in the movie Shopgirl. Glad I'm not shopping.

So why is it so easy for me to give up beef, but not shopping?

Le sigh.

The Last Hoorah

Another potential hash mark on my list of things to do is to follow a budget. This starts tomorrow. Today I went on a shopping spree... spent about $250 on a combination of boots, shirts, pair of socks, and gift. In one day.

My last hoorah I must call it. This cannot continue.

I finally figured out a way to curb my shopping habit. I've been trying to for several years. This one's a three-pronged approach. First, I will be budgeting all of my income and setting aside a modest $50 per month for personal-items shopping, which includes clothes, shoes, accessories, electronics, and miscellaneous and not-absolutely-necessary items. Second, I will not carry around my credit card. Third, (and here is where I will need help) I will need 2-3 volunteers to serve as my approval board for these so-called personal items. I should be setting this $50 aside to go toward my laptop, so I will need an approval board (a.k.a. nagging reminder people) to help me remember how much I want this laptop. I'd nominate my mother, but I think that will be so effective it will hurt. I would also like to nominate the BF. But he hates nagging and thus hates to nag. I guess I will have to ask my brothers...

If that does not work, I guess I have to try it the old-fashioned way.

With willpower.

BTW, I passed up multiple offers to help eat people's kalbi today. Though it was tough, it felt good to say no. Let's see how this anti-shopaholism system pans out.

Goodbye Kalbi

so one of the items on the list is to re-become a vegetarian. i had been a vegetarian for a couple of years for 3 reasons, not really all the same importance and not the always the same priority at any given moment: religion, environment and health. on one day my health could have trumped the environment and on another, being a good Buddhist could have taken priority over my health and countering global warming, and so on, so forth, etc... at least it all resulted in the same outcome-- i didn't eat meat or seafood.

TODAY marks the day i start making active baby-steps toward attacking this goal on the list. no more red meat. i could have squeezed in one more shaken beef or Korean bbq dish, but if i did that i would end up giving myself extensions for years. the time is now... and it is a baby step after all.

wish me luck.

When is enough enough?

From Associated Press reports

Congress has appropriated $610 billion in war-related money since Sept. 11, 2001. That's roughly the same amount that was spent on the war in Vietnam, taking inflation into account.

Iraq alone has cost $450 billion.

---
Vietnam cost $531 billion over 9 years. (1964-1972)

Iraq War started March 2003 = 4 years already.

Is the administration going to let the costs reach WWII levels (in the trillions) before withdrawing from Iraq?

Of course, this commentary does not include other monetary costs like veterans benefits and medical care AND the human costs, military and civilian casualties, the stress of families waiting at home, etc.


I love NPR, but sometimes it stresses me out.

teeth clencher

the last time i went to the dentist
he told me i grind my teeth

i told him i don't think i do it in my sleep

the hygenist guessed that maybe i grit my teeth
while driving--
since i told her i do a lot of that.
after which, the dentist suggested
i chew gum while in the car.

after packing about over 1000 shirts
into about 60 boxes
i just realized that i clench my teeth the most...

at work