Day 1

I've transferred all my money out of my ING Checking account and into savings., leaving only a little over a $100 (to avoid any inadvertent overages). These $100 will have to go until Sunday night. !!!

For the mealplans, I borrowed the SBD format and modified it to fit my needs. I will track progress by adding an update to this post at the end of the day.

**************************
**UPDATE**
Here's how the eating actually turned out -

Today's meal plan:

Day 1

Breakfast

6 oz juice - Mango Juice
1 scrambled egg w/ 1 tortilla - 1 poached egg w/ 1 tortilla
Decaf coffee/tea - coffee

Snack

1 Part skim mozz cheese stick - check

Lunch

Grilled chicken breast salad - Rotisserie chicken salad w/
w/ low sugar balsamic vinaigrette - oil & vinegar
Sugar free Jello/apple/pear for dessert (choose one) - none

Snack

Baby carrots or celery w/ laughing cow cheese - cheese stick

Dinner

Grilled fish (salmon/tilaps/mahi mahi) lemon and rosemary - baked lemon salmon
1 small whole wheat roll or wheat pita (if bread wanted)
Steamed asparragus - check
Tossed salad (mixed greens/cucumbers/green peppers/cherry tomatoes) - steamed brocc and cauliflower
Olive oil and vinegar dressing - none


Dessert

Sugar free jello/pudding - OMG YES!

Gym:

1 hour of cardio at the gym. - Done

the 66 day challenge

3. Do a 30-day Challenge. In my experience, it takes about 30 days to change a habit, if you’re focused and consistent. This is a round number and will vary from person to person and habit to habit. Often you’ll read a magical “21 days” to change a habit, but this is a myth with no evidence. Seriously — try to find the evidence from a scientific study for this. A more recent study shows that 66 days is a better number (read more). But 30 days is a good number to get you started. Your challenge: stick with a habit every day for 30 days, and post your daily progress updates to a forum. [66 days Habit Changing = via: zenhabits]

Discipline has never really been one of my strong points. It takes a while, but I have proven before that sticking to something, even if I don't see results right away, can, in fact, serve a purpose and feel really great once a goal is reached.

In an effort to control things in my life, which seem to be spiraling downhill, I (along with some people) will be attempting a challenge in hopes of feeling better, saving money, and getting back in shape. For the next 66 days, beginning today, Monday, October 12 I will be undergoing the following:

1. Money

In an effort to save money and discipline myself into not being a sucker for consumerism, which I am, I will attempt at curving my behavior and training myself to be more minimalist in the material goods department. Do not buy if I do not need. Limiting myself, for the next 66 days to $100.00 per week as spending cash. This is not to include fixed expenses (ie. utilities, rent, etc...) but to include things I need to be better about (ie. work lunch/breakfast, nightlife, weekend entertainment, etc...) This should theoretically begin to change my behavior and train me into being better about money and the way I spend it.

2. Time

I feel like I spend a lot of my time idling around online on incredible time-wasters such as facebook, twitter, and worst of all pages like hulu and netflix. I say worst of all because I got rid of my television so I could be more productive and now instead TV has found me and it sucks the living life out of me. Yes there are some shows I watch continuously and religiously, but having a set time to watch these can potentially reduce the time I spend with my head sucked into the monitor. Coupled with the goal of blogging and writing more in general, if I'm on the computer, I shouldn't just be clicking around. So, I;m trying to track my progress on this challenge and in this blog to give me a push forward in my blogging and my writing, and hopefully assist in the behavior change.

3. Food

OH. EM. GEE.!!!! This is going to be one of the 2 worst and most difficult goals. Why with me trying to be a chef and all, and here I am trying to limit my intake. For a few good reasons, however, I need to. My health is something that worries me continuously. I seem to come from a line of health issues and I seriously do not want to propagate my ending up in the hospital for reasons that could have been prevented, and especially don't want to reach old age not being able to care for myself. So I'm devising a bit of a "diet" portion and foods controlled and this plan is to be followed as closely as possible in search of results at the end of the deadline, not only of how I feel, but also of how I look (size 32 is only a hop and a skip away). I will try and blog my progress on this as well by posting what day meal plan is, and how close I came to eating what I'm supposed to.

4. Health

Also trying to get back on track on the gym thing. It's an ongoing battle, especially with as little time as one seems to have in this DC metro area. I seem to spend 40% of my time commuting, along with work, school, family life, and the 5-15 minutes of sleep I get per night (which will lead into point #5). To start myself off correctly and start getting back in shape, I'm going to set smaller short-term goals in hopes of reaching the ultimate long-term goal of being in shape and having normal persons sleep schedule. I'm setting also an exercise plan that I will track progress on as well to see where I'm at when day 66 comes. Heading to the gym in the morning at times trying to be tired enough when I come home from work as to not stay up until 3am fiddling around online and such. (hopefully this will also start helping push away the smoking habit)

5. Sleep

As before mentioned, I'm not the best sleeper. I have a tendency to get home and stay up and just be awake. forever. making me extra tired the next day. I'm setting myself to be in bed by 11pm on weeknights for the next 66 days. hopefully my sleep patterns will adjust to normality.

6. Weekend activities

Another one I'm very guilty off and serves as a precursor to set off my whole week. I need to keep weekend activities as such. FOR THE WEEKEND. I'm hoping this also allows me to be sharper at work, school, and at home.

I'm really bad at limiting myself on things I enjoy. I let myself indulge too much, to the point where it affects me physically, financially, and inter-personally and this needs to stop and change. 66 days doesn't seem like much and it seems like the world at the same time. Reaching the deadline accomplished will feel good. Reaching the deadline incomplete, will really suck. So part of my publicizing this is not so much for myself, but rather a way of having people witness what I'm saying I'm going to do and hoping to keep up in order to not embarrass myself by not reaching this short deadline.

Here we go.

First Week. [Culinary School]

It is now Thursday and I have completed my first week of Intro to Baking and Pastry, and although I could have done better, it was not a complete catastrophe. We took our first quiz, it was (thankfully) an open book quiz. Following that it was production time. We got to make a few items and this time we worked it a bit differently. Instead of making every recipe a group effort, we each took one recipe and worked on it. First we had the Strawberry Shortcakes. (I ate almost all the left over strawberries). I had nothing to do with these, other than the fact that they were done by one of my teammates, I had no hand in their making. They ended up having too much baking powder due to a recipe miscalculation. The taste was not very tastey. Overall appearance was great though.

Then there were the Popovers. Also made by the same person who worked on the aforementioned shortcakes. They appeared to be good upon being removed from the oven, but once out in the open, they flopped. They were bit floury in taste.



Then came my Sour Cream Muffins with Streussel Topping.These were entirely my creation. The taste was on point. The appearance kind of sucked because: 1. I overfilled the cups with batter 2. My streussel butter was too soft and didn't bake well and 3. I didn't let them sit and cool for long enough so they fell apart upon removing them from the tray. Overall they were delicious and they're in a bag at home waiting for me.

Then last, but not least, were the Ham and Cheese Scones. Also not my creation, but part of my team's effort to bake. Not exactly what went wrong here, but the dough was very pale and bland, and it took forever to bake.


This week my team was responsible for Sanitation and we made sure the place was spotless at the end of class. Next week, we're Sous Chefs. Can't wait to see what all that's going to entail.

Edumacation Progress. [Baby Steps]

I made it on Wednesday to my appointment at the Art Institute to speak with an Admissions Consultant. I got a tour of the campus grounds where the culinary program takes place. A lot of it reminded me of the grounds at L'Academie, but AI had a few more tricks up their sleeve. They have an awesome part of the program where you work on the front end of the restaurant (dining room). They actually have a 4-star restaurant set up on the 12th floor near the kitchen classrooms, name Culinaire, where you serve random guests and are responsible for the operations on that side of the room. This does not take place, if I understood correctly until about your Junior year.

They have a lot more classes that go with the curriculum than a regular school does. For example, for my electives I will be able to choose classes such as Web Design or Photography. Basically anything they offer as long as it's approved by the Dean.

It was all really exciting. Being there, talking to them about it, and (although I know they're probably just worried about taking my money) they were super encouraging and helpful about everything. The campus is conveniently located about 10 minutes away from where I work currently, so that will dissolve commuting issues.

At the moment the only thing we're waiting for is for all the financial aid paperwork processing tobe completed. I locked down an appointment next Tuesday with an Admissions Officer and should everything be kosher, I should be commencing classes come April 1st. I'm really trying not to overexhert myself in anticipation just in case something comes up and this doesn't materialize, but I can say that I am doing everything in my power to achieve this. Stay tuned, more to come.

A Journey of a Thousand Miles. [Baby Steps]

Amongst the series of purposes GUE serves, one of the major ones in this project is to track the advancement in my life from the roots of where my kinship with food began and trace the path of where I hope to end with it. I've been working on a series of life revamps throughout last year and this, which include (but are not limited to) taking charge of my savings and day-to-day finances, clearing my credit report, making plans for the future, and pin-pointing what it is I want in life and where all of this is headed.

Going to culinary school is something I've talked about for almost two years now on a serious note, yet something that's played around in the back of my head for way longer. Reaching this goal, this late in the game, has become a hard goal to achieve, financially. Always caught up in the dilemma of:

• Classes are at day time hours,
  
• I have to work at these hours,
  
• I could quit my job as a sacrifice for school -
  
• But then I'd have no money to live -
  
• I could get loans and budget -
  
• My credit is not where it needs to be to get the needed bank financing,
  
• Must work to clean credit,
  
• Can't go to school because I have to work.

Wow. Just writing down this thought pattern (recurring) makes me short of breath. Definitely a very real scenario and one I deal with every time I try to figure out how to get ahead.

In any case, I've made some calls and ran some numbers. First I aimed low and compact, quick and easy by starting with L'Academie de Cuisine. Then I aimed way high by looking at the CIA, which a photo of the campus alone was enough to make me want to drop everything and go try and get a job as a janitor there. Alas, it is too expensive for me to attend, as much as I would like to. Now I'm shooting for something good and affordable (I hope), or so I intend to find out tomorrow at the Art Institute of Washington, where I hope to take on a B.Sc. curriculum in Culinary Arts Management.

I have an interview/appointment locked down with someone from Admissions who I hope will be able to open up some doors and create some options for me. This is both very exciting and nerve-wrecking at the same time. I don't want to get my hopes completely up just yet, but I can't help feeling a little bit of excitement in anticipation of perhaps finally landing where I need to be. Wish me luck!

Artistic Direction

A friend of mine just turned me on to a write up on the LAist, about cartoonist Doug Davis, who is having his first gallery exhibition tonight at the Gary Leonard Studio in Los Angeles.

Now, you may read this, and say "Wtf is Doug Davis and why should I care?". Here is where I wold retort with "It's not about who he is, but what he is". He is definitely an inspirational figure, in my opinion, especially after reading his interview with LAist and his feature in Los Angeles Downtown News, where Doug was previously the art director and is a current contributor to its political strip "Urban Scrawl". Considering my interests in illustration as a hobby and as a potential career, I very much identified with his answer to one of the LAist's questions.

[LADowntownNews]

How did you get started in illustration? I was one of those kids who drew all the time, and I pored over comic books and “Peanuts” collections. In my twenties, I didn’t draw as much, but did other things like travel overseas, play the banjo, major in philosophy in college. From one perspective, it was an eclectic approach to life; from another, unfocused. Either way, it provided a variety of life experiences that are good for cartooning. I did editorial cartooning for my college paper, eventually landing in graphic design and art direction. I worked my way back to drawing again, and find my greatest challenge and reward in cartooning and illustration. [LAist]

It sort of put things a little into perspective and gave some harmony to the chaos that I dwell within. Not everybody has to have a defined contingency plan and I feel ok with where I'm headed and the road I'm choosing to travel to get there.

Making Moves

[Consumerist via Penelope Trunk]
The uncertainty of jobs in these days on the brink of recession is nerve-wrecking to say the least. I often ponder on when it would be a good time to change career paths and if staying within my same field is wise. Anyone that knows me knows the basic me. I work business, but long for art. The endless internal debate of what to do and where to go and how to do it.

Penelope Trunk has a phenomenal post on this very topic that, through the blog roll, I discovered.

Here’s how you figure out what to do next in your career: you line up all the stuff you like to do and you figure out which one will pay best. Don’t complain to me that I’m too focused on money. Really. Just do the exercise. The ones who are complaining the most right now, after reading just this far, are the people who are most in denial of what adult life is about.

Look, figuring out what you should do is actually a hard task. Because you have to start eliminating stuff. [PT]

Wow. Have I just been fooling myself all along? No. Definitely not. I know what I like. I know what I want. Entrepreneurship, food, and art are in my future. Paperwork? Not so much.

Baby steps

In the new year, although only 17 days in, some things begin to look a little bit more tangible. Being out of debt is finally a couple of steps away. Clarity in mind about the future sets in.

Clarity in such a way, that I believe the right steps need to start taking place. I talked about how I believed in only working for myself for the rest of my life. About how no matter how much of my time I spend in academics, ultimately I want that to be for myself. I keep reading stories on applying your hobbies into your professional life in order to find a career in doing what you love.

Well I love many things and I think all of these can come together in unison to reach my ultimate goal. I'm planning on owning my own business, hopefully no later than 2011. Music. Food. Art. Furniture. Socializing (!!!). All of these skills will come into play soon enough.

First things first, I am working on researching my options as far as financing. Clearing my credit is sure to be the first major stepping stone into financing. It will allow me to have more room to work with when I make it into the bank to ask for a rack of cash. It will also ensure that the only payments I'm making are to the bank and not a million creditors wanting my head.

Secondly will be taking full advantage of any programs available for grants and loans. I have a couple of points on my side. I will be a start up, small business and I am Hispanic. The business plan in development will play a major role in acquiring the necessary funds, but one is definitely in the works.

It had been suggested to me to start an offshoot of what will at one point become the main business. Like say you wan an art gallery, you start painting first. You want to own a hair salon, you freelance. You want to own a restaurant you cater. Which seems like a viable option and a fun idea to get my product out there, my name known, and start working out a lot of the details. What sells, what doesn't. Cost forecasting and trend research.

I've been doing some reading and a lot of note taking, taking full advantage of the many courses offered by the Small Business Administration online, about business management and administration. That site is full of usefull iformation and it's all free.

Clearly we have taken some insight into my love of food and art. so I've decided to heed the advice and get the gears running on this food business. I'm actually excited, since all of this is becoming more and more tangible with each passing day and each dollar sent into the pits of creditor hell.

Does anyone out there know of any Government or private programs for Latinos that maybe I may have missed?

La vie d'un artiste

Drafting table order has been placed. 7-10 business days? I'll set my heart on 2.5 weeks.

!!!

score.

Drafting up ideas

Adding to the list of investments and goal achieving tools, I will be investing, within the next two weeks, a couple of hundred dollars in a drafting table, although also going on the wish list in case anyone's feeling generous enough to donate to the "Help a Mexican Better His Life" fund.

[DraftingTables.com]
I have some jobs that need finishing:



[Biomechanics]

[DC Riot]

I've got moths in my pockets

Never in a million years will I had imagined this to be true. I'm 27, border-jumping to 28 soon, I've got a good amount of disposable cash in my pocket, it's Friday night, I've got a closet full of fresh gear that came in the mail, and I'm sitting in front of my computer blogging. Is this really the most interesting thing going on in my life?

Well, no. Not exactly. Great things happened today. I had a deliciously congealed cup of wheat germ for breakfast. I paid the IRS a good chunk of cash I owed them. I found out my credit score went up 20 points since last year when I started paying for shit. I found out I've got a significant amount of cash in high return savings accounts and some in the emergency fund (which isn't a lot for some people, but if you know me at all, you know that money at arms-length, at any given moment, is not likely to survive this long). I introduced someone to Pho. And she liked it!! I tried the teppanyaki-style noodles at the Asian Bistro (which were glorious, btw).

I got a sick work out. I finally brought a certain, unnamed character (who dislikes Pho, btw) to the gym with me. Had a quick, chill dinner with mom, and now I'm about sit down and read. I guess you could say I had a pretty productive day, even though I didn't quite make it out to get partied up as I usually do.


The world around me melts as I realize I've had too much to drink. Or paid the IRS, I forget which.

I may not be out right now drowning in the sweet nectars of the gods, but boy do I feel accomplished. I'm giving myself a pat on the back and sitting my ass down with a glass of wine to get read.

Educated guesses

Next school semester begins in about a week. After this last semester of chaos, underachievement, and disillusion, I've signed up for one art class this semester to unwind. What still lingers in my mind is whether or not I should compliment it with a design class as well. Seems like a waste of a semester to take just one class. Recreational culinary classes even.

I'm definitely not signing up for the death trap that last semester was again, but I think this semester I should do something else than just drawing.

I think my undying need to complete a degree I hate just for the sake of security is not the right choice. I need to clear my mind. Reassess my situation. And figure out where all of this falls into my long-term goals.

I feel like I've hit a point of no return. Something needs to be done without regression. There are plans and ideas floating around that will soon have some light shed on them on this blog, but not quite yet.

GRS, had a write-up today on completing college education and the difference it makes on a financial level.

I've always been of the idea (perhaps this being the very same that deters me from enjoying corporate-land and accounting classes) that going to school for four years should not be so I can waste away my life working for someone else. Making someone else rich. I am a firm believer that if I'm going to spend the rest of my life breaking my back to survive, I may as well break it for myself.

= Breakfast Toast =: Stupid Mondays

Perhaps this is also why all the courses I actually excell in, are courses I can apply to my every-day life and not some pipe dream of cubicles and artificial lighting. Seriously. Who ever thought the American dream was to live like an iguana?
The monitor your heating rock. The cubicle your tank. Lunch hour to eat the same crickets every day for the rest of your life, just hoping your tail doesn't get cut by some asshat who's having a bad day.

2007 was a year of realizations. A year of advancements. Physical. Spiritual. Mental. Moral. Financial.

2008 will be a year of applied theories and progress.

Lord knows I've got plenty of role-models to measure up against, and a list of their mistakes to compare notes with and try to not do the same. I will not submit to mediocre pre-dispositions of society. Not to sound like the idealistic, anarchy-pumped non-conformist, but I will become more than life chooses to grant me.

What would appear to be the first day of the rest of my life.

And this is food related because...

Most of these "hot spots" have a kitchen nearby.

If this is you, and you're looking for cheap labor around the DC area, Gridskipper has got the answer for you. They've compiled some of the hottest places to pick up a man or two to lay down brick on your next landscaping project.

Look at my resolutions. I wanted to learn Spanish; I hired a day laborer to speak it for me. I wanted to put less effort into my Gridskipper posts; I hired a day laborer to write them for me. I wanted to lay off the crack; I hired a day laborer to smoke me out. If you're in the DC area and are interested in outsourcing your life, here are some places to find affordable help.[Gridskipper]

Which reminds me, I've updated my goals to include relocating in to the city before the year is out.

Belated New Years

It took me a second to get this entry in due to some personal technical difficulties, which still withstand, but will work themselves out as things usually do.

Well, here we are again. The end of one year and at the beginning of another. We've crossed the path almost reaching 2010. Which begins to sound even more like the future. Flying cars and things of the sort.

I hear people talking about resolutions and changes and everything they want to leave behind. Almost like the year before was the worst. Thick on the bad connotation of 2007.

I would like to be the first to say that 2007 for me was not a bad one in the least. (for once?). It was actually one where I had set goals to take on that I had failed to accomplish in 2006.

I cooked a lot more, like, a lot more! I quit smoking (although a little late in the year). Maintaining a steady gym routine (although losing routine a bit into the year, but going even if out of schedule). Took classes throughout the year. Read a whole lot more. Last, but not least, getting my finances back in order.

Getting the money on track has been a resolution probably since I first left El Paso, and through a series of life lessons, numerous written sources, a few role models, and a handful of encouraging peers, I did it! I'm months away now (months I can count with one hand) from atonement.

Which in the long run, will be the first step of a new track and a continuance 5-year plan to reaching the my goals.

This coming up year I don't have very many goals, much further than keeping up with what I've been doing.

The only new ones, which some I've set in motion in December, are:

• Keep piling up the cash into the ING savings accounts. (I've opened 3)
• Finish up the draft of my business plan. (Got the software and the sources)
  
• Keep up with this blog - for once. (Trying!)
  
• Take writing, art, and culinary courses. (Signed up last night)
  
• Finalize debt. (Mid-April)
  
• Go visit my friends on the West Coast and abroad. (Waiting for my passport!)
  
• Get started on getting myself a car that isn't a Ford Probe. (No. Seriously. I don't want a Probe.)
  

That's it. That's all I want. Considering how far I've gotten thus far, I see no problem getting there by 2009.

Happy New Year's everyone! The best is yet to come!