Life Changes & Growth

So a lot’s happened since my last post:

• New roommate moved into my apartment
• Started new job at new company
• Got into climbing
• I broke up w/ my boyfriend
• I took an awesome trip to Las Vegas
• Saw The Killers perform

With all these changes, my expenses have gone up.

Still, my net worth is gradually increasing:

November 2006

• Cash: 17334
• Stocks: 2594
• Retirement: 6342
• Othe: 740
• Total: 27010

Hyping my veterinarian.

I made an appointment with my vet to get my cat her annual shots.  I had to look up his info on the Internet, and I found him through Citysearch.com. When I got to the page, there were reviews on him…and I forgot that he is truly an awesome veterinarian.

I’ve gone through a lot of hospitals that were disappointing and alarming. And, my cat’s veterinarian, Todd Calsyn, is great. If you ever need a humane, personable and generous vet, this is it.

Here’s the link to the Citysearch reviews: http://losangeles.citysearch.com/review/40013665

Todd Calsyn, DVM

Laurel Pet Hospital

7970 Santa Monica Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90046  
(323) 654-7060

Count down: 6 more days

6 more days until my roommate/friend moves out of the apartment.

I have been waiting so long for this.

Tensions came to an all-time high yesterday when she emailed me saying that she needed the deposit this week.

1st email from her:

Hey:

I just wanted to let you know that I signed a lease for a new place in ******.  However, I can’t move in until the 5^th of August.  I was thinking that I could start packing up all my things this week and leave a bunch of stuff in my car.  I can move my big things into the living room so that *** can move his things into the room on Sunday.  I’ll stay at *****’s on Sunday night & the rest of the week, so *** can have the place starting Sunday night.  I’ll come back on Saturday morning [8/5] to pick up my big things.  Is that ok?

 

Also, I had to give all my deposit and first month’s rent early to get the place, so I’m kind of tapped out for the week.  Do you think you can give me the deposit for the place this week?  I’d really appreciate it.  I don’t know how much you’re getting from ***, but I was thinking the deposit for my space should be about $550 [$125 less than what I actually paid] because I doubt ***’s going to keep much of the deposit.   I don’t know if I need the refrigerator yet, but I should find out soon.  If I don’t need it then you can buy it off of me for like $250.  It was originally like $550.  As far as final bills, I’m going to get everything switched out, and I’ll let you know how much the final bills are when they come in.

 

Here are things I’m not taking:

 

Futon

Table & Chairs

Desk

Most Kitchenware [i.e. dishes, cups, etc.]

Old Computers

And whatever else I can think of . . . .

 

Do you need any of the things because I’m just going to give them to Goodwill?

My email:

Hey *****,

I’ll have a talk with *** about this…and hopefully he’ll be cool about it. If anything, we might have to pro-rate his rent for the few days. I think we can work something out.

I know that he’s bringing in his couch, dining table & chairs, desk, and queen-size bed. We need to move all these things in this weekend because his parents are flying in from Minnesota to help him. Also, his last day at his current apt is July 31.

This is what we can do:

All the big stuff that you won’t be taking, we throw away immediately.
- Futon
- Table & Chairs (I’ll ask *** if he wants to use our dining set or if he prefers his)
- Desk
- Old computers
- Kitchenware (If you’re throwing away the utensils and some pans, I may take them)

All other stuff, we can disassemble and leave in the dining room, your car, or *****’s place. Let’s try to fit all that stuff in the dining area so that we can get ***’s furniture in easily. We should have the room cleared out for him when he starts moving in his bed and desk (Saturday morning).

Starting Aug 1, he’ll need the garage though since he has two cars. So it might not be a good idea to put stuff in your car. As you know, my car got broken into recently…and it was annoying and costly replacing the glass.

As far as the deposit, I can give you your portion as soon as his check clears through. As of yet, my excess cash is locked up in CDs, and I just had to fix my car…so I’m pretty broke…He’s going to give me his rent and deposit this weekend, so I’ll write out a check to you maybe on Tuesday? Wednesday?

Before you close any accounts, let’s see if we can transfer some of the utilities…

Let’s talk more tonight…

 Her response:

Considering that I’m technically paid up until the 31^st; me moving all my stuff before then is a favor to him, so I don’t agree with prorating any rent.  If it’s going to be a problem then I’ll just take the full deposit and rent a u-haul to leave my stuff.  Also, I think that I should get the deposit payment before he actually moves in; I don’t really think it’s fair to have me wait until after his check clears the following week after he’s already in.  Why doesn’t he just write the check directly to me so that we don’t have to wait for the check to clear through your account?  Also, I’m not going to be able to finish moving out all the stuff by Friday night.  I need Saturday to move everything since I can’t take Friday off to do all this.  He’s going to have to move in on Sunday.

I call her to talk about this…

And she says that I’m being difficult and that if it’s a problem she wants her entire deposit back to rent a uhaul to move out.  I tell her that I’m not being difficult but that I’m just confused because she keeps changing her mind on things and giving me different numbers/dates, etc. That I asked her if *** could start moving in this weekend because his parents are planning to fly in to help him…I asked her this about 2 weeks ago…and then confirmed one week ago. And she says, “Why does he need his parents to help him move?” Me, “I don’t know, that’s the situation.” The point is I tried to respect her space by asking her ahead of time if it was okay. If it wasn’t I would’ve told him no…you can’t move in until Aug 1. She then argues that she needs the deposit right away. And, I reiterate that I can give it to her next Tue/Wed. She says that she’s broke…and I say that we’re all broke. I’m broke, I had my car just fixed. And, this is hard to hear from a person who makes 25K more than me. To be broke when we have such little expenses? And, she starts this “friend” bit on me…”As a friend…yada yada” And, I’m thinking…as a friend you would respect my space and actually do your part of the work and not have your friends crash every month. And, I just say that I can get *** to write her a check for $550 but he needs to move in his furniture on Saturday since his parents are leaving on Sunday.

Background info:

She tells me she’s going to move out June 24th or so…and that she’s planning to 3rd week of July.

She says that I can give her $3-400 deposit back.

She tells her friend that she can move in w/out consulting me. I consider it but decide to go with ***.

She asks if her friend could stay over for a week. He relocated from Texas. What she didn’t tell me was that they were planning to live together…so that means a week is really until they move out (3 weeks). This is while her boyfriend is already sleeping over our place.

And two months before this, she had her friend stay over for a week to study for his med exams.

All this while, they’re using my bathroom…and they’re guys. They keep the toilet seat up, they’re clogging up my tub drain with their thin hair, and leave wet towels over the shower door. Despite talking to them and her, it’s still happening.

Not to mention she orders her boyfriend to do all the chores. I am certain that she’s the laziest and most wasteful person in my life.

I am just sooooooooooooooooooooo happy that she’ll be moving out.

SHE NEEDS TO MOVE OUT. NOWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

ADD

I think many people  have slight-ADD symptoms/tendencies.

I can see this with my boyfriend, my ex, my cousin, and even in myself.

A few years ago, my ex graduated from school and he started interning for his professors. His professors had failed him because he couldn’t turn things on time, make it to class, and follow-through. Yet, after college, they hired him for projects because they felt he was exceptionally talented and had a lot of potential to do great things.

As he worked on a new project with one professsor, his professor recommended that he read a few books. This included “Art of the Start” and “ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life”. Both books are awesome, and I recommend them.

His problem was that he truly wanted to do a lot of things and be everything for everyone. He would over-promise and could only deliver so much. He’d fear giving people real deadlines that he could work with. I think he couldn’t even assess those deadlines. But, he’d always want to do a perfect job. He had too many things to work on, no schedule, and missed deadlines.

The ADD book calls out to simplify everything. Dumb it down…and make everything simple, clear, and easy. Try to eliminate too many options…like, for instance, if you have a hard time deciding what to wear in the morning, keep your closet with basic items and basic colors.

This can apply to credit cards. If you have five credit cards, you’re more likely to rack up more debt than having only two cards. If you have five, keep only one in your wallet. Set up rules for those credit cards…like…I’ll use this credit cards only for online purchases because I’ll get a cash-back and the credit card company has a great refund policy on Internet purchases. Or, I’ll use this card only for gas purchases because I earn special rewards for making this type of purchase.

Other good things for the ADD-affected:

Write down what you have to do every night for the next day. Write it clearly using a black marker and use action words. Don’t write “Laundry”. Rather, “Do Laundry”. Limit your list to three major tasks and five smaller ones. After you’ve completed each task, cross it out with a big fat line.

Be decisive and set a time. And, always follow-up. If you’re meeting a friend, don’t say “I’ll meet you in the afternoon.” Say, “Let’s meet between 2-2:30pm.” If you’re running late, call and be honest and say, “Sorry, I’m running late. I’ll be there at 3:30pm.” Let people in the loop.

Don’t keep accumulating things. The less you have, the better you’ll perform.

Replacing lost/expired items

Hey folks…my car got broken into yesterday.  Stupid me, I left a tempting bag on the passenger seat.

My window got shattered and bag disappeared.

Now, why did I leave the bag there?

I was absent-minded all morning and pre-occupied with how I would tell my company that I was going to leave for a new job. I slept at my parents’ place to try to relax and get to work early, and I had a lot of small bags with me when I got in the car. I thought I would consolidate my goods and left one bag still in the car. I thought, “I have my wallet and all the important things…” Hm…

So, in my bag, I had my  ipod, my checkbooks to two bank accounts, and my makeup bag.  I put a hold on my checking accounts. Ipod and my cool songs gone for good…and same with the makeup.

Got the window fixed for $150. Not bad, I think…

And, today when I left work, traffic was a bitch, so I went to the mall to restock on my cosmetics at Sephora. Women and some men spend a lot on cosmetics and skincare.

I thought I’d share my shopping bag:

Today at Sephora, I bought…

• Benefit Playsticks foundation in “hide and seek” color – $32
• Sephora Make Up Base – $22
• Sephora Lip Gloss Quad Globe thingy – $9
• Nars creme blush in “penny lane” – $22.50
• Pout blush apricot – $20.00 (this was a mistake. I picked up the wrong item and need to return it ASAP)

After tax, totalled $114.20

Aside from my Sephora purchase, the rest of my make-up bag includes the drugstore stuffs:

• Physicians Formula shimmer powder in “translucent pearl” – roughly $10
• Loreal Ink Eye Liner – about $8
• Almay brow liner with comb – about $6
• Chapstick – $2

What’s the point of tallying my cosmetics expenditures?  Because I don’t really spend so much on maintaining/enhancing the way I look.

I’ll probably use these items until they expire…about a quarter of a year.

Aside from make-up, I spend very little on skin care products. I only have a few things: eye make-up remover which I usually get free from my mom’s purchases of Estee Lauder little bonus gift bags, DHC mild soap (love this thing…lasts forever), Neutrogena Sunscreen, and either Lubriderm, Cetaphyl, or Eucerin Lotion.

Hair-wise, I cut my own hair…I’m trying to grow it so there’s no need to get it professionally styled.

I don’t shave my legs because I’ve never had to. Never shaved…and never will.

And, that’s it!

Jammed with work and other life issues.

A few things going on:

My roommate is leaving the apartment (YES!)

And, I’ve picked a new roomie a few days ago…

Kinda nervous since this is the first time I’ll be living with a guy and he’s from Craig’s List

But, things can’t get worse than current conditions…my roommate/close friend drives me nuts!

I interviewed for another job, and I felt it went well…except now doubts are slowly creeping up…

I don’t want to think about it too much because I’m a bit superstitious and don’t want to jinx myself…

Work is busy…trying to get through daily…

I have a few side jobs…finishing up a website (not getting paid for this one) and doing minor desktop publishing work for another person which will bring in maybe about $500.

I need the extra cash to buy a refrigerator to replace the one my roommate’s taking. Hm…expensive~

Live & learn.

Well, I suppose getting the Vonage stock upon IPO was a mistake.

Although I believe in this company & their services, it's dropped a lot since yesterday.

Fortunately, I got it at the lowest price yesterday and didn't lost too much.

Oh well…this & these past weeks' stock market's patterns seem to be telling me, "Chill out. No more buying stocks & focus more on improving situation with work. Build emergency fund more."

Dilemma dilemma.

So, work is a downer.

Yesterday, my beliefs about my boss and company were confirmed when our creative recruiter came to meet us at our office.

We occassionally farm out work to freelancers when projects get loaded or when we need someone of special expertise.

Our recruiter came to meet us, and my boss did most of the talking. And, he mentioned a few things that gave me the red flag.

1. He's not interested in growing the business

2. He's not confident about the business

It was had to keep a straight face during that meeting because I felt disappointed by my own boss. I want to be able to contribute something to my work – to have some ownership of the company, to steer it in an upward direction. I'm interested in exploring new ideas & ways of doing things whereas my boss likes to stick with the old ways of doing things even if it means patching it up with gum & tape and glue. I hope you know what I mean.

This is a real problem for me because I'm not satisfied but I feel guilty if I leave since we're such a small company. I guess I do have a major role in the projects, and it would be a blow to them if I left.

How do I secure a new job while maintaining good relationships with my current employer. And be able to leave them so that they can manage on their own? This is really difficult…

I do need to save some more money though.

Even though I have about 6 months worth of living expeneses in my emergency savings acct, I don't feel secure. I'll feel better if I have 9-12 months.

So, maybe I can work for a couple more months?  Even if my morale goes down?

What to do? What to do? 

Staying focused.

A lot of things in my life are in transition: relationship, work, family, and my finances.

I almost am beginning to feel overwhelmed by the sum of these things. Not that I'm about to crack, but I could create a mess if I don't do things each day and get sidetracked on my goals.

Hm…my nearly year-long relationship with my boyfriend is winding down after having realized that we're we can't "fix" or incompatibility. This gets me sad.

Work is getting my lazy and unenthused. I feel as though I'm not compensated properly and I just can't seem to muster up the motivation to get everything done timely. Part of it is my doing, and a lot of it is because I have so many projects to handle.  It doesn't help battling with my conscience and my greedy immediate gratification of my boss offering to buy me a macbook pro.

My brother starts his new job today. I'm not worried about him, I'm just worried about not meeting his expectations. We decided to start a small business together on the side. He would deal with all the business and marketing logistics, and I would do the creative side. I've had to draw up some concepts for the new business and discuss them over the weekend, but it didn't happen because of the relationship drama. And, I just wanted to be numb and think about things deeply to sort them out. I've got to take care of my part of the deal soon and follow-through.

I had to do a favour for one of my Photoshop students. I did it half-way…but I haven't delivered the product (I just need to mail it out).

I'm also helping one of my creative directors that I work with on the side pro bono. Helping him optimize his website for search engines. I've had to give him some documents to work from, but I haven't created them yet.

I know a lot of these things seem quite trivial, but whether they're crises or small annoyances, they're all on my mind going round and round. Ugh… 

Parents’ move to retirement.

My parents are on their way to retiring. My father, at 57 is planning to retire in 2 years.

What they're doing now to prepare for that transition is selling their house. They plan to move into a townhome, and use the excess cash for living expenses.

I'm helping them with the move by staging the house. Rather than renting furniture at a cost of $6000/mo (and my mom has to move out while the house is on market), we decided to do it ourself.

So far, we've decided on a sofa and an entertainment console. They're both from Crate & barrel. We've also decided on the wall colors.

Why are we doing this? Because, my parents didn't want to invest in their house as we lived there. They also had this notion that if we decorated or painted our walls different colors, our house wouldn't be worth as much because they figured it would make the house look less spacious.

God, are they so wrong, and they're now realizing it.

After seeing the homes sold on our street, all of them have a unique character…they're absolutely beautiful and appraised higher than our home because of that. There was one home that we checked out over the weekend. The floor plan was nearly identical to ours…their house was staged and represented by this realtor who's been dominating our street.

The 1500square feet home is on the market for 940K. It's sure to sell for over 1mil.

I picked up the info sheets that the realtor had laid out on his desk. Info sheets included property spec sheet, property description & photos, floorplan, and a bio on the realtor.

The realtor is good because of his diverse experience & expertise. He was vice president of marketing for Ann Taylor stores, Guess Jeans, & St. John Home. He has an MBA from Columbia and is part of Prudential's Chairman's circle.

My mom has regrets not signing with him to sell her house. I can't help but think, "I told ya so…" And, it's true, I told her to go through Prudential even if they take a higher cut. We would have our house sold right away w/ a mil in my parents' pockets.

House hasn't sold yet, so we don't know…maybe, my parents' home will be up there with the others on our street.

Family reunited.

My brother, who’s in Seattle, is moving back to LA in two weeks.

He moved to Seattle because of a job offer he couldn’t refuse. He also wanted to get away from my mom (typical nagging Asian get-up-all-in-your-biz mother). And, wanted to raise his children in a healthier environment.

Needless to say, he hated it because of the weather. I think he, like I, got a reality check that in LA, we’ve got it good. Weather does play a huge part in one’s happiness and comfort.

His move is a lateral one. He will be doing similar work at a small company w/ a slightly higher salary (but, really earning the same since he hadn’t had to pay state tax in Washington and in Cali he has to).

I don’t know how he does it. He’s gotten most every job he’s applied for and moved up so quickly over the past few years. His resume is fantastic. He’s always worked at the top companies since college moving from assistant account exec to account director by age 30 for one of the top media groups in the world.

I can’t help wonder why his situation is so different from mine…And, feeling like I’m the shorthanded one in the family.

But, the other day as I was cleaning up, I found an employee’s manual for his first full-time job. I thought I’d check it out…seemed interesting…it was on interpersonal communication. Yada yada, goes on and on – stuff you can read in the self-help & business section. I then come to the part about goals, and my brother’s actually written down some.

This was revealing:

My goals:

• become CEO at a major corporation
• travel around the world
• become a single digit handicap golfer (? I’ve no idea)
• take care of my family
• make 50 this year
• be as AAE by the end of the year
• start going to church
• take art classes
• get rid of my gut
• buy a new car

My most important values are:

• ambition
• success
• family
• trust
• friendship

My top five goals are:

• make aae
• make 50
• get rid of guy
• buy

I don’t see many people reaching out to be a president of a company. Most would be satisified in reaching the first couple levels of management. Enough to have a good salary, title, reputation, job stability, and authority.

I guess when you have higher goals, you set higher standards and push to get them done. Writing them down definitely helps. It keeps you accountable for the promises you make to yourself.

I can’t say that I want to run a company. I really don’t. I don’t want to be that accountable for anything that could end up disastrous. I guess I’m slightly cowardish. But, I’ve been wanting something larger as each day passes. Something that I thought I couldn’t attain and would give up before even trying.

I think this is a good sign. Ambition and motivation is important in life. What’s the point of existence if it’s only about breathing, consuming, and excreting?