Day 8

Matt woke me up around 11 today, which means I probably only got about 6 hours of sleep. It is probably a good thing, because I'm trying to slowly shift to a more normal sleep schedule. We went to Meijer's to pick up some school stuff as well as some energy saving curtains to help block out the cold. Still haven't received student loan money, but I think it will be coming through tomorrow, hopefully. Now that I have folders and notebooks, I can start organizing my school stuff for the semester and finally get started on my readings.

Matt is working all day tomorrow and Saturday, so I figure that should give me plenty of time to get through most, if not all, of my first week's reading assignments.

Matt and I also talked about combining two of our goals in a way that will hopefully be more motivating. We were both planning on trying to lose weight this year, and also doing the 52 week money challenge. The latter is a money saving challenge in which you put aside 1 dollar in savings the first week of the year, $2 on week 2, and so on each week. At the end of it all you have $1378. We haven't yet decided if we'll be splitting the cost of each chipping in to a shared pile. What we would like to do is, at the end of the year, if we've met (or got within 10 lbs) of our respective weight goals, use the money to do something fun - buy something cool for the apartment, go on a vacation, etc. If we don't hit the weight loss goals, we'll put the money towards something more practical - rent or student loans. In either case, we are doing something good - losing weight, and saving money. It isn't really a punishment to use the money for something practical, but the idea of going on vacation or getting new, good furniture, or whatever we spend the "fun" money on would also be a good motivator. We still have to iron out a few kinks in the plan, set a start date, and do a weigh-in, but I'm really looking forward to working on this. Working out together can be fun, and we can keep each other motivated. Win/win.