One Half Buddhist, One Half Christian, One Half Pagan

For the last month I've been trying to track where all of my money goes. I think I've missed a few little expenses here and there, and I'm pretty sure I didn't record most of my online spending, but I'm confident I have most of it in my spreadsheet.

I've tracked the total and the daily average amount of money spent in each of several categories. I haven't been super rigid about the categories, and if I buy things from several different categories in one transaction I just record it as whichever one I spent the most on. For example, a bottle of nail polish that I bought with the week's groceries gets lumped in with groceries, while the box of pasta I got from Target while clothes shopping gets rolled into the "clothing and appearance" column. I figure it all averages out in the long run.

The goal is to use this information to set up a weekly budget for myself. I'm going to use a version of the envelope system, but I'll be easing into it one category at a time for the next several months.

I'm going to start with what I call my "out and about food" budget. That's fast food, convenience stores and vending machines, and sit down restaurants. I spend money in this category pretty much every day, so it's the one I have the best data on. I'll multiply my daily average by 7, round it up to the nearest $10, and stick that much in an envelope. That's what I'm allowed to spend on food that isn't groceries for the next week. All other spending I'll continue to do the same old way. After a month or so I'll add another envelope, for whatever I have the next best data on (most likely gas and car expenses).

I realized that when I talked about my theory in an earlier post, I forgot to say why I think authors write more about people from their own type of generation.

So, this is my thinking, and what I'm planning to do, laid out (more-or-less) using the Scientific Method:

Hypotheses: In general people find it easiest to understand historical figures from generations that are the same type as the one they were born into.

Prediction: If the hypotheses is true, there will be more books for which the author and the main subject are from the same generation or the same type of generation than random chance would account for. Award winning books for which the author and subject are from matching generation types should outnumber books with mis-matched authors/subjects by an even wider margin.

Experiment: I plan to read modern contemporary fiction, older contemporary fiction, historical fiction, and biographies and track how the author's position in the Strauss-Howe generational cycle compares to that of their main charcters or biographical subjects. I'll also track what (if any) awards each book has won, and what sort of reputation the book has in academic circles. If a Cliff Notes (or similar) reading guide is available I may start with that, only turning to the book itself if the reading guide doesn't have the level of detail I'm looking for.

Body: A little stiff and achey, but nothing serious.

Book Review: I re-read the first of Laurell K. Hamilton's Merry Gentry books last night. Crap literature, but perfect brain candy when you just want something to veg with.

Reading: It was too late to start a new book after I finished the last one.

Hearing: So far just music. I might put on a podcast later.

Tonight's Project: I'm going to strain the Blueberry cordial today, but I'll wait until tomorrow to add the sugar syrup. I may also try taking apart an old sweater of mine (see the link below.)

Randomness: Anyone have any old sweaters (or other knit things) laying around? I'd be happy to take them off your hands... I found instructions for how to unravel them so that the yarn can be re-used.

A big pot containing all of the following is simmering away on my stove right now:

3 medium onions
minced garlic
1 30 oz can of tomato sauce
basil
thyme
oregano
rosemary
salt
black pepper
cayenne pepper
balsamic vinegar
sage vinegar
cherry cordial
1 green bell pepper
16 tomatoes of at least 2 varieties

I didn't really measure anything, or follow a recipe, so I'm not sure how it's going to turn out. It sure smells like spaghetti sauce though.

If anyone has suggestions for other things to toss in, let me know.

Since I wasn't following any particular pattern, I declared it complete when I used up the entire skein of yarn.

The object more or less resembles a short scarf (like what I've seen called "scarflettes" on Etsy). I sort of feel like I should post a picture, but I'm too lazy to dig out my camera. I think it will live in my car as an emergency extra layer for winter.

Around 11 o'clock this morning, I posted the first draft of this poem. I revised it repeatedly throughout the day. The last revision was around 5:00.

My question is: would you guys have preferred I keep the earlier drafts visible in some way?

It took 10 days to get from the groups suggested in this post to The Who. Actually, it took less, because I was only listening at work, and didn't listen for all of each work day.

The first song by The Who that it played was "Daily Records" from the Face Dances album. I'd never heard it before, but thought it was pretty good.

At this point I'm going to add the experiment's station to the mix that I usually listen to.

One of the things that amuses me about Pandora is how, eventually, any station that I create starts playing a lot of music by The Who. It seems as if this happens no matter what sort of music I use to start the station. I decided today that I'd like to test that theory and see if it's really happening.

What I'd like you folks to do is give me names of bands that in your opinion are as unlike The Who as possible. I'll use some of them to create a separate Pandora station, and then just listen to it the same way I do any other station, giving songs thumbs up and down as I hear them.

I'd also love it if somebody else out there would create a station of their own using the same starting bands. That would test if the trend toward The Who is a quirk of my taste or a quirk of the formula Pandora uses to find similar songs.

Thanks for your help!

Edit, 10:15 PM I'm up to nine bands, which seems like a good number to work with. No more suggestions please.