What I really really want

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I ran with a friend this morning. Therefore, I started my day feeling happy. Kevin says I should start every morning with exercise, and I agree, although I'm down to one early morning class due to cost and it's a challenge to find free exercise that I feel safe doing, by myself, in the pre-dawn hours. I've been going to the nearby indoor track once a week, and I've got a yoga mat by the bed so I can start the morning with wake-up stretches. But the truth is that it's so much easier to get up for exercise when a) I'm meeting someone or b) I'm signed up for something.

Find the fortitude, woman! (She says to herself.)

I am thinking about yesterday's rant, and asking myself: what are the products/services that I, as a consumer, would have a hard time doing without. Because if I am honest with myself, I am a consumer, and lead a lifestyle that is by world-wide standards wasteful and decadent, even if I think (sometimes) that my family really does need the things we treat ourselves to. It's hard to shake my fist at capitalism when I'm a willing participant.

These items make my list of really really really want 'em wants, for my family and for me:
* books, daily newspaper
* sports: team fees, shoes, clothes (thrifty or secondhand fine), exercise classes, swim lessons, swim suits, goggles, skates, helmets
* bicycles
* nice shampoo and conditioner
* eating out with my husband once a month
* eating out as a family once every two months
* our truck + gas; carshare fees
* vitamins and fish oil (expensive!)
* local food
* internet and cellphone
* our house and the cost of maintenance
* dogs and cost of keeping them
* prescription medication and dentist visits (we are both self-employed and pay out of pocket)
* piano lessons
* nursery school fees (until full-day kindergarten starts this fall, please dear God, if Tim Hudak isn't elected in the meantime)

Do you have a list, too?

::

I woke up this morning remembering how last winter I couldn't run for a whole month due to a hip injury. I remembered that not being able to run inspired me to find alternate ways to stay fit, including swinging kettlebells. I'm still swinging those bells once a week, for which my core is truly thankful. Look how straight I'm sitting at this desk! If I had been able to keep running, I never would have discovered this. Point being: what may look like a lost opportunity might actually be a gentle nudge in a direction yet untested. Point also being: in the past week, I learned that I failed to earn both grants applied for last fall; having earned both in the past, I know they're within reach and I'm questioning why I applied proposing a secondary project that has sat idle since then, but, past results and hindsight aside, the fact remains that grants as a way of supporting my writing/list above are off the table for this fiscal year.

To quote a writer friend on Facebook: "The part of being a writer that requires the most creativity is figuring out how to pay the bills."

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