As usual, I haven't blogged in a long time, but here I am again.

I just returned home Friday from a two-week vacation. It was a fairly frugal venture visiting a college friend in the Finger Lakes and then spending time at the NJ shore with my family in the house we've had since the early 70s. I haven't added up expenses yet, but came home with leftover cash from the $200 I took with me, although I did charge some items to my credit card. The biggest expense was a cat sitter. 16 days at $10/day for a woman who lives around the corner from me. I gave her $190 total - $160 fee plus $30 tip. She watered inside and outside plants and visited my cat twice a day. Plus she keeps an eye on my house. Worth every penny. Knowing my cat is well cared for is the only way I can relax when away. Turns out my sitter didn't let me know that she raised her rates to $12/day, so she didn't really get a tip. I'll have to budget in the new daily rate next time I travel.

I dread returning to work tomorrow (well I guess today since it's after midnight!) after being gone for over two weeks. I am going to be slammed from now until November. Ugh. I hope I can get motivated. I pretty much let all thoughts of work disappear while I was gone. Now it's back to reality!

I am steadily gaining weight now that I've hit 50 and my metabolism seems to have taken a hike. I am spending way too much money on food and consuming too much and would like to address that.

I paid off my car loan as of August 3rd! I'd like to tally up total interest paid over the course of the loan. It was my first car loan since my father generously provided my first three cars. The first was my brother's hand-me-down Chevy Chevette in my late high school, college and post-college years. I'd still be driving that thing, but my dad bought me a new Honda civic (Lucy) in my mid-20s when I decided to move out west to be a ski bum in my mid-20s. I drove that for 10 years and then bought a VW Golf (Pablo). My dad provided the loan instead of a bank and I was paying him back when he died. My mom eventually forgave the loan, so I ended up only paying a portion of it myself. Then I bought my current Subaru Impreza (Sally) about 4 or 5 years ago. I just received the paid off car paperwork in the mail and must take it to the DMV to get my title. I have fairly low mileage on the car and I hope to drive it for a few more years, but I am starting to think about what might be next.

I had my main bathroom (my house has 1.5 baths) renovated last winter. It is a very small room and the project went way over budget and I still owe money on it. More on that later.

Guess I should go to sleep so that I'm not exhausted tomorrow.