Catching Up with Dave

So what's been going on with Dave the last little bit?  Well I'll answer that.  Knoxville had it's first snowfall in quite some time and even though the snowfall itself isn't bad, it's the ice that's making travel difficult.   The last three days have been heck on wheels trying to get in and out of work for both Ashley and myself.  Ashley got up yesterday morning to go to work and the driveway and road were a solid sheet of ice. I worried till she got to work and let me know she'd made it ok.  I'm at work now due to a co-worker not being able to make it in.  The Overtime will be nice for what we're saving it for, which is a new home in the country.

Ashley, Andrew, and myself have been looking for a new house.  I love living in North Knoxville much more than where I lived before, but Ashley and I really want to live out in the country away from the city of Knoxville.  We've been looking furiously over the last few weeks and have even went to look at one foreclosure in the county where Ashley is from.  I've lived in Knoxville all of my life and I truly feel it's time to move somewhere where we'd all be more happy.  I'd love for Andrew to go to school somewhere that he can enjoy school and not worry about what's going to happen next.  I have to take a second and say thanks to Ashley.  She is the budget whiz and has been figuring up gas mileage and how much more it would cost us to live elsewhere and her knowledge is truly impressive.  She has our budget in great shape and it's so nice to be saving as much as possible.  She's made all the difference in the world and don't want her contributions and knowledge to be taken for granted.  I used to spend every single dime I had and you can call me crazy if you'd like, but I enjoy saving money now and enjoying puttiing most of my check back. 

As for the other stuff, I'm still not smoking almost 6 months later.  The best way I can figure it is that I used to smoke about 1.5 packs a day.  That's roughly 6.75 a day on cigarettes.  Multiply that times 180 days and I've saved roughly $1215 dollars by not smoking so far, so basically $2400 a year which is pretty nice.  I've been off Soda for two weeks thus far and have saved at the very least $20 considering how much I used to drink.  I'm not going to lie, Soda has been hard to kick.  As I've posted before, I drank a lot of diet soda and have now cut back to a cup of coffee or a glass of tea in the morning, and water for pretty much the rest of the day.  I still find myself looking longingly at the bottles of Diet Dr. Pepper and Coke Zero in stores, but I don't miss them enough to go back to them.  We've also went almost four months without meat as well, and to be honest, it really hasn't been that hard.  We still eat cheese simply due to the fact that there's no good substitute for cheese that we've found so far.  The stats are staggering for how many animals are saved just by going vegetarian and even one meal a week makes all the difference in the world

As for exercise, well that's not going as well as it was before. I just don't get to walk in the morning due to temperatures, so I ride the exercise bicycle for a bit in the mornings.  I'm still losing weight and hope to be slim and looking as good as I can look for our wedding day.  We're thinking March of this year and one of my good friends is going to marry us.

Well that's all for Dave. I'll try not to go so far between updates for the next time since a few of you enjoy reading em.  As always, thanks for reading and have a nice day!!!