alexis in the city

i hate doing just about any thing “traditionally,” so i really need to figure out another time/way to reflect over the past year. i have a friend who does it on her birthday, which sounds like a good idea. but until i figure something better out, here’s my look back for 2007 in a handy, month-by-month guide.

January: Super stoked because i got an offer for a permanent position at my job, where i’d been on a month-to-month contract since September.  additionally, i started thinking about getting into a career in sociology.

February: applied to the School of Social work at the state college near me and started planning a trip to Pakistan to further explore the leanings i had toward social activism

March: birthday month - went and saw “Legally Blonde” before it hit Broadway

April: took on a field producing role at work and got to travel to L.A. to work with our hosts and director to film a special “salute to the troops” for memorial day weekend. definitely the highlight of that job! Also, found out my parents were moving abroad and decided to scrap my trip to Pakistan in favor for taking my vacation time to go and visit them overseas.

May: flew out to DC to be with the fam for the last time before my parents headed to their new assignment. took the red eye there and back and started thinking that living like that was lame - that if i WANTED to go see the people that were important to me, i should be able to - and not have to worry about it eating up my PTO

June: got accepted to grad school and decided i wasn’t THAT into the idea any more (i know, hello ADD). continued my search for consulting and telecommute jobs.

July: went back to see ryan’s parents for the first time since we’d moved away. also went to becky’s wedding while we were there. again, i only made it out for the weekend, further cementing my goal to stop working for  “the man!”

August:  whirlwind month! after being asked by my boss if i’d want to move to LA if my department moved (HELL to the NO!), ryan told me to go ahead and just quit my job. he quit his as well, and we found out my dad’s promotion would be at the end of the month. my parents flew us out for the ceremony and a week in tokyo!

September: first full month of consulting. ryan made more than twice what he made at his old job and i struggled to break even - at least we balanced eachother out! went to SLO to visit mike for a few days, then took a trip to cancun for ryan’s birthday so he could go diving.

October: spent 10 days on the west coast (i LOVE this telecommuting thing!) going to a family/friends reunion in the mountains of NC with ryan’s family. also visited paul and erin in atlanta.

November: managed to squeeze in an 8 day trip back to see ryan’s family for thanksgiving - his grandparents and great-grandfather were also visiting. ryan hung out with highschool friends and i nearly died of boredom! (so glad we don’t live THERE any more!)

December: after returning from thanksgiving, we had two weeks to get everything in order for our 2 1/2 month trip to asia! we sublet our apartment, put our stuff in storage, packed a shit-ton of luggage and were on our way. christmas was in japan with the fam, and we spent new years’ in tokyo with my old roommate, tiffani, and her husband.

in keeping with the trend and our life choices, i’m sure 2008 will be crazy, too! and i just realized this reads like a bad christmas card, but i’m posting it anyway!

I was doing a freelancing shift today at my local CBS affiliate (I get called in about once every week or two, which is perfect for me - not too much work, but keeps my foot in the door should I ever decide to return to TV) and I found out one of the producers is leaving to be an EP in South Carolina. No - I don’t want his job (that thought didn’t even cross my mind until now). Instead - I’m totally jealous of him. No again - I don’t want to live anywhere in South Carolina. What I mean is that I’m jealous of his life change - and I realized that I’m starting to feel like it’s time for a change of scenery for me. Don’t get me wrong, I still love where I am and what I do and what types of opportunities my lifestyle affords me, but I’m totally getting the itch.

Ryan and I actually have been talking about what the next step in our lives will be and I’m getting excited for whatever is next. We don’t really have a specific plan, but it’s exciting for me to think that at this time next year I could be somewhere totally different, doing something totally different. While we’d love to go to another huge city, we’ve talked about going to a more medium-sized place (still hip and fun, of course - no colorado or kansas for us, natch!). Somewhere we could keep our standard of living - or upgrade! - and be able to save and invest a sh*t ton of money. (All part of our “financially free by 3o” plan!)

The beauty for us is that, since we’re self-employed and all our clients are virtual, our incomes won’t adjust to whatever area we move to. So if we move somewhere with a lower cost of living, we’ll be making the same we are now, and spending a LOT less! Not too bad, considering that I’d say we’re living pretty comfortably even with a super-high cost of living!

Like I said, I’d ideally want to live in another really big city, but I don’t want to downgrade my lifestyle at this point - and our dream places are all more expensive than where we are now.  We decided our dream cities are the places we’d like to end up one day, after we’ve established ourselves, maybe gone to grad school, have a larger investment empire, and are financially free.

In the meantime, we’re going to Asia for three months, so I guess that will have to serve as diversion enough :-D

ps- i found this adorable (dog friendly!) apartment in downtown Austin. I’m ready to upgrade!

i think this credit card company is just laughing in the consumer’s face. and rightly so. the irony of the whole ad campaign dawned on ryan and i as we saw the commercial one night (while watching something online, of course). still, it took me several times of hearing it before i got it. the company’s name is chase, and at first brush you think the card’s name is something akin to visa platinum. chase freedom. on the surface i guess that’s right. but then the tagline is, “your choice, your chase.”

it’s so geniusly ironic to me that a credit card company is tellling you, in essence, to “chase freedom.” how fitting! how many people will spend their time doing just that, because of credit cards. never really being free from that balance. losing more and more of their freedom with every dollar they charge. how many americans lay awake at night wondering how they’re going to pay that next bill. how many people just resign themselves to living an unfulfilled life, wallowing in debt.

i’ve never had a credit card, and grew up a little differently, so i’ve never dealt with this, and ryan and i are living out a plan to make sure we hopefully never have to. but as i’ve gotten older i’ve realized *i’m* more of the exception in this situation. this IS the reality for most people. so it’s your choice. what will YOU chase?