I am struggling with the weird sensation of having done a grown-up thing today. Today I experienced my first all-by-myself visit to a financial planner. My three-month probationary period of my new job is up this week, and so benefits kick in and pension plan and other deductions start as well. My head's pretty much been swimming in numbers and planning for the future. Oh dear. This for the girl who can hardly plan her meals for the next day, let alone retirement planning.

On the bright side, I did leave feeling confident that I'm not doing too badly financially, and I might even be able to start putting away a little bit, all while keeping my bills and loans paid, and maybe even having a bit left over to buy things for me!! No doubt I could use a little tightening of the pursestrings (eating out seems to be a curse), but all in all, I think I'm doing okay. Short-term - get a budget in place, medium-term - pay down debt, get my own place, longer-term - buy a car, even longer-term - well, we won't go there just yet. Baby steps, folks, baby steps. I have a follow-up meeting in a month or so, and here's hoping I'm doing even better by then. No matter what they say, money does seem to influence what direction your world takes, for better or worse.

Slow books

Patricia Storms over at Booklust posted this question recently:

And so my question to you is...

Have you ever had a time in your life when you just could not get yourself to read, even though you were surrounded by books?

This has happened to me so often since my M.A. it's almost like a sickness. One of my theories is that I had to read so much during school that I got overloaded, and when my brain wants something to chew on, it'll let me know. And lately, it's been too busy processing work stuff to take in anything else. Thankfully the recently formed bookclub that I have joined has been wonderful.

So far we've read 3 books:

The Time Traveller's Wife
Breakfast at Tiffany's (I actually had to get crib notes for that one, sad isn't it? I cheated on my bookclub read), and
Pope Joan

All interesting books that gave us a lot to talk about. I'm the facilitator for the Pope Joan reading, and I'm totally procrastinating. Hello! That's my middle name.