T.A. Michaels

 For the last few days I was on vacation with Katie in Upstate New York. We rented a small cabin about an hour south of the Canadian border. The cabin itself was tucked away in the woods. The drive up I started to experience some symptoms which I'm not used to. A fear overcame me that if I so much as looked away from the road for even a moment, I may crash. I know its not good to take your eyes off the road as it is... but each time i looked over at Katie... or wanted to observe the mountains in the distance... a shudder came down my spine. It wasn't fun... and once I was done driving I was happy to be out of the car. We mostly went hiking for our few days up there. We went and visited Lake Champlain which little known fact... was a great lake for about 18 days in the 90s. The scenery was nice and we ended up having a fire for a couple of nights. Katie wanted to sleep outside one night... but the scurry of small animals... and what appeared to be the flashing lights of a camera...

I no longer want to watch or read the news. Yesterday there was an article I saw detailing the UN's latest report stating that it is now to late to save the planet from the 2 degree Celsius temperature threshold that will become basically Doom for the planet and human race. As I read it I realized that even if I went 100% Carbon negative... there's nothing I can do to change the future. The earth will warm up.... The Sea Ice will melt... extreme weather will continue... and all I can do is hope to survive. With all that said... I'm now going to be changing my focus. Instead of constantly thinking about the Big Picture as people often told me to do when i was younger... I'm now going to be thinking about the small picture. Me... my future wife... and my cats. My Close Family too.  One thing I hope to do in the coming weeks is getting back into some of my old hobbies. I like creative writing... and while I'll probably never make a career out of it, its something that ...

 I have a plan... Take half of the money that i put towards savings each month... and put it towards paying off a bill. I'm coming to realize that the only way that i am going to free up additional money for savings... is by using my money for savings to pay off my debt faster. If I do this for one year... then at the end of the year I'll have paid off an additional $2400 in debt. In thinking about long term savings goals... if i can get to a place where my debt is gone in 2 years... and I don't accrue any new debt... then over the course of five years I'll have saved almost of a full years salary. It seems tough now... but honestly its where i want to be 7 years from now. Debt free.. ready for the next stage of life with my wife... with money in the bank... and onward to the next adventure.  I'm attempting to quit smoking again. My boss is out of work for the next week. Then I'm going on vacation next weekend so think that without his influence and my own will ...