Adventures in frugality...

It's official: This month, I have spent more on my dog and cat than I spent on myself.

Besides regular food and chew bones for the dog (yes, they're a necessity if I want to keep shoes and other items intact while I'm at work), the cat requires "special" food because she's 11 years old and has feline lower urinary tract disease, so her dry food runs about $20 a month, wet food slightly more.

Last weekend, the retractable leash I've been using to walk Lulu since she was a puppy stopped retracting. If you've ever used one of these leashes and had this problem, you know it's not something you can fix. So I had to buy her a new retractable leash (at one of my favorite stores in Austin, Bark & Purr). For $27, including tax. Twenty-seven dollars. For a leash.

It's not entirely a bad thing. Her old leash was a cord, like this one:
See the cord? I still have whiplash burn scars on my legs from her wrapping that thing around me when we ran into dog friends and she got excited. So my new retractable leash is all belt, like this one:
No more whiplash burns, and this one should last me for a while, but let's just say that Lulu got her birthday present early (she'll be two years old on October 10, and I was wondering what to get her).

When you're on a tight budget, surprises suck. Things break, animals get sick, you get sick (I'm still recovering from paying three co-pays and for two medications from a surprise kidney infection a couple of weeks ago...as a diabetic, I don't mess around with kidney infections and even though I'm lucky enough as an uninsured person to be covered by a local health clinic that's just as good as having insurance, I still have to pay the co-pays and for medication).

I learned a lot about being frugal after spending 2009 partially on unemployment and freelancing. I know how to grocery shop on a budget, I no longer use $45 night cream, and I can't remember the last time I bought new clothes. I buy books at the used book store. And there are lots of free things to do with your free time in Austin.

But that doesn't mean I miss being able to walk into Banana Republic and dropping $400 on new clothes (the last time I did that was in 2008). I miss my Kiehl's and Philosophy and DDF skin products. I miss salon shampoo. I miss new shoes that aren't flip flops. I miss my Source of Life vitamins (I take the One-a-Days now). I've only gotten my hair cut and colored twice in the past six months, and I go to a salon north of downtown because it's about half the cost of the downtown salons.

This month, I spent $8.99 on hairspray and $17 on Olay face cream. Add it up, and I spent more on my little animal twosome.

I hope Lulu appreciates her new leash. I can't tell, other than she seems to enjoy walks more without having a cord dragging behind her and getting tangled up with her legs. She's a dog. She doesn't even know when her birthday is. It's hard enough being a dog parent; I just can't imagine trying to make it work with "real" children.

And it could be worse. Last year, around this time, it was. Now I'm getting a regular paycheck, love my job, and know I have enough to cover my bills as long as nothing catastrophic happens. (Universe, in case you're listening, that's a plea, not an invite).

I have a tight budget, but something screws it up every month. How do people with kids do it? I can substitute the cheap cat food for a week or so and my cat won't die. I can use a broken leash for a few days and it's just an inconvenience. I can cut costs and use store brand products, eat pasta for dinner for a week, and do without a new wardrobe. But kids grow out of their clothes. They need to eat green things instead of taking a multi-vitamin. They need lunch money. They get sick and you have to miss work.

Here's too all the moms out there on a budget, including my own when she was a single parent raising four of us while working two jobs and putting herself through college. You perform miracles.

This year's soundtrack....

Inspired my my friend Angie Mizzell's post, My Story: The Soundtrack, and because I have been working on and off on a memoir-style (sort of) essay collection myself, I came up with my own soundtrack should they make a movie from my memoir (a la Eat Pray Love). A more apt title for mine would be Love, Drink, Cry....but it isn't. I posted this on Angie's blog as well, but wanted to share here. Soundtrack for my memoir, possibly. Soundtrack for 2010, definitely.

The Weary Kind, Ryan Bingham (from the Crazy Heart soundtrack)
Beautiful World, Colin Hay
Hold on Hope, Guided by Voices
All in My Head, Shawn Mullins
Carolina in My Mind, James Taylor
Too Much Space, Lisa Germano
Who'd Have Known, Lily Allen
Bittersweet Symphony, The Verve
Thunder Road, Cowboy Junkies (Springsteen cover)
I am Alright, Madeleine Peyroux
All I Want, Susie Suh
Harvest Moon, Neil Young
You Are Not Alone, Patty Griffin
Don't Mind Me, Lucy Kaplansky

I have an actual iTunes playlist for this one called "Moving to Austin." I also have a playlist for 2009 called "The Shitshow," but I'd rather keep that one to myself for now. Even if you're not working on a memoir like the 10 billion of us who are, what is your soundtrack (or song) for this year? Did you have one for 2009? Is it mostly made up of The Cure? Should I have included "Deep in the Heart of Texas" on mine?

Share yours here...I'd love to add some new music to my own list.

When I dream, I dream in Charleston...

Even after being in Austin for over seven months, I am often homesick. Homesickness, thankfully, isn't debilitating. But it shows up in the strangest ways.

I still love to look at photos of my house in Charleston in Wagener Terrace. Not only did I love that house and lived there for eight years, I adored the neighborhood. I have some good memories of that house. I wrote my first book in my home office in that house. I got my puppy in that house and met so many wonderful neighbors walking that little furball around the neighborhood. I trained her in the side yard. She played with her dog friends in the back yard. Someone else lives there now.



I miss azaleas. I miss Hampton Park. I miss Lulu's dog friends. I miss my family. I miss my sunroom. I miss my sweet neighbor Therese, who used to bring me the loveliest leftover dinner plates with ethnic and organic food. She once cooked me Ethiopian food simply because I mentioned I'd never tried it. I miss Carl and Donna across the street. There was something comforting on weekend mornings about watching them work in their yard or on their house. I miss my monkey, who lived a block up the street after he moved out and used to bring me fresh tomatoes from his garden. I miss Tom and Ellie and Lulu misses Nando, their Havanese - the first dog love she had at only 8 weeks old. I miss my freelancer friends I used to have lunch with at Earthfare's cafe. I miss my BFF, who used to come over and eat Chinese food from Hot Mustard with me at least once a week. I miss Doretha, Angie, Linda, Janet, Jason, Aluette, Jay (and Tater!), Sabrina, Margaret, Ida, Amy, Leigh, Lee, Misty, Archie, Colleen, and so many more.

I never really needed my GPS in Charleston, since I grew up there, but in Austin, Samantha (GPS voice) and I communicate frequently. I couldn't find my way around Austin without Samantha. But I am going to confess for the first time here: My "home" setting in my GPS is still Grove Street in Charleston. I haven't changed it.

I haven't gotten a Texas driver's license or Texas tags for my car yet. My tags don't expire until next month, and my license is good until 2011, so I figured it was OK to wait. If I get pulled over, I figured I'd just tell them I recently relocated. Something about switching tags and getting a Texas license makes it feel so permanent, and makes me feel a little like I can't go home if I wanted to RIGHT NOW. I don't, but I like having the option.

Sometimes when I dream, even now, I dream in Charleston. And sometimes I wake up and I'm surprised to be in a room I don't recognize. Where are my blush pink walls, my 1940s glass windows, my high ceilings, my hardwood floors? And then I remember: I am in Texas.

So maybe I've been dragging my feet a little bit, literally and figuratively. But next month, I'm going to have to go wherever one goes to switch tags. I will also have to have my vehicle inspected, as they do that in Texas. And get a new license at the DMV.

I'm making new friends here, new memories, and there is a strong chance that someday years from now I will look back and feel so much nostalgia for Austin that I can hardly stand it. But it's new to me still and that's not a bad thing. I know it will eventually feel like home. And I needed this change of scenery. I need to be here.

Giving writerly advice inspires me to write...

Last week, I had two friends contact me separately asking for advice about writing. One is jumping back into working on her novel. The other is working on giving her freelance writing career a jump start. I also have two friends who recently dug old short stories out of storage and are working on revising them. What motivation! I realized, having slacked off in the creative writing department myself, that every time someone asks my advice on writing, it gives me a little kick in the pants to get back into writing myself. It's a little too easy - especially with weeks of 100+ degree days - to lose energy and spend evenings and weekends doing something other than watching the television in a reclined position on the couch under the ceiling fan with the air conditioner blasting.

I thought I'd share a few links here for the writers out there that might also need some inspiration (or a kick in the pants) that have helped me. These are for you, but also for me. I hope you enjoy them!

Writer, blogger and author Christina Katz has a great web site and weekly e-mail newsletter for writers. I've been subscribing for a few years now and always find something helpful. One of my recent favorites is her list of 228 movies about writers and the writing life (link to PDF here).

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is almost here! It begins November 1 and is perfect for writers who NEED deadlines to get anything done. You can sign up at the web site to participate - the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in just one month - and there are forums and tools that help set deadlines, hold you accountable for word count, and get advice from others who are participating. Read "How NaNoWriMo Works" here.

I love this advice to writers piece by Kurt Vonnegut called "How to Write With Style."

One of my favorite blogs with tons of advice for freelance writers, The Renegade Writer. If you're at the querying editors stage, they also have a great book called Query Letters that Rock.

Find inspirational quotes, book recommendations, and tons of links to other web sites at Advice to Writers (Writerly Wisdom of the Ages, collected by Jon Winokor).

If you're a podcast-listener like I am (I get most of my NPR fix via podcasts), there are several good ones for writers and readers, like Selected Shorts (short fiction read during their live shows by stars of stage and screen), KQED's "The Writer's Block" (short stories, excerpts, and nonfiction read by authors), Book Lust with Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl (interviews with writers on writing), The New Yorker's Fiction podcast (writers reading their favorite stories from The New Yorker), "I Should Be Writing" (the podcast for wanna-be fiction writers), and of course, This American Life (storytelling at its best).

And my final bit of advice, though it's specific to me, is return to what worked for you in the beginning. I have a battered copy of Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. I discovered this book while I was still in high school and it was the first book on writing I read that really spoke to me. It freed me to write, it gave me permission to call myself a writer, and all of these years later, it still gives me so much inspiration, even when I have to force myself to pick it up and start reading. It's always close by; I always know where it is; and I think it might be the 5th or 6th copy I purchased because I've loaned or given others away to writer friends with writing emergencies.

For those of you who have asked my advice, I love you for it. I love you for thinking so much of me, but also because you inspire me by asking. And for those of you out there who would like to ask but haven't, ask away! Comment here or email me at kellylovejohnson[AT]gmail.com.

My first family visit in Austin...

Was from my niece Amanda yesterday, who flew to El Paso to drive a friend back to Charleston and came through Austin for the day (see pic...she's a short stack, so I had to squat down a little for a photo hug). It was wonderful after seven-plus months being in Austin and limited to Skyping and phone calls with family to see her, and of course she brought all the love from the multitudes of sisters, nieces, mom, nephew, brand new niece, and everyone back home. We spent a great day together in Austin, went to lunch, drove around downtown Austin, and they had some rest time back at my place in the afternoon before mucho driving to try and make it out of Texas and into Louisiana before they stopped for the night. I wish she could have stayed for a week, sans her friend Tiffani's 3-year-old, who is extremely entertaining for a day, but also exhausting. On a positive note, my dog absolutely adored the child and they chased each other around the coffee table for an hour. I think Lulu would have squealed the whole time too, but, you know, she's a dog...either way, I had one worn out puppy last night.

I thought I'd get hit with a wave of homesickness after Amanda left, but I was left instead with a feeling of love and happiness. Sometimes it seems like family is so far away, but then they pop up and you can put your arms around them and they're closer than I imagine. The only one who cried a little when they left was Tiffani's daughter, and that's because she wanted to stay with Lulu.

Wishing my niece safe travels back to Charleston!