I need to stop driving while spending some of the night drinking. It’s going to bite me in the ass sooner rather than later.

I had fun, though. After work, I bought some beers and drove directly to my sister’s place, where I hung out with my mom, had some amazing Mexican food, and then slept on and off for the next few hours because I was exhausted and full and a bit buzzed, but afterwards, once night fell and more people came over, we played some One Night, which is an awesomely fun game. I’m tired right now, and it’s late (11:09 PM), but I feel awful that it’s day 362 and I’m not writing that much.

My mom’s here. I only get to see her maybe once a year. Fire season is over, and she’ll be here up until day 365. I will write what I write. I have nothing spectacular planned. I’m not the same person I was a year ago. I no longer care about some stupid girl and instead am eager to find the next one. Who is she? Where is she? When will I meet her? It’s fun.

I’m also eager to reboot my life again. God, again. How many times do I need to do that in a given year? A lot, apparently. I need to start working out again and eating better. I need to rewrite my novel. I need to buy needed supplies. I’m still conflicted whether or not I should buy a TV. A good TV will set me back hundreds of dollars, eating into my ability to buy other much needed items. But a TV is a TV. I can buy a PS4 and play video games and watch DVDs and Netflix and Hulu and invite people over and watch TV on my couch and bed and have fun. Or I could buy more kitchen equipment, cook delicious meals with them, and help with my diet and social skills in that way. I think the latter is where I’m leaning toward. I guess the TV will have to wait.

I don’t know how far I’ve come since it seems like I’m still worried about and struggling with many of the same things I’ve been struggling with all year. I weigh more than I did then and probably in not much better shape. I can cook better. I am happier. I do have a finished novel to my name. I do have a wonderful and high paying job. I’m rid of the toxic people in my life. I’m a squad boss in firefighting. I have a wonderful home. Life is awesome but can always, always, improve.

Kaizen is the concept of continuous improvement. Maybe that’s simply the theme of my journey: continuous improvement. No matter how far I get, the process is still in the journey. I will never reach my destination because my destination comes with death. And I’m living until then. So you’ve all been part of just one year of my journey. We’ll see what happens next.

It’s late because I spent the last 7 or so hours with my mom and my family. We played One Night, which is this really awesome game where you play roles and try to figure out who, if anybody, is a werewolf. It’s a fun game that makes you lie, investigate, and deduce who you think might be a werewolf. There’s a lot more complexity to it than that, but even just that simple premise makes this a really fun game. I can’t wait to play more of this tomorrow.

We went to eat at this pretty good pizza place in Polson, where I had more cheese than I’ve had in a long time and a small, 16 oz (!!) Cold Smoke beer. Oh, I also finally used my Dodge Durango to drive a full 7 people to eat. It was really cool to drive my whole family there, and everyone seemed to have a great time.

My mom looks great and it’s great having her back. I took her out to lunch today, and it was good catching up with her again, and then she even played with us at night. We had a really fun night.

I’m on Day 361 now, and I’m tired, so I don’t think I’ll make it to 500 days. I’ve yet to shower, and I won’t tonight. I might tomorrow. I’m sleeping in an hour, which means I might just skip breakfast.

I ate and drank too much anyway.

If I didn’t have to write this entry tonight, I would be asleep. Just sayin’.

This is going to be weird once this ends. Ends with an asterisk. I’m planning to figure out how to create a WordPress blog and import my Squarespace entries into it. But that won’t be soon. Give me a few weeks. Then I’ll just have a blog that I’ll update every now and then. I’m not too well known to care about it with any sort of seriousness. Still gotta rewrite my novel.

I’ve had a long booze-induced nap this afternoon, and now I’m just groggy. I’ve been watching Attack on Titan today and been completely entranced by it. I started it Tuesday night and now I’m on track to finish it by tomorrow. It is so good.

My mom comes in from San Diego tonight.

Still haven’t worked out since coming back from firefighting. I’m definitely feeling the effects of that on my body and mind. I also haven’t meditated since coming back. So I haven’t done both of those things in about a month now. And to think how great it was to be getting those habits back a month ago. Nothing wrong with starting over.

So I made a spreadsheet of about 50 items I want to buy. The columns contain the name of the product, what kind of product it is, its price, and a link to where I can buy it. Most of the stuff I want to buy is on Amazon, which makes it easy. However, by giving myself an arbitrary $500 limit, I’m finding myself with the hard choice of culling my choices to a select few, and since I’m cutting things I want but also including things I want, I’m paralyzed by my choices. I also haven’t added everything I’m thinking of buying into it, so those choices will only be made harder. Most of the stuff I want is for the kitchen, but I have a few things for my desk and my car. Nothing for my living room. It’s better to planning this than simply buying this shit impulsively.

I’m anal.

I also know that once I get WordPress running, I’m going to want to buy a few programs for my Mac that would make updating my blog easier. Jeesh.

EMT basic training classes start on the 21st of September, and I’m going to take it. I’m going to become a certified EMT person. I might have to postpone my grad school aspirations for now. I really like being a firefighter, and if I’m also a fireline EMT, then even better. An EMT friend of mine told me I could work for the ambulance on weekends, which means extra money. It’s intense, though, he said. Am I ready for that?

Like with anything else in life, I simply have to jump in and wet my toes. I don’t know if that’s the right expression. I’ll be wetting more than my toes if I jump in.

I’m confused.

One the things I should’ve started this week but haven’t is Insanity. The big reason why is that I want to drink after work, and I know I can’t workout well with a belly full of beer. That’s a horrible excuse, I realize, but at least it’s an honest excuse.

I have less than a week before my one year project ends, and I think the thing I’m going to do is export my site to WordPress and host my blog on my own. Squarespace made it super easy for me to get started, but at $96 a year, it’s just too expensive, especially when I can get my domain name for $12-13 a year. I’ll have to do all my own coding, though, but that might be better than what I have been doing. So many apps support WordPress that it could make things even easier, once I set everything up. But I’m just talking out loud right now, so things might and will change.

I’m finding myself using fewer and fewer apps in my day to day life, and it’s making me feel freer and happier. I’m barely using OmniFocus for my daily tasks, and instead, I’m using the default Notes app in Yosemite and iOS 8. I simply created a note, titled it Today, and have been writing down the few things I want to get done that day. If I don’t finish something or even start something, I’ll leave it in the note for tomorrow. Then tomorrow I go through it again, add anything I want to do, and work from that list. I also have one for work; in fact, I created the one for work first, and I just liked it so much that I adopted it to my daily workflow. Don’t know how well this will stick, but it’s something I’m experimenting with. My life, to be frank, isn’t that busy that I need something like OmniFocus to keep it in check. Most of the things I do are things I want to do because I know they’ll make me happy or better in some way and not because I have to.

Like this blog. I really don’t have to keep this blog updated. I didn’t really have to the past 358 days, but I did because I wanted to and I knew it would make me proud later. I’m sure 95% of what I wrote has been shit, but if I didn’t write that, that 5% would never have been written and I would have never learned from it.

I’m still using OmniFocus, though. It’s a repository for a me I think is achievable but so far unattained. The note in the Notes app is fluid and impermanent, which I like, but it doesn’t hold up for long term planning. And I’m always thinking in the longterm. Once this year is up in the next week, how will I spend the following year? That’s a question that has me excited and scared. It’s something else I have to succumb myself to. Grrrrrreat.

I had some crazy Pinot Noir-infused dreams last night, and I finished the bottle tonight, and I can’t seem to keep my eyes open. My blog ends next Monday, and all I want to do is rush through to the end.

I’m tired and lazy and I just started watching Attack on Titan on Netflix and I just want to go back to watching that and did I mention I’m tired?

So I get paid at work tomorrow. I only worked two days this pay period, but I had 40 hours of vacation time saved up so I ended up with a bit over 50 hours this pay period. That’s awesome. That’s more money than I thought I would have earned, and that should keep me afloat for September, so I can actually use the fire checks toward debts. I’m thinking of allocating just $500 or so on wants and saving the rest. This will cover a lot of my kitchen wants and maybe a few things for my desk. Cool cool cool.

I planned to workout today, but that didn’t happen. A friend of mine actually wanted to go hiking with me today, but she had to go to Polson, and by the time she got back, I was already at the bottom of my Pinot Noir bottle and in no shape in going out. Maybe we’ll go out some other time. She did tell me of a few cool spots to go hiking, so that’s what I’ll be focusing on in the coming months.

Will you guys actually miss me writing this blog? If there’s enough interest (and judging by my stats, there isn’t), I’ll consider switching over to a WordPress site or something and keeping a blog there.

I’ll be honest, there are times when I do like my blog. It’s the burden of the daily entry that has tainted it, though. Live and learn, right?

This is more of a freewrite than anything. I used to do a lot of those back in high school and college. God did I do a lot of them in high school. I thought I was the shit back then, that every word I wrote was golden and heavenly and the whole world should bow at my feet and worship me. Not much has changed. Ha.

It’s the last day of August, and god damn did this month go by fast. I was out fighting fires for most of it, but damn, still went by fast. Tomorrow is a new month, and I’m supposed to get my life back on track. Shit… didn’t I say the exact same thing last September? So I guess not much has changed in the past year.

That’s not entirely true. Remember her? Yeah, me neither. She still overshadows this blog as she was the purpose of it in the beginning, but the blog became its own thing and I grew a lot as a person. What do you guys think? Have I?

Today went by too fast because I actually did what I set out to do.

I cleaned my house. Boy, did my house need a good cleaning. The bathroom is clean, the kitchen is clean, the living room is clean, everything is clean. I cleaned the fridge and that funky smell from all that expired food is gone. It actually smells amazing in there now that I have fresh food in there. I made homemade guacamole and salsa roja, and their fragrance is very welcome in my life. I made chicken salad with the guacamole, and oh god, I missed fresh and tasty and healthy food. No more fast food. Blech.

I also read a lot today. I’m nowhere near getting caught up with what I missed when I was gone, but I made a big dent in it. I should, hopefully, catch up this week before the new issue of the New Yorker arrives on Thursday. Then I can finally read some of the books I bought while I was gone. Oh, I don’t think I’ve mentioned that yet: I bought four books while I was out firefighting, and I want to read them. One in particular is called Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, and that’s one I really want to read. Maybe sometime this week.

So I cleaned, I read, and I made some good food. I also watched a lot of YouTube videos. I’m not sure when I discovered him, but I’ve been watching and enjoying the ComicsExplained YouTube channel. He goes into great detail on various comics-related topics and characters and events, and it’s so much fun to go through many of his videos. I’m learning a lot. One thing I haven’t lost progress on are all my email newsletters. The thing about these newsletters is that they’re so easy to consume, and I know how far behind I am by simply looking at my inbox. And since I love to have zero emails in my inbox, I make it a priority to consume them as quickly as possible. In that regards, I’m caught up and I feel good about it.

I have a little over a week left before my one year project comes to an end. I don’t think this next week is going to inspire my best content, but I will try to write some good shit. We’ll see. It’s no surprise that I really just want to end this and maybe — maybe — continue my blog but in a different light, with a different angle. Who knows.

Anyways, tomorrow I hope to reboot my workout regiment and to continue making good food. I also hope to start writing again, at least the early stages of it. It’s time to rewrite my novel, and that’s something I really want to focus on completely. So maybe it’s good that my blog is ending now. My novel should take all my writing focus anyway.

I’ll see you guys later. One more week.

I need to get back on track.

I updated my blog, and I added pictures to it without much context but it’s fine. I intended to revise or at least read through the entries I wrote while out firefighting, but I didn’t want to. I simply didn’t feel like doing it at the moment. I think it’s better this way anyway as each entry reflects honestly on the moment I wrote it. I’ve yet to read through all of them, but I think I will eventually. It was a fun three weeks that I was out there saving the world, and a hectic and unfavorable past week getting back to my regular routine.

The regular routine is fucked. I plan to do a lot of work tomorrow but planning and doing are two very different things. Also, like I mentioned in another post, I don’t care about 500 words anymore. I’ll write what I write and that’ll be that. I have a little over a week left, anyway. I can’t wait.

I’ve been drinking beer and eating out and not cleaning my house or showering or even shaving, even though I’m intentionally growing out my beard for now. I like it. I’ll see if I still feel that way once it grows out more. My fingernails are long. I feel bloated. Everything feels disorganized. I don’t like it. Fire season is over, so it’s time to regroup.

This will matter to no one but me: I tweaked YNAB, removing my Credit Cards category and instead having my categories show their true debt load. I thought this would help me see which category has the most debt, in which case I won’t spend any of my money on it once I get paid. This mostly means I don’t have money to spend on anything I want. I might break this rule and buy a few things, but I’ll see once all my money comes in. This means I probably won’t buy a TV this time around. I might not have a big purchase this year with my fire money. Hmm…

I’ll shower tomorrow and get my OmniFocus tasks back under control. Then it’s time to consume what I need to consume, create what I need to create, and lose the fat I need to lose. I love September.

So I’m still trying to get my life back on track again. Fire season seems to do that. I know it does it and I know to expect it, but it’s still very tough to steer the ship back to where it used to be. I’ll get there.

Tomorrow I will finally have a day off in almost 4 weeks. It’s been a long time coming and I can’t wait to sleep in and finally go grocery shopping, but I wished to be out firefighting this weekend. It won’t happen. My crew looks like they will demobilize this weekend, giving me zero chance to fight with them.

I still haven’t added all my past entries on my blog. It’s been a long week. I will do that this weekend for sure. It’ll be good to do that then since I only have ten days left on this year. Holy shit you guys. I’m going to make it to a full year of daily entries. So much has happened that I don’t even know where to begin.

Good thing I don’t have to since I’ll have a few future entries to reminisce on that. What’s really on my mind is the fact that I don’t want to spend my money on anything. I’m wishy-washy about it. There are so many things I wouldn’t mind having, but at the same time, I feel like I have enough. I also haven’t received all my firefighting money yet, so my thoughts might change once it does. I also have to wait until my school checks stabilize, and I can get my budget back on track.

So I removed Apple Music from my Apple devices and am going back to buying music. I didn’t like it. I don’t like streaming music. I like owning it. I wrote about this already, but just thought I’d mention it again, if anybody was curious.

I have a lot of work ahead of me still.

So I still haven’t added my entries to my blog. I’ll do it soon. Tomorrow is Friday, which means I may have a chance this weekend to do it, only if I’m not allowed to go back to firefighting this weekend. I haven’t had a day off since August 2nd, but who cares, right? I’m making money.

I felt better today, but still very very tired. I took it easy, today, though, and nobody seemed to notice. I did my job when it was required of me to do it, but I did the absolute minimum. I have a running list of teachers who need my help, but I, for the most part, ignored it. I checked off a few teachers, but it was hardly a dent.

I totally don’t care about hitting 500 words an entry anymore. I have 11 more days before I close the books on this blog, and I can’t wait. I love writing and I love journalling but I hate blogging. Especially daily blogging. I get less joy out of it than if I wrote in my moleskine. Sorry to be a debbie-downer.

I’m growing my beard out. I haven’t shaved in almost 4 weeks, and I really really missed having a beard. I missed scratching it and petting it and the way I look with it. I’ve been thinking of simply growing it out as far as I could, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to stomach that. We’ll see.

I’ve been making plans in my head for what to do with all this money coming in, but for the most part, I don’t really want to spend it on anything extravagant. There’s kitchen supplies and a new TV and books and a few electronics, but all that stuff can wait for now, I feel. Who knows. Maybe I’ll feel different when all my money comes in.

I’m behind on TV and New Yorker issues and my Instapaper queue is filled to the brim. I love fire season.

Today was awful because I woke up with a runny nose, and I drank two Cold Smokes, which caused me to take a nap for about 2-3 hours just now, and I really didn’t want to write this entry, but here I am writing what I can.

It looks like I have less than 2 weeks before I’m done with all these entries. I have nothing planned for the end other than finishing. I don’t think I’m going to do this for another year. I’m going to write in my moleskine journal as often as possible, but I won’t be bound by word count or consistency. At least not daily consistency.

Today was the first day of school, and god dammit, I didn’t feel good for it. I was so irritated with everyone by the end that it came out during my interactions with people. At least I think so, nobody seemed to have any conflict with me. I think they knew I wasn’t feeling any good.

It’s almost 10, and I don’t know how much sleep I’ll get. I’m not that tired right now, so we’ll see.

I still haven’t posted the last three weeks’ worth of entries. Ugh. I have to do that soon.