My Summer Projects

Summer time, for some reason, is the perfect time to undertake the projects you have been meaning to do. I personally think the warmer weather has something to do with it, who wants to be productive when it’s cold outside? Somehow, though, my summer is flying by fast so I need to get on top of things.

This summer I am already in the midst of 2.5 projects. The half a project is moving, and you’ve already heard about that one, so I’m going to skim over it for the most part. It has been very time consuming, but now that we have an apartment it should get better. The other two are a little nerdy but I’m excited about them anyway.

First, I am in a book club reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. This book is about 1200 pages long and the last 200 are footnotes that actually matter to the rest of the book. We only started a few weeks ago, and I still can’t really tell you what the book is about. However, I can tell you that it is fascinating. The reading plan has us finishing in September which is perfect. I will let you know how this one goes. Thank goodness I am reading it with a group to keep me motivated. I hate the feeling of showing up Wednesday night being 45 pages behind everyone else.

My second real project is financial. I decided to open a stock portfolio. It’s not a very large one, don’t worry. A friend and I are using just $40 to invest in small stocks and learn about how this actually works. We are using a site called Sharebuilder because most others we found have a $2000 minimum to open an account. Sharebuilder is free with no minimums which is perfect for us. I’ve been spending a lot of time learning about market value, the best trades, and which small business stocks are worth investing in.

I do apologize that Allison and I have been so MIA the past few weeks. But now we have an apartment ready in Austin so things should calm down a bit. How are you all spending your summer? Any projects I should consider for next year?