A Gai Shan Life

The first six months

April 25, 2013 By Revanche 12 Comments

Do you remember the first six months of your best relationship?

Full of newness, and discovery, questions and sometimes “terrible” decisions.

We remember sitting on LA freeways for hours. Both ways. At completely, utterly unreasonable hours. Very scheduled phone calls post-9 pm to take advantage of those unlimited night minutes and lasted hours about nothing. Flowers every month, just because. Overly fancy restaurants (for us, at the time) the better to bat our eyes at each other. Cramming in one social obligation after another, stacked with work and school obligations, because sometimes, that’s the only way we could see each other without abandoning our friends or family. I’m sure there were more foolish decisions, and a lot less eye batting than I assume, but I can’t remember now.

A mutual friend laughed at our rueful reminiscing: the first six months don’t count! You do stupid things in your first six months together.

This is true, we did do stupid things to be together. We spent stupid money sometimes. Things that my normally pragmatic self would laugh at now, or even raise an eyebrow over wondering if this was setting ourselves up for a lifetime of impulse buys and trips. [I did (politely) ask PiC to stop bringing flowers every month around month 6 or so. I loved the thought but hated the idea he was spending so much.] And the first six months theory is a handy “it’s ok!” dismissal of it all. But you know what?

The first six months did count.

We spent time frivolously and had a great lot of fun. We enjoyed each other’s company without undue worry, which was a huge thing for me in my early 20s otherwise weighed down with worry and pain, and learned how to communicate. Even before we became a long distance relationship, we learned how to disagree and even fight efficiently and effectively, if you can believe it, and as much as talking about fighting wouldn’t seem like the most positive thing about an early relationship – it was how we learned to communicate better and waste little to no time on dramatic flounces.

We enjoyed each other as people, and made stupidly grand gestures to show it. We also chose to share the utterly mundane to share, like the Costco hot dog dinner. There was, as it turned out, plenty of time to be 90% sensible later. We are sensible now. But those short six months were full of laughter and learning how to care for and about each other. Rather priceless.

And the silliness of the first six months didn’t just end there. We still consciously make “stupid” decisions for each other, to make each other happy or laugh, despite being a boring old married couple. But it’s ok – we’re not wearing blinders when we do it. We have a budget.

What do you think of the six months theory? What were your first six months of a solid relationship like?

Did you travel unnaturally long distances to see each other? Spend hours on the phone? Sit in traffic forever just to see each other?

Filed Under: relationships

Sharing is caring: Happy ferrets edition!

April 20, 2013 By Revanche 10 Comments

This. Week. This edition wasn’t supposed to be so morose but …

To quote the Onion: “Maybe next time we have a week, they can try not to pack it completely to the fucking brim with explosions, mutilations, death, manhunts, lies, weeping, and the utter uselessness of our political system,” said basically every person in America who isn’t comatose or a complete sociopath.

And on top of the Marathon news, the earthquakes, the shootings, and being disgusted with the news outlets’ shenanigans, my mundane life was quietly unraveling.

I spent an inordinate amount of time fixing my computer, am worrying about work sustainability and have to start thinking ahead to what’s next, and really screwed up my physically feeling pretty good (for me) on Monday. It’s always a bit of a cycle, really, pain starts, which means fatigue starts, so I prescribe extra sleep and hydration, but the pain keeps me awake. Which is, y’know, wonderful. But slowly and surely, we creep toward feeling better …

Until I got a pair of parking tickets issued by the home-local school. Which meant that my dad had let my brother drive my car again. Without my permission. In fact, against my explicit instructions that he and only he is allowed to drive my car because Sibling can’t be trusted. The excuse is always: well I got busy and he needed to X so I had to let him borrow it. No. You didn’t. His desires are not your priorities. Respecting the fact that I’ve been providing for all of you for ten years and respecting that I have set boundaries for good reasons ARE your priorities.

Dad’s logic is absolutely beyond me. When he can’t cater to my brother himself, which is often enough considering he’s killing himself working now, he decides that the next best thing is to give him the keys to my car. Instead of saying: you’re an adult, this is YOUR issue, not mine, you figure it out. There are, in fact, buses and trains in our area. Not plentiful but they exist. So Sibling could very well figure out how to get someplace with public transit. Instead he relies on making something a “crisis” and either he gets my dad to take him or manipulates him into giving up the car.

I can’t and won’t buy Sibling auto insurance because he’s not allowed to drive my cars, and my dad knows that, so if he got into an accident, I’d have a world of problems there. Even if I wasn’t held responsible, I’d still have to deal with the aftermath.

I don’t even know who this person I call “Dad” is anymore. Instead of standing up to your son you’d rather put me at fiduciary and other risk for anything he did. Because I haven’t sacrificed enough. And he wonders why telling Sibling that “by doing that, you will screw your sister over” doesn’t register. If he can’t even be bothered to look out for me, why on earth with the perpetually selfish sibling care when there are no consequences?

Dad says that he’s sure my brother has legitimate mental issues (which I still have trouble believing because my brother is historically that selfish and manipulative that it’s incredibly hard not to believe this is another one of his ruses) so he has to “take care” of him which is, apparently, letting him have what he wants when he wants it. I mean, I knew my dad had issues with being tough with his kids but this version of him is appalling and it’s incredibly hard to swallow.

We had a thoroughly unpleasant conversation hashing it out. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what his reasons are, Sibling has the freedom to make his choices, good or bad, to improve his life or not, but I refuse to be, even at a distance or even by proxy, his pawn. But it seems my dad will keep dancing to his tune by choice and I can’t abide with that.

I started feeling a lot like this ….

Ah well. The week is over and with it, I hope, all the horrible.

Popcorn …. FERRET!!

Filed Under: family, link love

A combined budget: first quarter down!

April 17, 2013 By Revanche 9 Comments

We’re a little more than three months into living on a combined budget. And even though this is the first time PiC’s lived on such a detailed budget, we still seem to be doing sort of ok.

I say “sort of” because:

+ we’re not fighting tooth and nail over living by a budget (yay!)
+ we’re not fighting over anything budget at all (yay!) (yes, I assume there’s going to be some amount of disagreement and conflict when you’re learning to live in new boundaries)
- we’re not exactly ON the budget in some places (boo!)
- we still need to discuss how to offset some of the early spending highs (boo!)

It’s a wash, as far as operations go.

As far as execution … we’re having a touch of trouble staying in our budgeted amount in certain categories and not yet doing a good job of pulling back in specific areas to make up for it. This goes against the grain. I’m a money hoarder and I would much rather spend on the low side of any budgeted amount throughout the year and have some left over. This is, of course, not PiC’s style.

Nearly four months into the year, I’d expect that our spending should be at about 33% of the budgeted amount across all categories. I’m seeing spending as low as 3 and 7% (less regular/essential categories) and as high as 47 and 53% (ahem someone’s allowance).

Overall, though, we only went over our monthly total once in the last three months and the monthly averages are very close to what we expect to be spending each month. That helps ease the sting of what feels like budgetary failure.

Management is….

a bit complicated right now: we primarily use my American Express, and his Southwest Visa when it’s a non-American Express establishment. Then we have the odd cash or check expenditures. It all gets tallied into a spreadsheet on a (we try) weekly basis.

We’ve also finally opened a joint checking account to pay the bills from so that’ll help smooth out the problem of taking it turnabout to pay bills. And, happy day! I may be able to start closing out some of my other banking accounts. I’ve got accounts across four banks right now.

Admittedly, I’ve been refusing to close my oldest checking account because it’s the one I opened when I first turned eighteen and was allowed to open my very open checking account. (PF sentimentality!) And I enjoy the freedom of having the choice of accessing ATMs for two B&M banks… but considering I have two branches of the other bank nearby and go to the ATM about 6 times a year, that’s not a good reason.

Observations …

We eat a lot. Or rather, we spend a hell of a lot of money on not terribly fancy food. We don’t even buy beer (except once in several months), we only get basic (but good IMO) cheddar, we have a regular rotation of relatively “cheap” food & recipes around things like whole chickens but it’s more than offset by the handful of convenience foods that we buy for my fibro-body benefit.

Saving Money …

I’m over the moon about changing our cell phone plan with T-Mobile. SingleMa and I got into a conversation on Twitter about cell phone plans. Next day, we found the new contract-free plans and each saved a ton! She reduced her bill by $40/month, ours should be less by $50/month. Woot! That annual $600 will go a long way to making up for buying a new phone a bit earlier than I wanted to. I hated dealing with the nonsense of their customer service which has gotten pretty iffy these past couple of years. It used to be rock solid but not so much anymore. A shame. I also finally sent in Mom’s death certificate to cancel her phone line, something I’m trying to be totally pragmatic about but I have to admit gives me a bit of a pang.

And after a couple months of paying too much for internet ($43) when our last promotion lapsed, I surfed AT&T’s promotions for Internet without a Phone Line while signed into my account and lo! They still pulled up the cheap-cheap plans! I experimentally put it in my cart, put the live customer service chat on, and found that I could indeed switch to the $20/month plan without cancelling service. Check. That. Out. AT&T, making life easy for an existing customer. Unbelievable. And I love it.

Total to be saved this year (8 months of each line being cheaper): $400 + 160 = $560!

Tax Time …

We got bitten by AMT this year. Sonnuva … it wasn’t terrible, insofar as the money’s concerned. My headache was another thing entirely, trying to learn everything specifically relevant I could about AMT on the fly. There was definitely cursing associated with this year’s taxes.

I managed to get all the forms in for an April 14th filing but then found out afterward that one of the forms was an estimate and the “responsible” (@$$shole) accountant didn’t bother to say so until well after the fact. Again: cursing. Bitter? Yes. Now I have to file amendments for this year as soon as those new forms are in. Another hour and a half of my life re-committed to doing unnecessary taxes. Still, the bulk of it’s done and that’s something to be grateful for.

::How are you folks doing with your money these days?

Filed Under: budget, Spending, taxes

My new favorite pasta: (faux) Bucatini All’amatriciana

April 12, 2013 By Revanche 6 Comments

Bacon pasta. Does it get better? (Not really, no.)

Back by special request this week for PiC’s carbing up pre-MAJOR NEW RACE, I get to make an enormous batch of this amazing new recipe. As race support staff, I (so modestly) rock.

One of my favorite things to do is experiment with new recipes if I 1) don’t screw it up and 2) have an appreciative audience. Number two is a given with PiC. Our diet tends to get staid and boring which, for such a health-oriented eater, is a surprising thing about him, but he does appreciate and enjoy anything I cook even when I think it didn’t turn out. So all that’s left to do is Not Screw It Up. No pressure.

After reading Eat and Run this week, I’m also inspired to experiment with the recipes shared in the book to see how that helps PiC’s running. And maybe it’ll have a positive effect on my health too. Guinea pig-dom!

Also happily, a now-local childhood friend is close enough to visit with us once in a while and we’ve found that we love cooking and eating together. We try to share new or new-to-each-other recipes each time.

This was the first time I’d ever cooked with crushed red pepper and boy howdy! Did I ever screw up. I normally always follow new recipes as exactly as possible (ahem, except every other recipe where I substitute one or three ingredients because our cupboard’s too lean. Including this one, as you’ll see.) and as it turns out, even our fire-mouth SE-Asia-travel hardened friend thought the first batch was eyewateringly spicy. Whoops.

We had this with an amazing kale salad and leftovers were just as incredible. The next time I made a batch, we two greedy-faces ate up the whole skillet in one meal. Good grief. Not totally recommended.

Bucatini All’amatriciana

serves 2 greedy-faces or 4 normal people.

Ingredients

1/2 pound thinly sliced pancetta, coarsely chopped*
1 red onion, thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 1/2 teaspoons crushed red pepper*
12 ounces prepared tomato sauce*
Kosher salt
1 pound bucatini*
1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves*
Grated Pecorino Romano cheese, for serving

*I use regular bacon instead of pancetta since it’s faster and easier to find.
HALVE the red pepper for the love of your taste buds.
Just used jarred sauce to spare my hands.
Bucatini is remarkably hard to find! So I use linguine instead.
I pretty much never have parsley.

Directions

1. (I trim at least half the fat off the bacon first.) Then, in a large, deep skillet, cook the pancetta over moderate heat, until lightly browned. Cook about 6 minutes.
2. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the pancetta to a plate.
3. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat in the skillet.
4. Add the onion, garlic and crushed red pepper and cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is lightly browned. Takes about 6 minutes.
5. Return the pancetta to the skillet. Add the tomato sauce, season with salt and simmer until very thick. Cook about 10 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, in a pot of salted boiling water, cook the pasta until al dente. Drain the pasta, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking water.
7. Add the pasta to the sauce along with the parsley and the reserved cooking water and stir over moderately high heat until the pasta is evenly coated, 2 minutes.
8. Serve the pasta in bowls. Parmesan if desired.

:: Have you ever seen bucatini in a store?
:: If you’re a runner, how do you like to dietarily prepare for races?
:: Or are you more like me and just like to make yummy food?

Filed Under: fitness, recipes