December 24, 2014
Merry Christmas Eve!
This might have been more appropriate for a Thanksgiving post, but a little reflection before Christmas isn’t a bad thing.
It hasn’t been an easy year.
Hell, this decade. We’ve had grief piled upon grief, year after year. Stress and stressors are constant, if not consistent, and things aren’t perfect by any stretch.
I still want my body back. It probably won’t ever happen but reality doesn’t stop the yearning.
My 20s, starting in my teens really, were RIDICULOUS. Seemingly only memorable for the slow dissolution of our family, while I forced my career to grow like a hothouse bloom in a desperate bid to save them, all at the expense of my health and wellbeing. There are whole chunks of years I hardly remember because all I did was work + school + work.
There was a move, there was a marriage (and a wedding), and parent loss. Travel, abroad and domestic. Two huge job changes.
Bringing home our “first born”, Doggle. Celebrating our first year with him. Having Thanksgiving with him.
Bringing home Seamus.
Then losing Doggle.
The impending Little Bean.
The family relationships continuing to be crap – it’s not as bad as it’s been but only because it’s been pretty DAMN bad before.
Figuring out how to manage money with a co-pilot. Figuring out how to blog about combined/family money.
Life revolved around money (mostly not having it). Not having it was the fire under my butt to do better. Having it was a watershed moment, and purchased a sense of stability, and security that I haven’t felt since I was too young to worry about the family. (I was around 8, coming home from the library with a stack of books as tall as I, and playing with our first dog, that I last remember not worrying about anything, much less making ends meet.)
For all those years in between, “happiness” didn’t occur to me. Who worries about that when you’re not sure how you’re going to get from one broke month to the next? Or if you’re properly braced for the next emergency?
This year, it’s sunk that we are happy. Part of that’s being low maintenance. Give me a donut and I’m happy for the day. Give PiC an hour to himself, and he’s happy for the day. Clearly, our bar is set pretty low and that’s how we want it.
But more importantly, for the first time, despite all the uncertainty surrounding pregnancy, childbirth, adding a human to the family, not knowing what the heck I’m doing next, despite all the stuff that would normally set me on the starting blocks, ready to bolt somewhere – anywhere – I think I’m also feeling contentment.
Happiness is that thing that’s thrown around all the time. It’s the thing to be pursued. It brings the highs to offset the lows. We’re even Constitutionally Entitled to pursuing it. But happiness feels to me to be an extrinsic thing, so easily influenced by the external things like jobs, weather, family, friends. And once you get it, you almost have to start over and find it again.
Meanwhile, the mellower version, contentment, doesn’t get the good PR that happiness does and it should!
Whether you celebrate Christmas secularly or religiously, or not at all, I wish you all joy, contentment and warm fuzzies
December 11, 2013
PiC was relatively unimpressed when I announced that our Christmas presents this year were going to be Costco stock.
“… I like Costco….”
Yup. So do most people I know. Fun fact: Costco apparently ed to keep offering mainland prices when they opened up their Hawaii stores. This was from a Hawaii-based friend. We’ve shopped there and while I won’t say all the prices are still on par with mainland prices, they’re pretty close. For a place that easily charges 3-5x more for basics than the mainland, that’s not bad.
I’ve been on the hunt for an addition to my tiny portfolio, so I started thinking over the businesses that I’ve tracked over the years, as well as the businesses we frequent. If we’re consistently willing to spend money at a business that has a strong foundation and cash flow, it makes sense to consider them as a stock holding after some research.
I’m looking for stocks with dividends this round and Costco (COST) fits that bill. Their fundamentals looked tolerably good, though the ratios are on the lower side compared to some other stocks that are flying high. I will admit that my working knowledge of the market is pretty rusty after spending enough years sitting on stocks and not doing a lot of research. It makes Evan’s Investment Club an attractive idea; you’d think this was like riding a bike but apparently I was never that good at riding bikes/stock picking!
I decided the number of stocks I wanted (based on how much cash I had on hand, honestly), the price I’d be willing to pay and set a GTC (good til canceled) stop order at that price.
My portfolio is currently at TradeKing (referral link gets you and me $50) which has been great for my style: simple, low-cost at $4.95 per trade, easy to navigate and good information resources. I buy and hold, reinvest dividends, and balance growth and income stocks.
::Update: I’m now the proud owner of COST. PiC remains slightly indifferent. 🙂
November 26, 2012
This Thanksgiving was a stay under the radar sort of weekend as far as people. There are just too many stressy and difficult emotions left over associated with this time of the year. The prospect of an extra long round trip drive thanks to holiday traffic to navigate family dynamics, juggle one family then another, then try to cram in all the non-holiday family obligations – we decided that it made more sense to have a quiet dinner early and only have one of us do part of the whirlwind.
Roasting the turkey and whipping up the rest of the dinner was surprisingly manageable spaced out over about four hours with some breaks even without my expected sous chef. With only two planned sides, mashed potatoes and stuffing, adding an impromptu cold broccoli salad wasn’t terribly challenging.
I’m the winner of turkey roasting this year because after all the worrying over how it’d turn out, having forgotten how the roasting went last year, the turkey was absolutely perfect. Even the white meat was tasty and I’m a strict dark meat eater.
While I insisted on having a bigger turkey this year because I just love eating leftovers for days on end, PiC’s not such a devotee so I didn’t want to break him. I made a few different meals from the turkey and froze half of them for later. It’ll be good for us: there will be a few meals less to cook later and we’ll enjoy a little bit of Thanksgiving not in November! <3
New Turkey Meals
1. Turkey burritos: We picked up some tortillas and wrapped up turkey dinners into burritos and soft tacos for lunch. PiC added scrambled eggs to his.
2. Halal rice and turkey, revised from this recipe: Without Greek yogurt, again, I left out the white sauce but I whipped up the rice and turkey portions. It was delicious!
I approached it as two mini recipes:
Rice – Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1 1/2 cups long grain or Basmati rice
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
Melt the butter over medium heat in a large pot. Add the turmeric and cumin and cook 1 minute. Add the rice and stir to coat. Cook, stirring freqently, until the rice is lightly toasted, about 4 minutes. Add the chicken broth, season to taste with salt and pepper. Raise the heat to high and bring to boil. Cover, reduce to simmer and cook for 15 minutes without disturbing. Remove from heat, keeping the cover on, and let rest for 5 minutes.
Turkey- Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup turkey drippings (or chicken broth)
2 pounds cooked, leftover turkey, shredded
Heat butter in a large saute pan or frying pan over medium-high heat. When bubbling, add in the onion and cook for 5 minutes. Pour in the turkey drippings (or chicken broth) and bring to simmer. Add in the leftover turkey and cook for 1 minute to warm.
White Sauce:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper
Combine all the ingredients. Half of the sauce is mixed with the turkey, half is served on top of the turkey or as a dressing.
3. Turkey stew (planned, variation on chicken theme): I didn’t pick up any heavy cream but discovered that if I “overcook” the potatoes by about 10-15 minutes, it breaks them down into a great almost-pureed creamy potato base. I’ll do half the potatoes for that extra time, and the rest for the normal cook time so they stay firm.
4. Tur-cken Stock: Not a meal but after all that work! Simmered the turkey and two frozen chicken carcasses for hours to make way too much stock (at least 2 gallons). I keep making the mistake of using too much water because I don’t measure it out – I have got to quit doing that. It’s still tasty but it’s an annoying mistake. Part of that stock went into the stew, the rest goes right into the freezer. I suppose that saves us about $2-3 per 4cup container, and I put up (5) 4-cup jars, and (1) 5-cup jar. Only used half the veggies (3 celery stalks, 2 carrots and half an onion) I might have for the carcass ratio. I don’t actually do it to save money, more because I like getting every little bit of use out of a thing philosophically. It’s satisfying. But I wouldn’t do it if it didn’t save money because it takes a lot of time and effort.
~ * ~ * ~ Other fun links via Twitter ~ * ~ * ~
via @zenvar, How to transform plain yogurt into Greek yogurt. And he says that if you keep draining it for an additional hour or two (total 4-5 hours), it becomes cream cheese.
adding to that, @kristenmchugh22 says that after draining it that long, add a little sweetener and flavor and you can bake it almost like a ricotta torta! Amazing.
I love repurposing a single ingredient that I wouldn’t otherwise buy because I don’t use it that often. I don’t eat plain or Greek yogurt or cream cheese because we don’t use any one of those regularly so they’re single use for cooking irregularly, so unless I can use it several ways, it’s no good.
Also via @zenvar, no bake peanut butter pie! And see? Cream cheese. Cream cheese that I would normally not have on hand but if I had plain yogurt, I could just make it. Brilliant.
For entertainment purposes only because I am not hunting this down: Sasquatch and DNA sequencing? Aside from my general skepticism, the fact that there’s a press release while the purported paper’s still under peer review seems less than kosher. But it doesn’t mention the supposed journal that’s reviewing it which may or may not lend veracity to the whole thing. Either way, it tickles Neil Gaiman and it should tickle all those who love the idea of Bigfoot.
SewPetiteGal’s Buttons to Jewelry Tutorial gave me a brainstorm. I have some inherited (… it suddenly occurs to me that’s what the buttons left from Mom’s sewing kit are…) buttons from both my surrogate family and from my Mom’s old sewing kit. It might be a fun new project to make something nice with those buttons. I wonder if I can do that without getting a whole lot of tools, though – I’d rather not pile up a whole lot of crafting things.
Nicole and Maggie (or one of them really) is dealing with a bully at work.
~ * ~ * ~
I didn’t stir out of doors for Black Friday even though it’s been less than madhouse-y up here in the Bay Area from what I recall. I did, however, realize that there was a multi-day business meeting confirmed for which I’ll have to attend in semi-formal attire and my wardrobe’s not precisely up to par.
My trousers are mostly make-do trousers: shabby or oddly enough, the non-shabby ones don’t fit. I usually wear dark wash bootcut trouser jeans and that won’t cut it for a business meeting. My one really nice blazer is getting worn to nubbins and needs an understudy, and I’ve never picked up more than one nice blouse. So I ordered (on sale, from J.Crew, NY&Co, and Banana Republic): 2 blazers, 4 trousers and 1 cowl neck blouse. With any luck, I might get at least 1 from each category that fits closely enough to tailor and keep. May they be the best deals and fabrics!
The rest of Saturday and Sunday was a blur of cooking and nursing. PiC brought home the plague, and I was putting up stew and stock while taking care of him around the clock.
Doggle was hilariously attentive and “helpful”. He was as glued to our sides as much as possible, checked on PiC huddled on the sofa every couple of minutes, and checking in with me every time I went to check on PiC the rest of the night. He just wore himself right out with being concerned, falling so deeply asleep he was sleep-barking in minutes. He made the whole caretaking thing fun/funny, with his exaggerated sniffery examinations of his Daddy every few minutes, his lounging against the feet, the quick abandonment for a walk and his exuberance going outside. There was something remarkably Zen about it: I care while I care but I love my life too. Or you know, a simple dog’s life without thumbs is just simpler.
(I love dogs, this is no surprise. This is why I want Funny about Money to have a second dog.)
How was your long weekend if you had one? Was there more fooding, shopping or family involved?
December 19, 2011
I’m still working on this deceptively short but ridiculously time-consuming list of things to do to save money for the household. And I’ve added several items. Lists make life seem more manageable. Until you have lists of lists, at which point the system starts to break down.
1. Benefits seemed easy but it’s spawned more paperwork for life insurance purposes. I say thee, tomorrow. I shall complete the last bits tomorrow. Or at least make the next sets of phone calls to finish the last bits tomorrow.
2. Auto and property insurance research was utterly demoralizing. ie: took hours and was still nigh-on impossible to nail down a good comparison.
3. The mortgage stuff we’re getting a start on but we’re not at the point of dealing with the actual refi.
4. I’ve been madly dashing around at work trying to get everything to the right point for the upcoming new year and battling madly but quietly for my next step.
So ….
Check! I have finally wrapped five gifts purchased earlier in the year. But we’re still down at least five gifts. Yeeks!
Check! PiC blew our gift budget on ME. It wasn’t the classic (stupid) car commercial but it was a big gift I wasn’t expecting.
_____ And has been mum on the subject of his family’s gifts so they really may be getting socks. [see, blew our budget]
_____ We’re traveling a little for the holidays and then hosting a full house for a few days so we’re double whammy on the stress of preparations.
_____ I still haven’t planned anything for our anniversary. He wanted to do something special for our 1-year engagement anniversary.
_____ And I’m working on Holiday Gifts for the Office.
Check! Mission: Find Non-denominational Seasonal Cards was accomplished, though! I triumphed in the face of great mobs and traffic. *shudder* I had forgotten the state of any mall and parking lot in the end of December, since all the shopping’s been online lately.
That’s not terrible, eh? How’s everyone else doing out there?
November 24, 2011
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who is celebrating, everyone who would be celebrating, and those who would have liked to or have opted to celebrate in their own way.
We’re having a very quiet Thanksgiving this year – no long distance travel, no incredibly ambitious menu with seven gourmet-style items in a ten hour cooking marathon, no splitting our time across multiple families. I’m incredibly grateful for that. I’m grateful that we’re just doing our own little silly dinner with whatever we want, with very little pressure except for my own expectations of really really wanting yummy turkey, stuffing and gravy.
In the grander scheme of things, I’m ever so grateful for PiC’s love and support. I’m grateful for this time and space in our lives in which, despite and because of all the challenges, we’re still able to cope and overcome. I’m glad that, despite my minor reservations, we dove into the faux-lopement last month together. It’ll be a month in four days and we have had a hell of a married life so far. And yet, it’s been somehow completely non-turbulent in terms of our relationship. We do manage this kind of chaos well enough, as weird as it is to say. None of it’s actually been easy, it’s just that we’ve done this before.
I’m hugely grateful for all of the virtual support writ live from the Twitter and blogging community during these weeks and months. It’s been a pocket haven of sanity and levity.
There’s more, but I managed to cook a full Thanksgiving meal largely by myself and it was actually pretty good and I’ve eaten enough for my belly to want an extra compartment so I’m going to carry on in another post. But that I was physically able to do that? That my hands, arms, legs, and brain held out? That it actually feels like I’m sleeping when I sleep a full night, finally? That’s pretty good too.
Signing off for the night.
December 24, 2010
We’ll be doing two weekends of family stuff in a row so I’m looking forward to clearing my head after that and having a fresh start. [Lots of stress to be read in between those lines.]
Since I inadvertently skipped my November Snapshot, next week’s year-end roundup will be enlightening and possibly frightening. Let’s hope not, though. [Submitting my receipts from the business trip would have been helpful…]
Whatever holiday you celebrate this season, I wish you the very best.
December 14, 2010
It’s probably been twenty years since I last had a Christmas tree and just the prospect of getting one this year was delicious.
Negotiations were intense, and short-lived. Within ten minutes of wandering the tree lot, and squealing over the cuteness of the under three footers, my shopping ADD kicked in and PiC was asked to please make the final call because I was bored with fussing over which tree was perfect enough.
Imperfections are character and had I not mentioned the twenty year drought? Any tree is an improvement over the no-tree of yesteryear. Low expectations, indeed. Happily, we had ended up in the discount tree section by then, points to PiC for navigating so that I’m not both the penny-pinching miser and the impatient hausfrau.
Even with the discount, we (probably mistakenly) paid extra for a disposal bag, bowl and stand, checking out at $34.
With that extra expenditure over the $20 or $25 I imagined we’d spend, I’m perfectly happy to enjoy the tree in all its natural glory, and hang gifts from its branches if it can bear up. As a topper, Cthulhu shall preside.
It hardly seems to need anything else now, does it?