Please vote for my post (Father) on Rockstar Rumble, live today and tomorrow (Friday). The link still works, I don’t know why the blog likes to strike through links occasionally!
Kathleen’s moving to Arizona and says some quite true things about kids. We’ve gotten past some of those hurdles by having family visit and adjusting our expectations, and PiC works out of the home so we don’t feel trapped. But it’s true that without a supporting cast, it’s hard having kids.
I am always thinking about ways to teach JB good money habits and self control. We might give this one a try when ze is older.
Keep Thrifty’s Chris didn’t replace their pizza cutter. We work on not having specialized tools in the kitchen too but we recently added a food processor and it was sheer heaven when preparing a veggie heavy meatloaf and my Hainan chicken recipe. So much time and energy saved! Two thumbs up on that.
I don’t usually love list posts but I love mail so the 21 things you can mail was a bit of fun.
Should I say yes more often as a parent? I dunno, I try for a reasonable balance. We allow small snacks before dinner though if you kept saying yes, JB would have two dinners and four desserts before the real dinner so the madness has to stop somewhere.
A transcript on how generosity in business pays off. It’s a good read but this made me laugh: “The more you can pour into making it a gift about them… Think about going to a wedding. You’d never engrave something with “Compliments of John Ruhlin” or “Compliments of Giftology.” It would be the cheesiest thing on the planet.” An incredibly tacky cousin stapled her business card to some cash for our wedding present. We’ve got some weird relatives.
This made me nod, this is exactly how we approach marriage and parenting which is why our partnership works. We don’t count how many times we’ve done something, we look at what our partner’s been carrying and try to alleviate their burden:
“So often in marriage we’re thinking about our own needs and what we want and what’s fair, and that’s natural. That’s really human, but good marriages come from two people thinking about how they can serve one another and really approaching marriage from a place of generosity. That gets really practical. It comes down to the division of household chores.
Instead of thinking primarily about equity and fairness, in a great marriage where both people are being generous you’re just looking for opportunities to help one another. It’s true of parenting too. Like, who’s going to put the kids to bed? Who’s going to get them ready for school or church? Who’s going to take them to practice? All those kinds of things. The endless driving. Hello. The endless driving. I’m so in that season right now.”
And then I REALLY liked this idea: “One of the things he said to me is the easiest, fastest way to get money to the people who need it the most… Don’t send it to Washington and let them skim off a big administrative charge. Instead, just give all of it to the people who need it the most.”
Penny’s post reminds me of my biggest last-moment-if-only-I-knew-it. The night PiC and I got married, I hugged Mom and told her I’d be back later. She was clinging to me, anxiety-fueled, wondering something, and I gently disgengaged her so that she could get some rest. Honestly, I was still too keyed up from worrying about her the whole time we were getting married. We drove back to SF the next morning after brunch with out of town friends and didn’t stop in on her. A few days later, she was gone. She’d been quite ill for a long time but not terminal – it was a shock for all of us.
She didn’t have any good days anymore, but I thought we still had a chance to reverse the health issues, or stop them from progressing. I was wrong.
I would be great at the crappy dinner party. We do this with my favorite relative regularly. But PiC would seriously be challenged by this.
Some people expect to retire from long careers in the military, but it’s important to understand that there are lots of reasons that might not happen. Military Dollar helps by sharing those stories.
I grew up watching Serena Williams grow up and dominate on the courts and will always be in awe of her. It also enrages me that her medical professionals continued in the same well known vein of not listening to black women about their health, particularly in maternal health.
I love window shopping with Sherry. She’s got me ogling these beautiful Olivia Burton watches which are awfully tempting since I can’t find the dang links to lengthen the strap of my one 12 year old watch I’ve worn for years, worth maybe $50 originally, which now pinches me something awful. Apparently you can retain pregnancy weight around your wrists. The indignities of motherhood abound. This design feels most classically me, though these artsy designs are delightful to look at. Usually designs come across as “clutter” to me, and I doubt I’d ever choose leather because I wear my accessories for decades and never doubt my ability to wear out even leather, but they’re beautiful to look at nonetheless. But don’t worry, old watch, I’ll
Interview with Kristi Yamaguchi. She was a Big Deal when I was growing up and the only reason I was interested in skating. She was also probably the inspiration for my secret Olympian dreams and honestly there’s a secret part of me that hopes that I can regain enough good health in retirement that I could revive that dream. I know, I’m crazy.
AMAZING
Angel Rice. It’s even better because she’s not the ideal body type for gymnastics. Athleticism comes on all body types. pic.twitter.com/KMWIjqUWNr
And linked to Nina Kalanithi, can I just saw how weird it feels whenever I see unexpected dotted lines like when a blogger I read for a long time turns out to be related to someone I’ve known for a long time. I read an excerpt of A Breath of Air a long while ago and always intended to finish reading it. I’ve read Jo of A Cup of Jo for years, on and off, and had completely missed that Nina was Jo’s sister.
I love Tawcan’s Dividend City. I had the “buy what you love” philosophy in mind but definitely didn’t think it through this way! I think this analogy makes so much sense. Now we just have to build an ethical Dividend City. Unless I chuck it all for ETFs.
The Skype sex scam – I had no idea this was a thing but it’s disgusting and worrisome. We live so much of our lives online, and I feel the tremendous weight of the responsibility of teaching JB to protect zirself from falling for any of hundreds, or thousands, of scams online. Related scams discussion.
Families!
This mama dog was keeping her puppies warm inside a doghouse when someone else decided to join her 💞 pic.twitter.com/GTMy8o0aZz
Cross-device tracking technologies: yet another invasion of our privacy. They say “The only factor that hinders the receipt of an audio beacon by a device is distance and there is no way for the user to opt-out of this form of cross-device tracking.” I wonder if that still applies if the audio is turned off. I switch my volume on my computer off when ads play. Maybe I’ll have to turn my phone off as well… must look into this further because I refuse to be this easily tracked without doing something to thwart it.
Invisible stripes: “Each one of us started out as a single cell, and then a little glob of cells. As the cells divided, they differentiated. Some became muscles, others bones, still others organs. And some became skin. As those skin cells continued dividing, they expanded and stretched to cover a quickly growing body. One cell line pushed and swirled through another like steamed milk poured into an espresso to make a latte.”
I tried to leave a comment on Four Pillar Freedom’s post about meaningful lives but it rejected me so here are my thoughts: I loved that documentary as well, though as a small person with a big appetite, I slightly took exception to the idea I’d be served a smaller portion since I can eat as fast as my bigger dining companions. I hope that if we ever had the pleasure of dining at Jiro’s, he’d notice and adjust accordingly. 😉
As a longtime money blogger, I’ve noticed the trend of romanticizing the digital nomad life. I think it works wonderfully for Michelle from Sense of Cents who works from an RV, who has also had resounding success with her money blog, but the most important component of building a successful life is to know yourself. I love the digital part of her life, and have made that happen in my life, but I’m not built to be a nomad so I’ve instead built a home base that I love working from and living in. I enjoy short stints on the road but not much more than that!
Interesting: Hungarian mushroom soup. For completely random reasons (which I don’t remember), I was trying to think of Hungarian culinary specialties. Maybe it was floated as a possible vacation destination? That would make sense. I travel by stomach so the first thing I’d do is research the foods of the region to see if I must eat there.
Looks like neither Linda or we will be able to fully deduct our SALT and property taxes with the new cap. Neither of us deliberately chose our homes at the prices they were because we counted on the deductions, but having them did help relieve the sting of our HCOLAs.
GYM on finding happiness after heartbreak. In relationships, I think it’s always important to value yourself more than you worry about whether you can find someone else, lest you settle.
