March 27, 2015

A reader poll

I’m curious, dear readers, and I hope you’ll satisfy my curiosity.

This blog has long been my refuge. Over the years I’ve shared, learned and grown in the experience of writing it. This is a greatly enjoyable hobby through which I’ve had the great fortune to make a better life and even found friends.

One friend called this a successful blog and, looking around the greater PF blogosphere that’s utterly transformed since I first started up almost ten years ago, it never would have occurred to me to consider it as such. But, from very modest beginnings, we’re still kicking! That’s one kind of success.

Would you care to tell me….

What have you enjoyed reading?
The topics I generally land on are:
Money: general money (deals, sales, maximizing savings)
Personal money (decisions, mistakes, planning, negotiations)
Investing (stocks, real estate,  retirement portfolio)
Family: (pets, difficulties&complications, planning)
Career: (changes, planning, commentary)

What would you like to see more/less of?

And about you!

How long have you been reading?

How did you find me?

Have you filed your tax returns yet?

What are you most looking forward to this year?

March 25, 2015

Life lessons from Star Trek: Voyager

Discovery: I still really love Star Trek: Voyager.

From the very first, I loved Janeway. She was tough, she cared about her crew and wanted to hear feedback that she could act on even if it challenged her expectations. She was openminded while maintaining focus.

Over the years, I’ve learned that sometimes you just have to punch your way through. – Captain Janeway

There’s a time for tact, there’s a time for getting shit done. The trick is knowing the difference.

Did you ever consider allowing the Ocampa to care for themselves? … Children have to grow up … It’s the challenge of surviving on their own that allows them to evolve. – Captain Janeway

This is the fight I’d had with my parents since I was 14. I don’t pretend to have all, or most, of the answers when it comes to parenting but when it came to my sibling, I was pretty sure I knew what was more likely to work with him. In the few years that they stepped back and left the handling of him to me? He came closest to being an adult, earning some kind of living, and not being a complete utter leech.

He soon reverted to form, though, so maybe I don’t know anything.

Misery loves company, Tuvok.

A thing we would do well to remember when miserable people are dragging you down with them.

“A daughter? I don’t have anything to teach a daughter.” – Neelix
“Why would it be any different for a daughter than a son? … I have three sons and one daughter. I can assure you she benefits as much from my presence and guidance as my sons do.” – Tuvok

Right on, Tuvok! I think we all know how I feel about this sort of sentiment.

Did you have a favorite Star Trek series? Do share 🙂

February 18, 2015

The thing about jealousy…

Is that it’s rarely ever useful to anyone unless maybe you’re a supervillain who relies on manipulating people and jealousy is a great blinder of common sense and makes people somewhat predictable. That’s not often the case, though, is it?

Lately I’ve been treated to a litany of “I’m so jealous!” from an acquaintance about the pregnancy and then arrival of Little Bean and it’s exasperating.

LB’s pretty cute, sure, but that’s not what the acquaintance, let’s call her A, was talking about. She was talking about the fact that we made the decision to conceive and it happened. But she can’t honestly think we got pregnant to spite her, can she?

I don’t even know what to say in response that wouldn’t be rude and snarky, and for once, “cutting” isn’t what I want to go for here. (Tonya’s perfectionism post suggests an answer though: no one’s life is perfect, so this comes at its own cost …)

Mind, I’m aware I’m incredibly lucky in some respects. Fantastic husband. Some wonderfully supportive friends. A few amazing family members. Seamus is the Mary Poppins of dogs: practically perfect in every way. And now a cute baby.

This doesn’t exist in a vacuum though. I didn’t just fall into a good-luck pit and come up Milhouse. I came by this honestly and worked hard, making the most of whatever luck came about, good or bad. I take nothing for granted. It chafes to keep hearing “you’re so lucky”. Yes, there’s joy but it’s 98% work and sacrifice. It’s weird enough being lectured by every parent off the street about how wonderful parenting is, it’s even stranger to hear about the magic of having kids from someone who doesn’t have them yet because she’s ” not ready to get fat and deal with the stuff you did”. (I promise that “getting fat” was the least of my pregnancy problems!)

My husband is naturally head and shoulders above the average husband in my estimation but he also has to be. He has to pick up the slack created by my chronic diseases that strike as and when it pleases. He has to accept that much of the time I’ll function at 40% of the capacity of normal people. He has to work around my inability to ask for or accept help like a normal human sometimes and not resent my turning into a resentful prickly cactus when I’m feeling extra useless and worthless for not being able to feed myself or stand up under my own power.

My closest friends understand me, misanthropic introvertness and all, and are wonderful company but none of them are in the Bay Area. None could drop by to lend a hand when I’m bedridden, I can’t run over to give them a hug on a bad day or bring them food or keep them company when they’re lonely. At best we’re an 8 hour drive or a 5 hour flight away from each other so the usual to and fro of friendship has to be adapted to long distance.

Cute child? Yep, I think ze is adorable. But LB hardly sleeps and screams like a pair of dueling banshees. I love the kid but no one would mistake hir for a fashion accessory or this experience a walk in the park. Ze has strong opinions and well developed lungs with which to express them.

And this person is familiar with the severity of my health issues, the huge toll I pay for this otherwise enjoyable life. My professional skills and personal wealth aren’t worth much in the face of debilitating illness. You can’t buy the absence of pain, you can’t negotiate away crap health. You don’t get to cherry pick the good stuff in life and leave the bad so what’s the point of envying the one thing in isolation?

Maybe this acquaintance is just trying to (awkwardly!!) pay some sort of compliment suggesting that my life too is worthy of envy, passing over some validation to the hermit like a communal pipe around the campfire. In a odd way, that could make sense as she’s an extremely fit semi-jetsetter type who travels internationally regularly and on a whim. Her life adventures are neat, they’re things I couldn’t do anymore or maybe wouldn’t choose to do (snorkeling? never again!),. But I don’t need to covet cool things to admire them and especially don’t seek validation.

The only thing anyone has that I’d want is great health. For anything else, I could get off my duff and do something about getting some of that awesome for myself.

As I write this, Seamus is sitting on my foot soliciting attention, offering a pawshake in exchange for a real scratch. We know to ask for what we want in this family.

Bottom line: I’m happy enough with my lot in life and what I’m doing that I can be happy for others and their good fortune. That takes nothing away from anyone.

Is this a familiar phenomenon to anyone else? Do you have an envious friend or acquaintance?

October 14, 2014

In the dark of the night …

I don’t know about you, but 2 am insomnia feels pretty grim. I know how not to be an insomniac but doing isn’t always as easy as knowing.

If I were smart I’d be asleep right now.
If I were smart, I’d actually have stopped working at 930, and gone to bed then.

My body is stressed and it is showing in gross and sundry ways. You’d think this would teach me a lesson but instead I ponder what other new blogs I might read because I’m not going to sleep.

Willful insomnia, that completely makes sense. Especially when you consider that I’m going to be up in the morning to work again so it’s not like I’m under the impression that it’s a weekend.

I started reading Kieron Gillian’s Journey into Mystery and it’s good enough that if I pick up another volume I’ll probably not sleep at all tonight.

I consider an old Mercedes Lackey compilation, The Free Bards, because it is an old familiar friend and immediately crave cheese. Because it is firmly embedded in my mind that Rune gets cheese, bread and a carrot early on and I’m always receptive to the idea of getting a slice of cheese to have with my book’s character. Unlike John Scalzi who detests the mention of stew in these books, mentions of a traveler stopping at an inn for a slice of bread and stew just makes me want to make a thick loaf of crusty Irish bread and a pot of potatoey tomatoey stew.

PiC snores away and Seamus won’t even come into the bedroom at night anymore, preferring his living room bed (it is awfully comfortable) to the bedroom set up because my being up late keeps him up late.

I’m doing all the things you’re not supposed to: keeping the light on, looking at my phone, reading in bed at long stretches.

But sometimes you just have a hankering for your quiet alone time. I have alone time during the day but those aren’t MY hours. Those hours are for work and housework, thinking and doing. There’s so little time for puttering, pondering and just being. And maybe that’s just what my brain, and soul, want right now. While it can still get it, before an infant shatters the peace forever.

Or, more likely, I’m just not smart enough to be trusted to put myself to bed.

At least I get here. But LB is both of us at once: a night owl and a morning glory so I get the movements all night and as soon as I wake, sometimes before. I haven’t really been alone for months and LB is quick to remind me of that.

The dogs haven’t given me real privacy in years, I suppose that’s been good training for having an infant/toddler underfoot.

Everything aches from tip to tail. The counselor asked me today how the pregnancy has affected the fibro and I don’t know how to answer that exactly. My pain doesn’t come neatly categorized: these parts hurt because of the pregnancy and those parts because well, they’re just broken. This never ending backache, is it because of the new weight I’m carrying or is it just the backache I would have had anyway? And that odd hitch in my breathing and pain in my chest? Well that could be because of either.

Because everything hurts, with fibro and many things are weird as hell with the pregnancy, so how do you know? And I guess, what does it matter really? Pain is, like money, fungible. Applicable anywhere.

I don’t know if the counselor was reassured or not by my shruggy answer.

Still less, I don’t know if she actually believed me that I don’t recall the last time I had a drink because I rarely drink recreationally. I’m both too cheap to pay for alcohol at restaurants and don’t really care that much about it, is that really so unusual?

Little Bean proceeded to wake me every hour with gymnastics. That’s not a huge surprise.

April 27, 2014

Weekend Would-You-Rathers 3: Health & Fitness Edition

I just treated Doggle to a longer than usual walk on a bum knee, and indulged myself in ten minutes of vacuuming because I’ve not been up to a good proper housecleaning in weeks despite my love of cleaning and a clean house. It almost makes me miss the days when work was so stressful, I’d rage-clean and not feel it for at least a few hours.

While I’m flopped here trying to absorb as much rest as I can …

My brain wants to know if you’d rather:

Have the use of only your arms or only your legs?

Be able to do 50 pushups or 100 sit ups?

Have amazing aim and never miss at darts or have great balance and dancing rhythm?

Eat perfectly healthily for 6 days and anything you want for 1 day, or have good food 7 days a week with a little treat each day?

Have pancakes for breakfast or waffles for dinner?

Have an hour of free help per month to: cook, clean or wash your windows?

Pay to get help around the house and scrimp on the travel budget, or do it all yourself and go anywhere you want, when you want?