March 7, 2012
I grinned when PiC questioned that truism, saying, shouldn’t you actually check to see if you’re getting a bad horse? What if it’s sickly?
No idea where that came from but I loved it.
Come to think of it, there are other reasons you should question gifted horses. Especially wooden ones.
Now, gifts freely given, of an open heart with no malice, that is a whole other thing.
I’ve been discovering that I’ve been crap with analogies, aphorisms, or metaphors. They start out so well (-meaning), then end up broken in a ditch, making funny noises.
It’s been a weird week. I can’t wait for a good long break. Is anyone else in dire need of a mental health refresh?
Also, this review of RedFarm in NY has me craving dumplings ten ways to Sunday.
File under: thoughts and things.
December 8, 2011
(This post is going up a little late.)
This is a first.
I received an email, as you might have if you were part of the Borders Rewards program, from Barnes and Noble informing me of the acquisition of Borders property in the liquidation which included “Borders brand trademarks and their customer list.”
I have no idea what they intend to do with the trademarks but they wanted that customer list for obvious reasons.
Our intent in buying the Borders customer list is simply to try and earn your business. The majority of our stores are within close proximity to former Borders store locations, and for those that aren’t, we offer our award- winning NOOK™ digital reading devices that provide a bookstore in your pocket. We are readers like you, and hope that through our stores, NOOK devices, and our bn.com online bookstore we can win your trust and provide you with a place to read and shop.
I don’t know about you but my first skim/misreading of that paragraph completely had me thinking they were offering Nooks as bribes for us to not opt out. Wishful thinking.
How do you feel about being passed over, with your full knowledge, as a customer from one store to another? Do you expect Barnes to earn your business all over again or are you already a customer? Would you expect them to start from ground zero if not?
October 5, 2011
I don’t even have the heart to post it, the progress has been so meager in the past two months.
Retirement Downturn
Since the last time I viewed my Vanguard fund, the fund that contains all the retirement monies I’ve saved between ages 21 through 26, it’s lost another $7000. In two months. !!! Yes yes, long term horizon, blah de blah. STOP THAT.
I’m still contributing to my current employer’s retirement account but that’s in a different fund at a different company. It still irritates me. I’ll stop looking now.
Cash Savings
The expense account did come up a significant amount (40%) but so did my spending (220% over last month). That figure’s actually misleading though – $1200 of that cash is a reimbursement for business expenses and so are the corresponding credit card charges. Part of it is prepayment of expenses as well.
Also, we are experiencing the first true combinations of expenses between PiC and me. We have combined forces to rack up all chargeable expenses on a single American Express card to meet a minimum spend threshold in order to earn a 20K point bonus for Starwood points.
On that plan, I’ve prepaid 2 months’ worth of cell phone bills, paid up on auto insurance and vet bills. O, vet bills.
Other Investing
I had grabbed a chunk of cash for my TradeKing account in case I made a decision about investing in a few more stocks. I’m steadily making a whopping $4.70 every quarter in dividends from my stocks. With the huge dive in the market, I thought there might be a worthwhile discount to buy. Nothing really caught my fancy, though, so that cash is still just sitting in the brokerage, waiting.
Total Net Worth
Up about a thousand dollars. I should really be doing better.
******
Specific Spending:
Wedding/Honeymoon: The reason we’re racking up the hotel points and miles is to defray upcoming travel spending. As much as possible, I’d rather use awards to pay for actual travel as much as we can. Starwood points are excellent for hotels and for exchanging to airline miles as well. They add a bonus 5,000 miles for every 20,000 miles you trade in.
Mortgage: I’m keeping an eye out for any other good refinancing options that we could qualify for and considering how quickly we might pay down the mortgage.
Saving Goals:
Emergency Cash: I’m really close to the $50K cash cushion that I wanted to hit for my peace of mind. It’s in a combination of CDs and savings accounts but I need to find a higher rate of return home for it. Or ladder all of it into CDs.
Then I think I’m setting my next cash savings goal at another $50K. The first $50K is total emergency fund only. (Hey, remember when you could earn real interest on CDs and such?)
Pie in the Sky? As an academic exercise, I sort of want to map out how we might work out life on a single income around here. Just to see what that might look like. Or perhaps one and a half at first.
Non-notables:
I don’t think I like spinach anymore.
Doggle now gets time outed. And he knows when he’s misbehaving so when he’s getting walked to time out, he walks himself the rest of the way.
May 15, 2011
There’s so much going on these days to share, that the dearth of posting, in part thanks to Blogger’s downtime at exactly the wrong time, has naught to do with having nothing to say. Though, I’m hearing that blog posts and comments from mid-week were deleted so I suppose it’s a good thing I hadn’t posted anything close to that time – I’d be furious about losing those!
Where to start?
Work.
Thailand.
Dog.
Wedding.
(You’ll note that the wedding falls to the bottom of the list. That is representative of something.)
But I have been writing, organizing and doing and you shall soon enjoy the fruits of my labor.
Budget: Traditionally, my family expects you to spend between $20-30K on a wedding for a standard 300-400 guests (“they pay for themselves” etc). “Thank goodness for formulas” except PiC and I are going off the grid, particularly because “standard Asian traditional” for me would have gone right through the roof to 400 on my side alone. So we’re starting from scratch too.
I love regular budgeting but …. I don’t love wedding budgeting. Maybe it’s because I’m cranky about the mark-up on everything just because it’s a wedding?
No matter how awesome you are at negotiating, it eventually becomes a zero-sum game. You can either have it, make it, or do without if you’re going to hit your budget. Unless someone donates it. So again, somehow, it feels a lot less fun than regular budgeting even though it is exactly the same principle.
Vision: I haven’t got a vision. Or a theme. Or colors. For the love of smooshy, stop asking about colors, please?
Eemusings is also engaged but her take is a bit closer to my attitude of “Not ready to plan yet” despite my probably most-pending-nuptials of the three of us. I could use a real kick in the pants to get moving on making things happen because between now and the projected “Hey, can we do this?” date of early November – we have major work events (June), travel (July), more travel for work (undetermined), weddings to attend (June), work (August), other people’s weddings (September) …
Yeek! Who has time to plan a wedding? Or go to one?
Is it just me or do the years book up really fast? Is anyone else feeling a bit overwhelmed by their schedule and wanting to opt out? (Funny about Money, you come to mind.)
January 23, 2011
Thank you to everyone for your warm wishes about the engagement and the outpouring of support when I had to say goodbye to my beloved pup of 16 years.
It’s probably strange but in some ways, it’s much easier for me, a normally intensely private person in real life, to share some of these things here in this space than it is to tell people of my joys and sorrows. As one person new to my life protested not being told about the engagement, I smiled and said, well what did you expect? You sat to my left and I was wearing the ring. Did you really expect me to stand up and make an announcement about myself?
But here, it’s ok and I really appreciate y’all being here to support that.
Thanks for being here. Thanks for speaking up and thanks for caring.
Now I’m coping by buying gifts for people and pushing myself back into a PF routine, so off we go.
October 10, 2010
Did you guys see that incredible sprint to the finish? That’s absolutely crazy. This year’s winner crossed the finish this year in two hours and six minutes and some odd seconds.
PiC and I have spent the last two days wandering Millenium Park and generally trying to take in as much of the city as possible while not overtaxing his pre-marathon legs, or breaking my non-marathonable legs.
It’s been positively gorgeous here, probably closer to 75 degrees with a light breeze. At least seven brides lucked out as well, sashaying through the park with their bridal parties of 12 or more, taking photos near the Bean, on the steps, amid the crowd of spectators in town for the marathon, for the country music festival or just out and about because the sun had re-emerged.
I thought we managed a nice balance between our two wildly different levels of fitness, considering he had to keep it very mellow and I pushed myself to walk between 3 to 5 miles per day in my quest to enjoy downtown and spend less on cabs.
We should have used more public transport to keep costs down, but we didn’t plan carefully enough to take that into account and were focused on staying in the lovely weather while it lasted. We’re definitely paying through the nose to enjoy that luxury. (In retrospect, all that walking was also foolish, I ache.)
Anyhow, we’ve got a few more hours in the Windy City before our shuttle picks us up. Pictures and a cost round up when we’re back home!
September 20, 2010
I’m not one for trite phrases, mouthed because they feel good in the air, but pop hollow in the heart. If you haven’t got something real to say, I’m ok with sitting around in silence. As evidenced by my friend’s husband and I sitting here companionably, tap tap tapping away on our computers. This weekend, we spent a lot of time talking about life and work situations and I got to thinking about the few times that people have repeated catchphrases that, in my mind, were incredibly empowering for being all of less than ten words.
“Don’t let nobody steal your joy today.” – my favorite bus driver
No matter how horrible the environment I was about to walk into was, there was always a moment of Zen when I disembarked the bus with those words at my back. Years ago, I was having an incredibly, unbelievably stressful time and each morning, it was nauseatingly hard to convince myself to keep walking into the mess that work had become. Hearing those words reminded me that no matter how put upon, no matter how targeted, victimized, or on the verge of quitting the higher-ups wanted me to feel, I could choose to keep control over my own feelings and my own joy.
There was still good in the world, I was still strong, and I would still find it. Thanks, bus driver.
“Make your next move your best move.” – @thefitlounge
Moving to a new city, being on my own (except with PiC) for the first time in my life, leaving my family and worrying about them from afar, and starting a new challenging job all at once nearly six months ago, well ….. mornings were never my best time of day. Mornings became a trial of “what have I done,” “don’t make me go to work,” and “I don’t wanna.” Until I popped onto Twitter for a few minutes to get my bleary eyes tracking and saw East Coasties and their morning greetings.
Single Ma’s Good MornTings! Ruth’s #wmata updates, getting ready in the morning updates, they helped get my brain to turn on and start ticking, but BK and her morning exhortation was the turning point. That put a smile on my face, a boot in my pants and got me going because I suddenly felt like I could DO this thing. I look for that tweet every morning. Thanks, BK.