About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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April 6, 2015
Once again, while I’d rather have the money in my pocket, the ability to be completely hands-off with some of the day to day, other than answering emails, has been exactly what we needed.
My hands have been rather full so I’ve only answered emails, or redirected phone calls, but not long after LB’s arrival, the property manager dealt with:
1. the expiration of our old tenant’s lease,
2. checking the property to ensure that clean-up was complete,
3. collecting final rent,
4. getting the previous renters to pay up the utilities they claimed were paid (but weren’t),
5. returning the remaining security deposit once all the outstanding payments were deducted,
6. scheduling all the inspections and servicing of repairs,
7. marketing and showing the place,
8. reviewing applications and running background checks,
9. getting the final lease signed with my approval.
Bonus: we both make a little bit more now that the rent has changed to be more in line with the market rate for equivalent rentals. Not showing a profit yet, of course, but it gets us closer.
Not having to deal with that stuff and a screaming newborn? That’s absolutely worth the percentage off the top. Much like renting is not a waste of money because you’re getting a place to live without financial risk, hiring a property manager was the right choice for us. PiC has zero interest in this whole venture, beyond an academic one, so it’s entirely on me. Having someone deal with the hands-on work of owning a rental has made it possible.
Extra bonus: they organized all the income and expenses that they handled in a statement for me, reducing the amount of time and work I had to put into organizing our tax documents. Whew!
April 1, 2015
Change from January: 3.3% increase
On Money
I’m working away at Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household, Little Bean, and dog things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!
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Seamus racked up another $450 550 in vet bills.
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I’m only getting half my normal income in maternity leave benefits and surprisingly this hasn’t wrecked our cash flow. I’m not saving anything, and neither am I setting aside the previously budgeted Little Bean money for the moment but we’re doing OK.
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Little Bean money: PiC is still contributing to hir fund and ze has received generous Happy Being Born gifts (called lucky money in our cultures). Kid’s making a killing off being born!
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March 30, 2015
Life with DOG!
Seamus has adapted to his life with his (ridiculous, loud, demanding) sibling without batting an eye. He shares his space without comment, lays around quietly just being with us as we tend to hir and focus on surviving. He leans on my leg or sniffs my head to wake me for attention every so often and plays with his toys alone when we’re busy.
He is hir protector, but he’s a little less concerned now. It’s like he’s realized ze’ll quite likely survive our shenanigans even when he’s disapproving of them. He has a particular distaste for when PiC swings hir either in his arms or in hir chair – I can feel his big brother eyes boring into the back of my head, questioning our fitness as parents.
He’s taken to walking with the stroller just fine as well. I worried about how that would work, but as usual, I shouldn’t have. He keeps pace with it, and works around it as appropriate so that I can manage the two of them alone quite handily. Even after romping off leash he’ll voluntarily come back to me and hir stroller, escorting us home.
As near to perfect a dog as you could ask for, under the circumstances.
Medical woes
Poor guy had a terrible infection that just looked like a nick on his paws at first. He let me clean and wrap them every morning with Neosporin, stumping around with club looking bandaged paws good naturedly, but then the swelling started so I knew it wasn’t working.
It’s taken a vet visit, a culture to confirm the staph infection, and three refills of antibiotics to get him on the right path.
We found out he’d gained 13 lbs in the last few months at this visit as well. I noticed he was getting heavier but at some point he cracked 100 lbs and we didn’t notice. Sympathy baby weight? I’m just surprised the vet was relatively unconcerned.
A Dog and Our Money
I’ve been using the saved proceeds from this blog, a mere trickle over the years, to pay his vet bills. Call it his allowance. We’re still doing ok but it’ll need some income soon to make up for the recent inroads!
He’s slowly getting more expensive to maintain between his supplements, chronic medications for his skin, and all that food he’s eating.
March 27, 2015
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
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 🙂
March 23, 2015
*ICE: In case of emergency
This series jumps off of Item 1 on my massive list of things to do in case of Bad Times.
There are several sections of things to do and decisions to make so I thought I’d lay them out here as we tackle them, in case it’s helpful to anyone who hasn’t yet taken the plunge.
The anatomy of our estate plan:
Designating executor(s)
Guardianship
Creating our living will and trust
Advanced health directive
Life insurance
Signing our will and trust
The first thing I’ve done is considered who would be handling our estate should both PiC and I be out of the picture. We are, of course, the primary executors and then we’d need trustworthy people to take care of things in our absence.
This is first because I want to work closely with the executors when each part of our arrangements are made. It’s a lot of stuff so this will help familiarize them without overwhelming them if the time comes… Suddenly.
Executors
I’ve asked two trusted family friends to serve as co-executors of our estate, the vasty mini empire that it is, and will be keeping them apprised of progress as we put together the estate plan.
One of the two drily reminded me that I function in a very different PF sphere than most of my offline friends. He doubted that most of our friends and acquaintances had any working knowledge of estate planning and what it means to be an executor. It’s true, I forget that having an entire estate plan together at this age is probably not terribly common, but I’m prepared to make it as cut and dried as possible in case the need should ever arise for it to be put into action.
The important factors that came into play here: they are close friends who have demonstrated a sufficient working knowledge of managing money and wealth, they would not be asked to take on any other estate and family-related affairs other than making the arrangements as they are laid out. They will be paid a percentage of the estate for their troubles and would not otherwise have any claim to any of the estate so there’s no incentive or way to manipulate the estate to put more money in their pocket.
I didn’t want the same people who might become LB’s guardians to serve as executor of the estate, that feels like a conflict of interest. While we’d only be asking them to serve in that capacity because we trust them, I think it’s important to remember that things can always change and I’d like a third party to be looking out for LB’s interests in addition to the caregivers. It’d be terrible if we set aside a trust for LB to pay for long term expenses and eventually college, only to find that the caregiver, having access to the trust and rights to disburse funds at will, had become so pressed for money they raided the trust even with the best of intentions. Or deprived LB in some other way because the influence of having ready access to the estate was too much.
I’m not risking that.
Alternatively, we could choose to have an attorney serve as executor, that person would have fiduciary responsibility and also be an objective third party, but we haven’t worked with any attorney enough to trust him or her with this role.
This was one of the easier decisions because there aren’t many people I would trust with this level of responsibility, and who I would be willing to ask to take on this work. There are a few but not many. I might do a third backup just in case, but I think having two executors in place after PiC and me is a good start.
Have you got designated executors? Do you know who you’d trust to take on that job?
March 18, 2015
I don’t unequivocally love the newborn phase, it’s so much work and exhaustion it’s hard to remember your own name. But this is an amazingly cuddly period, punctuated by the squeaks, peeps, squawks, whirs and chirps that are precursors to speech. There’s almost nothing so simultaneously heartwarming and terrifying as looking down into those almond shaped grey-black eyes of your own child. Who is clearly, by that unblinking stare, awake again.
Some things are universal
They come with teeny fingers and toes, and correspondingly bitty nails which are terrifying to cut.
Some help is essential if you’re anything like me and need 7-8 solid hours of sleep but are lucky to string together 4 hours in one-hour increments. It revives your ability to gaze at the microface with compassion and amusement as you rock the warm bundlet back to sleep at 3 am, again.
The world seems cold and cruel after the 16th diaper change and 10th hour of feeding in 23 hours.
In a month you go from having a bread loaf sized critter to a tiny person whose actual tears express astonishment and dismay at your lack of mental acuity, you heartless and negligent parent! Feed me, dammit! (How did ze turn into a teenager so quickly?)
Breast is best, the hospital chants. And they’re quite good at supporting with lactation consultants but it also supplying formula upon request if you hit a tough patch and eating hasn’t happened in too many hours. It’s a bit surprising when the delivery method (breastfeeding) gets prioritized over the actual eating. In my book: feed the baby! Worry about “how” only when you have the luxury to, not if the kid’s wasting away, 2 days old and five hours since the last feed.
Formula is expensive, running 50¢ to $1+ per ounce, depending on the sort you get. When you need at least 2oz per feeding every 2-3 hours, you’re pretty DARN motivated to breastfeed. Plus it’s good for hir. I didn’t work this hard at having hir to give up now. (Give up= quit without trying. I know plenty of people who can’t/couldn’t BF and I have all the empathy: that could have been me. But I have to give it a real try before stopping.) As with most things, it’s an exercise in loving bonding and serious pain. LB is a vengeance angry nurser. Sure, take your time figuring out that’s a hungry cry, go on. Ze will clamp down in a punishment latch like a terrier capturing prey and shaking it to death for a minute before settling into a proper one. “Well,” you’d gasp through clenched teeth “I deserved that.”
PiC is supportive, of course, buying armloads of lactation teas (confusing the hell out of the cashier at Sprouts), brewing a cuppa nonstop, refilling the water bottle, making sure I’m eating. Grimacing with empathy when Angry Latch happens.
Costs
Formula, $35
Bottles (we like glass, used for both formula and pumped milk), $22
Breast pump, covered by insurance
Recovery and healing
I don’t know how one does this but surely it should involve less pain?? At some point? But not without loads of pain meds so far.
It was a rather traumatic delivery and my body didn’t cope well with it. On that note, f*ck episiotomies and scar tissue.
PiC literally did all the heavy lifting as I’m not allowed to lift more than LB. We were incredibly grateful to dear friends and family who came to the rescue, covering baby butt patting shifts so PiC could leave us for more than four consecutive minutes. Just born and the kid was already attached to him. Poor guy. He had a newborn and basically invalid wife and we didn’t know up from down from right or left.
My will is strong but my core is weak. No wonder my back hurts so much. I’m not allowed to work out yet but strengthening the core and my arm muscles lest all the fingers in my hands dislocate are priorities one and two. I need those squeezy ball things you use for hand exercises. (Any recommendations?)
Favorite moments
Waking up to chirps rather than crying for the first time. I was so confused I thought ze had to have been crying.
Sneak attack diaper changes- when LB is in deep enough sleep to overlook the wet diaper (almost never) I try to change the diaper without waking hir. Then do a victory jig when it works.
When I think ze is done eating: eyes are closed, all movement seems to have stopped, breathing is slow and steady. Then ze opens hir eyes and looks directly at me like FOOLED YOU.
We don’t lullaby
We can’t remember the lyrics to kid’s songs so we just improvise unless an old song crops up.
Edelweiss
The Halls of Montezuma
The Heart of Texas
Once Upon a Time in China
