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
Angela’s Friday Five made me want to do better. As it often does. But in a good way!
Aitza’s cheap eats strategies for Europe. Ever since car seats became a thing in our lives, I’ve not felt any urge to travel internationally to non-Asian countries with JB (a number of Asian countries don’t require carseats and apparently it’s safe…) but the Done by Fortys are doing it!
This is why Alexa and Siri are banned from my home. It’s basically the equivalent of consenting to bug my own home for the benefit of tech companies. NOPE.
“In the company of their aunts, nephews and nieces know that they are privileged persons. The bonds of duty are somehow relaxed: they have no obligations but to be happy.” I relate to so many of those quotes. I have always maintained that loving aunties and uncles are a key to successful parenting. On the hard days, they can help out a bit or help us remember what is good about the kid. On the good days, it’s wonderful to share the love of the small human. Of course, JB adores the ones we have kept in zir life. And it’s so important to me as a person and as a parent to know that JB is surrounded by family we’ve chosen to fill in that hole left by the family we cannot have.
1. Food and lodgings, $125
2. Gas, $235
3. Trolley: $40
4. Gifts for other people: $117
5. Gifts for us: $127
6. Badges purchased last year, $501
6. Dogsitting, $200
7. Stupid tax, $0 Total: $1561
This year was the 50th Comic-Con! I’m pretty sure it was my 16th, PiC’s 13th, and JB’s 5th if you count the year ze was in the womb and couldn’t opt out of attending.
Was a BUST. Everything that could go slightly wrong did. We didn’t get there early enough to pick up JB’s badge, they didn’t communicate that we needed to be there before Preview Night started, the lines for the off-site activations were capped early, we missed our trolley stop.
Even if we haven’t had Preview Night tickets for years, I’ve been deeply restored by the act of walking on Harbor Avenue soaking in the early sights and the feeling of being in San Diego, on vacation, and not working. Not so, this year. My feet hurt and I was a bit disgruntled.
Thursday
We rode the trolley in, this is usually pretty fun on SDCC days. Two ladies sitting in front of us thought I was a super on top of it mom for having tissues for JB’s boogers and lotion for random itchies. I’ll take the compliment! (more…)
This is my weekly list of things that were good this week, even if they weren’t all unadulteratedly good things. Please do share your good things in the comments!
1. With all the new subscription services coming along, the convenience of streaming isn’t the bargain it used to be. We plan to lean much more heavily on the library for movies and shows rather than falling for the pricey new subscription services. We’ll still always be behind the times and we’ll have to plan head sometimes to borrow DVDs but we’re used to that. Three cheers for the library!
2. Maggie‘s helping me learn new skills! I’m grateful for good friends who teach and share me the gift of knowledge.
3. We hosted Uncle Professor this week briefly and everyone enjoyed his company as usual. The dogs and JB monopolized him, he’s a favorite. The visit was short, as is usual, and Seamus was in denial. He kept looking for Uncle for days after.
4. I’m grateful for fans that work wonderfully: the range hood, our bathroom fans, our little fans when the heat heats up.
5. Thank goodness for little manual coffee drip setups. When the fancy electronic appliance craps out, we don’t have to rush and buy a new one because we can still brew single servings manually.
6. My massage therapist is wonderful and worth double her weight in gold. I always feel better (albeit temporarily) after an appointment with her. I needed to change my appointment date and time this week and she was able to accommodate with a last minute opening. Whew. She helped with all my aches, pains, and weird feelings that keep me up at night.
I thought Meg had published this under her byline but I guess I missed that Anonymous byline! I Make Twice As Much As My Husband. I absolutely aspire to make twice as much, nay, thrice as much, as my husband makes (based on his salary plus the value of his fringe benefits) right now.
If I’m doing this right, the Capacity Factor of our guest bedroom ranges from 12-18% depending on the year. On average, we might host 50 nights a year. The over/under depends on more random visitors, we host at minimum 36 nights a year. The Price Ratio is 6%.
Whatever our challenges, I keep reminding myself that we really only have a limited window of time to teach JB.
Sooner than we think, ze is going to be exercising independent thought (for good or ill) and making zir own choices.
On that note …
You be you, and I’ll be me, and that’s the way we’re meant to be
There’s this song the kids sing that cracks me up with their earnestness but it makes a great point, especially for parents.
I catch myself, every so often, imposing my fears and worries on zir. Next fall, we’ll be facing kindergarten. In order, I hate change, hated going to new schools, hated meeting new people. So of course, I find myself worrying about zir transition, adjusting to the new school, to new people, to new routines and I have to catch myself. That’s me and my worry. Ze isn’t me and is so different, my worries aren’t zir worries. So then I take a step back and push away all those preconceptions so I can see and hear what ze really cares about. (more…)
This is my weekly list of things that were good this week, even if they weren’t all unadulteratedly good things. Please do share your good things in the comments!
1. Last week, we had the pleasure of a short visit from faraway friends and it was so lovely. PiC hadn’t met them before but he’s always game, and so is JB, so everyone was happy.
2. Seamus isn’t happy with me these days. He’s got an eye condition that requires eye ointment 2-4 times a day and he hates it. He actively resists me when it’s time for medication which is highly unusual behavior for him. To make up for it, I spent time sitting on the ground with his head in my lap for a while, petting him, and JB joined me for petting time.
3. We had a delightful weekend visit with our friend and her baby. All the infant cuteness! Baby and I made a mess together with finger foods.
4. JB received a brand new jigsaw puzzle with 100 pieces and we worked it together. I realize that without a kid around, I might have a lot more time but I’d also forget to do fun things like puzzles and coloring.
5. Two weekends in a row now, I’ve had to lie down both afternoons. I feel a lot less guilty about it when JB and PiC also have a lie down it turns out.
6. I really needed something to get my brain out of the rage-depression-funk so I’ve been trying to make things to redirect my brain. I’ve been noodling these around for over a year trying to come up with good ones and finally felt like maybe it was ok to share here. What do you think?
All I read was the headline: “Would You Sell Everything to Travel the World?” I laughed. No. Never. Not if I had a choice about it, anyway. Zero knocks on people for whom that isn’t a laughable notion of course, I used to think a nomadic life sounded great too. I loved the idea of being a city girl, I loved the notion of being location independent. But at this point in my life, I know who I am and what makes me happiest. Even just traveling for up to 2 weeks reminds me who I am. After ten days away, I am awash with fatigue and a burning desire to be left alone. I am a homebody. I am the happiest in my hobbit hole and only venturing out when I feel like it and running back home to nest and read books and eat and read some more. I have no desire to constantly be on the move or even just without a home base. Who are you?
We talk a lot about what constitutes the middle class in the PF world. I consider us upper middle class but reading this WSJ article, it strikes me again (without judgement) that we have such different ideas of what the buying power of an UMC/MC income is. For example:
The two-child couple earned just over $100,000 until 2017. They had a roughly $106,000 mortgage, about $97,000 in student-loan debt and $24,000 in car loans.
Then Ms. Young, 33, moved from a full-time to a part-time faculty position at a university because of its budget cuts. With income reduced to around $70,000, they still felt confident enough in their earning power to borrow $48,000 to finance two cars in 2017.
We have a mortgage that’s twice our combined annual incomes and don’t have any other debt so we have a similar debt ratio to the couple in the article. But for us, at this ratio, I don’t consider ourselves in a position to be taking on additional debt. We will need to replace my car and I have to think quite carefully about what we can “afford” and how we’ll pay for it. We both blanch at the $30k price tags of any newer cars despite our very solid savings program because those savings are specifically for future retirement. I need to start setting aside savings that are meant for spending on a car but we simply can’t get behind the idea of taking on an auto loan again if it doesn’t make very clear financial sense.
That gap between what we think an UMC income, or even an MC income, should buy remains fairly large. Even I wonder why we “can’t afford” (cannot easily pay for, without financial consequences) to just buy a new car when we make and save as much as we do. The reality is still that becausewe have to save as much as we do, we can’t spend freely. It’s one or the other.
Yay for Penny’s mortgage dropping below 6 figures! Also for this brilliant way to make Mondays better.
Our travel cost breakdown
