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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December 5, 2014
Food is life.
And unlike my teen years, cooking is now one of my favorite ways to unwind. Normally this is a win win and PiC benefits from the messes in the kitchen.
I don’t want to admit that I can’t keep up with everything but let’s just pretend, as an intellectual exercise and a nod to moderation, that cooking after delivering Little Bean is not super likely. I used to cook most nights, now I’m down to 1-3 nights a week. Add a potentially squalling, but definitely feeding every 2-3 hours newborn to the mix and I think we all know the real end of that equation.
But who wants to rely entirely on take-out or delivery? It’s a nice treat on occasion but I get tired of restaurant food faster than it takes to outspend the grocery budget.
Like squirrels, we’ve been stocking the cupboards with the basics: pasta, rice, quinoa, boxed broths, and KIND and Luna bars for days when I just can’t face a meal or just need an easy boost. Flour, sugar and brown sugar goes on sale a lot around the holidays so I’ll stock up on that for prep as well.
We don’t have much storage or a very big freezer unfortunately, so my plans to prep/precook some food that should be easy to throw together later have to be modest.
I’ll be:
Poaching chicken thighs and freezing them whole,
Poaching whole chickens and shredding it for use in soups, quesadillas, with rice, whatever. I tend to throw together really haphazard soups so we’ll just prep ahead whatever of the standard ingredients freezes well. I know onions do fine, but I’m not sure about carrots, potatos and celery yet. I know for darn sure I’m not going to be up to peeling and cutting up potatos, though.
Attempting premaking pizza from scratch for freezing, toppings and all, and a lasagna recipe (also intended to be frozen). I always want lasagna and rarely make it so that’ll be really nice to have a few premade.
I’ve also written up a detailed list of our local restaurants that are good for either delivery or take out, including all our usual orders so that if it’s that dire, we don’t have to make any real decisions.
We tried Munchery.com for some real food delivery as we have mostly Asian take-out around here and most don’t deliver. They do more American style foods, though in smaller portions, but it’s a reasonable cost per meal with discounts so that’s on our list of go-to food choices.
This should be helpful to out of town visitors who might be here to help with LB too, they won’t have to ask or figure out what’s good that’s also nearby. While I’m at it, I’m including grocery stores as well. That bit’s purely for convenience.
Notes: I always crave cake and most especially cakes from Nothing Bundt Cakes. Failing that, (anyone who really loves me and wants me to be stocked up on cake, take note) we’ve discovered the Super Lemony Lemon Cake Bites from Trader Joe’s and I nearly demolished the whole package in one go. They’re not the absolutely most amazing thing ever, but they are close enough for me. Yes yes, I should be eating my veggies but I also need my cake, y’all.
December 3, 2014
Accidentally saving hundreds
Disclaimer: This bit isn’t a tutorial, it’s really a tale of my lapse of judgement.
Having always been so petite that I have historically spent just as much money on tailoring clothes than on the clothes themselves, I suffered from a self-induced delusion that I could pretty much avoid buying maternity clothes.
I’ll just transition to clothes a size larger, I thought.
I can make do with my own stuff, I thought.
A couple long shirts and unbuttoned pants will do, I thought.
Why waste the money for such a temporary thing? I thought.
So wrong.
For a few weeks, nothing was showing. Smugly calculating my savings, my reckoning crept up on me. It was a bit of shock to realize one day that sure, the pants didn’t have to be buttoned to stay up but good luck actually getting them on in the first place. The body does some WEIRD stuff when it’s creating a human and the thing that weirded me out the most was this protrusion. It wasn’t long before my belly was entering the room before I was and let me tell you, that’s just confusing.
I liked SaverSpender’s general guidelines; I didn’t want to spend a log of money or have a ton of clothes I couldn’t wear for more than three to six months, so with that in mind, I hit Target and Old Navy for a few basics (free shipping, cashback rebates, you know the drill).
The prices weren’t bad at all. Thick leggings were less than $20, soft extra-long tees were about $12. I even picked up a couple blousey things for about $15. All told, between sales and lower prices, I spent about $100 for two pairs of thick leggings, a tshirt, two tank tops, a long sleeve blouse and a long, lightweight coverup-type sweater.
Unfortunately, targeting (hah) only really comfortable things meant that I was just casually presentable in public. Definitely not professionally as I don’t believe leggings are pants and I hated the maternity jeans offered but I figured I had time to deal with it. (AKA, ostrich it out for a while longer).
Also wrong.
The weather turned on me in so many ways. It was too cold and wet for the leggings which soaked up water like it was dying of thirst, got really dirty in the splashing about, and then it was too hot for pants entirely. For warm weather, I tend to turn to dresses but all but one dresses stopped fitting. After getting so stuck in one of them that I needed to be rescued, I wasn’t about to try again. Alas, pretty much everything in the closet has been tailored to fit (my pre-pregnancy self)!
Then a friend swooped in.
I’m not proud of this. I hadn’t been complaining, to the contrary, I’d been insisting that I was fine but did admit to caving and buying an emergency pair of maternity jeans. Friend wasn’t having any of my frugality; ze insisted that I needed some nice things and nice things I was going to get. I didn’t realize that this didn’t just mean we were going to take on the chore of shopping together, which I hate and so won’t do alone, but that ze was also going to insist on BUYING the stuff for me.
Honestly, I can’t remember the last time anyone except PiC bought clothes for me, maybe when I was 15? But friend was so insistent, and thoroughly prepared to make a scene if I didn’t graciously accept the gift, that I bowed to the inevitable and accepted a handful of really nice clothes that were comfortable and professional. They’ve been wonderfully comfortable and nice enough quality for work. Though I don’t have to dress up, it still requires something way better than my Target buys, and I’m both grateful and embarrassed to feel “dependent” on the generosity of others.
If they’d been hand me downs, it wouldn’t have felt so weird. On the other hand, as someone who really enjoys giving people gifts of practical things they’d like and would use but wouldn’t buy for themselves, there’s something to be said for accepting gifts from people who truly wish to give them. It’s an odd feeling, and reminds me again of what Mutant Supermodel just said about being on the receiving end of thoughtfulness.
Later I found out that this was something ze had been wanting to do because it’s how ze bonds with another long time friend.
Spending some cash
The emergency maternity jeans, though somewhat oversized because I hadn’t gotten the best advice from the shop assistant, actually still get a bit of play. Turns out that while everyone tells you to buy your pre-pregnancy size, the discrepancy between that and my size now is so significant that jeans that fit well 3 months ago would require the use of tools and an assistant to engineer a way to get them on. So that wasn’t $45 wasted, I have jeans I can still wear.
I did recently go crazy in the underwear department, though. I got a $50 off $150 coupon from Destination Maternity and laughed at the idea of spending that much on anything there, but then, of course, things changed. And by things, I mean the massive circumference of the globe I swallowed. I like to do laundry weekly now, but post-LB, no one’s going to have that kind of time.
In the end, I bought 4 bras and 2 weeks of comfortable underwear for $112, after free shipping and coupon. Pretty sure most of it will fit but we’ll see once they arrive. Even though hitting 3 digits made me wince, remembering how expensive regular bras are for me normally (upwards of $60), this isn’t a totally outrageous expenditure.
As it turns out, I’ve had to emerge from my slapdash-dressing hermitage many more times than I expected during these past few months, and will continue to need to, so it’s not completely out of the realm of sanity to own more than one bra that fits.
The Grab Bag
An unexpected bounty arrived the other day. For me, not for LB! That was exciting. Someone had asked PiC if I’d mind getting some clothing that might fit – of course I wouldn’t mind! – so he schlepped home a HUGE bag full of lightly used clothes. Rummaging through a bag of preselected clothes was a kind of fun I haven’t had since I was a kid. Most *nearly* fit, so I have a bit of an unruly look about me with sleeves too long and collars too wide. Nevertheless, adding a couple shirts and a few dresses to the wardrobe more than doubled it. I like going minimal but it’s been a little bit *too* minimal here for being (nearly) presentable in public.
Fun fact: I didn’t know clothes were purchased in actual stores until grade 7. All my clothes were yard sale buys, hand me downs, or made by Mom. This was a random act of niceness that brought a wave of nostalgia. Also, now I have a couple coats that fit around my wide berth!
Continuing the cycle
I don’t know if LB is going to be an only child or not, but I’m already thinking of who I can pass along some of this bounty to when the time comes.
December 1, 2014
Our 2013 taxes were finally stowed, just ahead of the October filing deadline, and I’m staring down the barrel of prepping for 2014’s filing in just a few months.
I thought this might be super boring but Anne asked so I’m sharing!
I like to think I’ll have my paperwork in order for the CPA but this whole new investing thing introduces a whole other tangle so, lest I lose my ever-loving mind trying to figure it out as deadlines loom, the spreadsheets and IRS.gov have been cracked open. Feels somewhat like being a junior in high school, prepping for the SATs, again!
There’s a ton of documents to wade through but these were the highlights for both immediate and long-term planning:
I had to decide what reporting method to use between Cash Method or the Accrual method. Reading up on the two, it’s not clear whether there’s any benefit to do one over the other, tax-wise, but the cash method seems most straightforward.
Cash method. You are a cash basis taxpayer if you report income on your return in the year you actually or constructively receive it, regardless of when it was earned. You constructively receive income when it is made available to you, for example, by being credited to your bank account.
Expenses paid by tenant. If your tenant pays any of your expenses, those payments are rental income. I don’t expect to see any of this crop up but it’s good to know. I’d hate to accidentally under-report income for not knowing it was considered income!
Long Term Income: Do not include a security deposit in your income when you receive it if you plan to return it to your tenant at the end of the lease. But if you keep part or all of the security deposit during any year because your tenant does not live up to the terms of the lease, include the amount you keep in your income in that year.
There are a myriad of expenses I’m recording on my spreadsheet: maintenance, insurance, taxes, interest, commissions, management fees, legal and other professional fees, repairs.
The value of the rental property is depreciated based on the date it is ready and available for rent, this is called the date it was “placed in service.”
Next Steps and Final Numbers
The CPA and I will need to put our heads together and sort out how it looks once we run the actual numbers.
November 28, 2014
All our “we should, someday” projects are coming home to roost.
Personally, and this approach with my clothes is all too often to my detriment, I usually wait til things are worn to a literal thread before replacing them. The Curse of the Broken Pants still holds because of this: every time I start a new job, I break another pair of pants. (Pretty sure it’s hilarious when it’s not happening to you.)
We’d put off most of it, inertia is a budget’s friend sometimes and overstuffed rooms give me claustrophobia, anyway. LB’s impending arrival has upended this complacency. All too soon, we’ll need every bit of organization and babyproofable furniture we can get to offset the chaos.
The “we should”s are turning into “holy crap, we should really do this now!”
PiC and I react to this totally in line with our usual styles of course: I mentally rank each new idea as a now or hold for later; for PiC, it all goes on the same list. Obviously, we’re now having a LOT of discussion about which are truly priorities and which are Nice to Have.
On hold:
That rattling vent that just sounds awful but works fine.
Our dream trough sink (guesstimate: $3000 for the sink and installation. And the inconvenience – I assume installation would be a huge pain).
The shower head (guesstimate: $200-300 for the replacement but installation also looks like a bear).
Do It Now:
Furniture is the biggest thing right now, literally, and of course the most expensive even with thrifty Craigslisting.
Minimalist or no, we will be adding a fair amount of stuff. Purging the place has been productive but getting things out the door can only make space for the somewhat inevitable pile of stuff, it doesn’t get us organized with the incoming baby stuff.
1. I need an actual workstation. My current workspace is open to the public and the mess is counterproductive.
2. LB has a bed now but we need decent storage for LB’s stuff: feeding, diapering and bathing supplies, clothes, books, a few toys. A car seat and stroller that I can manage. (It’s odd that such a small creature needs about six times more stuff than the enormous Seamus.)
3. The inefficiency of our closet. Meditating on the problem hasn’t brought on any genius so we’re resorting to The Container Store, that scary heaven, to provide some answers. PiC has gone there six times, I’m staying the heck out in case I buy everything. And some IKEA, that den of somewhat affordable home stuffs.
4. The tiny closet. PiC has organized the HECK out of it, managing to find a whole pile of things to sell. Defraying costs? YES PLEASE.
The funniest thing? PiC genuinely thought that he had 3 to 4 years before he had to worry about childproof furniture. I don’t think he’s been paying attention to how much a crawling or newly walking infant gets into, we’ll be lucky to be havoc-free for more than 10 months!
So, no more open-face furniture, doors on everything!
Related: Jana tackled organizing in November
November 26, 2014
Ingredients
1-1/4 pound ground turkey
1 medium onion, chopped
1 zucchini squash, chopped fine
2 large garlic cloves, chopped fine
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper, to taste
1 egg
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
In a large bowl, mix all ingredients thoroughly, create 1 or 2 loaves. Prepare a loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray. Bake for 40 minutes.
An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 160 degrees F (70 degrees C).
Thoughts
This was a halfhearted attempt to use up the ground turkey I’d defrosted for another recipe and sneak in some vegetables as well – surprisingly, it was really good!
Bonus points for being incredibly easy to toss together and cook. It just takes a while to actually cook.
November 24, 2014
Parents say the worst things
Comparing notes with a good friend, we discovered that both our dads cannot resist saying things that make us livid.
When we shared the news about Little Bean, one of his few comments (this one directed to PiC) was: if there aren’t any boys in your family yet, then you should have a boy to carry on your family name.
I cannot even describe what my face did in reaction to that blase, utterly dismissive, and completely thoughtless statement.
So, having a son to carry on your name, was that worth it? Having a son who completely disrespected you most of his life, used you, manipulated you and everyone around you, continues to leech off of you in the most mundane and spectacular ways, who continues to be a trial and a misery to everyone – that’s worth telling your daughter who has carried you for eighteen years in all ways but physically hefting you on her back, and the way you smoke let’s not rule that out for our rosy future – that she should bear a son to carry on her husband’s name since she, her identity, her name, her LIFE doesn’t even bear consideration?
All those years he’s been claiming that he valued me just as much as my sibling (oh thanks, that’s nice to have reached such heights), that he appreciates everything I’ve done and sacrificed, and continue to sacrifice for them, but at the first opportunity, he suggests boys are better. Based… on….?
It’s not the first time he’s enraged me but this is one of the first times it’s been so easy to say that I’m furious with him.
This APW post reminded me of that fury all over again.
Mom had this theory: I was a really angry child because she was so angry and stressed during her pregnancy with me. She regretted not being able to breathe past her frustrations with having to deal with a toddler with no help, selfish and the opposite of helpful in-laws, and the stress of living in a new country learning a new language and building a new life.
My theory is that I’m not an idiot and I’ve had a look around me at this world we live in.
But if her theory holds, Little Bean is going to be born a living, breathing ball of incandescent rage-flame. Sorry, kid. But maybe that will turn into the ability to actually throw flame and wouldn’t that be cool?
People say the damnedest things
You know what’s really fun when you’re pregnant? Even if you’ve never met before that very moment, almost like everydamnone has advice because they know best and also you’re an idiot.
It’s a little easier to ignore strangers. Sometimes. But all people who’ve even thought about having a child feel free to expound at length, going on the assumption that I’m not me and therefore would enjoy hearing utter flipping useless speculation.
Of the WTF variety
“You should have a [boy/girl] because [outdated gender notion about why a boy or a girl is better at this time].”
Girls are better because ….
Boys are better because ….
If it’s a [boy/girl], get used to never saying no again.
Of the It’s Science, didn’t you know? variety
“Oh, if you’re having a [boy/girl] then it will feel like [fill in some old wives’ tale].”
“How far along are you? [Range of months] will be easy, it’ll get hard at [whatever was hard for them].”
“You’ll have a [boy/girl] because of those symptoms.”
Are you sure it’s a boy/girl? This (points at belly) just LOOKS like a girl/boy.*
Now (no matter when they found out) is the best time of pregnancy. It’ll get hard at Y months.
Of the “Oh you’ll HAVE to…” variety
Once the kid’s older and sees friends doing it, you can’t just have cake, you’ll have to rent out a big (museum, restaurant, something preposterous) and host huge birthday parties! How else will you keep up with the Joneses?**
My wife walked an hour a day, every day during pregnancy. You should too.
When’s the baby shower? Why wouldn’t you have one? This is how you get everything you want FOR FREE.
A special little hell on earth
It’s like every interaction is a fresh opportunity for people to treat my pregnancy like their own personal story time.
* Speaking of stories? A friend of a friend – basically a complete freakin stranger to me – was SO proud of herself for, as she tells it, praying a penis onto her friend’s expected daughter after hearing the results of the ultrasound.
“Dear God, I know you know best but if you could just add a little something to Janey’s daughter, that would be great!”
I wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t standing there in utter shock as she proceeded to feel me up, cackling over her success. I could have punched her in the face for touching me if I hadn’t been trying not to add stress to friend’s plate.
I don’t care if LB is a boy or a girl, I care if this child turns into a decent human being. The last time I checked, it’s possible for males AND females to be horrible or wonderful. If YOU couldn’t tell your kids no, that’s your problem, not ours. Little Bean is going to have boundaries from the first day ze can understand them. And that’s not at the age of 16. If you say one more word to me about why boys or girls are better, I swear I’ll …..
And this is just the tip of the iceberg so you’re welcome to imagine how annoyed I get with baby-centric conversation.
Maybe this is their way of relating but seriously?
** This is hard NOW. And not one bloody minute of it has been easy or better than any other minute.
Don’t get me wrong, people sharing their stories as just that, like Leah did here, I’m all for. I love hearing other experiences. But NOT in that completely presumptuous, “you need to X, you should Y, because I know better obviously” kind of way.
It’s the strangest phenomenon that the moment people know you’re pregnant there’s just no chance that, possibly, I might still be a person. My only interest in life must now be the expected child. I have transformed into nothing more than a vessel for Little Bean and there’s no higher favor they can confer but to share the universal knowledge to end all parenting because they had a kid, once.
Of course, the biggest concerns that I have have nothing to do with stretch marks or whether we have a boy or a girl, or anything mundane. There are far greater things, Horatio, the chronic health issues, financial preparation, LIFE! that will and have had a huge impact on the pregnancy and child-rearing experience.
Thankfully, not everyone has showered me with unwanted opinions. Some people are wonderful at offering support while still talking like we’re both humans who have individual experiences, kids or no.
November 20, 2014
We just paid what felt like an awful lot of money for a used crib. It was the one that PiC liked best from all the research that he did, so I had to hop online, find out what it would have cost new, and how much we would have saved for a new but less fancy crib.
Assumptions: if we bought all of this new, we’d be paying tax, but probably not shipping because paying for shipping is against my online shopping rules (unless it’s drastically cheaper even with shipping).
If we’d gone the IKEA route, we’d probably have bought the more expensive version with the drawers underneath because I’m a fan of underbed storage, and spent: basic crib, $200; mattress, $60-100; and add in a few sheet sets at say, $6-10 each.
Approx. total with tax: $330-375
The retail costs for the crib that we chose were: crib (without all the convertible options) $799; mattress, $199; 4 sets of fitted cotton sheets, $39/each; 1 set of waterproof sheets, $49; 1 bed skirt, $49?; 1 bumper (I couldn’t find the bumper that we actually got but it’s much nicer than the ones I could find online so I assume same price or more), $149+.
Total with tax: ~ $1500
I didn’t do a used-Ikea comparison because while their stuff is fine new, I don’t think it tends to hold up well after one or two cycles of kids so I wouldn’t have gone that route.
There were a few reasons that I ended up liking this crib best, over an IKEA semi-equivalent: it’s a bit smaller than the standard crib sizes which is better in our cramped living quarters; it’s really easy to move around so that means less claustrophobia AND less frustration for me. That alone is worth a bit of money. And down the line, there is some decent resale value to be had with this nicer model, even used.
What we paid: $500.
That’s no insignificant amount of money, but I’m now comfortable with paying a little over $100 more for a piece of solid furniture that fits best in our space.