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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November 21, 2013
“If you could, you’d bring all the stray animals home with you and they’d eat you out of house and home.” – So Said My Parents
I was an inveterate rescuer as a kid, turning up with one stray or another, and always getting the boot because we simply could not afford the luxury of half a dozen pets in a small apartment. While I completely understand not buying new clothes, always wearing hand me downs, and never eating out, my poor pre-adolescent mind couldn’t grasp the idea that we didn’t have room in our home or budget for another stray.
That feeling’s never gone away, not entirely.
And now we’re discussing/planning to take in another sad soul whose owner can’t take care of him anymore. The poor dog has skin issues and has lost a lot of weight, and my heart just can’t take it.
We can’t take him for at least a few months, the wedding planning and travel means we are even more tight on time and money than we’d normally be around the end of our fiscal year, but I’m looking forward to the day we can bring him home, even if only for several months until we help sort his medical issues.
Things that worry me:
1. Time: He and Doggle have completely different energy levels and walking them together might not work well. We need it to, though, because we alternate turns walking the dog according to our own schedules. If we have to take each dog out for a separate walk, we’re spending hours a day walking. Plus, I’m physically not up to that. I only have so much energy to spend per day working, cooking, cleaning, walking dogs, doing things around the house.
2. Space: They’re both big boys. I think they’ll be ok in a confined space generally speaking but New Dog hasn’t ever been solely an indoor dog. Will he feel claustrophobic? (I know, he’s a dog. But a really uncomfortable cooped up dog is destructive.) I may have to sweep out and set him up on our stamp of an outdoor space to get fresh air regularly.
3. Veterinary care and costs: Until we beat his medical issues, we’re going to be seeing a lot more of the vet. I expect to be running tests, trying new diets, and… ?
4. Boarding: Doggle is universally beloved, and we have friends who hate to let him come home after he’s vacationed with them. New Dog, while of the sweetest temperament ever and having never displayed a moment’s bad temper that I’ve seen, looks like a scary breed of pup and our friends won’t be able to accommodate him. If/when we travel, we’ll have to take them both with us or board him. 🙁 I know people do it all the time but I hate the thought.
5. Food and lodgings: we’ll need a new bed for him and good high-quality food. Obviously that all costs money too.
6. Breed: We don’t know what breed he is but he looks like one of the universally suspect breeds and that’s unfortunate for a number of reasons. We’ll have to test him for formality’s sake but I know from long experience that this dog is kind, loving and smart enough to understand what’s going on around him. He was extra patient w/my elderly dog, always giving her her way, he was similarly kind and patient with Doggle when he was very confused about life and offered to be friends but backed right off without batting an eye when he was rebuffed.
Realistically, this may not be a perfect long term situation, but I have to at least try to help him to the best of my abilities. We’ll take it a step at a time.
Link I Love:
SingleMa made Blessing Bags to give away and I think this is a great idea.
November 18, 2013
If you felt a huge gust of wind, it was my WHOOSH of a relieved sigh. After MONTHS of playing phone tag with the landlord and his assistant/representative, and writing a formal letter (which we never used to need because they were totally on top of things), we finally got someone out to address the repairs that have become rather critical in the past few years.
Repairs and maintenance have been a big problem this year; it’s what happens when you can’t stay on top of the more minor repairs and they snowball into bigger ones. It’s also what happens when a house ages and needs more major, regular, maintenance.
At a minimum…
All the plumbing needs work: hot water’s stopped running in one sink, one sink won’t stop dripping, yet another doesn’t drain.
We’ve found mold hiding under the paint and that has to be stripped out, cleaned and repainted.
It’s been over a decade since the last paint job, so all the walls need a new coat.
The doorbell is broken. It’s been broken so long I’d forgotten about it.
There’s more, I just can’t think of it all right now.
Part of this is because Mom and I managed much of the routine household stuff; we did all the liasing with the landlord for any arrangements or requests, and we shared the other housework out enough so that no one was overloaded. Now that I’m not at the house regularly, the few hours I do have on each stopover are spent scrubbing, vacuuming and cleaning which doesn’t make a dent. Dad’s got his hands full with his work, generally, and keeping up anything that’s not an essential, or even those, isn’t a priority. He doesn’t cope with grief and loss by cleaning like I do, or Mom did, he copes by immersing himself in other things.
This makes me a bit crazy that he’s living in such rundown surroundings, that he’s just been making do because he can’t get around to it, but it’s hard to be upset with him; I’m not sure I’d rouse myself to do repairs if I were alone after 30 years of marriage, either.
Thus, the utter relief to finally have cornered the landlord’s contact to get things started: they’ve come by and made a list of things to address. We are lucky, by the way, that while some of these fall under keeping the place habitable, not all of them are and it looks like they’ll go ahead and take care of everything anyway.
We’ll set up a repair schedule in the next couple of days. And I can finally stop feeling so damn guilty that I can’t be in three places at once and hold two jobs to pay for everyone and everything.
November 4, 2013
We’ve survived the week of harrowing (which just kept getting worse as we got into it: the LAX shooting was local to us and affected things, there was an attempted suicide situation, there was another death in the family). There’s nothing we can do about any of the big stuff really, we helped where we could and have to keep moving.
We were so busy we basically skipped Halloween and I didn’t even get to post my fun Halloween sign! So I’m sharing it now. Humor me, please.
How was everyone’s Halloween, btw? I didn’t see much in the way of plans or costumes this year so do share! 
On the bright side, we got a lot done. From that original list, we had to skip seeing friend with new baby and meeting with the photographer; I had two other errands (donations and returns) that we decided to defer as well. Of 12 major things, “only” getting 8 done is not terrible, and I knocked off several other things too: picked up a crafts store GC at a 27% discount; crafted a TON of to do lists and got a good start on filling in most of them; found a lot of photographs to bring back with us; have the next trip back half-planned out.
In case you’re wondering, yes, I’m exhausted.
Spending, spending, spending
~ Wedding costs, extraneous or frivolous ones in my opinion, are starting to add up and I’m retrenching to see where we can save. Friends have offered to help DIY flowers, so we won’t pay for anything more than we use (and not much, at that) and we discovered that friends who are helping with vendor work saves us an additional 60% off their meal cost as vendors are charged at a much lower rate. That’s an unexpected bonus where we were just hoping to include friends and family in a family and friend celebration.
~ PiC’s suit cost about 4 times more than I had anticipated, but it was 50% off so … uh, only 2 times more? And Dad’s suit was right at my mentally budgeted amount so the two of them are very nearly squared away.
~ I’m debating whether to get a discounted GC for Macy’s and buy Dad the really expensive but SUPER nice dress shoes that PiC got for our elopement and has been floating on ever since; Dad insists that he can buy his own shoes but I suspect they’ll be some cheap affair. I don’t want any Sam Vimes Shoe Economy here. Instead he can wear the fancy ones til he drops and they’ll probably still be in good shape.
~ We’ve also failed miserably at continuing our Wine & Money Wednesdays after the first sitdown so we’re going to have to restart that. In the meantime, though, our foray into joint banking is getting better and smoother.
Fun and Frivolity
~ I’m really happy that Grimm is back and the ridiculous The Captain + Juliet storyline is over. Also I’m glad that Juliet isn’t being written as the obtuse idiot they had her play earlier.
~ The funnest thing I did in October was the hardest thing: handmaking the beginnings of a costume for Doggle. It’s not done and I have no clue how to make the rest of it but it was weird and entertaining.
~ We’re hosting Thanksgiving for a couple family members this year and I’m extra excited about it. Not just about the 30 lb turkey I want to cook for 4 people, but also about hosting a Thanksgiving in our home for the first time since we’ve lived here. Nervousness about cooking for not just PiC will set in, probably in 2 weeks. Obviously I’m going for making the best cooked and most frugal meal.
Communication and Relationships
~ PiC and I have been enjoying an unusually good period of communication on money, family, wedding planning, Doggle. We don’t normally fight all the time, of course, but we also have had to relearn how to navigate touchy territory since getting married and that makes me more grateful than ever that we’re communicating more effectively these days. Part of it has simply been articulation: We had been trading planning duties when one of us was super stressed over work stuff; part of it has been being more flexible about things when the other isn’t cooperating. One of the best pieces of advice a colleague gave me on how her business partnership works well: articulate your problem. Ask for help, don’t just assume you need to do it all yourself unless you actually want to!
~ I’m back in contact with childhood cousin companion, thanks to the wedding stuff actually, and age has mellowed us both out. We’re actually chatting like no time has passed at all, but in fact, so much has that we get along better than ever. This is an unexpected nice thing that wouldn’t have happened any time soon had we not planned a celebration.
October 29, 2013
I’m not normally much of a Halloween person but this year I had high hopes of dressing up my victim … Doggle, and taking him either trick or treating or to a good friend’s house to play. Instead, we’re sadly in Southern California to lend a dear friend moral support and planning support. Her elderly mother, weighed down by a series of illnesses and then a serious fall breaking her hip, simply couldn’t bounce back and I’m grieved to say we lost her. I don’t care how old you are, losing a beloved parent is never easy.
***
This month has been busy as all get out and I’m rather glad it’s coming to an end, or I would be if that wasn’t rapidly pushing us toward a conclusion I’m not ready for (the end of the year). Which means that we have to make the most of this trip down south for wedding stuff as well as life stuff.
We need to (deep breath):
Visit friend with a new baby,
Visit friend who lost her mother,
Meet the photographer,
See the venue for the first time & figure out if anything else needs doing,
Deliver any wedding stuff that we don’t need here so we’re not transporting a moving van’s worth of frippery the weekend of,
Buy suits for PiC and my dad,
Buy or rent a traditional dress for me,
Attend a wedding,
Attend a family dinner,
Oh and WORK.
Talk about your last minute trips!
We decided this would happen only 2 days before and it was a flurry getting ready! (I thought it was wise to start preparing by doing seven loads of laundry…..)
I booked three hotels because it’s a long stinking drive down to SoCal, and if we want to be convenient to certain people without spending 2 hours in traffic either way, it’s a hotel or bust.
Booked 1 hotel for 50% off. Yay for catching billing errors from our last visit and their profuse apologies = savings: ~$100 or less. Includes breakfast or lunch.
Booked 1 hotel with SPG points: 7,000 points + $50 pet fee instead of spending $200.
Booked 1 hotel for cash: $120 + $100 pet fee. Occasionally this fee is waived so we’re hoping for the best.
We’re also renting a car for the week. We’d normally take the Dog Chariot but we need more room for transport of several cases of things and we need to keep the mileage on our personal vehicles low since we get a major discount on the insurance. I booked a week-long rental on Carrentals.com using ebates (3% back): $273.
The funny thing is, if I rented the same car from Tuesday through Sunday, it would have been billed at a MUCH higher per day rate and the total estimate was nearly $600. !!!
In total, this near-week long trip will cost about $800 in travel;
probably another few hundred on wedding clothes that are meant to be rewearable for years after this;
and miscellaneous costs for food.
[insert aggrieved face here] Staying home is so much cheaper.
***
On the bright side, we’ve decided to put about $20K toward principle on the mortgage. We’d squirreled away cash for a re-finance but thanks to some legal mumbo-jumbo with the HOA we can’t at the moment. Might as well put it to work reducing the mortgage, then!
Also, made a dinner at home for friends this weekend. Not counting the cost of garlic or butter, I think we managed to feed four for about $20: Roast chicken, mashed potatoes w/onions & garlic, braised bok choy, and roasted beets. Unfortunately for a cooking-for-guests night, I wasn’t terribly impressed with what I turned out. PiC loved it but I’m convinced he’s far too kind when I cook.
October 26, 2013
There’s perhaps nothing as exhilarating as being DONE with a major professional thing. You’d think that after being in management for a good while, after dealing with as many bad and difficult people-problems as I have, after running things and being a decision maker, talking in front of people wouldn’t be so nerve-wracking but I hate it. Hate hate hate hate it.
I’ll get better at it with practice but I hate that too. I hate the practice, I hate knowing that I have to practice and I hate being bad at it until I’m better at it.
Pretty sure I stopped being an overachiever a while back but I didn’t stop hating being bad at things.
It shouldn’t be any wonder that after I discharged my responsibilities, the entire world seemed a shinier, brighter, happier, wonderfuller place.
Traveling Solo
I discovered:
A) Flying was a lot harder on me than I expected this past week. My back had already been hurting for days and I was tired from preparing for my gig, so despite getting to fly a “nice” airline (still coach class) both departing and returning flights were a torment. I’m praying that this doesn’t mark the beginning of the end of my ability to travel alone. (Every time something gets significantly worse, I worry about this: is it permanent? Can I get better? Will I come back from this? A lot of the time, the answer is no.)
B) Eating almost every meal alone for a few days, in public, is kinda fun. Lots of thinking and reading. And talking to folks on Twitter.
C) I can be remarkably dense. (At least I know it?) For example: walking to a strange destination? Guaranteed that I will take at least 3 wrong turns. Absolutely guaranteed. I stared at the Hubway map up there for at least 4 minutes before it occurred to me that it wasn’t a map for the subway, it was for the bike rentals. *eyeroll*
D) Logan Airport has its drawbacks but all are forgiven because they have ROCKING CHAIRS.
E) I tried Uber for the first time, thanks to ExtraPetite’s referral, and while it took slow-brain about 2 days to figure out the app (also it kept quitting on me), I loved it. They texted me as soon as I booked my ride w/a driver ETA, my driver called me immediately to double check directions, and the app shows you the driver’s photo and the car’s license plate. It was not creepy, as I might have thought riding w/a stranger would be, though the cabs in that area were uniformly alright. Not weird, a bit chatty, but cool.
F) NO street harassment. I walked near an hour through strange streets and construction zones etc., and I wasn’t harassed even once. You may not realize how amazing that is but it really is. I always feel like I’m going through a war zone, on full alert, ready to fight off harassers or call the police if someone tries to pulls something, as they usually do.
Catching up-ness
Catching up on work was a bit of a slog but not terrible so I’m nearly there. With the rare exception of one project that was so bad it took more than 6 times the usual number of hours to fix. *shakes fist at incompetence*
I missed FinCon and I hear a lot of people had a great time. Stephanie and Deena and I had MiniFinCon though, and learned that “Medford, MA” is pronounced “Meh-for” in rough approximation of Bostonian.
Then I got to meet up with eemusings!
I also missed GeekGirlCon and that sounded like loads of fun. Perhaps next year …
PiC replaced our guest room bed set-up, and gave away our lumpy old mattress and box set: $300 for a new mattress, bed frame and really plush mattress topper. Craigslist score! Just in time for visitors, too. 🙂
File Under: Things I Want
(always leaving aside the obvious: a return to old fit and healthy self)
A very cushy rocking chair recliner w/foot rest.
A cushy bean bagA Fabulous TARDIS bookshelf (or a set of…)
Other interesting stuff I caught up on
Nicole and Maggie on missing (or not) high school
A HufflePup is NOSY. And Vicki is going to bring home another corgi pup! PiC just discovered how absolutely adorable Corgi pups are and was nearly ready to bend on his No Small Dogs rule.
Luke crowdsourced his question on what you do if you get a duplicate shipment of an online order.
A lovely Marian call video with a favorite song:
October 16, 2013
Everyday life has been mortally exhausting of late.
See Maryville which makes me sick;
See the debates that sprang up around the unprofessionalism directed at @DNLee5;
See the outing of a respected science blogger as yet another person who has harassed and the resulting discussion about that:
See the unending BART union talks/possible strikes:
See all the ripple effects from the government shutdown.
For a start.
In reaction, I’ve been casting about for inspiration and positivity to offset it. Not to pretend that the horrors and horribleness of the world doesn’t exist, I can hardly hear myself think for the din, but to balance out the sinking feeling in my gut every time I hear the news, or see an update or new hashtag of some thing going wrong.
There are still good things and worthwhile people and I just need a solid reminder of it.
Tim O’Reilly on his experience in management. Hat tip to Wandering Scientist.
Also, Wandering Scientist has a neat new site called Tungsten Hippo. I love stories and things that promote growth and stories.
I believe in investing in myself but $2000+ for a conference purely to satisfy my curiosity is a bit steep. It’s still intriguing though: Women 2.0.
Men have to be part of the drive for diversity & equality in leadership said Vivek Wadhwas.
Identity by books, Nicole & Maggie. I love books.
Leigh doesn’t NEED her job to pay the bills on a paycheck to paycheck basis. I Really Like This.
Clare breaks down the cost of Bringing Up Boris. Our neighbor just brought home an adorable new pup and from the slightly dazed look on the faces of the family, I suspect that this would be helpful to them. Think it’d be weird if I printed this up & taped it to their door?
I love dogs and elephants. They’re awesome, and even more so when they’re together. I love other animals too, of course.
Open Forum: What’s been awesome to or for you lately?
October 14, 2013
I was previously concerned about the cost of our venue: location, food and alcohol are big ticket items when you’re looking at set prices and a big guest list. After quite a search, we finally found a place that’s pretty flexible about the packages they offer, so with a lot of fat trimming and decisions to DIY where it’s manageable, we’ll be much closer to an acceptable budget.
The last “final” choice, a really pretty outdoor venue, surprised us at the end of the selection process with a quote that had an additional fee for the ceremony, and required that we hire a licensed DJ. We didn’t want no stinkin’ DJ! We weren’t planning on having a big music-oriented thing, and I don’t particularly want to have a stranger presiding over the music and talking up a storm. Yes yes, trust issues, sue me. But more than that, I didn’t want to have to shell out another thousand or so dollars before we pinned down a photographer taking our total to a blasphemous near-$30K. We didn’t just back away from that venue, we RAN.
Our final-final choice has been much better: flexible services and responsive vendor contacts. They call when they say they will, they don’t drop out of contact then make excuses about being busy during the wedding season, they’re upfront about scheduling around their ongoing commitments and accommodating my schedule.
We’re choosing to pay a premium for a hosted bar throughout the entire event as neither PiC or I are comfortable with the notion of a cash bar. Not only is that unheard of in my culture’s traditions, neither he or I are ok with asking my guests to pull their wallets out when we’ve invited them to an event that we’re hosting. If this was a DIY potluck, maybe. But it’s not, it’s a celebration that we’re inviting them to. So, hosted bar. End of.
In trade, we’re opting out of:
1. A fancy wedding cake. Their custom wedding cakes, while potentially gorgeous, will cost something like $300-400. Far too much. We wanted to choose our own cake and budgeted about $200-250 to have plenty. Unfortunately… we underestimated how many servings sizes we could get out of our original plan, so I contacted the shops to ask for high volume discounts. We wanted delicious cakes and our savings too, but instead of savings, we’ll take having multiple options for the cake instead.
2. Fancy centerpieces. We could have a florist managing the centerpieces for $600 or we could do it ourselves for about $150. That’s my budget for it anyway.
3. Invitations. They would have cost $200 from the package. I did them myself for under $100, even with my cardstock goof. The postage costs are about the same as they would have been w/the venue, of course.
4. Champagne toast, house wine, cider. I’m not a wine snob but what’s the point of also paying for house champagne and wine (read: average tasting) for the tables and toast (that I don’t really feel the need for)? Save $550, against the premium cost we’re paying for the hosted bar.
5. Discounts for the asking, off season. Scheduling this in the winter months gave us the opportunity to ask for some discounts. We got the ceremony site and the day of organizer gratis, and were offered free decorations as well, but I asked to have their value to be applied against the alcohol fee as well. Can’t have it if you don’t ask!
6. Discounts we didn’t ask for. Booking within a week of our initial query snagged us a fat discount as well.
In total, we’re taking $4141 off the bill for the venue which offsets the added premium bar, and the money we’ll lay out for the DIY stuff. After the offsets, we’re actually saving $841. This makes a difference when it comes to tax and service fees as well.
Another chunk of discount will come out of the total once we figure how many of these heads are children. Kids under the age of 11 are discounted, kids 3 and under are free; I’m guessing we’ll have a fair lot of tykes but won’t count on anything until we get closer to the time.
*-*-*
As I listen to the PF community comment on and chat about the topic of wedding planning and budgeting, I have new thoughts. I never wanted to spend a boatload of money on a single day; it was never that important.
In the past 2 years, I’ve come around. It’s not all about me and what I want or don’t want. It was important to my parents, to my husband and to my friends to celebrate this, and with us. And while peer pressure plays little role in my daily life, neither do I live in a void. And in that context, and in memory of my mother who really wanted to be there for this day, I can justify spending what would otherwise be categorized as an obscene amount of money for a single day. We’ll do it our way, catering only to my health, a respect for some cultural traditions, and the comfort of our guests.
That’s not to say that there won’t be moments of plannerly insanity, there already have been, but I suspect it’ll be minimal compared to what it could be.
