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 4, 2012
Our dear old Doggle, our canine companion of nearly a year, is now officially spoiled within a inch of his life. Nearly by us, mostly by our friends. Our friends lost their own beloved pet not too long ago and asked for the loan of Doggle when we traveled to fill their empty home for a little while, which we were glad to do as he looooves them.
We’ve now figured out why: the kids not only feed him treats hand over fist, he doesn’t just get a yard to romp in, he gets to sleep on the furniture! *cue heart attack*
We were texted a photo of him stretched out on the sofa, bookended by two excessively happy kidlings. Honestly. New meaning to Barcalounger.
Of course now that we’re home, he’s bored and aloof and his old bed is too small. And smooshed. And boring. And Pic, feeling the sting of mopey dejected dog, is ready to bribe Doggle with Yet Another Bed. That’s right, his third bed in less than a year.
Shall we recap?
He’s gotten in the last 11 months:
A new home.
Two beds.
Leashes and collars.
A car.
Two toys he really loves.
All the health care he can stand (and then some).
Oh, and endless food, love and affection, road trips to see extended family and friends who dote on him. And far too many treats from zany neighbor and kooky older people who can’t help themselves.
Next year, he’ll probably get a house with a yard full of grass we’ll have to water and mow for him.
Does anyone want to say it? No? Lucky dog!
Obviously, pretty tongue in cheek “resentment” here, he’s a lot of work wrapped up in an adorable fur coat and it’s equal parts love and sigh.
Oil and Garlic has run into a much more sobering difficulty with her dogs that I’ve known very well back home in Southern California.
April 3, 2012
Once upon a time, I dreamed big for the future. Out of those dreams, I formulated a life plan wherein I’d be taking a professional health degree of some kind and a PhD, entering a white collar profession, and buying a home for myself and my parents (separate homes, mind) before the age of 30. After 30 was a little hazy, but I figured plotting the next 23 years was good enough. Also, two degrees and affording two homes was a tough enough nut to crack – I wasn’t ready to plot any more years.
This was before I knew the words “net worth” because, you know, seven years old, but you had better believe that the balance sheets did not include debt. I’d already been writing out the checks for the bills for my parents and knew how I wanted to set up my own budget when the time came.
You may notice, as my mother had, that I had made no provisions in those plans, for marriage or kids. As far as I was concerned, it might happen, it might not, I wasn’t planning on it or depending on it and figured it wasn’t terribly relevant to the trajectory of my career and money. That was a pretty unsophisticated understanding of how life and marriage works.
Clearly, I was bound and determined to have my own mind and at the time, that also meant keeping my own finances, separate and free. As the years passed, I saw too many bad choices made by one or another couple where there was a divide in the spender/saver continuum, even in my own family, or business decisions gone awry, especially in my own family, and I just couldn’t fathom living in that life.
“If you live in a community property state, not combining finances is just lying to yourself about legalities.” @practicalwed
So once upon a time, I might have disagreed with Meg. Despite my primary marriage example being the relatively healthy and supportive partnership my parents shared in which they had combined finances, I was still certain that I could keep separate finances in any prospective marriage and cope just fine.
Except I’d never coped with two separate systems for myself and my parents so I had no blueprint for a working system. I’d assumed it was only a lack of income on their part and need to control on my part that that didn’t work.
After several months of juggling our separate systems, the time has come to wish good bye to that once-loved independent money philosophy: PiC and I need to combine our finances. Between my OCD control tendencies and his laissez-faire attitude to saving versus spending, I now doubt that we’d get to our final destination in one piece. And we live in a community property state so, frankly, we are combined in the eyes of the law, whether we have combined or not. Entangled, like it or not. (Romantic, hm?)
It’s been as stressful being hands-off while we paid bills separately and waited for incomes to reach stasis as it was maintaining two separate sets of accounts for myself and my parents more than ten years ago.
We just don’t function very well managing our “own” money when we have such different views of it. Part of it is the actual management and lack of transparency. The system isn’t set up well at the moment between our paychecks and direct deposits.
And philosophically, he still viewed his money as his money and spent freely, resenting that an uneven amount of expenses were coming out of his pocket, while I viewed all the money as our money and saved to offset his spending, and resented his depletion of our budget.
It turns out that we need to literally be on the same page to think from the same page. Never thought that’d be the case but there it is.
Starting at the beginning, I evaluated all our expenses and income and set up the target amounts that we’d want in specific pots for our savings and spendings goals. Now, we just have to figure out which banks and which accounts to keep and which to cut out, then actually do it.
Married Life Posts:
Married Life: Benefits
Married Life: Mortgage Prepayment for Refinancing
Married Life: Blending spending styles and learning the art of compromise
March 19, 2012
In Donna’s Strategic Pizza, she shares her experience with the beginnings of the same phenomenon that I’ve noticed has crept into our own shared lives organically, but not comfortably, over the past year and some.
One of the natural effects of living with PiC has been that my normal levels of frugality and privations to make sure that ends are met are offset by extra spending where I normally would not have chosen it.
Left to my own devices, life is conducted Broke Student Style. I don’t eat out, I don’t buy anything I don’t need unless (or even if) the existing item is falling apart, I stay home all weekend, every weekend because I can be productive, learn, and monitor finances without spending money that way. I’ll buy gifts, frugally, but rarely are purchases for myself.
PiC looks at me crossways, wondering why I didn’t just stop and pick something up to eat if I’ve run 4 hours of errands and I’m exhausted. He wonders why I don’t go out on a sunny day to shop, plan brunch, or have dinners out with family and friends.
Not only does it not occur to me to do that instead of cheap or free options like taking a snack on errands, cooking at home or going to the park or hanging out at home and catching up, it actually feels like I’m going off the rails. I’m being foolish and wasteful, spending.
Our experiences have shaped us so fundamentally differently, he and I.
When we come home after extra long (14+ hour) days, I wonder: What’s in the freezer and fridge? What kind of meal can I throw together if I don’t already have one ready? I can defrost and put something together. Or: maybe I can just pass out and forget dinner.
His is: Let’s just get take-out and get that worry out of the way.
The last thing I want to do is add spending guilt to my fatigue. The last thing he wants to do is spend more time and energy at the end of a long and tiring day.
Now that my health is so largely exacerbated by exhaustion and our income isn’t scraping by penny to penny, month to month, I have to admit that he has a point. I have to keep reminding myself that the ledger doesn’t need to be the absolute first (and only) priority.
In the early months of our living together, it was incredibly difficult not to object every single time the subject came up. To keep the issue from becoming a point of contention, I tried to artificially restrict the number of meals and the cost of eating out. I needed to impose some limits to know that we weren’t going to spiral into an endless convenience spending cycle.
After many months of tracking our expenses, we’re still looking for a system that suits us, but we’ve come to an understanding. Some convenience spending is part of our lives as a freedom he’s accustomed to, particularly when we’re, one or the other, just too tired to scrape the meal together, but we limit it to those times when the fatigue threatens familial harmony. The amount is still more than I’m comfortable with but that’s to be expected; we can work on that. Meanwhile, I’ve been learning to let go of the wallet-anxiety a little.
This is a small step in the direction of living a mindful, purposeful, and ultimately, peaceful life.
Married Life Posts:
Married Life: Benefits
Married Life: Mortgage Prepayment for Refinancing
March 9, 2012
Balancing acts in adulthood
I’ve been enjoying the conversations over at Wandering Scientist on work life balance. As I teeter into my thirties, I’ve been examining some of the financial and professional choices I’ve made during this decade and reflecting on how effective those philosophies have been and whether they will continue to hold true for the upcoming decade. I suspect that life and money and career in my thirties will be just as interesting a trip, but beyond that? Well, so far I’ve been terrible at prognosticating so I’ll just leave it at that.
As for my twenties ….
These were absolutely the foundation years: completing the final years of undergrad, deciding to hold off on graduate school until I knew better what I wanted out of it, throwing myself into my career at full tilt while digging out of debt and then building up a nest egg. My approach to my career and my money was the same: more is better.
Philosophically, the natural, deeply ingrained, unthinking element was an intrinsic need to achieve something, a drive to have a discernable growth pattern, to do something that seemed tangible. I wanted to build a career, I wanted to have achieved something substantive.
The logical, considered, and reasoned plan was to aim for a position where my work-life balance wouldn’t be dictated by the company because I was highly placed enough where they didn’t care about niceties like when I showed up or how many hours I worked as long as the job was done well. Essentially, I wanted to achieve the ability to talk terms with the company I worked for as long as I was an employee.
***
In Oil and Garlic’s post, A Precarious Balance, she discusses the ignored constraints in finding work-life balance when your income doesn’t stretch to buying flexibility and help. She lists a number of things that one can do to earn or achieve more flexibility from her perspective as a non-manager with a mid-level salary in a HCOLA. That combination probably describes a fair number of us who simply don’t have the ability to buy out of the choices that we have to manage to run households and feed mouths, day to day.
Meanwhile, she notes: At my company, those in manager positions and above enjoy a higher autonomy. They don’t have to ask permission to work from home. They also have the money for nanny and cleaning help, something that my household has paid for but at a great sacrifice (and only temporarily). They can still enjoy many luxuries like massages, travel and dining out. True, they have greater responsibilities, too, and they’ve earned it. But their solutions often aren’t applicable to those those in lower income brackets. In other words, they can buy some balance while many people don’t have that same privilege.
I very much agreed. Having worked many years in retail and other similarly low-wage environments while going to school, I’d observed very early on the vulnerabilities of being in the middle and lower tiers of any organization. One typically has less negotiating power in terms of responsibilities, is considered more expendable or is less valued as an asset to the company, and blends in with the rest of the equivalent employees holding the same role.
In that position, an individual’s power, and the choices one would like to make for oneself tend to lie in the advocacy and kindness of an immediate superior and his or her ability to persuade at least one or more rungs above if flexibility isn’t part of the company policy.
***
In the long-term, that was far too slim a reed for me to rest my life and my family’s lives on, particularly when I had the additional concern of a chronic illness for which there were no immediate prospects for improvement.
Superficially, need and circumstance dictated that I simply earn a living but I was compelled to steer my career trajectory as steeply as I could, as early as I could, while building a strong reputation in my chosen field. My theory was that should I be derailed for any length of time, for any reason, that reputation would serve to smooth my way.
Cloud, of Wandering Scientist confirms, whatever choice you make to take a break for family reasons after you’ve established yourself, you’re usually starting from a better place:
Once you have kids, you can decide whether or not you want or need to ease up on your career, but whatever you decide, it will be easier to keep your career viable if you have a strong reputation built in your earlier years. Whether you keep working or take a break, that reputation will serve you well. I think that one reason I haven’t suffered from much “working moms are slackers” bias in my own career is that I have a sterling reputation for productivity- and have maintained it. But we are also actively recruiting someone right now who is coming back after about 5 years off with young kids. We actually sought her out and asked her if she was ready to come back, on the basis of having been impressed with her work before she took the break.
Details will differ a bit across industries but the basis makes sense to me – someone who had a solid reputation before taking a break would have a leg up on someone who hadn’t established one.
***
My personal net worth has gone from -$50,000 in family debt to around $100,000 in assets over the course of nine years in addition to paying for all living expenses for a family of four. While it’s no great shakes, it’s certainly a fair start at a real financial basis with which to start a family.
I haven’t taken a break yet, and I don’t know if and when I (or we) will decide that it’s time to, but right now, I’m in a strong building phase of my career and striving for higher earning power. It’s only partly a joke that I’m trying to outearn PiC before the end of this year. That’s partly ego, and partly practicality. If I’m the higher earner, and we start a family, there’s a stronger case for him to stay home with the kids! 😉
In the end, my choices throughout my twenties were tailored to setting the scene and creating opportunities for freedom and better choices in the future.
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.
March 4, 2012
The week didn’t start off as planned, my brain’s been a traitor and I keep having feelings, so I’ve been seeking asylum in food. It’s not quite so bad as eating to cope or anything like that. I just need an outlet whereby my brain can stop thinking on what it keeps focusing on. Thankfully, the internet in the form of creative cooking Twitter and blogger friends have been sharing some delightful food tidbits and I have been paying attention!
Also I cheated and bought premarinated bulgogi for dinner. It was expensive at $10 for 1.25 pounds but it was cheaper than going out, made two meals over two nights and was really fast prep. Sometimes cheaters don’t lose sleep at night over the cheating because it saved some time better spent on sleeping.
I did finally bite the bullet and order some shoes to try on, though, after hemming and hawing all week long. I hate shoe shopping and I hate wasting money but torturing myself with blisters and calluses is just plain stupid. With any luck, at least a couple pairs will be good and last several years.
Posts for Perusal
I’ve a hankering to try Frugal Scholar’s braised lamb shoulder. It just sounds fantastic. But the price of lamb at Trader Joe’s- $17.99/lb– had my already wobbly knees buckling. I didn’t try looking further.
SP is conducting a More Money, More Comfort, More Time? experiment with her shoes. Coincidentally my happy new flats from Aldo several months ago have also crapped out on me far earlier than I would have liked. They aren’t destroyed but they are now destroying my feet. And with my new resolution to walk 2-3 times a week when the weather’s friendlier, I simply need to admit that adding the gel inserts and gritting my teeth through the weekly blisters is actually not a solution.
Nicole and Maggie reprise “You’re So Vain” in Some folks are easily offended. Not everything is about you. I operate on the philosophy that very little is. If anything your feelings should be hurt about that. [tongue in cheek]
A Recipe
I’m feeling reminiscent of (craving) the awesome Thanksgiving Turkey I made, with a slight variation from this L.A. Times brining recipe. ie: I didn’t realize I should brine it overnight much less for three DAYs so it was brined for about three hours. Still delicious.
Served: 14 pounds, 2 greedy-faces, up to 5 days.
Dry-brined turkey
Total time: 2 hours, 50 minutes, plus 3 days brining and drying time
Servings: 11 to 15
Note: This is more a technique than a recipe. It makes a bird that has concentrated turkey flavor and fine, firm flesh and that is delicious as it is. But you can add other flavors as you wish. Minced rosemary would be a nice finishing addition. Or brush the bird lightly with butter before roasting.
1 (12- to 16-pound) turkey
Kosher salt
1. Wash the turkey inside and out, pat it dry and weigh it. Measure 1 tablespoon of salt into a bowl for every 5 pounds the turkey weighs (for a 15-pound turkey, you’d have 3 tablespoons).
2. Sprinkle the inside of the turkey lightly with salt. Place the turkey on its back and salt the breasts, concentrating the salt in the center, where the meat is thickest. You’ll probably use a little more than a tablespoon. It should look liberally seasoned, but not over-salted.
3. Turn the turkey on one side and sprinkle the entire side with salt, concentrating on the thigh. You should use a little less than a tablespoon. Flip the turkey over and do the same with the opposite side.
4. Place the turkey in a 2½-gallon sealable plastic bag, press out the air and seal tightly. Place the turkey breast-side up in the refrigerator. Chill for 3 days, turning it onto its breast for the last day.
5. Remove the turkey from the bag. There should be no salt visible on the surface, and the skin should be moist but not wet. Place the turkey breast-side up on a plate and refrigerate uncovered for at least 8 hours.
6. On the day it is to be cooked, remove the turkey from the refrigerator and leave it at room temperature at least 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
7. Place the turkey breast-side down on a roasting rack in a roasting pan; put it in the oven. After 30 minutes, remove the pan from the oven and carefully turn the turkey over so the breast is facing up (it’s easiest to do this by hand, using kitchen towels or oven mitts).
8. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees, return the turkey to the oven and roast until a thermometer inserted in the deepest part of the thigh, but not touching the bone, reads 165 degrees, about 2¾ hours total roasting.
9. Remove the turkey from the oven, transfer it to a warm platter or carving board; tent loosely with foil. Let stand at least 30 minutes to let the juices redistribute through the meat. Carve and serve.
March 3, 2012
Warren Ellis on space and some of our ridiculous politicians and politics today. He was specifically asked about Gingrich by name though I’m sure he could be quite evenhanded with both sides’ ridiculousity if desired.
My favorite bits that almost make this embarrassing degenerate circus seem like it’s not just spinning out of control:
As someone who’s been very astute at understanding American political mythology — in Crooked Little Vein and elsewhere — what does the 2012 GOP primary say to you about the United States?
Absolutely nothing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun sideshow, but I don’t believe it says anything about the country other than that working democracy is like making haggis, in that you really don’t want to see what goes into that shit. It does say a lot about the state of the GOP, and I can’t help but wonder if the party moderates are just letting this parade of mental patients and unelectable criminals simply happen, so that they can detoxify the party after the inevitable firestorm of failure.
What role does fiction play in inspiring innovation and human development?
Most centers of scientific innovation are full of people walking around with a head full of science fiction, I’ve found. I mean, thank god. It means someone’s still buying my books. And if it’s NASA, then they’re using your tax dollars to do it. Excellent.
For some disclosure, though not full, I take issue with just about all current candidates who are full of pompous puffery and championing insane causes for more insane reasons. There have got to be some good people left who can represent and debate original ideas who aren’t full of unadulterated …. well.
————
In defense of the First Amendment, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund does good work. In this particular case, the CBLDF helped defend a man who was arrested in Canada, detained without given the reason for his detention, not granted access to counsel nor to the American Embassy.
His “crime”? Traveling with his comics, specifically manga, on his laptop which falls under the broad Canadian definition of child pornography.
Despite having the charges dropped after waging a $75,000 court battle, the attorneys involve still caution all travelers:
Although the outcome of this case is ultimately positive, comic book readers should be aware that there are still dangers for traveling with comics in Canada. Edelson says, “Aside from the very positive outcome to this story, your members should be cautioned concerning the search and seizure regime here in Canada exercised by the Canadian Border Services Agency. Moreover, they should also be aware that although anime and manga is legal in many areas of the United States and Japan, etc., to possess and utilize, the Canadian authorities may take a different view if this material is found on any laptops or mobile devices when you enter the country. Many of the issues that arise in similar circumstances are thoroughly addressed in our comprehensive Notice of Application.”
While I don’t think of any of my anime or manga as being particularly, or at all, salacious, the very nature of the style is such that everyone is drawn in an exaggerated, child-like, manner, including the adults. I’d be very careful when traveling to Canada not to bring any manga out of concern for the scope for misinterpretation.
A Recipe
Courtesy of Cait, I’m going to be trying this out.
Coconut Curry
INGREDIENTS:
2 bunches green onions
1 (14 ounce) can light coconut milk
1/4 cup soy sauce, divided
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
2 teaspoons chile paste
1 pound firm tofu, cut into 3/4 inch cubes
4 roma (plum) tomatoes, chopped
1 yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced
4 ounces fresh mushrooms, chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
4 cups chopped bok choy
salt to taste
DIRECTIONS:
1. Remove white parts of green onions, and finely chop. Chop greens into 2 inch pieces.
2. In a large heavy skillet over medium heat, mix coconut milk, 3 tablespoons soy sauce, brown sugar, curry powder, ginger, and chile paste. Bring to a boil.
3. Stir tofu, tomatoes, yellow pepper, mushrooms, and finely chopped green onions into the skillet. Cover, and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Mix in basil and bok choy. Season with salt and remaining soy sauce. Continue cooking 5 minutes, or until vegetables are tender but crisp. Garnish with remaining green onion.