6,6,1,1

I am not happy with my care of self these days. When I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflection, I think "is that me?" because I had gotten used to a slender self. These days, lumps and bumps are back. I can get into my pants....but it hurts. Things are hard to zip. I'm limited to a much smaller section of my wardrobe. And I'm not happy about it.

I'm having horrible, horrible hot flashes at night these days, too, and I wonder if it's related. And I have such low energy....and I'm so tired.

And yet, I just don't feel up to doing Weight Watchers. It doesn't feel right - or is that an excuse? I don't want to be food-centric, and I don't want to feel like I'm dieting. (I know, it's a lifestyle, not a diet. But it felt like dieting.)

So I've come up with a plan; one that has been fermenting in my mind for a while, and this is it:
6 fruits or vegetables per day
6am alarm
1 treat per day
1 outdoor activity per day

Here's my logic. If I eat fruits and vegetables in quantity, I'll be filling up on them instead of filling up on other (less healthy) items. And I get a treat - but just one, because some days I've had more than one and I can see where that got me. So, a piece of chocolate, or a dessert, or a glass of wine.....wine treat per day. And I must get up earlier, despite the fact that it's harder than just about anything, because if I start my day caught-up rather than rushing, I think I'll have a head start. Plus, that will give me some time to occassionally do a workout video or walk Shep before the day really gets going. And the outdoor activity? Well, the more time I spend outdoors the more active I am, and the better I feel.

So that's it: 6, 6, 1, 1. I'll have to pay attention to what I eat, but hopefully I won't have to obsess to see results. Time will tell, but today I tried and it was successful: just to get in veggies, I made a late afternoon snack (which I always end up eating anyway) of hummus and carrots. I put the snack dish on the island in the kitchen, and I found Tessa happily snacking away, too....for which I am glad. So, I had berries in my oatmeal, double portion of veggies in vegetable soup, apple, carrots, and green beans. I walked Shep at Alki. I'm about to have a chocolate dessert and enjoy every bite.

The 6am thing I'll try tomorrow, and dread it.....but I like the idea of being less rushed in the morning.

(Tessa went back to school today; she's feeling much better. Hallelujah antibiotics!)

Not romantic

I have romantic versions of things. (No surprise to those who know me.)

I read a book by Alexandra Stoddard years ago that said that if you felt yourself coming down with a bug, it would be a good idea to stop at the store and pick up your favorite magazines, tea, and fresh flowers for yourself. Before you crawled into bed, you should change your sheets and put on your favorite pajamas, put out the flowers, and make the tea. Then, revel in the downtime. Take care of yourself, and enjoy yourself despite the illness.

I like this. I liked it then, and I like it now. It doesn't fix things, and it doesn't cure illness, but it does help in general.

Today Tessa is feeling crummy, and tonight she's feeling even crummier. She took a nap this afternoon, and we know that really means something for our active girl. She is beside herself, she feels so blue. It's not romantic, not at all. I can soothe her, give her medicine, read to her (not enough....sigh), watch Mamma Mia with her, snuggle with her, play with her bear with her....but it's not enough. She just wants to feel better.

Even though this is just a little illness - probably a sinus infection - and not life threatening, I feel so protective of my sweet daughter. I did enjoy our time together today, and the slowness of it all....but it's not enough. I want her well, and I want her well NOW.

Frugal/healthy/green/easy?!

Okay, I have one tip that falls into the frugal, healthy, AND green categories....and this one doesn't require excess time or patience.

Home made stock (broth).

Anyone who cooks with fresh vegetables knows that there are lots of 'unusable' bits - the top of the carrot, the bottom of the celery, the stems of the herbs, vegetable peel (potato, sweet potato, squash, carrot, etc.) In the past, I've put these items solely into my worm bin or compost....which is good, but I can go one better.

Now I have a bag in my freezer that I save scraps for, including chicken bones. I peel carrots and put vegetable scraps into a bowl on the counter, and then when I'm done, I dump it into my freezer bag. When the bag is full, I'm ready to make stock.

So - next time you're making soup....

To make this easy-peasy stock, you simply saute an onion and maybe some carrots in olive oil. Then, while they're cooking, begin making your soup. You'll probably end up with some vegetable scraps as you prep the soup, so save them, too. When the onion is sauteed, add your vegetable scraps and saute a little more (maybe five minutes). As they saute, keep prepping your soup.

Add water to cover, and a liberal dose of salt, and a handful of whatever fresh herbs you have around that suit you (parsley is good in just about everything, but not the dry flakes that add little specks of color but not much else). Keep this simmering for about 20 minutes. At the end of 20 minutes, use a slotted spoon or a colander to remove the veggies and chicken bones. The liquid that is left is your broth - voila!

No waste. Healthy. Prevents another container from going into a landfill. And all from ingredients on hand!

YES it's easy. I promise. (If you are a cook. If you eat at McDonald's most nights, then I agree, this isn't for you.)

Can it last?

I've read a few articles lately about the frugality brought about by the recent economic downturn that have said, basically, that as soon as people have money back in their pockets, they will return to their old ways.

It does bear asking, of course. As a nation, I truly wonder where we're headed...but as an individual, I wonder even more so.

I make no mistake: frugal living is hard, often boring, and a LOT of hard work. Think that I don't know how much easier it is to just buy the tub of hummus instead of soaking beans overnight, then using them the next day, peeling garlic, squeezing lemons, etc? It takes twice as long on the bus to get downtown - but then you don't have to pay for parking (or wear and tear on the car, etc.). Getting movies and books and CDs from the library means that I have to wait until my turn, and that I have to return them sometimes before I'm done, and I can't keep them for later reference. It is a lot easier to go to an expensive resturant for a nice date than to come up with some creative low cost option; it is much simpler to shop for the perfect pair of pants at stores that carry one of everything in each size (instead of a "take it or leave it" that you get at thrift stores).

And I really wish I could spend more money on gifts for people. I'd really like to be able to do that, more than I can say.

And travel. I do love travel, even budget travel, but right now travel is completely off the table.

But here is the thing....

I actually believe that I can keep this up. Of course, it would be nice to not be SO frugal, but I still want to take what I'm learning and keep applying it. I think that my life is better for frugality, and I am grateful for that.

For instance?

I am living according to my values, and that is such a burden lifted. I don't feel guilt over woulda-shoulda-coulda for financial stuff, because I'm on a path and I'm staying there (imperfectly, but still...).

Time I used to spend shopping with girlfriends is now spent just talking to girlfriends.

I'm eating healthier food: junk food is out, resturants are out, I'm eating more grains and less meat.

I'm learning the difference between wants and needs.

But I just want to maintain the stability that frugality gives. I want to live below my means so that I can sleep at night.

I want to focus on what matters in my life. I want to focus on family, friends, health. I want to read, I want to spend time outdoors. I want to work hard at my spirituality, making it a central part of my life and not something peripheral.

Sure, you can do all of these things and spend a ton of money....but I think that spending beyond ones means ultimately leads people away from their "real" goals, not towards them.

I'm learning.

Frugality on the NYT

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/

Frugality is all the rage now, of course, and the NYT says so. I found the comments following the article as interesting as the article itself - why not check it out and add your own $0.02?

(I'm #209.)

Alternate plans

At about 1am, that cough that has followed Tessa for weeks caught up with her. It came with hacking, a fever, aches and a headache. Poor kid! We soothed her, gave her coughdrops, brought her into our bed....

I am exhausted. Tessa is faring better today - at home, of course - but Ryan and I are only alive due to the miracle of coffee.

I brought Tessa to the doctor today, and she agreed that it was time for antibiotics. Tessa took her first dose today, and we should have a full recovery by Monday. If not, back to the doc we go.

So now we're home, and Mamma Mia is on (Tessa loves it as much as I do), we're drinking peppermint tea (milk and sugar for Tessa; plain for me), we've stocked up on Ricola cough drops and tissues (in the pink floral box, of course), and all is well for the moment.

Frugality and Ohhhh I want that!

So, some days, being frugal is easy. I am smug as I soak my beans overnight in preparation for use the next day; I smile to myself as I smell bread baking. I carpool, and I enjoy the conversation it provides. I go to the library and I don't have to limit myself, not even a little bit, and I just read books, books, and more books. I sit in my comfortable home, and I soak up the beauty of candles, books, sunlight (or, in the case of today, a snowstorm) through the windows, and I think "how lucky I am."

And some days, I think 'blah blah blah ENOUGH already!'

Guess which kind of day today is?

Today, I've had enough of reminding myself that I have enough. I don't want to be a creative cook, I want to go out for dinner (made it through that hurdle, and I did feed the family a home cooked meal). I do not want to save money to build a porch in a frugal way, I want to hire someone to do it NOW and just the way I want it, not cutting corners. And the list goes on, and on, and on.

Today, the frugal plan looks like it's going to take a very, very long time, and I'm sick and tired of it.

I promised you honesty, didn't I? Well, this is as honest as it gets.

I will get through it. I will shift my mindset. I will hunker down and do what needs doing.

But just for today, I say "bah humbug!"

Monday musings

First, in the news:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/portrait-of-shakespeare-unveiled-399-years-late/?hp
I really wish that all news was more like this. A portrait of Shakespeare painted in his lifetime? Now that's something I can get excited about. I find it significantly harder to get excited about bail-outs, crime, unemployment, and the like. We live in interesting times.

We did have a good weekend, though it was perhaps too busy. Time was spent with friends, I did some cooking, Tessa had playdates, and we even got some chores done around the house.

It's funny to me how the little chores just make my life so much more pleasant. Ryan hung a cabinet (removed from the kitchenette downstairs) in the laundry room, and the whole laundry room is brighter as a result. I cleaned up the attic, and we're creating a meditation room up there....and I just love it.

Sometimes, physical housecleaning leads to mental housecleaning, and that is the best part. A friend was in need, and so I sent off a giant box of prosthetic breasts and bras with pockets in them. I did it to help her, but suddenly I feel a burden lifted from myself, as well. Why was I holding on to them? Was I just waiting to need them again? Well, whatever the reason, I am so grateful to have them OUT OF MY LIFE. I'm enjoying putting my house in order, both because I enjoy the orderliness of the aesthetics, but mostly because it clears my mind.

Today I'm feeling cluttered and disjointed, but I'm working through it. I received a number of materials on Hunts Point to go through, and I'm doing that. I've got laundry going. I'm working on the book instead of finishing up the attic project.....

Speaking of disjointed, this blog post is disjointed. I'll sign off, then, and blog for real some other time.

Happy Monday, everyone!

Introverts, Extroverts, and Extraverts

I've been reading a book about mothering styles and how to use them and understand them in order to communicate better with your child (and others). The first step, of course, is to find out what mothering style you have naturally, and then go from there.

Much of what is in the book makes me simply mm hmm in agreement. But one idea has blown my mind - I feel like it opened up an entirely new idea of myself, one that I have to chew on.

The book explains the difference between introverts, extroverts, and extraverts. An extrovert is someone gregarious, outgoing and sociable. I have long considered myself to be an extrovert, and by this definition, the book changes nothing.

But it goes on.

The book tells me that the way to tell the difference between an introvert and an extravert (Myers-Briggs talk) is not how they spend their days, or how well they interact with others, or how social they are. The REAL way is to look at how people gain energy. At the end of a long day, do they seek people out (extravert) or do they retreat to calm and solitude (intravert)?

Oh my.

It's true that I am an extrovert, but I am not an extravert. I am an intravert.

This blows my mind.

If you know me, you're probably thinking I've got it all wrong. You might be thinking, "Come ON. You're one of the most loudmouth talkers I've ever met. You are totally social. You've always got people coming in and out of your house, and you're so....public about everything. NO WAY are you an introvert!"

Well, let me let you in on a secret.

I have to work really, really hard at being an extrovert. It does NOT come naturally, it's something I've cultured within myself, and worked on, pretty much every single day. It was a series of attributes that I admired, and so I worked to learn them, and to apply them to myself. I think that I have excelled in this learning. I am quite good at being an extrovert.

But the thing is, it completely exhausts me.

At the end of the day, I don't want to talk to ANYONE. I can't return phone calls, or email. I want to read books. I want to write in my journal. I don't want to say a word.

When I have a houseful of children, the chaos makes my head rattle. I love it, but at the end, I need to go somewhere warm and dark and quiet and not talk to anybody for a couple of hours.

And the older I get, the less I want to host so many big events. I love those times when we have another family over for dinner, or perhaps 2-4 people, to join us at the table. But I'm getting to a point where I only want to have the big groups at Christmas and Thanksgiving, not year round.

Is this a sign of getting old? Or am I just identifying my true self?

I have a lot of thinking to do on this, and I'm not settled into the idea at all, but my mind has opened immensely. I may be an introvert in extrovert's clothing. Well whaddayaknow.

(And even if I'm not a classic introvert, I will say that I used to think myself way off the end of the extravert continuum. I'm definitely closer to the middle than I'd once believed.)

This new idea opens up many other ideas for myself - about how to spend time, about how I schedule myself, and more.

Tessa is much like me. Yesterday, PEPS was over, and it was lovely noise and playing and talking. But when everyone left, Tessa and I curled up together on the couch and didn't talk at all. For an hour. And the only thing that made me get up was that dinner needed to be made. It wasn't that I was tired from activity - I hadn't done much - but just being with all those people made me tired. I do much better one on one.

(NOT complaining. And I'll do it again, and love it. I'm just reflecting on perceptions.)

I need to not book so much back to back. The joy of just snuggling on the couch with nothing to do was....bliss. The quiet was bliss. The going inside my own head was bliss.

I could use more bliss, and that's my whole point.

Lots to think about.

My bedtime story

Tessa read to me tonight, and I was just SHOCKED at how much she's been improving. We hadn't read together in a week or so (bad Mama!), and today she blew me away.

Poor Old Polly by June Meiser and Joy Cowley

Old Polly found a frog;
she swapped it for a dog.
The dog wouldn't bark; she swapped it
for a shark. The shark looked too savage;
she swapped it for a cabbage.
The cabbage was too big;
she swapped it for a pig.
The pig got too bony;
she swapped it for a pony.
The pony wouldn't trot;
she swapped it for a pot.
The pot wouldn't cook;
she swapped it for a book.
The book had no pictures;
She swapped it for some britches.
The britches were too loose;
she swapped them for a goose.
The goose gave her a bite...
and flew off, out of sight.
Poor old Polly!

This is the best bedtime story I've had in years. Tessa got all the words by herself, including "wouldn't," without my help. (She did need help with savage and britches - she sounded them out but didn't know what they meant.)

Tessa and I agree that Polly was a fool to trade in a pony, whether it would trot or not.

I'm so proud of my girl!

Butt glue

If you wish to be a writer, write. (Epictetus)

Easier said than done, in my small experience. It is so easy to dream of writing, to craft sentences in one's head, to look at a scene and decide what details to include and what details to omit as one drinks a coffee in a cafe.

Easy to scoff at the local paper's writing style, knowing deeply that if I wrote that article, it would be much better.

Easy to read the magazine article and think, "I could do that!"

Much, much harder to sit down with pen, paper, and laptop and put my own words on paper.

The problem is this: for about 20 years, I have identified myself as a writer. I have "known" that it is what I am meant to do. I have read, I have dreamed, and I have decided that it is my destiny to write, and maybe even to write something good. I have internalized the dialogue that says that this is a part of my identity, and I hold it near and dear to my heart. I play the part well, listening to podcasts on writing, reading articles on writing, checking out books on everything under the sun from the library, filling my home with books (every room).

And that means that I have an awful lot tied up into this idea, and that the risk of failure is high. If I write poorly, it doesn't mean that I just didn't write something well, it means that my dream disappears, it means that I don't know who I am, it means that I am a failure.

All because someone might read a paragraph and think "Whatever."

Since my last surgery, I feel that I have a new life - a post-Cancerland life - and I had vowed to myself to work on my writing, and to make it a priority. I was impossibly behind on the Hunts Point book, and it was time to get moving, and to put out or shut up. (What an awful expression.) I decided that the time was NOW. The life I've dreamed of, not the cancer life I suffered through. Now.

How terribly frightening. It made me feel small and insecure. VERY insecure.

My friend Lori writes (hi, Lori) and I asked her the secret to her success with writing. She answered without skipping a beat: Butt glue. Butt glue? Yes. You sit down in your designated writing area, and you don't get up until you're done (with the paragraph, the essay, the chapter....or the allotted time schedule). If you have nothing to say, you stare at your computer screen and think of what you might say. If you get out a word, or ten pages, you just stay there. Eventually, Lori told me, something will happen - you will write out of the desperation to get moving, or out of boredom, or if you're really lucky, out of some true inspiration. And once you start writing, the writing will feed more writing.

So this weekend, I applied butt glue and I sat down. I felt nauseaus, but I did it anyway.

I stared.

I opened up a couple of web sites to browse....and then I shut them down. I checked email, reminded myself not to, and closed Outlook. I pulled up a dreaded white page.

I wrote a paragraph and erased it maybe 25 times.

But finally, some words came. I found myself looking at my thesaurus (I still like my paper one even though I know it's all online). Cutting and pasting, backspacing and typing....

I settled on a draft ready to print, ready to share.

I didn't sleep very well last night for fear that when I shared it, I would be advised to become a plumber, not a writer.

This morning, I nervously drove across the bridge to present my work. I sat in front of my employer wearing my writer clothes: nice jeans, work appropriate heels, a black cashmere sweater, and an eggplant corduroy jacket. I felt like I was donning a costume (all that was missing were the leather elbow patches)....I felt like my boss might see right through me.

He read what I wrote. He got to the paragraph that I struggled with, and I watched him reading, pen in his hand, and I had to use butt glue to keep myself in the room.

And he loved it.

Oh, thank you for small miracles. I am so grateful that I got this response, because maybe I can use it for my next round of butt glue.

I'm a writer!

Today's Monday: writing day. Wish me well - because despite this morning's succcess, I already find myself in need of some butt glue.

PS I can't say "butt glue" in front of Tessa, because "butt" is on the list of words we don't say in our family. If she catches me saying it, I'll owe her a quarter. This is just between you and I - because she doesn't read my blog!

The way Sundays ought to be

This morning I woke up early, stumbled into the kitchen to make coffee, then went back to bed to continue reading my fabulous book ("Food Matters" by Mark Bittman). I read and drank coffee for some time before catching a glance at the clock, and then went back to the kitchen to make soup.

Today was the RE luncheon at church - a fundraiser for RE staffing. I made Shannon's recipe (which she got online at http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Curried-Butternut-Squash-Bisque-237088 if you'd like to make it for yourself - I love it); she made it for our family when I was laid up from surgery, and my family liked it so much that this is the second time I made it since then. (We substitute milk for the whipped cream, FYI. And Tessa is a BIG fan of honey drizzled on top.) I'd baked the squash last night, so this morning I chopped apple, onion, and carrots, and then sent Tessa to Sarah & Steven's yard for a couple of fresh bay leaves since we were out. (Note to self: plant bay tree?)

Showered, soup packed up, we headed to church, and heard an interesting, thought provoking service about the problems of earth and humanity and what are individual responsibilities are to address those problems. (We also got a book recommendation: David Korten's "The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community" which I will be ordering from the library.) After services, the usual catching up with friends, and the soup lunch. (My family ate the soup we brought, which is silly, but we'd been smelling it all morning and all of us had developed a craving as a result.)

Then, the farmer's market, which is always lovely, but I have to moan and complain anyway.... I am READY FOR NEW FOOD. I have been doing a pretty decent job of preparing and eating seasonal local food, and I am sick of winter food. I don't want apples and beans and squash and root vegetables and kale, I want berries and tomatoes and lettuces. May or June, when the selection will be great again, is seeming very, very far away, but I'm trying to hold on....

On the menu this week:
- curried squash bisque
- stuffed acorn squash
- spaghetti with farmer's market ground beef (and the last tomatoes from our freezer)
- lentil soup with chicken
- curried chicken over rice (made with yogurt, new recipe that sounds yummy)
....and two more things because the week has 7 days but I haven't figured them out yet. And we will be eating spinach salad because we have a lot of spinach and my family likes it fresh, not cooked, most of the time. And lots and lots of carrots. And potatoes. And everything seems to have onions in it, or garlic.

(Disclaimer: we still eat a lot of bananas. Even organic, they are cheap, readily available, portable, delicious, and healthy. I'm sorry that they're not local, but we love them.)

And now I'm about to get in a couple more hours working on the book, Tessa is at Anna's for a playdate, and Ryan's at the coffee shop doing some reading and socializing. Tonight after dinner we've promised Tessa a game night ("Go Fish" is a new favorite).

I think that perhaps this is the ideal Sunday in many ways. Our needs are met, our home is warm, our friends are close by. How lucky we are, no matter what I moan about.

Eight hour day

Hey, I just worked for 8 hours solid. That's new!

Well, I work hard almost all the time...but this time it was work in the traditional sense, not in the Mama homemaker sense.

Nice.

Worker bee writer girl

Today I am hard at work on the Hunts Point book. I'm making progress, and I've had some flow today - though I can feel my brain frying at this time, because I've been at it since about 9am and haven't taken a break.

I am a writer. I will write. Contributing to my family's bottom line is excellent, too...

In any case, I digress.

I've spent some time looking at the early history of Hunts Point, which of course begins with the local Native American tribes. The tribe that owned the land of Hunts Point was the Sammamish, which was then more or less assimilated into the Duwamish tribe as white settlers swept in and claimed ownership of the land that the United States Government granted them.

It's an awfully sad story, and one that has been told before.

What I wasn't expecting, as I played historian, was this passage:
Some Duwamishes did settle on the Muckleshoot [reservation]. In 1893 a large group, avoiding confinement, gathered on Ballast Island in Seattle after whites had burned them out of their homes in west Seattle.
A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest, Robert H. Ruby and John A. Brown, University of Oklahoma Press, c. 1992, p. 72

I love West Seattle. I love my home here. I am white.

I had nothing to do with the burnings mentioned, but as I read that passage, I felt deeply ashamed.

I do not understand the world we live in.

I am humbled by this passage, somehow. I am determined to live my life in a way somehow absolutely opposite of that passage.

No, the guilt does not belong to me - I wasn't born, and my ancestors weren't even involved (in that year, some were in Germany, and some were in England, and some were in Canada) in the remotest way to that passage.

I think that my shame is for the human race, that we allow such things to happen.

Cough cough

Ahem. Ka kakaka.

That is the sound of me clearing my throat and coughing. Bah humbug. The cold that hit Tessa a couple weeks ago went to Ryan, and now it's solidly in me. Yuck.

We woke up to snow, so Tessa got to sleep in a bit before heading to school, as there was a two hour delayed start. I can't believe how much snow we've had this year! It feels crazy.

I have spent half the morning coughing, and the other half of the morning I've been working on getting a better rate on our mortgage. I think that we've settled on a lender, and we are really happy with the prospect of saving $200 per month. That is a lot of money! Especially, when you consider that it's "free" money - aside from a few hours of phone calls and paperwork, we will save $200/month for the next thirty years. (Actually, once we're debt free, we'd like to apply that to principle on the loan and pay off our house sooner, but that's just a dream right now.) If your house is above water (worth more than you paid for it) and you haven't examined refinancing in a while, this is a great time to refinance. I can't believe how low rates are; when we bought our house we thought we had a great rate, but it's much better now.

Speaking of our house, I'm trying to make our house nicer and nicer by getting rid of things. I'm reading about small houses, simplicity, living with less, and all kinds of related topics, with the goal of reducing the clutter around us and living with those things that are beautiful and useful, while getting rid of the rest.

For me, this becomes a bit of spiritual cleansing, as much as it is a physical cleaning. I can't work well in a cluttered space; I swear that I don't sleep as well with a basket of laundry in the room as I do in a tidy room. I'm going room by room and trying to organize drawers, clothes, closets, countertops, books, and bins. We figured out a good paperwork system (so far so good!), and we got the office into good working space with freed workspaces....and I'm really trying just to live my best life by doing these small tasks. This doesn't come easily to me, and I'm realizing that I'm more of a packrat than I previously thought. Still, uncluttered shelves soothe me more than having them overflowing with books....so I'm working on it.

My head is cluttered with the fogginess of not feeling well, so I'll end there. I'll be fine....just no fun for the moment.

Thursday

It is a winter wonderland outside - it snowed last night! There is an inch or so of snow everywhere, and school is delayed by two hours. I'm glad; Tessa was coughing last night and she was restless (which means that I was, too, as we can hear her from our room) and she's still sleeping now.

And I feel crummy as well - a slightly upset stomach and a scratchy throat and cough. Wah, wah, wah. We have plans to have a couple friends over for dinner (chicken curry) and then Michele, Lori and I are doing our regular writing group afterwards...I want to be "up" for that. Here's hoping that the morning scratchies don't get worse.

Yesterday, in addition to working on the Hunts Point book (momentum!), I started getting information about taking advantage of lower interest rates for our mortgage. It looks like we can refinance and save about $200 per month - wow! That is, essentially, free money and we're pretty excited about it. Our get-out-of-debt plan will go faster with an extra $200, and when we're out of debt we can apply an extra $200 to the principle of the loan and pay off the mortgage that much faster.

If anyone has a mortgage guy that the recommend, now's the time to send me info, because we hope to move forward in the next few days. We have a quote from our current lender that looks pretty good, but we're comparison shopping.

And many thanks to my Mom & Dad for a lovely dinner with them at their home last night....

Impulse shopping update

On a recent post about frugality, I noted that I had impulsively put some tortillas in my cart that were not on my grocery list. Tortillas are cheap, and it's a small problem, not a big one, but I wanted to update on it.

We didn't need tortillas. I didn't have a plan for using them.

Today I'm throwing them in the garbage (okay, the worm bin) as they are stale and unusable; we never even opened the package to eat one.

The few dollars that were spent on tortillas were not the end of the world. Still, there is a lesson. I don't want to be wasteful, and I ended up being wasteful with these. I wasted money, and I wasted a resource (the tortillas themselves, and the plastic bag that they came in).

Maybe by blogging this, next time I'm at the grocery store and see something that I don't need and don't have a plan to use, I will remember the tortillas thrown in the garbage, and I'll make a wiser decision.

Good for the earth, good for my body, good for my wallet. That's what we're aiming for!

Tessa and reading

I'm not sure if I've updated on Tessa in a while, so here goes.

We have read to Tessa every day of her life since birth, pretty much. Reading is an important part of our family life, and we have stacks of books all over the house to prove it. Ryan and I both read in bed at night before going to sleep on most nights; Tessa gets bedtime stories every single night. We go to the library about once a week, and we have accounts at the used bookstores in West Seattle for trading in our old books and getting new ones.

Books are important to all three of us.

However, after kindergarten started, Tessa suddenly shut down her desire to read. She loved being read to as much as ever, and still gravitated towards books in her quiet times when she wanted a little space or down time, but she absolutely refused to read a single word at home. Slightly panicked, I called her teacher, and we had some long talks about adjustment to kindergarten, perfectionism (Tessa suffers a bit from this, unfortunately), brain development schedules, etc. We made a deal to lay off Tessa about reading at home, and to have her continue in kindergarten reading at her own pace.

She dropped down a level in her reading group.

My heart sunk a little (okay, a lot). I want to school to come easily to her - hey, life is easier if school is fun - and though I leave it to her to decide what is most important in her life, I really really want her to be a reader; it's a value that Ryan and I share and want to pass along.

She dug in her heels and refused to identify any words at all. Not even the ones we knew she knew.

More calls to the teacher. More reassurances. More sinking feelings.

Well, last week we went to the library and I picked out a couple of level 1 readers for her (as I always do) so that if she CHOSE to read, she'd have access to new material that might interest her. I would like to shout THANK YOU to the author of "Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa." It will come as no surprise that this is a book about a girl and her horse.

And Tessa started reading.

And she read until we had to tell her that she absolutely MUST stop so that she could go to sleep at night.

She made us promise to wake her up early so that she could read in the morning before school.

She started dancing and saying, "I love reading! I used to hate it, but now I love it!"

Joy, joy, joy!

Tessa has to labor over words; she has a good sized fistful of sight words, but she has to read each sound aloud and then try to put it together - a laborious process - to figure out each word. But she's doing it! She's really getting it! And what's more, suddenly she's enjoying it. She's realizing that she can learn about horses in her own way if she reads her own books; she's realizing that she can unlock all kinds of secrets if she can read.

Yippppppeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I don't care if she's a straight A student (though, with a mother's pride, I suspect that she might become one). I don't care if she's the best reader in her class (she's not, by a long shot). I don't care about any of it....I just want her to love reading, and to find success at school.

Her teacher is pleased with her work, she's doing everything at grade level, and yesterday she brought home some written work that made me smile. Spelled out phonetically, she had written "We went to a wedding and it was fun and the food was good." It looked like "We wint to a wdin and it wz fn and the fud wz gd." I couldn't be more proud of my girl - she did all that on her own, and previous sentences she's written have had maybe 3-4 words instead of 10+. She's trying, and with her trying, I know she will find success.

Hallelujah!

Balance

I am struggling to find balance.

Who isn't? If you're out there, and you're all perfectly balanced, I would like to talk to you and find out your secrets. Actually, pretty much everyone I know might be interested in talking to you and learning your secrets, because I think that most of us are struggling.

I'm struggling to balance:
- Alone time vs. family time vs. friend time
- Work vs. life
- Structure with Tessa vs. free play
- Healthy, delicious meals without a life spent in the kitchen
- Being frugal without being a skinflint
- Working out without making it the only thing I do for myself
- Having a clean house vs spending all my time cleaning

You get the picture. It is a constant struggle to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together in a way that makes sense.

I'm working on the Hunts Point book, and I am way, way behind on the project. It is important to me to do this project, and to do it well, but then I have volunteering, and friends in need of support, and grocery shopping, and yard work, and visitors, and fatigue, and physical therapy, and spending quality time with Tessa, and laundry and......well, let's just say it's a long, long list.

My friend Lori tells me that the secret of successful writers is butt glue. (I owe Tessa a quarter every time I say "butt." "Mommy, we say 'bottom' because it's more polite!" Yes, we do. Except when we're talking about butt glue. That's fifty cents now.) It's just a matter of carving out time and DOING IT.

That's what I'm doing now. I am going to make this happen.

First step: consistent schedule. So, I'm announcing that I am no longer available to do anything between 9am and 3pm on Mondays or Wednesdays, as those are my Hunts Point days. (The only exception will be for Tessa's early dismissal on some Wednesdays....can't have the six year old waiting on a bench for Mom for two hours.) I am making this a priority, announcing it to the world, and changing my calendar around to accommodate it. It's a priority because I'm making writing a priority, because I have a commitment to my employer, and because the money I earn will benefit my family greatly.

On Mondays and Wednesdays I will not do laundry, return calls, meet friends for lunch, go grocery shopping, etc. I am pretending that I'm locked away in an office building somewhere, unavailable because I'm in meetings. I'm still available to do other work on the other days of the week, of course, so hopefully this will be the balance I seek. I volunteer in Tessa's class on Thursdays, I have covenant group on Tuesdays and sometimes lunch with Grandma and Mom on Tuesdays. There will be enough hours for laundry etc. I will make this work.

I'm still trying to balance all of the other stuff. I will make it work. Working on it is the only way, and I won't reach instant solutions but I will find solutions.

Love,
Kristina

PS Ryan and I did a project to get our office in shape to make working more palatable. The book has a lot of paperwork, so I don't want to haul it all to coffee shops etc., and need to work from home. We moved things around, painted a wall, set up our bill paying etc. in the secretary upstairs, so that I can take over the downstairs office. It's got great light, a decent desk, etc., so now that it's all decluttered I don't have any excuses about having nowhere to work.

Quiet

Recently a friend forwarded me an article by William Deresiewicz entitled "The End of Solitude" (published in The Chronicle, January 30, 2009 for those who wish to look it up) about how in our hyper-connected society we have lost our ability to be alone with ourselves. We are so social, it argues, that we no longer find those moments in which to seek the deepest of ourselves. If you have 542 friends on Facebook, it can be argued, maybe you have no friends at all.

I'm pretty guilty of this crime myself, of course. But I have realized that as I age I am less and less interested in large social gatherings, more and more interested in small groups where everyone can talk together all at once. And I confess that I am "friends" with people on Facebook whom I can hardly remember, but in my own defense, I think that I last logged on to Facebook a week ago; it has lost its attraction quickly.

I'm becoming quite the Luddite. Or Amish. Or an outsider. I'm not yet sure what the label is; I've been a granola girl for a while, but that doesn't quite suit me either because despite my lack of make up and professional hair styling or products, I still like to wear dresses and heels sometimes, and I usually have painted toenails in colors named "Hoodoo Voodoo" or "Aphrodite's Pink Nightie" or, my favorite, "I'm Not Really A Waitress." I'm pretty certain that no real granola girl would participate in such activities.

But whatever my label, I'm falling out of love with society at large even as I feel more connected to it. That is, I am reading more and more books, and exploring spirituality and my own psyche, and listening to podcasts on human nature and science and religion and anecdotes and fiction....so I feel connected. But I feel my own little world shrinking slightly, as I become more introverted.

I need social connections, even as I find myself growing and making food from scratch, and curling up on my couch with a mug of hot tea, and playing Go Fish with Tessa.

It's a contradiction that doesn't yet make sense to me, but I'm enjoying the process of sorting it out.

Reading, gardening, writing, cooking are all solitary pursuits. I love my friends, and my time with them, as much as ever, but I do feel myself changing, becoming more of a homebody.

Except when I ride a bus to the art museum, or visit at the social hour at church, or chat with moms on the playground.

My head is foggy on this subject, and my writing is even more jumbled than usual as a result....but the thoughts are there.

Yikes!

An ad just came on the radio saying "This year many of your children will be exposed to heroin, crack cocaine...." and etc. etc. etc.

YIKES!

It made me want to run to kindergarten to scoop up my long legged daughter, smooth her flowered headband over her hair, and hug her to death.

Because in the past few years there have been a lot of prescription drugs in our house we've actually talked a lot about drugs, and how if you take them when you're not sick they can make you sick, and how sometimes they make your head feel funny and how they're dangerous.

I can't believe that in today's society I am supposed to talk about this kind of thing with a six year old. I do, but I can't believe it.

Thank God I'm not actually worried about it day to day. I'm more worried about whether she'll ever learn to love math, whether her attitude phase will last long, what size summer sandals she will need.

What a crazy world we live in.

Couldn't be more timely - Zometa news

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/health/research/12bone.html?_r=2

"Zometa May Help Prevent Bone Metastases"

Given that I didn't exactly enjoy my last (first, actually) infusion, it lifts my spirits to think that I really have done something positive in my treatment, and that the science continues to back that.

And the surprising result of his study, if it holds up, indicates that zoledronic acid could add a benefit to existing breast cancer therapy that is nearly the same magnitude as the benefit conferred by chemotherapy or hormonal therapy alone.

But Dr. Gnant urges caution.

“While everyone is very excited, we still need to be conservative about what we recommend to patients,” he said. “In clinical science we do clinical trials. I am still hesitating to say, ‘Well, this is good for everyone.’ In the history of science we sometimes extrapolated and turned out to be absolutely wrong.”

“The right way to proceed,” Dr. Gnant said, “is to wait for data to come in from other studies.”

The problem with waiting, as a breast cancer patient, is that we don't have time to wait. I have osteopenia NOW; I may have osteoporosis (scheduling my DEXA scan soon to find out). What's more, I'm terrified of metastases. TERRIFED.

I've done a lot of treatment "off label" (taking a drug approved by the FDA for one patient group or disease, and using it for another). AIs are proven for post menopausal women....older than I am. Herceptin was approved for metastatic women only when I took it (and was since approved for node-positive non-metastatic women like myself). I can take this drug for it's bone building benefits, which I want and need, but I need to stay cancer free even more.

Sick kid, day two

Well, here we are. Tessa's coughing up a storm, and we woke up at 5am to the words "Daddy, can I have a throat lozenge?" (Good girl. You know Mama's not so good with the early morning thing.)

She's okay, but we're keeping her home one more day. Maybe we can get thank yous - overdue from Christmas AND birthday - done today. Ryan is working from home this morning to help me out; yesterday I canceled my PT appt but I really didn't want to cancel my dentist appointment today, so he's covering for me.

(Dentist....sigh. Mouth open for an hour with horrible drill things.....they're replacing a filling and doing some other things I don't want to think about.)

Fresh and frugal

Tonight's dinner is "Spicy Sweet and Sour Chicken" from Cooking Light's current issue (this is my only magazine subscription these days, and I use it a lot). The ingredients aren't TOO spicy - let's hope that Tessa will still eat it!

I'm pleased with this recipe choice because, given that I have a well stocked pantry, it uses almost all ingredients on hand; I just had to buy chicken (a good deal at Trader Joe's for organic), and a can of pineapple (I'd rather buy fresh but that's where the budget came in). Because I cook a lot, I already had soy sauce, Chinese rice wine, garlic, ginger (I store mine in the freezer), ketchup, rice vinegar, chile paste, sesame oil in the pantry, and I always have onions on hand. The recipe calls for diced green and red peppers, as well as green onions, but I'm substituting frozen (Trader Joe's again) green beans and fresh parsley instead.

So, rice (brown, organic, from the bulk section) is in the rice cooker, and the chicken is marinating, and the sauce is prepped. When Ryan gets home, I'll just stir fry it all in the wok for a few minutes, and dinner will be ready.

And for the record....I'm beat! Being A Good Mom today took it all out of me. Maybe tomorrow I can be selfish. ;-) Oh, wait, tomorrow I have to go to the dentist. Ah, crap. Well, another time then.

Cookies

We disinvited PEPS, but Tessa and I have spent the day celebrating Valentine's. I wouldn't let Tessa help with the cookie making or the cookies to share because of her cough (ewwww!) but she got to decorate her own super-sized cookie, and she continued addressing her classmates' Valentine's as I rolled and cut and baked and frosted.

All the while, it is snowing outside. What the heck?! It is a very wet snow - it's not even freezing out, but everything is, indeed, turning white. I'm told by the forecasters that it will turn to rain this evening.

Lemonade

Well, Tessa's home sick with a cold, and that's the lemon of it. The lemonade part is that we used this opportunity to make Valentine's together.

Next, she has to write the names of her classmates and friends on them......this is an all day event, perhaps.

It could be worse. MUCH worse. I am grateful for today.

Edited to add:

Tessa is sitting at the kitchen table, carefully going over the list of her classmates and hand choosing each Valentine for them before laboriously writing To: classmate (heart): Tessa on each one. Now that we're in the thick of it, I'm wondering how on earth I thought we could get this done WITHOUT a day at home! This morning I made cookie dough (we were supposed to have PEPS over today and I'd promised Valentine cookies), breakfast, etc., but since then we've been doing the Valentine's non-stop. I cut out the hearts (I didn't count them, but as there are 26 in Tessa's class, and we did a minimum of three hearts per card, well, you get the idea...), Tessa arranged and glued them, and of course she's doing the writing. She has ideas about which ones boys would like ("Boys like blue, Mom, and not so much pink," she tells me), and who would like which patterns.

This is a lot more work than going to Target and buying the Valentine pack like we have done in the past, but infinitely more enjoyable. This year we had all of the supplies on hand, too, so this year it's "free" but we did use up several glue sticks and all of our fancy paper so I don't know if I'd recommend it as a budget activity. The construction paper is cheap, but it's so much more fun with the fancy papers with embossing or printed with flowers or lined with sparkles, etc.

Today, I missed covenant group, physical therapy, and our PEPS Valentine's gathering. Still, it seems like a good day. Tessa sniffles nonstop and occassionally lets out a big cough, but she's happy enough. I cleaned the house quite a bit yesterday, so it's relatively pleasant to be here, and less cluttered than usual. (Hey, I thought PEPS was coming....maybe if I had them over more often I'd do a deeper cleaning more often!)

I'm coming out of my frugal funk. To do so, I listened to more Dave Ramsey podcasts, as well as the Debt Free podcast. I cleaned the house, moving some things around and getting rid of some things, so that it feels fresher. (What IS it about Goddard* women and moving furniture? My mom does the same thing, and whenever we're in a funk about something we move furniture around and feel much better. Strange, I know.) I made a great chicken noodle soup last night in honor of Tessa's cold, and my family didn't notice how little chicken was in it compared to the quantity of veggies and noodles. I saved the chicken bones in the freezer for making a stock the next time, and felt pleased with myself for remembering to do so. Last night, Ryan and I watched "Juno" on DVD, borrowed from the library, and had an at-home date night. (Am I the last person in America to see it? It was as good as I'd been told.) I made bread and granola, so the house smells good.

I read poetry. (Nikki Giovanni's "Bicycles" collection.) Yesterday I did yoga (another library DVD). I put a new library book by Sherman Alexie next to my bed (but didn't read it because I fell asleep!).

So with all that, I distracted myself out of my funk....somewhat. I guess it helps today to be home with a sick kid - I'm not even tempted to go out and buy anything. ;-)

Though I would love to get out for a walk/run with the dog, and touch me feet onto the beach. That would help, too.

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3

Tessa is testing my patience lately. She's got Attitude with a capital A. She has decided not to follow through until I yell.....and I don't want to yell. I even say to her, "Do you want me to yell? How come you only listen when I yell?" (Note here; I don't mean screaming at my kiddo. I mean speaking in a louder-than-usual voice with a stern tone.)

So she says, "I'll do it" and then she spaces out. And then I speak loudly/yell at her and THEN she does whatever it is.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

This is not the parenting plan I'd been planning on.

My last post was done during some down time. You can see how many times Tessa interrupted me just by reading the disjointedness of the whole thing.

Anyway.

I know testing is a part of childhood. She's doing well in school, thankfully, and her teacher mostly says she's an "easy" child to have in the classroom. But at home, well, it's a test of my patience, if nothing else.

I can learn patience. I'm sure of it!

I hope so, anyway.

Frugal thoughts

I am trying very hard to think frugally, act frugally, be frugal.

Bah humbug.

"Frugal" isn't exactly the life of the party, you know? For all of my desire to adapt frugality as a part of my lifestyle, I'm under no delusions. Frugal is not a synonym for fun.

I want to believe that it's worth it. Today, it's not feeling worth it. Today, it's irritating, at best. I was at the West Side Baby fundraiser tea, and I was mad that I couldn't donate a nice chunk of money. That is a ridiculous thing to get mad out, seeing as how I could have been thinking "I am so grateful to have food for my family and how we do not lack for basics." THAT would have been a more mature, and appropriate, response.

And we're watching our grocery money. And struggling to figure out gifts, etc. Bah humbug!

But I'm committed. I really am, even on the difficult days. Apparently the honeymoon phase is over because I'm thinking "two more years of THIS?!"

Yes. Two more years, and then we'll be free to live less frugally and still get ahead.

Yes.

My notes are not valid for too many people in the world, not because people have their finances figured out but, to the contrary, too many people in the world live in poverty. I am trying to remember that my form of "broke" is others' form of greatest wealth: my baby never sat in a dirty diaper because we were out of diapers; we have never missed a meal due to scarcity; we live in a warm, comfortable home filled to the rafters with amenities and comforts. Plus, we have easy access to clean air and water, safe streets, libraries. We have excellent medical care.

I don't delude myself into thinking I'm poor. And my notes don't apply to poor people, who cut corners WAY past the point I'm naming here. But maybe they'll help some other folks who are struggling to make ends meet in the middle class.

So here are a few thoughts on maintaining frugality:

- Cook from scratch. In this way, you get healthy food much cheaper. Chicken stock is made from chicken bones, vegetable scraps, carrots and onions. No waste, no packaging. Spaghetti sauce, granola, bread, stirfries, sandwiches...all are cheaper if you make them yourself.

- Turn down your heat; turn off lights as you leave the room. In last year's rising energy costs, by lowering our heat, our bill actually went DOWN by 15% even as others' bills were rising.

- Stay out of stores. Really. When I go shopping I'm as tempted as the next person, trust me. Every time I go shopping, I put something in my cart that I don't need. (Last time it was tortillas, which we will use but I don't have a plan for....which is pretty good as impulse shopping goes. When it's a new outfit, or a nice bottle of wine, it's spendier.) When I go into stores, I get messages that say "buy, buy, buy!" It's amazing to me how little I think about wanting particular items until I go into a store.

- Set your budget and don't deviate. This might seem obvious, but it takes some real discipline. Today, knowing that the WSBaby folks would have a very good reason why I should donate more, I wrote out my check in advance, based on what I could afford and NOT what I wanted to donate.

- Pay cash. I have read this in SO many places (including Dave Ramsey, Your Money or Your Life, and others), and it's true. Debit cards have a way of making us forget it's real money; we're not told how much money is left until payday each time we buy a latte and a croissant. But when you open your wallet (or your cash envelope), you can't help but face the truth.

- Call around to see if you're getting the best deal on your auto and home insurance. I couldn't believe how much we saved on comparable policies - when we'd purchased the policies they were economical, but over time they'd become less so.

- Same for phone service: call around. We ended up going with Vonage: for $25/month we get our long distance, caller ID, call waiting, etc. The quality of the connection is not perfect - sometimes it is great but often the quality is spotty. We're getting used to it, and I don't regret the switch. (One note: cable phone companies like Vonage operate on different systems than the "regular" phone companies. Our Qwest package was only $25 per month, too, but it had a lot of taxes and fees so it was closer to $40/month, even without long distance. With Vonage, there are no taxes and fees, and long distance is included.)

- Stock up on items when they go on sale. I try to buy most things fresh and make things from scratch, but despite my best intentions I do need to buy chicken stock, or canned tomatoes, etc. Now I only buy them on sale, but keep extras in the pantry.

- Improvise. Today our coffee pot broke. (Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!) We immediately started looking up new ones on the 'net, but then we realized that we'd rather buy a really nice one and find it on sale, and we need to do research and shop around. We remembered that we have two small french press coffee makers, and we'll use those in the interim.

- Borrow, and lend too, of course. (Not money, stuff!) When we dug our garden last year, we didn't have a pitchfork. We borrowed one. Yesterday we loaned a neighbor a dish in a size she didn't own. It's ridiculous to think that we should have one of everything when we use these things so infrequently. Be a good neighbor: loan out your things, and borrow others, returning them promptly and in good condition.

- Don't use disposable anything: paper plates, paper napkins, paper towels, paper cups, plastic forks, one-use water bottles, etc. You are paying not only for their use, but for the privlege of throwing them away.....and you have other things you could use instead. Have old fashioned picnics with your own dishware. Use rags. Individually, these items don't cost much....but add up their usage over a year....

- Use the library for entertainment. You can get movies and CDs in addition to books, all for free. You can also go to lectures, or see free concerts or children's programs.

- Go outside. Walk around your neighborhood and talk to neighbors. Go to the beach. Walk in the woods. Snowshoe. Watch the sun set. Work in a garden. Play in a park. Visit a botanical garden. Go for a romantic walk under the stars. Run along the boardwalk. Sit at a pond and feed the ducks. Go on a puddle stomp. Picnic. Sit on your deck for your morning coffee. All free, or close to it, and all lovely.

- Speaking of coffee.....make it at home, and take it with you in your stainless cup. Calculate how much you pay for your home made latte, and then how much you pay for one at a shop. (My apologies to C&P for this one - you know I love you and your coffee!) My personal rule has become that I only go to coffee shops as a destination where I intend to hang out, where I'm paying more for the ambience than the coffee (and the coffee is just a nice bonus).

- Set a budget for eating out and stick to it. Often at church we like to go to Elliott Bay Brewery with friends; we didn't want to give up this lovely, fun, social activity on our budget. Instead, we created a per-person budget for the meal that allows us to have the meal we all enjoy so much without breaking the bank. (This means no drinks - we all drink water, and that saves some empty calories as well as some cash.)

- Or....instead of going out for a meal with friends, go out to Happy Hour, or meet for coffee instead of a meal, or dessert, or a glass of wine. Being social outside your home doesn't mean you need to spend a ton of money.

- Fix what you have instead of replacing it. (I have a crock pot on the fritz; I'm going to figure out if the local "small appliance repair" can attend to it without me spending a fortune...)

- Figure out activities you love and buy an annual pass for them. For me, this is the Seattle Art Museum. I get so much benefit from my membership, because I LOVE going there. My membership pays for itself many times over because of the frequency with which I use it. (We usually are members at the zoo and aquarium, too, but with Tessa in school we aren't going as much and our membership has lapsed....)

- Stick to classic clothing instead of trendy items. I don't think I'll ever regret my long black coat, but that orange blazer that seemed so fun isn't exactly getting a lot of wear.

- Podcasts. I LOVE listening to Podcasts on my iPod. I regularly listen to The Dave Ramsey Show to inspire me to keep on the frugal/debt reduction path, even though his personality drives me nuts. For fun, I listen to This American Life, the CBC program On Writing, The Moth, and others. I stay up to date with President Obama's weekly radio address, and the NPR Story of the Day. I use guided meditations from the Australian Meditation Society. I catch up on missed church services with their podcasts, too. The possibilities are endless, and when you're bored with one podcast there are zillions of others to choose from.....and they are FREE!

- Did I mention "stay out of stores"? This is so, so true. Worth repeating. I forget how tempted I am when the temptation is removed from right in front of me.

- Practice the rule "no impulse shopping." When you just HAVE to have it, don't tell yourself "no." Instead, say, "In (x) days, if I still want it, I will check out my budget and make it happen." If it really was important to you, perhaps it's worth working into your budget, and then you really can go buy it. But odds are, three days later, you'll have completely forgotten what it was, let alone how much you wanted it. Tessa and I remind one another, "No impulse shopping!" and I can't believe how much money this policy saves me, without feeling deprived.

- Skip the wine. (Sigh.) It is better for your health, and for your pocketbook.

- Thrift stores. My "new" Kate Spade purse (okay, it's probably a knock-off) gets me tons of compliments and it was $10. I found Tessa some slim cut Gap jeans in her size for $1, too. You can get useful, practical items for pennies on the dollar.

I'm running out of steam to write this, so I'll stop there. I write as much to remind myself as others....I am committed to this idea. I will not give up because I am determined to live a debt free life. Determined.

New days

This morning I don't feel 100%, but I feel well enough. Good! Hopefully my side effects are gone permanently, or at least for another six months 'til I do Zometa again.

Ryan is off to Habitat for Humanity. My construction worker/save the world/live according to his values/motivated husband is sexy. :-) Tessa and I will stop by to visit him for lunch later today.

But first, we're prepping for a friend's birthday party, which is a tea party for a group of little girls. Tessa was choosing her outfit yesterday - her new Easter dress, a crown, and gloves. Oh how I adore being the mother to a six year old! In any case, right now Tessa is carefully making the birthday card, writing her message and decorating it with pinks and purples and putting smiley faces and flowers on every letter.

Today while Tessa is at the party, I'll do errands and attempt to catch up what I got behind with yesterday. This evening, Tessa gets a sleepover with her beloved Anna, and Ryan and I are going to a dinner party for Marisa - happy birthday Marisa! Tessa's thrilled about her sleepover, and Ryan and I are thrilled for our night out, too.

So we muddle along in our lives, trying to do that which we value, trying to soak up the moments, trying not to get caught up in the minutia, trying to do our best.

Love, Kristina

PS This merits its own post, but this week I am finding budgeting difficult, annoying, frustrating, and completely lacking in rewards. We overspent last week (on nothing interesting, for the record - there are no fancy electronics or anything to show!) and so this week we're super tight on the budget. I keep reminding myself that this is a CHOICE, that we are chosing to eliminate debt from our lives, that in this economy we are doing well, all things considered. Still, nobody said that budgeting was easy, and this week I think it stinks. I'm not feeling motivated, I'm feeling grumpy and cash strapped, and it isn't fun at all, and the long term goal seems too far away. I know we'll get through this hurdle....but in the here and now it's just a pain. So there.

Side effects

I am officially feeling crummy.

I was doing okay until about 12:30, but I'm officially feeling gross.

A call in to a friend to pick up Tessa from school, and I'm crawling into bed.

Sigh.

Zometa

So I did it.

I got to the building and I started shaking. Getting an IV in a chemo ward is an unnerving thing to do - I don't care how many times you've done it. When you're two chairs away from where you had anaphalactic shock due to a chemo drug, it's even more unnerving. Never mind that Zometa isn't chemo, that's not the point.

Everyone commented on my long hair.

Lori came with me to keep me sane. She brought chocolate and magazines, and she took excellent care of me.

The infusion was relatively short, and I survived it. Best of all, I only have to go back every six months.

I found out today that someone on my medical team that I care about deeply got breast cancer, too. It was caught early, and she's okay. But I'm mad. It's so unfair.

I feel some nausea tonight and I don't know if this is the beginning of Zometa side effects, or a psychosomatic effect, or what. I'm going to bed and hoping that the morning shows it to be psychosomatic....and gone.

Z day

Today I'm returning to the oncology ward to visit Dr. Rinn for my regular check up, and to get a new drug, the bisphosphonate Zometa.

Zometa helps with osteoporosis (it's a bone-building drug) and has the added benefit of cutting risk of recurrence, including mets, by about one third. When that news came out, I knew Zometa would be my next line of defense.

But I have to go back to that building, the one with the sad memories. I have to give my arm to a needle, I have to sit in that familiar chair. It's not the kind of walk down memory lane that people dream of.

What's more, there is a relatively common side effect for the first couple of infusions; often people get "flu like symptoms" (that is how they are described) for 24-72 hours after the infusion. Blech. I have many plans this weekend, and the flu is not part of them.

I will need to do some serious meditation to get through this. Better than that, though, is that Lori is coming with me to distract me. She's a dear friend and she'll be of good help with that. I'm also having PT with Adrienne today (I'm being an obedient little patient and catching up with all of my overdue medical stuff - I even sat in the dentist's chair for several hours this week) and while the PT isn't as fun as I'd like (scar tissue blah blah blah) the visit with Adrienne is good for my soul.

So I'm trying to acknowledge the hard times, focus on the positive, and balance it all out. Today, that feels like quite a challenge.

More on the economy

All my life I was taught about The Great Depression.

As we sink lower and lower into the current depression, it seems to me that "great" is a misnomer for the previous one. "Really, really awful" might be more appropriate. Or "frighteningly terrible" or something like that. I'm aware of the multiple meanings of "great" but though the previous depression was large, it wasn't great.

And now? What will this depression be called? It doesn't look so great, either.

Today's paper mentions 200 layoffs at Swedish, the largest hospital (and the one I've received most of my treatment at) in the area.

It also says that Costco's profits are down. (This appears true to the naked eye. I went to Costco yesterday with a $20 bill from Grammy & Grandpa and instructions to pick out Tessa a new Easter dress. Eyeballing people's carts, they were much smaller than usual, and filled with necessities (food) more than those "oh I'll just grab a sweatshirt and a pack of flashlights and a few bottles of wine" that Costco is known for. What's more, I found parking easily, and there was no wait at the check stand. And, by the way, I paid cash for the dress, didn't buy another thing, and took my change with me. In previous years, I'd never have done that.)

These economic comments would not be relevant, except that they are small notes in a long list of economic problems. In our area, Boeing, Microsoft, WaMu have all announced layoffs, in addition to countless others. It doesn't look good.

So we are watching our pennies. We're in good company doing such, as so many others are doing it, too.

BearingPoint looks like it will be able to continue placing Ryan at projects, and we are prayerful that will continue to be the case.

But we're making rice and beans, and using it up, wearing it out, fixing it, or doing without, as the old saying goes. (Did I get that right?)

And the library has never seen so much of my business. Gotta love that!

in the mail

Tessa's letter, which is awaiting sending now:

Dear Malia and Sasha,
I'm glad that your dad is President. What is your new puppy's name? I like horses - do you? I'm happy that you get to live in the White House.
Love,
Tessa Surface
age 6
Seattle, WA, USA

This is the longest letter that Tessa has ever written, but it was important to her.

What I hope that she is remembering is "Politics are important. Make sure your voice is heard. You are a part of the process. What happens in DC impacts us. Little girls are a part of the process, too."

She drew a picture of our family, too.

And now it's headed to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Gallette

Tonight I made a vegetarian entree for dinner (again; I'm getting better at this). This one was a leek gallette featuring goat cheese and home made whole wheat pastry crust. It was delicious, if I may say so myself.

I will enjoy it even more when I grow those leeks and shallots in my garden. Almost time...

Content with the day

Church in the morning, Farmer's Market, chores, friends for Superbowl. Now, the friends are gone, Ryan is napping with Tessa after putting her down for the evening, the dishwasher is running, and I'm getting ready to turn in myself.

It was a good balance of things. I hope for more days like this.

Superbowl

We're just about to sit down and watch the Superbowl. (Never mind that it started 15 minutes ago.)

I could care less about football. I *think* I know who is playing in the Superbowl, but whether I'm right or wrong doesn't matter to me.

It does matter that our family will sit down together, that friends (the Hissongs) will join us, that the children will wander in and out as they play, the dads will discuss the football moves, the moms will talk about this and that, and we'll all mingle.

It does matter that I used this as an excuse to tidy up the house a bit. I also put out Superbowl food: hummus (home made), carrots, crackers, cheese (including Cirrus from the Port Townsend Creamery, which we picked up at the Farmer's Market after church), chips, salsa, salmon dip. Oh, and home made chocolate chip cookies (Tessa helped). For dinner we'll add some home made pizza and salad.

So, now we relax and enjoy our friends, our home, and the afternoon. Football? Well, it's as good of an excuse as any.

Personal Economy

The economy is on everyone's lips these days. Companies are no longer matching 401(k)s, or there are layoffs, and the stock market is in the toilet, and there is a lot of fear around. Turn on the radio, open a newspaper, or just listen to people talking on the street, and the news isn't good.

Right now, the global economy isn't impacting us as much as some others. The rising costs of food (well documented in other places) are troublesome, and our food budget continues to rise even as I cut costs all over the place, because I become more committed each day to grass fed beef, free range organic poultry, and organic produce. We have some of the fear - if Ryan got laid off we'd be in trouble - but we are hopeful that we are in a good position right now. Ryan's job is going well, and the work isn't drying up. We are hopeful in that regard.

But right now, our finances are actually looking up.

If I talk to you in person, it won't seem like our finances are improving. Ask me if I want to go out for dinner, and I'll mumble something about not having enough money, or needing to go somewhere cheap. Our gift giving has fallen off to almost nothing. We're avoiding stores altogether when possible - I used to go to Target and Costco and the like almost every week, and now I rarely go. We quit the YMCA, despite their reasonable rates, solely to save money. We really are eating rice and beans (but we have fruit and veggies with them). I only rarely go out for coffee, but when I do, I often have a cup of drip instead of a more expensive latte, or I have tea. I like to invite people over for coffee at my house instead of meeting them for coffee at a local place. (I do still love our weekend trips to C&P, though.)

With all of this cutting back, I do feel some deprivation - don't get me wrong. I'd love some new Seven jeans; I want to fix our porch and put in something with slate and river rock and heavy wood; and I would really, really, really like to take a trip to somewhere warm with the family. And it's not going to happen, not for a long time.

BUT....

We're finally getting ahead. Finally.

We are committed to living within our means and getting out of debt. Facing the reality of the numbers was no fun at all (oh dear), and figuring out where to cut things out was even less fun. I will never enjoy the agony of grocery shopping as I try to come up with creative, interesting meals for the family that are gentle to the earth but also tasty....and don't cost much.

And after a few months of this, we're adjusting, and I can't believe it, but it's getting easier. We don't eat out much, and when we do, it's not a "oh I don't feel like cooking" it's a "let's meet friends and have a really wonderful time." I am spending more time reading and writing (loves of mine), and much more time on beaches (isn't that why we love West Seattle anyway?).

And every month, Ryan puts the new numbers - pay this much to this company, reduce the total this month - into a spreadsheet that he's made (it has lots of tabs and formulas; very nice work) and we watch the right numbers rise (emergency fund) and the right numbers fall (amount owed). In June, if we stay on track, we will be paid in full to the PolyClinic AND Swedish, and we will apply those amounts to the totals on our credit cards. We might be able to get totally out of debt by the end of 2010.

So, for the next two years, things will be tight, but I've decided I don't care. I want to get these debts off our backs so that we can kiss them goodbye forever. If we did, we'd feel so much more relaxed....and as we write these checks and send them off each month, I think "wow if we didn't have debt that would be money for us to keep!" and I look forward to 2011 when we'll get to keep that money for ourselves to invest or spend.

And we're not exactly hard done by. Here we are, with a decent car (not fancy, not worth much, but does the job), a lovely home, comfortable furniture, a kitchen filled with the tools of the trade, bicycles, toys, iPods, computers, music, candles, books (LOTS of books). We're being more creative with how we spend our free time. We make popcorn*, we get movies from the library, we take the bus downtown and go to the market, we go to the Seattle Art Museum. We have play dates, we go to Lincoln Park. Tessa still gets to ride on horses.

So we're determined to stay on track. Little by little, we are making progress, and I'm proud of us. Upward and onward.

I am jumping off the American bandwagon of "more more more stuff." I want "more more more" it's true, but I want free time, happiness, peace, relaxation, better world. It's great to be comfortable, and I'm not giving up my life for an adherence to poverty (I'm not giving up my iPod, I love my GoreTex coat, and I do enjoy nice things). But I'm really happy to be out of the mall.....and I'm not missing it at all.

For those who are considering making some financial changes in their own lives, I'll mention that we're following Dave Ramsey's "debt snowball" program. Dave Ramsey can drive me nuts - he's a bit high on himself and I don't agree 100% with everything he says - but his basic advice is excellent....and it's working. He has a podcast that you can download (which I listen to because it helps me to stay on track and focused), and books that are available on his website or from the library. He's on the radio, too, and he does seminars around the country.

* Popcorn: I read about microwave popcorn and how people working in those factories were getting horrible diseases and cancers from inhaling the fake butter, and I promptly threw out the popcorn in our house. However, I have an easy solution! For those who don't have popcorn poppers and don't want to do the stovetop method, try this: put 1/4 cup of popcorn (from your bulk section!) in a paper bag, and tape it shut. Put this in the microwave and pop until you can't hear it any more. Viola - microwave popcorn with MUCH less packaging, and it tastes good

PS Here are two pictures from a recent (Monday) family day. The weather was nice, Tessa had an in-service day and Ryan had the day off, so the three of us took Shep on the bus and went downtown to visit the Olympic Sculpture Park (dogs allowed on leash). We walked through town, we had lunch in the market (Piroshky Piroshky for me; Le Panier for Ryan and Tessa. We sat outside with Shep, sitting on the curb in the sunshine, watching the market bustle as we ate.). We picked up some veggies for dinner while at the market. It was a lovely day, unrushed, relaxing, fun.....and CHEAP. I recommend it highly!

Tessa's birthday

First, I just have to say that I haven't done all of my Christmas thank you cards, and now I'm behind on birthday ones, too. Hold on, friends. Don't give up on me. My intentions are good and I will get to it.....really!

But I know you all want to see pictures of one six year old child with big blue eyes, so here you go.

Green and Easy

Sometimes being green (environmentally conscious, practicing sustainable living) is hard. Really, I admit this. If it was totally a cakewalk we wouldn't be so messed up.

However....

There are some things that are really, really easy. They don't cost extra, they're not inconvenient. You don't have to change your whole life to live this way...you just need to grab this, and not that.

Some examples:
- Choose glass over plastic. The honey or maple syrup in the glass bottle instead of the plastic one, for example.

- Buy powdered laundry and dishwasher detergent instead of liquid. I don't know if the chemical content is any different, but the packaging is. The cardboard box takes fewer, and less toxic, resources to make, and is less toxic to the planet. (Of course, I also suggest eco-friendly brands like Method or Ecover or Trader Joe's Next to Godliness or Seventh Generation, but I admit they are often more expensive.)

- Use bar soap instead of liquid. Liquid soap comes in plastic containers that get thrown out; bar soap comes in a little paper wrapper. Plus, bar soap is cheaper.

- Use CFL lightbulbs instead of regular. (You've heard this before. It's still true.)

- Stop. Buying. Bottled. Water. Really. Right now. Just decide to stop.

- Bring your own coffee cup. This will save you a few cents per cup as most shops give you a discount, but even better it saves some more junk from going in a landfill. If you forget your cup and need one, try a "for here" in a ceramic cup. If you have to go, try it without a (plastic) lid, as the cup itself decomposes much better than the lid.

- Give up straws. More plastic. You don't drink out of straws at home, do you? No need to do so when you're out.

- Use rags instead of paper towels. Don't have any rags? Well, look in your bottom drawer; the one with the t-shirts you never wear. See that one with a small stain that you'll never wear again? Voila - four rags.

- Use a real mop and real broom instead of disposable substitutes.

- Choose snacks with little packaging. A piece of cheese instead of string cheese. A handful of nuts from a bigger container. Fruit. If it comes wrapped in fancy plastic it's probably not good for you anyway.

- Use half the amount of shampoo and/or conditioner that you usually use. Shockingly (to me), it didn't make one bit of difference on my hair. This means less overall consumption, and only half the wasted bottles in landfills.

- Vinegar and baking soda for cleaning. My sink has never been shinier.

- Read the newspaper online - no waste. (And no cost.)

- The library. Only buy those books you want to reference, read again, or share with friends.

- Stop using paper napkins. Cloth ones are easy, often go on sale.

- Shop your local thrift stores when you need household items like platters, picture frames, pots and pans, etc. (I love to find old china teacups for a bargain, too.) Bargains, they often support a cause (in West Seattle one supports the ACS and the other supports the senior center), and they prevent things from going into landfills. Even more importantly, they prevent items from being produced with more packaging and waste.

- Carry your own bag with you. Chico Bags is Ryan's favorite (solid colors), mine is Envirosax (cute patterns). My Envirosax bag has been used daily for at least 6-9 months and still looks great. But my guess is that you have a bag at home you could use without going out and buying one.

Not one of these things is difficult, time consuming, or expensive. Not one. And you don't have to adopt all of these changes to make a difference - just pick one or two if the whole list is overwhelming to you.

Little changes add up. None of these items, individually, makes a huge difference. But they add up, and as more and more people start to follow these no-nonsense ways to go green, it WILL make a difference.

And then you can join me in making your own granola and bread, learning about compost, canning tomatoes, and walking everywhere possible..... But I'll wait for you if you're not ready!

checking in

All is well - despite some big time fatigue. Tessa's birthday came and went, and it was a lovely success. A sleepover where she stayed up til midnight, horseback riding, and lots of cake.

I missed Melissa and Ross's shower, and I'm sad about that, but I couldn't fit it in with the birthday craziness. Ugh!

Anyway, just touching base to say that all is well, just overly busy. I'll update something more later.

xoxo

This is my President

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20obama.html?_r=1&nl=pol&emc=pola1

This is the man who will become my President tomorrow, and I have so much hope in his term as such. (And I'm already hoping for a second term, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. Let's work on THIS term first!)

I believe that not only will President Obama do good work himself, but he will encourage Americans to do their own good work. I believe that he's going to set an example of leadership that reminds us of moderation rather than conspicuous consumption, and that he helps our communities to work together and within.

Tessa and I are waiting for some chocolate chip cookies to come out of the oven, and then we're going to take them to Family Promise. If I was homeless, one of the zillion things that I'd miss would be hot, home-made cookies, fresh from the oven. We're baking half of them and delivering them warm; the other half, we're bringing dough, so the kids can bake them at the church shelter tonight. (All of the participating churches have kitchens, I believe.) We don't have money to donate right now, but we have some unneeded items that the shelter is in need of, so we'll deliver those as well. We'll hang out with the families to visit, too.

This is Obama's challenge to us today: go out and do some community service. My own contribution is tiny, but it's more than I would have done if Obama hadn't inspired me to do this little extra bit today.

What will you do today? And tomorrow? And next week? Can you do it? YES WE CAN!

Running

Note to self: After months of being sedentary, and a week after surgery, running a couple of miles and walking all over with an excitable 80 pound dog is, umm, a recipe for sore muscles. Perhaps a little moderation might be in order next time?

Well, moderation or not, I'm feeling so much better now that I'm practically giddy. There is nothing like feeling like hell to remind a person just how good it is to feel normal. No pain when I breathe in, no back clenching between my shoulderblades, no mental shadows of impending doom with upcoming surgeries.

Just a body that is adjusting, nice soft breasts that don't wake me up at night (try sleeping with baseballs in your bed, and you get the idea....roll over on them and they wake you up). These are not noticeable.

Wow.

So today I did a lot of normal things. Drank coffee with the family, made oatmeal with berries and yogurt for breakfast, went to church, had lunch with friends, took Tessa and Shep to the park and the beach. (Ryan had to work this afternoon, but at least we got a half day with him.) We ran an errand to the grocery store after the park, and when we got home I put in a loaf of bread to bake, made a batch of granola, did a load of laundry, swept, tided, and made dinner (dover sole piccata style, with broccoli and a not-so-great boxed risotto from Trader Joe's). Played with Tessa throughout. Read her a really long story called "If a Bus Could Talk" about Rosa Parks and MLK, Jr. and the brave people who have helped to integrate this country.

Nothing spectacular in that whole list. Nothing unusual. But it's so NORMAL that I just revel in it. Listening to "This I Believe" on NPR while making coffee is a TREAT when my body doesn't hurt. Running after Tessa and Shep is a treat when my body lets me do it. (For the sake of gratitude, I will not focus on how much my quads hurt when we went down the long steps from the top of the park to the beach. That pain was self-inflicted from running, nothing to do with surgery or breast cancer.)

And my mind is all over the place - still fuzzy from anesthesia (really, could someone PLEASE research the cognitive affects of anesthesia? I know I'm not imagining this) but recovering. I'm thinking about how to build a chicken coop and raise chickens, where the garden should go and how much bigger it should become, how to really get the Hunts Point book moving forward, when to schedule my runs (early morning...oh dear), etc.

So I'm running, literally and figuratively. I get out of breath but I know I can do this. Time to create my training plan; time to figure out who to be and what to do with my life!

This oughtta be good.