Time Flies ...

... whether you're having fun or not.

So far today has been a complete waste of clean underwear.

The job search, of course, continues.  I'm not finding many jobs to apply for, but I keep looking.  One that I did apply for last week  -  a reception/customer service position  -  actually came through with an interview, for which I dutifully coloured my hair and shaved my legs last night.  The interview was today, and I had fairly high hopes going in; everything listed in the posting was stuff I can almost do in my sleep.  They seemed quite impressed with my resume, and it sounded like a job I'd want, and it was fairly close to home  -  ten minutes by car, just under half an hour by public transit.  All in all, pretty much exactly what I've been looking for.  Until they mentioned that the salary is $11 per hour.  I was polite and didn't actually say out loud what I was thinking: Are you freakin' serious?  I'm getting more than that from EI!  I thanked them nicely for seeing me, indicated that I'd wait to hear from them, and came home hoping I don't.  Hear from them, that is.

Upward (with luck) and onward, as they say.  I'll keep looking.

It took three weeks, but I finally got through to a real human on the phone at EI.  Yes, they do have programs for women over 55, for retraining and assistance getting back into the workforce.  No, I can't come in and see someone about the programs, I need a referral.  Yes, the local Employment Resource Centre can give me that referral.  So I called the Centre.  "Yes, we can give you that referral, but first you need to do at least one session with one of our counselors.  No, you can't just come in, you need an appointment.  Yes, we are taking appointments now  -  yours will be for Monday, February 6th."  So now I have to hope that the time limit between applying for benefits and applying for the special programs doesn't run out before I can actually take my referral to the EI office, where I will no doubt have to make another appointment some time in the nebulous future.  So far, the only saving grace is that both offices are within walking distance of home.

J moves on Friday, so tomorrow I'm off to the liquor store for as many boxes as I can cram into the car; I might make two or three trips.  I'd rather have too many boxes than not enough!  If there are any left over, well, that's what our recycling boxes are for.  I still have the tape gun and some rolls of both tape and bubble wrap from when we moved here, so there's no need for her to buy any of the supplies U-Haul keeps trying to talk us into.  Thursday will be for finishing the packing, and staging everything so that once her friends/helpers arrive on Friday it will all be ready to go into the truck.  The truck will be here around 9 a.m. (I set up the rental for her last week, and she'll be paying cash when we return the truck) and her friends will start arriving around 10 a.m. or so.

We will miss her dreadfully, of course  -  she's the last one to leave home, and the place is going to seem pretty quiet for a while.  But at the same time, she's almost 27  -  it's time to empty the damn nest already.  And as previously mentioned in other posts, I have plans for that room  -  and this one!  I have the action plan all mapped out in my "Projects" notebook, the primer and paint are in the basement, and all that's left to do is draw a scale plan of the room and decide where the furniture etc will go.

An unforeseen consequence of having so much of her stuff staged in the living room already is that I have no flat surface left anywhere that's big enough to lay out the pieces of the green shell so I can sew them together.  So I've modified my original resolution accordingly; I've started another sweater and will sew them both together as soon as there's space to set up my layout table.  The new sweater is a classic vee-necked pullover with elbow-length sleeves, in a lovely soft caramel colour.  I did break down and buy the yarn  -  for $4 at the thrift store.  I was there to drop off a box of donations, but when I saw that yarn and realized there was enough to actually do something nice with, well, I just couldn't resist.  The pattern is very plain, so it knits up fast; and I've used it before, so I know it will fit well and look good.  The pattern is also old enough that it gives yarn amounts in ounces and needle sizes in the old British range!  It calls for #9 and #11 needles; after some swatching I find that 3.25 mm and 3.75 mm are the ones I'll be using.

I've come to the conclusion that one of the really difficult things about J moving out will be getting Big Guy to scale back on the amount of food he cooks for every meal.  We both hate waste, and I pointed out to him yesterday that I'd just had to throw two week-old baked potatoes in the compost.  He cooked too many, the two left over got shoved to the back of the fridge and forgotten ... I can see that kind of thing happening more and more often if I don't find a way to stop it.  In a way the potatoes aren't a total waste  -  we do use the compost in the vegetable garden  -  but it's the habit of cooking too much and then tossing it that I want to eliminate.  There will just be the two of us from now on; there's no reason to cook six pork chops, or bake four or five potatoes, or open two cans of corn.

So the short- and long-term goals are:

Get J moved, which will basically be finished by Saturday.

Relax after the move by setting up my layout table and sewing together the pink sweater that's been ready for a while, the green shell I finished last week, and  -  if it's finished  -  the brown pullover I'm currently knitting.  Sans interruptions, I should have at least the first two done by Monday.

Turn her old bedroom into my new workroom, turn my old workroom into a den/guest room.  I think I'm looking at about a month, maybe two.  Both rooms must be finished before mid-April, as that's when my good friend S arrives from Indiana for a two-week visit.

Persuade Big Guy to cook less and thus waste less food.  I foresee an ongoing struggle with this  -  could take years.  I'll keep you posted ...

This week's food waste tally so far:  two smallish potatoes, six olives (they're not supposed to be hairy, right?) and a baby dill pickle that was turning blue.

Happy New Year!

January 1st.  New Year's Day.  The time for new beginnings, new resolutions, new habits ... some say, the perfect time to wipe one's slate clean and start over.

Well, I'm starting over, all right.  As of noon Friday, December 30th, I'm once again unemployed.  The job search begins on Tuesday ... here's hoping it doesn't take thirteen months like it did the last time!

I've lost or left jobs before, of course.  Who hasn't?  But this time it feels different.  Last time, I was grateful; I'd been hating the place (though not the work) and its management for years, and I was just sticking it out until the layoff I could see coming actually arrived (I needed the money, and here if you quit there's no EI to fall back on).  I've left jobs in anger, in frustration, in disgust, or to go to better jobs.  But this time ... I loved that job.  I was very fond of the people I worked with, and got to be friends with a lot of nice customers.  And damn it, I was good at what I did!  This time ... I'm just really, really sad.

**********

Last night  -  New Year's Eve  -  was pretty quiet here at Chez Chaos.  J was at work, so it was just the Big Guy and me.  We watched television for a while, then he went outside to have a few beers and I curled up with one of my new movies.  Eventually he came back in and remarked that it really didn't feel like a special day, and I had to agree.  The whole neighbourhood was quiet all night  -  none of the usual gongs & whistles.  Don't know if everyone was out partying, or what, but I sure did appreciate the peaceful evening!

**********

Today was a mix of the traditional (for us)  -  taking down the tree and packing up all the decorations  -  and the new  -  cleaning out the basement.  We've made a pretty good start on it  -  the truck box is almost full enough to do a dump run, and my car is packed full of stuff to be dropped off at a local charity thrift shop.  Now that we finally have room to work down there, the insulation and wallboard will go up this week, and with luck by next weekend we'll be putting up shelving.  After that, I have a feeling the organizing part of the job will be almost all on me, but that's okay too.  It'll give me something constructive to do besides sitting at the computer all day hunting down jobs and sending out resumes.

J has announced the intention of moving out at the end of January; apparently she has found not only two good (I hope) housemates, but a house for them to rent.  I really hope it works out for her; she's always missed East Van and wanted to move back there.  It will also mean she'll have a thirty-minute commute each way rather than the ninety minutes (and sometimes much more) she has to travel to work from here.  And she's almost 27, so it's time to empty the darn nest already!

I have big plans for that room  -  it will become my new workroom/sewing & craft room/office/guest room.  The day after she moves, I'll be in there cleaning and priming, and the next day I'll be painting.  No more neon lime green  -  that will change to pale grey walls and a bright white light-reflecting ceiling.  Since I'll be working with fabrics and yarn, I'll really need a very neutral background and a lot of good light.

This teeny-tiny room I'm currently in will become the Big Guy's den.  He'll have a nice desk, a file cabinet of his own, good light to read by, television, bookshelves, and with luck enough space for that hideous old recliner presently (dis)gracing the living room.  Maybe then all his assorted papers and junk will migrate permanently from the kitchen table, and we'll be able to sit there and eat together ... maybe ... a girl can dream, can't she?

The resolutions I made this time last year have served me well, so I'm sticking to them for this year:

1)  I will work with what I have.

2)  I will finish what I start.

3)  I will step up my efforts to reduce, re-use, and recycle. 

And I'm adding a fourth:  

4) I will spend at least four hours every single day, Monday through Friday, looking for a new job. 

And of course I'll continue to report my progress on all fronts!


New Year, new start?  I certainly hope so!  

**********

I wish all of you a happy, healthy, and peaceful 2012.  May you accomplish everything you set out to do, and be pleased with the outcome of every choice you make.

 

It's Official

We got it in writing on Wednesday ... the office is closing much sooner than we expected.  My last day at work will be December 30th.  Happy New Year.

My first thought was "I'm glad I didn't do much Christmas shopping yet."  My second was "I'm glad Big Guy is still working."  I'm ashamed to say it took me until the third thought to feel badly for N (our office manager / supervisor), who has a little one at home and whose husband's work has been somewhat sporadic lately (not his fault in the slightest, the work just isn't there).

So, here I am again  -  job-hunting in an economy that's as unsettled as it was the last time I was laid off, with even bleaker prospects in my particular field.  

And in a corporate move that really adds insult to injury, I get to spend part of my remaining time at work training my replacement!  Now, I'll do the very best I can with her in the inadequate time I have  -  because honestly, even if she spent a month sitting with me all day every day, it wouldn't be enough to teach her everything.  But a couple of hours a day on the phone isn't going to cut it, and I feel badly for her.  I'll do everything I can for her  -  none of this was her doing, and I'm certainly not going to throw her under the bus just because I'm not happy with upper management.  I have to admit, though, that there's a not-so-nice part of me hoping that said management will shortly come to realize how badly they shot themselves in the foot with this particular decision.  I'm also deriving a bit of satisfaction from hoping they all lie awake every night through the holiday season, feeling guilty about their execrably poor timing and the effect it's having on all of our families.

**********

Yesterday's gathering went really well, even though there were some last-minute no-shows.  We talked and laughed and ate  -  and  ate  -  and ate  -  and enjoyed each others' company.  I ended up pressing containers of food on everyone to take home, because there was so much more left than I expected.  There are still enough leftovers that Big Guy and I won't have to make work lunches until at least Wednesday, and today I asked him to please not make anything large for tonight's dinner because there is no space in the fridge for any more leftovers!

Now it's time to get creative with gifts.  The stocking stuffers will be easy  -  traditionally, everyone gets socks and a chocolate orange (addictive, those!) in their stockings, so there isn't too much space left to fill.  A trip to the dollar store will take care of the stockings nicely, and with luck provide a few other gifts.  Thrift stores are always good too  -  in fact, Value Village is daughter P's first choice for gift cards!  I raised her well ... I just wish I'd known a couple of months ago that the layoff was coming; I would have made time to make more gifts myself.

I'll spend this afternoon redoing my shopping list, and shop on my way home from work every day.  We have Friday the 23rd off, so anything I haven't acquired yet will have to be picked up then.  Friday evening is Chinese food and Miracle On 34th Street with Mom and sister S, and Saturday is for wrapping and tree-trimming, and watching White Christmas and The Muppets' Christmas Carol and the original Grinch and Alistair Sim as Scrooge.

So ... my house is cleaned and decorated (except for the tree), I have plenty of homemade goodies on hand, and a plan for an affordable holiday.  I'm more determined than ever to enjoy my family, count my blessings, and not let a little thing like unemployment stop me from having a wonderful time!

Three Weeks On A Roller Coaster

I've been struggling to get this post done for about three weeks now, and I'm still not sure exactly why.   True, I've had a lot going on in the real world, but I've been tired before and still managed (mostly) to post as scheduled.  It's been three weeks of inner and outer ups and downs ... at work, at home, and with both my physical health and my moods / emotions.  But I've blogged through those before, too.  So what's different this time?

The weekend after my last post was our office move.  Not a bad thing in itself  -  the space we were in was far too big for just the six of us, and the new office not only fits our needs better but is in a much nicer building, with a gorgeous view of Coal Harbour and Stanley Park.  True, it means getting a bus to and from the downtown Skytrain in bad weather  -  it's a lovely walk on a nice day, though!  -  but that only adds about ten minutes each way to my commute, and the views alone are worth it.  But the moving process itself was fraught with frustrations.  On the Friday, we had no phones  -  that was the day our phone service was shifted to the new office.  And naturally, in spite of spending two weeks warning everyone (and adding a warning to our e-mail signatures) that we'd have no phones on Friday but would still be in the office and reachable via e-mail, we were deluged with offended e-mails complaining that we weren't answering the phones ... sigh.  Then on Monday, we had phones but for most of the day we had no internet.  Now, literally everything we do, every program we use, is internet-based.  So we could take calls, but that was pretty much the only thing we could do.  And within an hour of finally getting the internet working, our booking system went down for the rest of the day ...

The weather has been cold, wet, and gloomy.  One or two nice days, but overall not pleasant at all.  I did manage to salvage enough apples for a dozen quarts of applesauce, but the tomatoes are pretty much a write-off, and nothing else even tried to grow  -  except the ubiquitous chives!  I don't think they can be killed!

Right after the move I caught a nasty cold, probably from one of the all-too-numerous people on the Skytrain who think it's okay to cough in other passengers' faces.  Nothing too serious, but by the time I got home every evening I was feeling pretty washed-out and used-up.  I kept my germs to myself, and didn't give the cold to anyone else, which pleased me.

As I expected, nothing more happened in the basement until literally the night before the installers were coming to replace the furnace.  I'd already moved everything I could handle without help, and having Big Guy lose his temper with me because he actually had to shift his big heavy things himself ... let's just say his running commentary was not well received.  However, during the whole process I did get four more big bags of donations weeded out, and I'm still working on adding to them.

If I'd been told when they started that the furnace guys wouldn't be finished the same day, I think I might very well have packed a bag and spent the weekend at my Mom's place.  Ditto if I'd known that Big Guy had not, after all, lined up a gas fitter to reconnect the gas lines after the installation was done.  Yeah ... two days with no heat, no hot water, no stove, and all the microwaveable meals we'd bulk-cooked and frozen were inaccessible because, apparently, the best place to pile all the toolboxes, spare furnace & duct parts, etc was on top of the chest freezer.  I suppose it could have been worse  -  I still had my coffeemaker.  Still, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for lunch and dinner two days in a row didn't do a lot for my mood or my digestion.  He finally did find a gas guy willing to come out on a Sunday afternoon, so at last we have heat, hot water, and a working stove again.  The best part?  I'll get to watch our winter heating bill come in at not quite half of last year's, since the new furnace is more than twice as efficient as the old one.  And it's so quiet you can't tell it's on unless you stand on a heat vent!

Righteous indignation being a great motivator, I got a lot of cleaning and clearing-out done in my workroom over those two days ... the family refers to my bouts of anger-based activity as "working furiously".  I'm not quite ready to post the "after" pictures yet, though (you can see the "before" pics here).

My birthday had its ups and downs, too.  Mom got me the lecture series on geology, tectonics and climate interrelationships I'd been  jonesing for, and daughter J gave me beautiful flowers and a gift card to Chapters  -  she knows what I love!  Big Guy brought home three birthday desserts  -  he said he couldn't remember what I like and wanted to cover all the bases, so there were cheesecake, Nanaimo bars, and a coffee-almond torte.  Seriously?  Almost thirty years and you don't know what I like for dessert??  So I was torn between being charmed by his thoughtfulness and resentful of his lack of attention.  And then I felt guilty about the mixed feelings.  And later I felt more resentment, and more guilt ... he'd bought me not the one fall hoodie I wanted, but two  -  black and super-dark brown, just like I wanted   -  but he didn't bother unfolding them or looking at the tags, so they are both about three sizes too small.  And he promised we'd go exchange them today, only now he's suddenly "too busy".  Busy with what?  Reading a cookbook.  Yes.  He's decided he wants to deep-fry our Thanksgiving turkey.  Should be ... interesting. 

I've decided to scale back a bit on Hallowe'en this year.  We'll still put up some creepy fun stuff around the front door and hand out treats, but I just don't feel up for our usual all-out over-the-top decorating.  Partly because this year everyone will be at work all day except me, and I want to use the quiet time for more appropriate Samhain reflection.  And partly because Big Guy's job has lasted months longer than it was originally supposed to and we don't know when the axe will fall and want to spend as little as possible on non-essentials as we prepare for his layoff.  Oh, and of course we'll do several pumpkins  -  which will get cut up, cooked, and frozen the next day, as usual.  I've never cared for pumpkin pie, but I make a pumpkin-cinnamon-raisin loaf that's very popular with family and friends.  I might even give some frozen pumpkin puree to sister S for her pies, if she asks nicely!

Next weekend the guinea pigs will come inside until spring; the indoor cage sits in front of the living room window, so they still get fresh air and what little sunshine there is.  Now that we have three of them (female-free-to-good-home, we couldn't resist!), the old indoor cage is far too small.  Luckily, the vet clinic daughters P and J work at was tossing a perfectly good indoor cage big enough for all three, so she called, Big Guy drove to Kits, and the pigs have a nice roomy safe space until they go back to the outdoor hutch next spring.  And the price was right  -  free.

Yes, even though J is back to cooking full-time, she's decided to hang on part-time at the clinic for as long as she can stand to; she wants to get those student loans paid off quickly, and more power to her!  Like me  -  and unlike Big Guy  -  J sees debt not as just a to-be-expected part of life, but as something to be dealt with and eliminated as soon as possible.

I got a letter from Visa last week, telling me that they had doubled my credit limit.  Since I never ever carry a balance, it really doesn't matter; whenever I use the card, I go online as soon as I get home and transfer the same amount from my chequing account, so my statement balance is always zero.  And I only take the card shopping when I know in advance what I'm going to buy and how much I'll be spending.  I suppose I'm fortunate in that I've never been tempted to be a buy-now-pay-later shopper ... I just don't like to carry large amounts of cash.  It's good to know, though, that if a true emergency arises I have enough credit (I hope) to take care of whatever it is.

Right now, though, I have to go deal with three loads of laundry and a grungy kitchen floor.

Am I Redundant?

I've been doing a lot of blog-surfing this past week  -  not just catching up on old favourites, but following links, googling odd thoughts, looking for more information on anything that looked interesting  -  and I'm amazed at how many bloggers there are who are thinking the same things I am, and doing the same things I am.

Am I redundant? Repetitive?  Am I doing the blogger's version of carrying coal to Newcastle?

I don't believe so.

Everyone does things their own way.  A hundred people may be heading for the same goal but getting there by a hundred different paths.  Or as my grandmother used to say, "There are as many ways to make meatloaf as there are people who make meatloaf."  And none of those ways are wrong.

I've learned a lot from other bloggers.  Not just different methods, but different points of view; sometimes even different reasons for doing the same things.  Some of us are just trying to save money.  Some of us are just trying to save the environment.  Some of us are trying to do both.  Some are all-out do-everything-humanly-possible-and-then-do-more types, while some are chipping away at changing their lifestyles bit by bit.  There are radical one-day total life makeovers, and there are one-thing-at-a-time ease-into-it gradual evolutions.

Now, I don't want to open that old can of worms about whether ends justify means.  But it seems to me lately that I'm seeing a number of bloggers who are surprised that working toward one goal has had effects that spill over into other areas.  And I guess what bothers me is: why didn't they foresee any of that spillover?

Decades ago, I set out to find ways to provide the best possible life for my small daughter that I could with a ridiculously tiny income ... we were so far below the poverty line we couldn't even see how far over our heads it was.  But we managed.  I managed.  We ate healthy and stayed healthy, our home and our clothes were always clean and neat, and we had fun.  To me, it was a serendipitous side benefit that we were living so "lightly on the earth", as the saying goes.  We didn't just recycle  -  which was pretty much unheard-of as such back then  -  we re-re-recycled.  We used and re-used everything until there was nothing left of it to use.  We put out almost no garbage  -  because we couldn't buy anything that would produce garbage.  We shopped at thrift stores (they were called second-hand stores then) and cheap produce markets.  We walked almost everywhere, especially to the library every week.  

And how could living like that not spill over into health and environmental areas?

No money = no junk food = eating fresh healthy food = minimal packaging = minimal trash.
No money = no unnecessary appliances = doing things by hand = less resources used.
No money = walking everywhere = healthy exercise and fresh air.
No money = minimal spending = re-using or buying used = more useable items kept from landfills.

Win-win!

Even so, I've learned a lot from other bloggers  -  about creative ways to save money, to use fewer resources, to make what we have go farther and do more  -  and I hope that maybe someday I'll hear that someone out there learned a little something from me.  If karma works, maybe I'll give someone an "Aha!" moment like the ones I find in other blogs.

Redundant?  Repetitive?  I don't think so.  I'm not just parroting the current "popular wisdom", or following someone else's practices to the letter.  I'm doing what most of the other bloggers I read are doing  -  telling my own story, in my own words, and hoping that something resonates with someone else the way those other bloggers' words often do with me.

 

Changes

Small changes first ...  I've removed the money and projects sections from the sidebar.  The money sections because I got to feeling that I was only doing it to pat myself on the back, which smacks of gloating or boasting (both very unbecoming).  The projects sections because, frankly, it was too discouraging.  There are just too many projects I want to tackle that can't be done because of a shortage of time and/or money, and too many that can't be started until a gazillion other things are done first.  Whenever I looked at the blog, instead of being pleased with what I have accomplished, I was disheartened by all the things I haven't.  So those sections just didn't work for me the way I'd hoped they would.

And the big change ... a major change in myself.  A change not in what I do but in how I think about it. A change in how I react to what goes on around me.  A change in how I choose to feel about, and deal with, life in general.

Up to now, when I've talked here about the green/frugal stuff that happens at home, I've said "we".

The truth is, it's mostly me.  Big Guy humours me a little; he dutifully shovels compost onto the garden and puts his newspapers in the blue box, he goes through the grocery flyers and asks me if XXX is a good price to pay for peanut butter, he takes all his beer cans to the depot to get his deposit back.

But ... although he says he "hates waste" ... he wastes so much ...

Time.  Money.  Food.  Water.  Energy, as in in gas and electricity.  Energy, as in flying into pointless rages over things that don't matter or can't be altered ... like the traffic, or the weather.  Any combination of these things.  Perhaps the most frustrating to me is his habit of buying all kinds of materials for projects that actually need to be done, and then talking endlessly about the projects without ever actually doing anything.  Case in point: the basement.  We've been talking for years about turning the unfinished part of the basement into a family room.  We have all the insulation, all the wiring/outlet supplies, all the lighting fixtures, all the shelving, flooring, wallboard, paint ... I've been chipping away at cleaning all the junk out, getting rid of what we don't have any use for any more, organizing what needs to stay, and so on.  Every time I ask him what needs to be done next, he insists that he can't do anything until "everyone gets their crap out of the way".  Guess what?  Ninety percent of all the "crap in the way" is his. I don't tell him that, though.  I just go on quietly working toward the day when I can gently point out to him that it's all his.

What scares me the most when I think of the future?

Him.  I love him like crazy, I have for almost thirty years, I always will.  But I worry that the time is coming when that love won't be enough.

He doesn't see money and debt the way I do.  I see money as a tool, to be used as wisely and efficiently as possible in order to have the life I want.  He sees it as what the world owes him to do whatever he pleases with.  When I decide I want something, I look for the best price and I save up for it.  He needs instant gratification  -  he sees something, he wants it, he buys it, he'll worry about how to pay for it "later".  I see debt as something that eats up energy and resources I'd prefer to put to better use elsewhere.  He sees it as a fact of life, something that everyone has and something that he will always have because that's just the way life is. 

Another thing that's starting to worry me arises from the dark side, if you will, of his declared hatred of waste.  He comes from a family of impulse shoppers and hoarders.  And I'm seeing the tendency developing in him.  Oh, not to the extent of some of his family, but it's there, and it's edging into problem territory ...

Our old dishes and cutlery were mostly mismatched pieces from the years before we got together.  Yes, it would be nice to have dishes that went together, to have knives & forks & spoons that all matched, but there were more important things to spend the money on.  We'd wait for a good sale on something we both really liked ...  Well, the sale happened.  We agreed on a set of silverware and bought it.  But then he went back to the sale and bought three more sets!  One more set went into the kitchen drawer, one set went into the camper, and one set he put away "for spares".  I hope we never need the "spares", because he can't remember where he stashed that third set.  Pretty much the same thing happened with the dishes; he's always had the mindset that if one of something is good, six must be six times better.  But we can't ever get rid of the old beat-up useless stuff we've replaced, because we might need it someday, we might buy a summer cabin in the woods someday, the kids might want it someday ... It's the same story with sheets, towels, lawn rakes, you name it.  If he dies first, I stand to make at least a year's worth of mortgage payments just by holding a tool auction!  As of the last count he has forty-three work shirts, eighteen pairs of sweat pants, three dresser drawers full of socks, and twenty-two plaid jackets.  Twenty-two.  Plaid.  Jackets.  Oh, and nine pairs of steel-toed work boots.  I don't think I have nine pairs of shoes unless I count in my gumboots!

So what does all this have to do with the "big change" in myself?

I've changed how I react to it, how I let it affect my actions and my feelings. I've realized that I can't change Big Guy, I can only change how I cope with the way he does things.  I can stop stressing about how he deals with money, and focus on what needs to be done that I can deal with on my own.  And I can concentrate on all the qualities I love in him, instead of the traits that frustrate or anger me.

When we make a shopping list, I keep it to what we need that's on sale, I go through my coupons, and I try to go with him so I can encourage him to stick to the list.  I can't stop him from impulse buying in the grocery store when he goes by himself, but I can make sure he eats before he shops.  I can't make him get rid of anything, but I can insist that he find a home for it where it's not going to be in the way of something we need to do or to get at.  I can't make him do things ... but I can quietly just go do them myself.

Like I said, I love him.  And I know he loves me.  But it's kind of sad, sometimes, to think of all the ways in which I'm now living my life around him instead of with him.