Can't Buy Me Love

I've been seeing Christmas commercials on television for a couple of weeks now, and Christmas advertising everywhere.  Come on, people, can't you let us get through Hallowe'en first?  Isn't life hectic enough, doesn't time already go by fast enough?

When our daughters were children, we had a yearly ritual.  During the last week of November we'd make up a big calendar covering the first 24 days of December.  We'd plan one getting-ready-for-Christmas thing to do together every day.  Shopping trips, wrapping sessions, sending cards, baking, decorating one room at a time ... twenty-four days of fun, togetherness, and anticipation.  The to-do for Christmas Eve was always "hang stockings, make cocoa, and watch 'White Christmas' " .

But now ... they're all adults, with jobs and lives of their own.  The pre-Christmas calendar has become a list in my notebook, the decorating and baking are what I do in the evenings after work, the cards get done on my lunch hour at work.  Shopping is done in one marathon trip through Metrotown, made only slightly bearable by the close proximity of my Mom's place; I shop till I can't stand another minute of crowds and noise, go up to her place to deposit bags and swill coffee, and get my second wind before heading back to the mall for round two.

For the record  -  I'm not shopping just for gifts.  Most of my gift accumulating actually happens throughout the year, when I finish making someone's gift, or see something I can afford that I know someone would really enjoy.  This trip is also when I pick up all the baking supplies, cards and stamps, extra groceries for the family get-together and Christmas dinner, whatever craft/knitting/sewing supplies I need, last-minute stocking-stuffers and thank-you gifts, and whatever else is on the regular shopping list for the next two or three weeks.  It happens either the last weekend in November or the first weekend in December, and its ultimate purpose is to make sure I don't have to shop for anything else (except milk and fresh produce) until after Boxing Day.  (It's also the first time I will buy mandarin oranges; to me, they're Christmas oranges, and I refuse to eat them before December.  I'm just odd that way.)

And it's not just Christmas.  It's Easter, Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Grandparents' Day, Secretaries' Day, Bosses' Day ... I'm sure I've left some out.  It's all the artificially created, overinflated "holidays" whose only real purpose these days is to be used by retailers to encourage / persuade / guilt-trip us into spending money on things.  To convince us that overspending is the only way to show someone we appreciate them.  To make us all believe that true love can be measured only by how many dollars we lay out.

What's the best present you ever received?  I'd bet anything it wasn't the most expensive present you ever got, but the one that warmed your heart with how much love went into something that was truly, uniquely you  -  the one that made you realize how much the giver cared for you and thought about you.

So here's something to think about ... when you're shopping for Christmas gifts this year, are you thinking about how much to spend on each person?  Or about how best to show them you love them, you listen to them, you pay attention to what they like or don't like?  Do you want them to measure your love in dollars and cents, or in time and thought and caring?

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.

Projects And Updates

Yes, I know it's been longer than usual since my last post.  I could go on about getting caught up in other things, or delayed by events outside my control, but the truth is I just kept putting it off until here I am, a week later than I planned.

It's true that a lot has been going on here  -  some of it good, some not so much.

I'll start with a good thing  -  a finished project.  Yes, a sweater is actually finished!  And here it is:

Please ignore the mess behind it  -  the "get-the-workroom-cleaned-up-and-organized" project is not going as quickly as I'd hoped.  But hey, one finished project is better than none  -  isn't it?  And the second sweater is almost finished; I just have to assemble it and darn a few ends in.  So maybe  -  with luck and hard work  -  more things will get done.

This year's food garden was almost a complete loss, thanks to uncooperative weather and steady rain through almost all of pollination season.  So far we've managed to harvest one stalk of rhubarb, two tomatoes, and a handful of chives.  The apple tree, however, contrived to bloom during the only dry few days we had all spring, and the apple crop was so abundant we were afraid branches would snap from the weight of the apples before we could pick them.  One five-gallon pail at a time, they're coming into the kitchen to be canned as applesauce.  We'd hoped to slice a bushel at least and run them through the dehydrators, until we realized that every one of them has had at least one bite taken out of it by the squirrels.

Every.  Single.  Apple.

You'd think that after the first, oh, hundred or so bites, the furry little buggers would have figured out that all the apples taste the same, but no.  Apparently our squirrels, while handsome and sometimes entertaining, are not very bright.

And the basement project is almost at a standstill through no fault of my own.  Or anyone else's, really ... accidents happen.  It's not my co-worker's fault he had a bicycle accident last weekend.  But because of that, instead of having a week off to really clear out the basement, I was called back into work.  Yes, I'll get the days off some other time ... but probably not until next spring, since we are coming into the busiest / most hellish time of year for my department.

This slows the basement work down rather seriously, since the only time left for it will be weekends, when Big Guy always manages to have something "more important" to do and I can't move the big heavy things that need to be moved without his help.  Why do they need to be moved?  So that our huge old clunky noisy 43 % efficient furnace can be replaced with our new (still in its wrappings in the basement) small quiet 93 % efficient furnace.  I would really love to see that happen before we actually need to turn a furnace on again this fall, but I know if I leave it up to Big Guy it will be at least another year before anything happens.

So my plan of attack has morphed into a plan of sneak attack.  I'll be down there in the evenings clearing out all the small stuff, and on the weekends I'll just cajole him into helping me with just one or two large things at a time.  Wish me luck!

In other news, J has rounded up two potential roommates, and their plan is to find somewhere to rent by the end of October.  We'll miss her, and the move to paying rent will slow down her debt repayment plan, but I can understand her reasoning.  She's working two jobs now, one full-time and one part-time, and the almost-two-hour commute each way is killing her.  She goes to work, comes home, sleeps, and gets up and goes back to work, seven days a week.  Living closer to work will give her a little time to actually have a life.  Maybe even get some laundry done ...

This project has had side effects, of course.  Big Guy is not happy with the last "baby" leaving home, of course.  And all the bins and boxes of her stuff from the basement and the attic will be all over the living room until she makes time to go through them all and do the keep-trash-donate sorting.  But ... the day after the last of her possessions leaves that big sunny front bedroom, I'll be in there with a bucket of paint!  That room will become my new workroom, this little 8-by-11 room will become the den / guest room, and she already knows that if things go south and she has to move back in, she gets the den and not her old room.

Some people have said I'm unnatural, or a bad mother, for actually wanting my nest emptied ... but hey.  She's twenty-six, she has a good education and a good profession (chef) ... it's time.  Time for her to spread her wings in the real world, and time for Big Guy and I to be able to sit back, watch our girls all out on their own and independent, and know that we did a good job as parents making sure they could make it on their own.

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.

 

Much Ado About Something

It's been an odd couple of weeks  -  a lot to do, no time to write about it, and a lot of up-and-down-and-back-and-forth without really getting anywhere.

I did get to spend a weekend with my friends in Seattle, though, and it was wonderful.  I just wish I could afford to get down there more often.

Why do some men seem to go out of their way to find the most difficult, time-consuming way possible to do the simplest things?

All I wanted to do was pick the ripe apples off the old Gravenstein tree in the side yard.  So I went out back and asked Big Guy for one of the dip nets from the fishing gear.  Well, no, I couldn't do that, because the net was too big and I'd knock down too many apples that weren't ripe and on and on ... but he'd fix me up something much better.  Okay, fine.  Two hours later, after much banging and cursing which I studiously ignored from indoors, he proudly presented me with a new, hand-made-just-for-you-dear ... dip net.  Yep.  It's slightly smaller around than the one I would have used, and the handle is almost a foot longer, but overall ... it's a dip net.  Well, after thirty years with him I know when to keep my mouth shut except to smile sweetly and thank him.

So this evening I have a few gallons of apples to wash, peel, chop, and cook down.  The actual canning (or freezing, if I get too tired) will happen tomorrow night.  And by the weekend, lots more apples will be ripe and I'll start over. 

There isn't much progress to be seen in other projects.  The pink sweater sits forlornly on the needles, no longer than it was two weeks ago.  The basement doesn't look any different, although a fair bit of stuff did get either tossed or relocated.  Lots of laundry got done, but no mending, and my workroom is pretty much untouched.  And yet I feel like I've been working non-stop on all kinds of things ... trouble is, most of what I've been doing has been just catching up on the housework that didn't get done while I was in Seattle.  Because of course, Big Guy and J "meant to do it" but somehow it never happened.  Story of my life.  Sigh.

The apples and the basement have to be the top priorities for the next couple of weeks.  The apples because, well, once they're ripe they won't wait, and the basement so that the guy who's coming next week to give us an estimate on installation costs will be able to see what he needs to see and measure where he needs to measure.

Oh, and can anyone tell me how I managed to acquire the head cold from hell this week?  My head is pounding, my sinuses are throbbing, and my nose has already been wiped raw.  Total misery  -  but I'm doing my best not to share it with anyone.

Even More Randomness

How did it get to be Tuesday again already?

I definitely need more days between Friday night and Monday morning ... sigh.

**********

On the up side, daughter J starts her new job tomorrow  -  cue much rejoicing.  In her words, "I didn't spend thousands of dollars on culinary school to be a part-time receptionist!"  So she is thrilled and excited to be back in a kitchen, and we couldn't be more pleased for her.

Daughter P is also sending out resumes in a search for a better job; she's not been happy where she is, and not been treated with any kind of respect or consideration whatsoever ... but in these times, any job is (sometimes only marginally) better than no job, so she's stuck with it so far.  But she deserves better, she's worth more than she gets where she is, and we're all hoping something decent comes through for her.

**********

I'm not at work today  -  stuck home with tummy troubles  -  but there's a lot I can do from here, and I'm trying to help out as much as I can.  My co-workers know they can call me any time, and I've done a lot of the background scutwork, as it were, already, which frees up their in-office time for more immediate / urgent things.  Yes, I'd get a paid sick day anyway, but I feel better about staying home when I can still pick up at least part of the load. 

**********

The basement cleanout isn't going as quickly as I'd hoped.  I refuse to give up on it, though  -  I'm determined that this year will be the year that the big house-open-to-the-elements project happens before December 20th!  Ideally, both the furnace installation and the living room window replacement will both be finished by the end of September ... I'll keep you posted.

**********

I'm heading down to Seattle after work on Friday for a weekend with my bestest friend in the whole world (apart from Big Guy, of course).  Sooner or later they will be moving, so I've earmarked a few weekends this fall to help her junk out some of the house.  We did a couple of rooms two years ago and had tons of fun, but there's so much more to do, and I promised her long ago that when the time came I'd be there.  Besides, a weekend away, with someone I love but don't get to see very often, is never a bad thing!

Random Bits, Large And Small

I can't decide which I dislike more  -  the days when life is just one damn thing after another, or the days when life is just the same damn things over and over and over ...

Now, I'm not talking about my job, which is pretty much a combination of those two kinds of days.  I knew it would be like that when I went in, and there's enough variety to keep it interesting, and I'm pretty darn good at it.

I'm talking about the time I don't spend at work.  The hours spent in the arms of my loving family.  The hours that went pretty much like this, every two minutes, all weekend long:

Mom, I need you to ...
Where's the damn ...
Mrow ...
Honey, can you come out here and ...
Why isn't there any ...
MROW!

Which is why I didn't get back here to post over the weekend.  Honestly, a five-minute stretch without anyone wanting anything would have done wonders for me!

There's a good chance that some time in the next few days I'll be posting big signs all over the house that say, in large red caps:

THERE IS NO TOILET PAPER FAIRY.

THE MAID QUIT.  DO IT YOURSELF.

DON'T PUT THAT DOWN, PUT IT AWAY.

I went to work yesterday morning secure in the belief that at least there I could pretty much know what to expect and get some actual work done ... Not so much.  The phones just would not stop, the problems popped up like mushrooms after a rainy night, and the whole day's work was done in ninety-second increments between phone calls and frantic e-mails.  By the time I got home last night, all I managed before I fell over was getting changed and stuffing a sandwich in my face.  Today was a little better, but I'm not holding my breath for tomorrow.

On the home front, I just keep chipping away at things.  Every time I walk into a room  -  any room  -  I look for one thing that needs doing, and do it.  Wastebasket full  -  empty it.  Cat bowl empty  -  fill it.  Something out of place  -  put it away.  Something missing  -  go find it.  You get the picture.  At the end of the day it doesn't seem as though I've done much, but by the end of the week there's a noticeable difference.  Works for me.

I've booked a vacation week mid-September to have the old furnace hauled away and the new one installed.  I'm optimistic about having most of the cleanup done before then  -  or at least enough of it that nothing will impede the installation process.  The real hurdle will be getting the Big Guy's cooperation; he won't do anything during the week because he "worked hard all day" (so did I, son) and he won't do anything on the weekends because he "needs to get the truck running to haul all the crap away".  Sigh.
 
Since this is a three-payday month, I'm also pushing the idea that the single-glazed living room window can be replaced this month  -  or at least, before October.  I've even offered to use the third paycheque to pay professional installers.  Of course, Big Guy is no end offended by this ... he and his buddy G replaced all the other windows in the house, and did a fine job.  But the truth is, if I left it to him to install this one, I'd be waiting until about this time next year for him to "get around to it".  Not to mention that his favourite time of year for big projects involving exposing the whole house to outdoor temperatures is ... the week before Christmas.  I can't figure it out.  Last winter, he decided on December 21st to paint the kitchen ... doors & windows wide open for days, during the coldest week in the recorded history of this area.  Granted, December 2009 was not his fault  -  we'd had it on good authority that the roof could wait until April, which turned out not to be the case, and we had roofers up there ripping everything back to the bare rafters and replacing it all, right up through December 23rd.  December 2008, he refused to put up the Christmas tree until the living room was painted ... I'm scared to even think about what he might pick as the pre-Christmas project this year.  Probably the damn window.

And something that warms my thrifty little heart:

March 2010, after paying a $900 annual water & sewer bill, I decided to take advantage of the city's free water meter program, and had one installed.  May 2011, I got the quarterly metered water & sewer bill ... and found that since were were no longer paying the city's "flat rate" but only paying for what we used, we still had  -  ta daa!  -  almost $300 credit.  I got the August bill today  -  and we still have a $22 credit.  I'm a very happy water-conserving camper tonight!