Mishaps and other haps

“We can’t expect that every human being will live in accordance with principles reflecting our basic human nature.  After all, our spiritual teachers failed to turn the entirety of humanity into something good.  The Buddha failed.  Jesus Christ failed.  But then to go on to say that since all these great masters in the past failed, we will fail too, so, well then, why bother?  That approach is also foolish.  We should do what we can.” — the Dalai Lama, as quoted in The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World.

Well, the month of March is looking pretty busy, especially on the weekends.  This weekend Josh, Betsy, and Matt are in town and visiting.  They are staying at our place (only Matt was going to originally, but Josh and Betsy’s plans for staying with Betsy’s parents fell through last night and they popped over to our place).  At times like this, it’s great to have a four bedroom house with more space than we need at the moment!

Next weekend we are joining Michael’s family to visit Jack and have a weekend in the country.  I need to place one order to Rolling Pin Bake Shop this week for a birthday cake since we haven’t had a Babler family party for Sylvie’s second birthday yet.

The weekend of March 12th, Joe will be home for his last Spring Break as a college student.  I expect he will be staying with us for at least part of the two weeks he is here.

The following weekend is Michael’s birthday and he is also helping Matt move to a new, much nicer apartment in Chicago.  There are tentative plans to meet in Chicago for brunch at the Four Seasons (mmmmm!).  We’ll have to see how that shapes up and at the very least there will be cake.  Joe’s birthday also falls in the corridor before his return to school, so we really have a lot of reason for indulging in cake!

I’m not sure if we have plans for the very last weekend in March.  I think Michael is on call right after his birthday, so we will probably have to stay near home, but by that time we will probably both need some downtime, so that plan works.

Early April may include a trip to visit Josh and Betsy.  Our roommate will be spending part of the month of April in Egypt, which means nothing for us in terms of being busy, but it’ll be us and the cats at home.  May is also looking pretty clear at this point except for a trip to Maine when Joe graduates from college!

I read a small, somewhat-random assortment of books, blogs, and websites about money matters.  I have done this for years– this interest dates back to my graduate student days and it’s fairly casual.  I do find ideas that I like and implement them from time to time in my own life, but I think I read as much for entertainment and for insight on what Americans think about money as for practical advice.

While Michael and I were browsing at a bookstore this past week, I came across a book on “living better for less in the big city as a woman” and was skimming through it as I decided whether to order a cup of tea at the bookstore cafe.  I didn’t really think about the content critically until later, but I have been mulling it over this weekend.

Now I didn’t read the book thoroughly from cover to cover, so I don’t feel that I can judge the entire content.  However, the recommendations on budgeting for clothing were revealing.  The author recommended that readers should spend one-fifth of their monthly salary on clothing, every month.  She actually seemed to think this would be saving the readers money, as they would otherwise be following a general consensus that one-quarter of one’s monthly salary should be spent on clothing.

She presented example figures and I believe these numbers were based on pre-tax annual incomes.  Thus, she asserted that a woman living in a big city and making only $20K per year should be spending $4,000 per year on clothing.  The author also assumed that a person in this situation would have a hard time keeping housing expenses at 30% and could be spending up to 50% of their income on a place to live.  As much as I can understand the idea that many readers might be fresh out of school, maybe renting an apartment for the first time, starting a new career and needing to buy an entire wardrobe, I could not fathom how this advice could put them into an advantageous financial position.

Wow, if I followed her advice (one-fifth of income should be spent on clothing), I could probably just toss out my entire wardrobe at the end of every year and start new.  In fact, I’d have to donate, give away, or toss clothing like crazy because in just a few years I would completely run out of storage space (and I live in an average-sized suburban house, not a studio apartment)!  Plus, at the moment I think my wardrobe is almost perfect.  I have enough of just about everything I wear.  I could use three or four more tops for work for the coming Spring and maybe a couple more pair of pants, but I can easily make do with what I have if I don’t find the items that I want.  I like the clothing that I own, the items are in good condition, and I don’t want to replace them just because I’m supposed to be spending more on clothing.  It makes no sense.

Why not advise a person starting their career to budget for clothing, but try to find good deals on well-made, classic pieces and save as much money as possible in the meantime, particularly if they are living in a big city and have a small budget?!

Working overtime (trying to play catchup on a new project we’ve been handed)

Performance reviews (had mine today and it was good, quick and easy– expecting to hear about a raise next month)

Doing a little bit of cleaning around the house (also, decluttering my desk and downstairs a little since those areas have been very junky lately)

Waiting for the savings account to fill up with tax returns that were filed this past weekend (we are putting the returns toward re-roofing this summer)

I am sitting at my desk with a huge, delicious mug of Earl Grey tea tonight.  Mixed into the tea is a bit of the buckwheat honey I bought on impulse at Copps sometime last year to help with a cough I had.  Dark honey is supposed to be particularly effective at quieting coughs and the grocery store had bear-shaped bottles of local honey prominently displayed in the produce section.  Well, this honey happens to be terrific in a cup of strong black tea, which has been my warm comfort drink of choice lately.

This weekend is Valentine’s Day and the opening of the Winter Olympics of 2010, which are being held in Vancouver.  It’s currently Friday night and the opening ceremonies of the Olympics are on in the background.  Michael is playing a video game online with friends (AI Wars) and the cats are curled up in separate spots around my chair.  Small Horse and Portia are in comfy chairs and Xaxxon is curled up on the “kitty bed” that our niece, Sylvia, likes to pretend to sleep in when she comes to visit.

The days are growing longer.  The drive to work is no longer as dark as it was.  The sun has been rising as I am driving and there is quite a bit of light in the sky.  Today I noticed a particularly beautiful combination of violently colorful morning sky over the starker white plane of white and silvery, frost-bedecked trees in the marshland that the Beltline passes over.  I worked an hour late and there was still light in the sky as I was driving home, too!

Our Valentine’s plans for the weekend include a brunch on Sunday morning at the home of friends.  It seems like a great way to make the holiday inclusive and about more than “just romantic love” or “just couples.”  Actually, my family always celebrated Valentine’s Day as a sort of family holiday, too.

My thoughts today have revolved around being in charge of life:  Make plans.  Do those things.  Arrange your life so that your actions work FOR you, rather than against you.  Move toward change that will make you happier.  Assume the responsibility to make your life the best it can be.  (I should write a slogan for a financial company while I’m at it.)

February has traditionally been a time of transition for me.  One year I started a new job in February and another year, irked at the thoughts of Valentine’s Day, I adopted a vegetarian lifestyle (which lasted four years).  Must be that the “New Year’s” thoughts have had time to crystallize into some form of action plan by mid-February.  This year the action is mostly quiet and behind-the-scenes.  No big lifestyle changes this month, just little adjustments to make life better

Love and warm wishes– maybe Spring weather will come to town soon!

A few weeks ago I had a weekend when I just felt completely wiped out all weekend long.  I don’t know whether it was a virus or what, but it knocked me flat and I slept most of the day on both Saturday and Sunday.  I missed the first meeting of our every-other-Saturday game and ended up staying home from work the following Monday.  Follow that up with a cold this past week that I worked through all week.  Yuck.  I think part of my lack of cheer lately has been illness-related.  It’s that time of year when colds, flu, and stomach bugs are going around, I guess.

This week Michael and I were able to play in our every-other (early AM) Saturday game and had a good time.  It’s a 4th edition D&D game run by a friend of ours at his apartment.  A couple of the players are new to us and one of them is a friend we gamed with several years ago, back at Michael’s old apartment in Middleton.

We managed to work in our weekly shopping after the game, but as we were doing that I started feeling ill again– a little nauseated and just incredibly fatigued– and my nose started dripping again.  Alas, I am not over this cold quite yet.  We came home and I crawled into bed and NAPPED for a couple of hours.  I am not normally the sort of person who naps much, but it has felt SO good on some of these recent weekends.  I guess a person just naturally needs more rest when they are ill.

It was time to consider dinner by the time I woke up.  I had been cooking chicken breasts in the slow cooker since early morning, so I decided to make most of the chicken into enchiladas for dinner tonight and I saved the broth and a smaller amount of meat for chicken soup tomorrow.  Improvised chicken enchiladas were a hit.

As I drove home today, I noticed that police were pulling speeders over on the two-lane highway near my house.  This reinforced thoughts that were going through my head about constantly living life in the fast lane.

I feel like I’m being run over every day on the daily commute in my small car and this oppressive feeling follows even when I’m not in the car.  We live in a very fast-paced culture and every person is pressed to try to thrive in this environment.  Yet it’s not an environment that is very conducive to thriving and if you play the game, you may lose out when it comes to health, happiness, and spiritual satisfaction.

We are pressed to “go” and many days I just want to stop.  I wonder what it would be like if people worked less and played more.  An anthropologist I took a class with about fifteen years ago said that intelligent animals play.  I don’t see many humans playing.  They go to work, come home, nuke some food, work more, fiddle with the internet or stare at the television for a while, and go to bed.  Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I think of how good it would feel to go to bed early and get some extra sleep.  I think this is called “burn out.”

My workplace and my job are not adaptable to play at all.  I work for money and benefits.  There are no other particular draws.  This is not the fault of the job– it’s just the type of job it is.  Most people have jobs like this.

I’d say probably just about every employee except those who are self-employed or are in “calling” fields experiences this sometimes.  Even those who derive a deeper meaning from their work and satisfaction from the lives they touch– nurses, teachers, ministers–  experience some frustrations with their jobs.  Other people glorify their office jobs to convince themselves that they are doing meaningful work in the world.  More power to them, I guess.  I doubt they’d be there if they didn’t need a paycheck.

Would you volunteer to work your job for the love of it?  If your other needs in life were met and you could do anything without considering money, would you volunteer to do your job?  I wonder if that’s really a fair test for a job.  I’m beginning to think it might be.  Admittedly, it’s a high standard.

Anyway, despite having a kind of slow start to the year, I may take it even slower.  I feel a strong need to slow down in life.  I don’t like trying to commute down the highway of life at breakneck speeds with Dodge 4x4s and SUVs running me off the road.  I don’t like feeling like a cog in a wheel, even if it pays decently.

Granted, I need an income and I have a decent one right now.  I’m not ready to throw that away.  I just wonder what would be better.