Month: December 2021

Fortune cookie wisdom #36

/ Outrunning my demons / 5 Comments

Remind yourself that ‘the lion while hunting doesn’t roar’.

Who can YOU trust? I always thought I could trust myself but I’m not too sure about that anymore. I am not an expert at life.

As I mentioned before, I live in a mixed vaccination household. What I think we can all agree on at our house is that vaccination should be a choice. I believe there are risks involved with both choices which creates a lot of uncertainty and fear.

I can’t imagine how terrible it must be for parents of opposing views to have to make these decisions for their children right now. It’s not as if that was a question we thought to ask a future spouse before 2020. If in the future there was a pandemic would you chose to vaccinate our future child. Why or why not? Can you imagine divorced parents dealing with this if they don’t agree???? Thank God my kids are all adults and can make their own decisions.

Honestly, I think the biggest threat right now is the division and polarity. It’s literally insane. My family cannot attend the extended family Christmas party because of our status. Certain family members think their shot will protect them from COVID but not against the unvaccinated. How does that even make sense?

Now I am not going to make this a one sided post. I’ve heard of the unvaccinated afraid to be around the recently vaccinated because of shedding. Now everyone is getting the booster shot in time for the holidays. We all better lock ourselves in our houses this holiday season because people might die.

Woah, I must’ve missed the memo where we can actually live without dying. Live people live before it is too late! Don’t make your family dead to you before they are. Pushing family away is the worst thing we can do at this time. Agree to disagree if you have to. Get tested. Wear masks. Do whatever you think works without compromising your beliefs. I absolutely HATE that families are being torn over this. I hate to break it to you but we are all going to die.

I have been feeling a certain sway of the unvaccinated to mistrust their doctors and all vaccinations now. Some people are paranoid they will be given the wrong shot. What is happening? I started to feel this way myself. I am not anti-vax. I am due for my tetanus shot in a couple of months. I was considering not getting it but decided I will.

Why would something I’ve never questioned before become something I question now? The thought scares the living crap out of me. Can I trust the decisions I’ve made in the past or am I too being swayed?

That’s not all that has changed. I’ve now become more pro-choice than I have ever been in my whole entire life. People should be allowed to choose what to do with their body. Period. I don’t have to agree with that choice. There are consequences for every choice, you have yours and I have mine.

I was experiencing cognitive dissonance. Why are some choices okay for others to make and some not?? Can we pick and choose and feel at peace with ourselves? If you are pro-choice but for mandatory vaccinations it might be time to examine yourself. What gives me the right to tell another person what they should do?

While I’m on it, there is something else that bothers me. People who protest outside of abortion clinics shouting words of hate and carrying signs with mangled bloody fetuses rub me the wrong way. Do you really think hating and shaming women is effective? Maybe it makes you feel good for your self-righteousness. Then when you go to church and see a single teen mom you judge, look down upon, and shame her for the choice you wanted her to make. Nothing but hypocrites.

If you are truly pro-life help families in need. You are not going to change lives spewing hatred in the name of love. If you want to be effective take the teen mom out to lunch, buy her some diapers and baby clothes, and be there for her because parenting is hard. Offer workable alternatives and solutions such as adoption as an option.

Being shamed at the abortion clinic is nothing compared to the shame of raising a baby as a single teen mom both for the mother and the child. I can say this because my husband was born to a single teen mom. His sperm donor took off, wasn’t even there for the birth. My husband was shamed for not having a dad as if it was his choice.

In grade school he got spanked by a teacher in front of the class who told him he needed a dad. No kidding?? Not only did he not have a dad, but he didn’t even have a grandpa to be his role model. Paul sucked at sports because he had no one to play catch with him. No one taught him how to be a husband or dad which can even be daunting for those who come from healthy homes. Something needs to be done to build stronger families.

That all being said, I am really concerned because I feel like COVID has really shook some of my core beliefs. Is it growth?? Can I trust what I thought before or now if my beliefs change? I’ve really had to examine my own thoughts lately about how much control we should allow others to have over our lives.

Always question. Listen. Love one another. Do we need to have all the answers to do that??

Fortune cookie wisdom #35

/ Outrunning my demons / 7 Comments

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

A wise guy once told me that you don’t have to know everything you just need to find the person who does. Actually that is some sound advice given to me by my husband. He is a wise man but that doesn’t mean I’d want him to fix our furnace. Thankfully as of yesterday we have heat in our house again. Let’s just say I have a new appreciation of our ancestors who had to live through Wisconsin winters without heat.

Yesterday we also made the yearly trek to a nearby small town to talk to our financial advisor about our financial plans and goals, retirement, and all that fun stuff. I am pretty much there to nod my head to whatever my husband and the advisor says we should do. I probably shared before my husband has a Master’s degree in business administration. He loves finance and spends countless hours at his current job doing high level financial analysis. The three of us were joking yesterday if he buys another sailboat he should consider naming it spreadsheets.

Needless to say, my husband is very meticulous with our home finances. We live with a budget, our credit card offers cash back where my husband goes over each line on the statement to categorize every expense. Last week he mentioned he was thinking about becoming an accountant just for fun. He has helped other people and companies come up with a budget. So naturally when it comes to finance I defer all of the decisions to my husband and our financial advisor.

After the meeting with our advisor, we were happy to find out the nearby Chinese buffet is once again open. The fortune above is the one my husband received. We had a good discussion about his fortune. There is a lot of validity to this fortune. I haven’t seen wise people all of a sudden become stupid or vice versa.

I think my husband is a wise person. He successfully ran a start up business until we sold it a couple years back. He has earned the respect of others when it comes to finance. Not only that but I noticed others value what he has to say. People trust wise people. Look at the ads with doctors promoting medications or dentists for toothpaste. I can trust someone’s judgment if I think they are smarter than me. Of course that doesn’t mean I will because I am not the most agreeable person.

My husband notoriously worries about money. It’s the only thing he actually does consistently worry about. It’s funny at times because if I ask him if we can afford something he will say we can’t afford anything. It’s hard to know if it’s him or the fear talking. Every day he makes it sound like we are going to lose our house.

I understand where he is coming from. Paul was raised by a single parent. His childhood was food stamps, low income housing, and ill fitting clothes. He had the fear that the bills might not be paid and he might not have a roof over his head.

As an adult he argued with his mom about money. His mom said that a credit card was money and found herself in credit card debt. My MIL also was addicted to gambling. One time she called very upset. She said the bank called her saying they thought she might be the victim of identity theft because someone took a large sum of money out of her account at a casino. Paul asked her if she took a large sum of money out of her account at the casino and she said she did. He had to explain to her that no one stole her identity, it was her.

My MIL never graduated from high school. She tried to get a GED but couldn’t understand basic math. It’s actually quite sad. I never could understand how my husband excelled at math, money, and finance with no one to teach him any of those things. The sad part is that my husband is a good teacher but his mother was never able to learn.

Sometimes in our early years together Paul would slip his mom some money when we were leaving. I found it strange because in my family it was the other way around. Thankfully in her later years Martha married a tightwad. I think he was able to keep them afloat. It troubles me quite a bit that some of our kids are more like Martha than Paul when it comes to money. Money in the hand is money spent is not an easy way to live. I’m not sure if that will change but I think it can be improved.

This fortune is rather harsh but true. I’ve yet to see a stupid person become wise no matter how much knowledge you throw their way. I have to be careful myself I don’t fall into a pattern of unwise thinking. What about those of us who fit somewhere in the middle?? Perhaps the best course of action is to discerningly seek wisdom from those who know. But I wouldn’t want my husband to fix our furnace. Everyone is valuable in some way, we just need to find the way.