Money

End of February update

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Not a lot has changed since the last update. My parents are still with us. I still have a huge pile of boxes in my office to go through from their house. And when I get through those, I will bring in more.

Nothing has changed with my job. If anything, things have gotten worse. The work environment is toxic. I don’t want to stay. However, being the diligent employee that I am, I earned a month of vacation days that I will lose if I leave. I just had my annual review where my supervisor said I’m doing an excellent job. I double my collection goal every month. My job accuracy is 100%. I have never called in. I am the top employee. But they have implemented the on call policy. I will be on call Mother’s Day weekend, the weekend I am hosting my daughter’s baby shower. And if my mom is still alive, I am planning on spending time with her not being at work. When I expressed my concerns to my supervisor she had the attitude of too bad. Yes, it is too bad for her because I am not going to stay. Gone are the days when I go above and beyond. I will not be going in early, staying late, or taking on open shifts. I will be gone.

Just to give you an idea of how things are at work… My supervisor accused my co-worker of stealing money in public in front of other staff and patients. Only to find out later that the supervisor misplaced the money. No apology was granted or concern for the employee who was publicly humiliated. It makes my blood boil to see how she mistreats not only me but the other employees. My husband wants me to leave right away and find a better job. But I want to hang in there a couple more months to use up the PTO I earned. Plus I already created his summer seasonal work schedule around my schedule when I am off. I haven’t taken any time off since I started my job and I don’t want to build that again starting a new job.

The engine went out on my husband’s truck. So now we have to replace a vehicle we thought had many more years and miles left on it. We weren’t expecting to have to find a new vehicle so that adds to the pressure of my husband wanting me to find a better paying job. One thing I can say is that I expressed my thoughts to my supervisor and stood up for myself which I feel very good about. But once again I am plunging into the land of uncertainty which drives me crazy.

Just one more month until we leave for our vacation. I am really looking forward to that and using up some of my PTO days.

This uncertainty, part 4

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Usually I have my whole life planned out. Well, maybe not that extreme but you get the point. I thought I would be one of the few marathon runners that would run into their 70’s. That didn’t happen. Sometimes I still dream of running. I hate exercising now. I told the doctor all I really wanted to be able to do is run again. She chuckled at this and told me if I did she would be replacing both my knees in the next two years. It’s been a whole year since I ran and this year my husband and daughter will be doing the last race I did without me. I am happy for them and don’t want them not to do it because I can’t. I just never expected my life to be this way.

I thought I would be checking Europe off my bucket list in the summer of 2020. You all know what happened with those plans. Who would have guessed? When I plan things I pretty much plan on it happening. But I also learned life doesn’t always work out the way we plan.

Usually by this time I have next year all planned out as far as travel goes. This year I have no idea what I want to do. Right now I’ve set aside several dates on the calendar for going on a trip. That’s about it. My husband and I are thinking of trying last minute deals with these dates. My only rule is that I want to go somewhere I haven’t already been. The problem with this plan is that we aren’t spontaneous people. Even if we have absolutely nothing going on, we both plan our days. We are by nature extreme planners. We like our structure and lists. On Mondays and Thursdays I wash towels. We are going to try this but we might not like it.

Typically I would get some input from my husband about where he wants to go and I would plan everything. Checking off all 50 states and all continents is huge on my bucket list, but my husband does not have these constraints. These are higher priority trips for me. Now my husband is getting involved in finding the deals. Since at heart he is a finance guy, he spent hours creating a financial calculator down to the penny to analyze which is the best deal. I could care less about that but I am concerned I will find something and it will be gone before he can decide what the better deal is. Then who is in charge of the planning. It has always been me and it’s something I really enjoy. I have a systematic way of doing things. Hopefully this is not going to create conflict. Now I think all this spontaneity might not work. Part of the fun is doing all the research and planning the details.

There is also some uncertainty about the next step in our business. There is uncertainty regarding the economy. In my mind there is still some uncertainty around COVID. This year we had to cancel a trip because of it. If anything I am getting better living with uncertainty, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I’m not one of those we’ll see how everything pans out kind of person.

Gratitude week 150

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  1. The election is over! We are done with the crappy ads, middle of the night texts, an overflowing mailbox, all day phone calls, the surveys, and the constant pressure to go out and vote which had the opposite effect on me but I did anyway.
  2. Mom and I went in for a spa day.
  3. We had game night a couple times this week with Arabella. One evening she stopped in to do laundry and we ended up playing games.
  4. Paul and I had our date night at the arcade. It was something different to do. We surprised Will as he was cleaning up a spilled drink by me telling him someone puked all over the place. This was not true but it was funny. I think he was happy to see us.
  5. We got a lot of work done this week filling the dumpster. Yesterday Paul and I yanked out all the overgrown shrubs in our yard, probably somewhere around 20. I’m still on a plant killing rampage apparently. It needed to be done and I wanted to to do it right before the ground froze to avoid nesting birds. At least I’m not killing the birds.
  6. We have great friends who are helping today finish the flooring. I hope by next week’s gratitude it will be done. I will post pictures.
  7. Last night I went to a friend of a friends 46th birthday party. It was over the top. The birthday girl rented the biggest limo I ever saw, rented a hall, got a band, had an open bar all night, catered in wings, had a baker cater in gourmet cupcakes (the same as our daughter’s wedding), and rented a hotel room. I did feel bad because I know they can’t afford it. I’m grateful my husband and I are on the same page as far as finances go.
  8. Talking about finances, we had our annual visit with our financial advisor. It went really well and he gave us a lot of things to think about. It’s time to update our will. The last time we updated it was when several of our kids were minors. My mom is listed as our power of attorney for healthcare and it’s time to switch that. It’s strange to think I am at an age where I start handing the reigns to my children. I even had to update forms at the doctor’s office and gave them my daughter’s name with her married name. The receptionist noting the different name asked if she was my daughter. She didn’t ask if she was my mother.
  9. Tomorrow I go in for my annual physical. I’m really hoping for gratitude next week on that. I had my blood work done on Friday and so far everything looks good.
  10. We had another week with record breaking warm weather. That was strange with the combination of darkness at 4:30 PM. We were able to get out and enjoy the last bit of warmth we’ll be receiving in a while. Yesterday we had snow flurries and we are expecting snow this week so I think it was the last of it.

Fortune cookie wisdom #42

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Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you.

Ah, the elusive happiness. To tell you the truth, I think happiness is overrated. I just want you to be happy. I don’t care what my kids do as long as they are happy. If you’re not happy with _______, find another ______. We hear it all the time, don’t we? The pressure to be happy all the time is making us all quite miserable.

Recently I was thinking about the happiest days of my life. Big spoiler, my happiest days were not in high school. I find it seriously pathetic when people who are close to 50 years old say the best years of their lives were in high school. Haven’t you done anything with your life since then?? Maybe I’m just jealous because my high school years sucked.

Back in the day I was voted most likely to be a supermodel on the cover of Vogue by my high school senior class. Better than most likely to be barefoot and pregnant (won by a girl with 12 siblings who only had 1 kid) or most likely to never leave this small (sucky) town (won by my best friend who still lives there as far as I know). True story.

At 17, when I was in my prime for looks, my classmates thought I was the most beautiful girl in the class. That should’ve made me happy, right? At 17, I was going through a really hard time at home. I was really struggling with depression and coming to terms with the trauma I was experiencing. Some people seemed annoyed with me for not being happy. I was shamed for it. There were girls who got mad at me if their boyfriends checked me out. I was blamed for it. Don’t get me wrong, in a lot of ways it was wonderful but it didn’t make me happy. If you really saw what I was going through on the inside, you wouldn’t want to be me on the outside.

This past summer an acquaintance told me she thinks I have the perfect life, the perfect family. (She obviously doesn’t read this blog). I do portray myself as having the dream life because like most of us I am really good at hiding. My husband started a company he built from nothing. After 20 years (10 years of me working with him) we sold the company to private equity. Now I live in my dream house complete with 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, an indoor pool and hot tub, 3 fireplaces, and an indoor grill. My detached garage is twice the size of my old house complete with two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchenette. I probably never have to work again if I don’t want to.

I should be happy. I should have everything I’ve ever wanted in my life. But with everything that happened with my dad and my daughter’s serious mental health issues, I again fell into a deep depression that has been hanging on for the past two years. Not to mention COVID. There were many a days I sat in my mansion dreaming of ending it all. How messed up is that?? None of the things that were supposed to bring happiness to my life did.

The happiest years of my life were when my kids were young. I was happiest when they were sitting on my lap and I was reading them a good book, Toad and Frog. Story times at the library. I was happy when we danced around in the living room to silly songs. The early childhood years when I stayed at home with the kids. When I drove a 10 year old minivan and lived in a small house. Back when we didn’t have any money, the poorest I’ve ever been in my life living on one income with 3 kids right after my husband started a business. Back when I had the extra baby weight to lose. After the sleepless nights of having little babies and before the sleepless nights of having teenagers. Those were the best years of my life so far and I didn’t even know it.

I feel like I am finally starting to pull myself out of this depression. Maybe the best years are ahead, maybe not. Regardless, looking back to the time of my life when I was the happiest made me recognize something very important. I wasn’t the happiest when I had the most money, was young, looked my best, achieved the most, or really had anything the world deemed as highly valuable. Quite the opposite in fact.

It’s a trap if you are searching for happiness in the wrong things. I will be happy when I lose some weight or have more money. I will be happier when I have what my neighbor has. I will be happy when I have a thousand more followers. I will be happy when I get that promotion or go on that vacation. I will be happy when I earn the diploma or get that medal.

I don’t have all the answers, but I know what happiness is not.

Fortune cookie wisdom #35

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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.

Fortune cookie wisdom #34

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A friend asks only for your time not your money.

I’m grateful to have a few really close friends who truly care about me and not my money. They have hearts of gold. There is great wisdom and value to this fortune. Be careful about friends who take more than they give. This could also apply to family, someone you are dating, but definitely not kids. They somehow have a way of making you want to give them everything you have and then some.

I want to buy my kids tons of Christmas gifts. I want my daughter Angel to have the best wedding. I want my daughter Arabella to have the best mental health treatment. I want to be able to help them with college. I want to take them on trips. Hopefully there is a fortune cookie somewhere for that because at some point they need to take care of themselves for their own good. For the most part they do since they are all adults now.

But I still want to give them everything I have (and didn’t have) even if I don’t. Friends not so much..

Gratitude week 71

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  1. On Mother’s Day, I’m grateful to have a wonderful mom.
  2. I’m grateful for my children. Mother’s Day is different this year. I transitioned out of celebrating the day with younger kids to being more of an empty nest mom. It’s no longer a day of dressing my girls up in fancy cute dresses and homemade gifts and cards on pink colored paper. I’ve come to expect that things have changed. My youngest daughter is still in residential and my oldest daughter has to work. My son will be over later for supper. Maybe we can play some games or something. I do miss the times when they were little and cute but I don’t miss all the work it was.
  3. I found my mom a really awesome gift that we have been trying to find for many years. It’s nice that we can spend the day together.
  4. My daughter Arabella will be coming home this week after staying at a residential mental health facility for the last couple of months.
  5. Arabella will also be 18 this week, so……all my children will be adults as this new week ends. It’s hard to believe that my years of active parenting are now done.
  6. It’s still been very cool here. One day it even hailed. But it does look like it will finally warm up by the end of this week.
  7. My mom has finally been sleeping better. I’m grateful for her healing process.
  8. I’m grateful that Paul was able to help my mom out with Matt’s finances so she didn’t have to hire an accountant at tax time. My mom took us out to eat to thank him for his help.
  9. I’m grateful to have a husband who is gifted in finance because that is one less thing I have to worry about. We have very similar spending habits and thoughts about money.
  10. I’m grateful that I won a $25 gift card at church today just for being a mom.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the great moms out there!

Gratitude week 51

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  1. Paul started working for a small family business. They had their office party at a hibachi grill this past week. It really was a nice time. Afterwards, Paul and I drove around to look at the Christmas lights.
  2. I finished reading a book on boundaries. I found out I have a lot of work to do. I find that I feel guilty setting boundaries with certain people (like my mom). Even blogging at times makes me feel guilty. Guilt is a feeling I need to work through to set boundaries and write about my life, but it doesn’t mean that I’ve done something wrong. I never realized that before.
  3. This is a big one. My mom apologized to me this week. Last Sunday she came by my house, even though we can’t have Christmas and she doesn’t ‘visit’ because of COVID, and asked me why I didn’t answer when she tried to call me. She has a tendency to call at the worst times like when I am in the middle of making supper. She said she was having a hard time and thank God her sister Jan was around to help her through it unlike me. If she left a message saying she needed to talk to someone, I would call her back. This time she came over and angrily asked me what I was doing that was so important I couldn’t take her call. Her visit left me angry and upset for several days until she apologized.
  4. Christmas lights! I love them so much I might leave some up year round.
  5. Baking Christmas cookies. Yesterday I made roll out Christmas cookies with icing. Today I made Amish sugar cookies. I found some of my grandma’s old recipes that I will also try out in the next couple days. We are getting together with Cindy’s family on Christmas Eve and I am planning on bringing a lot of the food.
  6. It’s only 5 days until Christmas and I am pretty much ready for it. Now we just need some snow!!
  7. Our investment from selling our business finally came through!!! The dividend check should get us through for awhile! I’m grateful to not have to worry so much about money. Arabella just got on the waiting list for residential mental health treatment. Unfortunately it looks like our insurance will not be covering it and it is very, very expensive. It will be worth it if she gets the help she needs and her quality of life improves. It helps to have options available for financing it if we need to. I was really stressing out about it.
  8. We went out to eat this week to celebrate the investment. We had a really nice family time with our two oldest kids. Of course my mom tried calling while we were out to eat and I didn’t answer. Can’t win them all I guess.
  9. I’m grateful that I now have over 900 followers. I never thought I would get to this point when I first started. I read a book a couple years back from a blog of a lady that was training to run her first marathon. I thought, wow, I want to try blogging and running a marathon. Now here I am writing about personal things I never thought I would be writing about. And here you are right with me!
  10. I never thought I would be saying this but I’ve reached the point in my life that yoga and meditation sounds better than pounding my body by doing marathons. While I still want to run, I have no desire to race anymore. What is one more medal anyway? I no longer want to be on stage. I’ve had my lead roles. I no longer want to sing in front of people. I no longer long for high stress hobbies. My body is tired and wants rest. My mind is ready to embrace a slower pace. It’s time to try something new. I’m grateful to be ready to accept the aging me.

Gratitude week 13

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I’m not the superstitious type, but week 13 pretty such says it all for me right now. I’m having a hard time feeling grateful. Whose stupid idea was it to do this gratitude crap anyway? Oh well!

Right now I’m supposed to be touring New Orleans for the first time with our foreign exchange students and family. Instead we got the news today that Clara’s parents want her to go back home to Germany. We are so sad it has to be this way. We also decided not to have our daughter be a foreign exchange student.

This week the last thing I put in pen on my calendar is gone. We will not be visiting my brother and his family for Easter.

The Europe trip open to students and their family that got cancelled is not refunding us all of our money. They are keeping almost 1/3 of the travel expenses. Parents are angry and a petition is being sent around to try to get everything but our security deposit back. It’s a huge mess.

My husband and I have been fighting like crazy.

Everything keeps breaking. Now my son is having problems with his car.

Need I mention the economy.

So…it might be hard to find ten things this week.. Here goes..

  1. We are all healthy.
  2. We have enough food to eat.
  3. I only left the house once this week. That being said, the only compliment on my hair was from my husband. Just for the record, the last time I colored my hair was in September. I started doing this before it became cool (the hair salon’s closed).
  4.  I spent some time working on our new business today and it felt good to be productive.
  5.  In some ways I kind of like not being so busy.
  6.  The weather is going to be nice this week, sunny and temps around 50. It is so hard to exercise outside when I am freezing so this will be nice.
  7.  We named our indoor pool Florida. We can go to Florida now.
  8.  I think I am doing pretty well holding things together.
  9.  We will only have 3 teenagers in the house, although I am very sad Clara is leaving early since we get along so well. But it isn’t good bye forever and she will be reunited with her family.
  10.  I had a couple nights this week that I slept fairly good.

Garbage day

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We were supposed to leave for Florida today.

Today we found out that our music trip to Europe for this summer has been cancelled as well. I was going to go on the trip with my mom and daughter Arabella.

I suppose it’s just as well because I don’t know if we can afford to go any longer anyway.

I just want to take my 2020 calendar and toss it in the fire. I wrote too many things into it in pen that will no longer happen. Every time I look at it I will be reminded of that.

With everything going on, I don’t think my daughter wants to be a foreign exchange student anymore. She was planning on staying with Estelle’s family. But Estelle and Arabella haven’t been getting along that great. The honeymoon is over and now they are like real siblings. I don’t think Estelle wants her at her house anymore anyway.

Yet we will continue on with our foreign exchange students. Although I have a new worry. What if one of their family members die at home while they are stuck here? It is stressful having four teenagers in the house and sometimes I just want to send them home.

I am feeling really bummed out by the change of plans. I’ve always lived by structure and routine. Now everything I thought was certain is uncertain.

The gym closed so today I dug out one of my old exercise videos. In the process I found out that my DVD player no longer works. Maybe it conked out in the 1990’s. Who knows? Then I got the video to work on my computer but messed up my TV. My 45 minute workout turned out double than that. In the meantime, Estelle fell asleep on her exercise mat.

Then I thought to dig out a puzzle. It seems like half the pieces are missing to make the edge. I might have to throw that out too. What a way to clean the house. If this never happened, I might still think these things worked into the next decade or two.

I’m afraid I might lose track of time. The garbage truck never came yesterday. Did I have the day wrong? How will I remember without my schedule?

Ah yes, today. Today is the day we were supposed to leave to go to Florida. It is still written in with pen on my calendar.