The more things change…

So, wow. An anonymous tipster reminded me that it was ten years ago today that I wrote the last of a series of long-winded posts on The Motley Fool’s Living Below Your Means board. It was my way of giving back a little bit to a community that had seen me through some of the biggest, hardest changes I have faced so far in my life.

When I first started scouring those boards and articles for help I was still coming to terms with a lot of things; I was just sure I was doing pretty much everything wrong, financially.

I had no choice but to get better at it…but I was sure worried that I simply wasn’t capable of it.

I’m having trouble with the concept of it being ten years since I wrote those. It doesn’t feel like ten years. Or like it’s been fifteen since I decided to change course so dramatically.

But at the same time, it does in a way. Sometimes looking back feels like remembering a movie about somebody else’s life or something. Did I really do that? Did I really feel that? Really? Because…I just wouldn’t now. So it’s hard to fathom that I did, back then.

It’s almost surreal to go back and read those things again. Remembering those days – both the ones I was writing about, and the ones I was writing during.

A lot has changed. A lot is the same. There has been water, and it has gone under the bridge, and over it on occasion, and once or twice it has swept the thing clean away.

I’ve had to learn some new tricks; I’m still learning new tricks, actually. And the definition of what I want most continues to be a remarkably changeable thing.

But other things haven’t changed at all.

I still stubbornly believe that every single one of us has within ourselves the capacity to have, do and be anything that we want; that our biggest blockers don’t come from Outside Forces, but rather from our own lack of belief in our own power.

Further, I know for a fact that doing that I did back then – stop, think it through, plan, and then do what I’d dreamed up – was the best thing I ever did, for myself, for the family, for the ever-expanding network of people who rely on me to more or less have my stuff together on a day to day basis.

And that it still is. That whenever I remember to stop, and to step back from the situation and survey it from as much distance as I can manage at the time, and to do my best to trace through all the various paths and possibilities, pick out what I expect to be my best shot at getting out of the mess quickly and with the least damage done…I come out way ahead versus the times when I’m too busy running around with my hair on fire screaming that the sky is falling to notice that the door was standing wide open that whole time.

And that if I don’t also take that same pause on a regular basis, even when I think everything is going just swimmingly and there’s no reason to do so, I have a way of wandering way off my desired course; or of not realizing that it’s not actually going where I want it to go.

It can be a darned hard thing to do, taking that step back from a situation to consider it without actively reacting to it right immediately then; just walking away from it for a bit so that you can look at it without the wild swirling of emotion, the smoke of panic and choking gas of disappointment clouding your judgment. Your instinct says to just keep throwing energy at it. Just keep digging. Keep running. Keep doing exactly what you’ve been doing…if you stop, you’ll lose ground…!

But, lose ground to what? or on what? Where are you digging to, and is it even where you really want to go?!

How many of us are caught flatfooted by that question! We’re on the treadmill, running with all our might – but what do we hope to accomplish, what will be the signal that we have won this endless footrace? What is it you want to have? To do? To be? When you get to the end, when you break the ribbon…what does the trophy say on it?

“Congratulations, you ran really hard for a really long time and, uh, we all…admire that, we guess…”?

How much better it would be to know what all the huff and bother is for, huh? To be able to say “I really don’t want to do this right now, but, it is how I am going to get this glorious, shining thing, so, suddenly I’m not as bothered by this have-to thing I’m doing…”

I think the only difference in my feelings on the whole subject is an addendum, which would be…for gosh sakes…make sure “enjoy the journey” is on the list as well! Life is far too short and uncertain to have all your goals, all your “and then, I will be gloriously happy!” events in the distant future, and nothing but hard work and drudgery in the now.

Now is where life actually is; this, this right here, right now, this…is your life. Not in {20, 30, 50} years, when you’ve {retired, saved a million bucks, acquired a mansion and the servants to maintain it, etc}.

It’s here. It’s the meetings you have at work. It’s the commute. The bagel. The people you encounter as you go about your day. It’s the feeling of your favorite shirt when you put it on. Sunsets. Sunrises. Making your home a welcoming, comfortable place for yourself.

It’s in your laughter, your tears, your exhaustion, your exhilaration, you, ALL of you, you RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

Love yourself now, too. Be kind to yourself now. Don’t steal all the good things from yourself now, in the name of having something “better” much-much later. Honor yourself however you can, while you do yourself the even greater honor of believing that you can also have the bigger, shinier things.

I still totally believe you can.

And I’m still totally ready to clap at your parade when you do.

Onward!

Thanksgiving on Monday

I got a turkey at the auction Saturday.

A big turkey.

In point of fact, a large part of the reason I even bid on the enormous thing was because of its ludicrous size…or more specifically, the proportion of the bird-size to the kid-size.

This young turkey-wrangler looked to be about dead even, weight-wise, with his fowl. But I tell you what, he handled that big old bird like a champ. And I was so charmed by his moxie that I was all, OK, I will DIE if I don’t bid on that stupid turkey.

I know. Just call me Poker Face McEmotionless. Ahem.

The next day, said bird (all twenty-plus pounds of it) was delivered to the Den by the boy and his father – the freshest turkey I have ever had my greedy faux-chef hands on. My plan had been to wrap it well and put it in the freezer for Thanksgiving…buuuuuuuuut…well, upon reflection I found myself asking, you know, how often does one have the CHANCE to cook and devour a turkey THIS fresh?

PLUS, Vanessa the Great’s mother had sent some beautiful pie-pumpkins over from her garden (my own pumpkins…are not looking too good again this year…there are a couple there, but they’re still green and I think the vines themselves are losing the Powdery Mildew wars again), and they had been mocking me on the counter.

You know how they do.

“Oh hai! Going to work are you? Ya, well, we’ll just sit here…GETTING READY TO ROT BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES…never mind us, we’ll just chat with the FRUIT FLIES while you’re gone…ignoring us…alllllllll day…”

I despise mouthy food. You guys are SO gonna be PIE! I growled back at them. And then they shrugged at me like, eh, what-EVER! and I VOWED that OH YES, THEY WOULD BE PIE…!

AND THEN, Sunday afternoon I went out into the garden and found that the green beans had gotten busy while I wasn’t looking and I had this impressively large basket of stunningly gorgeous green beans.

So that was how I came to be cooking Thanksgiving dinner a month and a half early, on a work-a-day Monday.

I roasted the pumpkins in the morning, turned them into pulp and put the turkey into the oven on my lunch hour, and put the pies (I ended up with four of the things!) in the oven right after I logged off for the day. Every twenty minutes, I’d ladle the increasingly luxurious pan drippings over the bird; what started out as “just” coarsely chopped onions and green apples and a butter rub on the bird began to take on a torturously rich scent. Every time I’d open the oven, at least one Denizen would appear as if by magic to check on progress.

And then, just like at “real” Thanksgiving, everything was happening at once. The turkey was resting on the counter driving everybody nuts with the aroma, I was slapping people’s hands away while whipping the potatoes into glue, burning the gravy and charring the green beans.

And then I threw a bunch of dishes on the counter and bellowed, “FINE! JUST COME EAT OR SOMETHING, GEEEEEEEZ!!”

Because nothing says Warm Fuzzy Family Moments like the mother of the house having a psychotic meltdown over something like splotches of gravy on the range fan or there being too many dirty dishes on the counter so there’s nowhere to put a buffet-style meal service.

How would we know it was Christmas, if Mommy wasn’t standing at the bottom of the stairs screaming at the top of her lungs about how she has HAD it with BLAH BLAH BLAH and would it KILL YOU PEOPLE to yadda yadda yadda and OHMYGAH, THEY WILL BE HERE IN {X-MANY} MINUTES, WILL YOU !!!!!!PLEASE!!!!!! STOP HAVING HAPPY LIVES AND HELP! ME! WITH! THIS!

(Bonus points for turning right around and going, “Nonononono, not like THAT, do it like THIS OH FER @^*&@’S SAKE, HERE, LET ME DO IT YOU ARE USELESS GO FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO DO!!!!”)

Anyway. The Denizens didn’t have to be told twice. Meanwhile, we had coerced invited Vanessa the Great and Significant Other to stay and help us eat it, and we grown-ups older kids retired to the relative peace and quiet of the dining room to, um, dine (if consuming turkey at a table where to actually sit and eat we had to shove a six pack of Mason jars, some folded towels and other oddments out of the way first can be considered ‘dining’…sigh…Once Upon A Time, I swear, my house had at least a semblance of organization…).

And then we ate until we were halfway to sick.

And then we had pie.

With orange-chocolate ice cream I made a few days ago.

Because there was a bag of ice in the freezer, and I needed the room but didn’t want to just waste the ice and oh look, I HAPPEN to have some heavy cream here in the fridge…!

This morning, I packed up one of the untouched pies, made some whipped cream while my coffee was brewing, and took it to the office for the team.

This team doesn’t do a whole lot of that kind of stuff (yet) and a few of them were slightly taken aback by it (“This is for…why? Oh. Um. Is it…OK…for me to…?”), but I think they’re willing to be brought around.

It was awfully nice, having a little “preview” of the impending holidays; while I wouldn’t want to make a habit of attempting that kind of dinner on a work day, it was a really nice change from what has become our “usual” on working days – which is more like foraging than dinner.

And I won’t be sad about all the leftover turkey, either.

No, not sad at all about that…

(nom!)

Meet the meat

(Vegetarians may want to skip this post. It is meat-heavy.) (Not in a graphic ‘here’s how to butcher a cute little bunny rabbit’ kind of way, but definitely in the ‘so much frozen meat that it makes one a little dizzy’ way.)

ANYWAY…the meat…has arrived.

Holy. Smokes…has it ever arrived.

Our processor this year was Swingle Meat Company, out in Jackson, California. This is a bit of a hoof (ha! meat! hoof!) from our neck of the woods, but, my usual / preferred butcher for some reason had decided not to do beef this year…I have no idea why not, but, it left me in a bit of a pickle, you know? Suddenly I’m confronted by a bunch of different names, most of them places I have little to no knowledge of at all, all of them further out than my usual place…I was walking around like an idiot tugging on the sleeves of other custom-process bidders asking, “Where are you sending your stuff, and why?”

And of the people who actually had an opinion (you know, other than ‘because they’re closest’ or ‘I dunno, I just picked one’), Swingle had the most enthusiastic endorsements.

And man oh man, they are not kidding when they say they are a carnivore’s toy store. Wow. Seven kinds of bacon, venison roasts, buffalo sausage, fish, fowl, pancetta, beef bacon…pretty much anything you could think of (and more than a few things you couldn’t before you saw it there), they have it.

And also, they had my meat.



…yeah, um, wow. Per my invoice, this is 1,116 pounds of meat, right here; two hogs, one lamb and a steer. And that’s not counting the roughly twenty pound turkey and five pound rabbit that already arrived ‘under separate cover,’ so to speak.

It took me almost two hours to get this all packed away to my satisfaction. Which by the end was a lot less about “perfect order” and more about “getting it put away somehow.”

New chest freezer: Packed to the very rim.



Upright freezer: Also packed. (There is also still quite a bit in here from last year, plus cheese, bread and a shelf and a half worth of this year’s garden produce.)



And the freezer of the garage refrigerator:



PLUS ALSO, the kitchen freezer is likewise completely full-up.



Whew.

This should be about it for meat purchases until September 2012 (our county fair is moving its date from June to September next year…interesting call, but right now I’m rather relieved because honestly, this seems like more meat than we could possibly use in “only” a year).

There is a big old cooler full of things I’m going to be cooking up tomorrow, too – a bunch of soup bones that will become canned beef stock, some of last year’s ham slices that will be made into a couple kinds of soup…sausage and beef stew meat…stuff that really needs to be used up quickly.

As I’m totaling up the costs, I’m reminded again that this is definitely not the cheapest way to get meat. My final out of pocket for each pound of beef is coming out to about $3.70, $5.50 for the lamb, and $3.25 for the pork / bacon / ham / etc.

Mind you it isn’t bad, but could I do better by trolling the loss-leaders at the supermarket and so forth?

Yeah. I totally could. Especially on that pork…sometimes it seems they’re practically giving away anything that isn’t bacon, you know?

But of course…this isn’t just meat for me.

It’s one of those statement-y kind of things. It’s one of my efforts to…I don’t know how to put this exactly. (Yeah, this is hard to express for somebody like me, who isn’t particularly given to Causes or getting all emotional about things.) (But I’ll give it a shot.)

In my view of things, life is a precious, sacred, holy kind of thing.

And children are…well, they are life’s giggles. They are everything we hope and dream for our species. They are our next, our greatest treasures, our gift from and to the world.

And food…ah, food. It is an amazing, marvelous thing; it is a joy and a wonder. It is so basic, so necessary, so every-day, so magical, so varied, so absolutely spectacular.

This way of buying meat brings those things together in a way that is almost unbearably satisfying for me.

When I wander out to the garage to take one of these packages out of the freezer, it’s a kind of worship. It is tinged with sadness and gladness, with pride and sorrow, with sacrifice and gain.

All I have to do is remember that day, as we sat in the heat watching the kids trotting their animals around the ring; remember the tears as the realization sinks in that this is it, the pig is going to slaughter now and there is no reprieve for him…the beaming smile at getting a good price for the lamb…the confident way that little tiny girl held up that big old turkey. The note from our steer-raiser about her college plans and next year’s project.

I get to be a part of all that; I get to be the difference between profit and loss, I get to be the person who will directly appreciate and respect what they’ve produced.

Bacon becomes something a little more than a delicious breakfast treat.

It is a rare and holy gift. A thing to be appreciated and respected – not just eaten hand-over-fist in a mindless, emotionless rush so I can get back to whatever-all else was on my list for the day.

A life was given for this; for my nourishment, for my pleasure, for my family to thrive. A child came of age, learned what it is to be relied upon for everything, learned what it is to love and nurture…and then to let go.

And, now, I can’t really say whether it is really a difference in taste, or if like so many other things, the flavor is influenced by my own beliefs and feelings – but I would swear the dinner this meat makes will simply taste better than the average store-bought roast or rib. It is more tender, more succulent, more flavorful.

It makes hymns of our meals.

Which is, I think, worth a little extra for each pound.

Hallelujah, amen.

Changes and lack thereof

Add a few years, and some things change. Friends move away. Stores close. New ones open. Music becomes incomprehensible, and also bad.

I look around me these days at my kith and kin and see…a lot more gray hair. Laugh lines and crow’s feet. We limp, we grouse, we have a we can’t fathom how the world isn’t going to careen into the abyss of absolutely DOOM in the very near future because ohmygah, the KIDS these days!

“Where we goin’, and why we in this handbasket?!”

Today, I am attempting to clean up my bedroom.

I know. I am the most exciting person alive.

But this is one of those too-seldom done things; our bedroom is not just the place where we crash at night, but is also my home office, and my craft room, and until very recently, my music room.

This means that all roads lead to it. And many, many things travel these roads. And then they pile up on every surface, get shifted from here to there, until eventually I try to grab a magazine and get buried by twenty thousand books and a few balls of Merino and who the heck left a crane in here, anyway…and I say, “Right, that’s it, I need to get some control over this!”

Which brings me to today.

When I yanked out a very dusty box from the back of a cupboard, and found a bunch of pictures. Pictures of me looking like a walrus that swallowed a beach ball (Boo Bug…man, I was huge while pregnant with her, and afterward for quite a while…), pictures of us in costumes for Renaissance fair, pictures of me with my harp, pictures of us in bizarre costumes at the Sea Dogs Halloween party, pictures of my brother when he was still a twerp…

And an envelope of our engagement picture proofs.

(You have no idea how hard it was for Ray [our Awesome Photographer] to get us to quit LAUGHING and look all SERIOUS and THINKY and like we were CONTEMPLATING THE FUTURE and some junk like that…Tim kept whispering things and I’d dissolve and Ray would kind of sigh, and smile, aaaaaaaaand wait for us to GROW UP A LITTLE @^*&@ING BIT…! (still hasn’t happened, but, well, whatcha gonna do…?)

Lots of things change. We’re both a bit…ahem…fluffier…than we were back then. We have our first round of Welcome To Aging crap; gray hairs, diverticulitis, interesting hormonal changes (I hates them), plantar fasciitis, waking up stiff and sore to face what seems like a truckload of therapist-recommended exercises for this or that Sore Bit, and a bewildering array of pills (wait…did I just take your hypertension thingee?...uh…am I gonna die…and if I am, is there time for coffee first…?), and oh yeah, speaking of, in desperate medical need of coffee.

Other things haven’t changed at all.

We still make each other laugh, really hard, really often. We don’t fight, or even argue much; whenever we get in danger of it, I walk away…and he lets me.

We still have tremendous respect for each other, for our individual and combined needs, for our strengths and weakness, too.

I still think he’s about the greatest thing ever.

Technically, he ain’t perfect or anything close to it; not going to be on the cover of Perfection Made Flesh magazine any time soon.

But he’s perfect for me.

And I still love him like crazy-mad. And still think I will for the rest of all time.

Even if he does have hair that is always about three seconds from going all goofy and stick-y-up-y.

Wrapped up for Christmas

Last night, we took an inventory of the gifts – our version of checking the list twice.

Unbelievably, I’m short a few.

Which is insane, because my list is crazy-short this year. Pretty much just our family, plus four.

I mean, seriously. How hard can this be?! The Lady My Mother managed for years to keep track of a gift list that included all kinds of cousins and in-laws and friends and their kids and ohmygah, Santa should have hired her because she could make a list and check it twice like nobody else in the world.

And yet I’m sitting here three days before The Day, going, …oh crap…I forgot my niece and nephew and those two $10 things for that gift exchange at the 4H meeting…

And for a little while this morning, I was feeling pretty darned sorry for myself.

But then I opened up Quicken a few minutes ago to check my budget balance, and got the kind of smack upside the head I wish everybody out there could have right now.

I’ve got crisp black numbers in my household checking account. There’s money left over, and you know what? Compared to the last couple years? I’d go so far to say there’s plenty of it…because I’ve got a gift that at least 16.9% of my neighbors don’t have: A paycheck.

If we were able to count all the folks who have been looking so long they’ve dropped out of the system, or given up, or taken part-time work or significant pay cuts just to be bringing something in, I’m sure the tally would be much, much higher.

I actually have a more generous budget this year than last.

I “get” to go to the dentist later this morning. Oh goody…but you know what? I’ve been putting this work off for months, chewing on the other side of my mouth and so forth, because I just couldn’t seem to scrape that cash together. (I broke a tooth.) (I don’t care to discuss it.) (OK, OK…it was an atomic fireball. YES, I know you’re not supposed to bite on them. I’m not sayin’ it was my brightest move ever.)

But now I have it, and I was able to make an appointment, so hopefully I’ll be able to enjoy Christmas without that tooth a) throbbing and b) threatening to shatter the rest of the way every time I bite into something.

It’s the little things in life that matter, you know? Things like chewing without fear, or getting through a day without thinking, Damn, that tooth is throbbing AGAIN…

And after the dentist, I can go to the mall on my way home (whether or not I feel like it being another question entirely) and get the stuff I want to fill up the holes under our tree.

A lot of people out there this year would love to have my problems.

Shoot, a lot of people would love to have the problems I’ve had these last two years. Things got bad and things got worse, but somehow we kept the ship afloat. We didn’t go into foreclosure, we didn’t lose “everything,” we still actually have some retirement savings left and while we may be maxed out, we’re not down-n-out.

And you know what else?

We’re still laughing. We’re still loving. We’re still all together and having fun.

I’ll admit it: I still smile when I hear my husband’s voice when he comes home after {gasp!} ten whole hours apart (which is rare these days), and sometimes when I look at him he’s just so gosh-darned handsome I can’t believe he’s mine.

Sick, huh? You’d think the blush would be at least a little off the rose, after thirteen years of marriage, four kids, mortgage, minivan, etc. etc. etc.

When I think of all the hits we’ve taken these last few years, that kind of astounds me. Statistically speaking, we’re really outliers. You take any one of the nasty surprises we’ve had and look at how often a marriage disintegrates into an ugly ball of accusations, and we’re in a tiny, but happy, minority.

Combine them all in one, and honestly…I’m afraid to know what the statistical likelihood that we’d still be as tight a unit as we are would be.

And yet here we are. Getting through it one step at a time. Together. Through good times and bad…although the more I think about it, the more I realize that even our bad times are better than some folks have.

It’s not just the immediate family, either. We’ve been blessed with a clan of true-blue friends, with a network of kith who stand by us, put up with us, support us through thick and thin.

The kind of people who respond to, “Can I ask something of you?” with a single word: “Anything.”

I think it’s rare to have even one friend like that – and we have many.

Furthermore…I’ve got you. I’ve often said I have the best blog readers ever. I really believe it’s true. I read the comments left on other blogs sometimes and I think…wow…what a rotten thing to say, what a horrible judgment to be making, what a dirty low-down crummy wad of venom to spit at somebody who is obviously having a vulnerable moment out here in the Wild Wild Internet…

And you guys don’t do that. I don’t think I’ve ever had a purely nasty comment made here by someone who wasn’t a random Anonymous obviously bent on being a troll; certainly nothing that doesn’t fall squarely into the Corrective Criticism category, which is hardly the same as Pure Meanness.

I’m awfully grateful for that. You make this a comfortable place for me to share stuff that, let’s face it, isn’t always all that pretty. Hi, I’m a bashed up cackled with Issues! Also I’m probably certifiably nuts! Here! Look at this picture of my nasty living room, which really needs a good cleaning and decluttering! And I have this nutty idea that I totally think might be workable! Let me tell you all about it, in fourteen pages of wildly digressionary prose… (I think I just invented the word ‘digressionary’. SCORE!)

So…thanks. Thanks for being here, and sticking with me while I struggled to hold onto the funny and keep my head from exploding and my emotions from running off with the rest of me.

It’s mattered. More than you can possibly know.

Anywho. It’s 6:04 a.m., and I’m going to sign off on this machine so I can boot up my work laptop and get started earning the paycheck that is supposed to be deposited on Christmas day yes way!

…go ahead, tell me there’s no Santa Claus…

Thankful Friday

(Part of a new series wherein Tama refuses to leave a work-week on an angry, depressing, ranting or otherwise ‘dark’ note.) (Because I think maybe Tuesday is a better day for such things. Monday has troubles enough of its own, but Tuesday seems like a get-it-done kind of day, plenty of work-week left to make angry phone calls or email Senators and stuff like that.) (But…I digress.) (Try to act surprised about that.)

The thing I am most thankful for this week is that our new business is actually working. We may be launching with all the grace of a drunken pelican, but we are actually getting some air here. We’re paying our bills and keeping food on the table, and we haven’t gotten a single difficult or slow-paying client yet.

I am thankful that Eldest is charged up about her GATE (gifted and talented education) test tomorrow. That she can rock this thing is, well, you know…duh. Whether or not she will is another matter altogether. She is, after all, an artiste…a term which here means, “moody as heck.”

I am thankful for our reverse-osmosis water system, which eliminates at least 95% of the chlorine smell and taste from our tap water. Because, ew. (I swear my eyes were watering from the chlorine in the shower this morning.) (And we are supposed to drink that?! EW.)

I am thankful for Imodium. ‘Nuff (or perhaps too much) said.

I am thankful to be standing with a hot cup of coffee in a reasonably warm house as I gaze out my window over ice-fringed grass to watch a neighbor struggling to scrape the ice off her windshield.

I am doubly thankful that we finally got the garage cleared out enough that we can park Homer the Odyssey in there. No more credit-card ice-scraping five minutes before the kids are supposed to be at school!

I am thankful that y’all drop by to read my ramblings. Because otherwise I’d just be, you know, talkin’ to myself in public.

Which could get embarrassing.

So…thanks for being something to be thankful for, and have a thanks-worthy weekend.