College “Bound”

Today my daughter and I worked on one of the preparatory steps of her final college year. Purchasing those ‘big ticket’ items as I like to call them. The items I will forever watch being used as a door stop, a window proper, or bed leveler. No matter where she ends up in the world, I will watch for these uses until the day I die!

We ordered her college textbooks. Without going into the boring details of it all, after reviewing her upcoming schedule, noting the book ISBN numbers we began the on-line search for books.

Here is a scary fact:

If we purchased her four books from her school’s book store it would cost approximately: $600-700.00. All brand new and in shiny shrink-wrap.

In the three years she been attending college we have learned some really important lessons. These lessons were not passed down from the school to the parents or from parents to other cash strapped parents. No one will tell you because THEY were duped into doing the same thing – buying NEW books.

A little trip down memory lane… Freshman year, college book store, cash register rings $840.00! Yes, $840.00. Thank goodness her sister was with us who promptly handed over the extra $300.00 to the cashier.

Sophomore year… hmm a little better, her and her friends started borrowing books, copying sections they needed to study with, studied together. In total, we spent approximately 250.00 – 300.00.

Junior year – this is when we became very smart! Used books from Amazon. Approx 200.00-250.00.

And this year!? We are even smarter! College book RENTALS! Yes, there are quite a few websites out there who will rent college textbooks for a semester. Then you ship them back. Are you ready for this?...we are so proud of ourselves…FOUR books… $145.00! Wow! Mind you this is our first attempt at book rentals. I’ll let you know how this works out. We are hoping they will all arrive in English.

So my friends, take comfort in the fact that as you grow older you DO grow wiser!

Demand Satisfaction!

The other day I mentioned how I hate to cook. This got me thinking of other issues I have with food. On those rare occasions when I must cook you’ll find me at our local Stop and Shop walking the meat case…back and forth… looking...pausing, mumbling to myself and then continuing on. After ten or fifteen minutes I’d be the woman standing at the meat aisle screaming, “When are they going to invent a new meat?”

Now wait, they have invented new fruits and vegetables haven’t they? Mixes of broccoli and cauliflower called broccoflower … mixes of plums and apricots called pluots.

Perhaps it’s time for a genetically produced cross between a pig and a chicken, call it:

The really, wicked, white meat.

Or a cow and a chicken and call it: Chiwow.

Or a fish and a pig, call it a: fig, (oh wait that name has been taken) but you get my point.

Come to think of it, wouldn’t these be the same people who cannot get the concept that the number of hotdogs in a package should be equal to the number of hotdog rolls in a package?

Never mind.

The Budget Crunch

Ever since I’ve been single I’ve had this overwhelming need to account for every penny I spend. I’ve always had this fear I would be the focus of some major IRS audit and without the proper paperwork would end up in IRS prison doing hard time, like accounting on an abacus.

To make sure I don’t end up in IRS jail, I track every receipt on a spreadsheet during the year. No I’m not being anal; this task is also helpful at year end doing taxes. I attempt to do this task monthly, which stretches out to getting it done maybe quarterly. I even have everyone in the house trained to keep every receipt, which in itself is an accomplishment. We have a receipt receptacle in the house where all receipts are placed.

Due to my inevitable procrastination I find myself sorting receipts by month, which typically takes an hour or so, after this task is done I start entering them onto the Excel spreadsheet again by month, and when the year is complete I have a summary of all spending. This summary provides me with the breakdown of the critical categories used to run a household. This summary is something I’m not proud of either. In fact, it’s a little embarrassing.

Here is the typical categories regular people use for their home budgeting:

Rent / Mortgage – Food – Electricity – etc…

Here are mine:

Rent- Restaurants-Clothing- Medical- Crafts- Daughter

Notice how my categories are much more reflective in today’s world. Yes, yes electricity is important and living in New England heating fuel is important also, but let’s be real! When it comes right down to it, if there’s a choice between paying my electric bill on time or going to Joann’s Fabrics for the five day mega blowout sale on scissors! Who do you think is going to win this one?

Yes, the restaurant category is very high on my list. I do not like to cook. I do not like to spend money on food that I then must go home and then actually cook it. Listen to everyone complain on what I’ve done and then actually have to clean it up? I think it’s a big waste of time, money and doesn’t it sound a bit ridiculous? My perfect dinner plan is to run up to Subway, get a foot long spicy Italian, and split it between us. How can you beat that for FIVE BUCKS?

Clothing… let’s just say I own about 83 shirts.

Medical… great for taxes.

Daughter – This is my main focus of my budget. My daughter is not spoiled, far from it. But I am going to give, do, or spend, whatever she needs to be successful at life. (I’ll explain my reasoning for this in a later story)

So there is my budget. Does it work? Well.. yeah… Does it work well? Well..no… Do we have fun? Most definitely!

Just how fast can you go?

I remember when I was a kid, maybe six or seven, we walked to a local drug store and sat at the counter and had cherry cokes. I remember the counter person would take a tall glass, put a squirt of syrup, a squirt of cherry syrup and the rest would be fizzy water from the fountain. I remember sometimes we would get Coke floats.

I remember when I was a kid, once a month, my grandmother would take my sister and me on the bus all the way to Worcester Mass (about 30 miles from our town) for a Saturday “Outing”! Gram would buy her monthly supply of stockings and take us for Chinese food. I remember the Chinese food restaurant was on the second floor, everything was painted green and our table was behind swinging doors so we had our own private room.

I remember my grandmother and/or our mother would take my sister and me to Main Street and do our school shopping, uniforms for school, Brownie or Girl Scout uniforms, knee highs, and to Thom McCann for one pair of good shoes!

I remember we had a hurricane one year, the water had to be two to three feet deep and all of us were standing on the front porch watching the water rush down the road. I remember my grandfather reaching over to save my tricycle pulling it to safety from the rushing water and I remember thinking he was my hero for doing something so brave.

And I remember Wednesday’s really were Prince Spaghetti day, with fresh bread from the A&P. I remember my mother coming around the corner walking from the store with two bags, all for that one meal. We set the dining room table properly on Wednesdays. We were so excited.

Today I was in line at the drive though at McDonalds’. In front of my car was a mini-van. I couldn’t make out the people inside except for one adult and two or three smaller heads in the back seat. The tray of drinks passed through the window, a minute or two later a bag of whatever. And the van drove off.

I thought to myself, have we reached the point of being in such a hurry we can’t go inside a fast food restaurant? Are we in too much of a rush to make memories?

No White Food...No White Food...

Sorry for the lateness of today’s blog… I’ve been doing school paperwork…

I think today I’m going to provide you with a health warning! A warning you really should heed.

Here it is: DO NOT EAT WHITE FOOD!!

It’s that simple. For those of you who don’t know, I’m a diabetic. Yes, the needle toting, insulin carrying diabetic. So I am pretty restricted on what foods I can eat. The goal of a diabetic is to keep their daily blood sugar levels down in the 110 or below range, not too low, because then you’ll go into a coma. (And I’ve heard if you go into a coma you’ll pee yourself)

Each day my goal is NOT TO EAT WHITE FOOD. White food is all the good stuff; bread, pasta, milk, rice, potatoes, peas, corns, beans, anything with flour, and of course anything with sugar. We can’t over indulge with meats because then your cholesterol will go up. You can’t just eat lettuce because then your sugar level will go to low. ARGGGHHHH!!!!

Again each day my daughter and I are challenged on what we can make that everyone in the house can eat, something I won’t get bored with, and tastes fairly good. And do this in a way so it is not an all day consuming task.

We have determined the ultimate food source for a diabetic is: Stir Fry. YES! Asian Stir Fry – vegetables, meat, spices, sauce. Sometimes a few noodles (not to many) noodles are there only for looks. Do you realize how many ways you can make a stir fry?

Pork – Beef – Chicken

String beans – peppers – onions – all the Asian vegetables

Teriyaki – spicy – mild – Indian spices – on and on.

One night you have Chicken, Peppers, Teriyaki the next night Beef, string beans, curry. The following night pork, onions, peppers, with spicy sauce.

On and on, night after night!

Anyone have a good casserole recipe??

WTF?

Todays’ blog is not a happy, funny one.

Yesterday I was happy. Today I am not. It is difficult to write humorously when you mind is not into it.

So today I propose a question to you all.

My question is: WTF? Or What is wrong with us?

I woke up yesterday to the news a man killed nine co-workers. He was caught on video tape stealing from his company, was brought into a morning meeting and was given the option to quit or be fired. (Personally I probably wouldn’t have given him that option) and he chose to quit, signed the proper paperwork, reached into his lunchbox and proceeded to shoot the people at the table in their heads. Left the meeting room, walked through the plant shooting at workers as they scrambled for their lives. Today, this is being marked as a ‘racial incident’ by his family and friends. WTF?

Later in the day I saw the cover of the August 9^th edition of Time magazine. Don’t anyone ever question why we are in Afghanistan. The woman on the cover had to be punished. She ran away from her husband’s house because her in-laws were beating her daily. Oh, in case you didn’t read the article her ears were also cut off. WTF are those people thinking?

To the folks protesting outside the Family Planning clinic in Hartford… no matter what your belief is on this topic… if you have the time to protest, why not donate that time and provide a couple of hours of day care for that mother who is struggling with the decision she must make. Maybe if someone showed her there’s help in the world her decision would be different. WTF do what is right!

And finally to those who whine, bitch, complain, about what they don’t have, or what their employers’ should be giving them, doing for them, and providing them. SHUT THE HELL UP! I’m sick of listening to you bitch, get off you dead ass and provide for yourself! Grow up and be a Man. Grow up and be a Woman. You are fortunate to have a job. The latest I’ve heard…”oh they took two sick days per year from us so now we only have five”… WTF?? You shouldn’t have any! It’s called a perk! WTF?

Okay…I feel better now.

The Chain of Command

As mentioned in previous stories, I come from a family of seven. Yes, yes, we were brought up as Catholics’ – although I believe most of us have moved onto other denominations or non-denominations as the case may be.

In order to protect everyone’s identities and to save myself from a good verbal lashing, I will introduce my siblings in the following manner:

M – Oldest

S – 2nd oldest

K – 3rd oldest

J1 – Me!

J2 – Only brother

S – 6^th oldest

D – The Baby

So there listed are my brother and sisters. My mom was married twice in her lifetime. Her first marriage produced: M, S, K and J1. Her second marriage produced: J2, S, and D. I am a believer of birth order and its effect on your personality. The chart below shows the characteristics of birth order.

First	Middle	Last
Natural Leader	Flexible	Risk-taker
High Achiever	Easy-going	Outgoing
Organized	Social	Creative
On-time	Peacemakers	Self-centered
Know-it-all	Independent	Financially irresponsible
Bossy	Secretive	Competitive
Responsible	May feel life is unfair	Bored easily
Adult-pleaser	Strong negotiator	Likes to be pampered
Obeys the rules	Generous	Sense of humor

Here is where my perplexed life comes into play.

M being the oldest was mostly unknown to me when I was growing up, she had grown up moved out when I became cognitive of my surroundings.

For quite a long time I was the youngest! Spoiled, bratty, got all the good stuff. And then my brother was born and two more sisters. Now I become the invisible middle child. Meanwhile my older sisters, S and K, are growing up and moving on with their lives.

Then came a point when I realized I was now the oldest in the house. So in a few short years I was the youngest, the middle child and the oldest.

In my adult life I attribute my unusually odd professional behavior to these facts.

My indecisive-leadership qualities (oldest / middle)

My genuinely indifferent human resources skills (oldest / youngest)

My need of total project involvement watching from the outside. (middle/oldest)

So you young ones out there planning to start your families… take heed from my warning… you will be creating the next generation of ‘financial irresponsible, secretive, outgoing, organized, know-it-alls’… don’t we have enough of those?