Upsizing from one to two...

Conventional wisdom states that downsizing is an effective way to simply your life.  We 'downsized' to one vehicle three years ago, when my husband blew the head gasket on my baby, my Subaru Forester, while driving up to Copper Mountain to go skiing.  This was a very abrupt transition into the land of ONE VEHICLE.  We have managed, for the most part, quite well.  Luckily it happened in the spring, so all during that spring and summer Dean managed his 70 mile roundtrip commute to work by a combination of bus and bicycle, but I'm sure that it wasn't easy or fun.  That fall Dean lucked out and got into a commuter van route, and it has served him well for all this time.  Dean got the word two months ago in mid-January that the company that owns the vans was ending his route.  Dean's van had a few riders come and go over the years, but the riders had dropped off, and it was no longer sustainable when four riders dropped to just three.  Even though Dean and the others tried to find other riders, it wasn't going to last.  We had a month to figure out what Dean was going to do.

I went into panic mode.  That spring and summer that we adjusted to having one car was also a moment of reckoning and when we made the jump and began Financial Peace University.  Without the financial burden of a second car (we owned it, but there was still insurance, annual registration and maintenance), we could do so much more with our debt snowball.  And now, when we were sooo close to paying off all our debts and poised to sell our house and move into something that could accommodate our growing children, coming up with a down payment, and finding extra money in the budget for a car payment, insurance, taxes, registration, fuel, maintenance... pretty much decimated our snowball.

But.  Life with one car has not been easy.  Juggling multiple schedules - especially on busy Saturdays - meant multiple headaches.  We've had to miss stuff, be late to stuff, be early to stuff and sit and wait in the car, or drive back and forth for three solid hours to drop-off and pick-up various adults and children.  There were weekends that the kids and I stayed home, while Dean took out all of the car seats and loaded up the van with scouts and gear and went camping.  I actually liked those weekends, because then I could just stay put with the kids.  There was always the worry though, about a multitude of "What if???" scenarios that crossed my mind.  There were also several times that my either my mom or my dad had to come to our rescue and lend us his or her car when schedules dictated that we had to be in two different places at the same time.  Every week meant a new plan, where we would have to negotiate the family schedule and figure out who needed to be where and when.

It also has not been easy on Dean.  It meant a huge loss of personal freedom for him.  He couldn't just take off from work during his lunch hour and do some errands or go to an appointment - that had to be scheduled with the other van riders, and he could only put so many miles on the van.  It also meant that he could no longer go to work early to take part in spin classes, or stay late when a deadline was looming.  He couldn't run errands after work, he couldn't stay after work and participate in any of the social things he used to do like golf league, training rides or poker nights.

I think that downsizing to one car makes great sense for some - couples or families with fewer children.  For us, though, it actually made life much more complicated.  I am glad for the experience, because when push came to shove we know we can pull it together and manage it, and it did influence our decisions and help us say 'no' to some things.  But the very nature of our home school experience and our suburban surroundings, when the activities we do are spread far and wide, morning, afternoon and evening, means we have to travel by vehicle to 95% of what we do.  It's sad, and I wish it weren't that way...but it is what it is.

So, taking into account all the benefits of having one car versus all of the headaches that it means for this suburban family, I am feeling very grateful that in the end we managed a very good deal on a new car, and were blessed with a most fortunate timing of a tax refund and small work bonus.  We were also rewarded for all of our hard work on maintaining a tight budget while working our snowball with an excellent loan rate (0.9%) because of a good credit rating in relation to the much lower debt load we are now carrying.  If all goes well, in 2-3 years' time we can revive the dream of moving.  Most of all, I have a happy husband.  :)  He has waited a long, long time for this day - and the new car, a Mazda CX-5, is a fun ride!

Puzzling Conversations

 

Colin has always been a puzzle, but lately that has taken on new meaning. The boy loves to do puzzles. He will drag them off the shelf and put them together, one after another. He is starting to dive in to the more challenging ones. He takes after his mom and his grandma. He starts with the edges first....

You make me proud, son!!

 

The other day he pulled out this frog puzzle, (pictured above) and proceeded to lay out the top and bottom edges. All the while, the puzzle pieces were having conversations back and forth as they were being fitted together. Colin provided all the speaking parts - including different accents - as the conversation went along. The discussion centered around who (which puzzle piece) was sitting next to so-and-so.

 

Colin has a favorite puzzle - a large floor puzzle of a fire truck, that he got for Christmas. He put it together, on his own, first try, and can now do the whole thing in under 5 minutes. There is a dog pictured in the fire truck, so each time he puts it together, the conversation is with the dog who is saving some unseen burning object with his 'race car fire truck'. The puzzle is about five feet long, but he will push it all around the floor as if the fire truck were driving to the fire. This is great fun for everyone else to watch, but the poor dog and cat have had enough of being chased by the big flat fire truck.

 

It fills my heart with joy that he has discovered puzzles. None of the other kids have really taken interest, except for Jordan in just the past year, when we put together a large Springbok puzzle at Christmas time, or when we go to my mom's house to visit. She has a puzzle table with a puzzle in the making at all times. Some of my happiest childhood memories are of sitting with my favorite puzzles, listening to music and entering a trance-like state as I focused on its completion. There is a Zen-like feel to putting chaos into order. Perhaps Colin senses that too.

 

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Selling your soul, one box of girl scout cookies at a time...

You know how I 'quit' the other day?


I've got a couple of other things I want to quit...


Pardon me while I get the formalities out of the way...


Dear Girl Scouts,


I am formally handing in my resignation.  I will no longer sell your cookies.  I also will no longer sell your boxes of chocolates, containers of nuts or magazine subscriptions.  I will no longer spend my precious time, wracking up the hours while I constantly update my spreadsheets, chase down customers, chase down parents, chase down $$ to balance our accounts, chase down wayward boxes of cookies, acquire more boxes one week, only to return them the next, constantly bug my friends and family as I push cookies on them, and endure long hours in the cold and the wind.  This is not fun.  My daughter is not gaining anything by engaging in selling for you, other than a very crabby, stressed-out mother.  I quit.  I quit.  I quit.  Effective immediately.  (Well, just as soon as I deposit everyone's money, make sure we balance out, make sure the girls get the awards they earned and so on and so forth...)


Thank you.


Dear Boy Scouts,


I despise selling popcorn for you.  My thirteen year old son does a fabulous job at it, but only after I remind him 29 times that the sun will only shine for so long, and that the entire neighborhood has probably already been picked over, in the time it took him to get out of the house.   I also have to drive all over town and back, making his deliveries and hitting new neighborhoods.  He writes down the address in illegible handwriting, so we can't deliver after all, because he can't remember where the house was.  He loses his forms, can't keep track of the money, and leaves the chocolate popcorn sitting in the car to melt.  I hate popcorn.  I. will. not. go through another season of popcorn.  I don't care if this is his main source of money to pay for your ridiculously over-priced high adventure trips.


I also hate the spaghetti dinner silent auction.  No business will donate anything as a potential auction item.  I have, for the last time, given up my last season of afternoons making endless trips around to the various potential small-business targets, only to get turned away again and again.  Stupid.  Senseless.  A. waste. of. my. time.  All for a child who has no inclination to get the ball rolling on his own.  How on earth did it become MY job to do this to raise money for the BSA?  I swear I did not wish for this... and yet it is my sad, sad reality.  I quit.  Effective immediately.


Thank you.


Dear boys and girls youth organizations of America,


Your 'business model' stinks.  You do a damn fine job of passing this off as an opportunity for kids to become 'entrepreneurs' (whatever...) but you are selling the kids a lie.  The kids don't spend the hours doing the paperwork, making the phone calls, writing the emails, paying for the gas for the endless car trips... the poor parents do.  Parents that simply do not have the time to begin with.  Our time is so precious with our kids, and instead of our kids learning worthwhile lessons within in the confines of your organization, you send them out on the streets to peddle your products.  You are capable of so much better.


Thank you.



Do I sound a bit...frazzled?  Why yes.  Yes I do.  When I sat down to think about how many hours I have spent in the name of scouts - Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts combined: the cookies, chocolates, popcorn, paperwork/form signing, meeting planning, meeting attending, patch-procuring, gear-replacing, errand running... all in the name of scouts...it is more hours than I have spent homeschooling my kids this year.  Yes.  You read that right.  More than I spent schooling.  I'm a total sucker for every volunteer job that has ever come along, because it is always my first inclination to step in and offer help, yet I never think that it will be as hard, or as time-consuming as it truly is.  No wonder nobody ever steps up to take their turn or lend a hand.


So, I am reclaiming a bit of my soul.  I don't know what our future in girl scouts will be, but as far as this co-leader, treasurer and cookie mom goes, I'm out.  Out, folks.  I had high hopes for this experience.  It is not our troop parents, the girls or anything like that... it is the lack of organization at the council, state and national level, the poor choice of programming available for the girls and so on and so forth.  I would rather just get together with our 'scouts' and ditch the programming, patches, cookies...everything.  Get the girls together and do service projects and get outdoors, all in the name of fun.  For free.  Without the expensive vest, annual registration, books, patch kits, and God-forsaken cookie booths.  Just please don't ask me to coordinate this.


I am feeling so....so.... liberated!?

The sick season

I have lots to write about... Christmas (!), Colin's birthday, a trip to the aquarium, Valentine's Day, and a host of other things... But right now, I can't. We're in the sick season. Just as soon as we get over one bug, it's on to another. It's been a long nine solid days of sniffles, coughs, snot explosions, fevers, double ear infections, and lots and lots of breathing treatments. No one has been spared, although it is effecting each of us to a different degree. It's been a struggle to just get the basic stuff attended to. I think we are on the mend, though. There aren't piles of used Kleenex to wade through anymore, and the house is a lot quieter this morning than in the past. Six family members all coughing at the same time is quite loud, actually. And, in a way, amusing. Almost.

 

 

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The Day I Quit... (on the inside)



This is the day I quit.


I quit caring about all the sucky people that whine and complain about creating 'community' in our homeschool group, but expect somebody else to do it.  I should care about you, but I don't.  What I do care about are my children, who are getting into mischief and not learning anything while I am trying to work on YOUR issues.


I quit giving up an ENTIRE day that I could have spent working with my kids just so that I could stay tethered to my computer while you had a meltdown over how our group is not working out for your social needs and I searched my archives in vain trying to work on YOUR issues.


I quit counting calories today after I ate THREE pieces of Colin's chocolate birthday cake, as I stressed over how you were stressing me out as I worked on YOUR issues.


I will now quit talking about YOUR issues.


I quit being the one to pick up all the Legos.  They are the toy from hell.


I quit trying to stay warm.  It's cold and no amount of hot coffee will change that.


I will quit writing now.

A boy turns 4...

Colin has turned four.  Our last one to be four.  This is sad for me.. I love four.  Four is my absolute favorite age.  I will savor this year.  During our video chat with the Oklahoma grandparents, Colin tried to show on his fingers how old he was now.  I said...'tried'.

Then he opened some presents.  Among them was this little gem - a Minion with a foam dart gun.  You would have thought Colin had won the lottery.  This grin says it all.... like I said - this little boy has a thousand different facial expressions, and I love. them. all.