Life

Winter is Coming

Posted on by noemikjames / 13 Comments

California is the home of the Indian Summer. September and October are usually our warmest months. While everyone else is bracing themselves for cooler climes, we’re wearing our tank tops and flip flops.

I’m not about to complain about the weather here, because it’s pretty fucking great. I will say though that by the end of October I am ready for some cooler weather. It’s just hard to register that Thanksgiving is in four weeks when it’s 80 degrees.

About a week ago the weather finally turned. I woke up one morning and had to put my yoga pants on under my robe. The next day I needed slippers in the kitchen. The following night I woke up cold, even with all the blankets on me. I started wearing sweatshirts in the evenings, dressing my son in fleece footy pajamas, and making my daughter wear long sleeves under her princess nightgowns.

I know it never really gets cold here, but I’m loving the nip in the air, the need to pull my sweater around me, that blast of heat from the car vents in the morning. I like that it’s getting colder because that means winter is coming, and with it the holidays.

Thanksgiving is in a few weeks and then we’ll be thrust into the Christmas season. Heck, as far as the stores are concerned the Christmas season is already here! I really love November and December, not so much for the special days themselves, but for the anticipation. And I think this year, for the first time, I can accept the anticipation as its own event, one that doesn’t have to be voided if the days do not live up to my expectation. It’s strange to think that one can take more joy in the anticipation of something than the thing itself, but if that is what works for me, then I’m all for it.

And so I wash my long sleeved shirts, air out the winter jackets, put the fleece blanket on the bed, retrieve my slippers from under the armoire, and get ready for the cold weather and the holidays.

Winter is coming.

What do you like best about this season?

Financial Security

In Search of a More Immediate Reward

Posted on by noemikjames / 27 Comments

I read a couple of months ago (in what I think was a NYT article I’m too lazy to search for) that people who recognize the more immediate benefits of exercise are way more likely to work out than people whose only motivations are long term goals. In other words, the person who counts on that runner’s high is more likely to pound the pavement than the person who is logging miles to lose weight.

This makes perfect sense to me. I’m work out for my mental well-being more than for the physical health benefits. When I’m tired, and pretty sure I’m getting sick, and the last thing I want to do is get on the elliptical (like, tonight, for example), I haul my sorry ass on and get moving because I KNOW I will feel better immediately if I do. I have faith that I will feel better because I have thousands of personal experiences to assure me it’s true, despite my body trying to persuade me that it’s not. And usually I only have to start working out for about five minutes to recognize that I do, in fact, feel better.

I was realizing that this might be part of why I struggle so hard to stay on a budget. The goals are all situated in the future, and there are no immediate rewards (at least not that I have identified) to help me make the hard choice in the present. When there is no immediate reward to tempt me away from the instant gratification of spending, it’s hard to conjure the willpower to do it.

My son started day care two weeks ago, so we’re officially in our tightest longterm financial situation to date. Between the increases at my son’s day care (from what we were paying when my daughter attended) and the monthly fees for my daughter’s after care program, our child care expenses are almost $600 a month more than what we were previously spending. The good news is that I will be getting a 9% raise over three years. The bad news is that CalSTRS increased our required contributions by 2%, so the final raise will only be 7% and I won’t start seeing it until the coming school year. I think my husband is due for another step increase around the time as well.

So there is a little light at the end of this tunnel, but for the time being it’s a narrow and restrictive tunnel and we have to spend wisely if we want to get through it. Basically, I need to get a hold of my spending like yesterday.

And yet I still struggle with making unnecessary purchases.

Part of me want to put some very heavy restrictions in place because it’s the holidays and I know I could go fucking hog wild if I let myself. But part of me knows how good I am at explaining why a certain purchase is still allowed despite the restrictions. I also know how hard it would be for me to make myself a reasonable budget and stick with it. I haven’t ever managed to do that in my entire life.

BUT I NEED TO. We won’t have enough money if I don’t. This isn’t about a far-off financial goal, this is about having enough money to cover child care and buy groceries.

When I was first developing a savings strategy, I calculated how much money I’d have left after I paid for child care, groceries and bills and determined what I could budget in my weekly/monthly “wants” category. This included a pretty generous amount allotted for groceries and accounted for all the other long term bills I’m responsible for. I like the idea of having a set amount for “wants” and not splitting that category up into smaller subcategories like “eating out” or “clothes for the kids.” The reality is that almost everything I buy is really a “want,” and that is a shift in my thinking I desperately need to make. I got so caught up in why I should be able to get something despite my shopping ban this summer, but after reading All Your Worth, I realized that ultimately, all those purchases are “wants,”” not matter how well I can argue otherwise.

I also recognize that I need a way to break my habit of compulsive spending, so I’m setting one “restriction” for myself, and that is that I can’t buy anything in the want category until Sunday, because Sunday is the end of my “fiscal week” and at that point I’ll know how much is left in my “wants” budget to spend. (The one exception would be eating out.)

So I have a tentative budget and a tentative restriction and I hope I can actually stick to it. I just wish I could identify a source of immediate gratification from not buying stuff, so that I could dangle it when my compulsive inner voice is so skillfully leading me astray.

I thought a lot about resuming my practice of posting what I spend here, to wildly mixed conclusions. On the one hand, I KNOW it increases my accountability–I am way more inclined stay honest with you all than I am to stay honest with myself. On the other hand, this compulsive buying thing is a genuine problem for me, the kind of problem I would be working on with a professional if I had the resources to do so. Putting myself out there creates an incredible amount of stress for me, and I’m just not sure that the positives of accountability outweigh the negatives of the stress. So for right now I don’t have any definitive plans to post what I spend, though I’m toying with the idea of posting a  rough outline of my budget spending in each of the three categories (Needs, Wants, Savings), or at the very least sharing how much I went over, or stayed under, my “wants” budget (and maybe also groceries, because that is a spending category that can balloon quickly).

Tomorrow is Monday. I love starting things on Monday. Let’s see how I do.

Life

That Lingering Feeling of “I’m looking for something”

Posted on by noemikjames / 4 Comments

I have lost a LOT of things in my life. I’ve misplaced countless others. This means that I’ve spent A LOT of time looking for things.

So. Much. Time.

I’ve noticed that when I really get in the groove of looking for something, it’s hard to get out of that groove. Even after I’ve found the thing, I still approach a spot and thing, maybe it’s in here! I haven’t checked here! Even if I’ve already found it.

Am I the only one who does that? Gets so deep in the “I’m looking for something” groove that it takes almost 24 hours to shake it?

I will admit, that if I have found the thing, it’s such a relief when I remember that I’m not looking for it anymore. That part is kind of nice. Of course if I haven’t found the thing (the more likely scenario) it really bums me out.

It’s such a weird phenomena. It just shows how emotionally invested I get in finding things, the distress reverberates as it dissipates.

In case you’re wondering, I did find the purse with my really expensive sunglasses in it. And then, as an added bonus, I found my second pair of regular glasses behind a piece of furniture in my daughter’s room when I had to move it because she dropped something down there. They had been gone so long I wasn’t even looking anymore. A double win!

Uncategorized

The Tipping Point

Posted on by noemikjames / 4 Comments

We’ve reached the tipping point with stuff. It is all over the house, like every clothing drawer and toy bin just exploded. I no longer feel I can manage it and the minute I pick it up, it’s everywhere again.

A second purge is in order. I’m really excited to have a go at the house. I need to do some serious pruning or I might drown.

In two weeks I have the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving off when my kids do not. I’m going to get so much done.

I just need to get through the next 17 days.

Friendship

Friendship Wanted

Posted on by noemikjames / 28 Comments

I’m feeling kind of frustrated with friend stuff.

The first half of the year I was on a mission to meet new friends and cultivate meaningful relationships. I joined a site that is basically match.com for meeting girlfriends and went on many a “blind date.” I went on a one-day friendship retreat whose only requirement was committing to five weekly get-togethers with the other women in the group. I reached out to friends that I’ve fallen out of touch with and made repeated efforts to see them. I made sure I was going out at least once a week, without my kids. I worked really, really hard to building worthwhile relationships. I put myself out there again, and again, and again.

Now, ten months later, I don’t feel like I have much to show for it. Half of the women who committed to the weekly meetings from the retreat never showed, not to ONE of them. I was the only woman who came to all six dinners. I did end up hitting it off with one of the women and I thought we were becoming friends, but she fell off the face the earth at the end of the summer and now I can’t get her to return my calls or texts. The friends I reconnected with still never reach out on their own. I’ve come to understand that I’m not as close with some of my long-time friends, that live far away but that I still try to stay in touch with, despite our storied pasts. Even with much focused and enthusiastic effort on the friend finding front, I don’t feel I have anything, really, to show for it.

It’s hard not to think there is something wrong with me, that either I’m not much fun to be around (too loud, too foul-mouthed, too distracted and/or oblivious in the moment, too inclined to over-share… oh and there’s that weird sound I make when I talk) or that my expectations of what people are willing and able to give (being the one to reach out or initiate once in a while) are too high. Probably it’s a little bit of both.

Or maybe it’s just that people don’t have enough time to make new friends. Everyone already seems to have enough, they can’t make the time and the space in their lives for yet another person. No one seems to need new friends like I do.

It’s hard to keep reaching out when no one else does. I stopped for awhile, because it was just becoming too much and I didn’t feel like I was getting back from my efforts what I was putting in. Recently I started trying again, and of the six people I reached out to, all six can’t really participate in a friendship right now

They are all very valid excuses. People are newly pregnant, sick and tired (at 40 after two months of trying, but I digress…), or their kid has swim team every night, or their son has soccer on weekend mornings now, or they got a new dog and need to bond, or they are dealing with big life transitions, or they are volunteering at a local non-profit until this even in a few months. These are all totally valid and understandable reasons to bow out of a “hey, want to get together anytime in the next two months” inquiry. I don’t take it personally, but their totally valid and understandable reasons for not being able to hang out don’t help me to find someone to hang out with.

I’m just tired. Tired of trying, and failing, to make meaningful friendships. If it weren’t for a few blogging friends that I text or email with, it would feel like I have no one to “talk to” about the important stuff in my life. Without them, I’d be completely and totally alone.

But they live far away and I can’t actually sit down and speak with them. Heck, I haven’t even heard one of their voices and she hasn’t heard mine. We don’t even know what we actually sound like (which is probably why she’s still friends with me–see above mention of talking too loud and making a weird sound while I do it).

Not that you have to know what someone sounds like to be close to them, but it is a different kind of friendship, the ones that exist solely in the ether. Sometimes I just really need to sit down across from someone and talk without touching my fingers to keys. (I’m sure it would surprise no one to learn that this bitch CAN TALK.)

I wrote a post like this once and it cost me the only truly meaningful friendship I’d had in a long time. I haven’t written anything like it in a while because I never want that to happen again. It can feel like I don’t have much else to loose, but I know that’s not true. I hope the people that are there for me, despite the great physical distance between us, know how important they are to me, and that I don’t take them for granted. I consider taking a few days off from work and meeting up with them all the time, but I know I don’t have the time or money (mostly it’s the money) to do that. And so I look to the people who live closer by, and find they don’t have the time for me either.

I just wish the people who do care, and do put in the time to cultivate friendships with me, didn’t live so damn far away.

{I know this comes off as a giant pity party, but I swear it’s not meant to be. I do feel down about this stuff, but honestly I don’t want to feel bad for myself, I just don’t now how to make this situation better. I tried REALLY hard to make new friends and it just isn’t happening and I don’t know what to do differently. If I could afford a therapist, this would be the number two topic of discussion after my marriage. I just wish someone could tell me how to find and keep friends.}

Parenting & Family

Week Two

Posted on by noemikjames / 6 Comments

We’re almost done with our son’s second week of daycare. Things are getting better. He doesn’t cry as hard, or long, when my daughter and I leave in the morning. He’s more excited to see his “friends” when he gets to school. He doesn’t spend all morning saying he wants to go to the park or the “backy-yard.” He’s still pretty grumpy in the early hours, but the whole thing feels manageable.

My husband is still getting used to getting himself ready with our son around and I’m still getting used to picking up two kids up from two different care providers (in the increasing darkness), but we’re both finding our grooves. I feel a lot of stress about how late I’m picking up the second kid, but I’m trying to let that guilt go, and I try really hard to pick each of them early once a week.

Last week was definitely hard on my husband and I, harder than either of us anticipated. We didn’t expect the ambivalence we felt about leaving our child in a group care setting. We figured we’d done all this before–at the same day care and with the same teachers!–surely this would not be much of an issue. We assumed we could side step our own emotional reckonings after three years processing these feelings with our first child.

Well, we were wrong. We did have emotional reckonings to deal with, and they were pretty intense. It turns out that just coming to terms with sending our first child to day care for the majority of her waking hours didn’t excuse us from the pain, guilt, and regret of sending our second child as well. The rose colored glasses we were viewing our past experience through didn’t help either.

And there are other factors complicating it. The fact that my daughter is now in Kindergarten, and I could be at home with just my son, for a large portion of the school day, transforms the idea of staying home into an enticing proposition. Two kids at home I can’t really handle, but one? That I could do. I might even enjoy doing it.

It doesn’t help that I’m as unenthusiastic about my job as I’ve ever been. I can’t shake the feeling that what I teach doesn’t even matter; it’s hard to feel like what I’m doing with my days is meaningful.

But being with my son would be meaningful. He’s my last child, and I want to soak up these final years of him being deliciously little. Instead I barely see him for two waking hours a day, and I spend those hours ferrying him from one nonnegotiable task to another. The only still, quite moments I get with him are the 15 minutes right before bedtime. It’s not enough.

But it has to be, because without uprooting our lives entirely, and moving away from our families, I have to work. Right now I have absolutely no say in the matter.

So yeah, this transition has been harder on me than I expected, though I did predict it would lay me out in ways I couldn’t foresee. I guess I just didn’t anticipate how intensely the wind would be knocked out of me when I went down.

Oh my sweet, sweet boy. I wish we could play in the backy-yard too.

Uncategorized

Snipped

Posted on by noemikjames / 19 Comments

Tomorrow my husband is getting snipped.

It is a little mind boggling to me that we’ve arrived at this place of knowing we don’t want to have anymore kids, especially when just three years ago we were desperate (or, I was desperate) to have a second.

Not a day that goes by without me taking a moment to actively thank the forces that be for my son, who has brought so much to my life.

And not a day that goes by without me feeling 100% sure that I do not want another kid.

Motherhood has been really hard for me. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that the experience was not at all what I had expected. I’ve had to mourn the loss of that expectation and I think I’m finally at a place where I’ve accepted my experience for what it is, without lingering disappointment or regret.

My husband has mentioned to a few people why he’ll be out at the end of the week. Everyone has been incredulous that he’s making such a permanent decision so young. He doesn’t have an inkling of doubt. At 34 he knows that he doesn’t want anymore children. He is sure.

Sometimes I wonder if, in 5 or 10 years, I might want to have another. I can’t imagine I would, and I’m not concerned that I might, because I know that at 40 or 45 I won’t have a choice in the matter. Heck, I’ll probably already be going through menopause.

Honestly though, when I read about people with older kids who are starting all over again with a new baby I can’t even fathom what they are thinking (not just in why-would-they-do-that? kind of way, but also in the what-must-that-be-like? kind of way). Older kids are the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel–I have no desire to live these very-young-kid years again. At this point I’m clamoring to regain of sense of self that I lost five years ago and that I can’t imagine myself finding again until my kids are older and don’t look to me to meet every need.

I also have serious doubts that my marriage will make it through this first round with young kids, I would never want to put it through this again.

So no more kids for us, and Thursday we make that decision final. I must say, I am relieved, because if I were to become pregnant at this point, I’d have to make the hardest decision of my life, one I know my marriage couldn’t survive and one I doubt I could move on from myself.

I know how lucky I am, to have the family I always dreamed of. I don’t take my two children for granted, but I also know what I can handle and I know what I can’t. And a third kid is not something I can manage.

Snip, snip.

No-additives Diet

I Capitulate

Posted on by noemikjames / 31 Comments

I think my husband and I have had our last fight about the diet.

Because I can’t argue anymore. I just can’t.

The weight of it, it’s not something we can withstand. It’s breaking us down, tearing us apart. And it’s clear that on this, we won’t find a common ground. We won’t come to an agreement. We will never see eye to eye on this, and I’m tired of fighting.

We could probably drag this out for a few more tortured months, but eventually we would reach the same conclusion. It will save us all a lot of heartache if I just capitulate now.

So I am.

I can continue shopping as I have been, but if we’re not asking others to follow our lead, and if I hand the weekend grocery shopping reigns back to my husband, things will pretty much go back to the way they were before.

I’m not going to think too much about what we’ll do if our daughter’s behavior deteriorates. We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.

I guess those of you who suspected I’d abandon this new fad were right. I suppose this was inevitable.

I don’t feel the the relief I assumed would come from giving up, but there is a peace in it. I’m so tired of the fighting.

Life/Writing

So. Now what?

Posted on by noemikjames / 13 Comments

I wrote that post last night, and I was feeling fucking awesome after writing it. Like I could conquer the world.

And then, as I was opening Hulu to watch an episode of Arrow (yes, I’m a comic book hero inspired TV show junkie), a voice in my head whispered, you know you have to write another one for tomorrow, right?

Oh shit. Yes I do.

So I closed down Hulu and came back here.

And realized this might have been a mistake. A massive mistake.

I even wondered if I could just pull out now. And I cursed myself for pressing publish on that post before I could retract my words.

Because I’m not sure what to write.

It’s not that there isn’t fodder. There is. Lots of fodder. Heaps of fodder. Fodder piled to my eye balls.

But this shit is big. These are hard subjects to broach. The require concentration and stamina. They require I give enough of a shit to write.

No, that’s not it. That’s not accurate. Because I do give enough of a shit. It just hurts to get it down.

It hurts to reach inside, find it, wrench it free, clean it off, make some sense of it, and plaster it all across this page.

I have spent so much time walking around the muck, carefully avoiding it, I don’t remember how to wade in.

Plus I don’t have any goulashes.

But after four long years of drought an El Niño is supposedly coming.

I guess I better find a pair of waterproof footwear and get used to sloshing around in the dark, wet, messy of it.

Life/Writing

NaBloPoMo Bitches!

Posted on by noemikjames / 9 Comments

Yep! That’s right bitches! I’m doing NaBloPoMo this month!

I used to sign up, kind of as an after thought, because posting every day wasn’t much of a challenge. I already posted every weekday, posting on the weekends wasn’t that hard.

But this time?! It’s going to be a challenge, and a proper challenge at that.

But I need a challenge. Or better said, I need a challenge that excites me. The other challenges I’ll be facing this month are of the groan-eliciting persuasion. They make me anxious as I’m pretty sure I’m doomed to fail.

Writing every day in this space? That is something I think I can do. That is something I think I want to do. That is something I think will help me.

I just hope it doesn’t backfire.

You see, I’ve been a bit proud of myself, for walking away from this space as much as I have. I think I used to post too much, or I used to post things I shouldn’t have posted. I ALWAYS came to write and I ALWAYS published what I wrote. It was kind of a recipe for disaster, and well, there were a fair number of them.

But I grew up. I matured. I stopped airing my dirty laundry for everyone to read. I started finding other ways to handle the hard shit in my life. And I felt good for doing that. I haven’t regretted much of what I’ve written here, and I hope to keep it that way. But I’ve also noticed that in not coming here, I’ve stopped processing a lot of things. I read a book or watch TV, something that will distract me from the discomfort, or numb the pain, and so a lot is being left by the wayside, or stuffed down until the pressure becomes too great, and explodes. While things may be better in this space, they aren’t so much in my real life.

And therein lies the challenge. I want to write every day, but I hope to avoid airing my dirty laundry. While I think the very act of writing something I feel comfortable publishing will be difficult in and of itself, keeping my dirty laundry in the hamper might be even harder. If I’m forcing myself to sit down and write, it’s going to be really hard not to engage in a good ‘ole venting session.

So yeah, this is going to be a challenge, but it’s a challenge I’m going to embrace, because writing has gotten me through a lot of hard shit, and I think it can help me through some hard shit now too.

So get ready… because I’ll be frequenting your inbox quite a bit.