Live Like No One Else

Finally! We started the local class of Financial Peace University on Sunday night. Big Monkey was reluctant to go to the preview class last month but once we got in there and he realized how funny Dave Ramsey is, he agreed to come with me. Last Sunday was the first official class and there are 20 couples in the bloomin' thing! It's huge but in a weird sort of way a comfort to know that we're not the only ones living paycheck to paycheck (appearances are verrrry deceiving) AND that we're not the only ones who want to change that and learn to be better stewards of our money. The church where we're attending offers free baby-sitting during the class; the nursery was slam-full of kids. I always figure Lil Bit will be the only kidlet around but not here! I think the lovely ladies who'd volunteered to watch the kids were a bit overwhelmed by the number. Hopefully next week there may be a few more hands around.

We decided to go forward with our plans for our annual OBX vacation this weekend. While that money could go towards our Baby Step 1 Emergency Fund, we have long had this money squirreled away for this specific vacation and both of us desperately need a real break, even if only for two days. I'm already hard at work on the next show and Big Monkey is exploring his options for moving around (or out) so doing a lot of personal work this week. Add to that he hasn't been able to get out in the field yet so he's had no stress relief lately. We need to smell the salt air, feel the water lap our toes, and eat as many oysters as our bellies can hold.

A Masterpiece of Potential

My garden this year was... not a dismal failure, but a failure nonetheless, from what my original goal was: not only to feed us through the season but also to have enough to put away for the winter. Looking back I know exactly what I did wrong. It wasn't the heat (which was brutal at times) or the bugs (which got to the squash plants again). It was me, plain and simple. Tending a garden requires actual tending: time, energy, emotion. One of the leadership books I read over the summer says "Good decisions plus daily discipline equals a masterpiece of potential." Since I did not put in the daily (or even weekly) effort that a good garden demands, I got instead this: "good decisions minus daily discipline equals a plan without payoff." I didn't thin seedlings like I was supposed to so I wound up with tall spindly okra that barely produced and a handful of baby-size carrots instead of 6" long nightsticks. I didn't water as needed so my green beans quit flowering and my tomatoes broke as they ripened. I didn't fight the caterpillars that eventually came crawling and had to chop down my chard plants to get rid of them (actually, those plants are releafing with the turn to cooler weather).

I love gardening. Every year when we start to get even a little warmth and sunshine I start to imagine the full beds, the green seedlings, the white and yellow flowers, the red and green and purple and orange fruits and vegetables. The pride I will have at feeding my family. And yet, every year, I find myself at the end of the growing season with nothing to show. 

"The reason most goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first." I have many goals, many projects that take up my time, not even including my paid work. My home projects seem to always get short shrift, after gearing up for theater stuff, or doing the necessary daily chores, or spending time with my family. Not that those things aren't important, but I say that the personal projects (gardening, scrapbooking, reading, blogging) are important too. And with trying to increase my hours (and thus pay) at work, it means less time for everything else. And while I understand the importance of winnowing down, of being able to say "no" to things that fall outside of what I can be best at, I also want to be able to do ALL that I want to do, of feeling like a Renaissance woman. 

Maybe I should only sleep for 15 minutes every few hours, like Da Vinci was rumored to do.

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1.02.28

The Path Not Chosen

I find myself at a bit of a crossroads. I can see before me two distinct paths, very different from one another in type yet with the same "helping others achieve happiness" at their core. One has a paycheck already associated with it and would likely be much more lucrative while the other one doesn't have an easily visible monetary reward but I trust that the universe would provide.

I do not know how to make the two worlds mesh. In fact, so disparate are they that to follow one, committing to what it entails and the choices that would have to be made, would mean leaving the other one behind, with only a nod and a passing glance of a reminder.

Would it be fair to say "Okay, I'll pick this one for now? And give it X amount of time? And then maybe I'll try the other for a while?" Or is hedging my bets not allowed?

Or is there a 3rd choice I'm overlooking?