Rewarding yourself: Moving Edition

When I accepted a new position at the 2nd largest university in the United States, it hadn't quite hit me that we would be moving over 1100 miles. All I could think about was NO MORE WINTER and I GET AN OFFICE WITH A DOOR. I had only a few weeks to prepare for the move. We had to pack, make several trips to Goodwill, find a mover, figure out a new place to live, get boxes, sign papers, freak out, breathe, eat out for days, say goodbye to our small number of friends, freak out, etc...

By coincidence (or God, however you see fit) we were moving to the same town as some of our closest friends from a previous city. They graciously let us stay at their beautiful home while we searched for a place of own.

I blame our hotel-like atmosphere for what followed.

I set my eyes on this lovely 2 bedroom duplex that had been completely redone on the inside. This was the nicest place we have ever lived. It had a driveway! And a dishwasher!

The next day we signed a lease and I instantly wanted to paint the walls. Then we needed rugs to cover the nice tile. Then we needed a new comforter to match our new walls. Then we needed some mirrors to hang in the front room. Then we needed a whole set of stuff for the guest bathroom.

A little past our renting budget, and two credit cards later, I realized that no one would even see our place for months. I wouldn't even get a paycheck for 4 weeks. My husband was jobless.

Fast forward to 4 weeks later. My husband is still jobless. That paycheck is gone. Six people have seen our place and zero of them have seen that new shower curtain or comforter. We still have the same couch and chair we've always had that my husband found a Goodwill before we were married. We came home to a floor covered in broken glass from the mirrors everyday for a week.

Did we really need two new rugs that cost more than one of my loan payments?

I realize that I felt the need to reward myself for working so hard toward this new position. Endless cover letters, 8-hour interviews, and countless rejections had taken their toll.

Next time, I think I'll just get myself 2 cartons of ice cream and call it a day.

Confessions of a Costume Cheater

Last year was my little girl's first Halloween. I thought briefly about making her a Halloween costume, but in the end, having a newborn was exhausting enough that I decided to just go ahead and buy the cute ladybug costume at Costco. It was warm, it was cute, it was easy, and I could re-use the shirt and the tights. I would be more ambitious next year. (Note: I also thought about making costumes for me and my husband and did not. Oh well.)

Her dad collected and ate candy on her behalf. Aw.

This year, I started thinking about it early. I had so many ideas! I could use this tutorial to make her an adorable penguin costume! I could try this one to make her a hedgehog costume! Finally, I had it narrowed down to either a chicken or a flamingo. I'd found boas, I could sew them onto a shirt, make her a hoodie with the appropriate additions, and bam!

And then I had some Kohl's cash, and I found this cute little panda hoodie with ears, and I spent all of $2 on it. My husband asked if we were going to use it for Halloween and suddenly it sounded like a great idea. It was cute, it was warm, it was already made. I put together a no-sew tutu (because I knew how to do it and already had the tulle from her birthday), made some felt panda feet (which were probably unnecessary, but only took one viewing of the Disney Sleepy Hollow and a couple of scraps of felt), pulled out some hand-me-down tights from the back of the drawer, and we had a costume.

This panda prefers cheese sticks to bamboo.

Part of me felt a little disappointed in myself for again for taking such an easy route on Halloween, especially as my friends' homemade costume pictures started rolling through my Instagram and Facebook feeds. Look how cute they are! Why didn't I do that? If might have been incredible!

But seriously, what do I have to prove? Yes, I want to improve my sewing skills, and yes, I would like to be able to make things for my daughter. I am SO impressed by the skills of some of my friends, and I hope that with a little more practice, I too can whip up some awesome, creative, brilliant costumes, mostly because I think it would be satisfying to do so. Maybe when my little girl is old enough to put in a request, we can pick things out together and create something magical. But should I feel like a failure because I didn't spend countless hours on her costume when we'll probably just walk around our neighborhood for half an hour this year?

Of course not.

Taking the easy way isn't always the best policy, but sometimes, it's okay to cut yourself some slack and take a shortcut. (I know I'm not the only one who wonders if I'm a failure as a mother for not  hand-sewing the entire costume as well, because Paige asked me the other night if she was a failure because she'd been out of town and they just moved and so she's going to have her little guy wear his skeleton pajamas instead of making him the Charlie Brown costume she'd imagined. And no. She is not a failure. She is awesome.) In a social media world where we put everything we do on display constantly, we sometimes feel unnecessary pressure to go above and beyond in circumstances when it really doesn't matter that much. Spending many frustrating hours with my sewing machine (I am a better seamstress in my mind than I am in real life) wouldn't make it a better Halloween. My daughter won't really know what's going on anyway, but she'll probably enjoy the extra candy that I don't normally keep around the house. The fact that I did not deconstruct an amazing thrift store find, dye it, and reassemble it as an incredible Pinterest-worthy costume will probably not hold my child back. Why do I feel like I should stress myself out making something by hand that won't make her any cuter, and that she's not guaranteed to wear anyway?

Exactly.

It does not get cuter than this, friends.

So this Halloween season, if you made a beautiful costume from scratch, I salute you. I can't wait to see it, and maybe I'll add it to my inspiration board for next year. But if you went ahead and bought one at Wal-mart and called it good, well, I'm right there with you. And our kids still look pretty cute.

5 Ways to Own Your Finances

Don't forget today is the last day to enter our giveaway!

Okay, okay. I know that finances don't typically fall into the category of loveliness. Bear with me.

My husband and I are aren't bad with money. We've never had any debt except a little student loan debt and a small moving-related setback right after we got married. But we also haven't managed to save a whole lot, and since our main current source of income was until recently commission-based rather than salaried, it could sometimes be a little nerve-wracking waiting for the next paycheck to come, especially when some months it might still not be enough.

But I'm telling you, our family started the first budget that we've really stuck to in a long time, and it feels lovely. Here are some of the things that have really helped us cut down our unnecessary spending and get money in savings for the first time in our two years of marriage. (Note: some of the things we've been doing were inspired by Brain Ford's 8 Pillars of Financial Greatness. It is awesome.)

1. Base your budget on the things you value most. If you value your family, travel, and staying out of debt, why would you spend your money on cars you can't afford, too much fast food, and expensive electronics? Sit down with your family, make a list of the things you value most, and then look at what you spend your money on. You will probably be shocked at how much you spend on things you actually don't care about at all, and how quickly little nothing purchases eat away at your money. Our list of values looked something like this (except there were a bunch more): 
   • Family - future and extended (i.e. having enough money to meet our obligations to current and future kids, and being able to visit our family in other states)
   • Security - having a place to live and a reliable car, being able to afford food and gas and stay out of debt
   • Relationships - being able to spend time together and build memories (vacations, date nights, fun outings together, etc.)
   • Health - being able to pay for insurance so we can go to the doctor if necessary; being able to eat healthy foods
   • Etc.
   Once we saw our values written out, it was easy to make some choices that had been hard before. For example, I wanted to use our tax return to buy a new computer, but when I really thought about what I valued, I realized I'd rather wait on the computer and instead put aside some savings so we can afford to have more kids, and so we can go to visit family in Texas this summer.
2. Establish an emergency fund. It doesn't have to be huge at first, but you should consistently add to it, and you shouldn't touch it except in an emergency. Your TV going out in the middle of football season is probably not an emergency. Your furnace going out in the middle of winter is. If you have an emergency fund, you don't have to go into debt when your car breaks down or you find out you have twelve cavities, and you don't have to lose your financial momentum (especially if you're paying off debt) or destroy your budget to take care of it. You have the money saved, you pay for your emergency and carry on with your life. We had a large tax refund this year and put $1000 nest egg in our emergency fund, which made me feel awesome.
3. If you can't figure out why your money disappears so fast, switch to cash and debit cards instead of credit cards. Credit cards are convenient, and some people pay them off at the end of each month and just use them to get rewards without going into debt, which is fine. (Using them to buy things you can't afford so you end up paying twice what the thing cost in the first place is probably a bad idea though.) That said, there is definitely a switch that goes off in your head when you have to hand the cashier $50 in cash. It will make you think about everything you add to the cart. (I kid you not, we have put back a bag of sausages before or decided not to buy olive oil until next week just because we have our grocery budget in cash. Maybe it's silly that we walk through the grocery store going, "$43.50! $47! $51!," but we stick to our budget.) We pull out our money for our groceries, gas and discretionary funds at the beginning of the month, and we don't spend any more than that on those things, even if we have it in our bank account.
4. If you share finances with someone else, you should each have a discretionary fund. There are things you want to buy that your partner doesn't care about. There are things your partner spends money on that you think are stupid. Establish a certain small amount each month that you can each spend without feeling like you need to justify it to your partner, and without feeling guilty about spending your family's money. Budgets feel a little like diets sometimes, and diets always go better if you get to eat some of the things you love even though you're cutting back overall. Having a discretionary fund will make you feel less stifled by your budget (so you won't suddenly splurge in revolt), but it will also make you aware of what you're spending on little purchases here or there. Because we take that money out in cash, we can also save it if we want to make a bigger purchase for ourselves, and it doesn't end up getting spent on something for the kids or the car. Last month I bought a couple of t-shirts for myself at the beginning of the month, a couple of treats for myself and my husband somewhere in the middle, and went out to lunch and to Old Navy with a friend at the end of the month. I didn't have to worry about whether I was spending money we didn't have because it was mine, and it had already been figured into the budget. 
5. Automate your budget as much as possible. A lot of your monthly bills will let you set things up so you can have them automatically deducted from your checking account. In the same manner, you can (gasp!) have money pulled directly from your paycheck into various savings accounts - then you don't even have to look at it when it comes in - you just start assuming you have less money to spend, until that day when you have lots of money to spend, on something neat like a house down payment. We have all of our monthly bills (utilities, student loans, insurance, etc.) deducted automatically from our account, plus we transfer money from each paycheck into different savings accounts: one for emergencies, one for travel, one for our next baby (so we don't have to spend nine months paying the next one off like we did with the first one.) 

Being aware of your finances is not a drag. It's liberating when you start to realize you can save a little money and you aren't panicked when the bills come in each month. It might not happen all at once, but no matter how much money you make, having good financial habits will make you feel more in control of your life. And that is lovely.

Grades

†

I love this. Thank you, Doghouse Diaries.  

Also, does this remind anyone else of Batman Begins? "But it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you." :)http://www.thedoghousediaries.com/?p=2009

Lesson Learned: Megan Decides to Like Opera

This is the last of our sample essays before we turn it all over to you. Don't forget about the great prize. We can't wait to hear from you! Don't forget, the deadline is August 7th.


I like mildly inaccessible culture. I happily stood for three hours at a time to see Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus and four other Shakespeare plays at the Globe.  I appreciate film festivals with especially esoteric films. I love going to indie rock concerts or bluegrass concerts or classical music concerts. I like ballet and can even get behind some modern dance. I delight in postmodern novels and modernist poetry.

And I'm a big fan of opera.

I didn't always like opera. My parents weren't fans and they would always change the classical music station when someone started belting an aria. Bugs Bunny made fun of it. My first live opera experience was nice, but there were no supertitles and I was a little lost, so it was more of a novelty than anything. It was something to check off my list of snooty things I'd done, and I did it. [dusts off hands.]

Then, a couple of years ago I was simultaneously doing an internship at the Music and Dance Library in the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU, and reading a novel called Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. The novel had several characters who loved opera, and the way they talked about it made me want to join their super-special opera-loving club. The internship provided easy access to lots of CDs, libretti, and effusive music majors. It was time.

So I started checking out stacks of opera CDs. I packed my purse with double- and triple-disc cases: Don Giovanni, The Barber of Seville, The Flying Dutchman, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, Fidelio, Porgy and Bess, The Rake's Progress. 


The thing I think is amazing about this experience is that I set out to like opera, and I liked it. In fact, I loved it. I would sit in the Reading Room with a stack of scores to be cataloged and a pair of those giant headphones, and I would just glory in the sounds. I listened to them in my car or while I was reading in my room. I started having favorite singers and composers (Bryn Terfel, Verdi). I started searching the Utah Opera website for student ticket prices.

My love of opera has served me well. I moved to Indiana the next year, and IU's music school puts on three fantastic operas every semester. I have several operas on my iPod, and they provide a welcome respite when I'm tired of drums and guitars during a long day at work. Operas make me feel good about the world.

But I think more than that, the experience taught me that you can set out to like something and actually end up liking it - maybe even more than you thought you would. I set out to learn to appreciate opera and ended up finding something that brings a lot of joy to my life. Sometimes when there's something I don't expect to like, I remind myself about opera and I think, "I can have positive feelings toward this. I just have to decide that I want to like it."

I'm fond of calling certain things that took me awhile to like "acquired taste  ______." Acquired taste music. Acquired taste art.  And I guess I say "fond" because the things that I have to work to love often end up being my favorite things.  There's something about making a conscious choice to learn to love something that gives me a feeling of ownership and power over my experiences. I choose what I love. I choose to love.

Lesson learned. Thanks, opera.

A Different 10-10-10

Megan, Lindsey and I have all been involved in a 10/10/10 challenge for reading this year: ten books in each of ten different categories, to be finished in 2010. (For the record, it's been a lot of fun, and if you're interested you can check out our progress on this blog.)

But today I was watching Good Morning America and I found out about a different 10-10-10 system, based on the book of that name by Suzy Welch. It's a way to help you make good decisions by asking yourself three questions (or rather, one question in three parts):

What will the impact of this be in... 10 minutes? 10 months? 10 years?

If you think about it, there's very little that this system can't apply to. What college do I go to? Which job should I take? Should I buy this device I saw in a late-night infomercial? If you can envision where your options will take you in 10 months or 10 years, you'll make sure you're giving the issue enough thought and thinking about all the consequences of your decision.

Be Flexible

In the spirit of the new year, and all the goal-making that goes with it... Keep this in mind for the end of February when your resolutions are starting to look bleak. :)

“Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.” — Tom Robbins

If you've made a decision that you feel is right, but are finding it hard to achieve, try rethinking your approach. The fact that it isn't working doesn't necessarily mean you were wrong to do it, it just might mean that you need to try a different way.

Be Brave

Continuing some themes we seem to have going this week, I want to talk about being brave.

I don't think of myself as a particularly courageous person. I don't even like calling strangers on the phone. I'm terrified of spiders, I have dreams about going blind at least once a month, and I still run up the stairs really fast when it's dark in the basement. I get lightheaded in job interviews, I have panic attacks driving in the snow, and I covered my eyes during most of The Grudge.

So during the last year and a half there was a long series of events that led to me moving to Indiana. Most of those events involved my plans for my life falling through or not being what I thought they would be, and nothing worked until I decided I had to go away to grad school (rather than completing a program online while working at the BYU library, as was my original plan).

I wasn't completely sure I wanted to move across the country. I was terrified, and it was even worse when I got there and had to put my dad on a plane the next morning. I wanted nothing more than to get in my car and drive back home. My dad even told me that if I didn't like it by the time the tuition reimbursement deadline came up, I could drop my classes and come home. (Yeah. It was that bad.)

Thankfully, I stuck it out past the first few days. As it turns out, moving to Indiana was exactly what I needed. I'd been in the same place for a long time, and although it was fun and safe and familiar, I was really stuck. I wasn't really all that happy with where my life was, no matter how much I loved my roommates and loved being able to go home for birthday parties on the weekends; now I'm really happy.

And I guess that's the point of all of this. Sometimes you get stuck, and then you either have to be happy being stuck or you have to do something you're afraid to do - get a new job, move to a new place, start a new relationship, climb a mountain, run away to London, (I moved to Indiana only after I'd done that one twice), change your major, buy a puppy - scary stuff like that. And don't decide not to do it just because you never have or because it will be scary. I'm beginning to realize that some of my best decisions have been the ones I was most afraid to make.

I'm posting this video because this song is one of those that I like to listen to when I'm afraid to do something. The title is roughly, "No, I regret nothing." Even if you don't understand it (two years of college French and I still don't catch all of it), I think the feeling comes through just fine.

http://www.youtube.com/v/0YkLq6J_6cA&hl=en_US&fs=1&%22

Say Yes

So I was working on various things on a Friday afternoon, and I wanted something brainless to have on the TV while I was working on them. For better or for worse, I ended up seeing bits and pieces of about four straight hours of Say Yes to the Dress in the Friday afternoon lineup on TLC. It was . . . informative. (It is, after all, The Learning Channel.)
The basic premise of the show is that there are all of these consultants that work in a ritzy wedding dress store, and they try to close sales with various brides who come in to find their dream dresses. Some people know exactly what they want, some people have no idea, some people don't think they can spend as much money as their dream dress costs, and some bring their 18 children to help them pick out the dress. (Oh TLC and their crazy crossovers.)
Besides learning that there are a whole lot of ugly wedding dresses out there and that there are people who spend more money on their wedding dress than I intend to spend on my entire wedding, I learned a few things that I think are actually pretty applicable to decision-making in every day life. Scoff if you will, but here's what I came up with.

Five Things I Learned About Decision-Making from Say Yes to the Dress

1. It's really hard to make a decision that will make you happy when you're trying to please everyone. The most ridiculous drama on the show always comes when everyone has an opinion and the bride wants to please everyone, and I think the same is true in life. It just can't be done. Although your family and friends can have input in your decisions -- and it's often helpful input -- there comes a point in most decisions where it's down to you.
2. You can't always get what you want. It's always the people who know exactly what they want who have a hard time being satisfied with what actually exists. If you go into a situation knowing exactly how you want it to pan out and then find out that the perfect choice doesn't exist in reality, it's much more difficult to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. (I learned this lesson the hard way, by trying to force my life into the shape I wanted. And then I realized it wasn't working and moved to Indiana.)
3. It's easier if you have some idea about what you want. Some people on the show don't know what they want at all, and they end up being tugged around by their families or bridesmaids or consultants, but they say things like, "This just isn't me." Having some idea about what you want is important for making a good decision, even if you end up with something completely different. In real life (but not so much with wedding dresses), I'd say this goes back to knowing who you are at your core.
4. Eventually, you have to commit to a decision. There's always going to be something else out there. Sometimes you just have to decide that amazing is going to be good enough and trust that you won't be disappointed that you didn't go with a different decision later. It's not settling -- it's just recognizing that you can't do or have everything. I always get a kick out of it when they compare choosing the dress to choosing the guy, but in a way it's the same principle. Eventually you just say, "This will make me happy. It may not be the only thing that could make me happy, but I can only have one, and I choose this one." If you don't ever get to that point, you end up naked or alone. :)
5. Sometimes, the thing that seemed perfect when you made the decision doesn't fit later. Lots of people come back months later for a fitting, and they panic because the dress isn't what they remembered or it no longer fits because they lost or gained weight. That's when you have to make alterations or switch to a different one. Just because it was the right decision at the time doesn't always mean it's going to be your only decision. (Okay, this is generally not as true of wedding dresses and husbands, but you can apply it to other decisions. It's harder to trade in wedding dresses and husbands than apartments or majors.) When it doesn't fit anymore, you either adjust until you can make it work, or you move on. I sometimes get in a mindset that says, "This is what I'm doing and I will always be doing it because it was such a good decision when I made it." But then it gets stale and I can't stick with it anymore. I felt like I needed to live in Provo after I graduated, but after living there for another year, I didn't feel that way anymore. (And again, there was Indiana.)

I was amazed with how much this absurd little microcosm of reality TV revealed about the way I make decisions -- not to mention the way it revealed why some decisions are more successful than others. The people who were the happiest in the end were the people who were flexible, but who trusted themselves and knew when they had reached a decision they could love. I think we could all learn from that.