How do you spend your money?

Last year I wrote a post on the book The Happiness Project. It was one of the most motivating books I'd read in my life and I still think about it often. 

One of the chapters on the book focuses on spending money to "buy happiness." We all know the age old saying, "Money can't buy happiness," and while it is a nice thought in theory, the reality is money can go a long way for ones happiness. 

Gretchen Rubin writes, " People’s biggest worries include financial anxiety, health concerns, job insecurity, and having to do tiring and boring chores. Spent right, money can go a long way to relieving these problems.

Also, if spent wisely, money can help you boost your happiness. For example, philosophers and scientists agree that having strong ties to other people is the KEY to happiness, and money can pay for a plane ticket to visit your sister, a babysitter for a date night with your sweetheart, or pizza and beer for a Super Bowl Party with friends. Novelty and challenge will make you happier, and money can pay for a trip to France, for a drawing class, for a mountain bike.

Is money essential for developing strong ties to other people or finding ways to challenge yourself? Of course not. But money can make it easier. Some of the best things in life aren’t free."

The thing is, we each develop a relationship with money (healthy or not) that contributes to our happiness. So how do you spend your money to make you happy? Here are some of the things I spend my money on:

1) Getting out of debt: I have to admit, I'm a budget nerd. I have a passion for finances and I'm a Dave Ramsey fan (and every other money saving mogul in the business). We just paid off our 2013 Dodge Caravan in full after just six months and it thrilled me to my core. Thankfully my husband balances us out because if were up to me I would pinch every penny like a miser and we'd never have any fun, but I love putting extra money away for a rainy day. And if that rainy day comes I'll probably just stash more money away. 

2) In spite of my stingy nature, I love buying books: I've tried to curb my addiction since our large bookshelves are currently double stacked. Once in the early days of our marriage I bought about 7 books at Barnes and Nobel in one day and my husband made me chose five to take back. There is no way I'll ever be able to read all the books I own in a lifetime (thanks to the invention of Ebooks, plus my already large stash, I own thousands of books) but they are a comfort to me.

3) Desserts are high on my list: If I'm ever shopping by myself, I usually treat myself to a pastry of some sort. I don't know why this is, but there is something sinfully selfish about a wife and mother enjoying a tasty treat all by herself in secret. I have a huge sweet tooth and I'll be honest, I never like to share food (it's a great fault of mine that I am trying to overcome, especially since I appreciate it so much when others share). It always feels very forbidden and I love a little mystery in my life. (By now you know I'm a huge nerd for spreadsheets and budgeting and the thrill of my life is when I buy a pastry from a bakery so you are probably feeling pretty sorry for me.)

4) Vacations: Now, we don't get to go on vacations as often as I'd like, but I love to spend money for a vacation. Occasionally my husband and I will plan lavish trips that we never go on (our current dream destination is Italy). but eventually our trips will graduate from Southern California Disneyland trips (about four hours away) to across the sea adventures. 

A friend's husband loves buying cars, I have a friend who owns hundreds of pairs of shoes, my husband would purchase computer parts and the top grade technology on the daily if finances allowed it. Several friends take daily trips to the gas station to buy 88 cent cokes. My mother-in-law and her sister take several vacations a year both skiing and to the beach. There is nothing wrong with an occasional splurge... 

So what thrills you? 

Confessions of a Dumb Blonde

So technically I have brown hair but that still doesn't stop me from saying some really dumb things sometimes. I did graduate cum laude with my college degree but farm animals? Now that's a really tricky subject.

One day I was frustrated on the computer.

Paige: Ugh! I can't find what I'm looking for.

Josh: What are you looking for?

Paige: DIY stuff, it's always so cute.

Josh: What?

Paige: DIY makes like crafts and home good stuff and their stuff is always super cute but I can't find their website anywhere. Have you ever seen any DIY stores?

Josh: Do you think it's a brand or something? DIY stands for "do it yourself".

Paige: Oh... 

One night my husband and I were zoning out on the Internet

Josh: Did you know Artie on Glee is the pizza delivery kid on that one episode of the Office?

Me: Oh yeah, I can totally see that now! Wait so he's not really in a wheelchair?

Josh: Really? We've seen a bunch of episodes of Glee when he's dancing around and walking and stuff. How did you not know that already?

Me: I thought it was like special effects or something. Are you sure? Then why are his legs atrophied?

Josh: Paige, he's just a skinny kid.

One night while watching Blackfish I saw a close-up of an Orca whale.

Me: Woah, what was that?

Josh: The whale's eye. Was that surprising for you or something?

Me: I thought those big white things were it's eyes.

Josh: How could that possibly be an eye? There's no pupil or lid, it's just a big white spot on the side of it's head!

Me: Well, I didn't think you needed eyelids underwater.

One day while driving around Salt Lake I informed Josh that Utah's state bird is the seagull and then asked him what Minnesota's state bird is.

Josh: The loon.

Paige: No, that must be your state duck, or your state animal or something. What's your state bird?

Josh: The loon.

Paige: No, that's a duck.

Josh: Ducks ARE birds.

Paige: Nooo... Wait what?

Josh: What do you think a duck is?

Paige: It's an animal.

Josh: Well yes, but more specifically it's a bird.

Paige: No, it's poultry.

Josh: Poultry are birds.

Paige: So you mean to tell me that chickens and turkeys and geese and ducks and all of those things are birds too?

Josh: Paige they have WINGS.

Paige: Well yeah, but they can't fly...

Josh: Yes they can fly! Have you ever been duck hunting? Of course not. Have you ever played duck hunt?

Long story short, we got home, googled it (or I googled it while Josh stared at me in horror) and it turns out- ducks are birds I guess.

Apparently ducks are a confusing area for me. One night on the phone with Josh's parents they told us about the wood duck house they had built. We got off the phone and I asked Josh what a wood duck looked like.

Josh: What do you mean?

Paige: Well how is it different from an actual duck?

Josh: What do you mean an actual duck?

Paige: You know, like a normal duck.

Josh: A normal duck?

Paige: Those green headed guys.

Josh: A mallard?

Paige: A what?

Josh: Paige do you understand what a species is?

Paige: .... So there's no such thing as just a regular duck?

Josh: No honey.

Last one of the farm animals category (which I guess I never cared to learn much basic information about). One day while driving to my grandparent's house I was looking out the window and saw some strange animals.

Paige: What kind of animals are those?

Josh: Are you serious? They're cows. Have you never seen a cow before?

Paige: Obviously I've seen a cow. Cows are white with black spots. These things are just brown and black.

Josh: Black and white cows are dairy cows, there are different kinds of cows. Maybe your grandparents have some little kid book about farm animals you can read when we get there.

One time Josh and I stopped at In N Out. We ordered, sat down, and I started reading a brochure at the table. On the back of the brochure there was an order form to fill out and mail in and a place to put your money. I casually remarked out loud "Who would want to order a hamburger by mail? It'd be cold and gross by the time it got there." Josh was already walking towards the counter to get our food. He stopped, turned around, stared at me for a while, and then came back to the table to point out the t-shirts and hats and other memorabilia on the front of the brochure and explained that you would be ordering a t-shirt by mail, not a hamburger.

One night we were watching one of those late night talkshows and they introduced the lead singer of the Dave Matthews Band as "Dave Matthews."
Me: Woah! That's actually his name? How tricky!
Josh: silence.

One time we were driving and I saw a sign for a ten dollar tire rotation. I said to Josh "Who would pay ten dollars for that? Your tires rotate every time you drive." Josh tried to explain it for a while and then ultimately had to draw me a diagram of what tire rotation was.

One day Josh was telling me about a relative of his who was a merchant marine.

Paige: Wow that's so cool. You have to be really strong to be a merchant marine.

Josh: Well I don't really know about that, you mostly have to know about ships.

Paige: No you're thinking of the navy, the marines are on land.

Josh: Paige, what do you think a merchant marine is?

Paige: Someone who is in the marines and I don't really know about the merchant part- maybe they sell stuff?

I am very scared of bugs, one day while home alone I saw one on our floor and trapped it under a pot so Josh could kill it when he got home. I also stacked several books on top of the pot for good measure so it definitely couldn't escape. When Josh got home this is what transpired
Me: Oh good you're home. I trapped a really scary bug for you under that pot. Can you kill it please?
Josh: What kind of bug?
Me: I've never seen anything like it. It's like an exotic cross-breed of some kind.
Josh: (Lifting up the pot and taking a look) Yeah, that's a french fry.

Weeding My Collections

For the first 25 years of my life, I was a collector.

As a child, I collected spoons from vacation spots. (Remember spoon collecting? Do people still do that?) I collected rocks (and named them, but that's a post for another day). I collected (I swear I am not making this up) napkins, like from birthday parties and weddings and holiday celebrations. I kept them in the special napkin basket that I used when I was six and my job was to pass out napkins at my cousin's wedding. I'm probably the only person who remembers when weddings (at least in Utah) always featured napkins embossed with some cute little pictures and the names of the bride and groom, because I had napkins from every wedding reception I went to as a child, and there were a lot of cousins and siblings and neighbors getting married. I collected dolls and their accessories, stuffed animals (subcategory: stuffed tigers), Cherished Teddies (yes, yes I did) and so much other stuff that I have probably forgotten was once very important to me.

When I got older, my major collections were CDs, DVDs, and books. When CDs stopped being much of a thing, I collected digital music. I have SO MUCH DIGITAL MUSIC. My enormous iPod is bursting with music that I have barely heard, but can't bring myself to delete, because what if it is amazing and I just haven't gotten there yet?

And then I got married to another book collector. And then we moved three times in our three years of marriage.

Guys. Having a lot of books is fun when they're on your shelf. They're such conversation starters, and I love browsing my shelves and trying to decide what to read next or read again. Having my favorite books around makes me feel like I'm surrounded by old friends, and having books that I picked up on a whim somewhere and haven't read yet just feels like a new adventure waiting to happen. Plus, keeping my books from college reminds me that I am smart and well-read, even on days when I am doing nothing but wiping a toddler bum and finding new ways to trick the same toddler into eating the occasional vegetable while keeping her from coloring on the laptop.

Moving 30 boxes of books is not so much fun. Also, unpacking them, especially into multiple rooms.

This week my husband and I decided to start weeding and organizing our collection. ("Weeding a collection" is a term I picked up in library school. It means junking the books that are no longer checked out, accurate, relevant, holding their shape.) Here are some of the things we discovered:

• We have a lot of duplicates. We had two copies of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (which we both felt was more of a fun idea than actually good as a book). We had two copies of the complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, two copies of several classics like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (both mine!) and Anna Karenina, (and, I later discovered, two copies of Great Expectations, which I despise, despite more than one attempt to change my own mind - we chucked them both and just kept the big Dickens collection that included it)  two copies of a random book about World War I memorials because we both took a WWI class at some point in our college careers, and a whopping three copies of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee, Frederick Forsythe's No Comebacks (which I think I may have accidentally purchased a couple of times at used book stores thinking that the copy I had on the shelf was my dad's when actually I had already purchased it . . . twice? I guess I really liked it.) and The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis, which I don't think I've even read. 
• We have a lot of books that I never care to read again, and although sometimes I like to hang onto books like that so I can look back on them or lend them to friends or just have because they look smart on the shelf, if I'm honest with myself, I'm never going to lend out books that I just really didn't care for. I know lots of people really liked The Shipping News, but I didn't, so why is it still sitting on my shelf? So I can point to it and say, "Hey, I read that once. Meh?"  
• Also, why on earth do we have an MLA Style guide from several years ago? I really, really hope I never have to worry about writing in MLA ever again. (I won't even talk about the biology and chemistry textbooks my husband is hanging onto from his undergrad, because he isn't talking about the literary theory books that are shoved into various corners of my shelves. We both managed to let a couple of books in each of those categories go.) 
• As much as the librarian in me loves building a collection, part of me just wants to be able to get all of our books to fit on our FOUR bookshelves and maybe have a little room for a picture or something here and there. 
• At some point, the insane clutter of books means I can't even see what's on the shelf that I'd like to read but keep forgetting I have. (My iPod is similarly cluttered, and some days I scroll through my days and days of music and can't see anything I want to listen to. Probably time to weed that as well.) 

I guess what I'm saying is that at some point, I think I stopped becoming quite so much of a collector - or maybe my true collector self just realized that what I've been lately is more of a hoarder. In any case, we just sold one huge box of books to the used book store (so we can buy more books on credit later) and the box they wouldn't take is being donated. And then I might see what else needs to go to clear up my life a bit. It's time to make room for new friends, new stages of life, and new additions to my collections that matter to me now. 

Of course I'll still have four bookshelves. Let's not get crazy. 

What do you think? What crazy collections are cluttering up your life? 

Words are crazy.

Teaching children to speak is a really interesting experience.  Explaining the names of things can sometimes become quite comical. Some words make complete sense. Their teddy bear, for example, is a stuffed animal because it is literally a toy animal full of stuffing.  Then there are those words that I just have to tell them "It's called that because that's what everyone calls it".  For example: aglet. Even blogger didn't think that was a word, but it is indeed the name of the plastic tip on your shoe lace.  This may sound like a strange word to teach my preschooler and toddler, but why not teach them every word we come across a meaning for?

This prompted me to think about some of the stranger words in our language. There are several, some of which I can think of, but can't even spell close enough for Google to guess what I am saying. Teaching beginning English often makes sense, words directly describe what you are talking about, but when you delve deeper into words like synonym, exacerbate, and plethora things can get a little dicey.

Which actually brought me to some words that other cultures have that we really need equivalents for.  Really.

Shemomedjamo- a Georgian (not the state, the country) word that is used to explain the phenomenon of being completely full from a meal and yet not being able to stop eating because it's so delicious.  It translates to "I accidentally ate the whole thing".

Zeg- another Georgian word, this one meaning "the day after tomorrow" (not the movie). This seems like a word people might actually use on a regular basis, and yet the English language has failed us.

Lagom- a Swedish word meaning "not too much, not too little, but just right"  Poor Goldilocks could have been much more succinct if she only had this word.

Cafune- Brazilian word which translates to "tenderly running your fingers through your lover's hair"

And my absolute favorite:
Kummerspeck- a German word used to describe weight gained from emotional over eating. Translating literally as "grief bacon".  That is a word I need.  What could make a person's emotional eating more complete than a side of grief bacon?

It appears our language is not only completely absurd with it's many rules and limitations (did you know that most words do not follow the "i before e" rule?), but it also fails us on a regular basis.  What am I to do when I need to quickly explain to someone my weight gain is due to emotional over-eating while planning a lunch date for the day after tomorrow in a restaurant that has chairs that are just right and explaining to them I can no longer talk because I am lovingly running my fingers through my lover's hair?  I mean I don't know about you, but I have totally had this conversation before.

Spring Forward? Fall Back? Either way, here are some links!

These links are definitely all over the place on the random scale. I blame it on the hour of sleep we lost earlier this week with the time change. Nevertheless, here are some interesting things to check out!

Photographer Chino Otsuka revisited her childhood photos, but instead of just reminiscing she decided to create "double portraits" to bring together her past and present selves. The resulting series, Imagine Finding Me, is captivating!

I found this awesome video through Open Culture, a great resource for high-quality cultural & educational media.  Sometimes they share fantastically random things, like this cool video of tree rings being played on a turntable.

YEARS from Bartholomäus Traubeck on Vimeo.

Though I'm not a parent, I do catch myself saying some pretty... unique (strange? ridiculous? all of the above?) things.  I feel like there's not a lot of difference between what camp counselors have to tell their campers, teachers tell their students, and what parents tell their kids (perhaps it's just the duration of responsibility--camp counselors: a few weeks in the summer; teachers: the school day during the school year; parents: the rest of their lives). Either way, this father captures those "parent-isms" in a lovely way with his honest (and hilarious) illustrations.

There are more images to love at his Etsy store, https://www.etsy.com/shop/nripperger.

My links posts tend to be video-heavy, but how can I resist? If you haven't seen the "Kids React" videos, they're pretty awesome.  Usually they're about some pop-culture event, but this one is about the good ol' rotary phones we (I) grew up with (and can I just say, as someone with lots of 0s and an 8 in my old home phone number, that kid was right. It does sometimes take forever to dial a number).

Here's a moving story of how a teenager surprises the woman who helped him find his adopted family through her work as a newscaster. Absolutely touching!

If you kind of love it when things go perfectly wrong, then I think you'll enjoy this video.

If you feel like smiling like a goon while staring at your computer, then just watch this next video. Seriously. Normally I have a pretty neutral YouTube-watching face, but I realized about halfway through this video that I was smiling like a goon. Enjoy!