This Made Me Happy

I like reading the blogs my favorite SciFi/Fantasy authors write. There is always something to make me happy. In this post Jim C. Hines tries to pose like the sexy heroines featured on the covers of popular books. http://www.jimchines.com/2012/01/striking-a-pose/

Lunch Hours

Lunch hour is my me time. There is so much that I intend to do on my lunch hours, but often I get sucked into the internet. It's easy to click on that little chrome icon and read while I eat my peanut butter sandwich, but I always really want to read a book, but it slips my mind to get the book out of my purse. How in the world will I ever learn to use my lunch hours to their fullest potential?

Routine. I have been working on a morning routine since we moved 4 months ago and it's really helping me get the morning started on the right path. My nighttime routine is not smooth at all because it also involves my husband, a toddler, and 2 dogs—but I have faith it will start coming together someday. Next project is to create a checklist for a lunch hour routine. I've worked on them before, but always seem to misplace or throw them away. Time to get moving on it and make time limits on each project. Keep watching this space to see how I do.

Getting Back Onto the Road

We're getting more and more settled into our apartment, but a short trip out to the old house to move my father-in-law's toolboxes to my dad's garage made me remember some of the good times there. Good times picking berries and watching my husband turn them into freezer jam, pushing my son in his swing, and on and on.

We left our house because the furnace broke at the end of last winter and we couldn't afford to buy a new one. We had so many car repairs that needed done during the summer and fall that we couldn't save dollar one to put toward heating. We talked about refinancing the place and getting extra money to buy the furnace, but we didn't had very little equity. We had talked about selling our house but knew we probably wouldn't get enough to cover the mortgage, so we'd been sticking it out to see what would happen. What happened was that the value of our home fell again and we owed more on it than it was worth. That's when my husband agreed that even though we'd put roots down here and we had planted many trees there, we needed to say goodbye.

We moved into an apartment to make sure our son would have a warm place to live this winter and to save money to try our dream again in a few years.

So this is where we start saving for the future. Here is one of our biggest problems though. Even at the house we said no to satellite, internet, and kept our heat at 66 degrees and we have continued that but we still feel we don't have anything left to cut. We're breaking even now, but how do we save money without depriving ourselves of current happiness?

I do not believe in delaying happiness until a future day when everything is perfect because I know the future might never come. But I would like to save some money just in case I am here longer than my job. Especially because I would like to retire while I can still hike to mountain tops.

So my first goal of 2012 is to find out how much money I need to save in order to retire from this life and embark on one where I am a farmer, reader, and writer instead of a library assistant.

Tuesday Morning at Home

This morning I was putting my vanilla soy yogurt back into the refrigerator when it slipped out of my hand. It hit the floor at just the right angle to shatter the bottom. Yogurt shot across the kitchen. “Shit,” I yelled. Little bug came running into the kitchen to see what happened. I tried to stay calm and not get angry about the mess I'd made. I got a dish to put it into but couldn’t find a spatula to scrape the yogurt into the bowl. I finally found both a top and handle to the spatula, but since I couldn’t put the yogurt down I had to put the spatula together with one hand. When the thing was put together “good enough” I walked toward the bowl and stepped in yogurt. It had shot further across the floor than I thought.

My husband came into the kitchen, "Do you need some help out here?"

"I just have to clean up this yogurt that slipped out of my hand and shot all over the kitchen." 

He left the kitchen and it was just me and bug again.

It had also gotten all over my pants. I wiped it off and just said, “Oh well, I’m not going to bother changing my pants.”

I began to clean the floor with paper towel. All the while I kept talking to buggy clamly. “Yeah, mama made a big mess,” and so on. As I wiped and wiped, he come up to me and patted me on the back. “Thank you,” I told him. It was one of the sweetest things ever.

If I'd let myself get pissed off about the mess, the time I was going to spend cleaning it up, etc. Little bug probably would have been too scared to stay near me. This time I kept my cool and my little bug was able to comfort me like I comfort him.

Flashbacks

I had a flashback to Middle/High School gym class last night. Not so much the visuals, but the feelings. I didn't do well in gym class. I was one of those kids that never knew the game being played and was always picked last for teams. So why did I get those feelings? I am doing a 30 day trial at a martial arts studio in my hometown and was in a room with people who would never talk to me if they weren't being told to, and I was expected to join in and do the routine even though I had never seen the routine done before. I wanted to go into the corner and cry. I wanted to stop, but I kept going. I'm not sure that continuing to do something that makes me feel like a kid is the way to get more self-esteem.

After I returned home I said to my husband, "I need to weigh whether it's worth it to be away from you guys just to feel like I'm in gym class again."

Am I willing to go back a few more times? Is this a way to find my right path? I won't know until Monday rolls around again.

Self-Defense

I took a free self-defense training offered by my employer last night. There have been several assaults downtown lately and I'm thankful that they offered it.

I have been a scared person my entire life. I have always been a person who lets things happen to them. I can't be that person any longer. I want to be brave. I must fight for myself and my family if the need ever arises. I hope that more women learn to protect themselves.

The gentleman who taught the class repeatedly stated, "We could show you 1000 ways to get away from someone but most people forget 70% of everything they learn right after they learn it. It's better to be aware of your surroundings at all times and never let someone get close enough to grab you. If you're grabbed, you're in trouble."

And they told us to keep our keys, phone, and ID on us and not in our purse. I do this with my keys and phone all the time lately, but only sometimes with my ID. I choose my clothing based on whether or not it has pockets above comfort or style. And for as long as I work downtown, I will continue to do so.

If someone grabs you, hit them in the face repeatedly, one palm after the other until you have enough space and are comfortable enough to turn around and run.

But basically, never let anyone grab you.

They also talked about not wearing clothing that was too big for you because that gives people something to grab onto. It made me wonder if that's part of the reason female fantasy warriors are clad in bikinis--nothing for their opponents to hold onto. Well, if I woman was writing the story anyway. :)

Being Me

I've struggled my entire adult life with being myself. Why? I'm starting to boil all of that down. I do not believe what I want to do is important. I believe I should do what ANYONE else thinks I should do. I am deathly afraid of confrontation.

I'm strong when I'm alone. I cave when I'm in the company of others. I want to be strong in the face of anything that gets thrown at me. Instead, I let go of control and go along with the wishes of others so I don't have to risk getting yelled at by them. No one has yelled at me in years, but I'm still afraid I will be yelled at. Emotionally, I am a child. When it comes to dealing with money, I am a child. When does the fear stop and the living begin? How about today?

Today I am grateful for my life, not afraid of it. Today I will do something that I want to do, after all, it is what we do everyday that is more important than what we do once in a while.