Friday - bike shopping for the enthusiastically reluctant biker
Saturday - My sister tells me these aren't great. And I'm wondering how that's even possible. Don't they just make them...egg shaped?
Sunday - Sammy will build anything out of anything. The bottom? A baby bottle.
Monday - rainy day activities...color jumping and Sammy setting up a toy store on the stairs. Everything was either $12 or $80. He may not be that great of a businessman.
Tuesday - And this pretty much sums up Tuesday...
Wednesday - play group at the park. So cold I came home and showered to get warm. I need spring...
Thursday - my 'new' favorite wedding ring. Man my hands look old...
(mighty mighty bosstones, the impression that i get)
I fear I have nothing of substance left to say. That all of my stories have been told. For instance, have I told you that...wait. Of course I have. I talk too much. What do people do when they turn 90 and turn to their significant other and realize that they've heard all the stories ages ago and they feel as though they have nothing left to talk about?
I feel we're at that point in a relationship where you go your separate ways. Save the awkward silences and find someone new and exciting to tell your stories to. Or maybe just live a little more spicy of a life and get new stories...or simply be open and vulnerable. But none of them seem to be reachable right now. Is that because blogging is normal conversations done in warp speed? Or that I've just lived very plainly? I'm not sure.
I have a very plain life. And when I started typing this a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking that was a dire place to be. I was desperate to be anyone else. Because we all know that everyone else has a more glamorous life. Why do we think that? Do we actually think that everyone else around us is better off? Living larger, more productive, better, with more meaning? I'll tell you a secret. My life is very plain, but it's happy. I don't have a lot of stories to tell that you all haven't already heard before. But I sometimes worry about that. Because, for some reason, I think that plain and simple and happy equal a tragic end; I'm worried that because all of my stories have been told, something horrid is coming to fill the void. I never think that my day to day stories are worth much. That what I'm trying to do with the here and now is worth talking about. Which means either I may need to start making up stories to help battle the tragic or start believing the here and now is good and sometimes people get to live the good. Not everyone's story ends up a tale you read that causes pause. Besides. I've decided I would be terrible at horrid and tragic. I do better at slightly morose and gloomy. And plain.
I love looking at houses. Always have. Empty, lived in, whatever. I can feel the draw now, even. And it has nothing to do with moving my location - which I can't conceive of doing again - but I love the STORY behind the homes. The potential stories, really.
When I was young, probably young teens, I went to look at a home with my parents. It was LOVELY. It had a large ballroom in it (which was probably just a living room, even though it has always been a ballroom in my mind) and it has been, for the past 25ish years, the very literal home of my dreams. I often wonder if it's still there. What it's like now. Who has lived there. What their story is. What they did with the ballroom. Or the back patio that was overgrown with vines and vegetation. I would love to drive by the next time I'm home, but I don't remember where it even was. Not even a ballpark.
I drove by Isaac and I's first apartment the other day to show Sammy. It wasn't the first time I've done that, since we've been back. And while it most likely would never be called the home of someone's dreams, I wonder about those who came after. How many people tell the same story we do - that the needs-to-be-condemned green home was the start of something. Where we opened Christmas presents while sitting on the toilet shaped bleach stained living room carpet. It's the stories in the homes that I'm interested in. The living and breathing stories of those who came before and after us. Who made these buildings live.
My dream home was big and open. It had dark wood and a ballroom. It may have had peeling wall paper and a fence full of dead vines. It was empty when we walked through and I could easily imagine a life there, even at a young age. I wondered who lived there, what their story was. I still wonder. And I wonder who will wonder about my home. My stories.
Isaac and I are the first to acknowledge that we had MANY the serendipitous event help us along our road to debt pay off. First being that we incurred only a *tiny* loan for one of Isaac's degrees. His MAIN degrees (both undergrad and his O.D.) were completely 100% scholarship paid for. And, in the case of his O.D., they paid for his books and provided a living stipend as well. It was only his masters in visual function and learning that we had to pay for, but that was only a year program that he did concurrently with his O.D. So, because we were knee deep in debt pay-off, we did take out a small loan for that, but we felt it was important in the long term.
About six months after we started grad school, we were able to move and manage some apartments. There was no salary attached to the job, but we did get free rent / utilities in exchange. Which equaled to about $800 / month, if I'm remembering correctly. This allowed Isaac's living stipend to go straight into the bank every month and my salary to be used for debt pay off and living expenses and, eventually, savings.
Without these two events, we readily acknowledge that our debt pay-off would not have happened nearly as quickly as it did. I'd like to think that we would have been able to get after it quickly, regardless, but I do know it would have been more difficult and I can imagine that we would still be trying to get out from under everything even now.
As we snowballed one debt and paid it off, the debt pay off went faster and faster and we started talking about our long term goals. We knew we'd have a nice chunk of change to deal with at some point and we needed to decide where it should go so we didn't just absorb and spend it. The first thing on our agenda was to buy a second car, which we were able to do with cash, shortly after the pay off happened. About a year later, we traded our original car in and bought a great condition used car with very low miles. Again, in all cash. It didn't matter that our two cars together cost (way) less than one new car, the main point was that they were paid for in full. We bought one car since then and I'm happy to report that our last car payment was during the great debt pay off of 2002. And, hopefully, that will continue to be our last car payment.
Other goals concerned moving, both to San Diego and even longer term to wherever we ended up after. While the military was moving us from Portland to San Diego, we knew we needed an account dedicated to moving expenses, including Isaac's time away from home during his fourth year of optometry school. So while we were debt free, minus one school loan, we lived much the same as we were during debt pay off. We took a little money and splurged on our first (of many!) tivo, but our debt snowball, for the most part, went straight into savings. I'm happy to say that we had a lovely cushion in the bank, which turned out to be a blessing even before the move. It allowed me to cut back my hours at work that last year in Portland (which was good since the other option would have been to be laid off). It also allowed us to do everything we needed to ensure a smooth move to San Diego, complete with trips down to scout out a new home.
During our four years in San Diego, we often were asked why we didn't buy a home. The answer was always the same. Because we knew we only had four years there, we decided our finances were better off serving US instead of being poured into something we would have to try and sell once we moved (and looking at it now, we moved at the start of the housing downturn...never have we been so happy we didn't buy!). I wasn't working (in order to keep our Oregon residency) and we set up a strict zero based budget. Rent doubled, again, in our move (or doubled from what we WOULD have been paying in Portland) and that ate up a good portion of our paycheck. Factor in utilities, loan repayment and saving for different goals, we felt we were still living on a student's salary much of the time. Especially since it felt everyone around us was busy having fun while we were busy socking every penny we had away for things that were still years away. But it was worth it (mostly. now. not so much then. I'll admit to more than a little envy of friends) to know that we had expenses covered once Sammy finally did make an appearance and accounts set aside for an eventual home down payment and move to Utah...
I have to remind myself that people get on airplanes every day of the year. Most often than not, they get to their destination without fanfare or "twisted metal, naked babies crying for their mothers".
I keep having dreams that we lose Sammy in New York, this summer. Or he's taken. I wake, fighting the urge to buy a harness just for our trip. We had one, when he was younger. Mostly for the zoo and busier places. We donated it once we moved here - our town not being a town that needs such precaution.
In a span of six weeks, I'll be on a plane four times. I love to travel. LOVE to travel. I hope we can do a lot of it. For the rest of our lives. I want to foster the love Sammy seems to have in him, as well. But man. I really hate that so much of my love has to be tied so closely to a plane. Because I hate flying. It scares me to my very core.
Sammy keeps reminding me that being on a plane will be fun; like he knows. He's so excited, though. Usually I take my nerves out on Isaac's leg during the trip, but this time? This is the first time I have to be strong and totally fake it. For Sammy's sake. Keep making sure that he STILL believes being on an airplane is fun. Which also means I probably can't rely on my second favorite way to deal with airplane rides. Valium.
I'll be grateful once this first trip is over. My nerves will calm a little. And maybe the dreams and fears of losing Sammy will stop. Until the next trip. And the next. And the next. Ant the... Oh. Wait. It's not weird to keep using a harness when Sammy's, oh, 15. Right? Cause that may help.
