Posts….

I’ve been traumatized…

It’s been a few days now, but it has been a difficult thing to get past. Oh, in the scheme of –well, almost anything, I suppose –it’s way low on the trauma meter….but still…I must share….

I’m sitting here, this very moment, with some toast, spread with Nutella. They always say, “Get right back on the horse,” don’t they??

nutella

I was introduced to Nutella back in 1988. (Thanks, Rene!) And it is one of the true wonders of the culinary world. But I digress.

Toast. Nutella. It’s the only way I can move forward.

This is what happened.

On Saturday last, I was craving a munchie. Nothing over-large, as I was saving room in my tummy for the tasty treats at the Greek Festival that night. (A sad aside…they ran out of Baklava while I was stuffing my face on Mousaka and Spanikopita…)

I wandered into the kitchen and I spied one sad croissant, lost and alone in its big plastic home. I decided to rescue it.

Popping it in the microwave for 10 seconds, I was about to open the fridge for butter, but I recalled the Nutella sitting in the  cabinet next to the window. I grabbed a butter knife, swiped the jar off the shelf and removed my just warmed croissant. I opened the jar, and was very quick and generous with the slathering of Nutella. I plopped the knife in the sink, and looked down at my treat.

I spotted one of those infernal little ants that seem to like to wander around my sink at various times of the year. I never find them around crumbs, cat food, or any other left out foods; they just drive me nuts with their marching lines from outside to wander around the stainless steel sink, and I am guessing, back outside again.

One year, they had an army marching from the outside, and into the den, around the computer desk and back off to places far distant. Annoying, yes. But there has been no infiltration of late, and I have a clean, white window ledge, free of any marching armies.

I picked him up, and flushed him down the drain. And then, the trauma. The jar lid, still lying open on my counter, was crawling with the little buggers.

Glancing at the croissant, I saw they were all over it, too. I peeked into the Nutella and there were a few more walking around inside the jar!

Quelle horreur! Tossing the croissant, the Nutella, and the lid all into the garbage, I cautiously opened the cabinet again, and looked onto the second shelf. The ants were milling about aimlessly, their destination of nirvana stolen away. I spied more walking along the honey jar. Garbage.

Everything out of the cabinets, washed down and sprayed. They seemed to have found a way to walk up the ledge and along the dark grout lines I have painted, and they have been coming in small numbers, and once they found their heaven, they weren’t leaving. (They have good taste.)

But this could affect my diet! How can one live without being able to eat Nutella?? So, I have purchased a new jar, and toasted myself a slice of bread, and I am going to learn to get over the sight…bite by delicious bite.

Nutella is worth the effort. (Although I think the days of grabbing a spoon and the jar in the dark are 100% OVER)

Really cool stuff…

…Well, to me, anyhow!!!  If I continue paying down my credit cards at the rate I am going now, I will be 100% free of them by October 2010. That’s exactly ONE year from now.

Possible? Yes. Probable? Not really. After all, I DO still use them, but I use them far more carefully and much more as a convenience than I did in the past, when they were actually part of my budgeting.

That’s the nasty truth of being a single parent who received little to no child support for 18 years in a city with the expenses of New York.

Nowadays, I make a bit more, live in a less expense location, and have my husband’s income as well, which obviously makes a difference in the headway of my finances.

I have always had a good credit rating, and that is mine and mine alone. Which explains how even in this day and age, I am able to still manipulate my balances and move them around to get the lowest interest rates possible. It’s a bit like a shell game, but I am finally on the right side of the overturned cardboard box!

As I DO use the cards still, I fully expect to have a balance next year at this time. And I am ok with that, really. I pay something along the lines of 5-7 times my minimum each month. I can cut back to the bare minimums on the cards and try to live entirely cash, (and some have an interest rate) or I can continue to move balances to 0% cards I already own and have $0 balances on (Somehow the CC companies haven’t noticed—Shhhh!)

I am interested in how it all falls out as the regulations supposedly change in favor of us, the consumer, over the next 6-8 months.  None of my cards have told me my rates were going up, (except one, and it was a date nine months from the receipt, and I currently owe them $270, so by next month that threat is useless to me) and none have cut my limits back. (Which totals somewhere over twice my annual salary! Craziness, indeed.)

I know there are things I could be doing differently at this very moment in order to speed up the process. I could look more seriously into Dave Ramsey, I could re-read some Tightwad Gazettes, or Your Money or Your Life. Sell more of my photographs.

Shop yard sales, or just stop shopping, quit vacations, no more dinners out (that’s on Timmy’s card, however)… there are a gazillion things we together could cut back on…. but his cards, his bills are separate. And I can not make those decisions alone.

But, once I have eliminated these beasts of burden from my back, I can begin to assist him more fully in the pursuit of his own freedom.

One step at a time. Beginning with Christmas.

Christmas is going to be spare, it’s going to be sparse, and it’s going to be about people. Not about things, but about emotion, connection, and loving thoughts. (I hope. That’s my plan. 🙂 )

I can’t be Scrooge, however!! How do YOU plan to make Christmas a less ‘object driven’ pursuit this year? I’m interested in hearing about all sorts of ideas!! (successful ones, especially!!!)

Christmas Gifting styles….

Can I interest you in a perfectly unscientific little poll?

I am a gift giver. (Well, it should be more properly termed a reformed gift-giver, or a gift-giver in my fantasies).  I can think of few things more enjoyable than walking through stores, fairs, museums—anywhere, all year, and wanting to stop and buy YOU something.

Something that brings to mind YOUR smile, or laugh, or some time or event we’ve shared when I spot it. And I want to stop and purchase this little token, tuck it away and wait for Christmas.

Bet you didn’t know that, did ya? It’s not for lack of wishing that I don’t have a goodie basket sitting, waiting for you.

I used to have a closet, and I called it the “Yah NEVA Know” closet. Because I worked in retail, and often in the mall, I was exposed to all the things, all the year through. I knew better than to admire item X in April, and expect to go back in late December to claim it as the perfect gift. So, if the price was right, and it seemed the thing for you as a gift, into the closet it went.

This closet, by the way, was not simply for gifting. At one point, a cousin who lived with me exclaimed that one of the most fascinating things to him was that if he felt the need to have object A, which was needed as a part for something else, he simply asked me, and I would pull the object of his desire out of the Yah Neva Know closet. (It saved many a late night run to the craft store to make a school project for Arlie, too.)

I’ve had to stop this. My credit cards thank me, really they do. In real life, my gift-giving list is relatively short, and not particularly excessive. We don’t give excessive gifts (well, except to each other), and I don’t exchange with a long list of people.

I have discovered that while I love the hunt–the thought and discovery when collecting and creating a gift, and I put myself into those  expressions of love– that more often than not, the giftee doesn’t seem to appreciate the effort, to “get it”. Or we simply don’t exchange gifts with each other any more, for any number of reasons.

It takes a lot of psychic energy to defend yourself against the perceived lack of enthusiasm, so too often of late, I have become a gift card giver. And in my mind, much of the excitement and anticipation is taken from the experience of Christmas, because I LOVE to watch someone open my gifts and see their faces…I know I am usually more excited to watch them open them than to be opening my own!

There is still a small list of friends for whom buying gifts is still exciting (even IF the gifts  sit unopened for 8 months, till we see each other..hey, Christmas is a state of mind!)

But in my fantasy world, I’d be driving Little Saint Nick up and down the East Coast for weeks leading up till Christmas, dropping off all manner of goodies collected and made, just for you. (I’m sorry, let me re-phrase that_ I’d be having Timmy drive Little Saint Nick; I’d be in the passenger seat, LOL)

So, now a poll. Where do you fall in this Christmas chaos that will be descending upon us sooner than you would even believe?