Christmas gifts

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?

 

Etcetera…

…just random bunches of fleeting thoughts…(they get more entertaining as you go through them….)

This past Sunday, thanks to someone linking my blog post, I had my all time high of readers. Almost 300 people visited this site that day, almost 500 over the course of the weekend—and I got ONE response. (from my husband) Just curious, folks. At the bottom of every post, there is a place to leave a comment…

Have you tried and it’s too difficult? Do you have to do something like register? (NOT be rude, I just sometimes don’t realize that it’s so difficult, because “I” am signed in….)  I totally get not responding to everything I read. It just seems like pretty low percentages…

Three or four people did search out my email and take the time to privately comment….which seems like much more bother….

A few people have asked me how to Subscribe to the blog. That makes me happy. (Will they comment though?? Ah, that is the question! LOL) To subscribe there is a column to the right, titled “Subscribe Here…” If you choose Entries RSS, you can subscribe via whatever Reader you use (I have a Google homepage, with a tab set up just for blogs I follow. Whenever someone updates, it shows up. There are other types of readers that I know nothing about. But, that is the button to get you started! )

More importantly, that little countdown clock I mentioned I had on my homepage indicates that there are only 90 days left now till Christmas!!  Did my post of 10 days ago shock your system into thinking about the holidays? Have you done any list making? Bought any gifts?

I  have!  Sitting in my studio are almost all the makings for the gifts for my employees and co-workers, my quilting buddies and stocking stuffer-ish things for the family in general. Obviously since they all READ the blog (let me re-phrase that… I guess they read it…lol.) I can’t really say what it is… but I’ll take a pix and post it after Christmas—then you can use this idea next year!

And, because he is a cute, but dimwitted creature, who has for a friend a cute, but somewhat prickly creature, here is a story about our cats. IMG_3740

(Hamish, ‘the Red’ or ‘the Bad’ or ‘the Scared’, hiding in the vanity in the master bathroom, because of a thunderstorm. He opens the cabinet door with his paw, and climbs in to cower behind my personal products)

IMG_3802

(Miss Tatiana, with evidence of a recent kill beside her)

You have to go to my husband’s blog to read the story of the little excitement at our house the other night around midnight…

Anyway, back to the comments thing. (I know, let it go!! LOL)

I opened my Photo website up the other day, and have had some serious inquiries from people interested in purchasing my art!! Yippee!!!! And, although there have been in the past week or so, over 5,000 hits, there has been ONE comment.

So, to summarize. Silly Cats. Christmas—it’s coming, ready or not. Subscribing and commenting. Buy photographic art as Christmas gifts from home in the comfort of your jammies.

Remember, comments are like virtual HUGS. High fives! Or, as Sally Field once said, it shows, “ You like me. You really LIKE me!”

(I promise to come up with a more entertaining post next time. Really.)