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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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10:56 a.m. - 2012-03-18
It feels as though there's been this wild buying spree going on for weeks and weeks but when I really stop and think there's been nothing wild and it's hardly a spree. Our lives now are simply normal. There's no Porsches out in the driveway, I don't have a sable bathrobe. Gee, I bought Wolf two packages of new underpants and Mick got another pair of jeans...somebody stop me! What's really going on is that after a lot of hard work, good planning and financial discipline we've caught up with our tails and our outgo is less than our income. Millions it ain't, and depending on where the paychecks fall some months are still a little pinchy, but I've finally found out what it's like to live like normal people. It's fabulous. Just another way the crazy has disappeared out of my life. Rather vindicating too. I always felt like if I was allowed the chance to set a budget and stick to it that things would go this way. Food in the cabinets, bills paid on time, savings account, 401K, cars that run, able to save up for big ticket stuff like new computers, just sane, you know? I actually smile when the power or the cable goes out, the relief of knowing something went fubar in the grid! I'm never left in the dark (literally!) wondering if it's a snafu in the lines or if they'd shut us off for non-payment. Never have to make that humiliating shlep to the utility company with a fistful of wrinkled cash I'd had to beg or borrow to get the lights turned back on. I'm well aware of the morbid irony that my little family's life is finally stable while millions of others are scrabbling. Plenty of good folk who had been like us not too long ago, folks who worked hard, planned carefully and spent sanely, and now they're left scrambling. There's enough foreclosures and sad 'for sale' signs between here and town to remind me of just how lucky we are. I've no sniffy callous notions that all of those who are hurting brought it on themselves by overindulging during the credit bubble. Sure, there's some who bought way too big and used their house's potential equity like an ATM, but mostly the ones who are taking it in the teeth are just plain folks. People who had jobs and had to watch their whole life disappear in a puff of Wall St smoke. I hate it and almost feel like a ghoul burbling on about how nice things are for me now. But I've been reporting in on the good and the bad of my life for a long time. If the timing of my good stuff is a bit outre, well, it's not anybody's fault. Except, of course, that of the greedyhead, power mongers who started moving the pieces of this disaster into place with the election of Ronald Reagan. In other news, yesterday's dinner went swell. I make a mean corned beef and cabbage if I do say so myself. Mick's nephew, Jon, came too, so we had a full table. MIL was delighted to have both grandsons around, though Wolf is at that stage of eat, mumble, run away. Show me the 14 year old who's delighted to sit at table with the old folks and make witty conversation and I'll show you a freak of nature. Jon announced his dad was getting married and invited us to the wedding. I like Jon's father, maybe not as much as SIL's current husband, but he's a good guy. I had a brief stab of wedding envy, but accept this is going to be a thing with me forever. Made a mental note to treat myself to a pretty spring dress and to get away from my customary black. Besides, I've put on so much weight most of my LBDs are too tight anyhow. A lovely frock in a splashy floral print or sleek geometric will go a long way in soothing my 'I never got to be the bride' blues. Mick and I have been discussing whether to get Princess clipped down again for the warm months. Her pretty golden red coat is finally back to its glorious curls and fluff state...just in time for flea and tick season. My thinking is having her clipped close will make it easier to give her flea baths and pull errant ticks, but Mick hates the way she looks with that radical barber/butcher job and suggested we take her to the vet and start her on the good flea prevention meds instead of using the store-bought ones as we have been. I agree with Mick over how weird Princess looks without her fluff, but was being practical. She's due for a check-up and booster shots anyhow, so the vet it is. We'll get our pretty little girlie all set to keep the nasties off her bod (and out of our rugs). Today is a kick-back do nothing day. The house is clean. I ran out to Shoprite yesterday and got all the fixings for some killer reuben sandwiches. (What else do you do with leftover corned beef?) The laundry is caught up. Wolf finished his Shakespeare project and is allowed endless PS3 time. Mick's going for a bike ride. I have a new Jonathan Stroud, an old Steven King, and a spandy new dvd copy of 'Private Benjamin'.
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