Pets

Currently, Don and I have 2 pets. Oliver is a 2 year old neutered cat. We've had him a little over a year. Mikey is a goldfish that Matthew got last summer and hauled around Presbyterian and back home again. I took over, gave him a new tank and clean water and now he is mine. **a I've always had pets. We had a dog and cats when I was little. Our dog , Whitey, who was mostly black was my birthday present from my grandmother. The one I never liked, Sybil. But I loved Whitey. And she was a fantastic dog. Perfect size -- about 20 pounds. Perfect temperament -- cautious around the babies, liked to watch us play, was way too proud to engage in fetch or anything remotely similar. Minded my mother, thought she was the nursemaid so she never minded us. We got Corkey when Nathan was 1. Now that was an arrogant dog. He and Nathan were best buddies. I am grateful that he had already died when Nathan was killed. I think it would have killed him. I like to think of Nathan running around in heaven with Corkey. My mother said he was arrogant and I guess he was. He certainly didn't mind her. But he was an English shepherd so he knew his role. One time when Nathan was about 3-4, a guy stepped into our yard to ask directions. Nathan was out there playing and I was supposed to be minding him. Corkey was laying in the grass watching Nathan. Corkey growled, I told the guy, watch it, my dog doesn't like you near my brother. He came closer and Corkey stood up and growled again. He was a big dog. He weighed 60-70 pounds and was tall. I said, Mister get out of our yard. He just laughed and came closer to Nathan and Corkey bit him. I thought it justified but what was I. A kid of 12 or 13. We had to start chaining him after that if he was in the yard alone. We would go let him off the long chain and Mother would whip us. ** When I moved out, I first got a cat. He was killed after I had an accident and he got out. Then I got Coal Cole aka FatDog. I made all my mistakes with FatDog. He was undisciplined, frequently pooped in the house, chewed things up until the day he died, and was in general a bad dog. He did not cope well with Matthew and when I was pregnant with Cole and he was 14, rather than put him on anti-anxiety medication, I put him to sleep. ** We went through several other dogs that didn't last for one reason or another until Matthew was 6. He asked for and we got a dog for his birthday. Matthew had already named him Howler. Fortunately he didn't. Howler was THE BEST DOG EVER. I really mean that. I have such a full heart for him that he is a post unto himself. I put him to sleep when he was 14 and still grieve him 2 years later. I am thinking it is time to get another dog. Don is not excited about this -- he'd rather we got another cat but I want another dog. ** So there it stands.

Body Odor

This week has been an interesting one for body odors. Last Christmas, my mother gave me a 4 little bottle set of different perfumes. I've been wearing the same perfume for like 5 years. Literally the same perfume. As in, the bottle never seems to empty. I was really ready for a change. The one I wore all winter was called wood sage. It smelled lovely, like foresty and wood smoky. But when summer came along, I thought I would try another little bottle. This one is citrusy and limey. Perfect I thought. And I really don't wear a lot. But I love a little. Since Don has been out of town all week on a business road trip, I've done a little perfume after my bath. I don't usually do it but it makes me feel better and goodness knows, I need the feel better when I am here by myself. In the night on Monday, I sweated so badly that when I woke up, my bed had this weird, funky smell of perfume and sweat. Not good. Tuesday, I wore one of my favorite tops this summer -- a bright, cheerful top that has a swimsuit feel. And I was sure, yes sure, that I wore deodorant that morning. But by ten AM, even I could smell the body stink. I went to the bathroom, doused myself with baby powder and pressed on. Now I smelled like sweaty, stinky baby. Worse. It didn't help that I worked pretty late on Tuesday trying to get ahead on my work so that I can leave next week with everything done. I went around the block when I got home and I just have to say, it has been a long, long time, -- like 10th grade basketball -- since I smelled that badly. Wednesday is milk day and it is frigging hot inside that trailer. I threw out my deodorant, borrowed Cole's antiperspirant and went to work. I am sure my armpits smelled better but halfway through, I am thinking, did I brush my teeth after lunch? Do I have any gum? Nope. And I can't really remember the last time I flossed? Got to get back to flossing and I desperately need to get some mouthwash at CVS next time I go. Today, Thursday, was the end.. I feel certain that my feet smell, my butt smells, everything smells. I decide to do a massive cleanup of this super sweaty body. I clean my teeth. Floss. Rinse with the ant cavity mouthwash. Clean my teeth again. Bathe. In a really massive amount of water that I almost overran the bathtub into the floor. I had no idea how great those overflow vents are in the bathtub but this one really saved me a massive cleanup of the floor! But even after my bath this evening, I can still smell the antiperspirant which is why I typically stick with deodorant. At least it is my favorite -- WolfThorne by Old Spice. I really worried about this. I really, really don't like body odor. Witness the fact I only wear a tiny amount of perfume. I'm probably the only one who smells it! I am trying to remember when odors became so important to me. I remember as a teen changing my sheets a lot. Spraying Jean Nate on the sheets before I put the comforter back on. I really like crawling into clean, good smelling sheets. So much so that for years I searched for a washing powder that had faint lemony smell to it. I just realized that I should have used Tide and sprayed the linens with a lemon perfume! I also remember having to unroll my brother's nasty football clothes and wash them. Why he wasn't required to do it is beyond me but there you have it. If you were on wash duty -- and as far I as can tell only Debbie and I had wash duty -- you had to unpack the gym bags. Gross, gross, gross. * It was so bad that I required Matthew to bring a clean tee shirt and compression shorts to football practice every day. He had to bring home his pads every week so I could wipe them down and set them in the sun. They still smelled but nothing like the Alfred smell. He complied because of the strep problems he had but I was far more interested in controlling the stench. * I remember the first guy I lived with -- Greg -- who really sweated a lot. And had lots of body hair. And tasted of milk. And he ended up being a real pain in the ass which is why I don't like body hair and probably has a lot to do with my aversion to sweat and bad breath. Actually, that is probably giving him way too much power but I'm sure he figures in there somewhere. * I still have issues with boy sweat. I washed their pillows with bleach and let them dry in the sun as soon as summer started and then I try to do one more wash before summer vanished. I don't know if I'll get to do that again since Matthew has moved out and will be responsible for his own pillow stench and Cole seems to want to stay in Milledgeville as much as he can. He probably won't be bringing pillows home on the spare days he allows us. But at least I don't walk into their bedrooms and smell stale boy smell. * So is this where my weirdness this week arose from? I didn't have boy sweat to deal with, Don sweat to deal with so I created my own? It is an interesting dilemma but the truth is, whatever the reason, I don't want a repeat. * I'm changing up my underarm routine, shampooing my hair every day regardless of frizz, and flossing twice a day. Perfume will be de rigueur. Oh, and I will be purchasing mouthwash and gum.

Gardening

I have gardened since I was in my early 20s. I quit my real estate job when the going got too tough and discovered that I was not really a marketable person. Food crisis soon happened. I wanted nice tomato sandwiches and did you know that a fresh tomato costs more than ground beef??? So, I started growing my own tomatoes and green beans. Fast forward to moving into this house and I really started to garden. Don helped me lay out a beautiful rectangle and I heaped Black Cow Manure on it. Leaves from the yard and grass clippings from my neighbors. The beautiful dirt grew. Then we got chickens and I started to put the chicken litter on the garden. My next door neighbor Mary Beth commented that I literally could put a stick in the ground and a tree would grow. At one point, I was growing most of our vegetables. I canned. I froze. We ate out of the garden. I was fully organic. No pesticides. No fertilizer. then my mother started to garden at the office. I helped her but she wanted to use chemicals. We fought. We would have an agreement that she would ignore. We would fight again. My dad would call, tell me to help my mother, guilt me into it. It was hot, hot, hot behind that metal building that we work in. And I didn't want to eat chemically laden produce. I finally quit for good. When I started working at farmer's markets, I scaled back my gardening since I could trade my cheese for vegetables. All day, every day. And I was so hot from being outside that I didn't want to be in my yard afterwards. Gradually, I started to pare back my garden. I grassed in my lovely rectangle. I planted shrubs where I had dumped loads of chicken litter. I planted lilies and gladiolus. this year, I've planted green beans, 3 tomato plants, 2 pepper plants. And six basil plants. But just like Mary Beth said, my sticks have grown into trees. Basil has 'volunteered' in my garden and is overwhelming me. I am making pesto out of it. Here is my recipe: Pesto 4 cups dry basil leaves packed 1/2 cup parmesan cheese 1/2 cup olive oil 1/2 cup of nuts (I prefer walnuts) 2 heaping tablespoons of minced garlic salt and pepper to taste. May need a tiny bit of sugar (1/2 tsp) if the leaves are a little bitter. chop all in a food processor, freeze. The other plants I am doing this summer -- green beans, tomato and pepper are not doing well. Well the plants for the beans are great but very few beans. It has been so hot and so dry that I am getting no produce. I am not sure if I am sad or not. I know that I wouldn't enjoy going outside and picking a ton of green beans or canning tomatoes in my kitchen this summer. But I miss the loveliness of slapping a pork chop on the grill, digging a few potatoes up and snapping green beans and boom! dinner! Part of me wishes that I could arrange my life -- maybe move to Highlands or another mountaintop for the summer. Work from there. But then I would be worried about my house and my friends and my church. So if I am 'planted' here, why can't I plant here? Maybe what I need to do is rearrange my life so that the very cool time (and it was 82 degrees when I left here this morning at 8 am) is my time in the yard. Not when I am hot and tired from work and driving home. But doing that is a problem with getting to work before my mother who tends to paw through my desk and disrupt my work flow. And I really don't want to get up and do this any earlier. There is a solution. Maybe just a 15 minute timer outside? Think of the work I could get done if I did 15 minutes a day in the morning! And 15 minutes of not looking at FaceBook. There it is. My 15 minutes. And then I come inside and shower and when I get home in the evenings, no guilt. None. Except that this year, there will be no green beans. Even if I do the 15 minutes a day. But there are so many projects that need to be done outside that I'm really thinking that is ok. And if I establish this habit, maybe next summer, I'll be ok to plant more than just the green beans, 3 tomatoes, 2 peppers and the basil. And maybe we'll get more water from the sky -- I think that might be called rain, but I'm not sure as it seems like we've not seen any in days, weeks, months, possibly this year??? -- and things will be better in general in my yard. As an aside, it is really hard for me to keep my seat and bang these 1000 words out. I cannot tell you how many times I have checked my email, thought about dinner, looked at the yoga website, checked my email, thought I should water the plants on my porch, checked my email. You get the picture. I have a hamster in my mind. And the wheel just keeps on turning. Back to the garden. There is the possibility of the fall garden. And August 1 is the perfect time to plant one. That could be what I am going to use my 15 minutes for. And to get rid of the wood chips. Because that is the true secret of my gardening 'stick turning into a tree' success. I have piled tons and I do mean that literally, tons of woodchips in my flower beds. I use it to suppress weeds, keep water in, just make my yard presentable in general. And they are free. Free. Just have shovel and move them, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow. My children used to be drafted to do this and so did Don. Now I am completely on my own as everyone else thinks we have plenty. But the weeds are on the top, need a good smothering. Am I done with the garden? I don't think so. I think I am just changing the plans and moving onto a different stage.

Money Management

My money management skills have ranged all over the place. from really awful to pretty good and then back again. I love to budget, sometimes hate to live a budget. I tried really hard to teach Matthew and Cole budgeting skills. Cole was a born money manager. Matthew not so much. But technology has developed tools to help with that. Our bank has the ability to set a recurring transfer to another account to help with incidental expenses that only occur every so often like the dentist or insurance payments or even the dreaded new car expense. We've set Matthew's money up so that these are taken care of. Now there are things like Venmo and money movers that allow you to sit at a bar and move money from one person to another. Life seems to have gotten really fluid these days. Which is why the whole cash thing is so illuminating to go to every now and then. Last year, I really ran up my credit card. In an effort to fix this, I went back to a cash budget. And in the wake of this, I really learned, I think finally, how to manage my money. We are paid every two weeks. It is one of my responsibilities within our marriage to handle the money. Don gets a cash allowance and has a personal credit card that I pay without ever looking to see who or what he is paying. This is a source of pride to me as I have had a long history of trying to micromanage Don and it never comes out in my favor. Never. I recently sat down with our insurance agent and went over our policies. We pay over $6000 annually for various types of insurance. Life/homeowners/car. The standard. When I saw that number, I realized that one of the stumbling blocks to our finances has always been those insurance payments. Years ago, I tried doing separate accounts to save for those but life always seemed to happen and I would empty those accounts and move on. This time I was determined. It probably helped that Matthew had moved out and was now in charge of himself and his food/car/lodging. That is one expensive boy. I started the every two week transfer. Pretty simply. With just IRA savings. Then I added the insurance. Then vacation/Matthew's student loan payoffs/Christmas and birthdays. I decided to pace myself and it has worked flawlessly. Since the accounts aren't fully funded, I am really just storing money until the first of the year when I will start tapping those accounts as those payments come due. In addition, I am planning stuff out every two weeks and paying cash instead of using my debit card. I had really gotten bad about racking up those charges. Having to think about them two weeks in advance really makes me plan the movies and yoga and gas. I think it is going swimmingly. I still owe $5000 on my charge card but I have stopped digging the hole. Even the airline tickets we bought for New York for next week on the card, I immediately turned around and paid down. Seems silly but I really am trying to stop the bleeding. Part of this is because we have lost one mouth on our payroll and can accommodate this. but in the past, I have just adjusted our spending up whenever we got a bonus or an account was paid off. Now, I really want to be about getting that IRA funded and the equity line paid off. I want to be not just a good money manager but a great one. So I need to analyze what the stumbling blocks are and figure out ways around them. The automatic transfers are amazing. They will really help with the accumulating part. Christmas is always a stumbling block. So is the doctor stuff that is constantly happening around here. I am hopeful that my doctor stuff is over and that we have a handle on Cole's. Don, fortunately, is the healthiest dude available to have at 55. Another stumbling block has always been the clothes that Kim sells. I haven't figured that one out yet. But I intend to. Not buying except for Goodwill is going to be a good start. But I can tell I've got work to do. Another thing that I am doing is dipping my toe back into the stock market pool. Pokemon Go was released a few weeks ago and both Matthew and Cole are high about it for completely different reasons. James, an 11 year old across the street is enchanted with it. Even Linda Bhame at church, one of the crustiest of the crusty matriarchs at church knows about it. So I've opened an account today with Charles Schwab and I'm going to buy some Nintendo stock. Silly reason to buy stock but there it is. I'm also going to buy some stocks on the 50 year paid dividend list that I like. Don doesn't like energy stocks or utility companies but Johnson and Johnson, Lowe's and Cincinnati Financial are all on that list and I figure I'll at least get dividends and the tax write off of the IRA investment. And thanks to my accumulating strategy, I've got a good amount of money in that account. I find it slightly thrilling to be back in the stock market. I'll bet that won't last. But there it is. And I'm planning on keeping my mouth shut about all these strategies. Sometimes I have a bad habit of blabbing about my plans. Then everyone wants to weigh in and I start to doubt my strategies. And I end up changing and then I am back doubting myself and I am so tired of that. I am smart about money. And I will be successful at managing it. I am going to balance my accounts monthly and plot the movement of the money, hopefully upward. 2017 will be the year that I wipe out credit card debt and start to rack up the money in the bank.

Launch

I'm listening to a lot of podcasts. I've got my old faves -- Undisclosed and Science Friday but I've recently stumbled into a several that are really fun to listen to and are inspiring me to do better, to change some really bad habits and work on improving myself. Today I listened to one for the first time Unmistakable Creative titled Ego is the Enemy. He had a writer on that he clearly admires especially for his work habits and his abilities to produce and produce at a high quality. I was watering at the library and I never really caught his full name but Rao refers to him as Brian all the time. Brian was talking about the habit of just sitting down and producing. And eventually, you'll get there. Rao has the habit of writing a 1000 words a day and that is something I have been playing around with in my own mind for a long time. I'd really like to write a Young Adult book. A good one. So, in the spirit to which I think the universe is calling me, I'm starting today. I'm using this blog as my filter meter so that I can really sit and write my 1000 words on the book. Today, I want to write about mama sayings. Yesterday Cole texted me from his last day teaching at ID Tech camp for the summer to send 'What was that phrase you always said about the party and how people remeber how you leave. Can you text me the whole phrase. My other coworkers obviously did not have mothers that engraved that into their brains. But I can't remeber the first part. Thanks.' My reply: "It doesn't matter how you get to the party. People only remember how you leave." A couple of things. Number 1: It makes me proud that Cole remembered this saying. I don't have a lot of confidence in my mothering ability. I have made and continue to make horrible mistakes as a mother. I am having trouble letting go of Matthew. I am having trouble stopping worrying about the future for both boys. I am guilty of not always thinking of their best and tend to really focus on what is best for me. I could go on but you get the drift. So when a key lesson like this one is remembered and I HOPE he behaved that way, it makes me feel better about my mothering job. Number 2: In some really stupid way, it makes me feel better that my children are doing a better job than other people's children are in some insanely stupid area of their life. A horrible idea and one that I probably wouldn't confess out loud. Just to write it down makes me feel really uncomfortable. But I know this is true and there is that. I have all these mama sayings. I know other women have them too. Do they feel the same way I do about these things? Part good/part guilty? I am trying to think if my mother also had these sayings and I'm sure she did but I don't remember me them. When I think back to my childhood, my mother is always present, always pretty and slim, always working. I don't remember her yelling or preaching or deliberately setting out to teach me social skills or how to succeed. Well, now that I am thinking, she did say something that Debbie and I frequently quote: you can do anything you set your mind to. Which has gotten me in a lot of trouble mentally, physically, and emotionally. Mostly because I tend to really overdo and over commit and then I'm back to pulling back and disappointing people especially myself. Is that what mama sayings do? Make you do things so that you will measure up to her idea of success? Is that why having Cole quote that back to me makes me feel so good? That it means that he is taking seriously my idea of what a successful social situation is and executing it? And why is that one so important to me anyway? That part is easy for me, I think. I really have a lot of problems navigating social settings and for years and years used alcohol and drugs to lubricate that medium. And not to my benefit as it caused me no end of regretful situations and memories. I have this awful memory of a Christmas party for church where I showed up on the scene super drunk and kissed a fellow church member on the lips that I did not realize was married. What was a stupid mistake that if he remembers I would be shocked is still a haunting thing 26 years later. I bet I didn't leave that party well. So when I quit doing drugs (28) and drinking (37), parties became really hard for me. I am really uncomfortable and am always planning the exit. Usually even before we get to the party. And some parties last a really long time. I am thinking about Morgan's wedding reception and how I plied Cole with drinks to get him through it. Really what I wanted was to get wasted and get myself through it. See how bad a mother I am? But I stuck it out, talked to a billion people and waited until Morgan and Ben left before I drug Don and Cole away. Matthew partied on. He has no problems in the social arena. I wish I could copy his style. Is the point of the mama saying to ward off the demons of ourselves that we don't want to pass along to our children? Is that the point of Mother's saying? She felt like she had let herself down by not accomplishing what she wanted and she wanted to make sure that Debbie and I did accomplish our goals? Part of me wants to believe this and a whole other part of myself thinks that these little phrases are much more than just teachings. They are the way we impart our values and our culture to our children who may or may not be like us. And we want those ideas to have at least have been brought out if not actively been incorporated into our children's lives. So what does that saying have to say about me? That I equate success with being able to leave a good impression? That I believe people actually think about me when I am not around? Goodness, that makes me seem so self-centered. Mostly I used this phrase as a way to avoid temper tantrums when it was time to leave a play date. 10 minutes and we have to leave means to get your things picked up and say your thank yous. And to not burn your bridges when you leave Woodward or St Francis or the wrestling team. You never know when you might need a recommendation from Gary the tree man. Hard though that work was. And hard as it was for Cole to stick it out for the summer at ID Tech this year. Don doesn't think we should give Cole advice about doing ID Tech next summer. He thinks Cole is smart enough and savvy enough to figure it out on his own. So I am attempting to leave this side of the mothering party gracefully. And even if Alfred thinks I should be counseling Cole to be better, in this case, I agree with Don and June. Cole is 20 and his party is continuing without the assistance of Mama. He remembered my saying and that has to be good enough.