My Money Cage

Today I'm feeling it, feeling the grip of my cage, my money cage, or rather, my lack of money cage. I've been thinking about the things I want most in life right now and even though most of them do not seem financially driven, they all come back to money and my need for it.

I miss being home, home with my kids, home and available to help out my friends. I miss baking with flax and whole wheat flour. I miss cooking healthy dinners for my family. I miss being around to make sure that my daughter gets out of her pajamas each day and gets her hair fixed. I want to be able to spend more time helping my son with his multiplication tables and be down the street so that when he takes too long walking home from school I can run out and find him. And the list goes on. So what do these things have to do with money? Well I have to earn it which means 8 hrs at work minimum each day. Why can't my husband earn the money? He's going to school. And why is he going to school? To be able to earn more money!

I want my daughter to take dance lessons so her natural talent can be cultivated. My son wants to take hip hop and gymnastics and wants to be able to play the guitar. All of these things cost money and I didn't even list the lessons and classes I'd like to take. My son is getting piano lessons but its only because he gets them from a friend who doesn't want to be paid. (Tender mercies!)

I want to feed my family free range chicken, grass fed beef and locally grown produce. I want to buy clothes hand made by small designers and items for my home, made by local artisans. I want to support the little guy. I want my dollars to count for other people, but when you only have a few you have to make sure they count for yourself as much as possible. And that means cheap food with a questionable origin and clothes from the clearance rack that were manufactured for criminal wages over seas.

Now don't get me wrong. I know that compared to the majority of the world, I live in the lap of luxury. It's not the lack of the things I want that leave me frustrated. It's feeling like my financial cage is preventing me from being my true self. I have pretty strong feelings about where my meat comes from. I believe strongly that buying locally and supporting artists is important. I believe that most meals should be prepared at home not thrown together by teenagers and handed to me through a window. But what kind of weight do my beliefs carry when I've worked a ten hour day and I have $5.00 in my wallet. The answer is, not a whole lot. It's 7:00 pm, I'm tired, everyone is hungry and $5.00 means five things off some dollar menu.

When I feel trapped in my lack-of-money cage it's not a new car I dream of, and trust me, I could use one. It's not expensive name brand clothes or vacations either. It's being who I want to be. I dream of some day being able to make decisions based on what I love, on what I believe and on what is important to me, not on what I can manage on my budget.

But someday I'm going to escape this cage made of time restraints and bills and my hungry bank account. My family's hard work and sacrifice will pay off and it will show on my plate and in my home and on my back. I will walk through the farmer's market and buy the $25.00 hand decorated onsie as a baby gift, instead of the clearance outfit at Walmart. I'll buy the locally harvested honey even though it's twice the price of generic store brand. I'll buy a painting I love from an unknown artist. I will make my dollars make a difference and I will feel free. Then I will go home and spend the afternoon making whole grain cookies with my daughter while my son shows me what he learned in gymnastics and we'll eat our cookies off plates purchased on Etsy made by a retired veteran in Ohio. That's what I dream of. Those are the things I see on the other side of my money cage. It's simple. It's beautiful and it's me.

Sacrifice?

I spend a lot of time sacrificing. Most of us do. As a Christian I've been taught about sacrifice since I was a small child. Christ's ultimate sacrifice and the sacrifices we should make to follow him, giving up our time to serve others, giving up carnal desires to live a righteous life etc. Then when I became a mother I learned about sacrifice on a whole new level. I sacrificed my body to bring them into the world. I gave up my perky breasts to nurse them. And then I gave up the career I thought I wanted to stay home and be the one to teach and care for my son, then later my daughter.

Then last year things changed again. I was asked to make another sacrifice. After three years of struggling in the post recession world we felt that the right thing for our family was for my husband to go back to school and for me to work full time. I had to sacrifice time with my children to earn the money to feed and clothe us all. These were all good sacrifices; hard sacrifices, but sacrifices I was willing to make for the greater good. But then with a career came a whole new world of demand on my time and in order to "do my very best" I found myself making more sacrifices to make more money or to oblige customers. Working longer hours or taking on appointments to accommodate a bride's schedule at the sacrifice of time with my children or my already limited trips to the gym. I found quickly that work had taken over my life and that I was compromising things of greater importance. This was a problem not only in general but acutely because of my struggle with anxiety and depression.

I was frustrated. I was grumpy. I was tired. I felt out of shape and all of this made me depressed which, bottom line, made me a sub-par mother. I had to make a change. I listed my priorities and made a commitment to myself that if something didn't fall under one of three things or worse, caused me to sacrifice one of those three things it just wasn't going to happen.

My list: 1- Time with my children, and husband.
             2- My personal well-being
             3- Making money to take care of my family's NEEDS

This list became my recourse. A cousin "needed" a prom dress made. "I'm sorry. I already spend so much time at work that I just can't sacrifice more time away from my kids (without a significant financial gain)." I hate not helping but they could figure it out and the added stress of taking on the project would be a sacrifice to my personal well-being. Just not gonna happen.

A bride would prefer to come in on a Tuesday but can't come till 5:00pm. Well Tuesday is my workout day and I leave work at 4:30pm. Skipping my workouts has dire effects on my psyche. Why should I make the sacrifice when she is the one who needs my help? "I'm truly sorry but Tuesday evenings just don't work for me." And off I go to the gym. She may not prefer it but she will come in on Wednesdays.

At first I felt selfish telling all these people no, getting in my workouts and being home every evening to eat with my family and tuck my kids into bed, but I realized I was still making a sacrifice. I'm sacrificing my "need" to be everything to everyone to be what I really need to be and that is a happy, healthy and devoted mother. They are only little for such a short time. Everyone else is just going to have to figure out something else because first and foremost I am a MOM and I'm just not going to give my kids the short end of the stick. Putting my family and my health first is not always easy but changing it from a wish to a commitment has made it easier and my life is blessed for it.

Nails, Lips, Knees And Feet

I was a good kid. So good, in fact, that my dad has admitted remembering no instances of misbehavior. Okay maybe my dad is just getting old, but despite my not being perfect I was by all accounts responsible.  To list my outstanding qualities as a child and teen would pretty much describe me still today: creative, outspoken, emotional (shocking! Ha ha.) and responsible.

The rules my parents made for me were less along the lines of curfews, bedtimes and homework and more along the lines of, "shoes must be worn outside when the temperature is 50 or below," "no black nail polish and no black, green, or blue lipstick!" (I was, however, allowed to wear purple and orange!) and "no knees peeking up from the table at dinner." Yeah I was a little weird.

I went through a serious no shoe phase along with my best friend at the time. She would sleep over on weekends, and in the summer, those weekends could easily turn into a week and we never wore shoes, not to the store and not on our long walks around the neighborhood. We also did not wear our shoes when my dad drove her home. This resulted in about five pairs of this friend's shoes in our mud closet by the end of the summer, an annoyance my parents nagged me about till all the offending shoes made it back to her house. Well the bare feet continued into the winter till my dad came home one day and was greeted by little bare footprints in the snow leading to the mailbox and back. The 50 degree rule was instituted.

The colorful nails and lips phase came in about the same time as the bare foot phase  (age 13-14) and to my parents' credit they barely turned a head to the purple, or orange lips and rainbow nails. But black was where my dad drew the line. I was not in any way allowed to appear gothic. Along with this rule was no black army boots (therefore one of the first purchases made when I left home) and no wearing all black, even if it was a dress shirt, slacks and pumps. (this very obviously led to an all black phase my first year of college) To add to my color obsession I discovered that mixing a large amount of eyeshadow with vaseline made colored lipgloss, thus green and blue lips were born!...and quickly shot down. Apparently they fell into the forbidden "Gothic Zone."

For as long as I can remember I have had a hard time keeping my feet on the ground when seated. My legs are always tucked under me, or my knees (one or both) are up, hugged against my chest. When we would go on long car trips our family's big cooler would always sit at my feet because I wasn't using the space, actually having the cooler there nearly doubled my vehicular real estate which suited me just fine.

Dinner was no exception to my feet-on-floor aversion. But my dad found my knee poking up to be an eyesore I suppose, because the "no knees above the level of the table" rule was born. So I just sat cross legged...and I still do. I still can't keep my feet on the ground. I've been compared to a cat, always curled up. I've been called a contortionist, always tied in knots and I even had a friend once say, "Sometimes I look at you and make a game of trying to figure out which of your legs is which."

I'm certain that this behavior will eventually result in varicose veins but that's how I'm comfortable. What can you do? I am happy to announce that I grew out of my all black and rainbow lips phases and that I usually put on shoes to go outside but I'm afraid that when I'm ninety I will still be sitting on my feet and hugging my knees...at least I hope so.

Rise And Shine Sleepy Head

I have a hard time getting out of bed in the mornings, like a REALLY hard time. The problem is waking up with an alarm. The alarm goes off, I hear it, I open my eyes enough to find my alarm,  (sometimes...half the time I just feel around till I find it) I hit snooze and then I'm back to dreamland before I can even give it a second thought. This occurrence repeats itself every five minutes for about half an hour. Yes, half an hour. So I need thirty minutes to join the land of the living. I know this about myself and I set my alarm accordingly. One problem...I'm not the only one in my bed and my husband HATES it! It's bad enough when your spouse has to get up before you and you have to endure their alarm but to endure it for half an hour?! That's just too much. I totally agree but what am I supposed to do? He says turn off the alarm and get out of bed. Well babe I truly am sorry but that just isn't possible. The alarm doesn't actually wake me up. I hit snooze in my sleep and in fact if I get too used to a ringtone I just sleep right through it. If I actually turned off the alarm it could easily be another two hours before I would wake up on my own. And no, I'm not exaggerating. I am NOT a morning person. I will happily let my kids stay up late if it means they will sleep in and in turn let me.

So back to the alarm dilemma. In my defense I would hit snooze and then put my alarm under my pillow so that I could still hear it but him not as much and he would usually put his head under his pillow to muffle the sound but I decided it was time for a change. I knew that last thirty minutes of constantly interrupted sleep was doing me no good so my husband suggested  putting the alarm across the room. A great idea if it wasn't winter and our room wasn't freezing but it is and I knew I would just grab the alarm and dart back under my cozy covers. Then I  had the idea to put the alarm next to the space heater as an incentive to stay out of bed. It was worth a try.

So 6:50 am rolls around, (Yes I know its really not that early) and my alarm across the room on the floor goes off. I get out of bed, drop to the floor next to the heater and turn it on, enter problem number two. (or four or six, whatever I'm at) I have no problem with the floor. I'm comfortable sitting on the floor, working on projects on the floor and apparently...sleeping on the floor, especially curled up next to a toasty space heater.

Day two: I realize if I am to have any hope of waking up with only one or two "snoozes" I am going to need light. So the alarm goes off and me being the considerate wife that I am, put my pillow over my husbands face before turning on the light and hunkering down on the floor. The light helped and I reduced my snooze hits from six to three! This was progress.

The most recent effort in reducing my rise and shine time came about last week when I placed a magazine on the floor with my alarm and heater. I've found if I can just get it flipped open, along with my eyes, The gears in my brain start turning and I am proud to announce I've reduced my snooze hits to two! Yay me! And so far not a word from my sweet husband about the pillow on his head.

Sun! Glorious Sun!

Wow! I have really been suffering from the winter blues, and I didn't realize how much till the sun came out today and made me gloriously happy. It was a whopping 40 degrees where I am and with as bad as it has been lately, it felt like summer.

I lived in Southern California for 11yrs before moving back to my home town in the Rocky Mountain region a little over a year ago and boy has it been rough. I went from 70 degrees pretty much year round to winter four months out of the year. For someone who has a tendency to get depressed, post-Christmas snow and cold is detrimental. Pre-Christmas snow is delightful, heart warming, and festive but now when it snows YET AGAIN I want to cry, and as I slide around on the roads I curse this place and long for the beach.

My husband on the other hand still thinks it's beautiful and he rides a bike to school every day! That's right, snowing? Rides his bike. 7 degrees? Riding his bike. Roads covered in a sheet of ice? STILL RIDING! He doesn't want to spend money for a campus parking pass which doesn't hurt my feelings any, but really? Rides his bike everyday and sad that the snow is melting? This should tell you a bit about my husband. He loves the outdoors, is eternally up beat, and... he's crazy. You sure as heck won't catch me praying for snow. Thank you Mother Nature for the sunshine today. I know it won't last seeing as how it's only the first of February but today was lovely and I'll take what I can get!