What are you looking at?

What would you do if you weren't afraid?

Last summer, at the height of my job search, I applied for a communications job at a community services non-profit with a focus on childhood advocacy. Like most of the jobs I went after, the online application included a field for salary requirements.

That's a tricky question, yes? Your price as an employee is more than a dollar figure. You have to measure out-of-pocket costs like insurance premiums and commuting against softer ticket items like retirement contributions, vacation time, job flexibility, corporate culture and growth opportunities. But generally you have an idea of where you'd like to be.

At that point in time, Luke and I were doing okay, but as a one-income family with three children and no short-term plans to change our situation, I had to make my next career move count financially. We had dreams of building an emergency fund, replacing the family car and switching our starter home with something more permanent. We couldn't accomplish all those things without my getting a huge raise in salary.

On the other hand, my career is more to me than money. I want work that means something, too. So even though non-profits aren't hot spots for accumulating material wealth, I threw my hat in the ring.

Three weeks later, I received the follow-up email I was hoping for, but with a twist. There was another open communications role, one that focused raising awareness around childhood education to parents, donors and legislators. Because of my writing gig for Parents.com, the hiring manager thought I might be a good fit and asked if I would interview. He was also very honest about the salary range falling beneath what I listed on my application.

We arranged for a quick call (not an actual interview) the next day.

And it was a good conversation. We talked about the job description, key initiatives, work schedules. I think I would have loved it.

Then came the issue of pay. By this time I'd been actively job searching for more than four months and was steadier on my feet when it came to talking money. So I asked for the range. Roughly the same I was making, maybe a little less. 

I asked for 24 hours to think it over. The hiring manager was gracious. 

You can figure out the rest of the story.

Of course, there's a happy ending. I found a great job doing interesting work in the salary range I wanted. Luke and I still aren't millionaires, but we're much stronger financially than we were last year. It was a smart career move for my family.

But I wish I'd taken the interview.

-----

I have another story like this: a company reaching out with an amazing opportunity, me stepping out of the process. Once again, my reasoning sounded logical. Not the right time to make a career switch; the money might not be there; the drive would be long; I would have to learn Skype for the interview.

(Seriously, that was one of my reasons.)

I need to stop thinking this way.

I need to stop getting in my own way and assuming I have all the answers. I need to be open to surprises, even if the balance sheet doesn't add up or the odds aren't in my favor. I should have given the non-profit a chance to court me for the job. So what if I got to the end and the pay was too low? Would I have lost anything in the process? What could I have gained instead?

Similarly, I should have panicked for a couple days about learning Skype and working in BuFu Egypt and agreed to that second interview. I'd been foaming at the mouth over that job all summer. So what if it came at the wrong time? Does change ever come at the right time?

Before you drop out of the race, at least put on your shoes. 

This post inspired by the "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" Tumblr by LeanIn.org. My thoughts on the actual book are still forthcoming.

Why we stayed in Indy: part three

Read part one and part two.

As I was getting my career ducks in a row, Luke and I were also figuring out what to do with the house. We met with our real estate agent in February and shared our goal of listing by April.

Pam gave us her thoughts on an initial list price, target sales price and sample closing estimate. We were competitive with other houses in our subdivision on price per square foot, and we have one of the largest backyards, so we were in a good position to sell. So what if the closing fees ate up our (anticipated) net profit? We weren't trying to make money, we just wanted to get back home.

We also walked through the house to identify repairs, touch ups and staging that needed to take place before we went to market.

At the end of the meeting, our to-do list looked like this:

- Restretch carpet on both floors
- Professionally clean first-floor carpet to remove unsightly mud stains
- Replace laminate flooring in the dining room or at least buy a rug to cover the scratched-up boards
- Buy new (matching, non-wobbly) chairs for dining room table
- Purchase new dining room curtains
- Consider new tile in the kitchen (current tile is dented and outdated)
- Replace broken garbage disposal
- Replace broken water softener
- Replace broken accordion-style doors in the laundry room and pantry
- Patch ceiling
- Repaint walls and cabinets in the kitchen and adjoining half bath
- Touch up paint in the living room and dining room
- Repaint all trim throughout the house
- Mount a mirror over the living room couch to make the room look larger
- Update bedding and install curtains in the master bedroom; purchase larger, matching lamps; consider buying nightstands that are not TV trays (hey, at least those match)
- Caulk and replace fixtures in the master bath
- Clean out master closet; move majority of items into offsite storage unit
- Repaint kids' bathroom
- Update lighting and fixtures in upstairs bathroom
- Clean out the garage
- Investigate personal loan options to fund renovations and/or cover closing costs for the buyer

Our best-guess total to complete these "touch ups" came to four thousand dollars.

Seeing as our tax refund went almost entirely to paying off our credit card AND seeing as we had no savings to speak of, the possibility of needing a loan was fast becoming a reality.

Hasta la vista, new family car. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, money for retirement.

"It's all worth it," I told Luke, even as my stomach dropped at the thought of taking on debt AGAIN and my husband's eyes bulged out of their frugal sockets. "If that's what it takes to get back home, then that's what we'll do. You can't put a price on family, right?"

Although DAMN if our dream of family togetherness wasn't going to land us in the poor house.

You'd throw a few bucks at these guys if you saw them on the interstate, yes?

So we got to work.

I pulled out my "House" notebook, and as is my way when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I started making lists. The projects most critical to selling the house, the order in which we would tackle them, the minimal amount of money we would spend (hint: NOT four grand), and a timeline for getting it all done. How much we could pay in cash and what we were willing to charge. Welcome back, V*sa bill, we missed you.

While Luke and I didn't have a hard date for leaving Indianapolis, Pam told us the best time to sell was spring, since couples with children would want to be settled in by time school started. Plus, we wanted to be rid of the house as soon as possible so I could entertain job offers up north.

Also, Kara was going to start kindergarten in fall 2013 (I KNOW, PLEASE DO NOT EVEN GET ME STARTED), and I desperately wanted this selling mess behind us by then so she wouldn't have to deal with changing schools.

I took a week of PTO in March to get the ball rolling, tearing through closets while Luke and his dad replaced lights, towel bars and toilet paper holders in our three bathrooms.

Not replaced: nausea, emotional fatigue, feelings of dread.

Meanwhile, I was talking to friends in Chicago about the going salary for jobs that were comparable to my current position and realizing I would need a huge raise just to maintain our very modest living expenses. To raise our standard of living, we would have to live in northwest Indiana and I would commute to the city. Or the kids would go to daycare so Luke could go back to work.

As I Dr. Philled our situation to anyone who would listen, I learned a lot of things. I realized we had a better support system in Indianapolis than we thought - people who cared about us and who were willing to help us out in a bind - and that maybe, just maybe, our problem was less about being removed from our "true" network and more about gathering the courage to ask for help. Plus, we were finally enjoying our quaint little town. And we loved our new church. And we most certainly were not ready for Luke to go back to work.

It was at the end of my week off, I think, that I posed a new thought to Luke.

"Maybe this move isn't the best use of our energy right now," I said.

And just like that, the weight was lifted.

Adjusted expectations

When setting the tone for 2012, I decided that my word for the year would be leap. Abandon comfort zones. Propel myself into new terrain. Be nervous. All in an effort to prepare for the big changes I expected to set into motion.

Well, one of those adventures is officially on hold. Luke and I won't be putting our house on the market this spring.

It shouldn't have taken a preliminary analysis from our real estate agent to figure this out, but apparently I am that stupid. For instance: Did you know that homes these days are...selling less than what you paid for? By like, thousands of dollars? And there are no fairy godmothers to neatly make up the difference? Also, that you will possibly STILL be expected to do things like repair the roof and pony up closing costs? May I also inform you that the earth is round and revolves around the sun?

It's been an enlightening week for the Frema-Useless Clutter household.

Oh, Momma, but you are a fool! Let us join in a round of laughter at your expense.

All kidding aside, I am surprised I thought the concept of getting the house to market by April was more within our grasp than it actually was. We've known since tax time last year that our 2011 refund would be applied fully toward our credit card debt, our short-term savings is nil, and the dial on our mortgage (understandably) hasn't moved much since we bought this place a little more than three years ago. Of course we'll need to bring money to the table. I just never quantified the amount until Saturday.

Screw books and puzzles! No time like the present to learn DIY shingle.

Before leaving us yesterday, our agent promised to be in touch with more concrete numbers on what we can reasonably expect the house to sell for and how much we might be asked to pay out of pocket, but after comparing last year's list prices to sale prices for homes in our neighborhood, Luke and I already know that we can't afford to sell right now - maybe not even in this calendar year.

At first this was more than a little discouraging. We are so ready to move forward in other areas of our lives, but everything is contingent upon being free of this property (or at least will be made a million times easier). Renting is not an option, and we aren't interested in jumping through hoops for a short sale. Instead, we're choosing to view this setback as an opportunity. 

Really, we should have been planning to go into this process with as little debt as possible, so now we can make that happen. Our tax refund will be used to pay off our credit card balance, and that better equips us to take care of our remaining medical bills (still looking at you, Liam, while also waiting to receive the invoice for my follow-up ERCP). Once that's done, we can make updates to paint, fixtures, and other random eyesores a little at a time instead of all at once. We can investigate other ways to save money (refinancing, budget cuts, etc.). Meanwhile, our mortgage will only get lower, and there is still plenty we can do to get ready for the changes that lie ahead. We are deep in the tunnel, but we can still see the light.

And what if, in the middle of all these preparations, the adventure of a lifetime falls into my (our) lap? I (we) may chase after it, anyway, easy be damned. This year, when pitted against leap, easy is going to lose, every time.

The Great Carseat Experiment: Updated

I turn 37 weeks tomorrow, which has catapulted me into full-on nesting mode, attempting to tie up every loose end in the history of the universe before Baby Brother's June 29 delivery date. Last week we focused on car maintenance and child seating; the Cobalt needed about $360 worth of repairs (mad props, savings) and over the weekend Luke cleaned out both vehicles and experimented with car seat arrangements for the first time since February. At that time, we made the decision to transition Kara into a high-back booster (sans five-point harness) to make room for the baby's infant bucket.

Come Saturday, though, we just couldn't do it.

Despite my initial confidence over this set-up, I became increasingly more anxious about it since reading about the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's updated guidelines for child restraints back in March. While Kara does meet the height and weight requirements for a booster, she is still only three years old and isn't even close to outgrowing her current Britax Marathon. But keeping her in the Marathon would require us to buy a new car, and despite having an excellent reason to justify such a significant purchase (SAFETY), we simply cannot afford to do that. In my Google research I learned about a slimmer seat with a five-point harness by Sunshine Radian that looked like it would fit and also received favorable reviews on several third-party sites, but the seat isn't sold at any stores in our vicinity, so we'd have to order it online, and what if it didn't fit, and man, these things aren't cheap. We looked into other options for Kara, but all seat specs were similar to the Marathon's. We looked into other infant seats, but the Baby Trend Flex-Loc handed down to us from my friend Jenn has the smallest dimensions we've seen. Nathan's Britax Roundabout wasn't worth messing with because it's already plenty slim and fits his measurements perfectly.

We may as well give the booster a try, Luke and I would say in the end, each time the topic came up, and it came up many times. We'll stay off the highway while we test it out. Our longest drive in town is less than ten minutes. It will be okay.

But again: we just couldn't do it.

Luke spent all of Saturday morning once again trying to get the Marathon in safely and securely, but again it was all in vain. Despite your best efforts, you just can't force a square peg into a round hole. When that didn't work, we pulled out the booster.

It wasn't in the car five seconds before a horrible knot began forming in the pit of my stomach and I was sobbing to Luke that we had to order the Radian.

The Marathon brushed against the door of the Outlander, but just barely. The Radian would save us a precious inch and a half of seat space; we shouldn't need any more than that to make it fit, I said. This is our daughter's safety we're talking about. Please, please order the seat and save me from having a heart attack already.

Luke just nodded. He didn't need any convincing. He was nervous for Kara, too.

The Radian should arrive before the end of the week.

Buying the seat doesn't change the fact that we'll need to buy a new car once the baby outgrows the infant bucket, but we'll be in much better shape financially by then. I'm getting a raise at the end of the month that should absorb most if not all of the anticipated budget increases incurred by Life With Three Children. Tax refunds arrive in late winter, and our credit card debt will be gone by spring, at which point I should be due for another raise. We can plan to make room in our budget for a car payment by then.

In this scenario, I can tell myself It will be okay and actually believe it.

-------

Of all the worries I've had over my three and a half years as a parent, I don't think any of those experiences came close to the level of intensity of this one. Not even nursing. When choosing formula, I felt guilty over denying them the optimal choice in baby food, but at least we could afford to pay for it. Luke and I hate that we can't take on a car payment to get the best ride for our family; that guilt coupled with visions of our child's body being torn to shreds in an accident? If we had gone with the booster and something would have happened.... Well, there are no words.

Parenting is so much harder than you think it will be when you're first starting out. Luckily, there are also no words to describe its joy.

 

Adventures in Sterilizing

It was all so perfect in my head.

During one of my first prenatal appointments for this pregnancy, I discussed with my ob/gyn the possibility of getting my tubes tied shortly after delivering baby number three. I already knew that the hospital where I had Kara and Nathan wouldn't allow this procedure during the c-section, being a Catholic institution and all, and I was okay with that because I loved both of my stays there and how I was treated by the staff. Plus, Luke has always been willing to man up and get The Snip, so there was no reason to give it any more thought.

Until recently, when I gave it some more thought.

The idea came up again during talks with a coworker who is expecting her first child in May; I learned that she was delivering her little guy at a neighboring hospital, and it reminded me that when I first signed up with my practice some four years ago, right before I became pregnant with Kara, my doctor told me she had privileges at that very facility, in addition to the one I eventually chose. Let's call my current hospital Scrubs A and this second one Scrubs B.

Scrubs B has no religious affiliation but maintains an equally stellar reputation.

The wheels in my head started turning.

Originally, I didn't even want to think about switching to another hospital because my experiences with Scrubs A up to this point have been wonderful, and I had no desire to throw unnecessary wild cards into the mix with this last baby. However, Luke and I have been doing an awful lot of talking about the whole getting fixed issue lately, and since my personal deductible will be all paid up as a result of the charges associated with this pregnancy, any procedures that are covered by insurance would be free of charge for me. You never want money to play a factor in determining which spouse gets sterilized, but when you are already pinching pennies and you are searching for a permanent resolution to ending the reproductive chapter of your life, it is what it is.

So I changed my tune. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to switch things up a little, especially since Scrubs B is so well known for its maternity services and especially since, to the best of my recollection, my doctor could just as easily deliver there as she could at Scrubs A. Then I could kill two birds with one stone - one baby, one tubal, one surgery for the win!

"Let me just make sure the practice still delivers at this hospital," I told Luke a couple of weeks ago. "My next appointment is soon. I can't imagine they wouldn't deliver there anymore."

That appointment was today, and guess what? They don't deliver there anymore.

Well, that's not exactly true. As it turns out, privileges are maintained by physicians on an individual basis, and of the now eight ob/gyns currently with my practice, only two might possibly still retain privileges. This is largely due to the practice's close proximity to Scrubs A - we're talking right-across-the-street close - and of course, as fate would have it, my own doctor is not one of those two. She explained that she stayed affiliated with Scrubs B for quite a while but that her patients always chose to deliver at Scrubs A, so she finally decided there was no need to maintain her ties with Scrubs B. MINUS ONE FOR FREMA.

On the up side, though, the two doctors she mentioned are ones I really like, so while I didn't particularly enjoy the idea of having someone other than my primary physician perform the c-section, that's exactly what happened with Kara and everything went swimmingly, so the switch was still on the table, until she reminded me that if a complication accelerated my delivery and one of those two doctors weren't on call, I'd end up having Baby Brother at Scrubs A, anyway. And as long-time readers may recall, I did have a complication with Nathan that caused me to deliver earlier than planned, so even though my scheduled c-section removes a good chunk of the guesswork from the actual birth, the pregnancy itself is still very much up for grabs, and the last thing I want is to spend my remaining gestating months fretting over how this will all play out.

All of that to say: no two-in-one for me.

Still desperately wanting to take advantage of having a paid-in-full deductible, I talked to my doc about having a tubal after the fact and learned I could schedule it within a week or two of my six-week postnatal follow-up, if I wanted. Which at first I did, because hello with still trying to kill two birds with one stone. Two surgeries within the same recovery period can still be considered a win, right?

My findings: It's a standard outpatient procedure, my ob/gyn can do it, I'd have to be sedated, and someone would have to drive me home afterwards, but recovery time is short at roughly one to two weeks. However, during that time, I would be prohibited from any strenuous exercise: no running, no 30-Day Shred, etc. You know, all the things I planned to do to get into shape before returning to work. Of my anticipated 12-week leave, I would be able to maybe use three of those to actively lose any baby weight.

I went back to work after eight weeks with Nathan, and I looked and felt terrible. I do not care to repeat that experience with baby number three, when the length of time off is one of the benefits I now have at my disposal.

So, all of THAT to say: no tubal during maternity leave for me.

After my appointment, Luke and I did some more talking, and  we came up with a plan. We decided that he would reschedule the urologist consult he cancelled back in October to get more information about The Snip and to find out how much of it would be covered by insurance. If our portion is minimal - as in, a few hundred dollars or less - then Luke will take care of things before I deliver, and we'll write off the bill as money well spent. If the cost outweighs the benefits for us at this particular moment in time, I will schedule a tubal for myself around the holidays, at which point I'll have been back at work long enough to use up some vacation time. Either way, somebody in the Frema-Useless Clutter household is getting sterilized in 2011.

I smell a new reality show for next season. We can call it The Amazing Race: Tubes versus Testes!

The Great Carseat Experiment: Conducted!

Luke and I went through with The Great Carseat Experiment this weekend, and we were able to come up with an arrangement that will suit our needs well enough to bring Baby Brother home in the Outlander.

We first tried using the three existing seats presently in our possession - Kara's Britax Marathon, Nathan's Britax Roundabout, and the Baby Trend infant bucket and base from Jenn - but the Marathon kept bumping into the passenger door upon closing, so on Saturday afternoon we made a trip to Target to invest in a highback booster seat, which bought us the couple of inches we needed to avoid a budget-blowing vehicle upgrade. We are lucky in that Kara meets both the height and weight requirements for a booster, and we went with a highback so our girl could enjoy the benefits of side impact protection a while longer. Though we have the seat in our possession now, we will continue to use the Marathon for Kara until right before the baby's arrival, when the bucket seat will be permanently installed.

We don't know for sure how long we can get by with our current car; at some point Nathan's Roundabout will need an upgrade, and I don't know how three convertible/booster seats will fit back there, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, we are just grateful to retain our status as a car-payment-free family, however long that lasts.

Kneeling on the front passenger cushion to look back at all those child seats nestled together, I realized this was the first time I had a tangible representation of what life will look like with three children. And honestly, it was a little overwhelming. I assume that was only the first of numerous similar-type moments to come.

ABOUT THE STROLLER

Luke and I have given the whole stroller situation some more thought and decided against buying anything for now. For one, Luke reminded me we have a perfectly good umbrella stroller collecting dust in the garage. Also, we have a several baby carriers at our disposal - an infant-sized Baby Bjorn hand-me-down, the Maclaren I received while writing for Parents.com that worked splendidly with Nathan, and an Ergo that will see us into toddlerhood. With all of those things, we own more than enough gear to transport this baby on errands, zoo trips, etc. My main concern was having something for Luke to use when getting Kara and Nathan to and from school, but he has already assured me he would rather use the carrier instead of a stroller to keep both hands free.

Also, about the double stroller: I appreciated all the suggetions, but Luke and I have a double stroller. With two kids 13 months apart, it was sort of a necessity, at least in the early months when Nathan was brand-new and Kara was still a baby herself. Nowadays, though, it doesn't get much use since we received a wagon as a generous present from my in-laws and Kara and Nathan much prefer that to being strapped in to individual seats. Plus, even with the wagon, they actually walk most of the time, so Luke and I anticipate needing only one stroller (if any, what with all the aforementioned carrier options) to contain the baby.

Does your brain hurt? I know mine does. Another recurring symptom of Life With Three Children, I suspect.

Pre-nesting

This past Sunday, I spent a glorious three hours cleaning out Kara's closet and sorting her outgrown clothes into Tupperware bins for other fashionistas to enjoy. Now that we know the baby's sex and ESPECIALLY since Luke and I will be taking steps to nail shut close the door on the reproductive phase of our lives, I'm eager to let go of that which no longer represents the family we are now and make room for the next round of material fanfare. (Though I did hold on to some unique iron-on onesies made by a special Internet auntie.) For us, that chapter involves turning two toddlers into roommates by situating them in a gender-neutral space absent of floral wall art and yellow paint and preparing a nursery for our newest little guy. 

When it comes to feeling ready for this baby, I haven't yet experienced that paralyzing Oh, Shit Moment Amalah described in a recent post, but at this point it's only a matter of days, as I have already shared with Luke my strong desire to conduct The Great Carseat Experiment this weekend to finally determine how we will fit three children in the second row of the Outlander. Luckily, we have two different infant buckets at our disposal - the Chicco KeyFit 30 originally purchased for Kara, which we love but anticipate being too bulky to position between two toddler seats, and a slimmer Baby Trends hand-me-down from my friend Jenn that may just do the trick. It also helps that Kara is now the appropriate height and weight for a booster seat (40 pounds and 40 inches, as of last week's well-child visit), so that should buy us a little more room.

Anyway, just imagining those carseats all smashed together lined up in a perfectly safe arrangement is working me into a mini-frenzy. Actually watching this image come to life is guaranteed to secure my one-way ticket to Crazy Pregnant Lady Town.

As I've stated before, we truly are blessed to have so many of Baby Brother's "necessities" already in our possession, the result of having two young children and generous family and friends. Bassinet, crib, changing table, swing, car seat, bouncy seats, nursing pillows, bottle warmers, infant AND toddler carriers, mobile... We haven't spent a dime on him yet, and that includes my maternity wardrobe, which so far has accommodated my current size nicely (though come summer I may be singing a different tune). We do know, though, that there are a couple of things we'll want to pick up, the biggest item being a stroller. Once I'm feeling up to it, Luke and I want to be out and about as much as possible with all three kids this summer, and while baby carriers are wonderful, it would be nice to NOT have the baby strapped to my person every waking moment of the day if I so desire. Of course, our choice of stroller will be heavily influenced by the infant car seat we end up using - another reason The Great Carseat Experiment must take place as soon as possible - and after doing some price-checking online, I'm wondering if it would make more sense financially to drop some dough on a moderately priced travel system than spend almost the same amount on a single stroller.

A jogging stroller would also be grand, but unless we win the lottery, Luke and I will be staggering our alone time on the trail accordingly. Which is not terrible in theory, since I'm sure we'll each welcome a short break from the zoo that will be our household.

One area where I do want to spend some money is on decorating the kids' rooms. Kara and Nathan's room would benefit from a fresh coat of paint, spunky wall art, and some new bedding if we can swing it right away. As for the baby's room, it's technically all ready to go for a boy, but I hate the thought of bringing him home to a space that was custom-designed for his big brother. Plus, nurseries are so much damn FUN to decorate, and I want to experience doing that one last time.

Luke and I also once talked about painting the kitchen, half bath, and the kids' bathroom, but these action items may be placed on hold until fall, when we will hopefully have more moolah at our disposal. Not to mention it might make more sense to paint those areas closer to sell time, in case our color palettes are deemed All Wrong by our real estate agent. (Feel free to agree with me here -- or not -- in the comments.)

It feels like we've been talking about these various projects for simply ages now, but pretty soon it'll be time to spring into action, because Oh, shit, a baby is coming! (hey, there it is!), and babies do not factor your laundry to-do list into their date of arrival.

Ingrates!

Working on my business

Turns out we won't be able to pay off our credit card debt before Baby Brother 2.0's arrival.

I discovered this on Valentine's Day after Luke filed our taxes and I created budgets for every paycheck through June. We were so close, dammit--just a few hundred dollars away--but alas, Visa is not the only entity that needs our money. We are furiously pumping dollars into our HSA for my ob/gyn and hospital bills and into short-term savings to cover unexpected expenses during my maternity leave and transition back to work. Our goal to get out of credit card debt is going to take longer than we planned--probably into the beginning of the New Year, unfortunately--but at least the end is in sight.

All of this got me thinking about ways to bring in more money.

I've mentioned several times here my eagerness to explore launching a freelance business I could manage in my "spare time," but right now, it's not going to happen. For one thing, building a client base will be more difficult than I first thought. My original plan was to reach out to some of the advertising, design, and printing vendors I know through work, but I recently learned this type of relationship is regarded as a "conflict of interest" by my employer, so good-bye to that idea. Now, I could still go after like-minded companies to land similar types of projects, but when in my day am I supposed to network, set up introductions, attend client meetings, and just plain be available for questions or immediate needs? My work is flexible, but not THAT flexible, you know? Also, I doubt one lunch hour per week day would be enough to manage those things, and most people are not up for conducting business face-to-face after 5 p.m.

I'm sure some more efficient ways to iron out these details details would present themselves with a litle bit of pre-planning, but at this point in my life, I'm not willing to explore them. It would be easier to apply for a nights-and-weekends job at the Gap and be done with it, but right now the whole point is to increase our income while maximizing our time together as a family.

So I've got a different plan. As the great Monica Gellar once proclaimed in the second season of Friends when she invested her last few unemployment dollars into MGE stock, "I'm going to bet on me!"

In my particular scenario, "me" equals this blog.

Before I had kids, I was able to pay a lot more attention to this here little site, and the unintended (but very welcome) result was a two-year stint at Parents.com. What a wonderful opportunity as a writer to be paid for sharing my thoughts and experiences with pregnancy and motherhood. It's also how I came to know some pretty awesome people.

On the flip side, Mom-101 spends a lot of time talking about appreciating your value as a blogger and not underestimating your worth, and I think that was my biggest failure with Parents.com. Not in the sense that any additional efforts on my part would have kept the community from shutting down, but in hindsight I see that my fear of being labeled a "sell-out" for taking that gig kept me from publicizing my content and making it more accessible to long-time readers. I didn't Tweet links or start a Facebook page because Some People don't like that. But you know what? Some People do, and that includes me. I think it's helpful when the bloggers I follow on Twitter share their newest post, I'm among the first to "like" a Facebook fan page for a blog I love, and I don't think twice when somebody decides to implement advertising on their site. I have preferences on how those things are done, but I don't object to the acts themselves. So why have I always been so much harder on myself than the Internet trailblazers I so admire? Hell, I couldn't bring myself to keep a list of Parents entries in my own damn sidebar. God forbid I give the impression that I believe my writing is actually worth READING.

What it comes down to, I think, at least for me, is that for the longest time the majority of online content was published purely for recreation, without any thought given to financial gain or career opportunities. You blogged because it was fun and didn't assign any value to it beyond random shits and giggles. These days you can host ads, write sponsored posts, receive corporate sponsorship to attend a conference, freelance for other sites, and optimize your posts for keywords that apply to your "desired market." You can manage your personal brand just like the big wigs do over at Best Buy, Amazon, and Apple.

I work in marketing and communications, so I'm pretty familiar with the concept of branding. I've just never really done it for myself.

Thankfully, marketing can be done tastefully and with respect for the end user, but compared to established creative industries like music and book publishing, blogging is relatively new to the concept of for-profit strategy, and the community is still mulling over that proverbial line in the sand when it comes to deciding how far is too far. And opinions vary drastically. To some, blog links on Twitter are tacky. For others, partial feeds to increase site click-throughs are grounds for cancelling a newsfeed subscription. Then there are those who simply ignore any bells and whistles that don't appeal to them and keep on doing their blog-reading thang.

My problem is I've been operating all these years on two potentially faulty assumptions:

• That any reader in the history of the universe who encounters my blog is against any form of self-promotion, and
• That that those opinions should heavily influence how I manage my blog.

Obviously, neither has to be true.

As is the case with so many areas in my life, I need to stop worrying about what other people think and start trusting my own gut when it comes to making decisions, whether they pertain to my boobs or my blog or whatever.

A long time ago, Molly and I talked about trying to launch a mom-centric website of sorts, but neither of us had a concrete idea to pursue, and currently I don't have the mindset to commit to starting something brand-new from scratch. However, this blog has always been important to me, and I never regret the time I spend updating. I certainly don't need another reason to spend more time here, but if there is even a small chance I can take something so personally fulfilling and turn it into a financial opportunity, well, why not at least try?

I have no idea where this will go. I am open to incorporating ads, though I have no idea which network to use, and I could earn twenty bucks a month or nothing at all. I'd love to land another freelance gig but have no idea how to go after that, as Parents was handed to me on a silver platter. I don't feel comfortable writing sponsored posts at this time, and there aren't any resources available in the Frema-Useless Clutter household for blogging conferences or other networking events.

I can...start a Facebook fan page, though, right? That's easy. That's free.

So, all of THAT to say this: I'm going to start a Facebook fan page!  You're trembling in your boots with excitement, aren't you? I can totally tell.

She trims her bangs, her bangs

Last week, I was all set to sacrifice a proper salon experience for the sake of my family's budget. It would be an adventure! I told myself optimistically in an effort to calm my fears. And good blog fodder to boot! I OWE IT TO THE INTERNET AND ALSO THE COMEDIC GENRE TO GO TO GREAT CLIPS. This was happening.

Then I talked to Gina, my girlfriend since kindergarten who back in high school introduced me to Brenda, My Favorite Hair Stylist Ever, and who appreciates the ability to do good hair even more than I do. When I explained to her my financial dilemma and adventurous plan over a two-hour chat Saturday night, I could practically hear her shaking her head on the other end of the line. "Breain, you can't go to Great Clips. You just can't," she said, and eventually convinced me to call my regular salon and ask about a bang trim, since they were the primary frustration reason I had for scheduling an appointment anywhere. And you know what? It was SIX DOLLARS. So I booked a visit for yesterday after work, and ten minutes later I walked away eight dollars poorer but also two free samples richer AND mentally a million dollars happier. Apparently, friends don't let friends go to Great Clips. Thanks again, friend.

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Another happiness boost: today is payday, and this morning I realized with a start that it marks the third payday of not having to dip into our savings account OR having to charge anything to our Visa. Step by painful step, our plan to live within our means, pay off our credit card debt, and save for the future is working. It works partly because I am no longer fighting the word "no" -- no, you can't run to Chipotle with the girls; no, you don't need eight subs AND pizza for Kara and Nathan's party, even if you do feel like a cheapskate for serving cold cuts. I know that I wear the same handful of clothes to work every day, eat the same kind of lunch every day, and it doesn't bother me like it did before. Luke has to run in below-freezing temperatures to train for the Indy 500 Mini-Marathon because we can't afford a treadmill or even a monthly gym membership, and he is doing it without complaint. Gifts to nieces and nephews have been drastically scaled down for occasions like Christmas, birthdays, and baptisms, but we do it and just remain grateful we can afford to buy them anything at all.

However, this new reality only works because Luke and I have undergone a huge shift in mindset and a willingness to ask, "What are we really working for? What is the priority here?" while embracing the amount of money we have to work with right now, instead of looking to the future for some magical solution. For example, I mentioned in an earlier post how I thought that our situation would resolve itself after receiving our tax refund check and my annual merit increase, which is typically issued at the same time every year. Well, recent events have made it clear to me that the type of increase I was expecting to get isn't something I can take for granted (the economy is affecting everyone, it seems!). And the tax check will be good, but it won't eliminate our Visa balance, so every paycheck prior to Baby Brother's arrival will continue to be carefully orchestrated to make sure we can axe off this debt, pay my OB bill, and maintain a small nest egg to compensate for what paid maternity leave and short-term disability benefits won't cover. Now more than ever, I reflect on Suze Orman's long-ago-uttered mantra, "I have more money than I will ever need," and strive (along with Luke, of course) to make this true for my family. 

But not everything is a wash. This month is fall registration time at Kara's school, and Luke and I are committed to sending both Kara and Nathan for one day a week this year. Technically, Kara is old enough for preschool, which meets for two and a half hours twice a week, but not only was it slightly more expensive, it also required Luke to finagle three small children -- including one newborn -- out of the house multiple days a week. By keeping Kara in the same type of program she's in now, she and Nathan can be out on the same day for the same number of hours, making drop-off and pick-up logistics infinitely easier on Luke. It wasn't an easy decision, knowing that Kara is capable of (and would enjoy) participating in a more education-based curriculum, but there's always next year, and we do plenty at home, and again, we're just grateful she can continue an activity she loves and that we can offer the same opportunity to Nathan. After all, THEY are what we're working for. THEY are our priority. We would gladly give up a lifetime of gym memberships and a million fast-food tacos for them.

That's what she said

"I swear I didn't pull it that hard" was the opening I received upon taking in the broken car door handle in Luke's hand, severed from the Cobalt on Tuesday during his ninety-minute quest to free my car from several layers of ice.

"The door handle begs to differ," I said.

 

It's hard to be mad about it when he was doing such a kind thing for me, braving freezing temperatures to spare his eighteen-weeks-pregnant wife from all that time outside. Plus, it was the passenger-side door, and since normally only one person is in the Cobalt at a time, it's not a big deal in the long run. Luke is hopeful that he can superglue the handle back on once the weather is warmer; meanwhile, I worry we are one step away from using engine hoods from different vehicle models and garbage bags from under the kitchen sink as substitutes for legimate car repairs. At least superglue is budget-friendly!

This was just one of several winter-weather troubles experienced by my husband during Indy's two-day, house-bound Iceapalooza.

 

RIP, ice scraper number one.

 

...And to your cheap, good-for-nothing brother, ice scraper number two.

He also took a decent fall yesterday while completing his training run for the Mini-Marathon, attempting to hike the slope leading from our trail to our backyard, which he is still paying for today by way of cuts on his nose and lip and various aches and pains. He nearly scared the bejeezus out of me when he came back into the house.

 

Thankfully, Monday's weather was uneventful, so the four of us were able to enjoy a lovely afternoon at a nearby park to celebrate Nathan's birthday. More on that (plus his video!) soon.

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In our on-going effort to live within our means, pay off our credit card, AND have something leftover for savings, Luke and I are constantly reassesing our priorities and searching for less expensive ways to accommodate the non-negotiables. One such item that I have been consistently moving over to the next pay period for myself is a haircut. The salon I usually go to is affiliated with Aveda and charges $29 for a wash and cut. For someone who spent the better part of her teens and early twenties fighting with stylists from walk-in places like Fantastic Sam's over the best way to hack my curls, this price has never phased me because the service is top-notch and I am usually satisfied with the results. Plus, even when I was in Chicago getting the best cuts of my life (I still miss you, Brenda), the most I paid for a cut was $35. Again, so worth it to me for the service and expertise.

Unfortunately, our current budget disagrees. Either I can keep putting it off until I can afford my regular place, every day growing one step closer to resembling the cavemen in those Geico commercials, or resign myself to searching for cheaper, possibly less-experienced pastures. As evidenced by the photo below, I think it's obvious there's really just one option.

 

Look! With the proper backdrop and everything!

Action must be taken, and soon. Therefore, sometime between now and next weekend, which is when we'll travel north to attend baby Rosemary's baptism, I will cross my fingers, say a prayer, and brave the chair at Great Clips. I will be sure to keep the cut simple; right now, my hair is actually a little too "fringe-y" for my taste, and the layers are out of wack from postponing all these weeks, so a clean-up is definitely in order. The long-term goal is to grow it out to shoulder-length by summer; before that, though, I need a cut that will be more conducive to less upkeep. My hope is to replicate a style I had in 2006 during my pre-engagement/newlywed period, as pictured here:

 

Not drastically different from how I wear it now, just a little fuller at the top without the tails framing my face. That shouldn't be hard for even a new stylist to handle, right? I wouldn't think so. But then, I also thought all stylists knew how to do a blow-out with a round brush. Apparently, that is not the case.

Wish me luck, friends.

(Also: SOB, I miss that outfit. And my hair color! And the money and the basically care-free existence we had back then! Naive fools, both of you!) 

Chasing the clouds away

It's so easy to let money troubles define who you are by measuring your life against that which you cannot do. At least, that's how it feels to me sometimes. My monthly book club dinners are out. Luke can't join a gym to support his training for this year's Mini (!!). Kara can't take dance lessons, and Nathan can't start (pre-pre)school by his birthday like we once planned. Granted, these can'ts will resolve themselves in a few months, so they're not hindering us long term, but how do you get by in the interim? How can you turn your day-to-day into something meaningful using only what you already have? And during the coldest, darkest time of year?

Those were the questions Luke and I were asking ourselves at the beginning of the month, after evaluating our money situation for the remainder of winter and coming up with a game plan to get us through. It's easy to fall into a "Why me?" sort of attitude and feel sorry for yourself. But clearly, asking pointless questions and indulging useless emotions won't get you anywhere. So here are some of the ways in which we are accentuating the positive:

Cleaning house: Luke and I love to play the "What if?" game when it comes to remembering all the other houses we could have purchased instead of this one, but when she's wearing her Sunday best, it's easier to appreciate all the positives we gained with this place: open space, natural light, optimal number of bedrooms, and plenty of toilets to accommodate large family get-togethers. I am working hard to stop clutter from piling up in hot spots like the microwave top, the mail stand, and my dresser top. I make the bed every morning before I leave for work, and I've stopped using our CD rack as my own personal storage unit. We won't be implementing any major renovations this year, but we do plan to paint the kids' bathrooms and our kitchen before the baby comes, and a new splash of color can do wonders to improve the overall mood of a room. (Right, Molly?)

Being creative: Last week I received a gift certificate from my employer acknowledging my five-plus years of service. The certificate was for an undesignated amount of money for a site that very much reminded me of those catalogs from grade school - you know, the ones that told you what you could score for selling five to twenty candy bars (sparkly pen, bangle bracelets), fifty to seventy-five (NKOTB tribute band CD, piggy bank), etc. I could have redeemed it for a sassy new hobo bag, but Luke and I chose boring cookware instead, because our current set was scratched up something fierce and there was no room in our budget for replacing it. It wasn't a fun choice, but we saw an opportunity and jumped on it.

Taking stock: It's also been helpful to remind ourselves of all the things we do have that make this rough patch more manageable. The maternity clothes I once planned to unload to Goodwill, for one - I'll need more clothes when the weather gets warmer and my belly rivals the size of a world globe, but for now I can stretch out live off my regular work pants and the oodles of three-quarter-sleeved shirts I found at Kohl's near the end of my pregnancy with Nathan.

Thankfully, we need very little baby gear for Number Three. Nathan's room is still set up to accommodate a baby with a matching crib, changing table, and dresser set, courtesy of my 2008 Christmas bonus, and his and Kara's closets are jam-packed with items Luke and I weren't sure what to do with but didn't want to get rid of: crib mobile, swing, baby carriers, activity table, random infant toys, and so on, and our bassinet will come back to us from Samantha and Dan the next time they come to visit. And ninety-five percent of what we don't have is either being handed down to us from family and friends. We'll need a new single stroller, and we'd LOVE to get our hands on a jogging stroller, but ultimately we won't be missing anything necessary to bring the baby home.

We are also feeling better about our car situation. The plan was always to try and fit our current Chicco infant seat into the Outlander along with Kara's and Nathan's Britax convertibles, but thanks to some of the comments on my last post, we are now considering investing in smaller seats if that's what it will take to cram fit all three kids in there. Plus, there's a good chance that Kara can move into a booster seat by summer, and that will save us some room, so we're exploring that option, too. Not fretting over taking on a $300-plus car payment does wonders for a mother's piece of mind. Imagine that!

Finally, thanks to the size and layout of our house, we'll only need a smidge of rearranging to make room for Number Three. So far the plan is for the two older ones to share Kara's bedroom, which is the larger of the two rooms by about the double the square footage; they are so young right now that the gender issue doesn't come into play, and it just makes sense for the kids who share a bedtime routine to also share their sleeping quarters. We'll transition Kara into a twin-sized bed and Nathan into her toddler bed sometime this spring and leave his room pretty much as is for the baby (though we do plan to paint). All of this will require some creative thinking on our parts in regards to organization, but creative thinking is free, and paint is cheap. This is good.

And on the leisure and recreation front, Luke and I realized we still have plenty of ways to keep busy. We finally made space for his drawing table - which had been sadly collecting dust in our garage for almost as long as we've lived in this house - in the little nook in our bedroom, and we've been alternating between the library and our current book collection for new reading material. We have rediscovered the old Nintendo games saved on our Wii, and my brother- and sister-in-law passed along a TV antenna last week, so two nights ago, for the first time since August, we were able to view network television. LIVE. On our actual TV instead of a laptop. If I weren't pregnant and, you know, vehemently against smoking, it would've been the perfect moment to light a cigarette, post-coital style.

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It's easier to think positively when your stomach isn't hurting almost twenty-four hours a day. I'm in the middle of my sixteenth week, and over the few days or so, I've seen an increase in my energy level and a slightly higher tolerance for a wider menu of grocery items (though for some reason almost every tomato sauce I've had tastes terribly sweet and overall not right to me. What's up with that?), so when it comes to feeling like complete and utter crap, I think I'm finally, FINALLY, out of the woods. (I've even taken to washing dinner dishes again, hooray for Luke!) I'm still getting headaches, but they're not as frequent, and sleeping is still relatively uneventful, save for the three-year-old who has a habit of climbing into her parents' bed almost every night. However, while this pregnancy saw the quickest recovery of first(ish)-trimester symptoms, they definitely hit me the hardest this time. So...I win? Sort of?

My next doctor's appointment is February 7, at which time we'll get to see Number Three's privates and consequently start focusing on only one set of baby names. Time is flying by this go-around, it seems, so I'm not impatient with waiting, only excited. And for what it's worth, I'm not even as nervous about affording this baby, now that we (assuming) have the car thing under control. Hopefully that means my future posts will read more like this one and not my last.

Thank you, as always, for letting me be honest.

15 weeks and personal finance mumbo jumbo

Today I welcomed my fifteenth week of pregnancy by vomiting for the first time since I peed on that fateful stick back in October. For future reference, prenatal vitamin + leftover Raisin Bran milk = blaaaaaaaaah.

In other, less disgusting news, I had my monthly ob appointment yesterday, and Number Three is doing well; very active, according to the doctor, and the heartbeat sounded strong at 150 bpm. There are a few aches and pains going on that are typical of this stage - the acting of up my sciatic nerve, for one, and a tenderness in my abdomen that was diagnosed by the doctor as being diastasis recti. I also found my first pregnancy-related skin tag ever near my collarbone, a couple of nights ago. Way to go, baby, for keeping things interesting!

Here I am in all my gestational glory:

 

Why do I look whiter than the Pillsbury Doughboy? And is it just me, or is that picture frame crooked? Oh, well, at least I can still fit into my regular-sized dress slacks. So long as they are cotton and sport elastic waistbands.

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At the start of the New Year I outlined our household budget through the remaining winter months, and I know these issues are only temporary, but things feel bleak, friends. Luke and I are working hard to pay off our credit card balance before the baby comes in June, which means almost every bit of cash from now until March is needed to cover our car insurance premiums, homeowner's association fees, and necessary grocery and household items as well as pay down our Visa bill. Luke and I did not exchange Christmas presents, only token stocking stuffers, and there are no travel plans slated for anytime soon, save my niece's baptism in Chicago next month.

Sometimes I feel like a complete and utter failure for not being able to manage our finances more efficiently, and then I remind myself that some things were simply out of our control: a $164 increase in our mortgage last fall thanks to a negative balance in our escrow account was the most jarring, and the random but major car repairs totaling almost two grand in September were definitely not on our radar. Luckily, there is light at the end of the tunnel: tax refunds in February and my annual raise in April should put us on more secure footing, though we have decided there is no way in hell we have any business taking on a car payment to buy a vehicle that can accommodate three car seats anytime soon. This means we'll be hauling two cars if we need to go anywhere local as a family and renting a van if we find ourselves needing/wanting to travel north. But hey, at least we have two cars that we own outright, and we can still pay our bills and put food on the table, and we don't have to talk about Luke going back to work (as if we could afford three kids in daycare, anyway), and really, this money glitch is so temporary in the grand scheme of things. Nothing on our plate is unmanageable, just really hard to get through sometimes on a day-to-day basis.

How's that for keeping it real?

This is just one more reason I have been considering launching a part-time freelancing business sometime this year. I'm not looking to replace my full-time income, just supplement it with some meaty writing projects from time to time.

Have any of you had any luck starting your own business? How did you get started? Are there any books you would recommend?

On using, not finding, the time

On Tuesday, I went running for the first time since August. Of course, it was amazing - not once have I ever regretted a run. And while I know that 12-minute miles aren't anything to write home about, it felt so good to hit the pavement again, and to readopt a posture that for a while came so naturally: arms at my sides, feet skidaddling over the ground a la Fred Flinstone and his caveman wheels. Why do I let myself fall out of sync with activities that make such a positive impact on me?

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On Wednesday, I left a "meaty" comment on a blog entry for the first time in - oh, I don't know, years? (Discussion of religion will do that to you; best of luck, Christy!) After having Kara and returning to work, I had to cut back on the timesuck somewhere, and that somewhere, unfortunately, was not only my presence on this here website but also in the comments sections of my most favorite internet people. So many of you consistently respond to my brain dumps with kind and thoughtful words, and I'm disappointed in myself for not returning the favor. I gain so much value from the blog community, personally and professionally, but in the day-to-day hustle I consistently overlook the importance of giving back. Sometimes it can be as easy as tweeting a piece of content that impressed or resonated with me. Othertimes, a little more uncomfortable, like going against the grain when my belief system isn't popular, or finding the right words to disagree.

Part of my growth as a writer and as a person in 2011, I think, will be to identify which of my causes need the most attention and how I can use my voice to raise awareness and call others to action. I don't consider myself a "safe" blogger, necessarily, but I'm not picketing on Election Day or writing letters to my senator, either, content-wise. There's got to be a happy medium.

Without morphing into a judgemental asshat, of course. 

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I'm already thinking about goals and aspirations for the New Year, and instead of hammering out the usual list of resolutions, I'm thinking of focusing on a couple phrases that cover more ground. "Escape velocity" has been a huge one for 2010 and will most likely carry over as I work on executing short-term projects falling under that umbrella; also, "moving the Titanic" (is that an insensitive reference? I sure hope not), since right now it feels like I'm aboard a massive ship that can't be steered with one quick motion, but instead requires tiny corrections and adjustments to slowly change course. My iceberg is in clear sight, and if I don't start redirecting soon, I fear I will soon be trapped into a life of what-ifs as a result of my own inaction.

But it won't be easy. "Moving my Titanic" will require maintaining my current level of responsibility (parenting, working, budgeting, wife-ing) while also making room for new endeavors that will help me change my path and generally just make me happier. For example, if I want to formally launch a part-time freelance business next year (which, newsflash! I want to launch a part-time freelance business next year!), I can't grab extra hours by cutting back on my day job; if anything, my current workload dictates ramping things up to help the company through a critical time of year. Likewise, if I want to run more or increase my blog presence or pick up crocheting again or FINALLY get some ink onto the pages of Nathan's baby book, I can't score the time by staying up any later than I already do, especially since another priority is to get better sleep. And I can't incorporate everything I want to do into every single day.

At times it's discouraging, this survival-of-the-fittest approach to time management - pitting your functions and interests against each other and balancing which ones should come out on top at a particular moment in time. But then I remember that everyone is faced with the same conundrums and challenges, all of us given the same number of hours in a day to live our lives, and it is plenty time enough to accomplish some pretty fantastic things. Myself included, even, with the right mixture of commitment and energy. The time is there. I just need to use it more effectively.

I have more thoughts and ideas to touch on (including the answer to Eva's "Why are you selling your house?" question posted to my last entry), but until then, I leave you with Nathan's latest words of wisdom:

"Dammit.... Don't say dammit."

My son, the sage.

On living honestly

This morning, Luke and I registered Kara for preschool.

Well, technically, not preschool. It's categorized as a children's ministry program, offered through a nearby church. Four hours a day, one day a week. The program isn't accredited with fancy acronyms, and the staff members don't have teaching licenses, but there will be free play and music and snack time and show-and-tell and take-home bulletins once a month. Plus, we'll have to get her a backpack and lunchbox. So for a two-year-old girl who's been hanging out at home with her dad and her baby brother almost her entire life, it's close enough.

It's plenty close for her parents, too.

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In an effort to get a better handle on our finances, Luke and I are trying something new at home. Suze Orman calls it the back-to-cash movement. I like to think of it as our new reality.

The new reality is this: Gone are the days where we put everything on the credit card and pay for it at the end of thirty days (which, near the end, wasn't working out so well, anyway). Good-bye to Excel spreadsheets that were intended to help us budget on a monthly basis rather than per-paycheck. From now on, if we want to buy something, we are going to the bank, making a withdrawal from the ATM, and paying for it in cash. There will be occasional exceptions, of course, like purchases online or the occasional Redbox rental, but ninety-five percent of the time, them's the rules.

We started on October 1. Six days in so far, and doing well.

 

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Luke and I have been talking a lot about what we want to accomplish in the short term--realistic goals we can achieve in the next six to twelve months. In the short term, we want more social networking opportunities for Kara and Nathan (not the Facebook and Twitter kind), to give them a chance to explore interests outside the confines of our living room, interacting with adults who are not us. We want to enjoy financial freedom and not have to itemize every single penny of a paycheck two months in advance in order to afford concert tickets or Christmas presents or a random date night. We want to formally close the baby chapter of our lives by New Year's and put our house on the market come spring. And I want to volunteer.

However, we're also in agreement on what we don't want. For example, we are not quite ready to enroll Nathan in any sort of program that takes him out of our care. He can have a few more months of home time with Luke and Kara, and enjoy the precious one-on-one time he's about to score with his dad, and at least blow out the candles on his second birthday cake before we re-evaluate our position. Also, we are not ready for Luke to go back to work, even if we could put another salary to good use ($1,600 worth of car repairs on the Outlander, I'm looking at you). We appreciate and depend on the benefits of being a one-income family: the extra bonding time for Luke and the kids, the flexibility of managing only one work schedule, the ability for me to concentrate on my corporate to-dos as needed instead of tossing my laptop into a bag the minute the clock turns five. We wouldn't be any worse for the wear for having those issues, but they would most definitely complicate things, and we have all the uncertainty we can handle right now, thankyouverymuch.

We've talked about me picking up some freelance work or Luke taking a part-time job with night and weekend hours to bring more money through the door, but honestly, right now we are content to just buckle down and do the best we can with what we have today. There is enough to pay the bills and buy the organic yogurt we like and travel north and even score dinner out once and a while. We are beefing up our short-term savings and still making regular deposits into our health savings account for medical expenses. We don't need a second mortgage, and we aren't defaulting on Sallie Mae. In every area that counts, we are fine. And believe me, we are thankful.

But still, we are making hard choices, like back in August when we discontinued satellite. This month, we stopped all contributions to my 401(k), an account that's been funded every two weeks rain or shine for the last five years AND saw generous matches from my employer, to make room in the budget for Kara's tutition. I am disappointed over this and understand there may be long-term ramifications come our golden years, but I do not regret it. Luke and I have been preparing for the future since before we even married. We're proud of the money we've accrued for retirement already. But right now, it is time to plan for now.

 

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In a conversation with Molly earlier this fall, she used the phrase "living honestly," and it has stuck with me ever since. Because that's what it feels like we're doing now: living a life that reflects our priorities and our resources, and sorting out the white noise that only gets in the way. For the first time in a long time, we're putting our money where our mouth is. What's that worth to you? I ask about almost everything now, from wedding RSVPs to a bag of Gummi Bears to preschool. What are you willing to sacrifice to make this happen?

Our short term is paving the way for the long term, a reality in which we are mortgage-free and in a position to entertain housing options that bring us closer to our loved ones, who I am missing more than ever these days. A reality that has both of us in careers that we love and best align with our strengths and passions. A reality that includes another child, obtained in a non-traditional way. It will take baby steps, but we will get there. I know it in my bones.

 

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As Kara and Nathan grow older, I become more aware of all the ways we can screw them up. I know, I know, they're only babies, all they need is love, blah blah blah, but even at this young age, we are setting the bar for how they will realize their potential. Take Kara's "school," for example. She'll be three in December, and is intellectually capable, I think, of handling a (slightly) more rigorous curriculum than the one we are placing her in; kids younger than her do this all the time in daycare, yes? But that benefit of school is not important to Luke and me right now, and as a result, her experience will be missing that formalized educational component. We'll revisit our feelings next year, obviously, but for now that's where we stand. 

We are also setting the bar for ourselves, I suppose, in regards to what Kara and Nathan can expect from us as parents. We did what we felt was necessary to get Kara into school, but we didn't even consider placing her more than one day a week (baby steps, remember?) or research more expensive options like the Goddard School or Montessori. We already know that retirement savings will always trump a 529. Many parents have different opinions on this, and that's okay. But as much as Luke and I want to give the kids the very best of ourselves, we are going to make ourselves a priority, too, and not apologize for that to anyone.

 

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I have come to learn that as a mother, I enjoy the toddler years far more than the infant ones. Kara's humor and sass are shining through these days, the product of two wise-cracking parents, to be sure, and builds upon both by relying on her razor-sharp memory. One day while we were eating dinner, she thought it a good idea to let milk dribble out of her mouth. She laughed as the milk traveled down her chin, and I hid a smile as I said, "Kara Leigh, please don't do that, that's not funny," and she replied, "Well, maybe a little funny," a phrase Luke uttered in passing the day before. (Thank you, dear.)

Meanwhile, Nathan speaks in full sentences and punctuates the majority of them with a question mark. "What's that noise, Mommy?  Want to build Mrs. Potato? Where's the moon, Mommy? Is that a oak leaf, Mommy? Want to read Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out? Should Momma hooold you?" And so on with the inquisitiveness. He is so curious, so observant, so willing to sit back and watch the action unfold. That is, when he's not bouncing off the couch, roaring like Michael Jackson circa "Scream," or body slamming his torso into the nearest gate.

They both have insatiable appetites for reading, which has been further enhanced by the recent discovery of our local library. At first I was worried they wouldn't get the concept of borrowing books, afraid they would pout and fuss when it came time to return them, but they totally get it, and now live for the next chance to play with the trains and scramble through the catepillar tunnel featured in the kids' room.

Our new reality is that our toddlers are becoming full-blown children. And man, do we just want to do right by them, and ourselves, too.

 

Escape velocity

Bright and early Monday morning, camped out in a harshly lit conference room, parked in front of my laptop, nursing a badly needed cup of Joe, waiting to press check a marketing piece literally months in the making, I stumbled across this video rallying viewers to reject the horror that is the average metropolitan commute. My own employer will acquire a new headquarters on the other side of town this spring, which will add an extra twenty minutes to an already tedious drive. It will only be my second facilities transfer since starting with the company five years ago, but I've definitely played musical chairs when it comes to office space. There will be moving of photographs, file folders, Post-It notes, again, for the zillionth time.

I sat up straighter in my chair.

Then I got to the post about "escape velocity", at which point a hand reached into my brain, fumbled for the proverbial light switch, and rattled the walls with a deafening slam on its way out the door, tripping over a big fat DUH in the process.

I mean, SERIOUSLY, people. While I may not have been aware of that phrase as defined by the blog writer or even the science community at large at the time of my last post, that's exactly what I was talking about, right? "Leaving a situation that isn't healthy or desired"? In that case, the situation was my health. But it applies to a lot of other aspects of my life, too.

I don't know what it is these days, but I am feeling uninspired, trapped in my day-to-day struggles with work, money, weight, home ownership, and a big-picture path for the rest of my life. I know where I want to be but it seems impossible to get there, or to even find the right words stating why I think that place is the best place for my family. I am too occupied with trivial concerns like All My Children and a trendier work wardrobe and affording new windows for the second floor of our house. I find it easy to become envious of others, forgetting the hard work it took for them to find their own paths, only seeing the end result of their efforts. I focus too much on what I want instead of what I am lucky enough to have. Most of all, I forget that I am in control of my own destiny, and that every single obstacle I face can be overcome.

You can understand, then, why blogging has been sporadic, yes?

It is time to start knocking down those obstacles and gain some fucking perspective.

The biggest obstacle is money. Surprise! What isn't a surprise is that Luke and I took a hit financially when I lost my Parents gig last summer, a hit we are still recovering from. Losing almost a thousand dollars a month, who wouldn't? You would think we could have made the appropriate adjustments before now, but no, we spent like even a fraction of that money was still there, and bonuses made up for it most of the time, but they are not the answer to our problems anymore. Just like my personal experience with exercise, so many of the right puzzle pieces are in place: affordable mortgage for a one-income family; owning our cars outright; saving for retirement and medical expenses accordingly. We just have to take a few extra steps to make sure we are living as honestly as possible. Some of those, thankfully, are small, like reducing our cell phone plan or buying generic contact solution, and others are embarrassingly more difficult to execute, like discontinuing satellite service and possibly adopting a "kids-only" gift policy for Christmas. These choices are not essential to the betterment of our lives by any means, but when you're in the habit of maintaining them, it's frighteningly easy to think otherwise, and equally as hard to tell yourself to let them go, that saving face cannot be a reason to avoid change anymore.

There are happy steps, too, like exploring new volunteer opportunities, discussing our own possible relocation at some point in the future, and maybe even a career change or two. Thanks to Facebook, I just learned that Trophy Frema's ex-boyfriend is in talks with an editor to publish a memoir collection based on articles he's added to his "Notes" section. After raising a fist to the ceiling and wailing "Why not MEEEEEEE?" for an entire night, I realized it's time to answer some important questions about the place that writing has in my life and the role I want it to play in the future. "HE's going to publish a book? Hell, I could be just like Carrie from Sex and the City and put together my own freaking collection of blog entries and do the same damn thing," I fumed to my poor wide-eyed husband, who could only sit back and watch me regurgitate thought tracks and questions about overall talent, ability, and persistence. "Well, why don't you?" he finally asked, and I thought, hmmm, well, why don't I, and the truth is, I don't know. I wanted that at some point for myself. I don't know that I do now. I certainly don't want to be a marketer for the rest of my life.

This is definitely worth finding out.

I am so excited for Luke and I to take the bull by the horns and begin spending our time and money in ways that are more meaningful for our family, to shed what is unimportant and demonstrate to our kids that anything is possible if you're willing to work for it. Even if it means bidding a sad farewell to "Toot and Puddle"* and SIRIUS radio. Good-bye, Coffee House. May we one day meet again.

* Thank goodness for the books.

Unabridged status updates sorted by topic

FREEDOM: This summer is the first since 2008 that Luke and I don't have a child under the age of one in our house, and it is glorious. Gone are the days of following a rigid feeding schedule or cutting an errand short because you didn't prep enough bottles. Events taking place after seven don't automatically require a sitter. You can get by with two diapers per tushie instead of three or four, and bringing along a change of clothes is now an elective instead of non-negotiable.

To celebrate this new phase in our lives, we are planning accordingly. Evening baseball games and family walks (both sponsored by my employer, thankfully). Plans for our first summer vacation (near the lake) with talks of visiting the ocean next year. Longer day trips farther away home, and more often. These "adventures" are definitely not perfect; sometimes the kids are crabby because they're missing their naps/tired of being in the car/eating a late lunch/angry over leaving/take your pick, but we are no longer letting the benefits of a routine automatically trump getting out and about as a family. Races, bridesmaid responsibilities, birthday parties, and an overall lack of funds will keep us at least Indiana-bound most of the season, but fortunately there are plenty of local parks and kid-friendly attractions to keep us appropriately engaged. I even ordered an Ergo over the weekend to support our new on-the-go lifestyle, allowing us to tackle rocky terrain, city streets, and other walking-centric activities stroller-free. Nathan will be a year and a half soon, but he's sitting pretty at around twenty-four pounds, and the carrier holds forty, so I'm hoping we'll get a lot of use out of it even without the addition of more children. (More on that in another post.)

 

Visiting a local creamery over Memorial Day weekend.

LOST FINALE: What to say about the show to end all shows? I doubt I have anything new to add to the conversation, but LOST was introduced to me during one of the most vulnerable times of my life; it tethered me to the adult, pre-motherhood world outside my apartment when my insecurities as a first-time mom left me unmotivated to even drive to the grocery store. It wouldn't be right to let it ride off into the sunset without voicing my thoughts. Because I'm, like, a month behind, I'll keep it brief.

• I thought the ending was strong. I was satisfied with the idea of the castaways needing to come to terms with their life on the island before they could Move On.
• I loved the scenes between Jack and his father, and the fact that it was Jack's love for Christian, not Kate, that finally triggered his island memory. I loved the reunions between Sun and Jin, Sawyer and Juliet, and Claire and Charlie.
• I thought Hurley was a worthy choice for Jack's replacement on the island and liked Ben as Hurley's number two. I bought that Ben's work in purgatory wasn't finished and that he didn't belong with the core group's ascension into the light.
• I didn't like that Sayid was paired with Shannon instead of Nadia or that Michael was confined to the island forever, especially when he acted as he did not out of malice or jealousy (as Ben often did) but to protect his son.
• I hated that the "Walt is special" and "Aaron is a miracle baby and can't be raised by another/an Other" storylines were never resolved. Also, that Desmond's season-two revelation of Claire leaving the island with Aaron never materialized, when all of his other premonitions came true.
• Still curious about Charlotte's connection with the island and the effect it had on her (i.e. death).
• I don't understand what if any effect the time traveling had on the overall plot.
• I appreciate the island being the life source for the entire world but thought the physical reprensentation of it--light in a cave? Really?--was a bit hokey.
• After what I'm calling the "Island Mythology" episode, I had less respect for Jacob and more sympathy for the Man in Black, along with a lot of questions as to why the brothers couldn't hurt each other and why Jacob could leave the island but Smokey couldn't.
• I may be the only viewer on Earth who didn't like the Richard-centric episode. I thought he was kind of a wimp.
• I'm sad that Jack didn't really have a son or that John never actually reunited with Helen. Those ideas made me so, so happy.
• I bawled my eyes out during the last ten minutes of the show and even harder at the appearance of Vincent at Jack's side near the end.
• I'm still torn over the Widmore-versus-Ben dynamic. Am thinking Widmore was actually the more honorable of the two.

...Okay, so not exactly brief. But man, that felt good.

 

My two favorite guys.

RACING UPDATE: Still training for the Rock 'n Roll Chicago Half Marathon, still struggling to find the motivation to train most of the time. I'm wondering if it was too ambitious to tackle another half so soon after my first? It helps that Jenn, the local blog reader who reached out to me during the Mini, lives in a neighboring town and that we are close enough in proximity to meet up for runs during the week. Running is a lot easier with a partner at your side, and it's been so great to find another mom friend in my general area. Plus, Jenn has two young children who are close in age to Kara and Nathan. Win for the mommies, win for the kids.

Anyway, I've got six weeks until race day, and while I'm not following Hal Higdon's intermediate schedule to the letter, it's a good place to start, and I have been more consistent with integrating strength training between runs. After August 1, I'm going to focus more on shorter races and improving my time. Still aiming to increase my pace to that elusive (to me) ten-minute mile.

Enjoying the waterfall view at Lieber State Recreation Area. You better believe this will be blown up to 8x10 size when they're teenagers, for all their friends to see.

MONEY: After years of struggling to implement a successful household budgeting system, I have finally found a way to at least account for our monthly cash flow. Because we live in an age where writing a check is considered an antiquated means for rendering payment, I've always assumed that the key to setting up a budget is the computer, i.e. Excel, i.e. turning on the damn thing every night, tallying the day's expenses, and reviewing what you have left for the rest of the month. However, because my internal hardwiring isn't programmed to handle anything more complex than watching The Daily Show once the kids are in bed, it's difficult to sustain the mental capacity for something as tedious as sorting through mounds of receipts. Plus, the computer is in the loft, and the loft is upstairs, on the same floor as the bedrooms, away from the TV, and it's all just so very inconvenient and time-consuming I want to scream. So I would painstakingly craft a budget, save it to our desktop, gather receipts accordingly, and...let those receipts build up on our desk until another month came and went and we weren't any closer to knowing where we fell on the surplus/deficit spectrum. Not. Smart.

It's going to sound crazy, but the key to my financial sanity? A notepad. This plain, tiny, white, lined notepad with orange flowers that I received as part of a birthday basket back in January whose purpose in life had been previously unknown. Now every couple of days I pull out my receipts, notepad, and calculator to document which days we spent money, where we spent the money, and how much was spent. Elementary, I know, but it's been so helpful to have a complete record of expenses that I can manage IN FRONT OF THE TV. Those big boxes that run the Internet, they are so complicated.

 

Nathan getting up close and personal with one of the zoo's newest arrivals. 

There is more to share, including the rapid development of my children, but my lunch hour is up and really, it is time to have something at the top of my homepage other than a before shot of Nathan, pre-haircut. So here you go.

Shark petting = awesome.

 

At the "Outrun the Sun" race at Fort Benjamin Harrison State Park. 
 
 

My big, beautiful girl at "Outrun the Sun."

 

My handsome, delicate flower of a boy at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

 

We hope you're all just swell.

Looking for my easy button (your mom's easy!)

Ever since posting my dream list, I keep coming back to the gaping disconnect between many of them in terms of importance. Short-term is one thing, but come on. Something about mentioning "Organizing my filing cabinet" in the same breath as visiting a foreign country or, saying, ADOPTING A CHILD didn't sit well with me. So on Tuesday night, once the kids were in bed and the dishes were done, I lugged out my Huggies box full of paperwork containing receipts, bank statements, household documents, and other randomness dating back more than a year, and got to work. Two hours later, I was done. Done! Finished with a project I've been obsessing over for months, bitching and moaning about never having enough time for things like filing, what with all the clothing and feeding and bathing and general erranding I do in my role as mother. I just need to hole myself up for one afternoon and let Luke play point with the kids, I'd say. An entire afternoon, when really all I needed was one night away from the damn TV. Why do we make things so hard for ourselves? Or, more appropriately, why am I so lazy?

Anyway. All of that to say that it only took four day to cross off my first dream from the list. And Jen sent me an e-mail over the weekend outlining how to turn off the stupid box that appears next to Typepad comments, so that's two. At this rate, I'll need a whole new dream list for 2010.

Moving forward, my goal is to refer to this list and conquer new action items as I'm able to take them on. In fact, I'm already hard at work on a new one--"Relearn to crochet"--as Luke and I are taking a more creative spin on Christmas this year. To be honest, we'are still adjusting to the loss of my Parents income, and when we examined our proposed budget for the holiday season, we realized it just wasn't possible. In this new age of financial transparency, it's all about keeping things real and not being ashamed of the limits you have to set for yourself. It doesn't mean that we're "in trouble" or that we can't pay our bills or we don't have anything left over for savings. We're not, we can, and we do. We are fine. We just can't afford huge expenses that fall outside of our normal day-to-day spending without running up a balance we can't pay off at the end of the month. So hi, my name is Frema and I can't (read: won't) blow $700 on Christmas this year.

ANYWAY. A few of my coworkers were meeting during lunch to work on their knitting (shockingly, they are younger than 80), so at first I thought I would take the opportunity to just do that. But after one session, I was throwing my hands up at the chore that is navigating two needles and pulled from the depths of my closet my not-touched-in-years craft bag, which, when I say "craft bag" I mean "outdated tote containing two half-started crocheting projects back from the year 2000." I was a sophomore in college in 2000, and rooming with a certain domestic diva willing to divulge her secrets. She taught me and another friend a simple stitch, and we'd spend hours every week watching old movies and zoning out with our needles and yarn. I started with a blanket and then got bored and moved on to a scarf and then got bored with that and eventually put everything away, "until I was feeling inspired again." That was nine years ago.

Understandably, I'm a little rusty.

Now that I'm a couple of weeks into it, I'm learning more and more about what I don't remember and what I never actually learned how to do. There's a crocheting 101 classs at the local Joann Fabrics that I thought about taking at the beginning of November, but in reviewing our expenses I realized I could either take the class or get my hair cut, so now the new plan is to visit my local library and grab some reference books until I can take the class when it's offered again in December. I learn best when there's a physical teacher around to show me the ropes, but I'm willing to broaden my horizons a little and see what I can accomplish on my own. I don't want to flake out on this again. I want to make something of my half-assed blanket and scarf and also create something completely new. I added a brand-new category and everything! So this will not be the last time you are subjected to craft talk from me. (Crosses fingers)

My sad little blanket and Winnie the Pooh tote. College Frema was really into Winnie the Pooh back then.

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Since the last entry was all about Kara, I thought I would share a few photos of the other scene-stealer in our house. I'd tell you about all the things Nathan's been up to lately except that then I won't have anything left for his nine-month update. I will say that his baptism is this Sunday and that we decided to go with a spiffy sweater-corduroy pants combo for his ensemble, and as part of the most perfect surprise ever, my sister Ryan will be joining us from Germany! My brother-in-law, Jason, is in Russia for training, so Ryan will fly into Chicago on Thursday and hang around for the next few weeks. She and Nathan share the same birthday, and she hasn't been home for a visit since Christmas, so she hasn't even met him yet. I am super psyched to see her and introduce her to my beautiful boy.

Nathan's excited about it, too.

Is Auntie into sippy cups? Because I totally dig ladies with a working knowledge of sippy cups.

 

 A favorite pastime: Holding onto furniture for dear life.

When did my widdle tiny Boo Boo graduate to a full-fledged blend of baby and toddler with a dashing young smile to boot? Do you see the tooth parked on his bottom gum? It's like he's a real live boy!

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Okay, okay, since you twisted my arm, here's a little Kara goodness for you. Presenting: Greetings and Salutations, toddler-style.

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Finally, here are the two monkeys side by side. What fun they have, exploring the world together.

So you want to be a professional blogger

It's been ten days since I updated my Parents blog, and any lingering sadness I felt in saying good-bye to that Web site has been replaced with pure, unadulterated joy over being able to watch Tori Amos footage on YouTube after the kids are asleep without that nagging voice in the back of my head telling me to get to work. I still visit the site now and then, and my stomach drops when I get an error message and realize today could be the day all those entries are lost to the blogosphere forever, but then I hit refresh and see Nathan's seven-month update and I check for more comments and then I disappear until the next time I remember to check. I've revamped my About page and Greatest Hits links to update URLs and tweak mention of that job to reflect past tense, and I created a new category for the 14 posts I received permission to repost here, each one featuring the original Parents timestamp so new readers dipping into the archives will read them in the correct order. In short, I'm moving on.

Anyway, now that the proverbial dust has settled a bit, I thought now would be a good time to talk about my experience with professional blogging. Though I'm enjoying the downtime now, I would definitely consider taking other freelance jobs in the future, and it'll be worthwhile to document what I enjoyed about writing for Parents and what I wish I'd handled differently.

 

Let's break up all this talky talk with pictures of my kids, shall we? They'll mostly be ones I posted on Parents that never made it here. This shot was featured with Kara's 15-month update earlier this year.

I was contacted by one of Parents' online editors in the summer of 2007, shortly after Amalah announced my pregnancy on a blog she wrote for Club Mom highlighting other mommy-type blogs. When I got the e-mail asking if I would be interested in blogging three times a week for X dollars a month (I'll talk about the money later), I was like, "Does Keifer Sutherland have a sexy voice?" (I was really into 24 at the time.) Of course I was interested. So we arranged a phone call after work one day for me to get more information. The logistics weren't set in stone, but the biggest take-away I got was that they wanted me to move my entire personal blog over to Parents.com. Even though they didn't want me posting about Tragic Love Friday or my shoe collection or any of the other zillion non-parenting topics I wrote about on a regular basis. Even though they were new to the blogging scene and didn't have a strategy in place as to how the blogs would be integrated into the rest of the visitors' Web site experience (or if they did, it was never communicated to us). Even though they had zero knowledge of appropriate blogging platforms and chose the most cumbersome tool alive for managing our sites.

For all of those reasons, I declined their offer. I had spent three long years getting to a place where I felt comfortable in my own Internet skin, and no amount of exposure was worth compromising that. I did, however, offer to write a completely separate mommy blog for Parents, an offer they accepted, and a few weeks later, I received my contract.

Here's where I fucked up.

Up until this point, I felt pretty confident in my ability to work through the negotiating process. I was proud of myself for ironing out the details in a way that best met my needs intead of accepting the original terms at face value. I wasn't afraid to ask questions or seek clarification on particulars that were unclear. So when I read that all of the content I would produce for Parents would be solely owned by the publisher to use pretty much however they wanted, for as long as they wanted (no time limit), I don't know why my level-headness went MIA, but it did, and I signed on the dotted line, anyway.

Wait. That's not true. If I'm being honest, I do know why. At that point, I was more invested in the financial aspect of the blog than I was when they first made the offer, as Luke and I talked about paying off the Cobalt before Kara was born, and I was afraid they'd think I wasn't worth hiring if I kept pestering them with questions. To my credit, I did make a phone call to the actual contract writer, to make sure the terms were as I interpreted them. They were. And a few months later I made sure that I retained rights to any photos before I posted a single one, because hell no did I want my baby's face included in any publications, advertising, etc. without my permission. But other than that, that was it. Ever the optimist, I kept an eye on how other online employers worked with bloggers when their own sites went down (i.e. Club Mom), and I was happy to see that bloggers were allowed to keep their archives, thinking, Why wouldn't Parents do the same? But just in case, I decided to write the blog in such a way that I wouldn't miss it when it was pulled offline. Anything I thought I'd want access to was saved for my personal blog. In my head, that translated into writing about the more nitty-gritty aspects of parenthood as well as what life was like as a working mom married to a stay-at-home dad.

Is that a shitty way to approach a job? Yes. Did it work? No. Sure, I covered a lot of minutiae that I'm okay writing off, but I also shared a lot of important stories at Parents, the most important one being Kara's birth story. To this day, that is the only set of entries I wish I had never published there in the first place. If I had been forced to choose four posts instead of 14 to carry over, those would have been the ones, hands-down. Plus, I became so busy with work and motherhood that I barely had time to post the occasional photo here, much less anything of substance. Parents had become my "real" blog, whether I wanted it to or not.

It wasn't until this year that I learned at least one other blogger--and probably the only one, from what I can tell--made a different deal, one that involved a smaller paycheck but transferred full ownership of her entire Parents archive to her. Mad props to this woman for having the wherewithal to have the contract reviewed by one of her lawyer friends and the foresight to know she would want full control of those entries, whether she reposted them to her personal blog or let them collect dust on a hard drive, never to be seen again. Hindsight is 20/20, peeps. For reals.

 

Nathan at six weeks old back when he was screaming all the live-long day. Sometimes the football hold was the only way to console him.

I ended up blogging for 25 months on Parents.com and survived two rounds of downsizing. In terms of stats, I was never the highest-ranked--sometimes I was number two, sometimes four, depending on whether you were looking at the number of visitors or overall page views--but my traffic was always consistent and respectable. I had a good run, and I'm glad I accepted the job. But I wish I'd had a better sense of the big picture and felt more empowered to not sign a contract I wasn't happy with. And as it turns out, Parents is not giving us full access to our archives. I suppose I should be grateful they were willing to work out a separate permissions agreement at all, but really, why not just offer up the whole shebang? What value will any of those blog entries be out of context? But that's the contract I signed, so them's the breaks. 

I'm sure it's not just the bloggers with regrets over how the sites were managed. When The Powers That Be look back on how they handled this, I imagine they'll kick themselves for a lot of things. Bloggers were always paid a flat fee per month no matter what their ranking, and we were allowed to post whenever we wanted so long as we had three physical entries to show for the week. There was no incentive for us to be especially creative with our entries or bring in more traffic or even post during the week, when more people were online. I know I was especially terrible about that; at least half of my entries were posted on the weekend because that's when I had the time. They also didn't care about comments, at least in the beginning. When I first complained about the clunky log-in process required to leave a comment and how that resulted in fewer comments overall, I was basically told the paycheck would have to be enough. Everyone at Parents was nice enough to work with, so I don't think she meant to sound snotty; however, it was clear she and the rest of the online team didn't have a firm grasp on just how important comments are to building a strong blog community.

Lastly, I want to talk about the money. There's not a lot of money talk in Internetland regarding how much bloggers should be paid for their writing, and since my contract didn't say I couldn't reveal the amount of my check, I am stating it here. I was paid $750 a month to blog three times a week--six cents more than the amount of my mortgage--with no requirements regarding length or subject matter, so long as it related to motherhood. I could post an entry with three pictures on my lunch hour at work or I could brain dump a page and a half in Word at midnight on a Saturday in my pajamas. Despite the less than ideal contract terms, I do think we were paid fairly for work we were asked to put in, and I'm thankful they saw enough value in us to offer such a high amount right from the get-go. We shouldn't be afraid to say our blog real estate is worth something, whether somebody wants to post an ad on your site or you're being asked to write a review or you're invited to blog for a site other than your own. As Mom-101, one of my very favorite bloggers, likes to say, these companies aren't doing us any favors, and we have a right and responsibility to know what we're worth.

So! There it is. My first paid blogging gig. The money was good, but the lessons learned were priceless.

BlogHere

I'm sitting in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel, completely overwhelmed watching all of the bloggers race from one end to the other, welcoming friends, seeking out parties, checking into their rooms. I just had a good talk with the national director of pregnancy and newborn health for the March of Dimes as well as one of my readers, which was totally awesome; I can't wait to do more of that. But after a long day at BlogHer Business, I'm too tired to seek anyone out. So here I sit, waiting for Luke and the kids to arrive after spending the day at my sister's house. Nathan is usually in bed by now, and we'd normally be starting Kara's bath. Bedtime tonight with all of us in the same room will be fun!

I'm also a little emotional. I found out via e-mail today that Parents.com will be taking down their blog community at the end of August in order to re-evaluate their social media strategy. To be specific, Emily broke the news about her own Parents blog on Twitter and immediately I logged into Gmail, knowing if they weren't keeping their top traffic-driver the rest of us didn't stand a chance. They have invited us to continue blogging until August 31, but after that, it's see you later, mommagator.

And I have to say, even though I love my readers and of course the steady paycheck, it comes as a huge relief during a time where there's already so much on my plate. My day job has always been my top priority, so it's not like this blip will foil any plans to become a full-time professional blogger, and I realize how incredibly blessed I've been to keep that gig for as long as I have. A whopping two years, starting before Kara was even born. Plus, I've been wanting to spend more time on my personal site for ages, in addition to exploring other opportunities for maintaining a presence in the blogosphere, paid and unpaid. Closed doors, open windows and all that. So this is a positive thing.

And yet, surprisingly, I am still so sad. Like I said, it's been A WHOPPING TWO YEARS, and while I complain about the timesuck and creative burnout to Luke, that blog is like an old shoe, comfortable, broken in, familiar. And I do enjoy the readers. And hell yes I want that paycheck. It was only a couple of months ago that I allowed us to factor that money into our household budget, as I was always worried that one day it would be taken away and we wouldn't be able to make it up. My nine-to-five compensates me well, and we'll be fine, but still, adjustments are ahead.

Once again, I'm lucky. I'm lucky to be attending this conference on my company's dime and to be at an event with such far-reaching networking potential at the time I need it most. I'm grateful for a chance to reconnect with those of you who have remained loyal to this Web site, the site that's always held the biggest piece of my heart even when it took up the least amount of my time. In that way, I'll be reconnecting with myself as well.

But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that at some point tonight, I'm going to have a good cry.

More options than an Old Country Buffet

While I was busy debating how to address my high school reunion, surprisingly, life carried on. Here's just a sampling of what's been occupying my time:

Great Aunt Flo Watch of 2008
Geez, you might be thinking, is she really still talking about this? Hell, yes, I'm still talking about this, today is day 55 of my cycle and still not a word from that bitch Aunt Flo. I took another test when I came home from work this afternoon because my stomach felt jittery before lunch, but alas, still negative, my fourth one since Mother's Day weekend. It's not so much that I'm freaked out about maybe having children THIRTEEN MONTHS APART, HOLY CRAP, but more like dying of curiosity; however, even that attitude isn't doing me any good, so I've decided to just sit tight until I'm presented with either two pink lines or a bloodbath in my underwear. I've been cramping on and off for days, and my gut feeling is that I'm not pregnant, but my gut also told me I would deliver Kara before her due date, possibly without drugs, and we all know how that went down.

While waiting for the latest test to register, Luke jokingly asked if there was a way to jumpstart my period. "If you can speed up labor, why not this?" he said.

Indeed.

Weight Watchers
Today marks week three of Weight Watchers 2.0, and things are going...okay. I've not been as dedicated as I was the first time around, so there were several incidents involving pancakes, bacon, and chicken strips, but I've lost 4.2 pounds to date--almost two pounds since last week--and that's not a bad thing. I've really enjoyed the ability to track my eating habits and calculate Points values online; it was through the Web site that I learned one point plus one point doesn't necessarily equal two. As in, three of the Weight Watchers one-point chocolate chip cookies are five points, not three, and I'm not sure why that is, exactly, but being off by a couple of points each day definitely makes a difference on the scale. I just discovered this gem a few days ago, and my newfound knowledge is bound to make a positive impact on next week's weigh-in.

I will say that I participated in a free health risk assessment at work the other day, and baby weight aside, I'm much healthier than I originally thought. In 2005 I was diagnosed with high cholesterol, and my efforts to bring it down were half-hearted at best. I was pregnant for most of 2007, and pregnancy raises cholesterol, so it wasn't until now that I was in a position to retest. I'm happy to report that all of my levels are in the optimal or near-optimal range, and I can breathe a little easier knowing I've reduced my risk for heart disease. It was in taking that test that I realized I'm doing Weight Watchers for more than just the weight loss. I've had an effed-up mentality regarding food for years, and I want to put my best foot forward and engage in a healthier lifestyle. I want Kara to look at me and see a strong role model for making good choices about food and exercise, and I want her to think that it's easy. I don't want her to use food to get attention, like I did when I made myself throw up for three weeks in junior high. I don't want her to obsess over supposed imperfections or compare herself to peers with drastically different body types or run to food whenever she needs comfort. But if I want that for her, I have to want it for me, too. And I do.

But hot damn, do I miss my spinach dip.

It's not all bad, though. I've been doing a little more in the kitchen, and on Tuesday night I used my Take Five! cookbook, a collection of Weight Watchers recipes with only five main ingredients, to make Pita Pizzas for five points a piece. And they were delicious. Isabel, you bonafide pizza lover you, they will not disappoint. I promise.

House
After months of hemming and hawing and pouring over Excel spreadsheets to make sure we are really in a financial position to do this, Luke and I took our first major step in becoming homeowners and mailed off an application to the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership, a non-profit that helps first-time owners secure their first house. Now, Luke and I both have excellent credit (quick shout-out to myfico.com, where we purchased our credit reports and Fico scores from all three bureaus for forty-five bucks a piece), so we don't need to go through an agency to make this happen, but the INHP has relationships with banks throughout the city that will offer loans without requiring a down payment OR private mortgage insurance to qualified buyers. Plus, I took a (free!) intro-to-home-buying class last spring that they sponsored at a local university, and it was very infomative. It certainly couldn't hurt to see what they can offer us.

Our lease on this apartment is up at the end of July, but we'll definitely need more time then that to get our act together, so the plan is to switch to a month-to-month lease and close on a property sometime in September. We won't start looking until we've been pre-approved by a lender, which should allow us to move forward relatively quickly once we've found the house of our dreams. Luke and I are beyond excited about being able to do this and STILL have someone home with Kara. I know how lucky we are and I thank God every night for it.

My Gorgeous Baby
Kara turned five months old on Saturday, and she is taking the world by storm: scooting backwards, becoming more vocal, and as of Sunday, experimenting with rice cereal. She won't entertain more than a few spoonfuls before she's pushing away the spoon, but she's extremely interested in everything on our plates, so this is a good place to start.

Plus, she looks absolutely adorable in her high chair.

She continues to hold herself up really well and can sit unsupported for about ten minutes before toppling over like a house of cards.

She's also still snacking on her fingers and toes with passionate abandon.

So, to sum up, things are going really well right now, even if I feel a little like I'm burning the candle at both ends. Work is extremely busy, and I'm helping with a baby shower for my sister Samantha in June, which means invites needed to go out like, yesterday, and writing for Parents always keeps me on my toes. (Not sure why me wanting to clean my daughter's toes from a strange dog's germs is basis for telling me to relax, as if I couldn't wait to dip her foot in bleach or something, or why not wanting my five-month-old baby to be approached by a dog I don't know means I'm afraid of all dogs all the time, but whatever.) Sure, there are times I'm afraid of passing out behind the wheel, but really, what's a good night's sleep, anyway?

I can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring.

Because MY Jerry Maguire moment includes buying my own damn goldfish

Since Kara was born, it's harder not to think about taking better care of our finances. Luke and I are doing OK so far; I've been depositing money into my company's 401(k) for the last three years (hooray for full vestment on company matches), so at least we've gotten started on retirement, and we finally have adequate life insurance, thus enabling us to buy a home, pay for Kara's education, and snag a hottie gold-digger in the event of the other's death instead of shacking up in a cardboard box on an Interstate exit ramp. We also paid off the Cobalt so that the only debt we owe is to dear old Sallie Mae and padded our savings account to cover my twelve-week maternity leave. An unexpected holiday bonus left us better off than we expected, and the majority of it still sits in the bank, earning a meager amount in interest, taunting us, practically begging us to hand it over to the nearest car dealer and finally put Luke's 1991 Chevy Lumina to rest.

And if we didn't have Kara, that's probably what we would do.

But now we are parents. Now we have more incentive to consider the long-term consequences of our decisions, and truth be told, we have a lot of financial ground to cover before we can invest in something as frivolous as a car.

Problem is, it's hard to know where to start.

The choices are numerous. We could save the money and put it towards a down payment on a house, except we're not sure if we want to lay down roots in Indianapolis just yet. We could funnel it into a Roth IRA for Luke, who still has no retirement account to speak of despite his ability to withdraw funds a good six years before me. We could begin a college savings plan for Kara, even though she'll have scholarships, loans, and work study at her disposal and the quality of our golden years will depend on what we had the good sense to sock away. We could add short-term disability to my life insurance policy so I can enjoy a lengthy PAID maternity leave with baby number two, but I still harbor wild dreams of becoming a stay-at-home mom before then and wonder if the added expense would be worth it. Then there's still the matter of creating our will, which doesn't affect our cash flow now but could if Luke and I both died tomorrow (the last thing I want is to see Kara's inheritance eaten up by court fees for years and years), and emergency cash fund? Ha! Where do you think the money for all this crap is coming from?

Each path is a worthy option. We just don't have the means to cover them all.

Right now, our gut's telling us to go for the Roth and take advantage of compounding interest while we're still young. Liken it to being in a plane crash and putting on your oxygen mask before tending to somebody else's--you're no good to anyone if you haven't taken care of yourself. Once we're on track with our retirement goals, we'll be in a better position to help our kids with school, weddings, down payments, and any other big-ticket items on their plates, though we have no plans to pay for any of those things in full. A couple of loans never hurt anyone, and while I don't want to see my children drown in six-figure debt, I also don't want to instill in them a lofty sense of entitlement held by the majority of our millenials these days. Most importantly, I want them to sleep easy as adults with the knowledge that their father and I worked hard to make sure they're not stuck with our Shady Pines membership.

It took some convincing, but Kara eventually came around.

I appreciate your reasoning, but all this money talk hurts my tiny fontanelle.

No Mustang for my sixteenth birthday? You bastards!

Who are you guys kidding? These chubby cheeks will have you eating crow all the way to the bank. I'll snag that car by kindergarten.

...And now I hate Chase

Luke and I were in Target tonight, cart filled with various household and grocery items, when our credit card was declined. Twice. In a store we drop money in almost every freaking day. After almost four years of being a faithful card carrier. Two days after receiving a bank statement that confirmed our most recent Chase payment had cleared just fine.

Man, was I pissed.

The first thing I did when I got home was call the customer service line, which put me on hold for about fifteen minutes before spending another ten verifying my last five purchases. When I finally got a hold of a "customer service advisor," I was told that an Internet charge of $52.99 had been randomly flagged as suspicious activity, so Chase decided to decline it and all other purchases until they could be verified by the primary card owner.

Apparently embarrassing said card owner when she's trying to pay for frozen pizzas, cough drops, and Raisin Bran is considered a more humanistic approach for handling such matters than, say, CALLING THE DAMN CARD OWNER.

Of course, when I tried explaining this to my "advisor," all she could do was run circles around her script, apologizing for the inconvenience and informing me the card could now be used freely.

"I'm not sure I want to use the card anymore," I said. "My husband and I are lucky we had another one on hand or we would've had to leave more than a hundred dollars worth of groceries behind."

"I'm very sorry for the inconvenience, ma'am. But let me reassure you that the card has been reactivated and is now available for use."

"But the purchase you declined was legitimate and no different from any other charge we've made in the last few months. That was a charge meant to keep our anti-virus software up-to-date, and you just told me that we now have to set up that account all over again. My computer could already be vulnerable because of this."

"Yes, ma'am, and I'm very sorry. But let me reassure you that the card has been reactivated and is now available for use."

"But I'm not sure I want to use it. How can I be sure that Chase will honor my purchases?"

"Let me reassure you that the card has been reactivated and is now available for use."

"I hear that, but I'm not sure I want to use it."

"Well, ma'am, that is another matter."

"...."

"Thank you, ma'am, for calling Chase. Have a nice day."

Click.

Yeah, you, too, effing bastards.

At least Sallie Mae.... Aw, hell, she sucks, too, because I received a letter on Monday stating the paperwork I faxed in for my private loan consolidation application was incomplete, but when I placed a call to customer service, my records were completely up-to-date and my application was pending approval. I will say, though, that the woman who took my call was nice enough to place me on hold while she contacted the processing department personally to make sure everything was OK instead of passing me off to someone else.

The only thing worse than a pissed-off customer is a pissed-off customer who's too pregnant to see her own crotch. The next corporate giant to ruffle my feathers will be in for a real treat. That I can promise you.

Why I hate Sallie Mae: A play in one act

Setting: Saturday afternoon, Frema-Useless Clutter household. Frema decides to get all ambitious and FINALLY tackle the dreaded private loan consolidation application currently plaguing her prenatal to-do list (for which an update will definitely be provided tomorrow, in case anyone cares).

Frema logs on to Sallie Mae's Web site. Learns her application has been withdrawn due to inactivity. This makes sense, seeing as she hasn't touched the damn thing since September.

Frema: Ah, fuck.

Visits the Mae's Contact Us page to locate the phone number reserved for private loan consolidations. Calls number.

Sallie Mae Fembot: Welcome to Sallie Mae, champion of higher education! To request a new loan, please press one. For information about your account, please press two. To report trouble accessing our Web site or to request a paper application, please press three. Para mas informacion en espanol...

Frema: presses two.

Sallie Mae Fembot: Thank you! Please enter your account number.

Frema: enters account number.

Sallie Mae Fembot: Thank you! For security purposes, please enter your five-digit zip code.

Frema: enters five-digit zip code.

Sallie Mae Fembot: Thank you! One of our representatives will be with you shortly.

A few seconds pass.

Sallie Mae Fembot: I'm sorry, all of our representatives are currently assisting other customers. Please wait on the line and someone will be with you shortly.

A few more seconds pass.

Sallie Mae Fembot: Let Sallie Mae call you back in approximately six. To. Eight. Minutes with our call-back feature. You won't lose your place in line! To learn more about this feature, please press one. For other options, please press two.

Frema: doesn't trust that she won't lose her place in line. Presses two.

Sallie Mae Fembot: To hear a description of a call back, please press one.

Frema: waits to receive other options.

Sallie Mae Fembot: I'm sorry! Your response was invalid. Please try again. To hear a description of a call back, please press one.

Frema: REALLY does not want to hear a description of a service she has no desire to use. Presses zero in an attempt to reach operator.

Sallie Mae Fembot: I'm sorry! Your response was invalid. Please try again. To hear a description of a call back, please press one.

Frema: ...

Sallie Mae Fembot: I'm sorry! You've reached the maximum number of invalid responses. Please try your call again later. Good-bye!

Frema: Noooo!

Dials number again, a little too roughly for her index finger's liking.

Sallie Mae Fembot: Welcome to Sallie Mae, champion of higher education! To request a new loan, please press one. For information about your account, please pr--

Frema: presses two.

Sallie Mae Fembot: Thank you! Please enter your account number.

Frema: enters account number (again).

Sallie Mae Fembot: Thank you! For security purposes, please enter your five-digit zip code.

Frema: enters five-digit zip code (again).

Sallie Mae Fembot: Thank you! One of our representatives will be with you shortly.

A few seconds pass.

Sallie Mae Fembot: I'm sorry, all of our representatives are currently assisting other customers. Please wait on the line and someone will be with you shortly.

A few more seconds pass.

Sallie Mae Fembot: Let Sallie Mae call you back in approximately two. To. Three. Minutes with our call-back feature. You won't lose your place in line! To learn more about this feature, please press one. For other options, please press two.

Frema: is pleased to learn her wait time has been cut in half since her last phone call but still refuses to press one. Does nothing.

Sallie Mae Fembot: I'm sorry! Your response was invalid. Please try again. To learn more about our call-back feature, please press one. For other options, please press two.

Frema: prays for a representative to interrupt her interchange with the automated voice-message system from Hell.

Sallie Mae Fembot: I'm sorry! Your response was invalid. Please try again. To learn more about our call-back feature, please press one. For other options, please press two.

Frema: presses two to stall for time.

Sallie Mae Fembot: Thank you! Let Sallie Mae call you back--without losing your place in line. Sallie Mae--

Frema: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sallie Mae Fembot: To take advantage of our call-back feature, please press one.

Frema: realizes her only "choice" is to take advantage of the freaking call-back feature if she ever wants to make any headway with this stupid application. Presses one. Provides name and phone number for Fembot, who assures Frema she won't lose her place in line. Adds the finishing touches on her latest entry for Parents.

True to Fembot's word, the phone rings two. To. Three. Minutes later.

Frema: Hello?

Sallie Mae Fembot: Hello! This call is in response to a request from Brea.In. Dun.scom.be. You are the next person in line. Please hold.

Frema: holds.

Sallie Mae Fembot: You are the next person in line. Please hold.

Frema: Yes, I see.

Sallie Mae Fembot: You are the next person in line. Please hold.

Frema: Got it.

Sallie Mae Fembot: You are the next person in line. Please hold.

Frema: Motherfu--

Sallie Mae Actual Real-Live Person, It's About Damn Time: Hello, thank you for calling Sallie Mae, this is Kim, how can I help you?

Frema: Hi, Kim. I tried to finish my private loan consolidation application this morning online and was told my request had been withdrawn. I'd like to get things started again, please.

Kim: Can I have your confirmation number?

Frema: gives confirmation number.

Kim: I'm sorry, I'm going to have to transfer you to our customer relations department. Please stay on the line and I'll transfer you right away.

Frema: No, wait, I--

Sallie Mae Fembot: Welcome to Sallie Mae, champion of higher education! To request a new loan, please press one. For information about your account, please press two. To report trouble accessing our Web site or to request a paper application, please press three. Para mas informacion en espanol...

Frema: bangs head against desk, explodes.

It's beginning to look a lot like...your mom

In an effort to avoid lugging Freka through crowded city malls shortly after her birth, Luke and I have been spending the majority of our free time Christmas shopping. I've always loved buying presents, and even though we've had to downsize our gifts budget, it's still a lot of fun trying to find things our loved ones won't want to exchange after the New Year. Even though all that walking around usually brings on those sonofabitch Braxton Hicks contractions. Hey, it's for a good cause, right?

I'm sure it's because of the baby, but nevertheless, I can't believe how excited I am for Christmas to come. I've already expressed to Luke my wish to decorate our apartment on Thanksgiving, seeing as we won't be able to travel north, and this Saturday, while he's enjoying a Purdue football game with his dad, I will most likely be watching A Very Brady Christmas while wrapping all the presents we've accumulated thus far.

Despite all the new-mom kinks I'll be working through, already I know that the high I'll get from smelling my baby's head, having full-time support from Luke for the first two weeks after my discharge from the hospital, abandoning corporate America for three blessed months, and filling our modest little two-bedroom apartment with family and friends eager to meet the newest member of our household will outweigh the suckage that is sleepless nights, sore boobs, and a halted paycheck.

(One thing making the "halted paycheck" thing easier to handle is the fact that Parents wants me to continue blogging for them after my contract expires at the end of December, at which time my "column"--that's how I think of it, anyway--will have morphed into a journal documenting my trials and tribulations with new motherhood. Luke and I have money stashed away to be used while I'm on leave, but dude, it feels so good to know that we'll have additional reserves coming in just in case we spend more than we anticipate. Which, let's be honest, is most likely going to happen, because hello, NEW BABY HERE.

In other fabulous financial news, this past Saturday I mailed out the last payment for our Chevy Cobalt, which means the budget we planned for our life post-maternity leave is now a feasible reality. Hooray for an extra three hundred and thirty bucks a month!)

Anyway, I'm ready for the Christmas music. I'm ready for the gift wrapping. I'm ready for eggnog. In fact, I've already had my first glass.

It was wonderful.

Safety nets are sooo overrated

June 13th marked two years of employment with my current company, and my service was rewarded with a handsome raise that I believed would steer Luke and I down the path to Easy Street when it came to keeping one of us at home with Freka after the conclusion of my maternity leave.

Our household has managed on my salary before, back when he first came to Indianapolis and was searching for full-time work, so I assumed it would be easy to do again, plus one, especially since I was bringing in more money. Also, we've always intended to pay off our Cobalt in full before the baby's arrival, padding our budget with an extra $330 a month to absorb food, diapers, and other essential infant needs.

On Monday night, we opened Microsoft Excel for the first time since April to access our spreadsheet template and updated it with the numbers we'll be dealing with come next spring. We accounted for the ninety-five-dollar rent increase, the need for two cell phones instead of one, the absence of the Cobalt payment (and Luke's salary, sob), and factored in my raise. Since my contract with Parents expires at the end of December and there's no guarantee of a renewal, that particular source of income is not part of our postpartum finances.

We designated four hundred dollars a month to be directly deposited in my HSA. We drastically reduced allocations for entertainment and dining out and eliminated the "Gifts" category entirely.

"With all the cuts we're making, I bet we can even afford to sign up at the Y again!" I said, a move we've been seriously considering for the last couple of weeks.

We held our breath and added the totals.

Fortunately, my gut instinct was right. We can afford for one of us to stay home.

Unfortunately, it required whittling down our savings contribution to ninety dollars a month. (Farewell, safety cushion. To know you was to love you.) And it provided tangible proof that, right now, in our current situation, stay-at-home motherhood is not in the cards for me.

The two of us stared and stared at the new financial life glaring at us from the harsh light of the computer screen, me not believing how greedily that spreadsheet had devoured our Cobalt money, Luke not saying a word. Finally we just went out for shakes, because apparently, we better slop 'em up while we can.

I know things aren't as bleak as they seem. I'm extremely thankful we can afford to sock away so much money into our HSA each month; that combined with my employer's modest contributions should prevent us from being blindsided by any spontaneous medical emergencies. That takes a lot of the pressure off our savings, and good thing, too, because there won't be much in it for quite a while.

Also, managing to stay in the black on one income for three people is no small feat. Having anything left over for savings at all when tons of couples entering parenthood are forced to embrace a permanent balance on their credit card puts us on the fast track to success in my eyes. And of course, we both love that we'll be able to have a parent look after our child during the daytime hours and avoid the stress that often accompanies the lives of families with two working parents.

However, just out of curiosity, I placed a call with a local daycare facility yesterday afternoon. It's part of a national chain and happens to be located across the street from the major road that leads to our apartment complex.

How much to enroll an infant? I wanted to know. And what will that figure entitle me to?

The answer: it would take $222 a week (A WEEK) for this place to watch my baby Monday through Friday, from the hours of six-thirty to six. That includes formula during the infant stage and baby food and cereal for later months. And, you know, the promise that someone will change Freka's diaper every couple of hours.

Holy shit is daycare expensive.

But we could do it. If Luke wasn't up for being a stay-at-home dad, we could afford to send Freka to daycare and still have a sizable amount left over for savings. If both of us worked, we could keep that place at the dinner table for our safety net, lavishing him with praise over filet mignon and crumpets or whatever.

It's a lot to think about.

For about a year now, whenever the topic of kids came up, we talked about keeping one of us (originally me) at home. And part of my reasoning was that the benefit of two incomes wouldn't outweigh the drawbacks associated with placing our offspring in somebody else's care. But now, with all the facts and figures before me, it kind of seems like it would. The expense of having a baby isn't automatically forcing my husband out of the work force. We have a choice.

And our choice still stands. I'll bring home the bacon, and Luke will stay home with Freka when the time comes. We are dedicated to giving our preferred family dynamic a try. But if he decides he'd like to go back to work sooner than later? Man, do I have a new appreciation for what daycare could enable us to do.

I'm nervous. I'm scared. I'm excited. I'm terrified.

But it's a small price to pay for motherhood.

On a totally unrelated-yet-not-unrelated-at-all note, any money-saving tricks and tips y'all have shoved up your sleeves would be much appreciated. That Y membership isn't going to renew itself.

In case you're not a long-time reader, it would help you to know we don't have cable, we pay off our Visa bill every month, and though we plan on purchasing a new (used) car for Luke before the end of the year, we'll be paying for that in full.

At least the box spring and bed frame were brand new. That counts for something, right?

So, have you noticed it's been a while since I last spoke about money? Because really, it's been a while since I spoke about money.

A few months ago, I had devised the ultimate spreadsheet for keeping track of our finances. Segmented by week, divided into categories, I envisioned dedicating fifteen minutes every Sunday night to adding receipts and typing figures into cute little Excel boxes, all to influence our purchasing habits for the rest of the month. And for a while, it worked. We didn't always stay within budget, but at least we knew just how much we'd overspent and which categories had received more than their fair share of TLC.

Then, on April Fool's Day, we found out I was pregnant, and it all went to pot. We have not updated a spreadsheet since, resigning ourselves to removing precious savings from our bank account each month to pay our credit card bill in full.

What can I say? My hands were too busy clutching the toilet to sort through all those tiny pieces of paper, and we knew we could always cover the Visa total, so it seemed better to focus our time on more important things, like bidding a formal farewell to life as we know it, sans any fruit of our loins.

Though we've not done well tracking our money lately, we've sure done a bang-up job of spending it. In two weekends, we'll move into a larger, two-bedroom apartment. In a few months, we'll be upgrading our cell phone plan--a plan that currently involves one phone shared between two people--so that by the end of my pregnancy we'll be readily available to each other at all times. There's talk of replacing Luke's rickety 1993 Chevy Lumina with a vehicle I would actually allow our child to ride in and paying off the Cobalt to make room in the budget for diapers, doctor's visits, and baby food. All of this while hoarding pennies for my maternity leave and preparing ourselves for Luke's eventual job loss.

To say I'm feeling overwhelmed by all we hope to accomplish during these next five months (holy crap, five months?!) would be an understatement.

Regarding our more immediate future, we've discussed replacing several pieces of furniture within our apartment to make life a little more comfortable. A kitchen table that seats more than two people, for one thing. A bookshelf not made of particle board. A sleeper sofa for accommodating the slew of guests we expect to receive once the baby is here because I refuse to put our parents on an air mattress and also refuse to sleep on one myself when I'll be getting up to feed a newborn every two to three hours.

So far we've been lucky in that we haven't had to blow any cash on major items or appliances in our adult lives. My first sofa set was purchased for a whopping hundred and twenty dollars and featured decor straight from the set of All in the Family, and I passed it on to my sister, Ryan, when Luke moved in because he had inherited a sturdier one from his brother. My parents bestowed upon me an old kitchen table and a brand-new microwave when I moved into my first apartment back in Rensselaer, and I scored coffee tables from my aunt. The TV we use was given to Luke for his birthday a few years ago, and I bought our "gently used" mattress from one of Saint Joe's administrative assistants back when I was an employee. If there were a universe called Free And Second Hand, we would be the masters of it and the bosses of you.

Keeping in mind our penchant for used (and eventually abused) furnishings, it should surprise no one that Luke and I both hyperventilate after agreeing to pay a thousand dollars for a couch or spend two hundred dollars on a damn table. We already have those things! Look! They're right there! What the hell are we thinking? Yet there were no qualms about dropping five hundred dollars on the Nintendo Wii and its related accessories, and there was never a question as to whether or not we'd take a vacation. Tell me we're not the only ones who subscribe to such madness.

In the end, it'll be OK. We have a respectable amount in our savings account, including what we'll need to cover my three months of FMLA time, and we add to it every two weeks. I'll be getting a raise this month, and possibly a bonus. I'm pursuing a freelance opportunity that'll reveal itself soon, and I'll bring in a small stipend for teaching the blogging class this fall. Luke will most likely get a raise of his own come August. There's no need to worry. Deep in my heart, I know this.

But it still breaks my arm to hand over that damn credit card.

Bah Humbug Thursday

Because I can't very well call it Wednesday if I'm posting at 1:12 Thursday morning, can I?

My last official Weight Loss Wednesday entry was on March 7, when I delighted in a lovely reading of 135.8 pounds. Then I went to Chicago and had a grand ole time. Two pounds of grand, to be exact.

It's been downhill ever since.

LAST WEEK'S (SECRET) WEIGHT: 138.2
CURRENT WEIGHT: 138.8
POUNDS TO GOAL WEIGHT: 13.8

I don't know what happened to bring about this new blasé attitude, but for the last two weeks I've eaten whatever I liked without paying mind to the consequences. It all started the Thursday before our Chi-town extravaganza, upon Luke's receiving a totally well-deserved but completely unexpected cash bonus from work and our decision to celebrate with a dinner out; it snowballed on Friday with a trip to Steak 'N Shake after our Jerry Seinfeld show and climaxed several times during the weekend over mushroom pizza, my dad's barbeque ribs, and bagels at Panera to hold us over for the drive back home. The following Friday I gave in to my burning desire for two dollars and forty-two cents' worth of grease and potato at Chi-Town Dogs and Beef, maybe to relive happy memories from the city, I don't know, and then on Monday we dared to step foot in a local burger joint because nothing sounded good at home. The finale last night? Spinach dip. And if you think it's good with one cup of Parmesan cheese, imagine the ecstasy that follows an extra fourth. I don't know which was more offensive to my scale's delicate senses, the extra three pounds or the unabashed flatulence.

We were doing so well there for a while. I thought I'd finally become the master of my nutritional destiny, perfected avoiding the triggers that lead to junk-food cravings that in turn lead to spending money and ultimately credit card balances that give me nightmares to this day. One weekend away and it all went to pot. But for some reason I don't have it in me to muster up the appropriate level of concern, partly because I'm still living off the high you get from a smart hair cut and therefore have convinced myself I can wear the extra pounds so long as I keep my salon appointments, and partly because so many other things are out of wack that reflecting on my life's path over a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone from Baskin Robbins doesn't sound so bad.

What am I thinking about? I'm thinking about how Luke and I have accelerated our plans for family expansion and are curently moving full speed ahead in all things baby. About our very recent decision to hold off on buying a home right now and how this will probably lead to caring for an infant in this eensy weensy one-bedroom apartment, not to mention my dermatologist's "skin therapy" is leaving tiny red dots all across my nose and forehead and I'd much rather use the perscription money for a pedicure. Nothing's wrong, exactly--the baby news is quite exciting!--but it's like someone took the Earth from their gym shoes and sprinkled it all over our short-term road map. Dirt is everywhere. Everything feels unsettled.

Still hanging in there with Lent. I've slacked off a little on the Bible reading but haven't missed more than four nights altogether, and the characters on All My Children continue to manage fine without me, though sometimes I miss it so violently I can't hear. Luckily, Blockbuster Online has filled in some of that screen time; this month alone we've seen The Departed, Lady in the Water, The Night Listener, and two episodes off the second disc of Big Love, which, can I just say, made my night when I saw a Suze Orman cameo and Lionel Richie "Hello?" cover within just twenty minutes of each other. They almost made up for the absence of Bill Paxton's butt cheeks. I'm setting high standards for episode five.

The weather's still exhibiting Sybil-like tendencies, but the recent time change means the sun doesn't set until around eight o'clock here, so I'm sure it's only another couple of weeks before Luke and I can leave our own sneaker dust on the path of the city's various greenways and the trails winding through our state parks, which should increase my motivation to get physical (physical) once again. Plus, I've signed up for a free, six-course home-buying series at the local university over a series of lunch hours spanning March and April, so the more I learn about credit reports and mortgages and escrows and such, the less willing I'll be to blow our down-payment money on smoothies from the mall. At least, here's hoping.

(Speaking of credit reports, OMG. My first class in the home series focused on money management and credit maintenance, which whatever, Suze has so already told me everything I need to know, but it did encourage me to obtain a free copy of my credit report for the first time ever. By law, every individual is entitled to receive one free copy a year from each of the three major credit bureaus, but until now I was afraid to. It's kind of like going to the dentist; nothing's wrong as long as you don't go, right? But suddenly I knew I couldn't be a baby about it anymore. If there's an error on my report, it needed to be fixed before Luke and I stepped foot in a bank to ask for wads of dough. Luckily everything was in the proper order, and the report itself was surprisingly easy to read, but I was still blown away at the sheer amount of detail. I can tell you the highest balance accrued on the Fashion Bug card I had for two years in Rensselaer or what I paid towards my Limited statement in June 2005. I know all the different ways my name's been spelled in U.S. mail and how many different addresses I've had. Twenty-two pages. It's all there.

Have you ever seen your credit report? Because you so should. Really.)

(...And one more: Have you seen Isabel's rockin' post about TLF? If not, GO. Go now.)

Priorities

Last night Luke and I were plowing through the aisles of Super Target, accumulating items scribbled onto our first shopping list of the month, and it was within the first ten minutes of our entering the store that my loyalty to The Spreadsheet was tested.

We were strolling through the electronics section searching for possible gift ideas for my brother-in-law when, through a series of red-and-white sales tags strategically positioned at eye level, the TV kiosk announced that every season of Sex and the City was available for an impressive twenty bucks a pop. I gasped and clutched at my heart over the wool of my pea coat, so excited that I thought Luke was going to have to fetch the eyeballs that had just somersaulted out of my head. My fingers reached up to caress the case for season three, as I already have the first two and the second half of season six (purchased in a frenzy almost two years ago when Luke's VCR missed the last ten minutes of the series finale on TBS); the unedited unfolding of Big and Carrie's extramarital affair could be mine, all mine, for the price of Women and Money, Suze Orman's latest book, purchased the night before at Barnes and Noble. Ms. Orman is constantly inspiring me with her frank approach to personal finance, and the gems I gleaned from her Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke helped me to choose funds for my 401(k) account at work, and their average annual rate of return seems to hover around eight percent, thank you very much, thus cinching my undying devotion. Plus, I am a woman and I have money. It's like Suze wrote it just for me!

However, making a decision about the DVD was more difficult, because you see, Luke and I only allotted fifty dollars for miscellaneous spending this month, and my upcoming hair cut in Chicago will cost exactly that much with tip, so I was already kicking myself a little for buying the book but figured the difference could be offset through thriftiness in other areas of our budget. The cost of the DVD coupled with the hair cut would definitely leave March in the red.

There was one possible solution to this dilemma that would allow me to walk away with the book, the DVD, AND the hair cut: postponing the purchase of my salon-brand shampoo and conditioner and opting for a cheap knock-off brand to tide me over until April, at which point all budget lines would be replenished and I could blow the thirty dollars with a clear conscience.

(Yes, I realize how selfish I am for hoarding our miscellaneous dollars for frivolous indulgences, but Luke made out like a bandit for his birthday last month, and I have already directed the appropriate prayers to God asking for guidance in being a better wife. Together, the three of us have it covered.)

So, there they were, my two choices, each one threatening equally horrific consequences. Do I restock my ISO products and forfeit the chance to add to my sorely lacking Sex collection when I know damn well the next big sale might not be 'til I'm thirty-eight years old, or do I subject my hair to the pooptasticness of Garnier Fructis so I can spend my free time picking apart Charlotte's first husband?

It's unfair for any woman to find herself in the throes of such polarizing circumstances, and I hope it never happens to you, Internet ladies, because either way, such a woman is going to suffer.

But I know I made the right choice.

Sarah Jessica Parker would be so proud.

Of course it was all for naught, because when I came home and examined March's budget I found that seventy-one dollars and ninety-one cents had been unaccounted for. So I hopped over to Beauty First and bought the ISO refills after all.

(J/K, peeps. Totally waiting for April.)

While I had the camera out and about, for some reason I felt it necessary to document proof that I really am trying to be more budget conscious.

See that compact? I bought a new one last October, at a point when I thought this puppy was days away from crapping out on me, so imagine my surprise that the powder is still holding its own as I rub my cotton ball in circles over the metal face for ten minutes, determined to squeeze every last drop from a foundation that costs twenty-one fifty. If I wore make-up more often, it would've been retired to the garbage can around Christmas, but as I fight with various dermatological products to finally get my acne under control and weep over the massive afro poof that has become my hair, I haven't really been in the mood to subject myself to further prettification. I'm counting on you, Brenda, is all I'm saying.

Tragic Love Friday: Coming at you like a spider monkey

Well, our free two-week trial with Blockbuster Online is officially over. Our first monthly payment of ten dollars and fifty-nine cents was charged to our Visa on February 25th, but do you know how many movies we saw in February? Six. SIX MOVIES FOR ELEVEN DOLLARS. This is record-breaking for us, and reason enough to establish a permanent love affair with ordering films online.

It all started on the thirteenth when we received the eagerly anticipated Click (which was very good and even made me cry a little). After we'd had our fill of Adam Sandler shenanigans, we brought it to our local Blockbuster chain because online mailers double as coupons for free rentals in the store, which is how we came across The Illusionist (highly recommend), which in turn held us over until the first two episodes of Big Love arrived while Luke was away on business. That weekend we returned The Illusionist and used the Big Love mailer to score The Grudge 2, which I feel obligated to inform you was not a good decision. Meanwhile, our account had been credited with an e-coupon for a free rental just for signing up with BB online, so we redeemed it for A Sound of Thunder, another questionable choice but Edward Burns was kind of cute so it wasn't all for nothing.

On Tuesday we received Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and that movie is so damn hysterical we had to watch it twice. Shake and bake!

"We could watch this every day for the rest of our lives without paying any late fees!" I informed Luke in a sort of awed wonder.

"Or we could just buy it," he said.

There is that.

So yes, this newfangled idea of renting online is working out splendidly, mainly because we're not limited to renting online and we keep getting coupons for additional rentals. Some of the thirty-five titles currently stored in our queue include The Departed, Lady in the Water, Adaptation (which I first watched for a screenwriting class in grad school and can't wait to see again), Proof, Fantastic Four, the first season of 90210, and The Notebook.

Speaking of notebooks (OMG, what a fantastic segue), we are down to the last fifteen pages for the first serial of Tragic Love Friday. Next week will showcase the final installment, and then it's on you guys to come up with a really hysterical summary for this tale of questionable morals and unbridled passion. Remember? Not only will you be performing a huge service for potential part-two readers, but you'll also score yourself an opportunity to relive the days when Brenda Walsh ripped holes in the knees of her jeans and Brian Silver's cousin accidentally killed himself wearing a cowboy hat (or something). What about that sentence isn't appealing?

Some of you expressed concern over the guidelines I laid out, but really, don't pay them any mind. Just summarize the story as you remember it. If I receive multiple submissions, which I REALLY hope I do, I'd like to feature them all, so if you miss something, chances are another reader will pick up the slack. You're also allowed to team up with other bloggers to present The Mother Of All Summaries, but then it's up to you to figure out what to do about the DVDs, because dudes, I love you, but not enough to contribute seventy dollars of 90210 goodness to the World Wide Web when I'm stuck renting it all online.

Here we go, my pretties. The second-to-last installment. Cherish it while you can. 

-------

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - JENNA (CONTINUED)

"You're sure you want to do this?" Michael asked, once again in the driver's seat.

"Positive."

A few hours had passed since I made my decision. We were just about 3 miles from the Illinois border. The area was deserted.

"Stop here," I cried suddenly.

"Why?"

"I - I don't want to go back yet. Give me till tomorrow. Then I'll give her back."

Michael pulled over and parked near a cornfield. He squeezed my hand. "It'll be harder if you wait," he said softly. [That's what my first boyfriend said when he wanted to have sex!] "Just give me till tomorrow," I pleaded. He nodded.

I fed Katherine some formula, then Mike and I ate a little lunch. "I'm proud of you," he said out of the blue.

"Why?"

"I know how hard giving Kayla back Katherine [Awkward Phrasing, how I've missed thee!] will be for you. It won't be a great experience for me, either. I've grown to like the little tyke." He smiled at the baby and tickled her under the chin. She squealed with delight.

"I'll be alone again, Michael." I shuddered and wrapped my arms around my chest. "You'll never be alone as long as I'm around." My friend gazed at me with such intensity, I had to look away. "So much has changed in such a short amount of time. It's scary when you think about it." I yawned. "I'm so tired."

"So am I. Why don't you sleep in the backseat with Katherine, and I'll sleep at the wheel."

"No," I argued. "You've been driving for hours. You sleep back here, too." His face flushed. [I thought you'd never ask!] I felt myself turn red, also. "I mean...if you could just hold me, protect me. That's what angels do," I teased. [But do angels help emotionally unbalanced women kidnap children from maximum-security correctional facilities? Now's not the time to quibble over job descriptions, Jenna.] He smiled shyly and made himself comfortable in the backseat, while I snuggled against him. Katherine was asleep in my arms. It would have made a pretty picture.

I closed my eyes and let sleep take over me.

[This girl so owes Michael a blow job. Really. At this point the poor boy's balls must be bluer than the sky.]

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - KAYLA

I was pacing back and forth in my cell when the officer who was handling my case, Officer Kujak came barging in. [This name sounded so authoritative to me at the time, kind of like Columbo or McGyver. A Kujak could carry his own show, don't you think?] "We have news about your baby, Evans," he informed me.

I felt my body come to life. "How is she? WHERE is she?"

"A woman spotted a car that matches the description of suspect Jenna Meddows."

"In Illinois?"

"No. Wisconsin."

I ran my fingers through my hair. "Is she alive? What's being done?"

"The witness didn't think about the car until she heard about the kidnapping on the news. She was already back in Chicago by then." Kujak checked his watch. "Me and 3 other squad cars are on our way any minute. I've got to notify the Wisconsin police."

"No!" I cried. "If she sees police, she might panic and hurt Katherine." My shoulders sagged, and I felt like crying again. "She's got a butcher knife."

"OK; you might be right. Now I've got to go." [Members of the law are so easily influenced by the flawed yet seemingly reasonable logic of civilians! This kind of exchange happens in Lifetime movies all the time.] He turned to go. I grabbed his arm desparately. "Wait! Take me, too."

"Are you crazy?"

"Maybe. But I have to be there when you find my baby. Please! You can cuff me, gag me [hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me], whatever!" Kujak grabbed my arm and cuffed my hands behind my back. "I'll see," he said.

We were gone in 5 minutes. Please don't hurt her, Jenna, I thought as we drove to Wisconsin. If my baby's OK, I can forgive you. "How long until we're there?" I asked. He checked his watch. "It's 4:00 PM now. We should be there by 6:30."

I couldn't get there fast enough.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - MICHAEL

I woke up from a fitful sleep at around six. I had gotten up twice to change and feed Katherine, letting Jenna sleep. She needed it more than I.

[Jeez Louise, she's had the kid fewer than twenty-four hours and already she's a lazy mother. Michael's like a single dad, only with no actual children!]

I got out of the car and stretched. The sky was shades of pink and blue. Such a beautiful setting, such a sad situation. In the car, my love stirred. I saw her sit up and blink her eyes sleepily [probably rolling Katherine onto the floor in the process]. I went to take the baby from her [See? He knows she can't be trusted] and motioned her to join me. She sat on the hood of the car, hugging her legs to her chest. She was so beautiful. I sighed. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing," I lied, a lump rising in my throat. Tell her, tell her! my mind was shouting. "A lot of things are going to happen after Katherine's returned," I commented. "We'll be put in prison."

Jenna shook her head. "Only if Kayla presses charges against us." [You know, because the state of Illinois has no qualms with you stealing babies from their facility. One less mouth to feed!]

"You don't think she will?"

"No. She knows why I did it. She'll forgive me."

"What are you going to do?" I asked. She looked thoughtful; thoughtful and sad, too. "I can't go home. Things are too different."

"Where will you go?"

"Far away from here." She laughed bitterly. "My parents will hug me, write me a huge check, and then I'm gone."

"You can't go," I whispered. "I'll miss you." [Please don't go, girl. Never ever go away....]

She smiled. "I'll miss you, too."

"Jenna." I mustered up all my courage. "I - I love you." [Go, Mikey, go! You can do it!] She looked surprised, then said, "I love you, too, Mike. You're my best friend."

"You don't understand. I love you, Jenna. I'm in love with you, and I need you here with me." I was so scared, I could have cried. How would she react?

[Oh my gosh, I'm so nervous for him! My heart is pounding like crazy as I type this.]

Jenna shook her head. "You're just confused. You can't love me."

I secured Katherine in jackets and blankets in the backseat, and I left the car door open [so someone else could kidnap her?]. Then I grabbed Jenna's hands and gazed into her eyes intensely. "I do. I think I fell in love with you the first day I met you. You're the first thing I think about in the morning, and the last thing at night. It hurt so much when you were pregnant with David's child, because I wanted you for myself."

[Um, thanks for being happy my baby is dead?]

I leaned closer until her face was inches from mine. "I love you so much it hurts," I whispered. "I can't live without you now." Ever so softly, I kissed her lips. My hand reached to caress her cheek, and I kissed her again, only with more passion. She responded slowly. Soon, she was in my arms. Her fingers played with the hair at the nape of my neck. I kissed her forehead, and her eyelids. [That last part was creepy. I don't want anyone kissing my eyelids.] "I would die without you," I whispered in her ear.

I shouldn't have mentioned death. She stiffened and pushed me away. "No," she cried. "This can't happen. You're my best friend."

"I can be more," I said, hurt by her resistance. "I want to be more. Can't you see that?"

"You're just lonely for someone," she insisted.

Tears sprang to my eyes. "Don't you love me, even a little?" Jenna started to cry, too. "I - I don't know." I grabbed her shoulders. "You have to know!! I need to know!"

[OK, OK, I love you. Just please don't hit me again!]

[Also, I don't know why I put so much emphasis on "you" and "I" in the above paragraph, when really "have" and "need" were the ones who warranted extra attention.]

"I don't know," she sobbed. "Even if I do, I can't get involved with you. Love hurts too much! David said he loved me, and then he went to Kayla!"

"I'm not David! I'm Michael; I'll never hurt you!"

"Raise your hands where I can see you! This is the police! I repeat, put you're hands where I can see them!" I turned around and lifted my arms above my head. During our conversation [read: hottie make-out session], policemen had slowly surrounded the car. Jenna, looking terrified, did what I did.

It was all over.

-------

And now it's all over for me. Except for two more quotes from Talladega Nights, because really, so hilarious.

"Dear little baby Jesus, who's sittin' in his crib watchin' the Baby Einstein videos, learnin' 'bout shapes and colors, I would like to thank you for bringin' me and my momma together, and also that my kids no longer sound like retarded gang-bangers."

"I wet my bed until I was nineteen. There's no shame in that."

Hakuna Matata, bitches!

(OK, three quotes. Go see this movie!)

Living within Your Means is the New Black

Two weeks ago, after opening a credit card statement that was just pennies away from inducing Frema's first heart attack, Luke and I decided enough was enough. After several months of obliging every DINKy whim, it was time to buckle down and actively manage how we spent our money. Our little starter house isn't going to buy itself this summer, and if we're so lucky as to get knocked up within the first few months of trying, securing ample living space for our future family of three has to take precedence over feasting on the barbeque lunch platter at Squealer's. Thus, our budget was born.

In my previous life as a non-married Ms., I followed a budget...sort of. Every two months, I would write down my anticipated expenses for the next four pay periods, with each check designated to a particular quadrant; I'd note any variables particular to that moment in time, like a sibling's birthday or upcoming New York and Company sale, and plan accordingly. I was very proud of this system and went out of my way to share it with my family, therefore demonstrating my ability to sustain my own livelihood sans gravy train. "Look at Frema bein' all responsible-like," I wanted to say. "So what if I don't bother to track how much of my paycheck I actually spend? I write numbers in pretty columns on company stationery. I am cool."

This time around, with more at stake than a new pair of jeans, I knew the only way to hold ourselves accountable to our financial goals was to create a spreadsheet and record each and every purchase we made, from the five hundred and eighty-five dollars we pay in rent to the four bucks we occasionally turn over to Dairy Queen for a Reese's blizzard fix. Tracking our expenses over the course of the month and entering receipt data on a weekly basis would enable us to know where we stood with our budget at any given time. It would also take the guessing out of whether or not we could afford another trip to Steak 'N Shake or a Nintendo Wii for my very patient husband. (Not yet, sweetie.) Numbers don't lie, and they certainly won't help you justify the burger and fries you're itching for despite having spent all fifty of the dollars designated for eating out.

Before delving into this new project, I consulted Molly, Queen of Excel Spreadsheets, for some ideas on what to include in my template; however, once left to my own devices (Luke could do nothing but observe me with morbid fascination, I think, seeing as I created our template the same morning we opened the credit card statement, and I was so sick over our lack of common sense that red anger spots actually danced in front of my eyes), what started out as a simple column for our monthly bills turned into an elaborate marriage of pay stub information and sorting options for expenditures by week and category.

(Click to embiggen.)

Some notes about the spreadsheet:

• Even though I record payments made on our credit cards, since the individual expenses have already been accounted for, they're not included in our monthly totals.
• I debated including ATM transactions, knowing Amanda follows this practice on The Naked Ledger, but Luke and I don't really carry cash that often, and I'm more concerned with what happens to the money once it's in our pocket.
• I don't know why I included a line for additional savings. We already dump half of Luke's paycheck into that account every two weeks, and it's a given that any month-end surplus will go into savings as well, but what can I say. It's pretty. I am cool.

Don't trouble yourselves with commenting on my freakness. Believe me, Luke and I are both well aware.

Before you judge, though, this template has really been quite helpful, providing us (read: ME) with greater insight into our financial habits. Spending $389.84 on groceries and/or household goodies within a twenty-eight-day timespan might not seem too terrible (although for two people it really is, who are we kidding?), breaking it down by week draws attention to just how often you're running for milk and bread at Super Target. Thanks to this spreadsheet, I know we spent more than a hundred dollars on such necessities in week two AND week three. Granted, some trips happened at the beginning of week two and others at the end of week three, but still. Not great planning on our part. What can we do to eliminate so many trips to the store? How often are we picking up things that don't quite need restocking?

(Also, in case you were wondering, our grocery/household budget is NOT $389.84. It is $225. Though it might as well be $389.84, since that's what we ultimately spent, budget be damned. And damn you, too, Super Target!)

Luke and I had already made the decision to save all of our receipts last month, so accounting for dollars spent before The Spreadsheet was easy, but the actual implementation didn't come until February 10th--almost halfway through the month--so I was a little nervous about our ability to stay in the black. We allotted fifty dollars for dining out even though we were already four in the hole, and that was before we went out to dinner to celebrate Luke's birthday, another thirty bucks even though we had a coupon for a free entree at Abuelo's. Plus, the Lumina crapped out on us again, as fourteen-year-old cars are wont to do, this time demanding a new battery and seventy-five dollar tow from Luke's place of employment, an ordeal that altogether brought us over our three-hundred-and-thirty-dollar category cap (gas plus oil changes for both cars) by ... three hundred and thirty dollars. I was positive we'd be on our hands and knees crawling to Fifth Third, knocking our savings account flat on her ass once again.

However, by the end of the month, I found that we actually SAVED money. Three hundred and twenty-six dollars' worth of money that I want to kiss and hold in a tight embrace and never let go. Our saving grace? My recent tendency to pay off bills as soon as they arrive on our doorstep, even when there was a good three weeks before the drop-dead due date. There were no February expenses tallied for rent, either of my Sallie Mae loans, or the phone bill, which is the only reason we were able to come out ahead. With our new system, I'd like to get in the habit of paying bills in the same month they're due (after all, the whole point is to funnel money in our savings account, not get ahead on bills that have another twenty-five years before they're paid in full), so this shouldn't happen again, but I'm grateful for it now. Meanwhile, March is already looking pretty damn good because of our handsome tax refund, allowing us to pay for my BlogHer reservations and our car insurance premium without dipping into savings.

Are you totally bored now? I bet you're totally bored. Don't worry. Tragic Love Friday is on its way, even though this entry won't publish until 5:00 p.m. EST and I'm so afraid it'll get lost in the shuffle. Prove me wrong, Internet!

A Winter and Financial Wonderland

Indianapolis currently has its undies in a bundle over the snowfall that began late yesterday and is expected to shower the state's capitol with five to twelve inches of snow by tonight. Last week three inches of the white stuff turned my twenty-five-minute work commute into an hour-and-a-half nightmare, so I've decided to boycott the office today. Which means I can lounge around in my Peace Frog pajama bottoms, catch up on Monday's AMC, flip through the bajillion books* that have accumulated around my nightstand, and cringe over childhood and adolescent ramblings from days of old. Also possibly do The Track to "SexyBack." On a snow day, anything is possible.

I will also be recovering from Saturday's unveiling of our January Visa statement. A whopping two thousand six hundred and forty-one dollars and fifty-one cents worth of statement. Somebody grab me a bucket, because just typing this challenges my ability to keep the butter-and-jelly English muffin I just wolfed down--well, down.

Some of the charges are legitimate, like the five hundred bucks for my implant because my health savings account was short and the hundred and forty smackers I shelled out to update my plates a whopping year and a half after my move to this circular city. We also purchased a new digital camera, a camera we were eventually going to buy anyway but were "inspired" to do so last month after Luke's work one was damaged during his trip to California, because who isn't motivated by an employer's potential wrath over a cross-country business trip's lack of productivity?

These were costly necessities. However, I'm positive that the five hundred and eighty-five dollars we spent at Super Target between January 2nd and February 1st weren't all for milk, chicken, and vegetables, because otherwise I'd be much more depressed over Weight Loss Wednesday. That is the same number I write on our RENT CHECK, people. With all those "groceries" lying around the house, you'd think we avoided restaurants like the plague, but we still managed to rack up two hundred and eighty-three dollars and sixteen cents on activities of the eating-out variety. I'm truly embarrassed over how careless we've been with our money, because even though we cover our bills and remember to "pay ourselves first," that's no reason to be wasteful.

It used to be much easier to commit to a budget. Before Luke started working, I would diligently write out our expenses for each pay check two months in advance and estimate how much we'd have left for miscellaneous items like a parent's birthday or routine oil change. When Luke landed his job, we electronically deposited his entire check into savings with the hopes of paying off the Cobalt by spring. However, after penny-pinching for almost a year, we thought it might be fun to allot ourselves some play money and transferred a small portion of his take-home pay into our checking account. Then we went to the dentist and learned it would take the price of an arm and a leg to pull out Luke's wisdom teeth and accommodate some minor gum surgery and replace my extracted molar and botched crown, so we re-designated our funds to funnel half my check into the HSA and half of Luke's into checking to offset the difference. Because we're paid on alternate Fridays, we were suddenly getting checks every week, and because I'm not very smart, I stopped budgeting expenses and just paid the bills as they came in, not stressing over twenty-five dollar trips to the Original Pancake House until we had to withdraw the entire amount of this damn bill from savings. We spent that. damn. much.

On Sunday night, Luke and I sat ourselves down and, for the first time, actually did the math to figure out how much house we can afford on one income and what kind of down payment we can realistically expect to cough up by August in order to make a purchase by the end of the summer. We created a monthly spreadsheet template to track our spending and categorized our receipts into envelopes labeled for each week of the month, making them easier to record. We signed up for Blockbuster Online's ten-dollar monthly plan to provide ourselves with cheap entertainment. We're still jabbering on about buying a state park pass so we can hit the trails once all this damn snow stops falling and the long underwear can once again find a permanent home in our chest of drawers. And once again, we thanked God for being blessed with the financial means to correct our mistakes and move on with a smarter attitude.

Now, if you're so inclined, please suggest some movies we can add to our Blockbuster queue, even though we've made close to twenty selections already, because seriously, it's so much easier to pick a movie online than it is in the store. We can stand in front of the New Release section for a good half-hour, hemming and hawing over this title or that, because we so rarely rented movies before that we experienced a debilitating case of performance anxiety; who knew when we'd have another opportunity to spend four dollars on the first disc of the first season of Big Love**?

* Don't get crazy over all those pregnancy books. They've been handed down to me by Molly, who's very encouraging on the baby-making front.

** My pick, not Luke's. I'm strangely fascinated by polygamy.

*** This doesn't relate to anything, but did you know that the first season of She-Ra (Princess of Power!) is out on DVD? I'm so adding this to the queue.

Greedy or Not Greedy? (See Also: Could've-Been-Worse Wednesday, But We'll Get to That)

Last week I mentioned several topics I've been meaning to address in upcoming entries, and seeing as tonight I experienced a series of conniptions over a social worker's rejection of almost two hundred thousand dollars, this is the perfect time to discuss Deal Or No Deal, only the best game show to hit television since Ray Combs hosted the Family Feud.

Besides the charming, gloriously bald essence that is Howie Mandel, one of the reasons I'm so enraptured with DOND is that at any given moment, the life of an average Joe (or Josephine) can change forever--if you know how far to push your luck. You're delighted for the middle-class construction worker who can open up his own restaurant, for the Italian retiree who can finally pay off his home and arrange for quality medical care.

(Unless you're the twenty-year-old college student who settled out of the game for a pink Escalade, a vehicle whose value will depreciate faster than you can release your own urine, in which case you deserve every high-interest loan this world has to offer, you stupid, foolish twit.)

Whether the amount is ten thousand or one million, that money is a gift that holds the power to relieve burdens and rectify situations that otherwise might've taken decades to resolve. And of course, it doesn't escape your attention that, one day, that contestant could be you.

Every time Howie relays the banker's latest offer, I think about what I would do with that money, understanding that my priorities will change according to the rise and fall of the numbers. If it's twenty thousand dollars, I'd pay off the Cobalt and set aside the remaining dough for a down payment on a house, which when combined with Luke's and my savings would total that magical twenty percent. With fifty thousand, I'd spend ten on the house, ten on the car, and pay off my private Sallie Mae loan, whose monthly payment fluctuates every quarter and will soon be equal to the price of our new digital camera. With a grand, I'd put it towards the Visa and thank the Lord we didn't have to pull from savings to foot the bill. I don't even entertain the million because seriously, people, nobody on this show has ever gotten the million. You have a better chance of marrying your second cousin than you do winning a million dollars, which is exactly why I don't understand the contestants who turn down offer after offer after offer because they're confident the million is in their case. They're on a mission. They "deserve" this money, and they're going to get it.

Except when they don't. Emika, tonight's audience pick, was a social worker with a small son who admitted her salary was fewer than 50K a year. In the first round she knocked out five amounts smaller than fifteen hundred dollars, thus increasing her chances of toting a significant wad of Benjamins in her case, so she passed on twelve months worth of income. She did it again at sixty-one thousand, and sixty-eight thousand, and again at eighty-four thousand, and once more just for the hell of it at ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. Approximately four times her pay. The cost of one middle-class house. A mind-blowing retirement account that could reap immeasurable benefits via compounding interest. Paid tuition for her son to the best schools this country has to offer. But she said no. And why? Because a two-million dollar figure taunted her from its place on the tally board. Because her mother grabbed her by the shoulders and urged her to open one more case, even though the next highest amount plummeted to fifty thousand bucks. Because even though Emika was visibly sobbing over the thought of saying "No deal" to such a life-changing amount of money, according to her, "I came here to win."

So she opened one more case--the two-million-dollar case--and minutes later received an offer of seventy-five hundred dollars, barely the cost of a used car.

Oh, was I mad, because I so badly wanted this woman to win her some money. I wanted to see her cry tears of joy when she realized she would never lack for anything again, that this money provided a platform on which to build new opportunities, a new life that didn't involve debating over generic versus name-brand products at the grocery store or fretting over how to finance her son's continuing education or even her own. But no. A hundred and seventy thousand dollars is a miracle, but not miracle enough. Thanks anyway, Jesus!

Lucky for her she still made a good deal, eventually accepting 15K before learning her own case contained just two pennies. It could've been worse; last month, some pervy dude from Alabama turned down two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars only to walk away with a fin. Here, buddy; enjoy this White Castle sack with NBC's compliments.

This may sound incredibly naive, but I would never want to win a million dollars, mainly because it'd create more problems than I'm equipped to handle. When you have that much money at your disposal, how in the world do you spend it? Which charities do you support? Which requests do you honor? Should every single relative on both sides of the family get a small cut, even if they already make a comfortable living, or do you reserve it for the ones in danger of having their heat turned off? Will Grandma Ethel bitch about her five thousand because she knows it could've been fifty? Will any amount you offer ever be enough?

I once read in a magazine that it makes Howie physically ill to see so many people casually dismiss six-figure amounts in search of the elusive mill. Well, Howie, if I ever make it to the show, I won't even think about the damn million. If I could get the Sallie Mae monkeys off my back, I'll call it a day and let you touch my breasts and then invite you to live with Luke and me in our new villa in France. As a strictly platonic token of my gratitude, of course. As long as you stay bald.

Not that he's on my top five or anything, or that I even have a top five.

(However, in case you follow the link, know that my last (hypothetical) spot is currently being filled by John Krasinski of Office fame. We could be Frim!)

In other news, thank you all so much for your supportive comments regarding my upcoming leap into academia. So far, it looks like I'll be teaching for two and a half hours on Thursday nights from late August to mid December, with one week off for Thanksgiving. In the meantime, I spend the majority of my waking hours devising the class syllabus and determining my overall goal for the course, which so far is to compare and contrast current blogging styles to personal memoirs and essays and give students a taste of the current blogging culture. I also want to demonstrate the practical application of blogs in fields like marketing and business and their ability to generate income through ads, merchandising, and paid writing gigs. I already know I'll require students to maintain their own blogs and explore non-literary features that can enhance the blogging experience and their place in the blogging community--photography, videos, podcasts, widgets, etc. This means I'll be doing a lot of research and mucho head-banging against my computer monitor because I'll be damned if I even know what a widget is. But that's what books are for.

I'll be especially eager to pick your collective Internet brain. Who are your favorite personal essayists? Favorite bloggers? What attracts you to someone's site? What can turn you away? Be on the look-out for future posts on all of these topics and more as I attempt to tackle blogging in a way that validates its credibility and elevates it to a more sophisticated level. (In your face, MySpace!)

Finally, lest it think it's been overshadowed by a hottie game-show host or trendy online phenomenon, it's Weight Loss Wednesday. (At least it was two hours ago when I started this entry. Whoops.)

LAST WEEK'S WEIGHT: 135.8
CURRENT WEIGHT: 137
POUNDS TO GOAL WEIGHT: 12

Normally I'd be more upset over my set-your-watch-by-it lack of progress, but I received a couple of esteem-boosting compliments from Saint Joe friends over the weekend and Luke complimented my knack for filling out Banana Republic turtlenecks, so I'm gonna take the numbers for what they're worth and appreciate that my husband thinks I'm hot. Whatever helps you sleep at night, you know?

Say A Little Prayer For Luke, Because He's Subjected to My Nonsensical Ramblings Every Single Day

Only thirty days into 2007 and already I can cross one of my New Year's resolutions off the list.

Luke and I, we'll not be paying off the car.

All this time I've been focused on eliminating the three-hundred-and-thirty-dollar monthly Cobalt payment from our vast array of bills, convinced that doing so would put us in a better position to buy a house. Financial advisors often encourage buyers to whittle down their consumer debt before applying for a mortgage, and if we could just "make do" in our one-bedroom apartment until next summer, the two of us could not only own our car outright, we'd also accumulate about ten percent for a down payment on a modest starter home. If we extended our lease to September 2008, maybe fifteen. As far as the whole baby thing (BAAAYBEEES), well, if the good Lord blessed us with one before we dug our heels into the confusing world of real estate, we vowed to make it work until our lease was up because it'd only be for a few months and Leigh wouldn't notice how cramped we were until she was ready to walk, but we wouldn't be in the apartment long enough for her to start walking because Hello! Our plan was to be in a house by then. So no worries.

(This "new" plan has, in reality, been in place since we got married, and yet I'm still inspired to rehash it once every three weeks or so, punching various numbers into my calculator and pestering Luke for his thoughts on what we can do save more more money, stressing how important it will be for us to choose a home that can be maintained on his income because that's what will enable me to stay at home with Leigh (or Lucy. Or Jillian. Or Nathan, because legend has it some women give birth to boys). And because Luke is used to my love for Rehashing Important Issues We've Already Covered In Excruciating Detail, he slips into his Devil's Advocate gear and reminds me of our salary differences and how difficult it might be to make ends meet with me out of the work force, all the while supporting our common goal to care for a child without forking over wads of dough to a daycare facility. Apparently we save all our fancy dance moves for the choreography of thought-provoking conversation.)

In order to get ready for the upcoming buying frenzy, we find ourselves drawn to the bookstore every few days, perusing the shelves for advice on how to select a home and how to pay for it without defaulting on my student loans. And every few days, we walk away empty-handed because I remember we still have my sister-in-law's copy of Home Buying for Dummies and Suze Orman's Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke, both of which have a wealth of practical information, and also because spending money on financial-planning books may not be the most sound financial plan. Anyway, while reflecting on some of Suze's gems, I recalled a scenario she described in which a young woman had several thousand dollars worth of credit card debt at an interest rate of twelve percent and a savings account that yielded an annual return of point-three percent at best. Why, Suze asked, why oh why was this girl socking away money at such a low rate when she could be using it to pay off the high-interest cards? "Use your head, girlfriend!" she said, wagging a literal finger as demonstrated by her flagrant use of exclamatory sentences.

And that's when it hit me: I was that young woman.

I don't know if I've ever shared this with you people before, but I have very good credit. When I bought the Cobalt in 2005, I scored a two-percent interest rate. Two percent! Over the life of my loan, I'll have shelled out fewer than four hundred dollars in interest to GMAC. Another tidbit you may not be aware of: the interest rate on mortgages? They are not two percent at all. In fact, they are the opposite of two percent, which is Frema-speak for triple. What the hell am I thinking, rushing to pay off a car three years early in order to save a few hundred smackers when we could be funneling that money towards a house, the cost of which will most likely pay for a bachelor's degree at a private college? Also, where did I get the lame-brained idea that we'd have any money to save once a baby enters the picture, especially since we plan to live on one income? My thought process was so faulty you'd swear I spent my free time drinking gasoline and then inhaling the fumes leaking from my ass.

Our new, "foulproof" plan: use our savings to get into a house sometime this year. Our lease ends in June, but if we need to, we can extend it for another three or even six months to make sure we're really ready. Once we're in the house, we can start saving to pay off the car. This plan allows us to properly situate ourselves as homeowners before the introduction of any offspring (BAAAYBEEES) into our family, which we both like. Not that there's anything wrong with apartment living. We love our little unit and have everything we need, but we'd have to make some major changes to accommodate the cohabitation of another person, even if that person's activity level will be limited to producing smelly bowel movements and sucking on my boob (God willing).

Now that we've got the financial logistics straightend out, we can devote our time and energy into my new favorite topic: Who Gets To Stay Home With The BAAAYBEEES?

It's no secret to the Internet that I want to stay home with my children, at least until they're in school. And even then, the idea of being That Mom, the mom who bakes cupcakes for snack time and volunteers for field trips and has dinner sitting on the table at five-thirty every night, stamps a smile on my heart, so I guess I just want to stay home. I have career aspirations, too, but I'm more than willing to put them on hold while Luke and I are in the early stages of building our family.

However, it's also no secret that by some divine twist of fate, I currently make more money than Luke, so much so that if our roles were reversed--that is, if I had Luke's job and he had mine--the question of whether or not we could afford to keep me at home wouldn't be an issue. We'd do without cable for another few years, and our dinners out would be reduced to an occasional extra-crispy chicken bucket from KFC, but it'd be managable.

In previous discussions regarding our previous plan, I would sometimes casually suggest that Luke consider being the at-home parent, and we'd both laugh, and he'd reply that he wasn't sure how he'd feel about taking a break from the traditional nine-to-five work force, and I'd breathe a sigh of relief because that meant it was OK to resign ourselves to a life of (temporary) poverty. If Luke didn't want to be a stay-at-home dad, I would never make him. But I still didn't want to pay for daycare.

That was all before this past Sunday, when Luke and I were out for breakfast and we let our collective gaze wander over to the table across from us, where a blond-haired, blue-eyed little boy who couldn't have been more than eight months old was blowing raspberries with Gerber's latest fruit-and-meat concoction, and Luke said, "Maybe I could be a stay-at-home dad after all. It would make better financial sense."

At that point, my head started to shake and my eyes bulged out of their sockets, but not before they reduced Luke to a pile of ashes with the deadliest, most evil If Looks Could Kill staredown in the history of the universe.

After I stopped banging my head into the restaurant's coat rack in an effort to permanently erase his comment from my memory, I let myself process the information so we could give the matter some serious thought. When I think about having to redefine the image I've made for myself as a mother, I want to grab Luke by the collar and plead with him to work two jobs so I can bring that picture to life. But when I think about what's truly important to me--the ability to enable our children's parents to serve as their primary caregivers--and I realize that THAT dream can still come true, I start breathing again well enough to remember this family is not all about me. And Luke is going to be such a wonderful father. Our children would be truly blessed to be able to spend so much time with him.

Right now, it's too soon to make any definite decisions. Individually we'll keep doing our thing, career-wise, and revisit the issue once we have a baby to stay home with and I get a chance to see how I hold up after a three-month maternity leave.

Yesterday in a Google chat with Molly, I joked that I've gone from being a Catholic singleton with SAHM potential to a Protestant working mom. It's a good thing Luke can cook or this whole "challenging myself to be a more open-minded person" thing would be such a waste of time.

The Money Pit

When Luke scored his new job back in August, I had big plans for our financial future. Since we were already "making do" on my salary, I figured his paycheck would provide us with a chance to catch up on our plans to pay off my car and save for a house. We would pay off the remaining twelve thousand dollars on the Cobalt by February, then designate the extra three hundred bucks a month into our savings account, which would allow us to become homeowners by the time our lease ended in June. We would replace Luke's dying 1993 Lumina with a Pontiac Vibe or something equally family-friendly by summer, get knocked up on our first try in the fall, and spend the duration of my pregnancy accruing a sizable nest egg to fall back on once I quit my job to raise our baby. Lucy would be born in my twenty-eighth year (hooray for major events falling on even numbers!), and of course her birth wouldn't cost one out-of-pocket penny because of our diligence in contributing to my tax-free health savings account. I can see the white picket fence from here, can't you?

Now it's five months later, and the Lumina is still chugging along. My plan, sadly, is not.

The first glitch took place in November, when both Luke and I were greeted with flat tires on each of our cars--ON THE SAME DAY--moments before we were supposed to leave for work. We went to the dentist, where we learned we'll be forking over and arm and a leg for cavity fillings (both), post implants (me), minor gum surgery (Luke), and wisdom-teeth extraction (Luke again) (This is what happens when your husband visits the dentist after a TWELVE-YEAR hiatus). We paid little mind to the amount spent on gifts and charitable contributions over the holidays, and since we were home for so little of December, we wrote off trips to the grocery store, instead opting for nights of KFC, Steak 'n Shake, and Qdoba. Let's also not forget my trips to the salon for "necessary" cut-and-colors, self-indulgent shoe shopping, and the amount of moola it took to validate my online identity with a long-desired upgrade, which was about a hundred and seventy dollars, because I thought it made much better sense to pay for a year with TypePad upfront because I'm a sucker for "one-month free!" deals and prefer paying things off in one lump sum than needlessly writing checks month after month after month.

All of this means that since Halloween, the Frema-Useless Clutter household has shelled out no fewer than six thousand dollars on extracurricular activities, food, and gas.

This figure makes me want to vomit a little bit in my mouth. Meanwhile, the staff members at Chase Bank, U.S.A. probably received one hell of a Christmas bonus.

Things aren't as bleak as I make them out to be. For one, we don't charge anymore than we can pay off in full each month, so we're not paying any interest on our balances. Two, I received a handsome bonus of my own, which covered the extravagent clothing and shoe purchases, and three, we've still managed to set aside a respectable amount in savings and up my HSA contribution, so we're not hit too hard by all the future dental work (my implant is scheduled for Friday morning, and I'm trying really hard to avoid mental images of the doctor drilling a hole into my gum and placing a metal post in it. Ice cream helps). All three of our bank accounts are strong and healthy. We are very lucky.

But we're also having a hard time getting ahead. The Cobalt will not be paid off by February, and we've already made peace with residing in this apartment until 2008 because of our desire to obtain a mortgage that won't be too different from our rent, which requires saving a down payment of at least ten percent. As for the car? We'll continue to cross our fingers and limit its excursions to Luke's office commute; since his job is a whopping eight minutes from where we live, it should hold on at least another full year.

When discussing our house plans over Christmas with my lovely sister, who's currently mulling over similar home-ownership issues with her own husband, she revealed that she and Dan hope to have something this summer, fall at the latest. "You two make more money than we do," she said. "You shouldn't have any trouble getting into a place."

She's right. If we wanted to, Luke and I could start house-hunting today and fork over the dough for closing costs without batting an eye. We could find a cute little two-story ranch with three bedrooms and a yard and that white picket fence I mentioned eight paragraphs up. We could shop at Bed Bath & Beyond for new bathroom towels and a kitchen table that seats more than two people and then we could head on over to La-Z-Boy for a sleeper sofa in an effort to encourage more overnight guests. We're not rich, but we're doing well. It wouldn't break us.

As long as I work.

And therein lies the problem. Before Luke accepted his job, we were living on my salary. His salary is less than mine. If we wanted to live on it and pay all the bills we're paying right now, it would be really freakin' hard. And that's without a baby and a mortgage.

I know there might be a possibility I have to work once I pop out a kid. As much as I want to stay home, if Luke were having an especially hard time meeting our basic needs--and I'm talking food, heat, and insurance, not TiVo, an extra car, or hair appointments--there's no way I could let him bear the weight alone, not when my student loans make up such a large percentage of our debt and I could do something to make things better. However, we've agreed to give it a shot, and we're both nervous about what it'll be like to sustain three people on his income, so we're doing our best to make our goal as attainable as possible.

In my New Year's post, I mentioned the possibility of teaching a blogging class at my undergraduate alma mater in the fall. I think about what it would mean if that possibility materialized into an offer, and I wonder if I would be any good. If I am any good, I wonder if I would ever be invited to teach within the English department on a part-time basis, enabling me to stay home with my children the majority of the time and still bring in some money doing something I know I'd love. I wonder how long I'll have to wait for an answer. My professor friend e-mailed me three days before Christmas and the waiting is already killing me.

In keeping with my resolutions, I continue to remember no matter when we pay off our car, no matter when Luke carries me over the threshhold of our first home, we are still very blessed. Blessed to make the money we do, and have the savings we do, and opportunities we do. We have a home and food and health insurance. We have all of our fingers and all of our toes. We have lots of blankets to keep us warm at night. And we have hope, which thankfully, is free.

P.S. It's De-Lurking Week! Don't forget to say hi.

Contraception and Religion: Good Alone But Better Together

OK, so I've already failed my Recommitment to Emptying the Junk in My Trunk plan, seeing as I didn't make it to the gym in time for tonight's hip-hop aerobics class. (Will I ever make it to this class?) Instead, I came home and prepared the barbequed roast beef sandwiches as directed by my online dinner menu, courtesy of Betty Crocker's famous red cookbook. It turned out pretty well, and I was delighted to see the recipe categorized as both fast AND low-fat, though I still prefer the trunk-friendly Sloppy Joe.

But enough of this nutritional nonsense. There are more important things to talk about than what's simmering on my stove. For example....

(Per Silly Hily) What is one thing that Luke does that drives you nuts and he knows it, but he still does it b/c that's "just him"?

Before I answer this question, let me be clear on one thing: when it comes to pitching in around the house, Luke is The Bomb. He cooks and does laundry and scrubs mold out of the grout in the shower without making a fuss, runs spontaneous errands without blinking an eye, and packs a lunch for me every day. I know any questionable housekeeping tendencies he might keep are due to unintentional oversight or ignorance of their existence.

That being said, he tends to splash water everywhere whenever he washes up for bed, and when he engages in his weekly hair buzzing, those hairs somehow end up on the walls, in the sink, around the ring of the bath tub, etc. Perhaps they become invisible once they're detached from his scalp. Maybe they sprout minds of their own and embark on treacherous journeys from the garbage can to the previously listed destinations, just to the spite the bitch who's trying to bring them down. Who's to say? I've spoken to Luke about this, but apparently it's a mystery to us both. He also has a bad habit of spilling coffee grounds on the floor near the garbage can.

I'm going to stop now, lest my husband reveal to the Internet any of MY bad habits, like my resistance to showering after returning home from the Y because when I wake up my hair is clean, yes, but flat and bent at odd angles, so why bother taking a shower when I'll just have to take one again in the morning to combat it all?

Whoops.

Are you on birth control now?

That's the million-dollar question right there. Many of you will remember the freak-out I had over Very Mom's post about possible effects of The Pill. I had been happily subscribing to this method of birth control for approximately eight years, and it only took twenty-four hours for me to swear off chemical contraception for the remainder of my reproductive years. Some might view my stance as overboard, but it's what allows me to sleep at night, so there you go.

Luckily, Very Mom's post also offered information about natural family planning via Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health. It's similar to the rhythm method in that it encourages women to watch for internal signs that ovulation is about to take place, but it differs in that it dismisses the conventionally held truth that women's cycles are typically twenty-eight days, a truth perpetuated by many doctors even today. (I'm a thirty-four dayer myself, thank you for asking.) After discussing matters with Luke, we decided to purchase the book and use condoms while I gave myself a crash course in the significance of waking temperatures and cervical fluid.

In the last seven months, my "crash course" has translated into devouring exactly fifty-two pages, two of which are dedicated to detailed graphics of male and female genitalia. Meanwhile, we continue to pump hard-earned dollahs into the convenience and protection offered by the latex industry.

I'll be the first to admit the situation's less than ideal. Condoms are for teenaged prom queens who want to safeguard their chances of pledging to an Ivy League sorority, not college-educated, properly wed DINKS with the financial means to support a child. Right? I was never fond of physical barriers to intimacy before I was married. I certainly didn't want to implement them with the man who's promised to love me for as long as we both shall live.

Here's the sticky part: As much as I desperately want to have a baby, I also have expectations I desperately want to follow in terms of child rearing. Meaning, I don't want to have to utilize daycare, which admittedly has more to do with my own needs than the baby's. I know plenty of little ones thrive in structured environments where they're regularly introduced to other children and adults besides their parents. I don't think a woman's role is serving her husband barefoot and pregnant, and I don't think a mother who works outside the home loves her children any less. My friend Gina recently opened up her own dance studio, and during our last phone conversation I remember thinking, "If I had a job like that, there's no way I'd want to leave it." Though if I did, the whole dilemma would be moot because I'd be the boss and as such could keep my offspring at my side all the livelong day.

As a writer, I'm lucky. My current job, boring as it may be at times, offers a lot of flexibility, and good thing, too, because between Luke and me, I make more money, so if we received a surprise package from Mr. Stork, and it was necessary for our well-being to do so, I could definitely work from home, even though the idea of juggling newsletter deadlines and screaming babies on a full-time basis is less than appealing. I want to change the diapers do the feedings read Beatrix Potter stories dance to Baby Mozart anytime I want to, because babies are only babies for a short time, and I don't want to miss any of it. Not one single minute.

Until we can make that happen, until we're in a place where we can bring a brand-new person into the world and raise him/her in the way we're most comfortable, I don't want to take any chances.

(Now, I could have spared you all that drama and simply said yes, we use birth control, but what fun would that have been?)

Have you and Luke found a church or a common ground in that area?

Another happy topic! Last time I mentioned this, I gave the impression of freeing myself from the perceived restriction of religious labels, opting instead to embrace all the practices in which my relationship with God can be strengthened. Today? Luke and I agree that our family's spiritual formation will most likely take place in the walls of a Protestant church, and we agree we want to have them baptized as infants in said church, but that's been the extent of it because I'm terrified of the day I can no longer call myself a Catholic. There's no other way to say it, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I know Luke is the man I want as both a husband and father (not my father, you sick bastard), and I have no doubts that God put him in my life to fulfill those roles for me. Therefore, I imagine He's counting on me to find a way to make it all work. I haven't yet. And that's all I have to say about that.

Did you watch Sex and the City? If so, which character are you most like?

At last, a serious question. I was beginning to think Hilary wasn't interested in who I am as a person.

According to this survey, I take after Miranda, which I'm pretty happy about because she has the snappiest comebacks, hottest husband, and the ability to deal with an unplanned pregnancy. However, her reputation is slightly tainted in my eyes due to the name she chose for her son. Sure, it was a nice gesture to give the kid Steve's last name, but by the end of the show they were married, and even if she kept her maiden name, what about the boy? Did he remain Brady Hobbes, or did he become Brady Brady? Seriously, if anyone can shed some light on this very important subject, you'll be rewarded with dreams of furry kittens and gobs of raw cookie dough.

Of course, if you made it to the end of this post, you pretty much deserve that, anyway.

Get On With It Already!

Holy crap! Has it really been a week since my last entry? That wasn't my intent. I'd actually begun a riveting post about the wild life and questionable times of my hair almost immediately, but Blogger thwarted my plans for posting three days in a row by once again refusing to upload my images. Then suddenly it was Saturday morning and Luke and I were running important errands like opening a savings account and seeing the new X-Men movie, which totally wasn't worth the hype and I kept referring to Ian McKellan's character as Gandolf. Sunday was Father's Day, so we spent the afternoon in Lafayette visiting Luke's parents (we saw my parents the week before), and yesterday I stayed at work until almost ten o'clock designing the lab's client newsletter, and now so much time has passed that nothing I write can in any way measure up to my absence. So, instead of continuing to tweak this follow-up, which has seriously been subjected to major editing since Friday, I'm just going to wrap it up with promises of something more coherent later.

My last entry was kind of a mess. Not in the literal sense, because for once the words I needed came when I needed them to, but emotionally. And that entry is still true. I do have aspirations for other career paths in the future, but the eventual idea is to stay home, procreate, and raise some kids who share my appreciation for sherbet, Erica Kane, and possibly world peace. That coupled with my pesky Sallie Mae loans have led Luke and I to decide that any future schooling will be paid for in cash, which in this scenario can be defined as charging a semester's worth of tuition and paying off the balance before the next bill's due. Luke's been toying with the idea of grad school a lot lately, sometimes for photography, sometimes for writing. No matter field of study he chooses, I think Luke would benefit from graduate school. If he wants it, I want it for him. And while he's not as dead-set on the whole stay-at-home-mom thing, he wants that for me, just because I want it so badly.

However, you know what else I want? To shut my big pie hole already and learn to live in the now. Why am I always ten steps ahead of myself? For years my dream has been to say "I do" to the only partner who's ever loved me for who I am, and once it happened, I couldn't wait to start whining over how weird it feels to be thisclose to thirty without a baby, and when would you like to start trying, honey? Now? How about now? Or now? How about NOW? Meanwhile, my husband is doing his damndest to find his current place in the world, whether it's school or a job or what have you, and would like to do that without the pressures of an additional mouth to feed. Isn't he lucky to have such a supportive wife?

In reading the comments from last Tuesday's post, it was PaintingChef in her infinite wisdom who reminded me that nothing should be a higher priority than my marriage. That I didn't get married because I was ready to start a family or because Luke would make a great daddy, even though I am and he will. I married him because he brings something to my life that nobody else does, and I want to do the same for him. And as wonderful as children are, their reason for existing shouldn't just be to fill a void but to thrive in the confines of a unit that was strong and healthy and loving to begin with. I owe it to Luke and our relationship to be the best wife I can be, whether or not I ever become a mother. And I owe it to my kids, so they can have in me a role model who realizes each day is a gift and should be lived to the fullest.

As I reflect on all the jobs I've held since high school, retail and professional, there's one theme that binds them all together: at some point, I've always wanted to give up. Either the job's too hard or the hours are too long or the neighborhood skank wants to rumble because she was three McNuggets short of a nine piece. When I'm near my breaking point, I suddenly don't care about gaps on my resume or how I'll make rent next month. I just want out.

Until Friday, I thought I wanted out of my job. I thought my voice wasn't being heard and my talents were being underused. But that was before my annual performance review, during which my boss came to appreciate my point of view and I came to appreciate the ten-percent pay raise that resulted from his enlightened appreciation. It's in meetings like that when you realize it's time to quit with the ragging and thank the Lord Jesus you're not making change in a drive-thru window. This job may not be My Dream, but it's certainly not a nightmare, either. It's a good administrative position in my field that offers flexible hours and an office with a window and a chance for Luke to go after his dreams for a change. It makes our dreams possible. And that's not something I'm willing to give up.

Instead of driving myself crazy with what-ifs and why-mes about religion, employment, and human beings who might one day slide out of my privates, I'm going to sit back and enjoy this down time. I'm going to read novels and learn how to cook and pick up crocheting again and pay more attention to this here blog. More importantly, I'll figure out what exactly in my diet causes me to pass gas during important meetings and how much longer I can get away with it before my coworkers realize it's me.

See? I'm growing already.

Another Anniversary

Today marks one year of cohabitation with my current company, and I'm not sure what to think about it. While the competitive wages, flexible hours, and one-hundred-percent vestment of employer 401(k) matches are to effing DIE for, they're not enough to make me happy about what I do. I'd like to blame this lack of fulfillment on the lab and the fact that my boss still doesn't know how to fully utilize my position, but the heart of the matter is I'm not sure where I belong in "the real world."

At the start of college I thought I'd be an executive powerhouse who took the subway to work and wore white tennis shoes over her tights while strutting my stuff to the office. My mom's older sister was a vice president for a national freight-train company, and she once told me about a disagreement with my uncle regarding whether or not to buy my younger cousin some insanely expensive toy for her birthday, and how she informed him that their daughter would get it no matter what. "I'll just take it from my checking account. He can't tell me what to do with my money," she said, and I was in awe. Any money my mother spent came straight from my father's paycheck. I remember wondering what would happen if my dad was killed on a firehouse run or they ever split up. How would she take care of five kids? Then and there I made a promise to myself that no matter what, I'd always be self-sufficient. No way would I allow my livelihood to be dictated by the financial generosity of my husband.

However, by the end of my first year in PR hell, I was ready to kiss off meetings; strategic plans; fundraising plans; action plans; pretentious corporate love-in plans; deadlines requiring two weeks of overtime and no fewer than eight bottles of Starbucks frappacinos to get through the nine-to-five grind. Let my aunt and other like-minded colleagues make the big bucks by working through dinner and answering e-mails before they released the first morning's pee. I had better things to do, like assume my future hubby would neither die nor leave me in the lurch and trust our combined salaries would be enough to keep us comfortable in middle class.

By that time, though, I was already halfway to completing a master's degree in writing, which, no worries, I'll just make enough moola to pay the loans off. That's the whole point of grad school, right?

But then I fell in loooove with a man who was smart and kind and funny and handsome and everything I was looking for. A man who happened to make less than me, which didn't matter until we started talking seriously about marriage and family and then I realized, holy crap, I don't want to work at all. I want to be a mother and I want to stay home, for reasons I've already stated here. And therein lies the problem.

Seeing as I've already committed the Frema-Useless Clutter household to a five-hundred-dollar monthly Sallie Mae payment for the next twenty-five years, my recent epiphany is a costly one, and I'm scared the education I've loved so much and been so proud of, the education that's not only made me a better writer but a better person, just might screw me out of accepting the only job that will ever really matter.

If I do have to work, I know there are options. I could go back to school and earn a teaching license, an idea I've tossed around since seeing my sister in action with her kindergarteners last year. I've also thought about high school guidance counseling and college admissions. (See a pattern here?) If I do have to work, there are certainly worse things in life than pursuing a career I could actually love.

But at what point does "have to" begin? If the ideal is for Luke to work while I raise our brood, what sense does it make to invest time and money into a career change, especially when we don't want to wait very long before trying for kids? On the other hand, who knows how long it'll take before we're successful? I've seen and heard tales from plenty of wonderful women who've struggled with infertility, and it's too early to tell whether or not we'll have issues of our own. If it takes years for me to have a baby, do I really want to spend that whole time in job limbo?

Which goal do I hang my hat on? What's the best way to balance living in the now and going after your dreams? And at what point do you realize it's time for plan B?

Anyone?

Life After May 12th

In exactly one month from today, Luke and I will be married. I'll walk down this aisle, clutching onto my father's arm, fearful that a high heel might catch on a broken piece of brick. We'll say "I do" in front of the family and friends we love most after vowing to honor and cherish each other, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall live. There will be first dances and banana cake and beef fajitas and a bouquet toss with my actual bouquet. What a wonderful day it will be.

Even more exhilerating, though, is everything to follow. I've been thinking about it a lot more lately, probably because evidence of our new life is tucked into every nook and cranny of this apartment, in the form of flatware and bedding and camping gear and Good Housekeeping cookbooks. As Luke participates in his second job interview in two weeks, so are we also etching out our path.

The first hurdle: apartment hunting. Space that was luxurious for one person has translated into "cozy" for two, especially when one of those persons has nowhere to stash her Sweet Valley High collection and is therefore resigned to housing them in a Tupperware bin partially blocking the doorway, much to the dismay of the other. We know we want to save for a year or two before purchasing a house (we refuse to pay PMI insurance. Refuse!), but we don't want to wait that long for babies, so the space that is cozy for two would likely be unbearable for three, even if the little bugger spends its first two months of life alternating between Mommy and Daddy's dresser drawers for naps.

Last year I signed a thirteen-month lease to take advantage of my complex's "first month free" offer. Upon our return from Niagara Falls, we'll start pouring through apartment guides and Web sites to determine new housing candidates and settle on a winner by June 30.

I can't explain why this simple course of action is so exciting to me. It's not like I've never looked for an apartment before. In the last three years, I've moved three times. I lived in a house for the first time in my life and scored my first roommate (not to be confused with scoring with my roommate). I tackled the personal milestone of living alone, and then again with someone else, someone with whom you're allowed to apply "score" in the proper sense. Nothing about this process will be new, except the paperwork bearing my signature will feature Luke's last name instead of my own, a last name with no double As, no apostrophe, no chance of a mispronounciation like "Maytag."

We'll have other decisions to make, too, once we've re-established DINK status, like when to replace Luke's '91 Chevy Lumina, which can't be trusted outside city limits. Should we even have two cars? Would it be more practical to get by on the Cobalt instead? Speaking of the Cobalt, should we pay it off before starting a house fund? What kind of house do we want in the first place? Will I stay at my current job or pursue my not-so-newfangled notion of becoming a teacher? If I do, how will that affect my desire to stay at home with our kids?

There are no answers to these questions, but for once I'm not scared of them. Instead, I can barely sit still. We'll finally start living the dream we chose for ourselves the minute Luke gave his notice at the Rensselaer Republican last fall. We'll be together in every way that counts, planning for a future with no road blocks, no exit ramps, no tolls. The possibilities are endless.

We couldn't have asked for a more appropriate wedding gift.

A Rusted Root

In the 1989 love ballad "Sacrifice" by Sir Elton John, the appeal of the extramarital affair to a married man is discussed and discarded in fewer than four minutes. Though Sir Elton admits that "temptation's strong," he argues avoiding a booty call isn't really a sacrifice, because a hot night of passion has less to offer the human spirit than a loving, respectful bond between two consensual adults. I think. In a nutshell.

But when a twenty-five-year-old-soon-to-be-married woman and her fiance decide to cut back on living expenses in order to pay for their spring wedding in cash, and said woman does her part by not having her hair trimmed or recolored for almost three months, surely even he would agree on its significance. Why isn't anyone singing about THAT?

Luke and I strengthen our money-management muscles a little bit every day. Sometimes it's turning down a matinee because that ten bucks could contribute to the deposit for the DJ. On other occasions, it's refusing an offer to go roller-skating with your sisters, even though one of us LOVES roller-skating and still has visions of making it around the rink with one of their legs gracefully floating in the air like Nancy Kerrigan except on a hardwood floor. And even sometimes when somebody is preparing to celebrate her twenty-sixth birthday on MONDAY, JANUARY 9, DON'T FORGET TO SEND WELL WISHES, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, and desires nothing more than to partake in spinach-and-artichoke dip and babyback ribs, to hell with high cholesterol!, at the local Ruby Tuesday, that someone is still adamant about enforcing the "No eating out" rule. We are redefining the definition of restraint.

The hair, though, is not on board. Instead of being on its best behavior during this time of financial conservatism, it is unruly, beastly even, and my dark brown roots are dangerously close to eyebrow level. Roots, people! So much root that I should make my own Lifetime drama called Roots, which would be much rootier than that one movie with Oprah Winfrey. Behold the catastrophe that is my head:

Painful even for you, isn't it?

This has become a constant source of unhappiness for me, as I was used to keeping hair appointments every six weeks and firmly believe a good hair day can overpower a breakout, bad outfit, and if you're REALLY on a roll, the imposition of Aunt Flo. Now I frequently feel the need to justify why my Cute Working Girl facade is in shambles and why product can no longer keep The Curl from becoming The Afro Poof, or even worse, The Flat Yet Still Slightly Poofy Afro Poof. Pretty soon I'll be handing out business cards with a pre-emtive apology to all those forced to be within ten feet of its presence.

In the grand scheme of things, I realize and acknowledge that these problems are small. Last night, when I was holding Molly's newborn son in my arms for the first time, I knew that cable television and pretty hair were just two on a long list of items I'd gladly give up to experience the Heaven of being a mother and taking care of a family.

And P.S.: In case it's not evident by the tie-dye, clothing was the third thing to go.

All About the Benjamins and Monica from Friends

A week away from Thanksgiving, and I'm proud to say I've already started Christmas shopping. Back in October, I sat down at the table and make a carefully budgeted list of who to shop for, how much to spend per person, and on which pay periods I would allow myself to make the purchases; oddly enough, these strict limitations have put me more at-ease with the whole gift-giving process than simply buying to my heart's content like I did last year, when I was carelessly tossing out comments like "To hell with budgeting" and "How can you put a price on family?" and proceeded to fund hundreds of dollars of holiday cheer courtesy of Mr. Visa, back when I could make such decisions with the knowledge there'd be a three-thousand-dollar tuition refund check waiting in the wings next semester. Now I'm having nightmares about the student loans I'll start paying next month and scouting out which interstate junctions to frequent with my little tin cup and cardboard box. Now I'm thinking, "I can TOTALLY put a price on family."

In the short time we've been living together, Luke and I have managed our money pretty well. We've followed Suze's advice and made it a point to pay our bills together each month, and I even sent in the paperwork for a rebate from my contact lens provider, who shall not be named here because I hate rebates and lose respect for any manufacturer that issues them. If you REALLY wanted to give me a break, Contact Lens Provider, you wouldn't make me pay for the damn lenses in full and then demand I mail in not only my original sales receipt but also the UPC codes from each lens box, just in case I'm a thief with the deplorable habit of stealing NON-CASH PIECES OF PAPER THAT ARE NOT DOLLAR BILLS from my fellow man. Then, once I've proved my worth as a customer and a human being, I have to wait six to eight weeks before you'll reluctantly hand over forty freakin' bucks. For cripe's sake, get over yourselves.

Anyway. During our Christmas shopping on Tuesday, somehow the second season of Scrubs and the tenth (final!) season of Friends found their way onto our conveyor belt, two purchases that were not Christmas purchases at all but in fact superficial material additions to our apartment, because they were each on sale and even though I thought the last season of Friends was sort of *eh* I was suddenly dying to complete my collection that. very. minute because the cover was such a breathtaking shade of magenta and Courteney Cox's hair looked really pretty. Plus, Luke loves Scrubs and I hadn't seen the second season and really, people, we don't even have cable, aren't we allowed ANY earthly pleasures?

Obviously, there's room for improvement.

I think it will be easier to save money when there's a lot less of it going around. Once the loan checks start going out, suddenly a smart celebrity hairstyle won't be sufficient grounds to blow thirty dollars, especially when we could use that dough to upgrade to a better brand of toilet paper or perhaps stock up on Ramen noodle soup.

Note to self: Begin construction of cardboard box. Also, purchase tin cup.

Sallie Mae Be Driving Me Crazy

Over the weekend, I received a letter I've been both eagerly anticipating and passionately dreading: an official verification that my federal student loan consolidation application (try saying that ten times) was accepted. Anticipating because I knew the sucker was coming but didn't know when, making it hard to plan each month's bill cycle. Dreading because holy crap, now I actually have to start surrendering hard-earned money to these people.

This realization has triggered a brand-new bout of Freaking the &*%$ Out. What happened to the days when a fifty-dollar paycheck from Sam Goody could last two weeks? How can I be expected to make a car payment and keep up on my rent and pay down my Visa bill and plan for a wedding and have babies and even think about being a stay-at-home mom when I now have to find an extra two hundred and eighty dollars a month for Sallie Mae? And that's just the federal loans. The bill for the private ones will be coming around Christmas. Do they plan it this way on purpose?

The Freak Out is further fueled by the fact that Luke is still temping and I did not get any kind of raise after my September review, a raise that was neither promised nor implied but simply fabricated out of my own wishful thinking and desire for more money.

I know I'm lucky. I have a great job that's enabling me to repay my educational debts, a job I wouldn't have even qualified for if I hadn't financed my schooling. I have all the insurance I could possibly need and a 401(k) plan that offers a company match, of which I am taking full advantage, even with all this nickel-and-dime chaos going on, don't you worry, Suze Orman. I'm lucky in that respect, too. Not everyone can afford to invest in their future.

And I could have made some better choices along the way. If I'd been more careful, I wouldn't have totaled and lost forever my beloved, precious, still-miss-her-to-this-day Cavalier, which was only two and a half years away from being fully paid off. I didn't have to buy a brand-new car, a car that would bring me my second accident in three months. It was my own pride that talked me into buying extravagent presents at Christmastime, so that my parents and siblings would have physicial evidence of how well Frema was doing on her own. And honestly, how snobby am I to complain that I don't have enough clothes to wear when I was spending two hundred dollars at New York & Company every other month, the last spree taking place the week before Luke moved in? Am I that shallow?

Moral of this story: I'm a big girl who made her bed, and now I have to lie in it, in blankets and sheets that will be made to last for the next five years, because who can think of blankets and sheets when I'm buying generic dishwashing detergent? It may take some time to feel financially secure again, but I thank God that at least I have the resources to do so.

And yet...I STILL hate Sallie Mae.

Mental Smorgasbord

OK, it was definitely time to update, because that baby post was really starting to creep me out. You want kids. We get it Frema, we all get it. Dry your eyes and shut your pie hole. Hell, I found myself saying this to MYSELF. Let's all move on.

Anyway, I started a post on Sunday about Luke's and my glorious time at the Whiter River Gardens bonsai exhibit, cleverly connecting the show to my only memories of bonsai, which all stem from The Karate Kid Part III. However, when I received a link the next day from Luke announcing his then-latest post, what did I find but MY idea, shamelessy stolen by someone who's never even seen the damn movie. Now, talking further about the day just seems redundant, and really, I can find my own original ideas to post about, thank you very much, Useless Clutter.

It's been kind of a blah week, a week in which I have experienced the full impact of our domesticity. Over the weekend we made a special trip to the mall so that I could redeem my highly cherished Victoria's Secret coupon for one free pair of panties. (FYI: Every time I say the word "panties," I imagine Eric from That Seventies Show in the episode where Donna finds strange underwear in his car and she imagines him in his bedroom surrounded by his lingerie trophies, shouting, "Panties! Glorious panties!" and then gleefully tosses them over his head.) Anyway, as I'm sure Victoria is well aware, women who get something free are likely to also walk away with items that cost the very opposite of free. Only this time Luke was there, and he shook his head vehemently when I said it might not be a bad thing to get one more bra. You know, for work! Yet still, no.

We were at the mall again tonight, shopping for my father's birthday, and for the first time in a long time, I walked away with nothing for myself, even though I am the proud owner of not one but TWO good-through-October-only coupons for New York and Company. Now that Luke and I are a Financial Unit, it's not OK to say "&*$# it" and charge three sweaters on my NY&C credit card. For the first time in my life, my money-management skills affect someone other than myself. Plus, with student loans, a 3,000-dollar Visa debt, and soon, a wedding to pay for, it's time to grow up and learn to keep the plastic in Mr. Pocket. But it's hard. I spent so much of my childhood hating my clothes. As an adult, I love the control I have over my wardrobe. The idea of not adding to it at my whim is depressing. But such is life.

The one aesthetic splurge I can look forward to is my haircut and color this weekend in Chicago. Yes, Chicago. I've strategically scheduled all of my hair appointments to coincide with my Chi-town visits, as the salon I visited in Indy back in June left the top layer of my head a shade of copper neither I nor God himself ever intended for my hair. That's what I get for going to a place that spells "curl" with a K. Behold the evidence, if you can. Sunglasses may be required.

Less than a week after this was taken, I was sitting a chair at Enve in Chicago, pleading with Brenda to make the ugliness go away. Not only did she fulfill my wishes, but she also demonstrated the proper way to use a diffuser, not realizing she had bestowed upon me a gift more precious than the cotton-candy-pink bicycle my grandma bought me for Christmas in 1987.

As much as I heart Brenda and her mad skillz, though, I've come to discover Indianapolis is actually chock full of salons whose employees don't show up for work in scrubs and sport hair styles that were shaped by a mixing bowl. Plus, my hour-and-a-half appointments subtract from the precious time I have with family and friends. So, this weekend, I'm saying my good-byes to Brenda, in hopes of finding an equally if not more savvy stylist at least two and a half hours closer to home. Any opinions on Ulta?

And...I'm out.

Quitting the Day Job, Not So Much

Well, folks, I did it! There was smiling and strutting and sashaying and shantaying and even a little flirty head-turning. Also, the return of The Cleavage.

Outfit number one. It looked great on the rack--just not on my rack. I tried telling the Parisian special events coordinator that Clinton and Stacy would not approve of the one-button jacket for my blah frame. "The three-button jacket really provides better structure," I said at my fitting, but this woman was willowy and gorgeous even at eight months pregnant and working for Parisian, so who the hell am I to have a know-it-all air about me just because I've watched What Not to Wear? However, in this case, I think I was right. My breasts were putting forth their best efforts to somersault out of my bra and into the great wide open. The jeans were cute but too long, and rolling them up seemed inappropriate when paired with my sexy Nine West 100-percent-leather pointy-toe knee-high boots. I loved the jacket's color, though. The blue family is so very in this fall. And I would know. In case you didn't notice, I am a model.

Outfit number two, the one I am considering charging on my Visa because I feel so very Adult in it. Except the boots. My poor baby toes will never be the same. And maybe the jacket, because it's over a hundred dollars and what else can I possibly pair it with? Actually, I'd be happy just getting the skirt. Everything else I can find at NY&C and Bakers. But still. See how Adult I look? I should totally be walking to my corner office downtown with an Italian briefcase in one hand and a Starbucks Frappacino in the other.

My fellow fashionistas (and one fashionisto) in crime. Despite our various height, weight, and hair differences, we all had the same objective: survive this thing without making damn fools of ourselves. Mission accomplished. And hopefully, we found some new friends in the process. All in all, a fabulous time.

At the end of the evening, the Parisian special events coordinator handed each of us a fifteen-percent coupon good for any purchase in the store. However, it's only good until Sunday, at which time I will be at a wedding shower in Chicago, but it doesn't matter because shower or not I'd still have the same amount of cash to spend: none.

Coincidentally, I also have one NY&C CityCash coupon, also good for this weekend only. I so want to be a Responsible Financial Person and just let the coupons expire; after all, what good is a discount if I'm spending money I don't have? However, the part of me that says it's OK to eat half a pint of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey is also reminding me that I have been that Responsible Financial Person all summer and I just switched my current credit card debt to a new card with a zero percent APR on all balance transfers until September 2006 and surely it would be OK to splurge just one more time?

Maybe I should change my nickname to Sybil.

A Wedding Story

Well, she did it! On August 19, my little sister, the girl who sucked her thumb until the age of nine, became a wife.

She was amazing. No apprehension, no worries, just full of eagerness to get to the church and start her life with Dan. I held it together pretty well until she and my father made their way down the aisle. Mad props to Maybelline's Full 'n Soft waterproof mascara in Very Black.

Here I am, showing off a sleek blow-out, an air-tan, and the red lipstick that only comes out when I'm feeling particularly adult. Also, scandulous cleavage. It could not be contained.

There were a few surprises with the tan, the biggest one being that an "air technician" applied it to me personally instead of an automatic sprayer. Which basically means that I got to first base with a Keira Knightly look-alike who saw me and my flabby flab in all its naked glory. I was also given disposable underwear to don, but for all the coverage it provided, I could have just put on a maxi-pad and connected it with a string around my waist. I put the smackdown on that and refused to take off my briefs. I do have some pride. And for all that trouble, it had all but faded from my face by Thursday night. Bronzer to the rescue, with mixed success.

Here are The Cleavage and I, keeping Samantha's wedding dress from hitting the pavement. Apparently this very act is the sole reason for having a maid of honor. Even the priest (who took a brief hiatus from his homily to talk about Notre Dame's football team) was telling me to pick up her train. Very, very important.

The reception was a lot of fun. The only glitch was that the air conditioning konked out from a brown-out the night before, turning the hall into a giant sweat box. My sister was so hot in her dress I thought she was going to faint, so she ended up ditching her slip after pictures, a slip I had to cut her out of with a steak knife. I blame my mother and her affection for the double knot.

Now it is Tuesday, and life is still filled with The Crazy. We moved Ryan into her Bloomington apartment on Sunday so that she could start transfer orientation at IU. Luke and I also made the big decision to move in together by the end of September, whether or not he had another job lined up. He gave his two weeks' notice at the newspaper yesterday, and we both broke the news last night to our parents. His are very supportive; mine are more skeptical. My mother thinks it's a way to avoid marriage, despite my telling her that we want to get married soon, and they both wonder why four and a half years have passed without it already happening. I haven't made a move that they haven't been proud of for almost four years now, and when you have the emotional sensitivity of a kindergartener, it hits you pretty hard. I understand where they're coming from, but it hurts just the same.

As if THAT joy wasn't enough, I found out that I filled out the wrong consolidation forms and now owe a four-hundred-dollar bill to The-Evil-Student-Loan-Company-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in three weeks, half of which is overdue. It'll take about a week to sort out, so in the meantime I get to fantasize about where to find four hundred dollars if this bill actually needs to get paid. God forbid they CALL me and TELL me about the screw-up. It's not the end of the world; I know I can get the money. It's just one more thing to keep me from paying down my Visa bill. Grrrrrr.

And I still haven't finished Harry Potter. At this point I'm tempted to use the last precious vacation day I have just to BE DONE WITH IT already. And I still have to model in that post-Labor Day fashion show. In case you can't tell, I am not in a very model-y mood. If all else fails, I can bust out with The Cleavage. No pun intended.

Get Your Pee On

Here you go, folks! My first national sample, available right here, revels in the glory that is therapeutic drug monitoring, blood and urine specimen collection, and insurance billing! With a byline! Unfortunately, I had to forfeit my super-cool alias, but look! A comma with letters after my last name! Print your copy today! Also, !.

In other, non-fluid-related news, I was making out my own bills last night and realized some changes need to be made. My boss was generous with my starting salary, so that I can afford the cost of living in Indianapolis and dine on foods other than Ramen noodles and Spaghetti-Os. (Except I don't cook, so I totally live on Ramen noodles and Spaghetti-Os.) However, the little things are starting to add up. The cell phone bill I was hoping to eliminate but can't since I travel so much on the weekends; the landline bill I could have avoided if my phone had better reception; savings, 401(k) and money-market deductions; electricity; rent that is almost three times the amount of my $220 apartment back in Rensselaer (ah, those were the days!). And soon, the addition of student loan debt. If I ever want to shop again, I have to make some changes. There is only one bill that can afford to go.

That bill? Is the (gasp!) cable bill.

I hear that some people forgo (gasp!) cable by choice and go on to lead normal, productive lives, without the pure joy that is SoapNet, The Learning Channel, and USA. They are not interested in All My Children nightly recaps or marathons of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. They are not familiar with Monk. And yet, they carry on. They use the extra 60 bucks for more Important things like feeding homeless children in Africa and drinking beer.

I do not want to become "some people." I don't want to live life never watching another episode of What Not to Wear or a TBS-edited Sex and the City. They don't have SVU Labor-Day marathons on NBC. And is CNBC a cable station? Will I ever watch The Suze Orman Show again?

But the Adult part of me knows it must be done. The Adult part knows that cutting (gasp!) cable is the only way to get me off the damn couch. I will devour books in the lovely reading corner I've staged in my bedroom. Talk to God. Have money for DSL service since I'll soon receive a PC courtesy of my boss, who is eager to empower me to "bring work home." In one fell swoop I'll have established a Roth IRA, encouraged a pay raise and saved my very soul.

That is, until Luke gets to Indy and our financial incomes become one. But no pressure, sweetie. Honey. Love of my life. No pressure at all.

When Is It OK to Freak Out?

Because I think I might. For weeks and weeks I've been thinking, "Hooray! Moving day is almost here!" And now it's like, "Oh my God. MOVING DAY is almost here." I just today called a relocation service about the weekend of May 14. I'm still tying up loose ends at work. I keep reworking my List of Cool New Things to Buy and have realized that maybe I'm setting my standards a bit high, especially since my nest egg will need to last until I get my first new-job paycheck, which won't happen until the end of June. Plus, my attempt at eliminating as many half-month bills as possible resulted in losing cable, Internet, and phone service all on the same day, so that I'm not really sure what to do with myself now. School? Yeah, right. Pack? The movers can do it (hell, I'm not paying for it). I feel lost. I am so ready for my new life. I'm just not ready to make it happen.

See what I said about hamster poop? Look at me, just babbling on and on. Maybe I'll have more poetic thoughts when the van is gone and Luke has dashed back to Rensselaer and I am left standing all alone. When it really hits me that I have moved away and I'm doing it all by myself and that will be as scary as it is fun. Is it selfish to want my co-workers to miss me? Who will I rent a movie with on a Tuesday night in Indianapolis? How will I figure out the best places to shop? Will family and friends really visit me the way they promise to? Is it OK to get a little dog for company when I'll be gone eight hours a day and some weekends?

Hamster poop.

Taking a Time Out at Work

So, 21 days down, another 17 to go (including weekends). It's like reliving the final days of my senior year in college all over again.

Let me just say that it is NOT a good idea to give your employer six weeks' notice. The day after you've announced your resignation, you will have already started to plan the layout scheme for your new pad, debated about which breed of dog you'd like to own, mapped out possible new-city activities, and deliberated on how to get your scared-of-cars mother to come along for the three-and-a-half hour trip from Chicago to Indianapolis on moving day. You will not be concerned with writing hometown news releases or blurbs for the spiritual offerings page. You just won't. Wish somebody had warned me.

Anyway ... after my now infamous dresscapade, I ventured back to the mall last night to return the dress I bought and buy a girdle-type shaper thingy to wear with an old dress I feel more comfortable in. (Floor-length's just not my bag, baby!) But the $125 I saved by returning the dress justified spending $140 on the shaper and new bras and underwear for good measure. At least I learned my caboose is one size smaller in underwear than I thought. Happy days!

I have a feeling my posts will ultimately amount to hamster poop until May 13th, at which time I will have said good-bye to my co-workers and signed my apartment lease and begun living my Fabulous New Life. Maybe these will be good times to crank out some stellar lists. Suggestions?

"I Have More Money Than I Will Ever Need"

This is the mantra Suze Orman gave to a fellow YF&Ber on her weekly TV show last night, and while it sounded cornier than a cob, I've repeated it several times since then and have been surprised at how empowering it is. Only recently have I been introduced to the world of Suze; my friend Gina swears by her, and as I'm in this what-to-do-with-my-money phase, I bought her latest book to expose myself to the world of finance in terms I can understand. Thanks to Suze, I learned about FICO scores in 15 minutes.

It's so easy to blame money for our problems, but as Suze said last night, "Can a dollar bill hit you in the face? Can it drag you into a store and make you buy something you don't need? No. YOU control your money, which means YOU control your financial destiny." How calming to believe that you don't have to postpone financial goals because you're not making your ideal salary. Some people complain that they don't make enough, but they find ways to throw money in the garbage just as well as those better off. It doesn't have to be that way, girlfriend/boyfriend! says Suze. (She really would say that. Apparently she coins pet names for all of her fans.) The sooner you take responsibility for your current financial situation, the sooner you can improve it.

On that note, I finally did my taxes and was surprised at the hefty refund I'll be getting in the mail. (I'm still too chicken to include my checking account number on my tax returns. Who knows what The Man will do with it?) I'm thinking this would be the prime time to open a Roth IRA, since I'll be paying off all debt (except for student loans, which will follow me to my grave) with my very last tuition refund check from DePaul. For those of you concerned with my fashion welfare, don't fret: just this weekend I had a marvelous time at the mall. To Suze's credit, though, every time I whipped out my cards, I felt slightly guilty.

Don't You Forget About Me

Sick, sick, sick. I'm just about 100% now, but for a while there it wasn't pretty. I was confined to the bed or the couch for three straight days; Luke knew it was serious when I refused spinach dip for the first time in our nearly four years of dating. I couldn't even use my beloved CitiCash! Sixty dollars worth of free stuff down the drain. THAT ticked me off more than anything. At first I thought it was God's way of keeping money in my checking account, but then I squeezed in 45 minutes of quality mall time on my way to class last week, so there goes that. Anyway, I passed my germs on to Luke, who may have passed them back to me, because today I'm feeling a little worn out. I hope all traces of disease fade away with the early signs of spring. I love spring. More importantly, I love spring clothes, because they can be worn straight into fall. Winter is so impractical.

Things have been OK. I've not had much motivation for anything, although things are moving along at work and my winter class ends this week, after which I will have a break of sorts until my weekend class starts in April. I can't stop thinking about the future - graduating from DePaul, gaining back a huge chunk of free time, enjoying my day in the sun until December hits and I start paying back the money I borrowed when I was 18. My mother recently asked me if I thought I was going to be OK and once again reminded me that I'm always welcome to come home if things get tight. I'm sure I'll be fine: best case scenario, I'm in a job that pays enough for me to live on my own and pay my new bills; worse case scenario, I'm still in my old job and have to cut back on some luxuries, though that line is blurred. Would I really cut off basic cable? Internet access? If I don't start searching more steadily, it might come down to that.

Other than sickness, not too much has been going on. I'm still adjusting to the new Cobalt (Brooke: it's a sedan!). I feel like my Cavalier was a boyfriend who broke up with me just when I was beginning to get serious. This new car is foreign to me and so far cannot measure up to the standards set by my previous ride. There's no armrest. The radio buttons are too high up. The gas tank never quite reads full, even after I've just filled it up. There's no mirror on my visor. I know, I know. Think of all the children in Africa who don't even have cars. I'm trying! I'm just not attached yet. Maybe I never will be. Maybe first loves and first new cars sit on the same pedestal. Of course, my first boyfriend stole his mother's credit card to buy me Valentine's Day presents and was still enchanted with G.I. Joe at 20 years old, so perhaps that's not the best comparison. All my Cavalier ever did was love me. Share in my journeys to Chicago, Indianapolis, Naperville, Philadelphia. Sing along to my Lionel Richie CDs (yes, there are actually two). Transport loved ones and cherished shopping items.

Excuse me. There's something in my eye.

The Accidental Student

Remember this?

"Oh, what a diligent student I will be this quarter. Straight A's to prevail all year round! I will walk across stage in June with magna cum laude status and seize the world!"

Yeah. Instead, I'm placing my hopes into this trusty equation

(easy class + busy work schedule) x just wanting to be done = revising undergraduate assignments to fulfill graduate needs

I've only done it once or twice, but it's like I've been kicked in the gut five inches from the finish line. If all I have to do is stretch out my hand to win the race, why go through the pain of dragging my entired battered carcass? Or something like that.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. Lots of TV. Some job searching and even applying. (Brookfield Zoo, here I come?) Lots of interest in my financial well-being. According to the Primerica rep that visited me on Monday, it doesn't look so good right now. No renter's insurance (does anybody really have this?); a savings balance of $20; no IRA; $82,000 combined debt for my post-secondary education; and a near unhealthy obsession with New York and Company. (OK, he didn't say that last part, but who are we kidding?) It's all good, though - admitting you have a problem is the first step. He's coming back in two weeks to give me a complete Financial Needs Analysis and a plan to get me out of the red. Very good stuff.

I also have a visitor. My sister Ryan's been with me since Sunday; by Monday, she had locked herself in my bathroom for three hours. "Help me! Help me!" she screamed, using my plunger to disengage the doorknob, and eventually catching the attention of my next-door neighbor. The poor guy thinks he's coming home for some R and R, only to find a woman trapped in the next john, for God knows what reason.

"Miss?" he said.

To his credit, he did attempt to save her; finding the front door locked, he snuck around the back and "broke into" my bedroom, which apparently wasn't. He then proceeded to throw himself against the door in an attempt to break it down with his manly track-and-field muscles. Sadly, it did not work, but he was able to contact our landlord, whose wife set Ryan free. Happy 19th birthday!

I have a lot of energy for working out my finances, looking for new career opportunities, and catching up on two weeks of soap operas. Thus, I do not have much left for school and work. Or, by the looks of the last two entries I posted, blogging.