WASH YOUR HANDS PEOPLE!

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I am 44 years old. Never in my lifetime have I ever experienced life as I am experiencing it now. A global pandemic, a virus is taking over and sweeping the nation and changing life as we all know it. Bars, restaurants, salons, schools have all shut down. Kids attending public school are now logging online and trying to adjust to this new short term (hope) way of learning.

As a school VP board member, I’m nervous. As a mom, I am very nervous. As a childcare provider I am nervous. My husband and I are both self employed. Income is a very real issue and it hit so many people. One day we had work and the next we didn’t. Today the city of Denver (Colorado) issued a mandatory quarantine at home order. Not a suggestion of social distancing like the entire last week. I don’t know why I am explaining this… we are all dealing with this right now. This isn’t news to anyone. But I am struggling.

I will sit and try to relax and I feel my heart racing. I don’t tend to be a worrier or the panicked type. I refuse to get on the panic bus like so many people are but I can’t seem to calm my nerves or calm my anxiety. I feel like I can’t focus. I have 10 things going on at one time. I have to stop and focus on one. I have to remind myself that all of us are swimming in uncharted waters. It’s just frustrating being self-employed when everyone with an employer is working from home and getting paid. It is so scary.

Then you have these people that refuse to follow orders. We had young adults (college students) partying on the beaches of Florida for spring break refusing to practice social distancing. I just want to punch all of them, and now guess what? They’re all getting sick. Karma right? Not really. Their age groups just get very sick. The older generation or those with underlying health issues are dying. They should all be charged with attempted murder. Extreme? Maybe maybe not.

I saw the best post. It said, “For those of you saying this virus only has a death rate of 3% and that’s why you aren’t really worried about it. What if I handed you 100 skittles and told you that three of them would kill you if you ate them. I assure you NONE of you would eat any of them because that is YOUR life. Yet you will spread this to everyone else.. ”

Ugh. Stay safe. Stay healthy and wash your hands.

The School of the Electric Fence — HemmingPlay

I suppose I knew this, once upon a time, but love is a little like the electric fence I used to crawl through to get to the woods. You have to be cautious, not timid. (I wouldn’t go so far as to agree with Crosby when he said being with Joni was like falling into […]
The School of the Electric Fence — HemmingPlay

This is a blog I follow. I love it and I adore this post. Some posts just move us. Sometimes it’s for reasons we don’t know or understand, but I love this one enough to share it on my own blog. Thank you HemmingPlay. xoxo.

Want VS Need…

My 2020 New Years Resolution is in full effect. I happen to love Amazon, Ebay, Etsy and Target a little TOO much. My resolution this year was to really decide if when buying something if it was something I wanted VS something I NEEDED. I’m not going to lie, its been hard. I’ve gotten, (probably in the last two years), a little spendy. Spendy. Not a real word but SOOOO a real word.

When trying to save money I often think of a certain family member of mine. One who is well off but the master of a ‘Less is More’ life. Beautiful home, nice car BUT money in the bank. Her rule? You can buy whatever you want, (seriously whatever), if you can put the same amount in savings at the same time as your purchase. Sounds simple right? Can’t say I can put $250 dollars in savings when I decide to drop $250 at Target on things that are cute, and that I could use, but don’t REALLY need. This family member of mine, said the only thing it doesn’t apply to is her vehicle. If she needs a new car she doesn’t make herself match it in savings. She wants a $4.44 coffee, right that moment she transfers $4.44 to savings. She says it gets easy. Where you will make an exception on a $4.44 cent coffee, would you spend $8.88 on a coffee? I know I wouldn’t. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter HOW you do it, its just MAKING yourself SAVE. I wouldn’t say we are week to week like when we first started life out together, (my husband and I) but we are for sure month to month. If one of us lost our jobs we could MAYBE pay our bills for two months. I would love to sleep at night thinking if something horrible happened we could make ends meet for at LEAST four to six months. Funny how this goal has just become important to me in the last year. I just feel like by 45 I should financially have my shit together. However I can say at 44 years old, I have less that 2k of credit card debt. Who can say that? I’ll tell you who lol. Someone with a ton of medical bills who realized making interest free payments to hospitals costs lest than making those same payments with interest with a credit card. I refuse to have cc debt. The little I have is my business line of credit…. and well yeah I haven’t quite figured out how to rid myself of spending money to make my business stand out ahead of all the others….

So the bottom line is I am 30 days in today on my resolution and I have zero in savings but it is the first mont that I didn’t go into the hole using my ‘line of credit’ at my bank. Which is huge. In December I used $644 dollars of my line of credit. I will add I pay that off before I owe interest on it, but it is easy to use when you know it is there. So I am looking at it like I am $644 dollars ahead this month! Woo hoo! Little steps! Maybe that means next month I can have $644 in savings. Hell, I’d be happy with half of that!

-C

Father Time is a mean, mean man.

Christmas. Hurry. Shop. Race. Speed. Buy. Spend. Wrap. Stress. Chaos. Latest. Greatest. Deals. Savings. Want. Need. MUST PRESS ON. Time ticking by faster than normal…
I just can’t. I can no longer rush, race, hurry and go. Maybe it’s age but maybe it’s just exhaustion. Or heck, maybe it’s both.

I feel like Thanksgiving to Christmas was non stop racing. I tried to find peace. I tried to find the moments in the minutes. And just like that, it is the end of January. My goals, (like always), are to slow down. My kids are growing up so fast, (too fast), right in front of my face. It’s depressing. Please Father Time, slow.

The Journey Begins

vulnerable

I’m tired. You can join me at starting a simpler life or you can stay where you are, stressed out and overwhelmed. I’m exhausted from going 90mph at all times. I’m ready to start the act of doing less, slowing down, seeing the small stuff and BREATHING! I didn’t realize I was holding my breath 90% of the time because I was so stressed out. What will I have to walk away from? What will I have to say no to? That is why I started this blog. I needed something to focus on that slowed my thought, voiced my frustrations and put in black and white what I’m thinking. To hell with the Joneses. They can have their lifestyle and stress-levels, I’ll pass.