The Fierce Diva Guide to Life

Love and Taxes

“A.” worked at a desk on the ground floor with a stack of paper 1040’s to his right.  He wore a business suit and tie.  I took him to be around 80.

I had gotten his name from my mother, as in years past, he and my stepfather worked side by side offering free tax preparation assistance at the public library.

I had been hiding from my tax returns this year.  Fortunately, during the days when I made money, I had the good sense not to spend all of it on vacations and designer handbags and put some away.  

Yet, more recent times called for a different kind of sensibility. I put those handbags up on eBay. I sold off some of the money that Wall Street had held for me for the past decade.  And while I “sold high” to get the most bang for my buck, selling high meant I owed “the man” in on the action.

I didn’t want to deal with the I.O.U. to Uncle Sam, thus I had hidden from him completely, and I didn’t want to pay my accountant his arm and leg fee as one of the “fortunate ones” to receive his Ivy League advice.

So, there I sat, across from A., at the library, with my W2’s, 1099’s, expense receipts and the large pile of Barter Exchange forms.

There were the technology stocks that held up...

…oil stocks, home improvement stores, soft drinks…

…the blue chip stocks for fast food chains where I would never eat, but whose dividends fed my children this year.

He wrote quickly on the Schedule D, while punching an adding machine that sat on top of the desk.

“You’re fine,” he said, as he placed a piece of paper in front of me and pointed to a number.  “Here’s what your refund will be.”

I eyed the number and suddenly felt light.  The money I would get back was enough to replace half of what I had cashed in. 

In theory.

“Thank you,” I offer, getting up from the desk. 

“I miss your father.”

“I miss him too,” I respond, feeling the cry well up in my throat.

“He was a good man.  He helped a lot of people do their taxes. We fought though.  Politics.  Always politics. He was such a liberal.”  

“I know,” I say. I smile and nod my head. 

“You’re lovely.  Like your stepdad.  Good luck to you.”  

I walk out of the library, tears on my cheeks, clutching my tax return under my arm, thinking about how I don’t miss those vacations or stocks or designer handbags half as much as I miss my stepdad, thinking about how fast life really goes, and thinking about when it’s my turn to die, I’m hoping to have things on my mind other than taxes and the trifles that take up too much space in my mind, and to end this life used up, spent, at peace, and totally happy.

 

 

This is my first time linking up with Yeah Write. Click on the badge to read some great posts, then come back on Thursday to vote for your favorites.

 

 

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This Ain't My First Rodeo

It was a death wish.

But I had no choice.

We had not one roll of toilet paper in the house. Not one, not even that last little square stuck to the brown paper roll in the middle.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.

I thought better than of running to Costco, since as you may remember, I cannot get out of that place for less than $139.00.  And although the exit fee at Target is not much smaller, it seemed like the lesser of two evils, especially on a Saturday afternoon, where everyone in Northern Monmouth County is at one overcrowded store or the other.

I told my mother, who was watching my kids, that I would “run out and be back quickly,” but that was a lie.

I was alone, as in all alone, in a Target, without children.  I was going to take my sweet old time.

I’ve brainwashed myself in recent years into thinking that taking the kids with me to a store like Target would end up costing me 20% more at checkout than if I had been there alone.  But that 20% is a 100% mistruth.  When I go without my kids, there is always the same upcharge, if not more, because I have time to browse and look at all of the things that I never knew I needed. My storage shelves, purple and orange Champion running bras, maroon hand towels, and sautee pans, along with their unbudgeted bills, tell that story well.

Those marketing people at Target are genius, since you walk right into the clothing section as you enter the store. There was not a chance of my heading left toward toilet paper until I perused the racks of off the shoulder sweatshirts (you know I love that Flashdance look!), tank tops, and newly launched spring dresses. Then, at the back wall of the clothing section, this tee shirt caught my eye…

 

And I fell in love with it.

The saying on it felt like the story of my life, or at the least, the story of my trying to navigate a very crowded Target on a Saturday afternoon, and I thought it might be fun to have it.   And then I realized that I was about 25 years too old to wear a shirt like that, and besides, it was not in my budget.

I resolved to leave the clothing section, but not before I passed a sale rack with

this coat on it.

I think I may have gasped out loud when I saw this coat, and once I picked it up, it was all over.  It was so soft, it had a great silhouette, it was my size! And it was $19.99.  I grabbed it and ran to the dressing room, or I should say elbowed my way through the thick crowed of shoppers. 

Excitedly, I took the coat off the hanger and tossed it on. ..to completely have my perfect coat for $19.99 fantasy ruined by the fact that it looked like an oversized  tutu dress on me.

 

On the hanger, the ruffle looked so cool – but on me, not so much.

Disheartened, I left the dressing room.  Even though this mis-match saved me some cash, it’s totally OK in my book to spend $19.99 on “the perfect coat found on a clearance rack.”  I was off for toilet paper..but not before passing the bath section, where I realized I needed a new shower curtain for our downstairs bathroom.  Shower curtain, check.  New shower liner, check.  New shower hooks?  What the heck?

Finally, I headed toward the checkout line, where I stood for several minutes, until I realized I had forgotten toilet paper.

I ran across the store once more, grabbed the toilet paper and headed back toward the cash registers.

I bought a 12 pack, with the thought that it will keep me out of Target for a while.

Until tomorrow at least?

 

What store is your downfall?

What was your last impulse buy when you were out to buy a "neccessity item?"

  

Where else to find me:

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Fierce Like Me

Fifty Shades of Shades

Rock My Root Chakra

“Call me. It’s important,” she specified in her voice mail.

R. hated to talk on the phone, so I knew it had to be important.

When she picked up on the first ring, I got scared, as R. didn’t race to the phone for anyone, not her husband, her friends, or even her clients. R.’s phone aversion mirrored my aversion to processed foods.  If I were starving on an island and had no choice but to eat dinner rolls from Perkins to stay alive, I would relent.  If R. were stranded on an island and needed to make a phone call to get off the island, she would possibly relent.  Yet there is no guarantee. But I digress. 

“I know what’s holding you back from moving forward in life and having everything you want,” R. said excitedly.

“Tell me,” I say.  “Please! Tell me!”

“It’s your root chakra,” R. says, matter- of-factly. “You‘re too rooted.  You have worked so hard to build roots to compensate for the roots you didn’t have when you were younger that you can’t get off the ground.  You’re stuck.”

I quickly do a mental scan of my life, including my well-publicized hang-ups, my hyper frugality, my decision to stay with jobs and relationships  well past their reasonable end points. My intense rigidity with food.  When I trace these behaviors, they all lead back to my need to feel grounded and secure, which is what the root chakra, located at the base of the spine, is all about. 

“You need to let go a little,” she says.  “Once you let go, you’ll see a big shift in your life.  Treat yourself to a night out to dinner or at the least, a glass of wine.”

“So, if I have a glass of wine, I’ll get a book deal?”

“Absolutely,” R. says.  

“I took the kids to Perkins last night for dinner,” I offer. I suddenly feel very proud of that decision.

“Oh my God, you ate at Perkins?”

“Of course not.  But I let my kids eat Perkins.”

“OK, well I guess that counts.”

All I needed to do to get that book deal is booze it up on occasion and let my kids eat at Perkins? Who knew?   

“You need to do things to unroot yourself.   Like wear a color other than black, for crying out loud!”

“Oh my gosh! It’s like we have been communicating telepathically, because I wore my new red pashima wrap to work today.  Wait, and there’s double points in that because not only was it color, but it was an impulse buy!”

“You made an impulse buy?” R. gasps.  “Like something you didn’t need for absolute survival?  Now that’s real progress!”

“So, between the Perkins dinner, the red scarf, and the impulse buy, I’m like well on my way to a book deal, right?”

“Well, yeah!”  

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the chakra system, the yogis believed that there are energy centers that reside in specific areas of our physical/mental/spiritual bodies that are responsible for the reception and transmission of certain life energies.  There are tens of thousands of these receptors all over our bodies and seven major ones that run up the spinal column. They are responsible for such energies as survival, pleasure, personal power, compassion, communication, and intuition.  

For me personally, I have spent a lifetime creating the illusion of security in different areas of my life – yet ultimately, no amount of security can make me feel secure and no amount of “security” can provide security, because as we all know, life can change on a dime.  My hyper healthy diet is no guarantee that I won’t get sick, and as far as my extreme frugality goes, who’s to say that the stock market and the banking system won’t topple tomorrow.  We just don’t know.

We have so very little control that we scurry to find things that give us the illusion of control.  Being smart with finances is one thing, but stopping all of my disposable spending is not necessary. The same with food. Will the one Perkins dinner roll kill me?

This brings me to the phrase on my belly this week, as prescribed by my transformative coach E. It’s quite fitting after my girlfriend's deconstruction of my root chakra:

 

 

A picture is worth a thousand words, or a thousand chakras, I should say!

Namaste, Divas!  

Are you rigid in certain areas of your life?

What would happen if you let go of this rigidity?

What does having a balanced life mean to you?

Have you said hello to your root chakra lately? 

 

Cheer Mom Part 3: Game Day

As I walked into Sun National Arena in Trenton,  New Jersey for my daughter’s cheer competition, I was keenly aware that one of us would leave that night crying. 

Either they’d lose, and she would be devastated, or they’d win, and I’d be devastated. 

Don’t get me wrong, I want what we all want for our children.  But if you’ve read parts one and two of my Cheer Mom trilogy, then you understand the struggles I’ve encountered with my cheerleader daughter.  Advancing is what the girls want and what their coaches want and what I’m supposed to want. Yet, the next round would mean another month of daily practices, and another month of arguments over cheer and homework, cheer and play dates, cheer and life.  Not to mention that another round of competition meant more costs on top of costs that I could barely afford to begin with.

If they placed in the regional round, their squad would go to Florida for nationals.  How was I going to pay for that?

As we race to the cheer clubhouse that morning so that Miss F. could make her bus, I lecture her on behavior.

“Listen to your coaches.”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“I put money in your duffle bag for lunch.  It’s for lunch and not for candy. I don’t what to hear that you spent that money on Snickers bars.”

“Got it, Mom,” she says with an eye roll.   

Miss F. was slow to get out of bed.  The hair piece, otherwise known as a “wiglet,” that was sewn into her hair the night before, had prevented her from sleeping comfortably.  As I pull into the clubhouse parking lot, I notice the dark circles under her eyes. 

She was a tired, nervous little girl, going through a huge change at home, who had a mother who was too hard on her.

I kissed her as she boarded the bus.

“If you want Snickers with lunch, it’s OK,” I say. “I love you.”

*  *  *

As I watched her perform, my heart clenched.   Not only did she do a great job, but she was having fun.  Despite the pressure and the lack of sleep and the uncomfortable fake hair, she was enjoying this moment that they worked so hard for.

It became apparent to me in that moment that cheer brought my girl joy, the joy of camaraderie with a team, the joy of a job well done, the joy of taking risks.  I realized as I watched her that I would do whatever was necessary to pay for Florida, and I would do whatever I had to do to allow Miss F. to continue to cheer in the years to come.  As far as the money went, I would get another part time job to fund this.  If I could not find more freelance editing, I would clean someone’s house once a week or wait tables.  I made the commitment to stand behind her.

It came as no surprise that her squad took second place, and that they would advance to the next round.  The only surprise for me, was how genuinely happy I felt.

Later that night, after meeting the bus at the clubhouse, Miss F. and I sat at the kitchen table eating soup, while I listened to her recount of the day.

“Listen,” I say, “I know you love cheer.  I saw how much you love cheer when you were out there today. I just want you to know, that if this is what you want to do every year, then I want it for you too.”

There was silence for a moment before Miss F. spoke.

“You know, Mommy, I’m going to have to think about that. I love cheer, but there’s a lot of other things I have to give up in order to cheer, and I need to figure out if it’s worth it.  You know what I mean?”

“Yes, baby, I know what you mean.”

“It’s a big commitment,” Miss F. continues.   “Not just for me, but for the entire family.”  

I nod and can’t help but smile a teeny tiny bit.

We sat there eating soup, with the clock closing in on midnight, talking about wiglets, her bus ride, and the notes from the judges on their routine, as my heart clenched a second time that day, the way it does when you feel completely in synch with the people you love the most.  

Namaste, Divas! 

 

I am very pleased to end this story, where I began it, on Shell's blog. 

This final installment is a post that I am sharing via her Pour Your Heart Out Link up. 

Cheer Mom Part 2: Cheer Angst

I wasn’t in the mood to go to a wiglet party. Furthermore, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with Miss F.’s mood after that cumbersome looking hair piece was sewn into her hair, which she would then need to sleep with and live in until her cheer competition, some 18 hours later.  Miss F. is the kid who goes on sensory overload from a stray dog hair caught in her shoe.  Asking her to sleep with an artificial hair piece that has been woven into her hair is like asking a child who has sandbags tied to her legs to do cartwheels. 

Part of the reason I was anticipating the worst was due to my own headspace. I was tired.  It had been a long week, with too much running around and too little sleep.   My new schedule was kicking my butt.

My big girl shoes were giving me blisters.

It’s also no secret that money has been tight this year – especially right now.  Cheer is not a competitive sport for those who are “short on cash.”  Every time I drop off Miss F. for practice, I write another check.  Stunt clinic, choreography clinic, practice clothes, cheer sneakers, competition shoes, bus fare for the first competition, my competition ticket, the competition hair bow, and the curly pony tail hair piece, otherwise known as a “wiglet,” used to give the girls a more uniform look.

I’m not good when I’m tired, and I’m especially not good when I’m tired and stressing over money. 

As much as I want Miss F. to win, winning meant the possibility of going to nationals in Florida. And your guess is as good as mine on how I would pay for that. Yes, I was aware of this when I signed up Miss F. for cheer six months ago, but life was much different then.

So once again, I try to let go of the money stress, for what was probably the fiftieth time that hour, and I take Miss F. to get her wiglet sewn in at another cheer mom’s house.

The junior pee wees were running high on adrenaline and sugar from the fried ice cream that the host family made for the girls. 

Between all that sugar and that stupid hair piece, this kid was never going to bed.

We leave the wiglet party at 10:00. I am barely out of my parking spot, when Miss F. says, “Mommy, this hair piece is really bothering me.” 

“Try not to think about it.”

Perhaps I would have been more empathetic, except her obsessing over the hair piece was interrupting my obsessing over money, which quite honestly, I wanted to do without interruptions and in complete silence.

 When we get home, Miss F.  gets ready for bed and asks, “Mommy, can you lie down with me?”

“I need to pack your competition bag.” 

The coaches gave us a list of everything that needed to be packed in each girl’s bag, which would be checked in the morning by a team mother before the girls got onto the bus.

“Please.  Just for a little while?”

“Baby, I don’t want to run around last minute in the morning. I need to do it now.” 

I kiss her on the forehead. Miss F. sighs, defeated, and heads up the stairs.

An hour later, I hear a whimper from the second floor.

I climb the stairs and find Miss F., lying in bed, with her head in a contorted position.

“Mommy, I can’t sleep with this thing.” 

“Here, baby, here,” I offer, as  I prop pillows around and underneath Miss F.’s head, which, at the direction of the coaches, has been covered with a pink, fabric “hair style protector.”

I climb into bed next to her. While I can’t get too close to her due to the barricade caused by her fake hair, her body begins to relax. 

She’s struggling, I remind myself, and it’s not the wiglet.  It’s the stress she’s been under for weeks, to perfect their routine, to go into the arena tomorrow and blow away the competition. To remember to smile and not fidget, and keep the movements tight and in synch and to not fall when she’s on top of that pyramid.  The wiglet is the obvious – the tangible thing that hurts.

Like the money is the obvious, the tangible thing that hurts. 

For Miss F. to hold her own tomorrow, she’s going to have to live with this pain.  And for me to hold my own in life, and to move forward, past my flaws and mistakes and my self-imposed limitations, I’m going to have to live with some pain, too.  At least for now.

Let’s home that we both come out winners.

To be continued…

Part one of my Cheer Mom trilogy can be found here, on Shell’s blog, Things I Can’t Say.

Namaste, Divas! 

Costco Diva

The first mistake was going hungry.

The second mistake was going tired.

The third mistake was taking the kids with me, who were also hungry and tired.

The time change of Miss F.’s cheer practice Monday night was almost cause for a “case of nerves.”  First of all, they moved it up a half an hour, which left us no time for homework before she had to be there.   Second, they cut the practice down to one hour from two.   

With a two hour practice, I have time to get home and do “something,” like bathe the smaller kids and get my son’s homework done.  But an hour?  Between the ten minute drive to and from the school, I would have forty minutes at best, to be in my own house before turning back around to pick her up.  Forty minutes is not a user friendly window of time, at least not to me.  It’s one and a half baths for my two children.  It’s two thirds of my dude’s homework. Whatever critical task I choose to begin in forty minute’s time, whether it be homework, baths, or laundry, it will be unfinished when I run out of the house to pick up my daughter.  I like continuity.  Because these days, if I leave my house with a task unfinished, it might not get finished until a week later, or never, for that matter.

These days, “getting things done” is king – especially “critical tasks,” as I call them. Between my new “day job,” the magazine editing, shuttling the three kids around to school and activities, and settling into my “single mom” routine, I have to squeeze things in.  And if I can’t squeeze it in, it doesn’t get done. Furthermore, it only gets squeezed in if it’s a critical task. 

To specify my definition of a critical task:

Ensuring we have clean clothes is a critical task (but folding them or putting them away is NOT).

Packing lunches for school is a critical task. 

Brushing my teeth and having my children brush theirs is a critical task.

Showering is a critical task (yet washing my hair is NOT.  Thank goodness for top knots!)

Priorities?  Sure! I still have those.  But they nowhere near hold the significance of critical tasks. There are a lot of things to me that would normally take “priority status” that have been completely ignored.

I have unreturned phone calls to friends and family who have been calling in to check on me.  But sometimes, I don’t get to sit down until 10:00 at night, and by then, quite honestly, I am too tired to talk.

I have school fundraisers that I’m not fundraising for, that once upon a time, felt important to me.  I unapologetically returned the Kids Stuff coupon books to the schools, without even purchasing one for myself.

After volunteering to chair one of the major fundraisers for the cheer squad, I bowed out.  I actually called the head coach and said, “I can’t do this right now,” because I couldn’t…it wasn’t critical task.

But when I took the very last roll of toilet paper out of the linen closet on Monday morning, buying toilet paper became a critical task – and only because not having toilet paper in the house would cause a critical situation.

I decided to do the toilet paper run while Miss F. is in her one hour cheer practice. It’s just enough time for me to run to Costco and swing back to pick her up. Costco is quiet on a Monday night, and my list is short.  Toilet paper, canola oil, lemons, garbage bags.

This should take ten minutes at the most, right? 

And cost $40.00?

Except as soon as I roll my oversized shopping cart into the store, I encounter the display of Halloween candy, and decide to throw a bag into my cart, lest this become a critical task four weeks from now!

Then somewhere between the garbage bags and the oil, I realize I’m almost out of salt.

Then, racing up to the register, I catch a display of Pashima style merino wool shawls in my peripheral vision.

Those evil geniuses.  They know you have to walk down that aisle to get to the register.

The shawls stop me in my tracks.  They’re beautiful.  I’ve always wanted one.  They have them in every color imaginable – so many that I can’t quite decide on “the one” for me.

I get lost in time for a brief few moments, a luxury these days.  Yet, while I’m lost, my kids find the children’s DVD’s, which are brilliantly (again!) displayed next to the shawls.

“Mom!  Mom! Look what they have!” My dude runs up to me, with an arm full of DVD’s. 

Then, my little girl runs up to me with her own armful of DVD’s.

3 DVD’s, 2 shawls (I really could not decide!), 1 econo-pack of toilet paper, a bag of lemons, a container of salt, one jug of canoloa oil, a bag of Halloween candy, and one box of garbage bags, and $139.00 later, I check out of Costco.

Toilet paper purchased, therefore one critical task is solved.

But now I have another critical task on my hands:

How am I going to pay for all of this?     

Namaste, Divas!

 

Have Your Ice Cream And Eat It, Too!

The neighborhood ice cream truck driver loathes my family.   I have that dreaded clan of children who love to chase down the truck but never buy a thing.  They are the Big Tease.  They are that posse of kids  who would just die for a popsicle created in the image of Sponge Bob or Dora, with eyes made of miniature gumballs, yet they were born to a mother too neurotic about sugar to allow her children to eat "real ice cream" more than once a month, if not once in an entire summer. Not to mention my frugality.  Why spend $6.00 on ice cream truck ice cream that will serve three children one time when you can buy an entire half gallon at the store  for half of that? 

But I don't want an entire half gallon of ice cream in my freezer.  I don't want my children eating the junk inside that half gallon, namely the saturated fat and processed sugar. 

But now, thanks to my homemade ice cream maker, my kids can have their ice cream and eat it too!

Last week, In the middle of the Run To The Finish Green Smoothie Challenge, my blender died, prompting me to make an emergency blender run to the local wholesale club store with my children.   In the kitchen appliance aisle, nestled between toasters and mixers, and the Magic Bullet and something called the Ninja, sat an ice cream maker, whose mere existence beckoned the cries of three ice cream deprived children.  "Mommy!  Mommy!  Can we get it? Can we get it?"      

I paused, as I do before this frugal mama tosses anything into her shopping cart.  The price wasn't bad.  But would we use it? 

During my moment of contemplation, I realized that with a homemade ice cream maker, I could control the ingredients in the ice cream, meaning my kids would get less of the bad stuff and more of the not-so-bad, or even good stuff. 

It was a sale, and an easy one, at that!

That night, we made our first batch of ice cream. 

This is my revision of the Cuisinart basic vanilla:

2 cups vanilla almond milk

1 cup soy coffee creamer (I used the Silk Creamer original flavor) 

3/4 cups of Sugar in the Raw

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

 In a medium bowl, use a hand mixer or whisk to combine all ingredients.  Mix for 1 - 2 minutes.  Pour the mixture into the freezer bowl of the ice cream maker and let it mix until thickened, about 25 - 30 minutes. 

Here is what my daughter said to me about 3 spoonfuls into eating:

"Mom, this is the best ice cream I've ever eaten in my life!"

But I didn't need to tell you that.  That picture said it all.      

I am sure there will be more flavor experimentation with the ice cream maker as the summer unfolds. 

Oh, and that brownie the ice cream sits upon?  That's a sugarless, flourless work in progress.   I promise to share the perfected recipe and more ice cream success stories with all of you as they happen!  

Namaste, Divas!

©2012 Ilene Evans 

 

Lucky

Thirty eight dollar and ninety six cents?

How can that be all that's left in my bank account?

I stare at the screen of the ATM machine, and retrace my steps from the past few weeks.  I don't remember spending all that money!  

Back at home, I lock myself in my office and go through my check records, but not without several knocks on my door.

"Mommy, I thought we were going to the store to get ice cream," Miss F asks from the hallway.

"We can't get ice cream today honey."

"But you promised. "

"I know baby, but I lost our money. When I find it I'll let you know." 

"Did someone steal our money?" asks my little dude, who's standing outside my office with Miss F.  He's six and loves hearing about people who break the law.  He makes sure to tell everyone he meets about the time his mother got arrested.  Even strangers. 

After a conversation with a customer service representative from the bank, I discover I wrote a check that I forgot to record.  It was for hundreds of dollars. 

Since my husband's pursuit of a mid-life career change, I have become the queen of frugality.  We have one year to go before Steve finishes school and (hopefully) gets a job in his new field.     In the meantime, he works in an entry-level position in his new industry at entry level pay.  Our challenge has been that our lifestyle requires more than entry level pay.  There is nothing flamboyant about the way we live, but simply owning and paying property taxes on a small home, two older model cars and health insurance in the state of New Jersey requires substantial effort.   

Our financial goals this year are simple:  Cut out any unnecessary expenses in order to get through the year  without debt.  In order to make this year work, our budget has been hacked to pieces.  There are no vacations or restaurant meals.  I can grocery shop on next to nothing.  I have learned to say "no" to the gamut of juvenile requests, the ice cream truck, school lunches, the Squinky dolls that live in the checkout lanes at Target, arcade games in the back of the bowling alley when one of the kids is at a birthday party.  All of those expenses add up, which results in HUNDREDS of dollars every month on "things we don't need."

I  send off a quick text message to my husband to tell him not to use the ATM machine and start brainstorming.  I can dip into our emergency fund to get through the week, but I raided that fund a month ago, to pay off Steve's hospital bills.  That was a real emergency, versus this, which is an inconvenience.  I can throw the groceries on my Visa, except I hate using credit cards.  Even though we pay them off every month, I quickly lose track of how much I'm spending when I pull out the plastic.  OK, we will do the "eat what's in the cabinet and freezer" bit until the next payday.  I just won't shop.

We're taking some risks right now to get Steve though school, and most of the time, I'm OK with them.  I have lived with "money issues" for decades, and it wasn't until the last few years, that I realized I have spent a significant part of my life making decisions that were in reaction to my financial insecurities.   Recently, I've acknowledged that my money issues are less about what we have or don't have in the bank and have more to do with what I believe I deserve, or don't deserve for that matter.  For a long time, I had an unconscious agreement with myself that I wasn't worthy of financial stability or success.  I believed I had to struggle.  I deserved to struggle. Financial security was simply not something I was entitled to.  

One of the benefits of yoga is that the more we become aware of our bodies in different postures, the more we become aware of how our minds work.  One of the greatest gifts I have received practicing yoga is the ability to detach from my own thought process enough that I can observe how I think and when possible, change these thought patterns. 

The $38.96 bank balance was unexpected, but I notice that it does not trigger the same reaction in me that it would have a few years ago, when that kind of news would have sent me into a tailspin of projections of bankruptcy, foreclosures, and homelessness. I'm cool with this.  My husband and I are lucky people.  Our situation is temporary. We have a plan.  We'll find our way.

The next day, I get a piece of mail with the return address of a company that I had purchased stock from back in my 20's, at my father's encouragement. Until this afternoon, the stock had been forgotten about for years.  However, today, Company X has paid me out for fractional shares of a stock I owned in a spinoff company due to a buyout.

I've heard before that sometimes, when you have faith, those unexpected checks arrive just at the right moment.   This was definitely the right moment for us.  I look up at the sky, and with a smile , I mouth the words,  "Thank you."

Then, I head out to the grocery store.   

Namaste, Divas!

©2012 Ilene Evans 

 

Welcome to My Midlife Crisis

Once upon a time, in a New Jersey suburb, my husband and I had decent paying jobs in Corporate America.  We never led an ostentatious lifestyle. We owned a small house, a modest car, paid for our home improvement projects with cash instead of loans, and contributed to our 401K plans.   We were fortunate to have a little left over for "extras,"  such as birthday parties for our children and vacations.  The "emergency fund" in the bank allowed us to pay the occasional unexpected medical bill or car repair without affecting our monthly budget. 

Then came the crash of 2008.

My husband lost his job in an industry where he had a twenty year tenure, and a company-owned SUV with fully paid gas and insurance. He took another job in the same field, without the company car and for "a lot less money,"  which only lasted six months.  After an almost year-long stint out of work, he took another job in his industry for half of what he had made at the job with the SUV.  And then THAT job started to go bad.        

Meanwhile, I faced my own midlife crisis of Richter Scale magnitude.  I entered burn out mode in my senior level position in an all-consuming job.  I looked for happiness in expensive designer handbags and through the promises of what expensive face creams would do for the emerging lines around the corners of my eyes.  I became a surfer, for all of three minutes.   I tried fringe diets that promised youth and the perfect body.  My downward spiral continued, until I embraced Yoga-as-my- savior,  accepted the doctrine that happiness is not dependent upon our external circumstances, walked away from the corporate world, and released my inner Fierce Diva.      

I encouraged my husband to return to school to pursue his "dream career," with the understanding that we would be "voluntarily poor" for a few years while he made the transition.  

The home improvement projects stopped, as did the big birthday parties for the children, the vacations, and my bi-monthly pedicure.  My husband, who transitioned into an entry level position in his new field, was working harder than ever, was making less money than I did my first year out of college, but was also the happiest I had seen him in a decade.  We were the champions of mid-life career changes! We were blazing our own trail!  We were living on a tiny paycheck along with faith that the Universe would take care of us and our children while we re-booted our lives.

And then my husband wound up in the hospital. 

Did I mention that the insurance plan at his new job is horrible?

Our liability on my husband's three day hospital stay for observation and a few non-invasive procedures, cost about two months of his take home pay.  These unexpected medical bills that used to be nothing more than a monkey wrench now felt like a 600 pound gorilla.

I glared at my husband  as he walked in from work one night, waving a stack of insurance statements in front of him. 

"Next time you feel a pain in your chest, " I spat, "Take a handful of Aleve and go back to work!" 

Did I mention that sometimes I suck at compassion?

Did I also mention that I'm dying for a pedicure and a vacation?   (I'll stop.  You know how I feel about whining.) 

As I look over the bills, I recall the wisdom that a friend once shared amidst a crisis.  She declared she was lucky to have problems that only required money to solve.  How wise.  And how true.  I think of  people with real problems, women who have lost spouses to untimely deaths, parents with children who have been abducted or who are terminally ill, who would give any amount of money to make that problem go away.  Am I forgetting how grateful I felt only six weeks ago, amidst my husband's health crisis, when I found out that he was going to be OK?    

These bills would have been much easier to pay two years ago, but that does not mean I would want to go back to the life we were living two years ago.   

Money made our lives easier, but not happier.   

These bills have become a reminder to me that we've made the right choice.

Namaste, Divas!

© 2012 Ilene Evans

 

 

The Fierce Diva Guide to Ride

You pile into the family minivan.  You drive, so that your husband, buried in work and reluctant to come, can check email.  Your perpetually bored pre-teen spends the ride texting friends.  Your eight year-old watches a movie on the van's DVD player, while the youngest sits in her car seat and colors, while every now and then, giving the family dog a pat on the head.  You arrive at the park. You set up lunch and drinks on a blanket while the two younger kids play frisbee with the dog.  Your husband puts down the phone and joins in the game.  Magically, so does the pre-teen.  There is laughing, fist bumping, and a group hug before everyone returns to the blanket for lunch.   On the trip home, your kids are huddled in the back seat, napping on each other's shoulders.   Your husband drives.  He squeezes your hand.  The afternoon was a success.  And that brand new fully loaded minivan was the catalyst.

Although this is more likely what happened:  You arrive at the park and the younger kids begin their frisbee toss with the dog.  You forgot to pack beer, which enrages your husband.  He stomps off to check work email, but not before getting clipped in the head with the frisbee.  Your oldest has retreated to the van, because family picnics are stupid.   The mayonnaise you used for the sandwiches is rancid, leaving the family with nothing to eat except apples.  The dog runs away in pursuit of a rabbit.  It starts to rain.  You return home with three wet, hungry kids in the back, one muddy dog, and a husband who gives you the cold shoulder.  

Ah, the magic of car commercials. They try to make us believe that a minivan can bring a family together, or that a sports car can make you sexy, or that a luxury car begets success.  Advertising agencies get paid millions of dollars to persuade you into feeling like something is missing from your life because you don't own Product X.   

For most of us, a car is a necessity. However, it is important for you to realize that beyond a car's ability to get you from Point A to Point B, it has no other value.  It will not make you taller, thinner, give you bigger boobs, help secure a work promotion, or increase your husband's libido.  Despite what ad agencies want you to believe, the right car will not bring happiness. But you already know that, since a Fierce Diva understands that happiness is not dependent upon our external circumstances.

When your car gets up there in miles and loses its reliability, it's probably time to look into buying a new one, or perhaps I should say, a new one to you, since I would hope you would consider a used car as an option.  Before you settle on buying a particular car, it's important to crunch some numbers and figure out your car budget.   

Remember, Divas, there is a mighty line between being able to afford a car versus being able to make the monthly payments.  You can only afford a car if:  

• The monthly payments, including gas, maintenance, and insurance, do not interfere with your ability to pay other bills  
• The payments will not disrupt your contributions to your retirement account and college savings for your child
• You will not have to dip into the emergency fund that covers 6 months of living expenses to make the down payment on the car

Once you have your budget, it's time to find your car.  Promise me, Divas, to make your decision to buy based on reputable product reviews and maintenance records (if it's a used vehicle) versus the feeling you get when you watch the commercial.    When you can believe in yourself behind the wheel of a six  year old sedan as much as when you are behind the wheel of a fully loaded brand new minivan, you know you have truly become a Fierce Diva. 

 

 Namaste, Divas!

 

©2012 Ilene Evans