Breakfast Eating Mouse

Dear Friends and Family,

The furnace is broken, again. We need to get P ready for Halloween. We need to get ready for P's Halloween parade. Let Rome burn. I will eat breakfast this morning.


Cheers!
mouse

PS: If Mr. mouse does not get this furnace figured out I will have the grumpiest winter possible.

Who Am I?

Dear Friends and Family,

For years my work defined me. And, while not the healthiest, it's not uncommon among a certain subset of working women. And, now, sometimes I wonder who I am.

I was just thinking about my strengths... achiever, relator, ideation, strategy, activator... That's me.

I think I will focus on achiever and start with something really small. Breakfast. At 9am every day. That's enough time for me to get home from drop-off. It's enough time for me to wake up and get my rear in gear. Breakfast. That'll be my achievement for the day.

I'll try that for the month of November and see if I'm in a better place. I'll start more dishes spinning. But for now, that'll be my second dish. My first is my budget. My second is breakfast. Wish me luck.

Ready. Set. Go.


Cheers!
mouse

End of October Financials

Dear Friends and Family,

It's Wednesday and we have two more days to go until the end of the month. And, last night, Mr. mouse decided to go grocery shopping. Yep. So, we're punting on dry cleaning today, just as a matter of principle. I know. We sound destitute. But, we're not.

We still saved towards retirement this month. And we still saved money for school. We bought three new pairs of sneakers and renewed a museum membership.

I know where our biggest budget hole is. Each month I'm spending $400 on my new business. Without that we'd be fine. But with that each penny counts. Well, I guess for now I'll continue to spend the money and figure out a way to make it work.

I'm also hoping to reassess our tax withholding amount next year. I know we can reduce it since I'm not generating income at the moment, but I don't know how much I can reduce it by. So once we do our taxes, we can figure that out as well. That will be nice.

Well, I guess for now I'll continue with my one and only focus which is wrangling this budget into shape. I'll be happy once I can focus on other stuff as well.


Cheers!
mouse

10.28.14: Time to Step Back

Dear Friends and Family,

We had a fun weekend. Saturday, P went to class. We got haircuts. We went to a birthday party. Sunday, we went to church. We had lunch at home celebrating a friend's new job. We went on a play date with one of P's best friends. We blissfully enjoyed the amazing seventy degree weather Mother Nature provided.

And, now, it's Tuesday and I realize I need a new Top 3. There was a pile of stuff I wanted to accomplish when P went back to school. And, I haven't made a lot of progress on any of it. I think I need to figure out what I need to focus on.

#1: The Budget

We've made a lot of progress here. In fact, after much measuring, I'm comfortable adding $100 a month to our budget. November and December won't be easy with the holidays, but I'm eager to continue to try and make progress on this front.

#2: I Don't Know

This is the problem. Outside of my budget, I feel like I'm wandering aimlessly through the day until P comes home. I feel like I need more focus. Perhaps I'll go work on the kitchen until inspiration strikes.


Cheers!
mouse

Ambitious Week Update

Dear Friends and Family,

It's Friday. And, since we had swim on Wednesday, we get to come home after dance class. Woot!

I've continued to make progress, but I'm slowly petering out on my list. I want to try and get four to eight more things crossed off of my list, but I don't think that's realistic - four, maybe, but eight definitely not.

Mr. mouse and I can finalize a photo book. We have a free coupon that expires next Friday. That can be one.

I can check on soap ingredients. That can be two.

I can write an email I have been putting off. That can be three.

I can clear through my inbox. That can be four.

I don't think I can do much more beyond that. Even that looks ambitious for today. Sad but true since I only have one free hour today between drop off and pick up.


Cheers!
mouse

PS: I think I sprained my ankle on Wednesday, October 22. I know I sprained in sometime this week. October 22 is my best guess.

Ambitious Week

Dear Friends and Family,

After an abysmal week last week, I'm trying to make up lost ground this week. So far, I've gotten 8 things crossed off my to do list. I'm going to try for another 4 today. We'll continue plugging away at it and see how the week ends.

Today, I've got lunch with a girlfriend from old work. And, after school P has her new swim class. It's not the most convenient time. But, we'll have to figure out a way to make it work since she's graduated to a new level. Knowing our luck, this is the class she plateaus at and we need to figure out a way to make this time slot work. I'm okay with that. She's made such good progress until now. If she plateaus, she plateaus, and we'll figure out a way to make it work.

Today, we're going to try the snack and nap in car routine. We'll see if it sticks. Wish me luck.


Cheers!
mouse

10.20.14: Fall Play Time

Dear Friends and Family,

I'll focus on the positives because if I think through the negatives I'll probably get myself in trouble.

On the positives, we had a beautiful fall weekend.

Saturday, we took P to class. Then we spent the day building Legos and decorating P's pumpkin. She brought it into school today.

Sunday, we went to church. Then we spent the day outside with friends enjoying the harvest festival. P's favorite activity was making the scarecrow. Mine was seeing a bee hive.

And, now it's Monday. Another positive? After being on a budget since July, I decided to raise our funds going forward by $100 a month. I know $100 a month doesn't sounds like a lot, but it's the equivalent of a small splurge each month. Speaking of small splurges, Mr. mouse got P a doll for her doll yesterday. I don't think P's playing with dolls much anymore, but it's cute and P likes it so I'm not complaining.


Cheers!
mouse

Addictions and Habits and How They Work

Dear Friends and Family,

I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but I think I'm not alone. I spend WAY too much unproductive time on the computer doing things that ultimately are a waste of time. I think I need to confine my time to the morning. Once my morning time is done, I need to walk away from my computer unless there's a specific purpose for being on it.

That means I can send an email to check on something, but I can't randomly checking Facebook or stocks. It means I can go through photos for a book I'm making but I can't read the news.

I think in a way it's easier to sometimes avoid the situation altogether than it is to limit consumption. I learned that lesson on Weight Watchers. It's easier to skip cake altogether than it is to have a bite and throw the rest away. I know other people learn the reverse lesson. It's easier for them to allow themselves the bite of cake. But, I've learned to recognize my addictions and skip them altogether.

So, for now I'm going to skip random time sinks on the computer by limiting my time on it to specific activities. I'll still get my free form time. But, after that time, it's time to move on. I think 8:30 seems like a reasonable time. Before 8:30 I can do whatever junk I want on the computer. After 8:30 I'm going to put the computer aside and focus.

I think I'll set up my phone to ring every day at 8:30 to remind me.


Cheers!
mouse

Day, Rearranged

Dear Friends and Family,

Last night P and I fell asleep at 8 o'clock together. Mr. mouse was on a trip and I had a busy day ahead of me on Thursday. I set the alarm clock for 4 o'clock and fell into a deep slumber snuggled next to P.

Then, at 1 o'clock in the morning I received a text. I vaguely ignored it and fell back into a doze. The phone buzzed again. I woke up. Now, normally, I don't sleep with the phone next to me. But, when Mr. mouse is traveling I use it as an alarm clock since I'm sleeping in P's room. I reached over to look at the next. It was Mr. mouse.

Back from dinner.

Yes. And, with those tragic words I found myself up. Instead of 8 hours of sleep, I lay in bed awake for 3 hours and find myself facing the day on 5 hours of sleep. Now, 5 hours of sleep from 11pm to 4am is hard, but 5 hours of sleep from 8pm to 1am is walking zombie mouse.

I couldn't have been more mad. This is the second time it's happened. And, I let Mr. mouse have an earful.

Now, I'm faced with some choices. Do I caffeine up and power through the day? Or do I plow through drop off and try to get some sleep? If it were any normal day the choice would be obvious. But, there's a coffee I'll need to bail on. And, there's no guarantee I'll get sleep because today is the day my housekeeper/personal assistant comes over.

Livid. How did I go from a promised night of 8 hours sleep to this? Yes, a text from Mr. mouse that stated, "back from dinner." That's how. In a former life, when Mr. mouse traveled, P and I slept on the airbed in my bedroom. The phone was downstairs. Mr. mouse could text at will and didn't need to worry about waking me.

But now that I sleep in P's room and the phone is inches from my head, texts from Mr. mouse have the potential to absolutely RUIN my night and the following day. Since it's happened twice now I've forbidden Mr. mouse to text me.

The twisted thing about all of this is if I had known I was going to skip the coffee and just try to plow through drop off, I would have tried to fall back asleep when 3 o'clock rolled around and I started getting tired again. But, since I thought I needed to get up and shower and get ready before drop off, I got out of bed.

Argh! There's no good answer. At least there's no good answer when you get woken up at 1 o'clock, roll in bed for 2 hours trying to fall back asleep and then morph into angry, tired, cold mouse. Hopefully the day turns around because it's not off to the best start.


Cheers!
mouse

Mom of the Year

Dear Friends and Family,

I'll confess. This morning I had sharp words for P. She took an hour to eat breakfast and as a result she was almost late for school. I had to prompt her for every bite with a "food in mouth" reminder. Then, when the food had been in her mouth long enough I had to prompt her with a "chew and swallow" followed by another "food in mouth" reminder.

There's nothing less fun than being a food coach in the morning to a kid who's lost all sense of time. Well, we missed every conceivable bus. And, when we got in the car, I gave her a piece of my mind.

Then, I realized, she'd be in school for the day with those heavy words weighing her down. So, I told her I was sorry and asked why she took so long to eat. I'm not sure I got a good answer, but we agreed tomorrow morning I'd wake her early so we didn't run into this problem again.

I think she was in better spirits by the time we got to school. Mom of the Year. Yep.


Cheers!
mouse

Productivity

Dear Friends and Family,

Oddly, I feel less productive now than when P was in camp. How is that possible when she's in school from 8 until 2:30 vs. when she was in camp from 9 until 11:30? Well, when you're kid's at camp for 2.5 hours, there's no procrastinating. You have 2-3 things on your list and you dive in and get them done before you race to pick them up. When you've got 6.5 hours, well, you can procrastinate.

And, that, my friends, is what happened this morning. So, time to get the rear in gear and get some stuff done.


Cheers!
mouse

10.13.14: 26.2 Miles, Minimal Preparation

Dear Friends and Family,

Saturday was a busy but typical fall day. P went to class. We met up with out of town friends for pizza. We went to the Botanic Garden to take fall pictures. We went shopping for sneakers. We bought a Halloween costume on eBay.

Sunday was a typical marathon Sunday for us. We got up early. We tagged our runners. We made our signs.

Except it wasn't a typical marathon Sunday at all... Because Mr. mouse decided Saturday night that he would attempt running the marathon. Yep. Armed with minimal preparation, brand new sneakers, an armband for his phone, and his Ventra card, Mr. mouse headed out Sunday morning to run his first marathon.

I wasn't at all sure how it would go. But, we saw him at mile 15 and he looked good. We saw him again at mile 19 and he was still hanging tough. That's when we realized there's a decent chance that he could finish it. And, he did. It took a little over six hours. But, considering he had done almost no preparation, it's still an achievement. His knee is a little sore this morning. Other than that, I guess it's a check mark on a bucket list.


Cheers!
mouse

Making Up for Friday

Dear Friends and Family,

It's Saturday morning, but since I didn't post on Friday, I'm making up for lost time here.

P's up and getting ready for class. Mr. mouse is peeling apples and packing her snack. And, I am having my tea as I contemplate our weekend.

I still have to cross off three things on our to do list. I'm torn. Here are my options:

1. catch up on emails
2. create photo book
3. videos from summer vacation
4. Halloween costume
5. fall pictures

So, I've got some options. We'll see what we get done today. Then I'll pick the most appetizing of some unappetizing tasks to finish out the week.


Cheers!
mouse

Stupid vs. Selfish

Dear Friends and Family,

I've been brewing on this for awhile now and sadly I'm beginning to form conclusions.

Over the past summer I've gotten more irritated with driving and traffic and things people do on the road that's bothersome or simply unsafe. And, I've wondered if it's simply stupidity that's driving the behavior or selfishness. In other words, are the people unaware that their behavior puts others in harm's way? Or are they fully aware and simply too selfish to care?

Stupidity is easy to solve, relatively. It's a matter of educating people. Then, the problem is solved. But, selfish, that's a much harder problem to solve. There's three ways that I can come up with. You either convince people to not be selfish, which I sadly don't think is possible in today's world. Or, you can set up the motivations so that selfishness pays off. But, that just makes people more selfish which at some point will create a total breakdown in society. Or, you punish the bejeezus out of selfish behavior so that selfish behavior doesn't pay off.

But, where does selfish behavior come from? I don't believe people are inherently selfish. I really don't.

On a societal level, historically, survival depended upon some amount of cooperation. A village can produce enough to survive. But, take the occupants of a village and ask them to survive independent of the village and they can't. Each person can't produce enough to survive on their own.

On an individual level, scientist's have done studies that shows babies are empathetic. They will try to help others when they perceive there is a need.

So, if selfishness is learned, where does it come from? Well, not to put it all on the parents, but I think that's where it starts. Then, it comes from friends. Then, it comes from society at large. And, finally, it comes from work. It's not like the FedEx driver double parks because they want to. It's because that's what they've been told to do.

So how do I raise P to not be selfish? Well, I suppose we need to not be selfish. We need to introduce her to friends who are not selfish. Then, when she gets older, we need to talk about society and selfishness. We need to let her know that there are selfish people in the world. We need to also show why we don't want to be selfish even if the short term gain seems to point towards being selfish. And, then, we need to foster enough confidence that she can walk away from bad behaviors and learn to be a generous person even if selfishness abounds about her.

Perhaps I'm being naive. But, I do believe the world is a better place when everyone's not out for themself.

The other thing is I think selfish people believe the world owes them something and they're just taking their due. And, I don't believe the world owes you a darn thing.


Cheers!
mouse

Hypothetical vs. Realistic

Dear Friends and Family,

I've noticed there's a selective phenomena to how my memory works.

Take hand holding, for instance. I love holding P's hand when we walk together. I love the feel of her little hand in mine. I love the bonding and the expression of love that holding hands means to me. There are times that P will walk next to me, holding me hand, and I treasure those moments. I wish I could capture each one of those moments in a bottle and keep it forever.

But...

For every time that we do walk together, hand in hand, down the street, there's at least four or five times that we "walk" together, hand-in-hand, down the street. Sometimes P is hopping, skipping, jumping, tugging, lollygagging, dancing, duck walking, tiptoeing... You name it, she'll do it. And, on those instances, my arm is being yanked every which way to Sunday. And, I know, while she's holding my hand, it's an automatic thing and her mind's elsewhere.

So, while, hypothetically, it's sweeter than sweet can be to hold hands and walk down the street together, realistically, it's not always as precious in the moment. It all depends, do you have walking P or bouncing P? Somehow, I always remember walking P and forget bouncing P.


Cheers!
mouse

Managing the Budget

Dear Friends and Family,

I keep telling myself that sooner or later I will not mind being on a budget. And, mostly, I don't. But, here's what I've learned for the day today. We went out to dinner last night with P's teachers from her old school. It was our turn to treat, so we did. As a result, today, we have $10 to spend in our petty cash fund. Since I don't have any anticipated expenses today, as long as Mr. mouse doesn't have any large expenses, we should be fine. Here's how the next seven days look.

• Tue: $10
• Wed: $40 including $30 for books for P
• Thu: $40 including $30 for a Halloween costume
• Fri: $10
• Sat and Sun: $286 including groceries for the week
• Mon: $210 including $200 for gas, electricity and water

I know, duller than dull can be, but, I'm not complaining. We spent our way into this, we can save our way out of it. I'm convinced.

Where's the light at the end of the tunnel? Well, either we'll continue to chip at it slow and steady which I'm prepared to do. Or, we can fall into money in the spring. Mr. mouse usually gets a bonus. That will make a dent in this. And, we should get an income tax refund since I haven't been working for two thirds of the year. That will make a dent in this. Or, we'll continue to chip at it slow and steady.

For now, it's just good to know we're making progress. Much as I gripe, it feels amazing, it really does.


Cheers!
mouse

10.06.14: Caught Up on Sleep

Dear Friends and Family,

I'm not sure where the weekend went. Let's see.

Saturday, we had a play date with one of P's friends from summer camp. She came over with her mom and dad and little sister. The girls disappeared upstairs to play and the parents hung out with us in the kitchen area. I guess they've reached that age where the parents don't need to monitor the situation. I guess it means they're growing up. I also think it makes the time feel like it's going faster. Because there are days where they're with you but not really interacting with you. So, while you still have 365 days in the year, your days together become fewer.

Saturday evening, we went to a birthday party. P had a lot of fun and asked at the end of it if she could get a scientist lab coat like the birthday girl did. I think that would involve having a birthday party at the venue and I'm not sure I'm willing to go there yet.

Sunday, I went to brunch with some friends I see once a quarter. Then, I slept the whole day away. P ate lunch. She went on a bike ride. She played with Legos while Mr. mouse went shopping. And, apparently, I slept through all of it. Somehow, after sleeping from 1 pm to 6 pm, I was still tired enough to fall back asleep at 11 pm. Huh. I guess I needed the sleep. But, I am a little sad I missed the play time with P.

Guess I'll need to make up for it this week.


Cheers!
mouse

Problems at School

Dear Friends and Family,

It was bound to happen. Sooner or later, we knew we'd have to work through problems at school.

Last year, Mr. mouse and P and I had to work through some issues that had to do with some boys coming over and knocking down P's towers. And, that was relatively straightforward and P handled it well.

This year, we've noticed P is branching out to play with more kids which we think is excellent. But it also means she's not as close to her BFF from last year which is the trade-off, I guess, for making more friends. Plus, there's less play time this year as the kids get more structure to their day. So, that alone would have decreased P's play time with her BFF. But, that's all fine and good. That would hardly constitute a problem by our standards.

The problem? One of the girls in P's class is very sensitive and a little bossy. And while P has been coping with it, it has been impacting her experience at school. While I feel for the girl and wish she was happy, I'm not willing to let it impact P. So, I've told P that if the girl is not being a good friend then P shouldn't feel obligated to play with her. I know, that would hardly constitute a problem in a lot of parent's books. But, I hold myself responsible for this one. The mom introduced herself to me and so P's relationship with the girl is a result of my friendship with the mom.

But, I've got my priorities straight. P comes first. And, if the situation with the girls is not a healthy one then I'm not going to encourage it going forward. If that means restricting the relationship to just the moms, I'm fine with that. And, if it means slowly drifting apart, I'm fine with that as well. It won't be anything melodramatic like in a soap opera. It'll just mean that P's calendar and mine will be less available, P's more so than mine. No fireworks. That's just not me.


Cheers!
mouse