Matthew: You are going to be such a wonderful mother.
Mary: How do you know?
Matthew: Because … because you’re such a wonderful woman.
Mary: I hope I’m allowed to be your Mary Crawley for all eternity, and not Edith’s version or anyone else’s for that matter.
Matthew: You’ll be my Mary, always, because mine is the true Mary. Do you ever wonder how happy you’ve made me?
14 August 2014
11 August 2014
screenless childcare | lucky me
If one of two parents works full time it seems to me that the other parent is more or less engaging in single parenting.
There are some things without which it would be much harder to take care of my niece and nephew. One thing is that their mother is pretty chill about how we do things. Even if I am not doing it the way she would, or though it may seem to her that I'm making a mistake, she doesn't fuss.
That helps.
Occasionally I have a day of extreme fatigue. On these days I am a drugged slug. It's not at all like the fatigue I had when my CFIDS was at its worst. It's acute. I cannot function or do anything; I just become unconscious. The sleep isn't even restful.
Yesterday was one of those days.
My mother-in-law made dinner and brought it over. We let the kids have some screen time (the first screen time they have had — apart from videochatting).
Fabulous mother-in-law. That helps. Screen time ... well, it's a resort, one that is so tempting I see how a single parent would daily succumb.
But absolutely, positively the thing that makes it best is Bjorn. Every day he does something to help me. Today he did the dishes (my job) twice, read to me while I did the dishes once, played games with the kids, helped them learn to maximize their utility functions (a continuing effort), took them downtown to eat dinner.
That's a sampling that doesn't even represent several categories of his help. I've got it good.
I'm totally going to have all of his babies.
There are some things without which it would be much harder to take care of my niece and nephew. One thing is that their mother is pretty chill about how we do things. Even if I am not doing it the way she would, or though it may seem to her that I'm making a mistake, she doesn't fuss.
That helps.
Occasionally I have a day of extreme fatigue. On these days I am a drugged slug. It's not at all like the fatigue I had when my CFIDS was at its worst. It's acute. I cannot function or do anything; I just become unconscious. The sleep isn't even restful.
Yesterday was one of those days.
My mother-in-law made dinner and brought it over. We let the kids have some screen time (the first screen time they have had — apart from videochatting).
Fabulous mother-in-law. That helps. Screen time ... well, it's a resort, one that is so tempting I see how a single parent would daily succumb.
But absolutely, positively the thing that makes it best is Bjorn. Every day he does something to help me. Today he did the dishes (my job) twice, read to me while I did the dishes once, played games with the kids, helped them learn to maximize their utility functions (a continuing effort), took them downtown to eat dinner.
That's a sampling that doesn't even represent several categories of his help. I've got it good.
I'm totally going to have all of his babies.
06 August 2014
x$ / yr ?
I recently came across a Financial Independence blog introducing its extreme 21 day financial makeover. It features good advice — and a goal I shan't match.
[Quote] "The goal here is to cut your expense level to <$10,000/year/adult. I live on $6000/year/adult. It can be done."
This is a pretty common ceiling (floor?) in the frugal community. The personal-finance blogger I regularly follow has claimed that a family of 4, in the US, can live well on $24k/yr (IF that family is living mortgage-free). His family of 3 lives large on ~$25k/yr.
Okay. I live on <$20,000/yr. I wondered, what's keeping me from $6,000/yr? I looked through my finances and made a comparison to MMM's 2013 spending.
After my medical costs and my food costs (which I consider a medical cost*) I spend $300/month. That $300 breaks down into fixed/steady costs like this:
public utilities
- $50/mo water and waste
- $65/mo gas and electric (in the cold half of the year I pay ~$100/mo, in the warm half I pay ~$35/mo)
stuff wif plugs
- $50/mo 'Net + phone
warm fuzzies
- $30/mo dog!
- $35/mo gifts
homesteadying
- $50/mo into a medium-term savings envelope (with an eye toward house maintenance and repair)
...
leaving $20/mo to be split to cover clothes, lightbulbs, other household supplies, garden supplies, bus fare, library fines (I'm a fine kind of patron), play tickets.
In sum, all my non-medical, non-food expenses are $3,600/yr. (These numbers are from my finance spreadsheet, where I track every cent in and every cent out.)
I could save money by not having a dog and not giving away $35/mo. But those things contribute massively to my happiness and my feeling of wealth. Even if I gave them up I couldn't get to $6,000/year, because I have major health costs.
* To round, my grocery+medicine bill is $1,250/mo. In 2014 60% of that is food, 40% is drugs, druglords, and then the little anodynes. In 2011 it was a similar total, but I was sick all the time and it was more like 30% went toward food and 70% went toward drug(lord)s. My total co$ts are the same; my health is better.
In another year I'll have more solid numbers, because I will have been living this way for longer so I'll have longer-term averages.
Maybe in another year I'll be healthier, too.
[Quote] "The goal here is to cut your expense level to <$10,000/year/adult. I live on $6000/year/adult. It can be done."
This is a pretty common ceiling (floor?) in the frugal community. The personal-finance blogger I regularly follow has claimed that a family of 4, in the US, can live well on $24k/yr (IF that family is living mortgage-free). His family of 3 lives large on ~$25k/yr.
Okay. I live on <$20,000/yr. I wondered, what's keeping me from $6,000/yr? I looked through my finances and made a comparison to MMM's 2013 spending.
After my medical costs and my food costs (which I consider a medical cost*) I spend $300/month. That $300 breaks down into fixed/steady costs like this:
public utilities
- $50/mo water and waste
- $65/mo gas and electric (in the cold half of the year I pay ~$100/mo, in the warm half I pay ~$35/mo)
stuff wif plugs
- $50/mo 'Net + phone
warm fuzzies
- $30/mo dog!
- $35/mo gifts
homesteadying
- $50/mo into a medium-term savings envelope (with an eye toward house maintenance and repair)
...
leaving $20/mo to be split to cover clothes, lightbulbs, other household supplies, garden supplies, bus fare, library fines (I'm a fine kind of patron), play tickets.
In sum, all my non-medical, non-food expenses are $3,600/yr. (These numbers are from my finance spreadsheet, where I track every cent in and every cent out.)
I could save money by not having a dog and not giving away $35/mo. But those things contribute massively to my happiness and my feeling of wealth. Even if I gave them up I couldn't get to $6,000/year, because I have major health costs.
* To round, my grocery+medicine bill is $1,250/mo. In 2014 60% of that is food, 40% is drugs, druglords, and then the little anodynes. In 2011 it was a similar total, but I was sick all the time and it was more like 30% went toward food and 70% went toward drug(lord)s. My total co$ts are the same; my health is better.
In another year I'll have more solid numbers, because I will have been living this way for longer so I'll have longer-term averages.
Maybe in another year I'll be healthier, too.
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