Looking forward to meeting you

Only about 10 weeks left til we get to meet you, little guy. I wish I had more time to write to you but we're so busy preparing for your arrival. We already love you so so much and today, on Father's Day, it hit me a little more how much our lives will change and how amazing it will be. Hopefully we do a good job, but I'll let you tell us in a few years what you think. =)

See you in a few months, C.O.

Giving Back

I can't believe now I'm writing to an actual "future kid." Your dad and I have been too busy the last few months to blog since I got pregnant and we've been giddy, nervous, busy, etc. ever since. But all the more important to get back to this blog to you since you'll be here in less than 6 months!

There is this show your dad and I used to watch called American Idol. Before the economy tanked, they used to do this thing called "Idol Gives Back," where they donate a huge sum of money to a charitable cause. So whenever we give to a charity or something, your dad always jokingly says, "Idol gives back!" I know, he's so cheesy.

Anyway, we usually like to give to a number of charitable organizations here and there, but we haven't really made a conscious effort to do so. Lately we've been doing pretty well financially, despite the economy, so your dad suggested that every month we pick a cause to give money to instead of sinking it all into a donation to the Catholic church on Sundays. I mean, we still give a little money when we go to mass, but we realize there are so many other important causes to support.

It made me really warm inside to think that I'm with someone that feels like I do about supporting causes and giving back. Thing is, even when you have it really bad or you think your life is hard, someone out there probably has it a lot harder. I whine about work, being busy and tired, not saving enough, having spent too much on our home, needing a new car, etc. At the same time, I have enough food, a really nice roof over my head, a great job, and most importantly, the love and support of my family and friends. So, good for your dad for recognizing all that and suggesting that we give back.

Now I can stop the complaining and start contemplating where we can help instead!

Priorities

Your dad and I have been thinking about a lot of things lately. We've both been really wrapped up in work and other things, but there have been a lot of events in the past few months that have made us rethink our priorities. 

A couple of months ago, we lost a very good friend to a long battle with cancer. It was shocking, devastating to us really. But you know what? Our friend knew his life would not be long and he lived it in a spirited manner and a passion the likes of which I don't think we'll see very often. 

Besides that tragedy, we've been dealing with a few other things too, nothing I need to really get into. But again, these events have made me think about what is truly important to me in life. I admit it, I am an aggressively ambitious person. If it means I can make more money, get a promotion, do more, work more, etc., then I'm all for it. I welcome new challenges. Same with your dad. He's taken on a side job consulting. As a result, he's working about 60 hours every week.

What has that meant for us? Well more money, more things we can buy, more savings, more stability. But what has it cost us? For one, your dad and I have a hard time planning time for each other and for family and friends. Secondly, we are both always so tired or rushed. It got old REALLY fast. 

So we're looking to make a shift in our lives, back to a time when we were more simple and honestly, more happy. Sure we won't be able to buy as many things and our savings might be a little thinner than it would be otherwise, but I think time will be worth its weight in gold. 

Living Within Your Means

So your dad and I learned a very valuable lesson this week about living within your means. We almost dug ourselves into a very deep hole! There was a really cool house near your grandma's that I looked at last weekend and dragged your dad to go look at last Monday. The next thing you know, we're talking to loan people, real estate agents, and a few days later, we were signing papers to put in an offer.

Now here is the kicker: not only do we already own a house, we weren't even really LOOKING to move for at least a year or two (per our previous discussions). But we got overly excited and never really stopped to think what kind of a bind we could get ourselves in financially because we've been fortunate enough to be able to afford everything so far. Luckily, the DAY we were going to sign the offer (which I think would have been accepted), we finally got a reality check when we sat down and looked at what we both brought in monthly. Then we subtracted bills, taxes, mortgages, and thought of worst case scenarios (someone loses a job or we can't rent out one of the houses). It's never fun to look at worst case scenarios, but it's a necessary evil. Well what we figured out was that it would be thistight for us to buy this home and own two big homes. So as much as we really wanted this place, it just wasn't a good time.

I've been in this boat before, when I was younger and less experienced. Thanks to credit cards, it was fun to be able to buy things and to never have to say no to things you wanted. But sure enough I got myself into a situation that took a few years to correct. Thankfully, I thought of that experience this week, and that situation did not have to play itself out again--which would've taken more than just a few years to correct!

The thing is, it's not easy to live within your means, because it does take some discipline. The trick is knowing what your limit is, and the answer may not always be what you want. Yes, spending is fun. Yes, it's great to be able to buy things. Yes, going out is terrific. But don't forget to stop and take a look at your lifestyle once in a while. Is it more than you can handle? Can you be saving up more? Is there debt that should be paid off? Someone I know once told me that in his younger years, he loved getting a new car every few years. But now he wishes he didn't waste all those thousands of dollars on cars. And this is from someone who loves luxury!

I think after my initial financial mistakes in my younger years, I learned how to manage my money a lot more carefully (it helps that I get those genes from your grandma, an accountant). I still enjoy a very good life, don't get me wrong, but I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I was and am disciplined about how to spend my money. So learn from mistakes early on, or better yet, learn from mine and save yourself a lot of headache in the future.

Love the One You're With

A few weeks ago in my book club we read a book called "Love the One You're With." It was a sort of fluffy chick-lit novel about a girl who runs into her ex and starts a chain of events in which even though she has the perfect life, she has doubts and wonders if she made the right choices. The book wasn't that deep or anything, but it made me think about the choices that I made for myself.

In life, you will make millions of choices every day. You will have to choose when to wake up, what to eat, what to wear, which route to take to work/school, etc. And the bigger choices: what friends to make, what career path to choose, and who to love. Whatever you choose to do, I'd like you to think about what my mom (your grandma) always says about, "You make your bed and lie in it." It's a common saying, nothing complicated.

At it's simplest level, I think the saying is bascially that you're stuck w/ the decision you made so make the best of it. Or something like that. But I'd like to think of it also as if you don't like the decision that you made (e.g. where you are in your life) then change it. Make something happen. MAKE YOUR BED...THEN you lie in it. And if you don't like the bed you made, change the bedspread for gosh sakes! The point is, don't ever feel like you're stuck with any choice or burdened by any decision. You can choose to make the best of it, you can choose to change it, you can make the effort to change yourself--the choices are endless and they're all up to you. Just remember that you have one life to live so make the most of the "One You're With"--whether that "one" is a friend, a house, a car, a purse, a pair of shoes, or a lover.

I'm not being particularly eloquent today, so I'm sorry. But this is something my co-worker sent me in an email and I think it says it best:

What Will Matter

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours, or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame, and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won't matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built. Not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage, or sacrifice that enriched, empowered, or encouraged others to emulate your example.
What will matter is not your competence, but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.
What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom, and for what.
Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.
It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.

Age

In the next two weeks your father is going to be 33 years old, and your mother 26.  To you, that probably sounds really old.  When you're a child, these numbers are quite large in terms of age.  This does remind me of a story though.

Back in 2001, one of my friends turned 21 and complained about how "old" she felt.  At 21 years old!  I was freshly 26 myself at the time, and I thought "oh man, you are SO young you don't even know it, it's me who should feel old."  Of course, the irony of it all... is that at 33, I can think back 7 years to being 26, and how young I used to be back then compared to now.

Having many friends in their late 20's now, I've been called "the old man" as a running joke for some time.  I've also heard friends in their late 20's talk about how old they feel.  When your mom and I spend time with our friends who are currently in their 40's and 50's, they roll their eyes at how young we are and say that we're just "babies".

The "old" joke is overplayed and will always be mentioned by your younger friends right around college.  It never ends, and for good reason.  You will always feel older than you used to be, wax poetic about the yesteryears, and see the changes between yourself "then" and "now".  But you should never feel "old".  Not for a good long time.

See, sometime between 2001 and now, I realized how dumb it was to feel old at any age under 60 or 70.  Your grandmothers only recently turned 60, and they're both so strong to this day.  Let's go back to that friend of mine who felt old at 21.  The next birthday she'd have, at 22, she'd feel oldER.  And then again at 23.  On and on... for the rest of her life.  She will always feel "old" from a prime youth of 21.  That, to me, is sad.  Nobody under 40 should feel "old", as I'm sure any 50-year old can tell you.  (Once you're in your 40's you're still not "old", but moreso objectively "middle-aged" as life expectancy I project at roughly 80 years old.)

So instead of feeling old at whatever age you're currently at, know that 5 years from now you'll look back at this age as "your youth", and think about what you want to remember.  Do you want to say "Wow I was so depressed that I was old, and now I realize that I was young back then", or do you want to say "I enjoyed that time of my life and I'm continuing to do so today."

When people in their 20's grumble about being old, it's really their loss by never feeling young.  Enjoy your time now, whatever age you are, because life can be pretty incredible, and every day you start the rest of your life.

Enjoy Your Stuff

I am a chronic shopper, I'll admit it. I like to buy things! But sometimes that's not always a good thing, or more importantly, it's not always a necessary thing. A lot of the time it's simply about the act of shopping for something new (see the entry about the Thrill of Shopping). The end result though is I often have a lot of unused stuff--or just plain junk! Unless you are an extremely diligent person, don't fall into the trap of "Oh I'll just buy it now and return it later if I don't want to keep it." Often times one of several things might happen:

a) You could lose the receipt
b) The 30, 60, 90 day return policy could come very quickly
c) You forget about the item until above mentioned return policy date has already passed.

Not to mention, you now have just STUFF sitting around your house. Your dad and I just spent a whole day cleaning out our "office," which was known previously as a junk storage area. It feels so good to throw out junk we don't need and now have a clean, USABLE space! But it made me realize that I just really want to enjoy my stuff. The stuff I have NOW, not the stuff I still need to (or want to) buy.

So for the month of March (which has just started) I will try not to buy anything unnecessary. Meaning, no new clothes (I have so many and some that I haven't even worn yet), no trinkets for the house (because we still have new, unused, really nice decor we have yet to display), no impulse food buys that will just go bad in the cupboards or fridge. If all goes well, I'll try and extend it into April and see if it becomes a more regular thing.

Part of this is for financial reasons of course. Hopefully your Dad and I can save up more money for big purchases we need, like a new sofa (our futon is not as comfy as it once was), a new mattress (the one we bought a few years ago is not so good anymore for my back) and nightstands (we don't have any). Eventually we want to be able to buy a new car too. But all the junk we buy has made money disappear more quickly than we'd like it to so this will hopefully change our (more like MY) mentality about spending on unnecessary things.

More than that though, buying a bunch of things just means more stuff will end up being thrown away or discarded somehow and clutter/pollute the planet overall. It just isn't good stewardship. Something that really helps me gauge whether or not to buy something is the fact that your Grandma is cleaning her house out right now and she has SO MUCH STUFF, some of it older than I am! So before I get something now I try to think, do I really want this around in 20+ years? Do I like it that much? And often times, the answer will be no. I have everything I need.

Besides...my birthday's coming up, so that means presents! =)