Situational Depression
January 11th, 2010 by zpetals
The problem with being situationally depressed is that when the situation seems to get better, a little bit, you still feel depressed, even though things are on an upswing, so to speak; and when the situation gets worse, you sink deeper and deeper into a funk.
That’s where I am right now: a deeper deeper funk.
I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking about debt and our lack of money in this shaky shaky economy. I do the math in my head and it doesn’t add up to what we need to pay. We don’t have health insurance, we don’t have any food in our house except for dry pasta and frozen chicken breasts (or any money right now to buy any food), and we owe medical bills that we can’t pay, in addition to all of our other debt. And, to add insult to injury (so to speak), we just got a letter from our condo management company, stating that starting February 1st, we will have another $450 special assessment for 6 months (a special assessment is in addition to your regular condo assessment fees; our regular assessment is $230). I don’t have any idea where we are going to come up with this money or any more money for other things. Like, you know, food.
I can’t work any more than I already am, and we can’t pare down any more, except to get rid of internet. And that, internet, is one way that I work (via email commuting). So, can’t get rid of that.
CarpenterBoy didn’t pay himself much last fall, and I had to pull all of our emergency savings just to survive. This year has started out pretty much worse than that, too, in that he hasn’t yet paid himself.
So, I’m depressed, want to just lay in bed and pull the covers over my head and ignore everything. Or watch all of our DVDs, and ignore everything. Or spend all of my time in the shower, hot water pouring over me, and ignore everything.
I don’t know what to do or where to go with this. I don’t know what to do.
Tags: poor economy, situational depression
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Fresh Coating the Molding: a How-to of Sorts
January 4th, 2010 by zpetals
The first step in painting our entire condo has been to re-paint the baseboards and molding. I personally love a crisp white baseboard with a colored wall (and a colored ceiling, but that’s another story), and our baseboards and moldings were desperately in need of a fresh coat after five long years of wear and tear.
To paint your baseboards and moldings yourself is pretty easy, inexpensive, and can brighten up the room even before you get to the wall color.
Here are the things you will need to begin:
- Painter’s tape. I like to get it in blue. It’s pretty.
- Paint. Again, I prefer a nice white (ours is Benjamin Moore’s Mayonnaise, which looks pinkish on the website but is really a pretty white). Best if it’s semi-gloss or gloss.
- Something to open the paint can. If you have one of those paint can opener thingies, I can’t imagine why you are reading this, because you, my friend, are way ahead of the paint-it-yourself game. If not, you can use a screwdriver, like I do.
- Something to stir the paint in the can. I usually use a paint stirrer from Home Depot, but this time CarpenterBoy brought home a bit of walnut scrap from his shop, which made the job a little more glamorous than normal.
- A damp cloth to wipe down the baseboards and another one to wipe up any spills.
- A heavy piece of paper, like watercolor paper or Bristol board, to mask off the floor if you don’t need to tape.
- A paintbrush. Duh. It’s the single most important item, except for the paint.
- An empty margarine tub or some other container that has a lid.
The first step is to move furniture away from the walls with enough space there that you can get to the baseboards. If you have anything plugged in and you are nervous that you’ll get paint on the cords, go ahead and unplug.
After you’ve moved the furniture, take the time to wipe down the baseboards (that’s the part that comes up onto the wall from the floor) and shoe molding (that’s the part that covers the seam between the baseboard and the floor) with a damp cloth. Let it dry while you are opening and stirring the paint in the can. When you stir the paint in the can, make sure you get it all mixed up evenly or you’re going to end up with some paint that is too thick (and looks like cottage cheese) and some paint that is too thin (and I don’t want to mention what it looks like!).
I like to pour a little bit of paint from the can into an empty margarine dish that I can carry around the place with me as I go. It’s easier than painting from the gallon can, and you can put the lid on it if you need to take a break from painting your baseboards to dance around in your living room, eat chocolate, or read your favorite blog.
When the baseboards are dry, you can look around to see if you need to tape the floors or not. In some homes, the shoe molding isn’t all the way down to the floor, but has a small gap that you could slip a piece of paper under to mask off the floor. If that’s the case, you’re lucky: you don’t have to mask the floor off with tape. If that’s isn’t the case, then carefully line the edge of the painter’s tape with the floor edge of the shoe molding, and lay it down. It’s important that the shoe molding and floor are dry and clean, or the tape won’t stick, and if you have carpeting, you’ll definitely need to tape that off. If you are just freshening the molding, and not the walls, you’ll want to tape the walls off as well, where they meet the top of the baseboards, so that you don’t get paint on them.
I like blue tape, but it comes in several colors. Choose one you like and, much like a spoonful of sugar, it will make the painting more fun for you. Just don’t use masking tape—that stuff won’t come off as easily!
With your taping done, or your paper handy to slide under the shoe molding, it’s time to paint! You are welcome, encouraged even, to give a ‘Wooohooo!‘ at this point.
Take a 2 ½ inch brush, dip it into the margarine tub, and wipe off the excess. If you are using the paper to mask off the floor, now’s the time to slip it under the shoe molding.
Paint the baseboard and shoe molding; it’s okay to get a little bit of paint on the wall if you’re going to paint them later. It’s also okay if there are little brushstrokes in the paint.
After you finish, wash out your brush carefully (or, put it inside a plastic grocery bag and wrap the bag around it a few times, and it will stay wet enough for you to come back to it the next day and paint some more). Put the lid on the margarine tub to save that paint for later as well.
Let the molding dry for an hour or two before carefully peeling up the tape and moving your furniture back to where it goes. You’ll notice that it looks better right away—crisp and clean! A little improvement really goes a long way towards improving your house as well as your spirits.
Tags: baseboards, DIY, home improvement, How-to, painting, shoe molding
Posted in DIY, How-to, creativity, patience | Comments (0)
Design, part uno.
December 26th, 2009 by zpetals
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about design: interior design, fashion design, graphic design, book design, furniture design. I’ve been thinking about how design intersects with style and changes the mood and meaning around you (or, at least, me). For the first musing on the thought of design, I’ve been taking a look at our personal space, our living space.
In the case of interior design, the colors chosen for walls are extremely important to me. Surrounding myself with color and light is important to me. We’re going to take a few days while our walls are empty, and repaint our entire condo; the living room/dining area and bathroom will be painted cappuccino (a lovely pale brown) and the kitchen will be painted graphite (a calming, sophisticated gray). Both are Restoration Hardware colors, and both are neutrals, creating a sense of zen. The trim and doors are also getting repainted, mayonnaise white.
I really feel like this will lift my spirits considerably right now. A fresh coat of paint will work wonders on the space, will lighten it and clean it up, and let it breathe. It’s been a while since we’ve painted and I know that it will help create a new background for the next step in interior design for our place: making it more open, airier and more loft-like by getting rid of the tall TV cabinet and replacing it with a lower one, and by editing our belongings down to simply the things we love and use most often. The de-cluttering of our space (not that there’s much clutter, really) will help breathe air into the space.
Those are the goals for the next week, for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Before the calendar moves to 2010, I’ll have our space painted and ready for wonderful things to happen in the next year, sort of a re-design of our living space so that I can set better personal goals for a better design for living.
Tags: interior design, paint, space
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Breathe deeply.
October 28th, 2009 by zpetals
I’ve been feeling rather sad lately. I’m not sure if it’s a depression, per se, but it’s a melancholy that might be able to be defined as the blues. There are a few reasons why:
Ten days ago, I ran my fifth marathon. Chameleon and I started together, and she got me through the first half with her humor and grace. She got me through the hills! I had a great beginning—but then twisted my knee somehow on a downhill, and had a pretty crappy second half. I finished, got the goods at the end, and all was okay, but I didn’t achieve my time goal.
We are so so so so so broke right now, it isn’t even partly amusing. This has caused some arguments in which we’ve said things regret (at least, CarpenterBoy did, he admitted). I was pretty down the other day about one argument in particular. I’m having a bit of a hard time breathing, and sleeping, when all I have been thinking about is how to make more money and how to continue to dig us out of this hole we’re in. I can’t cut anything more out of the budget; really, we live like monks for the most part, anyway.
Yesterday, while Bean was in preschool, I worked for a little bit on some things for my new job, and then decided to go to the pet store to pet the puppies. I figured they’d make me laugh.
They did. They also took my mind off the issues at hand, and helped me to take in some air and some light. I was reminded that all I need really to do is bear down, breathe, and think about the good things:
I’m alive, CarpenterBoy is alive, Bean is alive. We’re all healthy and together.
We have a roof over our heads.
We have good friends.
We laugh a lot.
I can see the beauty in the world, and there is a lot of it.
I can see talent and kindness everywhere, if I take a moment to look.
I have a couple of jobs that I love to do.
CarpenterBoy is doing what he loves to do.
We. Are. Alive.
After I left the pet store, with puppy and kitty hair all over my sweater, I walked down the street, looking at the gorgeous fall leaves, breathing the air in. It will all be okay. It will. I just need to keep reminding myself of that.
Tags: breathing, life, puppies
Posted in patience | Comments (0)
Re-Invent, Re-Purpose, Re-New
October 10th, 2009 by zpetals
So, I haven’t kept up with this blog as it stands. I’ve had lots of ideas for short entries/essays, but most of them lately aren’t related to personal finance.
It might be time to reinvent this online diary o’mine. I’ve got some things brewing that, hopefully, will help me to keep up with writing entries just for this, will be better suited to my whole life, not just my financial life, and will make more sense to me.
Stay tuned.
Tags: life, reinvention
Posted in creativity, goals, patience | Comments (0)
Untangling
August 12th, 2009 by zpetals
Earlier today, I was out on our deck area, untangling the long strands of our philodendron plant. The plant had gotten some kind of fungus over last winter, and lost all of its leaves. Early in the spring, I washed all of its limbs, and put it outside in the fresh air, hoping it would come back. Recently, leaves have been growing back, starting close to the soil and at the bottoms of the strands, which are about 7 feet long. Oddly, the middle parts of the strands are empty of leaves, barren.
The strands have been tangled for a while, with dead bits holding the fresh bits in, strangling them. As I untangled the limbs, I started thinking how similar it was to our financial situation, with a fungus (debt) taking over things for the past few years. Five years ago, our only debt besides mortgage was a car payment and student loan; had I been a little smarter, I would have concentrated on paying those off while the economy rocked, while CarpenterBoy was working as a closet consultant, and I, childless, worked seemingly non-stop.
But I didn’t, and he started his company with our credit cards and HELOC. We had the Bean, and all of the medical bills related to that. I couldn’t work as much; the economy slipped, and here we are, drowning in debt and frustrated with ourselves.
Some of the strands on the plant were interwoven with other ones, and I had to really work to untangle them so they could get air, and light, and have freedom. I feel like that’s what I do every few months or so, with our finances. I untangle them, get things where I can breathe a little tiny bit, if at all; a few months later (and a few more medical bills later, a few more parking tickets later) and they are all tangled up again.
It’s time for me to get in there again and untangle things. Summer is not a good time for us financially; school is out, so I don’t work at my paying jobs as much. I recognized this from last year, so really buckled down this year, trying to pay things off or down and trying to save money. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough, and right now, we are truly suffering that. We’ve had things overdraft and I’ve had to resort to paying a few bills with a credit card, and I haven’t used a credit card in so long!
I did recognize, as I was untangling the plant, that the new leaves, the new growth, were really beautiful. I also recognize, as I think of our financial situation, that we will come out of this soon, and I will get things back to the plan of paying off our debt (new goal: debt free by 40, which is in two years!) and saving for our future. Right now, at this immediate juncture, I’m frustrated and overwhelmed. And completely, utterly, intensely broke.
Tags: debt, finances
Posted in CarpenterBoy, goals, patience | Comments (0)
Spring Goals Outsprung
July 7th, 2009 by zpetals
The other day, I was reviewing my goals from this spring, and how I didn’t reach them. I wanted to have $2500 in our emergency savings and have CC#1 paid off by June 1. Neither of those things happened.
Rather, I ended up with $2200 in our emergency savings, which is great, but now have to pull out some of that because our kitty is sick and we need to get a sensor fixed on our car. Life happens.
CC#1 is at $3834.24, which is definitely lower but not paid off.
However, this spring, I paid off a special assessment at our condo building of $1200, paid off two small medical bills totaling $1000, paid half of what we owe my brother, and paid numerous small bills as well as vet bills for kitty. I also sent money to my Roth IRA, which I hadn’t done since October. So I could have paid off CC#1 and had the other $300 in ES, but made other choices with our money; I don’t feel horribly bad about this, but wish I had rewritten my “set” goals as they changed, mid-spring.
So, where to go from here? I need to sit down with the files and the computer and spend an afternoon during naptime to figure out and set new goals for the second half of the year. I need to update the numbers page, and get those goals and pay-off dates (and savings dates) set so that I can have a little more peace of mind.
An immediate goal for me is to pay the remaining amount to my brother, so that debt is gone before Labor Day Weekend. I think that debt weighs more on me emotionally, so I need it to be gone.
I’ll do my re-evaluation next week; this Thursday, I head out of town for my annual Girls’ Weekend. Every year, the three of us get together at one of our houses, and eat and drink and giggle and essentially just recharge our collective batteries. It’s pretty great. And it’s also something that the three of us tend to squirrel money away all year for; my friend BechemelGirl has a coffee mug high on a shelf in her kitchen where she tosses change and dollar bills in over the course of the year.
It reminds me of the beginning of UP, where the man and his wife have the jar of coins that they are hoping to spend on a trip to the Amazon. They end up having to break the jar often, as life happens.
BechemelGirl actually re-hid her stash after her husband found it, and now she cannot find it herself; I think that’s funny (it won’t stop her from coming but will drive her nuts looking for it).
Life happens.
Tags: debt reduction, life, patience
Posted in budgeting, creativity, patience | Comments (0)
Life, Etc.
June 29th, 2009 by zpetals
Two months ago, I added my last post here at zpetals.com. Unfortunately, since then, I’ve not had time to write anything, let alone post anything.
I shouldn’t say that, exactly. I should say that I haven’t chosen to use my time to post anything. I’ve been spending all naptimes and ‘free time’ (such as it is) either cleaning things out, running, or watching Law and Order SVU episodes streaming on Netflix. Sometimes a girl needs a mental break.
Lately, things have been going a little crazy. One of the places I work is becoming difficult, politically. I haven’t been too bothered by it, but other friends have had things happen to them as a result of the recent upset, and I’m trying to keep an open mind and heart where it’s concerned; I’ve been thinking lately that I’ll be needing, in the next few months, to figure out what the next steps of my life should be, and where those steps will take me.
So. Soon, very very soon, I’ll be writing a bit for this blog and for my Huge Writing Project (I’ve promised myself and one of my running partners that I’ll have written ten more pages of my HWP by this Thursday….) I do have things I’d like to say regarding our personal finance goals, really.
Tags: life, patience, reassessment
Posted in creativity, goals, patience | Comments (0)
Paring Down
April 27th, 2009 by zpetals
I’m so excited!
The other day, I emptied out our gorgeous quarter-sawn oak china cabinet (full of books) and took a picture of it. For a while now, I’ve been wanting to either sell it or put it in storage, as we had two large pieces of furniture in our living/dining area that were kind of making it seem smaller than it is. I am in a mindset right now of getting rid of things (perhaps it’s spring cleaning?) and paring down belongings and repairing what needs repair.
This cabinet in particular has an interesting story: it was in pieces in my parents’ attic for years upon years, until CarpenterBoy and I moved from a small town to the Big City 11 ½ years ago. They gave it to us, to put back together and use as storage. CarpenterBoy did a wonderful job piecing it together and got the glass for cheap, so since then, it’s been holding books.
CarpenterBoy said he didn’t mind if we sold it, but I had to call my parents to ask them if they wanted it back; finally, on Thursday, I remembered to ask my mom when we were on the phone (I kept forgetting to ask her that). And she said neither of them minded (but wouldn’t I rather just GIVE it to my sister—who also has too much furniture—instead? No, mom, then I wouldn’t get money for it, which is also nice to have….)
So I cleaned it out, rearranged all of the books on our built-in bookshelf, and we took pictures of the oak cabinet. I wanted to send the offer to friends and family first, then wait a few days and put it on Craigslist. And today, one of our friends said she wanted it! It’s going to a great home, we’ll have an extra snowflake to send to our emergency fund and to CC#1, and I’ll have a little more air in our living room!
Now, to find other things to sell and pare down some more!!
Tags: cleaning out, snowflakes
Posted in patience, snowflakes | Comments (0)
Emergency Trips and Money
April 6th, 2009 by zpetals
We had to run down to CarpenterBoy’s hometown last week, when his father had another stroke; I got the call when I was teaching and rushed home, and we got things together for the normally 6 hour drive (that took us 8 hours that day). We had to rent a car and cancel a LOT of things that were on the schedule last week, but made it to visit with his family and sit at the hospital in the ICU waiting room for three days. His dad is okay now, and seems to be getting through this health issue. We won’t know for a few weeks what the mental damage is, but so far, he’s healing physically just fine.
All this running around and missing out on a few volunteer and paid gigs and having to rent a car and having to spend money eating at the hospital rather than home/leftovers has taken a crunch out of our money situation; I had intended to work through a few things last week, and send a big chunk to both savings and CC#1, but haven’t even had time since we returned on Friday to get to the financial stuff. I’m hoping to do that today when Bean naps.
All in all, I think we’ll be okay, but the trip will throw a small wrench in the plans to snowflake some of the money we were paid last week. That’s okay, though. I just have to be all calm and zen about it—it’s life. Things happen. Plans can be adjusted when necessary.
Tags: budgeting, emergency, family
Posted in CarpenterBoy, budgeting, patience | Comments (0)