Category Archives: My Life

Life’s leaps and bounds

Remember that job Matthew and I both applied for back in December?  Well, less than 24-hours after the initial interview, they notified me that I was not in the running.  While being notified of your application status in a timely manner is nice, this was almost so fast as to be insulting.  I was pretty sure I cleaned all the chia seeds out of my teeth before going in to the interview.  Had I made a some other glaring mistake?

I guess I’ll never know, but fortunately, over the last month-and-a-half, Matthew made it to the second round interview, then jumped through some additional hoops, and then waited.  His efforts culminated in a [full-time] job offer this week, which he accepted.

This is good.  It makes our in-progress purchase of a bicycle that will be worth more than our car seem not quite so insane.  We’ve ordered the bike and made a down payment at the bike shop.  The frame color and style we want is back-ordered until sometime in March, but we should have our Xtracycle Edgerunner cargo bike by spring!

In case that wasn’t enough excitement to end January / begin February, we looked at a house on Friday afternoon.  We’ve had various realtors sending us online listings for about a hundred years now.  Between the listings and looking at satellite images of the property, we rule most of these out, based on factors including being too close to something unfavorable (e.g., a highway or railroad) or not the right size and/or sunlight for a very large garden.  Every now and then, there’s one we deign to see in person.  Usually we go, take a relatively quick look inside and out, shrug, thank the realtor for his/her time, and walk away unimpressed.  Many realtors don’t have the patience to stick with us.

Friday afternoon was different.  I won’t say it’s our dream house, but given how long we’ve been looking, this might be our “good enough:” decent house that we can make our own over time, decent space and layout for gardening (after we remove some trees), inner-ring suburb, decent/good public schools, and not much further than Matthew’s current bike commute.  Its downsides are mostly things we can fix, with some time and money, though the location is not as walkable as I would prefer.

Anyhow, we’re planning to make an offer this week.  What will happen after that is anyone’s guess.  It’s a foreclosure, and the bank is accepting owner-occupant bids for the first 10 days.  We won’t know how our bid stacks up to other bids, so once we make the offer, it will just be a waiting game.  At the end of which, we will either be making the largest purchase / investment of our lives and becoming home-owners rather than renters, or not.  Not nerve wracking at all.

Moving right along

The three weeks since December 12, when I wrote my “Life Goes On” post literally flew by, am I right?

I was feeling rather bah-humbug-y going into the holidays, what with trying to coordinate holiday gatherings around a toddler’s nap and early bedtime and general ennui about gift-giving.  Mid-month, I read “The Case Against Buying Christmas Presents.” The post really resonated with me, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

As Christmas drew near, I felt tremendous pressure to both give great gifts and even more so to come up my own list of what I wanted.  This is difficult because the answer is either a) nothing or b) a really specific item that I’m researching and figuring out exactly what I want, at which point, if I decide that this is indeed an item I want to spend money on, I will buy it for myself.

Needless to say, we enjoyed some nice family gatherings, and I enjoyed seeing Gabriel’s general excitement, but I’m rather glad the festivities are behind us.  I clearly would benefit from finding some way to address my feelings about gifts before next December.

Holidays aside, the past three weeks were far from dull in their own right, with action in the employment, speech therapy for Gabriel, and longtail realms.

Employment
Matthew and I both interviewed for the same position.  What’s odd to me is not that this happened, but rather that it hasn’t happened before, given that we’re both in the same field, with very similar educational backgrounds and career interests and fairly similar work histories.  Our general attitude for positions that we’ve both applied for in the past has been that, collectively, we double our chances if we both apply for a job opening, though I’m curious how employers view this.  For example, would employers see both of our applications and just avoid them altogether, in the interest of preventing [in their minds] marital strife or perceived awkwardness?  I certainly hope that would not be an issue, that our applications would be judged independently on our qualifications, but one never knows.

Speech Therapy
We’re still waiting to hear from the therapist, but, after a third evaluation, Sir finally qualified for speech and language therapy services with First Steps, a state-funded program for kids birth through three in Missouri with very affordable sliding-scale fees.  Since he’s not all that far from three, we’ll also be starting the process to see if he will qualify to transition to the age three-and-up services, which are offered through the school district.

Longtail cargo bike
We’ve more or less decided on the Edgerunner.  We’re still playing with specs and final details (gearing, accessories, etc.), but we’ve moved to the “contacting a local bike shop to get things moving” phase.  We’ve done a lot of research, but making this large of a purchase without ever seeing, much less riding, the bicycle in question is more than a little nerve wracking.  Finalizing the purchase, really making it happen, will be a bit of a leap of faith, but such is life, I suppose.

Moving boxes

And so we find ourselves in a new year — yesterday was a holiday, today we returned to normal time.

I kicked things off by tackling the moving boxes that have been sitting in the corner of Gabriel’s bedroom since we moved to this apartment eighteen months ago.  Why now, after letting them sit there for a year-and-a-half?  Your guess is as good as mine!

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The boxes ended up in G’s room because I wasn’t really thrilled about the basement in our building — not horrible, but definitely basement-y: some bugs here and there, a bit musty, and long overdue for some cleaning attention.  I didn’t want the boxes, which will [theoretically] be carrying our possessions to our non-existent house one day, getting musty or pest-infested, so I kept them upstairs, and this was the most out-of-the-way option.

That corner of Sir’s bedroom has not seen the light of day, nor the business end of a vacuum or dust rag, since we finished unpacking, and, since it doesn’t appear that we’ll be repacking them anytime soon, I decided I wanted the boxes out of there.

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Several trips carting boxes down two flights of stairs (empty, broken down boxes are so awkward and unwieldy to move — gah!), followed by some cleaning and rearranging in the bedroom, and voilà!  This little project won’t be completely finished until we get the window AC unit out of there, but somehow I don’t think I’ll have any immediate takers on that item with our current arctic weather.  At least all of the dust is gone, and I can fully open the curtain in that corner.

The boxes are now in the basement, where I should have put them in the first place, I suppose.  The blue plastic bin in the photo, which previously inhabited a different corner of Sir’s bedroom, is stuffed to overflowing with his old baby clothes.  The minimalist, decluttering side of me just wants to drop everything off at the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store and be done with it, but I can’t quite bring myself to do that.  Maybe that will be a project for next year.

2013 in photo review

In lieu of Christmas cards, I created a picture video to share with friends and family this year.  I had a lot of fun making it, though next time around, I’ll create a shorter version — this is a bit lengthy (so many great photos!).

Wishing you all the best in the new year!

Life goes on

Does anyone else remember watching the TV show Life Goes On in the early ’90s?  I watched very little television growing up, but this was a weekly tradition for my family for a couple of years.  Not really related to this post, other than sharing a title, but I now have the theme song stuck in my head.  Anyhow.

The week before Thanksgiving, we learned that Matthew’s job would be cut to .75 FTE effective January 1, making us a household of two part-time wage earners (I currently average between 15 and 20 hours/week).

Matthew has also been carrying the health insurance for our family, and, while coverage is still available to part-time employees, our monthly premiums will double.  This increased cost of insurance means that, while his hours are only cut to 3/4 time, his take home income will effectively be cut in half — gulp!  (I’m looking into what we would pay for similar coverage in the health insurance marketplace.)  I know we’re not the only people in this boat, but it’s a little scary.

The news came just as we were getting to the break even point most months, and maybe starting to save a little bit some months.  In most respects, we’re pretty frugal, and we saved like crazy during the three or four years where we had two full-time incomes, so we’ll be okay for the short term.

Long term, we’re questioning the wisdom of both of us being in the same field (public health), one where jobs largely depend on grant funding (soft dollars), are often not particularly well-paid, and offer few guarantees position longevity.

The news also came just as we were going to go ahead and make a big purchase, a longtail cargo bike, having narrowed it down to either the Yuba Mundo or the Xtracycle Edgerunner.  While there’s some temptation to put that kind of large expenditure on hold, the fact is we have the money, this is something that we’ve been thinking about for a long time, and, if we’re going to continue making most trips with Gabriel by bike instead of by car, we want (if not quite need) something other than the trailer option.  For us, going ahead with the purchase makes more sense than not.

That said, we were leaning toward the Edgerunner, which will cost noticeably more than the Mundo, so we’re a bit back to the drawing board on that final decision, which makes the fact that we’re actually getting a longtail seem not quite real.

For the most part, we’re not panicking, though I agree with the sentiment of an unemployed friend who said that she’s okay most of the time, but every few weeks it all gets a little overwhelming.  For me, it hits home most when considering long term savings, like retirement and G’s college fund, as well as larger [potential] expenses: the bike, getting speech/language therapy for Gabriel, and airfare and lodging for the three of us for a West Coast wedding next summer.

These things are clearly all optional, driving home the point that, in the scheme of things, we are very fortunate.  We are not questioning  whether or not we’ll have food on the table or a safe, warm place to live.  We’re taking things as they come, while exploring short- and long-term career options (a bit more on that in a future post).

Though perhaps a bit different than before, life goes on.