Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

Kathryn

Eggnog and Raisin Day

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Magoo came running up to me today calling, “MOM! MOM! Dad says turn on the TV. It’s Eggnog ‘n Raisin Day. So I did. AHHH! Inauguration day. I knew it was coming. I’ve been watching coverage of President Obama painting homeless shelters and hugging babies across the country on his tour towards the White House. But with all the celebrating and media events, I’d forgotten when it was actually happening.

So we kept Laylee home from school for a good part of the morning to watch the President take the oath of office. She and Magoo both watched with a level of attention I wish they could muster during church. We’ve been talking about this day for a long time and even though his name was harder to remember than McCain’s, I think she’s glad that someone with “darker skin” got elected as president for the first time. That idea thrills her. It thrills me too.

I loved watching him with his daughters, explaining what the boxes were for as he got ready to take the oath. I loved that one of them was taking pictures of him while he gave his speech. I really enjoyed his speech. If every presidency, if any presidency, could be as good as the inauguration speech, wouldn’t that be something? Maybe this one will be.

I loved that the NPR commentator felt the need to point out Oprah and her entourage and narrate her activities and shenanigans. I loved that Obama and Biden both turned in their seats to watch 4 of the world’s most amazing musicians play to them and the entire country out in the freezing cold. I loved that Dan was concerned about how the cold would affect their intonation. I was just worried that their fingers would go numb.

At one point, Obama said, “As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.”

I wondered if he was alluding to the fact that we may not get out of Iraq as soon as everyone hopes we will. He’s president now. It’s official. He can allude to things like that.

I love that with all his calm, poise, confidence and eloquence, his brain was exploding just enough to biff it a couple of times as he was repeating the words of the oath of office. It made me like him more. And Michelle just stood there smiling. My word, she’s an attractive and confident woman.

I enjoyed the prayers. I’m glad we can still have prayers at events like this. I especially enjoyed the imagery of “beating tanks into tractors.” I’d like to watch that happen on some bizarre military/agricultural version of Pimp my Ride.

I’m hopeful. I was not a flag-waving, bumper sticker toting Obama supporter. I’m still not. But I like him and I’m hopeful. Looking at my children, my neighbors and some of my local leaders, I know things can get better and I chose to believe that they will.

You Need a Budget — Giveaway

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Usually I give stuff away on this site because someone sends it to me or asks me to review it. Today I’m reviewing a product because I love it LOVE IT and I’m giving it away because I asked the creator if I could have a copy to give away. So here goes the longest review ever with a little embarrassing personal history thrown in.

Dan and I have never been great at budgeting. I was taught to budget and balance a checkbook when I was really young. My dad’s an accountant for the love of chicken and I vividly remember him sitting at the kitchen table paying bills and balancing the checkbook. He and my mom were always careful with money and they taught me to be as well.

Then college hit and I got a bit lax. I learned to only start thinking about money when it ran out and I was always confused. “Like, how come my check totally bounced?” Now, I’m a smart girl but I guess I just decided that I was too smart to waste time tracking every penny. I always did okay, made my rent and tuition payments on time and graduated college with very little debt. I think I only called my parents for a massive bailout package once or twice.

Then after graduation, Dan and I got married. I was supporting him through school, working full time while he held down a part-time job. Suddenly the expenses were shared and the income was more than I’d had before. We weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination but for college students we were doing fine. We had a TWO bedroom apartment with no holes in the walls and a non-shag carpet. I didn’t think we needed to be strict with money.

I planned on staying home once we had kids but I was nervous about how it would feel to be financially dependent on another person. Somehow I got Dan to agree to let me plan and budget our money. I thought that being “in charge” would help me feel like I had a stake in our finances even though I wasn’t the one bringing home the bacon once I became a mom.

But I never really got a handle on the situation. I tried budgeting software, Excel spreadsheets, using a cash-only budget, where when I ran out of cash I ran out of spending power. I bounced from plan to plan but never found a good fit.

Dan and I have grown to equate money with fear. We don’t know how much we have and we don’t always know how much is coming. To me, unexpected income is “free money” and although we (especially Dan) feel a sense of duty to put it towards upcoming major expenses, we want to spend some for fun too and then end up feeling guilty about it. We don’t really have any debt and we have a good amount of savings but we’re not progressing and it seems like we dip more and more into our emergency reserves because our paycheck didn’t quite cover what we spent the previous month.

We make a good living but feel guilty when we spend money on wants because we don’t know if we should and we’re always worried that we’re not managing things right. Financial lame-ish-ness is one of the major causes of stress in our marriage. I’m in charge so whenever we want to buy something, Dan will ask, “Do we have it in the budget?” and I’ll look down at my shoes and say, “We have it in the bank, I think.” And he’ll decide we probably can’t afford it. But then sometimes I’ll buy it anyway and then we’ll be happy for a minute with a vague feeling of guilt. It’s not okay.

So a couple of months ago my sister called me ranting and raving about the new budgeting software she’s using. It’s called YNAB, which stands for You Need a Budget. I winced at the B-word but decided to hear her out. By the end of our conversation I was convinced that I’d at least give it a try, knowing that they offer a money-back guarantee.

Well, it’s $50 I won’t be getting back because I cannot say enough positive things about this software. It’s easy to use. It lets me feel like I’m controlling my money, not the other way around. It’s intuitive. It’s fast and simple to set up. It’s complex enough to do everything I need it to do without being so confusing I want to beat my head against the keyboard, a problem I’ve had with budgeting software in the past. It’s created for families, not businesses and that’s very apparent, although my sister uses it to track her business expenses as well. It comes with instructional material that focuses on living within your means, building up a buffer so you’re not living paycheck to paycheck and really being accountable to yourself and your spouse.

The company is small and they really want to get it right. They have helpful forums and great response time. When I posted a question, I received a personal email and a fix for my problem within a few short hours, even though it was on a weekend.

I set up all the categories in my budget and then Dan and I have a meeting to go over everything. There has been no tension in our meetings, just sort of a giddy feeling of relief. Relief that we have a plan. Relief that there is enough money to do the things that are really important. Relief that he can finally trust me with our family finances.

We have a category for fun money for each of us and one for clothes. We can’t put a lot of money into these categories each month but the money accrues so next month if I haven’t spent my $10, I’ll have $20 and eventually I’ll be able to buy a whole sweater. In the past if I’d budgeted $10 for clothes, I’d rush to spend it so I wouldn’t lose it. The same thing goes with birthday money. I knew that if I didn’t spend my $20 from Grandma right away, it would be absorbed and end up paying for pull-ups or something so I’d buy a $20 piece of uselessness just so I could spend the money on me.

Now I just add my birthday money to my fun-money budget and watch it grow.

This accumulation feature allows us to do things like set up small budgets for several different projects without needing actual separate accounts. I have an account for haircuts and I budget a third of a hair cut each month so I can go in and have it done every three months with no worry about whether or not we can afford for me to live without split ends.

But if I overspend one of my categories, I’m not penalized for it specifically the next month. If Magoo suddenly outgrows all his clothes and I go $100 over-budget on the kids’ clothing category, $100 is taken from the OVERALL budget the next month. I love this feature because sometimes things come up and I don’t want to feel like if I overspend in an area, I’m toast in that area for months. I like that I can spread out the squeeze.

My favorite thing about it is the honesty. Sometimes in the past, when I’d go shopping, I’d hurry to get everything put away before Dan got home so I wouldn’t have to explain to him what I’d purchased and where the money came from. When he’d ask me a week later if the shirt I was wearing was new, I’d mumble something and he’d wonder if I had some whole new secret wardrobe he’d paid for with our life savings without knowing it.

Now I come home from shopping and show him everything with excitement because I know that he knows that it’s all budgeted and accounted for.

We’re achieving goals. We’re learning to have positive feelings about money. We’re strengthening our relationship. We’re gaining self-control and security about our future.

You should too.

Seriously. Go check out the site. Read what they’re all about. I know I can’t be the only one who finds herself at war with money.

If you’d like to win a free copy of YNAB Pro, and I’d highly recommend ordering Pro, leave a comment on this post and I’ll draw a winner on Saturday night. We saved more than $50 the first week we used it by cutting unnecessary spending and noticing strange charges on various accounts we hadn’t been monitoring closely enough. So even if you don’t win, it’s worth the investment. Good luck!

Click to Read My Product Review Policy

Something Cleverish

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I’m sure many of you have heard about blogger Stephanie Nielson’s plane crash in August. She and her husband were critically injured and she has been undergoing surgeries and procedures for months in order to heal and get back to loving her 4 beautiful children.

Stephanie’s blog was popular for her obvious love of motherhood and the joy she found in the small moments in life. I didn’t personally come across it until after the accident but reading through the archives, it’s easy to see why she’s loved by so many people.

Since the accident, friends and readers have rallied to raise money to help pay for the family’s staggering medical bills. Most recently Sue from Navel Gazing at Its Finest has put together a book of funny posts written by some very talented writers and me.

Please consider supporting Sue and her efforts to help the Nielson family by buying a book or 12. You’ll get an enjoyable read and they’ll get a bit closer to having the financial portion of their troubles taken care of.

When I Think of Magoo

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When I think of Magoo, I hope I always remember him running down the hill to our house, his fluffy hair bouncing, his little McQueen-crocked feet pumping like bolts of red rubber lightning. I violated my rule of not buying “character” clothes when I saw the look on his face at the shoe store.

They were like the air to him.

It was a good decision.

I never had his baby shoes bronzed. Maybe I’ll do these.

mcqueens

Today I Was a Mom

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I was a mom pretty much all day today. Here is my report:

I cruelly forced someone to wear pants outside in 40-degree weather.

I cut peanut-butter sandwiches in the shape of dinosaurs and delivered them to an alfresco restaurant-for-2 at the end of our driveway.

I danced like a lunatic while driving in my car. My passengers said I was good. I chose to believe them.

I changed shirts twice but never showered.

I calmly explained AGAIN why people under the age of 30 should never use permanent markers… ever.

I threw away 3 packs of wipes that had been left open and dried out completely. Yes. I heard the earth and Sheryl Crow scream out in pain and betrayal.

I received a visitor while sitting upon the throne who proceeded to hug and cuddle me tenderly while I peed… just because of love.

When they asked “Why,” I answered. All day long.

I held a large child like a baby while he cried and showed me his bonk. Twice.

I giggled on the escalator while holding hands with a boy and agreed that it was “JUST LIKE A RIDE!”

I tried to play a girly ballad on the car stereo but was told, “That song’s scary!” “No it’s not,” I retorted. He responded, “It’s not scary to YOU, but it’s scary to ME.” I navigated my Zune back to Eye of the Tiger.

I sat out on the front porch to sort the mail so they could keep playing outside until it was All the Way Dark.

When asked to squeeze the ketchup in the shape of a dinosaur, I did my best but was informed that it looked more like an AT-AT.

I purchased the socks with the grey bottoms even though they cost 50 cents more because they help him run so much faster.

After 3 hours of hard work, I unearthed a parking spot in our garage and put my car in it, only to be scared and confused when I went to leave for a meeting and found that the car was “missing” from the driveway.

I sat in a meeting full of other moms, animatedly discussing ways of extorting money from friends and family to support education. An award called a “Golden Acorn,” professional jump-ropers, and nominating people to be on a committee to nominate people were all discussed at the meeting as well.

I picked up two slugs with my bare hands and threw them to freedom so the children’s squealing would stop. One was on a rubber ball. One was on my living room carpet. They felt like congealed slime… because they were.

Upon request I composed two original songs, one called, “Hooky Joojie” and the other called, “Mommy, the Laylee’s Mommy,” sung to the tune of Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer.

I heard two people pray about how much they loved me.

Today I was a mom. It’s not a bad gig.

Don’t Email Me

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Hey. We’re having some technical difficulties over here. If you email me in the next couple of days at my daringyoungmom.com address, your email will be lost in a vortex of time and space where it will party with its friends, never actually making it to an inbox of any kind. Then I will appear to be a jerk for ignoring your oh-so-important communication. I will not be a jerk, but as you know, things are not always as they seem. So if you have an urgent message for me, please leave a comment here and I’ll get back to you from another email account which I choose not to publish on the internet.

Violent Farmers

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Laylee: Mom. Magoo and I are hunting. We’re shooting cows to get milk.

Me: You don’t shoot cows to get milk. You only get milk if they’re still alive.

{PAUSE}

Laylee: What can we get if we shoot them?

Still Here

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So we’re experiencing the worst flooding here in ~90 years and our town is cut off in every direction from the rest of the world. Dan made it home before the flooding and our house is up high enough that we always fare okay. There’s just no new mail, no garbage pickup, no grocery deliveries to the stores and no easy access to hospital care. So many people have lost their homes throughout the state and as the waters recede, there is damage to our major routes out of town, so it may be several days until people can get in or out safely.

Luckily Dan is stuck on this side of the water and is able to work from home fairly effectively. And although Laylee thinks she’s broken her leg and is begging me to take her to Children’s Hospital for X-rays, I’m fairly certain that the Arnica I just rubbed on it has done the trick. With the way she’s prancing around the living room, I think I’ll hold off on calling the fire station emergency evac boats into immediate action.

Click over to Parenting to read about the REAL secret of how we’re handling the whole situation. Parental wisdom comes from surprising sources. It’s humorous and highly useful information to enrich your life.

Humility, Thy Name is Mother

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Whatever pride or dignity I thought I possessed as a young whipper-snapper came spilling out of my body along with the child when I lay helpless in the hospital answering to the name of Mother for the first time, midwifes and nurses, grabbing, pulling and touching me in ways that I would have previously found appalling.

Over the past 6 years I’ve periodically made attempts to regain some of my lost pride but it’s hard when you live with people who can’t BELIEVE there’s not a baby in your tummy because it’s SO big, who use you as a human tissue, and who pray to Heavenly Father that he will help them please be on time for school tomorrow. Laylee knows I’ve shown myself incapable of regular punctuality so she likes to call for backup.

This morning on the way to school, I noticed I hadn’t even run a comb through her hair. This is absolutely unacceptable in my opinion, especially since she gets to pick her own clothes. I need the teacher to see one sign that she is not being physically neglected at home. So I pulled over to the side of the road and tried to do a quick fix with the only tools I had, a comb and a bobby pin. Without tangle spray or local anesthetic it’s nearly impossible to straighten Laylee’s bird’s nest without shrieks of agony so I “smoothed it over,” told her I’d done the best I could but it wasn’t great and got back into the drivers’ seat of the car.

“It’s okay,” Laylee replied. “Being on time is way more important than just looking nice anyway.” As she said this, I wondered if she was as aware as I was of my unshowered, unbrushed hair or the near-pajamas I was wearing. I could have been the poster child for “Looking Nice Isn’t That Important Anyway.” Then there was the reminder that being on time was more crucial than looks and that I’d let her down so many times in the past.

Kids will let you know what they think of you. Frequently their words are filled with love and often with that love comes brutally honest assessments of your worst traits, your biggest insecurities. Even their criticisms usually aren’t malicious at this age. They just stem from curiosity, fascination or just plain lack of social skills but they can still hurt or at least bump your pride down a notch.

Lately the kids have been using “humor” to share how they see the world, their favorite being the knock-knock joke that’s really a why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road joke in disguise.

Both of these gems came up at dinner last night to much raucous laughter.

Knock knock
Who’s there?
Why did the mommy cross the road?
I don’t know. Why?
To go shopping.

Knock knock
Who’s there?
Why did the mommy cross the road?
I don’t know. Why?
To pick up her prescription

Nice. So this “mom” person is a materialistic shopaholic who NEEDS HER MEDS? I see why that’s funny. Almost.

Then driving to school yesterday, Magoo pointed out the window at a woman walking along the sidewalk and asked, “Mom? What name is that lady?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied.

“Oh. Oops,” he said. “That’s no lady. She’s just a MOM!”

AAAHHHHH! And yet. I love this job so much it hurts sometimes. What would I do without these kids? Besides be more of a “lady,” that is?

Fat Boy

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Sitting eating hot dogs outside the Costco tire center today, Magoo went nuts when he saw the Michelin sign and noticed that it prominently featured an overfed STORM TROOPER!

trooper

Somebody needs to hit the imperial gym in a big way. Seeing as he’s a clone, we KNOW it’s not genetic obesity. I think this is a quality “before” picture for when he makes his debut on that one Loser show.

He seems so much more jolly than the typical storm trooper. Kind of like Al Roker before the weight loss surgery.