Gail is my hero

After copious episodes of one of me and the fiance's favourite shows, Til Debt Do Us Part, a week or two ago I finally headed over to the public library, all bright-eyed and ready to learn how to save even more money than I already do.

First, I read most of Personal Finance for Dummies (4th edition, our library isn`t rich). Despite being for 'dummies', it wasn't an easy read at all. It's a really intense, compressed, large overall amount of information, and full of ideas that I'd never considered before. Like that if I don't invest in ventures earning interest higher than the rate of inflation, my hard-earned money will be worth less in the future than it is now. Economics really freak me out. Also, it served as a reminder that I'll eventually have to worry about income tax, having to do with money earned on investments, and otherwise. For the past decade, tax returns have been a breeze since the post-secondary credits tend to wipe out anything you might owe, and then some. But it won't always be so.

However, the real wake-up call came from one of the two books I took out by Gail Vaz-Oxlade. Gail is the host of Til Debt Do Us Part, and I am a big fan of hers. The book I'm talking about is A Woman of Independent Means: A Womans Guide to Full Financial Security (sadly out of print). A simple quiz at the beginning of Chapter 3 classifies me as a miser, which was unsettling, though not all that surprising. Gail says:

Remember, it's not money that makes you rich. It is what you choose to do with your money that will determine the richness of your life.

It's pretty simplistic, but these words hit me hard, given my present situation. Gail says that misers fear running out of money, have no confidence in their ability to make more, and the way they deal with it is to not spend any. She could have been taking notes from my head.

So I went out and bought a laptop. Okay, the laptop had been coming from quite some time. My old hard drive sounded like it was going to crap out any day now, and I think the fiance was going to kill me if I didn't either a) buy a laptop or b) stop talking about buying a laptop. But I happened to read that chapter right before I went out, so I like to think they were connected somehow.

I still have a couple other finance books to read, but the gist I'm getting is that I need to set some goals beyond hoarding everything I earn.

De-carbo-n-ation

Musicians are doing their thing, as per usual. The recycled guitar string earrings are too cute.

Chemists are also doing their thing, inventing packaging that can biodegrade. I find it funny that the article mentions McDonalds was still using styrofoam containers in North America until about 1990.

A number of years ago, I participated in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, facilitated by a friend taking the same program at university. We picked up trash (sorting out the recyclables) along the treed banks of the campus, more of a pre-shoreline cleanup - removing trash before it ended up in the river. I recall finding a few styrofoam Big Mac containers, in near pristine condition, along with countless plastic bags, a rusted oil drum, a lawn chair suspiciously close to a pair of underwear, and chip bag upon chip bag. I registered to do the Cleanup at a different location last fall, but the Cleanup leader never got back to me with an exact location to meet, so I didn't end up participating. If anyone out there wants to help me scrounge up a team for next September, maybe we can lead a clean-up. This stuff looks great on your resume, kids.

Google

This was supposed to be a post about my fabulous discovery that Google now runs its own transit system (biodiesel, no less!) to help its employees commute more efficiently.

Instead, I want to express my insane jealousy of Google Culture, Googleplex in particular. And I quote:

• ...baby grand piano...
• ...Healthy lunches and dinners for all staff...
• ...Snack Rooms - Bins packed with various cereals, gummi bears, M&Ms, toffee, licorice, cashew nuts, yogurt, carrots, fresh fruit and other snacks. Dozens of different drinks including fresh juice, soda and make-your-own cappuccino...

Free food at a workplace would be so incredible. I appreciated any opportunities I had for free food as a student, and continue to do so today. If I worked at Google, I would probably save a lot of money on rent because I would never go home.

Bonus link - Life in the Googleplex Photo Essay

Chocolate lava cake

I had a craving for chocolate lava cake all last week. Since I own ramekins and was due for a trip to Bulk Barn anyhow, last night some chocolate was obtained, melted with butter, mixed with sugar, eggs, and flour, and made into lava cakes using a recipe I found by searching Google. B did most of the work, and quite well. 2 of the 4 cakes turned out perfect. The other 2 stuck, with 1 eventually coming out onto the floor and the other eventually onto a plate. B suggests that using flour instead of cocoa to "flour" the ramekins might have lessened that issue. Today I chipped only 1 of the ramekins while washing them, which could be a record for me.

The cakes tasted amazing. This is what they looked like, essentially, except that we had them plain without ice cream or raspberry coulee or any of the other fancy restaurant gimmicks. It's a little gross if you think really hard about it, that the reason the inside is runny is because those 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks in the batter haven't fully cooked on the inside. Still though... they tasted great.

The Bitch in the House

Of the books that I've read over the past few years, this one has probably had the most profound effect on my life thus far:

I read it first after I bought it last summer, discounted at McNally Robinson like most books I buy. When I read it again last month, it made even more sense, after having lived that much more of my life since then.

The title is a take-off on The Angel in the House, as defined by Virginia Woolf and quoted at the beginning of Bitch:

I will describe her as shortly as I can. She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught she sat in it—in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others.

Interestingly, hidden among my other childhood classics is the novel briefly mentioned in the angel wiki article (What Katy Did).

Despite the lives of the authors of these essays being vastly different, from each other and from my own, I recognize the domestic rage that comes with trying balancing it all - husband, career, kids - and not wanting to, though having to, sacrifice any for the other. I recognize it looming in myself even though my wedding won't take place for a few months, my career is in its beginnings, and kids, well, I'm still learning to take care of myself.

I see a lot of myself in essays such as "Attila the Honey I'm Home" (Kristin van Ogtrop), though I don't have kids or their hectic careers yet. I can be perfectly pleasant and witty at work and out with friends, but coming home to the combination of a stack of dishes, and a certain someone playing nintendo oblivious to the fact, quickly turns me into the witch in the apartment.

And though I grew up with a stay-at-home mom, or perhaps because of it, I grew up thinking that when I moved out and into the family/career combo, things would be significantly different, though I was never sure how. This was really naive thinking on my part, because really, how different could it be? Even though I strive for my partner and I to equally split the mundane household chores required for upkeep, splitting still means I have to do my half. Refusing to do so, and allowing my partner to cook all our meals* as I have doesn't make me a feminist, it makes me lazy.

*I say allow, but really, I'd probably kill us and/or we'd live off scrambled eggs if I took over, even in part.

Pancakes

Oh no, my pancakes!!

Warmer-than-usual winters are throwing things out of kilter, causing confusion among maple syrup producers, called sugar makers, and stoking fears for the survival of New England’s maple forests...

There is no way to know for certain, but scientists are increasingly persuaded that human-caused global warming is changing climate conditions that affect sugaring.