Less is More

It’s another day and I’m taking advantage of naptime. It’s nice that Liam has gotten into a nice routine with a good morning nap that I can depend upon.

Until recently I was using naptime to try to take care of stuff or frittering away on time fillers. It seems that a huge pile of stuff always seems to need to be done. However, I recently reached my breaking point and said enough is enough. I realized that I really need to slow down and take a break. Now, I figure that most of the odds and ends can be taken care of while he’s awake and if they can’t be done they probably aren’t that important anyway. I’m using naptime only for things that I can’t do while he is awake. Relaxing and typing into the computer is one of those things and while it may not be urgent it is important.

It’s funny since I adopted this policy I can’t say much less is getting done and I’m a whole lot more relaxed. Plus, it stops me from hovering over Liam. I’m always nearby to keep him safe and help him calm down if he gets to frustrated. We take several breaks to read or play or snuggle or babble at each other and, of course, get out of the house often. It seems to be working very well.

My back hurts. It aches. I know it’s because I’m not exercising and moving enough. However, I’m not really ready to do something about it so I guess it doesn’t matter.

I took a hard look at our finances yesterday (yes, during naptime), did some investigating and found out that it makes no sense for Lyn and me to seek credit counseling. The payment programs won’t really save us much of anything in interest and their fees make it actually more expensive. We aren’t late on anything, we just seem to be getting nowhere with them. We spoke about it and decided to cancel the credit cards, all of them. Cutting them up didn’t work, canceling seems to be the only way and honestly if we ever get in a real jam we have excellent credit if we need to use it. We are doing to stack the bills and keep the money going to debt the same until they are all paid off. With what we plan to send them it will take about 5 years to get them all paid off. It may take us a little longer, because we may not be as disciplined as we need to be, but at least we won’t be accruing additional debt.

I’ve been broke, and while we aren't rich, we aren’t broke and we haven’t been. We’ve just been impulsive and avoided dealing with our finances for far too long. We need to learn how to work within the constraints of a budget and to change our attitude towards money. We both are very good at finding ways to spend money and we need to work on our patience and financial planning. Keeping up with a budget seems like a cumbersome task that others make look so easy. I know it’s not going to be easy, but it is a lesson that we really need to learn. What lessons will we teach Liam about money if we are are in debt his whole like?

Well, I’m off to get on with the day. We get to go to Mia’s first birthday party today. This will be the first birthday party we’ve attended and I’m looking forward to it. I still have to wrap her gift.

I also must go make a grocery list. The cupboards are getting bare once again. It seems like so much of my time is spent dealing with food, food shopping, food preparation, eating food, clean up, meal planning. Think of all the time would I save if we didn’t eat or if I didn’t care so much about what we ate.