Beat The Heat

  This has been a busy weekend for me. My daughter, for the first time, had a sleepover with someone who was not directly related to us by blood. I have volunteered with both the Mom and Dad of the little sleepover friend, so am on familiar terms with both, which makes a difference. And although I was a nervous wreck, my daughter had a blast. And I stayed at my sister's house and annoyed the ever-living shit out of her by complaining every five minutes that I missed my daughter.
   But after picking my daughter up, I wanted to do something fun. I didn't want to go home to my apartment.  The temperature outside is 85, and I know that my southern relatives are all hooting now, because that is nothing to them. But I would like to point out that all of the apartments, trailers, ect. that I lived in down South had central air. Apartments in Washington do not come with any kind of air, and most apartments have issues with you installing a window air unit because they don't look attractive, and in order to draw in new tenets, the neighborhood needs to look as attractive as possible. And my apartment holds heat very well, a boon in the winter, but a curse in the summer. Another issue is that one of my neighbors is very elderly, and has been complaining about the cold, and has been running her heat. In 80 degree weather, and her living room wall is my living room wall. So my apartment has been feeling like it's 95 degrees instead of 85, and I feel like picketing her front door. She is trying to cook us all.
   So to get back to what I was saying before, I didn't want to take my daughter from an awesome sleepover to our oven of an apartment. I needed something fun to do, something that would cool us down. So I decided to go whine to my sister. As the youngest, one of her primary duties in this life is to keep me entertained (Haha! She doesn't agree.) And she came through, because all the kids have new swimsuits, and she thought they might like to go to Steel Lake Park. Way to go Sissy!!
   I love Steel Lake Park because it's free. You can see the cheapskate coming out of me, but free is awesome. Plus, after 12 pm, they have official lifeguards on duty, so that is an extra layer of safety. So we suited the kiddos up, suited ourselves up, and piled into my sister's minivan. You swim at your own risk, because this is a lake and ducks shit in that water and little kids pee and there are all manner of strange creatures. My sister found some kind of freaky fish looking thing with six freaking legs, so who knows what is in that water, but it's free. Free is awesome!!!
    And on getting there, my sister and I proceeded to show the kiddos that they do not have the monopoly on having fun and goofing off. My sister and I spent two hours in the water with the kids, splashing each other, smashing dirt into each other's swimsuits, grabbing the other's legs and trying to pull them under water, jumping on each other's backs unexpectedly, and causing general chaos that had the parents glaring, the children staring, and the life guards keeping us under careful watch. Kids do not have a monopoly on fun when my sister and I are around; we have that monopoly. Everybody just wishes that they had as much fun as we do. What can I say? We can't all be awesome. But if you are somewhere looking for a way to beat the heat, I do suggest looking for the free activities. Because the water parks are awesome, but you don't always have the cash, and if you only want to spend a few hours somewhere in the first place, those entrance fees are a waste of money if you do have the cash. Beat the heat in ways that are free, or have a low cost, like 5 bucks. If you live in my particular area, Steel Lake Park. Free, and with life guards on duty. What's better?
   

Karate And Self Defense

   I have a funky past; this past has led me to the realization that victimizing women is really easy for some people, and women can make it easier by having low self-esteems and not fighting back. I don't say this to point fingers, or I would be pointing four back at myself; I'm guilty. But when it comes to my daughter, I don't want her to be in this position ever. I want her to have the confidence to stand up for herself.
   So I had been looking into some form of martial arts for a while, but all that was too expensive. I might laugh about my book buying sprees, and talk about buying games, but these things don't happen every payday. They don't even happen every other payday. Hell, they don't even happen every month. My budget can get pretty tight, but what happens is sometimes I work extra hours and get more money that way, or sometimes I manage to get a bill down really low. For example, I have gotten my electric bill down to $50, which I budget $100 to $150 (depending on season) for it usually, so there is an extra fifty bucks (and now you can image me patting myself on the back and giving myself a cookie. Woo-hoo!) Then this extra money becomes my splurge money and that is what I buy books and games with. So a monthly martial arts bill was not something I could afford, at the prices that many places charged.
   Except that the school started offering special karate classes that where unbelievably cheap. They offered karate and cheer classes by this certain group and the classes where really, really affordable. While all the other little girls' moms where eyeballing the cheer classes, I was eyeballing the karate/self-defense class. My daughter wanted to do cheer at first, because some of her friends were doing it, but  I couldn't afford to do both. The classes are cheap, but  I had to go in to work and make myself unavailable to work on those nights, and I didn't find it feasible to do that for both classes. And while usually I do try to listen to her wishes, I am Mom, and I wanted her in those karate classes. My sister also wanted her daughter in the karate classes, so that helped, because she could go to class with her cousin, and would have somebody she knew in the class. After that, my daughter took not doing cheer pretty well; she was still getting to do a class, and there was someone she knew in the class with her.

She is a green belt with a blue stripe.

    I figured that if she hated the class, she could stop after one semester, which aligns with the school semesters, but that she would at least have the basics, because the teacher (Sensei) of the class was teaching them things like how to break out of the hold of a person who was larger than you, and was teaching them this basic self-defense along with horse stance and ready stance and upper punch blocks. So I thought she would at least be able to get away from someone trying to grab her, and that was what  I really wanted, so if she hated it, I would let her quit after she had learned those basics. But she didn't hate karate; she loved it. I even think that now, she doesn't even remember that she ever wanted to do cheer. She works hard on her stances, and she is trying to learn her kata so that she can move on to blue belt. And she has a lot of fun surprising her friends and classmates when they find out she knows some karate. In many respects, my daughter is a total opposite from me, which means that she is a real girly-girl about some things. She is a gamer girly-girl, but still very girly and likes the color pink and likes her shirts to be glittery and colorful, all things that  I avoid like the plague. People don't look at her and think that here's a kid that knows some karate, but she does. And I am happy that she likes karate so well. I feel a tiny bit safer about her well being when  I remember that she is not so helpless. Of course, I don't ever want that tested, but I do have a small (tiny) piece-of-mind when  I remember that she knows how to defend herself.
    And I feel that this knowledge is something that is really important for all kids, not just girls, but boys as well. There are so many people out there, evil-minded people, who don't seem to think twice about hurting a child. I feel that we really have to give them the tools that they need to defend themselves, whether those tools are karate, or boxing, or whatever. Maybe you think that is overboard, but I've seen enough to know that it's not. Hell, all you have to do is turn on the news and pay attention. So my daughter is going to be given every tool that I can give her to survive in this world, and one of those tools is knowing how to get the hell away from an assailant. 

Marie's Advice On Recharging The Old Bio-Battery

   We all get tired and we all have way too much stress in our lives. I don't care what you do, there are things that stress us out and make us tired and we get depressed and bogged down with this roller-costar called life and there are times when you need to learn to take a friggin' break and recharge. In other words, for the purpose of this blog, YOU are the bio-battery. You are the one that holds your life together, the decision-maker, the big boss of your world, and you need a break, okay? Yes, you do, if you are saying no, you are in denial. So I'm going to tell you how to do it, and I recommend doing it once a month, maybe every two months if you are just super busy. I recommend that you get your family in on it, so that they look forward to these days, and learn to participate instead of distracting from your valuable recharge time. Even if you have small kids, I recommend that you try. You days won't go as planned at first, because small kids always come with unanticipated surprises, but eventually, you will get them there. So get started.

Step 1: For a recharge day, you have got to prepare properly. If you work, you are gonna need two consecutive days off, or for a really luxurious day, three. The reason for this is that if you work, you need to do all the non-work work, and usually you need a day off to do that. Stay-at-homers, you need to plan on getting everything done the day before as well, so you are going to have one ultra-busy day. You need to get all the house work done the day before. You need to make all your important calls, pay all your bills, and take care of anything that is weighing on your mind the day before. Do not put it off until the day after, because you know that you will worry about it and that will spoil you recharge. 

Step 2:   You need to carefully plan food for your recharge day. Unless you just really love being in the kitchen, and baking and cooking relaxes you, you need to have easy to prepare snacks and meals. You do not want to follow a strict diet on this day, because being hungry is gonna make you mad, but you don't want to totally pig out, because worrying about eating a whole cake from the bakery is gonna make you feel guilty and make you stress about your weight.

   Personally, I like to have a frozen dinner. Trader Joe's has a wonderful frozen spanakopita, which is a Greek spinach pie. If you are interesting in trying spanakopita and don't have a Trader Joe's near you, Target has a decent option. I like Trader Joe's better, but I do pick them up from Target as well, because I tend to go there more often so it's convenient. Popcorn is a good snack that isn't too unhealthy; popcorn has lots of fiber so it fills you up. My daughter likes hummus, and I like cheese and olives. I also recommend keeping a little chocolate on hand. You don't have to binge on chocolate, but a craving for chocolate can disturb your day, so have a little on hand, just in case. 

Step 3: Do not set your alarm. If your kids are old enough to fend for themselves, then make sure that they understand that either cereal or poptarts or some similar do-it-yourself options are for breakfast, and that they are to get them on their own. If you have little ones, sleeping in is probably a few years away, but let them wake up naturally and try your best to sleep in. No alarms. If you are dealing with some older kids or adults, unless someone is not breathing, bleeding, or in crisis in some way, no one is to wake you up. They need to understand that the consequences will be severe, and that your attitude will be stuck in angry-bear-mode for the rest of the month. 

Step 4: Plan some activities. DO NOT make a frickin itinerary and stick to the thing like glue; that's stressful and no fun. What I mean is to have some movies that the whole family likes to watch, have some video games ready, if your family is into board games, have that ready. DO NOT plan on getting dressed, this is a lazy pajama day. A day at the park is excellent, but something to be done on a different day. Plan stay-at-home, don't get dressed activities, like art projects for the kiddos, movies, book reading, and things along those lines. If you have a good friend that you wanna call and have a good gossip-gab with, a conversation that is completely frivolous, that's fine. Don't talk on the phone with anyone who is going to stress you out, don't answer the phone if work calls, don't pick up for bill collectors, ect. Personally, I am capable of gleefully ignoring all these people, but if you cannot, unplug your house phone and stick the thing in your sock drawer along with all your cell phones. If you like to cook, then cook, but don't do the damn dishes; they will be there tomorrow. If needed, imagine me standing over you and nagging in the most authoritative voice you have ever heard in your life, "Put down the soap and the dish cloth." If dirty dishes bother you, use throw away utensils and plates. You aren't cleaning today.

Step 5: Is optional. If you have a third day, stay up late and sleep in the next morning as well. Nothing feels better than not watching the clock. Staying up late can be as fun as sleeping in, but if you have to work the next day, waking up tired defeats the purpose of a bio-battery recharge, so get enough sleep. FYI: young kids count as work, so you'll need to get to sleep on time. You want this day to help you feel more rested, not make you feel worn out.

   I do this often. Not every day-off, that is not feasible, and would get boring. But I do try to do this once a month, and my daughter loves it! This is my time to teach her how to relieve her stress. We all work on teaching our kids good work ethics, good manners, good social skills, ect., and these are good goals and very important, but we also need to teach them how to effectively relieve stress and take a break, and this is one of my tools. Of course there are park days, and visiting friend days, and hiking days, but this is the recharge day, and has as much value in stress relief as any of the previously mentioned activities. We all need some good couch time in our lives. Plus, if you do have kids or a spouse or whatever, this is a fun and cheap way to have some quality family time. Try it! 

Happy Birthday To A Special, Unique Little Girl

   My niece is turning eight years old soon. She's getting so big! I first met her when she was just a baby (duh), and now she is this big girl. And like all people in my family, she is eccentric. Oh, her quirks started showing early. And her imagination is huge! I remember that at one time, she was terrified to go outside at night, and she urgently hushed anyone who went outside while it was dark and started to speak. After a little digging, we found that she had made up a story for herself, and this story had grown into a real fear. She told us that the owls liked to capture people when they went outside at night, and they found you by the noise that you made. And then they would fly you off to their pink castle, and never let you come home again. She was terrified of getting taken to the pink castle! Of course, this is a family joke now, and she no longer fears the pink castle, but what an imagination! My sister and I laughed so hard at this fear (of course, not while she was telling us, that would have been mean.)

   To this day, my niece's quirkiness still amuses. Her favorite TV character is Gollum, and she is terrified of Honey-Boo-Boo. She loves the movie Ghostbusters, and she thought that Life of Pi was hilarious. No one really knows what is going on in that head of hers, but we all know that she marches to her own drum. She gets it honest, is all I can say.

   My niece has this big laugh, a deep, from-the-belly guffaw that makes everyone else around her laugh. She gets this laugh from my Grandpa, but my Grandpa's laugh sounds so funny coming from this little girl. She's an aggressive hugger with a megawatt smile. She doesn't understand the meaning of stranger-danger. Literally, she doesn't get that concept. Sometimes in the area that I live, you will sometimes get men who come up to stopped car's windows and ask for money. Now,  I feel really bad for the homeless, but this is dangerous. There are such things as car-jackers. So the windows go up and the doors get locked, unless my niece is in the car. And then she is trying to open up her window and talk to them, no matter how shady they look, while her mother and I frantically tell her to knock it off. Which breaks her heart. And she sobs, "I just wanted to talk to him!" A very friendly child, which gives us heart attacks.

   She also has a unique way of looking at things. My mother and I took a summer vacation to Mount Rainier, and my sister couldn't go, but my mom decided to take my niece with us. During that time, the girls (my daughter and niece) took a Junior Ranger class, and they were studying owls (this is waaay after the owl/castle incident, so this was not the trigger) by looking at pictures, which my niece didn't like because of the owls' big eyes, and looking through owl pellets. Which are really gross, and full of the undigested bones of their prey. When the girls were done, and the Ranger who was in charge of the class asked the girls to share something that they learned my niece disgustedly replied, "Eyes and bones." Her voice was so disgusted and so mournful that she got laughter from everyone who heard her reply. 

    My niece is truly a one-of-a-kind girl, and from Auntie to her one-of-a-kind niece, Happy 8th Birthday!

Cars Are Freaking Expensive And I Would Rather Buy Books

   Today's topic is going to be cars. More specifically, why I still don't have one. I was nineteen the last time I actually owned a car, and I was twenty-three the last time I actually drove. That was a while ago, as I am thirty-one now. I know that I once posted this funny little blog about a squirrel  but there are other reasons -- reasons that are actually more pressing the poor Mr. Squirrel. And those reasons are money.
   Yup. That little rectangle of green paper that makes life go round here in the United States. You all know; you are all right here with me, struggling to pay bills and buy food and all that good stuff that takes cold, hard cash. (Or debit cards and checks. Same difference.)
   Let me outline something for you. First, I have always hated driving. At no time in my life have I ever thought driving was in any way fun or entertaining. Speed scares the shit out of me. Second, I don't mind walking -- most of the time. Now let me add some things up for you. Let's talk car payments. The most expensive one that I have heard of is $500, my mom's was around $400 I believe, and my sister's -- the cheapest -- was around $200, but when she went in and bought her car, she practically bought the thing up front. She only owed a couple thousand more, I believe. So say I had the cheapest car payment. That is still $200!! That is over double my light bill. That is more than my cable bill. That is not more than my grocery bills (damn healthy foods), but it's close.
   Still, say I saved (and saved and saved and saved) and bought the car all up front. Does that mean that there are no expenses? No. Washington has an insurance requirement, I believe. So there is insurance. What is that? 100? 80? I don't know. Not free = too much. Then there is gas. Back when I owned a car, gas was $1.38 a gallon, usually. I remember that, because I was extremely poor, and had to budget very carefully just to afford gas, and I used to spend five dollars a week on gas. A gas tank would laugh at me now if I tried that shit. Then you have your maintenance: oil changes, tires, and all that good stuff. Might not be a monthly bill, but I believe that you are supposed to change oil every three months? I could be wrong. But what I do know is that I can't do it: so not free. Not free = too much.
   Now let me explain something else to you: I have always been poor. At one time, I only made $6,000 for an entire year. Since I am not living in a poor country, things are costly. So I had to budget, and I couldn't buy things like books and games. I couldn't even rent my own place; I lived with my mom. And before I lived with my mom, I lived in a one room shack on a piece of land that was used as a garbage dump with 6 other people, and before that I rented an apartment with two other people, and before that, I rented a room in a house. I did not rent the house, I rented a room, and the common areas were shared by three others who also rented a room, and the landlord, who owned the house. So this is the very first time that I have been able to afford to live on my own, in my own apartment. And this is the very first year where I might actually break the poverty line. I might not be under the poverty line this year -- which makes me happy. But because I cut my expenses and don't go in for things that I don't really have to have -- like a car -- I can live above my economic status. I can buy books and games and afford vacations

My sister's car when we went on a winter vacation in the mountains.

sometimes if I plan very carefully. (This need for caution is why I do not enter bookstores unless I do have money. No browsing for me. I know myself too well for that foolishness.)
    I am good at walking, and my mom and sister help me out from time to time. I used to be good at taking the bus, and I could again, but I need to restock my pepper spray. The last time I was on the bus there were four scruffy men in the back of the bus, and the conversation they were having entailed a couple of men explaining to the others that killing a man was actually better than assault, because apparently if you can reduce your sentence to man slaughter, you actually spend less time in jail. Who knew??? And my brain was thinking, "Ummmm, I want off now. I'm good; I can walk." Also, they have made a mess of the bus routes since they redid them all. But give me a good can of pepper spray, and some time to learn the new routes, and I can do the bus again, although that really isn't necessary now that I don't have to commute to a college campus. (The internet is a wonderful thing.)
   But I am not putting the money out on a car right now. Some things are worth more to some people, and I am going to tell you, in the issue of car versus books, books win. I want my money to go into making my house look like you've just walked into a bookstore. Ahhhhhh, dream big, Marie.