Living Like No One Else!

So, as I said this would be my next post. Don't worry, I have tons and tons of pics on my camera and I will get them uploaded and post some pics of my girlies next, I promise. I guess lately it's been too easy to get lost in my role as "Mom" and it just feels good to have an outlet where I can talk about the other things going on in my life besides my kiddos (about 2% of my life right now, but still). I just want to share something with you all because it is (hopefully) changing the way Tim and I live and grow financially, and it is already making a difference. I teared up last night looking at our "budget", and they weren't sad tears, what is going on? Well, let me tell you.

Alright, I will admit when my sis-in-law was gushing to me about the financial class they were taking and how excited they were I was like "Well, that sounds really cool and I hope it goes well." But in my mind I'm thinking "Yeah, we've read some books and gotten excited too, but how different can it be. We'll just see how long this lasts for you". What she was talking about is Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. Well, that was maybe a year and a half ago, and since then I kept hearing about this Dave Ramsey guy, and in the mean time we bought a house and seemed to loose complete track of our finances. So, when this same sis-in-law told me back at Thanksgiving that it was going well and if they stayed on track they would be out of debt by this summer, I said "Wow, really?" I knew that they, like us, had a good amount of debt to plow through because we are young and stupid. So finally in April I had her send us the CDs to listen to and decided to reign in our budget once more.

The Nerd

One of the first things Dave (yup, I feel comfortable calling him Dave after listening to him for 15 hours) talks about is the "nerd" and the "free spirit" in every relationship/marriage. In a nutshell, the nerd is typically the one to make the budget, and the free spirit is the one to break it = financial fights, which we all know SUCK. So, he talks about this, and makes you laugh out loud (I don't do this much to CD talkers...but he is FUNNY, worth the listen just because he is such a good speaker). I knew immediately that I was the NERD, because my laptop was full of about 5 budgets that I meticulously made, and then there is even one that shows how badly we blew the budget that month. I am still the Nerd, so I listened carefully, took the workbook my sis-in-law lent us (she is the free-spirit by the way and SHE recommends this program) and inputted the worksheets into Excel, and did all the other nerdy financial stuff I do, and then we started to work the program aka:
LIVING LIKE NO ONE ELSE
Dave's motto (at least one of them) is "If you live like no one else, later you can LIVE like no one else". This means a lot of things but I will write out the Baby Steps for you:
1) $1000 in an emergency fund
2) Pay off all debt except the house utilizing the debt snowball
3) 3-6 months expenses in savings
4) Invest 15% of your household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement plans
5) College funding
6) Pay off your home early
7) Build wealth and give!
And he spends 15 hours teaching you about ALL of this so obviously I'm not going into all of it, but I have decided to be very open with people about what we are doing so you know a) why we are living like we are broke and b) to share something I think is great because I am now very grateful that someone shared it with me.

Broke, not Poor

If you were to call Tim and I tomorrow and ask if we could go out to dinner we would likely say "We can't afford it" and while that is true, it is because we are broke, not poor. I thought this part of the CDs was great, because he says something along the lines of: Poor is a way of life, but Broke is something you pass through, you are there and recognize you don't want to be there forever. So yes, we are broke, but in the long run, it's a good thing. The nice thing about the "Budget" (actually its a Monthly Cash Flow Plan) is that it is COMPLETELY up to the people using it. There are areas for every luxury and IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY, you can spend it as you choose, simple as that. One of the keys is that several areas work on cash envelopes. That's right, I'm back to my childhood of paying cash instead of with the card, and if you listen to the program you'll understand why this works. I can tell you it works well, because it feels different going to the milk store with my milk envelope and paying, seeing what's left and knowing "that's it, that's all we have for the month for milk". The great thing is, so far we've done well with this, yes it takes some months of adjustment to figure out what you actually need each month when you've been doing it different for so long, but we are finding that we can live comfortably with this, it's not a huge sacrifice. We may be able to go out to dinner with you next month, because we have an envelope for that, there's just not a lot of money in it this month :-)

Gazelle Intensity

I will also be very forward and say that Dave is a Christian and his program incorporates this. There are MANY reasons I find this a great thing. First of all, I am a Christian person, and hearing him talk about scripture within this program reminds me that my Father wants me to succeed in life, but for the right reasons, and that the only way I will truly succeed is through Him. Here's a thought for those who may not care about the bible passages: Dave Ramsey is teaching this program much like I feel about teaching HypnoBirthing: Yes it is an income, and that helps me and my family, but I teach because I genuinely feel that people deserve to have this information to have a better birth (in my case, financial life in Dave's). I truly believe that because of his faith, Dave has the best of intentions for the people he teaches. He also doesn't sell financial or investment products, just information about these things, so he doesn't make anything more from you following his system...or not... He wants you to win, and for good reasons.

So WTH is the "Gazelle" about, well, Dave explains a biblical passage about debt, specifically getting out of it, and it's hilarious so you should listen to understand it completely. This is where Tim and I are though, Baby Step 2. (It's amazing how good Baby Step 1 felt BTW just to set that money aside and KNOW that we won't touch it except for an EMERGENCY...and no, a landscape project we want to do doesn't count). This is going to be a BIG baby step for us because tackling our debt was always one of those things we were meaning to do, and although we don't have a ton of credit card debt, or a huge car payment, we've just never gotten around to it, and then we have (and with my degrees and no income, I am the big contributor) and LARGE amount of student loan debt...then we went and had these kids (what were we thinking, lol) and here we are, under the weight of debt. So, with Gazelle intensity we are focusing on this step, snowballing our debt, and doing what we have to do, why? Because, you know what we can do when we don't have any debt? ANYTHING WE WANT!

This means we are putting EVERY extra penny towards the debt. I hear people say "You can't do that if you don't have any extra a month, and we've done the budget, we don't have extra" Well, believe me, when I sat down and made our monthly budget, we don't have magical extra, in fact I had to parcel out his "5 instead of 4" paycheck months and our income tax return money into 12 months worth of money and count it as income just to break even in each month. So, how do you do it? You LIVE LIKE NO ONE ELSE. For us this means I am baking cakes like a maniac this summer and continuing my HypnoBirthing classes (this will be extra money as soon as I pay for that cruise I booked before we started the program....yes it will be a very worthwhile experience, next time though I will plan for it differently.) Also, SELL SO MUCH STUFF THE KIDS THINK THEY ARE NEXT. Now, I know this is hard, I like my stuff too, but a lot of it we don't NEED, and when we are out of debt and can save up again, we can just buy more stuff, and you know what, it could even be nicer than the stuff we have now. So, we are selling bikes, snowboards, video game systems, baby stuff (soon), and whatever else. At first, we only came up with a couple things, but after you get over the idea of selling (for quite a bit less than you bought sometimes) something, it gets easier to look at other stuff that way. If you put that money towards a debt, and get just one paid off, that means now you have a little extra from that monthly payment, and that can go toward another debt along with every extra penny, and so on and so forth.

The Tortoise and the Hare

Dave talks about the story of the tortoise and the hare a few times, meaning "get rich quick doesn't work", but it's the tortoise that ALWAYS WINS. I will have to remember this as time goes on, because it is a slow process. I listened to the CDs and they gave me hope (and I never thought someone could make me feel so good about being broke), then we started the system and it is going fairly well and I have faith it will only get easier, and last night while looking at my spreadsheets I had this feeling well up in me. Before, when I would look at the budget sheets and compare to what was actually happening, I would feel butterflies in my stomach because inevitably we were spending too much. For the FIRST TIME last night I looked at our sheets and what we are doing and I felt warmth in my heart because IT IS WORKING, since just the middle of last month we have found over $400 to put towards debt, and this means we are close to paying off two small debts. Now, in the long run this is still at tortoise speed, but it is a big tortoise step in the right direction and I have hope, because if we are working this part of the system, we can work the rest, and someday we will LIVE LIKE NO ONE ELSE!

Touching on Deep Feelings

So, this is going to stray from my typical "life in a nutshell" kind of post, and I am going to express some of my feelings. A little scary, yes, but they live inside me and are part of who I am as a woman and a Mom. These last couple days have been rough, and I am only glimpsing the sign that indicates there will be a light at the end of the tunnel, so I think I need a good emotional moment.

I explained in a few sentences previous entire post about my friend Natalie. Well, she has been blogging about some touchy subjects the last few days (which is why I haven't linked her blog right now, I feel like I need to respect her privacy this week). She briefly mentioned her Mom recently and it brought tears to my eyes because, again, those feelings are ones I understand all too well. This time, she mentioned the idea of kids, and although she did not directly say this, it reminded me of the all too present hole I often feel now in my heart. Okay, there's the intro, so here we go.

I remember right after my Mom died I was wallowing in self pity working through some of the many things I felt cheated from. One of these was, of course, my wedding. I thought of this recently when watching a show called "Say yes to the dress" and I remembered trying on my wedding dress. My Mom was there when I tried it on and she bought me this wedding dress. I have, and treasure, these memories along this picture my best friend took that day:



You can see my Mom in the mirror sitting on the sofa with one of her big, real smiles. This makes me cry because I know she was so happy for me, and so excited to see me get married. I know that she was there, watching from heaven, but I still missed her so much, and was so sad that I did not get to see her there, and see this same smile on her face that day.

The other major thing I remember being sad for was that she would not be there when I had kids. I think as girls that we connect becoming a Mom with the relationship we have with our own moms. I know this is a very natural occurence, and now as a childbirth educator I even understand this association on a deeper level. I knew that this was something I would miss out on, but I did not understand the full spectrum of these feelings until I was pregnant. These are some very sad feelings for me, but what has surprised me more are the moments of happiness and peace I feel as well. You see, I anticipated completely the sadness that came when I realized that I didn't get to see my Mom's face when I announced I was going to have her grandchild. I also anticipated the sadness of not getting to see her hold my newborn baby, or getting to see her spoil her grandbaby. These were all true, and still are sadness that I occasionally feel. Here are the sad things I did not anticipate that I would feel:

- I did not have my Mom there to ask questions about how she felt when she was pregnant. I never got to hear what it was like for her or talk about how it was the same or different for me.

- I never got to talk to my Mom about my own birth. The things I knew were that my Mom had wanted to deliver my sister naturally, but in 1960 this was rare to say the least, and she was knocked out for the delivery. I knew she was not happy about this fact (well, pissed would probably be a better term really, but if you knew my Mom you'd know I'd never mention her and "pissed" in the same sentence). Finally, I know that she had me naturally, but that's about it. I asked my Dad about it, but my Mom was a fairly private person, especially about matters with her body, and all he could tell me was he remembered she was just quiet and resting. So, approaching my birth and the things I was learning, I naturally had LOTS more questions come up. I wanted to know why it had become important to her to have a natural birth and where she had gotten these beliefs. I wanted to know what she expected, and what her experience was like. I don't have the answers to these questions, and I never will.

- I wanted to share with her the things about birth I learned from HypnoBirthing. I had this strong sense that she would very much agree with some of the things I was learning, but would probably also have a cautious opinion of some things as well, and maybe a little iffy about the whole "hypnosis" thing also. I don't know what her real opinion would have been, and I also don't know how this may have changed my experience.

- I wanted to share with her the triumph of my having the birth I wanted. I wanted to tell her "Thank you for being part of my inspiration"

- I wanted to share my journey into womanhood with her. The last time I felt like I truly "knew" my Mom was based on a relationship with her as a teenager. She was suffering the effects of her brain disease when I went to college, and after the first semester I really felt like I had lost the Mom I had always known. I was a typical teenager that pushed the boundaries and argued with her Mom. I did not understand her as a woman, and I never got to make that transistion. I have always been sad about this, and these feeling became more strong with becomming a Mom. I would never get to commiserate about, or appologize for, the trials of being a parent.

- Finally, selfishly, I couldn't ask my Mom for help as a new parent. I couldn't ask her to come make me my favorite dinner, or to hold my baby so I could take a nap. I couldn't ask her about what breastfeeding was like for her, and if she thought I was normal. I couldn't ask her what diaper rash looked like, or how to clip my baby's nails. I couldn't even just ask her for a hug when I was feeling overwhelmed. Yes, I had lots of other support, but it's just not the same as Mom, and I knew it.

Okay, now that I've shed a few healthy tears about some of the sad things, let me share the unexpected things that also came up for me about my Mother as I became a Mother.

- From the moment I knew I was pregnant, I started to have this feeling. It is still impossible for me to fully describe, or to not sound a little weird, but here it goes. I have always had this idea that God knows all the little babies long before they are born. It is like they all exist like little stars in His eye and he pulls one of those stars, made especially for each Mommy and Daddy, out of the sky and gives them this wonderful gift of life to meet and begin to understand the deep love that exists between Him and His children. Well, I started to have this feeling that my Mom was up there with God and at the moment we were given our baby that she was part of the choosing of this star just for us. Like she had poured some of the love she had as my Mom into the creation of this child for me.

- This carried into our birth in a couple of ways:
~ Tim and I had decided to be surprised about finding out whether we were having a boy or a girl. When Laura was born, I got the strongest sensation that Mom had wanted me to have a little girl because she wanted me to know some of the love she felt towards me as a daughter. I also felt like I had the opportunity to develop a mother-daughter relationship not exactly to replace the one I had been "cheated" out of by my Mother's death, but in some way to help me heal this feeling and to help fill in the edges of that hole.
~ During my pregnancy, a friend and I had been discussing different traits of our husbands and ourselves that we'd like to see, or not see, in our kids. I remember saying, "I guess I don't really care what different traits this baby has...well, I guess that if this is a girl then I hope she gets Tim's eyelashes because they are beautiful and long and dark, and mine are light, short, and straight". Well, wouldn't you know it that out comes this little baby girl with the longest and darkest eyelashes I have ever seen on a baby and especially a girl. No kidding, everywhere we'd go people would look at her and say "Look at those EYELASHES". I think it was a little joke from God and my Mom...haha, I guess it is what I asked for.

- I get to see my Mom again, not physically, but through my daughter. Sometimes she has these looks and these faces, and she reminds me so much of Mom. I know this is because she favors me in how she looks and I favor my Mom. I am sure that if I had a mirror or camera on myself everyday I would see this in myself as well, but it has made me smile a few times now that my daughter reminds me of my Mom.
**Side note- This isn't to say that Charlotte isn't just as amazing to me and a reminder of the love of daughters, as I will point out in just a few more sentences, but if you've seen Charlotte, you know she looks just like her Dad. I love this also, but that is a topic for one of my typical "all about my kid" posts.

- God has a way of knowing just exactly what we need. I feel like I have two girls because I am meant to have two girls, but again I also feel like this gives me a glimpse into what it was like for my Mom, like it is a way of getting to know her in another way. Granted, my Mom's experience was VERY different considering her daughter's weren't 20 months apart, but more than 20 YEARS apart. But still, I have two girls, and like her get to see how they will grow into women. I also believe that God gave me my sister for a very important reason. He knew what life was destined to be like, and my sister was just the kind of sister I needed. She has been the woman and mother figure for me to ask questions of and get support from. It isn't the same as Mom, but it is amazing and wonderful none-the-less. I am so excited that my girls get to be sisters because I know how wonderful it is to have a sister.

- I sometimes feel like my memory of her has faded so much, and then something pops up and brings it right back. For instance just a couple weeks ago, opening a drawer and finding her sweaters at my Dad's house. Not in her dresser drawer, so how did I know they were hers? Because of the smell, it was Mom. I sat there on the floor with the drawer opened and buried my face in one of these sweaters and let a couple of tears fall. Then, I also find that her memory is safe and sound in my subconcious because I dream of her. She looks like I remember her at her healthiest and I hear her voice, and it is all just right. Well, in the most recent dream (I was pregnant with Charlotte at the time, I laugh now and say I should have known it was a girl because of this dream) my Mom was there with my two kids, two girls. We were arguing about something lightly (pretty appropriate kind of interaction for us) when Laura came up to her and said something and my Mom scooped her up into her arms in such a natural and warm expression of her love toward my daughter. I woke up with a smile on my face because I felt like I'd been able to glimpse an experience I'd wished I'd had and missed, and it was perfect. Again, it was like a little message to show me what my Mom really felt as my girls' Grandma and this was just a little something to fill in the edges of one of the holes in my heart.

Ahhh, that feels good. A good feeling fest for me and a putting in words of the things I have been feeling for years and never wrote down. I know my Mom has been with me ever since she died, but I have been pleasantly surprised that this presence has been stronger in a good way since I became a Mom. This is just another gift my children have given me.

*Just as I was finishing this post Laura was sitting right next to me. Laura and I often go through pictures and I ask "Who is this?" and she either answers or I fill it in when she doesn't know. I do not have many pictures of my Mom around, I just do not physically have many, so I haven't ever told her "That is your Grandma". Well, I just showed her the picture from above and pointed to me and asked "Who is this?" and she said "Mama", then I pointed to Michelle and asked and she said, "Ashell" (which is how she says Michelle), then I pointed to my Mom and asked, fully expecting to fill it in with "That is your Grandma in heaven", but instead Laura answered "This Gramma". Do you ever get goosebumps? Cause I did. I first wondered, does she think it's Tim's Mom, but no, she knows Julie as "Grammy" not "Gramma". I don't know how she knew exactly who that was, but it made me cry, and this is what I mean by thinking my Mom already knew her, long before she was born.

Pre-amble to Touching on Deep Feelings

So, this turned into a story about how I became friends with someone named Natalie. This was supposed to be a short introduction to a post, but turned into one of it's own. I will do another post on my feelings, but I think I will leave this as a explaination of the friendship that we developed, and the a dedication to the journey we have taken together. I think our paths crossed for a reason, and I am so grateful that they did.

I have this friend, and she is an amazing woman, but a different kind of friend for me. Most of my friends and I spent significant amounts of time together in the "hanging out" stage, and we grew into close friendships through time spent together. Well, my friend and I went through quite the stage together in college called "the hell of being an RA" (this could be a post in itself). She suffered along with me just one floor above me, and through this closeness in location and sharing this part of our lives we got to know each other. This closeness lasted only one school year and through this she was 1) an architecture major like my future husband which takes LOTS of work time away from your home base 2) Engaged to a (at that time never met) military man... and September 11th had happened just the year before and this combination REALLY threw a wrench into their wedding plans, so she had the planning of an ever changing wedding on her hands and 3) We both had the obligations of our position to attend to, plus I was often hanging out with my relatively new boyfriend at the time, Tim. So, we did not have the kind of time together that I had with my other friends to get to know each other, yet, somehow we became fast friends. She was, and still is an almost always positive kind of person who laughs easily and lives openly.

Well, one night (which turned into a few) we got to talking, and our Moms journeys came up. My Mom was suffering the degenerative brain disease from her cancer and radiation, and her mom was working through her journer with breast cancer. I was immediately touched by how SOMEONE FINALLY understood how I felt about this whole thing, and how we could laugh and cry together. Our friendship was officially cemented. I got to meet her Mom and see where my friend's internal light seemed to come from, and Tim and I got to go to her wedding that summer and I got to see the culmination of so much stress and work on the part of this friend. She was beautiful, SO happy, and SO very much in love. I also finally ment this so-called "fiance" of hers, although I think he met and saw so many people that day that he would never have know I was there. Lol, I have since gotten to know this so-called "fiance", now husband of hers and I can see that he was well worth the effort of the wedding. Anyways, the point is that after these short few and busy months of becoming friend, she went and got married and decided to move to California. I was bummed to "loose" someone I had felt such a connection to, and someone who taught me "Everyone needs a little red in their closet" which I think is quite practical on the clothing level and also quite philisophical if you think about it.

Okay, now fast forward a year.

The summer of 2004 I was engaged and planning our wedding. We had everything planned and most everything picked. Then, in August, my Mom lost her battle with her brain disease and passed away. I was about to embark on the most difficult journey of my life, and it was only 4 months until our wedding. My family changed, my life changed, my whole world changed, and I subsequently changed. I questioned everything in my life, somehow came out the other side and 4 months later we were married. Unfortunately my friend was unable to come, but they sent their love (and a great gift!)

Now, fast forward a few months.

I got an e-mail saying that my friend's Mom had lost her battle with breast cancer and had passed away. Everything came rushing back to me, our nights up talking and crying about our Moms, her Mom's smiling face, the feelings of loss for my own Mother, and I was so sad for her. I can only say that this is one of those experiences I DID NOT wish to share with her (or anyone). I got to see my friend again, sadly it had to be at her Mom's memorial service. It was a beautiful rememberance of a beautiful woman.

Now, fast forward a few years.

I am a few months pregnant with my first and my friend has a picnic while she is in the state. Well, Tim and I were in the northern country anyway (not that she wouldn't be worth the treck all on her own) and went to the picnic. It was like we fell back together like no time had passed, we got to hang out with her family and her husband and eat fried chicken (yes, the pregnant part of me remembers) and have a great time. I left thinking how much I had missed this friend, and although I wished her all the best, I wished she lived closer. Miss smarty pants, however, had decided that she would move from California to New York for some graduate program thingy at this little placed called Cornell, so whatever.

Now, fast forward a couple years (wow, we're getting old!)

I get another message that miss smarty pants and her hubby are going to move BACK TO COLORADO!! (happy dance happy dance) For some reason they decide that Denver is going to be their new home (okay, I admit, there are many more job possibilities for an architect in the big city, snicker snicker, and they did find a cute house, and they are right between us and our in laws, so it works) Oh yeah, and they are located just a few minutes from Water World, so after a trip there the summer after Laura was born we went and spent the rest of the afternoon with my friend at their new place. I was so excited we would be able to at least see each other more than once every couple of years.

Now: And it is true, we have been able to see each other a few times, and I know I will continue to make the effort cause she's awesome. What's even better, my friend started a blog, so now I can bloggy stalk her and find out more about what is going on in her life. Yay for the internet age!

Now, if you want to know where this post is going, continue on to Touching on Deep Feelings