The other F-words.....

Flooding

Here's hoping you never experience it. Since flooding is one of those life events that if you experience even once...changes your perspective on quite a number of things.

Firstly, we have too much shit. No seriously, if you have ever been through a flood and you need to rapidly remove all of your belongings that are floating in a 1000 square feet of space, you will realize in a real hurry that you have belongings that make no sense at all. Moving gives you the same feeling but not necessarily with the same intensity if you have time to pack gradually. Both events end in tossing things into the dumpster just to prevent any more heavy lifting when you no longer have the energy to deal.

Why do we keep so much organized paper garbage in bookcases? I still have binders of  notes from culinary school from 10 years ago, and not one, but two filing cabinets. One drawer in the filing cabinet is just dedicated to warranties for household appliances. This makes me very lame.

We have an entire furnace room filled with children's toys in labelled rubber maid bins. Toys that the kids have barely sneezed on in the last 5 years but somehow whenever I threaten to garage sale them, I get a protest that rivals most Occupy Wall Street movements.

Bunk beds are the worst piece of furniture known to man to have to take apart and move quickly, unless you are in a barracks and have an entire military unit to disassemble them. Hate them and subsequently sold them after the second flood, especially since my husband is too short to help me remove the top bunk from the bottom one and I'm too big to get into the top bunk to change the sheets.

I remember a time when the only belongings I had were in a backpack and I could disappear on a dime. Somewhere in between our lives now and my life then is some form of reasonable.

Freakouts

Secondly, don't expect your kids to behave and think the way, say an adult or someone of sound mind might behave in a state of emergency. Kids live in a land of wonder and find beauty in the most tragic of circumstances. We always appreciate this about our children in hindsight and wish we could be more child-like overall but in the midst of a household disaster you might just lose your damn mind as a parent.

I'll give you an example of what this looks like in my world in case you don't have children yet. Upon coming home to discover our home was flooded the first time around, it was just me and the kids. Disaster, as a rule, strikes when my husband is away. It's like a cat and mouse game with me and my higher power. (I envision someone above thinking, "Hey, she's looking a little bored down there, too much going through the motions, too much putting her feet up with a glass of wine and some Corrie on the tele. Let's throw some crazy ass shit at her to deal with so she can feel empowered.").

Once I got past the sucker punch of realization, I quickly instructed the kids to grab whatever the hell they could carry and get it to higher ground upstairs or in the garage as fast as they possibly could. My two youngest are the muscle in the family, both gemini's, they are like power rangers in the face of danger. They went to work grabbing and flinging as instructed.

Like a maniac, I began the hauling and heaving of all of the heavy items upstairs, things that the kids couldn't carry like chairs, dressers, night stands, mattresses and beds. As a woman on a mission, I neglected to see my oldest daughter, my fairy child, until the 20th or so trip up the stairs. She was twirling in a circle, no bigger than a foot, a tiny section of carpet that was completely dry, arms outstretched with a happy look of contentment upon her beautiful face.

"What the HELL are you doing?!", shouted my completely freaked out, psycho mother self to my daughter.

"I'm in the circle of peace", responded my daughter with a wide eyed innocence having been abruptly disturbed from her happy imaginary cloud land inside her head.

"There no circle of peace here!!! Only a circle of Hell!! Now, get back to work!!", was my Mother of the Year response.

Frustration

Insurance after natural disasters such as flooding is a complicated, difficult and often a frustrating issue. One important point to remember is that the insurance company will try to settle a claim for as little money as possible, and their adjusters work towards that goal.

Some adjusters and companies that offer assistance for flood relief have sold their soul to the devil.  These people make money off of other people's disasters for a living and sympathy is hard to find. They also have personalities that dirt would envy. Our first flood resulted in a $1200 bill for three basement dryers for a period of three days. The second time we begged and borrowed equipment from friends. It cost us a few bottles of wine and some gift cards.

There is no flooding insurance in Canada. The only monies you can claim is under Property Coverage: extension of coverage to water damage (ground water). Our amount of coverage in our policy is $10,000. I really hope yours is much, much more. If we wanted our insurance to cover our damaged belongings, tear out of flooded property, equipment to dry out our home, repairs and furniture storage, we would need about $25,000. Frankly, our furniture in the basement is shit, so if you have nice furniture, make it $30,000.

If you don't have $30K of coverage in your policy, then this means your regular family life will be exchanged for a self imposed chain gang lifestyle for several months, on average 2-3, until you manage to get the work done yourself. Now, $10K will cover that and if your are lucky, you can swing for a couple of bottles of booze to numb the pain.

Fuckups

When it came time to sort out the flooding source, the cause of our pain and financial fisting, we couldn't have made worse decisions. This should be your first priority. Having a contractor friend sort out installing a new sump pump and having your husband otherwise known as Anti-handy Andy pick out an appropriate new sump pump is a REALLY stupid way of ensuring that your home has a pretty good chance of flooding, not once but twice. Using anyone other than a qualified plumber to do these things is like choosing a lobotomist to do your rectal exam.

There were other factors the second time around too, but in our haste to get our lives back to normal, we should have spent more time focused on flood prevention instead of looking at cheap carpet samples. We now have a much deeper hole that's been dug by our super plumber and have two sump pumps installed, including one that is attached to a marine battery and will give us 1-2 hours of pumping in case the power goes out. Time enough to beg a generator off of a friend until we get one of our own.

Digging outside our foundation to install a pipe to allow water to drain towards the back of the property is on our list of fun times ahead for the spring with the idea that if we keep water from coming in, it will also keep water from coming up. Rocket science....

Why didn't we do this the first time around? I'll blame it on the fact that we spent time learning calculus and things about the industrial revolution in high school instead of learning how to build a deck or fix a leaking toilet that's cracked or how important creosote removal is in fire prevention or how to properly care for your furnace so that you don't kill your entire family with carbon monoxide. Those are stupid subjects not worthy of learning...apparently. Almost everyone in their lifetime will live in a house of some sort, but only a handful of our entire civilization will ever need to know how to calculate the slope of a curve. Fuck me, if I can figure out how they determine school curriculums.

Did I forget to mention that installing carpet twice is a dumb ass idea for a basement that floods. Duh! This is painfully stupid when you are hauling it to the dump and it still looks the way it arrived only now its sopping wet and unrecoverable. LVT, is the way to go, a vinyl flooring product that can get wet, requires no sub floor and monkeys can put it together. Actually that is an insult to monkeys. Sorry monkeys.

Friends & Family

If you have any of these miraculous people in your life and they care about what happens to you and your family and they are not psycho's, allow yourself the honour and privilege of accepting help. So, so hard for me to do since accepting help undermines my feelings of independence, opens me up to vulnerability (psycho's cause trust issues so avoid them) and challenges my need to feel that I have the strength to cope with difficulty all on my own.

There are so many gifts in the act of generosity for the giver well beyond free wine and gift cards or so I am told. Giving increases happiness, fulfillment and purpose of life in ways that having a large bank account never will or so says, "Psychology Today". I'm trying to focus on the generosity of being humble in accepting help from others. I hear that it will make me a better person, so for now, let's just go with that.

“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.” 
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

Freedom

We can easily become prisoners of our own frustration and despair, whether it be problems at home, work or otherwise. As a Chef, I often get asked if regular kitchens resemble the Gordon Ramsay world of "Hell's Kitchen". Then answer is not everyday. If it did, there would be a hell of a lot more bloodshed on that show. People being stabbed in the eye and punched in the throat. Good realty TV fodder, not sure why they don't...more Chefs would watch it, if they did.

What I do tell people is that unlike other workplaces, the insane stress that is often put upon kitchen staff brings out the absolute best and the absolute worst of everyone that you work with. Most workplaces hide the ugly bits behind insincere smiles, politically correct behaviour and HR paperwork. There is no place to hide in the kitchen. It will make you fall in love with the people you work with and hate their guts all at once. As a result, most kitchen teams are a tight unit because of the freedom that comes from being vulnerable to the good, the bad and the ugly behaviour of everyone on the team.

The only price tag that comes with finding a way to deal with what life throws at you, is acceptance. This requires letting go of self-will, circumstances beyond our control, self-pity, rage, unrealistic expectations, and blame. Surrender does not mean weakness or giving in. It means asking for help when we need it. Acceptance allows us the freedom to work on the things we can control versus the things we can't.

We have the power to set ourselves free from our personal shortcomings that chain us to our problems. They do not need to define our quality of life, emotional well-being or level of joy and happiness. I do not have to accept misery and allow it to distort my everyday thinking.

Being a bit of a perfectionist (I know this will come as a gigantic surprise to most of you...shocking!), I can often cling stubbornly to the ideas of what I think life ought to be. It puts massive demands upon myself and others, makes big problems out of little ones, increases despair when things don't go as planned and makes me struggle to accept things as they are.

Learning to not be touched too deeply by the happenings around me that are essentially unimportant is my life lesson. My daughter is teaching me how to do that with her "circle of peace".

We are your average Canadian family, and we use the F-word. 

We're all gonna blow.....

For those of you who didn't know me in the 90's, I am huge Ani Difranco fan. I, once upon a time, looked like Bjork mated with Liz Phair and gave birth to Gwen Stefani, wore boots that made the military jealous and got my haircuts from Angry Dyke's R Us. This is not an insult to butch looking lesbians, but rather a compliment to my adoration of women who embraced the term, "Righteous Babe", didn't take any shit and screamed their way though the Alternative Grunge of my era. If I could get over my genetic fascination with guy genitalia, I would totally join my sisters in arms.

Previous to that, I went through my more feminine side of my feminist revolution. If you don't believe me, I can send you a photo...no, shit...there were moments when I looked like Boy George.

At the bright age of 19, I lived in the YMCA, which sounds like a groovin' place to be if you are one of the Village people, but trust me, when I say this, that there are much, much better places to live. Think scary spiders, think psycho weirdos, think this is the last place you ever, ever want your 19 year old to live. It wasn't the first time I was living in some pretty questionable circumstances and obviously it won't be the last, now that I am ghetto livin' for the second time in my fixer upper in what is supposed to be my family friendly home sweet home.

"You can't get through it , you can't get over it, you can't get around. Just like a dream. you'll open your mouth to scream and you won't make a sound..."

It's been another strange week. Relationship break-ups, more floods to other people's houses, heart attacks, bladder cancer, broken hips, pulled hamstrings....there isn't a person that I have talked to lately that has good news. Luckily, we are just dealing with Casa Cayendo...it's just a stupid, broken, flooded house, so all is well.

"Cause, I am not a pretty girl, that is not what i do. I ain't no damsel in distress and I don't need to be rescued. So put me down punk, maybe you'd prefer maiden fair, isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere...."

As easy as it was to go through my, "Punch me if you dare" exterior of the 90's, it's pretty tough to pull that shit with a house full of children that I am raising to have authentic selves, and that I have protected from the harsh upbringing that made me tough as nails and capable of taking the worst kind of crap that life can deal at you at any moment.

This is the hard part. As much as I can shut down and not feel (frankly, that's easy), it's difficult watching my kids reaction to what we are going through for the second time. My son, after finishing up the moving of the furniture, handed me five bucks out of his wallet and said,"I got it Mom, don't worry."

My daughter, cried her eyes out and asked me how we were ever going to fix this....again. I reminded her, that I started out with nothing, just the clothes on my back and a backpack. Now, I have a her and her brother and her sister, so everything else means nothing, it's just a whole bunch of shit that is easily replaced.

My oldest daughter has refrained from discussing our current situation with anyone, including her closest girlfriends. She is embarrassed and wants no pity from no one...have no idea where she gets this from. I brought home a clothing donation from a friend at work on Friday who was eager to offload some Lu-Lu Lemon sweatshirts and she responded with,"Really?! Now, people are sending us clothes out of pity?!".

It's a hard road to keep a stiff upper lip when you see your kids are struggling, even more when they see you struggling. As proud as I am that my boy has faith and wants to help out...I go from pride of realizing that my kids have the right stuff to feeling like a parent who has failed each and every one of them.

That's why its easier to just keep focusing on the positive. We've been fortunate with friends who have offered to pitch in, drop off dehumidifiers, heaters, wine and hugs....next door neighborhood dinners, hot tub weekends away, cookies on our doorstep and dump trailers. Just when you think you might be alone in this mortal coil, the universe does a pretty good job of reminding you that you are not far from the people that matter the most.

"I got friends all over this country. I got friends in other countries too. I got friends I haven't met yet, I got friends I never knew.

So it's pretty simple... I can invest energy in being pissed off, depressed and verklempt or I can just get on with things and get it done. When bad things happen, good things come out of the woodwork. We have been blessed with friends who have offered help, hugs and hands.

Research on the internet.... it's a wonderful thing. I have no idea why we didn't have a look at flooring options that would withstand the damage of a flood the first time around but like most of us, it's an ostrich in the sand approach to most of life's problems. That's why if you don't listen...to the universe, your higher power or a deity of choice they will slap you in the ass a second time until you get the message to wake the fuck up.

"I do it for the joy it brings, because I am a joyful girl, because the world owes me nothing and we owe each other the world. I do it because it's the least I can do, I do it because I learned it from you and I do it just because I want to."

The investment we make everyday matters. Hear me.....the giving we do everyday MATTERS. We all have those moments where we think, "What the fuck?! Why bother?! What' s the point?!".....even the best of us. I can guarantee that you will get back what you give, even Mother Theresa understood that,

It's about investing in the right relationships. Seriously, this is easy stuff and yet so many of us screw it up, including myself. I spent half of my life trying to fix the fucked up relationships that didn't have a hope in hell of being normal and yet, I tried. We assume that the relationships that matter are the ones that we entered into the world with, the ones we think will secure a future for us, the ones that we think are somehow good for us because of lust or greed or unrealistic expectations. But it's really pretty simple....it's the people we are responsible for, the people who genuinely love us back and the people that are worth the investment. Even more, it's just because...sometimes you get nothing back and that's okay...it's an investment in you.

"I was a long time coming, I'll be a long time gone. You've got your whole life to do something, and that's not very long. So, why don't you give me a call, when you're willing to fight, for what you think is real and for what you think is right."

I am going to fix this. My son's feeling of responsibility, my daughters despair and my oldest daughters embarrassment. They are the only relationships that matter to me the most at this moment. My job as a mother is to do the best work I can for my family, even if that means putting on a brave face, taking one for the team, gathering my big girl pants and sucking it up. It's not about what's happening to me but what I can do about making it not such a big deal. There are bigger dramas out there than a flooded basement.

"They say goldfish have no memory, I guess their lives are much like mine, and the little plastic castle is a surprise every time. And it's hard to say of the're happy but they don't seem much to mind."

We are your average Canadian family and we owe our lives to the people that we love.........

Everything's Almost Free Today.......

The last time this happened I lost my job, my home became a hell for 68 days, my marriage was severely tested and so was my sanity. To get a grip, I sent myself to a powerless cottage in the woods, a meditation resort called Windhorse Farm where in Tom's Cabin, complete with sawdust outhouse and woodstove, I read Shambala magazines and prayed to a higher power to save me from myself.

This time, who knows? Anyone know an exorcist.....cause I'm feeling a little pukey.

We are $2800 from paying off our housing flood disaster of October 2011, after 2 years and 2 months of Austerity Measures living for a family of five.

And now, we are flooded...........again.

So the Austerity Measures we were hoping to continue living with to fix the bathroom that doesn't work, the decks that are falling off of our house, the patio door that will give you a hernia, the front door no one can open, the kitchen with the rotting cupboards and the windows which freeze from the inside are going to have to wait a little longer.

We get to replace the basement for the third time since moving in. The idea of looking at carpet samples and visions of my days ahead with a crow bar are making me nauseous.

There will be no retreat for me this time, that is, unless I entertain the crazy thoughts in my head by converting our shed in the backyard into a Looneybin recovery center, complete with a bottle of wine I got from Christmas for some liquid cheer which I was ironically saving for a "Rainy Day", my daughter's posters of the boys from One Direction so I can make fun of their hair, and the chemicals I need to start a friendly, neighborhood meth lab as a side job.

My mother-in-love was kind enough to remind me that everything happens for a reason. Right now, I've got some pretty nutty ideas of what that reason must be. Maybe my higher power hates me, or the house is cursed, or I didn't spend enough time reading The Secret in the last year.....or it could be the rain and a sump pump that stopped working when we lost our power in the middle of the night. Does everything have to be an Oprah aha moment? Fuck Oprah and her billions....its so easy to get lost in your existential self when you worry for nothing.....gah!!!

Resisting the urge to follow my greatest instinct, which is to "GTFO" as my daughter would anagram it, is my biggest challenge right now. I don't want to FEEL anything, I don't want to acknowledge that this is happening AGAIN, and I really think we would all be better off with a blow torch and a match right now.

Because I have bigger dreams for this family than just fixing our "Dream" home over and over to infinity and beyond. As good as the Austerity Measures have been, making us more financially accountable, creative and focused, I don't want to Extreme Coupon forever.

I refuse to go into thousands of dollars worth of debt again. So for now, its camping upstairs with furniture. A date with a crowbar and hammer to face in the days ahead. Two daughters displaced out of their bedrooms, my office furniture as well as everything else relocated to the space in between our dining room, living room, and everywhere in between, mattresses piled sky high in the hallway much to the cat's pleasure, work boots to wear for showering in the only working bathroom that's located downstairs and an uncertain future as to how to prevent this from ever happening again.

We're about to have the biggest garage sale this neighborhood's ever seen. "Our line of credit balance will not budge" is going to be my new mantra and this blog will need to be changed to,"Family Minimalism Measures", cause I WILL NOT go into a penny of debt this time.

Being so focused on our bottom line budgeting in the last two years can be a positive thing. But here's the flip side....when looking at the spreadsheet of our life, you can get a little too caught up in the details of when things will get easier. Knowing that our last payment would be made in just a few short months....you can cling to the idea that when all the debt is gone, life will be good, the pressure will be off and the projects you really want to pursue can now be entertained.

There is a danger in that thinking, it's what gets so many of us into trouble. Its living in the future, not being present in the now, and obviously, hopelessly misguided, since the idea of being able to have some control over life's outcomes is unrealistic. Giving up is not an option, but thinking that somehow if I relentlessly pursue a goal, all will be well, throws a lot of monkey wrenches into other aspects of your life. The "when this happens, I will be happy" thinking is a dangerous place to live in your head.

So now what?

House sitting in the French countryside taking care of sheep, a reality show based on the five of us becoming Real Canadian Gypsy's, selling up and buying a houseboat to live on in the Caribbean, moving to Ecuador where the cost of living is cheap and I can start my own taco stand, packing up the car with suitcases, the kids and driving off into the sunset are all good options that I can't seem to let go of right now.

If I could get some sleep, maybe it will all go away and this is just a bad dream. Or maybe it won't. What I know for sure is that I will no longer put my dreams on hold for the sake of a house.

We are your Average Canadian Family and anybody need a four slice toaster, real cheap?

Happily Never After......

Ever noticed how most fairy tale romances in Disney always end abruptly after the romantic wedded bliss moment, or that fairy tale kiss? That's because if you are actually married, you'll know that it's probably best not to let the kids know the rest of it.

Being married is the most wonderful and most challenging kind of relationship that any of us will ever manage. Commitment to our children is unconditional love at its best, the kind of love that we get sold in Disney movies that is supposed to naturally happen with our spouses instantly after we say those magic words, "I do!".

We all think that we can do the "till death do us part" but few of us realize is that there are moments in a marriage when we do it with clenched teeth and a bitten tongue. We just celebrated our 14th anniversary and a good wise friend sent us a message that said," Love can bring souls together but I am a believer that choosing to be loving is what keeps them together." A good marriage requires a daily affirmation of that commitment especially when there are so many things that can easily get in the way.

"Couples who reported disagreeing about finances once a week were over 30% more likely to divorce over time than couples who reported disagreeing a few times per month". Financial difficulties are one of the top reasons why couples seek marital counselling and are also one of the top reasons for divorce. Consumer debt, spending habits, choosing how to spend mutual money, decisions about savings and retirement, and losing an income due to job loss or a decision for one parent to stay home to raise a family all have a tremendous impact on a marriage.

In our financial hell of 2011, we lost our nest egg, got hung by by roofing debt, had our home flooded, our family/business vehicle died and I essentially lost my job as a caterer/ business owner all in three days time. Days after this stunning realization, we also had more bad news from our insurance company...it would barely cover the cost of our home recovery. Check your policy for backwater, I guarantee you won't have enough to cover flood damage. Anyone in Calgary knows this painful reality. We simply don't have coverage in Canada for flood insurance but we ALL think we are covered.

My ugliest moment as a wife came shortly afterward. I have no excuses for my behavior. One thing I do know is that after working in kitchens with people under severe stress, every single one of us has some of the deeply ugly within us. I've seen the best and the worst of every co-worker I have ever worked with in a kitchen....I've seen it all. I've seen it in other places too. Someone once said, "That if you ever start to feel enlightened, go home and spend a week with your extended family."

It all came to head for me and my husband a few weeks after the triumvirate of hell had occurred. We were nowhere closer to getting some help with the flood damage, on hold with our insurance company and adjusters, living surrounded by piles of furniture on one level, two of our kids left bedroomless sleeping in a tiny guestroom together with nowhere for any of them to play indoors, trucking through our basement pit of despair in rubber boots to get to the one working shower in our home downstairs, and my new day job had become tearing out our basement with a crowbar and hammer.

I lost it on the one person in the world who knew exactly how bad it truly felt to be us in that moment. Why? Simply because he had the nerve and dignity to happily wish me a good day as he went off to work just like it was any other day, like nothing had ever happened with the confidence in knowing that it would all be well in time. (Just a note to other husbands.....if your wife is in the middle of a mid life crisis and holding a crowbar and hammer, even if it seems well meaning at the time....its okay to be gently nice, but its probably not a great idea to be overly chipper. Read "The Secret" on your own time till your wife calms down and gets into a better state of mind, ok? Just my advice from someone who's been there....")

Knowing that my deep ugly was rearing its horribleness in a torrent of rage at the loss I was feeling and since I went and directed it all at the one person who was willing to love me despite it, I knew that it was time for Mommy to be put in a time-out. Luckily, I had the sense to send myself to a Buddist cabin in the woods for a week with no electricity and an outhouse to chill out by myself. (Some of my girlfriends afterwards let me know that this was for sure the sign that I had gone completely off the deep end.)

It was affordable for someone in the toilet financially, and with little material comforts around to help remind that it's all REALLY not that important. There's nothing like relying on a wood stove for heat, candles to read at night, flash-lighting the entire toilet area for spiders, and missing hugs and kisses from your kids to put things in perspective.

I was blessed with a few magazines from the Shambala Sun and found a mentor in Pema Chodron within those magazines who offered me guidance then and now. I came to the realization that a financial crisis will wig most of us out in a real hurry, but it didn't mean that I had to lose the love in my life that truly meant the most to me because of it. Not sweating the small stuff is good advice and learning how to meditate is helpful even if you do it poorly like me. http://www.shambhalasun.com/   http://pemachodronfoundation.org/

Experts on financial well-being say that the key to money and relationships is communication. Apparently we don't have to agree on everything....we just need to talk about it. Things like Andrew spending money on eating fast food (a real annoyance for a Chef ) and me spending money on jackets, costume jewelry or extra pillows for our bed seems silly to Andrew. (The word on the street is that all men hate those extras pillows ladies.....so here's my Save a few bucks on household expenses tip of the day: Ditch the pillows, and save!) All couples have their thing that bugs them about the other when it comes to how best to make purchases for the family. The key is watching resentment levels when it comes to the decisions that do get made....that's where it can cause a divide in a marriage or relationship.

Andrew & I may not have had the same financial goals along the way, but I think our commitment to the marriage has gotten us through the roughest times we have had to face as a couple. We are both stubborn and often joke that the only thing keeping this marriage together is our mutual unwillingness to quit the relationship. Neither of us wants to be the quitter.....that means the other one wins. It kinda like the War of the Roses only we're working on a much happier ending.

Since we know that we are not alone, at least we hope we aren't the only couple that struggles from time to time. I thought it would be great to assemble some helpful tips for couples in honour of our anniversary. We celebrate every year with a toast to my Grandma who stood up at our wedding and declared, "It won't last a year!". Happy times.....so many good memories of our special day.

1) Learn to talk money with your honey. Who knew?! But opposites attract...even when it comes to finances. Put a saver and a spender together, and after the courtship is over and the oxytoxin levels die down you have a challenging road ahead if you can't find some middle ground.

"A really basic way to start to get on the same page financially is to commit to sitting down at least once a year to review your income, your expense and the difference (savings), your assets, your liabilities and the difference (net worth), and your credit scores and credit reports so that all your debt is transparent. Consider it your annual financial physical. I'm not suggesting that these conversations will be easy. Couples who pay attention to their financial well-being the same way they would their physical, spiritual or intellectual well-being put themselves on a path for much lower levels of financial stress, says Maniska Thakor, financial expert."

2) Build a joint financial dream list. "Particularly since few have much money, financial disputes drive many divorces. Too many couples today begin their lives together holding seemingly overwhelming student loans, car loans, credit-card debt and more. So when the honeymoon's over, the money quarrels start: "Why did you spend so much on clothes? We're supposed to be saving for a house down payment, so why are you buying such an expensive computer? Just because I'm the homemaker, why don't I deserve some spending money of my own?"

So my advice is to spend a weekend building your "financial dream" list together. That will give you much to look forward to, after the passions cool and before the money squabbles have time to set in. Prior to walking down the aisle, my partner and I took a couple of days to draft our financial dream plan together. How many kids did we want? How often and where would we vacation? How would we handle the fact that one of us had enough for a small down payment on our first house, and the other had no savings at all?

That was probably the most important discussion of our lives together, since we hashed out priorities and pre-settled arguments that we wouldn't have to have later. We also decided to go the joint and separate account route: The joint account pays for most everything, including the house, cars, kids, the college fund and taxes. The joint account also contributes to our retirement accounts. Then we each get a small monthly allowance transferred into our separate accounts, which we use as we wish. Separate and joint credit cards are attached to each account.

All this seems like a lot of work, but it has helped us avoid arguing about money (for the most part!). And we're still living out the financial dream we drafted together, 31 years ago" says, Olivia S. Mitchell, a professor of business economics and public policy at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where she focuses on pensions, household finance and risk management.

Its never to late to have this conversation. Andrew and I were married 13 years before we actually sat down and prioritized our financial goals. Some couples never do it....but I can tell you from experience that it has made a huge difference in our conversations about money since we came to an agreement that we could both live with. You can see it on our previous blog....Casa Cayendo is the new Beau Chateau.

3) Save for a Rainy Day."You can't enjoy money when you are dead so why not enjoy it now!", so says Homer Simpson.While I am writing this blog, the kids turned on the Simpsons, and hilariously it is all about Marg having a flip out over the fact that they have no savings and since Homer is so accidient prone, she starts having panic attacks thinking about what will happen to them when, as Bart puts it,"the Big Tuna bites it." She starts saving for a "really rainy day".

Homer is resentful since he earns the money and all she does is hang around at home doing cooking, cleaning, laundry and caring for the kids. He blows her meager savings from buying budget food and Columbia Shame coffee on a down payment for a motor home so he can escape Marg's "loveless slab of bossiness".

They start fighting and Bart & Lisa decide to return the motor home after Bart ruminates, "How could a motor home ruin a marriage that crappy?" As usual, things go completely wrong, and the motor home gets trashed. Through a twisted turn of events the Simpson family ends up on a Turkish freighter where Marg declares," Ahhhh, heck,  it's only money.....". One of the Turkish sailors leans over to Homer and whispers in her ear, "She's a little intense, so we put some hashish in her meal."

Having a rainy day fund is important and will alleviate potential stress in a marriage but few of us have one. With our austerity measures budget, we are putting aside 5% of our income for savings but most financial experts recommend 10%. If we ever get to the bottom of debt repayment, we plan on upping how much we sock away. It will be probably be a much better choice than Andrew resorting to street drugs to mellow me out if things go sideways again.

4) Make a vow of frugality. "You know the thought you're having now? About all the things you could have done with the money you spent on that wedding? About how much they charged for those centerpieces? Remember that feeling when the time comes to buy a car. Skip the baby Audi, buy a six-year-old Corolla and take a great vacation/fund your retirement/save for a house instead." so says financial expert, Matt Hougan. 

We spent a ton on our fairy tale wedding. We were young, naive, skipped all the courses in high school that talked about money management (oh, wait, there never was even one), and wanted a perfect day for all our family and friends. We had an open bar, an elaborate meal, a dessert buffet and the perfect venue but it cost us and our families a great first down payment on a what could have been a home to start our life together. And it was all blown in one day. And we are far, far from alone with money management wedding guilt. At least we are still together.....

5)"When you forgive, you in no way change the past-but you sure do change the future." Charles Rotblut (horrible last name...seriously, he should change it) recommends that we should," approach finances with a large amount of forgiveness. There is a reasonable chance one or both of you will make a big financial mistake (and probably many mistakes). You are both human and it happens. No matter how mad you get, stop and ask yourself whether the mistake is really big enough to warrant ending your marriage over."

Lisa & Bart on the Simpsons leave their parents a note letting them know that they are taking the motor home back because they don't want them to split up. We have an obligation to our kids and to our marriage to make sure that we have financial health. That doesn't mean that we can afford fancy vacations, a big screen TV or expensive vehicles and hobbies. It means we have a will, a financial plan for the future, limited debt, money put aside for educations for our kids, a retirement plan for ourselves and a savings account.

I'm fortunate to have a husband who has a big heart of forgiveness for the awful things I said. Somehow he has the amazing ability to shrug it off as nothing more than the day his wife turned into the little bird who left the coo-coo clock. He supported my retreat, probably was more than happy to let me leave, and welcomed me with open arms when I came home. 

We celebrated this year with friends over dinner at my Wine & Dine Mexican Cooking Class that I was teaching (multi-tasking is one of my super strengths) and Andrew surprised me at work with a bouquet of flowers. We have come a long way from 2011, and I am so grateful that we pushed past a pretty lousy time. The situation didn't define our marriage or where it was headed and we have found a way to turn this ship around. I also got another chance to show Andrew the best of me instead of the worst.

We are your average Canadian family and we are working towards our happily ever after......................

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.....

So for those of you who actually follow this blog, you may be wondering...is she still alive or what?! (Realistically, that may be only two people, but hey, a girl can hope that someone gives a crap, right?). I have been on vacation. Yes, I know, yet another vacation for someone who is supposed to be sticking to her Austerity Measures budget, but there you have it...life gets in the way of being frugal sometimes.

My grandparents aren't getting any younger, but that being said, I'm convinced that my mother's parents are going to be around for another 10 years or more at least and they are 94 and 92. Unlike most, up till February of this year, I had all of my grandparents still living. My Grandma Perrin died this year of what I am convinced is stubbornness...she should have lived a much longer life but at 90, she still lived with my Grandfather in their home of 68 years and continued to cook, clean and bathe herself despite being blind from macular degeneration. Third degree burns from getting into a bathtub from the chest down and not being able to quickly extradite herself resulted in a trip to the hospital after spending two days on the couch in and out of consciousness in her nightdress, convinced that a doctor was unnecessary. I come from some tough people....it gives me strength and also sometimes is to my detriment. We have more guts than you can hang on a fence in our family and wear it proudly.

We went home to spend some time, something I haven't done in 5 years because its always a challenge and not just financially. You see, because I not only descend from strong relatives, but also from some crazy ones too and despite my best intentions, I always seem to draw the short straw. As my Aunt put it, for some reason, I always end up in a Lose/Lose position, no matter how desperate I am to please everyone, I end up pleasing no one. I really should just learn to say," Fuck it!" and do what's best for me, but I genuinely love people, love making them happy and see no reason to segregate that love, one family or person at a time. However there are some that think otherwise.

I did my best to stick to the budget, but vacations will do you in much faster than being kicked to death by grasshoppers. If it wasn't for the wine or the gas or the hotel rooms or the pleasure of buying things for family or friends it would be so damn easy, but after 10 months of living off of a $500 grocery budget and entertaining ourselves with board games, it's REALLY hard in the presence of others simply enjoying their lives to not say,"TO HELL WITH IT!".

I also went home because my Grandpa Perrin, who will be 90 in October, decided that it was time to let his car go. This is a big deal. My Grandparents may have lived in a war time home, but there was always a shiny new vehicle in their driveway after retirement. My Grandpa's cars were his pride and joy...washed and waxed weekly and replaced by the latest model every couple of years. He paid cash, didn't dicker on the sticker price and ALWAYS bought Chryslers.

Our plan was to try and ride out our Crappy Chevy Cavalier for another 3 years until the car payments were up on my Hyundai. Completely unrealistic plan since the damn Chevy crapped out on us on the day I was to fly out to Ontario to start my vacation but we are still dealing with our lack of insightful financial planning and will be for years to come. You see, smart, financially responsible people sock away money for that eventuality but most of us just wing it and then freak out when, "Holy Shit!", our 25 year old dishwasher dies on us. I mean, really, why don't they make things like they used to? I remember when dishwasher's used to last like 50 years. Man, we weren't planning to start saving to replace that appliance for, like another ten years at the least. Crap!!

When my Grandpa heard from my father, who unlike us, recognized that our car was a piece of crap on its last legs, mentioned that we might need a vehicle, Grandpa was quick to offer the car to us as a gift. For us, it was an amazing offer, one that helped us immensely but was also so difficult to accept. Every time I thought about taking Grandpa's car, I would cry and trust me when I say that I can count on two hands, the amount of times I've cried in my lifetime. It's an annoying investment of snotty nose, runny red eyes and kleenex. Hate doing it and wish there was a simple, cheap way to stop it.

I'm not joking!!! I asked my optician if there was a way of surgically fixing it this week after another horrible jag of it to find a medical way to reverse it. She let me know that they still don't know why we emotionally cry. Science still hasn't figured it out!! Why aren't we putting some good quality research dollars into this? She gave me some drops to sort out my condition and let me know that the reason why our eyes feel like crap after bawling is that the saline in our tears strips our eyes of their natural oils and essentially dries them out. It takes a day to allow the eye to build up those oils again, so you can use some artificial drops to lube up those those eyes in the meantime, that is, if you accidentally stumble into a theatre showing the last few minutes of Lassie.

We have a lot to celebrate so I will start with the good...

1) Our Chevy Cavalier has been replaced by a Chrysler 300 that's barely been driven in the last five years. It had 34,000 kms on it until I drove it home and is a 2005. It needs a bit of work since its been sitting to the tune of $500 plus, but my trusty mechanic assures me that it is in excellent condition and once the work is completed will be a great vehicle for years to come.

2) We had help with our vacation on flights and gas. Our grandparents and my Dad generously assisted with the cost of getting us there and home which we had saved for, but abruptly lost those savings when our furnace needed to be replaced to the tune of $10,000. This is WHY you should plan for equipment in your house that is getting aged, socking money away for the eventuality that things, just like people don't last forever.

3) Our bosom buddies and sister wife family put us up for 10 days of extended family gatherings donating vacation time and expenses despite being mistreated by a couple of the selected above crazy people in my family. We are eternally grateful that they still want anything to do with us at all since having spent most of their lives with relatively normal, slightly quirky folks, they got a first hand 3D experience with what it's like to be in my world. They also now know why my preference is for them to see me in the Maritimes and not the other way round.

4) We celebrated our first Austerity Measures Budget Goal prior to leaving for vacation. Say goodbye to $24,000 worth of roofing debt with the last payment made in June!!! Between the scheduled payments we stuck to and our tax return, we were able to beat our initial deadline by 6 months. We officially have one borrowing account paid off and one credit card at 0% interest for only six months paid off. It can be done and I will be doing an end of year budget review to show you how in September.

Here is the bad...

1) Our furnace blew and so as much as we would love to celebrate $24,000 less, we had to take on $10,000 worth of new debt to get it replaced. The potentially good news is that with a more efficient system, we may save a lot on both our electricity bills and our oil bills come fall. We will keep you posted on this one, since some of you may be considering how much it would save you to replace an old oil furnace. This will hit our bottom line in our monthly budget and may mean that we can sock more away towards the debt giving us less time in debt repayment mode or we could choose to have more disposable income and bust a move buying some twinkies at the grocery store to live life in the fast lane.

2) The other good news is that we had $10,000 worth of line of credit space to be able to deal with this debt at a low interest rate and not on our credit card which would be a nightmare. Had this furnace bust occurred when we were living in spending denial...we would have been screwed and in major financial trouble. If you are getting close to not having ANY readily available credit beyond your credit cards and if you are living with a balance on those credit cards...you, my friend are living in credit card denial. It's time to wake up and get them paid off. No joke....its completely stupid to be paying 28.8% interest.

3) You know its bad when you book an appointment at your car mechanics and he says,"Are you sure you want to come in on Monday? Andrew usually books his appointments on Saturdays." I had to explain that yes, Andrew's days off are Saturdays....but mine are Mondays. This has got to be your first clue that you are spending way too much time and money fixing cars.

3 b) Grandpa's car is going in on Monday for a minimum repair of $500 plus and now the Crappy Cavalier that we just had towed and fixed to the tune of $600 just had the engine light pop on when I was driving it to work this morning. Really?!!! From now on, I am driving a bejesus bicycle...... wind, rain, snow or shine! To hell with these mechanized horses ready for pasture! Put that Chevy to rest my head tells me.....anybody interested in a fabuloso deal on a wonderful car? Reliable and I will even throw in some snake oil that will give you the biggest something, something you've ever seen to please your lady friend....if you know what I mean.

4) I set a budget for my vacation weeks of $400 per week for the two weeks I was in Ontario. I blew it. This means I will need to extend our timeline for debt repayment for another month. Sucks...yes, but life is short. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and my family and friends are worth it. Not the death by bus, but you know what I mean.

The ugly...

1) A close family member has blocked me from facebook after our wonderful family reunion. Good thing I blew the budget on them! Does this mean that she doesn't love me anymore or does it mean I'm dealing with someone who has the mental age of 10? Only time will tell....I'm placing my bets on the second. Luckily, this has little effect on our financial well being. However I may be getting anthrax in the mail this Christmas....

2) We have a hell of a long way to go. Based on our proposed timeline of debt repayment as per our previous blog...even when we do pay off the flood ($8000 left) and the furnace ($10,000 to go), we still have a lot of Casa Cayendo to deal with and three kids to send to schooling so they don't need to be dummies like us.

2 b) Most importantly, we need to stick to the damn budget, which is friggin' hard. Prostitution sometimes seems tempting, easier and quicker to earn a few dollars than the way we are going about it. I'm sure I could put Andrew out for stud if I hadn't already sent him to the SPCA to get fixed. Hell, I've still got all my teeth....must be worth something! Clipping coupons, staying in, engaging the kids in home-made puppet shows and canning our own ketchup seems like oodles of fun, but trust me, it can be hard unless your neighbors are Mennonites.

3) It could be so much worse....my kids are at an age when they could finally appreciate the stories that my grandparents, their great- grandparents have to share. Grandma and Grandpa told us of what it was like to live through German Nazi occupation of Holland. She told me of the weeks worth of bombing that killed her brother as he was working in another neighborhood. She shared with me the moment when her sister was screaming at her, "Why are you still sewing that dress when they are bombing the hell out of us?!!!". My grandmothers reply was,"Well, I can keep sewing this dress or I can sit there worrying the hell out of myself and do nothing. I'd rather make a damn dress!!!". Like I said before, I have guts for garters, thanks to the women before me.

Albert Einstein said," There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

I had a tough week this week. Not as tough as anything my Grandma's have EVER had to deal with. However, dealing with family matters that have gutted me, a cat that disappeared for 3 days, a budget blown and a genuine gesture of friendship that turned awkward...at the end of the day, it was no big deal.

Everyday is a new day and you can fix it. Trust me, I know first hand and have had the best of intentions blown up in my face more often than not. Put your big girl panties or big boy boxers on and get to work!! Stick to your guts and spread them out on the fence...only good things will come. This I know for sure.


We are your average Canadian family and we have a second chance at happiness in so many ways..............

Casa Cayendo is the new Beau Chateau .....

House naming started hundreds of years ago with rich people naming their houses.The rich named their Halls, Houses, Manors, Castles and Lodges according to ancestry, location and family titles. Gradually over the years, people extended the fad of naming to their houses too until street names and house numbers came into place in the 19th century. Still to this day, many homes are named, not so much in Canada but abroad, some because it adds a little pretentiousness to the old homestead, some believe it will hasten sales when trying to push,"The Old Rectory", and some simply to extend a age long tradition that, apparently, never gets old.

It seems only fitting that our home sweet home, too, have a great name since it tends to come up in conversation A LOT and is usually referred to in derogatory terms like," Why did we buy this piece of shit?! or "If I stub my toe one more time entering the kitchen, I am going to burn down this MF house!!". We started out with calling it the broken dream home a much gentler term when referring to our home...but after reading "The Secret", and getting lectured by many about manifestation (voodoo for wishful thinking), it seemed like we needed to come with a better name...one with a little prestige.

After a bottle of wine and some goofy GOOGLEing, we finally had it! From here on forward we shall christen our pile of sticks and mortar as Casa Cayendo! Anything in another language sounds good, often better than the real meaning intends and Casa Cayendo is no exception. I figure this way I can be truthful and manifest something positive by giving the homestead a leg up over the other non-named houses in the neighborhood to create a little house envy and perhaps spur our homestead to pull up its socks so to speak. 

It also helps in keeping the language clean in front of the kids. Brady told us this week that another kid in his class used the F-U-C-K word at school and being that he can barely spell C-A-T, I'm thinking that its probably already a little to late to wash my mouth out with soap. It was a nice attempt to shift blame on his part to another kid, but I'm fairly sure the real blame lies with his Mother of the Year. Casa Cayendo, by the way, translated to English essentially means,"House Falling Down", a perfect description for the place where we hang our hats as a family.

I have been thinking a lot about all the things that have been going right for us since we started the Austerity Measures budget back in September. We have managed to pay down $9000 in debt and put a buffer of savings into each of our accounts for a rainy day. Our family time has become centered around our gym membership and great outdoor recreation activities that can be essentially done for free. We haven't reached the point of becoming extreme couponers (those people are fucking nuts!), but we have managed to get smarter at using our Air Miles, coupon clipping when it makes sense, shopping the sales, selling stuff we don't use and discussing financial priorities as a couple.

Speaking of which, last night Andrew & I sat down and drew up a list of everything the house needs to become "Casa Cayendo Hasta" or "House Falling Up". We have an unbelievable long way to go. It was always our hope that we could fix the house to enjoy it as a family.....really, I couldn't care less about the home after the kids are grown and gone. Andrew & I haven't even discussed what our retirement years will look like, but I can't imagine that we will need this house or the yard work it possesses with just the two of us. We could always turn it into a Hedonistic Retirement Retreat Home down the road...I figure the Baby Boomers will lead the way for this niche market, for sure. Sell some sexy muu-muus and bring on the George Jones!!!

We each took the list of stuff that needs to be done and numbered the items in terms of what we thought should be done first...without letting each other see the rankings until the lists were completed. Its always good to see as a couple if you are on the same page and like always.......we weren't.

I'm sure it's the same with other couples as well (actually, I hope), but with Andrew & I, we can almost always count on being on opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to just about anything. We are simply not meant to be together....but somehow we managed to spend the last 18 years enjoying each others awesomeness and annoyingness despite what every single astrological, chinese horoscope, fortune telling, family foreboding and voodoo witchcraft there is simply saying that WE SHOULD NOT BE TOGETHER.

I will share with you a quick glimpse into the warnings:

"Aries is ruled by the Planet Mars (Passion) and Aquarius is ruled by the Planets Saturn (Karma) and Uranus (Rebellion). " Translation in our relationship...this means that Aries (Andrew) has strong and barely controllable emotions, otherwise known as stubbornness to the extreme and Aquarius is destined to be violently resistant to authority, control or conventions. 

"The Rabbit can be oversensitive while the Rat is over controlling. Both have high expectations of each other and this may cause more problems. This match may not seem to bring out the best in both personalities, but once joined, it will be difficult to separate this pair. Rats and Rabbits will only frustrate each other."  Basically, in a nut shell, Andrew is stubborn and I am rebellious...we should be apart, but neither one will give in.

Andrew was born in the year of the Water Rat which makes him," charming and hardworking. Those born in the Year Of The Rat are very ambitious and can be ruthless when pursuing a goal. They can be aggressive and obsessive, but if they learn to be more tolerant of others they can accomplish great things in almost any field they enter."

I, however, am a Wood Rabbit which makes me,"lucky  and good at solving problems. Those born in the Year Of The Rabbit dislike fighting and aggression, preferring instead to find solutions through compromise and negotiation. They tend to avoid surprises and risky situations, which may lead to lost opportunities."

Can it be any more obvious that our relationship is a bit of a challenge when it comes to personalities? 

We know all this, and yet we still manage to keep it together. I asked Andrew what he thought was the glue holding the impossible, our own version of a homogenized dressing, the key piece of the puzzle that makes it all work despite all the odds against us for our marriage and he said it was my booty. Thank God its good for something cause it sure the hell can't fit into skinny jeans or even a regular pair of pants for craps sake! Man insights are so deep.....

So after reviewing our giant list of shit that needs to be repaired and going back and forth on what we should do first and basing it on our disposable income after our existing debt is paid off from the roof ($24,000), the flood ($8,000) and the furnace we are about to pay for ($10,000). This is what we came up with and keep in mind that in order to have the disposable income to pay for it all, we will need to stick to the Austerity Measures Budget for the next 11 years and 5 months instead of the 28 months we originally planned for. Insert bad swear words here...

Casa Cayendo Fix Up

1) Kitchen $25,000= 2 years & 1 month 
2) Bathrooms $15,000= 1 year & 3 months 
3) Windows & Doors $25,000=2 years & 1 month  
4) Decks $10,000=10 months
5) Flooring & Railing $10,000=10 months
6) Fireplace $10,000=10 months 
7) Landscaping $5000=5 months 
8) New Furniture $5000=5 months 

Casa Cayendo Total Repairs= $100,000 = 8 years of Austerity Measures

Goals:

1) Family Trip to Mexico $8000=8 months
2) Family Trip to Paris, France $10,000=10 months 
4) Strippers or Holiday to Newfoundland for Andrew's 50th Birthday=$2000=2 months (I suggested Newfie strippers and he said no.)
5) Kayak For Miranda's 45th x 2=$2000

Goals = $41,000 = 3 years + 5 months of Austerity Measures 

Current Debt Goal:

Paid off by Jan 2015
1) Jan 2015 Kitchen $25,000 Paid off by Feb 2017
2) Family Trip to Mexico $8000 Paid off by Oct 2017
3) New Furniture $5000 Paid off by March 2018
4) Bathrooms $15,000 Paid off by June 2019
5) Paris $10,000 Paid off by April 2020
6) Decks $10,000 Paid off by February 2021
7) Kayak for Miranda Paid off by $2000 April 2021
8) Windows & Doors Paid off by $25,000 May 2023
9) Trip to Newfoundland Paid off by $2000 July 2023
10) Floors/Railings Paid off by $10,000 May 2024
11) Fireplace $10,000 Paid off by March 2025
12) Landscaping $5000 Paid off by August 2025

In 2025, I will be 50, Andrew is 53, Savy is 25, Lucy is 22, Brady is 19. By the time we get the house fixed and paid off Andrew and I will be halfway to becoming centenarians, and the kids may have long ago moved out! Not only that but we will have potentially three university/college educations to pay for and while we may be putting some money monthly towards RRSP's, it will hardly cover 4 years of education for three kids. 

After pondering this doom and gloom of dreams not quite realized the way I would like them, since my hope was always that we would raise our family in a renovated broken dream home, I decided that getting 'there' is an illusion. Life is what you make it, right here, right now. Everything I need to create the life of my dreams is within me.

Everything, including the strippers, well maybe not the strippers, is important in its own way but it is not critical to my families state of well-being. I doubt very much that my kids will care so much that we had new flooring in the kitchen and fancy plants in the yard (that I may or may not be able to keep alive). I'm very sure that Andrew will be able to turn 50 without strippers....when he has my 50 year old booty to thrill him. (Some things get better with age, right?)

To make me feel a little better because whether we can rationalize dreams away or not, they still to each of us, are at the end of the day important, I thought I would instead focus on budgeting for the things in my life that are a priority beyond Casa Cayendo. These are things that I can manage as priorities with no financial burden at all.....

1) Family: To have time with my immediate family, and to stay connected with loved ones across the country. 

2) Health: To be physically, mentally and spiritually fit.

3) Location: To be able to live where I want to live and raise my family in a community that feels safe, has opportunities for my children and is connected to easily accessible nature and recreation. 

4) Security: To have a steady income that fully meets my family's basic needs and to be in a loving relationship that provides a stable home and example for my children.

5) Friendship: To have connection to my spouse, the people I love in my inner circle, the people I work with, my community and people I respect, and to be respected by them through my offer of friendship and love.

6) Independence: To have freedom of thought and action. To be able to act in terms of my own time, schedules and priorities. To be able to seek out the things, activities and opportunities that jazz me. 

7) Personal Accomplishment: To achieve significant goals. To be involved in undertakings I believe personally are significant - whether or not they bring me recognition from others.

8) Personal Development: To learn and to do challenging work that will help me grow, that will allow me to utilize my best talents and mature as a human being.

9) Enjoyment: To enjoy my life, and my work. To find ways to have fun doing just about anything everyday.To laugh a lot....cause there isn't a better way to handle things when shit goes wrong and life just doesn't turn out the way you expected. As Robert Fulghum puts it,"“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge - myth is more potent than history - dreams are more powerful than facts - hope always triumphs over experience - laughter is the cure for grief - love is stronger than death”

10) Live in the Present Moment: To focus on the tasks I take as we work towards our goals as a family, and be mindful of each moment. Learn to absorb everything from my time with the kids, to my interactions at work, to meeting our financial goals to the trips and adventures as a family we take because each moment in time will eventually be gone forever and we won't even remember or give a crap that we had a great new couch in 2018.

We are your Average Canadian Family and we have everything a family could wish for.......even if we never see eye to eye. 

Ready to Run.....10 Great Ways to Not Keep Up With The Joneses

I've just about had enough of the Austerity Measures.....all this counting and watching our pennies is starting to piss me off. I'm about to go on a week long friggin' bender. Unlike the ones I used to enjoy in my twenties, this one will be a lot less like Trainspotting and more like Real Housewives of Vancouver. I just want to blow the budget on guilty pleasures like an un-self-inflicted spa day, an evening out for dinner without once looking at the prices, a spending spree on a few bottles of wine and maybe an extra bottle of Appleton's, then I will be off to blow the wad on a month long pass for hot yoga followed by the ultimate mind blowing purchase of the kayak I have been coveting since we moved here five years ago. Far cry from a heroin soaked junkie fest, but there you have it! Midlife crisis.....here I am!!!

I've been spending my free time lately fantasizing about living differently. Maybe its because we didn't win the Home Sweeter Home Contest and my dreams for fixing the broken dream home in this lifetime seem further away. Or perhaps its because the last seven months of living on the Austerity Measures budget have resulted in $7000 worth of debt repayment wiggle room which now needs to cover the $10,000 for the new furnace which leaves us $3000 over in debt from where we started.

Yes, I am happy that our good financial practices resulted in my not having to resort to prostitution to pay for the furnace....really had we not paid down some of the debt...we would have had to max out our line of credit and maybe more. Kudos to us! Yippee-kay-yay....but now we are back to square one again....10 more months left to daydream about when the day comes that our shackle of debt will let us free.

Well...free to incur more debt. Shit, who am I kidding?! We still have the kitchen to fix, the windows & doors to replace, the bathroom to gut and three kids to put through school. Plus, we want to go on a vacation before we're dead. Lofty dreams I know, especially for two slackers like us working full-time jobs and living large.

One of my super skills has always been the ability to get myself out of tight situations creatively, so rather than feel desperate and depressed, I decided to put it to good use. Since this keeping up with Joneses is starting to get on my last nerve and it could be getting on yours, I thought I would share with you some great ways to live off the grid, so to speak, and do things a little differently. I am seriously entertaining some of these as possibilities, some just because its a damn good distraction and others because I feel a shift coming otherwise knows as Midlife crisis.

Top 10 Ways to Live off the Grid or Mooch off Someone Else for a change...

1) Become a yoga instructor....hell, fake it till you make it...there is lots of Yoga crap you can watch on the internet to certify yourself. I have struggled to watch the guy on Eastlink TV to get my Yoga on and some days I swear I have to be high in order to appreciate it, he certainly is, so I think any of us could do it. Then find a great location to get your Buddha on. I think it would be good for me to calm the heck down.
http://www.yogatraveljobs.com/

2) It's time to put all my kids to good use. A few hours of honest help per day in exchange for food and accommodation and an opportunity to learn about the local lifestyle and community, with friendly hosts in varying situations and surroundings.Workaway.info helps families, individuals or organizations in an extensive range of different countries connect with those who are looking for volunteer help in a huge range of different fields. From painting to planting, building to babysitting and shopping to shearing, we could learn something new and potentially spend more time together as a family in a foreign country. That is until we end up in some sweat shop in New Delhi or even worse as Slumdog Millionaires. Hell, its worth a shot!  http://www.workaway.info/

3) WWOOF is a world wide network of organisations.They link volunteers with organic farmers, and help people share more sustainable ways of living. WWOOF is an exchange - In return for volunteer help, WWOOF hosts offer food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles. I can't even keep my house plants alive...I would probably be the worst organic farmer ever. http://www.wwoof.org/

4) HelpX is provided primarily as a cultural exchange for working holiday makers who would like the opportunity during their travels abroad, to stay with local people and gain practical experience. In the typical arrangement, the helper works an average of 4 hours per day and receives free accommodation and meals for their efforts. I currently work 9 hours a day...in my previous life as a Chef, 12 hours was the norm, so 4 hours seems like a pretty great deal so long as I get to spend the rest of my day with my kids. http://www.helpx.net/

5) Housesitters.com is a website that has me drooling. Get this....you watch other people's houses in places all over the world, do a few odd jobs and get free accommodation and sometimes more. It is a damn sweet deal and in some cases, is very family friendly. I found a house sitting job that was in Tuscany, home owners are trying to restore the villa to its previous glory and with 22 rooms, has plenty of space to spare in exchange for some help and inspiration in the villa project. http://www.housecarers.com/advanced-search-results-housesit.cfm

6) If the regular house sitting isn't for you....how about Luxury house sitting? Why settle for less when you can shack up in some rich guys fifth or sixth property which sits empty a good portion of the year. Its a tough life when looters, squatters or vandals frig up your exotic villa that you only visit a couple of times a year. This a great way to help those poor rich folks out. http://www.luxuryhousesitting.com/

7) Here is a story for the record books. In my frenzy of f*ck it and chuck it for the Austerity Measures, I started browsing Kijiji for RV's with the vision of cashing everything in and becoming the New Canadian Gypsies, soon to be a television show for CBC. I found the perfect trailer home on kijiji, right in Fall River, that a sweet couple were selling. Thinking I was posting a message to my husband, I sent something like this.," F...paying taxes, and insurance and our mortgage. Screw the whole thing! Lets buy this RV and hit the road...we can sell hot dogs when we need a little play money!!" Unfortunately in my excitement, I sent the message to the couple who was selling the trailer. Imagine my sharp intake of breath, pinhole corneas, and burst blood vessels when I realized seconds later that I had sent the message to the sweet couple and not my husband. A quick retraction followed with a heavy apology for my skanky language and luckily I had stumbled upon a couple with good sense of humour who got a good laugh out of my message. Found out later that we wouldn't even need to sell hot dogs, but could instead get work as work campers. http://www.workamper.com/

8) We are one of the few families that I know of that truly enjoy unexpected house guests. Every summer our broken dream home becomes a cottage filled with house guests that begin arriving July the 1st and turns our home into a B & B until the Labour Day long weekend. Frankly, we should enjoy our home as a cottage year round, since we tend to feel less badly about the shit that isn't working around here when it is a cottage instead of a home. Two months of who gives a crap goes a long way the other ten months of the year. This one is less of an option for us as a family since most can easily accommodate one unexpected house guest..how about five? On a couch?  https://www.couchsurfing.org/

9) Nomadic Living on a Boat seems like a crazy good and horribly bad idea. Check out this article about couples living downtown Toronto for only $550 a month. Don't ask me why they would choose to dock themselves in Toronto given that they have a boat and could go somewhere warm, less smelly, a little more friendly and substantially more interesting. It's a thought...I checked out some places in Amsterdam that seemed pretty cool as well. Who wouldn't want to live in the Venice of the North?! http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/19/waterfront-living-eccentric-live-aboards-choose-to-live-on-their-boats-year-round/

10) Forget Mom & Dad retiring and moving in with me.....I am gonna retire right now and move in with them. This will give them an opportunity to reconnect with me on a daily basis as a mature adult and not as a difficult teenager. Since I left home at sixteen, I figure I still have 2-3 years owing me. Hell, my brother hung around for ages...I could easily negotiate 4-5. My parents and Andrew's parents have a few extra homes as well, so they wouldn't even have to spend the whole time with us. We could easily travel from vacation home to vacation home and not see them at all. Frankly, we could get a part-time gig as their home sitters if we could convince them it was a damn good idea. Somehow, I think that is highly unlikely.

I'm doing my best to keep a positive attitude about our debt, how we are approaching everything as a family and staying focused on being responsible but sometimes I have moments like anyone where I just feel like saying to hell with it. A little fantasy now and then doesn't hurt....maybe I should spend less time doing it and investing more time in learning how to make moonshine.

We are your average Canadian family and we may become Real Canadian Gypsies if shit keeps breaking at our house......