Spring and Small

When I breathed in the air today, I smelled spring. I mean, I really smelled it. I've been explaining to Ava how there are four seasons--winter, spring, summer, and fall--and that we're finally getting a glimpse of spring. "Ava sees it" she said, "Ava sees spring." Then a little while later she told the lady at the coffee shop that there were "four sides--winter and spring and summer and uhhh.... fall."

We've also been talking a bit about geometry.

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My husband is about the best "on top of things" person that I know when it comes to matters of finances and bill paying. I mean, I would NEVER think to keep tabs on the rate of our adjustable home equity loan--I would just pay it each month.

Thank goodness he does.

Turns out, with the falling interest rates, our adjustable home equity rate also fell--but that little drop didn't appear in our online statement.

He called the bank and got it straightened right out. They had an explanation and it turns that out we weren't losing money--but it's a great reminder to stay on top of things. Don't take for granted that banks or businesses are always on top of your interests, no matter how automated they are. No one wants to fall prey to an expensive oversight--and besides, there's a lot to learn about the world of finance by paying close attention to your own.

So there is another business idea I've come up with for my husband: on-top-of-it bill paying.

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One Small Thing

There was an article yesterday (I just looked for it but now can't find it) about how we're not any happier as a society, just busier. I was thinking yesterday about how immersed in work-related things I've been lately--at the expense of non-work related things.

I also think that it can be overwhelming to try and make big changes to correct those practices--and we all know what a champion I am of small steps.

So, every day I'm going to decide on one small thing to do differently (and believe me, I am resisting the urge to create categories for these "one small things"). I just want to let it happen--there are NO RULES. I can even pick the same one small thing every day if I want.

So today's one small thing is to consciously say hello to everyone that I encounter.

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Suit to Splurge

I have a big meeting on Tuesday and I really want to pick up a new suit for it...I can't really justify the expense with longevity--because meetings like these don't come around all that frequently--but I am justifying it with my hard work and the fact that its been several new moons since I've purchased a new suit. How's that?

I haven't picked it out yet--but I'll report if and when I do. Oh, and feel free to send along any suggestions!

A little BEHIND

{I swear that I did not realize the appropriateness of this picture (to the title and the post) until AFTER I posted.}

Here are a few to do's that keep losing out to to must's (groceries, wash clothes, work, breathe):

1. Download pictures from little one's birthday party
2. Finish making the CDs for this little project I dreamed up in celebration of little one turning two (way more on this, I promise)
   
3. Fold and put away laundry
4. Clean out closet and rid it of all things wool and winter!
   
5. File

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Friends of ours have 7 to 10 day to "getaway"...but they still haven't decided WHERE. They asked ME to ask YOU for suggestions...

So, if you could go anywhere in the WORLD for 7-10 days, where would you go?

leave a comment or email me at splashesandsplurges dot com

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Send Me Your Splurges!

I'm still not spending money (at least not on anything with "ooh and aah" quality). So I really need you to send along what you've been indulging in lately--with time, money, or energy. PLEASE.

Dot coms and Detox

I've always been a little bit behind where technology is concerned and that my husband is always a little bit ahead doesn't provide much incentive to change my sluggish ways.

And I don't know if the fact that I have FOUR email addresses makes me savvy or stupid--but I'll save that analysis for another day.

In my mind, however, they aren't really four separate email addresses (even though, according to my husband, they really are). That's because there is this function/application/protocol, POP (Post Office Protocol), which magically makes everything go to one account. It uses a lot of this stuff:

+OK POP3 server ready <1896.697170952@dbc.mtview.ca.us>
C:    APOP mrose c4c9334bac560ecc979e58001b3e22fb
S:    +OK mrose's maildrop has 2 messages (320 octets)

Which means absolutely NOTHING to me, but it looks a lot like what my husband is getting a Master Degree in (ugh, I know) from "The" Johns Hopkins University (okay, that's pretty cool).

The great thing is, those of us who only use %>: to make smiley faces at the end of our sentences or maybe Snoopy and Woodstock if we're really clever, don't need to know what it means or how to use it. People at google or hotmail or yahoo know for us. :)

I don't know if ignorance is bliss, but it sure is nice to not have to know everything (who am I kidding? OF COURSE we know everything, but you know what I mean).

So, of those four email addresses that I have, three of them go to one address. So see? I really only have two email addresses.

The fourth (does anyone use hotmail anymore?) was the first email address I EVER had. I "secured" it close to 10 years ago, or thereabouts, and it has retired from its cyber hey-days as the go-to account and now works exclusively in the "all things that require registration" sector--online purchases, newspaper access, magazine recipe access, daily doctor dictionary words. In other words, it is the email used for all things that are not authentically or specifically designed for moi.

The evolution of email has included the provision of (basically) unlimited storage space, which has not always been the case. And I take full advantage. Like my house, my closet, my drawers: if there's space, you can bet I know how to fill it up and then I know how to lament it until I (or in the case of the pantry, Pete) do something about it.

Well, my "all things that require registration" inbox was borderline hotline-able. It was holding (ready for this?) 3,741 UNREAD emails. I'm sure there is some advocacy group somewhere that could make a strong case for neglect, even gluttony. Swift and severe detoxification was in order if I was to avoid exile from email.

But where to start?

I don't know why it didn't occur to me sooner, but most emails now have a search function. So after like 8 pages of clicking on each individual message (or getting so fed up I just selected them all and prayed it wouldn't somehow haunt me when it was finally my turn in line at the department of motor vehicle --because it seems like everything I do has implications where that agency is concerned) I finally had the bright idea to type in the sender's name in the search line and see every email from them appear.

In most cases, I could just check "select all" and then click on delete.

After an hour of methodically moving down the line, I was left with just 150 READ emails in my inbox--most from the days when my hotmail account was my only account and my now husband and father of our daughter was my (only) high-school graduating boyfriend.

But now I've decided that those people who know a lot about that <: ref::! stuff, need to come up with a way for us to conveniently and one-clickly "unsubscribe" to those senders at the same time we're deleting the 500 emails from them we've never opened. Wouldn't THAT be fancy. ::

Mid-week Splurge

Still enjoying birthday leftovers--mostly cupcakes and cookies. I promise pictures and descriptions will come this week. There, I wrote it down (and I just said it out loud).

Two, To, and Too

Today my little one turns two. Friends and family came yesterday to enjoy bubbles, balloons, and brunch.

I've always had a sensitivity to time's passage. Between the ages of eight and 29 I would cry on the eve of each birthday; mourning the start of a new year because I hadn't "done enough" in the old one. I don't know if it's coincidence or Divine design or maybe a little bit of both, but at the intersection of motherhood and age 30, I took a different turn: no more tears.

I had always thought I was just sensitive and a little too nostalgic. Both may be true, but I also discovered that my particular brand of sensitivity (with respect to time's passage) leans a bit more to the dwell side than to the thanks side.

I still spend plenty of time wishing for days back but I spend more time than I used to being grateful that I had them at all. So instead of feeling sad that my baby is less and less baby, I feel thankful more and more for each discovery; thankful that I intersected at motherhood those two years ago. As my little one has become her own person, I've become a different one, a better one, a happier one, a purposed one, a more grateful one. Together, I'd say we make a darn good two.

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More on the birthday events to come--in words and in photos.

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Squeeze a Splurge:

Champagne + Orange Juice= Why Don't I Do That More Often?

Rhythm

For the first time ever in my life, I spelled rhythm right yesterday on the first try.

I think it's significant. As in, maybe I'll find mine. (Wink).

A medium-well splurge:

We picked up a couple of steaks on Sunday night and grilled them in the rain on Monday night. They were d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s.

from mind to matter

Rules still rule. I've gotten emails about the ones you're thinking about--keep them coming. In the meantime, here's another one I apply:

If you're serious about it (a change, a try, a goal) write it down. If you're really serious, even determined, say it out loud. To someone else.

In many cases when I've set a goal or suggested an action out loud and to someone else (sometimes a room full of else's) it's on pure impulse. Even as the words are falling out of my mouth I'm thinking, "I can't believe I'm CREATING a commitment to something that did not exist until I opened my mouth." Why can't I just keep it between me and other me...

and have the choice to NOT do it?

Because other me knows me better sometimes: I probably won't do it. And while a little more work is always required, I often like the results a whole lot better.

Here are some examples of when I can distinctly remember thinking as I was speaking, "what on earth am I saying this for? This was not prompted! No one is asking me to do this! I am creating this for myself!"

• So, are we going to run Baltimore (marathon)? Four months later, I did
• I'm going to start my own business. Six months later, I did
  
• I think we should convene a group to provide feedback on this model (the group was 50+ all across the country and the turnaround time was about two weeks--but it happened)
  
• Let's go camping for the weekend! (I like warm beds and hot showers but I actually enjoyed this a whole lot more than I ever thought I would, even though it was years ago now)

These are just a couple of light examples, but I know that people employ this method in a wide range of scenarios hoping to change a behavior, a practice, or a belief (e.g. eating patterns, exercising, a golf swing).

So even though saying it out loud and the steps thereafter involve a little bit of discomfort, as I've said before, discomfort often precedes positive change (though like a disclaimer in the ads, amount and time may vary).

Splurge-berry

Fresh, sweet, and blue blueberries. Lots of them.

Stand by's

Phew.

It's been a whirlwind of growing and singing, working and writing for work, cleaning and coloring. I've been especially busy with work-related things, which always spills over and onto pleasure-related things, like reading or writing (blog included) or stretching or silencing. You know, those things I do in the wee morning moments or the late afternoon ones, while little one sleeps.

There are a few things I forsake, but there are a few other things I protect. Daily. These are things I have found, mostly by mistake, to keep me calm and present. (As opposed to frenzied and sleepless). Oh, and they are things I do independently. There are many many other things/time/commitments that I protect related to the big man and the little one, but these are separate from that. They are, in no particular order:

1. Exercise. Running, yoga, walking--anything that gets my heart rate up and gets me moving
2. No television. Especially the news. I used to be a news junkie--it was on first thing when I woke up, all day if I was home, and blaring away while I fell asleep. Since having Ava, I never have the tv on (unless it's Sesame Street) and I'd much prefer Big Bird ("Bird-it" to Ava) than anything "on the hour" anymore
   
3. Prayer before I rise. Here's the prayer I recite, sometimes a dozen times a day, but always before I start my day. My dad shared it with me 11 years ago and it's a reminder that every day is a new start to be better
4. Breakfast, boring breakfast. Oatmeal with walnuts, a few craisins or blueberries, and a touch of brown sugar. YUM.
5. Coffee. I know the stuff out there about coffee and caffeine...but I only drink it for one (maybe two) reasons: when it's quiet and dark, I love the sound it makes as it fills up my cup and then how it feels when I hold it with both hands. I rarely finish it, sometimes only remembering to take a sip or two, but it signifies morning to me, and like the prayer, a new start.

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As I mentioned last week, I've been thinking a lot about rules and even more about how to write about them. I think there is something to this idea, I just haven't come up with the right way to articulate or approach it. But I will. In the meantime, I'd love to hear about the rules that you apply, ones that you've invented over the years and still follow--even if they don't make sense anymore. I've been taking some inventory of my own, especially as I engage in the daily (enormous) task of deciding which rules are non-negotiable with Ava (like those that protect her from harm and others that involve politeness), and those that make no sense or have no purpose and probably need to just go away (like is not letting her stack her water on top of her milk a battle I really want to fight, even though she does it perfectly and has no interest in doing it when I don't react?).

I'll keep thinking and observing--but I'll leave you with one of my favorite rules that I invented almost five years ago, as I was getting ready to marry my husband, who is three years younger than me.

Here it is:

If your husband is younger than you and you take his name when you marry, his age comes with it.

Here it is applied:

I was 27 the morning I got married and by that afternoon, I was 24.

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A Scrapin' Splurge:

I have been meaning to buy a tongue scraper for like five years now...and finally took the big $2.19 plunge. Now I just have to be better about flossing.

You can read more about the benefits of tongue scraping here.