January 10, 2010

How grateful I was to hear from Gaelen and her husband, Sven, last night. They have not died from starvation. However, they have spent $40 on groceries this month. While still within budget, they have not started to use gift cards yet but prefer to use them toward the end of January when the pantry shows that it needs a paint job. With the weekend coming to a close, I have not heard from Consulea. I left a message for her yesterday, checking to see if she was starving. One personality trait Consuela has is that she can charm her way into dinner or drinks with friends and family. I need not worry about her. I don't know how she does it, but she gets a lot of goods for free, including trips to Japan. As a teacher, she can find a grant like nobody's business. Who knows? Maybe Consuela has jaunted off to Israel again to do some last minute consulting. Last year, when she was sent to Poland at the last minute to work with a touring group of educators, I asked her what she was going to do there. She said "a lot of babysitting, and a little teaching about the Holocaust." (I failed to brief you on the fact that Consuela is a noted Holocaust scholar.) Considering she was going to Poland to "teach," I deftly asked, "Are you going to show people how to screw in a light bulb?"

We can not think of a better month to be austere than January. Our taxes are due, and since we do not escrow, I have to write a lot of checks to the tune of $5500. That will scare anyone into eating egg sandwiches for a week. On top of those expenses, Jeff and I are negotiating a contract to build a new, state-of-the-art eco-friendly, sustainable home. More on that later, but suffice it to say that if we get the contract we want, we will drain the savings account of an additional $6000.00 in earnest money.

January offers many challenges, and this year, we are committed to cutting back on dry cleaning. I am a professional and Jeff is in retail management, so our respective companies expect some level of dress, which includes professional dry cleaning. We've decided that one expense we can really affect this month is the cleaning bill. Jeff pays this bill, but I think it's about $200 a month. With the taxes, the medical expenses (reimbursable, but still...), and the need to return to "the pond," we are taking one for the team and washing our own shirts. The washing part is not a problem. I can pre-treat with the best of them, and to some degree get collars spiffier than the the best Oakland California dry cleaners. Since January is going to get me to a deeper sense of myself, I am forced to recall one vital part about my personality: I hate ironing.

It takes an enormous amount of time, which I normally do not have, to iron. Crease this, starch there, did I spray this side already?, get the cord out of the way, button here, hang there, drop this, redo it. It's a nightmare. If I were to win the next scratch off lottery ticket (which I can not afford this month) and win $200, I would march myself to the dry cleaners, and ask then to take it just to put me out of my misery. When I travel for work, my ritual is get there (and deal with the pain of packing, security, flying, and unpacking), and as soon as I check in to my hotel room, I start ironing for the next day.

Again, January teaches austerity, and austerity teaches self-denial. So, I ironed one shirt, which took be about 15 minutes. Our ironing board is not the stand-up kind but a hide-away style that hangs on the back of the door. However, when we moved into this house three years ago, we lost the door hooks. That alone should inform anyone about the last time I ironed. On the bright side, I did not use up my Home Depot gift card (Remember to daffodil issue?), so off I went to buy new hooks and a new can of spray starch for the dry cleaning improvement project. Total costs, about $6, but I used gift cards, so we are still in line. Total time spent ironing: 90 minutes. I was not a fan of spending (wasting) so much time on that chore when I should be hanging out at Jo's coffee shop, taking yoga class, working out, or shopping, but I repeat to myself, "return to the pond."

While ironing, the neighbor's dog jumped the fence and ran up the street. Jeff and I have two weimaraners, and the neighbors daughter has one. Since she moved in about a week ago, I have seen this beauty of a creature across the fence, but I'd not been introduced, and neither had our boys. After dodging a few passing cars, chasing that fast beast around the neighborhood for a good ten minutes, our neighbor, Steve, caught him by the collar. During the debacle, I learned his name was Duke. A sleek, shiny-coated, energetic,two-year-old, Duke can run away like a fox, and he is as athetic as one. I invited Steve to bring Duke into our fenced yard to play with our weims for a while, if he thought that would help burn off some energy. Along with Steve's beagle, Barney, we had four happy pure breds having a high old time in the "back forty." While watching them, I met Sarah, the neighbor's daughter, her two kids, and of course, Duke. We talked dog-owner talk for a while, which Connsulea, not being an animal lover, would have rolled her eyes at. Lots of sitting, praising and crumbled up milk bones were involved, and it was actually not a bother at all. After a half hour, my dogs were duly nap ready, so I brought them in and welcomed Steve to let his dogs run our yard for a while as I prepped some meals.

Since it was Sunday, I probably have been out and about consuming away, had this day been a typical one. Yet, I was staying close to home, watching the finances, checking cookbooks to see how I could use ingrediendts I already have to save money, and something miraculous happened. I spent some time with the neighbors. Since moving here, I can not say we have been welcomed wih a lot of cookie trays from these neighbors, but when we get the chance to let them like us, it usually goes well. I think we reached a milestone today. I bonded with the neighbors, and between the two of us, we have four happy, napping dogs.