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Calendaring Life

I’m incredibly absent-minded. I get involved in something and forget about almost everything else. While that makes me productive at work and helps the time pass, it means I forget to do a lot of things. On the days I am supposed to pick up my son, I have to set reminders so I don’t get wrapped up in a project at work and forget to leave on time.

My solution has been to put everything into Google Calendar. I use 10 different calendars, five of which are mine. I have one for regular scheduling of appointments, one I use to take notes for 30 Day Projects, and one that is copied from the school calendar so I don’t forget late-start days and school vacations. I also use calendars to track the wrestling team’s schedule, family birthdays, and upcoming holidays. I’ve got all of these calendars synced to my phone, I get reminders a week in advance, and I get a daily agenda at 5AM, every day. I don’t forget much anymore.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on a new project–a new calendar. I’ve been reviewing seasonal home-maintenance checklists, medical checkup recommendations, car maintenance lists, and more. All of this has been added to a new Google Calendar, the Home and Life Maintenance Calendar.

This calendar is designed to remind its users to do the things we all need to do, from biannual physicals to replacing your furnace filters, checking your tire pressure to cancer self-exams. The seasonal chores happen in the right seasons, and the monthly reminders happen monthly. It is a work-in-progress and I welcome any recommendations for the things I’ve missed.

So, here it is. Use it, set up reminders, smack me for missing something obvious and enjoy.
[google-calendar-events id=”1″ type=”ajax”]

Update: This post has been included in the Festival of Frugality.

Cheap Lo Mein

Recipe

: Image via Wikipedia

I’ve never been a fan of making Chinese food. It always seems to involve ingredients I don’t stock and several hours of prep work. It’s not usually worth the hassle. Several months ago, I began to notice that, when we went out for Chinese, all of my kids had the same favorite dish: lo mein. It would be nice to be able to have the dish without having to pay restaurant prices, so I did some research and came up with a quick, easy, and cheap recipe for lo mein. It takes 3 dishes and 20 minutes.

Lo mein has 3 components: noodles, sauce, and the rest.

Noodles

I use spaghetti noodles. I leave them a bit al dente, because they will spend some time in the hot lo mein sauce, which will cook them a bit more. 1 box of noodles is enough for two meals for my family of 5.

Sauce

Chicken broth, 4 cups
Rice wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons
Sesame oil, 2 tablespoons
Red pepper flakes to taste, about 1 teaspoon
Soy sauce, 1/4 cup
Sugar, 1 teaspoon

Mix it all in a bowl, then wisk until the sugar is dissolved. Nuke until hot. I do this while the wok is heating up and the noodles are cooking, so the pepper flavor has a better chance to blend with the liquid.

The Rest

Sesame oil
Minced garlic
1 Onion, cut to whatever size you like
Protein, chopped
Vegetables, chopped
Ginger powder, to taste

Chop everything first. When you start cooking, you will be busy cooking, not prepping.

Get the pan hot. Splash in some oil, then toss in the meat when the oil is hot. I usually use chicken, but any meat you like–or even no meat at all–will work.

When the meat is almost completely cooked, add the onions and ginger. Stir constantly.

When the onions are barely translucent, start adding the vegetables, in the order they will take to cook. You can use any vegetable you want. Broccoli, carrots, and peas work well. Whenever the grocery store has a sale on stir-fry vegetable packs, we stock up for about $2/bag. Just defrost ’em before you start cooking, so it’s possible to chop them up, and they work great. Otherwise, any vegetables you have on hand will work. Add them, and stir constantly.

At some point, toss in a spoonful of minced garlic. When depends on how much garlic you want to taste. The earlier you add it, the tamer the flavor.

When it’s all cooked, spoon in some lo mein sauce and toss to coat. Remove from heat.

Serve

Spoon the rest of the sauce over the noodles and toss. You will have extra sauce, so don’t add it all at once. You want the noodles coated, not floating.

Combine the noodles with the stir-fry and serve.

If you buy the noodles, vegetables, and meat on sale, this meal costs about $10 to make. Like I said, that’s two complete meals for 5 people, 3 of whom have adult appetites. The rice wine vinegar and sesame oil aren’t cheap, but you don’t use much, so the cost per meal is negligible.

Sunday Roundup: Balancing Fun and Frugality

Misc

Friday was another Yakezie Blog Swap. The topic was: “Balancing Frugality and Fun.”

Here is the list of articles:

Latisha Styles shares her story about going on a shopping diet at Narrow Bridge.

Joe gives us 10 different ways we can have fugal fun in almost any city at Prairie Eco-Thrifter.

The other Joe shares with us his memories of time with his Grandpa growing up and how he taught him to have fun at Mom’s Plans.

Ashley reminds us to spend those dollars where they will give us the most happiness at My Personal Finance Journey.

I shared that making memories is what counts at Financially Consumed.

Denise tells us that any kind of fun is possible with a little planning, determination, and work at Money Cone.

Money Cone shares with us how they have become a latte sipping frugal Mac user at The Single Saver.

Jacob shares with us 5 different techniques we can use to balance frugality and fun at Money Talks Coaching.

Eric at Narrow Bridge shared 3 ways he’s found to have fun on the frugal at Retire by 40.

Hunter tells us why corporate bankruptcy isn’t fun at all at Live Real Now.

Melissa shares her story of how her family balances frugality and fun atSmart Money Focus.

Eric defines the ultimate frugalite and the ultimate spender over at Financial Success for Young Adults.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked

Selling Your Car was included in the Totally Money Blog Carnival.

The Evils of a Reverse Mortgage was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Friends and Acquaintances

Life, Relationships

“Friends help you move. Good friends help you move bodies.”

-unknown

Some people have dozens of friends. I’m not that guy.

I have 6.

Everybody in the world can be divided into 4 categories.

Strangers. A xenophobe’s nightmare. These are the people you don’t know, whether they are passing you on the sidewalk, or newborns on the opposite side of the world.
Acquaintances. These are the people you’ve met, mostly in passing. They tend not to have much effect on your life. You may pass a friendly bus ride in conversation, but it’s nothing that sticks. A waitress, the clerk at the store, a friend’s latest date; these are the people you interact with for just a moment and rarely think about further.
Friendlies. Most people call these folks friends. I don’t. I’m friendly with them, hence the name, but it’s not true friendship. Often, they are either my wife’s friends, or my friends’ wives. Sometimes, they are a friend of a friend that I only see at parties, or a coworker that I get along with, but never see outside of work. We’re friendly, but not obliged. I may help with some things, but it’s not necessarily a priority. I’ll go to a funeral, but probably won’t help plan it.
Friends. To me, calling someone a friend is a big deal. I’m willing to do a lot for my friends. They are able to command large amounts of my time, and ask any number of favors. If needed, I’ll open my home or help demolish their’s. Loyalty, honesty, trust, respect, and companionship are all a part of my definition of a friend. If a friend needs help, I’ll come running. In return, I expect the same.

Family tends to fall into the same analogous categories.

It sounds cold, but I hesitate to let people graduate into the final category. My wife used to try to “set me up” with people that she thought I’d like to be friends with, thinking I was sad to have so few friends. It took years for her to realize that I was happy. It’s a matter of quality over quantity. Most of the friends I have, I’ve had for 10 years or more. I’ve known each of them for at least 5 years, not that time is a requirement.

Moving people into the “friends” category is a lot like dating. You get along, so you invite the potential friends out for a drink, one on one. You feel them out to see if they are compatible. You meet their families, share some food, build some history. If it all works out, eventually, you consider them a true friend, even if you couldn’t mark the date of the transition.

You wouldn’t marry everyone you date, so why would turn everyone you basically get along with into a friend?

Do you have a lot of friends? What marks friendship for you?

Appearances Matter

Business, Life

As my wife ramps up her job search, I’m reminded of this post and decided to bring it to the forefront.

A few weeks ago, I took my son out to my favorite Chinese buffet. There were two women there with names tattooed on their eyelids.

When you have someone’s name tattooed on your eyelids, you are limiting your job prospects to tattoo-shop employee or drug mule. You have disqualified yourself from a burger-flipping career.

When I turned 21, I had 13 piercings in my face and dyed-black hair past my ribs. Everybody is the factory I worked in got used to my bullring in time.

When my son was born, I decided I’d had enough of 12 hour graveyard shifts and not seeing my family, so I pulled out my piercings, put on a nice shirt, and got a corporate-style job in a call center.

Within a week or two, I put most of my piercings back in, and let everyone get used to it.

Six years later, I got laid off, and again, took out my piercings to look for work.

Appearances matter.

I know, for certain, that I wouldn’t have the job I have right now if I still had long hair and enough metal in my face to get me “special” attention at the airport.

A ring of steel through your nose kills the first impression in a business environment.

When you are walking into a situation for the first time, it’s important to pay attention to the persona you are projecting. Ladies, if the gentleman in the picture showed up for a blind date, would you be inclined to go anywhere with him? Men, would you expect anyone to go anywhere with you, if this was you?

Visible tattoos are called job-stoppers for a reason. If you can’t cover them with normal office attire, you won’t get hired in a professional setting. If that fact is a surprise to you, your lack of judgement means you wouldn’t be a good hire, anyway.

Like it or not, people make most of their decisions about others in the first few minutes of meeting them. Some studies show that it’s done in the first 30 seconds. If that time is spent on your facial art, the expletives on your t-shirt, or the briefness of your skirt, don’t expect to have anything else matter. You may be a genius, but your potential boss will never know that because you’ll be out on your butt before they have a chance to look at your resume.

Deathbed Relationships

Life, Parenting, Relationships

My great-uncle has been depressed lately.

He lives in the same apartment building and my grandmother, his sister. They are just down the hall from each other.

Over the holidays, he’s seen a steady stream of people visiting my grandma, bringing cards and pictures, or taking her out to eat. Over Christmas weekend, she spent far more time away from home, celebrating with her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids than she did at home.

He’s never met his great-grandchildren. He’s in his 70s, living in a retirement home attached to the nursing home he will most likely die in, and he’d like to see his descendants.

It’s too late.

He didn’t lose his relationship with his kids and grandkids in a fight. Instead, he spent his entire life doing his best to avoid all forms of responsibility. He spent 50 years avoiding supporting his family. He wasn’t there for them.

Of course they won’t be there for him.

There is a simple way to get your kids and your grandkids to dote on you in your old age: You spend your entire life being there when you’re needed.

Simple.

Building a relationship that can survive–or even thrive–in the times when you’ve got very little left to give takes a lifetime of commitment.

It starts the day your children are born, when you hold that precious little high-maintenance paperweight and swear that nothing bad will ever be allowed to happen to them. Then you teach them to walk, and teach them to talk, and kiss their booboos when they fall. And they will.

Day in, day out, you be there. You feed them, clothe them, punish them when necessary, and love them unconditionally even when they make it hard to like them. Every blessed day.

You soothe their pains, manage their fears, help them grow and turn into useful adults. Every flipping year.

When they are adults, you lend an ear, you lend a hand, you help with their babies, you offer advice, you listen and talk and you are there. Decade after decade.

Then, when you are old and broke and broken down, you’ve got people who love you, who cherish their memories with you. These are the people who will drive an hour out of their way to pick you up for dinner. They’ll carry you up the stairs you have trouble with. They’ll sit at your feet and listen to you tell stories. They’ll be there for you because you’ve always been there for them.

That’s how you get your kids and grandkids to visit you in the nursing home. Simple, not easy.

If you’ve missed their childhood–for whatever reason–it’s still possible to build that relationship, but it’s so much harder. You start by taking time out of your life to do spend time and be there. Help when you can with what you can. Be there.

If you wait until you are old and broke and broken down to start your relationship, it’s too late. Your kids will know that it’s just another example of your selfishness. If you’ve never made an effort to give, you’ve got know business expecting to get. You’ll be lucky to get an occasional phone call and a greeting card for the holidays.

Search Results for: three-alternatives-to-a-budget/budget-lesson-part-5/debt-burnout/budget-lesson-part-3/how-to-complain-the-squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease/travel-expenses-why-i-splurge/budget-lesson-part-1/future-dreams/573/save-your-family

Noodles

Sauce

The Rest

Serve

Carnivals I’ve Rocked