- RT @bargainr: Life in North Korea is absolutely dreadful http://nyti.ms/dAcL26 #
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- @ericabiz Funny, we found a kitten in a box last week. Unfortunately, it was abandoned there, not playing. Now, we have a 5th cat. in reply to ericabiz #
The Secret to Fearless Change
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you’ll be walking cross the floor
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you’ll be walking out the door
You never will get where you’re going
If you never get up on your feet
Come on, there’s a good tail wind blowing
A fast walking man is hard to beat
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you’ll be walking cross the floor
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you’ll be walking out the door
If you want to change your direction
If your time of life is at hand
Well don’t be the rule be the exception
A good way to start is to stand
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you’ll be walking cross the floor
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you’ll be walking out the door
If I want to change the reflection
I see in the mirror each morn
You mean that it’s just my election
To vote for a chance to be reborn
30 Day Project – January
This month, I have two 30 Day Projects.
My first project is to start waking up at 5am. This will add an extra 90 minutes to my day, which will give me time to manage all of my other 30 day projects. I’ll be able to wake up to a quiet house, walk the dog, eat breakfast and not start every day in a rush to get out of the house. Today was my exception. After watching 2010 arrive, I didn’t get up early.
The second project is to start reading to my children every night before bed. We read to the kids often, but not every day. That’s going to change. We are also working on breaking the girls of the family bed. If I can read them to sleep each night, it will help. Good, educational family time that makes it easier to sleep every night.
These are both habits I want to keep long after the month is up.
Repair Plans, Appliances, and Rancid Meat…Oh, My!
- Image via Wikipedia
We recently had our annual barbecue. (For the purists, I am Minnesotan. Barbecue means “cooked over fire”.) Due to massive scheduling conflicts, it was a bit smaller than normal; only about 20 people came. At least 10 other people RSVP-ed that they were going to make it, but didn’t. Grr.
Naturally, we had food for everyone said they would be there and enough for half of the people who didn’t say anything, since Minnesotans don’t RSVP well. That translates to a lot of leftovers. No problem. After all, leftover ribs are hardly a punishment.
Sunday morning, we woke up to find that our refrigerator was happier at room temperature than the standard “cold”. We didn’t know it at the time, but the defrost unit was borked, so the cold air couldn’t circulate from the freezer to the refrigerator. Bye-bye leftovers. Hello, Mr. Repairman. We needed an excuse to clean out the fridge, anyway, but not at the price of my beautifully seared meat! (Sadness strikes.)
Monday evening, the repairman came out, worked for 2 hours and left a functional refrigerator and a $240 invoice in his wake. Thankfully, we are on the appliance repair plan through the gas company. We pay $26.40 per month to cover repairs to our range, water heater, furnace, drier, sewer main, and refrigerator. The first four items are standard, the final two are options that cost extra.
We originally got on the plan for the sewer main. We had a tree whose roots grew into the main and clogged it every year. A backed-up sewer main is a crappy way to wake up. Getting that snaked to the street cost $200 per year. At the time, without the refrigerator, the plan cost about $12 per month. One $200 call-out more than paid for the plan for the year. That was easy math. Now, our 20 year old refrigerator has been repaired twice in the last year, giving us $500 worth of repairs for $316.80. I would like to take this time to thank all of the people with reliable appliances for subsidizing my repairs.
My furnace, drier, and range are all reasonably new and shouldn’t need repairs any time soon, but the refrigerator and sewer main have paid for the plan themselves, several times over.
Should you get a similar plan? If your covered appliances are more than 4-5 years old, I would consider it. If they are more than 10 years old, I wouldn’t hesitate at all. Repairing quality appliances is cheaper than replacing them, especially when the repair cost is paid monthly and subsidized.
Do you use a service plan?
Living the XBox Life on an Atari Income
- Image via Wikipedia
At some point, everyone has “champagne wishes and caviar dreams.” Over the last 25 years, we’ve even been peddled the “you can have it all” myth from every direction, including the media and the government.
The truth is simple: you cannot have it all. You can have anything, but you can’t have everything. In order to have one thing, you have to give up something else. It’s a law of nature. If you have $5, you can either get a burger or an overpriced cup of coffee, but not both.
“But wait!” you shout, rudely interrupting the narrator, “I have a credit card. I can have both!”
Wrong.
And stop interrupting me.
If you have $5 and borrow $5 to get some coffee to go with your burger, you will eventually have to pay that money back with interest. You will have to give up a future-burger AND a flavor shot in your overpriced coffee.
Everything you buy needs to be paid for, some day.
If you have an Atari income, but insist on living the XBox life, you will wake up one day, buried in bills, forced to live the Commodore-64 life out of sheer desperation.
There is a solution.
Don’t get all XBox-y until you are making XBox money. That way, you’ll never have to worry about going broke tomorrow paying for the fun you had yesterday.
Even when you have an XBox income, ideally you’ll restrict yourself to living a Gamecube life, so you’ll be able to put some money aside to support future-you instead of constantly having to worry about your next paycheck.
Don’t Be A Dick
Integrity is what you do when nobody is looking.
Do you cheat at solitaire, steal from an untended garage sale, or keep something a store forgets to charge you for? If so, integrity may not be your strongest trait.
Similarly, if you let the actions of others dictate your behavior, you may be integrity impaired.
If you get cut off in traffic, do suddenly feel justified in cutting off the next guy?
If you have a dollar stolen from your desk, does that make it okay to take a candy bar from the honor-system candy box?
If the last guy left the water cooler empty, are you going to refuse to refill it the next time you are the one to drink the last drop?
If you’re answering yes to these questions, it may be time to examine your moral code. Doing the right thing means doing the right thing all of the time. You can’t be an honorable person if you resort to dishonorable behavior whenever you dislike what someone else does, especially if your actions are hurting an entirely uninvolved 3rd party.
You know the proper behavior. You know what the ethical choice is. The fact that someone else made an unethical choice doesn’t give you a license to be a dick.
If it’s your turn to clean the community refrigerator, do it and do it well, even if the last guy did a poor job.
If the last mom driving the car pool showed up late, don’t deliberately forget her kid.
If someone forgot to pay at a group lunch and you covered it, that doesn’t mean you can skip out on the bill next time.
Even if everything else is taken from you, no one can ever steal your ethics, your integrity, or your honor. Those things are up to you to destroy, and they nearly impossible to replace.
In all cases, in all things, do the right thing. You won’t be sorry.
Resurrected from the archives.
