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Getting Back on Track

Life

I should be ashamed to admit it, but we drove ...
Image via Wikipedia

Have you ever set a goal…and failed?

At some point, it happens to all of us.   After all, our reach should exceed our grasp, right?   That doesn’t make it easy to admit failure, or to correct it.   Did you let a New Year’s resolution lapse, or slip off of a diet?   Have you started shopping indiscriminately again, or stopped going to the gym?

It’s okay if you did, but it’s time to fix it.

How can you get back on track after failing a goal?

1.  Pick a day to start over.

Just like when you first started towards your goal, you have to decide when you’re going to get back on board.    If you can’t decide, just pick the beginning of the next month.   A new beginning is a great time to tackle your new beginning.

2.  Recommit.

You failed once.  Accept it and move on.  Past behaviors don’t have to be an indicator of future performance.   Just do better this time.

3.  Announce it.

Somebody has noticed that you aren’t on the wagon.   Your coworkers are seeing you eating candy, or your spouse has noticed you buying things you don’t need.  Talk to these people.  Tell them you’re going to redo the things you’ve undone.  You’ll change the world, but you have to start with yourself.

4.  Don’t be ashamed of your lapse.

Unless I have seriously misjudged my audience, you are human.  Humans sometimes make poor decisions.  Being ashamed won’t help you, but take the opportunity to learn from the past.  Do you know what caused you to fail?  Are there triggers to your behavior that you can avoid this time around?  When I quit smoking, I tried to avoid rush hour, because I smoked heavily while I drove and I wanted to avoid being in car for as long as possible, minimizing one of my triggers.   What cause your lapse, and can you avoid it?

5.  Don’t do it again.

This one should be the most obvious, but the fact that it’s a problem means it’s not.   Do whatever it takes to not make the same mistakes and uphold your goals.  Don’t smoke.  Don’t eat garbage.  Exercise more.  Whatever you’ve decided to do or not do, do it….or not.

Have you missed a goal?  How have you picked it back up?

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Money-Saving Tip: Put Your Groceries Away

Finance

23 Hour Smoked Boston Butt
Image by bbum via Flickr

Last night, we went grocery shopping.   I found a beautiful pork roast, just begging to come home with me.  It could spend all day Sunday in the smoker.   Rub some brown sugar and garlic on the outside, maybe use a mix of maple and cherry wood chips to turn my pork butt into breakfast food.   Picture this: a beautiful chunk of slow-cooked pork butt, covered in a candied crust, falling apart at the lightest touch, and tasting faintly of maple syrup.

It was love.

This morning, I woke up, walked into the kitchen to make some breakfast, and saw that beautiful butt sitting on the counter.  Room temperature meat, ruined by my negligence.   $15 in the trash.

We got back late last night, and apparently set this wonderful piece of future-food down with the non-refrigerated items were were planning to put away later.   We said good-bye to the sitter, chased the kids to bed, picked up the house a bit, and forgot about my new love.

I’m sad.

Here’s my advice:  When you get home from grocery shopping, immediately put all of the groceries away.  Let the kids juggle knives for a bit, if you have to, but get the food put away.   If that’s not going to work, at least take it all out of the shopping bags so you can check your work.

There are starving kids in Iowa.   Don’t let potential candied pork roast go to waste.

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‘Mommy, I’m bored!’ Top 5 online activities for your kids

Finance

This is a guest post.

When nasty weather, a cold or the flu keeps kids indoors, plan ahead for those days with some great online activities kids will enjoy. Whether it is learning a new language with mom or dad, or practicing multiplication tables with an older sibling, kids can find plenty of cool things to do to kill their time. Here is a top five list of things your children can do while surfing the net.

Fun Languages
Learn Spanish, German, or French online with your kids. Give your children the gift of language with some key phrases and words to encourage brain activity in the language zones. Studies have shown that children exposed to multiple languages in their elementary years are more likely to learn a second language as adolescents and adults. Statistics indicate basic knowledge of a second language promotes better understanding of English grammar. The internet has some great resources for older children and parents wishing to improve their vocabulary knowledge and grammar skills. Word a day programs and test prep programs are often as entertaining for the parents as they are for the kids.

Arts and Crafts
There is a plethora of sites offering downloadable art project sheets, coloring pages, creative flash cards, art activity books and art games on the internet. Let the creative genius of your young artist shine through with how to draw tutorials and interactive art history sites. Don’t forget the musician in the house, as there are plenty of great music tutorials complete with video and audio for the young future soloist to watch. Many sites offer interesting and kid friendly “how to” videos for piano and vocals. Many sites offer inexpensive or free holiday cards the kids can create and print for one of a kind holiday or birthday gift giving. Crayola offers terrific downloadable coloring pages, games and activities.

More Academics with Math
Colorful math puzzles, homework practice sessions all online, downloadable speed tests and great interactive programs abound for the math whiz. Fun and entertaining, these online interactive programs are often free and downloadable in seconds. Your kids will never be bored again when accessing such interesting activities as tangrams, money games and creating their own math flash cards. Periodic tables and math and science in the kitchen bring fun and kid friendly experiments for rainy days and long summer vacations. Keep them interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) with how things work videos.

Early Learners Have Fun Too
There are wonderful sites that teach young children and early learners about counting, colors and shapes. Teach your children about telling time and other valuable skills. Learn about money, traffic safety and stranger danger in fun and engaging videos and interactive games. Young children are remarkably quick to pick up on new skills through technology. Parents can take advantage of wonderful online activities at many educational websites.

Games and More Games
There are free and not so free video and mobile device games for children of all ages. Fun and diverting puzzles, adventure and arcade, card and board games for younger to middle school aged children can be found just a few clicks away. Fun and challenging sports and trivia games for high school aged kids are often found at no charge.

Sell old CDs
Got some unused video games ready for the bin? A DVD that you kids received for Christmas and never watched? An old CD they don’t like to listen to anymore? Here it is another opportunity to spend some time online having fun. Websites such musicmagpie will allow your children to sell their unwanted CDs and make a bit of money out of it. Less clutter around the house, more fun for your kids. That sounds like a win-win.

Two Reasons to Save And One Reason Not To

Finance, Life

I’m a fan of saving money.   I’m not doing as much of it as I’d like, but that’s because I’m focusing on killing my final credit card, first.    I postpone saving, knowing that it’s

English: Nursing home in Crick
Image via Wikipedia

something that I need to do the moment my credit cards are paid off.   It won’t wait any longer than that.

Why do I care so much about saving?  It’s because I’m risk-averse.  If I can avoid risk, I do, in most situations.   I don’t want to risk going hungry if I lose my job, and I don’t want to risk eventually(very eventually!) having to fight the cockroaches for the right to drink my fiber supplements.

There are a couple of excellent reasons to save:

1. Peace of Mind.   There is a certain calm that comes from having enough savings to weather a few storms.    If your car dies when you’re broke, it’s a tragedy.  If it dies when you’ve got some cash saved up, it’s a minor inconvenience.  Knowing that the vagaries of fate aren’t going to shatter your life against a cliff is a reward all its own.

2. Cheap nursing homes suck.   When I get old, I want to live in a comfortable nursing home.  One with extended cable, nice beds, and attractive coeds in charge of the sponge-baths.   That’s not too much to ask, but I have to save up for it now.  Medicaid doesn’t cover homes like that.  Those are strictly a private affair.   To make that happen, I need to save and invest now, or I won’t be able to enjoy the fruits of my labors then.

And, of course, there is one shining reason not to save:

1.  You’re living your life now.   Saving everything you’ve got, to the detriment of your current life, isn’t healthy either.   Life is short.   Do you really want to be curled up in bed, trying to enjoy a sponge-bath, shivering at the regrets you’ve built by denying yourself everything?  I’m certainly not suggesting you waste all of your money on coke, hookers, and video games, but it is important to take the time to build some memories, or your final years will be hollow.

You have to find the right balance between your future and your present.   Every moment of your life is important, not just the ones that haven’t happened, yet.

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The Story of Sammy

Business

As I’ve mentioned, we’re cleaning out my mother-in-law’s house.   She was a hoarder who passed away a couple of months ago.   As of yesterday, we’ve filled two 30-yard dumpsters.   For perspective, that’s big enough to park our F150.

I’m not here to talk about that, or the 20 year old can of green beans that burst and ran down my leg on Saturday.

Last month, we put a recliner out on the curb with a free sign.   A few minutes later, a couple of guys stopped by and grabbed it.

Last week, one of the guys–I’ll call him Sammy–stopped by and left a note on the windshield of one of our inherited cars, asking about buying it.

Long story short, we sold him two cars.  One hadn’t been run in a year or two, and one had been parked for almost 20 years.   We signed this titles and let him take the cars while he was still $50 short of the purchase price.  This isn’t a story about the cars.

It’s a story about Sammy.

Sammy doesn’t have a lot of money.   He’s living off of a monthly check from an old injury, and his fiancee works part-time.   They’re living in Section 8 housing, and consistently have more month than money.  When he was younger, he made some decisions that make some forms of employment difficult now.

On Friday, Sammy stopped by.  He was supposed to give us $50, but said that getting one of the cars running had cost more than expected, and it still had a problem that was keeping it from being safe on the road.   He asked about an extension.

No problem.

Then, he looked around my mother-in-law’s overgrown yard and asked if he could help.  After we negotiated the price, he asked if he could a) borrow our tools for the work, and b) get a ride Saturday morning.

I am a nice guy.

Saturday, I was planning to pick him up, then drive downtown to pick up a friend who has been living at the Salvation Army since moving to the area.   His friend was so excited about the work, he hopped on a bus at 6am and got to Sammy’s house.

When I got there, Sammy also had a teenager he was mentoring.   He told me that his dream was to start a lawn-care business with his friend, so they can put kids to work and help them turn into productive citizens.   Idle, broke, and bored teenagers are a recipe for disaster.   Teenagers who grow into men not believing they have a chance to change their future are worse.

I dropped them off and went to have a chat with my wife.

We’re far from rich but, at the moment, we are fairly flush.  We’ve found some cash, and a there is a bit of life insurance money.   Most of that will be going into remodeling the house, but we have a bit extra.   If we can take a few hundred dollars, and help launch Sammy into a business that will help him, his family, and a circle of kids with few prospects, I think it’s the right thing to do.

When I told Sammy what we were considering, he started to break down.   It was a truly emotional experience for him to know that somebody was willing to take a chance on him.

I told him to put together plan.  I want to know what it would take for him to get started.  Hopefully, he’s serious enough to do that.   I’d like to help.

 

 

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