what would I do with cash to spare?

Yesterday was payday under the Big Top and that is always a good day. In spite of what the “experts” might say about dual-income families, we are not rolling in the dough. We do not have tons of material goods: no big screen tv, no tv or computer in every room of the house, no Game Boy, X-box or any other toys like that. I only wish for fancy pedicures and spa days. Our last vacation as a family where we actually went somewhere was in 1992 and it was just Holly and Zoë back then.
No, we are not blessed with a huge disposable income. Sorry to disappoint the experts out there. We live pretty much paycheck to paycheck just like most Americans. We do know that one reason is because of poor choices we made when we were younger. But we have learned the hard way about living the American way on credit. It took a long time to pay for the mistakes we made but because of them, we live differently. We carry a one mortgage and one car payment. And although we do have one credit card with a low balance everything else is in cash including those three sets of braces we currently have. So payday for us is bill paying day (my electric bill for those two weeks of triple digit temperatures is $500 and our ac was never set below 82°!) and re-stocking the pantry day.
So last night, after paying the current bills, I went grocery shopping to stock up the empty pantry. It didn’t take long to fill up that cart. While I unloaded my groceries onto the conveyer at the checkout, I couldn’t help but overhear the transaction ahead of me. The lady with her two small kids in the cart was having problems paying for her cart load. Her total was just over $90 but her bank card was declined. She kept trying and trying over and over again. She then began to remove items. Still her card was declined each time she tried. The clerk was getting rather exasperated with her. My heart really went out to this young woman and her kids. If I could I would have stepped up and covered the purchase. But after paying the bills I knew that I didn’t have the cash to spare. I wish I did. Someone once did that to me years ago. I was so embarrassed and yet so grateful. The person did it with no expectations in return except my thanks. I never saw that woman again but I will never forget her kind act. She will never know how much it meant to me. Someday I will pay it forward.
In the meantime, all I could do was say a quick silent prayer for that woman ahead of me as she picked up her children and walked out of the store without her groceries. God bless her.

Wow! ONE study must make it true. Mommy Life: Working parents selling kids short
Sorry but I respectfully disagree. It’s amazing how wrong people’s assumptions can be. You don’t know unless you live that person’s life.
You don’t know!

I am a conscientious objector

My darling daughter #3, Abby, recently made an interesting and surprising observation to Bill and me. While we were relaxing one Sunday afternoon Abby commented in her usual random way, “You know compared to all of my friends houses our house is the cleanest and the nicest.”
As I looked past the clutter in the family room from our relaxed Sunday into the kitchen with the dishes from lunch still stacked on the counter by the sink, I found my self questioning her observation. True, I tend to be a person who craves organization but I live by the motto that once graced the walls of my mother’s home. “Our house, it’s clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy.” Since I was the housekeeper of my stay at home mother’s home during my childhood, it would be easy to understand why I liked that little plaque of hers. Today I embrace that motto as mine because I am one of those moms who works outside the home and raising five children proves to a rather joyfully chaotic job in itself. My home will never be displayed in one of those better home decorating magazines because we happen to LIVE here.
Abby continued to maintain that of all of her friends, she had the cleanest home. Zoë joined in having hung out with some of the same people and agreed with Abby’s observation.
Still I questioned their observations. After all, in Abby’s circle of friends, Abby is the only one whose mother works outside the home. The other moms are all moms who are defined as SAHMs. As Abby continued to defend her observation I found my mind wandering to the times I have dropped her off and picked her up from her friends’ houses. Honestly, I can’t recall one house being neater or messier than my own. No, most of the homes of her friends were equally lived in as ours is. For me, her observations didn’t make me feel superior. No, instead it only reassured me that all of us moms struggled with the war against dust bunnies, laundry and smudged fingerprints. It is a neverending battle and sometimes we moms have to just walk away because we know ultimately what matters most is the time we give our families.
Perhaps I could come to a different conclusion about Abby’s observation…if I was snarky enough. I mean we live in a society where it is perfectly acceptable to tear another down in such a way so that we build ourselves up. We can be justified in knowing that we are made superior in our choices compared to the choices another makes.
Case in point: the ongoing mommy wars.
I do believe that much of the mommy wars of today is media driven. Still there are some of us moms who jump feet first into the thick of the battle ever ready to stir the pot and point out the failings of moms who make choices that are opposite to ours. Just lurk in any message board that discusses breastfeeding, bottle feeding circumcision, diapering issues, attachment parenting, the Ferber method, potty training, working outside the home, in the home, home schooling, private schooling, public schooling. Oh my goodness can you believe the things that are said?! The only right way is my way and no one could possibly love their children as much as I love mine if they choose any other way than my way. That is the general consensus of these boards. I hear these same discussions at the park, in playgroups, in Bible studies, at the gym, the hair salon and in the schools. And if it is in these places, you know it is out there in the blogs. Again, it is amazing and sad, very sad, how intelligent, gifted, loving moms will tear into the choices of other moms just to make their choices look like the best way, the only way.
It’s sad to see mothers cannibalize one another. Mommy guilt in of itself is powerful enough without tearing into the hearts of other mothers.
But maybe that is why moms as a whole seem to be sucked into the mommy wars. We feel guilty from the day we see that positive home pregnancy test. We over-analyze everything we have eaten or done in the weeks prior to that positive test wondering if it might have forever harmed our baby. We stress over how we carry that baby whether high or low and how many pounds we have gained or failed to gain. If we fail to carry to term we deal with the guilt that something we have done has caused this to happen. Then there are the choices we make in delivering our children. In spite of the alarming trend towards managed labor, the use of epidurals and the increasing rates of elective c-sections it seems that really the only good mom is the one who births that baby out without any drugs and nary a perineal tear in under four hours and then rises immediately from her birthing bed/stool/tub to clean up her own after-birth. Then it continues with the choices we make on how to feed, clean and teach our children. As our children flex their independence muscles and prepare to leave the nest the guilt and second guessing continues. I have yet reached the stage of life where I welcome grandchildren to wonder if there is guilt there too but I imagine there is…I mean was I a good model for my children as they raise my grandchildren and what if they make the same mistakes I make? Yup, that mommy-guilt is neverending. There must be a way we can somehow ease that personal guilt all of us feel….mommy wars!
I’m a better mom than any other is because I chose to breastfeed until my kids head off to preschool and cloth diaper them using diaper pins rather than those wraps or disposables and to co-sleep with my children until they were ready to leave the family bed and to refuse to allow Nintendo and Game Boy and Play Station in my home and instead read everything and anything to my children from newborn infancy on and to seek out the very best for each individual child when it comes to their preschool and child care and education and extra-curricular needs because I do work outside of the home because I choose to have my husband be the active parent that he is sharing in all the parenting and household duties I can accomplish except for breastfeeding because he wants to and because I see myself as my children’s mother not their friend and because I have chosen a career that allows me the flexibility to work full-time or part time or casually any hours that suits the needs of our family through the years and it goes on and on and on…
I COULD say all of that because it is true about me…
I could. But I won’t. I am the best mom for my children but I do not pretend to believe that the kind of mom that I am is the best way, the only way for all families. Good Lord, of course not.
We are all, thank goodness, different. What works very well under the Big Top I can be very certain doesn’t work for your household or my best friend or any of the moms of my daughter’s friends or the mommy bloggers out there who I happen to admire.
I look at my five children and I am confident that they are the amazing, bright, confident, well-behaved, loving, tender-hearted and self-reliant people that they are because of the choices Bill and I have made over the twenty years we have been parents. All the current studies and statistics can disprove this or support it (one can easily make studies and statistics favor their point of view) but ultimately it is who my children are that proves that my way and Bill’s way was/is the best way for our children, not yours and certainly not hers but mine.
Let the media and the talking heads continue on with the mommy wars all on their own. Let us, as parents, as moms and dads who love our children more than life itself consciously choose to set the example for our children of how to live the Golden Rule by applying it to other parents. Let us build one another up, support and encourage one another. I may not agree with your approach to potty training but I can certainly relate to all the stress and guilt and joy that comes with having children and raising them. Just imagine the kind of world it will be for our grandchildren if we do that.
Call me a bad mom if you will but I will not take up arms in the mommy wars.

priceless

Bill has always maintained that I can be expensive. Now I have proof.
According to a recent study by Salary.com™, the average US mother deserves $134,121 in salary. They basically assigned a monetary value to all the jobs that an average mom does based on the average salaries of those jobs.
Stay at home moms, work at home moms, work outside the home moms, all moms work hard from sunrise to well past sunset. Some of us are very fortunate to have husbands who share the load, even the traditional “woman’s work” but still it is the moms who more often than not are managing the household handling the minutest of details to keep the whole place ship shape and functioning. Most men admit that they could not possibly do all that the moms do. Some weren’t even aware of some of the regular mom duties.
My husband got a very brief taste of what it was like to be me while I was pregnant with Jodie. Confined to complete bedrest for over three months, I had no choice but to surrender my CEO position of the Big Top temporarily. He did a great job…with A LOT of help. I don’t believe anyone was more appreciative than he was of what I had to do ten years ago with just three kids. I guess that is why he is always so willing to share the load and is (mostly) very appreciative.
Just for fun, Salary.com™ created a cool calculator for all moms to figure their “salary” based on the number of children they have, their geographical location. It will even generate a “check” for a mom’s salary. Including my salary as a fulltime RN and I should receive $183.456 annually!
Yup! I am expensive.
But I still maintain neither paycheck is nearly enough.
It all is priceless what I do.

Figure out what you are worth. ..or maybe your mama!

a leap of faith

I do know the old saying, “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.” but I tend to be an impulsive person despite my planning. I refer to my impulses as leaps of faith in many ways to reassure myself that I am in this circus juggling with a net. I have stumbled on occasion, but I haven’t fallen yet.

Well today I took a leap of faith. I resigned at GSH before hearing for sure from Mudville…the manager I interviewed with is on vacation this week so next week I will find out. In the meantime, it was the right time to give notice. The climate is bad there. Actually, while I was there today, it felt like an oppressively hot, muggy day before a thunderstorm hits, just like my childhood days in Western PA. It is oppressive. I will praise my colleagues though that despite the sunken morale and added stress to an already high stress unit, they are, as always, amazing in their dedication and level of care that they are giving to the patients there…..

To those of you not in nursing you can not imagine the amount of s#%t nurses take and still are dedicated to their vocation….and I am not talking about patients either!

So with a gulp I took this leap today. I feel right about this leap because the drive to and from there was horrendous today. It’s as if someone is trying to tell me something. I still am “available” to GSH until the middle of April which means I am still their beck and call girl and I still have time to follow up on other jobs should Mudville not be the right one.

In the meantime, the good Lord has not failed all these years and I know He won’t fail me now so we will muddle through. That’s what makes my life a circus!

Mudville Interview

I interviewed at a Mudville hospital today. It is only 16 miles from home so the commute is definitely much more manageable. The facility is rich with history as it is almost 100 years old and was founded by a doctor who was frustrated that there was no hospital for women and children at the time in the area.
The interview went very well. The nurse recruiter originally came from the NICU at this hospital and was very enthusiastic about getting me on board. The next interview was done by a team of three: the Maternal-Child manager, the CNS of the NICU and a NICU nurse. As we talked we discovered that besides NICU nursing we shared quite a few things in common. Among other things we all have daughters graduating from high school this year and the CNS and I went to the same college to get our nursing degree. I shared with her that a certain popular professor is still teaching there. We both shared our surprise as she seemed pretty old back then.
The business part of their interview went very well. They liked the resume with the level of experience I can bring to their unit….translation, it won’t take long to orient. The only drawbacks I have is I am not PALS certified but that can be quickly remedied. I also have not been trained to intubate patients (place a breathing tube) or place umbilical lines (an IV that goes into the umbilical artery or umbilical vein in the belly button) as the policy from where I work now is these are a doctor’s, NNP and, in the case of intubation, certain respiratory therapists duties. This didn’t seem to surprise any of them as a number of NICU’s have similar policies. The position they are offering is full time day shift working three days a week 7 am to 7 PM. The manager did say there is also a full time nights position open as well. I was honest with her that I would prefer days. The NICU nurse on the interview team piped up that she wanted me on board for day shift. The pay is a little less than the Bay Area but that is not surprising. But the rate she quoted is for Staff Nurse III step 5 which is where I am at GSH. I like that a lot! It all balances out as this is full time and commute costs will drop greatly. A full time position will be an adjustment for myself and my family but we will muddle through as we always do. It will certainly revive the finances around here which is why I am eager for this to work out. As Bill’s mid-life crisis is actually starting to pick up maybe he can quit his day job and give real estate the attention it needs as he is getting busy with it lately and we wouldn’t have to stress so much about little details like steady income, health insurance. This is why the major change. The time was right as the climate in San Jose has become hostile and availability to work has dwindled to virtually nil.
What about valley? Well, I resigned that position today. I liked the staff and the patients but I did miss the adrenaline of a level III NICU and they do cancel A LOT so it would not be reliable income. I do regret resigning so soon after being hired but if it is not working, it’s not working. The manager there was very understanding and actually surprised that I gave her two week’s notice with my last day there being April 5. Isn’t that what one is supposed to do? I’m new at this so I don’t know. Oh well, I thought it was the right thing to do so I did it.
GSH will be harder and yet easier when i tender my resignation. I “grew up” in my nursing career there. Some of my mentors are still there. We have had babies together through the years, watched each other’s kids grow up. We have so many memories of patients, families, and staff. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye. But it is going to be easy because there is no work for me. My ability to make myself available on the schedule has dwindled down to barely being able to meet my minimum requirement as a per diem nurse much less make enough to provide for my family. The management has created an environment where I feel like my loyalty and years of dedication is not of any value. It is time for me to move on so I guess I will have a new adventure.
The manager who interviewed me today is off next week….spring break surprise for her kids she tells me…..so she said she will call me the first week in April with an offer……keep those prayers coming!

saying a prayer, crossing my fingers

Things aren’t so good at GSH. It has been nearly a month since I worked there and with the slowdown at Bill’s job there isn’t much $$ flowing here. We already prepped the kids that there will be one big basket to share for Easter. They are rolling with it and for that I am thankful. They drive me crazy some days , but I’ve got good kids.
Anyway, like I said, I haven’t worked much lately….only one day this month at GSH and two weeks ago at Valley. A good thing in the sense I have been able to take of sick kids at home properly and actually get some projects around here done but you can’t buy groceries with a wink and a smile. The lady at the Pak n Save just isn’t attracted to me.
So it was the right kick in the pants I needed to see what is out there for an old NICU RN closer to home. I also had to accept since nursing wages here in the Central Valley just aren’t at the same level as the Bay Area I would probably have to look for a fulltime (3 12 hour shifts) position. Checking out local hospitals I found a few NICU positions , day shift no less. I also found a few mother baby positions and a position in L & D that specifies neonatal experience (these were night shifts). The L & D position is at a facility just 3 miles from my house….my kind of commute! So out came the resume and off it was sent this past week.
I just got off the phone with HR at a hospital in Stockton offering a day shift NICU position. She says they like what they see and would like to set up an interview. So my fingers are crossed and I am praying….we’ll see what happens.

another pound of flesh for the tax man

I woke up this afternoon around 3 (I worked night shift last night and went to bed at 9:00 am) to find that today is the day we do our taxes. I started gathering and sorting receipts and such yesterday with the intent to work on it tomorrow but Bill was feeling industrious and began working on it…..he usually defers this chore to me….and he was glad to see that I woke up so I could help…..whataguy!!!!
Once fortified with a cup of coffee, I sat down and we worked on it most of the afternoon. Like I said, Bill usually shies away from this chore so he soon was preparing dinner which certainly isn’t something I want to do two hours after waking up. :Þ
By dinner the job was done so the tax man will be happy at least for this year. The verdict was a surprise as we are getting a sizeable refund from state. I guess Ahnold and company would rather plunder local governments’ coffers. We essentially broke even with federal with a very modest refund. This is what we wanted as I would much rather have my $ throughout the year rather than have the federal government hold it for me without interest.
We should have owed a little but what saved us was the start-up expenses for Bill’s mid-life crisis, er, new career as a realtor. Bill started dinner plans when I was adding up all those receipts. It still is a sore subject with us as this depleted any savings we had. I repeat over and over again in my mind that this will pay off in the end when I get frustrated about this. Most men in mid-life crisis buy a sports car, a motorcycle, take on some extreme sport with the fantasy that they are still 25 or have an affair…..my husband decides starting a totally different career is the way to go! Fortunately he agreed with me to not quit his day job just yet.
So once the checks come it looks like we will be getting a new ‘puter. We’ve had this dinosaur since ‘97 and it shows!
Now to show Holly how to file hers….