Thursday, October 4, 2007
Rant
WHY is it that my EX-son-in-law is in Mexico on vacation, for the 4th year in a row, while he owes my daughter over $8000 in back child support, which he refuses to pay. Coincidentally, she has not had a vacation in six years.
Someday
I wish I knew how to knit. It's one of those things on my "someday" list. I used to crochet, but I wasn't very good at it. It took so long to get anything made and nothing quite turned out the way it was supposed to. I see lots of blogs on the internet written by people that love to knit, and there's something about a pair of knitted socks that just looks so cozy!I love to sew, but have had very little time the last decade or so! lol I bought my sewing machine over 23 years ago when my daughter was just a newborn baby. I sewed almost all of her little dresses. Lately I've been working on catching up some of my mending so my sewing machine has been getting some use, although not a lot. Still, it feels good to actually use it. I'm hoping now that I have all these grandbabies, maybe my machine will get used a lot more in the next few years. I even looked at new sewing machines at JoAnn's the other day...I kinda wonder if the feeling I had was anything like what my hubby feels when he looks at new electronics!
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Self-employment
My husband and I own several small businesses and we also have some real estate investments. We have purposely invested in several different businesses, rather than putting all of our eggs in one basket, so that should things go south in one area, we don't lose everything.
My husband has been self-employed for most of our married life, and while that has been a blessing for us, it's also made some things in our life difficult. We have only taken one two-week vacation in the entire time we've been married. We seldom get more than one week of vacation a year. We have only had two pay raises in the last fifteen years. We have had one income tax refund in approximately twenty-five years, which totaled about $60 if my memory serves me right; but, we've been audited three times. My husband works an average of 10-12 hours a day, down from his average of 16 hours a few years ago, and it's not unusual for him to have to go in to work on Saturday for a couple hours. We pay for all of our own health insurance, (plus our employees) and have not had dental or vision coverage since I quit working for the State of Washington twenty-five years ago, when I was pregnant with our first child.
My husband says he wouldn't have it any other way. After having been self-employed for twenty-six years, he says he could never work for anyone else. He loves being accountable to no one and making all of his own decisions. His office is literally just minutes from our home, and he always says if he had to commute he would go crazy.
I, on the other hand, often wonder what our life would have been like had he continued working for someone else. Our entire lives are wrapped up in our businesses. I would love to leave this town and move somewhere else, yet realistically that will probably never happen, as it would probably take years to divest ourselves of our business and real estate holdings. I long for a simple, peaceful, country life, free of the stress and drama in this small (I'd like to say God-forsaken) town, and I'm not sure that's ever going to happen. My hope is that perhaps some day we can both have what we want...my husband, his businesses, and me, a home in the country, somewhere away from this small-minded community.
My husband has been self-employed for most of our married life, and while that has been a blessing for us, it's also made some things in our life difficult. We have only taken one two-week vacation in the entire time we've been married. We seldom get more than one week of vacation a year. We have only had two pay raises in the last fifteen years. We have had one income tax refund in approximately twenty-five years, which totaled about $60 if my memory serves me right; but, we've been audited three times. My husband works an average of 10-12 hours a day, down from his average of 16 hours a few years ago, and it's not unusual for him to have to go in to work on Saturday for a couple hours. We pay for all of our own health insurance, (plus our employees) and have not had dental or vision coverage since I quit working for the State of Washington twenty-five years ago, when I was pregnant with our first child.
My husband says he wouldn't have it any other way. After having been self-employed for twenty-six years, he says he could never work for anyone else. He loves being accountable to no one and making all of his own decisions. His office is literally just minutes from our home, and he always says if he had to commute he would go crazy.
I, on the other hand, often wonder what our life would have been like had he continued working for someone else. Our entire lives are wrapped up in our businesses. I would love to leave this town and move somewhere else, yet realistically that will probably never happen, as it would probably take years to divest ourselves of our business and real estate holdings. I long for a simple, peaceful, country life, free of the stress and drama in this small (I'd like to say God-forsaken) town, and I'm not sure that's ever going to happen. My hope is that perhaps some day we can both have what we want...my husband, his businesses, and me, a home in the country, somewhere away from this small-minded community.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Grateful
Things to be grateful for today:1. I got to see my granddaughters! Well, 3 of the 4, anyway. The youngest was sick with the flu, which seems to be going around. After not having seen them since June and having a bad week of missing them terribly, I was thrilled that their mom let me see them today, even if it was for only fifteen minutes. Oh, how they've grown!
2. Making plans to attend the Women of Faith conference in Portland next weekend with some of my friends. Yea, for a weekend AWAY!
3. A spur-of-the-moment trip to Cash and Carry to get supplies for our laundromat. Seems silly, I know, but I always get excited when I get to be involved in our business.
4. Time spent with my son-in-law, talking while driving, giving me a much better insight into his life.
Psalm 107:1 (NIV)
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.
Simplicity
Last night was interesting. My son and a friend were at the house and wanted to watch a movie they had rented, along with my husband. It took no less than 20 minutes for my husband to get the movie started. All his new-fangled equipment made it so complicated and difficult to start the movie. I, in the meantime, went into our bedroom, popped a movie in the VCR, turned on the TV and went to bed. Took me a total of thirty seconds. Ha! Simplicity rules.
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