Bucket List

Our first born came to the table early Wednesday morning for his brother’s birthday breakfast. He hung around after, to tell me of pedals and high hats and crashes he’s known and loved, miming taps and blows as he spoke. His dream drum set up, vivid in his mind, already surrounded him with sounds as with friends.

Now he’s working on the nitty gritties. Getting another job. Saving.

I have dreams too.
* Travel cross country. To seek out those crazy concrete buildings shaped like tea cups and donuts, shoes and ice cream cones. Take touristy pictures. Stay at the Treesort in Washington for two nights and get the T shirt.
* Grow a perfect tomato. Warm from the sun, thin skinned, wet and sweet.
* Build a small house with a stained glass window out of salvaged bits, on a piece of land near trees and a stream. Perhaps on wheels for travel. Perhaps without for summers spent with family.
* Return to Italy with my sweetie. Master the language well enough to manage without a dictionary.
* Visit the world’s longest yard sale.
* Identify birds by their songs.
* Forage entire meals a la Euell Gibbons.
* Finish writing a book about my father, a sculptor, for his grandkids. Stuff it full of stories, and photos of his work. Weave a bit of biography throughout.

Each dream has a starting place, the string end to follow through tangled real life. I’m taking a few strands at a time. One actively, while the others lay fallow. Doorknobs, architectural salvage and building print outs for the house. Language tapes and a coin jar. A friend’s promise to teach what she knows about native plants in the spring. Boxes and boxes of clippings and letters.

So dream your dreams. Build on your dreams with the bits and pieces you’ll need to reach them. Don’t give up. Even the process is worth it. It’s all worth it.

Time

Time like an ever flowing stream bears all it’s sons away, it flies forgotten as a dream, dies at the opening day.

While sitting around the dining table recently, we discussed the relative nature of time. You know, how summer vacation weeks go so quickly, and school weeks drag on. I proposed time actually does move differently for different people and situations. You see, the theory of relativity is just that. We don’t really know if there is an objective conversion point where stuff becomes energy if it moves fast enough. So time may actually be influenced by our perception of it. The week before Christmas actually is longer for the child itching to rip off wrapping paper, than for the parent scrambling to get every thing done. And while the school day seems interminable for the kid in school, it’s not near long enough for the mom to squeeze in all her errands.

With that phrase, Isaac decided I had gone off my nut.

Think about it, time imposes parameters beyond our perceptions. God made time, it’s His creature, just like a rock or person. And will, like all things, be disposed of in the end. It does move on within our realm. So it’s like this. God controls time and time controls us. We can’t stop it, it’s relentless, and so we must use it wisely as we would any limited commodity.

I’ve decided to finally buckle down and write about my dad. Why? To extend his artistic influence a tad longer, and transfer a bit of him onto our kids and their cousins. Secondly, at this time, because my resources are diminishing. Mom’s mind is failing, dad’s colleagues are growing older, and printed materials are disappearing.

If you visited our house today, you’d see eleven book boxes in the living room, dragged down from the attic. Art books, catalogs, and papers in piles, computer printouts neatly laid out on the radiator, and two pages of actual rough draft. The task at hand is to accurately condense a man into words and photos on a page. I’ll keep you posted how it works out.

Passive Budgeting

You don't get rich by what you earn. You get rich by what you don't spend.
- Henry Ford

When you think of Henry Ford you think of his Model T, the first mass produced car. By using an assembly line he was able to produce a good product in less time and thus make it affordable for the masses. He further streamlined the process by offering “any color as long as it’s black”. What you may not know is he specified the dimensions for crates his mechanical parts were shipped to the factory in. So instead of cutting more wood for the floor boards, he just took apart the boxes and used them in the car.

A lady wrote to Dollar Stretcher describing how she tracks her non-spending on a white board in her living room. If she comes home and makes supper instead of buying take out, she calculates the difference and writes down what she saved that day. She should show some impressive results by year end.

One mom had her kids clip coupons and compare prices on goods on her shopping list. They were given the difference. You can bet they scrutinized the Sunday papers and kept the coupon box in order.

Granted, it’s easier to make a budget and spend up to it, than keep track of what’s not spent. But the second is more encouraging. So think about what you don’t spend. It may give you just the boost you need.

Expediency and Truth

When I was a kid we lived in the projects. One day I bumped into a classmate and we decided to hang out. She went to ask permission of her folks while I waited a couple houses down.

A little girl ran down the block, tears streaming down her face. I asked if she was alright. She looked up as she passed by, sniffled, and went into her home. Her mom soon came out the door, looked both directions, saw me, and stormed over. She grabbed me by the arm and started shaking. “Tell me you’re the one who hit my daughter, or I won’t let you go”. I could feel her fingers digging into my flesh.

So I considered the options. And I lied.

She pushed me away, and stomped back into her house. Even as the pink finger marks and discomfort dissipated, the guilt from lying burned in me. I vowed never to give in that way again, no matter what it cost.

It cost plenty.

You stand against bullies, and get the stuffing knocked out of you.

You counter friends who pick the easy way out. They tear you down to defend their turf, and you lose a friend. It’s like a battlefield amputation. Messy.

Once we start choosing expediency over truth, it’s that much easier for expediency to win the next time. When we celebrate Christmas our tendency is the same. We blur the edges and soften the reality. Gifts are fun. Singing is wonderful. Babies are small, helpless, and cute. But the truth is, Jesus isn’t a baby anymore. He’s not “safe”. We serve a risen Christ, One who will judge the earth with perpetual and massive judgements. We belong to the God who created everything, a consuming fire. Not some helpless child, who needs a diaper change.



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Don’t Eat All Your Seeds

A blog discussion showed up recently asking if rich, middle class, or poor people were temperamentally different. I considered my rich uncle and what set him apart.

First. He worked very hard.

Second. Uncle saw opportunity where some of us might not. He grew up in a small mining community where he and his brother were butchers. A comfortable enough profession. They started buying up mining sites by leveraging their incomes and getting loans. Of course there were risks and deal making involved. Strikes, legal issues, overhead. My uncle plunged in and dealt with politicians, bankers, the educated. He learned to pilot a plane, play golf, and make a dignified impression. He was willing to act quickly and gamble it all.

Third. My uncle thought of money and time as commodities used to increase value, not to spend solely on pleasures. So in his 90's Uncle still painted his garage, and Aunt still cleaned their home. They were willing to go through the discount racks at better stores to purchase clothes, or travel that extra 15 miles to a small town hairdresser for a $20 dye job and trim.

Most of us like our comfort and so remain where we are. It takes huge effort to break free from the status quo. We have to fight the naysayers, those that ridicule big dreams, accusing us of being snooty, and perfect the social skills needed to navigate unfamiliar territory. Plus we may very well have to move away from the ‘hood.

I was amazed as we drove through a rough area of Philly recently, to notice amongst boarded up and abandoned houses, Direct TV on every rooftop. A prime example of exchanging the present for the future.

Moral: If you eat all your seeds you have nothing left to plant.

Letting Go

My dad brought an ancient Gingko log into the backyard. It sprouted leaves every spring. Without any roots mind you, or branches, but somehow through capillary attraction it sucked up moisture from the soil and pushed forth a few fan shaped leaves. Dad never got around to carving it before he died, but it became one more thing the salvage guys carted out.

Tightwads by nature hold onto things. There’s even a technical term for it. Sunk cost fallacy. It’s the too small clothes kept in the hopes of losing enough weight. Odd bits of string. Scrap paper. Little stubby pencils that barely fit in the sharpener anymore. We invested capital in these things and by jingo we want our money’s worth.

Eventually it leads to clutter.

This may sound blasphemous. There comes a point when it’s not worth holding onto. Face facts. Granted, the pencil lead has a tad more life in, it but the eraser is shot. The new pencil erasers are drying up even before you get to use them. You won’t lose those 50 pounds. I’m sorry, it’s true, you won’t. And if you lived to be a hundred, you won’t need more scrap paper. Junk mail will always come to your mailbox, you’ll always have a fresh supply.

It has spiritual implications. We hold onto habits because they’re comfortable. We hold onto stuff as a buffer for the future. We don’t really believe God will provide when we need it, but have to stockpile to insure protection against every contingency.

The first step is to admit you have a problem. “Hello my name is______, and I’m a packrat”. The second is to realize you have sinned by seeking to control your world, and to admit you need God’s help to overcome fears and put sin to death.

Ten Tips for Frugal Finesse

A friend visited recently. Her father had weathered the Depression and kept his parents and siblings afloat through it and during WW2. No small feat. She mentioned financial disciplines he insisted she follow during her early earning years. At the time they seemed restrictive. But these enabled her to purchase a house for less than market value in cash. Her cars the same. Pretty amazing. Which got me thinking. If I could do anything, what lessons would I want to pass on to my kids?

1) Save up for what you need.
2) Spend less than you make.
3) Make a distinction between wants and needs.
4) Try to fix it before you replace it.
5) See if you can do without before you fix it.
6) See if you can get it for free.
7) Use conventional objects in unconventional ways to fulfill a need.
8) Learn skills from books, online, or from other people.
9) Do your best, but don’t beat yourself up if you make a mistake.
10) Every once and a while give yourself permission to have fun.