Alaska Vacation 2013 Quotes

July 7, 2013 by Mandi

We’re back from Alaska!

Of course we brought Wy to Alaska with us, he’s practically our son.

I’ll write up a more detailed post about our trip, but in the meantime enjoy our best quotes from our 5 days in Alaska:

“NACHO RAGE!” – Anagram of Anchorage and our new name for the city

“Look at that scenic fucking river!” – said in presence of small creek moments into our first “scenic walk”

“Salt, water, salt, water, salt, water, SUGAR!!” – Our take on road food

“There was no consciousness, I had become a machine devoted to pain.” – Jim describing his experience on our flight seeing excursion

“My brain’s already shoved that memory into ‘recycle these neurons for something else” – Jim describing his recovery from our flight seeing excursion

“I believe we were just in the company of bona fide lesbians” – They were everywhere!

“No one here is good at anything!” – Me, exasperated by inaccurate menus, poor graphic design, and bad spelling everywhere in Alaska (us Type As never go on vacation!)
(I do want to add that Alaskans are very good at shooting, as evidenced by all the bullet-holed road signs.)

“You still have it on?!” – Jim, surprised I still have the lava-hot heated car seat turned on
“I’ve got a lot of butt, okay?!” – Me

“Pull over, there’s a JoAnn” – Me, spotting my favorite fabric store in Fairbanks

Write down your quotes as you travel, seriously – they’re more fun than the pics!

Filed Under: Travel & Vacation

Why my husband and I quit giving gifts to each other

July 5, 2013 by Mandi

It’s July, kind of far from the usual gift-giving season in the US but gifts are on my mind because it’s Jim’s birthday. Too many people I know spend the days leading into loved one’s birthdays, Valentine’s Day, anniversaries, and Christmas agonizing over The Perfect Gift. Well,

Well, I say stop that nonsense! Quit giving gifts!

My husband and I love holidays and birthdays, but we don’t give each other gifts on these special occasions. We skip Black Friday and we save our money for birthday occasions instead of birthday stuff. I know this is shocking to some people, but read on and I’ll tell you why this works so well for us!

quit giving gifts: experiences are worth so much more

Happy Birthday, Jim! I got you an experience instead of a thing, enjoy it!

1) It’s easy

What do I get someone who has all his needs covered? Rather than agonize over what knicknacks to get him, I just skip this entirely and he does the same for me.

2) We both hate shopping

Do you dread gift shopping? We do. We don’t ask each other to do things we both dislike!

When we decided to stop giving gifts, an enormous weight was lifted from both of us. Especially Jim, since he’d be shopping in November and December for my mid-December birthday… along with everyone else in the US.

3) Neither of us can read the others’ mind

Jim and I have lots of interests that don’t overlap. But we’re both grown ups, and we can handle taking care of our needs relating to those interests.

This also spares the other one from the agonizing process of “dropping hints”. (And we both suck at picking up on hints.)

4) Experiences > Things

We spent Jim’s July birthday in North Pole, Alaska, where we were almost devoured by a gigantic angry Santa.

We think it’s more satisfying to spend money on an experience rather than on a thing, and science agrees.

I could spend $100 to get Jim a bunch of books, DVDs, and trinkets that I’m sure would delight him and probably entertain him for a while before they morphed into more things to dust, move, and organize.

~ OR ~

I could book another night in a cabin at Denali and we can spend his birthday in each other’s company, at a remote and beautiful place, with memories we’ll bring up for years. Bonus: no things to move or dust.

We spent 7-5-12 in northern California, and 7-5-2013 in Denali National State Park in Alaska. I can’t remember what we did for Jim’s birthdays before we started traveling instead of gifting, but I’m sure it included working a full day at the office, and then opening gifts and eating cake in the short evening before bed. I love, love, love our new tradition.

5) Things are hard to get rid of

When you buy a knicknack and give it as a gift, you probably don’t think of the day it will be sold at a garage sale or donated to charity. You don’t think about that person moving and having to sort “keep” from “don’t keep”. I know I don’t, because that’s depressing!

But I find gifts given to me get “imbued” with an essence that makes them very difficult to donate to charity when no longer needed. I end up with boxes (rooms) full of things that are special because I got them for a birthday or a holiday years ago from a person I love and now I just can’t let them go.

Then one day, after years of moving them and not enjoying them, I give up and donate them. You know what happens? I still love the person who gave them to me, and that person still loves me. Phew!

6) Gifts are not love

I know Jim loves me because of the things he does and says every day, not by the monetary value or “thoughtfulness” of the gifts he buys me.

If you only feel loved when your S.O. is giving you something of value, there’s something wrong in your relationship. You deserve to be loved. Find someone who loves you with their heart instead of their purchasing power.

7) The right time to buy something is when you need it

Do you need that new book by your favorite author? Tickets to see your favorite band? A new game on Steam?

Are you sure you need it? Do you have room for it? Is it amazing?

Then buy it.

Don’t wait until some arbitrary date rolls around. If your budget has its act together, you should have bandwidth for regular treats. If what you want is expensive, save your monthly fun stuff budget for a few months and then buy it.

By buying things when you need them instead of when our gift-saturated culture tells you to buy them, you’re dropping out of the insanity that our culture creates around holidays and birthdays.

8) My birthday is right before Christmas

And so is my sister’s, and my mother’s is right after Christmas. My dad’s comes in January, when everyone’s sick of celebrating stuff. My parents did a good job of recognizing my birthday separate from Christmas when I was a little kid, but now it’s kind of nuts to be a grown-up expecting back to back gifts.

Kids with summer birthdays seemed so entitled to parties and mountains of gifts. Their day was all about them. I guess I just didn’t get a big head about it growing up in the shadow of my country’s biggest holiday.

My parents got me things year round with the justification of “well, your birthday’s so far away, and you need this now!” A 12 month dry-spell is super depressing, so I’m glad they decoupled the celebration of my annual trip around the sun from heaps of presents. (Note: I still got presents on my birthday, but it wasn’t the only time I got things. :) )

Also, stores are hell on earth in December and asking people to endure that for me is cruel and unusual punishment.

Birthday close to Christmas = hard know whether a photo was taken on my birthday or Christmas. But this one was definitely birthday.

Final Thoughts

I’m not saying don’t celebrate the birthdays of the people you love.

Frankly, Jim and I celebrate more elaborately now than when we were just swapping small gifts. Now we make a whole day of it: we started taking our birthdays off work (or some day near them, we’re not militant about things happening on The Exact Day of My Birth) and doing something new and special with the day. We travel, we converse, we indulge in amazing foods – we spend the day living.

I am saying gifts for the sake of gifts is ridiculous.

Our culture is saturated with gift-giving, but to what end? Our gift-giving culture is supporting entire industries (how many people go to a bookstore outside of their annual holiday shopping, I wonder?). In turn, those industries count on the crush of purchasing in the weeks up to Christmas to keep themselves financially solvent. If everyone celebrated birthdays the way Jim and I do, the economy would shudder and collapse. But people might find themselves with fewer burdens: less credit card debt, less animosity over who has what, less to move and maintain.

If you’re the person expecting people to shower you with perfect gifts, get over yourself.

You don’t need any more crap, and the people you love don’t deserve the burden of finding the Right Thing. If you truly desire something, then it’s a need and you should budget for it and buy it. Isn’t that liberating?

But it’s fun to give and get gifts!

Oh I know, I love opening a big heap of gift-wrapped stuff at Christmas. And I definitely loved it as a kid (which is why I feel this advice is for adults – please spoil your children as you see fit).

Right after Jim and I moved to WA, I was yearning for a “real Christmas” and spent a good $600 giving us one. We still haven’t opened some of the Blu-Rays or beaten some of the games we bought. I wish I hadn’t gone so nuts.

If you absolutely must give gifts:

Give practical things: My favorites are Safeway and Home Depot gift cards, small kitchen appliances, tools, computer accessories
Give passes to experiences: Tickets to parks, shows… you know, stuff you do instead of stuff to store
Give gift certificates: Amazon, Target, grocery stores, etc. These are immediately useful.
Give cash: my favorite!

But if you’re bold enough to go gift free, here’s what you do:

Agree to skip gifts this year.

Don’t buy your husband a stack of DVDs for his next birthday.

Don’t buy your wife any more books or clothing accessories.

Spend time together instead. Stay home and enjoy each other’s company. Or go somewhere and see something new. You won’t even miss the gifts.

Filed Under: Money Tagged With: holidays, no gifts

End the Chore Wars: How to Keep a Clean House (and your sanity)

July 3, 2013 by Mandi

I hate chores, but I like the results. My husband hates chores and is 100% blind to mess. We are both too cheap to hire a cleaning service.

So, after seven years of experimentation, we’ve met somewhere in the middle (because fighting over chores is stupid and annoying). Getting here was not easy. I imagine a lot of 20-somethings go through this as they merge two established households, so today I am sharing 9 things that worked for us.

1. You MUST have less stuff than storage

Here it is, the secret to a clean house. If you don’t have somewhere to put everything, you will never win the chore war. You’re fighting with an army that’s already dead.

I grew up in a cluttered house. It was cluttered because there are more things in the house than there are places to put those things, so the things just sat out all the time. Cleaning a few rooms meant moving things to other rooms.

If you don’t physically have space for all your dishes, your kitchen will always require some dishes to be on the counter.
If your laundry basket can’t hold all of your laundry, your laundry will always be on the floor in between laundry days.
If your closet cannot hold all of your clothes, your clothes will always be draped over chairs and piled on the floor.
If you have more toys than you have space to store them, your toys will always sit on every surface available.

No one – not you, your husband, your wife, your children, or your hired help can win at this rigged game. If your partner isn’t helping out around the house, it might be because he knows he can’t “win”.

This is really friggin’ hard, especially since most of us live in too-small homes (our first was about 1100 sq. feet!) with too-big hobbies (bikes, games, books, PCs… not to mention cookware, clothing and extra TP).

The only solution I know of to this problem is to get rid of things. Everything you own has to do double or triple duty AND it has to be small enough to fit into one of your already-full closets when you aren’t using it. Good luck.

2. Don’t “take turns” on chores

…lest you just argue over whose turn it is while work piles up. The first shots in the chore wars are fired over who didn’t do what.

No, what you should do is split your chores up so that you can do yours and your partner can do theirs seperately.

My jobs: toilets, bathrooms, vacuuming, cars (inside and out), fridge, mail, dusting, monitors/mirrors, lawn mowing, organization, decorating, project planning/management

Jim’s jobs: taking out garbage, dishwasher (loading and unloading), laundry (washing and folding), sweeping, bill paying, watering, weeding

Jim can do his jobs even if I haven’t done mine, and vice versa. Of course, we’re both competent in each other’s jobs for those times when someone’s sick or just needs an assist.

3. Work your strengths

My chores are like “management and organization” and Jim’s chores are like “ongoing maintenance”.

I’m the one figuring out how to organize our tools and determining what project to start next; Jim’s the reason we aren’t up to our eyeballs in dishes and laundry. This split works well for us, and plays to our strengths. I need interesting work; Jim likes to daydream while doing a simple task.

The key here is to find a split that works for you and keep adjusting until both of you are happy with the arrangement.

If you both hate something, grow up – no household chore is that bad! If it is bad, it’s probably because you’re doing it too infrequently and letting it build up to disgusting levels.

4. You both have to want to help

It’s critical that you and your partner be in this together. All the tips and tricks in the world can’t make someone who doesn’t want to help out actually start helping.

If you or your partner doesn’t want to contribute, figure out why. If after months/years of asking/begging/planning/bribing, your partner still won’t pull their weight, then take that at face value. Your partner might be lazy, overwhelmed with other responsibilities, or just an ass.

Your step now is to decide whether you accept this arrangement, or whether you leave and look elsewhere for partnership.

This sounds extreme. But chores are a daily thing, forever and ever, and your partner has to contribute.

5. Make chores fun-er

Tell stories as you work on stuff together. Bonus points if they’re completely made up.
Make fun of the work – seriously, most of this stuff is ridiculous.
Play music (earphones or otherwise). Our Sunday morning yard work warsong: Imperative Reaction’s remix of Caustic’s White Knuckle Head F**k (we like to replace “head” with “yard”…yup.)
Race each other to completion on two separate projects

6. Simple > Complex

Never ask your partner to “clean the kitchen”. Break it up into smaller, manageable pieces. “Empty the dishwasher” and “empty the sink” are much more doable and less intimidating.

Furthermore, don’t bog your chore routine down with apps and programs designed to “gameify” chores. In the time you spend setting these up and maintaining them, you could finish a chore or five. Besides, even “quickly” using your phone or computer is just another distraction from completing the task.

7. Micro-clean for the win

When both partners work 45+ hours a week, cleaning seems to happen in short bursts or horrible weekend marathons. I personally hate chore marathons, and doing little things all week long seems to help us avoid them. Chances are, your day is filled with opportunities to do “micro chores”.

For example, I need more time to get ready to leave in the morning (we leave at the same time) so my husband uses the wait time to sweep the floors and put the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher.

More ways we micr0-clean:

I sort mail at the mailbox rather than letting it pileup inside
When heading downstairs, I bring down dishes or a full wastebasket
When going upstairs, I bring folded laundry or filing papers up with me
Improve one thing in a room before leaving it
Wash cookware right after using it

8. Say thank you!

Appreciation is always appreciated.

Pay attention to what your partner accomplishes around the house and compliment the outcome. Your partner gave up some of their free time to help keep the household running, and that’s worth recognizing.

It’s this easy:

“The kitchen countertop looks great, thank you for cleaning it.”

“Thanks for taking out the garbage.”

9. Lighten up! You won’t die :)

The chore wars were over once Jim and I accepted each other’s ways of doing things as “good enough”.

Filed Under: Cleaning & Organizing Tagged With: chores, cleaning, housework

Yardmageddon 2013: Part 3 – We Are Watching Grass Grow

June 28, 2013 by Mandi

It’s been 5 weeks since the start of Yardmageddon 2013.

Yardmageddon is our annual effort at DIY landscaping. We don’t know a damn thing about plants.

Yardmageddon Part 1 – Planting shrubs

Yardmageddon Part 2 – Planting grass seeds

Our yard is pretty average

Some [retired, wealthy] people around us have made their yard their pride. Others have so much yard it’s difficult to see the house hiding inside it.

We have the misfortune of living among the former sort, who are keen to remind us of their disdain for our landscaping. (It’s not bad, really. They’re just jerks.)

Doing it ourselves

But anyway, in effort to improve our resale value (and getting jerks to STFU), we’ve been working on the “beautifying” landscaping more this year. Our first year here we removed hazardous shrubs, picked up fifty pounds of dog crap from the backyard, and weeded like it was going out of style. Our second year we removed hazardous trees and weeded again. Finally, in year 3, we are ready to beautify.

This is where well-heeled people obsessed with appearance would hire a landscaping designer and pay thousands of dollars for a yard that will cost thousands of dollars to maintain. I am neither of those things. And while I don’t know a lot about making yards pretty, I do know how to photograph pretty yards and then try to copy elements of them into my own yard. DIY landscaping at its finest, folks.

Here’s how things are growing.

Backyard shrubs:
The arborvitaes haven’t died. Yay! Small success there. We’ve been watering twice a week, deeply. Our arborvitae watering technique:

1) Point hose at base of arborvitae
2) Wait 8-10 minutes
3) Re-position hose at base of next arborvitae

4) Repeat twice a week, skip if it rains heavily.

These little accent shrubs I planted in the backyard are also thriving. They are named Stonecrop Sedumn Autumn Charm. The middle one has stayed small but its two siblings have grown larger. Dunno why.

Side:

This dude’s doing well, too, although he hasn’t changed much in terms of size. Since this side of the house is the sunniest, I expect him to do well over the long haul.

Grass:
Our grass seeds are starting to sprout and fill in, but it’s pretty slow going. We water at 8am and 8pm, about 10 minutes each session. The grass that found its way here naturally is doing super well. I hope it spreads to the bald areas. :P

Close up of the grasslings:

We’re about to enter the dry season (we’re on Seattle’s eastside) in which we’ll go a good 2-3 months without rainfall. Traditionally, this is when our yard turns yellow until the rain returns in September/October. We’ll water through the dry period (like we did last year to establish the sod) and hope that all these plants thrive with the combination of sunlight and regular watering.

Filed Under: Landscaping Tagged With: grass, seed, yard

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