March was shaping up to be an exhausting month at work before it even started because of all the grants I had to finish— I forget how many so we’ll round to ten. And a couple needed reports.
Then we added a couple last minute important government opportunities and dealt with some EITC issues… if you don’t know what EITC is don’t worry about it, it’s a Pennsylvania tax program for corporations that benefits education.
And then we hit the state emergency of Corona virus/COVID-19 shutdown.
My employer has the largest full-choice food pantry in the County and we serve hundreds of households every month. We educated about a hundred people daily in our classrooms. We serve students in the schools. Provide assistance to walk-ins, existing clients and referrals.
So this has changed everything. The CEO is scrambling. Meetings are going virtual. Our educators are looking at distance learning. Our food pantry staff and volunteers are bagging food instead of letting clients shop.
And now we need to design a schedule and a work plan to use our homes as offices.
Ideally, we no more than 3 people in our admin building at a time. (There are only six of us.)
Tomorrow I have to take the old MacBook Air into the office and hope I can get it to connect to the remote server. Otherwise, I am not allowed to work from home.
And I forgot my journal on my desk, and my planner, but my planner I can survive without. But my journal? Noooooooo!
Every morning, I get up, pour a cup of mostly decaf coffee and write in my journal while the cats eat. Not having this ritual will be upsetting.
To lighten the mood, here is a cat photo from the freshly cleaned room of the teenager:
And an unboxing of this months treats— a Universal Yums box from Brazil (featuring Nala, my naughty Goffin’s cockatoo):
My mom and I went to Grocery Outlet because I wanted some fresh produce. Got blood oranges, spaghetti squash, cabbage, potatoes, radishes, and fresh Brussel sprouts. I was looking for items that would store nicely if something does confine us with COVID-19.
When I got home, the teenager helped me dig a splinter out of my foot and treat it with betadine.
We did two loads of laundry and the teen taught the budgies to hand feed.
We stripped and made both our beds— which ended up with some Oz antics.
And I made two delicious meals for myself prior to my fasting bloodwork tomorrow: leftover sesame chicken with pan-seared Brussel sprouts seasoned with four color peppercorns and tofu burger on whole grain wheat with avocado, sautéed radish and dill havarti cheese.
Of course, the afternoon led to some discussions among my neighbors of whether or not Coronavirus is worse than the normal flu. Does it matter? Flu outbreaks have killed people at fairly regular intervals. I’m not concerned that I will die from it, but I am concerned that I could help spread it if I’m not careful.
The neighbor we went to dinner last night spent the evening playing Yahtzee with another neighbor whose son just came home from college. The son woke up with a 102 degree fever today coughing. And his lab partner just got home from Germany.
And there’s a presumptive positive case in the next town over where my in-laws live. So it’s coming.
And I’m not an alarmist or panic-stricken but I agree that we all should be limiting our interactions. The more careful we are now, hopefully we can minimize the impact on our community and our economy.
I woke up this morning worried about things I can’t control, and to a cat coughing up a hairball somewhere in the darkness of my room. It was 4 a.m. and to get myself back to sleep, I keep imagining a cleansing white light.
I imagined the white light getting brighter and brighter. It filled my house, came up my stairs and saturated my room. It brought me calm and helped me get to sleep.
I finally gave up on sleep around 7 a.m. but laid in bed until 7:30. I got up, fed the cats, started a load of laundry and cared for the birds.
Then I finished the first season of Hell’s Kitchen while folding clean laundry and hanging wet wash.
I had a piece of toast, put dishes away, washed the pots and pans, and scrubbed the kitchen counter (even the trivet and the toaster— have to periodically get those crumbs out of the toaster.)
And I found what could be very handy if COVID-19 ends up in my neighborhood: a bottle of Hibiclens the doctor told the teenager to use in the shower before her surgery in November.
My college professor neighbor and I had coffee on her porch, while I was clad in my African dress that I bought in Djibouti for my trip to Somalia.
I vacuumed the sun porch. Did some necessary paperwork. Gave Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo, a shower. Scrubbed the tub, but not as well as I would have liked.
But I didn’t strip my bed or play with my new make up.
This evening my other neighbor took us to dinner at La Bella’s as a thank you for watching her dog.
Amazing Bread
The teenager decided to compliment our server every time she came to the table. I had chicken penne vodka. The child had seafood spaghetti vodka. The portions were ginormous and the seafood seemed good. I’m not a seafood fan.
See those bumpy calamari?
I think I’ll have enough leftovers for TWO lunches. As with the teen. And my neighbor. And then my neighbor took us to Owwowcow for ice cream. I got cinnamon bourbon.
The food was scrumptious but made me sad because I’m still having mild dental issues. My neighbor is looking at a root canal so we’re a good pair.
And now we’re home. Roomba is vacuuming my bedroom.
The teen is trying cone incense for the first time. She tried to pick natural varieties that wouldn’t burn my eyes and sinuses. She asked me what to burn, so we went for the cleansing sandalwood— vanilla sandalwood to be exact.
I used to use sandalwood soap to bathe before I practiced rituals and vanilla is a very pure, comforting flavor and scent to me.
I asked the teen, who now has her own altar with her own selected candles on it, why do you burn incense?
She answered, “because it clears my sinuses and helps me focus.”
As you may have been able to tell from my posts about dentists (Tooth and nail) and budgets (Budgeting and Budgeting, part 2), I had a hard week. Not to mention the whole Do I have high blood pressure? issue. So I’m going to lighten it up a bit tonight— we’re going to “unbox” my Ipsy Glam Bag.
And if you noticed that odd photo that is the featured image for this blog post that is Fog, the feral kitten we trapped last trying to get to Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo. Fog is getting sooooo big (as is her brother, Misty) but the teenager didn’t believe me when I said they’d doubled in size.
March 2020 Ipsy Glam Bag without my cat
But anyway… it’s Friday night and I had to work late unexpectedly so by the time I got home, the teen was leaving to have dinner with her grandparents and spend the night with her dad.
Which means I get to have Vanilla Coke Zero and peanut butter pretzels for dinner. I gave one to Nala. Well, more accurately, she demanded I share.
So I started the dishwasher, and a load of laundry, and took my peanut butter pretzels and my Diet Coke out to see if my neighbor wanted to unbox my Ipsy package with me since the teenager wasn’t home. My neighbor is an economics professor and faces a midterm deadline. I thought it best not to bother her. Nala and I ate our pretzels and opened the makeup.
We also kept Fog at bay, while her brother frolicked in the basement.
Then my neighbor texted she had coffee ready at 6:30ish at night. That’s pretty wild for my Friday night.
I walked out the door and met my other neighbor, whose adorable Yorkie-Maltese mix likes to visit instead of go for a walk. We all went to the professor’s house and even the dogs got to visit.
I got home, retrieved the laundry and the kitten from the basement, and fed my mini-pride of lions before hanging the laundry.
Nala joined me while I hung wash, watching Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen. Roomba vacuumed my room.
Now I’m in bed, taking a breath, playing a little Words with Friends and listening to kittens play. I’m going to watch more Gordon. Hell’s Kitchen is not my favorite but I finished Kitchen Nightmares on Hulu, as I also finished 24 Hours To Hell and Back.
I can’t find any more Hotel Hell and for some reason, The F Word is starting to bore me. I think it’s because Gordon Ramsay is a nice guy on that program.
More on that another day. I’m hoping to formally review Gordon’s shows one of these days.
Gordon has inspired me to try harder with my cooking. Last night, I actually trimmed my chicken, made a marinade, and chilled the chicken in the marinade before cooking.
The marinade was:
Low sodium soy sauce
Honey
Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
Minced Garlic
Fresh Ginger
Water
Sesame Seeds
Lemon Juice
Sesame Oil
I cooked that, and sautéed a bag of broccoli slaw in the leftover marinade and reheated some leftover rice and seasoned roasted chick peas I had made earlier in the week. It was delicious.
But remember that Glam Bag?
I promise I’ll play with it tomorrow. For $12 I received:
A studded teal bag (it matches my room!)
A full sized eye shadow
A full sized chapstick/lip balm
A sample nail polish in a mild creamy cafe au lait color
Ideally, I sit down once a month to work on my budget and I usually budget for two to three months at a time. This helps me plan for the quarterly utility and life insurance bills and the twice a year car insurance. Plus, in late June I typically pre-pay my fuel oil for the winter.
That is a financial gamble, but honestly I don’t even look at the oil prices once I pay. For me the convenience of not having an unexpected fuel bill or an extra monthly commitment is worth it.
So even though I have just paid March’s bills, I am planning April and May and trying to find money to hoard for summer as once I get that fuel oil bill paid, the teenager will be headed back to school.
As a salaried employee who gets paid every other week, if I plan carefully I can use the “extra” pay period twice a year to pay those larger bills. If I had myself on a strict four-week budget, that money could be used to go on vacation or pay down my mortgage but alas, I am not that good.
But what I do do is sit down with a blank sheet of graphic paper, jot the current date on it, and write “start balance” on the top. That is the balance of my checkbook rounded down to the nearest $25 increment.
Last night it was $508 and some-odd cents. So I rounded to $500.
Now, bills, regardless of how it seems, come in predictable cycles. So let’s just start with the concept and not continue with the budget I started last night.
I would start writing due dates and who I need to pay in a chronological list.
3/1 car payment
3/5 mortgage
3/7 electric
3/10 American Express
3/13 PAY
3/15 life insurance (quarterly)
3/20 water (quarterly)
3/20 sewer (quarterly)
3/24 cell phone
3/27 PAY
3/28 savings
3/28 Discover
My first pay day in April is 4/10 so that means not only due I have six months of car insurance due before that check, but I also have car payment, mortgage and electric. This is why I plan so far out.
So when I budget, I also estimate my bills, rounded preferably to $100 increments so when they come in under budget that gives me wiggle room and extra money for groceries. In my March budget for example, I budgeted $100 for electric because February is usually cold and dark and I have electric hot water. It was $80 when the bill came in.
And I do the same with my credit cards. I often use my Discover for groceries so I budget $200 a month to pay that card.
My American Express is my card for everything else, like medical bills or an order for the pets at Chewy.com or Petco. I budget $350 for that. Right now, because of my medical bills, I’m dropping $300 on it each pay period. But the point is, I look at not only what I spent on the card so far but what I anticipate needed the card for in weeks to come.
And again, I round. So I might write phone bill ($115) in the first column, but when I subtract in from the balance, I subtract $125.
Then when the teenager hits me up for lunch money I have it.
For the first 15 years or so of our marriage, I used Quicken to do our household finances. We have always been one of those households just making ends meet, sometimes saving up, only to have something happen to suck our savings away.
When Quicken went to a subscription based cloud product, I groaned but paid the piper because I had almost two decades of financial records in that software.
And then, in late 2018, my 2013 MacBook Air died.
I developed a system to keep my finances organized—
using graph paper.
Each square is $25 in expenses I spent in a month not part of the regular cycle of bills (mortgage, car payment, electric, fuel oil for heat, water, sewer/garbage, car insurance). That is just so I know where my moment went for future planning.
I keep one column for “cash” and one for “credit” above the graph to detail the spending.
95% of my credit expenses go on my American Express, and I keep a Discover in my wallet for those places that don’t take American Express. I typically pay off my entire balance each month (which is where all that tallying and calculating what I’ve spent comes in handy) but recently I used a free trial of American Express’s “plan it” feature to pay some medical bills and for Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo.
Preparing to Budget
I keep a sloppy register of my checks also in the budget book, and I compare balances against my budget for the month or quarter at least once a week.
But here’s my big hack. I am known to take my credit cards out of my wallet and I never carry my ATM card.
Yes, you heard me.
I don’t carry my ATM card in my wallet. I keep it in a drawer at home. If I want to extract money out of my bank, I have to plan it. Or run to Target and use my Target debit card. This keeps those little expenses from adding up.
There is no “let’s run out and get a sandwich.” That kind of thing.
But, you say, what if something unexpected happens? Well, I do have what I call my discretionary spending card.
I have a Capital One online account where I put whatever money I think I can spare after I pay the bills. Honestly, that’s usually the grocery money. Right now there is $12 left in that account. No, make that $8. I forgot I stopped at DQ for Buy One Get One for 80 cents Blizzards. That is the ATM card I keep in my wallet.
If I get impulsive, if I drop it, if it gets stolen, if it gets hacked… it’s not the account I use to pay my bills.
Plus, I have a savings account in Capital One, so if I get really stuck, I can transfer money between those accounts on my phone. And money between my main accounts and my Capital One accounts also takes a few business days, so it does require planning.
But I’m good at planning.
So right now I’m going to update the budget as I had some more large bills come in (dental crown $400 out of pocket; furnace maintenance agreement $250) plus car insurance is due in two weeks.
I pay for six months at a time and it’s due on the same day as the mortgage.
Speaking of mortgage, when we were 12 years into our 30-year-mortgage I refinanced the house from 5.5% down to 3.25% in a 15-year loan. Too many people want to lower their monthly payment, whereas I focused on shortening the term on the loan.
I borrowed enough money to pay off the car and some credit card bills (an unexpected household repair and my daughter’s euphonium had us in for about $5,000) AND cut two years off our original mortgage length for the same payment as our original mortgage but we were saving an additional $300/month not having a car payment.
I also had them add an additional $50/month for principal curtailment to my mortgage payment. So if I ever need to I can have the mortgage company drop that and I can have a lower mortgage. In the meantime, my principal is dropping.
I do something similar with my car—once I calculate my budget for the quarter I pay anywhere from $50 to $200 extra on my car payment. I think I financed $15,000 less than 18 months ago and already my pay off balance is about $9,000.
My other tip is to have an automatic transfer into a savings account. Most banks encourage this and will waive fees and offer overdraft protection if you do it. I transfer $200 a month into my savings account and sometimes I have to transfer it back to checking the next day. Normally I can live without it, and when a shortfall happens I have that back-up.
Budgeting and financial planning when you’re in a low-to-moderate income household is hard. It’s a puzzle. Knowing what it takes to run your household is key. Planning is a must.
I’ve had fake nail tips and my nails done in acrylic for a little more than a month now. My real nails are just about as long as the tips now! (My friend and nail tech reshapes them when I go in for my fills.
On Friday, I popped off one of the tips (opening cat litter) and was pleasantly surprised to see a lovely, long, healthy nail underneath.
So when I went for my fill on Saturday that nail is now my real nail!
But speaking about fake body parts, today I went in for my permanent crown. The temporary gave me no trouble. I had high hopes for my real one.
It sat too high. The dentist knew it was and starting removing surface was the tooth above it. It hurt. I almost started to cry from the anxiety. And I told the dentist the crown felt okay.
I don’t do well with this dentist— he’s very sweet and quiet but he doesn’t tell me what he’s doing and I need communication or I freak out.
Like I did today.
I mentioned to someone it didn’t feel right. She suggested I figure out whether it was or not because I couldn’t have a crown that was misaligning my bite.
So I tried to eat.
I couldn’t.
I called the dentist’s office and cried to the receptionist. I can’t go back to that nice man, I said. He’s too quiet. She said she’d set me up with my dentist if 30 years.
Except when I got there I got the same hygienist I had earlier in the day and she drilled off pieces of my crown and my actual tooth. You know, the one that was hurting me earlier.
It instantly felt much better and I asked if they had a sandwich for me to test it.
They did not. But the hygienist said I could come back tomorrow if I needed to.
Three times in two days?
So I came home and ate lunch. A small lunch. At 3. And it didn’t feel right. I don’t know if something is exposed in that upper tooth or it’s just sensitive. But it’s sore. And the it hurts to bite on the left. And harder to bite on the right now. The bite has to be off yet.
I stayed up until midnight last night and Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo, and the kittens decided I needed to get up at seven, which was actually six with the time change.
I’m hoping in time they all learn that we sleep in on Sunday.
I had a bit of a lazy Saturday. I visited with family and neighbors, did some laundry and went to the theater.
So this morning at first I felt very overwhelmed by the household chores staring me in the face. I did some more laundry, cleaned the cat boxes and dealt with the dishes. Emptied the dishwasher, reloaded it and scrubbed the pots and pans.
I also started the tea pot and brewed myself a big old mug of tea— Tazo sweet orange, Simply Balanced Unwind, and Simply Balanced Voice Tamer (rooibos)— mixed together. Then I iced it.
Meanwhile, the roomba vacuumed my bedroom and I set my little robot free downstairs. It’s amazing how that robot can work side by side with me and help me feel like the house is getting clean.
Now, it’s noon and I made myself some light brunch. Two slices stoneground wheat toast, one with hummus and avocado, the other with honey butter cream cheese. And some grapes.
So before I go check on the roomba, I am enjoying this and watching an episode of Kitchen Nightmares.
Tonight I went to see Heddatron at Lafayette College.
It’s the third weekend in a row the teenager and I went to the theater and this was by far the teen’s favorite.
Last weekend we went to see a high school production of Once Upon a Mattress, discussed here: I blame the Freddies and the weekend before that we partook in Tartuffe at DeSales University, reviewed here: Tartuffe at DeSales.
Our finance manager at the office invited us to the show since her husband is technical director of the college theatre. He pitched this show to the head of the theatre program (who, when I worked at the college more than 20 years ago was the entire theatre department, my how times have changed). And my colleague’s husband also co-taught a theatre/mechanical engineering class last fall that built the robots for this show.
Yes, Robots.
First, let me say, before getting into some of the eclectic contemporary joy of this show, that Buck Hall has a charming array of theaters to work in.
I love the challenges and the flexibility of a Black Box Theater. Most of my days in college theater happened in a black box, and the difference between performing on a traditional proscenium stage and a black box is an extreme shift in perspective and intimacy.
Performers on a proscenium stage remain above, untouched and superior to the audience; whereas in a black box, the actors and the audience engage and entwine in unspoken ways that change the performance and its meaning.
So my heart always races when I enter a black box. It’s a test of strength for the entire theatre company.
Loosely summarized, this play presents us with a pregnant housewife who is kidnapped by robots, transported to the rainforest and forced to perform Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler.
The acting was solid, though in some sections in became difficult to hear the actors overhead.
The set design and use of props proved vivid and entertaining. Perhaps what impressed me most was the fluidity of scene changes and prop switches that happened right under the audience’s nose.
The robots were sci-fi rich yet silly, one made from a mannequin (and he of course talked about the size of his penile shaft), another made of a garbage can and a Rubbermaid cooler with salad tongs for arms. Three others appeared, one loosely comprised of an ironing board, another a broom.
The director’s notes refer to the multimedia and STEM nature of this piece. And indeed, the show made use of video, music and robotics. Futuristic yet in the past and present all in the same time.
And for pure comic relief, the cast performed Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart.
I know a show is good when my brain stops analyzing and just has a good time. That happened to me in this show, right around the Bonnie Tyler sing-along.
But, being me, I must keep dwelling on themes. Even though the video clips ask us to consider if we’ve sexually assaulted our toasters over the years (inserting our bread into its cavities for years for nothing but our own pleasure) and if the robots will wake up to our abuses, the actors seem to be asking us to examine the place of women and also to examine our commitments and relationships— has humanity evolved at all in the last 150 years? Or will the robots do it first?
After the show, the teenager and I took photos outside Buck Hall.
So tonight our family is going to see Heddatron at Lafayette College. My office colleague’s husband is the technical director at the college and she invited us to come.
The teenager’s dad works at Lafayette (as I once did many, many moons ago) and I earned a second bachelors degree there, graduating with the class of 2013.
I invited him to join us for the show. He agreed. He and the teenager will be heading to the laundromat after the performance. Sounds like a good time!
We decided to go to Dubs on Fifth in West Easton for dinner. While just a sports pub, they have some vintage arcade games and good burgers. They also have an eclectic menu of grilled cheeses. They also have a sign over the bar that makes me smile:
I love Jesus but I drink a little.”
Dubs on Fifth
After dinner I mentioned that Dairy Queen has a Buy One Get One For 80 cents in honor of the eightieth anniversary.
So, of course, the teen wanted ice cream. She and her dad both got mediums. I got two minis. That way I could have TWO flavors.
And the teenager just realized her father has no neck. And thanked me for hers.
We’re enjoying a lot of silliness together. And that feels good.
Angel Ackerman 