Saturday, July 20, 2013

Plans...

In case you don't know this about me... I am a planner. I love plans. I love checklists. I love marking things off all neat and tidy. I also have a very strange love of amortization tables and seeing things paid off.  I don't like debt, but house debt is a necessary evil if you are going to invest in rental properties. I have spent a HUGE amount of time over the last couple of months pouring over our finances and moving towards expanding our rental business.  I am a bit OCD when it comes to these things. Even if I have worked through the numbers once or twice, I must do it again and again to be sure I did it correctly.  At the beginning of this year, I pulled a notebook off my bookshelf.  It was a partly used notebook - well because we homeschool and notebooks get used randomly, but not always finished. As much as I love my iPad, I have a need to actually write my budgets down on paper.  I flipped to the back of this notebook and found several pages of Timmy's handwriting.  It was his Apologia Biology homework from a decade ago. These things stop me in my tracks. I always am aware he is gone from this world. Occasionally, little things pop up and it feels like I have been kicked in the gut and at the same time I feel joy because it is proof that he was, indeed, HERE! Where am I going... don't you love how I ramble? So, at the very front of this notebook I began my typical monthly budgets. We use our credit card for nearly everything and while it is online - again, I feel the need to actually write down the purchases and make sure we are in line with out budget. Yes - I have Quicken. I do it there too, but not daily. Yes, I said I was OCD, remember? Recently, I decided to do a much larger business plan. One that projected the next 5 to 10 years. I broke out the amortization tables (yes, I am a nerd).  I figured one scenario and then another. At the end, I felt satisfied. I had done the homework. I had built in several emergency plans. I was at peace with our decision to move on and purchase more properties. Then this life event happened... my newest granddaughter in love was born last week. And I really, really want to go down and just hold her. I want to talk baby talk to her and tell her that Mama Kari loves her to the moon and back. But I have these plans and they are written in a notebook. They say that realistically, I should rent these properties as soon as we close, save for a bit and then head to Florida. Disclaimer - I fully believe you should live within your means. For me there is living within our means and then living within a very strict set of sometimes INSANE means that I set up. Seeing the baby isn't really the problem with the budget. The other part of my insanity is that I think if we go to one place, then surely we should go to another. If we are driving to Tampa Bay, then why not go further and drive to the Florida Keys? Sebastian has never been and we haven't been in 10 years.  Coincidentally, about the same amount of time as when Timmy wrote those answers in this notebook that is sitting here staring at me.  We took the whole family to the Keys in August of 2003.  We had plans to take Timmy snorkeling for the first time.  Then Tim got a kidney stone and he had to get him home for surgery. The snorkeling got canceled and I remember very clearly telling Timmy that we would plan for another time.  Well, that time never came. We never were able to make it back down to the Keys. When you lose your child, you have so many regrets. Silly little things and big, important things.  So, I was sitting here looking at the page on the left that holds our long term goals for the next 5 to 10 years and on the page next to it - my son's biology homework. I was thinking that we don't know how long we have on this side.  We don't know what the future holds. We do know there is a sweet baby girl in Florida that we have never met. And we do know that we could make amazing memories with our kids in the Keys. So, here I sit wondering... do we stick with the plans or occasionally throw them clear out the window (with caution, of course!)? 

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Fear and Motivation


So, I know I don't blog as often as I would like. There is always something else to keep me busy, but blog posts still roll around my mind.  Today, the topic of FEAR came to me. I have written about my fears here before. This is a bit different. It is not just about fear, but how fear is a motivator. It can either motivate you to act or motivate you to stay the same. There are a lot of big decisions going on in the Clayton household these days. My anxiety level is at a high.  That is not all bad. Actually, most of it is not bad at all.  I was thinking about how many times in my life that fear has kept me from doing what I needed or wanted to do.  I think back to being really little and being afraid of riding amusement rides. To this day, they terrify me and I have tried to conquer that fear. Ain't happening. Then I think about how I was afraid to even talk to a boy, much less walk up to his door and ring the doorbell of a boy I did not know. But, somehow, I did just that. On the other side of that door was the boy I would someday marry. I didn't let fear stand in my way.  When I was 25, we were ready to buy our first house. It terrified me! I ran numbers and wrote out budgets on backs of envelopes for weeks. I was just so nervous about making such a big decision. When we decided to homeschool, my right eye twitched for months!!! I kid you not, from May till August, my eye had a whole life of its own. I was sure I would mess my kid up and ruin his life. Finally, of all things, a bumper sticker gave me peace on that. I had been considering the Waldorf method for my curriculum. I had all but decided to enroll him in 5th grade, when there was a bumper sticker in front of me that said, "Education from the inside out." ~Waldorf homeschooling. I took it as my sign to go forward.  Not long after 9/11, something happened with my job. It was being merged with another department.  I had been working the same job, happily, for 8 years. I loved my job! I remember my boss, Bill, calling me into his office to tell me the news.  I was a basketcase.  The thing is... he was calm and understanding. He told me that he had a different job for me. It was a full time job that was an in office job, but he was going to take that position and turn it into a part-time telecommuting position custom tailored for me. How great was that? It was perfect, but I was stressed. I was afraid. He gave me a book and told me to read it. It was Who Moved My Cheese? It was a corny little book, but it made a lot of sense.  It is so strange how there are little pieces of your life that form you. Just chance moments, impromptu conversations, random life.  They shape you and transform you into a different you - hopefully smarter, stronger and better than before. So, today, I am on the other side of some decisions I was putting off because of fear. I am realizing that I still fall to the same old bad habits of letting the unknown control me to a certain extent. I would like to say that I have gotten a whole lot better at dealing with my "cheese" being moved, but I would be lying. I am, however, moving forward - pushing the fears back - making educated decisions and always looking up.