the right to worry

This market scares me.

The question, of course, is why? My job, B"H, is solid. I have a plan to get out of debt and nearly all of my non-mortgage debt is owed to the Bank of Mom and Dad (so "restructuring my debt" is easy should, G-d forbid, anything happen to my job). I believe in the same investing principles that have served my parents all these years-- invest regularly into a diversified portfolio and ignore the short-term market swings.

I may complain about cost of maintaining the Lovely Lemon, but my lifestyle certainly isn't at risk. I'm trying to cut back because I want to get out of debt as quickly as possible, not because I am actually struggling in any real way. I want to be like my parents some day, worry-free and secure, in a position to lend a helping hand someday to my own foolish daughter who purchased a home but didn't leave enough cash reserves to actually fix things as they broke.

Sometimes I wonder if maybe I wouldn't be better off if I didn't read the papers or listen to NPR. My doctor likes to mention the economy, checking to see if I'm stressed about it; he's a big believer in staying healthy through eating well, exercising and making sure to keep stress levels low. Other than his questions, I don't really have any exposure to anyone who is really suffering because of the current downturn. No one I know has lost their job. Everyone managed to refinance their mortgage before their rates reset. We might grumble about the cost of gas, but no one I know is *really* hurting. I sometimes overhear people gathered around the secretary's desk talking in quiet, worried voices. One woman said that everyone she knew had an interest-only loan. My gut-reaction is that they were crazy for ever considering an interest-only loan.. but perhaps I'm out of touch.

There are times when I wonder if I should stick my head in the sand and stop worrying. Other times I wonder if my head is already in the sand-- with all this fear buffered by the knowledge that the economy is unlikely to touch me in any real way.

I should just be glad that I have the luxury of worrying over whether or not I should be getting so upset over events that don't really affect me.

(Oh, and if anyone cares... There's another post at the other blog as well. It's equally self-absorbed. My excuse today is that it's 5am and I can't sleep because my back is aching. I'll come up with a different excuse next time.)

all or nothing

A blogger I read recently wrote this before shutting down his blog:

"i want to do is poke holes in the doctrines that frum people follow. i want to explore inconsistencies especially in the nutty world of kiruv."

He removed the blog, apparently, because "the people who stick to the dogma will do it no matter where it leads them. the people that think the dogma is crazy don't need my ammunition."

What ever happened to the middle path? What ever happened to poking fun at ourselves and what we do? Why does everything have to be "love it or leave it?" Why is it better to be silent?

(Yeah, I know, I've been pretty silent myself-- but I'm working on it.)

I love laughing at the kiruv silliness-- with the warm teasing I would use towards a beloved sister-- and none of that changes the fact that some of my favorite shabboses are with kiruv-happy folk.

I think that it's healthy to constantly re-examine what we believe and why we believe it. I think that it's okay to keep halacha for unorthodox reasons-- because there are a million "reasons" to do any given thing.

Am I crazy?

on debt

Wow... it's been a really long time since I posted to either blog.

I've gotten caught up in a lot of mechanical issues about the kind of life I want to live and how I'm going to go about doing that. I guess that's appropriate for the month leading up to Rosh Hashana.

I injured my back a bit before Tisha B'Av and spent that shabbos lying on a couch having bits of "The Tightwad Gazette" read to me. I highly recommend that book, by the way. Some of the suggestions are hilarious, some are useful, and all of it is well written.

I must have been a bit high off of the pain killers, because I started an impossibly aggressive debt-reduction plan. (Okay, I started that crazy plan before I injured my back, so I suppose I have no excuse except my own stupidity.) Only now after two months of having to resort to eating dried beans because I miscalculated what I would need... I think I'm going to draw up some new amortization charts. The new payments will still be harsh ($945.66/month... in addition to the mortgage and car payments) but will have me clear of all debt except for mortgage and car in two years with enough left over for a more realistic food budget. Unless, of course, something else breaks on the house. Still, after having replaced the roof, hot water heater, windows, heat pump, one bathroom, two ceilings and the wall of the rec room... I'm not sure how much more *can* go wrong in my lovely lemon of a townhouse.

G-d willing, by the time I'm mostly debt free, the housing market will have improved to the point where I can trade in my lovely lemon for a "real" house in a frum neighborhood.

Then I can start saving for tuition. Day school tuition scares the daylights out of me, actually. I can shift the money I'm putting into my 401K to cover tuition for the first child, but the second? Where's that going to come from? The C's homeschool their children, but it looks like I'm going to be the primary breadwinner for the foreseeable future. Besides, I'm not qualified to teach anything more than secular studies.

K would laugh at me if she read this post. It's far too premature for me to worry about tuition payments. Then again, the only thing I am good at is long term planning. My monthly budget is in a shambles, which is why I had to re-adjust those amortization charts. I don't have the willpower to deny all my "wants"-- I just don't have what it takes to turn down that bargain $30 opera ticket... or that perfect Purim costume I saw at the local Ren Faire... not yet. It's pure foolishness to go without meat so that I can get that opera ticket but, well, I guess I'm still foolish. It's okay to still be a "work in progress," right?

burning down the house

The re-kashering process was supposed to finish up last week. We lit the burners and ran off to Home Depot for a blech and Plexiglas for the countertops. I came back to the restive sound of my smoke detectors going off.

My boyfriend, who has been orchestrating this whole endeavor, is used to kashering kitchens with gas stoves. Apparently electric stoves get much hotter than gas ones. The first time I kashered my kitchen, I only heated the burners until they were red hot. I didn't turn them on high and leave them for two hours.

Yes, I know... never ever leave burners unattended. What can I say? Intelligence has never been my strong suit.

I have an old wine bottle collection sitting on the edge of my stove, against the backsplash. The heat from the burners caused the labels to blacken and melt. Stuff from the vent above the stove melted and dripped onto to the stove top and those red-hot burners.

I am very very lucky that I didn't come home to an open fire. We burnt our fingers turning off the knobs on the stove, but eventually everything cooled down. The unidenfiable something that dripped onto the area between the burners rendered it all unkosher, but at least three burners got done.

Home Depot doesn't cut Plexiglas, so I have to order it from elsewhere, but I am going to enjoy my $7 blech. And to think, I thought everything would be finished in a week. Silly me! Well, hopefully from this point on, the worst thing to worry about will be picking out my new dishes. I am a huge fan of the Colonial Williamsburg "Openwork Creamware" pattern, but as I this is something I actually plan to do and not some silly girlhood fantasy... I think I'll be looking at dishes from Target or Costco instead.

(For those who are interested, there are two new posts up at AnotherBT.)

rekashering the kitchen

I'm rekashering my kitchen. In a way, it's strangely therapeutic. When I first decided to have a kosher kitchen, I purchased the cheapest dishes and announced to myself that I was keeping "student-kosher," that this was a learning experience and eventually I'd throw it all out and start over "for real." I told my orthodox friends to consider my kitchen treif for all practical purposes. That confused some and amused others. It was a toss-up as to whether they'd appreciate my concern that I'd accidentally serve something that (through my own ignorance or clumsiness) wasn't up to their standards, or whether they'd be annoyed at my lack of confidence in my own abilities. Or, perhaps they worried I was just reserving the right to pick and choose my own rules, which was even worse.

I'm not sure why I decided that *right now* was the proper time to begin my "for real" kitchen. Perhaps it's because I'm spending more time with a man who loves to cook and knows how to kasher a kitchen properly. Perhaps it's because I'm trying to talk my orthodox cousins into staying with me during their summer vacations. Perhaps it's because I need a change in my life. I'm tired of treading water. It's time to start moving on. Then again, maybe it's simply that there is something soothing about packing up all my dishes and shipping them off to Goodwill.

(For those of who read AnotherBT, there's a new post there as well.)

meditation

I read a post a few weeks back on a meditation exercise to try while davening. It talked about holding your hands and envisioning your words forming a ball in your hands that you periodically release and send up to Hashem. I've been trying to find the post and can't. Does anyone have any idea what I'm talking about?

I don't think I did it right... My hands felt so heavy, like they were being forced apart. I spent far too much time thinking about the ball and my hands. I got so caught up in the mechanics of it all that it makes me think that I've missed the point entirely. I wish I could find that post again... Please drop me a note if you have any idea where I should look. Thanks!

This is the public face to AnotherBT, my invite only blog. I may start talking about non-dating issues here, but mostly this blog will be updated when a new post appears on AnotherBT.

I put a new post up on AnotherBT yesterday.

Thanks,
Ahuva