Parenting

I've had a few conversations lately with some of my single mom friends about parenting.  It can be a lonely, hard, and thankless job being a mom.  And yes, I know there are plenty of dads who will think I'm being biased, but unless you're a single dad, with 100% custody, it is unlikely that you are bearing the brunt of schedules, appointments, school activities, discipline, chores, homework, nutrition, medications, laundry, and all the little things that make the day flow.

Granted, I'm not that great at most of that either.  I have a network of family and friends that remind me of activities he should do, and an alarm on my phone that tells me when to pick him up from school because otherwise I'd forget.  I have a son that's been doing his own laundry since he was tall enough to reach into the washing machine, as well as getting up and making his own breakfast since he was tall enough to reach up to the counter.

I also have a husband who agrees with me on how and when to discipline and what behaviors require discipline.  He will also show up to school things when I tell him about them, and takes on his share of the transporting, work permitting.

With that said, the bulk of the parenting inevitably falls on the mom.

For me, that means always being the bad guy.  While working full time, it also means I don't have much time to do any of the fun stuff.

My son regularly tells me (and anyone else that will listen) that I yell at him all the time, or he complains about how he never gets to do anything, or how I'm always making him do things he doesn't want to do.  I get the "I hate you" comments, and "you're mean," and all the other usual comments little boys say when they are angry.  I'm ok with that.

I listen to people telling me I'm too hard on him, or that I expect too much and he's just a kid, or that I'm a terrible parent because I don't hover over him every moment of the day.  I sometimes even feel guilty that I don't hang out with him and do all the fun things he'd love to do.

But mostly I'm ok with how things are.  He's a lucky boy to have two parents, a huge house in a great neighborhood, parents that can afford to put him on a swim team (even if it is a rec league), Taekwondo, as well as tennis and piano lessons after school.  He has parents that care enough to put him in a school that suits him, rather than the much easier option of the school on the corner.  And every now and then, I take him on vacations that he enjoys immensely.  He has grandparents and aunts and uncles that spoil him and love him and do the "fun stuff" with him.

I'm ok with being the bad guy, because I know that I'm doing the right thing for him.  I expect a lot from him, but only by the standards of today's parents that seem to expect nothing.  I expect him to be polite, respectful, responsible, and capable.  Kids apparently don't come that way; they need to be taught.  I'm perfectly ok with being the one responsible for teaching him because I signed up for that when I agreed to have a child.

I can take him on vacation with other people and not be embarrassed by his behavior.  I can let him go over to another person's house and not be afraid of what he will do, or how he will act.  I'm not saying he's a perfect child all the time, but he's acting eight, which is completely appropriate.  Overall, he's a good kid.

And I tell him so.  This weekend we went to Santa Cruz, and while digging in the sand yesterday morning, I told him again.  He's a good kid and he's fun to be around.  And he replied, "I wouldn't be without you."  I smiled, and said it was nice of him to say so, and he insisted, "No, really."

I'm ok being the bad guy; my son respects me and thanks me for it.  :-)

What might have been...

I just got back from a week-long road trip through Utah.  I know..  Utah?  But apparently they have quite a collection of astounding National Parks, and I took my son to see them over spring break.

It was very fun.  My sister and her husband were with us, and they borrowed a trailer we could all share, and we hit the road.  It was my first time camping since I was a kid, and I was excited to show my son, now that he's old enough to appreciate it, some of the beauty of this country.  I also was looking forward to getting him outside for extended lengths of time.

We live in the suburbs, which means the houses on our street are lined up like boxes on a shelf, with tiny backyards, and postage stamp sized lawns.  There is nothing for him to do outside, except ride his bike on the street.  I really wanted him to see what a pleasure it is to be outdoors.

We drove for a 15-16 hours to get to Zion National Park, in south-western Utah.  We set up the trailer, made dinner, and went to bed.  He discovered a playground and a bunch of kids in this campground, so he was out and playing the whole time.  The next morning, while we were getting ready to head into the park was the same.  We jumped on the incredibly awesome shuttle system to go into the park, and then hiked 3 trails, a total of around 10 miles, which took all day!  When we got back to the campground, he still had energy to go out and run around the campground with the kids, while I prepared dinner!

The next morning we got up, closed up camp, and drove to Bryce National Park.  This was a relatively short drive, and we had time to stop on the way at Escalante State Park and check out the largest collection of petrified wood that I've ever seen.  This only required a hike of almost 2 miles!  My son, who is an avid rock collector, was quite taken with the myriad of "rocks" with so many beautiful colors.  He was disappointed not to be able to bring any home.

Bryce was as impressive, although much smaller and higher in elevation, as Zion.  It was over 9100 feet at the topmost viewing area, and still had quite a bit of snow on the ground.  The park was set up to be able to see most of what the park offered from viewing spots along the road, and we did all of that on the first day, planning to hike the following morning.  Only one trail was open, due to snow and mud, and that took barely any time.  We spent some time in the visitor's center, and then drove to the next.

Capital Reef was an equally small park, with one long hike through towering rocks which was a wash for flash flooding during the rains, and a shorter hike to see some petroglyphs.  This was easily done in a day, and we drove on to the final camping grounds near Arches National Park.

Arches was just that.  A myriad of interesting arches carved out of the sandstone in various shapes and sizes.  We hiked for 5 miles here, but got to see all of the famous arches that this park boasted.

We had originally planned another day in this area to see Canyonlands National Park, but work schedules and a week-long Jeep convention in Moab restricted our ability to stay another night.   We could have seen some of it after Arches, since we had seen all we could by mid-afternoon, but I was gritty from sandstorms, tired, and desperately wanted a shower.  We ended up visiting Moab, then heading back for dinner and showers.

The next morning we broke camp again to drive across the state of Utah.  We had basically gone diagonally from the bottom left, to the top right (under the L) of the state, so now needed to drive the entire length to get back to Nevada and our final stop.

We arrived at Great Basin National Park, just past the state line in Nevada, mid-afternoon... just in time to set up the trailer and head down for the cave tour being offered at 3:30.  This is what the park is known for, apparently, and the only thing open due to snow.  The caves were quite impressive, and unlike any others that I've visited.  This was my son's first cave experience, and he loved it as much as I did.

This was definitely the most primitive of the campsites we had visited.  There were no hook-ups, so we had no water, except what was in our tanks, or electricity.  There was no free wi-fi and no cell service!  This was definitely as out of touch as you could possibly get.  It was very weird, and I was glad to be leaving in the morning!

But next morning, we woke up to almost 3" of snow on the trailer, and still falling!  It was beautiful for sure, and luckily I had expected rain at some point in our trip, so had all of my rain gear to keep me dry, but I was definitely interested in getting out there and clearing off the snow so we could get off the mountain before we got snowed in.

Getting the snow off involved climbing up a picnic table that we turned on it's side longwise so I could climb onto the top of the trailer in order to sweep the snow off of the pull-out so we could retract it.  I was very thankful for the gore-tex rain pants!  We got the snow off and the trailer hooked up without incident and were on the road by 9am.  Thankfully, the snow was only at the higher elevations and the roads were clear.

We drove all the way across Nevada on Highway 50.  What a long, desolate road!  We got into Reno around 5 pm, with plenty of time to stop for dinner and shop in Cabela's for all the outdoor wear we could possibly never need. 

Passing through Reno was very nostalgic for me.  It has changed a lot in the almost 20 years since I left it.  I lived there for a year when I moved there with the company I worked for out of high school.  I couldn't help but wonder what my life would be like had I stayed there and hadn't been in such a hurry to get back to California.

Granted, I hated it there.  Reno was a definite pit, and we spent every weekend in California with family.  But I had a really good job, that I enjoyed and where I was respected.  I wonder where I could have gone with my career had I stayed.  The University of Reno is a very good school, and I went there for a semester during my short stint in Nevada.

I'm not usually given to what if's... and I would definitely have been miserable for a long time.  But I wonder if I would have had more success in my career if I had stayed with that company.  You never can tell, but it's hard not to wonder.

Mortgage Crisis

The mortgage crisis has been going on for some time now, and it seems to be getting easier and easier for those inconvenienced by a mortgage payment to get out of it.  I've watched the value of my home plummet, while heaving a sigh of relief that at least we're not upside down.  Most of that is because I've been throwing every spare dime at the loan in order to keep it in the black.

Only now I realize that that very attitude has screwed me.

Did you know that the powers that be have changed the rules so that a short-sale only stays on your credit report for 2 years?  A foreclosure for 5?  Did you know that if you are 30 days late on a payment of any kind, it will stay on your credit report for 7 years, but if you walk away from the largest debt you could possibly have, then that's washed away as if it never happened in 2-5 years?  Really??  What is wrong with this country?

And why am I still making my mortgage payments?  I've been trying to get a better interest rate on my loan for over a year.  I bought my house before the rules changed to make it easier for people to get loans they couldn't afford.  As a result, my interest rate is much higher than it should be.

The government is kindly dropping the interest rates on mortgages for people who can't pay their mortgages, or who simply bought more than they could afford.  They are even cutting the amount that is owed considerably to make it less onerous for people to pay what they agreed to pay when they bought their homes.

But I can't get my loan refinanced because I'm not upside down, but I owe more than 95% of the current value.  My loan is a conventional loan that was not financed by the government, and therefore cannot be easily changed.  And to top it off, I've been making my payments on time, and therefore the banks have no interest in cutting or reducing their profit from someone who is obviously dumb enough to keep giving them money.

I find it equally disturbing that we live in a society that seems to be more than willing to support a government that exists only to prop up big business and the rich people, and reward a lazy, unethical, illiterate population with handouts at the expense of the steady, honorable, responsible citizenry.

I guess that's fine if you fall into either category getting the government bailouts.  And it seems that the responsible citizenry seems to be shrinking in number so as to make their voices immaterial anyway.  It doesn't help that they still cling to a code of honor that assumes that justice will prevail and "those" will get what they deserve in the long run.

It sickens me that in order to get the banks to do the right thing, I have to consider NOT making my payments.  How is that at all reasonable?  I know that there's a hell of a lot that I could do with a year's worth of mortgage payments if I were willing to walk away from this house.

New Year

It's the start of a new year.  I've never really marked New Year's as a new beginning until recently.  Now it seems like an easy enough date to measure goals by.

Last year I set some financial goals for myself.  I'd have to go back and look at the post to see what other goals I'd set for 2010.  I know I did do fairly well with my finances, and would have done better except for a setback from another stupid decision I made a few years back trying to help out a family member.

I took on a couple of side jobs at the end of last year which will hopefully help me towards my goal of buying a rental property.  I've wanted to do this for over a decade, but somehow the money for a down payment has not fallen out of the sky for me.  So I've done something about it and am actually setting aside the money from my side jobs for this purpose.  Hopefully I can reach this goal by the end of next year.  Hopefully the real estate market won't have rebounded so much as to make it out of reach!

My own business seems to be faltering.  I have lost almost every kid I've added this year, which is NOT good for business!  I am laying off my assistant next month, which may be a blessing in disguise.  Her work ethic has really fallen since she had her baby, and it's been difficult having to supervise at all times to make sure she is doing her job.

I've also decided not to have her work just because I know she needs the income when I don't actually need to have her here.  It costs me too much, without the income to support it, to fund her family.  The Bank of Reina is closed!

My side jobs have also kept me pretty busy since November.  Things are lightening up a little but I have my own year-end tax stuff yet to do, as well as the year-end tax filing for my husband's new side business.  That one should be easy as he and his business partner just started the business late last year and there hasn't been much activity.  My own will take a while.  It generally takes me two weeks of straight work to get everything together and recorded.  Usually I'm done by now, but I haven't even started!  I did get my filing up to date yesterday, which means at least all my receipts are together.

I do enjoy being busy, it seems.  And since finishing school in the middle of last year, it's only natural to have added a few jobs to fill in the time!

I need to spend some time this year on getting my website updated as well as the resource website presentable.  It's disappointing that every time I actually hire someone to do something for me, it rarely turns out well.  I need to give it some time and effort to make it match my vision.

We shall see.  This year is shaping up to be just as full as last year!  We'll see how I do.

Speeding Ticket

I got another speeding ticket today.  This is my third in two years.  I guess my luck has run out.  I don't know how I went for 20 years without one, and now I get three in such a short time.  My insurance carrier is going to have a conniption.  Or maybe that will just be me when I get the next insurance bill.

How is it that I never get off once I've been pulled over?  What do these people do that get off with a warning?  I obviously need lessons.

I guess it's time for me to slow down and drive like an old lady.  It sure is going to take the fun out of driving!