Gallery of Seconds

The Death of Content Mills - and the Future of Online Content

2011-10-13T06:39:00.000-07:00

Demand Media is, or rather, was, a notorious "content mill" - a place where crappy freelance writers could earn a few quick bucks by churning out crappy, plagarized, SEO-friendly articles. Now that Demand has changed their platform to ensuring that "...every article is written and copy edited by a qualified professional with background, knowledge or experience in the topic", a lot of writing hacks are out of a job.

Good writing was quickly becoming a rather scarce commodity in the on-line world. Google's Panda update in early 2011, which cut down on the amount of shallow articles turning up in search results—12%, by Google's own count—makes these types of content mills less favourable to work for.

I often browse freelancing sites, looking for interesting writing projects to pick up that are in line with my interests and writing abilities. Along the way, I see other freelancers with profiles such as the following:

"Writing and Translating are My EXCELLENCE . I'm reliable and keeping my commitment to COMPLETE and FINISH every job I get with my best . I take both Fixed price and Hourly job with low and high prices. I'm keen in learning new things. If responsible and reliable person that you're looking for, just confide it to me . Just saying, Thank you !"

And the above freelancer had "self-assessed" their English skills at 5.0/5.0. Oh my.

There's still a lot of mills that are looking for "75 SEO Articles 150 words each for $25"—and there are lot of writers who are keen to snap up jobs like that, believe it or not. $25 goes a long way in a lot of non-Western countries.

I think it's fairly clear that as search heuristics improve, good writing will keep floating to the top of the results pile. So I'm buoyed by the fact that online giants like Google are working to protect the sanctity of their search results, delivering us the rich and meaningful content that people really want.

(Photo credit - jjpacres)

My 6 Favourite Organization Tools

2011-06-26T18:02:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of quirky things that we do as a family to stay organized - just ask my wife about the passive-aggressive Post-It note that I taped to the inside of one of our cupboards. (Hey, it's been over a year and it's still keeping the cupboard organized. Don't knock it 'till you've tried it.) However, there are a lot of other neat things that we do to keep the chaos in our house just below DEFCON 1. Here are some of my favourites.

1. Photo Boxes

Okay, I don't know why they call these things photo boxes -- I don't know a single person who actually keeps photos in them. We keep two nice-looking ones on the bookshelf in our living room. They provide a cozy home for all of our cell chargers, cables, batteries, battery chargers, adapters, thumb drives, headphones, and other various electronica that would otherwise threaten every single horizontal surface in the house. However, I can't for the life of me figure out who goes in there and tangles all of the cables up every night.

2. IKEA Soft-Sided Boxes

Holy frigging guacamole - I can't say enough about these little critters. We've used them for everything from storing diapers, changing pads and wipes; to holding all of the various Wii controllers; to dividing up the bathroom drawers into neat "his" and "her" sections; to containing piles of summer clothing that get stored on the top shelf in the closet when the wint'ry winds start to blow; to corralling all the oven mitts and potholders in the kitchen drawers. They look nice on their own, and they fold up flat when they're not needed. They're absolutely fantastic things to have around.

3. Vinyl CD Sleeves

Many years ago, I got frustrated with the number of CD cases that I had floating around. Plus, my wife hated how I would put random CD's in the nearest empty case. (She still hasn't gotten over the fact that I put my "Bee Gee's Greatest Hits" in her Madonna case.) I ordered 300 transparent vinyl CD sleeves from effectuality.com (no kickbacks here, I just love their products), threw out all of my jewel cases, and put the CD's in these sleeves. I found a fantastic woven CD basket with three compartments that looks great and will hold about 500 of these babies. Now that I'm migrating my music to my media server, they're not needed as often. However, I do keep a handful on hand for those odd CD's or DVD's that get burned for my friends. It's nice to give someone a DVD with a printed card in front describing the contents, all contained nicely in a sleeve that takes up little space.

4. Family Calendar

This may or may not be an obvious one, but for us it's a lifesaver. We use the calendar pictured, from motherword.com. Even though our kids aren't enrolled in very many activities, we keep this magnetic family calendar on the front of our fridge with a pencil permanently tied to it. On it, we record which days I'm on-call for work, which days our son has hot lunch at school, when book orders are due, which days my wife works, dinner party dates, birthday invitations, hair appointments, the days our daughter goes to the sitter, when the MVI is due on the vehicles, and of course all of the various birthdays, anniversaries, vacations, and other special occasions that we need to keep track of. I have a terrible memory, so our family calendar saves my butt on almost a daily basis.

5. Laundry Sorting Baskets

On top of our washer and dryer (we're lucky enough to have front-loaders) I keep five cheap laundry baskets. When we actually get motivated enough to drag the clothes hamper from the bedroom to the laundry room, sorting the dirty clothes is amazingly quick. And the clothes sit in the baskets, patiently, waiting to be washed. When we notice that a basket is full, we throw it in the washer. Normally we get about one or two loads done per day this way. The downside is that you're doing laundry every day. The upside is that laundry feels less like a mountain, and more like gently rolling hills in the Irish countryside. Okay, maybe that's a stretch, but it avoids the classic Sunday rush of laundry to make sure your kids don't have to wear garbage bags to school on Monday.

6. Sideboard Storage

My mother has a great relationship with her furniture. That is, until there's some sort of falling out between the rocking chair and the dining room table, and one of them has to go. Usually it seems that I end up with these pieces of furniture in my house. In the last three years, we've inherited a kitchen table, a dining room table, a bentwood rocker, my childhood bed, a large baker's rack, and my favourite, an old sideboard. This sideboard serves as a desk for our laptop, and inside the drawers and behind the cabinet doors it holds (and hides) our laser printer, photo printer, paper for both, stationery supplies, a cake dome, a spare keyboard and mouse, extra pots and pans, along with tons of crayons, coloured pencils, craft supplies, and colouring and activity books for the kids. The only thing we don't do is use it as a sideboard for serving dishes. Go figure.

Now if only I could figure out what to do with all of my tools and associated building materials that my loving wife so carefully places on the top three basement steps, which I think is supposed to mean "Take your goddamn crap back downstairs." I'll get back to you on that one.

What I Want for Father's Day

2011-06-19T19:36:00.001-07:00

This past Sunday was Father's Day, celebrated in many homes across this great nation of ours. Our family celebrates this annual event as well, complete with gifts and cards galore, and two separate barbequeued meals. It was a crazy day, to be sure. Fun, but crazy.

In the midst of all of this hullabaloo, I found myself thinking about what I really want for Father's Day. Sure, I liked the wonderful, well-thought out gifts that graced my breakfast table today, but there are some things that I'd really like to get from my kids - the kind of presents that you can't wrap.

Kids, listen up. Here's what Dad really wants from you for Father's Day.

Don't ever stop learning. I know you will work your way through school, as so many of your peers do, but understand that the Grade 12 diploma, the bachelor's degree, and even that gilded Ph.D. that you will hang on your wall won't mean a damn thing if you don't get out in the real world and really find out what makes it tick. Work to answer the great questions that have persisted throughout humanity. You may never find the answers, but that doesn't mean you won't have learned anything.

Appreciate the beauty and wonder of life. Life is a magical force that should never be taken for granted. Do what you can to protect the mystery and sanctity of life. We humans have been given the knowledge and power to both give and take life in this world - use that power and knowledge wisely. Understand that life is a fragile thing, and it can vanish before you know it. Treasure it while it's here.

Follow the golden rule. I don't care what religion you follow, or maybe you won't follow one at all. But respect yourself by respecting others first. Be nice. Don't be selfish. Don't be afraid to ask for help, and don't be afraid to give it. Love people for who they are, and respect the fact that every person you meet has an amazing story to tell. Our stations in life are not decided by what letters follow our name, not how many zeroes we have in our bank accounts, but how we get along with others.

Question the boundaries that society places on you. As I've gotten older, I've realized that so many ideas and beliefs that we hold as truths in Western society are just plain wrong. Don't follow the crowd just because it's expected of you. Read books, talk to people and indulge in new experiences that open your mind to alternate philosophies of life. It only took one person with a dream, a vision,or a crazy idea, to change the world. Don't be afraid to be that crazy person.

We only have one planet to live on. Take care of it. I don't mean that you need to become a Birkenstock-wearing, tree-hugging, fully-fledged member of Greenpeace. Just think about what you drive, what you eat, where you live, what you buy, and weigh that against how it affects your planet. Get to know people who farm the land, fish the oceans, and hug the trees. But also get to know the people who pull oil out of the ground, who build the cars you drive, and who cut down trees to build the houses you live in. They all have good reasons to do what they do.

Understand that there are many more commodities than just money. Time. Labour. Goodwill. These things can all be earned, traded, and exchanged for valuable things in life. Count your personal worth in friends, family, kids, talent, and love. Don't get hung up on the numbers in your bank account. You can't buy the important things in life with money. And frankly, besides food and shelter for your family, all the other things you CAN buy with money really just end up as Stuff.

Express yourself. Bob Dylan can't sing worth beans. But that didn't stop him from having a fantastic career. Andy Warhol painted pictures of soup cans, for crying out loud. Don't believe the people that say you have no talent, that you're crap, that you'll never go anywhere. They're just jealous. They are the people who see that little spark inside of you and cry because they lost that spark a long time ago.

That's what I want for Father's Day. And I wish it could be Father's Day every day of the year.

A Review of "The Waiting Place" by Eileen Button

2011-06-02T11:43:00.000-07:00

My first book review!

Everything in life follows its own secret plan; sometimes waiting quietly is the reward, whether we recognize it or not.

In The Waiting Place: Learning to Appreciate Life's Little Delays, Eileen Button assembles a collection of 22 essays about experiences in her life that reflect the joy and frustration of life's uncanny ability to cause us to spin our wheels, when moving forward is the one thing we desire most. Eileen pulls examples from her childhood, her adolescence, and her parenting years, weaving personal insights into a narrative that ends up more a memoir of perseverance in difficult situations, than a guide about appreciating the small moments in life.

I was initially drawn in by the vignettes that Eileen creates from her early memories: her childhood home, fishing with her father, and interminable visits with the grandparents. The romantic, fuzzy lens through which we view our childhood makes for fine storytelling. However, I did feel like I was led astray by the mid-point of the book, at which point the author seems to digress into a series of pieces about difficult periods in her life, starting with applying for WIC cheques to buy food for her young family as they struggle to live on as associate pastor's salary. Then we move through two separate essays on the health issues of her youngest child, a piece on her failure to be accepted into a PhD program due to administrative error, and a collection of three articles on her struggles as a wife of a pastor who is quickly burning himself out.

At this point, I paused, wondering if the author is somehow searching for sympathy from her readers, instead of trying to teach us how to experience bliss during the in-between moments in life. However, the author redeems herself in the last seven chapters, including an excellent piece on the surreal experience of gathering with family in a hospital room, making small talk, while waiting for death to make an appearance.

At the end of the book I'm left wanting to know more about her husband's struggles as a pastor of the church, as it is never revealed if he fully recovers from his burnout or not. As well, I'm intrigued by the chapters on her infant son's condition, known as esophageal atresia / tracheoesophageal fistula (EA/TEF), and what transpired in all those early years while managing his condition. It feels like there are longer stories to be told here that don't really belong in this collection of essays.

Despite the slight detour the book takes in the middle, it is still a great collection of short pieces of writing that makes for good reading, and any author that publishes a collection of such deeply personal stories is to be commended for their bravery.

Disclosure of Material Connection and other legal skullduggery: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program, in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” Don't hate me for whoring myself out for free books.

BookSneeze. Bless you.

2011-05-31T08:20:00.001-07:00

My uber-reader friend Mary recently shared a link with me to BookSneeze.com, which offers books in return for honest reviews. The timing couldn't be better - Mary and I, along with another friend, are set to embark on a 30-day writing fest. As well, I am trying to up my reading quota after a long dry spell. One book finished in May - that's actually pretty good for May, which is a crazy month in our house. So I've sent off my application to the kind folks at Book Sneeze, to see what kind of response I get from them. It would be great to get some books centered on kids and family, since that is what this blog is (supposed to be) about.

Reading is one of those things that was a HUGE part of my life, before the realities of kids and home ownership sunk in. I just recently finished a J.D. Robb novel "Big Jack", which was a light but fun read. Right now, I'm making my way through Christopher Ryan's excellent "Sex At Dawn" which you may have heard about. It is very similar in nature to Jared Diamond's "Germs Guns and Steel", in that it takes a lot of our preconceived notions about human history and turns them on their head.

What is also ironic is that on one of our many uncluttering sprees, we've gotten rid of a lot of the physical books that have been hanging around our house for a long time now. It was a bit sad - I hate to get rid of physical books, but if I'm not going to read them again, they really just end up as clutter. One of the ones that I *did* keep (and will read again, for the 8th time) is Douglas Adams' excellent complete collection of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - A Trilogy in Five Parts." Some books I just can't bear to part with.

Sometimes books are just books - others are special memories in paper format. What is nice about BookSneeze is that they offer books in electronic format. I've been staring a computer screen in the face for so many years now that I actually prefer to read novels online. One absolutely excellent e-book that I read some time ago is Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" which I recommended to my friend, and he devoured in a single say, as I did. I think he even went as far as to order a hardcover copy for his teenage daughter.

What say you, BookSneeze? Feel like adding another blogger to your ranks?

(photo credit: Ian Wilson)

The cycle of the marriage seasons

2010-12-14T10:01:00.000-08:00

I was looking out the kitchen window at the backyard last night. A light snowfall had covered the ground and left the surviving remnants of bushes and trees in stark contrast to their surroundings. As an avid gardener, it felt a little bit sad to look out at the yard and see everything we had worked so hard on all summer reduced to brown sticks and small hilly lumps in the yard. Yet all winter we will carry the faith that, come spring, those brown sticks and little lumps of mud will burst forth in all their glory to bring beauty and splendour back to the yard.

Marriage is a little bit like that, isn't it? From time to time it's easy to stand back and say "you know, things were good for a while, and now they're kind of...blah". Just like the sad scene in the backyard, it's easy to get caught up in the present, become wistful for what once was, and gloomy about what will be. But I think what gets gardeners through a long winter, and spouses through the dull parts of their marriage, is the knowledge that the time they have already invested will result in great rewards, when the time is right.

Winter can also be a time of reminiscing, planning, and dreaming, and the slow periods in your marriage can be a time to reflect, rethink and remember what you have done so far and what you plan to do.

(photo credit: EJP Photo)

School's in and the myth of timesaving

2009-10-20T11:08:00.000-07:00

As a relatively anxious and busy person, I have always believed that you could actually "save time"; doing things RIGHT NOW instead of LATER means that you will have EXTRA time later for better and bigger things! Holy cow, that sounds awesome!

20 years later and I'm still waiting for that extra time to show up. I have a funny feeling that it never will.

There is a significant distinction between "saving time" and "shifting tasks". I think that when we talk about "saving time" we are really talking about "shifting tasks" to make things fit our lives a little better.

Case in point - our oldest is in school now, so we are faced with the daily task of preparing lunches for him each day. My super-awesome wife is usually in charge of this operation, and she consistently makes his lunch the night before to "save time". She's not really saving time of course - the absolute time taken to make a cheese sandwich usually does not vary too much. However, I can clearly imagine the conversation in the mornings, should I personally be faced with creating said sandwich in the 7 1/2 minutes we have left before the bus comes:

Me: "What kind of sandwich do you want, buddy?"
Him: "Ham and cheese!"
Me: "We don't have any ham and cheese. Do you want just cheese?"
Him: "No. What else is there that I can have?"
Me: "Uhh...how about a snacky lunch with crackers and cheese and yogurt?"
Him: "I want it to be a hot lunch day, Daddy!" (pout)
Me: "It's not a hot lunch day, buddy, you know that. Now do you want a cheese sandwich or a snacky lunch?"
Him: "...Daddy?"
Me: "Yes?!?"
Him: "Why can my baby sister not read yet?"
Me: "Wha...? Come on, buddy, focus, do you want a cheese sandwich or not?"
Him: "But Daddy! I need to know why can my baby sister not read yet, because I could read when I was a baby and I need to know!"
Me: (head in hands at this point) "@&*! Just PLEASE tell me what you want for lunch, buddy, so that we can go!"
Him: "I want a hot lunch Daddy!!"
Me: "Oh for @&%!! sakes, you're getting a cheese sandwich!"
Bus: "VRRRROOOOOM"
Me: "...uh oh."

Thankfully we haven't had that experience yet. See, my super-awesome wife realizes that our oldest is MUCH more receptive to questions like that in the evening, after he had been fed and is acting relatively tame:

Her: "What kind of a sandwich do you want, buddy?"
Him: "Cheese sandwich!"

Yes, much shorter. I must find out what her secret is.

There are actually very few moments in life when you can really truly save time. Usually they come in the form of recognizing duplicate tasks and ganging them together. For instance, my super-awesome wife asked me to pick up garlic bread on the way home yesterday. Seizing an opportunity to "save time", I picked up not ONE loaf of garlic bread, but TWO! Ho ho, I had just saved myself an inevitable trip to the grocery store the next time we had pasta and garlic bread for supper! My clever scheme was met with a less than enthusiastic response from my super-awesome wife, however, who had done laundry, prepared and cooked supper, dealt with a clingy baby, helped our oldest with his homework, and started solving some of the world's more pressing political problems in the time it took me to procure the above two loaves of garlic bread and drive them home.

But believe me, I will feel pretty victorious next time spaghetti night rolls around and I triumphantly pull the garlic bread from the freezer...and realize that I now have to spend extra time defrosting it.

Some people are just better at it than others, I guess.

(photo credit : visualdensity)

Back on Track!

2009-06-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

The past few months have been crazy busy around our home - babies, birthdays, holidays, and other related activities. We have only recently been able to get our wits about us and start planning our summer. One thing that we are looking to do is get back on track with our debt reduction. Recently we have done several much-needed improvements to our house - paved driveway, gravel walkway, clothesline, a shed, and other odds and sods. It all adds up financially - some of it has been paid for in cash, some of it has gone on the line of credit, some on the credit card.

Debt repayment really isn't our big problem - what tends to be our biggest problem is the "little ways" that money gets frittered away when we aren't paying attention. In the past, I have been a big fan of the cash envelope system a la Dave Ramsey, but in truth, we really aren't that good at following the cash envelope system. We find there are too many times when we are out and about and need to use the debit card, as the cash is at home, or the cash is just $1.27 short of the purchase we need to make. Keeping track of the cash and debit purchases has just turned out to be a nightmare. If it isn't easy, you're doing it wrong, I say.

So we've decided to go with a different system - the "post your sins" approach. We are very good at communicating with each other, and we are very detailed in our financial record keeping system. In fact, I think we're the only couple around who actually keeps a full ledger (not just a checkbook!) and reconciles it every two weeks. So we have decided to keep a paper record of the discretionary cash we have to spend this period. It's simple, lo-tech, and most of all, very visible to each other. So there should be no more excuses on not knowing the state of the accounts - at the end of each day we plan to mark down what was done that day, look at the remaining balance available, and make educated plans about how to spend the remaining money before the next pay period.

So simple it just might work. I'll keep people posted on how well (or poorly!) it fares.

-Crispy

(photo credit : ap.)

Eating with chopsticks

2009-01-28T08:03:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been focusing on slowing down a little, especially while I eat. It's supposed to be good for my figure, they tell me. One of the ways that I help myself slow down while eating is to use chopsticks. It's an art, to be sure, but once you get the hang of it, it's as easy as using a fork and knife. It's really a more mindful way to eat: you need to focus on the food in front of you so that you pick up the piece you want, you concentrate as the food is picked up, you watch it as you carry the food to your mouth so that it doesn't fall off, and you slide the food carefully in your mouth and enjoy the hard-won morsel. Phew!

It occurred to me while eating my bowl of rice that the chopstick model can help us simplify our approach to life. When faced with a taxing situation, analyze it bit by bit. Don't get overwhelmed by the whole thing. Dissect things, break then down into their components. Deal with each part on its own.

When faced with a happy, fantastic situation, look and appreciate each individual part of the event or object. Analyze why it brings you joy. Reflect on the pleasure that each part brings you, and think about how you can share it with others. Don't shovel it all in so fast that you miss the chance to contemplate how small things come together to create something that is bigger than the sum of its parts.

What can you "chopstick" in your life? Your relationship with your spouse? A bad day with the kids? Financial challenges? Pull out the chopsticks and start breaking it down into pieces.

-Crispy

(photo credit: JourneyToNoWhere)

Quietly waiting

2008-11-11T04:45:00.000-08:00

We are still anxiously awaiting Baby #2; we are not yet to the due date, but I think that we're all ready for the baby to make its grand entrance. We had a practice run the other night (well, actually, two practice runs to the hospital), but the nurses and doctors assured us that this was not the real thing and encouraged us to go home and rest. How 15 hours of contractions two minutes apart is "false labour" I'll never know, but things did return to normal eventually. The human body can be miraculous and frustrating all at the same time.

That's the problem with being ready so early for the baby - it makes the wait seem so much longer. The room has been ready for months; clothes are sorted, folded and stacked neatly in the drawers; suitcases are packed and waiting patiently in the car for our eventual trip to the hospital; toys are sitting silently in the closet until the day that little hands will make them shake and dance.

I laugh sometimes and wonder if we are being taught the real meaning of patience - the ability to quietly accept that something huge and impending is not in your hands, and that you are at the mercy of time and nature. But then again, sometimes you are rewarded for your patience with quiet perfect moments like these - I'm up, showered and dressed, my son and wife are still in bed, and the sun is shining outside on a crisp fall day. "Everything in its own time", my mother says.

Everything in life follows its own secret plan; sometimes waiting quietly is the reward, whether we recognize it or not.

(photo credit : creative_mindseye)

Catching up!

2008-10-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted in a while, getting ready for baby #2 has consumed a lot of our time lately! A lot of our time has been spent going through all of the clothes, toys, etc, we saved from our first child, and determining what we have and what we need. Our first was born in May, and our second will be born around November, which makes a HUGE difference in what clothes are required. Sunsuits, T-shirts, and onesies will NOT cut it in a Canadian winter!

One of the fun parts of going through the clothes was bringing all of the baby memories back to the surface - my wife found the sleepers our son started crawling in; I found the socks that I refused to put on my son as I thought they were too "girly". (They still are.) We also remembered the sleepless nights, the frustration of trying to make your kids grow up too fast, and the battles we fought with each other during the trying times of parenthood. But you know what? We got through it all.

When you are in the middle of something, down and dirty in the trenches, it is easy to lose sight of the long term. Our son is now four years old, he is loving preschool, toilet trained since he was 2, and is a smart-mouthed but smart-brained kid. What seemed like insurmountable challenges back then in the baby years, have eventually worked themselves out. In retrospect, the big hurdles we faced now are now memories of our strength and tenacity together as a family.

Progress is important, not perfection, and we are allowed to fail as long as we get back up and try again.

(photo credit : mirandajordan)

The envelope please

2008-09-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, we are back on our envelope budgeting system a la Dave Ramsey. Although I am sure that people have been doing this since cash (or its equivalent) was invented, Ramsey popularized this method in his various books and radio shows. The excellent show "Till Debt do us Part" also uses the same method, but with jam jars.

So how does it work?

In our household, we have four red envelopes (mostly so they don't get thrown in the blue bin...that would pose a different budgeting challenge!) They are labeled:

Groceries
Gas
Entertainment
Incidentals

Each payday, we take out our two-week allotment of cash for those "variable" spending categories. (We are paid on a biweekly basis. Check in for a later post to see why we budget biweekly, not monthly, and how you can too.) We then split the cash among the four categories based on pre-set amounts that are based on our past spending, and that are amounts that we think are reasonable.

Once that's done - the debit and credit cards go into hiding. All the rest of the spending is done in cash, plain and simple. Some of the categories have grey areas dividing them (was picking up a U-bake pizza and salad last night Groceries or Incidentals?) so we shuffle amounts between the categories as required. Also, if there is a shortfall in one area (have you seen the price of gas lately?) then we can borrow from other areas to make up for the shortfall.

The real advantage of the envelope system

The envelope system gives us a predictable amount to budget for. When you don't start out the week with a target amount to spend, it is far too easy to go over that amount and leave yourself at the end of the month looking at your bank account saying "oops". Although it can be constraining (especially with rising fuel and food prices) it transforms those "variable expenses" into a "fixed expense" that is much easier to budget for.

When the cash is at home and you are not

Once in a while, you will find yourself in a situation where you are out and about -- and the cash is not. What we do in these situations is to temporarily put the purchase on the credit card, and as soon as we get home, take the representative amount of cash from the envelopes and stick it somewhere secure. Then when the next payday rolls around, we just subtract the "stashed" amount from the cash we withdraw, and use the "leftover" amount in the account to pay the credit card. In a perfect world, you would run to the bank, deposit the cash, and immediately pay the credit card off. However, when you live out of town, that's not necessarily the best option (the time and gas cost would really negate the small amount of interest on the credit card). It works for us and that's all that matters.

Tentative steps to doing this (gasp) with the credit card

My wife and I have been discussing doing this on the credit card, to increase the amount of rewards points that we can collect (and in turn, cash them in for grocery certificates, which has been the norm for us for several years now). I am not confident that we yet have the discipline to do this - but I suppose we won't know until we try. Like all things in marriage or life, it will be an experiment, and we'll learn something about ourselves.

I have some thoughts in my head about money and relationships that I think would make a few good pieces of writing. Perhaps I'll turn them into a post in the near future.

-Crispy

(photo credit chinaredpack)

Home for a rest

2008-09-09T11:49:00.000-07:00

I have a surprise. No, not for you. For my wife. This weekend will find us removed from the city, and removed from the kid, for a night. What with all of the goings-on this summer, we have not had much of a chance to get away. So we're heading off to an as-of-yet undisclosed event and staying at an as-of-yet undisclosed lodging establishment -- for just one night, but if things work out as hoped, it will feel like we have been away for a good rest.

What constitutes "rest"? Sleep can provide physical rest, but I'm not certain that sleep alone can provide sufficient opportunity for rejuvenation of the mind. Dreams are a good example of this - when left alone to their own devices and starved of input, our minds conjure up crazy situations in vivid, living colour and full surround sound. The human mind needs to be shaken up and stirred once in a while, or the synaptic connections start to go stagnant. Once we have experienced a person, place or situation enough times, it is set down as a pattern in our minds. This "pattern-forming" that our minds perform is the reason that people fly to exotic locales, take year-long sabbaticals to pursue their interests, and have obscure and detailed hobbies. We need to feed the mind with novel experiences in order to give those pattern-forming cells a chance to do something else.

The popularity of "staycations" has bloomed in this era of rising (but not yet unreasonable) fuel costs. However, I am not yet convinced that an at-home-vacation is what the tired mind needs to be rejuvenated. The city can be full of life and vibrancy, but when you live and work in the city it is hard to shake that feeling of familiarity that makes you feel like you are still at home. The general area we will be going to this weekend is less than an hour away, but is still far enough away so that we have the true feeling of unfamiliarity.

This mini-getaway has been designed to give our minds the rest they need in several ways:

The town is a place we have both been to, but is still mostly unfamiliar to us as we have not been there for a few years and much has likely changed in terms of establishments and activities.
We are going to partake in an activity that is fairly uncommon for us, yet is something we both have enjoyed in the past. (No, you dirty-minded readers, not that.)
The trip is loosely organized, so can be creative with our free time (the only exception is the activity above for which I have tickets.)
We are going to stay in a type of lodging that neither of us have been to before.

With some careful planning, you can orchestrate a mini-getaway that refreshes the mind and spirit in a day or two, where traditional vacations would require a week or more. Don't forget that novelty can be numbing - you need just enough of it, or else novelty becomes the norm and fails to give you that rest your mind is seeking.

-Crispy

(photo credit: Nick Today)

Do you have room in your life's cupboards?

2008-08-20T05:56:00.000-07:00

Last night, my wife and I were cleaning out the cupboards in the kitchen. (You see, in the flurry of moving in, we had recruited two family members to unpack the kitchen for us while we worked on other areas of the house. They did a good job, but it's like someone else tying your shoes...the job is done but it just didn't feel right.)

When we were done, there were shelves with literally nothing on them. It struck me how odd it looked - it appeared unfinished, like there MUST be something on each shelf. It's almost as if an empty shelf or cupboard is a trigger to our brains: (a) we need to buy something to put on this shelf, or (b) we must have something lying around that can go in that spot! It takes a little bit of time to get your brain past that sticking point. An empty cupboard/larder/pantry throughout humanity's time on this earth has always indicated a time of need.

In fact, an empty spot can have various uses: a staging area when you are moving things around; a spot to temporarily store that 10lb bag of potatoes, 2 lbs of turnip and 3 lbs of carrots until they are cooked for Thanksgiving dinner; or even just a reminder that you have purged the kitchen - and it's STAYING that way.

It's interesting how many "empty cupboards" we have in our lives that we feel the need to fill. Whether it is our own personal time, filled with appointments, meetings, playdates, and evenings with family and friends; or the accumulation of material possessions that fill our homes; or the negative relationships we keep because we cannot bear to be alone, we seem to have a human need to cram our lives full of "stuff".

To turn things around, ask yourself how many empty cupboards you can keep in your life. How much free time can we maintain, so that there is time to spontaneously take the family out for a fun evening? How many negative relationships can we give up, so as to give us some positive time with just ourselves? How many excess belongings can we cast off, sell, or give away to free up space and time to enjoy the beautiful belongings we love and cherish?

Empty cupboards have their uses. What's yours?

(photo credit: *Lynne)

The importance of the emergency fund

2008-08-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

This week I dutifully pulled out the family ledger and prepared to balance the books. It has been a fairly crazy month with selling and buying houses and the requisite financial dealings that come along with that.
However, when I was going through the transactions this month, I noticed two anomalies:

Even though our old mortgage had been paid out, a pre-authorized mortgage payment had still gone through.
A post-dated cheque for a cancelled service had gone through. We had not thought to go back and collect our old cheques for the cancelled service and it went through by accident.

So a quick call to the bank confirmed that #1 was their mistake, and they would reverse the funds and get us a cheque this week. Unfortunately, as of this writing, it looks like it will be next week by the time the cheque makes it to our bank branch. As well, I will be picking up a reimbursement cheque for #2 today and getting it in the bank this afternoon. So that cheque won't clear until next week EITHER. And the mortgage payment for the new house is coming up early next week. Eek!

Fortunately, we have a (small) emergency fund whereby we can transfer out some of the money to cover the mortgage payment until we can get cheques #1 and #2 in the bank. Once the cheques clear, we can move that money back into our emergency fund. Phew. I hate to have to do the "money mambo" like that, but it's a necessity sometimes.

For more information on establishing an emergency fund, I suggest you check out Dave Ramsey's excellent site on how to work your way out of the clutches of the Debt Monster. Although I don't agree with some of his philosophies, I do think his general approach is solid. Now that things have (mostly) settled down, we will be working our way back to the cash envelope system, so as to ensure that we are sticking to our budget.

Hm, perhaps a post on how we run the envelope system will be forthcoming.

(photo credit: inkyfingerz)

Picking up where we left off

2008-08-08T08:56:00.001-07:00

It has been some time since we successfully completed our challenge to find a new house for us all. Now the challenge is to make the house a home for our growing family! Baby B is due Nov 15, 2008, and we are busily working on our new home and loving every minute of it. (Okay, perhaps not every minute, but the good moments certainly outweigh the bad ones).

One thing I am looking forward to writing about is the dynamic of a household; that is, how all of the symbiotic elements of managing a household, raising a family, sustaining a marriage, dealing with finances, and taking time for yourself all work together (or not) to create a happy household (or not). I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking lately, and perhaps I'm just getting to that point in my life where I can easily wax philosophical about things, but I want to focus on making our household a happy, comfortable place to be. I hope you'll join me on our journey.

(photo credit: _dai_)