Back to School

Coming up is my LAST first day of school ever!! My baby is a senior!! Hard to believe! I can remember asking a good friend whose children were all in school what she did all day. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be a stay at home mom with no children underfoot for 6 hours each day. I soon learned that there was still the same amount of grocery shopping, laundry and cleaning to do for 6 people as there had always been, I just didn't have children clinging to my legs while I was doing it! I also found that I was home A LOT LESS in the evenings, so it was even more important to get all of my work done during the day so I could enjoy the time with my kiddos when they were home.

NOW, however, I find that there is NOT the same amount of laundry, grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning to do. My oldest has been living here for the summer getting ready for grad school, but she leaves in September. My 2nd and 3rd children are both away at school (DS started his second year of classes yesterday) and DD will be home early next week for a few days before heading off for year 3 of classes. My husband travels regularly on business, so that will leave a lot of time where it is just me and baby girl at home. I still manage to stay busy, but my list looks much different than it did 15 or 20 years ago!! These days I spend a lot of time looking after our parents! This week I traveled to Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah (about 5 hours from my home) and stayed there for a few days while my mother-in-law had surgery to remove a tumor. Now that we are home, I stop in and check on them and help with their tasks daily while she recovers from the surgery.

My parents are in relatively good health. However, my Dad is a planner, so he wants to make sure my mom is taken care of when he passes. A large part of their retirement income is generated by his daily investing (which my mom has no interest in or stomach for - not sure which!). So, my Dad decided that he needed someone to shadow him each day as he goes through his finances and makes investing decisions so that someone would be prepared to take over in the event of his death. Guess who has been nominated?? Yep! ME! It turns out that this has been fantastic. I love having an excuse to talk to my Dad every day, and I love the opportunity to learn about investing. This is something that I think a lot of us know a little bit about. We know some general terms, but we really just know enough to get ourselves in trouble. Like the time when my husband got paid a huge chunk of money for a piece of  software he wrote and we put it all in mutual funds right at the top of the dot com bubble. We should have taken a nice trip. It would have cost less. But I digress. As I have told a few of my friends what I was doing with my Dad, some of them have said, "Can I sit in?" or, more often, "Can my husband sit in?" Ladies! Take an active role in your finances!! I decided that sharing what I was learning through my blog would be a great way to help others who want to learn some basic investing strategies. It is not meant to be comprehensive. You can take a class if you want a really comprehensive, expert treatment of the subject. However, if you want to get your feet wet and maybe you are in the same situation as me and have a little extra time - follow along!! You might learn something!! My Dad and I limit our discussions to 45 minutes each day. It's not a ton of time, but it's enough that it's adding up and I can now talk about options somewhat knowledgeably. I even suggested something to my Dad this week that netted him $1600! I'll get to that. But we'll start with the basics. Right now though, I need to go check in on my mother-in-law. Stay tuned as we go BACK TO SCHOOL!!

That was a great idea YESTERDAY!

Probably a corollary to being a procrastinator, but I am the queen of good ideas too late. I have dozens of times when I have been doing something only to realize that I should have prepared for that event by doing (fill in the blank). This morning I was on my way to a family baptism (almost late) and realized that it would have been really nice to offer to pick up my husband's parents. My mother-in-law had surgery a month ago and has only just received permission to drive this week. She would probably have loved to not have to drive the 20 minutes to the event. But, I thought of it as I was leaving - too late!!

Side note - you know that you can solve all problems with a Google search? WRONG! I Googled "good ideas too late" and there seem to be a few people discussing this (like maybe I'm not the only one this happens to), but very little advice for how to prevent it.

If you dig a little, there is a lot about having plenty of time to accomplish good things in life - see this article about the Purpose Prize for example, but I'm talking about something simpler. How to spread a little more good in the world. Remember to pick up flowers on the way to the play (I think I finally have this one down after showing up and thinking about it as I'm walking in too many times to count), remember to offer a ride to the neighborhood meeting to your neighbor who doesn't drive at night, come up with a thoughtful gift instead of a last minute one. You get the idea. As I think through this, it's really about being intentional in our lives and planning. I find that when I look ahead a week or even a month at my calendar and notice the gift giving opportunities coming up, the activities I'm planning to attend, etc, then I can think through what opportunities there are in each of these events to do something kind. And I also have to remind myself that a GOOD idea now is better than an excellent idea that's too late. So sometimes you just have to jump in and Do it!

Do you have any strategies for having your great ideas in time to execute them?

Who me? Procrastinate?

Yesterday was my daughter's birthday.

On Wednesday, when she was 16 years and 365 days old (remember leap year? THURSDAY was her birthday), I found myself running around doing all the birthday errands that needed to get done. I was even making a birthday cake yesterday afternoon. I have known about this blessed event for nearly 17 years. It WOULD be silly to plan for her 17th birthday when she was a newborn, so let's just say I had a whole year's notice. Either way, a planner would NOT have been running around like a chicken with her head cut off the last two days getting ready. I guess that makes me....not. a. planner. Bummer. I try so hard! What is it about planning that makes it so difficult for some of us to pull off?

To be fair, I procrastinate a lot less than I used to. There are fewer things that get procrastinated. I have learned that I LIKE the feeling of accomplishment that comes from starting and FINISHING a task. Research seems to indicate that the hardest part of a task for a procrastinator is to just get started. If we understand that, then we can encourage ourselves to take a step. Get started. Do the easy part.

One useful tool for me has been making lists and schedules. I have a weekly schedule of when regular tasks get accomplished. I know I do finances on Monday, laundry on Tuesday, errands on Wednesday, etc. It worked so well, that I added in things I want to get done but never seem to get to - creative projects got added to the schedule for Mondays, family history projects got added to the list for Wednesdays. Like all of life, it needs regular tweaking and sometimes it falls apart, but I just keep working at it

Holidays and birthdays seem to be the next thing I need to tackle in my campaign against procrastination. Since a schedule works well for me, I should probably make room in my schedule for holiday/birthday planning. My Dad's birthday present was late last week. My brother's still hasn't been executed, and I am well on my way to missing Mother's Day. I think I will take care of that this weekend - here's to new beginnings! They can happen anytime! I don't need to wait until a new year, or a new month because that would be PROCRASTINATION!! Yep, I'll do it tomorrow. ;-)