“Yet down the line, lay clear uncertainties: promises made and promises to keep. Buried ambitions too, beckon and prod us to consider the harvest we’ll reap” Everyone makes mistaken, everybody lies but the truth will come out eventually. It is funny but if I am being…
I heart the question, “what do you really want, Daniela?; “what do you really need, Daniela? or “really think about it hard, will you” more than one million times in the last couple of days. Also, don’t tell me what I should have, lady at…
Catching title, eh? Let me back up a little bit before I get into the meaty things I want to write about. I am living a pretty minimalistic lifestyle. I don’t own a lot of stuff and like it like that. I moved out of my parent’s house when I was 17 years old to join police academy and earned my own money ever since. It happened once that I maxed out my bank account since Euro 50 pocket money versus Euro 1000 salary a month at police academy gave me the feeling that I rule the world and can buy whatever I feel like. Wrong! My parents helped me out and I felt pretty embarrassed. Needless to say, money problems like this never happened to me again.
Also, to my detriment, I have been solely responsible for my finances since about that age. I had my own apartment when I was 21. And a motorcycle. And a car. I traveled. I spent money. I would say, I kept this little ship afloat pretty well throughout the years. When I moved to the U.S. I learned what IRS fraud is. Also what a 1099 or a 401K is. Or bankruptcy. I learned what dead-beat dad means. Let’s just say, I met a lot of different people. Some who thought it is okay to have $19 in the savings account by the end of the month. Like every month. All these things were tiny lectures in life I paid attention to. I learned. I thought I am prepared for whatever comes my way.
Needless to say, things don’t always run that smoothly. Recently, one payment after the other arrived and when I thought I see the light at the end of the tunnel, another huge payment and deadline appeared out of nowhere. I realized that I needed to start paying more attention to my money and what I spend it on. Step 1: I downloaded a budget plan to document every little thing I spend money on for one week. A friend at university told me the other day, “this totally worked for me. You see everything nicely outlined in front of you and can then track down where your money goes and where you have been pissing money away. Then you can start making changes and like put whatever you saved in a …. what is this called… savings account, I think!”
Okay, I am going to do this. It cannot be that hard, right? Since I am a minimalist and whatnot. The agreement I had with myself was to 1) not to alter my spending habits throughout the week and 2) not to lie about any spendings. Easy. In a nutshell:
This is how my list looked:
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Let’s stop here for the week, eh. Looking at this list and eyeballing it, it is kind of depressing. Also, keeping track of every little thing is so exhausting. My brother would have calculated the amount I spent in this week in a second in his head. I don’t even bother taking out my calculator since by just looking at this list it is clear that I spent approximately five billion dollars in one single week. All for stuff that I don’t really need. And what’s with the lattes? It is just ridiculous. Also, no rent paid yet since it is not time yet. Shaking my head. Looking at my fridge I realize that this damn thing is almost empty again. My son is in some sort of growth spurt and eats me poor. Seriously, no joke. He eats more than I sometimes. My mom would say now, “Well, you have no food in your fridge but you have books, a plant that is about to die soon, coffee and alcohol!”
Despite the fact that I am depressed about my spending habits looking at this list, I am fully aware that it is the beginning of October with another three weeks left to shame myself while money is flowing out of my bank account. On the flip side, I am not that bad, right? Didn’t even buy clothing or purses. I actually sold a purse! I don’t need all this stuff. Giving our time, our precious time, to things that give us nothing in return but temporary satisfaction is not worth it to me. Balance is key and moderation is my friend. Sometimes.
The last two weeks were very difficult for me and I asked myself the question, “When does it all stop being so complicated”? Most of the day I felt like curling up somewhere to sleep. I was mentally and physically exhausted. It all started with…
This could be me after I dropped off my son enjoying a book and cup of coffee on the porch. When I walked home from school today to pick up my son I realized the colour-changing of the leaves and thought that the new school-thing…
One afternoon ze husband came home with a fancy “this-thing-literally-can-do-anything-even-bake-me-a-cake” scale. Apparently it can be controlled through his phone, watch and whatnot and monitors the exact calorie intake vs what he burns throughout the day (It can feed you too, I reckon). Do I need a…
Everything changes. Nothings stands still. I have moved so many times in my life that I can pack an entire house into boxes with a smart, efficient system within a very short period of time. My moving-highlight and easiest move “accumulated items-wise” is still from Munich…
We are back in Canada and before I even filled up our fridge I checked out my favourite bookstore in Ottawa for a nice cup of latte, good conversations and great used books. Taking a break from studying, researching and course material, I am happy to read just for pleasure for some time before the new semester starts in September.
Always with me these days: my son. He is not at daycare anymore (we have both taken the summer off to travel to Europe) and awaits patiently the start of Kindergarten in September since they have a marble machine. I still cannot believe he will be four years-old in October. I have to say that he is into books almost as much as I am by now. Forcing anyone to love books (or anything else) is never a good thing but for him, being around books and me reading all day long makes it seem natural for him. My favourite time of the day is indeed when he curls up next to me on the couch in the evening and I read to him. We have this special physical closeness that is fantastic. Today, we spent some time at the bookstore too because it rained all day long. Since I love books and reading so much, raising a reader is even more fun. I believe in the importance of reading at any age since it is helpful for the development of the child. I actually read books to him aloud while I nursed him and whenever he had colics it calmed him down. He listened to Jung, Nietzsche, Hemingway, Didion, Philip Roth, David Sedaris and many more. He did not mind. To build a somewhat positive association to books at a very young age worked really well for us. Who knows if it will last for a lifetime but for now, it is great and I initially introduced him to books that I loved as a kid. Now, since he is older, I respect his preference in books.
I believe starting children to enjoy books cannot begin early enough. It does not even matter what I read to him when he was very young. But, this way I was able to read my books by reading them out loud without any other distractions. No TV on, no radio etc. since the language has to be directed to child personally. An audiobook never worked and the content never mattered in the beginning. He just loved when I made weird sounds while I read and this even started him “talking” by making noise responses so he communicated with me already at this early age of five weeks. All he wanted was the sound of my voice so I killed two birds with one stone.
I then switched to children’s books once in a while and I don’t even know how many times we read The Hungry Caterpillar and different stories of Maisy Mouse. He and I know the entire stories by heart. I, on the other hand, am crazy about how books smell and how the pages feel so I am using all my senses while reading. Is there a perfume that smells like books? My son is not into smelling books at all. Yet. I guess I am a deeply troubled person.
My son is a toddler now and my mom hates that term. His interests shifted from hungry caterpillars to volcanos, ghosts, skeletons, the human body and a plethora of “why-questions” on a daily basis like: “Why do we have bones?” I feel that he is at a very important emotional, intellectual and social point in his development right now. He wants to know vocabulary, numbers, the alphabet, colours, shapes and waaaay too many questions on how the world works. We spent a lot of time together and I know him by heart. I sense when he gets tired so our nightly bedtime routine always involves reading. To get him to calm down and relax before bed I create this comfortable atmosphere. We usually eat supper and then curl up on the couch and he chooses what he wants me to read to him. Of course, sometimes he can watch his favourite show and I just read my own book next to him but it is important to create a peaceful, relaxing and soothing atmosphere. This way I can connect to him even though I don’t read to him.
It is okay that he interrupts while I read. Reading especially to a toddler does not mean to take a book, read it, leave the room and say goodnight. My son has comments and queries. He wants to know things and needs to be engaged and ask what is in the pictures or what he does not understand in the text which in the end expands his view on things. I can also achieve that by choosing diverse books; books that depict children with different skin colours or ethnicities for example. We are living in a diverse world, so exposing him to it at an early stage is important I reckon. I avoid to give my son an e-reader. I know this is probably the future but to hold a physical copy of a book (and to smell it) is so much nicer. Since books are everywhere in our house, this is not a problem. My son’s books are in places in the bookshelf where they are accessibly to him so he can easily pick them up at any time. Most interesting for my son now is whenever a story has bits of adventure, fun and playfulness in it.
The greek philosopher Heraclitus once said that “everything changes and nothing stands still” (my dad’s favourite). Besides Heraclitus’s quote, I don’t even know how many times I heard “summer is over” in the last couple of days. The summer in Germany was not as great…
