So the brain surgeon is on the interview trail and it's finally for a real job...the kind where he will finally get a living wage. Okay, it might be a tad more than a living wage. My friends ooh and ahh. People say, "Oh, you will be so happy" and "Everything will be great, soon" and things like that. That's nice and all, but money has never really been a major driver for me.

That sounds crazy, I know, but it's true. Everyone who knows me can attest to that (even though they seem to have a vision that more money will buy some new level of happiness). Still, I'm looking forward to losing my title as breadwinner, too. I'm kinda tired. Happy, but tired.

Money is nice. It really is. It reduces some worry, I suppose. But over my lifetime, I've been blessed to be on both ends of the financial spectrum -- and many places in between -- and I know that it's true that money doesn't buy happiness. The opposite is also true -- poverty doesn't necessarily make people unhappy.

I say blessed, because I have learned much from all of my financial experiences....

And if you look across your life, at all the people you know, you will see that there is no correlation between wealth and happiness. People with a lot of money can find just as many things to be miserable about as people who are poor. People with fewer financial resources, in fact, often seem to be better able to find happiness in challenging circumstances.

Just some thoughts.

Toodles.

Housecleaning

I used to be obsessed with schedules and planning. An organized and clean house was inordinately important to me. This is one area (of many) where kids (and FlyLady) have been very good for me. Schedules become unbalanced in a moment’s notice. The best-laid plans go to hell in an instant. Even though I’m an expert housecleaner, I’m so outnumbered that cleanliness only happens when everyone is out of the house, but then I’m out of the house, too.

And what’s the point of the house, then?

In all honesty, every single day of the weak, several major catastrophes happen, even when I’m organized and running ahead of schedule. Someone barfs or pours a blueberry smoothie over their head or spills it on the couch, or the dog dumps over the recycling bin, or BooBoo gets glue in her hair, or the L-man puts lotion in his eye or Miss M stubs her toe and if there’s none of that, there’s always time for an unexpected blowout Poop-o-rama.

It’s the glamorous life I’m living, and I'm loving it.

Toodles.

Bad Tax Estimates

Did I mention I owe Uncle Sam AGAIN? Yes, for whatever reason, my CPA and I can’t seem to estimate the coming hit right. I did better this year…I owe just over $5,000. Last year I screwed up by $12,000. That was a fun check to write. Good times.

I did file on time. Points for that.

Happy birthday to my nephew Jesse and my little cousin Eden today!

Toodles.

Facebook Obsession

Okay, attempt numero uno at the short blog posts and getting my blog back in gear. I’ve heard the angry roars from my followers (kidding).

Topic of the day…My current obsession with Facebook, which improved, but then got MUCH worse after my family developed the GI BUG FROM HELL. Psychological recovery from this has proven tougher than physical recovery. Since I’m a writer by trade and have my laptop on all but 5 hours a day, the checking Facebook thing has gotten out of hand. Those little red notification notices are too tempting to resist.

The silly applications are worse. Why do I even take time to do them? I guess for a little bit of non-kid fun. I’m addicted to Scrabble, Kidnap, Pieces of Flair and occasionally get tempted into other things like Vampire Wars, Little Green Patch, Little Blue Cove and the like.

I’ve been Tweeting a lot more. I’m learning a bit about how use it more professionally, but really just playing so far. I have about 600 followers and I really have no idea how that happened, but it’s made Twitter much more interesting.

I’m feeling very nostalgic this week and looking at the interconnectivity of life. So many of my friends know each other, but people from different parts of my life that I never thought would have met. I no longer think it’s six degrees of separation, I think it is more like one or two.

Digging through the patchwork of my life is proving to be very interesting.

Toodles.