Month: January 2013

My marriage secret: 51/49

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If you are married, you will probably understand what I am about to tell you. You know that Sunday afternoon when it is slightly cold out, but it is past time to clear the leaves out of the gutters? When you ask your husband if maybe this is the day to clean them out, and they look at you with raised eyebrows because they know it is:

a) a good day for it

b) past time for it to be done

c) they do not want to get on the roof and clean the gutters

d) they know you are right

You say to your husband: “51/49” which equates to: time to clean the gutters.

You might ask: What is this 51/49? Chris and I have a little mantra for our marriage that we joke about together. “51/49” is what we call it. Basically the short and dirty of it is that I have 51% say and he has 49% say in decisions. I know what you are thinking. Either: “That is not fair” or “Wow, lucky woman.” Whatever you are thinking, save it. It works for us. Chris has always had the idea in his mind: “Happy wife; happy life.” You can guess correctly that I like it. I have the most wonderful husband (I already know I do so you do not have to tell me).

You may ask why I am telling you this – especially when I have also just told you that he only gets 49% say. Well, in the end 51/49 is our inside joke. It is our decision-making motto. Yes, there are many decisions that we make together. Definitely the big ones, buying a house, moving to a different city, making large purchases, you know the drill. Yet, on the day-to-day level, I often plot out the plan for our life. I carve out what is next, make a plan, and divvy up the details for us both to execute. Partly because I am on point for driving us forward with those plans, I often use 51/49 to make sure things happen. If we are torn about where to have dinner and I have a strong opinion, I might mention 51/49. With a grin on his face, and the knowledge that it is our little joke, Chris might lean my way. Or, he might decide to bring his own plan to the mix and test my 51/49. Yes, it is fun, and yes, it has proven very effective in our marriage.

51/49 is also a reminder to us to take good care of each other. I try just as hard to look out for and pamper Chris as he does for me. We do it in different ways, but we love to find ways to make sure we both share in living a happy life together.

I grew up in a family where my father made the decisions (whether right, smart, wrong, or not thought through), while my mom did almost everything in the house. It was always evident to me that my dad made the decisions. It was his way or the highway. I knew I never wanted to be in that kind of marriage. First, I am too strong-willed. Second, I wanted to be in a relationship where we shared and made decisions together. 51/49 works for us.

What do you think of our marriage secret?

You have to look at the crap

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I just finished reading Brene Brown’s book: “The Gift of Imperfection.” After reading her book: “Daring Greatly” I was curious about her other books and wanted to see how they compared, and what I might learn in the process. “The Gift of Imperfection” does not at all compare to Daring Greatly (which I loved) but I still found some helpful ideas and inspiration. Brown has definitely evolved as a writer with each book.

One idea that really resonated with me was about looking at all the crap in our lives. So often we want to look at everything with sunshine and rainbows and the reality of life is that it is not always happy, perfect, and straightforward. We often have to take a trowel and dig into the past, or rake through the distractions that are blocking us from seeing our true purpose in life. When I read this quote from Brown the other day, I realized how right she is:

“We don’t change, we don’t grow, and we don’t move forward without the work. If we really wanted to live a joyful, connected, and meaningful life, we must talk about things that get in the way.” Page 35

We want the easy way out. We like to cut corners, get there faster, check the box off the list. That is not the way it works though. We have to do the work. We have to look at our dark places, what makes us angry, and what makes us react. All the different nuances and challenges in our life that rub us the wrong way, make us feel injustice, or just get in the way of who we are on the good days. If we use the trowel and rake, maybe, just maybe, it will mean that more of our days are happy and on purpose.

With poise, zeal, and excitement together we can look at the dark stuff in our life, our fears, questions, and all the crap that we push under our beds, into our closets, or the trunk of our car. The stuff we avoid to look at because we are scared of what it will tell us. Afraid of what we will learn about ourselves. Open the door, the trunk, and get under the bed and pull out the dust bunnies, and stinky socks, and let’s look at our dark places, talk about them, and see where it takes us.

I am excited to start talking about the things that are getting in my way. Maybe, I will share a few here. You will have to come back and see.

My Favorite Books of 2012

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Last year I mentioned in this post my favorite books of 2011. It is time to look back to my favorite books of 2012. They are in no specific order (well except for Daring Greatly). That is still my favorite book of 2012, and I encourage everyone to read it. The links with the books below do not take you to Amazon to explore the book, but rather are my past blog posts sharing more about how I connected with the specific book:

Each of these books touched my heart in some way. Whether by the story line, the ideas shared, the humanity I felt, the writing, or that I felt like a different person after reading each of them. They brought me to a different place, made me grateful for all that I have in my life, and made me want more out of life. I love that you can learn more about yourself just by popping the spine of a book. A simple pleasure in such a complicated, technically charged, and intertwined world.

What are your favorite books of 2012?

Get Your Shit Together

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I am impressed. Trust me, it takes a lot to impress me. I have found a website about money, insurance, living wills, and other life planning needs that I will be able to remember for many years to come. It has a ring to it, and if I am talking to a friend or colleague, I will not have to rack my brain to remember their URL. Ready for it?

getyourshittogether.org

Clever right? They focus on creating a will, a living will, setting up your insurance…the list goes on. The creator of the site, Chanel Reynolds, lost her husband last summer when he was hit while on a bike ride. She spent months recreating her financial life, then decided to start her website (which just went live this month) to help others get their shit together.

While no one in my family was hit by a bike, I can relate to Chanel because of my own life experiences, all of which have made me passionate about these issues. When both of my parents passed on (I was 16 and 21), they had no life insurance, no health insurance, no living will, or will. When my mom passed on I was 16, which means I was still a minor. At the time, if my father did not take custody of me there was a possibility that I would have been taken under the care of the state. Did my parents ever think or plan for such occurrence? Probably not. If they had then there would have been documentation of what would happen to me. I like to think they would have done the due diligence to make sure that was in place, but it was not. Not a fun way to mourn.

At each point in my life when my parents passed on, my siblings and I had to come up with money to pay for both of my parent’s funerals, as well as incur different expenses to travel to and from their respective homes (they were divorced by then) to deal with any remaining possessions, most of which went to Goodwill. Rather than have the opportunity to grieve, we had to act fast, plan the cheapest funeral, and go through their possessions as quickly as possible in order to not have to continue to pay their rent and other expenses.

A will, life insurance, and directions on what arrangements they wanted at their death would have helped my brother, sister, me to have the option to be present in losing our parents at such a young age. Instead we had to make difficult choices very quickly during highly emotional times. I do not want to put my future children in that situation. It is important to take the time to legally document your financial and legal choices for your affairs. Once you have it documented, take the time to discuss with the necessary individuals (whether your children or siblings, etc.) so they understand your wishes. I can tell you from experience if you do not have those conversations now, it can cause riffs in a family during an already emotionally charged time.

Due to the situation I was in, I strongly encourage anyone with kids to take the time and proper steps to “get your shit together.” Do it for your spouse. Do it for your kids. Do it for your parents. Yes, it is morbid to talk about the “what-ifs” if you were to die. It is not fun, but it is reality. Take the time to have the hard conversations with your spouse and get your shit together.

Random Olio Snippets: 1

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I am trying something new. Once a week (on no specific day of the week) I want to share snippets of a few “random olios” or ideas from my week. Often I have random thoughts I want to share, but they are short and so in 2013 I have decided to share small snippets together in one post each week. We’ll see!

More books for me! – Thank you to a work colleague, I just found out that I can check out books from libraries in another county. She made my day. Call me a dork, but it gives me the ability to find books that never make it to my county library locations. For those of you in the Portland area, there is the Metropolitan Interlibrary Exchange (MIX) and they have a reciprocal borrowing agreement with libraries in neighboring counties (I can explain more if anyone has questions). If you are not in Portland, maybe you have a similar consortium in your town or local area.

Facebook Graph Search – Not sure what I think about this yet. It is a beta version, and I have not signed up for this feature. 2012 was the year that I put myself out there in the online community, and this online world is starting to feel limitless. In some ways, as online search capabilities grow, so does the potential of someone’s community to grow. Yet, I wonder if there is point where it all goes to far? There is connection and community, and there is TMI. Too much information exposed to the whole world. I have at times wanted to find something on my own page on Facebook and not been able to find it, but separate from that, what do we really need to search and know more about our Facebook friends? I would love to hear different opinions on this topic!

Social Security – Starting February 15, $61 billion in Social Security benefits are due, but the federal government might only be able to cover 60% of that. Yikes. Yet, CNN Money was the only place I found that was talking about this massive oversight? Why are other news outlets not talking about this? This should be front and center. It would be important to me if I was in the age range to collect benefits. This does continue to remind me that while I am paying into Social Security, I should not expect it to be there for me when I retire. Food for thought.

IRAs – we can now contribute $5500 a year (up $500 from 2012), $6500 for those over 50 years old, into IRAs for 2013.

All random I know, but hey, that is why this blog is called Random Olio – you never know what will inspire, bring me to tears, or piss me off!