Mom. Student. Wife. Doctor?

Lately, I have been feeling the need to set down some roots. I really think that we should look into buying our own house. It is a real asset to own real estate and although I would not be looking to invest in real estate, owning your own home is really the only way to acquire wealth. My husband and I are debating this right now because everything I read says that you have to stay in your home for a while before you actually make some money on the deal. He thinks that we can flip property for profit, but I assured him with the real estate market as it is the most we can hope for is to buy a home and use it for a rental property. In my opinion that is the only way we will make money on a home purchase if we decide that we don’t want to live in it anymore, and I am not sure with the loans that I have taken out for school if we could actually own two houses at one time. I don’t think a bank is going to give us that much money, unless they can take into account that one of them is a rental property. I am not exactly sure how that works, does it count for you or against you or both? In any case, we have decided to stop debating investing in real estate and just seek out some investment advice. Not only about real estate investing, but in all types of investments including stock market investing and how to invest. Actually I came across a workshop at the local library where they are going to have an open forum where you can ask the expert’s questions and get some free advice. So I think that we will be going to that together, if we can get a sitter for the kids.

I am really just feeling like we need to be on better financial ground for the well being of our family. Having kids makes you think a little more about the future and what will be. Securing their future is everything to me. I want them to have a house to grow up in, and to come back and visit me in when I am old and they are grown. I want them to bring their kids and show off their rooms from when they were kids. I want them to have a yard to play in and I want an asset that I can borrow against if I need to in the difficult times. A home is a place of stability for a family, and that is what I want.

I am working on a report for school and have been researching all sorts of natural supplements. It seems that with all the government regulations on the natural health industry, the use of nutritional supplements has actually been on the decline in this country. Some people feel that the economy and the reduced drug prices have something to do with this trend, but I personally am not sure. I find personally that I get many health benefits from using vitamins not only to supplement, along with eating right, but also for natural healing. Some people turn to drugs when they are ill, however, I am not one of them. I turn to organic ways to treat illness such as herbal remedies and homeopathy. I find that the benefits of doing this are so incredible, and believe it or not homeopathy works much better than many over the counter medications for the same issues. The greatest thing about using natural health remedies like homeopathy is that they are completely safe. They don't offer up lots of side effects and other symptoms, they just address the problem. With homeopathy, if you were to accidentally choose the wrong remedy, then it would not do anything to or for you. It is specifically designed to affect positively the body and address the issue, if you are wrong, no harm done.

Now a day, you can actually order all your health needs online. I personally like to go to the local health food store, where I can get some organic foods and produce and soy milk in addition to vitamins and nutritional supplements. Our little store is very good about ordering things for me if they don't have them available, and stocking things that they know I will come in and buy. The staff works very hard to stay well informed about the newest and latest things available including the latest research.

I think that with the condition of the world, problems like obesity, cancer and heart disease, that the American public should be looking toward an alternative to the sugar and fat filled foods that cover the grocery store shelves. Keep in mind that many of the nutritional elements of foods in the past are long gone, and of course people's bodies are suffering. You may be lacking something that provides incredible nutrition and not even know what that item is. It is important to research about nutritional findings and realize that you could be overeating looking for a nutrient that our foods are devoid of. Trying out different things to help your body stay balanced and in harmony is a great way to take your health and weight into your own hands.

The Credit Catch All

Trying to go to school while starting a family is not truly the ideal path, however, it is where I find myself these days. The demands of having two small children and having to be in classes all day long, does not leave me much time for anything else. I get student loans and that helps, plus I do a work study during my free time at school and my husband works in the evenings. Still as hard as I try these days, I really can't make ends meet. I know everyone keeps talking about how the economy and how bad things are getting, well personally I can really feel it. About a year ago, in desperation I applied for a few credit cards and got approved. I was thrilled as we really needed a little bit of cushion and we had blown all of our savings moving for my schooling.

I made my payments, but just the minimum and apparently I came too close to my credit limit. Well, I really had no idea that if the interest and charges reached my credit limit that they were going to start charging me over the limit fees. I have always had good credit; however, I never came close to my credit limit before. I guess I probably should have done a little more to compare credit cards before I began charging on them. I had always used my American Express card for my purchases, which fortunately didn't have a credit limit and needed to be paid every month. I never realized a balance could get out of control so quickly. Fortunately, I was able to transfer the balance from that card to another card quickly and without getting too far into this scam. I have checked my credit score and all still seems to be fine, although a friend of mine told me to check back again in a few months because sometimes things don't show on your credit report right away.

If there is one lesson I have learned from all this is don't borrow money if you need it. I know that sounds pretty silly, but I really do think that it is only safe to borrow money if you can afford to pay it back, and if you can't then you really can't risk ruining your good credit. It seems like a catch all I know, but your credit rating is a very important part of your wealth and you must hang onto it at all costs.

The Car Accident

My husband and kids and I spent an incredible weekend in VA with my parents. They are considering moving there and invited the whole family to a hotel get together on them, which was really great since we really couldn't afford to stay in such an awesome hotel on our own. We had a great weekend, well with the exception of when the hotel had to be evacuated because they thought there was a fire in the place, but really it was just a couple that lit too many candles and then blew them out all at once. It was a really good time.

When we got home, my husband had to go back to work; he has been doing some delivery driving in the evenings for a local place. All of a sudden I get a phone call that he has been in a car accident and he has totaled his car. The accident was the other guys fault and thank goodness, my husband was okay with the exception of a few aches and pains in his arms, neck and back. Well, needless to say I contacted our insurance company right away and they told me that they would get working on our claim settlement. The next day, my husband was still having some pain, so we decided to look for some law advice, and found a law firm that offered us to come in right away. An accident lawyer sat down with us and gave us some free law advice and said that he thought we would be able to get claim settlement resolved quickly. Our insurance company came through quickly, however the other guys insurance fought tooth and nail about every penny. It was a frustrating process, but I was really glad that my insurance company reimbursed us for our vehicle and paid off our loan very quickly. We had the extra kind of insurance that paid off the whole vehicle not just what it was worth; thank goodness we had the foresight to cover it completely. Who wants to keep paying on a car that they no longer have, and since the car was only about a year old that is the way this could have played out.

In any case, we did get the doctor's bills reduced and we did get a settlement from the other party's insurance company, however, this was a difficult process, and we didn't make any money off the deal at all. I know that there are people who think that they can make money by being in a car accident that is someone else's fault, well believe me when I tell you we lost money in the deal.

Europe! The continent where history comes from. At least, that's what my dad used to call it. He's kinda right. The history of western civilisation still exists there - castles, canals, cathedrals, palaces; you name it, they've got it, FOR REAL.

Anyway, I've been thinking that it might be time to take a trip over there. I've never been, and I figure that if I want to learn something while I'm on a break, there's probably no better place to start, right? Not that I could get round all of Europe. That'd be stupid. I hate when people say they've "done" somewhere. Like, 'Yeah, we've done Venice and now we're gonna DO Florence'. What the hell do they mean? Do they mean they visited that place and understood something of its nature, or do they mean they just ticked it off on their itinerary? So, trying to "do" too much of Europe would, I think, be a mistake. I like to get a real flavour of a place, to imagine that I could live there, stroll the streets; order the same drink in the same bar two nights running. That kinda thing.

So, where to go? For the sake of interest - not to mention for the sake of love - I gotta get to Paris. Ever since Gene Kelly strutted its romanticised, rose-tinted streets in 'An American in Paris', I've always wanted to go. I can just picture myself in a cafe, sipping absinthe and smoking Gauloise. Ah! Then there's Barcelona - home of my favourite architect Gaudi. Some people look at his buildings and see garish, 'gaudy' piles of kitsch; not me! I think they're beautiful and about as close as you can get to a fairytale in reality. Plus, I can speak a little Spanish (though apparently Castilian is a very different thing). Then there's London, where language is, hopefully, no problem. I've also got a couple of relatives there, so that'd save on cost. Then there's Venice! The city of dreams (or something). It just sounds like the most unique place on earth - like a living museum. Perhaps some places a little more off the beaten track: Warsaw appeals for some reason, as does Ljubljana. There are some cheap flights to Barcelona, so I'd probably start there, and maybe end in Dublin, where I've always felt like I have some weird affinity. Sigh! This is all just a daydream at the moment, but that hasn't stopped me from making day-dreamy plans. Someday soon I'll just book those tickets and head off; back to the cradles of western culture. You never know, maybe I'll never come back…

I was having my hair done and was talking to the hair dresser, you know how that goes, yap, yap, yap about anything and everything. Anyway, somehow we got on the subject of personal responsibility and how it is so lacking in our society these days. We were both on the same page about it.

For some unknown reason, people in our society seem to believe that nothing is their fault. They like to blame other people and circumstances for their own bad choices and bad behaviors. I think that this is perhaps what is causing so many problems in today's youth. They don't feel that they need to be accountable for anything, and if they get caught doing the wrong thing, well they are just kids, they don't know any better. Then you have the parents who stand up for these kids and say well they didn't realize that if they got behind the wheel of the car drunk that they were going to kill someone, it was just an accident.

Well, if you look at this what they are really saying is that I never took the time to teach them that their actions would have consequences. In my opinion that is the equivalent of them saying that they weren't parenting them. I am a firm believer in consequences and even with my children as young as they are, I really do try to reinforce the theory of consequences every day. It is not that I believe they are meant to be perfect, I know it is part of the human experience to make mistakes, but learning from those mistakes is the most important thing. I tell my kids already that there are consequences for every action, even if they don't get caught doing the wrong thing, the universe and God see and know all. I am a firm believer in the boomerang effect, the fact that what you put out into the universe is what you get back and that in and of itself should be enough for people to want to do the right thing.

It is our jobs as adults to not to allow other adults or children to act as if they don't have accountability for their actions. We need to stop giving adults large lawsuit settlements for things that are really no one's fault but there own. We need to encourage our kids and everyone to tell the truth and teach them a conscience so that they can't live with themselves when they have done something wrong. I know the errors that I have personally made, and they still come back to haunt me, but I also know that I have made amends for those actions and have proven that I am truly repentant for my actions by committing myself to not doing those same things again. This really shows God your true repentance. Having been raised Catholic, I know that the church says just go in and confess to a priest say a few hail Marys and God will forgive you. I don't exactly believe that is what God was getting at. I think in short what God was trying to say was learn from your mistakes and don't keep doing the same things over and over again. Saying I am sorry means nothing if you are doing the same thing day after day. To show you are truly sorry is to turn around your attitude and behavior and refrain from doing those same things again.

Let's reinforce for our children the importance of acknowledging their mistakes and moving forward and away from making those same mistakes. Our kids must learn about consequences, if they don't they will never have a successful life.

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I really must wonder why the speed limit in this country is what it is? I know that if you were to speak to government officials and the police, that it is for safety reasons, but that in my opinion is a far cry from the truth. One reason that I am not buying that is because if they really only wanted people to be able to drive up to 70 miles an hour, then why would they provide us with cars that can go 100+ miles an hour. Doesn't that really seem as if they are setting us up for failure? And in other countries people are allowed to drive that fast. Take the Autobon in Germany, just as an example. I have never actually been there, but from what I hear, it is quite the experience, and the cars on there go over 100 miles per hour. The German government, has obviously not felt that this was a dangerous practice, or they probably would not keep allowing people to drive at this rate of speed. And I mean really what is the difference? What if you are only driving at 70 miles and hour, then will only be mamed, but if you are driving at 100+ miles an hour, you would die instantly? Which one sounds better to you? I can tell you that I would much prefer dying instantly to laying out the rest of my days as a vegetable. In any case, doesn't our government set us up for the fall, isn't it to be able to charge us a fortune for our speeding indescretions?\par

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What about seat belt tickets? Now don't get me wrong, I can truly see the value of wearing your seatbelt, but why is it our government's right to tell us that we must wear a safety belt in our own vehicle? Honestly, not wearing your seat belt only poses a threat to your safety, it doesn't have the potential to injure any one else on the road, so truly why does it matter to them wheather or not you are wearing it? I just can't get over sometimes, the control that we the general public allow these people to have over our lives. And I guess even more appalling to me is the fact that they do it under the guise of protecting us, and when we don't follow the rules they collect 100's of dollars from us. And if they are collecting this kind of money from all the wrong doings in the world, then why is it that the police auxillary league calls me to donate money to them? And isn't it even more amazing that if you do support them, then they send you a sticker to put on your car, so that the police will take it easy on you? So in effect, if I understand them correctly, what they are essentially saying is that they ticket us, in a sense to collect money from us, but if we are generous enough to give willingly, then they won't collect the ticket money from us. Basically this is like bullying for donations...Isn't it??

Did you ever have one of those days? I bet if you have kids than you have. It was Saturday morning and we were just kicking back with the kids, I was trying to get a little cleaning done around the house and the kids were watching a video and eating their cereal. I try to feed the kids nutritious foods, and so I give them Kix cereal. I feel it is one of the better cereal choices on the market today. In any case, all of a sudden my daughter comes up to me hysterically crying, at first I think, what is going on and then I realize that she is holding the side of her nose, so I feel her nose and there is a huge bump, so I am talking to her asking her what is in her nose, and I finally get out of her that it is a piece of Kix cereal that she has shoved up inside her right nostril. I now begin calling to my husband, just completely panicked he comes running down the hall soaking wet, he was in the shower. When I tell him the situation he tries to get her to blow it out but she sucks in instead moving the piece in the wrong direction. Now I am going to be brilliant and get tweezers to reach up their and get it out, well if you have never seen kix cereal before it is in this little round ball shape, which is not easily grabbed with tweezers in case you were curious.

Now I am beginning to think that I will have to take her to the emergency room and wonder what they will have to do to get this cereal out of my 3 year olds nose. I am less panicked about the cereal being in there and more worried about how the doctors are going to want to get it out and also how much it will cost me since I don't have any insurance.

Finally out of complete panic and desperation I call the all knowing great wizard of Oz, better known as my father. For some unknown reason my father has a huge amount of knowledge about nearly any subject that you can imagine. Perhaps it is just that he remembers everything, but since getting a little older, no matter what the situation, I know that I can always count on my dad for an answer. No matter how far away he is or what time of the day or night, he always has at the very least some good advice or suggestions. So I call dad and explain the situation to him, he asks about the type of cereal, since he is not familiar with Kix, and once I explain it to him, he says just take an eye dropper and squirt some water into her nostril and it will shrink. (I should have been able to figure that one out on my own, but sometimes in a crisis I can't think, that is when I call Dad) In any case, after squirting the water into her nose it shrank, went into the back of her throat and she swallowed it, the end.

Sometimes it's good to sit back and take stock. For me, those moments are few and far between, what with the kids and all this study. Still, last week my husband and I managed to find a mutual window of opportunity for one such moment. We got a babysitter in, and booked tickets to a film followed by a table for two at a nice restaurant. Bliss!

Over dinner we got talking. Reminiscing about when we first me (schmaltzy I know!), when we got married, when we had the kids; all those kinda things. Then we talked about where we wanted to be: me a doctor (I hope), and maybe moving somewhere else. Maybe back to New York. Anyway, the running theme of all of this - whether for good or bad - was money.

With me studying, money is at the forefront of both of our minds a lot - generally speaking, not having enough of it. We took a little comfort in the fact that the economy in general is doing pretty badly at the moment; but one of the main features we foresaw for the future was having and spending more money. At the time this was just how we were talking - inadvertently bringing up our finances probably because we were out having a night on the town - but it struck us both later that it was not a little sad that money had infected, albeit quietly, our entire night out; not to mention our aspirations and memories.

Now we might be a little poorer than we want to be right now but (and this'll sound like a cliché) we are so rich in other ways. So we have a mortgage and loans, but I like to think they're perfectly manageable; we have the kids, but they're cheap really, if you're frugal; I'm studying, which doesn't bring in any money, but it is a huge investment in the future. If I can make chiropody work, then I could earn a tidy sum.

The point is we're alright. We have enough money to do much more than get by, and we have a lot more than most. Honestly, I couldn't be happier at the moment, and it's nothing to do with having enough or too little cash. We had our night out - which was great - but I wanna keep that kind of thing as a treat: a special occasion we can grab sometimes. Most of the time I'm happy with my man and my kids, at home within our family. And I'm very grateful for that.

The difference between people is what makes the world go round. Yet sometimes, at least for me the differences between men and women really drive me crazy. After just a little bit of time in school and having my husband at home with the kids, I am truly realizing how different we are, and how our different managing styles are. For instance, when my husband is cleaning a room, he takes an item and puts it away and then returns to get another item and puts it away. My cleaning style is much more all inclusive, I pick up all the things that are similar in nature, like let's say laundry and take it to the hamper, while I am there if I see something that goes somewhere else, then I take it there on my way back to the original room I am cleaning. This takes much less steps to accomplish the same tasks. Perhaps this is why in one days time, I can accomplish 4x as much as he can without becoming frustrated or exhausted.

I think that the same goes for communication between men and women. As women we speak very vaguely, we don't give specifics and I think that perhaps this is why women and men fail to communicate effectively with each other. Women will make statements like I would like it if you paid more attention to me, or our family, or I would like it if you would do more around here. These kinds of statements seem really clear to us as women. We think that we are really telling the men what we want and when they still fail to it we get extremely frustrated with them. We then feel the need to repeat the same thing that we said the first time over again, as if it were their hearing instead of their lack of understanding causing the problem. We finally really wind up thinking that they just don't care, when all they really want is to specifically know what to do to make us happy. We should maybe say more directly that we would like it if you would hold my hand when we sit to watch TV or I would like it if you could take about 3 hours out of your Saturday afternoon for a family activity like taking the kids to the pool, or I would really appreciate it if you could take over the laundry responsibilities around the house so that I would have a little less of a work load. I think that if we learned more about the differences between men and women that we would have a better understanding as to why our communication with each other is just completely ineffective.

As women, we need to specifically design our statements to give step by step instructions to the man in our lives as to what we want and need from him. I think that without a "to do list" as I call it, we are just banging our heads aimlessly against the same brick wall. So the next time you want to address an issue with your husband, boyfriend, or lover, just be sure to think through exactly what you are needing from them and be sure to specifically lay out for them what you expect. I assure you the results will well exceed any you have gotten so far.